Hell is Where the Heart Is.

Being the efforts of a local film dude inspired by Pig Destroyer.

Stowed deep away atop the mighty House of Heroes comic book hot spot in the thick of Oshkosh is a grand laboratory adorned with majestic posters (mostly of the original 'Evil Dead') and copious objects truly fitting a film savvy scholar that houses one mad soul hard at labor on a challenging collection of projects and ideas meant to work the value of the area filmmaking community to an ever higher level. The soul in question is that lovable man on a seemingly endless movie mission, John Pata. Pata, many of you should swiftly recall, is one of the chief creative engines behind one of the most positively received and widespread cinematic success stories to ever have been generated out of the Oshvegas/Fox Valley landscape, 'Dead Weight'. That film (which finally landed a fully legit, national distribution deal via Kino Lorber and became available online and on store shelves late last month) signaled the clear arrival of a potent cinematic commando with a natural knack for the form.

For those yet to witness 'Dead Weight' (a number of the populace that hopefully continues to dwindle), it is the tense, often troubling story of a young man named Charlie (Joe Belknap) and his increasingly self centered quest to be reunited with his eternal true love Samantha (Mary Lindberg) across a post outbreak tainted, mid western backdrop. The film plays out with minimal flaw despite the relative inexperience of many involved on either side of the camera and serves as a much more effective study of the strange ticks of the human mechanism than some entrail laden 'Walking Dead' wannabe or entry level slasher also ran (though the new packaging its been draped with may lead some to assume otherwise).

'Dead Weight' has done a serious number of festival dates and managed to win over a phat percentage of the folks who took it in, many of whom (myself included) would eventually gain the itch to see just what this Pata fellow and his constantly expanding army of contributors (especially his Head Trauma co-hort Adam Bartlett) would follow this baby up with.

Enter, of all damn things, Virginian grindcore band Pig Destroyer and their frontman, J.R. Hayes' engagingly demented arrangement of words. See, several years back, when Pata was in the midst of his U.W.-Oshkosh student tenure, a friend introduced him to the writings on the inlay booklet of Pig Destroyer's 2001 record 'Prowler in the Yard'. Now, Pata, not traditionally given to the fashion of sonic violence contained within the record, nonetheless found himself immediately taken by a brief (4 paragraphs+1 sentence) piece of writing included in the booklet. The words attempt to convey the very fractured psyche of a severely downtrodden soul sitting in his car outside the house that contains the 'better half' of a recently terminated relationship while holding depraved intentions of a dire sort of reconciliation close to his crippled heart.

During a meet up a short while back, Sir. Pata confessed to me that he found that scant passage to be one of the most 'beautifully disturbing' he'd ever run his eyes across. It stuck with him and he found himself returning to it a few years on when, in the wake of a rather disheartening creative setback (the disintegration of an ambitious horror opus named 'Among the Dead'), Pata immersed himself in the penning of a series of short film scripts, the Pig Destroyer idea (to be tagged 'Pity') fell easily in line.

It would ultimately be a tad longer as the whole 'Dead Weight' thing soon came together and soaked up a dominant chunk of Pata's precious time. But in 2013 the focus came right back around to 'Pity'. In the small interim between the close of production on 'Dead Weight' and this new short, Pata kept his filmmaking chops well oiled by lending assistance in varying capacity on several film projects guided by others. One such production, an Illinois based anthology called 'Chop-Shop', introduced John to several crew members whose work ethic and overall skill sets greatly impressed him ('They were all on the same page...it was almost like they 'shined', they didn't have to verbally speak!', he told me), most of all, cinematographer Robert Patrick Stern who would carry his considerable abilities and enthusiasm over to 'Pity'.

The time spent helping out and lugging around equipment on the sets of other people's productions only worked to magnify the itch in John Pata to get back to realizing his own cherished vision. Pata reapproached the 'Pity' script, sent word out to Pig Destroyer main men Scott Hull and J.R. Hayes of his adaptation intentions and pitched to them his plan on how to interpret the material as a short in hopes of acquiring the official rights to do so, which he did. The next obvious step was to pull together the bodies, locations and gadgets necessary to take this thing all the way. Along with the already mentioned Adam Bartlett (who served as assistant director) and camera ace Stern, Pata tapped Sarah Sharp to realize the production design and to embody the lone acting requirement of the story, there is a guy named Jake Martin. Martin, a onetime frontman for a local band named Lead Me Not, is a long standing friend of the director who has taken part, on camera, in each of his three film projects (as a zombie in 'Better Off Undead" and an intimidating redneck in 'Dead Weight') and was deemed a natural fit for the brooding, closed off and ever silent 'Anonymous' (the only words spoken in the piece come care of voiceover).

