7/7/15: The Sweet Science

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Best Craftsman in France, Chris Hegedus, cooking competition, D.A. Pennebaker, dedication vs obsession, director-cinematographer-editor, documentaries, Don't Look Back, France, Frederique Lazard, husband-wife relationship, intense competition, Jacquy Pfeiffer, Kings of Pastry, Meilleur Ouvrier de France, mentors, MOF, multiple directors, pastry chefs, Philippe Rigollot, Philippe Urraca, President Nicolas Sarkozy, Regis Lazard, Sebastien Canonne, self-sacrifice, set in France, The War Room

Like many skill sets, it’s quite possible for just about anyone to bake something: with enough time, patience and resources, the clumsiest oaf among us can create baked goods that are, at the very least, edible…even if just barely. Cooking, after all, is as much about science and process as anything else: if you can understand what happens in the kitchen, there’s a good chance that you can replicate it. In theory, at least.

As with anything, however, it takes something a little extra to truly excel. While just about anyone can prepare a dish (under the right circumstances), being an artist is something else entirely. Becoming the equivalent of Picasso in the kitchen requires no small amount of dedication, self-sacrifice, forward-momentum and tunnel-vision: while there are any number of talented chefs spread across the globe, there are very few who could be considered “the very best,” the shining standard to which all other chefs aspire. The “kings of pastry,” if you will.

Veteran documentarians D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus take a look at these “creme de la cremes” of the baking world with their vibrant, thoroughly engaging Kings of Pastry (2009). The film takes a look at the ultra-prestigious Meilleur Ouvrier de France (literally “best craftsman in France”), a difficult, stressful and intense three-day baking competition that takes place every four years and draws chefs from around the world. Rather than competing against each other, the chefs attempt to prove their worth and earn the coveted “collar,” a badge of honor which becomes a lifelong calling card. Few will make it through the demanding trials and even fewer will earn the top honor: after all, there are plenty of extremely talented chefs in the world but only a few who can be considered “the best of the best.”

For the purposes of the documentary, Pennebaker and Hegedus follow around several different contestants as they prepare for, participate in and deal with the fall-out from the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (known among the participants as the MOF). We spend the most time with Jacquy Pfeiffer, an intense, driven chef who founded the only “pastry-only” baking school in America, but it’s definitely not a one-man show. We’re also introduced to Philippe Rigollot, a devoted family man, and Regis Lazard, a chef making his second attempt at the MOF after dropping one of his creations during his first go-around. Since the MOF trials are four years apart, the contestants spend the time in between honing their craft and preparing: it truly is the Olympics of baking and the chefs must give their whole lives over to the pursuit if they hope to have any chance of success.

As follow around the various chefs, we also get peeks into their private lives and the forces that guide them on their journey. Pfeiffer is the neurotic perfectionist, an artist capable of the most exquisite, delicate pastry sculptures imaginable, yet wracked by such doubt that his girlfriend, Rachel, has to call him every night and pretend that the MOF competition has been cancelled just so he can fall asleep. Rigollot is the nice-guy family man whose kids are his personal tasting judges and whose mother instilled a love of baking in him from an early age. Lazard is the underdog coming back for one last shot at glory: his long-suffering wife, Frederique, wants this to be Lazard’s last MOF attempt so that he can focus on his own business and family. With all of the forces around them, the contestants must attempt to clear their heads and focus on the task at hand.

And what a task: spread out over three days, the chefs must create 40 different recipes, ranging from ridiculously elegant wedding cakes to chocolate sculptures, sugar sculptures and lollipops. They must create razor-thin candy ribbons, work with chocolate that begins to harden seconds after its poured and fight the ravages of humidity (the enemy of sugar, as we’re told), all while under the constant scrutiny of the MOF judges and the ever-present ticking clock. Disaster lurks around every corner (setting the delicate creations down is a nerve-wracking pursuit that seems roughly equitable to juggling dynamite) and the chefs’ fragile nerves are always in danger of cracking, just like their glossy, edible art. The task is almost impossible but the reward is tremendous: the winners will receive not only personal accolades from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, himself, but life-time bragging rights as genuine “Kings of Pastry.”

Despite its bare-bones look and style (the camerawork reminds of ’90s-era PBS documentaries and the score is as repetitive and chipper as video game music), Pennebaker and Hegedus’ film is a thoroughly absorbing and fascinating peek into one of the most demanding cooking competitions out there. There’s a genuine sense of tension and drama to the film that, at times, translates to some fairly white-knuckle moments: the climatic scene involving Rigollot’s sugar sculpture is powerful and heartbreaking, two terms which are rarely equated with cooking competitions. The subjects are all likable and engaging, to boot, which really helps draw the audience in. While we end up spending more time with Jacquy, his daughter, Alex, and Rachel than we do with the others, we get enough time with Rigollot and Lazard to prevent them from seeing under-developed or like afterthoughts.

There are also plenty of nice reflections and commentary from Philippe Urraca, the head of the MOF organization. Urraca is the one who points out the (sometimes minute) separation between the “great” and the “very best,” stating how it can often just be a matter of timing: it actually took him three attempts to become an MOF and now he’s the president of the whole thing…try and try again, indeed! Urraca and the other judges seem to have genuine affection and interest in the contestants, a fact driven home by everyone’s distress over Rigollot’s last-minute catastrophe. Since the chefs aren’t really competing against each other, per se, there’s much more sense of camaraderie and fellowship than in more cut-throat competitions.

Ultimately, Kings of Pastry is a fascinating look into what it takes to become the very best chef in France, a country that is certainly no slouch when it comes to the art of cooking. Toeing the line between dedication and obsession (one contestant was on his fourth MOF, meaning that he’d been working on this for sixteen consecutive years!), Pennebaker and Hegedus show that you need to be all-in in order to become the very best. Come for the unbelievable displays of pastry (in every sense of the term, this film is hardcore, triple-X “food porn”) but stay for the genuinely involving human drama and the ultimate triumph of true believers putting it all on the line for their dreams.

6/6/15 (Part One): Circular Thinking

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A Field Full of Secrets, alien blueprints, alternative fuel system, Charles Maxwell, cinema, Colin Andrews, crop circles, Dax Phelan, documentaries, Dylan Avery, film reviews, filmmaking duo, films, hoaxers, inventors, Movies, Nassim Haramein, Nikola Romanski, Peter Sorensen, set in England, Sweet Potato, Tim Carson, transgender, UFO enthusiasts, UFOs, Will Carson

Crop circles: depending on which side of the UFO divide you end up on, they’re either explicit evidence that we’ve been visited (and continue to be visited) by otherworldly forces or they’re proof positive that humans are (and always will be) extremely gullible. As someone who finds the notion of extraterrestrial intelligence a much easier pill to swallow than most of the “evidence” that’s been presented to prove it, I’ve always viewed crop circles with no small measure of disbelief. Do I think that aliens exist? Absolutely. Do I think that they get their jollies by crafting meticulous geometric patterns in isolated corn fields? Let’s just answer that with a slightly condescending smile and move on, shall we?

Charles Maxwell and Dax Phelan’s documentary A Field Full of Secrets (2014) takes an up-close and personal look at crop circles, in particular a “fresh” pattern that Maxwell and company come upon while conducting research in England. As the filmmaking team investigates the phenomena, they speak with experts from both sides of the debate, as well as the individuals known as “hoaxers” who make it their life mission to create as many of these mysterious patterns as they can.

