Popcorn 'N Roses

S:C will return this weekend sometime after all...YAY!

Well, everyone, it looks like Kim is in the clear again. She's probably getting out of the hospital today, so if she does get out, we MIGHT just have the Rising Stars show for the fourth after all...depends on how she feels, and how hot it gets in the studio. But if not, it should be ready for the usual slot on Sunday.

It might sound a bit weird though...i've come down with a really awful cold, and it sounds like it. I sound worse than I feel, though, so at least that's something.

So come hell or highwater, it looks like S:C will be back this weekend! YAY!

Subject:CINEMA is on a forced hiatus...

The rising stars will just have to hold their horses...and i'm sorry to have to announce that Subject:CINEMA is on a hopefully short but indefinate hiatus, due to the fact that one of the hosts is AWOL again...

After two weeks of clear sailing, after her last hospital stay, Kim got sick again last night, and was readmitted to the hospital this morning.  They have already taken new X-rays and an ultrasound, and will be doing another CT Scan this evening.

I am still of the believe that her recurring condition is being brought on by one of her medications, but no one will listen to me, even though she's showing all the symptoms of severe side effects for this drug, a blood pressure medication called Benicar HCL.

Needless to say she was pretty upset that she got sick again, and it hit suddenly. She had been fine up until Sunday, when her sinuses started to bother her, which was the first sign last time as well. Then yesterday, she trooped through work without a problem except she said she was getting the pain back in her stomach - it's like a muscle pain, a constant burning in the muscles in front of her stomach. Then late last night, the vomiting began - slowly, just once before bed, and then it really hit her bad this morning, and so we took her back to the ER.

The thing she's really pissed about is that the bruises from the IV tubes and blood tests from the first go round just healed..and she's not wanting more...

Anyway, thanks for your understanding. I know from your letters of support that you all understand, and that we'll be back as soon as we possibly can. I'll also see what I can do in the interim as fill in until she gets back.

Thanks so much for your time!

TC

Rising Stars schedule change - it's now a 4th of July tradition...(ahem, see below...)

You know, sometimes things just get you to the point where you want to throw the computer out the window...or in this case, adjoining electronics...

Our mic preamp went belly up, probably due to the heat, and we were just beginning to record this week's show. I've already ordered a replacement, but it won't be here until Tuesday at the earliest. So we've decided to revamp our schedule a bit, since we can't record a lick on mics until the new preamp gets here.

So we're gonna start a new tradition- beginning this year, and continuing on each year, the annual To Rise And Fall In L.A. Rising Stars list will be announced at 12 noon every year on July 4.  We're gonna make it our Independence Day tradition.

So although Subject:CINEMA will not be around until next Friday - thankfully next week's Daily Call shows were recorded this morning, before the preamp blew (and probably the reason WHY it blew) - you can look forward to our annual hoilday special, and we'll have 20 fantastic names to announce this coming Friday...and then our regular show next Sunday as well...

As the week goes on, i'll have a few other tidbits in the blog, and maybe I can concentrate a little bit on the PNR Connection stuff too...

We'll see you Friday with Subject:CINEMA #119 - To Rise And Fall In L.A. III - the 3rd annual Popcorn N Roses Rising Stars list 2008!

Cheers, and thanks as always for your patience, understanding, and loyal listenership!

TC

Just a quick heads up...

...that owing to some computer problems this weekend, and a few commitments for interviews for next week's Indie Film extravaganza, this week's Subject:CINEMA will post at 6 PM again rather than 12 Noon.

See You Then!

Subject:CINEMA #114 - "Space:The Final Frontier - Space Exploration Movies"

TC and Kim take a look at space exploration in the movies!

Plus some brief coverage of the Universal Studios fire, a double Bonehead Of the Week, your latest e-mail, some exciting announcements in this week's Callback, Kung Fu Theater takes a look at Image Of Bruce Lee, and we say goodbye to five and hello to two, and a review of the always HILARIOUS Hal Sparks live in concert at the Boston Comedy Connection!

THIS WEEK's NOTES:

Don't forget that June is A Huge month - our second anniversary show is coming up next week, followed by a HUGE profile of independent cinema today, and later on in the month, the 3rd annual "To Rise And Fall In L.A." featuring 2008's Rising Star winners!

