Getting their Freeky Creek On! by Bobbie Culbertson

It was a cold and windy night dampened by misty rain as we drove out to Fairmount, Illinois, a cozy rural community just south of Oakwood and a few scant miles east of the 'Paign.  Only one reason was good enough to take us from our toasty home...the 5th Annual Freeky Creek Short Film Festival.  The festival, held at Sleepy Creek Vineyards (8254 E 1425 North Rd., Fairmount, Il. 61841) is the brainchild of Sleepy Creek owners, Joe and Dawn Taylor who annually choose short video submissions from over 600 entrants from around the world to show in their comfortable and tastefully decorated wine tasting rooms.  While this first evening wasn't sold out as the next two nights are, almost every seat in the place was filled with costumed Fest-attendees.

Master of Ceremony was Bill Kephart, dressed as an irreverent, cigar-chomping Easter Bunny, who throughout the three intermissions, would attempt to free his friend Naughty-Kitty who had been arrested and taken to the Humane Shelter for neutering.  Aided in these attempts by his friend, Jean Claude Van Damme, a warrior-like door greeter at Wal-Mart. (Don't ask!  You had to be there!)  Anyway ... on with the show(s).

The submitted short films ran from less than a minute to over 16 minutes in length.  And most, if not all, had the same things going for them—excellent production values and above par acting!  Some had frightening CGI effects at would rival top studios (6 Shooter with its "Alien" internal attackers springs to mind).  Animation proved to be an audience favorite (my vote would go to Office Kingdom with its resigned but dedicated clerk).  Gore checked in with Vasle a Pancienne (The Waltz) and showed itself to be stomach turning.

Comedy made a good showing with, in my opinion, If I Only... winning hands down (or, in this case, hands applauding wildly!).  Dead Hearts, the longest of this evening's fare at 16 minutes, proved true love never truly dies!  That said, all were entertaining, fascinating and professionally rendered.  At the evening's end, the audience was invited to cast their ballots for the best films in several categories:

Freekin' Creepy Award (best horror)

Freekin' Artsy Award (best animation)

Freekin' Pretty Award (best looking)

Freekin' Thespian Award (best acting)

Freekin' Funny Award (best comedy)

Freekin' Fake Award (best fake commercial or doc)

Freekin' Best of the Freekin' Fest Award!  (overall most votes)

The Festival ended Nov 1 and the winners have been announced on the Freeky Creek Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/FCSFF

Joe and Dawn Taylor have thoughtfully uploaded Youtube links to the various winner of this year's Freeky Creek Short Film Festival!  So, head on over to their Facebook page for a frighteningly good time!  And should you, dear readers, find yourselves in East-Central Illinois on or near Halloween, please check out the Freeky Creek Short film Festival at Sleepy Creek vineyards.  You won't be sorry!

Complete list of submissions (*= premier)

Act 1

On Broken Wings by Walter Arnold (US, 4:00 min)

The Man From Arctica by Nils J. Nesse (Norway, 1:00 min)

The Devil You Know IBC by Brian Osborne (Local, 0:48 min)

Armor* by Jennifer Bechtel (Local, 2:00 min)

Office Kingdom by Salvatore Centoducati (Italy, 7:00 min)

Under Age by Joonas Makkonen (Finland, 4:45 min)

ZHS Trailer* by Dan Drake (Local, 1:00 min)

Castcom Cable* by Thomas Nicol (Local, 5:27 min)

Christopher Columbo* by Jiani Bach Nygard (Local, 2:00 min)

Volunteer by Javier Marco (Spain, 3:52 min)

Clowns Are Not Scary* by Mike Trippiedi (Local, 2:36 min)

Ruins by Daniel Ueno (Brazil, 4:05 min)

The Headless Nun by Nuno Sa Pessoa (Portugal, 6:43 min)

Act 2

Heavy Metal Reflections by Shawn Wickens (USA, 2:59 min)

Valse a Pancienne (The Waltz) by Bourreau Francois-Xavier (France, 2:46 min)

If I Only...* by Mike Trippiedi (Local, 2:08 min)

The Contest by Mike Osborne (USA, 0:45 min)

Awkward by Toni Lopez Bautista (Spain, 7:20 min)

6 Shooter by Lauren Parker (UK, 3:30 min)

NO, IT'S NOT THAT by Aitor Arenas (Spain, 3:30 min)

Wacky Robot by Chris Deir (USA), 4:48 min)

Like His Father by Toni Lopez Bautista (Spain, 5:00 min)

