DVD – Page 15 – We Are Movie Geeks

METHOD TO THE MADNESS OF JERRY LEWIS – The DVD Review

Review by Sam Moffitt

Jerry Lewis is a national treasure! No, strike that, let me correct that…Jerry Lewis is a global treasure. He belongs to the whole world and here is a documentary celebrating all things Jerry Lewis. Tracing his career from the age of five when he first entered show business, (I am not kidding, he was raised in vaudeville and burlesque by his father and mother who were both performers!) to the present day. Much time is devoted to his insane career with the late Dean Martin and his charity work for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. We also see and hear a lot about his legendary run with Paramount Pictures in the 60s when he wrote, directed and starred in a series of box office hit comedies.

Be advised, this is not a warts and all portrait, Lewis himself is credited as the producer of this documentary! Lewis haters will just nod and say “I told you so!” Jerry Lewis is one of those divisive show business personalities that people either love or hate. For instance the addiction to percodan is mentioned only in passing, but we do hear the reason for the pain killers, he severely injured his back taking a fall when he was still working with Dean Martin. There is no mention of the bizarre and often incoherent rants on the Labor Day telethons for muscular dystrophy and the many talk shows Lewis appeared on in the 60s and 70s. There is no mention of the rumor, (not true, check snopes.com) that Lewis paid himself a good portion of the money taken in from the telethons. No one connected with the Labor Day telethons got a penny, all of it went to charity.

We hear from a small army of current comics and actors, who all praise Jerry Lewis to the skies and rightfully so. Lewis was the box office champ for most of the 50s and 60s. He invented the video assist for shooting a movie, so he could see how a scene worked on a video monitor before deciding if a take should be printed. a system used now by all film directors. I did not know that he taught film making at UCLA for 7 years! Among his students who he mentored and helped get started in film making? Steven Spielberg, Randall Kleiser, Martin Scorsese!

His 10 year, to the day, run with Dean Martin is especially amazing. Eddie Murphy points out they were treated like rock stars, but rock and roll was not really happening yet! Newsreel and television footage of their New York appearances show huge mobs of people in the street circling the hotel they stayed at while NYPD on horseback try to keep order. Lewis points out their first week together, in 1946, the duo was paid 440.$, a little over 200$ apiece, which was not bad at all for 1946. Eight weeks later (weeks) they were getting paid 40,000.$…..each!

We get a lot of coverage of his legendary run at Paramount in the 60s when he had creative control that Orson Welles could only dream of, the kind of control over content that Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg now take for granted, unheard of in the 60s!

Lewis kept his sound stage open! Anyone who wanted to could come in and watch his films being shot, he had bleachers installed so people could be comfortable while they watched a genius at work. Crafts and trades people at Paramount fought to get to work with Jerry Lewis. Character actors like Kathleen Freeman and Del Moore worked with him in picture after picture. The head of production at Paramount at that time, Barney Balaban told the press, “if Jerry wants to burn down the studio I’ll give him the match!” His films brought in over 40 million dollars in one year alone, when the average ticket price was 50 cents!

This is simply an excellent documentary running almost 2 hours, loaded with people talking only good about Lewis, I will admit, but also loaded with clips, bloopers, deleted scenes, and behind the scenes footage of Lewis at work and performing. I will be the first to admit that Jerry Lewis’ later films can be rough to watch, I’m thinking especially of Way, Way Out, Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the River, Hardly Working, and the movie almost nobody has seen, the notorious, unreleased, Day the Clown Cried. Jerry Lewis’ Holocaust comedy, which is never addressed in the documentary. One comic missing is Martin Short who used to do a wicked impression of Jerry Lewis at his worst on Second City Network 90.

How do I feel about Jerry Lewis after watching this documentary? I love him even more! I can recall during the 70s there was a major back lash against Jerry Lewis. I can recall hearing from a lot of people who hated him, with an insane rage that just didn’t make sense to me, then or now. Partly it was the rumor about taking some of the charity money for MDA, some people never got over the break up with Dean Martin (we see the famous reconciliation on the 1976 telethon) and blamed Lewis for the break up. Some people hate him because he is not only Jewish he talks about being Jewish, he is openly Jewish. And some people just hate the level of success he had in the 60s, “let’s drag him down to our mediocre, mundane level!”

Just as an aside I never thought of Dean Martin as a “straight man”, he was a good comic in his own right. I was happy that both of them had great careers after the infamous break up in 1956. And as another aside, Lewis does talk about the very real fear that people had during his years with Dean Martin that there was something gay going on between them, which in itself is funny in my opinion!

I kept my mouth shut for years when the subject of Jerry Lewis came up and people would start to cut him down. No more, to quote Woody Harrelson in this fine documentary, “if you don’t like Jerry Lewis we have nothing to talk about, you might as well leave the room!” This is a terrific documentary about a wonderful, complicated, energetic, brilliant and sometimes troubled, (I will admit!) entertainer who never the less brought joy and laughter to millions of people, myself included. And raised over 3 billion dollars, that’s 3,000,000,000.00$!!! for a worthwhile charity that does nothing but help people (and what have you done lately to help humanity?) I feel good about myself if I hold the door open for somebody who has to walk with a cane or slow down so somebody can drive in front of my car to make a turn and not give them the finger, I cannot imagine having a 3 billion dollar impact on a disease!

This is a wonderful dvd, although it has no special features, technically this is a special feature all on its own, the next time you watch The Bellboy or the Nutty Professor watch this afterward, you’ll be glad you did!

And it doesn’t end there, for me this just got better and better! My fiancé Radah and I watched the documentary Saturday night, January 12^th, 2014. On Monday I saw in St. Petersburg’s newspaper that Jerry Lewis was appearing live in Sarasota, Florida, Tuesday the 14^th and in Lakeland, Florida, Thursday the 16^th. The Lakeland show had the better price, Radah agreed to go with me, Lakeland is only about an hour’s drive from the Tampa Bay area…so we got to see Jerry Lewis, The Man himself, live and in person! As Jerry says in his show, “it’s better than the alternative!”

Traffic was bad due to highway construction in Tampa but we got there ok and enjoyed about an hour and a half of Jerry Lewis live. He has just turned 87 and so his show has no pratfalls, no dancing, a few jokes, but mostly he sits in a nice comfortable chair and just IS Jerry Lewis. What we got was about 90 minutes of an elderly Jewish man reminiscing about a life time in show business. Pure magic in other words!

I even got to speak with him! Jerry Lewis does an audience q&a at all his performances. I assumed he got the idea from Carol Burnett, no, Jerry Lewis first did audience q&a in 1955! Carol Burnett got the idea from him!

When It came my turn to speak first I thanked him for all the work he has done, the movies, the tv shows, the telethons. I admitted that his films, especially Cinderfella helped a lonely little kid, namely me, get through a rough child hood. I called him by his real name, Mr. Levitch, the look on his face was priceless, I’ll always treasure that moment.

My question to him, after other people had asked him asinine things like, “I want to be a comedian, do you have any advice?” Or “what’s your favorite movie of all of them that you’ve done?”

