State of the Temple Address 2

I just want to take a moment to extend a great big "thank you" to a few people. First, Amanda at Made for TV Mayhem gave us a "You Are a Great Read!" award over 2 weeks ago, but we've been so busy posting great stuff that we forgot to thank her! So... Thanks, Amanda! We think you're a great read also! And here are our choices for the "You Are a Great Read" award:

Fear of Darkness

The Acidemic Film Blog

Mondo 70: A Wild World of Cinema

The Horn Section


Next I want to thank John Charles of Video Watchdog and Marty McKee of Johnny Larue's Crane Shot for participating in a round table discussion of David Carradine's YOU AND ME and AMERICANA over a month ago, which will be posted here sometime this weekend. Also, a big thank you to Marc Morris for making the discussion possible by providing us with a copy of the very rare YOU AND ME.


Two more people to thank: Mike MacCollum for hooking me up with a couple of really rare movies and a ton of great research, and Max Allan Collins, who left a cool comment on the blog a couple of weeks ago just as I was finishing Spree, the last of his excellent Nolan adventures.


Our favorite film of the year, mostly because it has nothing to do with computers or goddamn cell phones, SOUL POWER is a decent documentary about the Zaire '74 music festival that was originally planned to coincide with the Ali-Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" match; the concert went on as scheduled but the fight itself was delayed a month because of an injury Foreman sustained during a training session. I'm hoping SOUL POWER will become something more -- like a kickass concert film -- once the special edition DVD comes out jam-packed with all the great musical performances that are not in the 93-minute cut currently playing in New York. When a movie is advertised as "the greatest music festival that you have never seen" and people walk out feeling like they still haven't seen it, something's wrong. Performances by James Brown, The Spinners, Bill Withers, Miriam Makeba, Johnny Pacheco and the Fania All-Stars (with Celia Cruz), The Crusaders and others are terrific but barely add up to a third of the running time -- just an appetizer when the ads promise a meal -- while Etta James and The Pointer Sisters are nowhere to be found and Sister Sledge are only shown rehearsing backstage. In other words, unlike every other summer movie, this one would've been better if it had been 30 minutes longer.


And finally, the Warner Archive Collection is taking pre-orders for THE TERMINAL MAN and DEALING: OR THE BERKELEY-TO-BOSTON FORTY-BRICK LOST-BAG BLUES, two more titles we can now scratch off our list of 100+ No-Shows on Region 1 DVD.




Oh, and one more thing: We're getting ready to announce the very first Temple of Schlock blog-a-thon, so check back this weekend to find out what we're planning for October!