Fantastic Photo: War Eagles (1939)

Some of you more pronounced geeks might be aware that KING KONG producer, Merian Cooper, was going to oversee a massive Technicolor fantasy for MGM entitled WAR EAGLES, about an aviator discovering a valley of lost warriors, rampaging dinosaurs and giant eagles that would culminate in an aerial battle with zeppelins over New York. The special effects were to be done by maestro Willis O’Brien, who enlisted Marcel Delgado to help him build sets and models, resulting in a color test reel thought destroyed in the 1955 vault fire that burned up LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT. A few stills survive and the memory of a dude named Harryhausen, who was present when the test was shot. One of the war eagle armatures recently sold at a Hollywood auction and there’s now a very cool in-depth book about the project’s history, including the original script by Cyril Hume (FORBIDDEN PLANET). We can only sigh at how awesome WAR EAGLES would have been under the tutelage of Cooper and O’Brien, but here’s an image to wet your stop-motion dreams.

Requiescat In Pace

While the nation is hijacked by a gaggle of ideological extremists who should make America question the electoral process and how media has fragmented the culture to where insanity goes unchecked and rewarded, I thought it time to honor the legacy of three recently departed filmmakers: Robert Blossoms, one of the most prolific, under-known characters actors who starred in Bob Clark’s disturbing Ed Gein bio, DERANGED (1974) but became a Spielberg favorite in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1978) as the bigfoot seer who holds up the “Stop And Be Friendly” sign and in AMAZING STORIES and ALWAYS (1989); befriended Maculey Caulkin in HOME ALONE (1990) and never stopped working. G.D. Spradlin was the archetypal 1970′s uptight asshole, either as crooked senator in THE GODFATHER PART II (1974) to the coach in ONE ON ONE (1978) or the benevolent malevolent General in APOCALYPSE NOW (1980) to the Baptist minister who funds PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE in ED WOOD (1993). Polly Platt was the co-writer and production designer for her husband Peter Bogdanovich’s TARGETS, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and shepherded BOTTLE ROCKET and BROADCAST NEWS to the screen among her litany of credits. I had the pleasure of seeing her speak a couple times and she represents the fearless integrity of the fabled New Cinema and beyond. RIP.

Favorite Trailer Theatre: Dr. Strangelove Or How I Learned To Stopped Worrying And Love The Bomb (1963)

To honor Stanley Kubrick’s birthday, I’m flashing back to a day in Pablo Ferro’s studio — yes, the Pablo Ferro who gave us immortal title scenes for BULLITT, THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, MIDNIGHT COWBOY and HAROLD & MAUDE plus so many more (from SOMETHING WILD to NAPOLEAN DYNAMITE). On the wall before me were the actual cells from the famous credits for DR. STRANGELOVE OR HOW I etc. etc. I stared slack-jawed in proper cinephile awe and honor that I was so close to an actual slice of film history. The fiesty Ferro also created the trend-setting trailer, a rapid-fire montage that includes an image of Kubrick himself and that the distributor thought too kinetic but that propelled the era’s new wave experimentation. As for the film, it’s still my favorite of the director, thanks to Terry Southern’s fried satire and Kubrick’s visionary cynicism. And sadly, time has not tempered the world’s military-industrial malaise. Oh hell.

GOP Contract On America Redux

Sadder Day

Friday Song: Rush

To honor the 1969 moon walk and end of the Space Shuttle era, I almost opted for Billy Bragg’s elegiac “The Space Race Is Over”  but that’s too much of a downer and so on the other end of the pop scale, there’s uber-optimists Rush and their particular brand of epic objectivist rawk. They wrote this song after attending the Columbia shuttle launch courtesy of NASA — prog-band hippies welcomed by crewcut scientist dreamers — and used it to finish off their “Signals” LP from 1982. The album went for a more synthesizer based sound than the trio’s previous work, aligning themselves loosely with the digital age. 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…

“I’m on a trip…”

SKIDOO has arrived on DVD.

Arcade Fire

B-Movie: The Swarm (1978)

“Bees! Bees! Oh my God! Millions of bees!” I’ve never actually sat through Irwin Allen’s catastrophic coup de grace, THE SWARM (1978) until recently, because I assume any film with Michael Caine, Katherine Ross, Henry Fonda plus a dozen archetypal “stars” who could fill a series of boxes at the base of the poster while fighting off a horde of killer African insects must bee (sic) awful on general principle. Written by Stirling Silliphant, scored by Jerry Goldsmith, THE SWARM is as deliciously bad as the dialogue above. This is a one-shop, non-stop laugh fest that stretches on for over two hours on Netflix’s uncut version. Caine shouts his way through the film, chewing sunflower seeds as a quirky trait, and no doubt envisioning a fantastic vacation in Rio; I would wager that after takes, the actors laughed out loud themselves. THE SWARM came at the merciful end of the 1970′s disaster film era that profited Allen the most. Despite the large budget, the bee effects are sub-par optical work with the usual flailing stunt-people coated in the critters. He would make one more bid to scare audiences into box-office submission, WHEN TIME RAN OUT (1980) — a film so undervalued that Paul Newman fans might be surprised he re-teamed with Allen after THE TOWERING INFERNO for this forgotten volcano epic (except by Mr. Peel). If only THE SWARM was filmed in 3-B…

Summer Movie

NBC Sunday Night At The Movies ’87

This is one of the coolest television premiere intros ever for obvious reasons.

