I’ve been watching a lot of films submitted to me by talented film-makers, who usually make genre films (horror or science fiction) on zero budgets.   I make films with budgets lower than a pregnant ant, so I can relate.    What bothers me is that most of these film-makers make films that are imitating Hollywood successes. 
  
       One film that comes to mind is Florida based Writer/Director Michael Clinkenbeard’s Nightfall.   The film centers on a group of friends gathering for a backyard Memorial Day Bar-B-Q.  Newscasts off the living room TV tell of a sudden shower of destructive meteors.  One lands near the house, nearly wrecking the place.  Our barbequing heroes soon learn from the TV broadcasts that these meteors are a “vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars.”  Recognize the wording?   It’s from Orson Welles’ famed 1938 The War of the Worlds radio broadcast.  In fact, Clinkenbeard’s TV newscasters here often recite the same dialog from the ’38 broadcast.   You would think Welles deserves a writing credit here.   The film feels too much like Cloverfield (both films have a big alien attack covered via hand-held home video camera), The Blair Witch Project (both films have mucho off camera monsters) and Night of the Living Dead (housebound monster-attack survivors arguing a course of action).    Nightfall sometimes has a genuine sense of claustrophobia.  You want his heroes to survive as unhurt as possible.  Clinkenbeard has potential for making Grade A horror, but he needs to stray from mimicking what Hollywood, and past indie directors have done.   George Romero made a name for himself because he took rules and clichés of Hollywood horror storytelling and kicked them down the stairs. 
      
       Film-maker Daron Ker’s documentary I Ride is a fascinating, heartfelt look at the more constructive side of American Biker culture.   After watching this constantly informative film, you learn bikers rise above the stereotype of drunken, bearded road-ragers with scary mammary-flashing wives.  We learn that many bikers are constructive members of society, who will even hold benefits to raise money to battle diabetes.   This film unearthed a long lost memory out of my head.  Forty years ago, my mother, my sister Wendy and myself (then a kid of about ten) were traveling along the Florida Keys.  We stopped at a Howard Johnsons for breakfast, only to find out the employees had all walked off their job, leaving many customers and us abandoned and hungry.  A biker gang pulled up, expecting quick service.  When they heard about the walkout, the bikers became waiters and waitresses, took our orders and served our food.  Other than oddball mix-ups like my orange juice served in a parfait glass, the food was fine.  I kept a permanent positive image about bikers.    If you have never been served breakfast by a biker gang, I recommend I Ride as a terrific eye-opening look at biker culture.

       Financially, independent film is slipping into an Ice Age.   The festivals and independent theatre chains cater mostly to indies made within the industry – directed by leading Hollywood actors and actresses.   This leaves true indies scrambling for venues to show our films, and to bring in a profit.   In fact, I just spoke to one independent film-maker who has won several international film festival awards, only to find out she has sold most of her possessions and furniture in order to keep her film playing at festivals.  This makes getting investors for your indie film production feel like a lost cause. 
  
       Many film-makers have successfully gathered production money by using sites like Kickstater and IndieGoGo.    Instead of offering a percentage in the film profits (which mostly likely won’t happen), a film project listed on one of these sites can offer real gifts for contributing.   For example, a film-maker can offer for a $ 25 investment, a copy of the finished film.    For a larger investment, let’s say of $700 to perhaps $10,000, a film-maker can offer invitations to the wrap-party, a piece of one-of-a-kind artwork associated with the film, a meet-and-greet with the film’s stars, or you or your business can make an appearance in the film.    According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, IndieGoGo has funded more than 24,000 projects since 2008.   According to the same article, in October 2011, The House Financial Services Committee backed legislation that would make it possible for small businesses to use “crowd funding” sources like IndieGoGo to raise money from percentage-sharing investors. 

       I welcome feed-back, and requests to review films.  I can be directly contacted through my e-mail address Gandreiev@aol.com or on my Facebook Page. 

I feel AVATAR, one of the biggest studio films to date, and the most financially successful film in history, belongs in my indie film column. I recently attended a round-table discussion with AVATAR’s co-producer Jon Landau, where Blue Vodka Martinis were served to salute the blue folk in his epic. At the discussion, held at Motion Picture Enterprises’ Penthouse overlooking Manhattan, Landau focused on the artistic and commercial aspects of big budget 3-D Film-making. Of course, more Hollywood blockbusters like CLASH OF THE TITANS and ALICE IN WONDERLAND are embracing 3-D. Audiences are demanding that big vision on the screen becomes more and more expensive. What does this do to the indie film-maker who is lucky to scrape together 1 million to shoot and market their modest film? What about the filmmaker doing a $ 20,000 feature? I know some of us low- budget film-makers might invest in software that can pull off better visual effects. But these effects are never going to measure up to what’s found in AVATAR. To top it off, today’s more demanding and critical audiences won’t let indies forget it.

