Went To Coney Island On a Mission From God… Be Back By Five Blu-ray Review Save A Touching, Comedic Ode To Coney Island
Jon Cryer became famous starring in Two And A Half Men with Charlie Sheen but the actor had a long career before hitting sitcom fame. Director Richard Schenkman and Cryer co-wrote Went To Coney Island On a Mission From God… Be Back By Five together, basing it off personal experiences in Cryer’s own life. This endearing, wry dramedy concerns two friends looking for their long-lost childhood friend they’ve fallen out of touch with, now rumored to be homeless. A personal project for Cryer, the humorous movie has a wonderfully nostalgic affection for Coney Island’s past.
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Adventures in Blu-ray: Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God… Be Back by Five (1998)
From their first childhood encounter, Daniel (Jon Cryer) and Stan (Rick Stear) have enjoyed an inseparable friendship. While attending school, Stan—whose left leg is shorter than his right, and who will acquire a lifelong limp after a surgical procedure goes awry—would institute a day of hooky by communicating to his pal “We’re on a mission from God” (a reference to The Blues Brothers, perhaps). As the two navigate their way through high school, they’re joined by a third companion: Richie (Rafael Báez), who’s boastful about his romantic conquests. The trio does everything together—they even form their own band.
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DVD reviews: Claws come out for this week’s rip-roaring home releases.
Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God … Be Back by Five (★★★★A) This 1998 film, co-written by and starring Jon Cryer, is getting a special collector’s release and HD upgrade through the MVD Rewind Collection.
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Tiny Pets is equal parts adorable and addictive
Social games may not be for everyone, but their popularity, especially on iOS, cannot be ignored. The most recent game to do well is Tiny Pets, from social and mobile games developer TinyCo. Similar in respect to the company’s most successful iOS title, Tiny Zoo Friends, Tiny Pets is a virtual space-style of game in which players build a new tree house home for a flurry of furry creatures.
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The Girl From Atlantis by Richard Schenkman Review
Ever since Athena Crowley was young, she’s always loved the water and had the natural ability to stay afloat. Yet, as she grows older, Athena can’t remember life with her mother, who was lost in a terrible accident at sea. Luckily, she’s always had her supportive and caring father, Robert, around.
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How Piracy Helped ‘The Man From Earth’ Become A Viral Sensation and Inspired A Sequel
“The Man From Earth,” illegal downloads helped to spread the word about the film. Although the film’s viral success didn’t help the filmmakers get funding for a sequel, it did help the film break even and gain a strong fan base, which they’re hoping will support their current Kickstarter campaign for a “The Man From Earth” sequel. We asked the filmmakers to explain how piracy boosted their film’s stock and why they’re taking to Kickstarter to fund the sequel. The film’s co-producer and director Richard Schenkman explains below:
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Slice of SciFi #138: Eric Wilkinson and Richard Schenkman (“The Man From Earth”)
Interview: Producer Eric Wilkinson and Director Richard Schenkman talk to Mike, Summer and Brian about their exciting new SF film “The Man From Earth.” Sam, our news director, highly recommends this film to all our fans. Wilkinson and Schenkman describe this beautiful film from the pen of the late Jerome Bixby, who wrote some of the best classic Trek episodes. Starring in this film are a load of Star Trek alum including John Billingsley, Tony Todd, David Lee Smith and sci-fi veteran William Katt.
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2007 HOLEHEAD: MAN FROM EARTH—The Evening Class Interview With Richard Schenkman
Michael Guillén: So Richard, how did you feel about your recent world premiere of Man From Earth at San Francisco’s Holehead Film Festival?
Richard Schenkman: (Chuckles.) Well, gosh, I guess I’ve been in a little bit of denial about it being a “world premiere”, just because—like any filmmaker—I have grander notions of what constitutes a world premiere. I guess I’d love to think of it more as a kind of sneak preview for some hardcore genre fans in the San Francisco area, if I could say that with all due respect to all parties involved. However, at this point, since I’m in the rare position of having sold the film before I’ve played any festivals at all, I can really just go to the festivals and enjoy them for what they are. I enjoyed [the Sunday night premiere] very much because clearly the audience was with the movie from start to finish; they really enjoyed it; they were laughing; they were engaged; they seemed to all stay for the Q&A after it was over. I couldn’t have asked for a better response from the audience.
