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Legendary critic Pauline Kael once described Taylor Hackford’s An Officer and a Gentleman as “crap on a motorcycle.” It might be as cheese-constipated as movies get, she argued, but at least it has the good sense to amplify the cheese to mind-obliterating excess: Junk this big and fast is bound to satisfy an audience — or at least stupefy it into submission.
The tactic is especially relatable to that dubious summer movie subgenre, the TV-show-to-movie adaptation. If most television shows are crap, most shows made into films attempt to shine up the turd with tremendous torque: over-the-top set pieces, deafening pyrotechnics, gimmicky postmodern conceits, and general crap-tasticness (Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle was even accommodating enough to throw in some actual motorcycles).
Strangers with Candy offers a perversely ingenious spin on this sad state of affairs. The late-’90s Comedy Central TV series (created by longtime collaborators Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Dinello) was in essence a parody of a bad TV show to begin with, so it’s only appropriate that the movie plays like a parody of a movie based on a bad TV show.
The story revolves around the tribulations of Jerri Blank (Sedaris), a skeezy 46-year-old former junkie, prostitute, and child runaway. After being released from prison, Jerri decides to start her life over. (“Can we chay-ange?” she asks in dramatic voice-over as she shanks a fellow inmate in slo-mo.) She returns to her childhood home, promptly enrolls in her old high school as a freshman, and tries her best to fit in — which for the clueless Jerri means showing up wearing the highest waisted jeans ever while carrying a copy of the yellow pages in lieu of a textbook.
If the show was an excuse to satirize the fertile ground of straight-faced coming-of-age melodrama, the movie is an excuse to take the satire full tilt: Virtually every scene ends with a swell of the climactic, emotional score as characters come to terms with their feelings (“I wasn’t pushing you away, I was pulling me towards myself”). And the crap-on-a-motorcycle principle culminates with the purposefully sitcomish main plotline — which hinges on Jerri and her team winning the science fair with a feces-powered battery — leading to a Carrie-style “fire” and rampage in the gym.
Strangers was a relatively obscure cult success on basic cable, and many mainstream moviegoers probably won’t know what to make of this odd little gem. Dedicated fans, however, have little to worry about. The principals reprise their roles (including Dinello as the naive, not-so-ambiguously gay art teacher Mr. Jellineck and Colbert doing a variation of his self-satisfied asshole talk-show persona as Mr. Noblet), and the nasty spirit at the core of the show hasn’t been diluted.
That nasty spirit is personified by walking, talking track mark Jerri Blank, and Sedaris gamely destroys any shred of personal vanity she might have had left after the series to portray her again. Jerri’s pathetic desperation and her obliviousness to her shortcomings make her part childlike rube, part vicious opportunist, and Sedaris revels in every poisoned aside she spits through her contorted overbite. “I was thinking about pussy,” she deadpans. “Science fair is for queers.” Despite Jerri’s rottenness, she’s more of a comic-tragic figure than someone simply to laugh at. Her gameness to try and fail over and over (without ever realizing she’s failed) makes her, if not entirely lovable, at the very least endearing. She may be a bitter pill to swallow, but Candy is still one of the sweeter surprises in a movie season inevitably stinking of a certain number two. SFBG
STRANGERS WITH CANDY
Opens Fri/7
Bridge Theatre
3010 Geary, SF
(415) 267-4893
California Theatre
2113 Kittredge, Berk.
(510) 464-5980
See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com
for theaters and showtimes
www.strangerswithcandymovie.com
Movies
Comedy with overbite
HELLO LARRY
“My basic photography lesson is this: You frame the perfect composition, exactly like you want it, and then you step forward,” says Larry Clark. “What that does is screw things up a little bit, so they’ll become more real, more like the way you see.”
We’re at a restaurant South of Market, and the man behind the monographs Tulsa and Teenage Lust and the films Kids, Bully, and the new Wassup Rockers is talking when he should be eating. I’m glad, because he has a lot to say. On the car ride to Zuppa, he reminisced about a brief late-1960s spell in San Francisco after an Army stint in Vietnam — once here, Clark’s time included a few Janis Joplin encounters. Once we’ve sat down at the table, when I mention the ties between Wassup Rockers and the underrated 1968 Burt Lancaster vehicle The Swimmer, Clark agrees that Lancaster’s performance is “extremely brave” and then serves up a real whopper: A film publicist once told him that Lancaster had a love affair with Luchino Visconti during the filming of 1963’s The Leopard, and that Lancaster was left an emotional wreck when Visconti dumped him.
Well, when in Rome …
It’s an interesting, clichéd truism to apply to Clark’s work, which doesn’t fit the tired modern sense of gay by any stretch of the imagination but is certainly appreciative of male as well as female allure. In the silly and energetic Wassup Rockers, his distinctive eye rolls with a band of Guatemalan and Salvadoran skateboarders as they travel through Beverly Hills, a gated community that starts to seem more and more like a prison. Wassup is often like a 21st-century version of a Bowery Boys comedy, with Clark (in his words) “riffing off of white people” and “riffing off of pop culture.” Before one of the title characters shares a bubble bath with Janice Dickinson, he and a friend — whose jeans and bulge would make Peter Berlin envious — have a tender tête-à-tête with some Hilton types. “Paris and Nicky were too old for me [when the film started shooting],” Clark jokes.
Born in Oklahoma but sporting a huggable Brooklynese accent and looking surprisingly healthy and sweet (if worn) at 63, Clark is still very much a child at heart, the nonsnarky and better-dressed real-life answer to Strangers With Candy’s former smack user and permanent high schooler Jerri Blank. Wassup Rockers is his third collaboration with cinematographer Steve Gainer, who picked up tricks of the trade working under Roger Corman in the 1990s. The link is an apt one because Clark is still working with genre in the Corman teensploitation or celebration-of-youth-culture sense.
Does Clark think his one-step-forward approach to camerawork dates back to the early 1970s and the speed-shooting and baby-death days of Tulsa? “It was a little more formal then,” he says, adding that he was more influenced by Robert Frank imitators — and by “the best,” Walker Evans — than by Frank, whom he knew little about when he made the book. “Tulsa is really about rooms. We’re in very small rooms, and we’re very close.”
Going back to those rooms means going down with Janis again; as the fellow Clark enthusiast with me observantly notes, a Joplin poster appears on the wall of one of those dark spaces. “The first time I met her it was early in the morning and we were walking across that big park in Haight Ashbury,” Clark recalls. “She was with someone from Big Brother [and the Holding Company] and I was with someone who knew him. I remember she was smoking a cigarette and she was holding it like this” — he imitates a loose gesture — “and her fingers were all yellow, and she said, ‘I really like these Pall Malls because you smoke them right down to the end like a junkie.’”
Clark hasn’t gone right down to the end like a junkie, though Tulsa certainly pictures exactly that type of fate with a void-gazing ferocity that no television episode of Intervention will match. It’s crazy, really, how many ways mass media — fashion and advertising and “indie” film in particular — have both copped and watered down or misinterpreted Clark’s aesthetics (a bit similar to what’s happened with John Waters, though perhaps even more subtly pervasive). The producers of MTV’s Laguna Beach and The Hills, original offender Calvin Klein, and now American Apparel owe him a mint’s worth of royalties for their third-rate rip-offs. At least the latter recently threw a huge party for the cast members of Wassup Rockers and their families, complete with live performances by the band featured in the movie.
If Clark is still thriving in art and life today, some credit should be given to his girlfriend, Tiffany Limos, whose candid criticism of Clark’s past movies doubtless informed his approach to Wassup Rockers. Limos is too young to be responsible for the genius choice of soundtracking Clark’s recent mammoth Manhattan gallery show, “Punk Picasso,” with Nancy Wilson’s But Beautiful, but she did tell him to place a hilarious video installation of her beyond-hyper bichon frise near the show’s end, an element that is echoed in a funny dog-attack scene within Wassup Rockers.
“That video is like the real Larry Clark,” Clark says with a laugh. “Tiff was coming home, and when she would leave I would always tell her that I could not say her name while she was gone because the dog would go crazy. I thought, ‘I’m going to show Tiffany what happens when I say her name.’ But when I made the video, never in my wildest imagination did I think I would use it. It’s funny because I’m talking to this dog like it’s a human being. Sammy runs into the street and I scold him — ‘You’re going to get killed!’ — just like I was talking to a kid.”
Limos also got her friend the fashion designer Jeremy Scott cast in Wassup Rockers as a lascivious gay photographer who looks like Perry Farrell and has a mansion full of horrendous steroidy physique shots (actual work by Tom Bianchi). “Tiffany would bring these photos of Jeremy home,” says Clark. “We had this private joke about him that if you pointed a camera at him he would always do something incredible. Then we would see photos of him at parties in magazines, and true to form, he would always be making some flamboyant pose.”
As the interview winds down, the man who began with a photography tip says he now prefers making films. Then Clark makes a final distinction. “I was never really a photographer,” he says. “I was an artist and a storyteller [when I started out with Tulsa], and I was using photography because that’s what I had.” (Johnny Ray Huston)
WASSUP ROCKERS
Opens Fri/7
Lumiere Theatre
1572 California, SF
(415) 267-4893
Shattuck Cinemas
2230 Shattuck, Berk.
(510) 464-5980
See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com
for showtimes
www.wassuprockers.net
Johnny bravo
› cheryl@sfbg.com
Just a few summers ago, we were all snickering into our popcorn tubs: a Pirates of the Caribbean movie? Yo-ho-no! But what could’ve sucked harder than The Haunted Mansion turned into a monster 2003 hit, buoyed by ghostly buccaneers, showy effects, and Johnny Depp’s impeccably bizarre turn as Captain Jack Sparrow, surely the most inventive character yet to emerge from a 21st-century blockbuster. Long before Depp’s Oscar nomination, plans were afoot to increase Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl’s bootylicious haul with a pair of sequels filmed back-to-back. So, how can you love a series based on a rather sedate Disneyland attraction — films accompanied by a merch deluge not seen since fanboys were still jazzed about gettin’ to know Darth Maul?
Pretty much, it’s the pirates. Peg legs, cannon battles, talking parrots, mutiny on the high seas, rum chugging — pirate shit is damn near irresistible, especially when Depp’s riding the mast. Within the first reel of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, a chorus of arrrs is raised, a mangy bird plucks out some poor soul’s rotting eyeball, and a crew member remarks that Captain Sparrow is acting “strange … er” than usual. Chest’s plot is more convoluted than Pearl’s, but every character — including Sparrow, feisty Elizabeth (Keira Knightley), heroic Will (Orlando Bloom), and prissy Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) — is searching for someone, or something, with single-minded determination. Chest also shares Pearl’s ticking-clock pacing, with lives and relationships and eternal souls hanging perilously in the balance. Naturally, all these quests become interwoven and complicated by distractions, including a detour to a Skull Island–meets–Joe Versus the Volcano atoll, a gung ho swordfight, a beast bearing giant and aggressive tentacles, and the salty whims of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), whose ghostly Flying Dutchman operates like a kelp-strewn variation on the Philadelphia Experiment.
Unlike, say, flicks based on beloved comic books, Chest has no touchstones to hit or homages to pay, other than dropping in a few references to the first film. This allows director Gore Verbinski and scripters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (like sultan-of-slick producer Jerry Bruckheimer, all back from Pearl) the freedom to toss whatever they want into their Chest, which runs almost as long as Superman Returns but is infinitely more jolly, Roger. For a big-budget studio confection, there’s actually a lot of imagination at play; Nighy’s sneering performance, coupled with the special effects used to create Davy “Fishface” Jones’s slimy visage, allows for a character who’s equal parts Phantom of the Opera and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.
