Q&A videos after the jump with directors Justin Johnson, Aaron Marshall and Erik Mauck.

Question: How did they meet Emily Hagins?

Question: How did the family feel about the documentary, especially Megan (Emily’s mom)?

Check out the Zombie Girl: The Movie website here and Emily’s site for Pathogen here.

Shannon has posted these now and graciously emailed me so that I can sheepishly link to it. My apologies again for my technology, but here they are. Thank you *so* much Shannon!

http://moviemoxie.blogspot.com/2009/04/brood-wright-stuff-screening-with-edgar.html

I’m going to ask for a very little latitude here. I know that John Schneider is primarily known for television, being both Bo Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard and Jonathan Kent from Smallville, but he *has* done movies (everyone remembers Lake Placid 2, right?) and there are *both* Dukes and Superman movies, he’s just not in them. So it’s a stretch, but I’m pretty sure that you’ll forgive me once you keep reading….

So John Schneider came out to do a signing on Saturday at the Motion Car Show (for those of you in Toronto it was at the Direct Energy Centre). My husband got all jumpy as soon as he heard and set about making something for him to sign. S.O.P.* So off we went on Saturday morning. We got there a little after 11 and he was already signing. I’m rarely star struck. Very rarely. But when I rounded the corner and caught my first glimpse of all six feet of the muscle, tan and charming smile that is Superman’s dad, I nearly lost my sh*t.

From a distance you could tell that he was really nice. He stopped and took a few moments for each of the people and, even though you were paying for the picture with him, he still took some time, set up the shot and smiled big. Basically, he looked genuinely pleased to be there. Trust me when I say that’s rare.

So we finally get up to his people and we ask, very politely, if he’s signing non-Dukes stuff. At first they were confused, but when we explained that it was Superman stuff, they beamed and said they thought he’d be pleased. And he was.

So we walk over, say hello and plunk down my Reeves accurate Superman crest (which my husband had whipped up for me a day before, impressing almost everyone in the theatre at the time). Do you know what he said to me? He said:

Thank you so much! No one’s ever asked me to sign a cape before!

THANK YOU SO MUCH! A dude that *I* was paying for his signature and that *I* shlepped halfway across God’s paved acre to see thanked ME for wanting HIS signature on something. I almost fell over. I popped Pa Kent’s cape cherry. Me.

Awesome.

Then he was equally as impressed with my husband’s section of ‘car door’ from the General. You can see him smiling in both pictures while he’s signing. It was incredible. A few minutes after that was the Daisy Duke look alike contest which was a little lame, to be honest, but you know what? John was a great sport and had a wonderful time just chillin’ with the Dukes fans and the Canadian Dukes. Pics attached of us with him, him signing and the sigs themselves. This one will totally go down as one of the better celebrity signings I’ve ever had… if not the single best. Dood. I met Superman’s dad. What a perfect day.

*Standard Operating Procedure.

It’s been done! I’ve found, courtesy of Edgar’s blog, the intros I missed having for you on the first weekend because I’d forgotten my damn camera. Video after the jump.

Shaun of the Dead:

Both of these come from YouTube user cosmofairly, who appears to also have the Q&A from that evening. Thanks cosmofairly!

You can also check out some neat stuff at Edgar Wright’s blog at http://edgarwrighthere.com/.

Back to Coverage: The Wright Stuff

Edgar Wright’s curating abilities blew my mind this weekend. Even though I didn’t make it out to Head on Saturday night, the double bill of Dames and Phantom of the Paradise was more than enough to keep this film fan satiated for a *long* time. Video and more after the jump.

All I can say is it’s true. For so many years I had heard the rumors, that there had been a man who had made the big screen such a spectacle that it had to be seen to be believed. I never really believed it because it never seemed possible and tonight it was proven – beyond a shadow of a doubt – to be true… and spectacular! For the first hour of the movie, like he says in a brilliant intro below, it’s pretty standard stuff. But then the show that has caused all the on screen trouble starts and you can’t think about anything else. When it really gets going if you’re not sitting forward in your seat with your jaw agape then I believe there is something wrong with you. It’s possible that it’ll lose something (a ton, actually) if viewed on anything other than the big screen, but I do not believe that you should miss this – or any other Busby Berkeley movie. This is what I would call ‘film foundation.’ Often imitated, never duplicated, and never to be seen again in this form. Enjoy below.

