Short: I Am A Fat Cat (2010)

Feature: Death Proof (2007)

Tuesday, January 17th

Films start at 9pm

Otto’s Shrunken Head

538 East 14st (between Ave A & B)

As always, free popcorn and $2 Vehicular Bingo for prizes!

Join us this Tuesday for a special installation of Cine Meccanica, co-hosted by Alex Brook Lynn, director of the award winning short, I Am A Fat Cat and the NY premier of this years trailer for the critically acclaimed Rain Dance Film Festival, Censored.
Ms. Lynn’s shorts will be followed by a screening of Quentin Tarantino’s classic Death Proof (2007).  – Corinna

Well damn, if you ‘aint so sweet, you make sugar taste like salt

Beautiful girls, fast cars, and great music: a recipe for cinema.
Filming the body of a woman is like filming a great car chase. She already has the carriage and can create the curve of a highway with every swaggered step. She is also the driver. Leave it too QT, the
sexploitation revivalist to make a feminist polemic. Tarantino, fills this film with cinematic iconography. From the women, to, the cars, to the man that hunts them down.

Before CGI. Back in the Vanishing Point days, The Dirty Mary Crazy Larry days…

When a John Wayne obsessed stunt driver sets out to victimize sexy women, he gets more than he bargains for with female stunt drivers who drive just as hard and are not afraid to be just as deadly.

You know what happens to motherfuckers that carry knives? They get shot!
I saw Death Proof after I made I am a Fat Cat, but I feel that much of the same sentiment is there. Girls, cars, music.

Not just that. It has to be a 1970 dodge challenger with a 440 engine

The make and model of a car on screen is a great way to wrap a scene in the visual history of the time in which it’s set.  The opening scene in I am a Fat Cat is the film’s prologue, and a quick look into the childhood of the lead character, Annie. I used classic cars to pull the audience into a story and prick a sense of nostalgia. The whole film is set around the curves of the city, the cars of a specific time, and the music. I wanted the entire piece to bend like a road, with every curve, note, and turn.

Do I frighten you, is it my scar?
In Censored, I wanted to impart a sense of old New York, and let the boxed cars of the late seventies and early eighties accentuate the sharp turns around corners. Each of the Heroes are based on iconic New York cinematic caricatures.

Well, what we have here is a case of vehicular homicide
A lot of films can be odes to the history of the genre they represent but few films can tap into what it means to make people feel that they are a part of the moment that makes all movies matter. That pulls them into the past, makes them feel as though they are a part of the present and constantly creating as the frames roll by. Death Proof does this, and I can only hope that Censored and I am a Fat Cat can do similarly using Beautiful girls, fast cars, and great music.

- Alex Brook Lynn

What about kinda cute, kinda sexy, kinda funny but not hysterically funny, that you could fuck, did you not understand?

Ms. Lynn on this year’s Raindance trailer: Censored

Wonder if BJ brought the bear with him?

On the scenes of the Censored shoot, 2011

Tuesday, January 10th

Film starts at 9pm

Otto’s Shrunken Head

538 East 14st (between Ave A & B)

As always, free popcorn and $2 Vehicular Bingo for prizes!

He’ll get you away faster than anyone else on wheels.

I recently saw Nicholas Winding Refn’s new film, Drive (2011), and I absolutely love it. I’ve seen it twice, read the novella and plan on seeing it again! A great film in it’s own right, it also brilliantly pays homage to the great chase films of the 70’s. There are shots, pacing and references relating directly to a handful of these movies, but the one that stands out most is by far, The Driver (1978).

That’s him. Same goddamn stunt he pulled six weeks ago.

Needless to say, The Driver has been on my mind, and after missing seing it screened at MOMA in November, I thought it only fitting to add it to this month’s screening schedule. A great crime film, one of the best chased scenes, and hell, even Quentin Tarantino lists The Driver as “one of the coolest movies ever made.”

See you at the flicks!

- Corinna

How ‘bout the rest of you. Guide dogs for everyone, huh?

This week’s review comes to us courtesy of MOMA:

The Driver (1978). USA. Written and directed by Walter Hill. With Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern, Isabelle Adjani. On November 5, screenwriter and director Walter Hill presents The Driver, an exquisite study of stripped-down existentialism whose thrilling car chases are unsurpassed in their stylized abstraction. As if through a dizzying hall of mirrors, The Driver was the direct inspiration for Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, but in turn took its own inspiration from French crime films of the 1950s and 1960s—most notably, Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai—that themselves paid homage both to American film noir of the 1940s, and the taut, tense classicism of Howard Hawks and Raoul Walsh.

