Whether planned or not, the musical choreography and instrumental progression of “The Compete Unknowns” Saturday night‘s concert at the Strand Theatre was a thing of beauty itself.

For a group that has played together for about a year, these four dudes are an exceptionally tight, fluid and professional band of musical aficionados. Saturday’s show was like a folk festival in itself ranging across the different styles and variations of Bob Dylan and the tunes and musical experiments of The Band, including an 8-piece horn section, scored for and played, remarkably well, by students of Shelbyville Middle School.

Even within the improvisational confines of performing 3 live sets, the layered crescendo of sounds from the acoustic opening to an electric folk middle and to the full-bodied sound of the horn finale was an amazing thing to hear and behold.  Repeatedly throughout the night “The Complete Unknowns” magically conjured up the spirit, music and feel of 1960’s music festivals, especially the vibe seen in classic concert films. Listening to and watching this band was like hearing my father’s vinyl records come alive before my eyes.

The opening acoustic set began as the crowd was still arriving at the Strand and was essentially the band warming-up and opening for itself, according to bassists Adam Kruse. It was, however, during this set of the traditional roots of folk music, before electric sound, that the audience got a taste of Dylan and the remarkable vocal mimicking of his distinct vocal patterns and twangs by guitarist Rod Carter.

During the second set of Dylan tunes, it became obvious that “the Complete Unknowns” were and are more than a mere cover band.  While at times they do mimic with exceptional clarity, they also interpret the music of Dylan in their own unique and lively fashion.  This band’s version of “Lovesick” is a great song played well by a band which deeply explores Dylan and revels in his musical journeys.  The performance was like taking a song for a lonely walk in the rain up and down a street; it was instrumental poetry at its best.  Somewhere in Europe, on his “Never Ending Tour,” Dylan, sitting in a coffee-house, would be happy to know that this band is spiritually recreating his tunes and songs for a new generation.

In point of fact, the crisp, tight, music of “The Complete Unknowns” is an intense journey fueled and driven by each musician individually and in collaborative harmony with each other. From the harmonies of Mike Kruse’s harmonica to the driving drums of Glen Allman and guitar leads of Carter and the thumping bass of Adam Kruse, one can tell that these four dudes really respect, revere and enjoy the music they play and they have a damn- good-time doing it. This was especially evident in the last set of the music of “The Band.”

This last set evolved from extended jam-sessions of interplaying instruments and voices to an experimental crescendo incorporating  a horn section of budding eighth –grade musicians. This unique horn section was the brainchild of Adam Kruse, who doubles as a band director at the middle school.

The junior-troupe of musically precocious and talented performers consists of four saxophone players, two trumpeters and two trombonists:  on alto sax,  Hannah Nuthak and Hayden DePrez;  on tenor sax,  Perla  Alamillo; on baritone sax Cameron Kiernicki;  trumpeters, Scot Gill and Nathan Scruggs and trombones played by Jimmy Lardin and Devin Graham.

These kids with horns were the masterstroke of the night adding an even bigger, significant sound and resonance to the musicality of “The Complete Unknowns.” To the credit of the band, Adam Kruse in particular, the final song of the night was an extended jam –session of 12 musicians on a stage;   with a brass ensemble that added a full-tone to the conclusion of the night’s musical journey.

“It was an enjoyable performance,” said  Art Edington,  a local musician in the crowd. “ It was   a great experience for these kids to perform in a different environment. It lets them learn how each part contributes to the overall sound and performance on stage.”

This horn section, which only rehearsed for about three weeks, according to Kruse, was seamlessly and effortlessly incorporated into a grand finale of driving music and instrumental joy that was only made more poignant by the sheer youth at the heart of the song.

This guest review does not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

The southern mountains came to Shelbyville as “The Cobbler Gobblers” brought their entertaining, enlightening and educational review of toe- tapping, fiddle-wailing, and vocally resonating Appalachian music to The Strand Theatre Thursday night.

It was a musical tour-de-force — a tune-full, tonal journey across decades and centuries of musical experiences, emotions and explorations of the traditional, old-time songs of the hills.  The band’s magical, almost mystical, 28 –song extravaganza inspired both the musicians involved and their audience, who gladly showed their appreciation in a prolonged standing ovation.

“The Cobbler Gobblers are the real deal,” said local musician Dean McNamara. “They are entertaining, educational and talented. It was the best all-ages show of the year.”

