In Cryptozoological News…

A new discovery — the Bearsharktopus:

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Posted in Cryptozoology, Fraudulent information, Monsters in general, Mysteries | 3 Comments

Under Cover of the Red Dust…

The following is a picture of Sydney this morning, as New South Wales was pummelled by high winds carrying red desert sands from the dead centre (or thereabouts):

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But soon the real reason for the dust storm was revealed!

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Click on image for full effect

  • Source: TBA via Robert Beretov and Sean Williams
  • For more pictures of the dust storm (without the underlying cause) see SMH.
Posted in Apocalypse, It's True! Really!, Weird stuff | Leave a comment

War Eagles Memorabilia

An Undead Backbrain article on the never-made Willis O’Brien project War Eagles remains one of this site’s most read entries, one which continues to generate interest.

Now correspondent Richfrog has drawn my attention to the fact that pictures and other material relating to the abandoned film production went up for auction on eBay back in 2007 — a fact talked about on the Classic Horror Film Messageboard at the time.

Thanks to Richfrog and Board correspondent HalLane — and two others, SAM33 and JimPV — we now have some more images from the project and more information on it. The picture below accompanied the auction details. Note that the three top drawings visible were apparently (and recognisably) done by O’Brien apprentice Ray Harryhausen for his One Million Years BC film:

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eBay auction notes from July 2007:

Lot 298. Archive of original scripts and production material from the un-produced Merian C. Cooper and Willis O’Brien prehistoric fantasy, War Eagles. In 1938-39, legendary filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Willis O’Brien (King Kong) teamed with screenwriter Cyril Hume (Forbidden Planet), and under the production banner of MGM Studios, came up with a film project they hoped would rival RKO’s wondrous Kong, produced six years earlier. War Eagles (originally titled White Eagle), an adventure fantasy, was to be a visual rollercoaster of thrills and chills. The screenplay is filled with the daring exploits of a stalwart American aviator and hero, a lost volcanic world, Viking warriors astride giant prehistoric eagles, menacing dinosaurs, blood-thirsty ape-men, a beautiful damsel in distress and a breathtaking finale — a mighty aerial battle between these winged giants and their Viking riders versus a fleet of deadly enemy bombers from somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and set against, over and through the skyline of New York City. Unfortunately, a lofty budget, war clouds breaking over Europe, front-office fears and fate all conspired to shelve this most ambitious fantasy. Only the legend remained and for more than sixty years, that’s all it has been.

The legend now takes on reality in the form of this collection of scripts and production notes — filled with all the action, thrills, monsters, danger and excitement — that remain to tell us what might have been. This unique collection contains the original Merian C. Cooper outline of the story dated September 20, 1938; two original mimeographed and compete screenplays by Cyril Hume, dated July 31, 1939 and September 28, 1939; nine original 8 in. x 10 in. black and white vintage photographs of production design sketches by O’Brien and others; two vintage “location” photographs of the lost valley; two original stills from O’Brien’s first masterpiece of special effects, The Lost World; twelve reference production design photos from War Eagles (including those from the vast archives of the legendary Forrest J. Ackerman!); a complete photocopied reference final shooting script by Hume dated October 10, 1939; and over one hundred photocopied file pages of research notes from the MGM vaults. The original outline and two scripts are bound in official MGM covers with all authentic markings. A unique collection of materials from a unique and much lamented unrealized motion picture.

The proposed cost range was given as $3,000-$5,000.

The following is an article on War Eagles from the magazine Modern Monsters, issue 4, published in 1966 (via SAM33):

wareaglesyz9Click to enlarge

Below are two on-set War Eagles production shots, as published in “the terrific Cinefex issue on Obie” (JimPV):

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Unfortunately the auction site is long gone, but perhaps one day whoever bought the lot will allow the various War Eagles prints and images to be more widely seen. In fact, it sounds as though there might be enough material in the collection to produce a book on the legendary “lost” production.

Thanks, Richfrog.

Posted in Archival, Dinosaurs, Giant Monsters, Where's the Film? | 17 Comments

King Crab Attack!

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Initially at least King Crab Attack! was a faux trailer, created in 2008 by director Grégoire Sivan, a student at La Fémis in Paris:

KING CRAB ATTACK! from Jérôme Lozano (Headeater and editor) on Vimeo.

Cool, eh?

IMDb, however, lists the film as being 7 minutes in length. This seems to indicate that the faux trailer has given rise to a longer short film, a possibility confirmed by the unifrance website, which also lists it as being 7 minutes long and goes on to say that it is scheduled to be screened at assorted film festivals during 2009.