I told him I was not in show business but that I read a great deal about it, and that Carol Baker, the star of Harlow and Baby Doll, in her autobiography spoke very highly of Jerry Lewis when she also worked at Paramount. I wasn’t able to tell Jerry everything Carol Baker said about him but I did mention she said he seemed to be everywhere at once, made the studio the happiest work place in the world and that one day, when she was taking a shower, at which point Jerry Lewis said “I don’t like where this is going!” I told him, Carol Baker was taking a shower; Jerry Lewis jumped in with all his clothes on and mimed being a beautiful, naked woman taking a shower, which is what Carol Baker really was at that point in her career! As another aside if you’re not familiar with Carol Baker, do a search, she really was a knockout and still works from time to time.

Jerry said “that sounds like something I would do back then!” I had to ask “my question is, did that really happen and if so did you take advantage of the situation?” He said that, no he did not take advantage of the situation, but that it was fun! Before I left the microphone I told Jerry Lewis “God bless you sir!” and he said “ bless you” to me as I walked away, Radah told me later I was the only person he said that to.

The real high point of that whole encounter? I made Jerry Lewis laugh! In fact he cracked up over my question more than anyone else’s, a priceless moment.

So I not only recommend the dvd, Madness to the Method of Jerry Lewis, but if Jerry Lewis should happen to come anywhere near where you live, go for God’s sake, it’ll be good for you! He said he plans to be here until he’s 99, George Burns age when he left, but one never knows, with all the health problems he’s had it’s a miracle he still is doing what he does!

Now I have to go to the mall and scream “HEY LADY!!!!!!”

RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE – The DVD Review

Review by Sam Moffitt

I really wanted to review a movie for the holidays but realized there is not much more to be said about the classic Christmas films. What could I possible add to the words already written about Miracle on 34th St or A Christmas Carol (any version) or Christmas Story or It’s a Wonderful Life?
And then I heard about and got Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale and I am so happy to report that here is a totally original, wonderful, funny and finally enchanting, Christmas movie that was released in 2010.

First a little background, made in Finland and shown at festivals all over the world, Rare Exports is actually based on Finnish legends of Father Christmas, and he was not what you would think, and Rare Exports is in a category all its own when it comes to holiday spirit.

Having seen some of Aki Kaurismaki’s films, the most well known of Finland’s film makers, I assumed that a dead pan sense of humor was Kaurismaki’s own style. Leningrad Cowboys Go America and Man Without a Past (both wonderful movies by the way) display that dead pan style, and now I can see that dead pan humor appears to be a part of Finnish culture.

Rare Exports tells the tale of Pietari Kontio played by Onni Tomilla and his widowed Father, Rauno (apparently played by his real life father Jorma Tomilla) and their adventures on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in their tiny village that sits right next to the Russian border. Pietari and his friend cut through the fence separating the two countries to observe an American drilling crew who has arrived in secret (don’t American’s always have something to hide?) to bore a hole into a huge mountain that is actually a burial mound.

Shortly after the drilling starts children start to disappear and weird voodoo looking dolls are left in their place. The reindeer herd upon which the village depends has almost all been slaughtered, and eaten, by what appears to be humans, barefoot humans!

Far from looking forward to Christmas young Pietari starts to dread the arrival of Father Christmas. He takes to wearing his hockey helmet all the time and carrying, in what has to be a nod to Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story, a gun slung over his shoulder Army style. Unlike Ralphey, Pietari’s weapon is real. He packs what appears to be a 12 gauge shotgun through most of the movie and seems to know how to use it. No Daisy BB gun for this kid!

And I have to say that in the critical part of Pietari, Onni Tomilla is perfect, he seems like a real kid, saying and doing the things that real kids would. This is not a typical child actor, by no means.

Pietari does some research and finds that Finland’s version of Santa Claus was more of a monster, a mountain troll who not only punishes naughty children but cooks and eats them! Yikes! Better be good indeed!

Other strange things start happening, all the heat radiators in the village disappear, the closer it gets to Christmas more children disappear until only Pietari is left. One thing really odd about the village where the story takes place, there appears to be no women. There is not one woman in this entire movie and no one remarks about it. Pietari’s Father is widowed and that is the only comment about women in the entire film.

Pietari’s Father and a couple of his friends manage to capture what they think is Santa Claus, a long, tall, bearded and feral looking old man who cannot be killed, no matter what type of mayhem is visited upon his person. The American in charge of the crew who dug the hole in the mountain advises them they have captured not Santa Claus but one of his elves, and that he is highly dangerous, and that there are more of them lurking around in the woods! These are not the pretty, magical elves of Peter Jackson’s Ring trilogy; these guys are more like mountain trolls, twisted, dirty, cunning and capable of all things evil. These are not toy makers’ kids!

Wait, it gets better, the whole plan is to thaw out the big guy himself and to do something awful with all the children who have been collected. As usual I don’t like to give out spoilers but I will say that not only is there a happy ending, Rare Exports manages to come up with lots of real holiday cheer, despite the bizarre (to an American audience) premise of Santa and his elves being monsters.

And lest we forget, this is a totally different film from the killer Santa movies that came out in the 80s. Making Santa a serial killer as in Silent Night, Deadly Night or Christmas Evil is a whole different concept than making him and his elves malevolent, supernatural creatures.

We never do get a good look at the “real” Santa Claus but I will also say that one of the best jokes in the movie, the punch line to the whole project really, is the explanation of the title, “Rare Exports”. I won’t give that away either, you’ll just have to see it, very funny!

Rare Exports is a rare pleasure indeed, a totally unique look at Christmas. In fact one theme running through Rare Exports is that Christmas itself has become something of a monster, devouring all in its path and steam rolling over the whole world every 12th month. Rare exports is also an uncredited remake of The Thing, once the ice melts all manner of mayhem and carnage is unleashed!

Rare Exports is one of the smartest, funniest and most well thought out films I have seen in quite a while and it is perfect for the holidays. Some other websites that have reviewed this film state that it is not for children’s viewing! Nonsense! Rare Exports, among other things, is a very canny updating of the type of fairy tales told by The Brothers Grimm, it is perfect for children! Snuggle up with your kids on Christmas Eve and enjoy! If this movie doesn’t make them behave nothing will!

Oscilloscopes dvd is beautifully transferred and loaded with extras. The film is beautifully shot on high definition video, in real snow and freezing temperatures. There is a making of documentary, in Finnish, that includes the cast and crew appearing at film festivals, short films that led to the creation of the feature, (very funny and disturbing in their own right), trailers, artwork and special effects demonstrations. The movie has quite a lot of English dialog but is mostly in Finnish with subtitles.

In the making of documentary we learn that the tall skinny guys playing the elves were really running around in the Finnish winter with no clothes on except flesh colored jock straps. Wow! I honestly had thought CGI supplied the elves, nope, real men got really cold filming these scenes, maybe they had a Finnish sauna to retreat to between scenes?

So if you want something new for a holiday movie, Rare Exports has got it all, family togetherness, male bonding, monstrous elves, reindeer, drifting snow, stale gingerbread it’s all there and Father Christmas too!

And I want to wish Happy Christmas to all our readers and fellow movie geeks. Christmas Day I’ll have the red suit and beard on myself and will be spreading Christmas Cheer everywhere I go, but no carnage and mayhem, I promise!

