I saw a final cut of THE GATEWAY MEAT, filmed in Massachusetts. I appear in the film, I get brutally murdered and got to write my own death scene. Unfortunately my face is bound up with duct tape and we shot for 8 or 10 hours and I couldn't see and was covered in cold fake blood all day. The DVD will be out soon. The film is AMAZING- oh my god- so gory! I was only in a small part and did not see the script so knew nothing about the plot of the film or anything about it except my scenes.

Also out soon on DVD:

Countess Bathoria's Graveyard Picture Show, which debuted at the Fantasia Film Fest, and which I co-wrote.

I am writing for The Independent Magazine website and will be interviewing Jeremy Kasten, director of the upcoming remake of The Wizard of Gore.

I have an interview in the next Girls and Corpses magazine with Erik Ruhling, author of Infernal Device, an illustrated book of torture devices.

Although I put it aside months and months ago it looks like my script A Fistful of Anger may be optioned.

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That Tim Burton directed Stehpan Sondheim's SWEENEY TODD ought to have been a marriage made in heaven.  With Johnny Depp as the Demon Barber with the metaphoric extension of his EDWARD SCISSORHANDS into a razor, this ought to have been a layup. Unfortunately, SWENEY TODD is considerably short of heavenly.

In spite of an impressive production design, London rats and all, the
demands of the film medium, no matter how stylized, still require more verisimilitude than a stage production. The absense of expository detail, the omission of "The Ballad if Sweeney Todd" only makes the incredible Sondheim score- which worked so well on stage- somewhat interruptive, no matter how much Johnny Depp is as a singer. Things that don't work on a literary lever that this truncated fim demends are the romance between the vagabond sailor and Joanna, and, since Burton is so intent on the Edwardian revenge theme, the ghoulish fun of the Sondheim original of Mrs. Lovett's
entreprenurial bakery with cannibalistic pastries is mostly missing.
And with the trimming of both plot and melolies, The climax of Sweeney Todd's tragic awareness seems underdeveloped. I did not feel for him at his moment of discovery and death.

Nevertheless, I liked the film The production design , as one might
expct from Tim Burton, was outstanding. Both Depp and Bonham-Carter were effective, as were Alan Richman as the evil Judge and Mike Leigh stalwart Timothy Spall as the Beadle. And one cannot complain about the basic story and what remained of the Sondheim lyrics.

But - given the level of talent - and, indeed, genius, that went into
the film, it is a disappointment.

 

LINDSAY SHAH SAYS:

"I walked into Sweeney Todd after a month of anticipation.  Tim Burton is one of my personal heroes. Yes...his films are
outward in their cartoonish darkness...but the way in which he
creates a universe out of this could-be superficial aesthetic, I find
multi-layered.

The music which the film began with seemed promising...
I don't think I have to finish this sentence,
but 'seemed' is the obvious key word.

The set design and costumes were flawless in their filthy, deconstructed style...simply what one expects walking into a Burton film. I felt that the style is too recycled by this film that the magic is left behind.

I felt myself desiring the inspiration that Burton gave me no choice but to own when these aesthetics were definitive.

The acting was not flawed, but this does not save the film.
As with many of Burton's films, I felt that the story was secondary.

I long for the idyllic day when the amazing aesthetics of Burton
merge with a writer who sees his universe in verse.

To conclude, I am an openly biased hater of musicals (!)




 

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Over the last l5 years, the definition of "independent film" has become as vague as that of "producer" At one time, independent films were defined by the fact that the fim challenged the viewer either in form and/or content- films like Darren Aronofskys PI orSoderberg's SEX LIES AND VIDEOTAPE. Now, the term applies to any film financed outside the studio system, no matter how conventional the film is either in the treatment of the subject matter or in the filmmaking itself. Starting in the mid-90's with Ed Burns' BROTHERS MCMULLIN, such films are often only calling cards to make Holywood-style films for theatres or television, and Ed Burns career shows the most banal of sensibilities, while his contemporary, Kevin Smith, at least makes interesting films.

In New England, independent films range from the acting powerhouse of IN THE BEDROOM, and the mostly European sensibility of NEXT STOP WONDERLAND, to the straight to DVD senibilities of PONY TROUBLE and DIVINE INTERVENTION.

Into this mix come two earnest, heartfelt and fairly well produced films, Steve Croke's THE BUSKER and Dave McLaughlin's ON BROADWAY. Both films work with recognizable Boston area neighborhoods, Lowell and South Boston, respectively,. and both have an Irish-American motif. And, both are what I call "tweeners", films that could appeal to a megaplex audience, but whose production values are so low that no large distributor would take them. On the other hand, neither film is edgy either in form or in content, so that they would be shunned by patrons of theatres like the Kendall Square or the Coolidge.