Here is a rather free translation of the synopsis:

Trouville-sur-Mer, a Lower Normandy resort, is an uneventful place. However, Basile, of the Coast Guard, has witnessed many strange events. Are they simple coincidence? Not for Basile. King Crab Attack! is the trailer for this disaster movie. Release is as yet undetermined.

However, the website of  Caïmans Productions, the film’s production company tells us:

The new short film is currently in post production. It will end in late August for the first public screening September 5 at the opening of Festival Off-Courts Trouville.

So, can we expect to see the longer version soon?

  • Source: Kaiju Search-Robot Avery
  • Note: There is a certain inconsistency in the use of the title across the various sources. Should it be “King Crabs Attack!”, “King Crab Attacks!” or “King Crab Attack!”? I’ve gone for the last as it takes in the possibility of both an attack from a single King Crab and an attack by all the King Crabs. I look forward to being corrected.

Quick quiz: the poster for which famous giant monster film does the poster above reference?

Posted in Film, Giant Monsters, Trailers, Where's the Film? | 3 Comments

A Princess of Mars

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Early images from a cinematic version of one of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs’ most notoriously unfilmed series have just be released.

The Barsoom series  — which began with A Princess of Mars (1917), originally serialised under the title Under the Moons of Mars — have never been given much cinematic attention, despite many recent attempts to get a film up and running (read a brief history here). Perhaps, in the more distant past, it was the inherent difficulty in creating the various creatures that inhabit Barsoom (otherwise known to us as Mars) that put producers off the idea. Though some of the civilisations of Barsoom have advanced technology of a kind, Burroughs’ Mars is a fantasy setting rather than a scifi one, full of monsters, swords and nudity, the science being more or less unrationalised and pretty well the equivalent of magic. Certainly the books have an ambiance that is more fantastical than scientific and have been generally referred to as “science fantasy” as a result.

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Original 1917 book publication cover by Frank E. Schoonover

The latest news is that Pixar Animation Studios in conjunction with Walt Disney Pictures is in the process of bringing Civil War soldier John Carter’s adventures on Mars to life, under the auspices of director Andrew Stanton. This film, titled John Carter of Mars, is scheduled for a 2012 release, with Willem Dafoe as the nine-foot-tall, green, four-armed insectoid warrior Tars Tarkas, Taylor Kitsch as John Carter and Lynn Collins as the Princess of the city of Helium, Dejah Thoris. This one is still in early days, but it is rumoured that it will be a combination of live-action and animation, set in the book’s original Civil-War time period and will no doubt make some sort of stab at sticking to the book (more or less). This version, having a significant SFX budget, may give Tars Tarkas his four arms, though whether the general lack of clothing that characterises Burroughs’ Mars will be much in evidence is unlikely:

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Likely to be less accurate overall, however, and to feature more skin (particularly when it comes to the Princess — as seen in her traditional lack of garb in the classic Frank Frazetta image below), is the Asylum’s version, Princess of Mars (US-2009; dir. Mark Atkins).

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John Carter

The original John Carter is a Civil War vet who is mysteriously transported to the red planet Barsoom (Mars) and thus finds himself (a) becoming a leader of a tribe of warrior-like green Tharks (due to his great strength, enhanced by the fact that Mars has lesser gravity than Earth, and his fighting skills) and (b) caught up in political struggles between the red and green people of Barsoom, particularly when the Tharks hatch a plot to kidnap the beautiful red princess Dejah Thoris. Despite ending up fighting against the four-armed alien Tharks, one of Carter’s closest friends is a Thark, Tars Tarkas, who plays a prominent part in events.

In the Asylum version John Carter, played by Antonio Sabato, Jr., is a special ops US soldier fighting in the Middle East, who “finds himself inexplicably transported to Mars in the midst of a war between two alien races”:

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Sabato here bears a close resemblance to this image of Carter from back when you could buy a new comic book for 10 cents:

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Tars Tarkas

Early images just released of Atkins’ Tars Tarkas (or so I assume, though the Asylum site doesn’t name him as such) have given him a nicely alien face and levels of greenness. So far there has been no sign of his second set of arms. Perhaps these will come in post-production, though I’m guessing this production may “re-jig” the Thark race to avoid what would probably be too difficult and too expensive a CGI make-up job. Meanwhile here’s what Tarkas is looking like (see also the image at the start of this article):

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A pity about the multiple appendages, as the four-armed nature of the Tharks has always had great imaginative appeal.