Don't forget - you can now add Popcorn N Roses, Subject:CINEMA, Indie  Film Spotlight, and Boston Popcorn to your web page via our great widgets and to your Facebook with our Facebook apps! Be sure to check 'em out!

And check out the Popcorn N Roses Connection, our BRAND NEW Social Network - http://popcornnroses.ning.com!

ABOUT HAL...

Hal Sparks is one FUNNY dude! And he was so friendly when meeting the fans... we ordered his dvd ESCAPE FROM HALCATRAZ as soon as we got home (couldn't get one last night, no cash left), and he was just so cool, as you can see...he was kind enough to take a picture with us, and meeting him was AWESOME! Don't forget to check out his band, Zero-1 - they are AWESOME!

(L-R, Hal Sparks, Kim Brown, TC Kirkham)

Just a quick note...

...to let everyone know that this week's Subject:CINEMA will appear sometime this evening. We were unable to finish recording it yesterday due to some thunderstorms in the area and the fact that we had a previous committment last evening.

We're shooting for 6 PM, so hopefully it will be up at that time, if not keep checking, it will be up later in the evening!

Thanks,

TC

Latest S:C Update - Made May to run final two episodes on Sunday, Wednesday

Still trying to allow time for Kim's illness to run it's course. Her voice is very scratchy now, but hopefully we'll be back in place for this Sunday's edition of Subject:CINEMA.

The final episode of Made May will air Wednesday, May 28.

This new schedule supersedes plans to do two shows this weekend, because we just are not going to be able to make time for both shows.

Thanks for your continued patience and understanding as we get near the end of Kim's illness and prepare to get her feeling better as the summer goes along!

"Daily Call" taking this week off, will return Memorial Day

Due to circumstances beyond our control, and Kim's ongoing illness, Daily Call is taking this week off. Things have been crazee around here, and we would rather take the time off to get things together rather than produce a show that isn't up to our usual standards.

Daily Call will return next Monday, May 26.

Thanks for your patience and understanding!

TC

NO S:C This Sunday...

Sorry to be so late in announcing it, but there will NOT be a new S:C this weekend - Kim spent 5 hours at the ER yesterday getting two saline and one anti-nausea I.V.s...obviously, her illness is still ongoing, and we're still trying to discover exactly what is going on with her.

As a result, we have cut the last planned episode of Made May, the Godfather Saga, and will reschedule it sometime this fall. Which is good, because i'm so backed up on indie screeners and the new Cheese And Whine boxsets we got last week that I don't have time to catch the whole trilogy right now..

Thanks for your patience and understanding about what has been a very frustrating two months for us. Hopefully we'll get this under control soon, and find out what's wrong and get her back on her feet 100%!

Watch for the final two Made May shows in a double shot next Saturday and Sunday!

Horror Fans furious about Dish Network dropping Monsters HD Channel

Got this forwarded to me today from the LA Screamfest, and thought it was worth posting here. For you horror fans, and especially those of you who are Dish Network subscribers, this is for you!

***

Earlier this week Satellite provider Dish Networks made the RIDICULOUS decision to remove the Monsters HD channel from its lineup (as well as a whole bunch of other great channels from the Voom Network). I am personally furious by this decision, as are many other people in the horror community! The channels have been replaced by some not so amazing channels like The Fishing Channel! A petition to save the channel from extinction has been made and I encourage all of the readers to sign it. Even if you are not currently a Dish subscriber, please help out and sign this. 

http://www.petitiononline.com/monsthd/petition.html

Let¢s show the jerks who made this fatal decision that we horror fans are serious business! Perhaps we should rally around DIRECT TV to pick up the network and capitalize on DISH Network's stupidity.  Send DIRECT TV an email at www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPageIF.jsp?assetId=P4560006 and get them to carry the network.

The channel was doing great things in the world of horror by playing uncut horror films 24 hours a day without commercial interruptions in some of the best HD broadcast that I have seen. They ran a show called Monsterrama hosted by Elvira where she would showcase people in the horror industry, cool toys and pay tribute to the olden days of horror. It was even an old show, but I still watched and recorded it every time it was on. You have seen the ads for the channel in the Horror magazines and online, in a beautiful EC Comics like renderings and the zombie Uncle Sam. MonstersHD is made BY HORROR FANS, for the horror fans and Dish Networks is making a big mistake by neglecting to regard the community of HORROR FANS who want this.