Grandma (Lola) by Joey Agbayani (Philippines, 7:00 min)

The Low Road, Baby by Mark Roeder (USA, 4:00 min)

Act 3

Death Of the First Born Egyptians* by Nina Paley (Local, 7:06 min)

Little Baby's Ice Cream by Doug Garth Williams (USA, 0:50 min)

Sister And Brother In the Cemetery* by Mike Trippiedi (Local, 2:54 min)

Piscis by Juan Carlos Camardella (Argentina, 3:15 min)

Tuck Me In by Ignacio F. Rodo (Spain, 1:00 min

Invocation by Robert Morgan (UK, 3:10 min)

Dead Hearts by Stephen Martin (Canada, 16:00 min)

Bobbie

Bobbie's Movies to Look For-- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes begins where Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes ends. Only it's been ten years since Caesar and his band of escaping simian brethren escaped across the Golden Gate Bridge into the relative safety of Muir Woods. During that decade, the ape group has grown exponentially and formed a community of families and homes and a form of government lead by Caesar and his friends, Koba and Maurice. One day, while out on a hunting trip, Caesar, Caesar's son and Koba encounter a group of human Simian Flu survivors, lead by Malcolm (Jason Clarke). Caesar, pulling himself to full stature, bellows "GOOOOO!!!!!!!" at the humans and the humans quickly flee in terror.

Returning to San Francisco, Malcolm tells human leader Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) about the encounter and the fact that apes can talk. Dreyfus wants to kill the apes but Malcolm convinces Dreyfus to allow him to return to talk to Caesar about the human's need to restart a nearby Dam to provide power to the City. Malcolm, with wife and former CDC doctor Ellie (Keri Russell), returns to discuss this matter with Caesar. Ellie cures Caesar's wife of a deadly infection and thus begins an uneasy truce between apes and humans. However, not all apes are comfortable with this idea including Koba, who hates all humans for the torture he underwent as a lab animal, and former SF water worker Carver (Kirk Acevedo) who thinks the only good ape is a dead ape. How long before they all learn that in every ape is something human and in every man, something animal lurks? Who will emerge as Earth's dominant species.

Sure this blockbuster is not without it's faults, including such groan-inducing gaffs such as a hydroelectric Dam that, having sat vacant for over a decade, springs back to life with only some minor tinkering. Video cameras that still function after having been untouched in years. Laptops that power up instantly. Guns and rifles, unused for years, that still fire without blowing up in your face. However, what this movie will be remembered for is the amazing CGI! Especially the amazing stop-motion performance of Andy Serkis as Caesar. Within minutes of the movie, I totally forgot that what I was watching on the screen was special effects thanks, in large part, to Serkis' astounding acting. The apes are among the more intellectually complex characters you're likely to spend time with this summer. The gritty and realistic portrayal of a slowly escalating conflict between apes and humans until the final battle was spectacular, mesmerizing and ultimately  heart-breaking. This movie will make any average viewer forget the improbability of talking apes battling mankind for domination. Andy Serkis should get an Oscar nod for is work in this movie!

One more minor thing I would mention. I first saw Dawn in 3D, and then saw it again in 2D three days later. And in my opinion, 2D is by far the better. I found, especially during the final battle, that the 3D annoyed me. The many and varied items being thrown at the screen made it difficult to figure out who was coming out a victor of that battle. And be sure to sit through the closing credits for a audio hint of what's to come in the sequel!

Trash Palace Dumpster-- Bobbie's Best of the Bad: Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)

As fans of the made-for-TV 2013 surprise hit Sharknado know, this aquatic disaster franchise is meant to be mocked and ridiculed. That's why it came as no surprise that last night's airing of Sharknado 2: The Second One garnered 5.3 million viewers who tweeted 215,000 tweets during it's two-hour running time. Snarks flew like the sharks in the movie with such notables as director Roger Corman tweeting "Do I sate myself? Do I soar? These are the existential questions that a shark in a #Sharknado2TheSecondOne must ask himself. So must we all" and Sharknado star Tara Reid twittering "when something bites us we bite back." So, without further ado, I give you my 6 reasons to love Sharknado 2: The Second One.