As the group continues their studies, they hit upon the rather radical notion that the patterns might actually represent one-dimensional depictions of three-dimensional blueprints. When a mysterious, transsexual inventor by the name of Nikola Romanski contacts the team and offers to help build the “device” depicted in the most recently discovered crop circle, Maxwell quickly accepts her help. When the building process begins to stretch out over the course of several years, however, the rest of the team begins to doubt that anything will come of it. Will Maxwell and Romanski be able to do the impossible and actually build an alternative fuel engine, using instructions left by “little green men” or will the whole thing end up being just another wild goose chase?

Perhaps owing to the sheer number of found-footage/mockumentary films that I’ve seen recently, I went into A Field Full of Secrets fully expecting the film to be a fictional movie masquerading as “true life”: by the time the film was over, I still wasn’t sure whether it was a real documentary or not. After doing a little research, however, it would appear that A Field Full of Secrets really is a documentary, after all: it would appear that I had, essentially, hoaxed myself. Life imitating art, indeed!

Despite being initially confused as to what type of film this was, I’ll admit that A Field Full of Secrets was always an interesting, quick-paced film, albeit one with more than its share of unanswered questions and odd quirks. As someone who’s always been interested in UFO discussions, I found the commentary in Maxwell and Phelan’s film to be both intelligent and logically stated, two qualities which you don’t always get in documentaries about extraterrestrials and cryptozoology. Furthermore, Charles Maxwell (the director) and Dax Phelan (the producer) are an extremely likable duo: they’re down to earth, charismatic and have pretty good chemistry together…if you’re going to be spending this much time tromping through corn fields, it seems you could do a whole lot worse than hanging out with these guys.

I also appreciated that the filmmakers tried to make the presentation as balanced as possible, mostly through the inclusion of disbelievers and life-long hoaxers like the rather unforgettable Peter Sorensen. The part where he gives Maxwell and the team a crash course in how to make crop circles is not only informative but quite fun, nicely balanced by the realization that his foolproof system doesn’t explain some of the more complex patterns. More than anything, Maxwell, Phelan and the rest of the crew come across as open-minded: they’re not, necessarily, going in with any particular hard-set beliefs but are trying to roll with the punches and adapt as things develop. As mentioned earlier, not a bad bunch of people to spend a little time in the field with.

If there’s any real issue with the film, aside from scattered irritations like the annoying scene where Maxwell’s friends show up to rib him about his crop circle research (this, in the worst way possible, felt like padding), it has to be with the film’s confusing emphasis on Nikola’s transsexuality. Had Maxwell and Phelan just presented Romanski as another interested party, regardless of her gender identity, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Oddly enough, however, the filmmakers seem to go out of their way to discuss and point out this bit of information, even though it seems to bear little to no relevance to their current work. We meet Nikola’s mother and sister, hear Phelan talk about his concerns that Maxwell is getting “too close” to the reclusive inventor and witness Maxwell discussing how he wanted to continue his friendship with Nikola, regardless of what anyone else felt.

The problem, of course, is that Romanski’s gender identity is never actually woven into the context of the film: it’s just an extra detail that’s brought up frequently, discussed often but never actually tied to anything. This was actually one reason why I, initially, thought the film was a mockumentary: with as much attention as the filmmakers pay to Romanski’s gender identity, I assumed that it was more integral to the story than it actually was. In reality, Nikola’s transsexuality has no bearing on anything that happens, whatsoever: it’s difficult to even consider the treatment progressive, since the filmmakers seem so set on depicting Romanski as an “other,” almost alien figure.

To be honest, a film that primarily focused on Nikola Romanski would have been pretty damn interesting: gender identity aside, how often do you get to meet reclusive, genius inventors who are obsessed with plasma engines and interstellar travel? Had the filmmakers devoted more time to Romanski and really delved into her backstory, A Field Full of Secrets would have made a lot more sense. As it stands, however, Romanski doesn’t appear until the midpoint: with as little bearing as her sexuality has on the actual story, it seems a decidedly odd tack to spend so much time mentioning it.

Despite the aforementioned confusion and the fact that the film sort of sputters out, at the end (it’s no spoiler to reveal that they don’t successfully build the alternative fuel source since, you know, we probably would’ve heard about it by now), I really enjoyed A Field Full of Secrets. The participants are all engaging and endlessly interesting, the locations are beautiful and some of the crop circles are so majestically constructed that they are, literally, works of art. Whether you buy into the “truth” behind any of it, of course, is ultimately up to you. For their part, Charles Maxwell and Dax Phelan have set out to shine a little light on a particularly dark part of our galaxy and, if nothing else, have succeeded in giving us all a little something to think about.

2/2/15 (Part One): Hiding in Plain Sight

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abused children, Academy Award Nominee, Best Feature Documentary nominee, biographical films, Charlie Siskel, child-care, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, documentaries, film reviews, films, Finding Vivian Maier, interviews, John Maloof, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, mysteries, nanny, Phil Donahue, photography, street photography, Vivian Maier, writer-director-cinematographer

At one point in Finding Vivian Maier (2014), filmmaker John Maloof makes one of the truest statements that anyone’s ever made: “You have to draw an understanding of the individual from the information you have.” In this day and age of over-sharing, this wouldn’t seem to be a huge issue…after all, you can basically find all the personal information you’d ever need just by spending a little time browsing someone’s social media presence. At a time when waiting for your 15 minutes is passe, it seems like folks are only too eager to shout their life stories from the nearest rooftop, in the desperate hope that the right person is listening and ready to turn the spotlight in their direction.

It wasn’t always like this, however: in previous eras, folks seemed to value their privacy more than they do now and it wasn’t uncommon for public figures, much less “commoners,” to be all but anonymous. For some people, even exceptionally talented artisans, there’s nothing glorious or desirable about the white-hot scrutiny of the masses. In some cases, individuals would rather leave behind a lifetime of unseen, unappreciated art than deal with people poking into every nook and cranny of their lives. There’s more to being a public artist than just talent and intent, after all: you have to actually put yourself out there and “live” among the people, as it were.

Maloof’s Finding Vivian Maier, one of the nominees for this year’s Best Feature Documentary Oscar, tackles this subject head-on as it purports to examine the life and work of the formerly mysterious titular subject, a life-long nanny who also happened to be one of the very best street photographers around. Maloof came into contact with Maier’s work when he happened to buy a chest full of her negatives at an auction house. After examining the negatives, Maloof made a rather exciting discovery: not only was there a tremendous amount of material to pore through (upwards of hundreds of thousands of negatives) but the photographs were, for lack of a better descriptor, absolutely stunning. Perfectly composed, exquisitely lit and with a definite eye towards the “darker” side of life, Maier’s photos were real works of art. This, of course, led Maloof to the next, most logical question: just who, exactly, was Vivian Maier?

The answer to that question, such as it is, makes up the bulk of this extremely engaging documentary. As Maloof delves into Maier’s life, he discovers that she spent her life as a nanny for various families: various interviews with the people who employed her, as well as their grown children, help paint an intriguing, contradictory portrait of the secretive woman. She spoke with a French accent, yet was born in New York City. Some of her charges say that she approached all of her subjects, while others say that she shot everyone on the sly, leading to more than a few heated exchanges with her unwitting “subjects.” Vivian is described as being beloved by the children, yet each of them mentions a number of incidents that would paint her, at the very least, as casually abusive and abrasive. She took hundreds of thousands of photos, yet developed only a small handful. In every way, as Maloof (and us) will discover, Vivian Maier is an enigma, a mystery to be examined, figured out and “solved.” As he mentions, we must form our opinion based on the information about Vivian that we’re given and, as we see, there aren’t a lot of concrete facts floating around out there.

