I wrote the attached for Trailers From Hell, but perhaps it may catch a few more readers here.

http://trailersfromhell.com/blog/2011/10/04/from-brians-desk-beware-the-ides-of-march/

 I am curious to see if anyone still tunes in here. So I am linking to my Trailers From Hell piece on Cinerama. Please comment here if you read it. Thanks.

http://trailersfromhell.com/blog/2011/08/07/week-206-cinerama-week-with-bts/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=week-206-cinerama-week-with-bts

EXTERIOR. CHIAPAS JUNGLE - DAY
An episodic film crew makes the final preparations for a complicated shot. Dolly track has been laid to converge on a tree with sprawling roots. The Director looks at his watch. The Guest Star Who Has Seen It All watches nearby with bemused interest.
The Director looks at his watch again, as if willing the minute hand to stop, and if possible go backwards.
Fluff and Buff, the hair and make-up artists, dab sweat from the brow of the Actor, standing at the base of the tree. Given that the temperature is over 100 degrees, this is a noble but futile effort.

DIRECTOR
Don’t worry about the sweat, he’s meant to look scared.
ACTOR
I am scared.

DIRECTOR
Don’t worry. This is totally safe. Nothing is going to go wrong.

The source of the Actor’s anxiety arrives on the set, his partner in the scene, a male with dangling testicles the size of grapefruit.

Sudan, a large African movie lion, is led out of the bushes on a chain by two Trainers. Two other Trainers follow, carrying short poles. As the Trainers tether the lion to a spike embedded beside the far end of the dolly track, Sudan yawns, and licks his lips to cool them.
ACTOR
Has he been fed today?
TRAINER
If we feed him, he won’t work.

GUEST STAR
I’ve brought an apple for him.
Humor is no comfort.

Everything is in place for the take. The Trainers have been positioned out of shot to protect both the Actor and camera crew, should the lion stray from his designated path. The collar round Sudan’s neck is concealed beneath his shaggy mane, and the trailing leash masked by his body. The Actor has practiced limping backwards while swinging a burning firebrand to deter the advancing beast. The dolly grip and operator have rehearsed the camera move that will keep the lion on screen right with his retreating victim on screen left. It’s a travelling geography shot that will add tension when intercut with compatible dolly shots on the faces of the lion and the Actor. The Director wants the audience to see the lion and the Actor in the same shot; not a static shot, which could be achieved by the elements being photographed separately with a locked-off camera, then fused in the lab, with the vertical split disguised by a tree trunk in the close background. This would spare the Actor any proximity to the King of Beasts. No. The Director wants a Movie Shot, not a get-it-done-move-on episodic approach, but a sense that the camera is almost mounted on the flank of the lion as it slowly closes in on its prey. The Trainer warms up the lion…to get him used to the firebrand.

The time for this glorious cinematic moment has arrived. The Director instructs the Actor.
DIRECTOR
So, on action: slowly hobble back,
wave the firebrand, shout at it to
back off…feel free to improv…
ACTOR
Back off, you fucker..?

DIRECTOR
Something like that, but without the
fucker…Here we go, roll camera.
The Prop master lights the firebrand again. The 1ST AD calls for turnover in Spanish.
The crew, a well oiled machine, commence their respective duties. The Chief Trainer calls commands to the lion.
TRAINER
Sudan! Go! Slow Sudan!
Slow! Good Sudan! Good!
The Director hovers beside the camera, which keeps pace with the ambling lion. Sudan is fascinated by the firebrand, and reacts to its movements. The Actor is In The Moment! Everything is working perfectly.