Of course the main reason the Pirates movies are so fun is Depp, without whom we’d be talking about a few hours of flashy CG and a couple of pretty faces (Bloom, you’re still on notice for Elizabethtown). Sparrow prances, turns tail, delivers flowery double-talk, and cares only about saving his own skin (and, of course, his precious hat) — yes, he’s a showboaty clown, but Depp manages to make him likable where others (Jim Carrey?) would simply come up annoying. I’m still not sold on Depp’s Willy Wonka interpretation. But it’s with good reason that Sparrow’s the only film character he’s played more than once.
And he’ll play him again, to be sure. It’s not spoiling anything to say that Chest ends with classic middle-film-of-a-trilogy ambiguity; fates and loyalties wind up shakier than the points on Sparrow’s discombobulated compass. The third Pirates is due next summer, so you won’t have long to wait to see what happens. In the meantime, Chest is a solid adventure with a sense of adventure — cinematic currency that’s as good as gold these days, ye scurvy dog. SFBG
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:
DEAD MAN’S CHEST
Opens Fri/7
See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com for theaters and showtimes
disney.go.com/disneypictures/pirates
Queen of the double feature
HORROR-LARITY If there’s anything better than peaches and cream, it would have to be Peaches and Elvira. Movie maniacs will get a taste of the two great horror hosts this weekend, when Peaches Christ kicks off this year’s tantalizing Midnight Mass series with a pair of prizes — two nights costarring the queen of the double feature, the famous alter ego of Cassandra Peterson.
Peterson sees Elvira as a variation of herself as a teenager: “know-it-all, really sassy, and treats the guys like crap.” She and Pee Wee’s Playhouse writer John Paragon collaborated on the screenplay for the underrated 1988 satire Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, which whips the religious right of the Reagan–Bush Sr. years. Besides featuring a wickedly witty lead performance, Mistress also boasts a great villain in Chastity Pariah, perhaps the best busybody role ever given to feisty Edie McClurg, who along with Peterson and Paul “Pee Wee” Reubens was a member of the Groundlings comedy troupe. “Our relationship was always similar to the movie,” says Peterson. “Edie would always say, ‘Are you wearing that tonight?’ — she was worried I wasn’t covered up enough.”
A poor farm girl from Kansas and Colorado who played with Frankenstein and Dracula dolls while her peers favored Barbie, Peterson brought a love of Vincent Price (“especially his Roger Corman movies loosely — and I mean loosely — based on Edgar Allan Poe”) with her when she first arrived in Hollywood. Her time in the haunted hills has included some strange pit stops, such as a guest appearance on CHiPS (“Erik Estrada was the most egotistical jerk. I hope he’s gotten a little more humble because then he was at the top of his game and he thought he was god’s gift to women”) and televised exercise with Richard Simmons (“He was really fun. He could be a little overly energetic. He kept calling me ‘Ellie,’ and I remember him screaming down the hall: ‘ELLIE!’ It could burst your eardrums”). Her own TV shows, pairing terrible movies with commentary and comedy in the grand style of Ghoulardi and others, will soon be reissued on DVD.
What’s the question that Peterson most often gets regarding Elvira, and what does she wish people would ask? “The most frequently asked question is probably ‘Are they real?'” she says. “I assume they are talking about my fingernails.”
“The question I wish people would ask? … I think they’ve gotten everything. I don’t think there’s anything left they haven’t had.” (Johnny Ray Huston)
MIDNIGHT MASS
Friday/30, 11:59 p.m.
“Uncut Night of the Living Dead Spooktacular with Elvira”
Saturday/1, 11:59 p.m.
“Carrie with Elvira”
$12
(415) 267-4893
www.peacheschrist.com
www.elvira.com
Slay time!
THEATER If you love comedy, horror movies, and the singular sensation of being doused with oddly fruity stage blood, you’re probably already a Primitive Screwheads fan. If you’re not, it’s time to familiarize yourself with the madcap masters of mayhem behind such spectacles as Re-Animator of the Dead: The Tale of Herbert West and the inimitable Evil Dead: Live. Named for a favorite Army of Darkness quote, the young company was founded by a group of San Francisco State theater students in 2003; now something of a splat-stick phenomenon, they’ve also mounted two hugely successful shows as part of the Another Hole in the Head film festival.
A few weeks back, a rowdy HoleHead crowd greeted their latest, The Chainsaw Massacres — a riff on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (with The Devil’s Rejects, Saturday Night Fever, and other pop culture insanity tossed in) that’s now returning to CELLspace. Codirectors Sean Madeira and Robert Selander — the troupe’s standout ham, who played Evil Dead’s Ash and has a juicy role in Chainsaw — are in the process of attaining nonprofit status for the Screwheads. It’s an exciting development for a group that basically runs on a self-fueled (and self-funded) mix of ingenuity, enthusiasm, and a staggering ability to multitask.
“Sean is our main writer, and I’m our main blood technician and fight choreographer, but we split directing evenly,” Selander explains. Madeira, who dreamed up the Evil Dead play while at a comics convention, drew on his screenwriting background for the company’s first production, filling a previously undiscovered niche in the San Francisco theater scene in the process.
“Everyone’s seen Shakespeare,” Madeira says. “I figured I’ll just give them something different, something wild.” The Sam Raimi cult classic was chosen because of its single location and handful of characters — and, of course, its gore-tastic possibilities, though the company’s audience-splattering ways (now a trademark) were stumbled upon with utter spontaneity.
“I knew we were gonna have a lot of blood, because it was Evil Dead,” Madeira recalls. “But then once it started accidentally hitting the audience, they went crazy.”
“By the end of the first run, Sean was, like, ‘Well, they liked it! We should just spray it at the audience,’>
Mr. Big Stuff
> a&eletters@sfbg.com
America is unquestionably the land of the large. We well realize that gigantic things generate a sense of awe — along with danger — as it currently applies to presidential hubris and supersized snacks. It’s no accident that the artists who work biggest are United States residents — not to mention men: Think of James Turrell, who transformed a crater in the Arizona desert into a massive temple to natural light; Richard Serra, whose hefty steel sculptures have blocked public plazas and famously crashed through a gallery floor; Christo, whose canvases are world landmarks and entire states; and even Jeff Koons, who effectively inflated a topiary puppy to the size of a mountain. They may have international reputations (and a few peers in other countries), but there is something undeniably American in the desire to realize dreams that large. The trick is to translate that sense of awe into something more than size envy.
Matthew Barney is perhaps the first contemporary artist to translate the idea of that monumental impulse to the media age. His latest venture, “Matthew Barney: Drawing Restraint,” which opens at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art this week (look for a review in these pages soon), is a sizable, career-spanning project. Like most of his work, it involves a feature-length film, and objects and images that relate to a self-invented universe, one filled with references to the human body, landscapes, and landmarks. Perhaps, as some critics have suggested, Barney’s work extends the enveloping nature of film into three-dimensional space, or synthesizes various art forms into a Wagnerian gesamtkunstwerk — that total, epic extravaganza of a term that’s frequently attached to Barney. Whatever it’s called, it feels like something major.
A HIGH PRICE TO PAY?
Barney’s Drawing Restraint series — which comprises performances, videos, a feature film, and drawings — is rooted in the idea of struggle, transformation, and creation. The pieces in the ongoing series reflect the artist’s changing means — the earliest of them were done with Barney attempting to make drawings on the wall while shackled with rubber tethers or jumping on a trampoline and inscribing a self-portrait on the ceiling. Drawing Restraint 14, which was recently executed at SFMOMA, involved the artist scaling the building’s tubular skylight and drawing on the curved wall. Drawing Restraint 9, as has been widely reported, costars Barney’s real-life partner Björk, was filmed on a large Japanese whaling ship and employed the full crew as extras (a primary theme of the film is Barney’s identity as an occidental — read: American — in an inscrutable Japanese culture), and was realized on a budget of nearly $5 million.
That seems an attractive sum for an artist to be working with, but not when you compare it to the costs of this country’s greatest cultural exports — Hollywood movies — or even the price of an impressionist painting at auction. It definitely pales before Damien Hirst’s recently publicized bid to make the priciest work of art ever: a diamond-encrusted skull costing some $18.8 million. If Barney could raise those kinds of funds, most likely he’d have little trouble taking his vision to a next level, be it with CGI effects or with greater amounts of his signature material, petroleum jelly.
EXCESS AND RESTRAINT
The SFMOMA exhibition involved casting 1,600 gallons of the stuff, a relatively small amount in Barney terms, in a rectangular mold — a process that was slowed by clogged hoses and a minor rupture on the museum steps. As he did at the Guggenheim with his 2003 Cremaster Cycle exhibition, Barney easily occupies a good chunk of the museum. The show covers the whole of the fourth floor, which has, for the first time, most of its walls removed. The now-vast galleries house a few whale-sized sculptures, all illuminated with hundreds of industrial-looking lightbulbs installed by Barney’s crew. Clusters of sleek flat-screen monitors hang from the ceiling throughout. While it’s not the most expensive show that SFMOMA has mounted — recent ones involving less exotic materials have had much bigger price tags — Drawing Restraint feels deluxe, even if its most used material is cool, white plastic instead of precious stones.
Is Barney’s work gracious or self-absorbed? Is his work fueled by ego, the art market, or artistic drive? These are difficult questions, and although the Cremaster exhibition was accompanied by a telephone book–sized catalog with reams of explanatory text, it’s still difficult to know. Critic Jerry Saltz, in a review of Drawing Restraint 9, described Barney as “a mystic exploring his own inner cathedral.” It seems apt, as that religious edifice is a cavernous container in which to contemplate mystical phenomena, not to mention a form to which museums are often compared. We’re meant to enter them and be quietly wowed, whether we believe the dogma or not.
Those who have tickets to the already sold-out Barney lecture on June 23 — an example of his rock star status — will most likely come away with a sense that the artist possesses a genuine humbleness and an unerring drive to realize his vision. He thinks big, and manages to live up to his ambitions with dignity. Whatever you think of his work, you gotta admire his supersized pluck. SFBG
MATTHEW BARNEY: DRAWING RESTRAINT
June 23–Sept. 17
Fri.–Tues., 11 a.m.–5:45 p.m.;
Thurs., 11 a.m.–>8:45 p.m.
SFMOMA
151 Third St., SF
$7–$12.50, free for 12 and under and members (free first Tues.; half price Thurs., 6–8:45 p.m.)
(415) 357-4000
For Drawing Restraint events, go to www.sfmoma.org
Torture Inc.
> a&eletters@sfbg.com
The Road to Guantánamo is the true story of three British citizens who were held without charges for two years at the American detention camps in Guantánamo Bay. Director Michael Winterbottom’s film combines documentary with dramatization in a way that is slightly confusing in the beginning, as we quickly cut between the men who were actually detained (Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, and Rhuhel Ahmed) and the actors who play them (Rizwan Ahmed, Arfan Usman, and Farhud Harun). The performances are first-rate, however, and the illusion of reality is created with harrowing enough detail that the gap between reportage and acting, or between documentary footage and reenactment, quickly seems irrelevant.
The worst thing a film like this can do is leave its audience feeling manipulated into believing something it was inclined to believe anyway. But The Road to Guantánamo consistently lets the story do its own work, and dumps us into the basic situation without too much backstory; it doesn’t make its protagonists overly heroic, paste any love stories over the narrative, or overwhelm its audience with music that tells us what we should be feeling.