In a way, both films stand in comparison to the current art house feel good hit ONCE. Like ON BROADWAY, ONCE has the Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland motif of "Ok, boys and girls, let's put on a play," while THE BUSKER also deals with undiscovered street musicians. ONCE's stated $l50,000 budget is somewhere between THE BUSKERs and ON BROADWAY.

But there is a difference. In ONCE, the music soars and the leads have chemistry. And, in ONCE, the film breaks boundaries in terms of storytelling and in the way the way music is used redefines what we think a film musical is. ON BROADWAY and THE BUSKER, alas, hove no such ambitions.

Not to say these two local films are not without merit, and, if they could find the right audience, that audience would enjoy themseves. At a recent screening of THE BUSKER at the Museum of Fine Arts, where that great and generous programmer, Bo Smith, gave the film a three-day run, Bo commented to me that he was happy to see so many unfamiliar faces at the screening.
That means THE BUSKER did not attract the more cinema-savvy filmgoing crowd. At the premiewre screening of ON BROADWAY at the IFFB at the sold out 900 seat Somervile Theatre, I was surrounded by people some of whom hadn't been in a movie theatre since JAWS. Clearly the audience was dominated by friends and family, and they loved it. At a screening of THE BUSKER I told the filmmaker that he could expect a warm response, and that during the question and answer period, he would get a question like, "I really loved your movie, why don't they make movies like this any more?" They do, but they don't get into movie theatres or else they become high budget, earnest tear-jerkers like EVENING or A MIGHTY HEART.

Both films are likable. ON BROADWAY has the marquee value of Eliza Dushku, who gives an annoyingly twitchy performance, but at least has name recognition for overseas sales. But the audience that comes to see the home grown play that is the film's subject matter, is the kind of audience that never goes to plays. In the film, where the play is staged in a bar in South Boston, the audience loves it. There is also the predictable father-son reconciliation scene. So, too, the audience at the Somerville. As much as they enjoyed that film, I would bet no one would increase their movie-going habit one bit. As for THE BUSKER, it certainly has a much less predictable plot line than ON BROADWAY, and it has a truly good performance from a teenage black actress. It also dares to portray a teenage black/white romance.
Shot in Lowell, it makes Lowell look great.

But it, too, is a Tweener

For more of David Kleiler's Independent Thoughts head over to Local Sightings where you will find an abundant blog archive  http://www.localsightings.com/thoughts.html

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Although I'm aware that there has been an erosion of civil liberties, increased surveillance, illegal detainment of suspects, and an overall disrespect for privacy, I don't yet feel I live in an Orwellian universe. But yet you see the recent glut of films which are so preoccupied with spying that it borders on the paranoid. Similarly, just two weeks ago I waited in line to buy tickets for the vastly popular International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., which has been selling out for five years.

The abundance of such films began in February, with the carefully detailed biopic, BREACH, with the excellent Chris Cooper, playing an FBI agent selling secrets to Russians. Then there was the Academy Award Winning LIVES OF OTHERS, with its subject the East German spying operation, the Stasi. It crops up in the Dogma inspired Scottish film, RED ROAD, in which the heroine spends her days watching images filmed by surveillance cameras on banks of video monitors. Surveillance is also present in two thrillers set in the future, CHILDREN OF MEN and 28 WEEKS LATER.

A continuing theme in films that deal with spying is that one can't trust what one sees. That's true in Hitchcock thrillers like THE 39 STEPS and NORTH BY NORTHWEST, through Coppola's THE CONVERSATION to the films of today. It's also a recurring theme at the Spy Museum, where, upon entering, one assumes a fake identity as one goes through the more than two hours of exhibits and interactive games.

Now comes 'BUG' which is an exercise in paranoid behavior from Academy Award winning director William Friedkin, whose filmmaking career has been largely dormant for over 25 years, with the exception of the highly underrated TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA. Even the ad for BUG is an exercise in deception. Although it announces the film is from the director of THE EXORCIST, anyone expecting that kind of thriller will be strongly disappointed. Instead, they will find a claustrophobic, overly verbal drama (it was adapted from a stage play) with two of the most unpleasant, unsympathetic characters I've sat with for a long time. The play's three act structure is readily apparent, the characters give increasingly long paranoid rants, and, except for a 3-secnd shot after the characters make love, there aren't even any bugs. That's the point I guess, but while it's always nice to see Ashley Judd do her damsel-in-distress bit and, of course, see her in various stages of undress, sitting through this was close to unbearable. I've seen some hard to sit through film lately, like the beautifully acted DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT and STEPHANIE DALEY, which, by the way, had one of the tightest scripts I've seen lately, but these films, apart from being fresh and excellently directed, had characters one could feel for, and, a film we could admire for overall integrity and craft.

