Welcome to a very special, spook-tacular edition of Kevin’s Korner. This week, as we get our costumes ready, our tricks perfected and our tolerance for candy pushed to its peak. Plus, I have some great movie news, including scary tale involving a Spider-Man villain, the newest film from the Broken Lizard crew, and so much more. So, grab some candy corn and read on. And have a great (and safe) Halloween!
At Thrill the World, St. Pete joins MJ fans across the world in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for Largest Simultaneous Dance — i
n this case, the famous, phantasmic Thriller dance. The Pier hosts music, food, activities and a pre-dance lesson for anyone who needs to learn the monster moves. Then, Michael Jackson achieves what no world leader ever has: a world united – united by zombies. No word on whether Obama’s participating, but we hope to see everyone from the local Blockbuster guy to the Prez paying tribute to the one-gloved man. Come in your most dashing undead duds, and an on-site make-up artist adds scabs and scars to make sure that you thrill and terrify like the real thing. Sat., Oct. 24, 6:30 p.m. sign-in, 8:30 p.m. dance, The Pier, 800 Second Ave. N.E., St. Petersburg, free admission; $5 zombie make-up, thrillstpete.com. – Franki Weddington
Hello voracious readers, welcome to heaven. Seriously, the St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading is a nice reminder that in 2009, people still read theses little things called books. Held on the USF St. Petersburg campus, this lovely celebration of the written word features book signings, panel discussions, entertainment, family activities, refreshments, and various booksellers and exhibitors. There are also book signings by Read the rest of this entry »
The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s incredible tale of ongoing survival horror, is THE most consistently great comic book series on shelves today. It’s so good, that it’s being developed into a television series for AMC (the same folks airing the critically acclaimed drama Mad Men). Image Comics has been publishing The Walking Dead for almost six years now and there hasn’t been a bad issue yet. Trust me, I have them all. This wealth of a back-story should give AMC plenty of fantastic material to work with when the show finally gets started next year.
Green Halloween This inaugural “eek-o-friendly” event offers a pumpkin patch cake walk, a “best green costume” contest, bobbing for organic apples, making a Halloween goodie bag from recycled magazines, and a sweet-n-scary selection of healthy treats. Visit greenhalloween.org for more info. Fri., Oct. 23, 3:30-6:30 p.m., Hyde Park Village, Tampa.
Zombie Weekend A cadre of creepy films await on Friday, including Night of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead (pictured), and a special zombi-fied version of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Saturday features more family-friendly (but still freaky) flicks like Ghostbusters, Gremlins, House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler — which, thanks to the shocking power of the theater’s Percepto system, will actually make you tingle! Visit beachtheatre.com for full schedule. Oct. 23-24, Beach Theatre, St. Pete Beach, $5 Friday; free family movies Saturday.
Horror Fest The Sunscreen Film Festival presents a cadre of chilling cinema – and then fills you in on how to get onscreen yourself. At the Horror Fest workshops, acting coach Mark Durso explains his Uta Hagen technique; Twilight casting director Lana Veenker (whose advice you may or may not heed, depending on your opinion of her vapid vampires) explores “How to Break into the Film Biz without Living in Hollywood” and “Auditioning for Film and TV”; and special effects make-up artist John Rusnak leads a horror make-up workshop. Spooky special movie screenings include indie or limited release flicks like Trick ‘r Treat (starring True Blood’s Anna Paquin, appropriately enough), Deadfall Trail, Sauna and Evil Things. A haunted Halloween party follows Saturday’s films. Oct. 23-25, Mark Durso and Lana Veenker Workshops 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat.-Sun., The Studio@620, 620 First Ave. S., St. Petersburg; Horror Fest Screenings, 7 and 9 p.m. Fri. –Sat., John Rusnak Workshop, Noon, Sat., Muvico Baywalk 20, 151 Second Ave. N., St. Petersburg; $8 per movie; $25 four-movie pass and make-up workshop; $125 full access pass, visit sunscreenfilmfestival.com for detailed schedule. – Franki Weddington
Hit the break for more events, and check back as we add to the list of spooky spectacles. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to On the Radar, where we preview up-and-coming arts events to mark your calendar for. This Saturday, St. Pete joins Michael Jackson fans across the world in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for Largest Simultaneous Dance — in this case, the famed zombie-rific Thriller dance.
The Pier hosts Thrill the World, with music, food, activities and a pre-dance lesson for anyone who needs to learn the monster moves. Then, MJ achieves what no world leader ever has: a world united … by dancing cadavers. Read the rest of this entry »
Miss Destructo: Zombie Hunter
When you think of Orlando, you may think of Mickey Mouse and the tourist-filled, neon-lit strip of International Drive. However, now all I see is Mickey’s zombiefied clone terrorizing tourists and International Drive becoming a twisted nightmare of ghoulish zombies … oh and Jake Busey.