Dejah Thoris

Everyone will be most curious to know how Atkins handles the Princess, Dejah Thoris. In the novel Burroughs describes her thus (at Carter’s first meeting with her):

And the sight which met my eyes was that of a slender, girlish figure, similar in every detail to the earthly women of my past life….Her face was oval and beautiful in the extreme, her every feature was finely chiseled and exquisite, her eyes large and lustrous and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black, waving hair, caught loosely into a strange yet becoming coiffure. Her skin was of a light reddish copper color, against which the crimson glow of her cheeks and the ruby of her beautifully molded lips shone with a strangely enhancing effect.

She was as destitute of clothes as the green Martians who accompanied her; indeed, save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked, nor could any apparel have enhanced the beauty of her perfect and symmetrical figure.

This lack of apparel has been typical of the way she has been depicted visually, especially post-Frazetta (though not, you will notice above, on the more modest original cover):

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Image by Bane

Atkins’ Dejah Thoris will be played by ex-porn star and genre scream queen Traci Lords (below), though so far no images of her as Dejah have surfaced:

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If this or the Disney film prove a success, there’s plenty of scope for sequels. Burroughs himself wrote ten sequels to A Princess of Mars. For reference, they are:

  • The Gods of Mars (1918)
  • The Warlord of Mars (1919)
  • Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1920)
  • The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
  • The Master Mind of Mars (1928)
  • A Fighting Man of Mars (1931)
  • Swords of Mars (1936)
  • Synthetic Men of Mars (1940)
  • Llana of Gathol (1948)
  • John Carter of Mars (1964)

You can view more early images from the film in the Gallery below.

Gallery:

Posted in Film, News, Pictorial art, Science Fiction | 8 Comments

New: Ultra Galaxy Legend

After two interrelated TV series Ultra Galaxy: Mega Monster Battle [aka Urutora Gyarakushii Daikaiju Batoru] (2007) and Ultra Galaxy: Mega Monster Battle – Neverending Odyssey [aka Urutora Garakushii Daikaiju Batoru Nebaa Endingu Odessei] (2008) — Tsuburaya Productions is in post-production of the latest feature-length incarnation of the ultra long-running giant monster-intergalactic tokusatsu series that began 43 years ago with Ultra Q [aka Urutora Q] (1965) and initiated the Ultraman series of TV shows and movies.

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Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legend The Movie [Daikaijū Batoru Urutora Ginga Densetsu Za Mūbī] (Japan-2009; dir. Koichi Sakamoto) will feature characters from Ultraman, Ultra Seven, and Ultraman Mebius (as well as the 2007-2008 series), and will introduced an evil Ultraman in the person of Ultraman Belial, once imprisoned in the depths of time and space by the Ultra King and now vowing super-villain revenge on the Ultra beings.

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Ultraman Belial apparently gets hold of one of those mysterious devices that seem to crop up from time to time, the Giga Battle Nizer, to control one hundred Ultra Monsters, which he uses to attack the Land of Light in Nebula M78, the home of all Ultramen.

Earlier Teaser Trailer:

Now, this is what I want from my daikaiju eiga — at least those at the very weird end of the scale.

New Official Trailer:

The film premieres in Japan on 12 December 2009, and is distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment Japan.

  • Sources: Wikipedia; Official website. Via Enshohma. Thanks once again to Avery.
  • See article “A Giant Against Giants: Ultraman for the New Millennium” by Robert Hood, first published in G-Fan. It examines the franchise as at the date of writing, which was 2006.
  • Various Undead Backbrain reviews of Ultraman movies
Posted in Daikaiju, Giant Monsters, Trailers, Ultraman, Update | 3 Comments

Zombie Kings

This short take on the zombie apocalypse — using stylised green-screen techniques to create semi-animated SFX spectacle — looks both bizarre and hilarious.

Zombie Kings: The King of the Zombies (US-2008; dir. Paul Steiner)

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Synopsis:

Mad Dr ‘D’ has the city of Z-Town overrun by Zombies. However, a small band of professional Zombie Fighters is laying waste to these infected undead pests. Taunted by the media and hypocrite politicians, the outraged Doctor is aided by his comical sidekick, who develops a new Zombie Virus that creates a giant super-Zombie. The new creature wreaks havoc on the city, destroying the fighters, cars, buildings and even the mayor. But within the fighters and citizen refugees, a special bond is formed, and a secret is revealed that could be the only hope for mankind to stop the monster. Zombie Kings: The King of the Zombies is a story of heroism, loyalty, self sacrifice, hot chicks, giant Zombies, blood and guts, car crashes and explosions, and high flying Jet pack action.

