Three Rockets From Miami

April 27, 2025 at 12:22 pm

The Miami Science Fiction Film Festival was held January 18-19, down in Florida (natch). Mike Cassutt and I were there… we had a series of meetings that week, and we’d enetered MARY-MARGARET ROAD-GRADER in the festival.

The film was well received, as I reported downstream in my post about the festival. We came away with four awards. Steven Paul Judd took two of them; he took Best Director, and also won the prestigious Russell Bates Award. MARY-MARGARET also won honors for its costuming and wardrobe… and Miami was kind enough to present me with a lifetime achievement award.

We were not able to attend the awards presentation at the festival, and I believe there were some delays with the trophies. They were finally completed, however, and the rockets arrived here in Santa Fe a couple of day ago.

The Bates Award was shipped directly to Steven Paul Judd; the other three turned up here, and will be distributed to the winners. (Steven’s when he returns to Santa Fe in a few weeks to direct his next episode of DARK WINDS. He has been doing an amazing job for us since he joined the show. Super talented guy. And DARK WINDS itself has been kicking ass and taking names. If you have not been watching it, you don’t know what you are missing).

And speaking of film festivals… if any of you are in Texas this weekend, do check out the schedule for the Dallas International Film Festival, to be held this weekend. Another of our Waldrop shorts, THE UGLY CHICKENS, is entered in the shorts competition. I am told it’s scheduled for Sunday. Sid Khalsa will be on hand to help present it. TUC was adapted by Michael Cassutt from Howard’s Nebula-winning short story, and was directed by Mark Raso. The one and only Felicia Day stars.

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: awards, film festivals, films, Howard Waldrop

Waldrop Wins One

June 14, 2024 at 7:14 am

VERY pleased to announce that MARY MARGARET ROAD-GRADER, the second of the Howard Waldrop shorts we’ve produced, kicked ass and took names at its world premiere, taking home the honors as Best Indigenous Short at the deadCenter Film Festival in Oklahoma City.

Steven Paul Judd and Elias Gallegos represented the Fevre River Packet Company and Lumenscape Productions at the festival, while Taylor Church attended on behalf of Trioscope. Elias also played the part of Simon Red Bulldozer. Steven directed the film from his own screenplay, a lovely (and faithful) adaptation of Howard’s classic short story. Crystle Lightning starred as Mary Margaret herself, and Martin Sensemeier as Billy-Bob Chevrolet.

Sadly, we lost Howard in January, but he was there in spirit… and also on celluloid, sitting into for a brief cameo appearance in a council scene. I like to think he would have been proud of us. I do know he liked the movie; were able to screen it for him in the week before his death.

Here’s the full list of all the deadCenter winners for 2024:

Here are the 2024 deadCenter Film Festival award winners!

For all you Waldrop fans who couldn’t make it to Oklahoma City last weekend, hang in there… we’re sending MARY MARGARET out on the circuit, and have her on submission at another dozen festivals around the country and the world. I will be sure to let you know when and where the movie will be appearing next.

And we’re not done yet. We’re almost done with post on THE UGLY CHICKENS, and Howard Hamster and his own gang will be along after that. Watch this space.

Current Mood: happy happy

Tags: film festivals, Howard Waldrop, movies

Come to the Tractor Pulls

June 7, 2024 at 11:08 am

There’s an exciting weekend ahead for all the film fans in Oklahoma City. It is the time of the Sun Dance and the Big Tractor Pull… and the 24th Annual deadCenter Film Festival.

24th Annual deadCenter Film Festival

Join us for the 24th Annual deadCenter Film Festival: June 6-9, 2024!

As Oklahoma’s largest and only OSCAR©-qualifying film festival, deadCenter is the best place to see exciting new shorts, insightful documentaries, hilarious comedies, hair-raising thrillers, and the very best independent films from around the world and all over Oklahoma. Did we mention the legendary parties, networking events, and cutting-edge virtual reality experiences? There’s something for everyone at the 24th Annual deadCenter Film Festival. However you deadCenter, your pass will allow you to experience the best of the fest!

The festival will feature a great lineup of features and short films from exciting new talents… including the WORLD PREMIERE of MARY MARGARET ROAD-GRADER, based on the classic short story by Howard Waldrop, and produced by George R.R. Martin and Trioscope Films, scripted and directed by Steven Paul Judd and starring Crystle Lightning, Martin Sensemeier, Cody Lightning, Elias Gallegos, and Ryan Begay. Ramin Djawadi did the score.