For a film loaded with war casualties and torture, it’s disarmingly entertaining. What begins as a buddy-flick road movie quickly becomes a journey into hell. Three friends leave Britain for Pakistan, where a bride is waiting for one of them. A naive side trip to Afghanistan, just as the US bombing is getting under way, quickly carries them beyond the typical budget travel annoyances of gastrointestinal illness and makeshift restrooms and into a war-torn landscape full of the mutilated citizens of a country being indiscriminately bombed. Their final circle, however, is that abyss located both at the center of the American psyche and in Cuba. Rounded up with a batch of suspected Taliban fighters, our heroes come face-to-face with the Bush administration’s love affair with torture, humiliation, and endless detention without charge.
“Where’s Osama bin Laden?” the American interrogators ask their clueless victims, a question so ridiculous it is comic. The Americans are so perfectly American and so perfectly piggy that it’s easy to forget these scenes are being acted. Even in other recent films that package their torture as political critique, like Syriana and V for Vendetta, the subjects and objects of the verb “to torture” have been muddled; we’ve watched only white Americans and Brits enduring the worst, at the hands of Muslims, cartoon characters, or — in movies like Hostel, in which the torture is pure entertainment — East European whores and Germanic S-M fags. As in dreams, audiences probably understand that the roles are confused, and that Americans should actually be the ones wielding the clubs and attack dogs. Finally, however, we’ve been presented with a more accurate grammar: The Americans and British are torturing and the Muslims are tortured. For that reason alone, The Road to Guantánamo is an important and necessary film. SFBG
THE ROAD TO GUANT
Tonight is what it means to be young
TEEN FLICKS In the late ’70s and early ’80s a funny thing happened at the movies: Suddenly aware of a whole pocket-moneyed demographic betwixt Disney and the R rating, major studios began targeting a median audience, aged 15. (Ultimately they’d even get their very own designation, PG-13.) An explosion of post-Meatballs teen comedies soon replaced sex farce fucking and wanking with peeping and pranking. Even "nicer" films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the John Hughes–Molly Ringwald trilogy viewed adolescence as a self-contained world, not the way station to adulthood American Graffiti proposed just a few years earlier.
With the anthemic whining of Pink Floyd’s The Wall as personal soundtrack, kids who’d missed the big party of the ’60s grasped rebellion as attitude, sans social consciousness. Jonathan Kaplan’s Over the Edge (1979) and Adrian Lyne’s Foxes (1980) were fairly realistic portraits of aimless teenage escape from broken institutions (family, school). Exploring the same themes but leaving realism behind, the movies in Jesse Ficks’s Midnites for Maniacs’ "Latch-Key Kids Quadruple Feature" offer archetypal youth-persecution scenarios gone baroque via pop-fantasy tropes and bottomless (if depthless) directorial extravagance. To a generation just learning to want its MTV, albeit with a vengeance, such edgy glamour felt all the more "real" for being surreal.
Following his prior S.E. Hinton adaptation, The Outsiders, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 Rumble Fish replaced saturated-color swoon with a B&W faux-beatnik poesy derived equally from American International Pictures, Maya Deren, and Dal??. Its mannerisms are too indulgent to defend, too dazzling to deny — what other movie could stockpile so many desperate debtors to James Dean (Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Dennis Hopper, Tom Waits, Nicolas Cage) and get away with it?
But Rumble Fish is acoustic haiku compared to the florid power balladry of director Walter Hill’s two most delirious action comix. Discarded by Paramount as an exploitation movie and belatedly acclaimed by critics, 1979’s gang warfare phantasmagoria The Warriors was so flagrantly exciting — Bic-waving 60-year-old Pauline Kael called it "visual rock" — that actual gang fights broke out in theaters, causing at least one death and much moral outrage. Its titular protagonists (derived, by way of a 1965 novel, from ancient Greek military history!) are scrappy underdogs fighting through rival gang turfs across a hallucinatory NYC. KISS Army–meets–Marvel Comics pillow hump? Blood-churning metaphor for life itself? Whatever: The Warriors remains trash-treasure gold.
Hill went even more nuts with "rock & roll fable" Streets of Fire, a neon-hued rainbow of ’50s juvenile delinquent nostalgia, new wave futurism, and pure 1983 mainstream cheese. Note the Pat Benatar postures struck by music superstar Ellen Aim (Diane Lane, in her bad "bad girl" period) before she’s abducted by freakazoid fan/rapist Willem Dafoe, necessitating rescue by laconic ex Michael Pare. "It’s so much better going nowhere fast," she wails in the quintessentially flamboyant opening set piece. Exactly! Streets of Fire is a stupid, gorgeous, guilty pleasure.
Simple guilt motivates the evening’s opening anomaly. Cipher in the Snow is a somber 21-minute lesson produced in 1973 by Brigham Young University in which a teenage boy exits a school bus to enigmatically expire in the wintry drifts. Why? As various authorities puzzle out later, nobody bothered to love him. Shown even in non-Mormon classrooms for several years, Cipher left a lasting impression on many because it explicitly amplified what many 15-year-olds think: No one cares about me, but if I just died, they’d be soooo sorry. (Dennis Harvey)
LATCH-KEY KIDS QUADRUPLE FEATURE
Cypher in the Snow, 7 p.m.; Rumble Fish, 7:45 p.m.; The Warriors, 9:45 p.m.; Streets of Fire, 11:59 p.m.
$10
Castro Theatre
429 Castro, SF
(415) 621-6120
Honeycomb hideout
› johnny@sfbg.com
Cast a spell — that is what movies (at least nondocumentary ones) are or were supposed to do, and yet how often do they achieve that aim today? V??ctor Erice’s original feature, 1973’s The Spirit of the Beehive, is partly about the spell a masterful movie can cast, and also is a many-shaded masterpiece that casts an unforgettable spell, a waking dream that disperses in a way that seems to infect the world outside the darkened rooms in which it breathes and lives.
At first glance the story seems so simple, and after all, it is set "Once upon a time …," as an intertitle announces, just after a credit sequence featuring objects relevant to the story — a beekeeper’s mask, a train, a well, a mushroom, and that surrealist standby, a clock — drawn by the film’s lead actors. But more specifically, it takes place somewhere on the Castilian plateau of Spain around 1940, as Frankenstein comes to town. Ana (Ana Torrent) and older sister Isabel (Isabel Teller??a) are among the children who race through the barren rural landscape to a movie barn to see James Whale’s classic chiller, but it is only Ana who cranes like a lunar flower under the projected light, ignoring a prelude from the film’s producers that warns viewers not to take what they see too seriously. Before Ana and her sister emerge playfully shrieking from the darkened building, Erice has already allowed Frankenstein‘s influence to seep outside, into the seemingly oblivious existences of the girls’ mutually alienated parents, a beekeeper (Fernando Fern?
Beast of the Bay
› a&eletters@sfbg.com
Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the Beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short…. Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty six.
— Revelation 13:18
This week marks an unusual holiday — or unholy day — that only comes along once every 100 years: the Day of the Beast, 6/6/06. For some it is a day to fear, when the Antichrist of Christian mythology will finally be revealed. For others it is a time of hope and celebration for precisely the same reason. For me, it is a time to rock. The Number of the Beast, Iron Maiden’s third studio album, was released in 1982. Vocalist Bruce Dickinson had just joined the band, and Maiden was at the height of its powers. My best friend Mike and I listened to the entire record every day after school for months. We would sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the record cover, trying to decipher its hidden meanings and getting off on the comic book/metal imagery. As true fans and converts, we felt compelled to spread the word, or at least show how cool we thought we were.
So one morning before school, we took a black Magic Marker to a couple of white T-shirts, writing three big 6s on the fronts and "The Number of the Beast" on the backs. We were so proud of ourselves walking to school, but our bubble was burst as soon as we got there: The teacher sent us straight back home to change, telling us, "Some of the other children might find it offensive." Mike and I both played it off like we were innocent little rock fans, with no intentions of offending or converting anyone to Satanism. We were just celebrating our favorite band — and song.
The title song in question is, to my mind, one of the most rocking ever recorded. Maiden bassist Steve Harris wrote it, and it is a true metal classic: heavy riffs, strong, catchy hooks, and vaguely sinister metal lyrics. The words put the listener straight into the narrator’s mind, witnessing the dawn of Hell on Earth: "Torches blazed and sacred chants were praised/ As they start to cry, hands held to the sky/ In the night, the fires burning bright/ The ritual has begun, Satan’s work is done."
Dickinson invokes dark, paranoid imagery as if channeling Poe or Lovecraft, and when he spits out the chorus of "6-6-6/ The Number of the Beast," he conjures up all that is implied in the evil numerology: the tension between the narrator’s juvenile fascination with evil — much like our own — and the higher impulse to overcome and reject it.
"But I feel drawn to the chanting hordes / They seem to mesmerize, can’t avoid their eyes."
In the end, the narrator appears to be swayed, or possessed, by the dark forces, and joins them. But don’t worry, for we are shown the way to salvation by the album’s cover art: Amid a field of flames and an ominous night sky, a small man, representing humanity, dances on puppet strings held by a horned, red devil, who is himself attached to strings wielded by Eddie, Maiden’s ubiquitous undead mascot. The message is clear: While humankind may be weak and easily led astray by the Hoofed One, it is the power of rock — or more specifically, metal, as represented by Eddie — that can save us and help us to conquer our fears. The words of the song tell one story, but the sheer visceral power of the music itself transforms and redeems the lyrical narrative. Evil may exist — in ourselves, on Earth, and in the universe — but by the empowering grace of metal, we can exorcise our demons and tame the beast within. Metal becomes the negation of the negation.
Theologically, of course, before the devil became the grotesque and irredeemable character of novels and horror movies, he was the Adversary, the Fallen Angel, the Forsaken One of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions. Remember his friendly wager with God over Job’s soul, or his cordial philosophical debates with the Nazarene, long before Faust’s wager or Linda Blair’s projectile vomiting. It was he who questioned and encouraged others to do the same, the one who opposed and dared to think for himself. He was the rebel, the gadfly, the thorn in the side. The subsequent notion that questioning authority and tradition is the devil’s work, though intended to scare us straight, gives rise to a certain curiosity — and yes, sympathy — toward Lucifer, in some who cherish freedom of thought and expression. No doubt some of the titillation we feel watching Rosemary’s Baby or listening to the "The Number of the Beast" comes from such an impulse to defy a hallowed authority, from the safety of our imaginations.
Twenty-four years after it was released, the Iron Maiden album retains its power and vitality. It continues to be a benchmark for good, honest heavy metal now obscured by retro-fixated irony, emo-inspired whininess, embarrassing misappropriations of hip-hop, and false metal generally. The fact that Maiden has stuck to its guns through the waxing and waning of true metal’s popularity and has continued to record and tour on its own terms to this day somehow adds to the record’s staying power. The music is not tainted by revisionist questions about the band’s motives or integrity. In this, as well as the music, Maiden continues to be an inspiration to generations of musicians and fans.
I like to think of "The Number of the Beast" as a kind of "White Christmas" for the day of the beast. (Too bad it’s a holiday that only happens once a century — it could mean a gold mine in royalties for Harris and co.) Never mind that the nice chaps in Maiden are not actually Satanists at all — Irving Berlin was Jewish, and we all know you don’t have to be a Christian to have a tree. It’s the spirit of the day that counts. So on 6/6/06, do yourself a favor and crank up some Maiden. If you listen carefully, you might almost hear the children’s voices caroling:
"666 — The number of the beast/ 666 — The one for you and me." SFBG
Devin Hoff lives in Oakland and plays the bass with Redressers, Good for Cows, Nels Cline Singers, and others.