At this point the TRANSPORTATION CAPTAIN arrives on set to watch the shot. The 1st AD sees him, and a long simmering feud chooses this moment to erupt.
1st AD (curtly)
No ha puesto el camiones en
donde le dije.
TRANSPORTATION CAPTAIN
Cree que es el jefe? Yo soy
el capitan de transporte!
Los camiones parquean en
donde digo yo!
The Director turns.
DIRECTOR
Guys! Sshh!
They neither see or hear him. They are in a world of rising steam.
1st AD
Stupido!
Whoa! Bad word in Mexico. Serious escalation. The tension-meter on the set spikes. Hungry lion, anxious actor handling fire, two departments inching towards civil war, complex dolly shot, etc. It’s understandable. But the net effect of the expanding angst is to push the Actor into the truth zone. It’s a great performance, swinging from fear to rage and back again. Meanwhile, the other drama continues.
TRANSPORTATION CAPTAIN
Chinga tu madre!
1stAD
Chinga su madre!
Oh, boy! Now we’ve gone to Def Con 4. After soiling each other’s mothers, there is only one stage the conflict can move to…The Slap.
The Transportation Captain slaps the 1st AD’s face, not to inflict physical pain, more of a formal gesture, a challenge.
Some men go red with anger. The 1st AD’s complexion goes pasty white. His eyes blaze. Detonation is imminent. Luckily members of both departments seize the potential combatants and hustle them to separate corners of the jungle.
The Lion sits down at the end of its leash, awaiting reward. The Actor has started to enjoy himself. Lions? Ha, they’re pussies. Bring it on…

The Director calls for take 2. There’s no producer on the set to stop him.
As you have doubtless guessed by now, this is not another of those whimsical screenplay scenes that crawled out of my id, this actually happened. In 1991. The Actor was Canada’s great Chuck Shamata, whom I have cast in two movies since. The Guest Star was former Tarzan Ron Ely. The Lion Trainers were the incomparable Boone Narr and Hubert Wells, and the Director obsessed with getting a tie-in shot was yours truly.
So the purpose of this story is the issue of conflict resolution. Every movie mixes good intentions under pressure with powerful egos. There Will Be Blood, if you do not head these situations off at the pass. I had ample warning that the clash of personalities was gathering momentum, but chose to ignore it. Naturally Murphy’s Law applied, at the most precarious moment. So I have learned over the years to develop an ear for seismic pre-shocks, and use diplomacy, humor, bribery, alcohol, whatever it takes to help the parties see each other’s virtues.
Too often crews work in an atmosphere of politics, blame and fear. No one gives their best under those circumstances. Part of a director’s job is to set the tone in the workplace, encourage communication, and make everybody’s hard work FUN.

Soon it was Ron Ely’s turn to have fun. Sudan had him tree’d, and wanted more than an apple.

Paris in July.

Heaven on a stick. Actually I am referring to the main course of my first night’s dinner. I was so impressed I had to photograph it. Vegans, please avert your eyes.

Wherever I go, arresting images tend to trigger scene concepts. The hanging skewer of shashlick could be the sharp handy weapon the unarmed assassin plans to be served near his victim, and so on.  I know, I’m a sick puppy…

Paris Cinema Festival staged a midnight to dawn Ozploitation section, programmed by Festival director Aude Hesbert, and I was brought in to do the introductions, kicking off with DEAD END DRIVE IN presented in the original Australian patois with French subtitles.

Trivia footnote: When we sold the film to New World Pictures, they wanted to dub Aussie accents and slang into ” American” as had been done to MAD MAX. ( I saw it once. Horrible.)  I believe an “American” version of DEDI was prepared, then abandoned, when we resisted so vociferously. Does it sit forgotten in a vault gathering dust? I have a little masochistic curiosity. For those interested in contrasting advertising approaches,  here first is a rarely seen Australian TV spot for the film’s 1986 release.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLPSHIfVyZw

Now, here is the New World Pictures trailer for the US release.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkR9Ny_FLYQ

The theater was 4 seats short of full, the audience was patient as I mangled their language, they totally got the movie and 80% stayed for the 4 am TURKEY SHOOT. The stamina of French cinephiles is legendary.

Then, on to the Czech Republic and the Karlovy Vary Festival, where a chauffeur driven Audi speeds you to screenings down narrow streets that resemble rows of wedding cakes.

A selection of Ozploitation classics, programmed by Karel Och, and accompanied by Mark Hartley’s NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD, were playing through the week.

Producer and old friend Richard Brennan (LONG WEEKEND)  joined me for introductions and interviews.

