Alice Cooper - Super Duper Alice Cooper Screening 4/30/14 Village East, New York City

I wonder if when Dusty Springfield sang "Son of a Preacher Man" she had Alice Cooper in mind, the answer is inevitably no but he really is the son of a preacher man. Alice is a true American Hero and his alter ego Vincent Furnier is quite the genius who was thrown into this all unplanned, it just sort of happened. You see what I did there ? well whatever. And Planned it was once the band got a radar fix.

Banger Films is back with a Doc about Alice and myself being a huge fan of the Rush Documentary "Beyond The Lighted Stage" (By Banger Films) AND of course ALICE COOPER I did have high hopes for this film and was not disappointed. Ample time is spent on the early (pre Love It To Death) years and whereas I am almost always a "Get On With It" Documentary viewer in this case I was enthralled with back stories and I do know the bands history.

Moving forward after this Is Super Duper Alice Cooper Superstar and I always love to hear stories from this period of his career, our poor hero Alice is spiraling downwards in his Larger than "Lifestyle" but he is also feted by everyone including the old school Hollywood Elite (Jack Benny, George Burns, Groucho Marx etc) and is the only Rock Star to ever hold a Friars Club membership.

Also possibly forgotten over the years is how Huge of a Star Alice was in the 70s. Lots of unreleased footage graces this film including a short excerpt from a segment on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and a promo Video EP clip of Alice in "From The Inside" performing "Inmates (We're All Crazy)" Really sticks out in the memory.

Just a Great treat to view this amongst an intimate crowd in a Beautiful Movie Theater. Maybe 40 or 50 of us in a Huge Room, Great Audio as well and it was quite odd to hear "Dead Babies" coming through these speakers which most likely are more sympathetic to Bing Crosbys crooning.

Also the choice of the song "Alma Mater" for the end titles really pleased me greatly it being a favorite of mine and a fitting end song.

I had to take a screen shot, took a few but this one came out the clearest.

The Beautiful Chandelier/Candelabra at Village East Theater.

Twas a Miserable Rainy day in Manhattan all day.

And just a three block walk over to the right was Ottos Tacos which I have been wanting to try for almost a year, Absolutely Delicious. I ordered the Steak Carne Asada Taco, A Chicken Taco, A Carnitas Taco and Masa Fries. I made a mistake while ordering so got one extra Taco but Hey, I have been waiting a year, I am not going to send it back.

SUPER DUPER ALICE COOPER WEBSITE

SPAM

GODZILLA 2014 2

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GODZILLA 2014 Trailer

 

The Biggest news for 2014 amongst Kaiju and Sci-Fi fans alike has to be Legendary Pictures reboot of the Godzilla franchise with Gareth Edwards (Monsters) directing. The film stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe and Bryan Cranston (in his first film role since the conclusion of the epic "Breaking Bad" TV series).

First glimpse we got of The Big G 2014 came in a teaser trailer shown at the San Diego Comic-Con in July, 2012. This powerful clip showed us a decimated San Diego (?) landscape with a voice over of J. Robert Oppenheimers (Father of the atomic bomb) speech culminating in the line "Now I Am Become Death, Destroyer Of Worlds" after which we get a brief glimpse of Godzilla uttering that classic roar. As of this writing there has been confirmation that Godzilla will have his Atomic Breath and will be sparring against at least 2 Kaiju.

December 10, 2013 and the (first) trailer is released to an expectant fan base and just about all of us found it electrifying. It can be broken up into 3 parts.

1. The HALO Jump (High Altitude - Low Opening) sequence. This method is usually deployed when the aircraft is in imminent danger and must fly above the surface to air (SAM) missile zone. Does this mean Godzilla was blowing planes out of the air with his Atomic Breath ? I certainly hope so (Thanks to Bill and Frank for bringing this to my attention). This segment concludes with the paratroopers gaining visibility of a city in flames as they emerge through the cloud cover, but wait there is something moving there in the smoke and we spy a very familiar dorsal fin ever so briefly.

2. Shock and Awe. Here we see quick jump cuts of the civilians, military, scientists and M.U.T.O. Emergency agency personnel also known as the actors.

