FLYMF Alum Ralph Gamelli has a story, “Elevator Games,” published in the latest installment of Raging Face.
Ralph’s story, Rocky Balboa Launches Into Inspirational Speeches Too Frequently, was published in FLYMF’s Greatest Hits. He also contributed How Long Before I Use My Ejector Seat? and Twilight Zone Episodes For the Internet Age.
Fierce competition. Close camaraderie. A dying art form. And some of the fastest hands you’ll ever see.
That’s the premise of The Entertainers, a ragtime documentary being created by friends (and FLYMF co-founders) Nick Holle and Michael Zimmer, in collaboration with filmmaker Brent Watkins. The movie centers on the World Championship of Old-Time Piano, an annual competition held in Peoria, Illinois. As competitors gather to see who can wring the most swing from their piano, these guys are on hand to capture the love, joy and sorrow that accompanies the practitioners of one of America’s original art forms.
Their trailer gives a sense of the richness of the ragtime experience:
As The Entertainers web site says:
These talented, idiosyncratic performers represent a broad spectrum of the American experience, but they share one abiding love: for ragtime, the first great American music.
Like a combination of Spellbound and Best In Show, The Entertainers will explore a unique American sub-culture, whose eccentric and hilarious characters pursue the perfection of an esoteric art.
Help them make this movie a reality. In exchange for early contributions, the filmmakers are offering space in the credits, DVDs upon release and other exciting goodies. Nick and his friends at WutWutAlma Productions followed a similar fundraising strategy for their first movie, Illegal Use of Joe Zopp, and it worked out great.
Great movies need great supporters. You can play a role in telling this exciting story.
“You can’t fight me,” he sneers. “You don’t have insurance anymore.”
“I’ve got COBRA.”
That exchange, delivered during a mid-air melee, sums up the comedic blend of “Captain Freedom,” the new novel by G. Xavier Robillard. Secret lairs and teenage sidekicks share space with product endorsement deals and online archenemy-matching services. Heroics are evaluated by their impact on the comic-book company bottom line. And if you need to go back in time to spoil a nefarious plot, it’s no problem to rent a run-down time machine from a skeezy Enterprise knock-off. (The release form contains a warning not to do anything to affect the course of history, but it also notes, “This rule is total bullshit, but you agree to it anyway, just as you agree to pay your work for any office supplies that you use for personal reasons.”)
Captain Freedom is the kind of guy who’d steal all of the office supplies he could get his hands on, even as he saves Cleveland in the process. The book approaches his life as a gag-a-minute memoir, using its oblivious slacker hero to bring to life as many superhero gags as possible, from remote tropical islands that host volcanic bases to the perils of the hero’s weakness (in this case, soy).
Continue reading Review: “Captain Freedom” by G. Xavier Robillard
FLYMF Alum G. Xavier Robillard has published a book, “Captain Freedom: A Superhero’s Quest for Freedom, Justice, and the Celebrity He So Richly Deservers.” It sounds like a fun spoof of superhero tropes—the book’s description reads:
Freedom’s fifteen minutes are over!
Software pirates! Mostly extinct dinosaurs! Giant barbarians! Crooning criminals! Captain Freedom’s beat them all, saved the world, and looked fantastic doing it—but he couldn’t fend off middle management.
The Superhero lifestyle is all that Captain Freedom has ever known. What’s he supposed to do now? Enter politics? Write a children’s book?
Freedom’s in a bad way and he’s only a stint in rehab away from a lifetime of celebrity reality shows. But with the guidance of his new life coach, maybe Freedom can stumble in a new direction—even if it means having to make peace with his parents . . . or finally commit to a single long-term archenemy.
Robillard is promoting the book via his blog, The Taste of Freedom, which features regular updates on superhero-themed topics. Check it out for more info, or better yet, support him by picking up a copy of the book!
His work for FLYMF included “When George Lucas Gets His Hands on Other Blockbusters.”
Illegal Use of Joe Zopp, the hilarious feature film created by FLYMF co-founder Nick Holle and his amigos in WutWutAlma Productions, will be playing in the Beloit International Film Festival the weekend of February 19-22.
The details:
Zopp will play at the restaurant theater at Atlanta Bread Company, 2747 Milwaukee Road, Beloit, Wis., on Friday and Sunday. The two screenings are:— Friday, February 20, 2009 at 7:30 pm— Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 5:00 pm