Not so with BUG. But, perhaps I too can't trust what I see, or perhaps my own judgment. For, lo and behold, critics actually liked BUG. In fact, the Boston Globe and Entertainment Weekly actually raved. They even found humor in the excess of the paranoid ramblings. At least audiences have not been giving the film strong word of mouth, and the Rotten Tomatoes website only gives it a 61, sort of a "D", But the discrepancy between the film I expect to see from reviews and advertising, and what I actually see has been increasing lately. It began with Miranda July's YOU AND ME AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, which I found derivative from performance art and self-consciously quirky, as was THE GRADUATE rip-off GARDEN STATE. The same was true of BROKEN FLOWERS. Even the virtues of last year's award winning BABEL eluded me. To me, it was a rehash of the same devices of the same director's AMORES PERROS and 28 GRAMS, devices which became familiar in TRAFFIC and SYRIANA.

Although I can sympathize with the characters in BUG whose hysteria urges us not to trust what we see, which for me it carries over to the advertising and the too easy reviewing that goes on. But perhaps Big Brother is watching me after all.

 

I will begin by saying that if you are planning to attend this festival you should attempt to purchase tickets ahead of time to avoid waiting in rush lines. The churches on the island double as screening rooms, so get there early for a pew up front. There is no ascending seating. Something about everyone being equally close to God I heard.

Rumor has it that there were a number of impressive films screening that week. Unfortunately a combination poor intuition and bad recommendations led me into the gates of Naptime theater. I caught a shorts program that evening which was "for the birds" as they say. I was happy to see Kent Osborne in a short called THE PIPE Directed by Dan Brown about a pill-popping paramedic and a stoic security guard work the midnight shift, protecting the air-pipe of a radio personality who has been buried alive as a publicity stunt. This was definitely worth seeing; granted I am partial to Kent Obsourne (The YouTube short where he scores over-the-pants action with an ottoman. It is good for a laugh http://gawker.com/news/cahiers-du-cinéma/couch+humping-masterpiece-inspires-blog+related-homage-261031.php).

After killing time at Tacos Tacos it was movie time again. Flipping through the programming guide, my curiosity for physical mutations got the best of me "Part horror film, part erotic/moral debate", something about Christian confusion, incest and vagina dentate... sounded like a sure thing. Of course I am talking about the feature narrative TEETH directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein. (He is the son of Roy Lichtenstein for any pop art enthusiasts out there. Yay! primary colors!) Okay, back to the movie. Jess Weixler stars as a high school bible-brandishing beauty. While preaching the gospel in a perky teen fashion (which reminded me of a similar film SAVED), she starts to think dirty things about a doe eyed classmate who is also a supposed Jesus freak. Long story short. She loses her virginity after being knocked unconscious and the cutie-turned-rapist loses his manhood. From that point on it is a simple case of INSERT, DETACH, REPEAT. Same characters, same expression, just transported to new locations. Kinda like a family slideshow, except for the increasingly graphic genital butchery. So, I won't give away the rest, because I am not quite sure what the point is anyhow. The upside: Jess Weixler. She was the only facet of this film that kept my eyes out from behing my eyelids. I do hope to see more of her.

Two more hours spent in a church...LOW AND BEHOLD. I was excited to score a great pew, everything seemed to be looking up. Little did I know that I would be praying about twenty minutes in for a projector malfunction. I had a few recommendations from seemingly reliable sources that this was a great film. The film follows a boring unlikable twenty-something who is going to aid his uncle in taking advantage of the hurricaine victims via insurance claim shenannigans. Him, his uncle and vagrant that he finds wandering around form a near-ensemble cast with about as much dramatic subtlety as the three stooges. No offense intended to the stooges. To try to describe facets of the characters is a waste of time. None of them can act, they are equally unlikable and one-dimensional. But only two out of the three are also radically annoying. The characters wander around, there is no direction in the film and no one scene really moves the film forward.