On our second night, we were dinner guests of another old friend,  legendary Australian critic and author David Stratton, who was on the Festival Jury. David has been a tireless supporter of the Australian film industry for 40 years. He ran the 1973 Sydney Film Festival where my first film THE STUNTMEN won Best Documentary. Richard Brennan produced over 26 movies, including exec-producing my DEATHCHEATERS. There was much discussion of the current state of Australian film. The quality and success of ANIMAL KINGDOM is certainly encouraging. Which reminds me, I ordered my first ever plate of roast goose, succulent with a guilty residue. No problem eating duck,  Donald notwithstanding. Perhaps it’s Mother Goose that gives me a twinge…

I had to leave early to introduce THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, virtually unseen in the Czech Republic, now graced with Czech subtitles. So gratifying  to watch 1000 young Czechs enjoying the action and getting the satire. ( The Australian DVD is the fullest version for those that don’t know the film)

Between  Ozploitation duties, I had time to see a number of movies. Here’s four I particularly enjoyed:

I knew nothing about LA DOPPIA ORA ( The Double Hour)  before the screening started and that’s the best way to see this Italian romantic paranormal thriller. Suffice to say, I had the rare experience of not knowing what was going to happen next from the first 10 minutes to the end. Yet at each new surprise, each Ah-Huh moment, I never felt cheated by the writer. It’s a fantastic script,  directed with style and a very sure hand, that started a bidding war for English language remake rights after the star Ksenyia Rappoport won Best Actress at Venice earlier in the year. It’s a great date movie, but don’t let anyone tell you a thing before it starts. Here’s the unsubtitled Italian trailer, which manages to sell without spoiling the twists.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCHKpb4BTfI

SOUND OF NOISE is a delightful Swedish comedy about musical terrorists.

They adore rhythm, and abhor musical instruments. Their ideology is free form drumming using everyday objects.

Their agenda is to disrupt public areas, a bank, a hospital, etc. and stage brief anarchic concerts before the police arrive. They are pursued by a tone deaf detective, who hates music, to the disappointment of his family of musical prodigies. The climax, when the musical anarchists use the city’s electrical grid as their instrument is hilarious. ( But don’t try this at home!) If the concept sounds very esoteric, it’s not.  SOUND OF NOISE is easy to grasp, charming, whimsical, and frequently laugh out loud funny.

I think it deserves to be Sweden’s contender for this year’s Best Foreign Language Oscar.  Co-directors Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjarne Nilsson have a comedic flair that transcends cultural borders, judging by the response of the Czech audience, and their movie could do well in the US with the right handling. At the Q & A,  Simonsson and Nilsson revealed that their inspiration was a short film they had made 6 years earlier.  So here it is. ” Music For One Apartment And Six Drummers”.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVPVbc8LgP4

Terrorism Comedy would be a pretty sparse sub-genre, you might think, but there was another example screening at the Festival after its highly successful run in British cinemas.

FOUR LIONS is probably the most confronting black comedy I have ever seen.

It depicts a group of home grown Brit Muslim extremists, even less skilled with explosives than The 3 Stooges. Incendiary satirist Chris Morris ( TV’s THE THICK OF IT) walks the razor’s edge with his feature debut, but he keeps it pitch perfect throughout, with an unexpected coda of political criticism that lifts the film to another level. I would have laughed even more if guffaws from the Czech audience, aided by Czech subtitles, did not make the Bradford/Pakistani accents of the gang even harder for me to decipher.  An English subtitled version is being prepared for US release, I hope.  I’ll let this magazine piece from a Brit TV program fill you in on the issues. Personally, I think it’s one of the most important political films of the decade.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnkTXfRaouU

Another pitch perfect comedy of a different genre is TUCKER AND DALE VS.  EVIL.  

I’ve done a few horror comedies, so I know how hard it is to achieve the right tone on the short schedules these things are given. So a tip of the hat to first time director  Eli Craig  for grounding the satire in well developed characters, ( Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine have great chemistry as the luckless rednecks) then going on to affectionately trash every Friday The Thirteenth/Serial Killer in the Woods cliche we have known and loved over the last quarter century. But not in predictable ways.  This is a very clever piece of work.

Undoubtedly Eli Craig is headed for bigger opportunities. Good luck. Here’s the trailer.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx0GaB2EHUs

So back to Los Angeles just in time for the opening weekend of INCEPTION. Wow! Just shows you, it is possible for a high octane movie to feed the mind as well as the senses.

Between July 5th - 9th I will be a guest of the Karlovy Vary International Festival, one of the oldest festivals in the world. It will be an honor and a pleasure to spend a few days in this beautiful city.

It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370. It is famous not only for its film festival but also for its hot springs, where I intend to wallow between commitments.

The reason for my invitation: this year the festival’s line up includes a section on Ozploitation (Australian genre cinema of the 70’s and 80’s) prompted by Mark Hartley’s hugely entertaining rockumentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD.