Help the community by showing Dish network that we don¢t want them to exist without Monsters HD. Please sign this and help, and also forward this on to as many people that you know, blog about it, post it on your Myspace, or Digg it, and help spread the word.

As horror fans we have been treated as a lesser than community for a long time. That time has to end! Each and every one of us can demand more quality by showing our passion for the genre by doing things like this and then continuing on to get even more horror brought to each and every one of us. I, personally would love to get Fearnet, Chiller and Monsters HD on the same cable provider. Can you imagine 3 channels devoted to us?!? I know that Fearnet is getting aggressive as well, and as soon as I get more info on their plans I will pass it on as well.

http://www.petitiononline.com/monsthd/petition.html

One last thing. We are hardcore fans like you and anytime a company makes a decision that effects us as a community, the community suffers as a whole. Lets not let this happen.

Weekend Schedule - Two, count em TWO, great shows for you!

Things have been very hectic and illness filled this week. Kim continues to be ill and has been through several tests this week, while I have been suffering through the longest lasting migraine in history - it started Sunday night and is still bothering me off and on for awhile every day.

As a result, we have not had the chance to get the IFFB show up. It's recorded, but i've not had the chance to edit it, plus I want it to sound great for the filmmakers who have taken the time to show us their films. And with the summer movie season starting tonight with the release of IRON MAN, I won't have time to get it done this evening, either.

Therefore, this weekend you get DOUBLE the Subject:CINEMA for your buck! (well, so to speak...)

Subject:CINEMA #109 - Independent Film Festival of Boston Wrapup, will premiere Saturday at Noon ET

Subject:CINEMA #110 - Hollywood Vs the Mob: Real Life vs Reel Life, the first of our Made May series, will premiere Sunday at Noon ET

Thanks for your continued patience and understanding as we get through the next few weeks, and get back on our feet from our illnesses...it's much appreciated!

OK, so we couldn't even make THIS date, heh heh heh

With regrets, I must inform our loyal listeners that the planned Thursday edition of Subject:CINEMA is just not going to come off.

Kim is still having problems with her illness, and between that and our hectic schedule with a film series at the Brattle and the beginning of the Independent Film Festival of Boston this week, we had no time to get things ready. So due to our overly full schedule these past two weeks, we're going to have to postpone the Auto Racing show indefinately, and we may scrap the Horse Racing show with it, since they were planned to compliment each other.

We'll make a final decision on these two planned Thursday shows and let everyone know about it sometime in the next day or so. Watch the calendar area of the site for changes as we finalize what we're doing. What we will probably do is postpone the racing shows until later in the year, and move our special on the IFFB from next Wednesday to next Thursday.

We WILL DEFINATELY have this Sunday's edition of Subject:CINEMA, our annual Summer Blockbuster preview show, ready ON TIME. It will also be filled with a TON more stuff that we plan to bring you, including coverage of the recent Japanese film series at Cambridge's Brattle Theater, some coverage of the IFFBoston, and reviews for at least one movie, The Forbidden Kingdom, and possibly one or two others.

We would rather scrap a show when we don't have time to properly pull it off than bring you a substandard edition of the show, and we thank you for your patience and understanding.

Keep watching PNR for continuing coverage of the IFFBoston in the days ahead!

Schedule Changes for Subject:CINEMA

Due to some ongoing issues, plus coverage of the Nikkatsu series at the Brattle this week, and the Independent Film Festival of Boston running this coming Thursday through the following Wednesday, we've had to adjust our schedule for Subject:CINEMA for the next couple of weeks, and we apologize for the changes on such short notice.

There will be no show this Sunday, April 20 - instead, the auto racing show will air on Thursday April 24, followed by the Summer Preview special the following Sunday, April 27, and the horse racing show the following Thursday, May 1.

Sorry for the delays - it's only because we want to give you the best podcast possible!

We'll see you Thursday, April 24 on S:C with "To The Checkered Flag"!

