Chatting With The Creators Of Cinema Overdrive Part 3 of 4

This is the third of a 4 part talk with a couple of the creators of the series "Cinema Overdrive." If you haven't already please read parts 1 and 2.

The Colony Theater in North Raleigh is hosting the series billed as "the best in high-octane cult/horror/exploitation/drive-in and forgotten films that are waiting to find an audience."

Tomorrow night (Wednesday, Oct. 14th) a 35 MM print of the 1982 cult Spanish slasher film PIECES shows at 8 PM so to gear those in the area up here's more of my conversation with co creators Denver Hill and Matt Pennachi:

Dan: How did you guys get into collecting film? (To Denver) Were you a big movie buff kid?

Denver: No, I had been working here for a few years and we had decided to start this film series. I started collecting after that so I’ve only been into it for 3 or 4 years.

Dan: When you were younger though, were you way into movies?

Denver: Yeah, but the older I get I get more into it. I wasn’t into cult movies when I was younger. I didn’t even know what a cult movie was until I was in college. The way I got into film was through people like Kevin Smith or Tarantino who kind of like in between the mainstream and cult. I think that can be true for a lot of people here. I mean they’ll come see LABYRINTH and see the trailer for SHOGUN ASSASSIN and it will open them up to a whole new world.

Dan: So after SHOGUN ASSASSIN you’ve got PIECES.

Matt: The great thing about PIECES is that they manage to pack so much entertainment value into a scant 80 minutes. There is literally not a wasted second in that film, and so much of the material is so unintentionally hilarious for such a wide variety of reasons. Out of all of the films we've run in the last 10+ years, this is one of my absolute favorites to watch with an audience.

PIECES was released theatrically as one of those classic early 80's Eurotrash splatter imports that featured the "due to the shocking nature of this film, no one under 17 admitted" warning. That tag line was almost invariably a sign of something great to come! Most films are lucky if they manage to get just one fantastic tag line for the poster, but PIECES wound up with two articles of copy that were both marketing gold! "You don't have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre!" and "PIECES - it's exactly what you think it is!" Even the TV spot that was cut for it was terrific. It's only 30 seconds long, but you definitely get the idea of the schlock that this one has in store for you.

Then THE EVIL DEAD (Oct 21st) then THE MONSTER SQUAD (Oct. 28th) and we’ll break out some really great trailers. I have a lot of horror so October will be a good month for trailers.

Denver: That’s another thing, nobody really makes good horror movies now. It’s like SAW every year, a remake of HALLOWEEN…

Matt: Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN was one of the worst films I’ve seen in the last few years. A lot of this stuff becomes redundant to me – the HOSTELs and whatnot. Though people would be quick to challenge me like, ‘how can you not like those but you like films like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and SUSPIRIA?’ Well, it’s hard to put your finger on something tangible but to me the spirit of the 70’s films is different. These new films are not about anything but people gratuitously suffering in the most painful ways possible and what exactly is fun about that?

Dan: Torture porn is what it’s called, right?

Matt: It’s like if you really want to do something unique in horror? Make me a PG-13 film about a dungeon and a castle because now a days that would be very different!

Denver: See, I would argue that the 70’s horror is more intellectual than the movies being made now too.

Matt: It’s much more sociological. When you remake films like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT or DAWN OF THE DEAD you can’t recreate the era in which these films were unleashed upon the public.

Dan: This reminds that when I was a kid I always wanted to go to the movies and my parents didn’t want to see certain movies so they would drop me off at the movies sometimes.

Matt: Those were good times weren’t they? My mom used to do that.

Dan: I’ve looked this up because this is like, do I remember this right? It was 30 years ago, I was 9 and went to see a kid’s movie and there was a trailer for THE SHINING * that scared the Hell out of me!

Matt: The one with the elevator and the corridor of blood?

Dan: Yes, and I was 8 or 9, you know? I mean it scared me out of my mind. There was no context to it – no shot of Nicholson with an axe or of Shelly Duvall screaming or anything it was just that hallway with those titles and the ocean of blood coming at you and it froze in my 9 year old mind.

I mean you know how today they program those things – trailers for action movies in front of action movies, you know appropriate trailers for whatever audiences? I can’t remember the movie that the trailer was on…I think it was a Disney movie…

Matt: No, I bet I can tell you what the movie was because I have a friend who has a similar story. When he was 11 he went with his 7 year old cousin to see BON VOYAGE, CHARLIE BROWN and that trailer was one front of that print!