BIRTH OF THE LIVING DEAD – The DVD Review

Review by Michael Haffner

There’s no question that George A. Romero’s 1968 film NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD gave birth to the modern zombie. No, we’re not talking about voodoo mysticism or Caribbean folklore which is where the idea of dead men rising from their graves at night stems from. What I’m referring to are the shambling, gut-munching, zombies who come back to life as rotting corpses. There’s no shortage of the “z-word” in pop culture these days as films, books, and television shows have all explored the subject. This is in large part due to one gory black and white indie film. With a budget of $114,000 and a script by Romero and John A. Russo, a horror film that tapped into the social conscience of the late 1960’s and still remains relevant to this day was born.

Director Rob Kuhns guides BIRTH OF THE LIVING DEAD along in a smooth and sensible manner. He begins the film with a look at George A. Romero’s life in Pittsburgh as a struggling filmmaker. There are some humorous anecdotes from Romero’s early career including his work on Mr. Rogers, beer commercials, and a FANTASTIC VOYAGE knock-off commercial called THE CALGON STORY that truly is fantastic. What helps give the film a creative edge is the inclusion of beautifully rendered black and white drawings depicting the behind the scenes of these early cinematic years as well as the making of Romero’s classic dead film. While the artwork by Gary Pullin is stunning, I get the feeling that they stand in place of any real interviews with the cast and crew describing the filmmaking process. George is the only one who speaks at great length about the production. Several names are discussed and what there responsibilities entailed, however we never hear from these extras, assistants, and actors. Most obvious among those missing is of course fellow writer John A Russo. This is especially disconcerting since there has been a few different accounts over the years of the different forms the original script took on, who re-wrote what, and if the political subtext was always “meant” or “intended” to be there. As someone who has listened firsthand to both men speak at screenings and festivals – never together of course – I can promise you a debate for the ages could be had. BIRTH’S saving grace of course is Romero’s openness in front of the camera. His easy smile and jovial personality is a joy to watch, and his love for the subject of zombies can be felt through the screen. Of course he has told these same stories over the years for other documentaries and featurettes that have popped up on the endless array of home video releases; after all these years not a whole lot has changed.

Gale Anne Hurd (ALIENS producer), Larry Fessenden (director of HABIT), Jason Zinoman (writer of SHOCK VALUE), and Elvis Mitchell (renowned film critic) are just some of the talking heads who dissect the importance of NOTLD. Each one shares their personal connection with the film. There’s no debating the cultural impact the film has had on these individuals and on the film community as a whole, but the link between NOTLD and the Vietnam War as well as the Civil Rights movement has been addressed ad nauseam over the years that the statements made here are far from groundbreaking. To those new to the horror genre, BIRTH OF THE LIVING DEAD does provide some insight into a film that is considered by many as one of the best horror films ever made. For some seasoned scare veterans, the novelty of seeing respected names like Hurd and Fessenden discuss the film may or may not be enough to make this a watch if you have already seen other docs like ONE FOR THE FIRE.

George Romero can go on with the rest of his life and never make another seminal film to add to his career. Some would say he has done exactly that for over 25 years now. BIRTH OF THE LIVING DEAD is not without its merits, but taking yet another look at Romero’s first dead film isn’t as eye-popping as it would be to see a new horror film from the iconic director. At the very least, this documentary serves as a nice reminder to revisit an often imitated but never duplicated classic.

NIGHT TIDE – The DVD Review

Review by Sam Moffitt

When you are a true movie geek some titles become a sort of Holy Grail. When I was a monster kid growing up in the 60’s I read Castle of Frankenstein magazine avidly (one of the greatest magazines ever published by the way!) That periodical discussed so many movies that I just knew I would never get a chance to see, foreign films, independent films, odd ball avant garde’ experimental films, it made me determined to see them by any means necessary.

I recall reading about Night Tide in Castle of Frankenstein and wanting to see it very badly. I didn’t get to view that title until sometime in the 90s. I found it on vhs on the Rhino label and was happy to finally get to see it, it lives up to its reputation, for me anyway. Now I am happy to report Image’s dvd is light years ahead of the vhs release. The black and white images look about as good as a movie shot in black and white in 1961 is ever going to look. The image is crisp and clean, the grey levels superb, the picture is slightly letter boxed and the audio is the only problem. This was a film shot almost completely on location and the sound is hollow and garbled in places, still all the dialog is understandable.

Night Tide gives us a very simple story, a lonely sailor, played by a painfully young Dennis Hopper, on liberty in Venice, California is attracted to a young lady who works as an attraction on the boardwalk. Mora, played by Linda Lawson, wears a mermaid tail and sits in a tank which makes it look as if she is underwater. When Mora says how much people pay to see her you have to wonder how she can live off those kind of earnings, even in 1961.

Night Tide owes a bit to Cat People in that Mora may or may not actually be a mermaid, she also has a habit of her boyfriends turning up dead. Johnny the sailor is warned about this by Luana Anders who helps her father run the merry go round on the boardwalk, but Johnny, a typical sailor goes ahead and pursues Mora anyway.

Night Tide is not really a horror movie, instead of outright scares Curtis Harrington and his small crew build a sense of uneasiness, of eerie goings on in a world that is slightly off kilter. Hopper is actually quite good as a naïve Navy man from Denver whose parents are dead. Hopper was raised in Kansas and the part seems to have been written by Harrington with him in mind. The loneliness of a sailor on liberty is so accurate in the beginning of the film it brought me a lot of heartache. Having spent four years on active duty in the Navy I really felt that I had “been there and done that.” Hopper’s uniform looks accurate and properly maintained. We never see him on a ship or even on the gangway of a ship, something that may have been out of reach for the budget.

Hard to believe this is the same Dennis Hopper who turned into such a drunk and drugged out walking bucket of human excrement later in the 60s and through the 70s, check out American Dreamer if you want to see what a mess Hopper became. To be fair he cleaned up his act, and then did some of his best work as an actor and a director before making his exit and has always been a fascinating character.

Even better is Linda Lawson as Mora. We can see why Johnny would be attracted to her and not give Luana Ander’s character, who is obviously attracted to Johnny, a chance. Mora seems to always be listening to an inner voice, she never seems totally there but just a bit, strange. Mora even tells Johnny herself that he doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into, tries repeatedly to warn him away. As a shipmate told me during my own Navy days “don’t let your dick do your thinking for you!”

Linda Lawson has an exotic, almost Asian look to her, she brings an obvious intelligence and a sincerity to a part that could have easily been laughable, especially when we get a glimpse of her “tail” in certain scenes.

Johnny follows her home and she won’t ask him up but promises to make breakfast for him the next morning. Her apartment is sundrenched and airy and has a beautiful view of the Venice beach. Her apartment is full of starfish and seaweed and fish nets and in a key moment she tells Johnny she “collects things from the sea” while he stands in his dress white uniform surrounded by these oceanic collectibles.

In the one misstep in an otherwise excellent little film Johnny dreams that Mora has turned into…. a giant octopus, (I guess), he struggles with something with tentacles on her couch. Whatever it is it looks way too much like the octopus Ed Wood and his crew stole to use in Bride of the Atom, Johnny moves but the tentacles don’t.

Johnny and Mora go scuba diving and Mora tries to kill Johnny underwater, or maybe not. Johnny is so shaken he goes awol and in the finale all is explained as the shore patrol come to pick Johnny up and take him back to the fleet.

