FRIDAY SCREEN TEST: Cinebeats

Possessing a love for cinema of the 60s and 70s -- like most of us, except more so -- Cinebeats (aka Kimberly) has spread her affection far and wide across the Information Super Blog-o-Cloverleaf Freeway. It all starts at the Cinebeats blog, where Kimberly digs into fresh discussions such as a look at actor James Fox's underrated career or a confession of her love for Superchick. After that, head on over to the jive happenins at The Groovy Age of Horror or Cinedelica or The Horror Blog Roundtable -- she contributes to all of them. There may be a few more Cinebeats landing pads out there I missed, but there's more than enough aforementioned to go around. Kimberly has some great taste in films (Equinox! Yes!) and actors (Marisa Mell! Yes!), so chances are she'll regularly turn you on to some great movies.

CINEBUMPS: 'I had a long distance relationship with a independent director from New York for a brief time, but I’m not willing to kiss and tell about that odd relationship just yet. I will mention that since I live in the Bay Area near Lucas Valley I have come in contact with director George Lucas numerous times, but it wasn’t always in the most comfortable circumstances. I can be a little clumsy and oddly enough I’ve literally bumped into the guy often which became rather awkward. The last time it happened he gave me an odd look like, “It’s you! That weird girl who keeps bumping into me because she’s not looking where she’s walking.” I apologized of course, but I’m still waiting for Lucas to apologize for the last four Star Wars films. As far as directors go, I’ve also met Clive Barker on a few occasions and he’s one of the nicest filmmakers and writers that I’ve ever met. He’s really friendly and open, and he enjoys talking about his work a lot. It’s a shame that he hasn’t made more movies.'

GIMME GIALLO, ANY GIALLO: 'I tend to buy a lot of horror films, cult movies, international films and unusual titles that were previously really hard to find and sadly often go out of print rather quickly. I make a point of buying every giallo and krimi film that I can find since those are two film genres that really interest me. In turn I try and support smaller DVD companies like Mondo Macabro, Blue Underground, No Shame and Panik House whenever I can since I tend to really like the films they release. I also love companies like Criterion and Kino so I try and support them whenever I can afford to since I generally like a lot of their releases as well.'

CINEMA DE CINEBEATS: 'My revival theater would undoubtedly showcase sixties and seventies era cinema since that's where my own interests are really are focused. I would love to run a week long program of International horror movies and thrillers made between 1960-1980 if I could find good prints of them. I would kick off the event with a weekend of British films like Peeping Tom, Don’t Look Now, The Collector and the original Wicker Man followed by some great gothic horror films made by studios like Hammer, Amicus and Trigon. I’d devote Monday to French and Polish horror since there is some crossover there and show movies such as Eyes Without a Face, Blood and Roses, The Beast and some of Roman Polanski and Jean Rollins’ films. Tuesday would be the beginning of a three day tribute to Italian cinema. There’s nothing quite like Italian horror films so I think devoting three days to them within the week long event would be well worth it. The first day I would show gothic Italian horror films which often starred the lovely Barbara Steele such as Black Sunday, Castle of Blood, The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock and Nightmare Castle. I’d devote Wednesday to showing my favorite giallo films and Thursday would be devoted to Italian zombie movies. On Friday I’d play the best German krimi thrillers I could find featuring my favorite German actor, Klaus Kinski. Spanish and Latin American horror would be showcased on Saturday and some of the director’s featured would include Jess Franco, Coffin Joe, Juan Lopez Moctezuma and Jorge Grau. On Sunday I’d wrap things up with an entire day devoted to Japanese films such as Kwaidan, Blind Beast and The Face of Another, along with as many films by directors Nobuo Nakagawa and Michio Yamamoto that I could get my hands on. Naturally I’d invite guests to talk and mingle with the audience as well and since it is my theater, I’d also try and get a liquor license so I could serve booze there. I’ve never understood why American theaters are alcohol free zones. Movie theaters in places like Japan and the U.K. often serve alcohol.'

