Bunker Hill

No, I didn't throw in the blogging towel - frankly, I got lazy, what with going through DVD sets and catching up on my reading... I was about to get fired up again, when something else came down the pike.

That something else is BUNKER HILL, Kevin Willmott's (of C.S.A.) new project, currently shooting in KS - actually, we started just as C.S.A. started to hit the store shelves. The cast includes James McDaniel, Saeed Jaffery, Scott Allegrucci, Laura Kirk, Kevin Geer, and Blake Robbins. There'll be more about it in the next few months - but if you'd like an early peek:



So it looks like I'll be busy into September - I will try to post the odd photo every so often, but don't expect meaty commentary until well into September.

Upcoming DVD's to look for

Just picked up the 2-disc set for BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, and am happy as a pig in a wallow... Fox really went all out for this set, and it's nice to see Russ Meyer finally honored in a package that does full justice to his magnum opus.

from the Davis DVD news site:

Kevin Willmott's C.S.A. will be released on DVD on August 8 - I think that the movie will really find its audience in this format.

Finally making it's debut on DVD is SHOCK TREATMENT - if you read my article about it earlier, I mentioned that the title might be getting some love this year... that appears to be true, according to the specs on the package - not only will the movie getting a widescreen anamorphic transfer and Dolby Digital 5.1 & monaural tracks, but they're including 2 featurettes and a commentary by fan club presidents (though it would've been nice to have found the director... Richard O'Brien certainly wasn't going to do it). It looks as though Fox is doing right by the film, so I hope that it'll find a new audience that's appreciative of its charms. It'll be out on September 5.

Also coming to DVD is THE OTHER (9/5); and Paramount is releasing two relatively obscure, but good films: LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (8/29) and PRETTY POISON (9/5), all of which are well worth your time and money.

Maybe, just maybe, we can expect a release of PHASE IV in the near future as well...

Something Bad, Something Good





It's been an interesting week... have been gearing up to do some home improvements - my grandmother is currently visiting relatives in Chicago, so my aunt and I are taking the time to repaint her room and put in new carpeting for her while she's gone... then the other morning, we wake up to this in the front yard:

Believe it or not, we did not hear a thing... we're all very sound sleepers in my family. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, some dufus came barrelling through the yard, not making the turn onto the other street -- luckily the ditch, hedges, and finally, the front stoop slowed him/her down and stopped them -- and lucky for the driver, no one heard or saw them - the only thing we found was the lower part of the bumper, which was torn off.

All in all, we're lucky that the stoop stopped them, and they didn't come barrelling into the front room or a bedroom - the hedges got the brunt of the damage... and hedges can grow back.

The week wasn't all bad - I got an e-mail that someone I knew from San Francisco would be in the area for the weekend... a group from NYC, Ars Subterrenea, was doing an event in Kansas City "Kansas City Confidential" and participating was John Law, who flew in from SF.

I haven't seen John since I left SF back in '96... so I definitely had to at least go over and say hello... I met Mr. Law and cohorts on Cacophony Society events, shortly after moving to SF and looking for interesting things to do. Mr. Law is a well-known citizen of the Underground, being an integral part of The Suicide Club and The Cacophony Society, and lots of other offshoots of Fringe Culture, and is easily one of the most principled individuals that I've been lucky enough to know.

I had to work on Sat., so I missed the main event -- I did get to the afterparty and tried to fit the last 10 years in the space of an hour or so... but even better was going on a Kansas City tour of a different sort - it brought back memories of fun stuff I used to do... and provided a spur to make some new memories in my current home. After all, Cacophony is Everywhere!

Not much accomplished in terms of movie watching - just got Peter Watkins' PUNISHMENT PARK from Netflix, so more about that later on after I've had a chance to see it.

Bunny Poo

Watched NIGHT OF THE LEPUS the other night, courtesy of my Netflix subscription. It's one of those films that I remember seeing some 30 odd years ago on the late movie (God, remember when late-nite TV actually showed movies instead of lame infomercials and talk shows?)when I was a kid, but hadn't seen since. LEPUS has a reputation as a "so Bad it's Good" film, so when the DVD came out last fall, I put it on my Netflix queue to check out.

After having sat through the film, I can't put myself in the "so Bad, it's Good" camp... LEPUS is an AWFUL film - leaden in its pacing, and acted so painfully serious and straight it's obvious that the majority of the cast is clearly disgusted with themselves at what they'll do for a paycheck.

LEPUS is a good example of a concept that was handled badly - for some reason, this fascinates me more than just calling it a 'bad movie'. Because, looking at it's pedigree - it was produced by MGM, starred Oscar-nominated actors, was made by people who had some dabbling in the genre - ideally, it should have been at least an enjoyable B-picture instead of a big turkey...