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Exclusive Interview With Richard Schenkman On Man From Earth Millennium
In 2007 The Man From Earth took the internet by storm, introducing a mind-boggling, completely compelling science fiction concept to an unexpectedly wide audience. It was writer Jerome Bixby’s final work, and the film wasn’t made until almost a decade after his death. Now, six years after the film’s release, the filmmakers are listening to the audience cries for more and are making a sequel titled Man From Earth Millennium.
The first film’s director, Richard Schenkman, is back at the helm for this outing and I recently had the opportunity to talk to him about the project. We discussed getting the first film made, the struggles of funding this sort of movie, what can be expected from Man From Earth Millennium and much more.
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INTERVIEW: Director Richard Schenkman talks MAN FROM EARTH and the upcoming sequel
Director Richard Schenkman talks with TV STORE ONLINE about MAN FROM EARTH and the film’s upcoming sequel…
TV STORE ONLINE: How did you get involved in the MAN FROM EARTH project?
Schenkman: I guess it was about 1998 or 1999. It wasn’t too long after Jerome Bixby had passed away. A friend of mine, a producer whom I had worked with once or twice previously called me up and told me about the script for it. I read the script and loved it. So I met with my friend, and Emerson Bixby and his manager who was trying to position himself as a producer. I went through and told Emerson what I liked about the script and I pointed out a few things that I thought needed to be changed in the script. The meeting went really well, everyone was really excited and we had all agreed that we could make the movie inexpensively and I thought that I’d be getting a call about it, but it never came.
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The Man from Earth Sequel ‘Pirated’ on The Pirate Bay – By Its Creators
With the file-sharing wars in full swing, 2007 saw the movie The Man From Earth being pirated all over the Internet, but its creators didn’t fight the movement. Instead, they embraced pirates and thanked them for their attention. More than a decade on its sequel, The Man From Earth: Holocene, is again being shared on The Pirate Bay. But this time its creators put it there themselves.
More than a decade ago, Hollywood was struggling to get to grips with the file-sharing phenomenon. Sharing via BitTorrent was painted as a disease that could kill the movie industry, if it was allowed to take hold. Tough action was the only way to defeat it, the suits concluded.
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Piracy as Marketing Tool? ‘The Man from Earth: Holocene’ Producers Have Made $45,000 From Self-Pirating Their Movie
If you can’t beat them, join them.
That’s what the independent producers of “The Man From Earth: Holocene” concluded about the inevitable piracy of their sci-fi film, a sequel to the 2007 cult hit “The Man From Earth.”
More than two months before its April 3 release on digital and DVD, they uploaded it to The Pirate Bay — available in up to 1080p HD format — and it spread to other services. The video is book-ended by an appeal from director-producer Richard Schenkman to consider donating some money if they watched the movie. “If you like it, support it, and remember that sharing is caring,” reads the note they included with the digital versions they distributed on piracy networks.
Since “self-pirating” their movie on Jan. 15, according to Schenkman and producer Eric D. Wilkinson, they’ve received nearly $45,000 in donations via their site, manfromearth.com, from fans and supporters around the world including China, Brazil and Europe.
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THE MAN FROM EARTH (2007): INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD SCHENKMAN AND ERIC D. WILKINSON
Richard Schenkman and Eric D. Wilkinson are the director and producer, respectively, of the 2007 science fiction film The Man from Earth. They were interviewed on January 5, 2010 by James Fieser of Philosophical Films (www.philfilms.utm.edu).
JOHN OLDMAN AS JESUS
Q: When casting David Lee Smith as John Oldman, were you looking for a particular physical type, such as a rugged or ethnically homogenous leading man?
Richard: Very simply, as they say, when you’re casting Superman, you’re casting Clark Kent. I was casting Jesus. You had to believe that this guy could have been historically Jesus. So he couldn’t be blue eyed with blonde hair, unless you were casting a very specific kind of ridiculous Jesus—“Thor of Nazareth” as one comedian once said. He couldn’t be Asian, he couldn’t be a lot of things. Whether you ultimately choose to believe his story or not, he had to look like he could have been acceptable in any of the time periods he describes. So it eliminated a lot of actors physically.
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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Director and Producer of The Man From Earth: Holocene
In this exclusive interview with Writer / Director Richard Schenkman and Producer Eric D. Wilkinson, we learn more about The Man from Earth: Holocene, the upcoming sequel to their cult classic science fiction film.
After getting in touch with The Man from Earth producer Eric D. Wilkinson, we arranged an interview both him and the director, Richard Schenkman, to discuss the finer details of The Man from Earth: Holocene, the long-awaited sequel to the beloved cult classic film. In addition to getting exclusive information on plot details and characters, the two men weigh in on Star Wars vs. Star Trek, the definition of science fiction, how they feel about Rogue One and the trend of remaking classic science fiction films.
