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Same as before, just picking up where I left off.
"My Tribute to the King of Comedy Spoofs - Mel Brooks"
"I always liked funny movies, but there was a time when there existed a level ABOVE funny. Movies that were outrageous. The king of that genre was Mel Brooks. He's influenced so much of our humor today and I recently read his memoir 'All About Me', so I figured it's about time for Cinemassacre to pay tribute to him!"
I couldn't help but think while watching this that someday, there might be people making videos like this about James Rolfe himself. Anyway, yeah, there are definitely some Mel Brooks movies I haven't seen yet. I need to get on that at some point.
"What Happened to Saturday Morning Cartoons?"
"Remember Saturday Morning Cartoons? From the 60s until the 90s, the 3 big TV networks, ABC, CBS and NBC would show a block of cartoons every Saturday, generally from 8am till Noon or 1, give or take. So let’s look back at this tradition to remember a bunch of shows I used to watch. We’ll talk about the reasons for the decline, and how I feel about it today."
As a guy who is only a year or two older than James Rolfe is (James is 42, and I'll be 44 in less than a month), this one definitely hits home. The latter half of the video, where he starts talking about the decline of this phenomenon/ritual/whatever you want to call it, is almost somber in tone, even a bit depressing, in a way. But, mostly, it was just intensely nostalgic. Same with after-school cartoons in the afternoon and evenings on weekdays (every single weekday, from around 2-3pm to around 6-7pm or so), which you don't really see anymore, either, as James also mentions. Yeah, cartoons are obviously still around, and you can watch most of them pretty much whenever you want now, which is great and all, but as James said above, it's... just not quite the same. Not really.
And yeah, that Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue thing was pretty damn weird.
I watched all the Monster Madness things he did this year (some of them well before today), but I'm not going to embed those into this post.
Okay... maybe a couple.
"Halloween (1978) The Movies Within the Movie - Monster Madness"
"Every October, it's a tradition to watch the original John Carpenter's Halloween, but what about the horror movies the characters are watching in Halloween? It's a familiar trope, the movie within the movie, something to compliment what's actually happening in the film. It could be a tribute to the movies the director grew up, but could there be more of a reason why these movies are on the TV? Is there a reason why Carpenter chose The Thing (1951), Forbidden Planet, and Night of the Living Dead specifically, or, was it all at random? That's what I'm investigating today!"
It's kind of funny. I've talked in the past about how I generally don't read comic books, but I do read/watch a lot of stuff about comic books. And the same is true of horror movies. The number of horror movies I've personally seen can probably be counted on my hands with a few fingers left over, one of which was mentioned in the above video, Night of the Living Dead. But I've never seen The Thing (original or remake), nor Forbidden Planet, nor any of the Halloween movies, outside of clips like the above. But I do read/watch a buttload of shit about horror movies, not the least of which are things like these Monster Madness videos from James. And I find this one to be especially fascinating since James is juxtaposing several of the movies together, finding similarities and common themes and potential reasons for why those particular movies were used in Carpenter's Halloween the way they were.
---
"My Tribute to Roger Corman: The King of B Movies - Monster Madness"
"Today I want to celebrate Roger Corman, one of those most prolific filmmakers of all time. Few people have made as many films as Roger Corman and when you think low budget exploitation film, he’s the king. So today we honor the king! Director of over 50 movies and producer of more than another 500, Roger Corman has contributed so much to the film industry and is someone I think more people in the mainstream should know about."
I don't think I've ever seen a "Roger Corman movie." Sure, I've heard of Roger Corman, and heard of some of the movies he's made (e.g. The Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000, etc.), but I haven't actually seen any of them. That said, based on what James says of him here, it's easy to see why James would find Corman to be such an inspiration, given Mr. Rolfe's own body of work.
"Is The Shining a Christmas Movie?"
"Every holiday season, I feel the need to add another movie to the list of Christmas classics. If Batman Returns and Die Hard can be Christmas movies, why can't The Shining be?"
Sure, why not. The Shining is a Christmas movie. Or, more appropriately, an "anti-Christmas" movie, or a "winter solstice" movie, as James explains here. Yeah... as James himself admits multiple times in that video, it's all a real stretch, any way you look at it, but it was still pretty interesting.