Well, well, well. Look what the old van drug in

(The philosopher Slavoj Zizek has called this “a paradox of America looking at itself through French eyes.”) One of the finest practitioners and manipulators of genre in such films as Hard Times, Southern Comfort, The Warriors, Streets of Fire, 48 Hours and, more recently, Last Man Standing and Wild Bill—not to mention The Getaway and Aliens, for which he wrote the screenplays—Hill has observed that “We’re all standing on each other’s shoulders. We only tell stories that are in a sense twice-told tales, but we try to find new ways to tell them.”

You sure have been around the track a few times, honey.

Preserved by Twentieth Century Fox. 91 min.  - MOMA

]]> http://cinemeccanica.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/a-game-a-challenge-a-chase-to-the-death/feed/ 0 miss1932 Driver_1 thedriver2 The+Driver+2 vlcsnap-2011-10-08-03h28m20s252 driver1 http://cinemeccanica.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/the-go-go-girls-who-go-too-far/ http://cinemeccanica.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/the-go-go-girls-who-go-too-far/#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:49:36 +0000 Miss1932 http://cinemeccanica.wordpress.com/?p=1942 ]]> Teenage Gang Debs (1966)

Tuesday, January 3rd

Film starts at 9pm

Otto’s Shrunken Head

538 East 14st (between Ave A & B)

As always, free popcorn and $2 Vehicular Bingo for prizes!

What’re ya, some kind of goon? You give me the creeps. The creeps!

Always on the lookout for new vehicular titles to add to the Cine Meccanica files, I stumbled upon this little known 50’s ‘B’ sleaze flick when it was released a while back on a juvenile delinquent compilation DVD along with Teen-Age Strangler, put out by Something Weird Video…with not more than a mention that bikes were involved, I couldn’t resist.

But oh, my surprise when I finally got around to watching it. Expecting an unbearably cheap transfer of a sloppy, low budget trash reel, it is in fact an action packed, all out Manhattan vs Brooklyn motorcycle gang romp, filmed in gritty, handheld black & white. Featuring a fantastically hip, bohemian bongo drum and raunchy be-bop soundtrack, and rockin’ tough dance party numbers set to the likes of ‘Black belt’ and ‘Don’t Get Me Mad’.

Don’t make me mad boy. Don’t make me angry boy

So, I’m thrilled to screen this 50’s delinquent biker treasure, and equally pleased to file it away on the shelf after, with some other rough and tumble, NY-centric cult classics, including a vhs copy of Dead End (1932) starring Humphrey Bogart, a tattered copy of Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964) written by Hubert Selby, and a stack of Bowery Boy flicks, among other treasures.

And with that, I give you Teenage Gang Debs!

What’dya think I’m gonna do, make like Tempest Star

The film opens with Rosie and some members of the Brooklyn based motorcycle hooligan gang, The Rebels partying. They don’t fool around and Rosie might have gotten in over her head, and ends up roughed up for not knowing the score. We don’t see Rosie again, but the scene sets the tone for the reputation of The Rebels.

Johnny: You lookin’ to get in? You gotta expect trouble.

Terry: I dig.

Terry, a Manhattan girl with teased hair, tight pants, leather boots and go-go eyes, used to run with the Falcons, a Manhattan gang, until the night before when some trouble went down and she was forced to flee the island quick. She turns up on the Brooklyn waterfront (I have no idea where, perhaps Fulton Ferry or Bklyn Heights) sauntering fearlessly into a dive that doubles as The Rebels’ club house.  She’s been around the block (and across the river) and isn’t scared of the tough talking hooligans.

We ‘aint got any room in this gang for any new broads

The Rebel debs don’t like the idea of a new broad hanging around at all. Not at all. But Terry needs a new gang and doesn’t plan on being stopped just cause they ‘aint looking for new debs. She picks a catfight with Johnny, the leaders gal and mayhem quickly ensues. Terry easily wins the fight and  that, Terry’s in.

Nuts to you buster. Nobody’s gonna cut me up.

Johnny takes Terry on as his old lady but with one requirement. He’s set on branding her with his initials. She puts him off saying she needs a few days to think about it  ‘don’t bug me man’ but secretly, she has no intention of being marked.

You’re out of this world baby

Without skipping a beat, she starts hitting on the gang’s #2, Nino. He’s loyal to Johnny and the gang code of ethics, and does put up a bit of good fight, but in the end she gets her way with him. With a new old man, and the fear of branding behind her, she could leave well enough alone and settle in, but that’s not Terry’s style.

