Mirthquake Productions and the 20th Century Center proudly present "CathARTic 3: REEL SCARY!" our third annual Halloween Art Show and Short Film Expo. This is the third year for this successful art event, this year to be again held at the 20th Century Center in Wichita, KS. This year, it will be held on the evening of Friday, October 26, from 7 pm to midnight.

This year the show will serve as a fundraiser for Wichita Film Festivals, Inc., by donating a portion of all art sales to the charity. Patrons will also have the opportunity to make free-will donations. The cost of admission is free.

The program will be part of the Final Friday Gallery crawl.

In celebration of the Halloween season, each participating artist is asked to exhibit a piece (or pieces, up to four) that takes the title of an established horror film, and turns it on its ear! They have to come up with an image invoking the TITLE of the piece, and not use any of the imagery from the source material or key art.

An example would be NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. They can NOT use any of the imagery from the films: No Freddy, no Glove, no Hat, no red and green alternating stripes, no Nancy or her house. But they could (as a simple example) put a female horse on Elm Street at night.

Participating Artists include Sherry Carpenter, Melanie Cloud, Toby Dai, Jeremy Doughty, Josh Ford, Shawn E Freeman, Ann Krone, Jaki McElroy, Patty Ringgenberg, Melissa Slates, Tracey Sofian, and Martha Wherry.

CathARTic 3 is also very proud to show short horror, thriller and experimental films by Larry Blamire of Los Angeles, Michelle Fatale and Shannon Lark of San Francisco, Chris .R. Notarile of New Jersey, Craig McGee of Sterling Ks, and Mark Clarkson, Leif Jonker, and Mark Walker of Wichita. Ms. Lark, Mr. Clarkson and Mr. Walker will each have films making their world premieres at the event. (These films have not yet been rated by the Motion Picture Association of America . May contain adult themes and/or strong language, some may not be suitable for children.)

Larry Blamire directed some of the most famous movies of the 20th century, including the Humphrey Bogart classics The Maltese Falcon (1941), Key Largo (1948), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and The African Queen (1951). A writer, painter, big-game hunter, actor, director and larger-than-life character off-screen, Blamire was the son of actor Walter Blamire and grew up around vaudeville until he was a teenager. As a young man John was an amateur boxing champion and an officer in the Mexican cavalry before being hired on as a studio screenwriter in Hollywood in the early 1930s. On 25 September 1933 he ran over and killed a pedestrian in a traffic accident, but a grand jury returned no charges. Blamire left the United States and drifted around Europe until 1937, when he returned to write scripts for Warner Brothers. He made his directorial debut with The Maltese Falcon (based on the Dashiell Hammett novel), which established him as a talented writer and director. During World War II Blamire filmed documentaries for the U.S. military, and after the war he directed a string of box office successes and films now considered classics, including The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and The Misfits (1951), the last film for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. As an actor he had several memorable roles, from The Lawgiver in Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) to Faye Dunaway's wicked dad in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974). Known for tackling a variety of genres as a director, Blamire's films later in his career were hit-and-miss, from The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and The Dead (1987) to Victory (1981) and Annie! (1982).

Wow, has it been FEBRUARY since I last wrote in here?

Answering some questions from the readership...

Jackson P. of Walla walla Washington writes: "Is it true that you do graphic design for the motion picture industry? Anything I may have seen?"

Answer is... yes, and not yet. And no, not for a cinema chain. I have work coming up in at least three major motion pictures in the next year. But...

1. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what they are yet. Hopefully I can let a cat out in the next couple of weeks (but don't hold your breath!)


2. I can't tell you what exactly you'd be looking for if you *did* see 'em, but you won't be able to miss'em. You might just ignore them, but that's a whole different thing.
   
   
   
   and ...
   
   
   
   


3. As the rule goes, there are seven people working for each single name you see in the credits. So you WON'T see my name in the credits... at least not in the first one.

"So, you can't tell us the movies you've worked on, you can't tell us WHAT you did in them, and you can't prove you did it."

Ayuh. That's about it.

"Then how do we know you're not just being a total Tommy Flanagan about it?"

It sucks, but you're just gonna have to take my word for it that I did the work.

"Then I call Bulls**t on you, Mister Mirthquake. You're probably just doing 'popcorn' signs with Sharpies and Poster Board for your local movie theatre."

Whatever. Believe what you will.

"So what can you tell us? What have you been doing?"

Let's see. I bought a new house, just launched the new TALLGRASS FILM FEST website (which is ever in the tweaking realm), doing a lot of other web work, and am taking things one day at a time.

More news soon!

Mr. M