Delays, Delays

As you all know, Kim came down with a bad case of the stomach flu last week. She has since gotten over it, but it has morphed into a nasty chest cold, or more accurately, a throat cold. She can't stop coughing and has a wicked sore throat and almost no voice at all. These combined illnesses made it impossible for us to participate in this past weekend's 14th Annual Chlotrudis Awards as planned, and I have to say a great big THANK YOU to Michael and Scot from Chlotrudis for their kindness and understanding in what was going on. We actually trekked out to the Brattle to make a go of it, because Kim's always the show biz trooper, but once she got there realized that she wouldn't be able to do her part of the opening number. Seeing how sick she really was, they were more than helpful and understanding, and their kindess will always be remembered!

That having been said, because she still has no voice, we will NOT be doing another episode of the show until this coming Sunday, April 6th. And because of a date conflict with a family event on that date, we will be moving the next edition of "Reel LIVE!" from April 6th back one more week to Sunday, April 13th.

You get all that? Heh heh heh....

Seriously, though, we appreciate your patience and concerns, and to make up for the problems we have been having, we have scheduled an additional Thursday show this month so we can finally get the damn Dinosaurs taken care of, heh heh heh...

All of the schedule adjustments are noted on our calendar under the "Subject:CINEMA" group on the right sidebar.

Thanks again, and we'll see you on the air Sunday!  But don't go away...there will be more blog entries between now and then, betcha!

:-)

TC

Schedule change for this week's S:C

Due to the fact that Kim has been sick since Wednesday with stomach flu, and now she has an awful cough, and still has to perform in tomorrow evening's Chlotrudis Awards, we have decided not to post a show this Sunday. The show will hopefully be able to be done early next week for posting on either Wednesday or Thursday.

So don't worry - the Dinosaurs aren't getting off easily...we're just giving them a little more time before we start stalking them....

I WILL, however, try to have a few things done on the site before the next show. Some interesting (and VAST) improvements and features are coming in the next week or so, so stay tuned!

Thanks for your patience and understanding - we DEFINATELY appreciate it!

No S:C this Sunday

Due to some unforeseen circumstances, we will not have a show this Sunday, March 9.

Our next show, "Double Vision:Twins On Screen" will be available as our Thursday extra show this week, on March 13th. The scheduled Thursday show, "Prehistoric Paradigm" has been bumped to a later date to be announced.

Sorry for the delay - it's nothing serious, we are just running behind on things this weekend due to the rainstorm.

Thanks for your patience!

TC

DON'T MISS Tonight's debut of REEL LIVE!

Tonight begins our week-long countdown to Subject:CINEMA's 100th show!

It all begins with the debut of our brand new podcast, "Subject:CINEMA's REEL LIVE!", tonight at 6 PM US Eastern time.  You can tune in LIVE by going to BlogTalkRadio.Com and signing in - you must be a member to tune in live.  But remember, you do NOT need to be a member of BTR to call in to the show.

(347) 326-9291

Dial "1" and your country code (if applicable) before the number - long distance charges apply if you're outside of the New York City area unless you have free mobile minutes or are using a free VoIP service.

And remember...KEEP IT CLEAN! We're an all ages show!

Please come by and join us for this first ever LIVE call in show. If you're not able to come by, we'll miss ya for sure, but you'll be able to drop by SC and listen to the archive recording of the show about an hour after the conclusion of the live show.

More later this evening after the show...we'll be asking for your input on how the show went and how often we should do this show- right now, we're shooting for once a month with a gradual increase to every two weeks!

You ever have one of those weeks? Sigh...

This week has been a BEAR for me in terms of the various sites. 

After debuting Daily Call two weeks ago, we discovered that it was playing havoc with the loadtimes and with the server load, so I switched it to a viral player, and that seems to be working ok. It's loading every morning automatically from Podshow about 10:30 ET, which is fine with me. At least ONE thing is working correctly now...

Then I discovered that the Indie Film Spotlight URL - http://indiefilmspotlight.com - wasn't working correctly -it worked fine when I first loaded the forwarded domain into my GoDaddy account, but then inexplicably after about three days it went back to showing the coming soon page on GoDaddy. So i've been going back and forth with the GoDaddy techies, trying to figure out what's wrong. Turns out, I forgot to set the nameservers to the right ones on their site. They say it could take 48 hours to propagate to all the major internet services, so hopefully it will begin working correctly again by Sunday morning. If not....ARRGH!