Giggle…some guys get the weirdest kicks

She quickly chides Nino into standing up to Johnny and taking the Rebel’s for himself (and her), and the coup d’etat plays out with an adorable knife fight at the club house. Johnny’s killed. They toss him in the river, clean up the house and with that Nino’s The Prez, Top Man, The Real Daddy-o. One of the girls, Annie protests the hostile take over but she gets sent to the back room, and is turned out as a ‘crud’, a mamma and then tossed out for good.

On the local scene: violence breaks out in Brooklyn

As a local news report plays. Terry dolls up, seeming quite pleased with her self. She’s got this gang wrapped around her little finger and she likes it.

…and that’s when we bob ‘em!

Strolling the streets of Brooklyn like she owns ‘em, Terry ends up saving a broad from a street fight. The chick turns out to be the leader of The Rat Pack’s old lady. The Rebels and The Rats form an unholy, temporary union to organize a rumble against The Eagles, yet another Brooklyn motorcycle gang.

You’re trying to goof, man

The plan comes together nicely that night with several bloody brawls. The next day, with four guys killed, and more busted, the heat is on. Nino wants to lay low, but Terry wants more. She wants to take on everyone, the Warriors, The Eagles, even The Rat Pack, and make The Rebels the toughest gang in the city.

Oh dry up

Things have changed since Terry took over. Despite hosting some kickin’ dance parties, the gang just isn’t any fun anymore. No one can leave the gang now. If you wanna quit, you gotta fight, but if you do, you just might bite it. Piggy just wanted to turn 17, quit school, get a job and marry his gal, but Terry worked it out so he ate it bad. This is the last straw. The girls are finally fed up with Terry and the fact that the boys won’t stand up to her. Deciding to take matters into their own hands, they beat her to within an inch of her life and leave her down by the docks of Brooklyn under the Manhattan skyline. Maybe she should have stayed on the island…

- Corinna

Always reckless!

Tuesday, December 20th

Film starts at 9pm

Otto’s Shrunken Head

538 East 14st (between Ave A & B)

As always, free popcorn and $2 Vehicular Bingo for prizes!

Get off the road and into Otto’s Shrunken Head for a Holiday Cheer! MotorGrrl and Cine Meccanica are inviting you to our Holiday Party!!!!! “She Devils on Wheels” will be screened which features some of the most memorable characters you will ever meet: Queenie, Whitey, Honeypot, and you! Man Eaters! – Val, MotorGrrl

Nothing Stops Them…They Stop At Nothing!

Shot in 2 weeks for $50,000 and using a cast of mostly real life biker chicks, this 60’s cult moto flick turns the classic rolls of bikers and their mammas on it’s head.

Don’t wait up for me Momma

In the opening scene, Karen heads out one day in a demure little outfit and hops in her car waving bye to momma. As soon as the first corner is turned however, she ducks into a garage and re-emerges a moment later in a miniskirt, adorably appliquéd kitty cat gang vest and riding a pink 1968 Honda CB 450 K1.

Riding their men as viciously as they ride their motorcycles!

While the ‘Man Eaters’ theme song plays and titles roll, she tears off down the road. Meeting another gang chick on the way, they head to the Man Eaters club house.

Hey Whitey, what’s the action?

Queenie and all the chicks are at the there, preparing for a ‘stud ride’ (a Sadie Hawkin’s style race, if you will). They have ‘half a dozen horny hog riders’ waiting for the gals to race. The idea is the winner gets first choice of plaything for that night’s festivities.

What’ll it be tonight, a stud, a bronc, or maybe you’ll really join the club and pick a philly.

Karen wins the race and and the orgy ensues. Honey Pot, the gang’s newest member, riding a 1959 Honda Super Cub CA 100, isn’t allowed to partake as she hasn’t been properly initiated yet. Karen and Bill head out together and they other get down.

Go fumigate yourself, crap-head!

The next morning, the gang has a sit down about Karen. They’re not keen on her being hooked on Bill (she picks him every chance she gets). They threaten to kick her out if she doesn’t stop monogamizing. For good measure, they beat him up, tie him to a bike, and drag him down the road, shredding him to hamburger.

Sex, guts, blood…and all men are mothers!

The next night Honey Pot is finally accepted into the fold and in a blood sister’s right, they swear her in. She get’s all the stud action she’d been missing out on, and the other gals go galavanting in town, where of course they clash with the local authorities.

Why you dirty mother

Run ins with cops, and a rival all male gang of hot rodders begin to escalate. Karen’s old bow Ted tries to get her to quit the life, and inter gang quarrels arise…When the rivalry with Joe Boy’s hot rod gang turn extra nasty there are a slew of gangland shenanigans including a spectacularly bad decapitation, and the roughing up of Honey Pot.