I’ll be joined by producer Richard Brennan,who will present his LONG WEEKEND, a notable suspense mystery that has developed a strong fanbase since its release in 1977. I made the original trailer. Here it is:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZw0AskTOww

In addition to hosting screenings of  THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, DEAD END DRIVE IN, and TURKEY SHOOT, I plan to see as many new Czech films as possible. Czech films past and present are a gap in my education.

The first Czech movie I ever saw was Jiří Menzel’s CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS ( Ostře sledované vlaky ) at a small Sydney arthouse theater in 1967. Foreign language films were even scarcer in Australia of those days than England. But the Academy Award For Best Foreign Film guaranteed its release down under. It’s a masterpiece of human observation that gets better with repeat viewing.

Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, followed by post-World War Two Soviet imposed repressive government, had bottled up Czech artistic expression,  but in the early sixties the cork popped, and the Czech New Wave was born.

These movies were low key, small scale stories told with wry affection about ordinary folk, like the wartime hero of TRAINS, a bumbling railway dispatcher’s apprentice desperate to lose his virginity. Predictably the 1967 US advertising campaign concentrated solely on the sex comedy aspects.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Igc0Jp62kEg

But critics did discern the subtext: that the train station was a metaphor for Czechoslovakia itself, a small pleasure loving country, often occupied and tormented by neighborhood bullies and toxic geo-politics, but a country that will bite back when pushed too far.

The Czech New Wave allowed avant-garde directors like Věra Chytilová to expand the boundaries of free form film making. She is considered one of the greatest female Czech filmmakers.

She is best known for Sedmikrásky (Daisies)  which follows two young girls, both named Marie, played by Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová, who engage in bizarre pranks and acts of rebellion against the world in which they live.

Chytilová underscores this rebellion by breaking every formal rule in the film grammar lexicon, and thereby creates a surreal cinematic language of her own.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WVSYwVKmVs

Naturally it was banned by the Czechoslovakian government of the day. Lucky not to suffer the same fate was Valerie and Her Week of Wonders ( Valerie a týden divů) directed by Jaromil Jireš in 1970, perhaps because it was based on a well regarded 1935  novel.

The then 13-year-old Jaroslava Schallerová ( later a popular actress throughout the 70’s) starred as Valerie, who is dealing with the onset of menstruation and the sexual awakening. The town of Slavonice provided the early 19th century settings. In full Gothic style Jaromil Jireš portrays the heroine as living in a disorienting dream, seduced by priests, vampires, men and women alike.

I have not seen it, but this trailer makes me want to.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPyPEraG74c

The most famous Czech film director to make a career in Hollywood is Miloš Forman.

The movie that got the world’s attention was his 1967  The Firemen’s Ball (Hoří, má panenko).

It is set at the annual ball of a small town’s volunteer fire department, and the plot consists of a collection of anecdotes told within that setting. The film uses no actors - the firemen portrayed are the firemen of the small town where it is set. I’ll let this erudite young reviewer give you an evaluation:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO1RRIo-4LE

Forman has always maintained that the film has no “hidden symbols or double meanings”. However, the Czechoslovak head of state as well as the censors of the time viewed it as a political allegory. The national fire department resigned in token protest.  The Firemen’s Ball ran for three weeks during the Dubcek era, but after the 1968 Soviet invasion and  crackdown, the film was “banned forever”. Now it lives forever as a deadpan comedy, and to quote critic J. Hoberman, “darkened by an unwaveringly clear-eyed view of human stupidity and deception.” Perhaps one of the unique aspects of the Czech New Wave is its sense of the absurd, a reaction to the corrupt, inept, Stalinoid bureaucracy under which Czechs lived. Here is a masterful, painfully funny sequence - the beauty contest auditions:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOcc9M8LB1A

Forman’s subsequent Hollywood career includes ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, which won five Academy Awards including one for direction, AMADEUS, which won eight Academy Awards, and THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT, for which he received a Best Director Academy Award Nomination and a Golden Globe win.  But I have a particular regard for two of his less successful Hollywood films.

His first, made in 1971, was TAKING OFF. It’s a comedy of inter-generational conflict resulting in parents rediscovering their youth.