Daikaiju zombies! Excellent.

The short film premiered on 23 October 2008 at the American Zombie Horror Film Contest, where it was an official selection.

Director Steiner has recently posted the trailer to his YouTube Channel, so perhaps this indicates an imminent DVD release. In the meantime the fact that The King of the Zombies is designated as Episode One means we can look forward to a continuation. Perhaps Zombie Kings will end up being a feature-length film.

Posted in Apocalypse, Film, Giant Monsters, Humour, Independent film, Zombies | 10 Comments

Empires of the Deep, Once Mermaid Island

Once upon a time it was called Mermaid Island — a US/China co-production to be helmed by the French mono-monikered Pitof [aka Jean-Christophe Comar], visual effects supervisor of such films as Delicatessen (1991), Les Visiteurs (1993), and Alien: Resurrection (1997), and director of Dark Portals: The Chronicles of Vidocq (2001), Catwoman (2004) and Fire & Ice: The Dragon Chronicles (2008). The epic sea fantasy, touted to be “the only sea world fantasy action blockbuster in movie history”, had a reported budget of $50 million, and would star Liang Yanfei and Sharon Stone. In it would be mermaids, undersea cities, giants, wizards and lots of strange aquatic monsters.

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Since then, things have changed:

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Yes, the title changed from its Disneyesque original to “Empires of the Deep”, which has more of an epic flavour to it. On top of that, Sharon Stone was dropped from the film after she made some remarks about a major earthquake in China that suggested it was the result of bad karma inflicted on the country due to its treatment of the Tibetans. Not only that, the budget has reportedly grown to $100 million.

Monica Belluci and Liang Yanfei are listed as starring, with Belluci rumored to be playing the Mermaid Queen and Yanfei (pictured below) playing a mermaid who falls for a mortal human (Tom Archdeacon).

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Synopsis:

For thousands of years, legends of beautiful mermaids have enchanted people from all over the globe. Their fascinating and mysterious world has always captured the imagination of humans. In film history, there hasn’t been a single movie that has uncovered and explored this mystical world. What secrets lurk beneath the depths? And why do beautiful mermaids seduce human men? “Mermaid Island” is the first underwater fantasy film to unveil and answer these questions. (IMDb)

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The Undersea Palace (conceptual)

Now it seems that the director has changed as well. IMDb lists Jonathan Lawrence as filling that role.

The film is due for release in 2010.

Conceptual Creature Designs:

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  • Source: Collected by Avery; IMDb
Posted in Film, Giant Monsters, Monsters in general, Update | 13 Comments

Weekend Fright Flick Festival: The Call of Cthulhu

This weekend, Undead Backbrain’s Weekend Fright Flicks is a festival of short films based on H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu”.

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The Casting Call of Cthulhu (Canada-2008; short [9:17 min.]; dir. Joseph Nanni)

Synopsis:

During a casting session for a film based on the work of H.P. Lovecraft, a director, mildly familiar with themes of weird fiction, works his way through a series of minor monsters auditioning for the role of Cthulhu. But sometimes you get more than you expected.

And by the same crew, an advertisement for Elder Sign “for those who suffer from an overwhelming sense of dread brought on by the realization of your own insignificance in the universe“:

Now three films directed by Paula Haifley.

The Cold Call of Cthulhu — in which Cthulhu, having risen from his ancient sleep, has acquired a job in telemarketing:

Rehearsing the Call of Cthulhu — in which Cthulhu, who met a girl that he really liked at a nightclub the night before, practices calling her so that when it comes to the crunch he can impress her…

The Call of Cthulhu — in this case made at the end of a less than successful blind date:

Finally, there’s Calls of Cthulhu (US-1996; dir. Brand Gramblin) — the network chat show!

Synopsis:

This comedic send up of H.P. Lovecraft’s master work, “Call of Cthulhu” takes the main character (Cthulhu, an alien god, bent on the destruction of man in an orgy of chaotic destruction) and presents it as a fluffy puppet who is running his own call-in show. People call in to ask for relationship advice, farming suggestions, and cooking tips. The answer, more often than not, is a foaming rant confirming for the caller that Cthulhu will one day swallow their souls. (IMDb)

  • Episode One:

  • Episode Two:

  • Episode Three:

See Brand Gamblin’s YouTube Channel for more.

