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With Halloween just around the corner be sure to check out Bizarre States with podcast hosts Jessica Chobot and Andrew Bowser finally exit the podcast booth and enter the field, in the all-new series Bizarre States: Los Angeles. For three years the Bizarre States podcast has delighted fans of the paranormal, the extraterrestrial, and all things generally spooky. In this new series produced by Nerdist for the premium content service, Alpha, Bizarre States brings a new dimension of entertainment to fright fans by bringing cameras to the best real haunts of Los Angeles and Southern California in time for Halloween.

Bizarre States: Los Angeles stars longtime hosts Jessica Chobot and Andrew Bowser as they bring their supernatural smarts and skills to a variety of spooky locations in the greater Los Angeles area. They will break down the specifics of each creepy site, interviewing experts, and relating their own personal findings...

Hidden in an article at Variety, it was revealed that Ridley Scott‘s Scott Free Productions is getting behind the most bizarre true story of the real life of Jack Parsons, a man in 1940s Los Angeles who helped pioneer the field of American rocketry, and by night is a performer of sex magick rituals and a disciple […]...

CBS All Access announced a trio of pickups on Tuesday, ranging from a murder mystery to a drug bust gone wrong. And, wait, what’s this about “sex magic rituals”?

RelatedAudra McDonald Joins The Good Fight as Series Regular in Season 2

Here’s a quick rundown of the three new offerings, all of which were announced during the Television Critics Association summer press tour:

* Drama series Strange Angel follows Jack Parsons, a “mysterious and brilliant” man living in 1940s Los Angeles, “who by day helps birth the entirely unknown discipline of American rocketry, and by night is a performer...

David Lowery directed one of the best-reviewed movies of the year with “A Ghost Story.” Now, he’s doing something about as different as you can get.

CBS All Access announced at the Television Critics Association press tour on Tuesday that their latest slate of original programming will include “Strange Angel,” a new show following the life of Jack Parsons.

Read More‘A Ghost Story’: How Shane Carruth Helped David Lowery Break Free of His Rigid Sense of Time

The series, created by “Black Swan” writer Mark Heyman, will chart the life of Parsons, who helped to pioneer rocket engineering in America. As chronicled in George Pendle’s 2006 book, Parsons was “a mysterious and brilliant man in 1940s Los Angeles, who by day helps birth the entirely unknown discipline of American rocketry, and by night is a performer of sex magick rituals and a disciple to occultist Aleister Crowley,...

When “The Secret History of Twin Peaks” was first announced, the book was pitched as “a novel that reveals what has happened to the people of that iconic fictional town since we last saw them 25 years ago and offers a deeper glimpse into the central mystery that was only touched on by the original series.” Finally arriving last month in advance of the long-awaited 2017 revival of the cult TV show, the book offers only a few glancing details of the former while delving deeply into the latter. Author and series co-creator Mark Frost uses the bulk of his narrative to weave the strange history of “Twin Peaks” throughout the larger tapestry of American history and the long legacy of occult conspiracies.

This is not a book for a “Twin Peaks” newbie — and the arcane subject matter makes it unlikely to appeal to anyone who isn’t already a fan. A...

AMC is reportedly opening a writers room for "Marvel," a new drama series from Scott Free Prods. which is an adaptation of George Pendle's novel "Strange Angel".

"Angel' was inspired by the story of Jet Propulsion Laboratory co-founder Jack Parsons - a science prodigy and a later discovered to be a devotee of black magic when he died at 37 in 1952.

The writers room aims to have three to five completed backup scripts, several further episode outlines and a completely mapped-out first season so as to hopefully obtain a straight-to-series order. AMC has taken that approach with three other projects - "The Son," "Goliath" and "Lodge 49" - with one, "The Son," being ordered to series.

David Heyman, Ridley Scott and David Zucker will executive produce "Marvel" which comes out of a deal between Scott Free and AMC originally made for the Dan Simmons book "The Terror" about the failed Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage.

I’ve learned that AMC has put another drama script on a track for a possible straight-to-series order. I hear the network is opening a writers room for Marvel (working title), a drama from Scott Free Prods. inspired by the story of Jet Propulsion Laboratory co-founder Jack Parsons. Written by Mark Heyman, Marvel (no relation to the comic book company) is based on the book Strange Angel by George Pendle. Parsons was mourned as a science prodigy when he died at 37 in 1952…...