How are Indie film-makers going to try to rival AVATAR’s imagery? A street vendor selling dollar kabobs is going to succeed by being unique, different, not by trying to mimic that five star restaurant around the corner. Indie film-makers should be thinking the same way as the kabob guy after they see AVATAR or whatever big expensive Hollywood film comes out.

A big film that Hollywood just put out is the subversively hysterical KICK-ASS!. We know the plot – a superhero-worshipping teen, armed only with his home-made costume and lack of law enforcement skill, picks fights with real criminals. He usually winds up severely beaten. A similar indie film – HERO TOMORROW – created a hit when it made the rounds at this year’s Comic-Con. Released by Swinging Cane Productions, and directed by Ted Sikora, HERO TOMORROW is KiCK ASS! and not KICK ASS! Its hero, David, is an aging dreadlock-sporting hipster who dresses up as a superhero and tries to make way for justice. Sikora wisely lets his film become more surreal with dream sequences, hallucinations, and more, to let David’s warped world seep happily into our bloodstream. I wish he would have shied away from some Hollywood styled clichés – as usual, comic book fans are depicted here as obsessive, and comic book store employees give the word “anal” a whole new meaning! Dreadlock-wearing David has a costume that looks like a dead rooster glued atop a paper bag and dirty pajamas. He’s given the superhero the weird name of “Apama”. My favorite scene is where the now homeless David/Apama has to take over a restaurant’s restroom in order to dry his wet Apama outfit, to the bewilderment of confused diners. HERO TOMOROW, with a cynical, unique spin, is that welcome cinematic kabob stand poised outside Mr. Cameron’s movie equivalent of The Four Seasons Restaurant.

I pointed out to Mr. Landau that 3-D movies generally use the gimmick of having somebody throw something (like a chair, in a fight scene) right at the camera, causing the audience to duck, and that AVATAR avoided this gimmick, allowing 3-D to work on the audience on a subliminal level. Landau agreed and stated “When you use that gimmick, for a minute you are taking the audience out of the story and reminding them they are in a theatre watching a projected image.” Another writer in the circle tried to sneakily needle Landau by asking him if he paid too much attention to the visual effects and not enough to his actors. Landau stated that if the acting failed, the story would drag and the effects would be useless. It is obvious to Mr. Landau that story is more important to a film than all the visual glitz. (I for one, feel Landau’s and director James Cameron’s TITANIC and AVATAR work very well in repeated viewings, even on a small screen.)

Landau ended the forum with a story about AVATAR’s pre-production stage “Jim (Cameron) wanted to rehearse his actors, Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana, in Hawaii, because it’s terrain is similar to AVATAR’s settings. So, there’s Jim, with a small video camera, a Handycam, rehearsing Sam and Zoe by a waterfall. Some tourists wander by and chat with Jim’s assistants, one of whom points and says “You see that man with the little mini camera? He directed TITANIC.” The Tourist looks at him and says “Wow, he certainly went downhill!”

“If you don’t get it right, what’s the point?” might be words of wisdom, but these words are now a banshee cry amongst Hollywood executives. Those words are a famous (or infamous) quote from director Michael Cimino, who helmed of the most notorious financial flop in film history – HEAVEN’S GATE. Just one week after winning an Oscar for directing THE DEER HUNTER, Cimino began production of his pet project, an epic western that he described as “America’s Great Expectations”. Shortly after production began, Cimino’s film cost triple it’s budget. He wanted every shot just right, even if it meant scrapping endless footage by re-shooting scenes of a western town set, with street curbs on his set moved apart six feet for re-takes. He also spent $ 4 million to take his cast and crew to London to lens a scene he thought up at the very last second. The resulting film may be “just right” in Mike Cimino’s eyes, but this estimated $ 100 million exercise in “perfection” grossed only $ 1.3 million on it’s initial release.

This is the Press Material we got for WALLANDER starring Kenneth Branagh. What if the film critic is diabetic?

Now the word “perfectionist” chills Hollywood execs, and it sadly become a word many indie film-makers embrace. The makers of THE SECOND BEST SCIENCE FICTION MOVIE EVER MADE knew this. Directed by Long Islander David Epstein, the prologue to his film, involving eight people abducted by aliens and gaining celebrity status on a distant island, then returning to earth is wisely conveyed in narration and inter-titles. I bet Epstein wish he could have conveyed this with stunning AVATAR-like visuals. But then, his film with a copyright date of 2009 would be finished somewhere around 2023! However, this modestly and economically shot film moves along nicely, with well written, amusing dialog like “I’m not going to suck their brains out, I just want to ask them a favor…” Where you really need to be a perfectionist while working on a small budget indie is in the casting of EVERYBODY. Bit players that come in with one or two lines of dialog lose some of Epstein’s fun dialog on some weak performances.