Looking at the subject matter, it had the same problem for me as TEETH. Whether you are talking about genital deformity or the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, having a shocking topic just isn't enough. With a palatte as rich to draw from as Hurricane Katrina I expect to feel something... besides drowsy. I do not know the director so I do not want to make any assumptions, but I feel like this film exploited the Hurricane Katrina disaster to get an easy-in to festivals and recognition. If you want to see a truly touching and honest look at the personal wreckage in New Orleans, check out KAMP KATRINA. This film was playing at the same time as LOW AND BEHOLD at the Independent Film Festival of Boston. The directors David Redmond and Ashley Sabine did not spend large sums of money producing this as did LOW AND BEHOLD. They arrived at New Orleans with hardly a crew and a minimal budget. They shared accomodations with the residents of one of the most beat-up and physically dangerous regions. The story they find in this community hits deep chords that remind you how powerful films can be. That you do not need a big budget to affect people. The honesty of this film has limited its options for distribution since it is not the TV friendly version to which we have been exposed. Check out their site. It is something every independent filmmaker should see. http://www.carnivalesquefilms.com/kamp_katrina.html

To be fair, the films that I repeatedly heard were great at the festival were CANVAS, BROKEN ENGLISH, THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK, BEGGING NAKED, PRETTY IN THE FACE, GREAT WORLD OF SOUND and YEAR OF THE FISH (The last three were also shown at The independent Film Festival of Boston, and I somehow haven't managed to see them yet).

I should be writing something positive when I see THE LIVES OF OTHERS again this week. See that film. I know it sounds boring to some. Trust me.

An old friend of mine, Paul Sherman, who used to write for the Improper Bostonian and The Herald, is writing a book on filmmaking in Boston. He already has a publisher. The text is due in mid-August, and the book in due to come out in April 2008.

I've known Paul for 25 years. (He first came to my house 25 years ago for a "press screening" of Russ Meyer's FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL KILL, when I reviewed it in my Rear Window days) Paul, along with his sister Betsy, who used to write for the Globe, could always be counted on to appreciate films outside the mainstream (Betsy's legendary review of Bobby Goldswaith's SHAKES THE CLOWN, which she called "The CITIZEN KANE of alcoholic clown movies" is still quoted today). Once Nat Segaloff left town, Paul was the only Boston writer who consistently followed the local independent filmmaking scene, and, when I was running the Coolidge, I could always count on Paul to get ink for the local films I would showcase, like Brian Anthony's VICTOR'S BIG SCORE. And he could savor the virtues of Brad Andersons first film, THE DARIEN GAP as well as Roger Saquet's updated comic version of MEAN STREETS, with the mobsters being middle aged wanna-be's.

Paul has a sense of history. He remembers, when, in the early 80's, Gerry Peary programmed a two week festival of independent film at the Coolidge, when Justin Freed was running it. Jan Egleson's BILLY IN THE LOWLANDS and THE DARK END OF THE STREET, were among the highlights. Other than myself, and certainly Gerry Peary, he has seen them all.

What he does with them in his upcoming book is another matter. At the one end, the book just might be a catalogue of the feature films that have been made, with a brief introduction. On the more exciting front, it could chronicle the drama of filmmaking in Boston, from the early 80's, before independent film became fashionable, when there was an incredible vibrance - with Egleson, Eric Stange, Eric Neudel, Rufus Butler Seder, and others. After that, for eight years in a row, a narrative feature made in Boston was in competition at Sundance - two from Brad Anderson alone.

And the book needs to take into account the incredible documentary community. Stimulated by the leadership provided by Channel 2, Boston has been the home to some of America's leading documentarians - Ricky Leacock, Errol Morris, Fred Wiseman, Robb Todd, Ross McElwee, Steve Ascher and Jeanne Jordan, Alfred Guzzetti - the list goes on. For fifteen years, documentary films were in competition at Sundance.

It was exciting to be a filmmaker in Boston.

And there was leadership - BFVF, the Massachusetts Film Office, the Mass Media Alliance. Unfortunately, between l998 and 2002, all of them dissolved, and Boston has had little national presence since then.

In 1997, when NEXT STOP WONDERLAND, premiered at Sundance, Bob Birney, now head of PictureHouse Films, said to me "I'll take a closer look at any film coming out of Boston from now on." Soon, it all ended.

But Paul ought to pick up on the Renaissance in Boston, with the new tax incentives, the installation of Nick Paleologos at the State Film Office, the development of this new 12-part film, called, not surprisingly, "12", which showcases l2 emerging directors, and the enthusiasm around the new unifying organization, Beanywood - at the intersection of Hollywood and Boston.

It's not there yet. It's been years since Filmmaker Magazine has listed Boston as a place to make independent film. Even Virginia Beach is mentioned. And, who knows, maybe the publication of Paul's book will contribute to refocusing on the talent that is here.