Friday Song: Chad & Jeremy

One of the loveliest pop reveries of the 1960′s remains Chad & Jeremy’s “A Summer Song” from 1964, on the tail of their popular baroque folk hits such as “Yesterday’s Gone” (arranged by one John Barry). Chad & Jeremy were more adventurous than their radio songs suggest, culminating in their full-blown psychedelic and woefully titled 1967, “Of Cabbages and Kings” but their gentle, melancholy and introspective sound captures a unique era. This is still one of my favorite songs, well-used by Wes Anderson in RUSHMORE (1998), and filled with the wistful nostalgia that captures those memories of summer things past…

Retro-View: Slacker (1991)

Downtown Sacramento, 1991: I have had four jobs this past year: Tower Video Clerk/Shift Supervisor; Tower Video Store Artist; MTS (Tower, Inc) Computer Clerk (I have no idea what I did besides write stories and input endless product code); and after bailing on Tower foreva (RIP), rent is due (310 dollars) so I need a job. Fast. I see an opening for data-entry clerk at the princely sum of around 10 dollars an hour. I find out it’s data entry for Goldie’s Adult Book Store on the edge of the downtown railroad tracks and a favored spot to pick up bottles of “Rush” in the dance park daze of 80′s. The 1990′s have officially begun in mad style. Tho I had fun and loved the bright energetic music, I was glad the pastel decade was over; I sense a green global pop consciousness for the 90′s while SEX, LIES & VIDEOTAPE signals that a new cool age of cinema is born. My theme song is the Pet Shop Boys anthem to action, “Being Boring.” I live large buying sacks of CD’s and tapes from Tower; snap up a 1964 Cadillac Sedan De Ville; regularly read my satiric tales and poems (“The Bastard Children Of Charles Bukowski’) at Drago’s Coffee Shop; go bungee-jumping off a railroad trestle; wind through my only stage role as The Narrator in Wendy Wasserstein’s UNCOMMON WOMEN AND OTHERS among an all-female cast; walk to laced screenings of SKIDOO or Spike And Mike’s Animation Fests at the beautiful Crest Theatre on K Street; and achieve a lifelong dream with a visit to Japan. I certified the epochal change by buying my first computer, the Mac Classic and a copy of Final Draft software. Still, I hated beer and coffee so I didn’t fit the mold of urban hipster and never tried to qualify for cultural acceptance. I mean, a-ha was my favorite band and I sure didn’t care for Nirvana.

But the center cannot hold and the sweet start to the 90′s turns slightly sour. I exit Goldies in a backlog of pique and spend my waking life wandering from downtown haunt to haunt with friends and lovers, the days and nights blurring in a summer haze of stimulants and situations. I hang out at the local cafes and even the iced coffee is welcome in the 100 plus degree heat of downtown Sac. One lazy Friday on July 5, K. and I decide to go check out a new low budget film from Texas at the local Tower Theatre. The feature is of course, Richard Linklater’s SLACKER. Watching this for the first time in the cool confines of the deco auditorium was a quiet revelation, and we chuckled at the skewed snapshot portrait in the Day Of The Life of a collection of Austin eccentrics, the story passing like a torch from person to group and onward. The movie perfectly captures the ennui of a long sweaty summer day’s journey into night in a big college town, where intellectual lassitude permeates the culture. Shot on 16mm with a cast of professional and non-professionals for about 23000 dollars, SLACKER was the first cinematic representation of what shall be forever known as “Generation X” — another media meme like “beatnik” or “hippie” courtesy of novelist Douglas Coupland whose best-selling book kicked off the 90′s re-definition of youth culture; 80′s corporate was out and indie was in. I preferred the bitchy contrarian take, “Generation Ecch!” featuring Evan Dorkin’s brilliant satirical comics. Still, a seismic cultural shift was in the air.