Ramin Bahrami, director of CHOP SHOP (a striking 2007 indie drama set in the Mean Streets of Queens, New York), told me, “You get one bad performance, even if it is a couple of lines of dialog, it ruins your movie for the next twenty minutes.” I was able to view Jospeh De Leo’s debut feature film, PROS AND CONS and it is available on line through his web site: DeLeoProductions.com. PROS AND CONS follows, Tom, a man falls in love with a woman who turns out to be a hooker.- her pimp steps in causing problems. DeLeo gets fine believable performances, and obviously knowing he is working with a budget, kept the film technically simple. Very little got in the way of DeLeo’s story, which reminded me this is what a good director does- keeps the viewer watching the story, no looking at camera angles, lighting, editing, etc. etc. I reviewed DeLeo’s first film, the macarbe and enticing FISH AND CHICKS and I look forward to his next film.

Getting back to my rant about perfectionists, I worked on a film that I will let remain nameless. The director of the film had me edit a well-shot sequence where a debuting stand up comic plays to an unsmiling audience. During the frist editng session, the director and I cut together a scene that I felt got the point across quickly, and with no dialog. The director wanted it recut, and recut, and recut. Then he was comparing his scene to scenes edited by certain master directors he loved. Even after optical effects such as dissolves and what not were set in place, back we go, recutting. I did get paid for my efforts but every editing session started with “I thought endlessly about the comedy club sequence last night, and I want to make some intellectual changes.” I still have an aversion to stand up comics.

Edward Burns, the indie film director who became a Hollywood A-lister once said at a speaking engagement “Don’t worry about the dolly shot being 100% smooth, or the lighting to be just right and perfect. Just tell a good story.”

GETTIN’ POLITICAL AND RETRO!

The night after Election I am relaxed, happy, writing this column, and I have on my TV, a tasty treat from TCM Underground: 1962′s THE WORLD GREATEST SINNER. Directed by and starring Timothy Carey, the slurred-speaking giant from Kubrick’s THE KILLING and PATHS OF GLORY, this is such an oddball curio it just has to be seen. Carey plays an insurance agent who quits his job and runs for President under the moniker of God. Director Carey and his cameraperson look like they patched this disjointed weirdie together in their sleep. An early indie that was made amongst the outsiders of the outsiders, SINNER features one of the first music scores by gonzo music-man Frank Zappa. (As a footnote, Carey, in Sweden, moved heaven and earth to arrange a screening of this most eccentric political drama to Ingmar Bergman. It never happened)

Ever since SUPER SIZE ME – Morgan Spurlock’s expose of fast-food – burst onto the documentary scene, docu film-makers have jumped into the pool with their kindred visions of how unseen powers make us more self-destructive. Next came James Scurlock’s MAXED OUT, which focused on how credit card debt strangles the lives out of us. Follow this with Robert Greenwald’s WAL-MART- HIGH COST OF A LOW PRICE, which showed Wal-Mart’s psychopathic thirst for profit. (Greenwald’s name doesn’t sound like Spurlock, but he did direct 1980′s kitsch-classic XANADU.) This alerting us to America’s self-destructive glut continues with Doug Benson’s SUPER HIGH ME (Where Benson pulls a Spurlock by staying high on wacky weed for 30 days!) and finally we have Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis’ relaxed and engrossing KING CORN.

For generations, the corn industry put bread on the table for many Midwest Americans. Cheney and Ellis, two pampered young Bostonians, decided to buy an acre of farm-land in Iowa and try their hands at growing corn. They learn by doing, and come harvest time, these yuppies-turned-corn-farmers put out a healthy acre, but they learn that large farming companies have muscled out the small struggling farm families. Also, they find out that very little of their corn becomes side dishes for hungry Americans! Much of it is fed to cattle, so the cattle can get fat and tasty and wind up as fast food, or else it winds up as fructose corn syrup, a key soft-drink ingredient.

According to KING CORN, and I’m afraid Cheney and Ellis are right as rain, drinking fructose-laced soda pop and eating burgers from chubby cows will promise gloomy circumstances for us. I watched KING CORN the same day my doctor warned me that my cholesterol was too high, so yeah, I was paying extra close attention. What set KING CORN aside from Spurlock, Michael Moore and many other film-makers was the straight forward style of film-making. Super-flashy film-making tends to distract from the narrative of these documentaries; we are paying more attention to the editing, the flash, than to the content. KING CORN lets the camera settle, relax, allowing us to pay attention to Cheney, and Ellis and what is happening to their new farmer friend