Soft, Hell!

But, as with all rivalry’s sooner of later there’s a slip up. Queenie leaves a necklace behind, at the scene of the shenanigans. The cops get wise and off to jail they go. And with that, the credits roll.

Ah well. It was a good run, Man Eaters!

- Corinna

Tuesday, December 13th

Film starts at 9pm

Otto’s Shrunken Head

538 East 14st (between Ave A & B)

As always, free popcorn and $2 Vehicular Bingo for prizes!

We’re goin’ nowhere…fast

This dark tale, “a sort of unholy collision of The Wild One, Kenneth Anger, and Two Lane Blacktop.” (Mondo Video) is also the feature debut of both actor Willem Dafoe and writer/director Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days). Bigelow co-wrote and co-directed the film with Monty Montgomery, who would go on to produce a Cine Meccanica favorite, Wild at Heart. The film also has a kickin’ soundtrack and pacing that is indeed very much a nod to the 1960’s style of Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising. Rockabilly musician Robert Gordon also composed the film’s soundtrack

Is this a town or a truck stop?

Vance (Willem Defoe) rolls into a quiet little town to meet some friends Davis (Robert Gordon), Tarver and their chicks. The plan is to ride down to Daytona together and ‘watch the bikes howl’ . The gang’s running late, so Vance kills time in the diner, getting to know the “local talent’. They finally show, but Tarver’s had some bike trouble so they rent out a mechanic’s shop to fix it up.

Why don’t you try to put it in neutral for a change, Davis

These cats are out for excitement, and this town’s got none. With only so much pop to drink and cigarettes to smoke, they start to get bored quick…

So, what’s a bum gotta do to drive this thing?

So when ‘Sportster debbie’ shows up in a cherry red 1960 Chevy Corvette, Vance isn’t letting that fun get away. He hops in and takes her for a spin. When her mom committed suicide, Daddy gave here the car out of guilt. She fits right in with the misfit crew, and they drink and party ‘til Daddy drags her home.

I’m a regular joe. I’ve got an itch between my legs, and an afternoon for a heart.

The gang sticks around in town, against their will. Vance makes excuses, but it’s clear he’s hooked on Debbie. While they party at the local dive, things start to get out of hand between Daddy and the boys.

You never can tell on a day like this- things could be goin’ jake one minute, then, presto- before you know it, you’re history.

He tries to pick a fight and has already alluded to trying to bump them off, but before it can go any farther Debbie walks in and blows pops away. Turns around, runs out and in the front seat of her ‘lil corvette. Ends it all with a gunshot to the head.

- Corinna

Wednesday, December 7th

6pm

Bar Matchless

557 Manhattan Avenue,  Brooklyn

This week’s film is a special screening (sadly not in 3D…I tried) of the recent documentary TT3D: Closer to the Edge, directed by Richard De Aragues, and starring Guy Martin, Ian Hutchinson and John McGuinness. Join us for Beer, food and flicks promptly at 6!

By vividly recounting the TT’s legendary rivalries and the Isle of Man’s unique road racing history, this 3D feature documentary will discover why modern TT riders still risk their lives to win the world’s most dangerous race. The Isle of Man Tourist Trophy is the greatest motorcycle road race in the world, the ultimate challenge for rider and machine.

It has always called for a commitment far beyond any other racing event, and many have made the ultimate sacrifice in their quest for victory. A story about freedom of choice, the strength of human spirit and the will to win. It’s also an examination of what motivates those rare few, this elite band of brothers who risk everything to win. The vision of top commercials director Richard de Aragues, this promises to be one of the most thrilling films of 2011 – IMDB

]]> http://cinemeccanica.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/just-because-youre-breathing-doesnt-mean-youre-alive/feed/ 3 miss1932 TT3D_Quad2512x383_01 ScreenShot0110-500x375 tt3d http://cinemeccanica.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/camelot-is-a-state-of-mind/ http://cinemeccanica.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/camelot-is-a-state-of-mind/#comments Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:56:48 +0000 Miss1932 http://cinemeccanica.wordpress.com/?p=1872 ]]> Knightriders (1981)

Tuesday, November 29th

Film starts at 9pm

Otto’s Shrunken Head

538 East 14st (between Ave A & B)

As always, free popcorn and $2 Vehicular Bingo for prizes!

Anyway, it’s what I do. Fall off bikes is what I do

Billy (Ed Harris) leads a traveling troupe that jousts on motorcycles. “King William”, as he styles himself, tries to lead the troupe according to his Arthurian ideals. However, the constant pressure of balancing those ideals against the realities and financial pressures of running the organization are beginning to strain the group.

