Archive for the ‘Tribute’ Category

Tribute to The Asylum Films (1997- 2013)

Posted: 13/06/2013 in Tribute
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The Asylum was founded in 1997 by producers David Rimawi and Sherri Strain (formerly of Village Roadshow Pictures) with an up and coming director David Michael Latt. They originally envisioned making their profit by producing a number of  low to middle budget Horror films per a year. That strategy proved almost fatal as they faced competition in major studios like  Lions Gate Entertainment (who despite being a big studio still controlled the solid piece of the pie in the straight to DVD world too).

asylum logoConsider this logo an early warning system…

Faced with a choice to completely rethink their whole approach or perish they decided to do something that was never done before- at least not with such precision and dedication! They created the new kind of movie- THE MOCKBUSTER!

In 2005 they produced the extremely low budget adaptation of HG Well’s War of the World roughly at the same time Steven Spielberg major picture of the same name, staring Tom Cruise. Blockbuster LCC ordered somewhere around 100,000 copies of The Asylum’s adaptation and next thing you know their business model was born! Rimawi and Strain continued to produce a string of lo- fi tie-ins to popular franchises with striking similarities to popular blockbusters (in the title, cover and to a degree a script too). That’s how we got “hits” like Transmorphers, The Terminators,  AVH: Alien vs. Hunter, The Day the Earth Stopped, Titanic II, Princess of Mars and Almighty Thor!

Their system is simple one. The production company averages two releases a month, shoots last only about three weeks, and most budgets never go past 200 000 dollars, all go direct to video, and they spend absolutely nothing on advertising or marketing. They share their movies primarily in three categories  (based on the budget of course) :  network television films (the dreaded SyFy channel), 1 million dollars or less due to the “star” like Tara Reid, Lorenzo Lamas or Eric Roberts and post- production for CGI monsters effects (think of the movies like Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus, Mega Python vs. Gatoroid or Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus),  then we have Sexy Comedies and Horror Films (their original love), those take about 200 000 dollars each and we are left with (these days extremely overused sub- genre) Found- footage horror, and those are in 100 000 dollars or less range. I think by know you understand the simplicity and pure genius of this model and the greatest thing of them all- people are so stupid they don’t even notice what they bought/ rented until it’s too late!

Asylum collectionChoose, but choose wisely!

Of course things are not all sunshine and rainbows on The Asylum front. Recently Universal Studios filed a lawsuit against The Asylum for their American Battleship, due to infrigement with their Battleship.  Soon Warner Bros. with New Line Cinema and MGM fallowed, commencing legal action against Asylum’s The Age of Hobbits ( brilliant tittle I might add) claiming they were free- ridding campaign for Peter Jackson’s forthcoming film. Asylum eventually released it under the title Clash of the Empires (or Lords of the Elves depending where you’re from), keeping their exploitative theme intact.

ageofthehobbits_largeIs there a single person out there that doesn’t want to see this?

Wilhelm Scream (1951- ∞)

Posted: 22/12/2012 in Tribute
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The legendary Wilhelm Scream is an inside joke among the sound engineers and  originates from a series of sound effects recorded for the 1951 movie Distant Drums. In a scene from the film, soldier is bitten and dragged underwater by an alligator. The scream for that scene was recorded later (by actor and singer Sheb Wooley) in a single take, along with five other short pained screams, which were slated as “man getting bit by an alligator, and he screamed.” It was later re-used in many Western and Adventure films. But the greatest triumph of the Wilhelm scream was yet to come! Motion picture sound designer Ben Burtt,  discovered the original recording (which he found as a studio reel labeled “man being eaten by alligator”) and incorporated it into a scene in Star Wars ( IV: A New Hope). Burtt is also credited with naming the famous scream (after Private Wilhelm  in The Charge at Feather River). Over the next decade, Burtt  incorporated the effect in more  films that he worked on, including projects by George Lucas and  Steven Spielberg (you can find the scream in every Star Wars and Indiana Jones film). Other sound designers of course picked up on the effect soon enough , and including Wilhelm Scream became holy tradition among the sound designer community.

Sheb Wooley’s other hit, unexplainable song by the name of  “Purple People Eater”

Tribute to Albert “Al” Leong

Posted: 09/12/2012 in Trash movies, Tribute
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There is a special kind of people that make good movies shine and bad movies fun and they routinely get little or no  appreciation from the movie viewing public – the henchmen. Long haired, muscular and more often than not foreign people whose sole reason for existence in the movie world is to look cool and die making the hero even cooler in the process.

al

This is a tribute to greatest that ever was, is and ever will be, the grand- master of all henchmen- Albert “Al” Leong aka  Al ‘Ka Bong’. With his receding but long hair, killer Fu- Manchu mustache and deadly martial art skills he embodied (but ultimately outgrow) Asian henchmen stereotype and went head on and all out with the stars caliber of Kurt Russel, Mel Gibson, Jean Claude Van Damme, Brandon Lee  and Bruce Willis and has been brutally killed by most of them.

Now I will let Al’s hand and feet do the talking…

During his storied career Al has broken all his ribs at least twice, cracked his sternum twice and broken his arms… none of that stopped him of course, ’cause he’s the freakin’ Al Leong. His popularity was so enormous that he even outgrew henchmen position and also stared in roles of dangerous Sensei  figures and even had memorable and frankly quite brilliant performance  in  Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure playing Genghis Khan (it was also one of the few films Al doesn’t die  in!)

al-leong-rapid-fire

His most impressive performance, when he was paired with the late great Brandon Lee who was good enough martial artist to keep up with him and make it incredibly engaging screen fight in the process and also because simply somebody  finally let him do his stuff instead of opting to kill him too soon.


Henching ain’t easy!

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