Every year, the Rondo Awards take write-in votes for their “Monster Kids Hall of Fame,” an honor given to certain fans who have helped the scholarship and promotion of classic horror films. Among those in the Hall of Fame include such noted luminaries as Forrest J Ackerman, Bob Burns, Ray Harryhausen, Ray Bradbury, Joe Dante and George A. Romero.

This year, I think there should be a concerted effort to get Wes Shank elected into this fraternity of super fans.

Wes, as we know, is the Caretaker of the Blob, safeguarding the rest of humanity from that gelatinous monster from outer space. It was Wes who rescued the Blob prop from its ignoble fate of sitting in a bucket in a dusty corner of Valley Forge Films, forgotten. It was Wes who also saved some of the special effects sets used in the making of the film. Without him, these may have been lost to cinema fans forever.

But Wes isn’t a collector who just keeps his treasures private. He has come out every year to Blob Fest to share these amazing pieces with fans. And the year when Blob Fest screened the classic Forbidden Planet, Wes brought along a few props from the film that he had in his collection as well.

In addition to his yearly appearances at BlobFest, Wes has also written a great and well-researched book on the making of The Blob, From Silicone To The Silver Screen, the only tome of its kind.

Now I have to say that while I know Wes and his wife Judi, I am proposing this entirely without their knowledge. I think it is time that Wes get some recognition for the work he has done in helping to research and preserve the classic that is The Blob.

You can vote for this year’s Rondo Awards here. The deadline is April 1.

Once again, BlobFest has been nominated for two Rondo Awards in the categories of Best Convention and Best Fan Event for the Friday Night Runout Re-enactment!

Additionally, long time BlobFest guests, the ghoulish gents from Ghoul-A-Go-Go, are nominated for “Favorite Horror Host.”

Named after 1930s and 40s horror movie actor Rondo Hatton, the Rondos are a fan-voted award honoring “significant achievement in the genre during the year.” Think of them as the classic horror film equivalent of the People’s Choice Awards.

BlobFest has been nominated in these two categories in the past but let’s make this the year that they win!

You can get a ballot to vote by email for the Rondos by visiting their website here.

FilmBuffRich on February 13th, 2012 | File Under BlobFest, News | No Comments -

Just in case you can’t make it out to next month’s BlobFest to see The Blob at the Colonial Theater, you can catch it tomorrow evening on Turner Classic Movies at 8 pm.

The screening is the kickoff of a night of Drive-In Double Features and all the films being presented are fun and worth checking out if you haven’t seen them already. (And if you have seen them, you’ll probably want to see them again!)

9:30 PM – H-Man, The (1958)
11:00 PM – Magnetic Monster, The (1953)
12:30 AM – X The Unknown (1956)
2:00 AM – Thing From Another World, The (1951)
3:30 AM – It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958)

Jeremy Renner is quite the busy boy. Not only is currently shooting The Avengers, but has an appearance in the next Mission: Impossible film already in the can and has recently signed up for The Bourne Legacy.

In-between all this, he has just started his own production company, and has started development on its first project – a bio-pic of acting legend Steve McQueen.

The proposed film will be based on the two biographies of McQueen written by Marshall Terrill-Portrait of an American Rebel and The Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon. James Gray, writer/director of The Yards, is adapting the two books into a screenplay, but is not set to direct the film. Instead, music video and commercials director Ivan Zacharias has been tapped to direct what will be his feature film debut.

Coming out of the New York stage and live television scene of the 1950s, McQueen had his first starring role in the classic 1957 science-fiction film The Blob. His performances in such films as The Great Escape, Bullitt and others made him an icon of cool.

Now I’ll have to admit that I have not yet read either of Terrill’s books on McQueen, but tales of McQueen’s wild personal life are fairly legendary. I have talked to enough people who met him while he was in Phonexville, PA filming The Blob to know that while those stories are very probably true, he was also a pretty nice and good man. It seems to me that McQueen’s wild side is an outgrowth of a certain joie de vie that the actor had. Hopefully, the film will be able to capture that.

Cross-posted from FilmBuffOnline.

The Rondo Awards are a fan-voted awards sponsored by the good people over at the Classic Horror Film Board. Each year they honor “significant achievement in the genre during the year.” Think of them as the horror film equivalent of the People’s Choice Awards. And this year, there are two BlobFest related nominations.

BlobFest has been nominated in the categories of “Best Convention” and the annual Friday Night Run-Out is nominated in the “Best Fan Event” category. Additionally, long time BlobFest guests, the ghoulish gents from Ghoul-A-Go-Go are nominated for “Favorite Horror Host.”

You can vote for BlobFest and the rest of the Rondo nominees here, but hurry, the voting deadline is March 27.

Sorry for the late notice, but The Blob is on Turner Classic Movies today at 5pm. If the weather where you are is like where it is here, curling up on the couch under a blanket with some hot coco after a long day at work is always a good idea, only made better by watching Steve McQueen and the teens race to save their town and the world from a certain gelatinous invader from outer space.

If you manged to catch a screening of the indie comedy The Best And The Brightest at the Philadelphia Film Festival, you may have seen a stealth cameo appearance from well known Blob location the Colonial Theatre. While some of the film was shot on location in the Philadelphia area, the production never made it out to Phoenixville for any filming. Instead, there’s a painting of the Colonial on one of the walls of the apartment of the character played by comic actress Amy Sedaris. You can see it just over her shoulder in the picture below. (Click on the picture for a bigger look.)

I’m not sure how the picture wound up in the film, though my guess is that the production used a real Philadelphia-area apartment as a location, and the owner had the picture already hanging on the wall. Since the apartment is supposed to be in Manhattan in the movie, it does seem a little out of place if you know about the Colonial, though.