“Innocent Bystanders.” This is a 16mm film I made in college (Glassboro State College, now known as Rowan University). Shot in 1991. This is simply a VHS video camcorder pointed at a flat-bed steenbeck film editing screen. I re-edited the VHS on an Amiga Toaster around 1992.
I recently (2021) transferred the VHS to digital. I am hoping to do a 4K restoration soon.
Music by Kahlil Gunther
Written, produced, directed and edited by Matthew Kordelski.
Starring:
Laura Fonseca, Matt Reece, Dan Greenspan and George Jordan.
Production Assistants: Randall Deckard, John Perupchuck, Adam Paul, Jennifer Wiggleworth, R.J. Chester, Fred Feltz.
Film Advisor: Dr Joseph Bierman
Thanks to:
Dr Richard Grupenhoff, Cinema Workshop, Chris McDonough, Amy Donchey, Dennis Courtney, RITZ AT THE BOURSE Parking Garage, Ned Eckhardt, Rohn Wenner, Christopher Kuberiet.
This is an independent film/student film produced and directed by Laura Jean Carney in 1992.
I had a very small part of the crew in some scenes and I did the end credits on this amazing new invention called a Macintosh Computer.
Actors: Patty Gilson and Andrew Nelson,
Musical score by Andrew Nelson. Written and directed by Laura Carney.
Director of Photography: Maylon Price.
1st Assistant Camera: John Donaldson
2nd Assistant Camera: Bob Haines and Bill Paulino
Sound: Scott Hennely and April Carty
Production Manager: Christie Mahon
Teacher/Advisor: Joe Bierman
Title Graphics: Matt Kordelski
SPECIAL THANKS: Dennis Courtney, Sean O Leary, Mario Giorno, Blake Johnson, Joseph Marcello, Stephen Kwasnik, Amy Alexander, Ken Mandel, Walter Thomas IV, Dawn Cerruto, H. Sid Narulto, Dr. Richard Grupenhoff-PHD, NFL Films, Glassboro State College Cinema Workshop.
Theres many conspiracy theories about the alleged hidden meanings in Kubricks film THE SHINING.
Most are nonsense but some….. might have some merit.
Danny wears an Apollo 11 sweater.That and many other things alleged point to Kubrick hiding an admission that faked the real moon landings when he was making the film “2001”.
Baloney. Was Dannys sweater a reference to NASA and space travel? Of course it was. Kubrick spent many years researching and prepping “2001” so of course he was a NASA buff.So it was a “2001” easter egg. Did it mean anything more than that? I really doubt it. The numerology supposedly hidden in the film is nonsense.
Its really about the Native American “Holocaust”?Maybe, but even so thats more Stephen King than Kubrick. “This place was built over an ancient Indian burial ground”has been used in many many other horror stories. From “The Amityville Horror” to even the original “Poltergeist” ( “Ya sunnovab—ch you only moved the headstones and left the bodies!”*)
The fact that the “Colorado Lounge” is decorated in a Native American motif? Well, its in Colorado so of course its decorated with western US artifacts. A reference to the Native American bodies lying underneath the hotel?Maybe…. Probably.
When Wendy is talking to Dannys pediatrician, she is dressed in red and white, and off to the side is a Disney GOOFY doll dressed the same way was Wendy. Funny coincidence or is there other meaning?
I don’t think the fact that we don’t see the power cord of the TV playing “ Summer of 42” means anything other than the cord was in the back of the TV, unseen and plugged into the wall right behind it.
Up until Jack is released from the fridge locker… theres been nothing truly supernatural interacting with the natural wor’d. Most of the horror scenes could just be in Dannys imagination OR…… something Danny ( and or Jack) is “shining” / projecting out into the real word.
Do you think Jack had the Shining too?Did Wendy? ( unlikely but… who knows?)
The sequel “Dr Sleep” says that some who have the Shining can “eat” the energy of other Shine-ers to live longer, almost like energy vampires (?)Does the Overlook want to “eat” Jack and or Dannys energy? Does The Overlook want to drive Jack to kill Danny so they can eat his Shining energy?