Then visitors told me that PNR's site was hanging up for about 90 seconds before loading the right sidebar. This started about a week ago, but I thought it had been the Daily Call stuff. Turns out it wasn't - it was the two RSS Calendar listings I had parked on the right sidebar - one with the SC Schedule and the other with upcoming film festivals. So i've had to remove them from the site - which has had the effect of fixing the loadtimes, which are back to normal. This is absolutely heartbreaking to me, as the Film Festival calendar is filled with over 100 festivals coming up in the next year, and was also going to be a part of IFS as well. I'm deeply disappointed that this turn of events has taken place, because i've used RSSC for almost 10 years of web calendar lists without a problem. I wrote to them Thursday trying to track down the problem, but so far, I've yet to receive a reply...in the meantime, does anyone else know of a free Rss based calendar system I could use? I use Calendar Hub for the film calendar, but it doesn't have the slick autoload 30 day calendar either...I really want my RSS Calendar working right again...

THEN...I get an e-mail from Commission Junction saying that I am not making enough sales, and that my account is going to be deactivated if I don't start generating some clicks and orders. Well, HELLS BELLS ANYWAY!  Rather than spend money to keep it going, we made the concious, difficult decision to sever our ties with CJ because no one seems to be interested in using our Fandango to order tickets, so it's no longer a part of our site. I had hoped that with the jump in hits we've been getting over the past three months, it would start to turn a small profit, enough to cover our expenses at least. But it hasn't.  Hopefully, listener donations will start to increase little by little now that our listenership is growing by leaps and bounds and we can start to build a fund for financial help with covering festivals and such as time goes on. But the shows will have to remain sponsor supported for now.

There's more, but i've rambled on enough for now...heh heh heh... tune in this weekend for the third and final part of our Decidedly Disney miniseries as we discuss Disney's Live Action films! 

Changes in the Daily Call

Subject:CINEMA's Daily Call, our latest podcast, has apparently been screwing up the site because of the way I loaded it into Typepad. I had a couple people let me know that the site was locking up their browsers when it was trying to load the daily shows.

So I've made it easier for everyone!

Subject:CINEMA's Daily Call is now available on a new viral player on the top of the left sidebar. I have the show set up to release every morning at 10 ET on Podshow, so it should be in the player shortly after that. I'll have the subscription link back up on it tonight or tomorrow morning.

And please, by all means, let us know what you think of Subject:CINEMA's Daily Call!  We're anxious to hear what you like, what you don't like, and any suggestions you may have!

Calendar feeds not working...

I don't know what's going on over at RSSCalendar - I notified them this morning that our calendar feeds for the Subject:CINEMA and Film Festival schedules aren't working. I had to wait until I could make sure it wasn't on our end, which I verified this morning.

Hopefully, the calendars will come back on line in the next day or so, as they figure out what's wrong. It's a shame right now, since we're working on projects that involve our upcoming 100th show, and because there are a ton of great film festivals coming up.

Hopefully whatever's wrong with them will be easily fixed...

Haven't been meaning to neglect the site... :-)

The last two weeks have been very hectic, and I haven't done a lot of posts, other than our new Daily Call podcast, which I hope everyone likes - i've had very little feedback on it as yet.

I've been busy on the back end, working on some projects that will boost PNR/SC, IFS, and the radio stations, and in the long run, things will be very cool!

So please hang in there...I hope to have some posts up over the course of the next couple of days!

I am SO sorry...

...about the lack of coverage of various entertainment awards and such over the past two weeks. As most of our readers and listeners know, I was felled last week by a very bad cold.

This week, we were swamped at work with a massive systems change that kept me on the phone from the moment I arrived until the moment I left until today. Normally I have time to do work on the site and such between calls and on my breaks and lunch, but this week - No way Jose....

Then, there's planning for the launch of IndieFIlmSpotlight, which is supposed to go online January 20th, and two new podcasts...whew, it's been busy...

I should get somewhat caught up this weekend, so keep an eye out!