Following around two and a half months of pre-production the actual meat of the production process was largely meted out on an area soundstage with a heady array of toys (lights, cameras, rainmaking devices) to give the project a much greater polish than anything Pata has attempted to date. The shoot only needed two days to complete,yet the director explains that 'Pity' required a greater level of complexity and variety in the camera work and number of set ups for shots designed to help spice up a potentially limiting concept of one individual doling out his last moments of mortality while sitting in a car. Once the 'Pity' shoot wrapped up nicely, Pata set to the arduous undertaking of piecing the resulting footage together into a coolly effective 6 minutes of elegant, dark storytelling.

Nicholas Elert (the man behind the band Northless who scored 'Dead Weight') is back matching lovely sounds with the imagery and the completed 'Pity' is set to make its big public bow during the natural monthly chaos that is the Oshkosh Gallery Walk this coming April. This is going to transpire at the Time Community Theater (of which John Pata serves as President) right on Main Street with the film running every half hour and accompanied by an exhibition of on set photographs snapped by Mary Manchester and David Burke. From that point, Pata plans to push his 'Pity' heavily toward the sprawling film festival circuit (15% of the short's $4,500 budget was set aside for submission fees) with a possible DVD package featuring a much longer 'making of' documentary to arrive at some time down the road.

Once this 'Pity' thing and the 'Dead Weight' official roll out have both cemented their respective places in the film universe, John Pata will likely not waste time before jumping headlong into the next significant stage of his filmmaking career. He already has multiple concepts in rapid development (including one about a troublesome chain letter he's at work on with Mr. Bartlett described as something along the lines of 'if John Carpenter directed an episode of The X-Files'). In addition, John will be toiling as an editor on a documentary that is attempting to chronicle the rabid punk music scene that erupted in Green Bay back in the day between 1977 to 1987 (Kutskas Hall anyone?) and is slated to arrive sometime late in 2014 or early 2015.

Beyond all this, who knows, just rest assured people of Wisconsin, this native son has no plans in the direction of slowing down. Like the man himself summed it all up in relation to all of his experiences to date working on films, 'No time on a film set is time wasted.' Prime words from a perfect source.

Keep up on the progress of 'Pity' and other John Pata projects at these handy web spots;

https://www.facebook.com/PityFilm

https://www.facebook.com/headtraumaproductions

We Are What We Are.

Rising to a dismal rainfall, the matriarch of a remotely situated family in rural New York State sets out to embrace the clear inevitability of her impending demise. Left in the wake of this abrupt departure, an emotionally distant, ever mulling father and his brood of socially exempt offspring find themselves burdened with the obligations of a particularly daunting legacy. Such is the core plotline establishment of Jim Mickle's studied yet freshly unnerving re-take on the 2010 Mexican thriller of the same name (or 'Somos Lo Que Hay' to keep it culturally specific) by Jorge Michel Grau. Transplanted to a storm ravaged East Coast setting with a shift in gender alignment for many of the key characters, the story remains close in basic theme and situational development all filtered through a fully distinct and personal directorial touch.

As with the two prior Mickle pictures ('Mulberry St'-probably among the finest of those After Dark Horror Fest entries and 'Stakeland') the director provides equal, perhaps even superior, space to aspects of persona and genuine human behavior patterns as opposed to over saturating his story with too many cheap, exploitation friendly shocks and excessive carnage that would most likely reduce the proceedings to the lower ranks of the disposable representations of the horror genre. Sticking closely with this suddenly degraded family four pack (surname Parker) as they shuffle weakly forward with their deep rooted lifelong rituals, the film charts their struggle as they enter into a sort of 'fasting' process while pieces and portions of their closely held secrets have slowly come to the literal surface care the violent mischief of cruel mother nature.

The thing that has placed this family so curiously outside the communal mainstream is the very disturbing fact that they are, indeed, full on cannibals. Not quite the grindhouse type sleazy savages of all those (mostly Italian) flesh munching flicks that so peppered the drive-ins and low brow venues in the bygone days of the 70s and 80s, these cannibals are a somber, meditative lot who almost seem perpetually trapped in this hell embedded throughout their lineage. Seems the ancestry of this clan enacted this human consuming human option due to being unfortunate, Donner Party like settlers stuck with no other survival alternative. Because of this intrusion of hostile weather working past sins to the fore, many key members of the small surrounding populace (i.e. law enforcement) inch ever closer to the Parker's tightly hewn personal bubble. With the threat of discovery closing in, the Parkers hurry to find a way, any way to keep their unit from being torn apart eventually leading to a rather brutal collision of worlds at the film's startling climax.

