On a frigid winter night "Cyxork 7" played at the B-Movie Festival in Syracuse, New York. Of course, "Cyxork 7" is not a hard core B-Movie. It is a satire on the Hollywood sweatshops manufacturing those movies. However the B-Movie festival defines B-Movies as truly independent films, and "Cyxork 7" is about as independent as it gets. Since 1999, the festival is run by the great Ron Bonk, producer, distributor, writer, web-master... The list goes on. And Ron draws on a huge fan base of die-hard B-movie fans in Syracuse. See them stumbling out of a blizzard into the theatre for a late show and you know these guys are dedicated.

The wonderful venue was the Palace Theatre, family run for three generations. This generations owner is Michael Haegerty, whose mother almost gave birth to him in the theatre. Michael has completely restored the main screening room and is building a multi-use loft with bar in this historic theatre. With his great coffee shop the Palace Theatre is a place to hang out, with or without going to the movies.

So we just hang out at the Palace did interviews with the great team from "Wirestream News," who quickly became Cyxorkers. (We know we still owe them a poster).

We also caught a bunch of exciting movies. "Big Fish in Middlesex" the winner of the festival was a great debut for a talented young director Jonathan Straiton and his cast of friends from... you guessed it: Middlesex. The other film that deeply impressed us was "Both" with the fantastic performance by young actress Jackie Parker.

"Cyxork 7" was nominated for 4 awards: Best Special Effects, Best Actress Sonya Smith, Best Actor Ray Wise and Best Picture. Ray Wise won the Best Actor Award, which was a wonderful recognition of his performance from the Syracuse movie buffs.

The highlight of our time at the Palace was meeting the festivals star guest Michael Berryman. Since it was so damn cold outside we all hung out together at the Palace. Michael is a fascinating. He is deeply engaged in many social causes from labor issues to animal rights. He's full of stories from all over the world. This man has a life. And he's such a nice guy. And, of course, we slipped a certain DVD (you know which one) into his pocket and he sure liked what he saw. By the way, MIchael and "Cyxork 7's" Ted Markland acted in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" together, which happened to be the film that got Andreas hooked on movies.

Festival Director Extraordinaire Ron Bonk at the Palace.