Once again Forman’s skills at human observation result in many sequences of deadpan hilarity. I defy you not to want to see the film after watching this clip.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rcfkxr3amA

I have seen HAIR several times, and will continue to revisit it in the company of first timers. I never cared much for the stage musical, but Forman’s vision of Late Sixties America resonates with me, recalling my 3 months of greyhound bus touring through most states of the Union in 1968.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3qHfnJiqK4

In 1997 Miloš Forman received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. It will be an honor to show a few of my guilty pleasure movies at such a prestigious venue, and catch up with the latest Czech film makers.

When Le Festival Paris Cinema kindly invited me to present plus Q & A some of my cult movies for their audience on this coming July 3rd, I thought back to my early experience of French movies, and the influence they might have had on me as a film maker.  (Apologies to French readers: this software does not do accents or cedilla.)

At age 9, I saw a 16mm print of Jacques Tati’s MONSIEUR HULOT’S HOLIDAY, projected on a wall of my prep school library, in which Tati, as the gauche and socially inept hero, stumbles through a disaster prone August holiday in Saint Marc-sur-Mer on the Atlantic coast. Though the social satire no doubt escaped us kids, the film was largely wordless and full of sight gags that kept us laughing and still work today.

Here’s a recent trailer:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_92Cm8gl7Ls

Rowan Atkinson’s character, the idiot-curmudgeon Mr. Bean,  owes a lot to Tati, perhaps acknowledged in his 2007 MR. BEAN’S HOLIDAY. But Tati goes deeper. And smarter. He keeps Hulot benign, and through him holds up a gently mocking mirror to class conflict, consumerism and bourgeois pretensions. Tati had a singular vision and stuck to it throughout his career. It brought him two Academy Award nominations, winning Best Foreign Film with Mon Oncle. It also brought him bankruptcy when his big budget PLAYTIME failed. But he never gave up, never lost sight of his dream. All Hail, Jacques Tati, comedic genius.

The next French film I saw, aged 16, was LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD, screened to the Wellington College film society, who watched in respectful but perplexed silence.

Later I read that a British provincial cinema had run the movie with 2 reels out of order for most of the season, but  audiences were none the wiser till a London critic stopped by for a second viewing. Many critics regard MARIENBAD as a work of genius, others agree with its listing in Michael Medved’s book The Fifty Worst Films Of All Time. This recent trailer for the DVD release does its best to chart a path for the audience in advance, but my school film society had no such help.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5km-4o3EAY

Despite being more mystification than mystery, MARIENBAD has influenced many film makers. It certainly left me with a taste for tracking shots and baroque angles.

In 1994, British band Blur made this wry music video homage for their song To The End.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0YvOncfBJU

Perhaps re-screening MARIENBAD on my laptop in an Amsterdam hash bar would provide clarity. Or perhaps not.

I saw my next French movie because it was raining… But it was the title that reeled me in. OF FLESH AND BLOOD. Two time honored movie ingredients for late adolescents.   Literal translation of the French title LES GRAND CHEMINS might not have done the trick. I took my seat as a man pursued a woman home and with scarcely a word they started making passionate love.

The woman was Anouk Aimee.  She exuded an earthy yet brainy sexiness, and she immediately became my goddess. In her subsequent work I always enjoyed how emotions played across her unique visage.

When I happened by sheer accident to speak to her on the phone of one of her friends in 2005, I think I reverted to 18 year old fanboy. The male lead was Robert Hossein. He projected a raw masculinity that was less present in British leading men of the early sixties. As a director, Hossein is also one of France’s undervalued auteurs, who infused standard genre vehicles like LE VAMPIRE DE DUSSELDORF, and J’AI TUE RASPUTIN, with deep themes and imaginative staging. I would love to find his spaghetti western UNE CORDE, UN COLT.

OF FLESH AND BLOOD, directed by fellow actor Christian Marquand, was described by a derisive reviewer as Dostoyevsky meets Roger Corman . Works for me. This was a dish of Gallic Noir, in vibrant color, and I liked the flavor.  French films were a new world for me, clearly more daring than English language films. I was hooked.

My next French experience was  AIMEZ-VOUS LES FEMMES? ( US title: A TASTE FOR WOMEN), a dark comedy set in a vegetarian restaurant about a gourmet cannibal sect that eat women in celebration of their beauty. I went in not knowing anything about it and was entranced by the wacky idea, the wit of the subtitles, and the glittering black and white Franscope photography, courtesy of Sacha Vierny, who co-incidentally shot LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD.

