First Look: What An Institution! The Story of Police Academy

Hey, you got 10 minutes? That’s about how long this sizzle reel is:

If the embedded video doesn’t load, click to watch
What An Institution! The Story of Police Academy (2019) Exclusive 10-minute Preview at YouTube.

What An Institution! The Story of Police Academy is in production now. The team is still collecting interviews, but here’s a list of confirmed participants:

  • Paul Maslansky, Executive Producer
  • Bobcat Goldthwait, “Zed“
  • Michael Winslow, ” Jones“
  • Leslie Easterbrook, “Sgt. Callahan“
  • Shawn Weatherly, “Karen Adams“
  • Marion Ramsey, “Hooks“
  • Art Metrano, “Captain Mauser“
  • Brant Von Hoffman, “Blankes“
  • Peter Van Norden, “Schtulman“
  • Tim Kazurinsky, “Sweetchuck“
  • Charlie Schlatter, “Connors“
  • Matt McCoy, “Nick Lassard“
  • Julie Brown, “Chloe“
  • G. W. Bailey, “Captain Harris“
  • Brian Tochi, “Nogata“
  • Donovan Scott, “Leslie Barbara“
  • Scott Thomson, “Copeland“
  • Lance Kinsey, “Proctor“
  • Gregg Berger, “Talinsky“
  • Andrew Paris, “Bud Kirkland“
  • P. J. Ochlan, “Lester Shane“
  • Don Lake, “Mr. Wig“

The film is scheduled for release in 2019. I’ll post updates here from time to time, but if you’re on Facebook, you can follow the project here.

The Truth About Dr. Jekyll title card

The Truth About Dr. Jekyll

The Quad Cinema is showing Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde as part of their Hammer Films retrospective, giving me another excuse to recycle some old material, a clip that was recycling old material to begin with. Back in 2006, I produced a video podcast (before the format had really been established or anyone knew what it was) called Potluck: Substance Over Style. The person I was supposed to interview backed out last minute, so I had to come up with an episode on the fly. I pulled out some old videotape of my mom, a couple of other old tapes and some digitized public domain film and put this together. By the way, my mother has never even seen Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, believe it or not.

 

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Police Academy film series bannger

I’ve been promising something relating to Police Academy for years. It’s much bigger than I planned

Been a while since I posted anything new, and it’ll be a while longer. If you’ve been here before you might have noticed that I’ve updated the design of the site and I’m now going through it and fixing broken links and whatnot. Just to post something (sort of) fresh, I’m recycling a comment I made on a Police Academy post at The AV Club six years ago. I know, you’re thinking, “A comment?!? Seems like a pretty half assed thing to repurpose!” It’s not; the comment is about 1300 words of objectively deep insight. I was intending to write a thesis further expanding on the those ideas, but never did.

The poster for the documentary, What an Institution! The Story of Police Academy
In the 1980s, women had no torsos.

So, why this? Why now? Last month, I became an Executive Producer on the documentary, What An Institution! The Story of Police Academy. I’m the guy who spit out 1300 words off the top of my head on Police Academy, what did you expect me to produce? “A reboot,” you say. Sure, I’d love to, but I doubt that AT&T is going to replace Academy Award winning auteur Jordan Peele with little old me. I’m not really doing any of the heavy lifting on the project, that’s being taken care of by director Gary Smart and the team at Cult Screenings UK with assists from Paul Maslansky and Adam F. Goldberg. Shooting starts this week, so keep your eyes peeled for What An Institution! in 2019. Until then, enjoy this: Continue reading →

me & Mom at Impact Wrestling

A quick note to all my wrestling peeps

If you’ve been reading smile’s Wrestling Magazine at Flipboard, thanks for checking it out! I started the magazine because there’s already a lot of coverage of wrestling online but I wanted to focus on some of the things that mainstream media doesn’t: the indie wrestlers touring all over doing house shows, the many women who are overlooked or marginalized and the actual lives of wrestlers as people instead of the larger than life cartoons the general public seems to perceive them as.

me & Mom at Impact Wrestling
me & Mom at Impact Wrestling

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything because I’ve been busy (I explain in more detail here). On the TiVo, I have a couple of weeks worth of WWE & TNA shows, a few weeks of New Japan & PWS & a Lucha Underground to catch up on besides the YouTube stuff I subscribe to. Since I haven’t watched the shows, I haven’t been reading wrestling news because I want to avoid spoilers. I haven’t even kept up with local shows lately. I’ll be getting back to it, but in the meantime I want to thank you all for your patience and support! Keep reading and let me know your thoughts.

MoviePass Review Banner

Beat the Clock & Buy Advance Tickets with MoviePass

The title says it all, doesn’t it? In this video, I explain and demonstrate how to get around MoviePass‘ Countdown Clock and why it works. This doesn’t violate MoviePass Terms Of Service, either; I explain that towards the end, but once they get hip to this, I’m sure MoviePass will make some changes. Most ironic is that while MoviePass may not be too thrilled about this video, it’s the smoothest MoviePass transaction I’ve ever recorded. Seriously, I wonder how many MoviePass users have ever checked in and got their ticket that fast.


If the embedded video doesn’t load, click to watch
Beat The Countdown Clock and Buy Advance Tickets with MoviePass at YouTube.

I can’t front, I’m feeling pretty Damian Sandow-ish right now, but this is so face palmingly simple that I’d honestly be amazed if I was the first one to come up with it. You’re welcome.

Please be sure to check out the other articles in my series on MoviePass:

Why I can’t recommend MoviePass (and why I won’t be renewing my subscription anytime soon)

If you’ve read my other posts on MoviePass, it’s clear that overall I was happy with the service and how it was implemented for the first 11 months of my membership. Even with the Countdown Clock, many of you may find that MoviePass is indeed a great value that would suit your needs. The way the Countdown Clock was implemented and announced is only the latest in a string of ethically questionable practices that I have issue with.

Right off the bat, it was pretty impossible to recommend the service to anyone, despite how much value I was getting from it. Whenever I would tell anyone about MoviePass, they would ask, “What’s the catch?” at which point, I would rattle off a list. “So, the very thing MoviePass advertises as their service is pretty much bullshit,” is how people would basically respond to the list of restrictions on the “unlimited” service. I would contend that I didn’t believe it to be an intentional deception; the service was in still in “beta,” and I believed they were working towards offering what they were advertising.

“Get back to me when they’re out of beta.”

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