The fair body of Mickle's variant on this flesh eater saga centers close to the effect of this plight on the two young sisters (played by able actresses Julia Garner and Ambyr Childers) who must wrangle some semblance of stability together in their homestead as their pa appears to degrade into a remorseful waking coma. Mickle makes the most of his rather limited resources (this is no high priced studio epic, mind you) as he has with his other works and sculpts some quality performances from a completely game and impressive cast that includes veterans Michael Parks (whose measured way of delivering dialogue elevates his performance even more) and Kelly McGillis (far removed from her 'Top Gun' prime but effortlessly effective here as a friendly neighbor) plus some lesser known folks like Bill Sage as the casually deteriorating father figure, the director's long time partner in crime Nick Damici as the local Sheriff and even Kurt Russell's son Wyatt as a deputy with an eye on one the Parker daughters.

'We Are What We Are' comes to DVD and Blu Ray courtesy of the good folks at eOne Entertainment who have included an entertaining enough running audio commentary by director Mickle, his camera man Ryan Samul and several cast members who give the impression of a fun and very creatively healthy production process.  There is also a near hour long collection of behind the scenes footage that seeks to impart some of the day to day hands on craftwork it took to make this film the fine little piece of disturbed art that it came to be. Recommended to any and all who favor a little bit more thought and class in their cannibal cinema. parkerfamilytradition.com

Thank you for reading, may you never hunger for long.

OBSCURITY DENIED!

(originally published in the Scene-June 2007) THE RESURRECTION OF ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY.

Long ago, in the (pre) DVD days of home video leisure there was this wonderfully suspect little sub-culture of the bootleg video tape. I discovered this world in the form of a thick, amply xeroxed catalog ordered from the back pages of Fangoria magazine. It featured a wealth of the finest in multi-cultural sleaze, monster, splatter and otherwise undefinable product that, for a plethora of reasons, was never destined for a day in the mainstream sun. Sure, it may have taken a bit to adjust to the often less then stellar picture quality accompanied by frequent poor sound, this and the common lack of subtitles on the many non-English films. But I soon grew addicted to the exotic goodies wrapped in reused brown paper packaging that I awaited endlessly at my mother's mailbox for. I built myself a fine little library of oddities that I was convinced would never rear their heads in any other format but this.

Oh how I have been proven wrong.

In a way it brings a fleeting form of nostalgia to cast those worn old bootlegs into trash can oblivion. Their third or fourth generation images exuded a charming delirium that went lengths to enhance the peculiarities that fueled these types of films. But with new technology comes new promise.

Slowly but steadily, the arrival of DVD (followed by Internet downloading) has opened wide many new niches in relation to so-called 'obscure' cinema. Smaller companies have taken up the crusade of breathing new life into long left for dead movies. They've been cleaned, repaired and supplemented in more ways then could ever have been fathomed by those dingy, brown paper bootleggers. Many of the films focused on in this very article began life before my loopy eyes as bootlegs.

It is in bootleg land that I first discovered the crazed majesty of a certain Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Jodorowsky is an enigmatic smorgasbord of cultural influences and artistic output. He has traveled the world as a mime, playwright, comic book writer, tarot card reader and, most significantly, filmmaker. His work is of the quality not quantity fashion, he has only produced six features and one short in his entire career. Two of said films, 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain', were the pride of my bootleg collection, I watched and rewatched them thinning the tapes slowly to the breaking point. The time has come to finally upgrade with the release of not only these two films, but a full six disc box set devoted to the filmic universe of this startling and unique talent.

I suppose I should first clarify one thing, the title, 'The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky' (Anchor Bay Entertainment/Abkco Films) stands as a tad misleading. This set does not contain the complete Jodorowsky filmography. In truth, it covers the first half through the span of four films and two soundtracks as well as some bonus treats. Also I strongly recommend that the films be watched in order of when they were produced. I believe that Jodorowsky only got bigger, better and braver as he continued on his sublime cinematic tangent. To aid in this, I will break the set down disc by disc and give my two cent 'fringe' opinion on each flick.