Early in the film Jack says that Wendy is “ a horror film and ghost story addict” and at the end of the film Wendy sees imagery that seems straight out of a Hammer/Universal Horror movie and are very out of place with anything else going on in THIS movies universe.
Of course, Im swiping THIS idea ( and several others)from:
Young Danny “sees” the Grady Twins several time but he never heard Ullmans story about this, did he?Maybe he found the historical scrapbook described in the novel and vaguely hinted at in the film?Or maybe his Dad told him the story, like how his Dad told him the Innappropriate Donner party story?Is the Shining a Donner Party analogy? The group is trapped by the snow and start to “eat” each other?
By the way, Ullman told Jack the Ullman daughters were about 3 years apart didn’t he? IS that just the way Danny sees them but not what they were? Twins are odder and creepier looking than 2 regular girls.. is it just that? Kubrick liked the image of two twins ( swiped from a famous Dianne Arbus photo right?) .
I have heard that deliberately changed the ending from the novels fire/explosion to an icy end was probably Kubricks swipe at King ( or not? any confirmation of this) I really think the novels “ticking time bomb” feeling that we the audience ( readers) know that Wendy hasn’t checked the dangerous boiler all through the final “act” of the novel would have been better than just seeing Jack frozen…
(* OK , Poltergeists cemetery wasn’t Native American but its a similar idea)
I Saw ‘Countdown” it got terrible reviews. Well its not terrible, its just a “by the numbers” horror movie, the scary parts indistinguishable from a dozen other similar mediocre horror movies.
(SPOILERS)
The general premise is somewhat clever and new. Some young people download an app that will tell you when you’re going to die.
The opening scene is an annoyingly typical contemporary horror scene: a beer party of mutantly good looking teenagers……
One refreshing thing is that in the next thing it has a somewhat positive lesson about teen drinking and drunk driving (a teen girl refused to ride with her drunk boyfriend)…
Then something else refreshingly different happens.
We meet the lead character, a young woman, ( NOT a high schooler or college student… but presumably around 21 years old,) has just finished her nursing certification.
In a lot of horror movies, especially older ones, the women are screaming weakling victims… targets of violence or waiting for a man to save them.
This young woman is smart and strong willed.
Not to spoil the ending too much… but she defeats the bad guy not by luck, not by being saved by a man, but she uses her scientific nursing training to outwit the evil force.
Theres what we might think is a throwaway scene of her saving someone with a certain medical technique. Then an almost identical technique is used at the end of the movie.
Set up… Pay off…
Again, this isn’t a great movie, or even a really good one. But this aspect of it, the smart women using her brains to resolve the situation…. seems to be a refreshing move in the right direction.
Good movie, a little too similar in structure to ” Ed Wood” (same writers) and Eddie Murphy is great, but doesn’t really “become” Rudy Ray Moore like I thought he would.
You could barely tell it was the same actor playing all the Klumps in ( The Nutty Professor. The RRM character in this movie sounds like…. Eddie Murphy doing Rudy Ray Moore routines… instead of it sounding like …. Rudy Ray Moore routines.
Eddie Murphy talks really fast while Moore had a very rehearsed feel to his speech pattern.
It doesn’t shy away from the fact that Dolemite was trash.. Uproariously entertaining and exploitative trash….
(Spoilers) Was Durville Martin really that much of a snob? If so, why was he brought back for the sequels?
Did Moore really not catch on that most of his film was being laughed AT in the wrong way? Sure its ok for the audience to laugh at the deliberate jokes, but seeing “Dolemite” movies both on VHS and midnight screenings at the original Alamo Drafthouse ( in the late 90s) the films gets laughed at when its supposed to be serious… the god awfully fake kung fu scenes…. etc..
I can remember reading how some Black writers were annoyed at how popular many blaxploitation flicks became on VHS in the late 90s. Someone wrote ( “its a voyeuristic look at the absolute worst aspects of Black culture”). Maybe it bothered them that once again white kids found “their” hidden treasure.