The director Jean Leon was also the 1st Assistant director on MARIENBAD. (Strangely, this is the only film he ever directed. A pity, based on this work.) The names of the writers held no significance for me at the time: Gerard Brach and Roman Polanski. With hindsight, I recognize a similar impish sense of humor in Polanski’s THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS, OR EXCUSE ME, BUT YOUR TEETH ARE IN MY NECK. All I can find is a tiny poster and a still. Where is this forgotten gem now?

Soon after, I went hitchhiking through France from Le Havre to Eze-sur-Mer and back. Whenever possible, each night I would find a cheap pension near a cinema. Being a child of World War Two, WEEKEND A ZUYDCOOTE was a must see.

This French perspective on the evacuation of Dunkirk was the first time I experienced Jean Paul Belmondo’s casual rugged charm. Here’s a TV spot.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSbye4kkvbs

And the staging by director Henri Verneuil was spectacular. I have admired many of his  films, particularly CENT MILLE DOLLARS AU SOLEIL,  GUNS FOR SAN SEBASTIAN,  THE BURGLARS (LE CASSE) also starring Belmondo, with whom he did 5 pictures. And THE SICILIAN CLAN with Alain Delon. I would eventually see Delon and Belmondo together in BORSALINO, where, rumor hath it, their respective contracts required they would get equal close up coverage in their scenes together. Verneuil was not a critics darling in France, but his work was always solidly commercial, and easily the equal of many Hollywood directors of the period. Here are 3 trailers that show he was the master of any genre cocktail.

Mafia drama:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rkMQCvFH_0

Belmondo does his own stunts:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QXouAvngBM

Buddy comedy for truckers:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff2Q_CUF-6k

In Grenoble I met up with a friend studying there, Julian Beaumont, ( funny how you can remember 45 years later where and with whom you saw a film that made an impact) and we saw LE GENTLEMAN DE COCODY (IVORY COAST ADVENTURE), starring the great Jean Marais, directed by Christian-Jaque, another undervalued genre director (pictured below).

Despite my one-in-every-five-words comprehension of rapid fire French, ( Ah, by dint of repetition, I guess la bagnole means the beat-up old vehicle) I remember being swept along by the fast paced action comedy. The audience around me clearly loved it.

COCODY became one of the 15 top grossing films of 1965 with over 2 million admissions, yet this poster is all I can find of it. Nothing on UTube. Love to get hold of a subtitled copy. Christian-Jaque made a number of handsomely staged costume dramas, which I subsequently sought out. Here’s an extract from the Italian dubbed version of MADAME SANS-GENE, in which he gives Sophia Loren’s comedic talent and abundant charm(s) full rein.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uffc2CsWg7o

Christian-Jaque also made FANFAN LA TULIPE twice, first in 1952, then in 1964 in 70mm no less, as THE BLACK TULIP with Alain Delon playing twin brothers, for which this is the original trailer.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfOsRu2ZxCY

If there is one thing I share with Christian-Jaque it’s his fondness for viewing genre with a satirist’s eye. I’d love  to see his first film L’ASSASSINAT DE PERE NOEL, made with difficulty during the Nazi occupation.

In Nice I saw  L’HOMME DE RIO  and immediately became a Philippe De Broca fan. His subsequent ROI DE COEUR (KING OF HEARTS) starring Alan Bates, is hard to find, but a brilliant anti-war comedy.   33 years later he showed he had not lost his touch with LE BOSSU, great romantic fun.

THE MAN FROM RIO was stunning in its day. Here’s a 6 minute extract of a masterful chase sequence, in a deserted Brazillian city under construction, with Belmondo once again doing all his own stunts. Today such a scene would be hyped with music, but I found the suspense is all the more riveting with sound effects alone.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRxq136_vXU

The girl being kidnapped at the end of the clip was the enchanting Francoise Dorleac, sister of Catherine Deneuve.

.

They both had become major European stars at the time of Francoise Dorleac’s tragic death in a car accident in 1967. What better way to end my trip down memory lane, (which I hope you have been enjoying on company time) than a joyous song and dance number from the only film the sisters played in together, Jacques Demy’s homage to the great Hollywood musicals - LES DEMIMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXGEjZKDWZE

After Paris, I will be hosting screenings of some of my early work at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, so next I’ll share some recollections about Czech cinema.

