A Halloween Ghoulardifest, Oct 31 to Nov. 2 in Parma

Event preview by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Other than LeBron James, the only thing significant about Cleveland, as we know, is GhoulardiFest, happening as an apres-Halloween treat this weekend in the only place it could happen - Parma.

It's virtually impossible to imagine North Coast culture without channel 8's Ernie "Ghoulardi" Anderson, who, as host of WJW-TV's "Shock Theatre," put on a garishly phony goatee and Fu Manchu mustache and spiced up B-grade horror and sci-fi flicks for insomniac viewers in beatnik-comic fashion for a few brilliant years there in the mid-1960s. The silver-tongued announcer, unrecognizable in his fright-wig disguise, would do blackout comedy bits (some including a young sidekick named Tim Conway), sound effects, songs and the catchphrases. "Turn blue!" "Stay sick!" "Ovaday!" "Dorrrothy..." And offscreen his family grew to include filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (MAGNOLIA and othes).

Veronica Mars (now available on demand)

[VERONICA MARS is now available on demand.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

I've never seen the Veronica Mars TV show. Whether that makes me more or less qualified to review its feature length film spin-off, also called VERONICA MARS, depends on your point of view. If you're a fan wondering how it compares to the show or whether the characters feel true to how they've been depicted in the past and so on, look elsewhere. All I can tell you is how VERONICA plays as a film strictly on its own terms.That, and it's kind of cool that this movie was funded by fans using Kickstarter. It is to date the most successful Kickstarter campaign for a movie, meeting its goal of two million dollars in less than 10 hours, and going on to raise just shy of six million dollars total. 

Mark Ghoulardi's 50th anniversary at the GhoulardiFest in (of course) Parma, Nov. 1, 2 and 3

Event preview by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Hey group ovah dey! This year marks the 50th anniversary of an icon of Cleveland-area television. A hip, goofy guy whose tousel-haired face and pop-eyed stare are renown to all late-nite Cleveland viewers. A cool character whose catchphrases are part of the lexicon. An alternative  hero of the creature-features, who started in the days when TV was black and white, but who is still remembered and honored everywhere today. Of course, you all know EXACTLY who I'm referring to, right?

Of course you do. Doctor Who. It was in 1963 that actor William Hartnell first appeared on the BBC as the time-traveling alien and dedicated Dalek fighter...

Oh, you thought I was going to mention somebody else?

Karate-Robo Zaborgar (now on home video)

[KARATE-ROBO ZABORGAR is now available on home video.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Stuck for a Christmas gift for that certain breed of cult-film connoisseur with a yen for low-rent Japanese superhero kitsch of yesteryear? In other words, for Cleveland filmmaker Robert Banks? The description fits pretty much nobody else I can think of. Once Robert showed an Ultraman episode on 16mm at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Counted for me as the high point in that institution's existence.

So okay, stuck for a Christmas gift for Robert Banks? Then allow me to recommend KARATE-ROBO ZABORGAR. Director Noboru Iguchi, obviously a fan, does an over-the-top campy revisit here to a genre that would seem beyond parody, the live-action sci-fi karate-action superheroes of yesteryear's Japanese children's television. Anyone for a Kikaider Kick?

Dope Island: All in the Family

By Charles Cassady Jr.

The latest made-for-HBO movie, CINEMA VERITE, tells the not-ready-for-network tale of one of the pioneering experiments in "reality TV," the 1970s public-TV series An American Family. It says something, at least to me it does, about our culture that more of the idiot-box demographic (including air-traffic controllers watching the hand-helds on the job) will learn about An American Family, a groundbreaking experiment in cinematic nonfiction... from a scripted dramatization. With, you know, actors and lines. Kind of weird, you know? Harry Shearer read a news item about a Gen-Y girl who couldn't believe the 9/11 terror attacks were actually happening when she watched them live on television; the reality only hit home for her when Nicolas Cage acted it out in Oliver Stone's World Trade Center. Shear's punchline: "Somebody slap her please, before she reproduces."