Still looking for that perfect gift for your weird friend or relative? Today I'm launching the Mad Dog Movies Emporium, a video store powered by Amazon.com.

Anyone can recommend something popular like Harry Potter or Star Wars, so I'm instead singling out movies made by people I know.  I'll also be highlighting niche interests like adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft.

There will be new sections added in the future -- I'm already contemplating a "so bad it's good" category -- but there's dozens of films there right now.

Check it out. Remember, Amazon pays me a few pennies per purchase! Oh, the exciting world of internet sales...

Visit the Emporium at http://maddogmovies.com/emporium

(Special thanks to the people of Facebook, who helped me pick a name.)

I just watched American Grindhouse, the all-inclusive documentary about the history of exploitation films in America. It's a great doc, shining a light on the entire spectrum of fringe movies, from the earliest days of cinema to today.

My interest in the subject matter led me to become an "internet friend" of director Elijah Drenner a few years ago when he was working on the special edition of Jack Hill's Spider Baby. He reached out to ask me to do some animated titles many months ago, and I jumped at the opportunity. I did "film burn" effects from scratch in After Effects, communicating with Elijah and editor Andrew Goldenberg (aka Goldentusk) entirely through email and Facebook. Who says social media is just a fad?

Yeah, it's cool to see my name credited along side the likes of John Landis, Joe Dante, Jack Hill, Larry Cohen, H.G. Lewsis, and Fred Williamson. The movie has some great interviews with film scholars Eddie Muller, Kim Morgan, and Eric Schaefer (whose "Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!" sits within arm's reach on my bookshelf right now). A nice surprise was discovering that the narrator is Rochester's own Robert Forster!

American Grindhouse is making the rounds to "festivals first followed by TV, DVD, etc" according to Elijah.

In the meantime, check out the website at http://americangrindhouse.com

Connect with A.G. on Facebook here.

Some stills of my titles are online here.

Some of my film burn animation can be viewed here.

It's been an embarrassingly long time since I updated this blog. Why is that? Am I spreading myself too thin? Perhaps I need to pull some of my many projects into one place. (Perhaps I've already been doing that on Facebook?) Perhaps I need to rethink my blogs, podcast, and website and make them all one sticky blob of a website.

But not tonight.

No, tonight I'll be giving a run-down of things that are going on in my world. Ready?

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THE 360 | 365 FILM FESTIVAL

During my day job at Animatus Studio, I've been working my tail off with a new uber-website. The Rochester High Falls Int'l Film Festival is now called 360 | 365, and the website is its public face. It's a daring new identity, and I'm really invested in making this year's film festival better than ever.

Check it out at http://film360365.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/film360365
Animatus on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/animatus

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SUBTERRANEA PROJECTS

Remember The Other Gods? It's playing in Buenos Aires. Yeah, that's cool.

Love classic horror movies? My horror-movie-music-video-mash-up for Aviary's Skeletal Remains is playing at The Little this Halloween.

Do I have a new career as an actor? Well, let's put it this way -- I only go out for silent movies. Mike Russo's Virgin Fang features me and was edited by... me.

No clips for those last two on the internet yet, but you can see each at The Little Theatre's 25 Hour Horror Feast October 31st.

And then there's Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated. Honestly, it's too complicated to explain here, but there's clips over on the Subterranea blog.

Read about all of that at http://maddogmovies.com/subterranea
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/subterranea

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MIND RIP

The John Vincent movie project is chugging along. We shot several scenes this summer, including a zombie congregation of epic proportions. I put on my assistant director hat and got out there to wrangle zombies -- a great experience. We're working on editing a promotional trailer to present to investors.

See some pics & clips at http://philrosefilms.blogspot.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/mindrip

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ROCHESTER MOVIE MAKERS

Another summer, another series of summer shorts. I worked as A.D. on Wing Man, written by Mike Russo and directed by Derrick Petrush. It's currently being edited, but the footage I've seen is pretty darn impressive.

RMM also hosted a night of shorts at the Club at Water Street a couple weeks ago. We had about 100 people, raised some cash for the 501c3, and we're looking forward to doing it again in the future.

Join the educational cooperative at http://rochestermoviemakers.org

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OBLIGATORY SOCIAL MEDIA PLUG:

Okay, that's all I've got for now. Here are my favorite virtual locations.

I'm on the Twitter. Find me at http://twitter.com/mikeboas

Facebook is much cooler than Myspace. Find me at http://facebook.com/mikeboas

There's a couple ways of thinking about Twitter. One is that it's a waste of time, a bunch of people writing about what they ate for breakfast. Yes, there's some of that.

But you can also use the service to monitor news and network for jobs.