Despite a slightly rough start, Finding Vivian Maier gets gradually better, as it goes along, and ends up being quite the quiet little powerhouse by its final moments. One aspect that briefly kept me out of the movie (aside from its sometimes overly kinetic style) is actually John Maloof, the writer-director (along with Charlie Siskel, who we never see). At first, I found him to be uncomfortably aggressive and way too driven: there are times when he has more the feel of a bull in a china shop than a thoughtful commentator. As the film goes on and Maloof gets deeper into the mystery of Vivian, however, his passion for the subject begins to overtake his personality and I found my earlier reservations falling by the wayside. Call it a case of taxiing to get up to take-off speed but the film (and Maloof) find their groove at roughly the same time.

At the end of the day, however, a documentary lives or dies by its subject and Vivian Maier is a suitably fascinating one. While I’m fairly certain that progressive mental illness was responsible for many of her quirks, particularly late in life, there’s no denying that she was a helluva person and a genuine artist. The photos, themselves, are nothing short of amazing and are easily comparable to photographic greats like Annie Leibovitz or Ansel Adams: her portrait shots have a way of delving below the subject’s surface and revealing the myriad little tics that make us all such individuals, something that’s readily apparent in Leibovitz’s photography. It’s also fascinating to discover how intelligent and politically minded she was: the video footage of her interviewing various people about Nixon’s impeachment is a real revelation, as is the bit where she traces a crime from the scene all the way back to the victim’s home. In many ways, Maier was way ahead of the curve, a “citizen journalist” before the phrase even existed.

Many folks will probably have issues with Maier, the person, especially once the film begins to dig into the abusive incidents that the grown children describe. The film never picks a side, however, since everything is filled with such contradictions: we’re constantly hearing two versions of Vivian, sometimes from the same person, which only helps to drive home the notion of her as a living enigma, a reclusive, mysterious figure who lived life on her own terms. Was she misunderstood? A monster? Insane? A tortured artist? Ahead of her time? From what we’re shown/told, she may have been all of these things or none of them. The only thing we know for sure is that she managed to take hundreds of thousands of amazing photographs over the course of her lifetime.

As a lifelong writer who has the equivalent of Maier’s hundreds of thousands of negatives sitting around in the form of half-finished manuscripts, boxes of short stories and poetry, there’s definitely something about Maloof’s film that personally spoke to me. There’s a point in the film where someone remarks that Vivian did all of the hard work involving her art but none of the hard work that goes into being an actual “artist”: she didn’t try to put herself out in the world, to any great extent, which is what any successful artist needs to do. I found something terribly sad about the notion that Maier died without ever knowing the impact her art would have: who knows what difference that might have made in her life? For all of its sterling qualities as a documentary, perhaps the greatest thing that can come from Finding Vivian Maier is that it might convince similar artists to take a leap of faith: if you never try anything, you never succeed. For those of us who toil in obscurity (whether desired or not), Maloof’s film is nothing short of thought-provoking. By “finding” Vivian Maier, Maloof and Siskel might just have helped us all find ourselves.

12/28/14 (Part One): Dancing Under the Gallows

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86th Annual Academy Awards, Aliza Sommer-Herz, Best Short Documentary winner, concentration camp, concentration camps, documentaries, Holocaust survivor, Malcolm Clarke, piano player, shorts, The Lady in Number 6, uplifting films, World War II, writer-director

At the time of her death last February, at the age of 110, Aliza Sommer-Herz was the oldest, living Holocaust survivor. She was also an amazingly vibrant personality who captivated all those around her with her expert piano-playing, a skill that she cultivated in the years before she was captured by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. As Malcolm Clarke’s Oscar-winning short documentary, The Lady in Number 6 (2013) shows, both aspects of Aliza’s life, her piano-playing and her will to survive, were intrinsically linked. As the subtitle states, “Music saved (her) life,” to the great benefit of the rest of us.

Born in Prague in 1903, Aliza was part of an artistically inclined family that counted both Gustav Mahler and Franz Kafka as close, personal friends. Studying under ace pianist Artur Schnabel, Aliza became quite the prodigy in the years leading up to the Nazi Occupation. This skill would end up serving her well once she was transferred to a concentration camp: suitably impressed by her skill, the camp guards kept Aliza around as a sort of “human jukebox,” with any and everyone (including the infamous “Angel of Death,” Josef Mengele) stopping by to request songs and spend time getting lost in her playing. She would go on to perform some 100 concerts while interred in the concentration camp, earning the admiration of everyone around her, prisoner and guard alike.

After surviving the concentration camp, along with her son, Raffi, Aliza would go on to a long, happy life, one characterized by her unrelentingly upbeat attitude (one of her mottos was “It’s up to me whether life is good, not up to life.”) and her continued love of the piano. Even at age 109, during the filming of the documentary, Aliza displayed a vitality and joie de vivre that would be difficult to maintain in someone a third of her age, let alone under the often terrible conditions that Aliza lived through.

Subject-wise, The Lady in Number 6 is unbeatable: Aliza Sommer-Herz is a fascinating subject with a rich, powerful story and enough life lessons under her belt to teach us all for the next century. While any story about the Holocaust is going to be tragic and terrible, at its heart, Aliza manages to imbue so much positivity and love into her tale that it’s all but impossible to get through without a big smile on your face, even if a tear might threaten to roll down your cheek at any minute. At one point in the short, someone makes the observation that when people hear the word “Holocaust,” they only think about the gas chambers and six million dead: there was a whole world in-between those terrible extremes, a world which included many survivors, just like Aliza. In every way, then, The Lady in Number 6 becomes a story of survival and overcoming tragedy, rather than a sorrowful rumination on the unforgettable evil of the Holocaust.

While I fell completely in love with the subject of Clarke’s film, however, I must admit to being less than enthralled with the film, itself. Truthfully, I found much of the film to be a little clunky and choppy: there was also way too much “Vaseline-lens” for my tastes, since this had the effect of forcing emotion into scenes that needed no such help. Aliza is such a fascinating, positive force of nature that no such trickery is wanted/needed: a much more straight-forward style would have suited this better, since Clarke’s filmmaking is often too fussy to be as invisible as it should be.

Technical quibbles aside, however, The Lady in Number 6 is really a lovely little film and deserves to be seen by everyone: if there were more people like Aliza Sommer-Herz in the world, it’s doubtful that we’d be in the kind of straits that we’re currently in. For her ability to keep a brave, hopeful, loving attitude in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Aliza should live on in our hearts forever.

12/27/14 (Part One): Tongue Through Cheek

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Bruce Campbell, Chad Herschberger, cinema, co-writers, Doc of the Dead, documentaries, documentary, film reviews, films, George Romero, goofy, Greg Nicotero, horror films, interviews, Max Brooks, Movies, Night of the Living Dead, pop culture, Robert Kirkman, SImon Pegg, The Walking Dead, Tom Savini, voodoo, writer-director, zombie invasion, zombies

Sometimes, it’s not what you say but how you say it. Take, for example, documentary filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe’s Doc of the Dead (2014). Chock full of fun interviews, interesting tidbits and plenty of in-depth history about the genesis and evolution of the zombie in both film and pop culture, there’s a lot to like here. Despite all of the good information, however, Philippe’s film still nearly sinks under the weight of its frequently flippant, mocking tone, especially when the film drops any “serious” pretensions and devolves into a series of silly zombie invasion spoofs and tedious musical skits.

When Doc of the Dead isn’t taking cheap potshots at the sillier aspects of its subject matter (zombie survivalists, zombie porn and the like), it’s quite an interesting, fast-paced film, if decidedly lightweight. Philippe and co-writer/editor Chad Herschberger utilize the standard formula of plenty of “talking head” interviews (George Romero, Simon Pegg, Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Mel Brooks’ son/World War Z scribe Max Brooks, et al) alongside lots of film clips and the odd historical/epistemologial segment to give a pretty thorough overview of zombies in Western film, TV and pop culture.

