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Well, well, well<\/em>. While the moviegoers of Champaign-Urbana<\/strong> will be flocking to the Virginia Theater<\/strong> later today, Wednesday, April 18<\/strong>, for opening night of the 20th annual Roger Ebert\u2019s Film Festival<\/span><\/strong><\/a>, during which University of Illinois<\/strong> alumnus and Hollywood<\/strong> director Andrew Davis<\/strong> will introduce his 1993 smash hit THE FUGITIVE<\/strong>, we relish the thought of welcoming home another movie runaway. Chicago<\/strong> area native Lee Jones<\/strong> has given us permission to share that his prolific boutique distributor and streaming service, Vinegar Syndrome<\/strong> of Bridgeport, Connecticut<\/strong>, will restore the UIUC student-made feature SHOT<\/strong><\/span><\/a> and release it on Blu-ray disc later this year!<\/p>\n Although not yet announced in any formal sense, the acquisition of SHOT<\/strong> was first teased on social media last July; eagle-eyed C-U Blogfidential<\/span><\/strong> friend Jeff Kacmarynski<\/strong> (DREAD FLUSH<\/strong>) caught this reveal via the film canister photograph seen above and below. The container\u2019s label clearly sports the names of UIUC graduates Nate Kohn<\/strong>, the long-standing director of \u201cEbertfest<\/strong>\u201d<\/span><\/a> and a professor at the University of Georgia<\/strong><\/span><\/a> in Athens<\/strong>, and Mitch Brown<\/strong>, a veteran lieutenant colonel in Civil Air Patrol<\/strong> training<\/span><\/a> and son of the late novelist Dee Brown<\/span><\/strong><\/a>. They served respectively as producer and writer\/director on SHOT<\/strong>, a massive undertaking for the student group Cinemaguild<\/strong> that premiered 45 years ago<\/span><\/a> on March 28, 1973<\/strong>, at what is known today as Foellinger Auditorium<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Until now, the project\u2019s only official distribution has been on VHS cassette through various home video labels worldwide; you can see packaging examples at the end of this post from Sony Video Systems<\/strong> in North America<\/strong> and Xtasy Video Ltd.<\/strong> in the United Kingdom<\/strong>, both dating from 1987. SHOT<\/strong> may be an unusual addition to the Vinegar Syndrome catalog, dominated as it is by comedic, horror, urban, and hard-\/softcore fare from the 1960s through 1980s<\/span><\/a>, but its rescuer finds value in its tangible nature. \u201cI tend to dislike actioners, but this one really impressed me,\u201d wrote Jones alongside the teaser photo on the Facebook<\/strong> fan page<\/span><\/a> devoted to his company\u2019s product. \u201cIt has a Peter Yates<\/strong> quality<\/span><\/a>, where it\u2019s less into lengthy shoot outs (although the action set pieces are marvelously staged) and more focused on day to day life drama of the main characters. It\u2019s really the eye for detail that got me,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n No other specifications have been mentioned other than SHOT<\/strong> will be presented full frame, the 4:3 width-to-height ratio that had been standard for television screens for decades, and transferred directly from Brown and Kohn\u2019s 16mm print. We will certainly let you know when the pigs \u2013 er<\/em>, officers Ross and Wilson \u2013 are back on the beat to clean up as best they can \u201ca world of perpetual winter\/cold, industrial strips, ugly farm country, and grey skies\u201d per Jones, who is both co-owner and director of acquisitions at Vinegar Syndrome. Other recent titles from them you might be familiar with are LIQUID SKY<\/strong> (1982), a stylish New Wave<\/strong> tale of aliens indulging in the New York<\/strong> nightlife, and SWEET SWEETBACK\u2019S BAADASSSSS SONG<\/strong> (1971), the controversial proto-\u201cBlaxploitation\u201d epic.<\/p>\n You may also remember when “Ebertfest” screened BAADASSSSS!<\/strong>, the entertaining homage<\/em> to the latter, back in 2005; will SHOT<\/strong> receive a dedicated hat tip once it\u2019s reintroduced to the cult and genre audiences of today?<\/p>\n ~ Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n p.s.<\/em> There is no truth in advertising when it comes to the prior box art for SHOT<\/strong>. Sony\u2019s illustration plays on the fanciful military\/action films of the 1980s while the crude still adorning Xtasy\u2019s clamshell<\/a><\/span> is borrowed from a completely different film, THE CANNIBAL MAN<\/strong> (1973). Bizarrely, labels in several European<\/strong> and South American<\/strong> countries used pictures of a male model dressed like the ersatz mercenary on the Sony box; one sample materialized on the film\u2019s IMDb<\/span><\/strong> page<\/span><\/a> a few months ago.<\/p>\n