Saturday, October 22, 2005

Saturday Low-Budget-Horror-Movie-Genius Blogging

Well, crap. Such a busy day yesterday, I completely forgot about Catblogging, but I'm kind running low on cat pics anyway. As a bit of a Cat PSA, let me mention that one of my coworkers has taken in a stray that she can't keep (she has birds & a dog, so a new kitty doesn't really fit into her ecosystem). It's a year-old tiger-striped kitty that's very friendly and loves tummy rubs. So if anyone in the Pittsburgh area or is willing to come to the Pittsburgh area to pick up a kitty, please drop me a line.

Anyway, back to my topic. Charles Band, the mastermind behind Full Moon Entertainment, responsible for all manner of great and often puppet-intensive low-budget horror movies (Ghoulies, Re-Animator, Head Of The Family, Blood Dolls, and the Puppetmaster & Subspecies series) came to Mr. Small's Theater here in Pittsburgh to talk about his experiences, and to pimp Full Moon and his latest movie, The Gingerdead Man, with Gary Busey as the voice of a homicidal cookie of revenge. He (Band, not Busey) also did some other stuff, which is documented below.

Also, in addition to a drawing for one audience member to win a chance to get killed in a future Full Moon/Charles Band production (I didn't win, alas), he also promised to make anyone who bought $100 or more of Full Moon merchandise an executive producer on one of his next films, with an IMDb entry and everything. Needless to say, I could not resist that, so now I have 3 figurines, 3 DVDs, and 3 autographs (two of his and one of his starlet fiancee) and will be watching the IMDb very closely.

This was also my first real attempt to use my new "spare" camera, which is a 3.2-megapixel Canon Powershot A410 for occasions when the Nikon D70 is just too cumbersome and I want something I can just stick in my pocket. The picture quality is pretty good when there's enough light, or when it's close enough for the flash to be effective (you'll see what I mean below).

We had some unpleasantness involving the dodginess and unreliability of Pittsburgh Yellow Cab, but the theater staff were all very kind and helpful - we borrowed at least three different cellphones, and one of them even called Yellow Cab on our behalf, because they give them a lot of business.

So, to sum up: Yellow Cab: Dodgy! Charles Band and Mr. Small's staff: Way Cool. Seeing Henry Rollins and Charles Band in the same week?

Priceless.


Charles Band and his lovely fiancee, Debra Mayer.


Charles Band showed off various samples of his innovative Halloweenwear concept, the Monsterbra. I really liked the eyeballs one, but I was having issues with the new camera.


He also directed some volunteers from the audience in a little scene, which was pretty funny. Especially when he fell through the trapdoor in the stage that he kept warning everyone about... Posted by Picasa

2 comments:

oldwhitelady said...

Too bad with the cat blogging - I think you should take the kitty. They do have those feeders where you fill them and can leave them for a couple days as well as waterers. I like to leave several water dishes around, though, if I'm going to be gone a couple days. Also like to have someone check in on them. Fill the kitty boxes up with more litter than usual, and there you go.

The Show sounded like a lot of fun and good going on becoming an executive producer on one of Band's next films!

Anonymous said...

Eli, Executive Producer.

Has a certain ring to it.

Doesn't excuse the lack of cats, however.