My family has some strange traditions. For the last three years, we’ve packed up the whole crew to go to Orlando for the horror-themed convention Spooky Empire (formerly known as Screamfest). It’s a three-day-long event full of celebrity panels, vendors selling gory goods and infamously wild late night pool parties. Read more about Spooky Empire and watch the video after the jump…. Read the rest of this entry »
Living with a small cock must be something like being a zombie. You are stricken with a horrifying disease that controls your every move, causing you to perform inane acts all around town and in the barns of Pasco County. Contrary to popular opinion, you don’t have to have a small dick to suffer from this condition. All you really need is insecurity. This can be caused by any number of things: lack of intelligence, lack of hair, lack of funds, and yes, a lack of penis.
It’s the classic philosophical puzzler that ultimately led to the death of Socrates: who would win in a fight between plants and zombies? And just like plants beat Socrates, if you play your seeds right, so too will they defeat the oncoming zombie hordes. It won’t be easy. It will take a lot of mouse clicks. Some plants won’t survive the war. But in the end, Plants vs. Zombies is totally worth it.
There’s no doubt that it’s a name meant to provoke laughter and interest. Zombies are all over the place these days (at least in video games), and everyone from Call of Duty: World at War to lowly little desktop casual games like this one are trying to jump on the hot, new moldering corpse bandwagon. Plant vs. Zombies belongs in that loose category of Tower Defense games – you control some base of some sort (in this case, your house) and you need to array and organize your defenses (in this case plants) against the oncoming baddies (yep, zombies). Each level brings new zombies, new challenges, and of course, new plants.
First of all, let’s get the big question out of the way first: Is Resident Evil 5 a racist videogame? Not really. It’s just racially insensitive and culturally clumsy. More on that in a bit. The second big question: Is Resident Evil 5 a good game? Yes it is, depending on how you play it, except for the parts that suck.
Capcom had a daunting challenge to follow up the almost universally adored and acclaimed Resident Evil 4, a fun, cool, strange, challenging game that re-wrote a lot of the rules of the standard survival horror series and was almost the only reason to buy a Nintendo Gamecube. Resident Evil 5 tries to build on that success, and it definitely feels like a successor. It controls much the same way, has some enemies that carry over from the last game and has just as nonsensical a plot. It’s also shorter, more streamlined and maybe more racist (again, more on that in a bit).
Not content to rest on their hot-frying-pan-to-the-face laurels, Capcom has announced today that brains, blood, guts, and more are coming to the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC with an all-new sequel to their 2006 zombie-stomping favorite, Dead Rising with Dead Rising 2. Now it may just be because I’m reading through World War Z at the moment, but I await the slaughter of a new zombie horde with gleeful anticipation.
For those not familiar with the original Dead Rising, the government was meddling with genetics, thereby causing a rather nasty breakout of zombies. In the first game, the ending leaves some doubt as to whether or not the infestation has been contained. This time, the story is set several years after the Williamette shopping mall invasion, and sure enough – the zombies were not wiped out at the end. Set in an adult casino haven called Fortune Falls, players can expect “a host of new in-game objects that can all be used as deadly weapons to stave off the zombie assault” in Dead Rising 2 – and apparently a giant human sized light-up hamster ball to travel in. Another interesting bit is that Keiji Inafune returns as the producer for DR2, although the game is being developed in partnership with Blue Castle Games from Canada this time around as opposed to an all in-house Capcom team.
Curious to see a taste of the braaaaaaains to come? Check behind the cut for the tasty Dead Rising 2 trailer.
I will never be the same person again. Sundance marked a transition in my life, and there is no turning back. I cannot escape the vortex into which I have fallen. I have always liked movies (I rarely ever saw one I did not like) but never realized that they would be my life’s ambition. And that is how Sundance changed my life: It opened my eyes.
I did not try to go star gazing. I did not try to make it into any fashionable parties. I threw away all the bull that goes along with Sundance and got to its essence. I completely immersed myself into each film I saw. So much so that I do not know if I could remember all the films I saw. Some stuck in my mind: a gay zombie movie [Otto, or up with Dead People], a great baseball flick [Sugar], and a documentary outlining the country’s economic collapse [IOUSA] (”hate to say I told you so” comes to mind), but the entire experience changed me. I thought, “wow, not only is this the greatest thing that has come into my life, but I can do it too.” And so it began, my rocky but enthused trip into trying to make films. How will it all turn out? We will see.
Algenis Perez Soto plays a Dominican pitcher in Iowa in "Sugar"
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