STATE OF THE POPCORN ADDRESS- 2008

Happy new year...

As I ended 2007 and began 2008 with a mother of a cold, i'm not feeling the best physically. But mentally...well, i've never been better!

2007 was a growth year for PNR and S:C. We were featured on Adam Curry's popular Podfinder podcast, we were accredited by the International Press Association, and we joined the nominating committee for the Chlotrudis Society For Independent Film. We became registered voters for the Independent Spirit awards, and we saw our podcast numbers increase on a monthly basis. We added two new radio stations to the Marquee Mix family, as well as one non-MM station. We snagged our first official advertiser account through Blubrry as GoDaddy.Com came on board with us. And right as the year ended, we became a founding member of the Podcast Film Critics Association.

Now a brand-new year is upon us, and boy, have we got all kinds of interesting plans for 2008.

Front and center at the moment is the launch of a brand-new sister site, IndieFilmSpotlight, coming up in the next week or two; I had hoped to launch it on the first, but due to being sick have not had the time to finish up the debut site info. So look for it soon, probably on January 10th or so. IFS will focus solely on independent film news and reviews, and we look forward to working with a number of studios in getting the info out about films you should be hearing about and hopefully will get the chance to see.

Also, we have plans for a few other things as well. This includes the launch of two brand-new "Subject:CINEMA"-branded podcasts in the next 60 to 90 days, the relaunching of an official PNR/SC newsletter (not just the Yahoo group), a brand new look and feel for the website and more. Further details about the planned goings on will be coming soon, so keep tuned into PNR and S:C for the latest. And a great big "THANK YOU!" to loyal S:C Listeners Kyle Zielinski and Rob Collier for their help and input on the forthcoming new site.

Coming a little further down the road will be the local film festivals, which we'll be trying to provide complete and accurate coverage of; we'll also try to provide regular updates from Sundance, Slamdance, Santa Barbara, and Palm Springs from afar. We MAY YET get the chance to attend one of the bigger festivals later in the year, time and fundage will tell...and next year, come HELL OR HIGH WATER, I swear, I AM GOING TO SUNDANCE!!!

So anyway, we're chugging along fine, and will work towards getting the studios to take us seriously. A lot of indies already do, as do a number of other columnists, and the formation of the Podcast Film Critics Association should help as well. We will continue to bring you the latest in the ongoing awards season, and launch season two of our Summer Tour sometime this spring.

Thanks for patronizing Popcorn N Roses, and listening to Subject:CINEMA, which is rapidly approaching its 100th show! We couldn't make either one work without YOU!!!

PRESS RELEASE:Popcorn N Roses announces year-end Best of 2007 Movie Lists

Popcorn N Roses announces year-end Best of 2007 Movie Lists

With most critics' lists praising such films as "No Country For Old Men", "Juno", and "Blood Will Be Blood", the two year end top films lists coming from film website Popcorn N Roses may prove to be a refreshing change of pace.

BOSTON MA - December 28 2007

Popcorn N Roses has always marched to their own beat.

The husband and wife team of Popcorn N Roses webmaster TC Kirkham (the "Popcorn") and regular site contributor Kim Brown (The "Roses"), who are also the hosts of the website's popular weekly movie podcast, Subject:CINEMA, have compiled their own lists as a precursor to their annual year-end awards, The Poppies and Rosies, now in their third year.

Kirkham and Brown pride themselves in trying to represent the average film fan, rather than the usual critic's point of view. Their previous awards have been considered refreshingly different by many film fans in view of the similarity of other critics' lists year in and year out.

The lists are in alphabetical order. The two hosts will each name their best picture of 2007, along with over 2 dozen other awards, on the New Years' Eve edition of the Subject:CINEMA podcast, which will be available this Monday, December 31, at 6 PM ET from http://subjectcinema.com as well as the parent website at http://popcornnroses.com.

