FILMS WITHOUT FEAR...FOR BETTER OR WORSE.

GORGING ON A CINEMATIC BUFFET.

Last year 'round about this time I set out on a modest attempt to spread the word and generate notable interest within our region in relation to a solid cultural collective calling themselves Wega Arts and basing their creative attack in the nearby town of Weyauwega. The organization, founded and run by Ian Teal and Kathy Fehl, seeks to perpetuate various outlets of artistic expression in its community through the cultivation and presentation of stage plays, booked touring performers, film screenings and workshops. The main point of focus for me for this column was then, as it still is now, the mid November placed Weyauwega International Film Festival. Now entering its third run through, the fest is looking to expose any film fancying types from all surrounding areas to yet another varied menu of rich examples of the film form (both the long and the short of it).

 All things cinematic are set to kick off Thursday, November 14th at 1:30pm at the Gerold Opera House (which can be found at 136 Main St.) with another throwback installment from Hollywood's rich and far reaching past (remember, last year's was the edgy John Frankenheimer thriller 'Seconds'). 1960's 'Midnight Lace', directed by David Miller and featuring Doris Day and Rex Harrison in a strange mix of Hitchcock wannabe and offbeat character study which charts the misfortune of an American woman (Day) living in England who finds herself the apparent person of interest of a would be stalker. From here the fest plows on, unspooling film after film across the next four days. Some flicks of passing note include a pair of odd duck documentaries centering on the kinship between the art of drinking and the allure of the bowling ally ('Pints and Pins') and the obsessive quest by an expatriate American who returns stateside to find the finest representation of that golden calf of fried foods ('The Great Chicken Wing Hunt'). There are tales of movie mavens ('Tough Ain't Enough-Conversations With Albert S. Ruddy'), a historic escape artist ('Houdini') and even some convoluted affairs of the heart ('9 Full Moons').

One major standout section on the schedule that was passed along to me (it's all still tentative as this goes to press, for complete final results check, wegaarts.org) is what is set to be dubbed the 'Friday Night Fright Fest'. Beginning at 7pm on the 15th, there will be a tight trifecta of genre pictures, each with (what sounds like) a decent shot at becoming the next big thing in the cult film underground. A pair of these, 'Billy Club' and 'Don't Go To The Reunion', both made on locations in our very own state, play on the cheeky familiarity of long adhered to 'slasher on the loose/doomed youth' tropes and related shock effect plot devices while at the same time attempting to inject some very much needed energy into the oft tread, ultra violent  stalker/splatter sub-genre. The third film, 'Escape From Tomorrow', on the other hand, seems to be the product of an entirely different filmmaking methodology altogether.

'Escape From Tomorrow' comes to the Weyauwega fest at long last following a protracted period in which those responsible for its creation were not even sure if it would ever reach a legitimate audience. The film is a perplexing, monochromatic phantasmagoria set in and around a combination of the Disney theme parks Disneyworld and Disneyland and it involves a typical family man type named Jim White (Roy Abramsohn) whose grip on a tangible reality grows increasingly fragmented as his vacation day with the family progresses.

This curiosity has generated a bit of a rep for itself primarily based on the absolutely removed from conventional tactics employed in its production. It would seem the director, an ambitious gent named Randy Moore, guided his project's shooting process along in almost entirely incognito fashion, grabbing footage without consent from the theme park powers that be with indistinct consumer DSLR cameras (Canon's Mark II and IV specifically), with his actors taking cues and script notes off of I Phones and such. Even after such a clandestine production phase was completed, Moore sought to stitch his baby together outside the country (in South Korea, where the director also tapped area technicians to help polish the effects work) to maintain utter secrecy from the Mouse. Several playdates at major fests soon followed (including a premiere bow at the almighty Sundance, where the film first began to noticeably cause a stir) with the ever ominous spectre of how the beast that is the Walt Disney Co. would react to the film's existence hovering over it and making the commercial future of 'Escape From Tomorrow' an uncertain concept at best.

This film was originally slotted into the line up of last year's Weyauwega fest only to have such legal uncertainties withhold it (it was substituted with the very worthy French effort 'Holy Motors', a head scratcher without peer and definitely a healthy addition). This time out, folks will finally get to see just what the elaborate fuss was all about.