Magnolia’s bright spark Arianne Ayers invited me to the Los Angeles premiere of George Romero’s SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD. George has been a horror auteur for 42 years and is still going strong. We have met a couple of times on the festival circuit, so I was eagerly awaiting his next chapter on the apocalypse. Here’s George introducing the redband trailer.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlgemQmCsu0

As a practitioner of tightly budgeted genre myself, I consider SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD a bang-up job. This time George gene-splices Zombieland with The Hatfields vs.The McCoys, enabling him to riff on human folly and the senselessness of war, with wry humor, social allegory, female masturbation and exploding heads…What’s not to like?

What’s more, it has one of Canada’s finest actors Kenneth Welsh ( I had the pleasure of directing him in ESCAPE CLAUSE) who channels a bunch of Sean O’Casey characters into the vengeful, manipulative, bastard-paterfamilias you can’t help liking.

George enjoys confronting his audience with uncomfortable moral quandaries when the normal has been replaced by the unthinkable. The more overt comedic tone of his approach this time may be the source of disappointment in some of the reviews I have read. In fact, I think George has actually broadened his audience by ramping up the laughs.

But he does not neglect the boo, yuk, and shiver moments, which are greatly aided by a dynamic score from Robert Carli, a Canadian composer who will, I predict, get a big Hollywood assignment, based on his work here.

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD is a fun ride when experienced on the big screen with a full house that gets it, as they did at the premiere. And Great Cannibalism, George! What about when they ate the whole….well, you’ll have to see the movie.

If you haven’t seen it already, here’s a link to Harry Knowles exclusive post of a special MACHETE trailer. Utterly amazing! Thank you, Harry.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/44943

The Seventies are back, if last night’s crowded screening of TURKEY SHOOT is any indication.  They totally got it. The New Beverly Cinema will also be bringing back my STUNT ROCK for a midnight show on June 11th. Mark your dance card…

Last week, I was once again a long distance judge, this time at A NIGHT OF HORROR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. It wasn’t hard to pick the winners. Best Film was THE REVENANT. Best Australian Film was THE HORSEMAN. Both movies were the feature debut of extraordinarily talented new directors, who, in my opinion, have big careers ahead of them.

First is D. KERRY PRIOR, who wrote, produced, directed and edited THE REVENANT,  a smart  zombie buddy comedy. Here’s the trailer: 

Kerry Prior has extensive special effects credits, having worked on THE LOST BOYS, THE ABYSS, THE BLOB, BUBBA HO-TEP, and two of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series, amongst other titles. So you would expect the prosthetic work to be solid, which it was, considering the low budget. But what you might not expect is the attention that Prior paid to character and dialogue, his management of the droll tone of the piece, or his direction of the lead cast, who all have great chemistry together.

While extracting plenty of laughs from the standard problems of a zombie dealing with his condition, and his best buddy dealing with him, Prior also throws in fresh, wry asides, like the African American lady, confronted with the Undead, offering Scientology as the solution.

I love the off the wall ending, a gear change into political satire, and a springboard for sequels. Judging by the reaction of festival audiences so far, THE REVENANT is destined for a long shelf life, and could even become another RE-ANIMATOR.

THE HORSEMAN targets the other end of the horror spectrum, reality based horror. The extreme brutality of the violence gives this examination of revenge a visceral context. Here’s the trailer:

Like Kerry Prior, STEVEN KASTRISSIOS is an auteur, serving as writer, producer, director, editor, and even digital colorist of his film. He has been passionate about cinema from the age of 14, and it shows. He wrote a screenplay, made a 30 minute short from it, then used the awards it won to raise funds for the full length feature. But you can gauge how slender his budget was from the fact that his producing partner Rebecca Dakin did the catering. That’s dedication. But the short dollars don’t show. What shows is insight into the complex issues of revenge, and a skill at manipulating the audience’s loyalties, aided by a masterful performance from Peter Marshall.  Kastrissios is undoubtedly the next break-out director from Australia.

If the fights had been either sloppy or stagey, the picture would not have the grip that it does. So it was great to see Chris Anderson, with whom I have worked several times, be credited with the stunt choreography.

I have never seen a tire iron better used. Good on ya, mate, fantastic work.

Fantastic work too from both these new film makers. Hollywood will come a calling. Hopefully Prior and Kastrissios will be allowed to maintain their innovative ideas, and particular sensibilities, on bigger budget films.