1. Cameos! By the dozens! Seems like everyone wanted to be in this movie! From NBC-TV anchormen Al Roker to Matt Lauer arguing about whether to call it a shark storm or a sharknado before stabbing to death a shark that lands on their desk to Jared Fogel, the Subway Sandwich Shop shill, eating a subway sandwich while waiting for a subway train. In one scene that made me want to sing "Don't Break My Achy-Breaky Shark", songster Billy Ray Cyrus appears as Tara Reid's surgeon. If you've ever yearned to see rapper Sandra "Pepa" Denton gets squashed by a shark while riding a Citibike, this is the movie for you! Or if you've ever wanted to watch Robert Klein chatter with WWE Superstar Kurt Angle while they play the Mayor of New York and the Chief of the FDNY respectively, well, here ya go! Or the guy from Shark Tank get killed by the detached rolling head of The Statue Of Liberty, this one's for you, sicko! Two of the best might be Robert Hays, star of the 1980 film Airplane!, as the pilot of the airliner attacked by flying sharks, and Judd Hirsch, who starred as Alex Reiger on the 1970s series Taxi as, what else, Ben the taxi driver!

2. It's terrifyingly easy to get access to weapons on The Big Apple. From napalm selling pizzeria owner Biz Markie to random citizens storing pick-axes, saws, machetes and machine guns in their car trunks, it's no wonder that this major metropolis area has such a high crime rate!
3. Knowing that "during an EF5 sharknado," sharks can come down at a rate of up to "two inches an hour." And that they can do this even while being on fire! On fire while climbing stairs!
4. In what can only be an homage to Bruce Campbell, Tara Reid's missing lower left arm is replaced with a circular saw she uses to kill the same flying shark that took her arm in the first place! After which, ex-husband Ian
   Ziering retrieves her chewed off arm from the sharks mouth, removes her wedding ring from the dead finger and, with sharks raining down all around him, drops to one knee and proposes to Tara! She says "Yes!", BTW. So, we can have romance in a disaster movie, right!?!
5. Climate change is real. As blizzard-like conditions move in from the East and meet with tropical storms coming in from the West, it snows in New York City on a clear June day. Al Roker told us this so it must be true and not a flimsy excuse to cover up the fact that it's snowing and we can see the actor's breaths on what's supposed to be a typical Summer's day!
6. And finally reason #6 … Sharknado 2: The Second One set a network record on Wednesday night with 3.9 million viewers for its premiere telecast. That makes it the most-watched movie in network history. What's more: It nabbed 1 billion Twitter impressions, according to the cable network.  Less than 24 hours later the SyFy channel astounded and surprised no one by announcing the third installment Sharknado 3 has been green-lit for release next year! Keep checking with SyFy.com for further updates. Meanwhile, if you missed it's premier showing July 30, it's showing again Saturday, August 2 at 7 pm. and Sunday, August 3 at 9 pm. (ET/PT).

Trash Palace Dumpster-- Bobbie's Best of the Bad: Rosemary's Baby (2014)

Title:  Rosemary's Baby

Year of Release—Film:  (2014/ TV)

Reviewer:  Bobbie 

The Devil made them do it.  What else can explain NBC's decision to remake...or retell...the tale of Ira Levin's bestselling book of the same title that was turned into the classic 1968 movie Rosemary's Baby starring Mia Farrow as guileless housewife Rosemary and her conniving would-be actor husband, Guy, played by John Cassavetes.

The story:

Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into the once elegant but now aging Dakota, a Manhattan apartment building.  Rosemary sets about remaking the apartment into a stylish home while Guy tries out for an off-Broadway play.  An older couple Roman Castevet (Sidney Blackmer) and Minnie (Ruth Gordon) have a tragedy in their lives when their "ward" Terry (Victoria Verte) commits suicide and they befriend Guy and Rosemary.

During a dinner party, Guy is enamored by Roman's tales of far-away places and they begin a friendship that leaves Rosemary feeling odd man out.  Guy, by way of an apology, promises Rosemary that she would get the one thing she has been dreaming of...pregnancy!  During the romantic dinner planned to make this occur, Minnie brings over dessert..."a chocolate mouse...her specialty.”  After eating it, Rosemary feels drugged and passes out.  She begins dreaming about boating with President Kennedy and the Pope.  Suddenly, the dream becomes a nightmare of Rosemary being raped by Satan as a coven of witches chant beside the bed.

The next morning Rosemary wakes up badly scratched, with Guy confessing he "didn't want to miss baby night" so he had gone ahead with sex even though Rosemary was unconscious.  Soon, Rosemary learns she's pregnant and they celebrate the good news with their new and increasingly intrusive friends, the Castevets.  More good news follows as Guy learns he's landed the lead role in the play that would certainly make him a star!  However, not all is well as Rosemary becomes sick and is in a great deal of pelvic pain.  Her OB/GYN, Dr. Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy) assures her that it is just stiff joints and has Minnie make Rosemary a daily vitamin drink.