COYOTE COUNTRY LOSER by Jason Neumann looks like it was filmed in corn county. Jack Proctor (Beau Clark) is a drifter who wanders into a Southwestern town and becomes a radio DJ opposite the lovely Lauren (Nikki Boyer). Guess what happens next? Very good… romance… or the promise of romance. Had Sean William Scott and Elizabeth Banks been in this film, it would do decently, but it’s too much like a Hollywood romantic comedy and too little like a quirky indie project to be remembered. There’s very little to make this film stand out. Now THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS… BOUND TO LOSE is a great, quirky documentary. I’m going to remember this movie more because it twists the typical documentary style and makes it unique. From the first moments of the film, where we see interviewed subjects laughing, having a great time, we know the energy is going to remain high. We follow fiddler Peter Stampfel and guitarist Steve Weber as they form the psychedelic folk group “The Holy Modal Rounders” in late1960′s Lower East Side. There is priceless footage of places like Manhattan’s St. Marks Place from that era, a place that became a hippie/beatnik Mecca of the US. The musicians we follow are funny, creative, and self- destructive. We can’t keep our eyes and ears off them. Couple this with interviews with Monkees group member Peter Tork, musician/actor Sam Shepard, and movie cult icon Dennis Hopper (Hopper used The Rouders’ hit, “You Wanna Be A Bird” in his breakthrough hippie classic EASY RIDER.) Even if you are not into the timeless hip folk music, Sam Wainwright Douglas’ documentary will hold your attention.

Election 2008 had to be the most exciting election since 1968 (Mainly because, as a child, I had nightmares of a giant bug with Hubert Humphrey’s face!) I was happy as all get out with the outcome, because I get the feeling Obama is gonna be very good for arts funding. (More on that later) I watched Milton Levine’s documentary, PRESIDENT, EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS ONE. I watched, and I watched, and watched, and wondered, what is Mr. Milton’s point? I figured he loved Terry Gilliam’s old Monty Python animations where still photo portraits have cartoon moving mouths, and say silly things. Well, Milty does this with everybody from FDR and Nixon to Barack. While the works of Spurlock, Scurlock and Ellis (sounds like a law firm!) have focus, and keep us viewing because we are constantly learning, Milton’s doc rambles, and tends to show off it’s “documentary style” and cartooning abilities

I would love to make a political documentary comparing the John McCain/ Sarah Palin team to a similar team in the Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS: Rotwang, the mad scientist, and Maria the robot. Both teams have a wild white-haired dude who likes war, who then teams up with a woman with winking problems who give scary speeches.

I’ve been catching more Multiplex fare lately.   Very often, before the movie I want to see starts, I’ll poke my head in and catch niblets of neighboring movies.   I’m sorry, but poking my head into SEX AND THE CITY, which ogles the rich NYC lifestyles, and mocking anything working class, made me a) consider going commie, or b) obtain the warm feeling one gets poking their head into a wake. Then I peeked into a very expensive movie where Brad Pitt’s wife plays some loud dame with the telephone directory tattooed on her arm.    Then I poked my head into ZOHAN, which had some snarky-but-amusing college-boy humor.  The morale of this rant:  Hollywood is getting far too cold and charmless.  Thank heavens for the indies, even when the indies have problems! 

Las Vegas: Home of the Liberace Museum, Drive-Thru Wedding Chapels, and the Burlesque Queen Hall of Fame!   Ah, Vegas!   So how come none of these wonderfully eccentric places or anything like them wind up in a Vegas made movie called VEGASLAND?!  This indie thriller, while set in Vegas, chooses to shoot mostly in cramped cars, kitchens, back rooms, driveways, and messy hallways.  It could have been East Northport, Long Island.    It’s okay to go out there with no crew and film your actors at some cool location you can’t get a permit for.  VEGASLAND follows one wild night with Eddie G, a low-level Vegas gangster, as he becomes unwittingly linked to big time missing loot.  Eddie is beaten up and kidnapped by a homicidal hit-man/ex-cop named Decker.   Like COLLATERAL, Decker leads Eddie on a bloody corpse-riddled path to the money.  Most of VEGASLAND’s acting is weak, the COLLATERAL and PULP FICTION styled references (somebody is always making some pop-culture comment) drag the film down.  What saves it is the presence of Greg Opal as Decker.   Opel’s handsome but craggy face (picture a beach-boy version of Frank Vincent) relates a history of kindness turned to villainy due to years of dealing with hoodlums.  One moment you hate him so much you want him slowly micro-waved, the next moment you feel kind of sorry for the poor soul. 

From Peekskill, New York comes DEATH ON DEMAND.   In it, a struggling net entrepreneur decides to have cameras web-cast a séance held at a deserted haunted house where, decades ago, a man butchered his family, then himself.   Afterwards, the kids performing the séance go to various rooms rigged with cameras to have many variations of sex.    The ghost of the homicidal dad comes back, and…….. snooze!   You’re always a few steps ahead of film here.  You know exactly what is going to happen.  And, man, does this recently lensed teen slasher film makes you feel like you’re in the 1980′s.  The frat-house antics, constant nudity and characterless victims lopped off one-by-one bring me back to the Reagan-era where movies like this were on late night cable, double billed with a Sybil Danning offering.