Originally published in 1977 in ORBIT 18, “Mary Margaret” was a finalist for the Nebula Award, Howard’s first major awards nomination…. though far from his last. Alas, he lost

The festival will run from June 6 through June 9. MARY MARGARET will run twice:

Friday June 7th, 3:00 PM Harkins Auditorium 11

Saturday June 8th, 9:00 pm Harkins Auditorium 13

Screenings will be shown at the Harkins Theatres Bricktown, 150 E. Reno Avenue, in Oklahoma City.

Have a look at our trailer.

Howard Waldrop passed away on January 14…but we were able to show him the final cut of MARY-MARGARET the week before he died, thankfully, and I am so happy to be able to say that he liked it.

deadCenter will be the first showing of MARY MARGARET ROAD-GRADER… but not the last, we hope. We are taking the film out on the festival circuit, as we did with NIGHT OF THE COOTERS before it, and have submitted it to a dozen other filmfests all over the country and the world. I will let you know when and where we are accepted. With luck, you will be able to catch it at someplace near you.

Meanwhile, post production continues on our third Waldrop short, Michael Cassutt’s adaptation of THE UGLY CHICKENS, directed by Mark Raso. Watch this space for details, when we have ’em.

Current Mood: happy happy

Tags: film festivals, Howard Waldrop, movies

Come to the Pulls

February 3, 2024 at 3:04 pm

Howard Waldrop had a new book out last year: H’ARD STARTS: THE EARLY WALDROP, from Subterranean Press. Brad Denton and I put it together. It was a collection of Howard’s earliest work — the stories he wrote for comic book fanzines in the 60s and early 70s, some plays from college, con reports, articles from CRAWDADDY, a sketch he wrote for Red Skelton (Red passed), sword and sorcery in the mode of Robert E. Howard, science fiction in the mode of Cordwainer Smith, and his earliest pro work, including his first sale, one of the last stories bought by John W. Campbell Jr. Plus the never-published “Davy Crockett Shoots the Moon,” a story purely in the mode of Howard Waldrop. All of it tied together by a series of interviews done by Brad Denton, wherein H’ard told the stories behind the stories, and how all this came to be.

It’s a swell book, if I do say so myself. Howard liked it too. If you missed it, you can still grab a copy from SubPress, autographed by me, Brad, and Howard himself.

https://subterraneanpress.com/hstew/

Howard also had a movie out last year… well, actually the year before, but overlapping. NIGHT OF THE COOTERS, an adaptation of his novelette of the same name, debuted at the LA Shorts Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Sci-Fi. Scripted by Joe Lansdale, directed and starring Vincent d’Onofrio, produced by the sfx wizards at Trioscope, it spent most of the year on the festival circuit, screening at the Atlanta Film Festival, the Dubuque Film Festival, FilmQuest in Provo, Utah, the New York Shorts Film Festival, Midwest WeirdFest in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and the Santa Fe International Film Festival, winning several additional awards along the way.

Howard liked it too.

COOTERS was just the beginning, though. Only the first of a series of short films — and one full-length feature, we hope — we have been making, based on some of Howard’s astonishing, and unique, stories. He wrote so many, it was hard to know where to start, but start we did, and I am pleased to say that we have three more Waldrop movies filmed and in the can, in various stages of post production. Some of you — the lucky ones — will get a chance to see them this year, at a film festival near you. As with COOTERS, we’re taking them out on the festival circuit.

First one out of the chute will be MARY-MARGARET ROAD GRADER. We were able to screen a rough cut for Howard just a few days before his death. I am so so so glad we did. And I am thrilled to be able to report that he loved it.

We can’t show it to the world yet. But here’s a trailer, to give you all a taste.

MARY-MARGARET was adapted and directed by Steven Paul Judd, and features an all-indigenous cast, with Crystal Lightning as Mary-Margaret and Martin Sensemeier as Billy-Bob Chevrolet. The tractors are all by our friends at Trioscope.

I will be sure to let you know where the movie will be appearing just as soon as we hear back from some of those film festivals.

And there’s more coming after that. Next up will be THE UGLY CHICKENS, Howard’s most famous story, which won the Nebula and the World Fantasy Award (and should have won the Hugo too, if you ask me). That one is almost done, and I hope to have a trailer for you soon. Further down the pike is the film we’re calling FRIENDS FOREVER (that will not be the final title), which should be ready in another four-five months.