As a point of fact, this historic walk through of the traditions of Mountain music opened with sole banjo player, Joey Neal of North Carolina, sitting in a chair on stage (think front porch) picking in “clawhammer style” the iconic song of his rich genre: “Cumberland Gap.” In the next song a fiddler entered to highlight the progressive evolution of the musical history and complex cultural variations Appalachian song.

Onward into the night the education fused with entertainment as “the Cobbler Gobblers” expanded to a full 5-piece string band and then contracted back down for smaller ensembles dictated by tune, style and format of each melodious, harmonious exploration of the expressiveness of mere strings and voices.  Lament mixed with longing and joy as the band triumphantly strolled through the complex, often circular, simplicity inherent in the music and repeatedly built to crescendos of extraordinary proportions. At times the music seemed to sing and dance by itself while in other songs the 3-part vocal harmonies lilted across and through the hall like the dewy echoes and reverberations of the hills and hollers from which the songs sprang.

Spring like, (think babbling brook) the banjo, bass and guitar readily and continually built the rhythms for the fiddle led, often double fiddle inspired, songs which hauntingly  wrapped the nasal twang of the voice into the lilting wails of bows dancing  across fiddle strings.  This is a band which really enjoys playing off each other and it comes out in the sheer joyful musicality of their ethereal, epic playing.

“Mountain music is often a real joyous music where everybody playing joins in on the edge of the tune,” band leader Kent Lockman, explained to the crowd.

This ebullience was quite evident in the numerous small children bouncing and hopping in their seats– just biting at the bit to get up and shake, dance and thrash about to the rhythms and harmonies cascading from the stage during this down-home, string jam-session.

Equally participatory, was the call-and-response percussion supplied during several tunes by the clapping hands and stomping feet of the crowd, both young and old. Also quite poignant and touching was the somber and reverential silence that fell over the hushed theater as the band opened the second set with a somber ballad to showcase the blues fused social- protest songs of mountain music: specifically the trials, tribulations the tragedies of workers in the coal mines.

The tone of this lament, however, was transformed as the band romped through a series of songs where harmonic wails of joy coexist among life’s troubling times. These were and are celebratory ballads to highlight and describe how Appalachian musicians often used song, dance and sheer musical bravado to mentally and spiritually escape the grinding poverty of their daily existence.

“The Cobbler Gobblers,” themselves, typify this spirit soaring through and within music both in their otherworldly vocal harmonics and via the brilliance of strings– plucked, bowed, picked and strummed.

Repeatedly, throughout both sets, I could hear instruments not present on the stage. I could, and can, understand how a double bass can mimic the sound of a jug; but for the life of me I am still baffled as to how and who on stage channeled the raspy, rhythms of a washboard from a stringed instrument. It was a mystery which neither Lockman, nor his bassist wife Marianne, nor any musician in the audience could explain to me. I think, but cannot prove, that this ghostly musical effect was created by the banjo playing of Linda Cabe, another visiting Carolina native.

“This has been a ball for us,” Kent Lockman told the crowd standing in a hearty ovation as the night ended and silence descended on the Strand Theatre.

In fact, several audience members raved in the lobby after the show, including local musician Laura Harmon. “This was a fantastic show,” she said. “Old-time music feels good to the ear. Please (Cobbler Gobblers) come back here again.”

This guest review does not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

Editor’s Note:  The Cobbler Gobblers will return to the Strand Theatre on Friday October 22, 2010.

The following review does not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

Fans of folk songs, both traditional and electric, have two opportunities to exercise their passions for this quintessential American musical style this week at the Strand Theatre.

On Thursday evening, a more “traditional” variety will take center stage , at 7:30 , as the “The Cobbler Gobblers” perform their “old-time, Appalachian “songs.  Then Saturday night, at eight, , “The Complete Unknowns, will present a more contemporary version of the roots of this most variable and resilient of musical styles. The price to attend each musical exploration is $5.

American folk music, often called “roots music,”               first captured popular attention in the United States during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s. This initial incarnation took many forms such as Appalachian, Bluegrass, the Blues, Cajun, Country and the songs of social protest by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. A generation later the genre was reborn and revitalized for newer audiences amid the social and political turmoil of the 1960’s by the beatnik bard Bob Dylan and a host of others such as The Band. So it should not seem strange that this populist form should again come to life during the current Great Recession and that several of the  strains mentioned above should be taken up with vigor by local musicians.  After all, the term folk music originally was coined to describe the “musical folklore” of a variety of people and cultures.