THAT DARING YOUNG GIRL ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE…WIRE WORK, FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY, SWORD MOVIES, REIGN OF ASSASSINS -  GIFTS FROM ASIA.

Did you ever have those flying dreams as a teenager?  I still do, occasionally. It’s supposed to mean you want to escape from something. (I guess that’s low budgets in my case.) In my conscious life, I actually have a mild fear of flying ( In aircraft; I suppress it. ) but the one stunt I would love to add to my limited repertoire is wire work, for many years a Hong Kong technique which finally made an impact on western audiences in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. What fun it must be to swoop, soar and glide, under the control of skilled puppet masters. My friend Angeles Woo made her maiden flight on her father’s latest production REIGN OF ASSASSINS, starring Michelle Yeoh.  This is Michelle aloft on the blue screen stage.

Angeles plays a rival assassin, and in a preliminary trailer and you’ll see a cloaked and hooded Angeles fly through frame in an early shot.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN5mD2cN0pY

When not working for her father’s company in several capacities, Angeles is an actress, and writer/director of experimental shorts. I look forward to her first feature one day. I know Angeles through fencing. We have fought many a foil and epee bout.

Here she is (on the left) winning the Vango Cup for Women’s Foil in Beijing in 2006, when her father was shooting RED CLIFF. She has now taken up Mixed Martial Arts, where I don’t intend to challenge her. I’ll stick to the blade. Fencing is gymnastic chess, a combat sport I try to practice at least once a week.  I do all three weapons to a standard of adequate mediocrity, and did once tie for bronze at the Southern California Veterans in a thin year.

The REIGN OF ASSASSINS promo reflects some of what I love about fencing. Look at the furious - but strategically complex - exchanges of parry and riposte in Michelle Yeoh’s fight scenes. Excellent camera placement maximizes impact.

I became hooked on Asian cinema in the early ’60’s. Initially Japanese, then when King Hu made his breakout hit A TOUCH OF ZEN, I broadened my taste to Hong Kong. Then I discovered Chang Cheh, with his sweepingly choreographed tracking shots propelling the hero through a line of adversaries, who spun their slashed bodies to the camera as it passed.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dkEHr1KIGY

Assistant directors in HK in those days had wider responsibilities than western ADs, and Chang Cheh’s assistant for many years was John Woo. When I met Mr. Woo, I told him HARD BOILED was my favorite of his early work. He felt THE KILLER was his best. They are both great. Here’s that  amazing all-in-one-shot section of the HARD BOILED hospital gun battle.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bozxgVQ9m0

I first went to Hong Kong in ‘73 to cover the Bruce Lee phenomenon for my quarterly magazine MOVIE , sold in Australian theaters and drive-ins (also to pitch THE MAN FROM HONG KONG to Raymond Chow of Golden Harvest, but that’s another story ). I came back talking of Hollywood East, but cultural differences prevented many of my colleagues from grasping the sophistication, efficiency and pure audience-pleasing power of Hong Kong film making. So I made a documentary - WORLD OF KUNG FU, and published a 2 issue  magazine to co-incide with the telecast across Australia. It rated well, and the magazine sold out.  After Bruce Lee’s death I made a follow up - KUNG FU KILLERS : Grant Page, Australia’s most famous stuntman goes to Hong Kong and investigates who will succeed Bruce Lee. ( We were told to ignore Jackie Chan..he was not going to last. Right…) Here’s one of my favorite DRUNKEN MASTER fights.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf45hmO_1ak

I watched Asian cinema develop to its present day level of style and innovative story telling. Now Hollywood remakes Asian hits, not just the other way round. The story of Hong Kong’s film industry and the progressive development of its unique visual style is available in an excellent on-line essay Anamorphic Adventures in Hong Kong by David Bordwell, PhD, a professor of film studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and an authority on a wide variety of cinema topics. Go to: www.davidbordwell.net/essays/shaw.php

His website in general is a treasure trove of information for cineastes.  This essay is meticulously researched, providing extensive background detail, and illuminating analysis of fight scene aesthetics. More importantly it reflects all the elements I found exciting when watching sword and fist movies in downtown backstreet theaters. So I look forward to REIGN OF ASSASSINS.

An epee bout with Michelle Yeoh would be fun too…