The Walt Disney Co. hasn’t done very much since it acquired the trademark to the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit character in 2006 – for those unfamiliar with the back story, Walt Disney created Oswald for Universal Pictures in 1927 and made 27 silent black-and-white shorts. But Disney lost the rights to the character, at which point he created a new character called Mickey Mouse.
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Stock trading and investing might not sound like the most obvious choice a children’s book, but the 2021 “Stonks on the Moon!” by the pseudonymous Professor Clark offered a playful mix of child-friendly fiction (complete with anthropomorphic animals and a story about believing in one’s purpose) with sly tributes to investing world’s machinations – including the “to the moon” focus of “apes” and characters that bore more than a coincidental resemblance to Tesla chieftain Elon Musk and financial analyst Keith Gill.
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I would have bet anyone a thousand dollars that 1972’s SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT directed by Theodore Gershuny had been renamed to its current title for a home video release around 1984 in order to cash in on the then new Silent Night, Deadly Night, and I would have lost that bet. “The film was given a limited release in the United States under the title Night of the Full Dark Moon through Cannon Films, beginning November 17, 1972. It was subsequently released as Silent Night, Bloody Night in the spring of 1973 and continued to screen under this title through December 1973.”
Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley is a masterclass in reimagining a classic film. This lively neo-noir is as vibrant in color as it is in black and white. You can now stream this new classic on HBO Max.
BOOTLEG FILES 821: “The Farmer Brown PSAs” (a series of late-1970s public service announcements produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Old PSAs that have been out of release for decades.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not on their own, but maybe in an anthology collection.
During the late 1970s, there was a growing level of concern among pediatricians, nutritionists and parents’ groups regarding the diet of the average American youth – that generation was raised amid a proliferation of fast-food eateries and an endless bombardment of advertisements for low-nutrition food and beverages, and the threat to the well-being of the nation’s young people was considered to be significant.
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Today’s BAD MOVIE MONDAY entry is a doozy. So thankfully it’s under 50 minutes long. It is one of the worst and most baffling Christmas Specials I have ever seen. That it actually played on the USA Network blows my mind. THE CHRISTMAS TREE came out in 1991 and was directed by Flamarion Ferreira. A man who is right up there with Valentino Balboni, Lamborghini’s old chief test driver, when it comes to having a badass name that is guaranteed to get you laid. Joking aside, Ferraria actually has a huge resume and has worked on a truckload of various cartoons since the late seventies. I believe he’s still working today in fact. So, before I go on, I want to say that I respect the man. Yes, he’s credited as director for one of the worst movies ever, but he’s a working artist and this was a gig. I’m sure he’s a professional and did his best with what he had. When a studio gives you no time and no money and no resources to make “something”. Well… you’re gonna get what you’re gonna get. In this case they called the resulting abomination THE CHRISTMAS TREE.
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Some movies just stay with you forever no matter what. It’s not like you add them to a Top 10 or even a Top 50 list of your favorite movies, but yet you keep stumbling across it. THE STUFF is like that for me. I’ve seen it at least fifty times, probably more than that, but if you were to ask me why I watch it at least once a year I couldn’t really tell you. I didn’t seek it out at the time, I’m not even a big Larry D. Cohen fan. Yet here I am nearly forty years later still enjoying the hell out of this thing. It stars Michael Moriarty, Garrett Morris, Andrea Marcovicci, Paul Sorvino and Scott Bloom, and it was directed and written by Larry D. Cohen. Welcome to BAD MOVIE MONDAY!
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