Although I’d count SEX, LIES & VIDEOTAPE (1989) as the first true film of the 90′s, with its wry, sci-fi, prescient take on video voyeurism, SLACKER nailed the garage band cinematic landscape with its wide berth of local characters, some of who were actors and most who were not. Richard Linklater himself starts out the movie with a funny, thematic monologue about alternate existential routes of reality to a completely passive cab driver, foretelling the non-linear structure of the story. You get a sense immediately of the laconic rhythm of the movie and it’s impressive how slyly he navigates the cast from character to character. The nice thing is if you don’t like one train of thought, you know another is boarding soon. SLACKER really kicks into gear with the intro of Jerry Deloney aka “Been on the Moon Since the 50′s” as he’s listed in the credits (where nobody has a name but only their theme ) who has an enthusiastic, hilarious conspiracy monologue about the moon landing and greenhouse effects. If you’re not with SLACKER there, you probably won’t be for the rest of the piggyback snapshots. There’s not enough space nor time to go through every vignette, but each has its own life and flavor, sometimes ironically buttressing each other, such as when “Anti-Traveller” complains that visiting foreign lands is pointless as they all look the same and passes a woman who speaks of exotic spices wafting in the air of India. I love Charles Gunning as a hitchhiker who’ll go to work when he “hears the true call” and John Slate as the ultimate JFK conspiracist (who operated a grassy knoll Cadillac tour when I was living in Dallas). Then of course there’s Teresa Taylor pushing a “Madonna Pap Smear,” providing the film’s biggest laugh and iconic moment. Other notables include Wammo from the late, legendary Asylum Street Spankers as a smug “Anti-Artist” and Louis Mackay as a gleeful anarchist whose heroes are Texas terrorists (where anti-government radicalism is celebrated). Each character loves to talk and philosophize, the intellectual aura of a huge college town writ large across the film’s landscape.

Although SLACKER plays out like a multi-cast version of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (1981), there’s more life and movement to the various narratives, and though Linklater is one of the most subtle, understated visual directors of his generation, the roving camera is always where it should be and the Kenner Price PixelVision POV sequence briefly elevates the film into an electronic hallucination, redolent of the era’s technological moment. And while the tone of SLACKER is unhurried as befits a hot, lazy summer day in Austin, the film ends on a kinetic footnote as a carload of youth shoot the passing world with a Super 8 camera, soundtracked by the joyous tune “Die Graskop Polka,” eventually tossing the camera off a ledge, highlighting Generation X-istential angst and confusion as the image spins round and round, an exuberant response to a dizzying universe.

As the Butthole Surfer’s haunting “Strangers Die Everyday” filled the theater, K. and I exited contemplative but happy, realizing that this movie had been made for us and so many others on the edge of the late 20th century. SLACKER was the cinematic equivalent to a punk show or garage sale flyer wallpapered across town. While I never shared the passive nature of the film’s characters, I understood their intellect and situation, even while presupposing that Austin looked like a sad, boring town. Of course, I learned the truth when I went from the sweltering streets of midtown Sacramento, wondering when my life was supposed to begin, to living and writing in the sweltering cultural Texas oasis of Austin by the end of the 90′s, the coolest city I’ve ever lived in, strolling down the Guadalupe Strip that serves as the film’s epicenter, inevitably meeting Richard Linklater in the flesh. SLACKER kick-started Linklater’s career, one I’ve followed closely over the years as he has ended up one of America’s best, unique directors, and his film WAKING LIFE, made ten years after his first, is almost a psychedelic sequel, albeit far more active and hopeful as we touched on in an interview for “Creative Screenwriting”:

CD: WAKING LIFE is like a loose sequel to SLACKER, but more optimistic.

RL: It’s like a ten-year cycle back to something, but it’s different because there’s more narrative, where SLACKER has none. I would clearly define WAKING LIFE as a narrative, not a typical one, but there’s a story that merges from it. I agree with you on the themes, SLACKER had a certain disconnect and this is all about a certain psychic connect.

So on this familiar afternoon of heat and haze, I lift my iced coffee in tribute to the paths taken and untaken by the denizens of SLACKER and quote the immortal words of the late, never to be forgotten, Jerry Deloney aka Been on the Moon Since the 50′s:

“What a day, what a day.”

American Tune

4th Of July Trailer Theatre: Jaws (1975)

My aunt took me to see this shark movie phenom in the summer of ’75 apparently heedless of the poster and announcer’s stern, “Some scenes may be too intense for young children.” I recall being excited to watch this as I was already a full-fledged monster kid though I had no idea what I was in store for — nor did the audience who repeatedly screamed en masse throughout the film. I wasn’t scared as much as traumatized by the thought of getting my little toe near the ocean again, much less a lake or the waterbed I had to sleep in that night. I remember being impressed by the tone, feel and direction of the film, and though I was too young to explicate such things, I could tell this was a new kind of Hollywood effort, a monster movie layered in the naturalism of the decade, with Steven Spielberg’s instinctual cinematic sense as the dynamic conduit to the audience. One can debate the industry/cultural effects of this summer blockbuster but the fact remains that JAWS is just a great film.