The remainder of this year's W.I.F.F. is peppered with quality attractions as well, from several short film packages spread throughout the weekend to a sure to be rowdy awards ceremony set to follow that 'Great Chicken Wing Hunt' doc on Saturday night (at about 9pm). Free to ticket holders of the day as well as fest pass holders, the show will feature beer (care of Central Waters Brewery) and eats (including, yes, chicken wings) and live music. I've been informed that a fair number of behind the scenes folks will be in attendance to either introduce and/or entertain questions and commentary in relation to their respective projects. 'Billy Club' co-writer, director and actor Nick Sommer and members of the 'Don't Go To The Reunion' posse will be on hand Friday evening to chat at length about their playfully creepy gore fests. Familiar face Dan Davies will intro his latest offering, the short film 'Caroline' (which he wrote and acted in), the 'Pints and Pins' crew are penciled in and the filmmaker (Jim Tittle) behind the Sunday afternoon entry, the Midwestern sand mining documentary  'The Price of Sand' may participate too. Plus one can never count out some sort of last minute addition when it comes to filmmakers jumping at a fair chance to talk up their latest creations.

There you have it, a serviceable 'heads up' on another fine showcase of cinematic treasures here in this Wisconsin. Make no mistake, this is a well planned festival by a pair of folks with their heart in the art, don't at all let the small scale locale fool you.

Once again, all necessary information (i.e. ticket prices, showtimes, finalized film scheduling) can be found easily at wegaarts.org


Hope to see a huge turnout for this one, don't let me down.


Also of note.

Room 237

Being all about the often larger than life and deep beneath the surface alternate interpretations of Stanley Kubrick's Stephen King adapt 'The Shining'. Unfolding less like any standard format of feature or documentary film and more akin to some kind of art student's instillation project that got lost on its way to the gallery, 'Room 237' serves to not so much conventionally entertain viewers as entrance and confound them with its conviction to a series of boarder line absurd analytical proposals. The complicated project, as assembled by one Rodney Ascher, plays out a series of audio taped discussions with a bunch of genuinely enthusiastic people I'm afraid I've never heard of over an ever flowing parade of imagery encompassing many a well known Kubrick work (with obvious, dominant emphasis on 'The Shining' itself) as well as a largely random collection of material from less then expected sources like Spielberg's 'Schindler's List' and the lurid mid-80s Italian gore flick 'Demons'.

The speakers use this particular format to (with Ascher's careful guidance) breakdown in often crucial, obsessive detail how and why their given theories of true meaning behind Kubrick's 1980 film are perfectly sound. Rolling out and cutting back and forth between speaker and subject gives off a vibe of a mix tape running to and fro at some manic movie fan's invite only party. The film's interviewees expound with breathless abandon on how 'The Shining' contains, shuffled within its meticulously rendered surface narrative, everything from the well documented atrocities of the Nazi instigated mass (near) execution of the Jewish race to the punishing round up and stomping down of the Native American peoples by greedy, self righteous colonists (from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon) and back around to explicate how Kubrick employed his cinematic craftsmanship to help the U.S. Government to enact a staged moon landing in 1969. Uh-huh, sure.

'Room 237' works well as a sort of intellectual geek show that allows its subjects to banter unchecked about these strange ideas that an other wise generally lauded piece of high end genre filmmaking has oddly inspired within their nominal mindframes. I didn't even bother to mention the gal with the minotaur fixation or the fella who goes way out of his way to carefully point out what he believes is a subliminal erection. Well, now you have two more things to keep an eye out for.  You're most welcome.

'Room 237' comes on DVD/Blu ray from the IFC Midnight Label and contains the usual bonus goodies, commentary, music score featurette, deleted scenes (which are little more than audio tracks, sans the film clips, providing additional babble) and a Q&A session from some simple looking Kubrick fan fest. Recommended for the conspiracy theorist who believes he's heard it all.
http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/room-237


Abducted.


A tight and rather minimal psychological horror scenario made with much stronger than anticipated efficiency and reserve. It all surrounds your basic, cute to a fault, young couple (Trevor Morgan, Tessa Ferrer) who one fine night find themselves the object of mystery kidnappers who abscond them to a dank and foreboding location and subject them to a series of initially inexplicable experimentation. As their startling incarceration drags on and more and more additional young human pairings arrive in their midst, the kids begin to brainstorm over the gravity of their situation. Is this the work of some elite terrorist outfit? A government shadow group? Alien forces with malicious plans that stretch far beyond the simple reach of this small sampling of earth peeps?

The film builds a decent measure of genuine tension as these questions loom, unanswered and the natural fragility of these unfortunate, young creatures is supremely tested. The skill set piloting this compact piece from behind the camera belongs to Glen Scantlebury and Lucy Phillips, both sharing duties and honing a small yet significant team (and there is evidence of this on display on the DVD's brief accompanying making of special feature) to bring together a finished film that works based on solid character development care competent performances complimented by the quality of the cinematography and especially the rather concise cutting together of scenes and imagery. As it turns out, Mr. Scantlebury is a well seasoned veteran of the editing process who honed his skills on a long list of major pictures like Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (and his far less daunting recent picture, 'Twixt') and several bloated Michael Bay directed odes to ADD like the first 'Transformers'. He's currently slapping together a much unneeded reboot of The 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' with Megan Fox, but let's not hold that against him. His work here spells out a genuine talent that, along with his teammate Mrs. Phillips, should suitably produce quality goods in cinematic form on and on again down the road.