Way you get knocked around, you’re bound to have some weird dreams, Billy.

Billy is also plagued by a recurring dream of a black bird. Tensions are exacerbated by Billy’s constantly pushing himself despite being injured, and the arrival of a promoter named Bontempi (Martin Ferrero), who wants to represent the troupe.

This is like Evil Kneivel see, It’s not what we’re doing here

After Billy spends a night in jail watching a member of his troupe beaten because Billy has refused a payoff to a corrupt local cop, Billy returns to the fairground where the troupe is next to perform and is shocked that some members want to join with the promoter. His sense of betrayal is heightened when his queen, Linet (Amy Ingersoll), admits that her feelings for him may not be the reason she remains with the troupe. Things come to a head after Morgan (Tom Savini), leader of the dissident faction who believes he should be king, wins the day’s tournament and a melee breaks out between the troupe and rowdy members of the crowd.

I’m not trying to be a hero…I’m fighting the dragon

Billy faces an Indian rider (Albert Amerson) with a black eagle crest on his breast plate, the black bird of his dreams. Billy defeats the Indian but aggravates his injury. Morgan and several other riders leave the troupe to follow Bontempi. Billy’s loyal supporter Alan (Gary Lahti) also departs with his ladyfriend Julie (Patricia Tallman) and friend Bors (Harold Wayne Jones) to try to sort out his emotions. Billy and the remainder of the troupe settle at the fairground to await the dissidents’ return.

I don’t know what i’m gonna do. I just need to take a ride

Morgan’s riders succumb to infighting. Alan finds Morgan and helps him realize that there can only be one king and that he cannot simply leave and establish his own kingdom. Morgan and his riders return to challenge for the crown. In a pitched battle between Morgan’s forces and Billy’s, led by Alan, Morgan is victorious. Billy crowns him king and Morgan crowns the woman he now realizes he loves, Angie (Christine Forrest), as his queen.

If you promise to sit on your ass and stay out of the way, there’s some of us still willing to fight for ya.

Morgan tells the promoter to tear up the contracts. Linet finds succor, with Billy’s blessing, with Alan. Billy leaves the troupe, accompanied by the Indian, and returns to thrash the crooked cop as he had earlier vowed. While riding again, Billy, weak and hallucinatory from loss of blood from his injury, is struck and killed by a truck. The troupe gathers to say farewell to its fallen friend and king.

Aw shit, Morgan. Badcraziness.

A subplot deals with Pippin (Warner Shook) coming to terms with his homosexuality and finding love with Punch (Randy Kovitz).

Thematically, the story reflects the choice many artists make between a “pure” expression of their vision (whatever it may be), and compromise to achieve commercial success. As an independent director of mostly low-budget films, George Romero is clearly sympathetic to the artist.

- This week’s review courtesy of Wikipedia

Tuesday, November 22nd

Film starts at 9pm

Otto’s Shrunken Head

538 East 14st (between Ave A & B)

As always, free popcorn and $2 Vehicular Bingo

Oh great American multitude and sports fans everywhere

Oh 2000, now so far in the rear view mirror. If only you were closer than you seem. How I miss the rule of the fascist police state we once knew as the United Providences. Oh Mr. P. How we loved you, and you loved us. Will we ever again have a president who knew what we wanted, and what was good for us. Who watched us thrill at the catastrophic gore of the great 1979 Highway Pile Up. Who saw how it cheered our deadened souls and so instituted promptly there after, the great and glorious Transcontinental Road Race.

Euthenasia day at the geriatric center. They do it every year.

What a great day that was each year there after, when we had our blood lust satiated by those brave drivers and their lovely navigators gunning it for California in a cloud of exhaust fumes and the sweet stench of burning fossil fuels. How we thrilled at their detours to run down men, women and children alike for 10, 30, yes even 100 points a pop. Oh, our joyous Hit & Run heroes of the millennium road. And as is always the case, even this gilded class of deadly racers has their own hero. Our own righteous racer. The man torn limb from limb and yet risen year after year to claim his place by Mr. P as the one and only victorious winner of the annual Transcontinental Race…We loved you, dear disemboweler of the masses. Frankenstein Lives!!!!!

In the name of humanity. Let operation Anti Race begin!

Who at the time would have thought in such a blissful and bloody utopia as this, a sinister, underground resistance would be brewing? Who could fathom not just an ill-informed sole, but yes a whole movement of ‘citizens’ so hateful of our national past time, our patriotic rite and joy, that they would rise up to strike against our horsepower heroes. All this hatred, just to save the lives of a few paltry, yet valiant pedestrians. Their movement based solely on the selfish notion that pedestrians lives are devalued by becoming a speed bump for glory. Do we not smother their loved ones with material wealth? Do we not bury them at the state’s expense and drape them with all the honors owed them as the victorious fallen of our great land?