Each of the locally-connected bands showcased this week at the Strand Theatre are returning to Shelbyville for encore reprisals of popular past performances.

“”The Strand Theatre has great acoustics for the Gobbler’s old-time fiddle tunes and rich three-part vocal harmonies,”  multi-instrumental musician, Kent Lockman,  said on “The  Cobbler Gobbler’s”  web –page.

Lockman and his bass-playing and singing wife, Marianne, are the local connections this five- piece  band formed in 2002 at a  folk festival in Tennessee. The two are also teachers at Hendricks Elementary School.  The band’s literal Appalachian roots are personified by two musicians from the Carolina’s: banjo player Linda Cabe of North Carolina and singer, guitarist and fiddler Joey Neal of South Carolina. The other “Cobbler Gobbler” Hoosier link is provided by lead vocalist and guitarist, Dee Capozzi,   a Whiteland native and hammered dulcimer player in a different musical incarnation.

‘“The Cobbler Gobblers” are very talented musicians who share their love of traditional music in an entertaining way,” said Mary Kay Pitts, a local hammered dulcimer player.

All proceeds from “The Cobbler Gobblers” jamboree of mountain music will be donated to the Strand Theater for the continued renovation and restoration of this community arts center and cultural venue.  Additionally, copies of the band’s CD  “Eat more Cobbler Play More Tunes,” will be sold during the show. The CD, is also available locally at “Three Sisters Books and Gifts,” located on the circle.

“The concert should be a fun down-home evening of music for all who attend the performance,” Lockman added.

In a rather sideways route, traditional Appalachian music was also a root-influence the legendary folk poet, Bob Dylan, who incidentally is the muse and inspiration of “The Complete Unknowns” the local band that will grace the Strand’s stage Saturday night.

This five piece, folk-rock band was “drawn together by the appreciation and sometimes love of the music of Bob Dylan and The Band,” said guitarist and harmonica player Mike Kruse.” Decades of music experience and a few music degrees are mixed in there too.”

The choice of both Dylan and The Band as inspirational mentors uniquely highlights the modern evolution of folk music.  Each equally draws attention to the fusing of American folk genres into modern Rock-n Roll, especially the socially- relevant protest songs of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.  Dylan, in particular, is credited with melding the many various strands of “roots music” into popular music, while simultaneously and notoriously tackling controversial subjects in his poetic lyrics that recall the 1930’s songs of Guthrie, “the Dust Bowl Troubadour.”

“The thing about Rock and Roll is that for me anyway it wasn’t enough,” said a 19-year old Dylan in  a Greenwich Village coffee-house in 1962. “There were great catch phrases and driving pulse rhythms, but the songs weren’t serious or didn’t reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was a more serious type of thing.”  Three years later, this young New York hipster would completely revolutionize folk music by electrifying it in a manner akin to Rock and Roll and create a new genre: folk-rock.

The other musical mentors mentioned by Kruse, “The Band” were also legendary performers of electric folk and recorded and performed frequently with Dylan, especially when the Minnesota -born bard took his big-city beats down to the capital of country music in Nashville to work on “The Band’s” initial album.   “Their first album, “Music from Big Pink” changed my life,” said legendary guitarist Eric Clapton, who dissolved his band “Cream,” during an attempt to join the “The Band.”

The five-piece ensemble, known as “The Band,” was a short-lived (1967-76) effort of “musician’s musicians,” comprised of Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Richard Danko  and often featuring Dylan, in his many guises, as singer, musician and songwriter extraordinaire

They were and are, in fact, praised and cited as influential by musicians ranging from the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, Neal Diamond, to the Black Crowes. “ The Band’s” last concert in 1976, aptly  called “the Last Waltz, “was a virtual who’s who of rock, folk, R&B and blues musicians. Both Dylan and “The Band” are previous inductees in The Rock and Roll Museum for both their musical innovations and influence.

Kruse is joined in “The Complete Unknowns’ by his son Adam, the bassist, who also serves as band director at the Shelbyville Middle School.   Joining the Kruse’s in this folk-rock celebration of electric an eclectic protest ballads are guitarist Rod Cotter, fiddler Nicole Smith and drummer Glen Allman.  As an added bonus, several of Adam Kruse’s middle-school students will perform as the opening act at Saturday’s concert.

The following review does not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

              For most people the 1960’s recall images of peace, love and flower-children. This weekend, however, patrons of the Strand Theatre will get a different vision of the hippie decade: a dark, twisted, and subversive film, “The Night of the Living Dead.”