I stress “Western,” since the filmmakers manage to completely bypass such admittedly rich zombie treasure troves as the Italian gore films of the ’70s and ’80s and any of the over-the-top Asian zombie films that have cropped up in the past decade or so.  While this would have, undoubtedly, broadened the focus of the film, I can’t help but feel that at least some mention of these other films would have been appropriate, if for no other reason than to point out how universal this particular horror trend has become in the past 40 years.

Foreign omissions notwithstanding, my biggest and most critical complaint regarding Doc of the Dead has to be all of the silly digressions, goofy skits and tongue-in-cheek stupidity that sits uncomfortably next to the more serious scholarship. I’m not claiming that all documentaries need to be serious or even that a zombie-themed documentary could ever be completely serious…we are talking about re-animated corpses, after all, so some measure of suspension of disbelief is required, no matter how you tackle the subject. I will firmly state, however, that the split-tone in Philippe’s film made it impossible for me to ever be completely on-board. For every cool story related by Romero or interesting observation (zombie cinema is one of the only horror genres to develop from folklore rather than literature, for example, which is pretty interesting, when you think about it), there’s a dumb segment involving amateur re-imaginings of Night of the Living Dead (1968), a zombie music video or silly interview with survivalists about the best weapons to use in case of a zombie attack.

The biggest problem with this tactic, quality of the goofy segments notwithstanding (and the quality really can be extraordinarily shabby, especially when compared to the relative polish of the rest of the film), is that it makes it seem as if the filmmakers don’t really care about their subject matter. This was the same team that put together The People vs George Lucas (2010), so they definitely have a reputation for irreverence, but the goofy tone just seems out-of-place most of the time. I found myself enjoying the “serious” parts of the film enough that I wanted more consistency but the inherently inconsistent nature of the film just made me tired and frustrated, by the end: I wanted more scholarship but the filmmakers wanted more “funny” scenes of badly made-up zombies stumbling around in domestic scenarios.

Ultimately, I didn’t hate Doc of the Dead: there’s too much good stuff here to completely write off the film. I just wish that Philippe and crew had been able to maintain a more consistent tone or, barring that, were able to craft something as humorous and entertaining as Mark Hartley’s Machete Maidens Unleashed (2010), which managed to be both scholarly and flat-out funny. Fans of zombies in film, TV and pop culture will find plenty to enjoy about Doc of the Dead (although most fanatics will have heard most of this stuff before) but the film is too lightweight to make much of an impact beyond the true believers…and the truly patient.

12/25/14 (Part One): The Greatest Movie Never Made

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Alejandro Jodorowsky, Alex Cox, Amanda Lear, ambitious films, auteur theory, Best of 2014, Brontis Jodorowsky, Chris Foss, cinema, Dan O'Bannon, David Lynch, Devin Faraci, Diane O'Bannon, documentaries, Douglas Trumball, Drew McWeeny, Dune, El Topo, favorite films, Film auteurs, film festival favorite, film reviews, films, Frank Herbert, Frank Pavich, George Lucas, H.R. Giger, inspirational films, Jean Giraud, Jodorowsky's Dune, Michel Seydoux, Movies, Nicholas Winding Refn, Pink Floyd, Richard Stanley, Salvador Dali, Santa Sangre, sci-fi, science-fiction, special-effects extravaganza, The Holy Mountain, unfinished films

What is the greatest sci-fi film ever? Depending on who you ask, you might get answers like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Silent Running (1972), Solaris (1972), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Star Trek II: The Wraith of Khan (1982) or Disney’s The Black Hole (1979). The answers probably depend on lots of stuff: the age of the person in question, where they sit on the “Star Wars vs Trek” scale, how “hard” they like their sci-fi…hell, how someone defines the genre can even affect this particular list. One thing is pretty clear, however: ask this one simple question to a crowd of people and expect to get a crowd of answers (unless, of course, you’re at a Trekkie convention, at which point the answer will, obviously, be Silent Running).

The greatest sci-fi film ever made? That’s a hard question. But the greatest sci-fi film never made? That, friends and neighbors, is much easier to answer. After all, which sci-fi movie was supposed to have featured Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali and Orson Welles in starring roles, while Pink Floyd supplied part of the musical score? Which hypothetical extravaganza gave notorious freaknik H.R. Giger free reign over part of the production design, featured eye-popping storyboards by renowned graphic artist Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) and would have rivaled the special effects technology of Star Wars a full two years before George Lucas and his team struggled to make their landmark film?

If all of the above sounds like some sort of acid trip dreamt up in a sensory deprivation chamber, know that it almost came to pass, albeit in the same way that comets “almost” batter the Earth on a constant basis. Who was the mad genius responsible for what would have, without a doubt, been the single most mind-blowing, game-changing, iconic science fiction film in the history of the medium? Why, none other than the mad monk of experimental cinema, the spiritual guru behind essential “midnight” films like Fando y Lis (1968), El Topo (1970) and The Holy Mountain (1973): Alejandro Jodorowsky. As we see in Frank Pavich’s amazing, inspirational new documentary, Jodorowsky’s Dune (2014), the Chilean auteur’s singular, stunning vision for Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel may have been doomed from the get-go but the Technicolor sense of wonder associated with the project will live on forever.

Beginning with a quote from Austrian neurologist Viktor Frankl (“What is to give light must endure burning”), Pavich’s documentary immediately introduces us to one of the most kinetic, passionate, amazing filmmakers to ever draw breath, the inimitable Alejandro Jodorowsky. Instantly infamous after his bizarre, spiritual and surrealist El Topo managed to tear a collective hole in the brain-pans of ’70s-era film audiences, Jodorowsky was riding high after the success of El Topo’s follow-up, the even more “out-there” Holy Mountain. Looking for his next project, Jodorowsky had the good fortune of running into a friend who extolled the virtues of the Frank Herbert book, Dune (1968), a massively popular best-seller. The rest, as they say, was almost history.

Despite never reading the novel, Jodorowsky immediately started to put together a production plan that must have seemed about as realistic as someone attempting to flap their arms and fly to the moon: assemble a dream-team of creative personnel (from all disciplines), shoot for the moon with casting (Jagger at the height of the Stones power, the legendary Dali as “Emperor of the Universe,” Welles when he’d already become a societal recluse, David Carradine, just because), pull out the stops for the musical score (Pink Floyd, fresh off the record-breaking success of Dark Side of the Moon) and aim for a final product that’s more about mind-expansion and “ushering in a new era” than earning box office coin. Had Jodorowsky been able to pull off this amazing mess of an idea, we’d probably still be discussing the film, almost 40 years after its release. Instead, the version of Dune that fans finally received was the troubled 1984 David Lynch version, a film that bore very little resemblance to Jodorowsky’s proposed epic. Despite never being made, however, copious production notes, pictures and sketches exist from the pre-production visualization, production notes and designs which have actually been (subtly) influencing popular film for several decades. A film so influential that it influenced films without ever being made…now that’s a legend!

From beginning to end, Jodorowsky’s Dune is an absolute and complete joy, a film that’s more about the never-ending passion to create and a “never say die” attitude than anything as simple as a failed adaptation of a popular novel. Pavich utilizes some truly great talking head interviews, from the likes of directors Nicholas Winding Refn, Richard Stanley and Alex Cox, to genre experts like Badass Digest’s Devin Faraci and Ain’t It Cool’s Drew McWeeny and actual personnel from Jodorowsky’s planned version of the film, including producer Michel Seydoux, H.R. Giger (before his recent death), Dan O’Bannon’s widow, Diane, and legendary graphic artist Giraud. Looming over everything, however, is the formidable presence of the master himself, Jodorowsky: at no point in the film is Jodorowsky ever less than a wonderful, exuberant personality, a true force of nature who comes across as the single greatest cheerleader that the human race has ever had. In fact, I’ll lay a little wager down here: if you don’t feel your heart growing three sizes by the time the film is over, ala that mean old Grinch from yore, I’m gonna go ahead and assume that you’re already dead. Even then, I’m pretty sure ol’ Alejandro would still be able to wring at least a grin from the most somber soul.