You’re blocking me Cleopatra! My fans want to see me.

And so it was, on this now historic day of the Transcontinental Race, the 20^th annual to be exact, that we watched through the eyes of our friends on TV, as the best of the best peeled out from the starting line in New York City. Oh, how their names would go down in infamy…

Whoever named your car the Bull… was only half right!

Calamity Jane, Nero the Hero, Matilda the Hun, Machine Gun Joe, and of course our own, beloved, masked, Frankenstein. But why, oh why on this year after 3 straight wins with only a lost leg, arm and eye to show for them, did dear Frankenstein take such a risk to put his life and win in the hands of an unknown co-pilot, this blonde vixen, Annie, lovely as she may have been.

Anne: Wait a minute. I don’t want you to die.

Frankenstein: It’s my life’s work

And so it began. But not as in years past. This time, as they barreled through state after state, they were met with acts of roadrunner style sabotage. Our dear  racers being picked off one by one along their victory ride. oh how we cringed as the teams’ own kill numbers began to rival the valiant kill point scores.

You know Myra, some people might think you’re cute. But me, I think you’re one very large baked potato.

How could we ever have believed as we watched, that these acts of heresy, treason even, reeking havoc on our heroes was not the work of the dastardly French (as it always is) as the news reported so eloquently, but instead that of this new and cancerous resistance, led by Thomasina Paine? And oh the horror as it became clear the resistance was being guided from within by their own navigator of dissention, the lovely but diabolical Annie  (Thomasina’s own granddaughter), sitting beside our own dear Frankenstein!

She was a great, dear friend of mine and I shall remember her forever howling down that freeway in the sky, knocking over… the angels.

How hard it is to this day, to believe what unfolded as the remaining chariots of patriotism approached California. Splattered in victorious gore and eager to claim their prize and shake the hand of dear Mr. P.  So hard to believe our own news announcers, those beloved TV friends, could have been wrong about the French. For again friends, it has always been the French.

Well, what does she expect? You leave your navigator lying around, naturally somebody is going to run over him.

Glued to the TV as the finish line approached, with only one car left to reach it, that of our own, dear Frankenstein. That masked and battered defender of liberty, the sole competitor and rightful winner, climbed the stairs of victory to be embraced by Mr. P. Just then, a gun shot rang out and our masked racer fell.

Your life, in return for the permanent abolition of the race

While from the crowd, that dastardly Thomasina Paine invoked the name of the Resistance and swore death to the ‘transcontinental rape’ while brandishing the smoking pistol. In a rush, the mask was removed and our hero shown to be an imposter. There she lay. Agent Annie, puppet of the resistance. Wounded and holding a knife in her pretty, treasonous hand. A shriek of horror from the crowd, as Thomasina saw she had in fact shot her own granddaughter.

You want to make love to me because I drive the Monster and wear this costume.

But then, it happened. And this friends, I will never fathom. Dear Frankenstein himself seeing Annie shot, guns his car direct at the podium and without thought, senselessly runs down nd kills our loyal leader, our own President. In one single moment, a life greater than all our combined snuffed out. So callous an assassination. As if Mr. P was only a pedestrian and not a president. Nothing more than a point kill.

As to this matter of violence…

And with that, dear friends, we lost our race forever. The new millennium was upon us. One where Frankenstein, now no true patriots’ hero, nor even a valiant race worn cripple, as we came to learn his amputations were no ore than a costume, was president. With Annie beside him and Thomasina as a second, and this land of ours now run by the once underground resistance became a place where a single, lowly life is more important than the whole. Oh that I could lie down once more in front of a proud racer, my point value pinned proudly to my chest and at ease in my heart that Mr. P and the TV friends would carry on for my brethren. Maintaining our daily contentment, and protecting us from ourselves. We Loved you. Oh how we loved you.

10 points!

Produced by legendary Roger Corman, directed by the late cult filmmaker Paul Bartel, and starring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone, this one is for my father, Bill Mantlo. My hero and defender of justice who would maniacally scream ‘10 points!‘ every time a little old lady walked in front of our car. It took me ’til I was 14 to get the reference.

