Linger on Youtube for a little while and you’ll likely find at least fifty toy collectors and or pop culture buffs that have a slew of videos looking back at classic toy lines and franchises. What makes “Toys That Made Us: Seasons 1 & 2” such a unique series is that it attempts to offer up much more than memories. Creator Brian Volk-Weiss’s series could very well have fallen back on pure nostalgia, but instead opens up the scope of these world changing toy lines. There’s deeper insight, stark truths about how and why these toys were created, and a look in to the business of it all.
Charlton Heston to the Rescue
He singlehandedly took on Pharaoh’s army, the Roman legions, the Moors, the Pope, King Herod, Laurence Olivier in blackface and, of course, those damn dirty apes. Whether he was a Mexican cop, Mark Antony or Long John Silver, Charlton Heston was always ready to rumble and no crisis – zombies, earthquakes or a Karen Black-piloted airplane – would scare him away. On this episode of “The Online Movie Show,” Facebook’s funniest man Anthony “Kingfish” Vitamia pays tribute to Charlton Heston, as well as some of his zany co-stars! Grab a bowl of soylent green and enjoy the show!
The Bootleg Files: The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t
BOOTLEG FILES 707: “The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t” (1979 TV special with Judd Hirsch and Mariette Hartley).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: A VHS video release only.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Something is holding up a DVD and Blu-ray release.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not a priority.
So, how was your Halloween? If you wish the holiday could go on a bit longer, then you came to the right place because we are digging up one of the silliest productions centered around October 31.
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Shorts Round Up of the Week: Happy Halloween
Happy Halloween one and all! It’s the final hours of Halloween 2019 and it’s been quite the month. I felt I’d be remiss if I didn’t include another Shorts Round Up of the Week featuring some great horror shorts you can dig your teeth in to before Day of the Dead on November 1st. Included is a tale of a spooky cookie jar, a series of loft crimes that goes bat shit insane, and a serial killer targeting vulnerable young girls.
As always if you’d like to submit a short film or two (of any genre), submissions are always open!
“Over the Garden Wall” is the Perfect Halloween Treat
If I have to pick a favorite aspect of “Over the Garden Wall” is the ambiguity of it all. There’s not a ton of exposition or explanation as to whom or what the characters Greg and Wirt are. We just know that they’re brothers, they have polar opposite personalities, and they’re stuck in a timeless land filled with dangers and mysterious oddities that they can’t possibly fathom. Along the way, Greg and Wirt learn a lot about the idea of grief, and confronting their fears, and learning to appreciate one another as brothers. They also have their own personality quirks that could count as flaws, but only make you love them even more. By the time the series ends, you’ll be glad you met them and realize you know everything that you need to know about them. I encourage you to fall in love with it like I did.
Halloween in a Box (2019)
In 1988 my kindergarten class was having a Halloween party with just the class immediately after lunch. It was a very exciting experience for me considering I’d never done anything like that before. At the time we couldn’t really afford elaborate or huge costumes, so my dad bought me a generic mask in a box with the classic plastic smock. I was a mutant. So for a few Halloweens we opted for the sweaty plastic mask with no peripheral vision, and odd smock. That is until they were phased out. For years one of the highlights of Halloween was seeing the rows of boxes of plastics masks and smocks for various characters from Superman to Popeye.
House of the Witch (2017)
There’s something kind of charming about Alex Merkin’s “House of the Witch.” It’s a straight up rip off of “Night of the Demons” while also feeling a lot like a fan film for “The Blair Witch Project.” It’s part are all from much better movies made before, but even at its most clunky, I didn’t have a bad time. “House of the Witch” is that kind of movie you could probably appreciate as a passing treat on a random night if you had absolutely nothing to do. I also found the final scene to be pretty damn clever, as it at least gives us a reason for the seemingly random series of events that unfold.