I hate to give out spoilers, so I’ll just say that the “explanation” at the end is about as goofy as the ending of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Everything we think we know about the characters is turned topsy turvey. But there is still a good chance that Mora was exactly what she said she was. And that is part of the unsettling and eerie part of a remarkable little film. The only film, especially from that time period, I can compare Night Tide to is Carnival of Souls but that is more of an outright horror film.

Still both films are disquieting and the effect from watching them lingers for days. And yet Night Tide, because it is black and white and does not have the shock and outright terror of modern horror films a great many film fans will probably give it a pass which is sad, they’ll never know what they are missing. Night Tide is a gem of low budget, independent film making and great for viewing in the Halloween season.

Image’s DVD has the original trailer and a wonderful commentary by Director and Writer Curtis Harrington and Dennis Hopper, one of the best commentaries I have listened to yet. I highly recommend watching the film in one sitting and give it some time, then watch again with the commentary, both men have terrific memories of making the film and Hollywood lore in general.

I’m going out to the beach for a swim, anyone care to join me?

GREY GARDENS – The DVD Review

Review by Sam Moffitt

I used to work with a woman who smelled like cat piss. Not making this up, not trying to be mean, this woman and her daughter (I won’t name them I don’t want to embarrass anybody) lived in a rented home here in St. Petersburg with so many cats they didn’t know how many they actually had. I couldn’t stay in the house longer than a minute, the smell was unbelievable. The really sad part this woman was letting the cats breed, she had kittens and grown cats all over the place. They were, in common parlance what Is known as “crazy cat ladies.”

I say this as an introduction to an incredible HBO movie about two of the most famous crazy cat ladies in history, Edith Bouvier Beale,(Mother and Daughter have the same name,) Big Edie and Little Edie as they are better and more fondly known. They were Aunt and Cousin to Jackie Kennedy Onassis and came to the attention of documentary film makers David and Albert Maysle’s when their mansion in East Hampton, New York was condemned in the early seventies and they were in danger of losing their once opulent home.

The Maysles did what they always try to do, they were flies on the wall while the Beale’s went about what passed for lives, although both Edie’s talk to the film makers throughout the incredible documentary, also called Grey Gardens by the way. And I recommend anyone reading this to please see the documentary first. The Criterion Collection edition of this film is beautiful and the movie won’t mean as much if you don’t see the original film, one of the best loved documentaries ever made and one of the few that is not about music to garner a serious cult following.

The Maysle’s shot so much footage of the Beale’s there is a sequel made up of outtakes called The Beale’s of Grey Gardens which is just as wonderful. Mother and Daughter live in a crumbling mansion that was once one of the show places of East Hampton. They share the house with dozens of cats and an equal number of raccoons, which Little Edie feeds. They argue, exhibit some strange behavior, talk to the film makers and go about their daily business.

I can recall reading a review of the documentary in the East Village Other in 1976 after the film was released and it was the first documentary I recall being described as like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I wanted badly to see it when I read that review but it would take the dvd revolution for me to get there. It is by turns, fascinating, horrifying, hysterically funny, not to mention tragic and all too human.

This wonderful HBO movie attempts to fill in the blanks, to give us the back story of the Beale’s, who they were and how they got to their state in the 70s of living in one of the richest neighborhoods in the world in a state of dire poverty and decrepitude.

We see Grey Gardens in its prime, Big Edie hosting sumptuous parties, largely ignoring her husband and spending lots of time with a “piano teacher” who spends precious little time tutoring Little Edie in music. Little Edie has dreams of going to New York and starting her own career in dance, singing, acting, anything creative to get the hell out of Grey Gardens.

Jessica Lange as Big Edie and Drew Barrymore as Little Edie are mesmerizing, astonishing, right on the money with the accents, the sense of entitlement, the body language, everything we see in the documentary. Both are incredible but it is Drew Barrymore who really hits one out of the park, she disappears, becomes the Little Edie who gained a cult audience all her own from the Maysles documentary. Add her name to the list of actors who not so much act a part as become another person entirely. I’m thinking of Forest Whitaker in Last King of Scotland, Jim Carrey in Man in the Moon, Val Kilmer in The Doors. Add Drew Barrymore’s name to that list, this is acting taken to a whole other level.

The film makers have accurately recreated more than one time period, the clothes, the cars, the attitudes are spot on. We learn who the mysterious “married man” was that Little Edie was briefly involved with, that Big Edie could indeed have had a career as a singer, how the cats came slowly but surely into their lives. How they lost what income they had and why Mother insisted the Daughter stay in this benighted realm. How and why both were unsuited for any ordinary job, indeed what could they have done for a normal income?

And most horrifying of all we see how Grey Gardens itself deteriorated and became what was deemed by the Department of Health “unfit for human habitation.” These scenes in particular I found difficult to watch, even more fascinating, we learn that Grey Gardens, as seen in the Maysle’s film, was after a certain amount of rehab work was done! We see workmen come in and clean out debris, fix the roof, clean and paint one bedroom, the “Yellow Bedroom” as seen in the documentary where the Beale’s did most of their “living.” We are not told where the money came from for this work, unless I missed something. We also learn the Maysle’s put flea collars around their ankles to lessen the bites from the flea infested home.

And time and again the movie cuts between the past and the movie’s present, how choices made in the past lead to this odd and more than a little depressing circumstance.

The dvd has a terrific making of documentary where we see how much work a professional actor can put into a role. Both Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore watched the Maysles documentary obsessively, on portable dvd players. Many of the costumes, props and even furniture are not just the same as what the Beale’s had, they are the actual household items we see in the documentary! It’s not mentioned but I’m wondering if the film crew let the cats shit and piss everywhere to give it that verisimilitude they were reaching for.

It is eerie indeed to see moments captured on film by the Maysle’s in the 70s recreated so flawlessly, every gesture, every glance, all the rancor and bitterness of a life that was never lived to its full potential. And oddly enough we do get a happy ending. After Big Edie’s death Little Edie lived in several different places, got to travel and even did a cabaret act?! She achieved a certain amount of celebrity from the documentary and actually had fans who wrote to her and wanted to be like her? Huh? Say what?

There is a terrific scene with Jeanne Tripplehorn as their famous cousin Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Little Edie’s delusions and Jackie’s tragedy are equally heartbreaking.

The only thing I missed from the documentary , the HBO film makes no mention of “The Marble Faun!” A long haired, probably pot smoking kid who did odd jobs for the Beale’s and who Little Edie was convinced wanted to do her and drive a wedge between herself and her Mother at the same time. In the scenes in the Maysle’s film where he appears he just looks like he’s hanging around Grey Gardens because he has nothing else to do and is probably too baked to give a shit.

The Beale’s story reminded me of the writing of Shirley Jackson, I’m thinking especially of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, watch these films and then read the book and you’ll see what I mean.

For this is the amazing hat trick of both the Maysles documentary and this welcome tribute film about the Beales’ of Grey Gardens. Despite all the bizarre behavior, the living in squalor and the delusional rants, despite everything our “rational” mind tells us about the Beale’s we come to respect, admire and even love these “crazy cat ladies”. As someone wiser than me once said, “there but for the Grace of God…..” Someone else wiser than me also made mention of “the road not taken”. It’s all there, at Grey Gardens.