TC's Baker's Dozen - The Best Movies of 2007
TC Kirkham, Popcorn N Roses/Subject:CINEMA

Across The Universe
Air Guitar Nation
Beowulf
Black Irish
Fierce People
Hairspray
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
The King Of Kong -  A Fistful Of Quarters
Man In The Chair
Once
Ratatouille
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Wristcutters: A Love Story

The Best Movies of 2007
Kim Brown, Popcorn N Roses/Subject:CINEMA

3:10 To Yuma
Air Guitar Nation
Fierce People
Hairspray
Hot Fuzz
I Am Legend
The King Of Kong:  A Fistful Of Quarters
Once
Sweeney Todd:  The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Wristcutters:  A Love Story

This marks the first year that Popcorn N Roses has released their year-end lists before the announcement of the annual awards.

Contact TC Kirkham for more information regarding these top 10 lists, or the upcoming Poppies and Rosies Awards.  Direct line: (888)214-9311. Email: Press@popcornnroses.com. Other helpful information regarding the lists and upcoming awards can be found at: http://popcornnroses.com and http://subjectcinema.com.

Launched in 2005, Popcorn N Roses is an entertainment news and views website and blog, focusing on the coverage of both mainstream and independent films. The site also produces the  weekly podcast Subject:CINEMA, rated as one of the top 20 film and tv podcasts on Podcast Alley, which will celebrate it's 100th show in late February 2008. Subject:CINEMA is heard by an average of 10,000 fans per month on the Podshow and Blubrry podcasting networks, and can also be accessed from the Popcorn N Roses website and the PNR MySpace page (http://myspace.com/popcornnroses). Popcorn N Roses also maintains the internet radio station Marquee Mix, which celebrates it's second anniversary on January 15 2008.

Contact Information:
TC Kirkham
Popcorn N Roses
Phone : 888-214-9311
http://popcornnroses.com

No S:C on Thursday after all..i'm so sorry...

I just wanted to let everyone know i'm very very sorry for the fact that there isn't going to be a mid-week S:C after all. I slipped the other day on the ice, and hurt my back and leg, and that combined with Kim's recent illness and work pressures have made it impossible for us to find the time to sit down and prep for both this week and next week's show in the way we feel necessary to do a good show.

We will be back on Sunday with the Santa Claus show; I apologize but we've simply not been able to find the spare time to sit down and watch some Capra movies for our intended director's chair show. So the schedule looks like this:

Saturday December 22 - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
Thursday December 27 - Walking In A Winter Wonderland
Monday, December 31 - The Third Annual Poppies And Rosies Awards

After that, we'll be back to our regular schedule.

I have managed to find some time to make some small asethetic changes to the site (i'm lucky work has been somewhat slow on a couple days), and I promise I will try to get the awards news - and there's been lots in the last 48 hours - caught up today sometime.

Thanks for your understanding, it's much appreciated!

No S:C this Sunday; will air this Thursday instead

Due to Kim being a bit under the weather, we have decided to postpone recording the next show until Monday to give her a bit more time to feel a bit better. So we've rearranged some of our our year-end shows a bit to accomodate, and our schedule for the next two weeks now looks like this:

Thursday, December 20
S:C #88 - "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"

Sunday, December 23
S:C #89 - "Directors' Chair - It's A Wonderful Life - The Films Of Frank Capra"

Thursday, December 27
S:C #90 - "Walking In A Winter Wonderland"

MONDAY, December 31 - 8 PM - **SPECIAL DAY AND TIME**
S:C #91 - "The Third Annual Poppies and Rosies Awards"

Thanks for your patience and indulgence, it's much appreciated. We WILL have plenty of stuff on the site over the rest of the weekend and into next week as the awards continue to pile up.

And PLEASE DON'T FORGET (subtle, aren't I?) to send in your preliminary ballot for the Podlistener's Choice Movie Awards. If you don't have one, it means you aren't a member of the mailing list - you can get the ballot and take part by checking out our PNR Newsline Group!  Preliminary ballots are due in one week from tomorrow, December 23rd and we need all the input we can get to make this year's awards as successful as last years!

Slight delay on midweek S:C

Due to a couple of problems with my editing program that i'm getting worked out, it looks as though the mid-week edition of Subject:CINEMA scheduled for today will actually make it's appearance sometime on Thursday or Friday. I apologize for the delay.

In the meantime, have a GREAT THANKSGIVING!

Midweek Update - exciting things are happening....

Greetings all!  Wanted to keep you abreast of some of the changes that will be happening in the not too distant future...

