Mystery Science Theater 3000 will bust Ed Wood's chops LIVE in a theater near you

Just in case today's Friday Fromage got you in the cheesy movie mood, here's news about the Vieux Boulogne of the bunch.

Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space -- cited as the worst movie ever made as often as Citizen Kane is voted the best -- will get the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment on Aug. 20 at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville, Tenn. Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy (aka Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot) will reunite to slather the snark on Wood's movie, in an HD colorized version.

What? You say you can't make the trip to Music City, U.S.A.? Well, just calm down, little campers. The fun will come to you, or fairly close, at least.

Fathom Events will simulcast the movie and MST3K cast's wisecracks to more than 400 theaters nationwide, including Regency 20 in Brandon, Woodlands Square 20 in Oldsmar, Citrus Park 20 in north Tampa, Lakeside 18 in Lakeland, Hollywood 20 in Sarasota and Sarasota 12 (you can guess where). Admission prices vary by location but should be in line with the usual evening price.

Details, advance ticket sales and a peek at the colorized version are available here.

Friday Fromage: Roger Corman's Rorshach test in Battle Beyond the Sun

My first in-person celebrity, don't-muck-it-up interview in this gig was Roger Corman, at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival in '93. I don't need to explain how geeked or revved or whatever the kids say these days that meeting made me.

Corman is 83 and a respected Hollywood icon now, at least more than he was in 1962, coming off a string of drive-in hits with titles like Beast from Haunted Cave and Attack of the Giant Leeches.

That's when he'd buy the rights to a Soviet sci-fi flick -- at the height of the Cold War -- then slash its running time in half to 77 minutes (and later 62, for the lower half of the double feature), adding badly dubbed dialogue written by young Francis Ford Coppola and monsters resembling genitalia.

Do I have your attention now?

Check it out.

(Photo: Getty Images)

Gulfport Arts Center understands that movies without art make money; a campy horror film fest coming Aug. 7

You might think any organization with the word "arts" in its title, that needed money, would arrange a fundraiser with ballet, sculpture or opera. You know, the kind of stuff that Times critics John Fleming and Lennie Bennett cover on their Critics Circle blog.

Not the folks at Gulfport Arts Center, a new non-profit dedicated to promoting the arts in that beautiful community. They're going the dreck route in a fun way, which is right up my alley.

On Aug. 7-9, the GAC will host screenings of three vintage (i.e. no gore) horror flicks at Scout Hall, 5315 28th Ave. S. Admission is $5.00 to each film; tickets available at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday (show times at 8), and 12:30 p.m. for Sunday's 2 p.m. screening.

Friday's offering is Tormented, a ghost story with a Hitchcockian twist. Never saw it, I don't think. But I dig Saturday's movie, She Gods of Shark Reef, a Roger Corman masterpiece piece of junk. Sunday's movie is an oldie but baddie, The Screaming Skull.

I'm digging this part of the news release: "In addition to popcorn and beverages, Smokin' Joe will be cooking up his delicious smoked salmon and pulled pork."

FilmmakerMagazine.com interviews "Loren Cass" director Chris Fuller; St. Petersburg engagement(s) almost set

St. Petersburg independent auteur Chris Fuller continues to gain attention for his debut film, Loren Cass, that is currently playing in New York City, and soon spreading out to Los Angeles, Seattle and Cleveland. Fuller says a run in St. Pete -- likely Beach Theatre and possibly Baywalk 20 -- should be locked in within the next few days.

Fuller is also the subject of an interview with David Lowery of FilmmakerMagazine.com, shedding a litle light on his movie, process and attitude.

Lowery begins: "There’s something to be said about not being eager to please. Chris Fuller’s Loren Cass is an aggressively confrontational debut, all the more so because it is so resolutely restrained in its approach. So seemingly oblique is Fuller’s approach that one feasibly could make it through the entire film and not realize that its subject matter is the aftermath of the 1996 St. Petersburg riots; but on the other hand, that subject matter is so deeply ingrained in the film’s form that it doesn’t matter.

"Loren Cass doesn’t so much deal with its themes as it ingests them, and then - through the juxtaposition of gorgeously photographed tableaux, depicting the various intersections of wayward youths in a shellshocked city; and through the use of poetry and political speeches on the soundtrack; and through stock footage depicting myriad public woes – it recapitulates them."

Good reading, and perhaps necessary before tackling Loren Cass as a viewer. Check it out.

Spike Jonze gets help from Maurice Sendak to prove he knows Where the Wild Things Are

When adapting a 48-page children's book that's mostly illustrations into a feature length movie, some liberties must be taken. Director Spike Jonze is the guy who took extensive liberties with Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, turning it inside out and coming up with the brilliant Adaptation, so he knows how to bend pages.

Yet after Jonze released a trailer for his version of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, some devotees of the book have been howling. Even in such truncated condition, it's easy to assume that Jonze's idea of wild is odder than Sendak's. You can find the Sendak/Jonze video by clicking this YouTube link

Hoping to soothe the savage breasts of Sendak faithful, Jonze has now released the featurette posted above, with Sendak giving his personal blessing to the director's vision. Is it sincere, or another case of an author surrendering to Hollywood's hype habits, as Anne Rice did with her half-hearted and transparent endorsement of Tom Cruise as Lestat in Interview with the Vampire?

Judge for yourself.

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More with the guys behind (500) Days of Summer, that I might see 498 more times

Hope you caught my interview Sunday with the creators of my favorite 2009 movie so far, the inventive romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer. It may become yours when it opens locally on Friday. After two viewings, I'm still thoroughly charmed -- the clip above, when Tom and Summer play "house" in an IKEA store is a brief example why -- and didn't mind telling director Marc Webb and screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber about it. Here are some extras that didn't make the final cut:

You guys turn the rom-com formula upside down but with affection for the genre. How do you strike such a balance?

