LOUIS AND BEBE BARRON

The husband and wife team of Louis and Bebe Barron composed the score (or “electronic tonalities”) for the 1956 MGM science fiction film classic, Forbidden Planet.

Here is an article and complementing radio interview with Bebe Barron by the excellent NPR (National Public Radio)...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4486840

THE NORTH KOREA QUESTION

This is why I like this Eric Margolis guy...
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2009/05/31/9628201-sun.html

... he just says how it is; in this case, the issue about North Korea now possessing "nukes".

CUP YAH!

Like most writers and artists -- if that is what I can call myself -- I have the need for some caffeine. I've been sucking back instant coffee for the first time in a few years, so I needed, craved, the numbers: How many milligrams of caffeine are in a cup of instant coffee compared to "freshly brewed"?...
http://www.ico.org/caffeine.asp

LARRY BUCHANAN

The filmmaker I mentioned in a post yesterday (MISTRESS OF THE APES), Larry Buchanan, is unknown to a lot of people. But here is a web page written by Buchanan scholar Rob Craig…
http://www.horror-wood.com/larryb.htm

… Mr. Craig wrote a book on the filmmaker, titled, appropriately enough, “The Films of Larry Buchanan: A Critical Examination"...
http://www.amazon.com/Films-Larry-Buchanan-Critical-Examination/dp/0786429828

FARM FILM REPORT

There never was a film and television "industry" in Toronto, really. It was an artificial beast constructed and supported by U.S. companies with some indigenous production thrown in. Now that things have settled down, all we have left is... nothing, which just goes to show you there never was anything much.

Playback Magazine continues to publish, and in a new glossy format, but there is not a lot happening in the business for them to report. Executives, and amazing ones at that, are tracked moving about the various companies as though they were pieces on a chess board -- a soggy piece of cardboard with faded squares and chewed corners.

Absolutely nothing to report, sir.

CANADIAN DOLLAR @

Biz report: Canadian Dollar at $91.24 U.S. "Up a cent and a half."

I was standing on a street, chatting with a friend a couple of nights ago, and watched as a "White's" (William F. White) truck drove by. My friend and I stopped our conversation mid stride, whatever we were talking about was suddenly not important, and we both joked "they must be looking for a film shoot... any film shoot (in Toronto)".

OF CORPS AND MEN

I pulled this off the Toronto Star website...

"Meanwhile, CBC says its Sunday morning news show airs its last episode this weekend.

A spokesman for the corporation says CBC News: Sunday with Evan Solomon and Carole MacNeil was cancelled as part of an ongoing "news renewal" program and was not directly related to ongoing cuts.

"CBC says Solomon and MacNeil will continue hosting CBC News: Sunday Night until the fall, when that show will be replaced by a weekend version of The National."

... Just what exactly is the CBC doing?! How inept can that organization be? (Let them count the ways.) These are serious questions, as far as I’m concerned. My support for that ‘company’ has been downsized to a sawed off crutch.

The whole piece...
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/641936

CBC JUST SAYIN'

There is a saying at the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) these days. It goes like this: "Let's be indiscriminate!"

The reason for my wrath...
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/641562

MISTRESS OF THE APES

I kid you not, there is a film by the name of Mistress of the Apes. Made by master-of-entertainment filmmaker Larry Buchanan, this 1979 motion picture... I have not seen. If it's as much fun as Mars Needs Women, a film my roommate ended up watching with me and who enjoyed it every bit as much as I, then Mistress is one on my radar. Calling Mr. Woods...

A review of Mistress of the Apes...
http://teleport-city.com/wordpress/?p=4088

OTTO PREMINGER RETROSPECTIVE

680 News (CFTR) just had a news bit about Cinematheque (a screening series at Jackman Hall at the Art Gallery of Ontario, here in Toronto) playing an upcoming retrospective on film director Otto Preminger. The programme, titled "Fallen Angels", runs from May 29th - June 2nd.

Cinematheque's info on Preminger film series...
http://www.cinemathequeontario.ca/programme.aspx?programmeId=261