I have to assume if you watched the first season of HBO's "True Detective" you're in line and anxiously awaiting season two and perhaps some new plot details will increase your interest. First we'll go to a report from Movie Pilot where it takes early hints at the season's plot from creator Nic Pizzolatto and him saying the plot will revolve around "the secret occult history of the United States transportation system". For those not wanting any spoilers, perhaps look away as the site reports: The season is due to kick off with the dead body of a corrupt politician being found along the Pacific Coast Highway with satanic symbols carved into his chest. California Highway Patrol officers Colin Farrell and Taylor Kitsch are assigned the case. It turns out the victim is a known associate of Vince Vaughn's character and this dead man had a dark side involving...

New On DVDMaximum Shame

Movies don’t get much cultier than Carlos Atanes‘ post-apocalyptic S&M musical. Filmed in a dirty warehouse filling in for the edge of the universe just as said universe is about to fall into a massive black hole, Maximum Shame plays out like an oblique chess match with a demented black leather clad Queen (the phenomenal Marina Gatell) forcing the other players to sit in barbed wire cardboard boxes and shovel pounds of spaghetti into their mouths. Atanes, already Spain’s underground master, really pulls out the stops on this happy mess of madness.

Buy on Amazon!

The Films of Bob Moricz

If you’re looking to give a special someone something absolutely out of this world and one-of-a-kind, then you can’t go wrong with a Bob Moricz hand-produced “Bobbywood” production or two. Or go for a full 6-pack of reality-warping DVDs! Whether it...

In the 1980′s Alan Moore was one of DC Comics most important writers, crafting immensely interesting and enduring takes on Superman and Batman, reviving the character of Swamp Thing (helping to create the character of John Constantine), and writing what is considered to be the greatest graphic novel of all time, Watchmen. So why in 1989 just after the release of his follow up series, V for Vendetta, did Moore leave the company and has been on bad terms with them since? Sadly it’s because of that age old problem: money.

Back then, DC had a pretty standard contract for their talent, one that stated DC owned the rights to a comic just as long as they used the characters in some form, usually by printing new edition of a book. If in one year the characters weren’t used, the rights would revert back to Moore and artist Dave Gibbons.

Craig Baldwin's Mock Up On Mu is the first example I've seen of his brand of Bruce Conner-influenced experimental cut-up narratives. I get the impression this one differs from most in featuring original material amid the found footage: this is only partially successful, and I wonder if it was necessary. The archive film has such iconic quality, culled as it is from Hollywood movies, documentaries, educational films etc., all bringing their payload of memories and associations to the story, so that no newly-shot material can compete. Also, Baldwin, an exponent of "film povera," or "poor cinema," can't afford production values even on a par with the Prc Z-movies he quotes and misquotes. Still, the fact that all the actors in the specially staged scenes are unconvincingly dubbed is a nice touch: it helps make them feel as contrived and out-of-time as the rest of his jumble of footage.

Filmmaker Curtis Harrington: 1926-2007.

Our Friend Curtis Harrington

by Jon Zelazny

Curtis Harrington was born in Los Angeles in 1926. He made short films as a teenager, graduated from USC, and began his Hollywood career in the 1950’s. By the end of the decade, he was directing: independent films, studio pictures, made-for-tv movies, and episodic TV. He completed his last short film in 2002, and died in 2007 at the age of 80.

I knew Curtis well in his final years, as did writer-producer Dennis Bartok, the former head programmer of L.A.’s famed American Cinematheque.

Dennis Bartok: I think the most interesting aspect of Curtis’s career is that he was really the only filmmaker to successfully transition from the avant-garde scene of the late 1940’s to directing Hollywood feature films. And when you see how distinctive his movies are, you wish he could’ve made more… but when you...

Feb. 11

8:00 p.m.

Echo Park Film Center

1200 N. Alvarado Street (@ Sunset Blvd)

Los Angeles, CA

Hosted by: Other Cinema

San Francisco underground filmmaker Craig Baldwin will attend this special screening of his latest magnum opus, the genuinely epic collage narrative Mock Up on Mu.

Mock Up on Mu has more going on in it per square inch than any other film ever made. It is also the most in-depth futuristic history of the weird state of California. L. Ron Hubbard (Damon Packard) is planning to build a resort on the moon called Mu, but to initiate the project he must dispatch Agent C (Michelle Silva) to convince an amnesiac Jack Parsons (Kalman Spelletich) and Lockheed Martin (Stoney Burke) to build a rocket launchpad in Las Vegas.

The film combines new footage shot by Baldwin with an immense library of found footage from the filmmaker’s massive private stash, some...