Dan: Oh my God! I went to see that movie in the theaters! It has to be that one! You’ve just taken me back to the Ram Theater in Chapel Hill in 1980! Which incidentally was the worst theater I’ve ever been to in my life. It’s not there anymore of course.

Matt: Oh, I used to go to the Ram too. My friend Jeff just told me that he wishes we could find video of this but the Ram is where those women’s groups stood out on the sidewalk and protested PIECES when they ran that! Charlie Gaddy did a news story on WRAL about that. I really wish we could find it.

* THE SHINING is playing at the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro tonight (Tuesday 10/13/09 7:30 PM). If that's a theater near you - go to it.

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Without A Hitch - 10 Definitive Directors' Cameos In Their Own Movies

As film geeks throughout the blogosphere well know, an appearance by a director in their own film is a tradition established by Alfred Hitchcock. Hitch (or “Cock” as Teri Garr once claimed she called him to Francois Truffaut) had brief but notable appearances in 37 of his 52 films. Obviously excluding those who act in sizable roles in their own films (Woody Allen, Sylvester Stallone, Orson Welles, etc.) these are my favorites of the film maker folks that followed in Hitch's footsteps:

1. Martin Scorsese in TAXI DRIVER (1976)

Scorsese has had brief bit cameos in a lot of his movies but it's this appearance credited as "Passenger watching silhouette" that makes the biggest impression. As a nervous gun totting cuckolded husband, Scorsese tells his cabbie Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) to pull over and stay parked with the meter running outside the building where his wife is with another man. He talks about his revenge fantasy involving his 44 Magnum in the only scene in the movie in which we are creeped out by somebody other than the title character.

What puts this at the top of the list is that Scorsese actually shows some acting chops and a persuasive presence. His later performances in other's movies, particularly Akira Kurosawa's DREAMS and Robert Redford's QUIZ SHOW, confirm TAXI DRIVER's hinted at prowess. Incidentally Scorsese can also be seen in a daylight street scene shot earlier in the film.

2. John Huston in THE TREASURE OF SIERRE MADRE (1948) Another American master who appeared in many movies, his own and others', Huston stole a short but sweet scene from star Humphrey Bogart in this undeniable classic. Bogart's down on his luck character Fred C. Dobbs makes the mistake of trying to bum money 3 times from Huston as an "American in Tampico in white suit". Huston reluctantly complies but warns: "But from now on, you have to make your way through life without my assistance." Luckily this was nothing but a movie line - Bogart and Huston assisted each other on a couple more classics afterwards (KEY LARGO and THE AFRICAN QUEEN).

3. Roman Polanski in CHINATOWN (1974) Perhaps it's been all the op ed pieces on Polanski lately (Sometimes that have the same screen capture I have here) that helped to inspire this list but whatever the case this is a colossally classic cameo. In less than a minute of screen time, as a thug that Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes dismisses as a "midget", Polanski convinces us that he actually slices Nicholson's nose with a switchblade. It's a moment that's impossible to forget:

Still not convinced that it's a classic cameo? Then check out this 12 inch articulated custom figure!

I mean come on! How many cameos have action figures representin'? Well, come to think of it, there is this guy:

4. George Lucas in STAR WARS: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH (2005) This is movie director as extra. For a member of a crowd scene in the last STAR WARS series entry (or the third if you're into the revisionist re-jiggling thing), Lucas got himself decked out in alien garb and gave himself a name: Baron Papanoida. There's an oddly lengthy bio at IMDb. And yes, there's an action figure too.

5. Richard Linklater in SLACKER (1994)

Linklater's role as "Should Have Stayed at Bus Station" sets into motion the stream of self consciousness exercise that he geared the movie to be:

It's quite a loose likable persona that Linklater affects - one that kicks off his film career and also appears in animated form in WAKING LIFE (2001) - a sort of sequel (or at least spiritual follow-up) to SLACKER.

6. Hal Ashby in HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971)

Film babble blog favorite Ashby also does the "movie director as extra" thing as a hippy freak at a carnival in his counter culture cult classic. Of course, he was just dressed as usual and it's not really a cameo; more of a brief shot that captures the director as a random passerby watching a mechanical toy train with Harold (Bud Cort) and Maude (Ruth Gordon). Ashby also shows up doing the extra thing again in a newsroom in BEING THERE (1980) - something I noticed just recently after missing it for years on many repeated viewings.