We kick things off with 'La Cravate', a half hour short that served as Jodorowsky's introduction to the film medium. The piece is essentially a mime shtick involving two male characters (one an artist and the other a muscle man) and their dealings with a young lady who switches heads as an occupation. It is silent, short and rather whimsical with more than a passing resemblance to the likes of Chaplain or Keaton. This really serves as an intro for the beast of imagination that would son develop in later work. The story goes that this piece was stolen by the lead actress and thought lost for the better part of fifty years. Somehow it was uncovered in an attic in Germany and polished up for reintroduction via this set. Interesting stuff but keep in mind we're just getting started.

In 1968 Jodorowsky unveiled his debut feature 'Fando y Lis' to chaotic response in his then home of Mexico. Freely adapted (solely from memory, no script) from a play by sometime collaborator Fernando Arrabel and realized in high contrast black and white, the film feels like an aborted Felliniesque bastard flailing itself across the screen. What transpires is less a story than a feverish phantasmagoria committed to the celluloid real (something that holds true for the majority of Jodorowsky's work). A confused young man and his crippled lady are hell bent on finding the Eden like city of Tar. They shamble around treacherous quarries and brave all manner of revelers and deviants who appear at random along their path. The whole of this experience is initially tough to take, but upon additional inspection I am able to appreciate the sheer purity of form and lack of consideration for cliche at large here. It would be oh so easy to dismiss this as artsy fartsy dreck and leave it at that. I prefer to return to a difficult film sometimes and see if I can't dig deeper (especially when its creator progresses with successive works, as is the case here) and maybe uncover its secrets and surprises. After all, no significant film is ever meant to be viewed just once.

Next up is the film that initially put Alejandro Jodorowsky's name into the consciousness of multitudes. 'El Topo' arrived at the early tip of the seventies to almost single handily usher in the 'midnight movie' phenomenon. It tells the tale of an Eastwood styled drifter who, with his naked son in tow, tracks and challenges numerous outlaws and mystics before undergoing a radical transformation/rebirth of his own. The movie both feeds on and reconstructs many of the conventions and ideologies of the era; the western, the 'beat' film, exploitation cinema and spiritual diatribe. The film eventually won favor from none other then outlaw, hippie, cultural mega-icon John Lennon. Fact is, Lennon dug 'El Topo' so much he hustled Beatles manager Allen Klein to procure the film for American distribution. This led to an alliance of both prosperous and catastrophic results. Never the less, it is the reason 'The Holy Mountain' got made.

'The Holy Mountain' is, from this critic's standpoint anyway, a watershed in the arena of fantastic film making. It is startling and amazing in so many ways it almost feels like sensory overload. Anyone with a taste for the imaginative and visionary in their art will find paradise within this picture's running time. The storyline has something to do with a petty street dreg (who more then passingly resembles the Catholic white man representation of Christ) who is taken under the tutelage of a character called 'The Alchemist' (fleshed out by Jodorowsky himself) and led on a quest for ultimate enlightenment....or some such hippie shit. Whatever, the so called story is beside the point. This is the mother of all head trips and I challenge any skeptic to walk away from this journey unscathed, there is just far too much to take in. This is the type of stuff that makes most folks' dreams seem lethargic by comparison. You got everything you need to overdose to in this mother; screaming amputee midgets, orgasm machines, reptiles dressed as conquistadors attacking each other, birds fluttering out of bullet wounds and much, much more! This is the peak of Jodorowsky as a film maker and I urge anyone interested in taking part in this fantastic box set, save this one for last as it is well worth the wait.

Sadly, after completing 'The Holy Mountain', Jodorowsky would enter into what would become a thirty odd year feud with Allen Klein over a more commercial project the producer had in mind. Jodorowsky flatly refused and Klein withdrew his most accomplished films from commercial exhibition. 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain' languished in cinema purgatory for the duration of their spat. In the interim, Jodorowsky continued his maverick path come what may. He would begin work on an adaptation of Frank Herbert's beloved sci-fi opus 'Dune'. This was to be a project that would have gathered a counter culture dream team together for a single ambitious extravaganza. The planned film was to star Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger and Orson Wells. It was to feature designs by H.R. Giger and a score featuring Pink Floyd. Oh the potential! Alas, the big shot money men got big time cold feet and the plug was pulled, only to be reinstated to unfortunate effect a decade later by Dino DeLaurentis and David Lynch. The Jodorowsky envisioning of 'Dune' remains one of the great unrealized projects in the history of film. Pity.