Howlin’ at the sun
› kimberly@sfbg.com
SONIC REDUCER Something wicked this way came, right in the middle of last week’s spate of strangely beautiful, beastly hot days, as I sipped a pint on El Rio’s back patio with Comets on Fire vocalist-guitarist Ethan Miller. You can bet — with 6/6/06 plastered all over town, prophesizing an ominously large marketing onslaught for The Omen — that wickedness probably involved horror movies. And you’ll be right. Because Miller is happy to talk about the fruits of Howlin’ Rain, a solo project aided and abetted by Sunburned Hand of the Man’s John Moloney and childhood Humboldt County pal Ian Gradek. But Miller gets really "fanned out" when the subject of mind-gouging, low-budg cinematic howlers like his all-time faves — Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Beyond, Maniac, Suspiria — come up. I can dig it, but do all rockers really bond over the joy of having their eyeballs violated?
"My wife doesn’t want to watch it with me," he says jovially. "I’m, like, ‘Babe, I just got my copy of Cannibal Holocaust in the mail! And she’s just, like, ‘No! Fuck that! No! No! You have to watch that after I go to bed.’
"I had this one friend, I thought he and I had the same taste, and he just wasn’t really speaking up, and I kept giving him films to watch, and he was, like, ‘Dude, I told you. I hate that. That was fucking traumatizing.’”
For all his movie-collector madness, Miller can be reasoned with — and likewise is perfectly reasonable. The Comets’ de facto leader and cofounder tells me their fourth full-length, Avatar (Sub Pop), is ready to go after what sounds like a grueling but fully democratic process recording with Tim Green at Prairie Sun in Cotati. "It’s hard to know if you’re in control of the macro-organism or if it’s in control of you," Miller muses. "Like a minidemocracy, you can’t steer it more than your one-fifth influence. These are real social people wed to each other through their art and music and now through a band."
The Howlin’ Rain project, meanwhile, was quick and dirty, spat out in about eight days, and driven solely by Miller, relying on two trustworthy friends from far-flung parts of the country, with Moloney in Massachusetts and Gradek in Kauai.
Dust demons of fuzz and growling guitar tone still crop up, but here Miller has conjured his own ’06 version of early-’70s "mellow gold" rock ’n’ roll, pulling from the Allman Brothers, Cream, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Neil Young without resorting to outright … cannibalism.
"I tried to pack it full of the psych you could have from this vantage point right now," he says. "Not make a record that’s, like, ‘Fuck, that sounds just like Sabbath. I mean, just like Sabbath.’”
Keep your bloody Sabbath — instead a laid-back, sun-swept blues-rock vibe, edged with moments of darkness, comes in as clear as a rushing river. You can hear Miller’s relatively effects-free voice, for once not screaming over the maelstrom as if flesh were being ripped from his bones, cushioned by the occasional harmony, which he describes as "Simon and Garfunkel on a bad trip or something."
Nonetheless, Miller isn’t ready to forsake the power jams of yore. He sees Howlin’ Rain and Comets as populist entertainments, much like those beloved horror films. "The best ones succeed in an absolute emotional manipulation that’s kind of a ride, like listening to Queen or Mahavishnu Orchestra, music that’s made for an absolute thrill ride. It’s just so dense and thrilling, and they don’t make you sit around waiting for something to happen. Though maybe Mahavishnu wouldn’t appreciate that because their shit is supposed to be more spiritual …"
Stinky no more What’s it like growing up rock? Ask XBXRX, or Gaviotas’s Simon Timony, who had his share of alterna-cool attention at a very young age: The 22-year-old San Franciscan led the Stinkypuffs — which included his onetime stepfather Jad Fair of Half Japanese, his mother Sheenah Fair, Gumball’s Don Fleming, and Lee Ranaldo’s son Cody Linn Ranaldo. Fronting and writing for the most notable child-centered supergroup of the early-’90s alt-rock scene, Timony learned guitar from family friend Snakefinger, was home-schooled by his parents, who ran Ralph Records (his father Tom was in the Residents), and eventually befriended Nirvana when Half Japanese opened for them during the In Utero tour. "I was actually trusted to go wake up Kurt before a show," Timony says wonderingly today.
After notably performing with Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, together for the first time after Cobain’s suicide, at the 1994 Yo Yo a Go Go fest in Olympia, Wash., Timony grew disillusioned with music at around age 13. But he picked up his moldy guitar again after discovering Korn and now he’s making Gaviotas his full-time job. He performs at a suicide-prevention benefit May 31. "My dad and my mom were, like, ‘If this is what you want to do …,’” Timony explains. “‘As long as you don’t suck!’ My dad is a very honest person — too honest sometimes." SFBG
Howlin’ Rain
Thurs/1, 6 p.m.
Amoeba Music
1855 Haight, SF
(415) 831-1200
Also with Citay and Sic Alps
Sat/3, 9:30 p.m.
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
$6
(415) 923-0923
www.hemlocktavern.com
Gaviotas with Crowing and Habitforming
Wed/31, 9 p.m.
Annie’s Social Club
917 Folsom, SF
$5
(415) 974-1585
Ouch
SMOOSH
Play nice with Chloe and Asya, those übertalented but otherwise normal preteens in Seattle’s Smoosh. Their new album, Free to Stay, is here to stay June 6. Eels headline. Wed/31, 8 p.m., Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. $25. (415) 346-6000.
FLESHIES
Frontperson John lays down his Foucault — and likely won’t set himself on fire — for a few choice shows celebrating the release of Scrape the Walls (Alternative Tentacles). Fri/2, 10 p.m., Annie’s Social Club, 917 Folsom, SF. $7. (415) 974-1585; June 9, 8 p.m., 924 Gilman, Berk. $5. (510) 525-9926, www.924gilman.org.
Pride of Frankenstein
› a&eletters@sfbg.com
There were macabre and fantastical American films in the silent era, many starring "Man of a Thousand Faces" Lon Chaney. But horror as a Hollywood genre arguably didn’t exist before 1931, when Universal released what may be the two biggest monster franchise titles in cinematic history.
One was Tod Browning’s Dracula, starring Hungarian émigré Bela Lugosi as Bram Stoker’s suave bloodsucker. The other was James Whale’s Frankenstein, which starred, uh, "???? — as The Monster." That was the actual on-screen billing, though word soon leaked out that portraying Mary Shelley’s "Modern Prometheus" under grotesque makeup was a certain English actor named Boris Karloff. Well, renamed: Onetime farmhand William Henry Pratt had changed his moniker long before, the better to snatch those multiethnic roles his imposing features could encompass.
Karloff, whose huge film legacy is commemorated in a Balboa Theater retrospective starting this Friday, had labored without much recognition in nearly 80 bit and supporting parts since 1919. Public clamor to identify Frankenstein‘s hulking yet plaintive monster ended that once and for all — making Karloff as notorious as the already Broadway-famed Lugosi overnight. Forever after they’d be linked as Hollywood’s twin ghouls. Both were typecast by genre fame, relegated to endless B-, then Z-grade productions. (Unlike Lugosi, Karloff managed to avoid working with legendarily inept Ed "Plan 9 from Outer Space" Wood — but he did end his career laboring on four back-to-back Mexican horror films of almost equally hilarious artistic bankruptcy. Check out the demented Torture Chamber, released well after his 1969 death and most definitely absent from the Balboa slate.)
Heavy on Golden Era classics, very light on the schlockier work that dominated Karloff’s later years, the retrospective is full of rarities and 35 mm restorations. All the Universal Frankenstein films are represented, plus 1932’s The Mummy — another primary horror figure Karloff made his own. The series’ surprise is its several gangster flicks — a genre that hit the fan just before horror did, affording glower-faced Karloff plenty of employment opportunities. He’s eighty-sixed in a bowling alley in the 1932 Scarface and plays a killer convict in another Howard Hawks film, 1931’s The Criminal Code. You can also see him as a crazed Islamic fundamentalist(!) in 1934’s The Lost Patrol, one rare occasion in which he worked with a "prestige" director like John Ford.
But the bulk of the Balboa’s 26 titles are horror, made by studio talents who never got near an Academy Award — though god knows James Whale’s witty The Old Dark House (1932) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) have aged better than whatever won Oscars those years. Ditto The Body Snatcher a decade later, innovative producer Val Lewton’s take on real-life grave robbers Burke and Hare. Body costarred Lugosi, who’d earlier joined Karloff in expat Hungarian director Edgar G. Ulmer’s tardy riot of German expressionism, The Black Cat (1934). Another gem is 1932’s The Mask of Fu Manchu, a rare horror effort for sniffy MGM that compensated via high art-deco gloss, sexual sadism, and racial stereotypes pushed to the point of absurdist camp. Under such conditions, Karloff often seems as amused as he is sinister, shading his material not with condescension but with delicate irony. He was never undignified, though the films often were. He gladly participated in ridiculing his own image, however — notably in the stage smash Arsenic and Old Lace, in which his thug character confesses, "I killed him because he said I looked like Boris Karloff."
The gentlemanly offscreen Karloff loved children, and had mixed feelings about his professional prowess at scaring the bejesus out of them. His daughter Sara Karloff kicks off the Balboa series with an evening of home movies and live chat. You can safely bet her reminiscences will land at a safe distance from Mommie Dearest territory. SFBG
"As Sure as My Name is Boris Karloff"
June 2–8, June 16–22
Balboa Theater
3630 Balboa, SF
$6–$8.50
(415) 221-8184
For showtimes, see Rep Clock
Blood brothers
› cheryl@sfbg.com
It’s Easter weekend in the Mission District, and despite the rabbit snuffling around Rick Popko’s backyard, Cadbury eggs are the last thing on anyone’s mind. "I think we’ve killed everyone we know," Popko explains grimly, grabbing his cell phone to try and recruit one more zombie for the final day of filming on the horror comedy RetarDEAD. Moments later, Popko and RetarDEAD codirector Dan West survey the scene in Popko’s basement. To put it mildly, it’s a bloodbath: The ceiling, walls, and carpet are dripping with cherry red splatters. A smoke machine sits primed for action near a table loaded with gore-flecked prop firearms.
Waste not
Several weeks later (plus several coats of paint, though a faint pinkness lingers), what had been a gruesome morgue has now reverted to its natural domestic state, save an editing station assembled at one end. A framed poster commemorating Popko and West’s first feature, 2003’s Monsturd, hangs on a nearby wall.
Monsturd is a true B-movie. Thanks to some seriously weird science, a serial killer morphs into a giant hunk of raging poop. Drawn into this sordid small-town tale are an evil doctor, a down-and-out sheriff, and an intense FBI agent, plus Popko and West as a pair of screwball deputies. Toilet jokes abound. After a three-day premiere at San Francisco’s Victoria Theatre, Monsturd found some success on video, most triumphantly surfacing in Blockbuster after the chain purchased 4,000 DVD copies.
Popko and West hope Monsturd‘s cult notoriety will aid RetarDEAD, which happens to be its direct sequel. It starts exactly where Monsturd ended. "Dr. Stern [the mad scientist played by Popko-West pal Dan Burr] rises from the sewer," West explains. "He gets a job at an institute for special education and starts a test group on these special ed students. They become remarkably intelligent, and then the side effect is they become zombies."
"In a nutshell, we kind of liken it to Flowers for Algernon meets Night of the Living Dead," Popko interjects.
"It’s a background gag to get the whole premise of the joke title. People go, ‘Well, why is it RetarDEAD?’ It’s because we needed a gimmick," says West, adding that the title came before the film (and was settled upon after an early choice, Special Dead, was snatched up by another production).
