Who's Sick of Me Using the Phrase "Shameless Plugs"? For Issue of 4/7...

And there's a veritable assload of 'em. Apart from my usual column, you can also find my review of The Alamo, a thing on a local screening of rock-themed TV episodes from the '60s, and no less than seven (7) capsules for films playing in the Philadelphia Film Festival, including everything from The Saddest Music in the World to The Tulse Luper Suitcases Part The First to the abysmally weak poker/con pic Shade. As the fest is set to kickstart tomorrow night (with Shade, regrettably), I'll be throwing teensy blurbs up here on the many I've seen so far tomorrow. Day-to-day coverage will start on Friday once the thing truly gets underway. I have a press pass; look out.

Also, and just quickly (as I need to go write it up proper in the next minute or two), George Romero's obscure '73 effort The Crazies might just be his masterpiece -- too nutty to be a near-perfect being like Night of the Living Dead but so corrosive that his status as a satirist should never be in question. It appears that Romero invented Cronenberg, whose Shivers this very much resembles (and, terrific film that it is, comes nowhere near the misanthropic brilliance of the Romero). My mini-article, one hopes, will be more eloquent than that.*

*Would frickin' have to be, methinks.