Ive often heard that when the Rudy Ray Moore movies were, the whole plan was to see them stoned…. they just weren’t that good straight…
For those of you who didn’t know, Rudy Ray Moore was like the Black Ed Wood of the 70s’, or… later on… Tommy Wiseau.
Moore’s movies weren’t as technically incompetent as Ed Woods, but they were just as cluelessly self indulgent.
He was a guy who wanted to be the star of a movie so he made his own way in. He wanted to be a sex symbol in a movie, so he wrote himself as one… ( even though he is quite up to that level).
He wanted to be an action star…. but his fighting skills were laughably/atrociously feeble. BUT, it must be said, Rudy Ray Moores movies were NEVER ever boring. At their worst, that are goofily laughable and never reach the train wreck heights ( depths) of say… The Rooms tuxedo football scene.
I’ll have to watch it again. I suspect there are Easter eggs and cameos I didn’t catch? Who played the wino and his trash can campfire crew?
I wonder if they were tied to the real Dolemite? Did the owner of the white Cadillac really not know they were going to blow it up? And I highly suspect the “ passing of the cane” at the end never happened ( or.. did it? who knows.. I suspect someone is going to call me out on it)
We can assume that The Sesame Street characters and The Muppet Show characters live in a shared universe. After All, Kermit the Frog is in both right? And they were both (co) created by Jim Henson, right?
Big Big showed up on The Muppet show in the 70’s.
Did any of the other Sesame Street characters show up on the 70s Muppet Show? Did they show up on any of the other later Muppet TV Shows? I know Big Bird has a cameo in the first MUPPET MOVIE:
And (almost) all of the Sesame Street muppets show up in the wedding scene of “THE MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN.” ( 1984)
And there is the marvellous “Muppet Family Christmas” ( 1987) With most of the muppet characters interacting with Sesame Street Characters and the Fraggles!
But here is a thought that is buzzing around my head:
I’ve always assume that the Muppet Theater is supposed to be somewhere in New York City. They never said that, I just assumed its in some weird off Broadway theater where vaudeville never died. And its NOT a TV show to THEM…. its a live weekly vaudeville show….. we never see TV cameras in the Muppet theater do we? They maybe did that on later versions of the Muppets but that wasn’t in the 70s original was it?
If they’re in a shared universe, theoretically Miss Piggy could leave the Muppet theater and walk down to Sesame Street and get something at Hoopers Store…. and interact with the other Sesame Street denizens, right?
BUT….
On the Muppet Show Miss Piggy says to Big Bird : “Aren’t you on that cute childrens show with the puppets?”
So that means that within the world of the Muppet Show, Sesame Street is NOT REAL but it’s just a TV Show and Big Big is just an Actor on the show. So perhaps Miss Piggy could travel to the TV studio where they shoot the show, but its not real.
And in the Muppet Movie, Big Bird tells Fozzy Bear ” I’m going to New York City to try and break into Public Television!” So again, this shows that Big Bird is an ACTOR on a SHOW called Sesame Street, The Street itself isn’t real to the Muppets.
Which brings up other thoughts….
On the original Sesame Street that I grew up on in the 1970’s …. Kermit the Frog was not ON Sesame Street. He was a TV newscaster in skits on almost every episode… but he was never ON the street was he? Did we ever see Kermit talk to Big Bird, Oscar, the Humans or any other characters? The same with Grover, Bert & Ernie and the Count. Grover was only seen in the restaurant with the rude customer and sometimes with children. Bert & Ernie were only ever seen in their apartment…. we never saw them outside it did they?
The Count was only ever seen in the room of his castle, never ON the actual Sesame Street was he?
I saw them all together in the movie “Elmo in Grouchland” but that’s not the same as seeing them on the show. Do they show them all together on the TV show now?
And then theres THIS, proving that Sesame Street is in the Star Wars Universe:
RD-D2 and C 3PO visit Sesame Street.
mattkprovideo 