And here, for those who are still with us, is a story of my own. Not a film. Sorry.

The Call of Cthulhu’s Mum:

Psychiatrists reckon our behaviour as adults originates in the deep past. I spent many a dismal evening with that old fart Abdul Alhazred while he babbled on about his miserable childhood, citing exposure to the alchemical substances his father smoked as the cause of his persistent hallucinations regarding the nature of reality. Alchemical substances! Low-grade horse shit more like! No wonder he has such a dodgy grasp on reality. Have you read that crap he wrote in the Necronomicon? Half of it is subtextual drivel regurgitated straight from my granny’s recipe scrapbook! (The scrapbook disappeared after a visit he made once, but granny only noticed a few days later when she went to the kitchen to cook up her family-favourite Tuna and Cheese Manicotti. Sure enough, the recipe turned up on page 254 of the Necronomicon as a spell to incarnate Dagon! That’s why the Deep One’s always so pissed off when anyone drags him into the world; he can’t abide tuna. “Too much like eatin’ my second cousin,” he told me once. “Have you seen my second cousin?”)

Clearly there’s some truth in the claim that childhood trauma forms the basis of latter-day attitudes, though. I was only a youngster of maybe 14 winters when I first heard the Call of Cthulhu’s Mum. The gut-quivering roar of it echoed across the jagged landscape of our neighbourhood like Yog-Sothoth on a bender: “Cthulhu! Dinner’s on!” Trees shook, mountains trembled, and profound pits of darkness began to reconsider their lifelong aversion to silence.

Read it all.

  • Thanks to Kaiju Search-Robot Avery for his help in compiling the festival program.
Posted in Cthulhu, Humour, Weekend Fright Flick | 2 Comments

The Men Who Stare At Goats

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In his bizarre non-fiction book The Men Who Stare At Goats, Jon Ronson details official US Government projects to develop the use of psychic abilities as part of the military’s Intelligence arsenal. He reveals the significant budgets allocated to research into such talents as remote viewing, invisibility and psychic goat abuse. Remote viewing is a way of using human consciousness to engage in long-distance espionage, getting information about the Enemy and his activities without using physical technology. Sounds like a bizarre thing for a “respectable” government to be getting up to, right? Does that surprise you?

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Official Synopsis of Book:

In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the US Army. Defying all known accepted military practice – and indeed, the laws of physics – they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren’t joking. What’s more, they’re back and fighting the War on Terror. The Men Who Stare at Goats reveals extraordinary — and very nutty — national secrets at the core of George W. Bush’s War on Terror.

With first-hand access to the leading players in the story, Ronson traces the evolution of these bizarre activities over the past three decades, and sees how it is alive today within US Homeland Security and post-war Iraq. Why are they blasting Iraqi prisoners-of-war with the theme tune to Barney the Purple Dinosaur? Why have 100 de-bleated goats been secretly placed inside the Special Forces command centre at Fort Bragg, North Carolina? How was the US Military associated with the mysterious mass-suicide of a strange cult from San Diego? The Men Who Stare at Goats answers these, and many more, questions. (Author’s website)

Now the non-fiction (which is strange enough to be fiction) has been made into a movie by BBC Films, Smoke House and Winchester Capital Partners, directed by Grant Heslov and starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey, J.K. Simmons, and Robert Patrick.

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The Men Who Stare At Goats (UK/US-2009; dir. Grant Heslov)

Synopsis:

A reporter, trying to lose himself in the romance of war after his marriage fails, gets more than he bargains for when he meets a special forces agent who reveals the existence of a secret, psychic military unit whose goal is to end war as we know it. The founder of the unit has gone missing and the trail leads to another psychic soldier who has distorted the mission to serve his own ends. (IMDb)

All the above mentioned actors do such great deadpan absurdist comedy — and the idea is so open to surreal absurdity — that it’s hard not to be amused in anticipation.

The film is set to premiere on 6 November in the US.

Images:

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Jeff Bridges: psychic training

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George Clooney and Ewan McGregor: desert contemplation

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Kevin Spacey and Hippy Clooney: long-distance pat-a-cake?

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Ewan, George and director Grant Heslov on location

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George and Goat: killing me softly

Trailer:

Sources: Official website; IMDb

Posted in Film, News, Preview, Trailers, Weird stuff | 1 Comment