Awhile back I did a blog about my new obsession. The movie ranking website FlickChart.com. After spending hours upon days playing on the site, I got together with my Baby Eating buddy, Devin Barry, and we started a podcast in which we take two movies at random (using the flickchart site) and fight over which film is better. We had a blast just talking about movies for an hour and decided to do the series weekly. Every Wednesday we’ll be posting a new podcast. Take a listen. If you like, please subscribe to it by signing up for updates to this channel or through iTunes.

Also, make sure you go and sign up for an account with FlickChart.com and play along! It is HIGHLY addictive. Sign up HERE!

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Friends, family, fans and people who read this blog to make fun of me!

As many of you may know, my demon love story, Lo, is having its Los Angeles premiere through Shriekfest. You should totally come see it! Tickets just went on sale. We plan to sell out the theater, so if you’d like to bathe in the awesomeness of our latest Drexel Box production then ORDER NOW! Here’s all the fun details you’ll need to kick off the Halloween season!

Lo

Friday, October 2nd at 10:30P.M.

The Chaplin Theater – Raleigh Studios

5300 Melrose Avenue

Filmmakers and actors will be in attendance. 

Purchase tickets HERE!

Visit the Lo website HERE!

Much love

Travis

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Interested in reading what the critics are starting to say about Lo? Click HERE to read our first two reviews! While you’re there you can always rate the film 10 stars…I mean, if you’re bored…and love me…or want to make love to me…or want to make love to me cause you’re super bored. 

 

For anyone who’s ever tried to make a movie, Living in Oblivion is shot to close to the heart. The film, written and directed by Tom DiCillo, is a hilarious and eerily accurate depiction of what it’s like to be on the set of an independent film. Steve Buscemi plays the director of the film as he deals with all the highs and lows of movie making on a very small scale. You don’t have to be a filmmaker to love this movie, but for those that are, you are promised to laugh a lot as well as experience a few stings of anxiety. 

 

Living in Oblivion proves that to be in this business, you have to be bat-shit crazy! Long live cinema!

 

The Trailer:

Much love

Travis

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Exciting news lovers of love! My experimental love story, Sunday, is going to be available for internet download!!! If you are not familiar with this project of mine just click on the title above and check it out! I will include the trailer below as well. Sunday is a movie I shot while I was in post-production hell on my horror film joshua. We had run out of money and couldn’t finish it, so I was sitting on my ass doing nothing creative. I decided I had to shoot a movie and that I would do it for no money. I grabbed camera and a couple friends and developed a story about to young lovers who make a vow one Sunday morning to not get out of bed for 24 hours…no matter what. The experience of shooting Sunday remains one of my favorite. It was the perfect balance of intmacy, talent and creative flowy juices.

 

Sunday will be available for download and purchase TUESDAY, JULY 21st at this site:

www.indieflix.com

Sunday is also available on DVD through our production companies website, www.drexelbox.com. Purchasing the DVD here instead of IndieFlix will get you special features. Audio commentary and a behind the scenes. The IndieFlix version is just the movie, and you know you want to hear my drunk ass talking smack with the actors.

We are finishing a new color correction pass on my first feature film, joshua, right now and hope to also make it available through IndieFlix very soon. 

Much love

Travis

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I don’t normally do Sunday posts, but I wanted to make sure all the kids in Indiana  had enough time to drop every damn thing they are doing and come support my latest adventure in the world of feature length cinema. This post goes out to family, friends, fans and hoosiers.  Here are the details:

Lo

A comedic love story…with demons!

Screens:

July 20th, 3:00 at IMA/The Toby Theater (Indianapolis Museum of Art)

July 22nd, 9:30PM at IMA/DeBoest Lecture Hall (Indianapolis Museum of Art)

Tickets can be purchased HERE.

I will be attending the Wednesday show with actor Ward Roberts for a Q&A. Be great to see everyone. I think you will really enjoy the movie. It’s funny, touching, dark and different! Visit the website for Lo HERE.