7. Francis Ford Coppola in APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)

So he's the "Director of TV Crew" who barks orders at the soldiers as they run through his shot - is it an exaggeration of Coppola's ego or the real thing? You decide:

8. David Lynch in TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992) Lynch has done a number of walk on parts in his films but here he gives himself an actual character: FBI Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole who Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle Machlachlan) reports to. Lynch's Gordon appeared on the TV series a few blink and miss them times and his bit for the prequel/origin story/whatever movie is pretty meager. So what gets him on this list? I guess it's that a normal office scenario is skewed by the likes of David Bowie and flashes of a white faced pointy nosed circus wack job or whatever dancing around and this time Lynch himself is in the midst of it. Welcome to my nightmare, indeed:

9. Oliver Stone in WALL STREET (1987)

Yet another director that has taken bit or extra roles in multiple movies, Stone does a split screen sound bite appearance as a broker on the phone in one of the film's many frenetic montages. No word whether he'll reprise the role for the sequel.

10. Sam Raimi in THE EVIL DEAD TRILOGY (1981-1992) As documented by AMC Filmsite, Sam Raimi appeared:

1981: as a Hitchhiking Fisherman and the Voice of the Evil Force
1987: as a Medieval Soldier; and
1993: as a Knight in Sweatshirt and Sneakers, who assured Ash (Bruce Campbell): "You can count on my steel"

Peter Jackson pulled the same stunt by appearing in all 3 LORD OF THE RINGS movies.

Anybody else? I know this list is just a drop in the ocean so bring on your own favorites! You know where to put 'em.

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New DVD Reviews: THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE & TYSON

Here are some reviews of a few new release DVDs if you please (or even if you don't):

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2009)

As most film buffs know there are 2 Steven Soderberghs - not literally, of course, just hear me out. One makes well crafted commercial movies like ERIN BROCKOVICH, the OCEANS series, and the recent well received THE INFORMANT!, while the other makes on-the-fly experimental works such as SCHIZOPOLIS and FULL FRONTAL (not exactly sure where CHE or SOLARIS fits in this). THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE is definitely in the second category; it was shot on digital video with a miniscule budget in less than 3 weeks and it shows.

This is not to say it doesn't look good - it has a slick lush look and it's sharply edited, but the material is fairly weak and the acting is sorely lacking. It concerns a high price Manhattan call girl (Sasha Grey) who offers a special service: "the girlfriend experience" of the title. That is she'll stay with a client for a longer time than usual, converse, and go out on an actual date to dinner/the theater/whatever in addition to intercourse.

Grey's performance is bland and un-involving so it was hard to care about her and her just as bland boyfriend (Chris Santos) suffering on the side. It was filmed in 2008 shortly before the stock market crash so there is a lot of talk from Grey's corporate clients about the economy. None of it adds up to anything though. A journalist (Mark Jacobson) asks Grey: "Do you ever get bored ever, just talking to rich people?" She replies: "It can get tedious." It sure does in this movie.

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE is pretty but pointless and even at its 77 minute running time it feels extremely padded out. Woody Allen once joked about the idea of sex without love being an empty experience: "As empty experiences go though, it's one of the best!" was his punch line. Sadly "empty experience" at its worst sums up this tossed off throwaway film.

TYSON (Dir. James Toback, 2008)

"Mike Tyson In His Own Words" could be an accurate alternate title for this film. Though there is news footage and archival interviews, this is primarily Tyson telling his story in a series of sit down interviews. Toback splices together a mosaic out of split screen and moving images with his subject overlapping on his own recollections.

From his struggling beginnings in Brooklyn to becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world on to a sexual assault conviction resulting in 3 years behind bars, we get an unnerving sense of a confused but determined kid best evidenced in his account of his prison term:

"I know that I'm going insane and I'm crazy for being here, but it's the only sanity that I know. It's the insanity that's the sanity that I know. I know that sounds so contradicting but it's the life I know."

Tyson admitted contradiction is one of many so Toback's abstract methods of capturing his ongoing conflict make more sense as the movie goes on. Although I'm not a boxing fan, Tyson is a powerful figure that's impossible to ignore and this breakdown of his battered background held my interest from start to finish.

A 16 minute featurette on the DVD ("A Day With James Toback") is also worthwhile for it gives insight into Toback's motivation and drive to present Tyson's tale as he maneuvers through press junkets on the way to a premiere screening.To one interviewer he says this about Tyson: "I believe everything he says, that at least he believes everything he says." This belief is intensely felt in every absorbing frame.

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THE INVENTION OF LYING: The Film Babble Blog Review

THE INVENTION OF LYING (Dir. Ricky Gervais, 2009)

Warning: This review may contain Spoilers!