- Corinna

Tuesday, November 8nd

Film starts at 9pm

Otto’s Shrunken Head

538 East 14st (between Ave A & B)

As always, free popcorn and $2 Vehicular Bingo

It’s that time of year again! This Wednesday November 9th, join our heroes of the highway, those rascals of he open road, those….umm

…insert road here… 

whack jobs who drive questionable vehicles at ill-advised speeds from the seedy underbelly of the Brooklyn Bridge straight through to the foggy peaks of San Francisco’s Goldengate for the annual running of the wrecks…The 2904!

Wednesday night, November 9^th, we will be downing drinks in their honor (yes, let’s send them off Thursday morning with a fitting hangover…it is an endurance challenge after all) at Otto’s Shrunken Head. Festivities on Wednesday start around 8pm. Come by to buy them a beer, recount tales of the road and oggle the ‘mighty’ steeds they’ve chosen to race this year

…But BEFORE that, swing by Otto’s Tuesday the 8th to get yourself up to speed on the origin of this crazy tradition…yes, that’s right, somewhere in their road hazed brains, this The 2904 thing was conceived and inspired in part by the one, the only Cannon Ball Run, and we’ll be screening it. ….’Cause Thursday they Drive!!!!

- Corinna Mantlo

Marchioness of Motors

The 2904

The Cannonball Run (1981)

Somewhere in the dark automotive recesses of our collective Gen X youth lies a film of such power and influence that it spawned an insatiable desire in a generation of gearheads to dress up like priests and drive across the country soused in Magnum P.I.’s Ferrari. That film, of course, is The Cannonball Run (1981).

Starring a who’s who of legends, has-beens, and almost stars The Cannonball Run may be the ultimate intersection of 1970′s booze and drug fueled cool. All you need to do is read the cast list and you realize you idolized, impersonated or masturbated to one of these people at least once in your life. Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore, Farrah Fawcett, Jackie Chan, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Fonda, Adrienne Barbeau, Terry Bradshaw, Mel Tillis, and Dom DeLuise.
Based on the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an actual cross-country outlaw road race from the Red Ball Garage in New York City to Redondo Beach, California the film is a strange mixture of fact and fiction collected from the 5 runnings of The Cannonball from 1971-1979.  The only rules were there were no rules. You just had to drive your vehicle as fast as could from coast to coast. To add more legitimacy to the proceeding the film’s director Hal Needham and the movie’s screenwriter and Cannonball founder Brock Yates ran the final Cannonball in the very ambulance used by Burt Reynolds in the film.

In fact most of the shenanigans in the film are based on real Cannonball events. Men dressed as priests? Check. A fake ambulance with a real doctor and a fake patient? Check. A “road legal” stock car? Check. Hot all girl team? Check. Foreigners in a Roll-Royce? Check. Two guys on a motorcycle? Check. All Needham had to do was set the wheels in motion and Reynolds, Dom DeLuise (one of the best comic duos ever) and their drugged/drunk Hollywood buddies did the rest.

An unforgettable product of a bygone era of gonzo races and gonzo film-making. Unfortunately a movie like this will never be made again. Unless they make a movie of The 2904. But that is another story…

Tuesday, November 1st

Film starts at 9pm

Otto’s Shrunken Head

538 E. 14th street (A & B)

Free popcorn & $2 vehicular bingo for prizes!

It’s said that the West was built on legends. Tall tales that help us make sense of things too great or too terrifying to believe. This is the legend of the Ghost Rider. The thing about legends is… sometimes, they’re true.

Think you’re a hotshot, aint’cha boy

A young Johnny Blaze (Matt Long) and father Barton Blaze (Brett Cullen) are a local death riding, carnie act. When Johnny’s pop gets sick, Johnny’s visited by the Devil  Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda), who offers a cure for his pop’s the cancer…and it will only cost him his SOUL.

One day, when I need you, I will come.

Of course he doesn’t think twice. Who ever does in such situations really? Of course little does he know the sting of the double-edged sword wielded by the Devil. For after signing his name and sealing the deal, pops’ cancer is cured, but he is promptly killed performing a fiery stunt anyway.

forget about friends, forget about family, forget about love. You’re mine, Johnny Blaze

Crushed, Johnny takes off after sweetheart Roxanne Simpson (Raquel Alessi), who’s being sent away to live with her mom, but the devil has other plans for him. Stops him dead in his tracks on the highway. Roxanne is gone and Johnny’s fate is sealed.

You can’t live in fear

Years later. Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage), now a dark and sullen daredevil, performing record breaking stunts with a complete disregard for his own life and an unbelievable knack for Cheating death. Hes unstoppable, but soulless.