Best friends since bonding over a shared love of Tom Savini, circa 1984, at Napa’s St. Helena High School, Popko and West are so well matched creatively that Burr describes them as "like the left hand and the right hand" on the same body. Both are keen on beguiling titles. Monsturd‘s original moniker (Number Two, Part One) was dropped after being deemed too esoteric; Monsturd, they figured, would solicit more interest in video stores.
"We knew it’s such a stupid title that you would have to rent it just to see if it was as dumb as you thought it was," West explains. And for self-financed filmmakers like West and Popko (who both have full-time jobs and estimate they spent $3,000 on Monsturd and $12,000 to $14,000 so far on RetarDEAD), clever marketing strategies are essential.
"We have to think, when we’re making these movies, what can we sell, what can we get out there, what can we make a name for ourselves with?" Popko says.
"On this level, you go to the exploitation rule, which is give ’em what Hollywood cannot or will not make," West adds. "And they’re not gonna make Monsturd."
Dirty deeds . . .
Monsturd took years to complete and taught the duo scores about the capriciousness of the DVD distribution biz. Though one review dubbed it "the greatest movie that Troma never made," Popko and West actually turned down a deal with the famed schlock house, unwilling to sign over the rights to their film for 25 years. After hooking up with another distributor, they didn’t see any money from their Blockbuster coup. Still, they remain proud of Monsturd and its success.
"We tried to make it the best movie we possibly could, but we had nothing," West explains. "We didn’t piss it out in a weekend. It took a year to shoot it, then it took a year to put the thing together."
"We didn’t just shit out a crappy movie, pardon the pun," Popko says.
Neither filmmaker seems concerned that their trash-tastic subject matter might prevent them from being taken seriously as artists. And it doesn’t bother them that Monsturd‘s joke tends to overshadow the film itself — not just for viewers, but for critics, who were by and large polarized by the killer shit-man tale.
Popko also recalls unsuccessfully submitting Monsturd to a half dozen film festivals intended to showcase DV and underground flicks. Quickly pointing out that the film got picked up anyway, he blames image-conscious programmers: "It’s like, how can you have a respectable film festival when you’ve got a shit monster movie playing in it?"
Though Popko and West live in San Francisco and filmed both Monsturd and RetarDEAD in Northern California, they say they don’t feel like part of the San Francisco filmmaking scene. Again, they suspect the whiff of poo might have something to do with it.
"We’ve kind of been ignored," West says. "We’re not bitter about it, but it would be nice to be acknowledged for what we’re doing — we’re making exploitation films, and we don’t really have any guilt about what we’re doing. It’d be nice for somebody to develop a sense of humor and acknowledge it once in a while."
. . . done dirt cheap
As with Monsturd, RetarDEAD is a nearly all-volunteer effort, pieced together when the responsibilities of real life permit. Despite the obstacles — say, a sudden insurance crisis involving a rented cop car — unpredictability is clearly part of the thrill.
"When you undertake this shit, it’s an adventure: ‘What did you do this weekend?’ ‘Well, I was chased by 42 zombies, and the weekend before that, a bunch of burlesque dancers ripped our villain apart and ripped his face off,’” West explains. "It’s like, how else would you spend your free time?"
This sentiment extends to the film’s cast, several of whom have known Popko and West for years and reprise their Monsturd roles in its sequel. Coming aboard for RetarDEAD were members of San Francisco’s Blue Blanket Improv group, as well as the Living Dead Girlz, a zombie-flavored local dance troupe.
Beth West, who jokingly calls herself a "fake actor," stars in both films as the X-Files-ish FBI agent (Dan West’s former wife, she was roped into the first production after the original lead dropped out). Despite both films’ bare-bones shoots — and other concerns, like trying (and failing) to keep continuity with her hairstyle over multiple years of filming — she remains upbeat about the experience: "I loved being part of such a big creative effort."
Though his character is torn to shreds in RetarDEAD, Burr agrees. "This film is going to be 100 times better than the last one, as far as direction, camera shots — everyone was more serious this time," he says. He hopes that RetarDEAD will help Popko and West expand their audience. "Someone’s gonna notice the talent there. Maybe not in the acting, but this is these guys’ lives. It’s never been my whole dream, but it’s always been their whole dream."
Splatter-day saints
For RetarDEAD, technical improvements over Monsturd, including the introduction of tracking shots, were important considerations. However, first things first: "We knew we wanted this to be gory as fuck," West says. An ardent fan of Herschell Gordon Lewis — notorious for stomach turners like 1963’s Blood Feast — West once hoped to lens a biopic of Lewis and his producing partner, David Friedman. Though it was never completed, he did get the Godfather of Gore’s permission to use a snippet of dialogue from the project in RetarDEAD.
"This whole thing begins with his intro — it’s like that Charlton Heston thing for Armageddon, where it’s like the voice of God — but it’s Herschell Gordon Lewis talking about gore," West says. "It was the one way I could go to my grave saying I finally figured out a way to work with Herschell Gordon Lewis."
Appropriately enough, RetarDEAD pays homage to Lewis’s signature style. "Monsturd had a couple of bloody scenes in it, but it was pretty tame," Popko says. "This here, we’re planning on passing out barf bags at the premiere because, I mean, it’s gross. We’ve got intestines and chain saws and blood all over the place."
Overseeing the splatter was director of special effects Ed Martinez, one of the few additional crew members (and one of few who were paid). A late addition to the production, he "made the movie what it is," according to West.
"A zombie film in this day and age, you can’t do amateur-quality makeup and get away with it — it’ll be a flop," says Martinez, who teaches special effects makeup at San Francisco’s Academy of Art University and is a veteran of films like The Dead Pit. "And [Popko and West] know that."
Though Martinez is used to working on bigger projects, he stuck with RetarDEAD — dreaming up such elaborate moments as a Day of the Dead–inspired man-ripped-in-half sequence — because, as he says, "In a way, I’m a coconspirator now." He also appreciates the directors’ sheer enthusiasm and appreciation. After a killer take, they were "literally high-fiving me. Most low-budget filmmakers are so egocentric they would rarely do anything like that. Good effects are important, but they’re not the only things that are important."
Dawn of RetarDEAD
Though a third movie in the Popko-West canon is already in the planning stages (Satanists!), it’s looking like several months before RetarDEAD — still being edited from 30-plus hours of raw footage — has its world premiere.
"We only get one to two nights a week to do this," Popko explains. Making movies for a living is the ultimate dream, but for now, both men view their films as being in the tradition of early John Waters: made outside the system and laden with as much bad taste as they please. Potential distributors have already advised the pair to adjust RetarDEAD‘s divisive title, a notion they considered "for about five minutes," according to West.
Popko and West’s films may be throwbacks to the drive-in era, but their outlook on the movie biz is actually quite forward-looking. Popko — "the carnival barker" to West’s "guy behind the curtain pulling levers and switching things," according to Burr — anticipates a day when tangling with queasy distributors won’t even be necessary, because many films will simply be released directly over the Internet. Both directors are also very interested in high-definition technology; they plan to upgrade from their old DV camera to a new HD model for their next effort, for reasons beyond a desire for better visual quality.
"What HD has done is bring grind house back," West says. "Now you can make stuff on a level that can compete, aesthetically, with what Hollywood’s doing — almost. As far as your talent, you’ll be able to compete realistically with other movies. Now people can make good horror movies on their own terms."
"If you really want to make a movie, you can," Popko notes, stressing the importance of production values. Though the cutthroat nature of the indie film world is always on their minds, they welcome the new wave of B-movies that HD may herald.
"Now, there aren’t movies like Shriek of the Mutilated that were done in the 1970s, which could compete [with Hollywood]. These movies can now come back into the fold as long as they’re shot on HD — and there will be a shit fest like none other," West predicts, adding that he’s looking forward to the deluge. "The world’s a better place with shitty movies in it." SFBG
The Guardian presents Monsturd
Mon/5, 9 p.m.
12 Galaxies
2565 Mission, SF
Free
(415) 970-9777
Doing the Cannes-Cannes, Part Two
Gary Meyer of the Balboa is at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Here is the second of his reports.
What a day! They’ve moved things around. Problems with my accreditation badge mean I can’t get into the movies. Offices that used to be in the Palais are at the other end of the Croisette, a 20 minute walk. The lines are huge and don’t seem to move. Finally I get my problems cleared up but every screening is full. Even my friends connected with some movies can’t get me in. The day is almost over and I haven’t seen one film yet. BUZZZZ. “Good morning. This is your 7am wake up call. Have a nice day.” Anxiety dreams are the worst here. I am feeling guilty that I only saw four films yesterday, but that was all there was worth seeing.
The morning started promisingly. Ken Loach’s newest, The Wind that Shakes the Barley , is generally well-received. Cillian Murphy proves that his acting turns in Breakfast on Pluto and Red Eye were not flukes. He stars as a young doctor faced with an offer to practice medicine in London — or stay in his village and become increasingly involved in forming a guerilla army to fight the “Black and Tan” army from England, sent to squash Irish independence. Set in the 1920s, the film has contemporary relevance. The first half is exciting, playing like a grand adventure with a political conscience, just as we have come to expect from Loach. The second half slows a bit but still worked for me.
Continuing in the history vein, with sociology and myth thrown in, is Rolf de Heer’s Ten Canoes. This Dutch director has developed a small but faithful following with his diverse filmography of under-distributed movies including The Quiet Room, Dance Me to My Song, and Alexandra’s Project. Ten Canoes was developed with actor David Gulpilil (most known for starring in Walkabout) who was interested in the stories of his own tribe, the Ramingining people. Gulpilil narrates (in English) simultaneous stories related to forbidden love but separated in time by many generations. There is a certain irreverence in his storytelling that is surprising: What is a flatulence reference doing in a story set hundreds of years ago? But then one realizes people have passed wind as long as they have existed. The guilty warrior is moved to the back of the line as they go through the forest — and more bawdy humor reminds us that dirty jokes aren’t new.
Ten Canoes is an impressive accomplishment on many levels. Though its austerity may be off-putting for some audiences, the fascinating stories, stunning visual delights, and truly unique experiences make it worthy of distribution.
The next two films shouldn’t be watched on a full stomach … but a viewer might not want to eat afterwards either. Taxidermia is the second feature from Hungarian director György Pálfi, after his astonishing Hukkle. Like Ten Canoes — another film dealing with several generations in a family — Taxidermia opens with a story of an orderly masturbating while observing his master’s young daughters, and servicing the man’s rather large wife on a monthly basis. The accidental offspring grows up to become a champion eater, winning contests while becoming a national, very fat, hero. Just as the sexual escapades of his father were graphically portrayed, we are shown huge amounts of vomit following the son’s competitions. The absurdity of it generates nervous laughter from those who haven’t turned away from the screen. He grows older, and becomes so large he cannot move. When he explodes, his son, a taxidermist, does what you might expect — and then what you won’t expect.
In some ways Taxidermia is a brilliant piece, with incredible cinematography, black humor, and a couple of visual treats. A brief sequence in a pop-up storybook and one exploring the myriad of uses for a bathtub are moments I should like to see again. But this is a hard movie to recommend to most; the gross outs just keep coming, each topping the previous one. Obviously, it’s only for those who can stomach it.
