I'll never forget the first horror film I saw. I was thirteen and my friend's older brother decided that we should all watch Evil Dead together. I remember thinking it was the most insane thing I'd ever seen and I'll likely never be able to erase the pencil-gouged-in-the-ankle scene from my otherwise pure mind. Way to go writer/director Sam Riami! Anyway, the point is that horror films (even the lazy, shitty ones generally) are awesome and that our friend and all round horror-connoisseur, Rachael Cotra, has curated a festival full of the incredible, thoughtful, scary and strangely beautiful variety that you should definitely get along to see. The launch is happening tonight at the Rooftop Bar at Curtain House with entertainment provided by Das Butcher and DJs Dark Cheese and Rabid Wastoid.
The 1891 Treaty of Madrid was the first bilateral agreement to recognise France’s sole right to use the word Champagne. Since then, a slew of other rulings have followed, cementing that agreement in pretty much every market in the world. That’s why these days, when you think of Champagne, you think of France. What this is getting at is that in 1977, when Poland tried to claim the sole production rights of its national drink Wodka, it wasn’t such a crazy idea. Certainly not as crazy as Cadbury trying to trademark the colour purple. Sadly for them, the superpower formally known as the USSR saw it differently, successfully contesting and defeating Poland in an international court. Naturally, poor Poland has been griping about it ever since. (That and everything else, seriously, what’s with Polish people and griping?)
All racial stereotypes aside, what if that ruling was wrong? What if the Poles was robbed?
Whenever a criminal act takes place in Sweden our whole society gasps for air and says, "Things like this just do not happen in Sweden." Suck on it Svensson: IT DOES. Recently we learned that Sweden has the most rapes per capita in Europe, which sounds totally unbelievable for such a calm and peace loving nation. Why is there a picture of a helicopter attached to this story? Everything's all crazy now!
Rutger Hauer isn't the only one with a fancy film school. If you read our Film Issue interview with Werner Herzog, you might remember his teaser. He refused to reveal the name, stating that it was so good he had to trademark it first lest somebody swipe it from him. Well, we're happy to announce that Werner has announced that his Rogue Film School is open for business. It is not for bespectacled, beret-wearing sycophants who dress in black, as anyone familiar with the man's work might surmise. Instead it's for "those who have travelled on foot, who have worked as bouncers in sex clubs or wardens in a lunatic asylum, for those who are willing to learn about lock-picking or forging shooting permits in countries not favoring their projects."
You know who Rutger Hauer is. He's a badass. He's played in over 100 movies, and here's a list of our favourites: Blind Fury, Wedlock, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Sin City and Blade Runner. That's right, Blade fucking Runner. Luckily for film as a genre, Rutger's now spreading his awesomeness around by giving yearly master classes for groups of professionals and students of film at the same time. They're held in the city of Rotterdam, in Rutger's home country the Netherlands. If you're one of the Chosen Ones to attend, you'll not only make a short movie under Rutger Hauer's tutelage, you'll also be given lectures by people like Paul Verhoeven and Roberto Rodriguez, and in the past, Chris Nolan as well. All right, enough name dropping, here's the interview.
On January 4th, 1965, a confused young sergeant in the US military named Charles Jenkins drank ten beers before setting off on his nightly patrol duty along the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, where he had been serving for the past year. Having previously been shuffled back and forth between South Korea and US outposts across Europe, he feared his next deployment would be in war-torn Vietnam. Replaying in his mind the horror stories he’d heard of the battles going on in south-east Asia and afraid of dying in the jungle, in his boozy haze he made a snap decision. Drunkenly he stumbled over the border into North Korea with his hands in the air, giving himself up to his communist enemies. He would remain there for 40 years before escaping.
As everyone knows, President Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in New York today. On the table for discussion: the necessity for the immediate start of peace talks between Jon and Kate. Just kidding--Obama met with the leaders in the hopes that long-stalled peace negotiations between the two countries can be resumed. Obvs. To mark the occasion (and to promote their monthlong North American tour), our friends in everyone's favorite Israeli garage-rock band, Monotonix, (read an interview here, whydontcha) sent us a sweetly trippy mix of their favorite Israeli songs.
Trouble likes to present itself on Tuesdays, and Ron is always to the rescue like a superhero-cum-debt-negotiator-for-a-magazine come to life. He is all the courage a fretful teen needs to tell his dad he’s sorry for smoking marijuana. And that’s exactly what our problem is today. Keep reading for the resolution to this age-old dilemma.
Japanese office culture is strange. People in business together don't talk, ever, except for a couple times a year when they spend five obligatory days getting absolutely smashed and passing out all over the city because it's expected of them. Afterward, they revert to how things were and don't discuss what happened. In the middle of this wave of festivities, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning headed into Shinjuku, land o' plenty when it comes to hostess bars, love hotels, and nightclubs... and right now drunken salarymen napping in the street with homeless people. If it weren't for the sort of clean clothes I probably couldn't tell them apart. Let's play a game called Holiday or Homeless!
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