While any notion of a “perfect film” is, by definition, rather pie-in-the-sky, Jodorowsky’s Dune is that rarest of things: a perfect film, from beginning to end. Chalk it up to a perfect storm of awesomeness: a fascinating subject, plenty of in-depth information and amazing production notes, excellent commentary from participants and experts, a subtextual underdog story and some of the coolest, funniest and strangest behind-the-scenes stories ever told. It’s almost impossible to pick the best stuff out but one of my personal favorites was the section devoted to Jodorowsky and Seydoux trying to secure Dali for the film. While the notorious surrealist went out of his way to make things difficult for the filmmakers, their ultimate solution was pure genius (let’s just say that, for the briefest of moments, Dali got his wish and really was the highest-paid actor on Earth). The truth is, however, if there’s one good story here, there are at least a hundred: one of the film’s meanest hat-tricks is how it makes the 90-minute runtime feel closer to 15 minutes…if ever there was a film that deserved to be 3+ hours, Jodorowsky’s Dune is that film.

For me, Pavich’s documentary is absolutely essential thanks to my incessant fanboy love of Jodorowsky: I was corrupted by his films at an early age and, thankfully, haven’t looked back since. Even if I wasn’t a huge fan of his work, however, Jodorowsky’s Dune would still manage to capture my heart. At its core, Pavich’s film is really about the never-say-die attitude of true artists, the kind of folks who simply can’t bend and conform to society no matter what they do. There’s something unbelievably empowering about listening to the 84-year-old Jodorowsky talk about his various philosophies: he has a way of making even the impossible seem possible, which also goes a long way towards explaining the appeal of the documentary, itself. Thanks to Pavich’s film, cinephiles and multiplex-patrons alike can revel in some of the most imaginative, insane, epic and impossible cinematic creations never put to film.

Jodorowsky’s Dune may not exist in any way that we can consume but, thanks to Frank Pavich’s amazing Jodorowsky’s Dune, at least we’ll be able to admire the mirage from a distance. If the stars would have aligned all those years ago, Jodorowsky would have been able to make his film…and it very well may have changed the world as we know it. We’ll never have the actual film but we’ll be able to marvel at the imagination and innovation behind it from now until the stars in the sky finally wink out. In a perfect universe, Jodorowsky made his Dune and it was, without question, the single, greatest sci-fi film ever.

12/11/14: Logical, Phallus-y

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Arctic Circle, Canadian films, cinema, co-directors, documentaries, eccentric people, fame, film reviews, films, Icelandic Phallological Museum, Jonah Bekhor, legacy, life's work, Movies, national pride, Páll Arason, penis museum, phallus, set in Iceland, Siggi Hjartarson, Sigurður Hjartarson, The Final Member, Tom Mitchell, Zach Math

Calling The Final Member (2012) “the best documentary ever made about a penis museum” seems a little unnecessary since, to the best of my knowledge, it’s also the only documentary ever made about a penis museum. While the Icelandic Phallological Museum and its creator/curator, Sigurður (Siggi) Hjartarson, may be the subject of Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math’s massively entertaining film, the actual focus is a little trickier and more universal: the endless quest for fame, in our modern world, and the lengths to which ordinary folks will go to make sure that the history books don’t forget them. Aging Icelandic adventurer Páll Arason and eccentric American Tom Mitchell, as we’ll see, are both prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to help Siggi finish his collection: in order to secure ever-lasting notoriety, the two men vie to be the “final member” added to Siggi’s museum of mammal specimens…the human specimen.

Siggi Hjartarson is quite the interesting character. 40 years ago, Siggi was given a bull-penis walking stick as a gag gift and, to continue the “joke,” began to collect various other penis specimens. In short time, Siggi’s “joke” became a hobby which morphed into a bona fide collection which, once it had outgrown the modest confines of the Hjartarson household, became an honest-to-god museum. The Icelandic Phallological Museum, which opened its doors in August of 1997, still stands (as far as I know) as the only museum in the world dedicated strictly to the mammalian phallus in all of its myriad forms. From the very largest sample (a sperm whale) to the very smallest (a hamster), Siggi built his collection up until (according to him), he was only missing one last penis: a human one. Since donating human organs is a much more complex business than acquiring animal samples, Siggi has dealt with one frustration after another, always agonizingly close to finishing off his work of nearly a half-century but, alas, no cigar.

The winds of fortune seem to blow his way, however, when local legend Páll Arason agrees to donate his penis to the museum once he dies. Arason was an adventurer who achieved some measure of fame in the ’40s and seems to have coasted on his laurels for the resulting decades: he’s also a self-proclaimed Lothario who claims to have slept with over 300 women (not counting prostitutes), making his penis something of a celebrity, in its own right. Siggi is overjoyed: not only will he be able to finish his collection, at long last, but he can do so with a specimen that will really make his country proud: go team!

When it rains, it pours, however, and Siggi’s good luck turns into an embarrassment of riches when American Tom Mitchell contacts him and wants to offer his own “donation.” Unlike the aged Arason, Mitchell is…shall we say…more than a bit eccentric: he’s named his penis “Elmo,” wants to make it famous in its own right (via a comic book, if possible), enjoys dressing it up in costumes and sending the pictures to poor Siggi (the George Washington get-up must be seen to be believed…talk about a dick-head!) and has some very distinct ideas about presentation. He also wants to make his donation before he dies, for some rather complex but no less odd reasons, and is eager to be the first such donor anywhere: in other words, Tom really wants this, man!

Stuck between two “suitors,” Siggi must steer through some pretty choppy waters as he tries to make his decision: Arason’s penis would be the preferred one, for matters of national pride, if nothing else, but it’s also considerably smaller than Mitchell’s, and wouldn’t be as good a specimen. There’s also the matter of timing: Mitchell is ready whenever he can make up his mind about presentation issues but poor Arason has to, you know, die first, which is kind of a bummer. On the other hand, Mitchell is quickly driving Siggi to distraction with his endless phone calls, letters and penis pictures: at one point, Siggi solemnly tells the camera, “This is a funny guy…I’ve never met anyone like him before” and there’s no way we can disagree with him…Tom is a genuinely strange guy, even if he seems like a polite one.

As time drags on and Siggi’s health becomes an issue, he becomes more and more eager to finish his lifework, even if it means making some uncomfortable decisions. Will he go with the local hero and make his countrymen proud or will he opt for the more difficult, if “impressive” foreigner? Will Siggi ever finish his collection or will he be doomed to stare at that one, empty display case for the rest of his days? Who will end up being “the final member?”

Subject-matter notwithstanding, The Final Member is actually a pretty breezy, easy-going documentary full of gentle humor, some interesting observations on the human condition and some truly unique characters that have the added benefit of being real. While the film may, nominally, be about Siggi’s hunt for the human specimen, it’s actually about Páll and Tom’s hunts for immortality: both men want to leave something behind to insure that they’re not forgotten, something that will help cinch their spot in the record books…what better way than to be the first (and, presumably, only) human specimen in the world’s only penis museum? Take that, Guinness Book of World Records yo-yo champion! In an era where it seems that everyone is looking for their 15 minutes of fame (or 15 seconds, if that’s all they can snag), there’s definitely something universal about watching two individuals try to get theirs, regardless of the end results: even Siggi is looking for his own kind of immortality, in a way, by leaving behind his one-of-a-kind collection…no one is immune from the “fame” bug, it seems.