I mentioned last week on Subject:CINEMA that we were going to be doing some minor redesigns of the site over the next two weeks. You should start to notice them in the next day or two. First off, I have added a "Live Search" search box to the right sidebar, but it doesn't appear to be operating properly, so we'll be working on that over the next couple of days.

Also, after a few discussions with people, we have elected to concentrate our social networking efforts in four places - we WILL be keeping the site on Spout.Com, and I have been working on greatly expanding our presence on Facebook, where a number of our regular listeners congregate. This area will consist of a lot of movie-oriented plug-ins and capsule reviews of dozens of films i've seen. Kim is also thinking of launching a Facebook page of her own, with my encouragement; we'll have more on that as it develops. Kim is also planning to relaunch Platinum Roses' Garden soon...

In addition to Spout and Facebook, which are already growing, and the already large MySpace site (all of which you should all join if you haven't already...), we will be connecting and making our newest friends' network site active this weekend. Friends of Landmark (http://friends.landmarktheatres.com) is a brand-new social site, connecting fans of the Landmark Cinema chain. We love our local Landmark theater, the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge, and a good number of great films end up in Landmark's houses (this great, unknown little thing called "Wristcutters: A Love Story" and another recent Diamond, "Fierce People", among the many we've seen there), so we've decided to open a fan site over there. The idea is that you join the Landmark site, then join various people's pages. I hope you'll check it out when it debuts in the next couple of days - there will be a "Landmark" button of some sort on the sidebar. The four sites above will be grouped together in some way.

Now, these changes will NOT affect the "Friends Network" - these are sites that we will continue to have a relationship with, and if you link up there (Netflix, Blogshares, Beanywood, etc) we will still be active there, but the ones that will be very active for social networking will be MySpace, Spout, Facebook, and Friends Of Landmark. Hope that's not too confusing for you...it was confusing to write it, that's for sure...

The only social networking site we are dropping completely is Friendster...because they have proven to be "less than friendster-ly" in dealing with me concerning problems with our site over there. This membership will disappear this weekend for good, unless they can answer about a dozen questions plausibly...something that they have yet to do...and they've been extremely RUDE in dealing with me as well...I've often thought over the past couple of months that they should add the words "Screw Your" to the term "Customer Service" on their site...

Also this weekend, probably on Sunday when the next Subject:CINEMA premieres, I HOPE (keep your fingers crossed, heh heh heh) to be debuting a new area of the site, tenatively called "The Listzone". This is going to encompass a number of different things we're working on that are more or less permanent fixtures on the site - the Personal Pantheon lists, the Rising Stars list, the top 20 songs lists, the Scenes That Sizzle lists, etc.  PLus, we will be making a number of permanent connections sites as part of the ListZone. All the links presently on the "Connections" list in the sidebar will be moving there except to those sites that we run or that are connected to the PNR Network, and we'll be introducing a number of "portals" to this area, dealing with both sales (magazine subs and the like) as well as info (Newspaper Movie sites, movie magazine sites, etc). Some of these are being incorporated into the PNR Toolbar, which will also debut (FINALLY!) soon.

Anyway, stay tuned on Sunday for more info on this week's Subject:CINEMA!  And keep checking the site for more news!

WEEKEND UPDATE

I wanted to let everyone know that this weekend's Subject:CINEMA may be delayed due to the remnants of hurricane Noel, which is expected to batter Massachusetts today. We are expected to get wind gusts in the 50-60 mph range, and a ton of rain from what's left of this storm. The local authorities have told all of coastal Mass (which includes PNR HQ in Revere) to prepare for street flooding and widespread power outages due to the severity of this storm.

We are hoping to be able to record the show later today and if luck holds have it up on time at Noon on Sunday as scheduled. However, if we suffer power failures because of the storm, it may not be possible to have it up at the scheduled time. If this happens, we will finish the show and make it available as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience and understanding! :-)

TC

Slight changes for this weekend's podcast programming

Because of our coverage of the New England Film And Video festival, we are making a few changes in our weekend programs.

Right now, we are planning to attend the New England premiere of the NEFVF Narrative Film Winner, Still Green, this afternoon; however, we are awaiting confirmation that we will be able to get in - we don't wa