If one hasn’t lost his or her appetite after Taxidermia, the fiction film adapted from Eric Schlosser’s non-fiction book Fast Food Nation could move anyone in that direction. The author developed the screenplay with director Richard Linklater (whose animated science fiction film, A Scanner Darkly, screens here next week). The story centers around an executive at a thinly disguised hamburger chain — “Mickey’s” — who is sent to Colorado to investigate reports concerning fecal matter in beef. Along the way he encounters a number of characters working at the slaughterhouse and at the chain’s local burger joint.
In trying to cover as many controversial bases as he can, Schlosser may have taken on too many issues (the treatment of illegal aliens, sexual harassment, America’s poor dietary habits, the lack of sanitary conditions in both the meat-processing plant and the retail outlets, corporate neglect for bigger profits, etc). But the over-ambitious narrative rarely makes the impact these issues deserve. Following Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle, Schlosser’s investigative book confirmed that things aren’t much better in the 21st century. Though trying to reach a wider audience with a narrative film is a noble idea, it doesn’t succeed as either entertainment or piece of muckraking. The French seemed to generally like Fast Food Nation, probably because it makes for an easy anti-American target. But they also eat fast-food burgers in huge numbers.
High concept
The Marche is a massive film market that happens simultaneously with the film festival. More junk that you ever imagined is produced all over the world, and thousands of films are being sold here. Some are finished and others are in development. Many will never be finished.
We can always expect ripoffs of Hollywood blockbusters. There is no description for Sacrament Code or Stealing the Mona Lisa in the ads because the makers are probably hoping for some down and dirty direct-to-international video and cable sales. I’ve seen ads for at least three pirate movies, each looking very much like the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean II, with supernatural elements floating through the art work and featuring casts of total unknowns who look a lot like Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley.
One of my favorite things at Cannes is seeking out the most ridiculous titles for movies selling in Marche. Are you ready for a horror film about “hair extensions that attack the women that wear them?” Japan’s Toei is selling it here. Exte will star Chiaki Kuriyama, the crazy chain-swinging schoolgirl in Kill Bill.
And how about Motor Home Massacre? No description offered and none is needed.
Whatshisnamesnewfilm
The masses gathered at Cannes rarely refer to upcoming Festival movies by their title. We are asked, “Are you going to see the new Almodovar?” or “Did you see the Turkish movie?”
We say: “I liked the first feature from the director of that short Wasp,” and “Don’t miss the Indonesian documentary about the tsunami aftermath.”
This puts the film in a context that is easier to explain than “Are you going to see Volver? Iklimler? Red Road? Serambi?”
What do those titles mean? Until enough people have seen or heard about them, they are merely strange words or odd phrases. Volver is the new film from Pedro Almodovar; it’s a bit more subdued than some of his over-the-top recent entertainments. Penelope Cruz, who returns to her roots in Spanish cinema, plays a mother dealing with a teenaged daughter, a lonely sister, and an aging aunt. When the aunt dies, her dead mother appears, first as what the women assume is a ghost — but, maybe she never died in the fire that took their father? Initially the filmmaker continues his homage to Hitchcock with a surprise murder (and Bernard Herrmann-like music) before moving more to melodrama. While not a great film, Volver is wonderfully entertaining, full of surprises, and features a performance by Cruz that made me an instant fan. The buzz is great.
Iklimler has an English title of Climates, an appropriate description of the hot and cold relationship between a man and a woman who break up during a beach vacation and meet again in the snow. Like director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s previous film Uzak (Distant), the Cannes Grand Prix winner in 2003, this film could be best described as contemplative. On the surface it is a simple story of a relationship, but the emotions and motivations dig much deeper. The characters are believable, the emotions real, and the performances powerful. With virtually no camera movement, the filmmaker beautifully composes each shot; so impressed with his work, the camera stays in that one position for long sequences. Some raved about this “work of art,” but gorgeously composed images don’t make a movie. For me, this slowed too much midway. I stayed with it and appreciated the ending, but as with so much at the festival, Iklimler is an acquired taste. No doubt I will be damned for my comments.
Red Road is another story. Scottish director Andrea Arnold’s first feature is a tense and original thriller. Working from a concept proposed by Lars Von Trier’s team, three different filmmakers set out to create original stories based on the same main characters. Each were given notes; the same two actors will star. Red Road is the first to be made. A woman works for a security company watching various video monitors for possible troublemakers in a rough neighborhood. She concentrates on a man recently released from prison for a crime obviously committed against someone close to her. This variation on Hitchcock’s Rear Window grows increasing more tense as details are carefully revealed. Despite a few missteps, the film works well and Arnold is a talent to watch (her Oscar-winning short, Wasp, was a knockout).
In a given day there will rarely be a logical pattern to the order of film-watching — and the segue from one to the next can be very strange. Following Red Road with Serambi was such a radical shift. This documentary explores the aftermath of the tsunami, following children, young adults, and adults who search for their friends and relatives while coming to the realization they must rebuild their lives and city.
Another documentary, Boffo! Tinsletown’s Bombs and Blockbusters proved a good way to end a day that also included a program of shorts and a long Korean film about young soldiers that left me cold (The Unforgiven). Boffo! is by onetime Bay Area director Bill Couturie. Packed with film clips and great interviews, it tries to help us figure out why a movie is a hit or flop — even if people from filmmakers to studio heads come back to writer William Goldman’s quote: “Nobody knows nothing.”
Cannes journal #1:
FEST REPORT The trip to Cannes always starts when I get on the plane in San Francisco looking to see if anyone I know is aboard. The 747 was huge, but full exploration didn’t reveal any obvious candidates for the festival.
Once in Paris things change. On the transfer to Nice I always run into several friends making the final leg of the journey to the south of France and 10 days of movies, morning till dawn. We compare stories about how much sleep we did or didn’t get, before leaving and on the plane. And make the inevitable jokes about being jet-lagged and surely taking naps in films.
Each year I also spot someone famous getting on my plane. One year I chatted with French superstar Jeanne Moreau. I had been involved in distributing a movie she directed, L’Adolescente. Another time, Michael Richards (Kramer on Seinfeld) was nervous about the trip. It was his first time in France, and he was appearing at the premiere of the movie Unstrung Heroes. He was a nervous wreck. He couldn’t figure out how to use the pay phones and was scared by security and certain he would never find his way to the right gate at De Gaulle (a reasonable worry). I befriended him and showed the way.
This year, as the long line waited to board the flight, Snakes on a Plane star Samuel L. Jackson was escorted to the front of the line. A member of the Cannes jury, he had a hat pulled down so he’d only be half-recognized. Someone in the line called out, "I’ll see you in Cannes," to make sure we all knew where they were both headed.
Arriving a day early has its benefits. The crowds haven’t assembled. One can take care of accreditation and press orientation and study the various program books. A press screening of The Da Vinci Code was the only scheduled event. I had already seen it and instead chose to have dinner with friends.
On the first day of the festival I saw three films, all of them official selections caught at press screenings. A good way to start off the morning was with something not too demanding: Paris Je T’Aime is a collection of 20 five-minute films by an eclectic group of international directors — including Gus Van Sant, the Coen Brothers, Walter Salles, Alfonso Cuar??n, Alexander Payne, Gurinder Chadha, Tom Tykwer, and Wes Craven — guiding a superstar cast that ranges from Natalie Portman to Gena Rowlands, Sergio Castellitto to Fanny Ardant. (Ben Gazzara, Juliette Binoche, Steve Buscemi, and Bob Hoskins are also featured.) Each piece is about love in Paris. They are like simple short stories; the best ones aren’t overly ambitious.
Next up was a film from Paraguay, Hamaca Paraguaya. At only 78 minutes, it was still not the kind of movie to see when jet-lagged. When the lights went up, I asked my neighbor, author Phillip Lopate, if I’d snored. He said I was a very considerate napper and wanted to know how he had done. Just fine, I guess, as he didn’t wake me up. I have no doubt it will be hailed as a work of art by someone.
Much better was Summer Palace, the first competition film. Director Lou Ye (Suzhou River, Purple Butterfly) has constructed a complex story of relationships, starting in 1989 China. A student leaves her small town and boyfriend to attend university in Beijing. She discovers both friendship and sex, with the pleasures and confusion they can bring. We journey through the political changes in China and Germany (where some of the characters go) over the next 15 years as the group of friends separate and rejoin. The result is often powerful, vibrant, and involving. The film overstays its welcome at 140 minutes; some careful editing will help make it even better.
Summer Palace is the only Asian film in the competition, and it arrives amid controversy. The Chinese government has complained that the producers didn’t get censorship approval and have broken the law by submitting it to Cannes. But the filmmakers claimed they didn’t submit it to Cannes — it must have been the sales agent in France. This won’t be the first time Chinese censorship has garnered attention here. The highest-profile case was with Zhang Yimou’s 1994 To Live.
My favorite overheard comment to date: Sitting in front of a sandwich stand, a young British woman told her companion that film sales have been tough and that the DVD market has slowed to practically nothing — "We are looking for video on demand, computer downloading," she said. "Anything where people don’t have to leave their homes." (Gary Meyer)
Live through this
It would be a mistake to describe Clean as another entry in the already crowded field of movies about drug addicts. Yes, the film’s plot follows a familiar arc with serious bottoming out en route to recovery, and yes, the leading role — played by Maggie Cheung — is, typically, the kind of juicy part that allows an actress to stretch her chops to emotional and physical extremes. Clean does seem a rather conventional film for adventurous French director Olivier Assayas (Demonlover, Irma Vep), but its careful handling of a very specific phenomenon — the rock-star widow — distinguishes it from the usual portrait of the needle and the damage done.
Cheung’s frizzy-haired character, Emily Wang, is obviously meant as a Yoko Ono/Courtney Love refraction; one imagines she’d get along well with Blake in Last Days‘s alternate universe. Much maligned by the manager and fans of her fading-star boyfriend, Lee, for ruining his career, Emily begins Clean on the defensive. After the couple have a fight, Emily shoots heroin and falls asleep in her car; on returning, she finds Lee dead of an overdose. She spends six months in prison and then begins rediscovering life in fits and starts, mostly in Paris. Assayas tracks the difficulty such a character faces in accepting an everyday life with icy cinematography and listless camera work. Emily goes through it for the sake of her estranged son, who’s been raised by Lee’s hardened mother (Martha Henry) and forgiving father (sweet grizzly bear Nick Nolte). Redemption does come — mostly in the form of a Golden Gate landscape shot, actually — but it’s slow going.
Of course, there’s another fold to all this, namely that Assayas and Cheung collaborated on Irma Vep, married, separated, and only then worked together on Clean. Many commented on the way Irma Vep, which starred Cheung as herself in a fictionalized account of an aborted film, worked to demystify the actress. Clean seems to move in the opposite direction, with Assayas casting Cheung in a part tailored to consume her. Regardless of motive, it’s clear that Cheung’s acting and Assayas’s direction are formidable, matched forces, making for an on-screen tension not unlike the best of what von Sternberg and Dietrich could produce. (Max Goldberg)
CLEAN
Opens Fri/26
Lumiere Theatre
1572 California, SF
(415) 267-4893
Shattuck Cinemas
2230 Shattuck, Berk.
(510) 464-5980
See Rep Clock for showtimes
cleanmovie.blogspot.com
Cave in
› kimberly@sfbg.com
SONIC REDUCER Pop styles of the oh-so-rich and silly!
Britney Spears nearly drops her infant son, baby in one hand, drink in the other, while angling through an NYC crowd! And so soon after being bitch-slapped by the paparazzi for misusing her infant car seat! Oops, she can’t do anything right!
Blaming "media intrusion" for his marital breakup, prenup-less Beatle Paul McCartney promises to hit the charts with the most costly divorce in Brit(pop) history — at an estimated $188 to $376 million. Most referenced Beatles lyric: "Can’t buy me love"!
