This is the 3000th article we have posted. It is really a ton of fun to aggregate articles, get submissions and sometimes even author an article or two on a subject I love “B Movies”. I like watching, thinking about, once and a while even make one or two. The thing I love most are the eclectic characters who makes this genre of cinema. They are usually pretty interesting characters with a world view all their own.

A couple of days ago filmmaker I spoke to twice passed away by his own hands. I was shocked and deeply saddened. I went on the web and saw pictures of his family and messages of love and compassion that had been extended. This is the third time someone who I know or a friend has known has taken this sad path in the past year. The common thread is that all these souls were filmmakers, people who were vital and dynamic creators. Their leaving like all leavings was painful for those that loved them but in the manner in which they left did not allow for either closure or involvement.

I work in film. I understand that it is hard, very hard to keep working an increasingly competitive and increasingly tenuous business. I have learned long ago that the great success in this industry was merely working in this industry for more that a decade. I am on my third.

One of the most valuable lesson that was given to me was a result manic channel changing. When I was nineteen I channel surfed. The local cable company was mandate to have a community access channel. Frankly it was pretty good for a laugh and it sometimes had the most fascinating set of characters who for some reason had a deep need to be on television. That night while searching for probably a B Movie, I passed the local community access channel. Seat uncomfortably and answering questions from a rigid and note card holding interviewer was none other than French Filmmaking legend Roger Vadim.

Vadim, married to Bardot, Fonda, Barrault as well as having well publicized affairs with the likes of Catherine Deneuve and Cindy Pickett. He directed “And God Created Women”, “Circle of Love” and the occasionally entertaining “Barbarella”. This guy had lived, he had loved and made a couple of movies in the process. Now, here he was squirming in his seat, in a makeshift more that low budget TV studio being interviewed by someone who usually did farm reports. I later found out that Roger basically was unbankable in Europe and had headed into North America trying to grab some bucks from the the great unwashed. Heck here was a guy who gave me an outstanding thrill ride just from the title sequence of “Barbarella” and here he was reduced to this.

Here is the lesson I learned that day. Making movies is tough. It’s a ruthless and uncaring business. The people involved eat frustration for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There is a payoff, sometimes but you know that due to all the soapboxes and angry film reviewers residing under rocks on the internet you are somewhere done the road going to open yourself up to criticism and often ill-placed scorn. Here’s the rub though, when its good…it’s really good.

Filmmaking is tough often thankless work. In fact it sometimes has an aspect of brutality to it. Local film communities are notoriously profoundly petty and plague with small minded jealousies. The people involved in making the films that we celebrate on this web “magazine” must run a marathon of sorts to get these films made. It is in fact a testimony to the creative and tenacious genius that is the human race that this many films are made. It is also a wonder that “B Movies”, often films that are scorned by the unknowing and the cynical are enjoyed secretly and in public by so many.

It is to those that have the persistence of vision and extend the herculean effort to make their visions come to live. It’s hard, damn hard and we respect you for your efforts and your talent. And I think for the most part all of you filmmakers out there do not hear this enough, thank you for trying and thank you for achieving. Jim Wynorski, Dave DeCocteau, Fred Olen Ray, Roger Corman, Dave Shaw, Don Dohler, Don Jackson, Mark Burchett, Henrique Couteau, Andy Copp, Jared Cohn, Joe Lawson, David Latt , Paul Bales, Steve Latshaw, Chuck Cirino, Gabriel Campisi, Emil Smith, The Soska Twins, Kevin Tenney, Lloyd Kaufman, Cirio Santiago, Greydon Clark, Tom Holland, Brett Kelly and so many more….thank you so much.

I would also like to thank the amazing Kevin Bachelder and Keith Makenas for their vision, their kind support and their oh so many contributions.

Oh and by the way Roger Vadim, thanks you taught me a lot.