Probably the best of the batch was Eric Lesier’s IMAGINATION.   We were happy to see an independent like this get wide screenings at New York’s Anthology Film Achieves in April and before that in Portland, Or and Olympia Washington.    Using mostly computer animation, clay-mation, time-lapse photography, and other surreal visual effects, the Lesier brothers (Eric directing, with Jeffrey being the co-writer) unfold a really twisted morality fable.  Clearly the Lesiers were influenced by the wild Czech animator, Jan Svankmajer.

WILL GLOBAL WARMING EFFECT TROMA FILMS?

It got scary! YouTube was down for a bit one Saturday morning in May. “Oh, my dog!” I exclaimed! “How are people going to see my trailer for my new film?” (Okay, I have to plug it- Check under DEED HELL LOHAN) Well, within an hour or so, YouTube was up and running. I’m learning a lot about YouTube, the sixth most popular website in the world, how to use the features, futz around with it in a harmless way to benefit my film, etc. Hopefully, YouTube will eventually replace the festivals as a venue for getting attention for your film. Festivals always had the problems of nepotism amongst the judges and the volunteers who select what films are to be shown, the costs involved (traveling, etc.), sub-par screening conditions (One film-maker told me a festival projected their film off a laptop!), and how to ensure that an executive is going to stick around and watch your film. Also, I learned that having that pretty little festival-laurel icon on your DVD box doesn’t help a darnn bit. As I learn more about YouTube, I will share my info.

A big recent favorite was T. Arthur Cottam’s wonderfully eccentric CARBUNCLE. In it, a delusional film-maker, named “T Arthur Cottam” (played by the director so well that I wonder if the real “T” is that loopy) creates a film around a struggling trailer park family. It’s all played out so painfully real. We don’t have the stereotypical “Wow, my youngin’s the best kisser in the trailer park…” cliché, but we see the struggle a recently divorced, alcoholic father goes through day by day. This film drew me in so tightly to it’s crazy world that I forgot I was watching something created by film-makers who will surely make a deep impact in the film world. I tell ya, dear reader, seek out CARBUNCLE and watch! It is odd that a film-maker makes a film which depicts a film-maker in such an unfavorable light. It reminded me of Rainer Fassbinder’s BEWARE THE HOLY WHORE, where the director was so toxic and mean, the paid cast members ignored his commands.

Another film that paints a crummy view of them who cook up movies is PRISON OF THE PSYCHOTIC DAMNED. It’s now listed on the imdb with “TERMINAL REMIX” bolted on the back of the title. Sorry guys, I saw the film before the re-mix and I suggest tacking on “WE BURNED IT AND STARTED OVER AGAIN.” Like a certain movie about the Blair Witch, some young film-makers enter a secluded haunted area, this time it’s a long abandoned train terminal. Granted the location was incredible, oh what decades of care Mother Nature and her friends Mildew and Rot did for the film’s setting. But the people in the location, “Oh, my dog!” Cardboard hipster paranormal film-makers getting haunted in yet another horror movie. In order to show their acting chops and not advance the plot along, the film-makers decided to have everybody pick at each other. The bickering stops when the ghosts of either unhappy commuters or mental patients (the train station became a mental hospital at one time) arrive. My favorite scene was when one of the running film-makers-in-peril blunders into a room filled with severed doll heads, the air filled with the cries of flipped-out ghost-children. In order to hush the room full of Caspers, the film-maker decides to breast feed one of the doll heads. Oh, I forgot to mention, the film-maker was a girl. It would have been more fun if the film-maker was like Michael Moore or Rob Zombie!

For quality digital film-making scares, check out Sean King and Paul Natale’s chilling LOST SUBURBIA. Mixing documentary style and narrative film, we are given four tales based on Long Island ghost stories. The first tale centers around the heavily haunted Sweet Hollow Road. Its tale of teen suicide owes a well thought- out nod to OCCURANCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE. There are no cliches here, just the tragic tale of misfit teens taken in by a ghost tale. Another segment on “Mary’s Grave”, a popular Long Island haunting (think Candyman and Lizzie Borden in one package) follows some very typical, and therefore realistic Long Island partiers seeking the long feared grave of Hatchet Mary. A third segment tells about the abandoned Kings Park asylum. The film-makers saved the gentlest ghost story for last, the story of a drowned Indian Princess in Lake Ronkonkoma. Its leisurely pace and spooky aura reminded me of VERTIGO and THE INNOCENTS. LOST SUBURBIA doesn’t try to gross out with cookie-cutter boo-tactics, it tells it spooky stories as they are, giving us the chills each and every time.

Hopefully, soon the festival folks taking in the bundles of envelopes jammed with film-maker entry fees will ask “Where did the money envelopes go?” Let’s see what happens with You-Tube. As one film-critic (for a leading newspaper) told me: “Oh, no, do not get me started on the festivals.” To fix up John F. Kennedy’s quote you might as well say ‘Ask not what festivals can do for you, ask what you can do for a festival.”

Until next time, film those stories, friends!

(If Michael Bey comes out of the ground and sees his shadow, will we have a summer of great blockbusters?)

