The Cinema Was My Babysitter

When I was a young boy, around 7 or 8 years old, my mom would take my older brother and sister and me to the theater in Chicago and drop us off around 1 PM and pick us back up at closing time, sometime after dark. It was a little theater called The Lyric and was in the small Chicago suburb of Blue Island.

That was in the mid-Sixties, around 1966 and 1967. Back then, you could purchase a ticket for 75 cents and stay all day. Usually they had two, sometimes three features that would show over and over again, all day long. I have very fond memories of hanging out and watching the movies again and again until closing time. My brother and sister and I would then hang out under the street lamp until my mom picked us up. As she told us later, it was a cheap babysitter. All we needed was money for admission, and money for popcorn, soda pop and jujubes.

I saw many movies back then, and I loved it. It no doubt made a great impression upon me, the extent of which I did not realize until much later in life when I struggled to make my own ultra, ultra, microscopic-budgeted movies. As that young child, after having gorged myself on popcorn, soda pop, Clark bars and jujubes, I would daydream about the movies I had seen, imagining myself as the hero. The following days I would corral my friends and I would have them reenact the movies with me, at my instructions. I would “direct” them, so to speak. Of course, I was always the hero, and my friends were always my sidekicks and supporting actors, or even the bad guys. You have to have bad guys too to make a movie, right? Or as Nietzsche said, “Ye moralists be a little less severe – we monsters are necessary to nature also.”

I’m not sure how I was allowed to see many of the movies I did at that age, but I was. The most memorable were the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, such as Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. I went home, cut a hole in the center of a towel and draped it over my shoulders, using it as a poncho like the one Clint Eastwood wore. I chewed on pencil stubs for a cigar, as I fanned my plastic, Mattel .45 caliber revolver in front of the mirror. No wonder my screenplays are so full of violence and gunplay.

I absolutely loved seeing Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde over and over again, until I had most of the lines memorized. My toy guns went with me everywhere after that, as well as my newly purchased fedora, and the suit I normally wore to church on Easter Sunday. I was instantly transformed into the Texas desperado, Clyde Barrow. The cute little blond 6-year old down the street, newly arrived on our street from Oklahoma, became my very own Bonnie Parker, and her older brother became Buck Barrow, as I orchestrated many imaginary bank robberies.

Other movies I remember making an impression upon me at The Lyric were The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Lost Continent and Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Others were the Elvis Presley movies: Spinout, Frankie and Johnny and Clambake, to name but a few.

My mom told me a story once of a mother she knew in the 1940’s who forbade her children to go to the movies. Her young, teenage sons received severe beatings if they were found out to have seen a movie at the theater, where they would often sneak into with their girlfriends. According to the mother, the movies were the product of the devil, what with all the kissing, dancing, violence and sinful ways. Then in the mid-fifties this same woman bought one of those newfangled televisions, which would miraculously beam movies directly into your living room! She would sit for hours and laugh and be entertained as she watched the very same movies she had beaten her children for watching 10 years earlier. I still wonder to this day if her sons forgave her for all the beatings they received for watching movies!

All of those movies I remember seeing in Chicago were all exciting fodder for a child such as I growing up in the psychedelic, turbulent Sixties. What a great babysitter that celluloid screen was, as I sat and stared with rapt attention. Thanks, Mom!

Avatar Rocks the House!

Avatar… n. [Skt avatarah descent fr. Avatarati he descends fr. Ava – away tarati he crosses over….] (1784) 1 : the incarnation of a Hindu deity (as Vishnu) 2 a : an incarnation in human form b : an embodiment (as of a concept or philosophy) often in a person 3 : a variant phrase or version of a continuing basic entity 4 : an electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user (as in a computer game or an online shopping site)
[From Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition]

I saw James Cameron's Avatar a few days ago. It has breathtaking special effects, and is a pretty good story. I thought it had a brief slow period in the middle, and almost got just a little too Disney, based on the amount of time his avatar spent orienting to the native way of life. I suppose it was necessary for the story development. However, the climactic ending is superb! Disney on steroids! It will probably be the first movie to gross over a billion dollars. It is an absolute must-see. Be sure and see it in XD 3D. It is very, very cool.

