Our apologies, but with the Underground Film Journal being in semi-hiatus, the Underground Film Links has been a bit wonky of late, as regular readers have probably noticed. Almost would have skipped it again this week, but these first couple ones are too great to not direct your attention towards:

1. This first one is an Absolute Must Read: Film preservationist expert Mark Toscano finally fulfills his promise to talk specifically about certain films he has restored. His first article is unbelievably fascinating in which he discusses restoring Robert Russet’s 1972 experimental film Neuron. The full restoration process is mind-blowing to read about. And if you want to request Mark to write up another film, you can do that here. We made our requests.
2. In other Absolute Must Read news: The Underground Film Journal is ecstatic for and thrilled for Usama Alshaibi, one of our favorite filmmakers, who was recently accepted into the MFA in Film Studies program at the University of Colorado. Read his poignant Artist Statement he had to pen to get into the school.
3. Another Underground Film Journal fave filmmaker is Chris Hansen who is embarking on a documentary about Doctor Who fan culture. If you want to be possibly interviewed for the film, you can contact him through here.
4. Yet another one of our favorites, Waylon Bacon, unleashes some of the concept and storyboard art he crafted for Richard Bates Jr.’s upcoming horror release Excision. We knew Bacon worked on that, so we were excited to finally see what he came up with.
5. The Phantom of Pulp, i.e. filmmaker Mark Savage, dishes about his new project, Circus of Dread, with some cool concept paintings.
6. Michael Varrati interviews special effects make-up guru / filmmaker Robert Kurtzman of KNB EFX fame about his latest endeavor: Teaching!
7. Temple of Schlock tries to unlock the mystery of the 1966 exploitation film Burn Baby Burn, based on a bizarre and creepy true story. (Nice that they name-drop my employer, the AFI Catalog.)
8. Not underground: Roger Ebert muses on the economics of indie films and the online streaming market for them. Lots, lots, lots to think about here.
9. Also not underground: Glenn Kenny ruminates on the nature of film criticism.