I use Twitter as a sort of link blog. As a filmmaker, I follow a lot of movie news and horror genre bloggers to get the latest headlines. Here are some recommended accounts worth following:

MOVIE NEWS
http://twitter.com/Variety
http://twitter.com/twitchfilm
http://twitter.com/slashfilm
http://twitter.com/cinematical
http://twitter.com/Chud_News_Feed
http://twitter.com/DrewAtHitFix
http://twitter.com/rejectnation

HORROR MOVIE NEWS
http://twitter.com/dreadcentral
http://twitter.com/BGhorror
http://twitter.com/BD_News
http://twitter.com/horrorsociety
http://twitter.com/FEARnet

FILMMAKING INFO
http://twitter.com/TriggerStreet
http://twitter.com/FansOfFilm
http://twitter.com/bcfilmmaker
http://twitter.com/scriptmag
http://twitter.com/ScreenplayTips
http://twitter.com/filmlab

FILM FESTIVAL LISTINGS
http://twitter.com/filmfestlounge
http://twitter.com/ominous_events
http://twitter.com/bsidenews

TIPS ON USING TWITTER AND FACEBOOK
http://twitter.com/mashable
http://twitter.com/twfeed
http://twitter.com/MrTweet

I also put out content on a number of blogs. How do I get that information in front of eyeballs? I post promotional links on Twitter... but that's not all. Not everyone is on Twitter, of course. It's growing, but it's nowhere near the size of the growing Facebook or the fading Myspace.

Ping.fm is a site that aims to make the dissemination of information easier. I can post something once to my Ping account and let them repost it to my Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace status updates.

Easy, right? Get ready for the black belt stuff.

With a Twitterfeed account, you can hook up your blog RSS feeds to automatically repost to Twitter... or even Ping. So now I write a new blog post, RSS sends the info to Twitterfeed, which Pings it to all three accounts. This is not for the amateur -- I've run into some glitches, but if you understand RSS, it's worth it.

(I'm not even going to get into how I hooked up Ping to AIM so I could post via chat in Gmail. Yeesh.)

(I'm also not going into detail about FriendFeed, mostly because I haven't quite figured it out yet. Some people love it as an alternative to Twitter.)

The point is, I'm putting things out there. Not all of it is going to interest everybody, but Twitter and status updates are for short thoughts, like headlines. It's a great way scan what others are writing, but also build a personal audience by feeding info about your own projects. An engaged audience can be a powerful resource for you down the road.

...Tweeting like a true Captain of the Internet at http://twitter.com/mikeboas

I love 3D movies.

I love the gimmicky ones like House of Wax and the subtle ones like Coraline. I've seen them from every era: the 50s, 80s, the Imax years, and today. I believe James Cameron when he says that he'll change filmmaking forever with his 3D film, Avatar.

HOWEVER, if there's a new renaissance for 3D, there's some kinks I'd like to work out.

I already wear glasses. Although I wore contact lenses many years ago, I'm not interested in going back to them any time soon. I admit that the Real D company (which provides the tech for current 3D digital projection) has made some comfortable glasses, but it's still putting on a second pair over my regulars. Are the Real D glasses better than the Imax ones? Definitely, but I still get that nose & ear pain halfway into a feature.

What's the solution? I considered going to an eye doctor and getting prescription Real D specs. Can you imagine what that would cost? After surfing the net for "prescription Real D glasses," I found a guy who wanted the opposite of what I want -- regular lenses in Real D frames. Huh? I also found a site that sells Real D compatible clip-ons. Hmm. That might be worth twenty-eight bucks. (Fifteen would be better.)

Which brings me to my next point: cost. I suppose I can understand 3D movies like Monsters vs. Aliens having higher ticket prices. I'm paying an extra three dollars for glasses, right? Maybe if I were to SAVE my glasses to use again, I could keep that money, right? No, not an option. I brought my Coraline glasses to Monsters vs. Aliens, but the ticket seller said "no discount." I paid the extra money and she gave me a second pair of glasses I didn't need.

Every animation studio has 3D movies in the pipe. It's a smart move, giving the theatrical audience something they can't get at home, either legit or pirated. (This is similar to how 3D and other advances like Cinemascope competed with TV in the fifties.) I'm also aware that ticket prices in general continue to rise, but I'm disappointed by the significant price hike for 3D. Isn't it enough that I'm spending my cash at the theater? Do I have to pay 30% to 50% more than I would for 2D?

By the time Avatar comes out, I'll probably be wearing clip-ons, but I'll also own half a dozen unopened Real D glasses. And I'll be lighter in the wallet, too. Fun times ahead!