Now I have to go and walk my dog, be seeing you!

THE COLLINS KIDS AT TOWN HALL PARTY – The DVD Review

Review by Sam Moffitt

I love finding new things.

Writers I never heard of, music I’m not familiar with, a movie recommended by a friend I trust. Even better than finding something new is discovering that the material in question is a lot better than expected. I like to be surprised, I enjoy the professional output of talented people, writers, film makers, musicians, artists in general.

But nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for the atom bomb blast the Collins Kids have put on me.

A little back ground first. I recently went on vacation and drove to Missouri from my home in St. Petersburg, Florida to visit my family at our reunion over Labor Day weekend. I drove there through Mississippi and took my time, visited places that interested me. Stopped in Indianola, MS and visited the B.B. King Museum (I highly recommend it by the way). Stopped in Yazoo City, Mississippi in search of Jerry Clower memorabilia, and bought a great t-shirt from a nice lady who knew Mr. Clower personally. Spent one night in Clarksdale, Mississippi and made it a point to hear some live blues music. And, yes, I went to Graceland in Memphis, not that I’m a big Elvis Fan but I thought I really should go at least once. Also visited the Alabama Memorial in Mobile (I love that Battleship!). Visited the Catfish Capital of the World in Belzoni, Mississippi.

After leaving Memphis I stopped in Conway, Arkansas, for two reasons, to see my good friend Mike Gunter who teaches film and video production at the University of Central Arkansas and meet his wife Kathy and daughter Sarah for the first time. And I wanted to visit the offices of Oxford American magazine, a publication devoted to all things Southern in these United States. They used to be in Oxford, Mississippi by the way, hence the name.

I wanted to thank them for a particular issue, the 2011 all music issue which came with a free cd of all Mississippi music. I also wanted to volunteer my services to write an article for Oxford American, two birds in the hand so to speak.

Assistant Editor Maxwell George made me feel welcome and was interested in the article I proposed. And he gave me some back issues of the magazine, one of which was the 2003 all music issue, with another free cd. I listened to that cd on my way to Missouri, and on the way home to St. Petersburg, and I’m still listening to it. Like all of Oxford American’s cds there are quite a few artists I was not familiar with, I love the whole cd but one stand out was a rock and roll song called Hot Rod by the Collins Kids, someone I had never heard of.

On first hearing I thought this was a brand new song by someone trying for and achieving a retro feel for a new song. The song is so tight, so well timed, played and recorded I thought it was brand new. Wrong, so wrong, I found out when I got a chance to read the magazine which has articles about all the featured artists on the cd. The Collins Kids were from the 1950s, they really were kids when the song was recorded, and their talent is incredible. Hot Rod is a damn near perfect 1950s Rock and Roll song, why had I never heard of the song, or the Collins Kids before?

I’m not a musicologist by any means, but I know what I like and that is damn near every kind of American popular music you can name, Blues, Jazz, Rhythm and Blues, Rock and Roll, Country and Western, Gospel. Big Band Swing, Jump Boogie. I have read several histories of American Rock and Roll and watched countless documentaries on the history of Rock and Roll, again, no mention of the Collins Kids, none that I remember anyway.

And so, me being who I am, I searched on Netflix, found a dvd of the Collins Kids on Town Hall Party, a live country and western music television series from the 1950s, put it at the head of my queue, got it a few days ago and now (finally!), I’m going to tell you all about it!

You’ve never seen anything like this, I never have any way. These shows are from 1958, the Collins Kids, Lorie and Larry, were regulars on the show, appeared every week unless they were touring, which was often. Lorie was 16 and Larry was 14 and what they could do was incredible, especially for two such young people.

They do a variety of then current Rock and Roll hits, in fact because it was a weekly show there are multiple versions of some songs, you get three different versions of Chantilly Lace for instance, more than one version of Great Balls of Fire.

Lorie has an incredible voice, especially for a 16 year old. It helps that she was drop dead beautiful, she looks a lot like Shelley Fabares, quite appropriate since both of the Collins look like they stepped right off the Donna Reed Show or Father Knows Best. Which makes it all the more startlingly when they slam into a revved up rock and roll song without so much as a “by your leave!”

Both Collins Kids play guitar but it is Larry who is astonishing. The Collins Kids were no novelty act, this kid really could play the guitar, as fast as the Ramones, and his stage moves are amazing. Think of the most hyperactive 12 year old you ever knew (or were!) after eating 3 boxes of Coco Puffs with coffee instead of milk. This kid is insane! Like any 12 to 14 year old he has just got to be the center of attention, the only difference being he really is talented, where he got his chops I have no idea. He mostly plays a custom made double neck Mosrite with his name inlaid on the neck.

Together the two of them don’t really play a song, they function more like a musical tag team. They tackle a song on the run, wrestle it to the ground, pummel it into submission, beat the piss out of it and hold the remains up for their audience to enjoy! Watching and listening to them is exhausting. The dvd runs only a little over an hour but I have yet to watch it all the way through in one viewing.

Larry’s stage moves are uncanny, he could duck walk better than Chuck Berry (of course, he was a little kid!) and I seriously believe that both James Brown and Jim Morrison saw this kid on television and copped some of his moves for later use in the 60s. I’m not kidding, watch the dvd and you’ll see what I mean. And Lorie’s voice is so incredible, a husky, throaty contralto (don’t hold me to that, I could be wrong here, I did say I’m not a musicologist!) she puts her own personal stamp on every song she sings. Lorie’s phrasing and timing, well both their sense of timing, are so damn good, and Lorie’s voice put me in mind of both Patsy Cline and Etta James, again I’m not kidding, she was that good.

And any good Rock and Roll act has to have an edge, some hint of danger. With Black artists the edge was obvious, especially in the 50s. Elvis and Eddie Cochran and other early White singers were seen as little better than hoodlums and motorcycle gang members. Later on it was sex, drugs and violence that haunted a lot of Rock acts and made them all the more fascinating to each successive wave of fans.

With the Collins Kids the air of danger, and I’m not trying to be negative here, is a real sense of incestuous longing. From what we see here little Larry loved his big sister, he kisses her during almost every song. They had a charming habit of singing into one microphone, often back to back, and at key moments swinging around and singing while looking into each other’s eyes. I’m sorry, there is something weird and strange about a 14 year old kid singing Chantilly Lace while his eyes are looking deep into on his 16 year old sister’s while screaming at a fever pitch “Oh you sweet thang, you know what I like!” During Great Balls of Fire Larry gives her a kiss and sings “that sure feels good!” He does a change up and sings ”that sure feels terrible!” during one version and gets big laughs and a very funny reaction from Lorie. She literally smacks him upside the head at that point. They do one song that fit them perfectly, Make Him Behave, all about a teenage girl’s problems with a pesky kid brother.

Which is a whole other aspect, this being live television anything could happen, most of their performance footage is pretty smooth. But Lorie loses a shoe during one of their choreographed dance routines, a stage hand comes out to put it back on and Lorie never misses a beat. Despite any hint of weirdness going on the chemistry between brother and sister is undeniable and irresistible.