You know it’s bad news when the trailer before the movie is more exciting that the feature presentation. My DVD of HBO’s ROCKET SCIENCE came with a trailer for MARTIAN CHILD (starring the Amazing Cusack sibs – John and Joan). MARTIAN CHILD looks like fun, ROCKET SCIENCE, I don’t know. While trying to be NAPOLEON DYNAMITE hip (even the DVD box art is hand written like N.Dynamite), ROCKET SCIENCE follows a nerdy high schooler, Hal (Reece Thompson, who does handle his role well), who stutters and carries his books in a wheel-along travel case. He joins the debate team, so that means all of his co-stars talk fast, neurotically fast. While the makers of this HBO feature are trying to cash in on the quirkiness of NAPOLEON, it all plays out predictable, tiring, a groaner. ROCKET SCIENCE is trying too hard to be an indie.

I would rather go with the real indie stuff, like Mike Mills’ DOES YOUR SOUL HAVE A COLD? This feature documentary follows five Japanese citizens and their battle with depression. According to the film, the Japanese didn’t consider depression to be a mental illness until the mass-marketing of anti-depression medication. These five Tokyo-ites respond to their depression medicine differently. One of them makes the comment “I’m not fighting the depression, I’m now fighting the antidepressants”. What makes this film special is that the medication users are quite ordinary, nothing too glamorous, like the rest of us. IFC plays this film, well worth catching.

Since July 2007, I’ve been immersed in my own film, THE DEED TO HELL. (Our humble editor has a pretty wild role in this film.) My usual venue of DVD duplication is tied up so I have to look elsewhere. I obtained a bunch of recent Long Island indie films to check out the quality of their DVD duplication, and who’s getting the best look for the best dollar. The best film from the bunch is John Lieta’s FORGOTTEN WARDS: THE KINGS PARK STORY. A main purpose of film is to allow the viewer to trespass, and that’s what he does, onto the vast, numerous, long-abandoned buildings of Kings Park Psychiatric Ward. His documentary shows us a slowly decaying metropolis in the middle of Long Island, a city where psychiatric patients lived and had some recreation (One building has incredibly striking murals painted by what was obviously a very talented and unique patient.)

The worst of the L.I. lot was Fred Carpenter’s MARIE. In it, a flipped out policewoman takes on the mob. We know these guys are mobsters because they dress like sixth graders going out as Tony Soprano on Halloween. Footage of ugly strippers is spliced in and slowed up to pad the running time. The moral of this indie column: film what’s in your heart, what provokes your curiosity. You’re an independent film-maker. Your own boss. Don’t say “Hey let’s do something like NAPOLEON DYNAMITE or THE SOPRANOS.”

DAS WRATH VON SHRECKEN-FILM-MAKER!

That’s it! I ain’t gonna be nice no more! I was always nice when I reviewed indie films before, even films with problems. See, I’m an indie film-maker myself- having made six feature films. And I’m not perfect. Sometimes my films clicked, endearing audiences – sometimes audiences watched my films and just shook their heads. Anyway, I’ve learned a lot as a film-maker, and wish to share my experiences.

I caught Jim Carroll’s horror-thriller, EVIL BEHIND YOU. Carroll calls his film “…a scary Christian-based thriller marketed to the PG-13 crowd. Other movies rely on nudity, profanity, squirting blood, gore and sudden sound burst to create fear, “Evil Behind You” relies on an extremely unique plot. We created a movie that will make an impression and last for a lifetime.” This “unique” film centers on four whiny young adults held prisoner in a basement. Nobody panics, the “prison set” is neater than my apartment, and I’ve seen this same movie plot many times before! Obviously, Mr. Carroll watched the recent popular horror movie named for a common hardware tool. He felt he could do so much better by doing a near-remake, with nothing unsettling on-screen, that it would be suitable to be viewed by a box of kittens! I’m sorry, this film looked like what would happen if the local Sunday Scholl staged a production of SAW. Jim, horror films aren’t about how much blood we do or do not see. A good horror film-maker focuses solely on the nightmarish scenario described in his screenplay. Sometimes, in the case of THE SIXTH SENSE, or THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, the film-maker decides to keep the stage blood in the fridge. With something like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, the director feels blood-letting heightens the reality, and scares! We want horror stories, not horror lessons! Of course, many horror films do use gratuitous sex and blood-splatter to mask their short-comings.

Camp Motion Pictures is re-releasing some of the first horror films shot on video. One of their offerings, CANNIBAL CAMPOUT was lensed in 1988 by directors Jon McBride and Tom Fisher. Remember 80’s films like FRIDAY THE 13th and MOTHER’S DAY? These were two of many films depicting campers being clobbered by backwoods kooks! It seemed in an 80’s movie, if you went camping, you were simply doomed from the start! CANNIBAL CAMPOUT is the same ol’ camper carnage, only with far more blood, and far less acting ability! I watched these two films back to back, and I felt very strange, as if I watched a six-hour video of The Wiggles shackled to a radiator!

THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY is a rather engrossing film that, for a film-maker or actor, hits home. For those who never had the chance to work on a film, it offers an unfiltered, entertaining look at what makes us show-biz people (and wanna-be show people). Director Robert Margolis plays himself, a struggling New York actor. While he searches for profitable and rewarding acting work, his loved ones grow impatient. The stress Margolis experiences is way too real. We see the people around him give him unfair time limits to hit it big. Margolis filmed something he knew. How he was going to film it came second. THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY has heart, a broken, but strong heart, and is one worth catching.

Another fascinating film that captures the creative/financial quicksand film-makers and actors get themselves into is the highly comedic THE KEBAB CONNECTION. A young Turkish actor works a kebab stand by day, and later in the day, looks for work as an actor. He has an appetite for kung-fu films and wants to be the next Bruce Lee. It sort of feels like a combination of a Mafia movie and a Bollywood musical. Lots of fun.

Mervyn LeRoy has always been one of my favorite film directors. An unsung creative dynamo from Hollywood’s studio system, LeRoy’s films from sixty or seventy years ago, like I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG, THEY WON’T FORGET and (as producer only) THE WIZARD OF OZ, move along so quickly, with plenty of energy, modern audiences remain glued to the screen. One of his famous quotes was “Shoot the story – not the money.” For the indie film-maker let’s change it to “Shoot the story, not the film theory book.” Wait, that doesn’t sound catchy, but you get what I mean…

You-tube! It’s going to be the most accessible and effective marketing tool for the indie film-maker. Before You-Tube, you would have to cross your fingers and hope a festival takes your film. Then there’s the extensive, expensive travel to festivals in Toronto, Sundance (Utah) or Cannes. Then maybe, just maybe, something will click. You might strike a possible deal. Lately, some You-Tube entries have gained national media exposure. Take a look at the strange video blogs posted by “LonelyGirl 15”. It’s landed her on the talk show circuit, all over the news. You-Tube has numerous “Blair Witch” styled staged videos that look real and get on the news all the time. Some of my favorites were the whiny spoiled princess in “Spoiled Girl Throws A Tantrum” or the amazingly shrill “Psycho Girl Cuts Hair.” You-Tube is also a great film achive source. I’ve added to my You-Tube favorites, Japanese cartoons from before World War 2. (You see a Max Fliescher and Disney influence.) You can also find the only known film recording of Harpo Marx speaking. He sounds like a stern NYC businessman. There are educational shorts from decades ago. One clip has Eddie Cantor singing in an experimental talkie short from 1923. Another clip has the Peanuts (aka The Mothra twins) doing a rousing Beatles tune for a 1965 Tokyo broadcast.

Then you get the weird stuff. A search under “Spirit of Truth” comes up with the very loud, hip-hop, and totally lunatic Reverend X. His screaming sermon uses more “F” words than SCARFACE. “The devil is a muthaf—ing liar, bee-yotch!” A search under “Cyriak” shows computer-animated mini-movies by Cyriak Harris, an amazingly imaginative British cartoonist whose work is a combination of Terry Gilliam and some crazy nightmare. With You-Tube, everybody is accepted into the festival, and everybody has an unlimited festival pass.

14 year old Celeste Davis has written one of the best, most disturbing, yet entertaining films about teen angst since REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. Her PURGATORY HOUSE (Image Entertainment) follows what happens when a lonely, isolated teen girl, Silver (well played by Celeste Davis herself) purposely overdoses so she can get out of it all. She is placed forever in a half-way house with other teen suicides. A recreation room there has a big screen TV that shows what her friends are doing on earth. Are they missing her? Do they care. The film’s director, Cindy Baer, making her feature film debut, peppers the film with creepy details. Just like a real halfway or outreach house, the rooms are filled with third-rate thrift store furniture. That’s just one of the details that makes this film so rich. It has one of those love it or hate it endings. I also suggest catching up to Cindy Baer’s earlier short film – MORBID CURIOSITY.

I felt that Peter Lavilla, the writer, director and co-star of OIL AND WATER, a Los Angeles based indie feature, chose a risky genre to enter – the romantic comedy. The majority of a draw for a romantic comedy are the stars. Is J-Lo in it? How about Hugh Grant or Drew Barrymore? The film centers around Dan Lake and Ms. Gabby, two gossip show hosts who are famous for bickering on and off camera. Eventually tempers rise to the point that they become an item. I do have to note that Ms. Gabby is played with the usual charm and spunk by Rosemary Gore. Rosemary utilized her bubbly personality when she played the lead in my film SHARP AND SUDDEN, and she does the same here. The film at times yearns for a faster pace, ala Preston Sturges, Howard Hawks or Edward Burns, but overall I had fun catching another Rosemary Gore performance as well as this sometimes-funny peek into the television corporate world.