In her eulogy for her late ex-husband Sonny Bono, Cher said: "He wanted to make people laugh so much that he had the confidence to be the butt of the joke...because he created the joke." The same could be said of Ricky Gervais. This was amusingly the case with his brilliant BBC TV programs The Office and Extras, so it's no surprise that his directorial debut is filled with self deprecation as well as outright cheap shot insults aimed at Gervais written by Gervais (well, and co-writer Matthew Robinson).

Here Gervais has a simple but juicy scenario - there's an alternate world, much like ours except that there is no dishonesty. Everybody tells the truth all the time, sometimes in blunt crude remarks, until one fateful day when a "chubby little loser" (Gervais's voice-over narration's words - not mine) discovers that if he says something that isn't true everybody believes him.

He can get money from the bank by lying about his account or by swindling a casino, he can get a woman to have sex with him by telling her the world will come to an end if she doesn't comply, he can get a drunk friend (Louis C.K.) out of a DUI by telling the arresting officer that his friend isn't intoxicated, he can...well, you get the idea.

One thing he can't lie about is his appearance and genetics which puts a roadblock between him and the woman he loves - Jennifer Garner. She feels that if she marries and procreates with him their offspring will be "chubby kids with snub noses." An "ouch" in a sea of ouches for our schlubby hero.

Overheard telling his mother (Fionnula Flanagan) on her deathbed that she will be rewarded a mansion and endless treasures in the afterlife, Gervais unintentionally invents religion too. Hoards of desperate folks appear at his doorstep to get answers from him and he tells them of a "Man in the sky" who will reward or punish them after they die for how they live their lives.

Gervais's take on all this is whimsical and sweet, with light laughs instead of guffaws. It's a premise out of a comedy Twilight Zone but its tone is subtle and thoughtful instead of outrageous or at all subversive. It helps that Gervais has an ace cast including Rob Lowe as a rival both in business and in love, Jonah Hill as a suicidal neighbor, Tina Fey as his smarmy secretary, and Jeffrey Tambor as his nervous boss. Also keep an eye out for a bevy of cameos which I won't spoil - okay, I'll spoil 2: Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a kindly bartender and Edward Norton as the previously mentioned arresting officer.

THE INVENTION OF LYING may be too light, or worse, too slight to make much of a comic impression but it's chock full of charm and just funny enough to recommend. For a first time director it shows a lot of promise, and for an up and coming comedy star it shows a lot of growth. With this as a foundation, Gervais will certainly go on to create bigger better joke fests that he undoubtedly will again be the butt of again. Cheers to that.

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CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY: The Film Babble Blog Review

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY (Dir. Michael Moore, 2009)


This time out filmmaker/muckraker Michael Moore brings his tried and trusty methods (idyllic 50's stock footage, Baby Boomer-era hit songs, a megaphone, stern evil unemotional old white men, and bringing it all back home to Flint, Michigan) to the financial crises of the last few years. "There's gotta be some kind of a rebellion between the people that have nothing and the people that's got it all" says Randy Hacker as he and his family are getting evicted from his home early in the film and it's impossible not to get emotional. Trouble is as much as my eyes teared up, they rolled more at Moore's antiquated antics throughout the movie.

"This is capitalism - a system of taking and giving, mostly taking." Moore's voice-over tells us as he sets up his thesis. He darts around from heartfelt salt of the Earth stories to scolding exposés of corporate practices like "dead peasant insurance" which has companies profiting from employee's deaths. This is all almost entirely aimed at the banking system - Moore even at one point unrolls a long strip of yellow police tape around the entrances of the towers in Wall Street's banking district. It's a crime scene you see? Yeah, you get it.

I've long thought Moore was fighting the good fight with his heart in the right place, however here he's again preaching to the choir and will doubtfully earn many new converts with this piece of pop doc polemic. There was a smattering of applause at the end at the theater I saw this film in but the folks who would go to an art theater to see a Michael Moore movie these days are certainly already on his side. A number of effective points and a definite worthwhile discussion can be provoked by Moore's material but his shtick of accosting security guards and senators (as well as dubbing stock footage for his purposes) has gotten beyond old at this late date.

Of course, just a discussion among likeminded folks is not what Moore wants. He wants that full on rebellion that Hacker spoke of above just like he wanted FAHRENHEIT 9/11 to deny George W. Bush another Presidential term (it didn't) and SiCKO to help change the U.S. Health Care situation (it hasn't). (Possible Spoiler! Wait, can there really be a spoiler in a film like this?) Moore makes this plea at the very end of the film: "You know I can't do this anymore - unless those of you who are watching this in the theater want to join me. I hope you will, and please speed it up." Well, I just have to say: good luck with that!