3. G Itself. same shot as from the 2012 teaser but Epic just the same. We will only know for sure this coming May when the film is released but everyone is in your corner.

The Return Of The King.

KAIJUROBOT.COM

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DG

Almost a Year to Date.

Thanksgiving

SMOOCH

RUSH - Clockwork Angels DVD Screening 11/18/13 AMC 25 Theater - Times Square, New York City

On the eve of the DVD release of the "Clockwork Angels Tour" Fandango Tickets gave us an opportunity to attend a screening at select theaters across the country of the concert film. I arrived one minute late due to technical difficulties retrieving my ticket from the AMC ticket machine and the screening had already begun at seven p.m. sharp with no coming attractions. 

The film began with the Watchmaker intro film and then onto "Caravan" as I thought to myself but "Subdivisions" was the opening number, I quickly surmised they were screening set 2 of the show which took place after intermission at the actual performances and made sense as the second portion of the concert and promised "tour documentary" would be a 2 hour experience all its own and give the attendees something to look forward to as we would be getting the complete DVDs on the very next day. I have read conflicting reports concerning the sound quality at these screenings but that is down to each theaters acoustics and speaker systems (more on that below). AMC 25 has a superb audio system and crystal clear projection system at least in theater 17, to get a little technical here there were High Highs and Low Lows and the decibel levels were just right, no audience members yelling "Louder Please" in this crowd.

The photos here were taken off the "movie screen" with an iPhone 4 (flash off), and here's a nice pic of Geddy. AMC 25 was nicely filled to about half capacity with the audience in rapt attention, we cheered at the end of most songs and laughed during the watchmaker films (the intro film opened the show and "Office of the Watchmaker" closed the concert portion) and at the appropriate moments in the tour documentary which was shown afterwards as a nice extra. There was certainly a friendly buzz and excitement in the air as will be common in a room full of RUSH fans and the adoration we all have for our favorite Canadian trio made for the most comfortable viewing experience.

There is currently an unrelated film called "Rush" out and whomever programmed the marquee for theater 17 dropped the ball on this one, I doubt if most even noticed and being the good natured goofballs (no offense to the serious minded fans) that make up a large portion of the RUSH community we would only find this humorous, I certainly did.

I was the last one out of the theater as I wanted this photo op, well here it is. Some theater seats and projector glow.

Earlier in this post I had mentioned the individuality of in-house audio and projection systems inherent to each movie house and room and this goes without saying. I did not notice if this was played back in 5.1 surround yet I am sure it was, the audience was too busy enjoying the intense performance and were not there for a "Dolby" demonstration. Some years back I attended a screening of the T. Rex concert film "Born To Boogie" which had been remastered into 5.1 and after its conclusion Producer Tony Visconti was on hand for a Q & A and began by stressing that "If you get a chance you must hear this in five one, I think what we just got was two one", this was completely good natured and most endearing but just goes to show that all theaters are not equal.

I think that these one-off DVD screenings are a great opportunity to see this footage for those of us without a private screening room in our homes and I applaud whomever came up with the idea. It has always struck me that these would be great events to sell the actual DVD at but most are premiered before release date and that might tip the "soundscan" video sales chart ever so slightly. Virgin Megastore did set up a merchandise table of CDs/DVDs and the "RIO" DVD at the screening for "RUSH IN RIO" in 2003 but that was in agreement with Atlantic Records. The WEA (Warner Elektra Atlantic) rep came to my job at around 7 that night and handed me a promo copy of the DVD, I was so grateful and said "Thank you so much" to which he replied "you never ask for anything".

Upon arrival in Times Square off the D train and headed for AMC 25. 

I think Mickey is going through that young woman's purse.

Elmo and Cookie Monster lament that they missed the Clockwork Angels screening, too bad they had to work, the watchmaker is also a taskmaster.

Filmed off the screen.

RUSH OFFICIAL WEBSITE

RUSH IS A BAND BLOG

Jamies b'day

ss 11/10/13

Ray Davies 10/25/13

Alice 10/14/13

Brian May 10/21/13