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Bondage Interview (1)
MI6 caught up with Richard Schenkman, founder of ‘Bondage’ magazine – the original Bond fan publication
As a student Richard Schenkman started the first successful James Bond fan club and magazine, dubbed ‘Bondage’, in the USA in the 1970s, just as “Live And Let Die” was going into production. Between 1974 to 1989 Schenkman brought behind the scenes news and details to American 007 aficionados, starved of information that their British counterparts could readily read in the UK papers. In the first part of this interview, MI6 spoke to Schenkman about starting the magazine in a pre-internet era, gathering momentum and making the club a success.
How did you get involved in the world of Bond and how did your fan club get started?
We officially started in 1972 or ’73. Where it came from was, well, I was a big James Bond fan. I had read all the books over the course of one summer, and seen all the films that were available at the time to see. In the United States, at least, they would get regularly re-released as double features, especially when there was a new film coming. They’d re-release all the old ones to get everyone excited. That was how, in a fairly short span of time, I had been able to see all the films. This was in the year or so preceding the time that “Diamonds are Forever” came out, and then word spread that Roger Moore was going to be the new Bond.
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Bondage Interview (2)
What was the most memorable interview, or the most memorable meeting with Bond alumni?
There were so many important moments for me. Being able to sit down and do a long, comprehensive interview with Terence Young when I had never seen a long, comprehensive interview with him before. That was a thrill. And to do that on the French Riviera when I’d never even been there before. Or to be able to sit down with Tom Mankiewicz, who was a lovely, lovely man and really challenge him on what I thought was damage he had done to the Bond legacy with the movies he had written, and openly discuss this with him and have him answer honestly. Really – just to know that I was creating a resource that Bond fans were always going to be able to go back to.
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Interview with Richard Schenkman Founder of 007 Magazine – ‘Bondage’
This week we caught up with Richard Schenkman, founder of ‘Bondage‘ magazine – the original Bond fan publication, which ran until 1989. Schenkman brought behind the scenes news and details to American Bond fans – the first of it’s kind – which began as one or two sides of a sheet of mimeograph paper, and grew into a professional magazine.
1. What were some of the literary 007 highlights in the magazine over the years?
I started the club – the magazine, really – in order to learn more about the entire world of Bond, from Ian Fleming to the making of the feature films. As I’ve explained in the past, if anything approaching the wealth of information available today had been around back then, I’d never have done it, but I sensed that there was so much more to know than one could gather from the occasional Life magazine article or interview published in a newspaper. And so I simply set about trying to track down the information that I, as a fan, wanted to know.
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Interview with Director Richard Schenkman of the Horror Movie ‘Mischief Night’
We would like to thank Director Richard Schenkman for accepting our interview.
Tell us a bit about yourself?
I’m from New York, but since about 2000 I’ve lived in Los Angeles full time. I’ve wanted to make movies my whole life and while it was a long and circuitous road to get there, for the last fifteen or twenty years that’s mostly what I’ve been doing. I’ve got a daughter and a cat, both of whom I love very much, and I live in a cool apartment in the heart of Hollywood. So… I can’t really complain!
Can you tell us about how you got started in entertainment industry?
While at University, I was working on my college radio station, making films, writing for the school paper, even publishing a fanzine about James Bond. A few months after graduation, I got a call from a school friend who’d landed a job at CBS records. He told me about a new cable channel that was going to play music 24 hours a day, and the combination of music and television seemed a perfect one for me. I wrangled an interview, and got a job to be one of the very first people to work at what ended up being MTV: Music Television. And the funny part was that it wasn’t the short films or the radio experience that got me hired – it was the James Bond fanzine.
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Interview: Richard Schenkman – Director (Mischief Night) (2013)
Throughout his career Richard Schenkman has been at the helm of a host of films encompassing different genres. He’s directed romantic comedies (The Pompatus Of Love – 1995), Dramas w/ a Sci Fi bend to them (The Man From Earth – 2007) & horror films (Abraham Lincoln Vs. Zombies -2012). His latest film, MISCHIEF NIGHT, is a home invasion thriller in which a girl suffering from psychosomatic blindness finds herself alone at home under siege by one or more masked intruders on Halloween eve. Horrornews.net had the opportunity to speak with him about his latest film, the problems of shooting on an 8 day schedule & what he has next up in store for his fans.