Now how about a STAR IS BORN-styled story about the rise and fall of a much loved entertainer, only it’s set in the world of Bar Mitzvah emcees? That’s what GLOW ROPES by George Valencia and Edwin Figueroa is about. Taylor is a very sheltered, somewhat introverted Bar Mitzvah emcee from “Joisey”, who is discovered by some TV corporate types, and is made a big star. Judy Reyes is great as the very business-like star-maker who puts Taylor on the road to glory.

Speaking of the corporate world, I am suggesting to the indie film-makers out there to utilize You-Tube now for all it has to offer, before the suits come in and make a mess out of it, like they did with eBay.

LITTLE SIN ON THE PRAIRIE

A sin-eater is an outcast of the community who comes out of his cave only at funerals. His job is to eat a small meal that is placed on the dearly departed’s chest. You see, all the dead person’s sins have worked their way out of the body and into the food. The sin-eater eats all the food, and the sin within. Are you eating while I’m telling you this? This allows the dead person to enter heaven without sin.

THE LAST SIN-EATER is the latest film from FoxFaith, the Christian branch of Fox Releasing. It centers on ten-year-old Cadi Forbes (Liana Liberato), whose peaceful life in 1860’s Appalachia is ripped apart when she innocently causes the accidental death of her sister. Feeling horrific guilt, Cadi seeks out the forbidden sin-eater. But, according to the film’s press material “In her quest for redemption… Cadi shows (her community) the truth in Jesus, reminding us that human condition is beyond human remedy.” Occasionally, SIN-EATER has the courage to present dark, disturbing moments, something seldom found in Christian Film-making. Generally, in Christian Film-making, an all too gentle world is presented. Characters, even evil ones like criminals, talk in hushed “put babies to sleep” vocal tones, super clean settings are brightly lit, and of course, violence and sensuality are kept to an almost non-existent low tone. (There are rare exceptions, like Mel Gibson’s ferocious PASSION OF THE CHRIST and DeMille’s “sin before the salvation” requirement for his films) Unfortunately, SIN EATER’s dark moments are whisked away as if somebody is telling director Michael Landon, Jr. “Not too dark, Mike, this is a family movie, not film noir. You better cut in a pretty scene in a log cabin.” (Hey it worked for his dad when he made “Little House”) It’s a rather impressive looking film, a period piece that highlights its wide rural settings. I would love to know how Landon pulled this off for only 2.2 million.

I was watching THE ART OF PASSION, which held me somewhat with it’s tale about a young painter, Arthur Egeli, who struggles with everything from the right light for his painted subjects to what direction his life is going in. In the film, his young, lovely girlfriend, Teresa, models for him, and tries to get him to lighten up. I noticed Teresa was played by Jessica Bryant Flannery, who I auditioned for an unrealized film project in 1994. This is how she looked back then. It dawned on me that this film, due for DVD release in April 2007, was made over 12 years ago. By the way, Jessica and her fellow cast members give very believable performances, while the screenplay and film moved forward like a doped up Stegosaurus! Not all films about artists have to be dog slow. I do hope you’re still out there acting up a storm, Jessica!

The one name actor in the film is Joe Estevez, the younger brother of Martin Sheen and uncle to Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez. Usually cast as the tough cop in scores of low-budget action films, it was nice to see Joe stretch some acting wings here as an artist. Mr. Estevez now looks like Bill Clinton, while older brother Martin resembles Jack Kennedy. Am I giving casting people weird ideas?

Anyway, I’m going off track. THE ART OF PASSION, being an older title with a new release, gives hope to film-makers with unreleased but sellable films sitting on their shelves. This is also proven with VIDEO VIOLENCE PARTS ONE AND TWO, made twenty years ago. This is one of the releases by Camp Pictures, who are rescuing pioneering SOV horror films from total obscurity. SOV, stands for “Shot On Video”. Back in the late 1980’s, videography was still a bit of an eye-strain. Colors, especially reds and yellows, bled and fuzzed out on the screen. Skin tones came out just awful. There was almost no way you could make a beautiful woman look sensual with video back then. It would seem daring to think of making a whole feature on video during the Big 80’s. The selling point of VIDEO VIOLENCE and the other “Retro-80’s” video horror films re-released by Camp Pictures is not the story, the acting, or the director’s vision. It’s the gore, the bloodshed, the over-the-top carnage, presented in such heaping portions, there’s no way one can get offended or shocked anymore.

The linear notes inside the VIDEO VIOLENCE box contains great, nostalgic recollections of the pre-Blockbuster and Netflix days, of the corner mom and pop video stores. There you could go directly to the store owners to stock your finished film for rental. There was one great story (amongst others) where a mother, with tots in tow, came up to the store clerk with a copy of I DISMEMBER MAMA (a classic gore horror fest from the grindhouse days) and asked “Is there nudity in this film?”

“Not that I remember”, says the clerk, “But it has decapitations and other types of gore.” The mother replies with “Oh, okay. Then the kids can watch it.”