Gossip — so slight it’s surreal — comes and goes. What remains are the exclamation point–free, consistently sinister talents of Nick Cave — now back in form as the screenwriter of John Hillcoat’s bloody, lyrical Australian western, The Proposition. His red right hand extends to yet another film opening this week in the Bay Area, Olivier Assayas’s Clean, which features sometime Bad Seed James Johnston playing a simian-mugged ’80s rock star — you rang? — whose death by overdose leaves the addict mother of his child, Emily (Maggie Cheung), high and struggling to dry out.
Bathing in bloodshed and unflinchingly embracing the visceral, The Proposition immediately brought to mind the other recent movie by another rocker with punk, metal, and underground roots who hit a commercial peak in the early ’90s and found a temporary home in the arms of an Alternative Nation: The Devil’s Rejects, by Rob Zombie. The two movies might be seen as spiritual kin — if not responses to each other — and might even be read as thinly disguised metaphors for life on the road in a rock band: Cave’s bespattered, greasy, tangled-haired outback outlaws would blend in fine at Lollapalooza, while the do-you-want-to-stop-for-ice-cream-or-to-disbowel-passing-strangers repartee between Zombie’s killer hillbillies on the lam smells like a kind of sociopathic teen spirit, circa ’92. The fact that the Rejects — the very title of the film sounds like a band name — torture a C&W band reads as uncensored rock ’n’ roll ribaldry to me.
Cave, on the other hand, takes hellfire, carnage, and, once again, torture scenes seriously: His is a morality play, with a fatalistic acknowledgment of the way race and class operate in an Australian frontier injustice system. Likewise, rather than relying on crowd-pleasing rock akin to that in Rejects, Cave and Dirty Three violinist Warren Ellis unveil a shockingly restrained, elegiac, occasionally screeching score for The Proposition, now available on Mute.
Clean wasn’t written by Cave, but his dark yet redemptive residue is all over it. The main flaw in this otherwise graceful tale of a jet-set junk-bird’s descent, flight, then ascent is the fact that the finale falls flat: This movie is all about the hangers-on, the incidental characters orbiting an absent, dark hole of a star, so when Cheung finally takes the mic and dares to fill the void left by her dead lover, her performance should have hit some Marianne Faithfull–esque lowlife high. Still, amid Assayas’s detailed, obvious pleasure depicting ex-wife Cheung floundering after her man’s passing, Cave look-alike Johnston gets in a few of the most memorable, candid lines in Clean when he tells Cheung that his latest album is simply mediocre, and while he may make better once again, he’ll settle for whatever he can get to put it out now.
Why Cave now? Perhaps the culture is finally ready for his plain, unpleasant truths; his horror stories; and his scary, survivor’s revisioning of reality. Dubbing him goth is too easy; calling him Johnny Cash’s black-suited successor, facile. He’s proof that one can go to hell and back.
Stealin’ and Gilman Is anyone beginning to feel like Jack White’s voice is a little like squeaky tires doing donuts on chalkboard? No? Excellent, because the Raconteurs, his current band with other mad Midwestern too-cool-for-schoolies, have put out a pretty swell rock record, digging into late-’70s to late-’80s sounds, be they Romantics-style new wave or AOR hair-band histrionics. And by gum, don’t they look like the Replacements in the above promo pic — miming a much reproduced Let It Be–era ’Mats photo? A tribute to off-the-cuff randomness? … The rock never quite stops — Bay Area party starters Rock ’n’ Roll Adventure Kids are back, recording a new album and playing shows once again. This week’s is a doozy: 924 Gilman’s annual Punk Prom — for students who can’t afford the high price of dull high school–approved entertainment. Costumes, dancing, and like-minded souls — sounds like a rock ’n’ roll adventure worth crashing. SFBG
Raconteurs
July 23, 8 p.m.
Warfield, 982 Market, SF.
$27.50–$37.50
(415) 775-7722
Punk Prom
Fri/26, 8 p.m.
924 Gilman, Berk.
$5
www.924gilman.org
Quit moping
Kultur Shock
Gypsy-inspired punk mixes it up with bilingual thrashers La Plebe. Wed/24, 9 p.m., Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. $10. (415) 621-4455.
Tough and Lovely
Garage rock, ’60s soul, and girl group are all within groping distance. Thurs/25, 9:30 p.m., Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. $6. (415) 923-0923. Sat/27, Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph, Oakl. Call for time and price. (415) 444-6174.
Grind and Glory hip-hop conference
15- to 25-year-olds are invited to get down and throw their hands in the air at this DJ Project music conference with Dead Prez, Amp Live, and Jurassic 5’s Chali 2Na. Sat/27, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., 425 Market, SF. Free. www.grindandglory.com.
Mogwai
That’s Mr. Beast to you. Turge-rockers Earth open. Sat/27, 9 p.m., Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. $22.50. (415) 346-6000.
Shoplifting
The band takes punk to the jagged cliffs where politics and art meet and dance a jig. Tues/30, 9 p.m., Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. $8. (415) 621-4455. SFBG
Doing the Cannes-Cannes
Gary Meyer of the Balboa is at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Here is the first of his reports from the Croisette and the theater trenches:
Getting there — No snakes on the plane
The trip to Cannes always starts when I board the plane in San Francisco, looking to see if anyone I know is aboard. The 747 was huge but full exploration didn’t reveal any obvious candidates for the Festival.
Once in Paris things change. On the transfer to Nice I always run into several friends making the final leg of our journey to the south of France and 10 days of movies, morning till dawn. We compare stories about how much sleep we did or didn’t get before leaving and on the plane. And the inevitable jokes about being jet-lagged and surely taking naps in films.
Each year I also spot someone famous getting on my plane. One year I chatted with French superstar Jeanne Moreau. I had been involved in distributing a movie she directed, L’Adolescente. Another time Michael Richards (Kramer on “Seinfeld”) was nervous about the trip. It was his first time in France and he was appearing at the premiere of the movie Unstrung Heroes. He was a nervous wreck. He couldn’t figure out how to use the pay phones, scared of the security and certain he would never find his way to the airport gate at DeGaulle (a reasonable worry). I befriended him and showed the way.
This year as the long line waited to board our flight, Snakes on a Plane‘s Samuel L. Jackson was escorted to the front of the line. A member of the Cannes Jury, he had a hat pulled down so he’d only be half recognized. Someone in the line called out, “I’ll see you in Cannes,” to make sure we all knew where they were both headed.
Opening night
Arriving a day early has it benefits. The crowds haven’t assembled. One can take care of accreditation, press orientation and study the various program books. A press screening of The Da Vinci Code was the only scheduled event. I had already seen it and chose to have dinner with friends.
Film festivals like to open with a high profile movie that is sure to attract big stars, tons of media attention and a major post-screening party that will last all-night. Allowing a film to open a festival, especially Cannes, is taking a big chance. The movie will come under extra heavy scrutiny from critics. The Da Vinci Code is a logical choice to open the 59th Cannes International Film Festival. It is based on a huge best-selling book and largely set in France. Starring a major American movie star, Tom Hanks, and one of France’s most popular actresses, Audrey Tautou, it also features numerous important European actors. As I write this, over my left shoulder I can see them walking up the red carpet for the opening night ceremonies. Thousands of people jam the streets in front of the Palais. TV cameras and photographers catch the face of every person who ascends the steps to make certain they don’t miss anyone of importance.
The press has now seen The Da Vinci Code. The response isn’t too good. But despite the criticism you will read, Columbia Pictures made the correct choice. Director Ron Howard’s last film, Cinderella Man, was invited in 2005 but the producers passed. And the film failed at the box office. This time they aren’t about to miss out on the glitzy stamp of approval that comes with opening the world’s most famous film festival.
Day one
I’ve seen three films the first day of the Festival — all official selections caught at press screenings. I’ll catch a few more tonight.
A good way to start off the morning is with something not too demanding. Paris je t’aime is a collection of 20 five-minute films by an eclectic group of international directors including Gus Van Sant, the Coen Brothers, Walter Salles, Alfonso Cuaron, Alexander Payne, Gurinda Chadha, Tom Twyker, Wes Craven and many more guiding a superstar cast from Natalie Portman to Gena Rowlands, Gerard Depardieu to Fanny Ardant. (Ben Gazzara, Juliette Binoche, Steve Buscemi, and Bob Hoskins also are featured.) Anthology films inevitably are a mixed bag. Each piece is about love in Paris. They are like simple short stories; the best ones aren’t overly ambitious. Paris looks lovely of course and I enjoyed most of it.
Next came a film from Paraguay, Hamaca Paraguaya. At only 78 minutes, this is the kind of movie not to see when still jet lagged. It is all voice-over dialogue (subtitled) with stagnant camera shots. When the lights went up, I asked my neighbor, author Phillip Lopate, if I snored. He said I was a very considerate napper and wanted to know how he did. Just fine, I guess, as he didn’t wake me up. I have no doubt it will be hailed as a work of art by someone.
Much better was Summer Palace, the first competition film. Director Lou Ye (Suzhou River, Purple Butterfly) has constructed a complex film of relationships starting in 1989 China. A student leaves her small town and boyfriend to attend university in Beijing. She discovers both friendship and sex, with the pleasures and confusion they can bring. We journey through the political changes in China and Germany (where some of the characters go) over the next 15 years as the group of friends separate and rejoin. The film is often powerful, vibrant and involving, if a bit difficult to follow at times. It overstays its welcome at 140 minutes; some careful editing would help it become even better.
Summer Palace is the only Asian film in the Competition. It arrives amidst controversy. The Chinese government has complained that the producers didn’t get censorship approval and have broken the law by submitting it to Cannes. But the filmmakers claimed they didn’t submit it to Cannes. (Must have been the sales agent in France.) The Chinese censors turned the film down. Some suspect it is for the highly erotic nature and political reasons. There have been reports that the film has been withdrawn and the director has returned to China. This won’t be the first time claims of censorship by China have garnered attention here. The highest profile case was Zhang Yimou’s To Live.
Overheard
Sitting in front of a sandwich stand a young British woman told her companion that film sales have been tough and that the DVD market has slowed to practically nothing: “We are looking for Video In Demand, computer downloading — anything where people don’t have to leave their homes.”
Anatomy lessons
Bogart never says "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca, and most noirs don’t feature slinky jazz scores, but the misconceptions persist. In the case of the latter, it’s easy enough to see why: A wailing saxophone doesn’t seem far removed from the femmes fatales and smoky nightclubs that populate film noir. But, alas, many of these movies were made before Hollywood discovered jazz — a development that largely took place in the 1950s. Local noir expert and festival programmer Eddie Muller is well aware of this history but nonetheless indulges us with the Jazz/Noir Film Festival at the Balboa.
While not exactly the kind of rarity Muller’s Noir City Festival prizes, Anatomy of a Murder (playing Fri/19, 9:30 p.m.) is always worth another look, not only for Otto Preminger’s studied direction but also for Duke Ellington’s effective, swinging score. If that’s not enough for you, try this: The Duke actually has a cameo in the film wherein he shares a piano with star Jimmy Stewart — stranger collaborations have happened, but this one’s still a dandy.