Avatar is a spectacular movie, a great achievement for James Cameron, and a milestone in movie making. All the hype is for real and well-deserved. The XD 3D version comes so close to actually putting the viewer in the jungle with the characters. I wonder if the next innovation will be infusing the theater with the aroma of the jungle, so that the viewer smells the flora; or infusing the theater with the humidity of the jungle, so that the viewer feels the atmosphere. Who knows? I'll stand in line to buy a ticket for that milestone, too.

Avatar is a beautiful movie: part science fiction, part action-drama and part love story. James Cameron, the man who has been called “the scariest man in Hollywood," has once again set the bar very high for other filmmakers. I know I will have to go see Avatar again, in the same way a poem should be read twice.

He Liked His Beer, He Liked His Pot and He Liked His Acid

He liked his beer, he liked his pot and he liked his acid. “Oh, hell yeah, are you kidding, in my college days, I absolutely enjoyed acid,” he says. “I was a trippy guy already, and roaming around the universe of your brain at light speed – that’s a lot of fun. But ultimately I don’t think it’s very creative, because it’s not like you can create while you’re tripping. You can’t do shit.”
James Cameron
Rolling Stone Magazine
December 2009
Profile by Erik Hedegaard

So now we know... the director of the highest grossing movie of all time (Titanic) tripped on acid in his college years, per Rolling Stone. Who'd a thunk it? Of course, most kids were tripping on acid those days. The article also stated he "...has never shot a Hollywood movie that did not make money, spending more than $500 million in the process but returning a gross of $3 billion...." Wow, pretty good for a geeky acidhead.

I don't know about you folks, but I'm really looking forward to seeing Avatar, sans acid, of course - I'll just have to settle for 3-D. Usually a PG-13 rating is a turnoff for me (I prefer a strong R rating), but I'll give this one a chance just to see the new innovations and to see what $230 million dollars can do.

The article in Rolling Stone also mentions that while filming The Abyss, Cameron "...ran his production in such a way that Ed Harris burst into tears," and that "On one shoot, crew members wore T-shirts that said YOU EITHER SHOOT IT MY WAY OR YOU DO ANOTHER FUCKING MOVIE."

There is an old saying, "In order to make an omelette, you have to break some eggs." It sounds like if you work for James Cameron, you better bring your A-game, and have very thick skin.

The profile on James Cameron in this month's Rolling Stone is a good one. I recommend it. Rolling Stone is a great magazine, and revered text in my household.

Poets and Madmen: Filmmaker Quotes I Can Relate To

Making a movie can be a daunting task, even if you have a lot of money; something I've always had very little of when making my movies. I've been lucky to even have a few grips to help me tote the equipment from the grip truck, or more often the trunk of my car. I couldn't imagine making a movie and actually having the luxury of even a crew! For me, it's always been lean and mean, on the cheap, with plenty of people sniggering from the sidelines. Each time I tell myself the next one will be better and easier. Better? Maybe... easier... I doubt it.

Which brings me to the quotes by filmmakers I have gleaned from various publications. I've ran across some clever statements by movie makers. Some are quite amusing, others are very inspiring. The following are some I just put together on the spur of the moment. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

"I've always used a sporting analogy to describe [making movies]. You're a runner and you're just about to run the big race, and they come in and beat the fucking shit out of you and then they say, 'Okay, go win the race.' You get the shit beat out of you right before you're supposed to go perform your best. And it happens most of the time. 'We have our bets on you, never mind we just broke your fucking legs.' But it wouldn't be making a movie if it were easy. It should be a struggle. Otherwise, you're coasting."
Tim Burton, Director
Esquire Magazine, January 2008

“Tell your friend he’s getting fucked in the ass, and if he would stop squirming it wouldn’t hurt so much.”
James Cameron
(A message he once told a Fox producer to deliver to an executive at the studio)
New Yorker Magazine
October 2009

“I want you to know one thing—once we embark on this adventure and I start to make this movie, the only way you’ll be able to stop me is to kill me.”
James Cameron
(to Leonard Goldberg, then the president of Fox, on the movie, The Abyss)
New Yorker Magazine
October 2009