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A Zombie Killing Roller Coaster Ride

ZOMBIELAND (Dir. Ruben Fleischer, 2009)

If you go in expecting an American SHAUN OF THE DEAD, you won't be far off - and the good news: that's so not a bad thing. Armed with a numbered list of do's and don'ts, we find Jesse Eisenberg (ADVENTURELAND, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE), as one of the few remaining uninfected humans left after a zombie apocalypse. He meets up with Woody Harrelson as a rough and ready redneck whose favorite expression is "nut up or shut up" and who plucks a banjo (playing "Dueling Banjos" from DELIVERANCE, mind you) to get zombies to come out of the woodwork so he can bash their heads in.

They soon join up with a couple of grifting sisters (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) and off they go hitting the literal "road to ruin". Eisenberg hopes to find his family (alive and not zombie-fied) in Columbus, the sisters want to make it to Pacific Playland in LA which they hear is zombie free, and Harrelson simply wants to find a Twinkie.

There is not much of a plot beyond that. It's a series of zombie attack situations framed by Eisenberg's rules (including "avoid bathrooms" and "remember seat belts") and pop culture references which add to, not detract from the tone of the humor. A clever confidence is always present in this material and the edge of your seat action never falters. It's a zombie killing roller coaster ride that actually has a zombie killing roller coaster ride in it!

Some film critic folks have unfairly branded Eisenberg as a Michael Cera-wannabe for his ADVENTURELAND performance but he has his own style of nervous awkward mannerisms that shouldn't be discounted here. His chemistry with the cute but conniving Stone and flustered comedic exchanges with Harrelson glue this all together without getting it sticky. You can actually believe his character's expressed sentiment about his new found friends and in a world filled with the flesh eating undead, that's saying a lot.

I wouldn't recommend ZOMBIELAND to the squeamish, or more aptly those who don't care for zombie movies, but for the rest of us it may be the most unabashedly fun film this year. And whatever you do, don't let anybody spoil the surprise extended cameo. It's worth the price of admission alone.

Post note: Also be sure to stay to the very end of the credits - it's another worthwhile factor I won't spoil.

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Roller Grrls - WHIP IT: The Film Babble Blog Review

WHIP IT (Dir. Drew Barrymore, 2009)

The phrase "the directorial debut of Drew Barrymore" may not get cineastes excited, especially as the Oscar prestige season looms, but it shouldn't alarm or offend them either. Barrymore presents a surprisingly solid 80's style formula film that's cute enough to overshadow its ultimate predictability. Protagonist Ellen Page (JUNO), awkward instead of snarky, pines for a life away from the beauty pageants her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) constantly drags her to and her go nowhere job working as a waitress at Bodeen's Oink Joint.

The answer to her angst is in Austin, Texas: a roller derby team that calls themselves the Hurl Scouts who Page immediately dubs her new heros. Without her parents knowing she takes the bus and joins up under the tutelage of "Mother Mayhem" (Kristen Wiig - so much better used here than in EXTRACT) who takes her under her wing. Page has an angry adversary in the form of Juliette Lewis as "Iron Maven" and a crush on a bed headed indie rocker (Landon Pigg).

As Page's father, Daniel Stern appears to have the Alan Arkin part - the laid back parental figure that at first seems like an old fuddy duddy but in the end has a hip wisdom that wins the day. Barrymore gives herself a role as team mate "Smashley Simpson" who somehow isn't as obnoxious as she's set up to be. Rounding out the cast are Alia Shawkat (Maebe from Arrested Development) who gets to bring the snark as Page's best friend, stuntwoman Zoe Bell (KILL BILL, DEATH PROOF) struts her stuff, and Jimmy Fallon smarms it up as the master of ceremonies.

Sure it breaks no ground as a coming of age story, the ending can be seen from a mile away and the wall to wall soundtrack of pop songs is overdone, but it's a big hearted movie that's hard not to like. With its wacky outtakes and bloopers over the end credits presumably to prove how much fun they all had making the movie, WHIP IT is without pretension or cynicism. It's just a sincere display of the power of friends, family, and fun and that's all it wants or needs to be. I mean for a first time directing effort nobody was expecting a CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND or even THAT THING YOU DO! from Barrymore, am I right?

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