ORIGIN STORY: 'I’ve always loved writing and I’ve always loved film so I suppose the two things just sort of went hand in hand. When I was in high-school I started writing for the school newspaper and ended up as a co-editor. I wrote a couple of reviews for horror movies back then and got them published in the paper. At the time I had dreams of writing for Fangoria magazine some day. I still love writing about horror films, but my interests have expanded a lot. I do think it’s a shame that more women aren’t writing about genre films so I often focus on them in my own blog now. That’s one of the main reasons I was inspired to start Cinebeats.'

HOUSE OF THE DVDS: 'I usually watch at least two or three films a week at home. Sometimes more and sometimes less. I rarely go out to see movies unless it’s to see a revival of some older film and that doesn’t happen too often anymore due to the high cost of ticket prices I’m afraid. In all honesty 75% of the new films being released lately don’t interest me much. Thankfully there are hundreds of older films being made available every month on DVD to keep me happy.'

THANKS, DAD: 'My dad is really responsible for getting me interested in horror movies when I was just a kid. He loved the old Universal monster movies and Hammer films, and he managed to pass that passion onto me. We used to spend every weekend together watching something called the “Monster Matinee” on television or going to the local drive-in. He was fascinated with actors like Boris Karloff, Vincent Price and Christopher Lee as well as special effects and makeup used in the movies. On the other hand my mom hated horror films. She saw Hitchcock’s Psycho when she was a teenager and it scared her to death so she vowed never to watch another thriller or horror film again. Thankfully she didn’t try and stop me from watching them, but she often expressed her displeasure to my dad when he would let me watch horror films with him. I think my dad was just happy that he finally had someone to watch horror movies with after I was born so he let me watch a lot of films that other kids my age probably weren’t allowed to.'

SPEAK THE CINEBEATS: 'Not a lot, but I’ve been known to say silly things on occasion like “Game Over!” from Aliens or “You sure have a nose for shit!” from Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. I will mention that on any given day you can find me humming songs from my favorite musicals or singing my favorite movie theme songs out loud. I’ve annoyed people with my poor renditions of songs from West Side Story, Funny Girl and Cabaret on more than one occasion.'

WANNA SEE SOMETHING REALLY SCARY?: 'A lot of people assume that since I grew up watching horror films and have seen so many of them that they don’t scare me anymore, but nothing could be further from the truth. Psychological horror is especially disturbing to me when it’s done well. Some of the scariest movies ever made don’t necessarily contain “jump out of your seat” moments. Jack Clayton’s The Innocents, Roman Polanski’s The Tenant, Nicloas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now and Andrezej Zulawski’s Possession are examples of what I would consider great psychological horror films that are truly frightening. I’ve seen those movies numerous times, but I still find them really disturbing. Particular scenes that have really sacred me are often rather low-key moments in films that sort of creep over the viewer such as when Deborah Kerr spots the shape of a woman standing across the lake in The Innocents or when Roman Polanski discovers a tooth in the wall in The Tenant. Those are both really frightening moments to me.'

NEW HALLOWEEN, YAY OR NAY?: 'I’ve got to say nay. I’ve been really disappointed with the lack of original ideas coming out of Hollywood, including all the horror remakes in recent years. I’m also not a fan of Rob Zombie’s films so I can’t say that I’m really looking forward to his remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween. I have nothing against remakes if the director brings something new to the table and they’re done well such as David Cronenberg’s brilliant version of The Fly, but I just don’t think that’s going to happen with Halloween. Oddly enough one of my favorite remakes is John Carpenter’s version of The Thing which I happen to think is superior to the first film. Carpenter went back to the source material and his remake is actually more true to John W. Campbell’s original story in my opinion and it’s just a really terrific film on its own. Hopefully Rob Zombie will take some cues from Carpenter’s remake of The Thing and bring that kind of imagination and creativity to his version of Halloween, but I think that’s doubtful. Halloween is a film franchise that’s been beaten into the grave at this point and it would take a miracle to breath life into it again.'
THIS IS FOR PRIS!: '1991 was really special because I met my future husband that year at a screening of the director’s cut of Blade Runner and I can’t forget that. Who knew that Ridley Scott’s neo-noir science fiction thriller could bring two people together?'

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