Bissette Blather
Invite Me Into Your Home Today, and I Will Talk Your Head Off

No time to post my followup to the Video Watchblog 'Favorite DVDs of 2007' list this morning, but my Massachusetts amigo David Kraus just posted a looooong podcast interview with yours truly, so you can listen to me yammer about the current state of horror movies, the nature of the genre, and the emergence of the current DVD horror renaissance from the 1980s-90s video black and 'gray' markets and more.

Here's the link to Dave's Nine Panel Nerds, where my podcast conversation with Dave awaits you --

-- and please, post comments to Dave's podcast site! While you're there, check out the other podcasts; I particularly enjoyed the Godzilla Thanksgiving chat, and the Halloween horror comics free for all.

Dave and I will be doing this again soon -- we've planned a show on my drive-in, nabe and grindhouse memories, which some of you should find entertaining.

Gojira sez: Pass the duck sauce -- or else!

*Speaking of Thanksgiving with Godzilla, this Thursday is the night for the fund-raising Christmas Godzilla dinner with Brattleboro, VT's Asian Cultural Center of Vermont. A reminder:

Please come to the
LOCAL & ASIAN DINNER WITH GODZILLA & FRIENDS
All ages welcome.

THIS THURSDAY December 20th 5:30-7 pm.

* Celebrate local businesses and agriculture of Southern Vermont
* A fundraiser for the Asian Cultural Center of Vermont
* Brought to you by local farms, restaurants, and other friends of the Brattleboro area
* A buffet with time to network and socialize.
* Food includes: Delicious soup and dishes made with local winter vegetables and prepared by local cooks; chicken; ribs; fish stew; rice pilau; curry; spring rolls; sushi; hummus & tabouleh; desserts; coffee; cider; and
more!
* Then view a presentation by Harvey Nystrom on 'Godzilla and Friends.'
* Suggested donation: $40 per person for this dinner event. (More welcome! Less is OK, too)
* Location: America's Best Inn, 959 Putney Road. (Wheelchair accessible)
* Directions: 2 miles north of Main & High in Brattleboro, 1/4 mile south of the I-91 Exit 3 roundabout, near the junction with Black Mountain Road.

* Asian Cultural Center of Vermont's fundraising has two goals:
1. Match funds from the State Tourism/Marketing Department for out-of-state marketing and promotion of southern Vermont, especially around the upcoming Vermont Samurai Kaiju Film Festival in September. Also, related to this goal: Help raise funds to underwrite the cost of screening the Samurai and Kaiju films to lower the cost to the movie goer. Kaiju (Japanese for 'mysterious beast') is the genre that has brought Gozilla-type movies. Samurai are traditional warriors.
2. The Cultural Center is taking its Bhutan Textiles exhibition overseas to Thailand and will be co-sponsoring an April exhibition in Chiang Mai! Help us bring Brattleboro and Vermont to Thailand!

* Any help spreading the word will be appreciated: Looking for more people to consider supporting these efforts. Partial ($25 to $200) or full underwriting of any of the following would help a lot: $250 will... cover the cost of one screening of a samurai or Godzilla-type film; cover the cost of space rental and staffing for an festival evening; provide access to promote the Festival at an out-of-state conference or convention; amounts needed for the Thailand exhibition are more.

* Tell more people about the Local & Asian Dinner. Everyone welcome.
* If you cannot come to the Dinner, we still need your help.

For further information, contact Adam Silver, (802) 257-7898 ext. 1 or 2, (802) 579-9088 (cell) or e-mail to: acc.vt@verizon.net,

or visit the Asian Culture Center's website.

* The good folks at Trailers from Hell, one of my favorite online sites about movies, have been posting some marvelous stuff of late.

Makeup maestro Rick Baker's commentary on the trailer for I Was a Teenage Werewolf is a real gem (as is the trailer!),

though he fails to mention that teen werewolf Michael Landon indeed later reprised his role in an affectionate, satiric episode of Landon's TV series Highway to Heaven.

Recently, they've also posted Baker talking about the 1960 George Pal classic The Time Machine, Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) on the 1972 cannibal classic Deathline aka Raw Meat, and a delicious slew of counterculture 1960s gems like Privilege, Wild in the Streets and Psych-Out. John Landis's commentary and presentation of the preview of International House (1933) prompted Marge and I to watch the DVD (available in Universal's W.C. Fields Comedy Collection Vol. 1, which I happen to have on my shelf), and we had a grand time with this truly bizarre Pre-Code curio.

Here's the whole lineup of Trailers from Hell, spend some down time enjoying these this week.

Speaking of this week, though,

they are "posting, sans commentary, the original British trailer for what we at TFH regard as the greatest Christmas movie of all (as well as one of the finest Dickens adaptations): Brian Desmond-Hurst's 1951 Scrooge, released in America as A Christmas Carol and a baby boomer staple on local tv stations for decades."

Enjoy! Marge wholeheartedly agrees; we'll be watching her copy of this beloved Alastair Sim classic on DVD on Christmas Eve, which is Marge's tradition. And now, our tradition.

And with that, have a Terrific Tuesday!