This 'Abducted' thing should do the trick for fans of decent low budget genre filmmaking as apposed to the utterly disposable dreck that clutters the direct to video market. It can be found at most rental joints or here;  http://www.abducted2013.com/


Done with the movie stuff...for now.

ONE WAY TICKET TO LOW BUDGET HELL...........AND BACK.

(Originally published in the October edition of The Scene)




Life is shit, eat a bullet.

This is what appears to be the running philosophy throughout the mid 80s no-budget cult fixture 'Combat Shock'. The film is set in New York's Staten Island at a time when things where in a prime state of moral and aesthetic decay. This richly textured hellhole is the current residence/self inflicted prison of the tale's sorry protagonist, Frankie Dunlan, a filth and sweat laden Vietnam vet whose every waking hour plays out like a litany of all the things anyone clearheaded would try to sidestep in life. Frankie lives an utterly impoverished existence with his fat slob wife and Agent Orange tainted offspring in a fully soiled apartment. Income is less than sparse, the rent is woefully past due and the plumbing is an atrocity all unto itself. Faced with a family unit that is tired, irritable and starving in the face of a lumpy carton of sour milk and precious little else, Frankie takes it upon his hopeless self to venture out into the bleak surroundings to make one last, half-hearted stab at salvation.

Frankie's trek through the bargain rate Dante's Inferno that is his 'hood is peppered with the customary stumbling blocks of junkies, whores and the small time thugs that lord over them all. Between being roughed up and held up, the poor sod finds nothing but the negative in relation to employment options and, in turn, hope. Now, unless you happen to possess serious mental aberrations of your own, this synopsis is not going to read as 'feel-good' entertainment but, rather, an experimental endurance test devised to tap into a certain facet of the human psyche that lingers just outside the boarders of popular interest.

The project was brought to life on location and in complete guerrilla fashion by one Buddy Giovinazzo. Giovinazzo is yet another textbook case of the brand of D.I.Y. directors that seemed to live for (and, comparably, thrive by) the struggle of pure independent filmmaking in a time before the prevalence of such alternative distribution routes as DVD and the Internet. Sadly, as is the case with such peers as Jim 'Deadbeat at Dawn' VanBeeber, this resulted in a greatly minimized level of creative output as money conscious industry types were not exactly fawning over the concept of making product of a grim and uncompromising nature. Giovinazzo scraped and scavaged and tapped friends and family alike to make his stubbornly ugly vision come alive. His real life sibling Ricky inherited the lead role and proud brother Buddy works an epic level of pathos from every inch of his ragged, gaunt frame. He elects sturdy (if admittedly unpolished) performances all around with several key characters succeeding in pulling of some truly unnerving behavior (one stand apart moment involving a seriously jones afflicted junkie using a rusty coat hanger to open a vein deserves extra kudos for its genuinely unsettling qualities) and he even provides his non-hero with a gentile little moment of simple banter with a young girl, nevermind the fact that girl turns out to be a prostitute.

Following the completion of 'Comat Shock', Giovinazzo struck a distribution deal with the beloved low-rent Troma Studios (who retitled it from the original 'American Nightmares'). Troma then added Vietnam war stock footage and trimmed the copious violence to appease the omnipotent MPAA and earn a marquee friendly 'R' rating. They slapped a grossly misleading 'Rambo/Missing in Action' themed poster and stuffed it into any grindhouse dive that would take it. Now I guess it would be overstating the obvious when I point to the fact that 'Combat Shock' didn't become anything close to a box office phenom upon initial release, instead it had to gestate in the underground in the now familiar pattern that slowly builds a following for a film before earning it a second life as a 'special edition' DVD.



To their credit, Troma have packed the two-disc, 25th anniversary 'Tromasterpiece Collection' release with many significant goodies. Beside both the edited 'Combat Shock' cut of the film, there is the slightly longer (and rawer) 'American Nightmares' director's cut as well as a new documentary charting the butterfly effect the film has had in the independent film community (directors like John McNaughton, Richard Stanley and Jim VanBebber chime in on the subject) plus several early shorts and music videos (of Buddy and Ricky's band 2000 A.D.) from Buddy G's archives.

Apart from working the system to largely no avail to get other projects to fruition, Buddy Giovinazzo has also made a minor name as an author a collage film instructor and as a steady hand in German television (he jumped ship from America in the 1990s and settled in Berlin ). The man has managed to finish a handful of films as well. Several, including 'No Way Home' with Tim Roth and 'The Unscarred' are as of yet unseen by me, but I shall do my best to reverse that. His latest offering 'Life Is Hot in Cracktown', adapted from his own short story collection, just arrived on disc last month and gives full indication that Ol' Buddy has not lost his touch by a damn sight.