As a documentary, The Final Member is extremely well-made: full of bright, vibrant cinematography, interesting “talking head” interviews with various academics regarding the history of the phallus and the penis’ place in modern society and fascinating characters, there, literally, isn’t a dull spot to be found in the entire film. I’ve often felt that the average moviegoers tends to view all documentaries as dull, stuffy, “egghead” fare, despite the fact that docs come in just as many flavors as fictional films: The Final Member is certainly the film to prove the naysayers wrong, as there’s absolutely nothing stuffy or pretentious about the subjects or filmmaking. If anything, Bekhor and Math tell the story in as straight-forward a way as possible: no need to gussy anything up when the material is already so quirky and odd.

At the end of the day, The Final Member is a really fun, interesting film (if occasionally a little sad) that’s going to end up being a tough sell for a lot of folks: if it wasn’t already clear from the subject matter and preceding discussion, the film is chock full of penises, from the very first frame to the very last one. Not only do we see the most dizzying collection of animal penises ever (I can honestly say that I’d never thought about the subject of animal penises one way or the other but The Final Member pretty much makes that moot) but we also get plenty of shots of Páll and Tom’s respective “manhood,” whether it be the scene where Páll gets a cast made, for measurement purposes (apparently, there’s a “legal minimum length” in Iceland, which sounds like it would make its own fascinating film) or the one where Tom feels patriotic and gets his tattooed in red, white and blue (yeah…wow).

If you’re the kind of person who has any hangups regarding the nude human body (or the nude animal body, for that matter), this is absolutely not the film for you, in any way, shape or form. Mark my words: you will see the “full monty” on multiple occasions. If, however, you’re the kind of person who is fascinated by niche subjects, odd characters and truly unique ideas, then The Final Member will be right up your alley. While I never could have dreamed that a film which features wall-to-wall phalluses could be “whimsical,” Bekhor and Math’s film is just that. By the time it was over, I found myself not only rooting for Siggi, but generally liking the guy, as well. There’s a lot to be said for someone who sticks to their guns and does whatever needs to be done to finish a project, no matter how difficult or time-consuming. Will I be booking a flight to go check out the Icelandic Phallological Museum? Not anytime soon, to be honest, but I’m sure as hell glad that it exists and that there are still dreamers like Siggi, Páll and Tom to help make this globe of ours a little more interesting.

6/10/14 (Part One): The Men Who Make the Nightmares

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behind-the-scenes, blood-button effect, Bob Kurtzman, Day of the Dead, Dick Smith, documentaries, documentary, Donna Davies, Elijah Wood, Frank Darabont, George Romero, golden age of special effects, Greg Nicotero, Gross Anatomy, Howard Berger, Jack Pierce, John Carpenter, John Landis, KNB Effects, Kurtzman, Lon Chaney, Nightmare Factory, practical effects, Quentin Tarantino, Ray Harryhausen, Rick Baker, Robert Kirkman, Robert Kurtzman, Robert Rodriguez, Sam Raimi, special effects, special effects pioneer, Tom Savini, visual effects, writer-director-producer

When one is discussing the most influential special effects/make-up/visual effects artists in the business, there are a few names that always seem to come up: Tom Savini…Rick Baker…Stan Winston…Ray Harryhausen (RIP). Look closely, however, and you’ll notice another trio of names that seem to pop up in every other end credit scroll for the past several decades: Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger and Bob Kurtzman. Although they have plenty of individual credits to their name, the three would go on to form KNB Effects, one of the most influential and omnipresent effects studios to emerge since Lucas’ groundbreaking Industrial Light and Magic. Donna Davies’ fun and informative documentary, Nightmare Factory, takes an up-close-and-personal look at KNB Effects, with particular emphasis on co-founder Greg Nicotero, sfx godfather Tom Savini’s protegé.

Kicking off with a “greatest-hits” highlight reel that amounts to a fan-pleasing gore clip show (complete with pounding metal soundtrack), Nightmare Factory makes one thing abundantly clear: this one is aimed right at the genre fans who geek out on fantastic monsters, severed limbs, spurting blood, explosions and puppetry. We go through the history of KNB, which begins with the history of its key players: Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger and Bob Kurtzman. While we don’t get a whole lot of Kurtzman, who left the company a decade into its existence, we do get a whole lot of Nicotero and quite a bit of Berger. Luckily, Nicotero is an absolutely fascinating person, a life-long film and genre fan who’s devoted his entire life to making the impossible real. Long before KNB Effects was a twinkle in anyone’s eye, Nicotero and his younger brother, Bryan, were making their own movies, perfecting stunts, devising effects and props and, in general, being pretty amazing. A chance encounter with George Romero (during a family vacation in Rome, no less) led the 16-year-old Greg to a tour of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978) shopping mall set and an offer to work on his next film, Day of the Dead (1985). This, in turn, led to Nicotero meeting effects god Tom Savini and the rest, as they say, is history.

After meeting and becoming friends on the set of Day of the Dead, Nicotero and Berger ended up moving in with a friend of Berger’s named Robert Kurtzman. The three became fast friends on the set of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 (1987) which led to the realization that they might be able to make something bigger of this. KNB Effects was born and, within short order, became a powerhouse in the world of movie special effects, particularly in the effects-heavy era of the late-’80s and early-’90s. KNB Effects reach was so widespread, in fact, that it extended to decidedly non-genre offerings like Gross Anatomy (1989) and Oscar-winner Dances with Wolves (1990). In fact, you’d be pretty hard-pressed to find a film with any kind of practical effect within the past 30 years that didn’t bear the mark of either KNB Effects, Nicotero, Berger or Kurtzman: the guys were just that ubiquitous in the industry! Some of the best parts of the film involve the footage of KNB Effects heyday in the late ’80s, where the studio had a wild, rock ‘n roll, party-hard attitude: most of the effects artists were also in rock bands, hung out together constantly, partied the night away and made monsters during the daytime. For a guy like me, this looked like pretty much the best place to work in the entire world. Fuck crazy Wall Street firms: the shenanigans at KNB looked like a whole lot more fun!

Although KNB Effects is just about as important as effect studios get (they even created the “blood-button” effect that has allowed generations of indie filmmakers to create gunshots on the cheap), the times are always changing and we feel the effects of this within the doc. Studios now want effects as quickly and cheaply as possible: there’s no longer time to lovingly craft effects in the same way that the artisans did twenty years before. While computer-generated imagery is a valuable tool when used hand-in-hand with practical effects, the tendency these days is to heavily rely on CGI, which can be much quicker and cheaper to utilize than practical effects but tends to have a disarmingly glossy hyper-reality that is no patch on the oftentimes rougher practical effects of bygone eras. It’s certainly a devil’s dilemma: filmmakers are always in a desperate need to save money, which makes CGI the only feasible reality for many low-budget productions, yet cheap CGI makes any film look bad, regardless of the general quality of the production.

There’s also the sad revelation, late in the film, that Nicotero doesn’t really think anyone will come around to replace them: no one has a burning desire to just make monsters these days, he says, at least not like in the days of Famous Monsters of Film Land, Ray Harryhausen and Tom Savini (at 68, Savini is now the elder statesman who used to be the infant terrible…he even has his own special effects training school). We do get to see a few members of the younger generation who were influenced by the ’70s-’80s pioneers, such as Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Robert Rodriguez, although we don’t really get to meet any of the new generation to whom Nicotero and the others will be passing their torch.