If you haven't seen the picture... well, I can't in good conscience recommend the film. Checking out some snarky reviews, like this, and this one, and of course, this one, will give you a sense of the film - and if you're adventurous, and don't mind losing over 90 minutes of your life, go ahead and rent the thing.

What's fascinating (to me, at least) is that while watching the film, what I noticed was a distinct lack of humor in the picture - the events in LEPUS are treated with a grim air of seriousness, which is strange for a picture that is about giant mutant rabbits rampaging across the desert and eating people. In fact, if you're brave enough to actually see this, the only distinct image you'll take away from it are the slightly surreal scenes of bunnies hopping though minature landscapes in slow motion (appropriated by THE MATRIX and NATURAL BORN KILLERS) - and it's an image that does not inspire fear.

It almost seems that the filmmakers thought that to allow any sort of humor in the situation to be acknowledged would've sunk the entire enterprise... to my thinking, it could have only helped the picture. Gene Kearney, one of the co-writers of the film, certainly could have pulled that off - if you grew up on 70's television, you'll recognize the name... he was one of the writers on ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY and did some memorable segments (the adaptation of Conrad Aiken's "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" for one; and several of the "humorous" segments in the second year of the show) and could have pulled off that balance of humor and horror.

LEPUS is based on a novel - yes, it was - called THE YEAR OF THE ANGRY RABBIT by Australian writer Russell Brandon, and from what info I could gather, the novel was a slapstick satire. Published in 1965 in America, I suspect that it was a project that was a long time in development, and when the 70's 'eco-horror' films got to be popular, got greenlit to take advantage of the trend - and was substantially rewritten to take place in America. Somewhere in the process, the idea that it could be funny got dropped, to everyone's detriment.

LEPUS is exactly the type of picture that you'd WANT to remake - one would have to really try hard to do any worse. Maybe Hollywood should get a clue and stop remaking GOOD films - good films will always find an audience. Get someone to remake LEPUS, only with a lot more humor... hell, it's perfect for The Sci-Fi Channel!

SORRY

I did promise that piece about the film... due to some factors that came up, that piece won't be up anytime soon.

Why, you may ask? Because some pot-stirring already has had effect... I had made a posting to a message board that had a previous thread regarding Mil Mascaras films, and in that posting I made an unkind (but true - remember kids, it ain't libel or slander if it's true!) remark regarding some personnel on some project, which apparently got back to a certain person and caused some tension with people involved with WW.

I hope that's specifically vague enough to explain things... when people get a burr in their britches, there's not much one can do about it. So no fun anecdotes about set hijinks, at least for a few months.

More SONG OF THE DEAD pix

Just found these today while idly searching around - these are from Matt Alofs' site.

Some nice b/w work...

Pictures and pages

Working on that posting about WRESTLING WOMEN... it should be up before the weekend.
If you're interested in more, there are plenty of pictures to see... I've uploaded a batch to my online albums (with some other photos); I also recommend Em Hemeyer's (she was one of the wardrobe designers) photo site; and for a day-by-day account with some cool photos, there's art director Justin Powers' MySite blog "diary of a low budget film" (17 parts) .

Local film reporter Dan Lybarger came out for a night of shooting to interview some of the cast and crew - his story, 'BRAINIAC' OFF THE ROPES IN COLUMBIA, is now on-line on the Kansas City Star site.

The rest of the summer appears to be quiet so far - nothing major so far. Barring any other work that comes up, I'll be working away on a documentary based on footage I shot during the production of JMM's SUPERSTARLET A.D. and helping with getting SONG OF THE DEAD out to the waiting public.

I'll be updating some links on the blogs and the home site as well, and adding some more content there by summer's end, as well as working on the next batch of MICRO-FILM articles & reviews. So things will be busy - just at my procrastinating pace.

If you're wondering why movies today seem so shitty, two books related to screenwriting and writers help shed some light: BACKSTORY 4, is a collection of interviews with screenwriters of the 70's and 80's. I have the previous volume which features writers of the 60's, and the fourth volume is a good companion to that - featuring interviews with Larry Cohen (the whole reason it caught my attention), Paul Mazursky, Walter Hill, John Milius, Elmore Leonard, Donald E. Westlake, Robert Benton, Blake Edwards and more... (if the names aren't familar, IMDB 'em)

David Kipen's THE SCHREIBER THEORY is an entertaining manifesto that fires a warning shot over the bow of the auteur theory... you know, the theory that a bunch of French critics (who later became directors, it must be noted), came up with that stated that the director was the author and main visionary when it came to filmmaking. Kipen's half-mocking take on this (but half-serious, too) is the above, where the writer of a film is a far more consistent marker on the quality of a movie. I think that goes out the window when one considers THE FLINTSTONES (32 writers and the experience of watching it is so horrible, a tooth extraction is more preferable); but he has a point, and he has a lot of fun making it.