And after that, we hope we hope, will come the feature, a full length adaptation of A DOZEN TOUGH JOBS. Have not started filming on that yet, but the deals are in place. The amazing Joe Lansdale adapted the novella, and Howard loved the script.

I wish he was here to see the movies. To see all the movies.

Howard’s gone. But his genius lives on.

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: film festivals, films, friends

Cooters In Atlanta

May 19, 2023 at 7:17 pm

This year’s Atlanta Film Festival was held April 20-25 in Atlanta (natch), Georgia. I was on hand, along with some friends, minions, associates, and, of course, our cooters, to present a special screening of our short film, NIGHT OF THE COOTERS, based on Howard Waldrop’s classic short story.

The film was very well received, I am pleased to report. (I do wish Howard had been on hand to enjoy the applause, but alas, he’s still in Texas and not able to travel for the present). Vincent d’Onofrio, who directed the short and starred as Sheriff Lindley, took a short break from playing the Kingpin and flew down from New York to join us.

I don’t think I have been back to Atlanta since worldcon went there, many years ago. It was great to be back. The weather was perfect. We got to enjoy a Braves game from one of the owner’s boxes, and they brought me out onto the field to the sound of the GAME OF THRONES theme to start the game by shouting “Play Ball.” (I was tempted to shout “Let’s Go Mets” instead, but (a) the Mets were not playing, and (b) the Braves fans might have stoned me to death). It was a great day for the Braves, fwiw: they won 11-0, with five home runs, and the pitcher had a no-hitter going for seven innings or so.

We stayed at the historic Clermont Hotel. The festival folk were wonderfully hospitable, and we got to visit some great old movie theatres… I have a soft spot for old movie palaces. A ballroom at the historic Fox theatre was the site of the festival’s awards presentation. Very cool.

Vincent and I were honored with a couple of awards from the festival: his was the Phoenix, and mine the Originator. We were in great company. Jimmy Carter was also presented with an award, accepted for him by one of his grandsons and Francis Ford Coppola.

Baseball games and awards are wonderful, of course, but the real highlight of the visit was getting to have dinner with Francis Ford Coppola, one of the greatest directors of this, or any other, age. A fascinating guy, and I loved our conversation. He spoke with such passion about the film he is now making that I can’t wait to see it.

Current Mood: cheerful

Tags: awards, film festivals, films, night of the cooters

Cooters on the Road

April 18, 2023 at 2:35 pm

Them dosh-garned cooters are spreading out, despite the best efforts of Sheriff Lindley, his deputy Sweets, them miscreants, and the other good people of Pachuco, Texas. If this keeps up, they’ll be everywhere.

Not quite yet, though. This month, we have it on good authority that they plan to attack Atlanta, Georgia and Dubuque, Iowa.

So if you’ve had a hankering to check out our award-winning short film NIGHT OF THE COOTERS, based on the classic award-losing short story by Howard Waldrop, that national treasure, you can catch it at the ATLANTA FILM FESTIVAL

https://www.atlantafilmfestival.com/

Cooters will be screening on APRIL 22, 8:00pm, at the Rialto Center. I will be on hand to introduce the film, along with our star and director, Vincent d’Onofrio (Sheriff Lindley himself), that guy DeSpain, and the good folks from Atlanta’s own Trioscope.

We’ll be doing a panel afterwards too. The festival will be screening all sorts of other amazing new features and shorts as well, so if you’re in Georgia or nearby, do swing by.

That’s not the end, though. After Atlanta, the cooters and I will be headed up to Dubuque, Iowa (where, as it happens, I lived from 1976-1979, teaching journalism at Clarke College) for the JULIEN DUBUQUE FILM FESTIVAL.

https://julienfilmfest.com/

I am told we have two screenings of NIGHT OF THE COOTERS scheduled for Dubuque: on APRIL 26 and again on APRIL 27. There will be lots of other cool films to see as well… and in between movies, if you are so inclined, you can take a ride on a steamboat, ascend to the top of the bluffs on the Fenelon Place Elevator, and check out the historic river town where I first got the idea for FEVRE DREAM.

But watch out for them cooters.

See you in Georgia… or maybe Iowa.

Current Mood: bouncy bouncy

Tags: appearances, film festivals, films, night of the cooters

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