Rock and Roll was always supposed to about one major thing, fun! Rock songs by their very nature were simple little poems about girlfriends, boyfriends, hot rods, school, summer vacation, what have you. The Collins Kids were all about fun, they both obviously are having the time of their lives and their energy level can match or exceed anything Elvis, Mick Jagger or Bruce Springsteen or, hell, name any Rock singer you can think of, could put out. But under all that these were innocent kids, just having a good time doing what they loved to do.

Artists as important and diverse as Elvis Costello, Tom Petty and Chris Isaak name them as influences and major players in early Rock and Roll.

Why had I never heard of them before? Some of the answers are in Oxford American’s wonderful article about them written by Alex Halberstadt. They were from Oklahoma, a very small town. Their Mother thought Lorie could be a singer, entered her in amateur talent contests, Larry taught himself to play guitar and fought to be in the spotlight, their Father thought they should play together. After one audition they were brought on as regulars on Town Hall Party, a West Coast version of the Grand Ole Opry. All four family members are credited with writing Hot Rod.

Audiences loved them, both were able to buy cars before they were old enough to legally drive them. Rick Nelson (yes that Rick Nelson!) had a serious crush on Lorie and wanted to marry her. She appeared on an episode of Ozzie and Harriett and sang a duet with Rick. I would love to see that episode! Fan magazines were touting them as Rock music’s dream couple.

Shortly after these shows were captured on kinescope Lorie torpedoed their entire career by running off and marrying Johnny Cash’ road manager, a man several years older than her. It was a major scandal at the time and a seriously bad career move. Lorie took time off to have children, Lorie and Larry played minor gigs right up until the 80’s. Larry kept in the music business by song writing, remember Delta Dawn? Larry Collins helped write it, and several other hit songs for various artists.

In 1993 they played a Rockabilly festival in England and got standing ovations from a very young audience. They are both still around and occasionally play gigs together . I would dearly love to see them in concert.

While they are both still with us can somebody write a book about these two? And how about a documentary? I would love to hear their entire story, and see more concert footage of them. If you want to see them right away You Tube has several of these songs.

And how about a movie of these two? Yes, Hollywood, hey, I’m talking to you! (Yeah right, like anybody in Hollywood reads my ranting and raving!) But it’s nice to dream anyway, because these two kids lived the dream and saw it come crashing down around them, the classic show business story, but what talents! And at such a young age. You can also see recent photos and read more about the Collins Kids on the Rockabilly Hall of Fame website http://www.rockabillyhall.com/CollinsKids1.html.

Bear Family Records, a German company, produced this dvd. The footage is made up entirely of kinescopes, 16 MM film of live television broadcasts, so picture and audio quality is kind of primitive, but that talent and joy and energy still come through. The only extras are some brief clips of other artists who appeared on Town Hall Party like Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins and Gene Vincent, and an explanation of what kinescopes are and how they were made.

Now I have to comb my hair, get in my hot rod and pick up my girlfriend, I am out of here!

BEHIND THE BURLY Q – The DVD Review

Review by Sam Moffitt

I love strippers! Always have and always will. Having said that I have never been to a real burlesque show. Oh, I’ve been to tittie bars, sure, tittie bars, absolutely! Four years in the Navy and having been a bachelor all my life (I am engaged to a wonderful woman so cut me some slack here) I’ve been to plenty of bars where topless dancers do their shimmy and shake and hang from the pole and all that. But that isn’t really burlesque.

I can remember growing up in St. Louis in the 60s and 70s and looking at ads in the Globe Democrat and Post Dispatch for the Grand Burlesque downtown (was it on Washington?) and the Stardust Burlesque on DeBaliviere. How I wanted to go to those theaters, how I wanted to see Evelyn West and her $20,000 (was that the dollar amount?) Treasure Chest, insured by Lloyd’s of London. Somehow I never got to go, by the time I was old enough and had the money those theaters were gone.

In Behind the Burly Q, a wonderful documentary, we learn just how great a burlesque show really was. For one thing there was more than just the strippers, there were production numbers, a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants. There were baggy pants comics, doing double entendre routines. Abbot and Costello both came from burlesque, Bud Abbot was one of the most sought after straight men, the guy who set up the jokes for the comics, Lou Costello was one of the fastest comics in the business. When the two of them got together they out grew burlesque very quickly and comedy history was made.

In Behind the Burly Q we hear a lot from retired burlesque strippers, many of whom I never heard of. We learn the history of burlesque, it actually started before the beginning of the 20th century, in carnivals and World Fairs. The combination of low comedy and beautiful women taking off their clothes allegedly came from Minsky’s, a promoter and producer who knew a good thing when he saw it.

There is no narrator for Behind the Burly Q, the strippers, comics, husbands and other performers have their time to speak and tell their own stories. The film switches back and forth between how the women look now and when they were star attractions on the Bump and Grind circuit.

As you would expect these ladies are showing their age, after all, the heyday of burlesque was the 40s through the 60s. Some still look very attractive, most look like someone’s Grandmother, which a lot of them are. All have stories to tell, funny, jaw dropping, outrageous and at times sad and wistful stories about an aspect of American Culture that is all but forgotten.

To start with many of the strippers had husbands and children. As you would expect many were married too many times. The ones with children actually took them on the road and kids sitting in the wings watching Mom do a bump and grind was not unheard of. Alan Alda has some great information to relate, things I had never heard of, and I read a biography of Alda years ago when MASH was a television staple. Alan Alda’s Father, Robert Alda was an actor but before that he was a singer and a straight man in burlesque shows. Deserted by his Mother Alda’s Father took him on the road and he basically grew up in burlesque houses. We learn that, yes, he had dozens of surrogate Mothers more than willing to take care of him, even though they were usually dressed in g-strings and pasties. Alda advises us that by today’s standards this was probably abuse. I don’t know, when I was ten years old I don’t think I would have minded that situation one bit. I don’t think it would leave any more emotional scars than being raised in, say, a nudist resort.

But there was emotional and physical trouble for the women who chose a career in burlesque. Several women were raped. Tempest Storm (still stripping in her 80s, think about that for a while!) says she was gang raped at fourteen and saw burlesque dancing as a way out of grinding rural poverty. Blaze Starr tells pretty much the same story.

We learn that strippers needed a purse big enough for a gun and a bottle. Alcoholism and drugs were as much of a problem for dancers then as now. The story of Lili St. Cyr is especially heartbreaking. Staggeringly beautiful and a class act Lili had trouble with alcohol and became addicted to heroin. She became a recluse after growing old and losing her looks, she attempted suicide 3 times and died broke and alone.

Several dancers talk about “stage door Johnnies” who would shower the women with gifts and constantly try to get close to them. One dancer says she still gets gifts from an admirer (stalker by today’s standards) every Christmas, Birthday and New Year’s Day.

The influence of organized crime is freely talked about, although one stripper admits she will not name any names, to this day. In old movies strippers were often portrayed as arm candy for various hoodlums, apparently that was not far wrong! One dancer says that the mob kept the operations clean and above board, by enforcing the rules about not dating audience members or any other hanky panky. But we also hear from a dancer who dated a mobster, out on the town he told her they had to stop at his house to “take care of some business”. The business involved dragging a dead body out of the house, wrapped in a tarp, and stuffed into the trunk of the gangster’s Cadillac for disposal at a later time. Well, that’s show biz!