After this debacle, Jodorowsky would focus on various projects aside from cinema only to return in 1979 for another failure in the largely unseen (even by me) children's film 'Tusk'. This picture remains on the bootleg circuit in a French language only version. At any rate, Jodorowsky has since distanced himself from it.

Nearly nine more years would pass before the release of 'Santa Sangre'. The story of a once institutionalized boy and his long suffering, dismembered mother and the violence they inflict together is one of unsettling psychological power. The significant critical and theatrical attention leveled at this return to form must have seemed refreshing to a filmmaker who'd been separate from success for so long. 'Sangre' retains many of the visual tics of the director's notorious style while maintaining a largely straight forward narrative structure. Make no mistake though, this is no everyday movie. In one scene we follow a rather debauched night on the town with a posse of mental ward escapees which covers the spectrum from hookers to cocaine and so on. Now I don't want to give too much away here, like the best of Jodorowsky's works, this one subsists on surprise. It travels roads unexpected and finds many a unique (and sometimes horrid) wonder. The bad news is that this gem was left out of the new set due to ongoing litigation. The best bet is to track down an old copy in a dusty video store corner.


The same holds true for the next and final produced film from Jodorowsky to date.

'The Rainbow Thief' is another project that the directer now disowns. As he tells it he was hired by the producer to film his wife's script to the letter as a birthday gift for her. Thus Jodorowsky was given access to his biggest budget and name actors such as Peter O' Toole to shoot a light tale of an odd prince and a filthy beggar who become friends in a sewer. The resulting film swiftly died on all levels and stands as an unjust final note to an ingenious career.

Let's hope that the arrival of 'The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky' makes that all go away. The set is a godsend to any discerning fanatic of the arts. It opens the door to a body of work that has gone mostly unseen for far too long, and has certainly never been this exquisitely presented. The films have all undergone transfer overhaul and the final product is top self. After countless times sitting through the barely passable quality of those damn bootlegs, these discs make the experience as fresh as if the films came straight from the lab. The set features commentary, set photos, two soundtracks ('El Topo', 'Holy Mountain'), deleted scenes, script excerpts and a full length documentary. This last item, the 86 minute 'La Constellation-Jodorowsky' from 1990 is an engrossing insight into the man's philosophies, inspirations and theories on everything from his childhood to the art of self discovery that is film making. It features lively interviews with the directer as well as admirers like Marcel Marceau and Peter Gabriel(!). I think only complaint I hold on the subject of this bountiful new set is the lack of any accompanying booklet/liner notes. Though that may be due to the forthcoming publication of 'Anarchy and Alchemy', a literary analysis of the man and his art by Ben Cobb. Expect that volume by the end of the summer. Do, however, try to check out 'The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky' at your local media shack (i.e Best Buy, Exclusive Co.) and let it sink deep into your psyche.

For further info, you can web it up at, www.anchorbayentertainment.com
www.abkco.com




Hold on! Put that beer down you scumbag, I'm not done yet.

Here are some other hits and misses.


'Tideland'- A little girl gets lost in the wilderness of her own imagination following the back to back overdoses of her junkie parents. She finds solace in the company of talking doll heads and a local spastic who thinks he's a submarine captain. Oddly not as bizarre ass it sounds. In fact, the whole thing is a tad mundane in its quest to be eccentric and 'daring'. The latest offering from the once great Terry Gilliam, who continues to distance himself from the genius of 'Time Bandits' and 'Brazil'. Oh, and Jeff Bridges is in it.....sort of.


'Pan's Labyrinth'- Another little girl lost, only this time the result is one of the best fables (hell, movies!) of the year. Guillermo Del Toro puts himself one step closer to icon status with this rich, visually hypnotic tale of creaky ghouls and creepy men. Set in 1940's Spain at the height of fascism, the movie gracefully dances between vivid fantasy and cold, cruel reality. It propels its doe-eyed pre pubescent heroine into a race to change the fate of an alternate reality from certain doom to life affirming hope. A triumph of the imagination.



'Zodiac'- M.T.V. got nothing on this. David Fincher proves once and for all that he is beyond the A.D.D. of his music video past. Articulate and exacting, this is a major epic chronicling a rather dark chapter in our recent history. In the late 60's, the Bay area of Northern California is thrown into turmoil by a series of serial attacks accompanied by the media published taunts of the perpetrator himself. The movie also charts the repercussions that follow for years afterward as the Zodiac killer is never caught and simply buries himself into urban legend. Long, methodical and rewarding for the more focused movie goer.