Joseph Gervasi co-founder of Exhumed Films

Recently, there’s been a decline in the number of horror movies on the big screen. But Philadelphians who still love fake blood have Exhumed Films. Exhumed puts together screenings of classic horror and grind house films using 35 and 16mm prints, not DVDs. Some of the films Exhumed has screened include horror classics like Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2, and John Carpenter’s  The Thing.

Exhumed Films was founded in 1997 in Blackwood, NJ, by “Four jerks who sort of were friendly with each other (and) wanted to see if we could show two films at a theater,” said Joseph Gervasi, 38, Exhumed Films co-founder with  Dan Fraga, Harry Guerro, and Jesse Nelson.

“We procured these two film prints, these 35mm prints, and we figured, at worst, we’d be watching these two movies by ourselves, and at best, maybe a few people would come out,” recalled Gervasi. To the group’s surprise many people did show up to their event.

“We didn’t really have the mass penetration of the internet,” he said. “We didn’t really have that resource to get the word out.”

Exhumed Films has gone through several theaters for screenings.

“They’ve all [the theaters] just successively closed down around our feet,” said Gervasi. Exhumed Films currently calls the International House, located at 3701 Chestnut St. in Philadelphia, home.  It’s a real step-up.

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The title of the new album will be Black Gives Way to Blues. When the band went on tour after reuniting in 2005 they brought on William DuVall, formerly of Comes with the Fall, as their vocalist, who also sings on this album. Alice in Chains recently made one of the new tracks, titled A Looking in View, available for free download on their website, aliceinchains.com.

Whenever a band does a comeback album, especially when one of the original members has passed, there is the worry that the sound may change or that the band will attempt to stray from the things that made them great in the past. For instance, when Metallica released St. Anger after a six year hiatus, the album was greatly anticipated and fell far short of expectations.

Read the full article at http://www.theprinceofallmedia.com/off-beat/

The plot of the movie takes place on the surface of the Moon, surprising I know. The movie revolves; no pun intended, around Sam Bell, Sam Rockwell, who works for a company which harvests Helium 3 from the surface of the moon as it is the primary fuel source in this future. Sam is the sole worker on this Helium farm, except for a computer system named Gerty, voiced by Kevin Spacey, who is designed to help him.

Sam is contracted to work on the moon by himself for three years, and as the movie opens that contract is coming to an end. One day there is an accident as Sam goes out to service one of the harvesters. When he awakens Sam discovers a man who looks exactly like himself. That’s about all I can tell you about the plot without giving away too much.

Read the full article at http://www.theprinceofallmedia.com/off-beat/

Thomas Mates can be reached at mates.thomas@gmail.com, myspace.com/freelance_journalist215, twitter.com/tmates, and on facebook.

Anvil is a Canadian metal band made up of Steve “Lips” Kudlow; guitar and vocals, Robb Reiner; drums, and Glen Five; bass. They have recorded 13 albums over the course of a 30+ year career, are considered the godfathers of thrash metal, were a direct influence on Metallica and are highly praised among their peers in the music community. However, knowledge of their work was not very widespread until recently, when director Sacha Gervasi (The Terminal) approached the band to make Anvil, the Story of Anvil, a documentary about where they are now.

In 1982 Anvil hit it big with their second album, Metal on Metal. The next year, ’83, Anvil hit a wall. “We were derailed by a management company back in 1983 that pulled us out of our original record contract and left us hanging,” recalled Kudlow. He continued by saying “It took us about two and half years to get released from his management so we could continue on and make records… by that time many of the bands that were in and around us had risen far beyond where we had been. We were over looked, simple as that.” This would certainly be a cautionary tale for any band starting out. Many bands would have called it quits after this, but Anvil soldiered on. The original line-up of the band featured Dave Allison, back-up vocals and rhythm guitar, and Ian Dickson, bass. The original four-piece set dissolved, “about fifteen years ago,” according to Kudlow. In 1996 Glen Five joined the band and has been with them ever since.

Read the full article at http://www.theprinceofallmedia.com/off-beat/

Thomas Mates can be reached at mates.thomas@gmail.com, myspace.com/freelance_journalist215, twitter.com/tmates, and on facebook.

By Thomas Mates

If you still pine for the days when Saved by the Bell was still on the air and it was worth it to wake up early for Saturday morning cartoons then you have probably heard of the Nostalgia Critic, on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com. Every Wednesday, the Nostalgia Critic updates his site with reviews of movies and television shows most twenty-somethings grew up with. The Nostalgia Critic in real life is Chicago native Douglas Walker, 27.

Walker was a film major at NIU, Northern Illinois University. “I was actually going to go into film for a living, but the more I grew up the more I realized that I’d probably have to deal with Hollywood and I’m not really a huge fan of Hollywood,” said Walker.

After college Walker made a living doing illustration and design. He then started his career on the internet through YouTube. “I started posting these five second movies; they were like famous movies reduced down to five seconds… those seemed to catch on really big time on the YouTube community.”

From there Walker went on to create a character called the Nostalgia Critic, an angry reviewer of all things nostalgic who, “remembers it so you don’t have to.” After the Critic took off Walker was approached by Mike Michaud, who Walker knew through a friend in college. “Really the reason the site exists is because of him [Michaud].”

Read the full article at muchgeek.com

Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day are two beloved films in the Action/Sci-Fi, genre. Last time Hollywood tried to do something with the series, we got Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which if you haven’t seen this movie, don’t. The basic plot of the movie is Arnold’s back, there’s a female Terminator (who is strangely not arousing despite being a blonde, murder machine in tight leather), and then there’s a surprise twist ending where the audience finds out the whole movie sucked.

So, now we have Terminator: Salvation. I can at least assure you that it’s better than T3. The action sequences are well shot, though they do suffer from shaky camera syndrome at times. The casting was pretty good as well, except for Helena Bonham Carter. She seems very out of place in the movie, but that may just be because she’s not playing a heroine addict or a Goth chick.

Read the full article at http://www.theprinceofallmedia.com/off-beat/

Thomas Mates can be reached at mates.thomas@gmail.com, myspace.com/freelance_journalist215, twitter.com/tmates, and on facebook.

Orchestra Green is a band from Blairstown, N.J. Ben Nagel, guitar and vocals, describes their sound as “for lack of better term, an alternative, indie, pop, rock band.” Orchestra Green formed in late February, when Adam Barber, drums, and Ben met while at college.

Ben’s brother Matt rounds out the band on bass and vocals. The band’s name comes from Ben and Matt’s great grandfather, who played the violin in an orchestra in Italy called “Orchestra Verde.” Verde means green in Italian. “We did a little swap and that was the band name,” said Matt.

Originally, the band also featured a keyboard player who left to pursue a career in literature, but the split was on good terms. “We’re all still best of friends,” said Barber.

Read the full article at http://www.theprinceofallmedia.com/off-beat/

Thomas Mates can be reached at mates.thomas@gmail.com, myspace.com/freelance_journalist215, twitter.com/tmates, and on facebook.

Here an example of my skills with Photo Shop. The entire magazine cover was done in photo shop. The zombie in the photo is my buddy Matt Bartle, who also did all his own make up.

Thomas Mates can be reached at mates.thomas@gmail.com, on myspace at myspace.com/freelance_journalist215, and on facebook.