I paid off my student loan so.... Here's the College films!

Yep Team, I paid off the student loan!
yahhhhhooooooooooo!!!!

So in honor of that momentous and 15+ year adventure, I'm going to post the rest of my college films here with a little bit about them. It might be one entry. It might be a couple entries. I'm not sure, but I stalled out posting the craigoclassic's and now it's time to finish. Because I'm SURE you are all waiting with baited breath.

I can assure you this. MOST of the films from my University of Iowa days are better than the home video style stuff from the first section of this series. Most of them. :)

Without further ado:

THE FOOT...










Okay, so ironically, the first one is a home video style. Ha ha ha.
It's silly. It's screwing around back in Dallas one summer during college. Chris Borden's memorable turn as a fierce assassin has given him a nickname for the ages. And the car chase... MAN this shit is crazy! It might be the best car chase ever filmed. I'm not kidding. The French Connection has got nothing on this.

And it also has many references to such hits as "Army of Darkness" and our favorite B Movie of all time, "ROTOR". Oh yeah. Get ready to get rocked!

(Okay, I'll do one post for each video).

The Matrix - CraigoClassic 16

So here's a story about some heroes who create a device to dismantle their molecules so they can be sent into the Matrix where they battle evil in their search for paradise. No BS: We came up with this story long before NEO existed, somewhere around 1992. So I think we deserve some credit as well as monetary reimbursment from Joel Silver and the Wachowski Brothers.

You will no doubt see the similarities: The action, the pacing, the fight scenes, the IDEA is ours. With my incredible hair, I am a dead ringer for Keanu. We have a snappy montage of building the device (aka: Neo learning Kung-Fu. Sure we took it from Army Of Darkness, but still...). You can "reprogram the chip" to change your life...(um hello!!!) It's pretty clear once you see it that someone saw our video and ripped it off (not pointing the finger at Mr. Wachoski-s, but still...)

Things we did better than the "remake" you might have seen in theaters: Amazing use of dissolves. Creative ways to make one "actor" appear as two "characters". (Mr. Smith eat your heart out). We have an NIN classic SIN shirt as a wardrobe, which is way more hip than Tinity's leather. We quote ALIENS, which is, well... not really relevant to the Matrix, but still. That is an NES Entertainment system that carries us to the great beyond, which if far more realistic than an array of computers jacked into our nervous systems. (Lame!).

So, for you purists out there, here's the REAL Matrix. And though it might not be quite as good as the OTHER Matrix... It is better than the two sequels.

PS: This also marks the end of the High School section of Craigoclassic. (Can I get a hallelluja!) Next stop: University of Iowa... with a quick pitstop in Minnesota.

The Fridgidaire

HELL YEAH.

This movie was born from all our b-movie nights, where we'd rent a couple b-movies and watch them and make fun of them while they went along. Nothing different from what any other high schoolers did really. There were so many. This being a parody of THE LIFT, which was about a killer elevator. We thought that few things would be dumber than a killer elevator...except maybe a killer refrigerator!

Oh, this one is a beauty. We really expanded our storytelling. It's got a fantastic prologue which sets up this horrifying tale of a cursed killer refrigerator. In it we see some NEW ACTORS (Holy crap! Holy crap!). We've got Chris G (wearing his signature marble bag ball hugger shorts), Tracy, and the best of them all, my wonderful Mom. She only showed up in a couple things like this (in fact this may be the only one), but it makes me smile to see her being so silly.

We've got a monster credit sequence, with REAL BLOOD. Yep... we sacraficed for our art. I bled on that page. (I used to get nose bleeds all the time...just so happened, I bled all over our credits).

So we have the set up....

...and not much else.

We kinda did this a lot (you've probably already noticed). We'd set it up, and I guess just get bored, or someone would have to go home and that would be the end of it. We would plan on doing it another time, talk about it for a few weeks, and it would just die.

Oh well. It's a great opportunity to see inside Chris G's house (a rare, warlock like lair with no open windows). You get to see my High School girlfriend Stacey. And of course the fine reappearance of Tom, Borden and myself. Dave's car shows up but he's not really in it. Maybe he's the Fridgidaire!!! (cue evil laughter).

We had plans to have a barbie doll fight a model fridge and fall into the empty pool in the backyard. As well as other rediculous kill scenes. But in the end...this is all that remains.

Beware the next time you open your fridge...
Be very aware.

PS: The date in 1995 is incorrect. This had to have been made in 1990 or 1991.






ROTOR...the best of the best.

The Dark Night 2 -- Get Off Da Ship!

Ahhh...obsessions.

At this point you might say, "man those kids sure got f-ed up by the Shining".
Well that's not the only one my friends. Alien. Aliens. Perfection.

I still love those movies. They are two of the best movies ever made. PERIOD. Neither is better than the other. They are amazing. Everything about them. So naturally we had to do OUR versions. You might remember Dark Night, (you might not since you were so filled with terror you may have blocked it out). Well, here's the "sequel"...sort of. Homage perhaps?

It's basically a web cam video before web cams existed. Recording on "vidi-disc" before vidi-disc existed. I know this was high school because of the nifty visual effects on the screen which were done with Borden's camera he spent a lot of money on and we rarely used. In fact this was the first video we shot on that.

This one is particularly famous for Borden's intense line at the end "Get Off Da Ship!", which we still quote to him from time to time. In addition to the fantastic dialogue "If you see this I'll be dead...unfortunately", which still makes me laugh.

So prepare to be terror-fied...

...and Get off da ship!