Scott: In retrospect it seems like some sort of reaction to romantic comedies. Occasionally we talk about that but the truth is that it was just a story that came from a very real place. Our objective was to be loyal to that. It wasn’t about deconstructing romantic comedies although it plays out that way

Marc: When I read the script for the first time it was just honest. It wasn’t about copying a genre. It just felt right, an intuitive thing. We rediscovered a lot of things we liked about romantic comedies from the beginning. Some great ones have been made from the guy’s point of view -- Annie Hall, High Fidelity, Say Anything – but they haven’t happened lately.

Michael: It’s only recently that the label ‘romantic comedy’ has become like a dirty word.This is based on Scott’s life; this script came from a very real place, which is why it has its own unique identity. We were so much adhering to a formula than we were trying to find meaning in a real life experience.

That scene in the elevator happened in real life. Scott really likes the Smiths and he was totally smitten with this girl who knew their lyrics. When you find someone who likes the same music that you do, you can think they’re ‘the one.’

Then, of all people, Tom’s little sister advises him in no uncertain terms that isn’t the case. She's like Thelma Ritter to his Rock Hudson.

Michael: (Laughs) I hadn't thought of that but you're right. That’s a very wise statement she makes but he’s not having any of it. He thinks of course it does. It’s a superficial connection that he puts too much meaning on at the beginning of the relationship.

Scott: I’m actually 12 years older than my little sister. I was going through this kind of thing and so was she when she was 11 or 12. She seemed to have a better handle on it than I did. What does it say about society when someone can see things clearer because they’re more innocent?

$32Gs for G-Force; Harry Potter wants to swap his owl for a gerbil

Proving once again that talking animals trump good filmmaking, Disney's latest rodent-fest G-Force led the weekend's box office race, according to estimates from BoxOfficeGuru.com.

G-Force sold $32.2 million in tickets, finishing just a couple mil ahead of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince's second stanza. The teen wizard's sixth movie adventure dropped a precarious 61 percent from opening weekend totals (40 percent is about average). The Ugly Truth was third with $27 million.

But you need to look outsider the top 10 for the weekend's success story. The charming romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer sold $1.6 million in tickets on only 85 screens -- compared to nearly 3,700 for G-Force -- for an eye-popping $19,176 average per screen. That's twice the average of G-Force and multiple times others on the list. Check out BoxOfficeGuru's take on the weekend here.

(500) Days of Summer is rolling out to more theaters on Friday, including several Tampa Bay locations.

Two more positive reviews for "Loren Cass" in New York; box office numbers are tiny

Tucked away in Greenwich Village at the Cinema Village art house multiplex, Chris Fuller's Loren Cass is slowly getting notice online and in print. Two more reviews -- Kam Williams of NewsBlaze.com and Andrew Grant from Time Out New York -- went online and in print today. One is slightly more positive than another but both plus Nathan Lee's rave in the New York Times suggests Fuller has at least a minor critical hit on his hands.

Monday update: The critical love for Loren Cass apparently didn't pay off much at the box office. According to numbers posted on the Internet Movie Database, Fuller's movie sold only $1,519 in tickets at its lone location, Cinema Village in New York. That DVD release may come swifter than expected.

St. Pete filmmaker Chris Fuller finds big love in the Big Apple for "Loren Cass"

Two years of pounding the rock to get a distribution deal for Loren Cass is paying off in a big way for St. Petersburg uber-indie filmmaker Chris Fuller.

Kino International recently bought the rights to Fuller's searing, abstract drama, set in his hometown after the racial disturbances of 1996. One perk of that deal is an engagement at New York's Cinema Village, starting today.

New York Times critic Nathan Lee caught an advance screening of Loren Cass and published an absolutely raving review this morning. Lee writes: "this sharp, gutsy indie is one of the year's great discoveries." And that's just for starters. Lee goes on to compare Loren Cass with the early experimental films of Gus Van Sant, Harmony Korine's Gummo and the works of French minimalist Robert Bresson.

The review ends thusly: "Mr. Fuller lived through the 1996 St. Petersburg tensions as a teenager, and Loren Cass was, by his own admission, a means of processing the experience. Some people keep diaries to deal with trauma. Others make art. A select few start careers of singular, exquisite promise."

Fuller tells me that Kino is considering a Tampa Bay engagement for Loren Cass before its DVD debut later this year.

Friday Fromage: "Wicked, Wicked" in Anamorphic Duovision (whatever that is)

Since someone noticed (and I assume appreciated) Edd "Kookie" Byrnes in last week's Friday Fromage nod to Reform School Girl, here's more evidence that there was life for him in movies after TV stardom on 77 Sunset Strip.

Wicked, Wicked was released (or escaped) in 1973, promising the cinematic breaktrhough of Anamorphic Duovision, which sounded pretty cool, and the trailer equates with movies adding color, sound and Cinemascope. Then you realized that just mean the whole movie was shown in split-screen, which is a neat storytelling tool but not for the whole movie.

I know, I know, Brian DePalma did it around the same time with his debut, Sisters, but he's Brian DePalma, not Richard L. Bare, whose directing career was marked by this flick, I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew and a series of instructional films titled So You Want to Be... (fill in the blank with your choice of occupation).

Wicked, Wicked is set at a posh beach resort where a psycho wearing a bellhop's uniform and a mushy rubber mask is murdering guests. "Kookie" plays one of the many suspects grilled by a factory-issue hunky detective. Extra points for co-starring Tiffany Bolling, a former Playboy model who had a minor radio hit with the Vietnam protest ditty, Thank God the War is Over. Of course, she sang that around 1965.

Enjoy!