This independently made, low-budget, classic movie, is much more than mere gore and zombies, according to writer and director George A.  Romero.

“It was 1968, man.  Everybody had a message,” Romero said, about creating his now legendary film. “I was trying to come up with a concept about a new society, revolutionary… in political terms, that’s taking over society and devouring it.”

 For 1968 audiences, however, the zombies, gore and violence were so shocking that many missed the more political aspects of this macabre tale. In fact, Reader’s Digest, initiated a national campaign to have the movie banned, not for revolutionary rhetoric, but for explicit graphic violence.  Similarly, several Hollywood studios refused to touch his low-budget, $114,000, zombie apocalypse.

“We couldn’t imagine a happy ending,” Romero said about his “guerilla cinema” filmed entirely in the small-town of Evans City, PA. “Everyone wanted a Hollywood ending, but we stuck to our guns.”

Ironically, “The Night of the Living Dead,” would gross more than $42 million within a decade of its release and by 1999 Romero’s subversive horror masterpiece would by enshrined in the National Film Library” by the U.S. Congress.

This weekend, Strand Theatre patrons will get two evening opportunities (Friday at 8 and Saturday at 11) to either enjoy the carnage or attempt to deconstruct the several threads of revolutionary satire that Romero encoded into his suburban movie mayhem.

In a strange twist of cinematic fate, Romero found inspiration in weird triad of sources: actor and director Orson Welles, opera and most bizarre of all, PBS legend “Mr. Rogers.”  As a small child, Romero decided to create film after seeing a British film based on Offenbach’s opera “Tales of Hoffman.”   It was, however, working on an episode of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” that sparked his nasty, allegorical vision of “horror in a suburban nuclear family consuming itself.”

Filmed with a hand-held 35 mm. camera and gallons of Bosco chocolate syrup, the initial revolutionary aspect of the movie was casting an African-American male as the lead during the social turbulence and overt violence of the Civil Rights Movement in America.  Further, Romero wove in issues of nuclear waste (radiation spawning zombies) and mocked the militarization of society during the war in Vietnam.  Think of “search and destroy” missions as you watch zombies die only by “killing the brain.” These themes now seem cliche, but they were unheard of at the time and made Romero a film- pioneer who fused political commentary into horror films.

Equally, “The Night of the Living Dead,” practically reinvented the concept of zombies. Prior to this film, zombies were “Voodoo” monsters remote from reality. With this movie, zombies become a metaphor for society.  “I have always liked the monster with in idea,” Romero said. “I like zombies being us. Zombies are the blue-collar monsters.”

As an aside, note that the word zombies is never uttered in this improvisitional, black and white film spoof of the newsreels of the Cold War. 

More specifically subversive, and relevant to our times, however, are questions Romero asks in the finale of this movie that mirrors society. Encoded within the final scene is are two terrifying rhetorical and hopefully, unanswerable queries.  Which is a worse fate, to be consumed by the reanimated, living dead or to be destroyed by the living, but mentally-dead, fury of a posse run amuck? And who, why and what are the real the zombies in this film?

The following review does not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

Music, its art and evolution, took center stage at the Strand Theatre, during Saturday’s downtown Shelby County Arts Fest 2009.

Even for a non-musician such as myself, the day’s five concerts were an exciting, pleasant, and provocative excursion which left one craving much more, in a myriad of ways. Curiously, each performance alternately highlighted and then teased you with the promising cultural possibilities available by, for, and within Shelbyville and Shelby County.

In a single day, on a single stage, one could enjoy music spanning the centuries: from Beethoven’s era to the Beatles, patrons were offered an enticing artistic smorgasbord of songs that fused musical themes, styles and genres while crossing generations. The range of performers and the diversity of the crowds in attendance were just one of the semi-shocking aspects of Saturdays’ musical explorations.

The morning opened with the vocal harmonies of the “Blue River Community Choir,” a local group of aficionados formed in 2001. “Many of us have fond memories of the Strand, so it is always a pleasure to perform there,” said choir-member Carolyn Stadler.

This choral medley of love-inspired tune was followed by the instrumental sounds of the “Shelby Community Band,” another local ensemble of talent, formed and performing since 1973.   The band performed under the baton of guest conductor Charles Rose from Tipton, Indiana.   On this day the band also featured a wonderful solo by euphonium player Ed Morin.

From this bass-toned performance the stage shifted to the more folksy, lyrical melodies of the “Pitts Kitchen Dulcimer Band,” whose rhythmic work echoed and ricocheted throughout the theater.