While Nicotero certainly has a history and perspective on the situation that I’ll never possess, I can’t help but feel that he’s dead wrong in that aspect: there will always be kids around who want to make monsters. As long as there are geeky outsiders who spend their childhoods reading monster magazines under the blankets, there will be special effects people. As long as there are kids who create backyard zombie epics featuring the contents of their fridge and an ocean of passion, there will be special effects people. We may very well come to a time when practical effects are no longer utilized in mainstream cinema, where CGI has become the all-encompassing cinematic creative force and where model-makers are as quaint as town criers. Hell, we may already be there. As long as there are still kids who grow up with the burning desire to make the magic themselves, however, to mold the clay and set the fuses and paint the models, to bring life to dead objects in the same way that Dr. Frankenstein once did…as long as these kids are still around, there will always be someone to carry on the flag. Nightmare Factory serves as a wonderful reminder of just what an important tradition this really is and a truly loving salute to those who continue to keep the tradition alive.

6/9/14 (Part Two): Father of the Living Dead

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1960's films, behind-the-scenes, cinema, Civil Rights Movement, documentaries, documentary, Elvis Mitchell, film criticism, film reviews, film theory, filmmaking, films, George Romero, guerrilla filmmaking, horror, horror film, horror films, independent film, independent films, interviews, Jr., Larry Fessenden, Mark Harris, Martin Luther King, Movies, Mr. Rogers, Night of the Living Dead, Pittsburgh, Prof. Samuel D. Pollard, Rob Kuhns, Robert Kennedy, Russell Streiner, social upheaval, societal changes, talking heads, the 1960s, The Birth of the Living Dead, visual effects pioneer, Whine of the Faun, writer-director-producer-cinematographer

By 1968, the Summer of Love was officially over: the war in Vietnam was in full escalation, racial tensions led to race riots in the inner cities and the disastrous Altamont Free Concert was but a year away, although neither Robert Kennedy nor Martin Luther King, Jr. would survive to know about it. The Zodiac Killer was still killing, the Cold War with the Soviet Union was still decades from thawing and the hippie “revolution” of the early-mid ’60s had failed to bring about the kind of lasting, peaceful change that adherents hoped for. Hope had been replaced by anger: the 1960s had failed to fix anything and the system was just as broken as ever. Into this caustic stew of fear, anger, war and turmoil slipped a humble little film that would go on to revolutionize not only horror films but the world of cinema, in general. When 27-year-old college dropout George Romero first unleashed his seminal horror film, Night of the Living Dead (1968), on an unsuspecting populace, little did he know that the film would permanently change everything that came after it, directly influencing the next 46 years of horror filmmaking.

Rob Kuhns’ exceptional documentary, Birth of the Living Dead (2013), gives an insightful and in-depth look into not only the making of Romero’s classic film but also the societal issues and developments that made the film not only possible but necessary. Night of the Living Dead was a new kind of horror film for a new era of horrors: when the horrors of Vietnam were being beamed into homes on a nightly basis, the same old “haunted house” scares weren’t going to work anymore. Kuhn’s film does an amazing job of showing just how truly groundbreaking NOTLD was, especially concerning its views on race and the family unit. By the end, he actually managed to give me new respect for a film that I’ve idolized for more years than I care to remember: no mean feat and a pretty sure sign that Kuhns is a filmmaker to keep an eye on.

Birth of the Living Dead takes us through the entire process of NOTLD, beginning with Romero’s background making short films for Mr. Rogers (I was surprised, to put it mildly) and beer commercials before taking the filmmaking leap with his first attempt, Whine of the Fawn (what a name!). When his art film tanked, Romero decided to try his hand at horror and the rest, as they say, is history. Romero served as cinematographer, director and editor, while the entire cast pulled double (sometimes triple) duty both in front of and behind the scenes. Some of the most glorious moments in the film come from the fascinating behind-the-scenes insights that Romero shares about the making of the film. Some of my favorites include the special effects experts who constantly smoked cigars while working with explosives and fuses, the actor/producer who built a wooden bridge with his own hands and the fact that the crew only got their sound edit after actor Russell Streiner (who played Johnny in the film) challenged the owner of the sound lab to a chess match: he won and the crew got their sound mix. For anyone interested in filmmaking, particularly ultra-low budget guerrilla filmmaking, the behind-the-scenes stories about NOTLD are absolutely priceless and worth a watch all by themselves.

Far from just being a “making-of,” however, Kuhns film is filled with plenty of insightful “talking head” interviews and commentary on the era that was directly responsible for Romero’s chiller. We get plenty of great stuff from independent filmmaking majordomo Larry Fessenden, whose enthusiasm for Romero’s film is absolutely infectious, along with historians and critics like Elvis Mitchell, Mark Harris and Prof. Samuel D. Pollard. In a truly magical bit, Mitchell talks about seeing NOTLD at a drive-in, when he was 10, and how it absolutely changed his life. There’s also plenty of on-point discussion about the casting of Duane Jones as the lead in a time where a strong, black hero in an all-white film would have been not only eye-opening but revolutionary. This was, after all, the era where one of the biggest black movie stars of all-time, Harry Belafonte, was not allowed to touch Petula Clark (a white singer/actress) in an advertisement. The fact that Ben’s race is never brought up in NOTLD was totally radical: for the first time in popular cinema, a leading black actor was just allowed to be a man, instead of a symbol. There’s real power in the stories about how the black inner city adopted Ben as a true hero, especially when they’re told by commentators who were actually in the theaters at the time of the film’s screening.

As a film, itself, Birth of the Living Dead is a complete success. The structure is well-organized, the footage and interviews are perfectly integrated and everything has a really exciting, kinetic sense of energy. Even better, Kuhns utilizes some really badass “Sin City-esque” red-and-black graphic-novel-type animation for many of the behind-the-scenes bits, making the whole film even more visually appealing. Birth of the Living Dead looks and sounds fantastic, although that just ends up being icing thanks to the fundamentally solid information being shared. If you’re a fan of Night of the Living Dead, Kuhns’ documentary is an absolute must-see, helping to fill in any gaps and offering up a virtual treasure trove of previously unknown insights. If you’re a fan of independent filmmaking, Birth of the Living Dead is a must-see for the ways in which we see Romero and his small band of true-believers literally wrestle this iconic film into being. Basically, if you like movies in any way, shape or form, you owe it to yourself to see Birth of the Living Dead: documentaries about horror films don’t get much better than this.

5/27/14: A Real Leap of Faith

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'70s-era, Ahom Aquarian, based on a book, based on a true story, California in the '70s, cinema, communes, counterculture, cult, cults, documentaries, documentary, Father Yod, film reviews, films, freak-folk musicians, hippies, Hollywood CA, Isis Aquarian, Jim Baker, Jodi Wille, John Lennon, Makushla, Maria Demopoulos, meditation, Mother Ahom, Movies, polygamy, ritual magic, sex magic, Source Family, the Sacred Herb, The Source Family, the Source Restaurant, the Sunset Strip, utopian communities, utopian societies, Yahowa 13

I’ve always been fascinated by cults, probably because I’ve never actually believed in any one thing (or person) enough to blindly follow it off a cliff. I’m also staunchly and proudly anti-authority, so giving one guy (and let’s be honest: for various reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with religion, the leaders of these things are usually dudes) complete control over my life seems…well, like about as much fun as getting devoured by ants, to be honest. Cults are fascinating things, however, because regardless of my personal belief in them, plenty of other folks do believe in them. As I like to say: live and let live…provided, of course, that the other person is just as willing to live and let live in return. The inherent problem with almost all cults (or call them “Utopian communities,” if that makes you feel better) is that they usually end up butting heads with “polite” society, usually in some pretty violent ways. I’m sure we’re all familiar with Manson and his “family,” but the Branch Davidian and People’s Temple cults are probably better examples: I think that most cults start from a (relatively speaking) “normal” mindset but I’ll never be convinced that ol’ Charlie didn’t have his trajectory plotted out from day one.