Before a show, Johnny is reunited with Roxanne, the love of his life. The one that got away, now a television reporter sent to interview him. Seeing this as his second chance, he fights for win her back. Still bitter, thinking he abandoned her all those years ago, she’s reluctant, but finally agrees to a date…

I might not have power of you in this world, but my rider does

…Of course right before he’s set to meet her at the restaurant, who shows up but the Devil to cash in on the deal they signed all those years ago. Johnny must reclaim the contract. In exchange, he can win back his soul, but it doesn’t matter he has no choice anyway. And in a fiery blaze, against his will, he and his motorbike are transformed into… The Ghost Rider. Falling right into his roll, he takes on Blackheart (Wes Bentley), Mephistopheles ‘own son who’s returned to earth to build an army of fallen angels to help him find the contract of San Venganza. Which, legend has it was stolen and hidden in a graveyard not far from there, and he wants it for his own.

Mornin’ bone head

As the sun rises, he is returned to human form and finds himself at his father’s grave, in the yard of a remote church. The Caretaker (Sam Elliott) seems to know exactly who Johnny is and why he’s there. He tells him of the curse. How he will by day be normal, but in the presence of evil by night turn into the rider. And of how nothing will ever break the curse.

I, uh, sold my soul to the Devil…that’s how come I missed dinner

Hauled in by the cops on suspicion of involvement in the crimes, Johnny’s thrown in jail…where as day becomes night, he turns into the rider, steals a studded jacket off a hooligan and leaves through melted bars. With the cops ehem..hot on his heels, he tears through the city. Roxanne who’s been covering the Biker Bar Massacre and the seemingly related deaths that begin to pile up in town is on the scene and the minute she sees the Ghost Rider, she knows it’s Johnny and that the wild story of not making dinner because he is an unwilling agent of the Devil, was in fact the truth.

Forgive me father for I have sinned…I’ve sinned  a lot.

Blackheart finally tracks the contract of San Venganza, the key to hell on Earth, at the church. He beats up the Caretaker who won’t tell him where it is, He takes Roxanne hostage, knows Johnny’s the key to getting it and will do anything to save her.

Let’s ride!

Johnny and the Caretaker, in fact Carter Slade, the Ghost Rider of legend that outrode the devil 150 years ago, hop on their steeds and ride out together for San Venganza. Only able to change one last time, Slade leaves Johnny at the town limits. He’s got nothing left. Johnny takes on the fallen angels one by one until finally battling Blackheart, who gets the contract away from him and summons the souls condemned within. And with that he becomes…Legion (for we are many).

I’m the only one who can walk in both worlds. I’m the Ghost Rider.

Legion, having now what he wanted, let’s Roxanne go. Johnny could walk away and have his second chance, but he can’t do it. Instead he stays to fight. Unable to defeat Blackheart before, as he had no soul…now that he has many, he is, by the very souls of the innocent he has taken, defeatable.

No. I’m gonna own this curse and use it against you.

With the battle won, and the dust beginning to settle, Mephistopheles returns and offers Johnny back his freedom. Let some one else take up the curse of the Ghost Rider he says, but Johnny refuses. And with the pledge that he will be there wherever the blood of the innocent is shed, the Devil is vanquished…if only for the moment.

This is what you are. What you were always meant to be.

Roxanne loves him, but knows she must let him go. And with a last kiss under the tree that bears their initials from when they were kids, she sends Johnny off to fulfill his destiny.

It’s said that the West was built on legends. And that legends are a way of understanding things greater than ourselves. Forces that shape our lives, events that defy explanation. Individuals whose lives soar to the heavens or fall to the earth. This is how legends are born.

- Corinna Mantlo

(Issue #16 that my pops wrote for the Ghost Rider series)

The legend of the Ghost Rider (the original Marvel comic of course)

Long ago, the demon Zarathos began building a tremendous power base for himself. His penchant for human souls led him into conflicts with foes such as the Blood cult and the vile Mephisto, who saw Zarathos as a rival. Mephisto ultimately tricked and enslaved Zarathos, rendering the demon amnesiac and trapping him in various mortal forms over many years. This torture eventually dovetailed with another pastime of Mephisto’s – the search for the Medallion of Power, a mystical artifact crafted by the Blood that housed the essence of the original Spirits of Vengeance. The medallion had been broken into shards and embedded into the spiritual bloodline of two families. One of these bloodlines, the Kales, attracted Mephisto’s attention in the 18th century when Noble Kale‘s shard of the Medallion transformed him into a Spirit of Vengeance, the Ghost Rider. Mephisto failed to corrupt Noble at this time, but he kept track of the Kale clan from then on, watching as Noble manifested in the firstborn of every generation. - Read the whole legend of Marvel’s Ghost Rider HERE

The upcoming sequel, riding into theaters February 17th, 2012