Horrornews: I watched MISCHIEF NIGHT last night and had a good time with it! What inspired you to sit down and write the script?
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DVD Review: ‘Mischief Night’ (2013)
Every once in a while you run into a film that has an amazing cold opening, only to have the rest of the film fall to pieces. Ghost Ship is the first film that springs to mind, featuring an amazing sequence of a horrible accident slicing an entire ship worth of people to pieces.
Other films with amazing openings are the four Scream films, but at least the rest of those films’ runtimes are up to par with their openings. Now, we come to Mischief Night (on DVD December 17) where once again, a fun opening could have been a great short film, only to find itself attached to a mediocre one post-title card. Let’s just say there’s one home invasion film to see this year, and it’s You’re Next.
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DVD Review: ‘Mischief Night’ (2013)
Exclusive: Director Richard Schenkman Talks Mischief Night, More
Writer and director Richard Schenkman has had a varied career, encompassing romantic comedies, science-fiction and, more recently, a number of horror movies. His latest film is “Mischief Night,” a home invasion thriller in which teenager Emily (Noell Coet), still suffering from psychosomatic blindness brought about by a traumatic car accident that claimed her mother’s life nine years earlier, finds herself home alone and terrorized by a masked stranger (or perhaps more) on the night before.
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DVD Review: ‘Mischief Night’ (2013)‘Mischief Night’ Begins In This Gory Exclusive Clip
Here’s an exclusive bloody clip from Richard Schenkman’s Mischief Night, on home video December 17 from RLJ Entertainment and Image Entertainment.
“Mischief Night tells the story of a terrifying home invasion the night before Halloween. Young Emily Walton (Noell Coet), who has suffered from psychosomatic blindness ever since the car accident that took her mother’s life, must summon every instinct at her disposal to protect herself and her loved ones from a mysterious intruder.”
The film stars Daniel Hugh Kelly, Ally Walker, Noell Coet, Adam C. Edwards, Charlie O’Connell, Erica Leerhsen, Richard Riehle and Ian Bamberg.
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DVD Review: ‘Mischief Night’ (2013)Mischief Night (2013) Review
Mischief night is celebrated on October 30th in very small areas of the East Coast, primarily New Jersey and certain parts of Michigan. It has also been practiced in the UK and parts of Europe. On Mischief night, youngsters participate in pranks and minor vandalism including soaping windows, egging houses, toilet papering trees, play ditch ‘em doorbell, and other mostly harmless mischief as a pre-cursor to Halloween the next day. In director Richard Schenkman’s Mischief Night, the holiday takes on a far deadlier significance.
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DVD Review: ‘Mischief Night’ (2013)Mischief Night (2013)
Mischief Night comes to us from Richard Schenkman whose given us cinema greats such as Playboy: Playmates in Paradise and Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies…*awkward silence*… He’s back with Mischief Night, and just in time for Halloween (well sort of). In the film we follow a girl named Emily who suffers from psychosomatic blindness (blind mentally, not physically) and finds herself alone on the night before Halloween. While her Dad is off on a hot date, young Emily is terrorized by an unknown assailant with a mask and yellow raincoat. Naturally she can’t see this person, but she knows he’s there and he’s up to no good–chasing her around and killing off surprise guests and whatnot; typical bad guy stuff.
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DVD Review: ‘Mischief Night’ (2013)DTV Action Items (Part 3): Inmate at The Asylum, an interview with director Richard Schenkman
This is the third and final post in DTV ACTION ITEMS, a three-part series on direct-to-video action movies. Click here for Part 1, an interview with Outlaw Vern, and here for Part 2, a profile of actor Stone Cold Steve Austin.
The Asylum is the most disreputable studio in that most disreputable of markets: direct-to-video. They made their name cranking out cheaply made “mockbusters”, thinly veiled ripoffs of Hollywood blockbusters starring Z-list celebrities, many of which air in constant rotation on the SyFy channel. Last month Universal Studios sued them for copyright infringement on The Asylum’s Battleship take-off, American Battleship, starring Mario Van Peebles and Carl Weathers. Despite a hilariously cocky press release defending their film (” Looking for a scapegoat, or more publicity, for its pending box-office disaster, the executives at Universal filed this lawsuit in fear of a repeat of the box office flop, John Carter of Mars. The Universal action is wholly without merit and we will vigorously defend their claims in Court. Nonetheless, we appreciate the publicity.”), they changed the title to American Warships, which will be released on video May 22nd.