Ah The Phantom of the Paradise. It’s an incredible movie to watch at any time, in any place, but I can say that seeing this movie after so long, and on the big screen to boot, that this is definitely a movie that has aged very well. It’s a movie that on the surface is about Faust (duh), but if you go slightly deeper it’s about what greed does to you and, a layer below that, it’s about voyeurism. I don’t actually think that the viewing audience in the 70s was any less voyeuristic than we are today, I just think we have more unfettered access to each other now and, as a result, our boundaries have changed. I love how ridiculous and serious this movie is at the same time. Not to mention it’s some of the best music for any movie ever and contains some fantastic performances. Enjoy intro below, including an email from Paul Williams.

The Wright Stuff continues to impress and if that’s not good enough, you can watch some genuinely awesome movies with Edgar Wright and friends. And by friends I mean Don McKellar, Alison Pill (which may or may not put that Scott Pilgrim rumor to rest), Eric Peterson, Eric Cera and more I’m sure.

Thanks for your patience. Here’s the first video, touching on my favorite part of him – that he feels guilty that people have to make stuff because he thought it up. It’s easy to write, it’s not easy to make. Sorry that the video is so dark (really crappy lighting at the theatre) and sorry that the guy asking the question is so annoying (no, I don’t usually make personal comments about people, but since he and the girl he was with talked through the ENTIRE movie and then through Push again two days later, I feel pretty safe in saying annoying).

Enjoy.

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After basking in the glow of such a stellar moviegoing experience on Saturday night, Sunday night was the first official night of ‘The Wright Stuff’ (hilarious!) at the Bloor, the aforementioned film series that Edgar Wright is curating at The Bloor over the next month and a half. Good news! We had our camera this time!

Just as he did the night before, Mr. Wright aptly opened the movie by sharing a truncated list of the keywords that appear on imdb for each movie. I kinda have to admit, this might just be my new favorite thing. The first movie was Shaolin Soccer, a movie I think almost everyone has seen before (except for the people at The Bloor last night, apparently). I had seen the movie before, but only on my old 27″ tube TV and, I can honestly say, that after seeing it at on the big screen last night, I really don’t feel that I had ever truly seen this movie before. As a result of having the camera, and many, many thanks to Shannon the Movie Moxie for showing me the ropes on the uploading video to Blogger front, I can now share with you Mr. Wrights intros to both of these movies. Below for Shaolin Soccer.

Now, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky…. now that’s another thing altogether. I had never seen this movie before. At the end, Mr. Wright stood up and said ‘So the next time you’re at a dinner party and someone says, “What’s the greatest movie of all time, the answer is *not* Citizen Kane, the answer is Ricki-Oh: The Story of Ricky.’ And I kinda gotta say he’s right. It’s flat-out ridiculous and the things that happen on this screen defy all manner of logic, but the thing that is the most endearing about this movie is that it never flinches, not even for a moment, from *believing* this it is, in fact, the greatest movie of all time. If you missed it last night at The Bloor, it’s a shame, but get to a video store and get this movie asap. And again, the brilliant intro.

Back to Coverage: The Wright Stuff

I had the most wonderful experience on Saturday night. My husband and I went to see Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz together in a double bill at The Bloor with one Mr. Edgar Wright in attendance to introduce the movies and do a Q&A. It goes without saying that it was fantastic. Not only is Mr. Wright one of the most engaging (and hilarious) speakers, but he genuinely cares about the people who came out to see him and his movies. Oh my various Gods is that refreshing.

Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are two of my favorite movies, hands down. We saw Shaun of the Dead in 2004 when a friend handed us passes and said, “This looks funny.” On the ticket it said ‘A Romantic Comedy with Zombies’. That was enough for us. We were pretty poor at the time (having only just got married) and so we were really happy just to be seeing a free movie.