This 9-piece ensemble conjured up several Araucanian vistas through its haunting, lilting style of play and showcased a quite outstanding feature of the Strand, its acoustic capabilities. While listening to one this band’s Celtic tunes I could almost see the swinging skirts of girls dancing across saw-dust covered floors and smell peat burning on the hearths of some long-lost Irish pub.

As an aside, the uplifting tempo of this musical romp inspired one very young jump, thrash and twirl about in an ecstatic form of childhood dance.

The next song, an evocative Germanic schottische, was equally sensory and evocative as both the rhythms of the lap –dulcimers and the soft, smooth ripples of the hammer- dulcimers echoed, then reverberated in splendorous majesty off the theater walls. The sensation was akin to sitting amidst string symphony surrounded by an acoustic stereo that echoed with smooth melodies.

If the “Pitts Kitchen Dulcimer Band,” evoked a pastoral symphony of sorts, then the following act brought one to the physical stage. More than any other ensemble of the day, “Slaughterhouse Five Woodwind Quartet,” made one wish that the Strand was a full-blown concert-hall that could seat both a symphony and the crowd to enjoy it.

Fortunately, Slaughterhouse Five’s performance was superb music, played by especially competent musicians in an intimate, aesthetically pleasing environment that seems especially attuned to the subtle nuances of such music. It was a sweet set and if I were a more religious dude, I would say that the quintet summoned a small piece of heaven down to the stage on Saturday afternoon.

As the dark of the night settled on Arts Fest, the Strand Theatre shifted gears and centuries from the virtuoso performances of various classical forms of music to the more modern masters of our contemporary age: an acoustic interpretation of the legendary geniuses of Rock-N-Roll, the Beatles.

An eager audience arrived before the doors opened to listen to and enjoy: the “Beatles Acoustic,” performed by “Tim Spradlin and the Heart and Soul Band.” Essentially, this was a celebratory, nostalgic and historic tour of the lads from Liverpool’s hit-filled careers.

The band’s first, 12-song –set, opened as a kind of narrative journey through the Fab- Four’s early musical styles and influences.  Think of the Beatles translated into a cabaret musical and set in a small dinner-theater. One local musician remarked that it was an entertaining “Las Vegas style,” rendition. Spradlin was at his best singing the emotional and soft melodies of songs such as “Imagine,” and his theatrically- inspired version of “Twist and Shout.”

Another local musician in the audience, said that he was particularly impressed by drummer Michael Atwood’s, study and mimicry of Ringo Starr’s percussion style.

It takes a brave band to translate the Beatles’ eclectic bag of genius songs and an audience’s collective memories, musical and personal, about these English legends of Rock. One thing, however, remains the same across the years: the ability of this music to move people, regardless of their generational differences. What Beatles concert or retrospective would or could be complete without teens moved to dance, twist and swoon to this music and Saturday night’s show was no exception. Repeatedly, throughout the night teen-age girls danced with their mothers, fathers, boyfriends or just by themselves.

 On stage the band themselves, rather seemed to enjoy this spontaneous outburst of youth moved to lyric and sensory appreciation.

The following reviews do not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

(Editor’s Note:  Mr. Aldridge has offered to volunteer for the Strand by writing thoughts on the performances.)

An often heard lament in this town, which I myself frequently quote, is that there is nothing here to do or that nothing culturally exciting occurs.

Ironically, this past weekend’s B-Movie festival, especially in its incarnation at the Strand Theatre, has and will make me re-evaluate and eat my sarcastic jibs.

From Friday to Sunday I watched 38 movies in roughly 35 hours at the Strand, three of which were and are exceptional ventures into cinema that I greatly enjoyed viewing.

Simultaneously, across the town audiences could and probably did enjoy 28 B-Movies at Studio 10, as well as several workshops by film-makers. Further out, on the edge of town, the Skyline Drive presented 11 concerts and four B- movie classics. Meanwhile, in neighboring Franklin patrons and aficionados could watch six classics and attend a national B-Movie Awards ceremony. All told, local Hoosiers were exposed to 70 films on this the first weekend of fall.

It was at the Strand, however, where independent cinema really shined forth like a never before seen beacon in Shelby County and the leading lights of this show were three films, two by native Hoosiers.

In no particular order these films are “Half way to Hell,” written and directed by Greenwood-born Lola Wallace. This micro-budget masterpiece-in-the-making was produced on a budget of around $2000, she said.