The worst thing that can happen to a filmmaker is to have doubt. Filmmakers need to feel the wind behind them. You have to be a pirate ship captain. Filmmaking is like hitting different ports. We don’t belong to any flag. And you need confidence to do that.
Oliver Stone
Movieline Magazine
Interview by Lawrence Grobel
November 1997

Loglines, Snickers Bars & Insomnia

Wow, what am I doing up at 12:51 AM on a Monday morning? Thinking about movies and munchies. I just raided my emergency backpack with three days worth of survival supplies and hobo gear stuffed inside. I've almost eaten a 11.50 oz. bag of mini-Snickers bars by myself! I have no shame! (Yes, didn't you know... Snickers candy bars are survival food.) Oh well, I needed to cycle the food anyway, and I don't expect the apocalypse to happen anytime soon. So, how about some loglines? Some synopses? Just don't steal my chit, man!

Joey & Jeffie - A romantic crime drama based on the life of NY mobster Joey (Crazy Joe) Gallo, as seen through the eyes of his Creole, showgirl wife, Jeffie Lee. Adapted from the biography, Joey, by former NY Times editor, Donald Goddard.

Having My Baby - An action drama about a fundamentalist Christian who kidnaps an agnostic law student from the abortion clinic parking lot and takes her to the mountains to force her to have his baby as they are pursued by the FBI and National Guard. (Film premiered August 2009 in Dallas. See www.havingmybabymovie.com.)

Blood is Thicker - An action drama about a young man who inherits some land in a small Texas town that is being terrorized by a corrupt sheriff and drug dealing white supremacists.

Dead or in Huntsville - A biker soap opera about an ex-biker who marries a yuppie and tries to go straight. His plans go astray when an old biker buddy shows up needing a place to crash. (Days of Our Lives meets Hell’s Angels on Wheels.)

Junkyard Dog - A near future, science fiction, noirish story about a baby that is abandoned in a Los Angeles junkyard by illegal immigrants and is raised by urban coyotes. The baby grows up to become a vigilante crime fighter with a souped-up hybrid car, who is bent on rubbing out all the Los Angeles criminals and corrupt politicians.

Hillbilly Karma - Hillbillies and hallucinogens, rednecks and raunch... a young aspiring writer in rural Texas tries to escape the birth/death wheel of samsara and the karma of his family dysfunction.

Warboots - A young poet finds himself sharing living quarters with a Vietnam veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and a paranoid schizophrenic rock and roll guitarist who thinks he lives on Mars.

That's it... I've got more where that came from. Oodles and oodles of story concepts and loglines. Brimming with ideas. Jonesing to write another script. Chomping at the bit... reeling out cliches like a hack writer on nose candy. Nothing can stop me now! Yawn....

Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Movie Producer

I have a story concept for an over-the-top exploitation film. I have a friend with around 300 acres in the boonies of Parker County, Texas I could film on. I was going to have my art director build a small village with grass huts, etc., and have a bunch of topless Mexican chicks in grass skirts and a bunch of Mexican vatos in loin clothes portraying cannibalistic natives.

The story line is a film crew arrives in the jungles of a fictional South American country to begin filming a soft-core porno movie in the jungles. They get lost in the jungle and attacked by a cannibalistic tribe and have to outwit them and escape from them. The movie will have lots of bullets and lots of babes. The director is a dictatorial asshole. The female star is a preening primadonna. The male star is a handsome, ex-Marine who drinks a fifth of vodka a day and is going to seed. The production assistant is an innocent farm girl from Kansas. The star's bodyguard is a bone-crunching, karate slinging bull dyke to die for. Throw in some missing shipments of gold, some drug lords, federales, rebel armies, rich gringos from Hollywood hiring ninjas dropping out of trees.

Shoot it all guerrilla style, with digital equipment, natural lights, limited makeup, baloney sandwiches and daily stipends and/or points, all pp shot within a two week period with one day off in between. Balls to the wall, seat of the pants, do or die, fuck all, shoestring budget.

Any takers?

[I got the idea for this after watching the 70's German independent film, Man From Deep River.]