Many of the women made their own costumes and a transvestite performer who was really good at fashion made dozens of costumes for the ladies. Which is another aspect of burlesque not generally known, transvestites were often star attractions. It was also not unusual for women to accompany men to shows. Some theaters had midnight shows for ladies only. In fact Alda informs us that in its heyday burlesque was considered family entertainment, many people brought their kids!

Regarding the costumes, the popular image of strippers throwing their clothes out into the audience is sheer fantasy, they were far too expensive. In lots of archival footage we see the women hand off their garments to someone in the wings who was there for exactly that purpose. Many dancers had assistants strictly to help with wardrobe and makeup.

Why did these women get into burlesque dancing if there were risks involved? The oldest story in the book, money! Women in the 30s (especially) and the 40s through the 60s could make a lot more money stripping than they could in a 9 to 5 job, and did not need any special skills like typing or dictation.

And, another old, old story, it gave them pleasure to mock the fantasies and urges of men, that is the very definition of burlesque after all. If any women had reason to laugh at men, the way women have laughed at men for centuries, it was burlesque strippers. Some of them admit, there was a kick to having all eyes in the room riveted on them as they went through their acts, it was easy, it was fun, and they got paid for it! Some of the dancers, in their heyday, were truly drop dead gorgeous. Many were very ordinary looking, but with the makeup, costumes, the colored lighting and the band beating out that bump and grind rhythm, and the booze flowing, magic happened 4 times a day.

A famous story told in Behind the Burly Q, Boston had a notorious and popular burlesque theater. A Father tells his son not to go there or he’ll “see something he shouldn’t!” Of course the boy sneaks in and sees exactly what he shouldn’t, his Father sitting in the front row!

One dancer insists the real attraction to burlesque was the comics, who we are also told were angry, depressed and hateful old men who drank too much and were bitter that they could not make it in show business in any other venue.

We also hear some dreadful comments about the most famous stripper from that era, Gypsy Rose Lee. One dancer insists Gypsy “couldn’t sing, couldn’t dance, had a foul mouth, a homely face and not a very good body!” Yikes! We hear other back biting comments about other dancers like Rose La Rose.

Two of my favorites are never mentioned or seen, Jenny Lee (The Bazoom Girl!) and Virginia (Ding Dong) Belle. Never the less, I loved this documentary. Behind the Burly Q takes a good long look at a part of American Culture that needed the exposure (sorry!) The fact that so many dancers were still around to be captured on film telling their stories is astonishing. At the end credits we get a list of dancers who passed away while the film was being edited.

Behind the Burly Q is informative, funny, sad, wistful, and yes sexy, very sexy at times, and oh so human.

The dvd has great behind the scenes and making of featurettes and a photo gallery, as well as several previews. New footage is color video, sometimes not miked or lit very well. Archive footage is, as you would expect black and white and grainy, all the better for the nostalgia of the whole enterprise.

I’m going over to Mons Venus for the late show, any one care to join me? I’ll buy the first round!

FOYLE’S WAR SET 7 – The DVD Review

Foyle’s War was considered one of the best British mysteries on television, but was cancelled in 2007. Three years passed and three more episodes, known as Foyle’s War Set 7 were filmed and broadcast on PBS’s “Masterpiece Mystery!” The show’s creator Anthony Horowitz has set the show in the town of Hastings, on the south coast of England. World War II may be over but the Cold War simmers. DCS Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen, Out of Africa) has retired from police work when Britain’s secret intelligence service compels him to join its ranks. Reunited with his former colleague, newlywed Sam Wainwright (Honeysuckle Weeks – My Brother Tom), Foyle faces new—but no less deadly—threats in the world of spies and counterintelligence The Foyle’s War series is terrific entertainment that incorporates real historical events into the episodes. Foyle always gets his man (or woman as the case may be) with his clever detective skills. There are many red herrings to throw you off as you watch the series, so pay close attention! This is excellent TV programming and shows that you don’t have to have big stars or action to produce a quality mystery series. This enormously popular, award-winning British series has won critical acclaim and undying viewer loyalty since its premiere on ITV in 2002 and PBS in 2003.

Foyle’s War Set 7 also stars Honeysuckle Weeks and features Ellie Haddington (Life Begins), Tim McMullan (The Woman in Black), Jeremy Swift (Oliver Twist), Rupert Vansittart (Holy Flying Circus), and Daniel Weyman (Great Expectations).

Foyle’s War Set 7 will be released on Blu-ray and DVD September 24th.

Foyle’s War Set 7 consists of three mysteries:

The Eternity Ring—Returning from America, Foyle gets drawn into an MI5 investigation of a Russian spy ring in which Sam, his former driver, has been implicated.

The Cage—Foyle’s inquiry into the deaths of several Russian defectors leads him to a mysterious military facility.

Sunflower—Foyle is charged with looking into assassination attempts against an ex-Nazi defector under MI5’s protection.

The New York Times calls Foyle’s War Set 7 “Like a gift from the gods”

The Wall Street Journal raves ( Foyle’s War Set 7 is) “A triumph from start to finish”

Foyle’s War Set 7 contains nearly two hours of bonus features:

Sets 1-6 recap (6 min.)

Featurettes: 4 behind-the-scenes featurettes that run a total of 86 minute

Introductions by writer & creator Anthony Horowitz that run 15 minutes.

Photo gallery

Foyle’s War Set 7 can be pre-ordered HERE

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/foyle-s-war-set-7?store=allproducts&keyword=foyle%27s+war+set+7

Check out the trailer for Foyle’s War Set 7:

THEY WILL OUTLIVE US ALL – The DVD Review

Review by Dane Marti

In our zany age, apocalyptic weather conditions pop up around the world in a plethora of evil metrological events. Quite often, they leave behind massive casualties, twisted metal and devastated, stunned humans. Since people also live in a paranoid world in which terrorism and crime are ubiquitous, a good horror film can often use modern existence to highlight a story.

They Will Outlive Us All takes place almost entirely in a Brooklyn building…a seedy structure similar to places that this reviewer has lived in. The edifice itself is one of the preeminent elements in the film, reminiscent of the kind of buildings found in, say, a Roman Polanski film. It deserves an Oscar. Or a Condemned sign….

Taking place in 2016, Margot and Daniel live a simple life…a contemplative life. Are they lovers? Does it matter? They know what the fundamentally essential things in life are: Drinking, smoking pot and watching horror films. What could be more important, I ask you? They are both likable in a slightly dorky, bohemian way that (although I am now 50—Damn! —I tend to remember this age and lifestyle quite well. Ha. ).

Wow, the weather outside their building is dire and getting worse. In the flick, the metropolitan area has been blasted with a succession of ‘Frankenstorms.’ While dangerous, the name also implies other subtle, sinister things… Spooky scientific, chemically abnormal anomalies have been brought into nature, bad things contained within the inclement weather. Hell, the economy of 2016 doesn’t look like it’s improved much either. Damn.