"My Tribute to the King of Comedy Spoofs - Mel Brooks"
"I always liked funny movies, but there was a time when there existed a level ABOVE funny. Movies that were outrageous. The king of that genre was Mel Brooks. He's influenced so much of our humor today and I recently read his memoir 'All About Me', so I figured it's about time for Cinemassacre to pay tribute to him!"
I couldn't help but think while watching this that someday, there might be people making videos like this about James Rolfe himself. Anyway, yeah, there are definitely some Mel Brooks movies I haven't seen yet. I need to get on that at some point.
"What Happened to Saturday Morning Cartoons?"
"Remember Saturday Morning Cartoons? From the 60s until the 90s, the 3 big TV networks, ABC, CBS and NBC would show a block of cartoons every Saturday, generally from 8am till Noon or 1, give or take. So let’s look back at this tradition to remember a bunch of shows I used to watch. We’ll talk about the reasons for the decline, and how I feel about it today."
As a guy who is only a year or two older than James Rolfe is (James is 42, and I'll be 44 in less than a month), this one definitely hits home. The latter half of the video, where he starts talking about the decline of this phenomenon/ritual/whatever you want to call it, is almost somber in tone, even a bit depressing, in a way. But, mostly, it was just intensely nostalgic. Same with after-school cartoons in the afternoon and evenings on weekdays (every single weekday, from around 2-3pm to around 6-7pm or so), which you don't really see anymore, either, as James also mentions. Yeah, cartoons are obviously still around, and you can watch most of them pretty much whenever you want now, which is great and all, but as James said above, it's... just not quite the same. Not really.
And yeah, that Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue thing was pretty damn weird.
I watched all the Monster Madness things he did this year (some of them well before today), but I'm not going to embed those into this post.
Okay... maybe a couple.
"Halloween (1978) The Movies Within the Movie - Monster Madness"
"Every October, it's a tradition to watch the original John Carpenter's Halloween, but what about the horror movies the characters are watching in Halloween? It's a familiar trope, the movie within the movie, something to compliment what's actually happening in the film. It could be a tribute to the movies the director grew up, but could there be more of a reason why these movies are on the TV? Is there a reason why Carpenter chose The Thing (1951), Forbidden Planet, and Night of the Living Dead specifically, or, was it all at random? That's what I'm investigating today!"
It's kind of funny. I've talked in the past about how I generally don't read comic books, but I do read/watch a lot of stuff about comic books. And the same is true of horror movies. The number of horror movies I've personally seen can probably be counted on my hands with a few fingers left over, one of which was mentioned in the above video, Night of the Living Dead. But I've never seen The Thing (original or remake), nor Forbidden Planet, nor any of the Halloween movies, outside of clips like the above. But I do read/watch a buttload of shit about horror movies, not the least of which are things like these Monster Madness videos from James. And I find this one to be especially fascinating since James is juxtaposing several of the movies together, finding similarities and common themes and potential reasons for why those particular movies were used in Carpenter's Halloween the way they were.
---
"My Tribute to Roger Corman: The King of B Movies - Monster Madness"
"Today I want to celebrate Roger Corman, one of those most prolific filmmakers of all time. Few people have made as many films as Roger Corman and when you think low budget exploitation film, he’s the king. So today we honor the king! Director of over 50 movies and producer of more than another 500, Roger Corman has contributed so much to the film industry and is someone I think more people in the mainstream should know about."
I don't think I've ever seen a "Roger Corman movie." Sure, I've heard of Roger Corman, and heard of some of the movies he's made (e.g. The Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000, etc.), but I haven't actually seen any of them. That said, based on what James says of him here, it's easy to see why James would find Corman to be such an inspiration, given Mr. Rolfe's own body of work.
"Is The Shining a Christmas Movie?"
"Every holiday season, I feel the need to add another movie to the list of Christmas classics. If Batman Returns and Die Hard can be Christmas movies, why can't The Shining be?"
Sure, why not. The Shining is a Christmas movie. Or, more appropriately, an "anti-Christmas" movie, or a "winter solstice" movie, as James explains here. Yeah... as James himself admits multiple times in that video, it's all a real stretch, any way you look at it, but it was still pretty interesting.