However, as the months pass, Rosemary's pain increases until she is practically bed-ridden, now paranoid about Guy close connections with their next-door neighbors, the Castevets!  Was the nightmare really just a nightmare?  Moreover, why does Rosemary hear chanting and flute plying from the Castevet's apartment?  What did Rosemary's friend, Hutch (Maurice Evens), mean when he instructed from his deathbed that Rosemary be given a book titled All of Them Witches?  And what about her husband's sudden success on stage?  Was it a conspiracy against Rosemary?  Or is it about her baby?  For those who have been living under a rock or in a cave for the past 40 years and have never read Ira Levin's best-selling novel or seen the Oscar-winning and enormously successful movie or even the 2014 retelling of it, I'll not give spoilers.

What made the 1968 movie was the sense of creeping horror as the viewer is drawn along with Rosemary's dawning realization that something isn't right in her World.  However, it was Roman Polanski's riveting style as director that gives Rosemary's Baby it's spooky atmosphere and morbid humor as he slowly but surely ratchets up the tension and horror.  Film critic Roger Ebert wrote in his June 29, 1968 review “...the brilliance of the film comes more from Polanski's direction, and from a series of genuinely inspired performances...” and “the best thing that can be said about the film, I think, is that it works.  Polanski has taken a most difficult situation and made it believable, right up to the end.  In this sense, he even outdoes Hitchcock.  Both ‘Rosemary's Baby’ and Hitchcock's classic ‘Suspicion’ are about wives, deeply in love, who are gradually forced to suspect the most sinister and improbable things about their husbands.”  The original Rosemary's Baby sits comfortably at number 9 on the AFI 100 Years...100 Thrills list.

Now let's examine 2014 re-telling of this story...what worked ... and what didn't.  This new version, penned by Scott Abbot and James Wong, radically updates the Ira Levin novel.  This time around, Rosemary (Zoe Saldana) is a ballet dancer and sole breadwinner for herself and her husband Guy (Patrick J. Adams).  After a miscarriage, she and Guy move to Paris where he has been offered a position as a teacher at the Sorbonne.  After an apartment fire leaves them homeless, they are invited by their new elitist friends, Roman Castevet (Jason Isaacs) and his wife Marguax (Carol Bouquet) to live in the Castevet's exclusive private apartment complex.  In the Polanski film, the devils are an old couple in a dusty Manhattan building.  In the newer version, Roman and Marguax are younger, more glamorous, seductive and extremely wealthy.  One can see that they would think everything has it's price.  Guy has what they want.  A vessel for Satan's unborn child!  A child he is willing to sell, if the price is right!  While Saldana played her part very convincingly, Patrick Adams played Guy as blandly as vanilla ice cream.  Not very convincing and at one point actually acted guilty about his part in the conspiracy and offered to flee Paris with Rosemary.  That ruined the whole plot.  In addition, if you watched any of the commercials for the mini-series, you might have noticed that all of them were shots from the second part, and wondered, ‘why’?  The answer is that the first part was as stagnant as pond water.  I could almost hear Joel singing, “Slow the plot down, boys … Slow the plot down!”  Disappointing!

Polish-born director Agnieszka Holland explains in a May 8, 2014 interview for the New York Times “my Rosemary is much more willful and stronger.”  But she added that Rosemary remains a victim to the nature of motherhood, “dependent on the people who decide, instead of her, what to do with her body.  The notion of postnatal and prenatal depression, and the feeling that you don’t own yourself anymore, that you’re not yourself anymore, it’s a quite important subject of ‘Rosemary’s Baby’.” 

The 2014 version is far more gory than the original, replacing the chicken heart Mia chews on with a human heart.  In the 1968 version, Guy gets the lead in the play because the other candidate went blind.  In the 2014 version, Guy's competition for the teaching position goes crazy during the job interview and attacks the interviewer with a letter opener before slicing her own throat.

And while all that red might look interesting against the somber, almost blue and white film, it loses the psychological horror to replace it with rivers of gore.  Bad move.  The original pulled the audience along with Rosemary; we shared her increasing sense of dread, realizing that only when Rosemary knew, we'd know!  And to borrow a line from late-director Dave Friedman, the remake was all sizzle and no steak.  But, the worst part of this is that audience members might be put off watching the original Rosemary's Baby or reading Ira Levin's marvelous book.  And therein lays the real shame.

Bobbie