At first the couple tries to ignore the big picture outside their fortress and just ‘do their thing,’ but…now strange things are beginning to occur within their dilapidated structure. Bizarre things…inexplicably grotesque things! A dude down the hallway has died in his dwelling, the authorities leaving behind yellow crime tape plastered over every nook and cranny, especially his bathroom door! How will our beleaguered couple withstand this new onslaught? Well, probably a lot better than I probably would have! Actually, I remember situations very similar to some of the films opening scenes; this adds element verisimilitude to the overall movies’ set up.

Reading the back of the DVD box, I wasn’t sure how much this film would work, or if it would simply fall into the ever-growing massive bucket of low budget horror films worth watching once before tossing into a vat of lava.

However, the movie is actually a blast. Much of the storyline is restrained, overflowing with black humor, Hitchcockian Point of View shots and subtle, sick fun. Although there are definitely horror and shocks, the film is also quite witty.

To me, the best element of the movie is the dialogue. Obviously this is an independent film with budgetary limitations; this not a hindrance, but a wonderful example of ‘less is more.’ The flick lets the viewer bring into play his/her imagination.

Without the two main leads, both likable and believable, the movie would not perform. For that reason, this is a horror film that deals less with the special effects and makeup (although they are cool) and more on the interaction between the couple. Actor Nat Cassidy is a lot of fun, performing a thin tightrope between funny and fearful

Director Patrick Shearer has a deft handle on keeping the story together with style and finesse; he is a man who knows the creepy inner workings of mature apartment bathrooms. The camerawork becomes another character, involving the viewer into the movie’s wet, oozing, nightmarish, creepy world.
As producer, writer and co-star (A Renaissance Woman!), Jessi Gotta is perfect as the heroine, a cute, fiery woman; there is nothing glamorous or unrealistic about her character. She is believable in the role: Her character, Margot, is a fighter one moment, later confused and vulnerable when the going gets tough. Even as the story goes happily haywire, Ms. Gotta still pulls back and brings realism and humanity to her scenes.

NOVOCAINE – The DVD Review

Review by Sam Moffitt

In the realm of bad movies every movie geek has their favorites. I read with interest Tom Stockman’s musings on The Room, a bad movie masterpiece I have yet to see, it’s in my Netflix queue though!

Bad movies have their place in any movie geeks library. Movie watching parties can be so much fun if the movies picked are from the resumes of directors like Ed Wood, Phil Tucker, or Herschell Gordon Lewis. Laughing along with movies like this can be such a joy. The crew at Mystery Science Theatre made careers out of laughing at bad movies. Low budget crap made by amateur or semiprofessional film makers is so easy to love.

But what are we to make of a movie made by main stream, A-list Hollywood professionals, made by people with really good movies in their career, which is damn near unwatchable?

A wiser person than me once said that it takes a lot of talent, money, energy and dedication to make a really bad movie. In anything that I review for We Are Movie Geeks I look for the best, try to see the good, to see what works in any movie I watch and then review. I’m not here to slam movies, especially if they contain one once of creativity or originality, just one bit of business that lifts it out of the ordinary.

That’s why it actually pains me to say, in more ways than one, that watching Novocaine is a supremely painful, grueling experience. This is not a movie that is so bad it’s good, it’s so bad it’s hard, actually painful to watch. As painful, as well, a trip to the dentist!

Let me say first out of the gate, I like Steve Martin, hell I love Steve Martin. He hosted some of the best episodes of early Saturday Night Live. I was not a big fan of The Jerk but I loved The Man With Two Brains. I happen to think that he and John Candy, in Planes, Trains and Automobiles hit one out of the ball park and reached the dizzy heights of a Laurel and Hardy or a Charlie Chaplin film, a true classic. I honestly believe Pennies From Heaven is a masterpiece.

But Novocaine stinks on ice. Martin is also famous for playing a truly funny dentist, in Little Shop of Horrors. Novocaine is supposed to be a comedy, it is labeled as a “dark comedy”. Oh it’s dark alright, but comparing it to any of Martin’s really funny work is almost blasphemous.

There is really nothing funny about going to the dentist in the first place. I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind admitting they enjoy going to the dentist. That’s why Martin’s character in Little Shop of Horrors is so over the top funny, a singing dentist who openly admits he is a sadist.

In Novocaine Martin is a genuine dental professional, in his voice over he tells us that he has a “perfect” life, a good practice, engaged to Laura Dern, the most wonderful woman in the world. And you just know that is all going to change.

Helena Bonham Carter comes into his office as a new patient, runs a scam on him to get narcotics and then it is all downhill from there. Before it’s over he will be accused of murder, lose his practice and pull all of his own teeth (I don’t usually give out spoilers but the reason for him doing this is so insane and complicated it really doesn’t matter.) Oh what the hell, bite marks are a major part of the investigation and evidence against Martin’s dentist. In fact bite marks in murder investigations was the inspiration for making the movie according to the director/writer David Atkins. Sound like the basis for a rollicking good comedy?

And that’s it, that is the whole movie, now you don’t have to bother seeing it. I picked Novocaine up at a library here in St. Petersburg. My fiancé, Radah and I watched it on a date night. I thought any movie with Steve Martin, clearly labeled a comedy, would have some laughs in it. Shows how wrong I can be. We watched Novocaine start to finish and never laughed one time. Radah accuses me regularly of laughing too much at some comedies. Anything with Will Ferrell or Kristin Wiig sends me into hysterics. I wish we had watched one of their movies instead of Novocaine.

The main problem, the movie runs along the lines of a thriller, innocent man makes one wrong move and ends up accused of murder and running for his life. It might have worked as a straight up thriller with Richard Gere or Tom Cruise in the lead. With Martin in the lead this movie is so wrong I don’t know where to begin to describe the sheer unadulterated wrongness of it.

Start with no humor in a so called comedy, that’s enough right there. But every bit of the plot is so cliché, I called every plot twist two or three minutes before the movie did. We are asked to believe that Martin’s character, engaged to Laura Dern, (Laura Dern mind you !) would risk everything by getting involved with Helena Bonham Carter, one of the few actresses working today that is just not very attractive, to me anyway. Does she look weird to you? She does to me, and in this movie she appears particularly skanky ( to be fair the role requires it,) which still makes Martin’s behavior all the more ridiculous. Any man with any knowledge of hygiene would be reluctant to shake hands with this woman much less go to bed with her. Their love scenes really are not pleasant, not a pretty sight, I’m so sorry to report.

And then comes that ending with Martin pulling all of his own teeth! Years ago Dan Rowan and Dick Martin were in a movie, a few years before they hit it big on Laugh-In, called Once Upon a Horse, a really lame western comedy. I remember seeing it on St. Louis television and being appalled at one gag they did. For some reason they discover they can make money selling teeth to a dentist, I think in order for dentures to be made. They get a pair of pliers and corner an old man and pull all of his teeth out to sell to this dentist. Does that sound funny to you? It’s not, trust me it is not funny at all, it is horrifying, in their movie and in this miserable concoction called Novocaine.

The really sad part of it is, there are extras on the dvd, the usual making of featurettes, deleted scenes and previews. In the making of feature all concerned parties give out with the usual talk about how much they loved the script, how original and fresh it was and how they had to make this movie, loved working with each other and they actually sound proud of what they accomplished. For once these kinds of comments from professional actors sound really phony and hollow, well, more phony than they usually do.

Well, I have to go, I have an appointment to see my chiropractor, and I am really looking forward to it.

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