RELATED
SITES:
Ganymede
Ink Syndicate
CannonFilms.com
The Dunsel Report
SYNDICATION:
Atom Feed
BLOG LINKS:
John Gorenfeld
Paul Frankenstein
Jim Steinman
Soul of Trek
True Father
ST XI
ASSORTED
WRITINGS:
"Cannon
Films: The Rise and Fall of Menahem Golan" (2001)
"Fast Company" (2007)
"Last
Man Dancing" (2001)
"Our Alien, HE" (1987)
"Drummer
on Top: The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Chad Smith" (2002)
"Singin'
the Hi-Res Blues" (2003)
BIO:
I
grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and now live in Brooklyn, New York.
I have a bachelor's degree in linguistics from Swarthmore College and
a master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. Feel free to email
me at patrick@runkle.info.
From
2000 until 2004, I was the editorial director for ArtistPro,
a music-industry trade publisher in the Bay Area. I also was
editorial director for ArtistPro's short-lived national magazine,
which was distributed to all the members of the GRAMMY organization.
(That includes Phil Spector.)
Current
activities include my band, Ganymede, my trips to Canada, and various other things I do. (See above for links.) I also have a large collection of oversize video boxes from the early 80s.
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George Romero's Land of the Dead is a hoot, any horror fan and all self-respecting Pennsylvanians should see it. It got me thinking of the quirky brilliance of two of Romero's unheralded other movies:
--Knightriders is probably my favorite Romero movie. A full-blown epic weighing in at 145 minutes, the 1981 film stars a young Ed Harris as the "king" of a traveling renaissance fair. The fair sets up in various central Pennsylvania small towns, and its main event is the knightriders, who do jousting competitions from souped-up motorcycles. The movie is as much a spiritual journey as a dramatic one, as the knighriders fight amongst themselves and with local police, while staving off the pressures of super-stardom. One of the more unique and satisfying independent movies of the 80s.
--Martin is a modern vampire tale set in Pittsburgh, where a teenage Nosferatu plies his victims with drugs. It's a creepy, understated, perfectly executed film.
--Also, the "ultimate" edition of Dawn of the Dead is worth checking out. Finally, all three versions of the movie that have been released a million times before are restored with pristine picture and sound in one four-DVD package. I highly recommend the 118-minute European cut, which is the most economical, direct presentation of the material. The longer U.S. theatrical cut and the Cannes cut are by and large inferior, in my opinion, because some needless exposition really makes them drag. The European cut, supervised by Dario Argento, is also cut more slickly during many of the action sequences.
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