This film features a labyrinthine intersection of story lines involving street gangstas, deviants, addicts and even a blue collar married couple to throw us all for a loop. Giovinazzo as apparently assembled a bit more money and a rather impressive cast (Lara Flynn Boyle, Illeana Douglas, RZA, Shannyn Sossamon to name a few) to further address the ills of a low income, crime infected New York environment. He again displays a fearless take on the less glamorous side(s) of human nature but still finds time to let a little light shine through the grime. The best realized sub-scenario in all the pimping, thuggin' and melodrama comes care an awkward yet, oddly, sweet romance held between a pre-op tranny (a potent Kerry Washington) and her/his (uh?) eternally doped up Beau (Desmond Harrington). It really is their saga that proves the most endearing. In the end it just goes to show that the folks that should be behind the camera rolling it are fairly often left to fend for their own means and that helps to cause the art of film to become stifled, stilted or abandoned all together.

So, genuine film lovers not afraid to get some soot on their hands, step up.

This Buddy Giovinazzo fella needs your support.

Hunt 'em down....'Combat Shock' www.tromasterpiece.com

'Life Is Hot in Cracktown' http://media.lightning-ent.com/index_new




ALSO......

I'm pretty certain the last thing the cinematic world desperately needs is another Hurricane Katrina documentary, so why not two?

First we have 'Trouble the Water' (www.zeitgeistvideo.com) which separates itself from the rest simply on the strength of its central focus. Young, married Lower 9th Ward lifers Kimberly and Scott Roberts hooked up with filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal (who've had a helping hand in several Michael Moore projects) at a shelter in the mid state Louisiana city of Alexandria. Meshing footage Kim snagged pre/during/shortly following the now legendary natural disaster with their personal hardships set against the dumbfounding broader picture of the collapse of order across the Gulf Coast, the film serves as one of the most concise, ground zero depictions of life in the wake of an unmitigated catastrophe. We tag along for the bumpy ride as the couple must leave their homestate for the first time in their short lives and find a way to retrieve and reassemble the scattered pieces of their lives sent flying to the four winds thanks more to an infamous failure of politics than the so-called wrath of god or whatever other nonsense the truly soulless among us prefer to believe.

Unlike the more extensive investigative works on this very same basic subject (i.e. Spike Lee's to-end-all magnum opus 'When the Levees Broke') this film triumphs not so much from the overburdened rehashing of the disaster itself that has now become sadly cliché (oh! the floating dead bodies and overturned vehicles, good lord the horror!) but by giving the screen over to the Roberts's themselves, to let them convey in words and gestures just how staggering an impact this misfortune of time, tide and human error has had upon them and the place they have always called home. Kimberly earns her right as the film's natural star as she makes her way through the rigors of recovery with a moxie that could have only been honed from her years on the street hustlin' and, later, bumpin' rhymes (she goes by the MC tag 'Black Kold Madina'). It's from this latter skill set that she provides the film with one of its strongest moments, an on the spot rendition of one of her own tracks, 'Amazing', which effortlessly fills in personal back story details with an articulate economy most screenwriters would die for.



It comes as no real surprise that this film managed to garner both a fairly substantial big screen berth and a Best Documentary nomination from the Oscar crowd, it is a powerful and important slice of (a greatly disrupted) life, a sharp piece of social criticism and ultimately an affirmation of strength through perseverance. Recommended to those whose range of compassion branches well beyond their own comfortable surroundings.

Similarly there is the slightly more scatter shot 'Kamp Katrina' (www.carnivalesquefilms.com) which plays more like an often dysfunctional group home movie then a polished feature. The locus this time 'round is a Bywater community (aka-Upper 9th Ward) fixture known as Mrs Pearl who opens her back yard to several wayward types in the fairly immediate aftermath of the big K. Her generosity benefits a mangy gathering of decrepit New Orleans standbys, drinkers, druggers and victimized dregs just looking for a place to 'heal' (don't miss the weathered lass with the removable eye). The movie burns most of its scant running time on various arguments and lapses in solid judgment, basically a low rent reality show meets soap opera thing with far more literal grit on its teeth. One thing that really works here (at least for my eyes) is a fair measure of solid visual representation of the rather bent charm of the Bywater neighborhood. I have ventured down its crooked streets dozens of times and crossed paths with colorful people and places on countless occasion, so it was kind of a fleeting thrill to go there again, if only care the confines of my television set. Recommended for N.O.L.A. or Katrina purists or if you stumble upon it by chance at the library, otherwise, don't try too hard.


Another month laid to rest like Patrick Swayze.

Wish me better luck next time, eh?