Columbus-native Adam Cooley’s ”Can’t or Won’t Not” was entirely produced, conceived and executed as a visual, computer-generated and modified experiment by the 23-year-old self-taught director. It was, perhaps the most artistically challenging and provocative film shown during TromaDance.

Finally, the multi-part feast “The Italian Zombie Movie,” will perhaps spawn new conspiracy theories about independent films. One such ironic confluence is that this brash and entertainingly disturbing movie was produced, filmed and acted out by an entirely volunteer cast. Strange then, indeed, that it received its first national showing in a historic, local performing arts center, equally staffed, run and directed by a voluntary crew.
Cinema, like all arts, is a mental invasion which allows one to perceive and see the world and existence in new and different ways.  This is exactly what Shelbyville had to offer this weekend. Perhaps if we work at it, this festival of independent films and B-movies will return, grow and continue to feature and nurture local visionaries as it entertains Hoosiers. After all, who ever heard of the tiny town called Sundance 31 years ago.

The following reviews do not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

In film festivals of any all kinds, such as Tromadance at the Strand Theatre, one often gets a rather eclectic mix of poor, really bad, downright ugly, scaringly good and rare occasional gems of sparkling brilliance. Sunday’s features, in Shelbyville’s only downtown theatre, were no exception to this unwritten rule.

The day began early with an exceptionally horrid attempt “Vampire City,” that merely seemed to be an excuse to film attractive Austrian women. This insipid tale of a “rock-n-roll vampire” was far and away the most disappointing movie of the entire weekend.

The day, however, was quickly redeemed by four rather fast paced short-films which swung wildly across the spectrum of vampiric themes. The most memorable of these was “The Union,” a vampire wedding filled with assassination and a curious plot twist. Also worthy of mention is “She Thinks She Sees Zombies,” a fast, scream-filled, hilarious farce. Finally, these short excursions into mini-horror reached a psychological peak with “The Faceless,” a morbid story of a victim of violence turned assassin through the healing powers of modern therapy methods.

The next feature was a take on the tired genre of a geeky, nerd turned bully-killing vigilante.  Watching this ghost-filled slasher I was left wondering about the merits of such a gore-filled exploitation and exploration of just such social misfits in a post-Columbine world.

On the heels of this film, followed a more mainstream feature: “Twists of Fate,” a rather straightforward tale of the unglamorous life, decisions and deaths of two rival gangster families.

However, it was the next film, “Can’t or Won’t Not,” which proved itself to be a surprisingly, experimental gem of a film. This digital, computer art themed film was created by a 23-year-old Columbus, Indiana native, Adam Cooley. This, his first movie, was a visually promising , color-filled work that played upon a fusion of pop-culture and computer-generated effects. It was a challenging and interesting exploration of virtual and real life that sadly needed tighter dialogue and a little more variation. All-in-all, Cooley is film-producer that deserves and needs to further continue and refine his heightened visions.

At this time, the eyes of this visual bohemian reviewer required a break, so to journalism I turned, letting the audience review the next feature, “Chaos from Outer Space.”  Most in the crowd said this 72-minute movie would have been better as a short. One frequent weekend-long patron, summed it best in a quick quip “At best this a Z-movie spoof.”

Following was an Australian film, “Demons Among Us,” which started out as promising dark tale. It, quickly, however, descended into a visual melange of special-effects for the sake of special-effects and one soon came to realize that the person who directed this movie had obviously watched the “Blair Witch Project” a few too many times. Finally, if there are demons among us then they surely haunted and ruined the initially promising cinematography of this film.

As on the previous evening of film, the best Movie experience of Sunday night was the next feature “The Italian Zombie Movie: Part II Zombie Atrocity.” If Part I of this epic was a baroque, surreal plunge into madness, discombobulation and mayhem, then Part II was rather strange linear tying of a multitude of plot-lines and the cacophony of conspiracy theories that comprise this film. In short, this movie is the Post-Modern face of horror: a movie that both zombifies the senses and makes ones very skeleton giggle with sarcastic glee.

Kudos to these Michigan movie mavericks. Watching both parts of “The Italian Zombie Movie” makes one realize that it will take countless, repeated viewings for anyone to deconstruct each and every cultural and movie-lore reference encoded into this film. This sensory tome of Berdinski and friends is like encountering the James Joyce of 21st-century cinema:  simultaneously mind-boggling, soul-satisfying and compellingly curious.