Film Release: Beyond the Basement Door
Recently Ten Wing Films released Beyond the Basement Door online! It is an H.P. Lovecraft-inspired story and it features Steve Christopher, Daniel Roebuck, Richard Pryor Jr. and Brenna Lee Roth.
Synopsis:
Alistair, a genetic researcher, saves his own life from cancer by making a pact with some dark and dangerous people. The secret lies with whatever is making the odd sounds in Alistair’s basement. The deal he made forbids him to go down there for three days…no matter what he sees or hears. His sanity, his life, depends on it. As the line between reality and delusion fades, Alistair struggles with nosy neighbors (Richard Pryor Jr.), a rival ex-boss (Daniel Roebuck, LOST) and haunting images of a lady in blue. Getting out of the house only makes his anxiety worse. With each passing hour, an urge to open the door slowly chips away at him…Will he be able to resist? What’s making all that noise beneath the floorboards? How is Alistair connected to the lady in blue and what is beyond the basement door?
There are 2 ways you can see this movie. You can download it for free here on vodo.net. That is a torrent site like limewire where all of the content is free and uploaded by the creators. If you’d like to show your support a different way, the film is available on indiereign.com as well. You can rent (stream) the movie for 2 days for $2.00 or purchase a digital download of the film for $5.00. That’s less than a fancy coffee! If you like what you see, even if you don’t buy the movie, it would help us if you’d spread the word to others by sharing it through your social mediaz.
Why?
There is no doubt the landscape for indepenedent distribution is changing. To us, every mention and every share is important. Yes, it make us feel good about ourselves to see the “like” count on the facebook pages rise. What it also does is show a measurable level of interest. One of our crew on Citizen in the Temple worked on a sci-fi film last year called L5. They released that on vodo and through a gargantuan amount of blog seeding, forum posting and people getting involved, the film gathered 1.5 million downloads in the first month. The creator of that film has since taken the property to Hollywood where it is being shopped based on the online interest it achieved. So even if you don’t buy the movie, just telling others about it has value to us. What does the success of Beyond the Basement Door mean? We get to keep creating content, which we love to do. So give someone a nudge for us, won’t you?
A Critical Reflection On R. Kelly’s Remix of Ignition
R. Kelly’s status as an R&B and hip hop legend cannot be disputed. I won’t even waste time pointing out the man’s list of accomplishments. You already know them. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised this morning on my way to work when I heard R. Kelly’s Ignition remix from his 2003 album, Chocolate Factory. Every time I hear this song, I find new meaning and depth and this morning was no different. Here are the lyrics that stuck out this time:
Now it’s like Murder She Wrote
Once I get you out them clothes
I started to wonder. How IS it like Murder She Wrote? To find out, let’s start by examining the IMDB description of the show:
Mystery writer finds herself investigating murders that occur around her.
The show ran for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 and aired 264 episodes. It is one of the most successful and longest-running television shows in history. Kelly is one of the best selling music artists in the United States and one of the most successful R&B artists of the last 25 years. So the lyrics “Now it’s like Murder She Wrote” is clearly meant to associate R. Kelly’s sexual prowess with ongoing success.
Of course, there are other ways of looking at it and Kelly is known for playing with his listeners’ minds. Maybe he took a lady home and got her out of her clothes only to realize she’s dead. RK would then be at the center of a murder mystery. A more fun (horrible?) thought is that he went home with Angela Lansbury.
Knowing our friend, R. Kelly, all three of the explanations are probably true. Oh, that Robert.
Melt Your Face!
Hello Dog Mourners! Check out this red-hot music video by Ten Wing Films and an extremely talented up-and-coming direcTOR.* The band is Veritae. The song is What Lies Beneath. I bet you’d like a little look at what lies beneath, wouldn’t you? Sicko.
*ME.
The Drone Movie Trailer
Hey ya. A friend of mine is a filmmaker. He made this trailer. You should probably check it out. Dreams are hard to achieve. Let’s help out, eh? It debuted at the Cannes short film Corner 2011. Oh PS – I’m writing as if I’m not the one who made this.
Alternate Dimensions
I’ve been waiting so long
To be where I’m going
In the sunshine of your love
This is a story about a band with big dreams. A band who plotted the release of a 75 hour blu-ray in 1996 and sought to completely dominate the planet. This is a story about Dimension Zero. Not the Swedish death metal group. Nope. My old high school rock band.
I agree with Brian Warner when he said that everyone should try to be in a rock band. I got a lot out of it. Did I mention I was voted most likely to be in a rock band at graduation! Destiny, right? As a side note, the bassist, Paul Brooks won best hair in high school. Our group had a Tool-ish prog rock thing going on. It started in 1995 and lasted around 4 years. Total, I think we played 10 or 12 shows and released a 6 song demo tape (TAPE lol?!). We did 99% original work and we were very determined. In fact, the only cover we ever played out was Sunshine of Your Love. Ok, I think we did some version of Free Falling at our first show. We ran out of songs to play so we noodled with that.
Here’s the most popular song we had, Invasion, from our release The Millennium Core (rawr!)
At an early point in our history Paul Brooks developed a timeline for our careers. A prophecy. According to this timeline, by now we should have released 5 major albums, a trilogy of films, replaced a band member and gone on a handful of world tours. Clearly all of that has happened. For many years we believed the timeline was lost but we recently received word that a mad arab uncovered a version in an ancient, Syrian cave in the Appalachian Mountains. Here it is…
The reason all of this did not come to pass may very well be because we lost this timeline. We may never know for sure.
One of the most interesting things I learned from looking at this was the actual birth date of the band. I had no idea. Similarly, I had no idea we played our first show on April 14 of 1996. Somewhere there’s a tape of this.
Coming up is my 15 year high school reunion. There’s no way in hell I would want the lifestyle of a touring musician nowadays. Filmmaking is way more my speed. I’m still trying to take over the world and I think part of my idealism and drive began in music and oozed through to who I am today. So the end goal is similar but, like our hairlines, the band faded.
Actually, the vocalist, Jon Thompson, is still in a good band. The Abacinators.
Let’s see. At this point, the next thing on the master plan is the release of our 6th full length album on June 20, 2011. It has always been a goal of mine to release a full length album but as it stands today I haven’t released even one. In the grand scheme of my life, it’s a goal that, right now, can be set on the back burner. I haven’t taken my guitar out of the case in probably almost a year. Paul doesn’t even have a bass guitar anymore. They’re actually in my closet. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to buy them from him rather than let him sell them to whomever. That feels cold. Our drummer, Al Holman, doesn’t have a drum set anymore. I don’t think he has in years. I haven’t even seen him in years. Last I heard he sold his kit and bought an acoustic guitar. Contrary to the timeline, Al hasn’t died (at least not that I’m aware of). Some people are hard to track down and Al is one of them. He has no digital footprint that I’ve ever been able to find. No facebook, no myspace, nothing. So while Al most likely is living in Bloomington-Normal, we cannot be sure. I like to think that somewhere, right now, he’s doing what he loved most: smoking.
In short, taking over the world has taken a little longer than expected.
I still intend to turn gold on May 24, 2018. I’ll look like a cross between Oscar and Dr. Manhattan.