The Source Family, a fascinating product of the hodge-podge mindset of ’70s-era Los Angeles, was a cult: I don’t really think there can be much beating around the bush on that one. As led by Father Yod (formerly Jim Baker), the “Family” exhibited all of the classic signs, including the liquidation of all members’ personal assets, in service of the group; communal living in (progressively smaller and smaller) compounds; polygamy and relationship management (Yod would often “assign” wives to men, regardless of previous arrangements/relationships/desires) and an often adversarial relationship with the outside world that involved run-ins with law enforcement and strained community ties. As seen in The Source Family (2012), a documentary about Father Yod’s group put together by surviving members of the Family, however, there was a lot more to them than just their similarity to more infamous cults. In the end, a lot of this had to do with the fascinating, polarizing figure that was Jim Baker…aka Father Yod.

Regardless of what he ended up doing with the cult, Baker was a pretty interesting fellow: before he was Father Yod, he’d been a top-notch fighter pilot, fitness guru and successful restaurateur. He was a hunky ladies’ man who once killed two men with his bare hands and robbed at least one, if not more, banks. After falling in with the “peace and love” movement, in his early 40s, Baker opened The Source Restaurant in sunny Hollywood, CA. The Source would go on to some notoriety as the favorite hang-out of various little-known celebrities like Steve McQueen, John Lennon, Goldie Hawn, Joni Mitchell and the members of Yes: you know, no big deal. At one point, according to the documentary, the Source Restaurant made more money per square inch than any restaurant in the United States. Let that sink in for just a minute, ladies and gentlemen. This guy, at least on the outside, was not your typical cult leader.

Baker assembled the Source Family teaching from a number of popular California trends/customs of the time, including health food, hedonism, drug use and Eastern and Western mysticism: in many ways, the Source Family’s tenets were kind of a “greatest hits set,” as it were, although Baker, now rechristened Father Yod, was always the de facto center of the organization. Yod would marry 19-year-old Robin, who would become Mother Ahom Aquarion (all member of the group legally changed their last names to Aquarian, making this sort of like a nutty, ultra-official version of the Ramones…which is kinda cool, if you think about it) and the two would lead their group through a number of changes, not the least of which was the eventual introduction of polygamy into the Source Family, along with concepts like “ritual magic” and “sex magic.” Yod would end up with thirteen wives, much to the consternation of Mother Ahom, and the group would begin to seem, quite suddenly, like a more traditional cult. After being “forced” from their longtime home in California, the group picked up stakes and moved to Kauai, Hawaii, where things would remain less than ideal. Once Father Yod died (in a very strange incident that, depending on who you ask, either sounds an awful lot like suicide or a colossally stupid decision), the group would continue on, for a time, under the tutelage of Makushla, one of Yod’s thirteen wives. Upon dissolving, the members would go on to do everything from award-winning stem cell research to continuing the work of their freak-folk band, Yahowa 13. Some would stay with the group, such as Isis Aquarian, while others would look back fondly, from a great distance. Unlike the People’s Temple, however, there was no great flame-out, no mass “exodus”: things just seemed to sort of peter out after Baker’s death. For all intents and purposes, the Source Family was a fascinating, ultimately unsuccessful experiment in creating a true counter-culture society.

As a documentary, The Source Family is utterly enthralling: I was pretty much glued to the screen from the first word to the last (the opening is particularly great, featuring a slow-zoom in on a portrait of Yod that ends with a close-up on his intense eyes). It’s a fast-paced, very informative film that’s filled with one neat factoid after another: cult actor Bud Cort was once a member, in good standing, of the Source Family…famous rock photographer Ron Raffaeli discusses how he was asked to join the group but was too busy and thought they were a little too weird…a member describes how he knelt and kissed Yod’s feet the first time he met him, to which Yod, impressed, responded “Far fucking out.” The Source Family was certainly an imposing, photogenic group and plenty of photos from the era bear this out: there’s something rather majestic (if not slightly nuts) about the sight of Father Yod, looking like Rick Rubin as a spiritual guru, leading his huge “family” around on the streets of Hollywood in the ’70s. There’s a nutty energy to everything that’s absolutely a product of the ’70s: it’s impossible to imagine stuff like this happening anywhere but Hollywood, at that time.

I was genuinely surprised by the musical aspect of the Family: I’d never heard of their band before (or the group itself, to be honest) but it’s impossible not to see how influential their sound has been to modern musicians. Hell, you could actually make a case for the entire freak-folk subgenre springing directly from Yahowa 13: even Billy Corgan thinks they were unbelievably influential and who are we to disagree with the Great Pumpkin? One of my favorite parts of the film is the bit where they discuss Yod and the band playing various gigs at area high school lunch hours. The footage of one of these gigs is absolutely priceless: watching Yod and crew freak the fuck out on stage, before a massive crowd of bored teenagers, all while Yod delivers a nearly non-stop “sermon,” may be one of the highlights of my last decade of movie-watching…no joke. The only thing I could think while watching this was: “When would something like this have ever been acceptable? Trying doing this nowadays and see how fast the proverbial shit would hit the fan…I’m guessing almost immediately.

Ultimately, even though I don’t think Baker was anything more than a kooky, ultra-wealthy guy who saw a sure-fire thing and grabbed it with both hands, I had a blast actually watching the documentary. Truth be told, I’d love to see a fictionalized version of this same story: hell, give it to David O. Russell, since his American Hustle-mode would be perfect for this story. This definitely isn’t an unbiased account of the events: while the film does include plenty of commentary from detractors (mostly pretty gentle, bemused kind of reflections, although the bit where one of Baker’s former co-workers scoffs at his desire to be called Father Yod is pretty snarky), it also tends to gloss over lots of problem areas.

I’m troubled, to say the least, about actions like marrying off the underage girls to Family members, in order to circumvent local rape laws: that doesn’t sound kosher, to say the very least. The “family engineering” aspect is also pretty horrible, since that’s what religious fundamentalists use to swap partners around among families, “rewarding” faithful men with more (or different) wives. There is some discussion about how much control the women had over this but it’s also explicitly stated that Yod would often “ask” members to participate in this: since no one refused him, this would be the same thing as requiring it, no? Same thing goes for the groups use of ritual and sex magic: from the outside, it seems kind of easy to assume that Yod’s ritualistic sex with various women and girls (underage or not) had less to do with helping them achieve personal nirvana than with helping him get off. We could always give him the benefit of the doubt but, to be honest, the documentary does a pretty good of muddying up this issue, as it is. Suffice to say that it’s a lot easier to buy Baker as a bored, opportunistic hedonist who stumbled into a pretty great way to run out the last years of his life than it is to buy him as a misunderstood religious guru.

Ultimately, The Source Family is a fascinating, fast-paced and well-made (if obviously biased) account of the life of a true outsider. Hell, when was the last time you heard a religious leader referred to as a perfect combination of Lenny Bruce and Krishnamurti? If Baker often seemed like an all too earthly figure, there’s certainly something other-worldly about his bigger-than-life persona. I might not have been converted to the cause, but The Source Family gave me a pretty great insight into a fascinating time in our history, a time when utopia seemed just around the corner and the possibilities were endless. Baker might not have been able to keep his dreams (or himself) aloft but there’s no denying that the guy lived life on his own terms. For better or worse, there’s something kind of inspirational about that.