Musch love

Travis

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This week I’m going to talk to you about zombies again, only this time we’re gonna go comedy! Dead Alive is not only one of the funniest films ever made, but it is also one of the best zombie movie hands down. It’s no accident that it’s so damn good. This is one of Peter Jackson’s earlier films. You know, Peter! That guy who brought you such indie fare as The Lord of the Rings and King Kong. Brain Dead is Jackson’s 3rd feature film (Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles being his first two).

Jackson has an absolute blast playing around in his zombie epic. He creates a very Norman Bates style relationships between the leading man and his mum, and then turns it on its head by adding zombies. Lots and lots of zombies. To this day many still consider this movie to be one of the goriest films of all time. I am pretty convinced this is true. if not, it certainly is the most creative of zombie movies. The last half hour is some of my favorite stuff in cinema…ever.

Rent it. Buy it. love it.


Much love
Travis

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The Celebration is a film out of Denmark that will make your world very uncomfortable…but that’s how I like my cinema! Writer/Director Thomas Vinterberg is one of the creators of the Dogma film movement of the mid-90’s (along with Lars Von Trier). When making a Dogma film there are a number of rules you must follow in order to get right down to bare-bones essence of storytelling.

1. Only available and natural lighting may be used.

2. All sound must be recorded on set. (no post foley)

3. All shots must be handheld.

Pulling off a movie with these rules is no simple task. Most movies rely very heavily on lighting the proper shot or adding the proper sounds and music in post. But if you’re shooting Dogma then you have your work cut out for you. The Celebration is a…well…celebration of how this particular film style can be used to enhance the story.

As you know, plot summaries bore me to tears…but here’s the basic basics: Man returns home for his father’s 60th birthday with the entire family. At dinner he delivers a speech that will change the entire dynamic of the family forever. If you want more summary then look it up…cause I ain’t writing no more. It’s best going in knowing as little as possible.  This is truly a dark and incredible film. Do check it out.

Much love

Travis

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Today is Wednesday, and Wednesdays are when I talk about films that few people know about but deserve a greater audience due to their greatness. Today I come to you with an independent Canadian zombie film, Pontypool. I knew very little about this gem going in which was nice. It is a very simple story, yet incredibly intelligent, well written and beautifully acted. It’s hard these days to make a zombie film feel fresh, or even scary for that matter. Pontypool succeeds in both, mostly due to its attention to characters. I implore you to support this film. Movies like this prove that even in the toilet bowl of summer, you can still roll up you sleeve and reach down past the Transformers and Terminators and find a film worth leaving the house for.

Much love
Travis

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Troma films get a bad rep. They aren’t ALL terrible. Here’s proof! Cannibal! The Musical. Written, directed and starring the South Park boys before they were big. Check out my Rough Cuts episode and the trailer. After that, (or before. I ain’t here to tell you what to do and what order to do it in) click on the link to hear a very insightful podcast interview on the state of cinema today by Troma President and current chairman of the Independent Film and Television Alliance, Llyod Kauffman. Interview courtsey of Green Cine Daily.

The interview

Much love
Travis

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[flashvideo file=http://travisbetz.com/video/JanSvankmajer.flv width=550 height=330 frontcolor=a63054 lightcolor=bf5c7a skin=stylish image=http://travisbetz.com/video/jan-svankmeir.jpg /]

Jan Svankmajer is a Czech surrealist who makes some of the most interesting live action/stop motion blended films ever. One of my favorite works from him is a modernized version of Faust, in which a man is tormented by puppets and clay beings as he searches for the Devil in order to gain knowledge and power. This movie is responsible for a large part of my inspiration for Lo (my own feature about demons). Svankmajer also adapted a version of Alice in wonderland in which he surrounded a live action girl with an array of horrible and fascinating stop motion creatures. 

The short film above has always made me happy and is a great introduction to his style. If you enjoy this then I recommend you check out one of his feature films.

Much love

Travis

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