We show up and just beside where we want to sit there are these seats that say ‘reserved’. A PR lady comes over and checks that we’re not sitting in the reserved seats explaining that, “These are saved for Mr. Romero.” That was when we started to realize that we might not be at your average screening. After the show up comes three people to the front, only two of which we recognized as Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and, then, only because we’d just seen the movie. The third was, of course, director Edgar Wright. What followed was one of the better Q&As I’ve ever been to (yes, ever) and we began to get a picture that these weren’t your average filmmakers. Not only do they create work that’s brilliant to watch, they have fun doing it and they really care if you like it. We were remarkably refreshed. (And then they all stayed and signed stuff after the screening – I have a ticket stub signed by all three… It’s one of my favorite things.) Oh yeah. “Mr. Romero’s” flight was delayed and he didn’t make it, but Simon and Edgar did a cameo as zombies in Land of the Dead.

It’s nice to see that little has changed. Mr. Wright came out on Saturday night to warmly and graciously greet the people of Toronto (and further, I’m sure) who came out and stood in the bitter, bitter cold to watch his movies with him. He answered all questions at the Q&A – even after the staff at The Bloor told him only two more – and, basically, wanted to make sure everyone had a good time. Introducing the both movies with the hilariously out of context keywords from imdb, I think it’s safe to say that everyone had a brilliant, not just good, time.

If you’ve read this blog even a little you know that my husband and I take something, generally made from scratch feverishly in the days before, to almost every screening we go to where there’s someone we enjoy and respect. This time was no different. Attached are pics of the cricket bat Mr. Trista made up and had signed by the gentleman himself. The only downside of the night was by our own creation: we forgot our damn camera so we have no pics or video of that evening. I do have the pic that Mr. Wright himself took of the crowd as an angry mob. We’re in the top left hand corner, just at the beginning of the blur. Spot the cricket bat.

There is, however, a silver lining: Mr. Wright is curating a series of movies every Sunday from now until the middle of April, including a Spaced marathon. Check out The Bloor’s website for it and come on out. Coverage of last night’s first set of movies Shaolin Soccer and Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky to follow shortly. Check back soon for ongoing overage of this fantastic event, but better yet, get yourself to the damn theatre!

Back to Coverage: The Wright Stuff

As a result of a good friend I ended up with passes to the screening of Coraline tonight, review to follow tomorrow morning. What made the whole thing so much better was that Neil Gaiman was there to introduce the movie and to do a Q&A after. I heart Neil Gaiman. I’m not as much a fan of the Sandman stuff (save your emails, I just haven’t got there yet, what with being up to my eyeballs in Green Arrow recently) but I am a HUGE fan of his Marvel stuff and, more importantly, his fiction. Neverwhere was one of the single best books I’ve ever read and still love passionately. In fact, it’s one of the only books I’ve ever read more than once – and not just because I forgot I read it. Being in this guy’s presence tonight basically made me giddy like a school-girl. The imagination on this man is just so….. incredible.

Tonight he was his usual candid self, answering questions from the audience with his usual humility. Gracious as always and a brilliant storyteller, you just want to hang on every word and – better yet – listen for hours. I’ve uploaded a video from this evening below. It includes reference to one of my favorite bits on the Stardust DVD extras; an anecdote in which he describes walking around the set of a movie based on his works because there is always literally a small army of people working to create something in real life – to be used by real people – simply because he thought it up.

I ran out of time on my camera before he got to this, but he did field a question from the facilitator (Chris Landreth) about the creative process of handing off a story, like a baby, to another person. Gaiman spoke about how he has friends who hand the script off and take the check and are very unhappy people. He also described that the other way it’s traditionally done is to get overly involved – write, direct and create it yourself. He didn’t have the desire to do that, so instead he went out and found the best creative team he could to do it for him. The product is excellent and I hope that you enjoy the video. Sorry he didn’t stand in the light once.

(FRUSTRATED AUTHOR’S NOTE: I set this video – of only 6 minutes – to upload last night at 11:30, then I went to bed. When I got up this morning, it was still not uploaded and, sadly, Blogger doesn’t tell me how much progress it made while I slept. This is why I do not video blog. I’m taking my camera to work and will see if I can get it to upload. Please accept my apologies.)

PS – Being HUGE nerds, my husband and I also got a Sandman #1 and the beginnings of a Doom gauntlet from 1602 signed by Mr. Gaiman….. I’m just bragging at this point.