Bizarre duets aside, Preminger’s 1959 film remains the ultimate courtroom drama. Stewart plays Paul Biegler, a witty, small-town lawyer charged with defending a stationed soldier (Ben Gazzara) who killed in cold blood after learning his flirty wife (Lee Remick) had been raped — or so he says. A temporary insanity plea is entered, a fuss is made over the word panties, and Biegler trades underhanded law tactics with a whip-smart city prosecutor. What so distinguishes Anatomy of a Murder is Preminger’s unusual knack for keeping the audience at bay; over the course of 160 minutes he never entangles us with a character’s perspective. As filmgoers we are almost always with a character, but Preminger’s objective style means we’re a jury, weighing incomplete information to form our own perspectives. Few filmmakers trust their audiences as much as Preminger; fewer still can pull it off as entertainment. (Max Goldberg)
JAZZ/NOIR FILM FESTIVAL
Fri/19–d>Sun/21
Balboa Theater
3630 Balboa, SF
$10 ($45 festival pass)
(415) 221-8184
See Rep Clock for showtimes
NOISE: Have another slab of John Vanderslice
Duncan Scott Davidson interviewed Tiny Telephone honcho and Barsuk artist John Vanderslice for a piece in the May 3 issue of the Guardian. Here’s more from his interview with the SF singer-songwriter, who performs tonight, May 12, at the Independent.
Bright lights, big city, and Mr. Vanderslice.
On running Tiny Telephone, during an interview at the studio sometime in January
John Vanderslice: Basically, I keep my rates under market, so [the engineers] are always busy. I kind of use that leverage with them to have them be undermarket, too. So we’re affordable enough for a band. Every band has access to computers now, so you have to be. My whole goal was just to be sold out all the time. My business model was to, without question, have a waitlist every month. You have a client base where, if someone drops a day, it doesn’t matter. We just send out one e-mail to another band that’s on the list, you know what I mean? We’d just rather be generating 30 days of income at a much lower price.
When I started the studio, the reason I did it is that, another studio that we loved that we were working at, Dancing Dog in Oakland, closed. So we toured all the other studios, and they all had these sliding rates. It’s all bullshit. The typical studio business model is retarded. You know what it reminds me of, is the airline kind of model of wildly sliding rates based on the desperation of the client, you know?
[Vanderslice talks about JT Leroy at length before realizing he’s strayed off topic.]
JV: I don’t care if we talk about the studio at all. I mean, this has been central to my life for maybe the past eight and a half years and it’s starting to be an organism. It’s like a child, and all the sudden this kid is like a 12, 13 years old and I can now leave the house and not get a babysitter.
BG: Are you afraid you might come back and find the flowerpot broken, Brady Bunch style?
JV: Or I might come back and the kid’s huffing paint or something? There are things that happen when I’m not paying attention in the studio, but the crew down here…
BG: Do bands get loaded up in here? I mean, not like…in a bad, non-professional, non-rock ‘n’ roll way…
JV: I would say the insight I have into working bands is fascinating. I would say that the more successful the band is, both creatively and financially, the more they’re like an office. There’s laptops, wireless. There’s like organic Columbia Gorge lemonade, and there’s no alcohol. The more it’s like a weekend-warrior project, the more it’s a band that’s frustrated or trying to generate energy like they’re having a career, the more there’s cocaine and pot and alcohol.
BG: Yeah! We’re fuckin’ it up!
JV: “We’re gettin’ it goin’!” Sometimes it’ll be 4 p.m., and they’ll be kind of a little bit out of control. And what you want to say is, “You’re, like, at a construction site right now. You should be really mindful.”
BG: Well, they’re fucking paying $400 a day.
JV: They’re paying $600 dollars a day. Plus the tape.
BG: And if they want to fuck it off, more power to ‘em.
JV: The thing is you want to remind them, “Dude, you’re going to be in here for 12, 14 hours.” Tons of bands come in here and make a record in three or four days. Some bands are so efficient in the studio, it’s like a marvel. I’m not nearly as efficient. I don’t necessarily have to be as efficient, but it is expensive for me to book time in here. Like everybody else, when I book time in here, because it’s sold out all the time, it costs me $400 a day. I pay engineers what they charge. I pay rates to engineers.
What studios try to do is they try to be booked between 10 and 15 days a month, and they try to charge a fucking shitload of money. And what they do is that they have a lot of open days that are those days…because people call all the time, “Hey, are you open tomorrow? Are you open next week?” They’re always the worst clients. The least prepared, they always have a problem. They always have a story. Like, they tried to save money in some other studio, and they went there and it was fucked up.
The kind of clients I like — we’ll get a band that calls us up, like when we did Transatlanticism here, Death Cab called us like seven months before the dates and they’re like, “We want May 1 to June 20.” Those days never moved. It was like, booked. The deposit was in. Then seven months later, they show up, make a record, and leave. And not one day was ever shifted. The bands that are like that, those are the bands you want to have in your studio.
And there’s tons of bands that are not really… they’re making music for themselves or to put on their Myspace page, but they’re just as deliberate and they’re just as farsighted. That’s how this studio runs smoothly. I’ve cleared out a lot of the time for those bands.
BG: Any band that you thought was just totally not getting it and selling millions. Not the fact that they were selling, but that they were lame. Would you not record them?
JV: No. I think that we’re like a hospital. We’re like a responsible hospital with good gear that can only meet the patient in the middle somewhere. Like if you come in here and you’re a meth addict and you’ve been working the street for 15 years, we can only help you up to a point. But if you’re a healthy person and you need a heart operation, well, we have great equipment, right? We have good doctors. They’re not going to cut you open and leave shit in your body. We have sterile equipment. I tell engineers this metaphor and they’re like, “Dude, whatever. You’re overthinking.” But I really do think there’s something here. You know, we can’t save anyone’s life, all we can do is kind of not make mistakes. And also not provide gear that’s either dangerous or is out of date or is poorly maintained, poorly calibrated…
BG: You’re like a halfway house.
JV: Yeah. I’m a halfway house. Or a restaurant. Or a dry cleaners. The things that excite me are when we get things out of genre. When someone comes in and they say, “I’m going to make a 40-minute concept record that’s based on a sea shanty that’s about being on a whaling ship.”
BG: With their bouzouki.
JV: Yeah, with their bouzouki. And they get on ladders, and they have pails of water—I’m not kidding you, they do — and they do a concept album. And there’s no electric guitars, there’s all these weird instruments, it’s very obtuse, and it’s interesting. It’s anti-genre. It’s anti-rock ‘n’ roll. That’s fascinating to me.
Guitars or no guitars?
BG: When you saw the dude’s bouzouki, you said, “Anything but an electric guitar excites me.” You have old guitar amps…
JV: I love guitars.
BG: And you play guitar…
JV: I love guitars.
BG: Was guitar your first instrument?
JV: I love guitar. It’s just that, the thing is, it’s like, when you’re building a house, a guitar is like a hammer. It’s very useful. But if you’re putting in windows, there are other things that need to be there to balance out. There’s some sonic space that is not available when electric guitars are everywhere.
BG: In your own records, the last three, you seem to be going away from guitars.
JV: Yeah, going away from guitars, but the interesting thing is, the other day, I was thinking, “You know what? The next record, I need to make a guitar record.” Maybe it is because I’m collecting all these amps. And I do love guitar, but I think that for me, it’s more likely that I will deconstruct music when I see people stepping back from rock ‘n’ roll, you know, strictures, if guitars are not part of the equation. And they’re forced to build up melodic elements with keyboards, with rhythmic instruments, with strings, horns — things that are outside of the realm. I was listening to Otis Redding on the way over here. There’s some guitar in that. There’s a lot of other things going on in that. There are background voices used as harmonic, you know, shifting agents — things that pull you from key to key, that bring you into the bridge, that provide counterpoint to the vocal melody and the horns.
[JV starts to talk about the tug between digital and analog technology.]
On one side I do think that the Internet is the best thing that’s ever happened. Also, I live on the internet. Like, I’m surfing all the time. This studio was put together by the information I learned on the Internet. Most of my communication is through e-mail. The Web site is a very important part of my creative output. You know there’s like a thousand photos on the site? There’s tons of music that’s never been pressed that’s on the site. Tour diaries. That’s very important to me.
But, on the other side, the craft of making albums: I’m a purist. I’m an old, hard core recording purist. And the standards, and the quality of recording have been in a freefall since… Listen, the good and bad thing about consumer audio is that everyone can afford it and everyone can own it. I think that’s great. I think that’s actually better than the downside. The downside is that the quality of everything goes downhill. I don’t gripe about other people’s recording because I think that, if you’re going to complain, the proof is in the pudding: What the fuck are you doing? Sometimes people come up to me and they’re like, “I like this album, but I don’t like this album.” I don’t say anything, but I want to say, like, “Dude, I don’t care either way. Make your own record.” It doesn’t matter to me whether you like my record or you don’t like my record, and it’s OK either way. But the thing is, you need to make your own shit regardless of whether you like something or don’t like it.
BG: There’s the analog/digital tension, but it seems like you do stuff with analog that’s sort of like a sampling, a deconstruction, like you take a digital technique and analog-ize it.
JV: Absolutely. Well, I have been heavily influenced in the way that certain people make records. The Books. Four Tet. Radiohead is probably the most influential band for me of the past five or six years. I mean, I’m totally obsessed with Radiohead. Everything that they’ve done, really from OK Computer to Hail to the Thief. I think Hail to the Thief is one of my favorite records of all time. It kind of actually flew under the radar, but from an idea point of view: You can hear the process of six smart people in a room thinking about music. It’s fascinating on that level.
All things being equal, A and B, analog sounds so much better to me than digital. And it’s not that I’m just some Luddite in the studio. We have Pro Tools HD in here every other day. We have installed a Pro Tools rig, we have Radar, we have Sonic Solutions, we have every high end converter in here all the time. To me it sounds awful. Still. And I advise people all the time, like, “Listen, we’ll make more money off you if you record digitally. That’s all there is to it. You’ll take longer — even though you think it’s faster. You’ll edit everything, you’ll obsess.
I don’t care about the editing. It’s not the “cheating” thing that bugs me. Scott and I will be recording and flying back tapes on the reel — Scott Solter’s my engineer — and like, we’ll think, “God, if we could only just do this on a hard drive.” We don’t like to do things by hand — it’s just that they sound so much better. It’s like a hand-fashioned piece of furniture versus something that comes out of a machine. We can’t get the detail, the nuance, the taper, the finish right unless we do it by hand.
BG: And the whole digital thing just seems like a cultural, reactionary…you know, “it’s newer, it’s faster, it’s easier.” And I think artists seem to overestimate that. It’s like when microwave ovens came out, and everyone’s like, “You can cook a Thanksgiving dinner in it!” And a year later they were like, “You can heat coffee in it.”
JV: Yeah. Unlike the hospital metaphor, which is like a cart that has one wheel on it, the microwave metaphor’s perfect. It’d be better if I just didn’t tell bands anything. Use whatever format you want. But what I always tell bands is, “Listen. A good analog tape deck, properly calibrated, is like a fucking Viking stove, or a wood oven at Chez Panisse, where they put in the pizzas and the crostini or whatever, and your Pro Tools system—and believe me, I’m telling you this because I own the system. I paid a lot of money for it. People when they buy gear, their ears turn off. Because they don’t want the truth, you know what I mean? It’s like a fucking microwave! That’s all there is to it. It’s faster…
BG: A big, fancy microwave.
JV: Yeah, it’s a really fancy microwave with 50,000 adjustments. “Bread Crustener,” you know what I mean? It’s worthless.
[JV focuses on conspiracy theories and politics.]
JV: The stuff that interests me is Iran-Contra, Total Information Awareness. I’m much more into ground level, you know, stuff that’s happening right now. What did we do in Columbia? You know, what are we doing with the FARC? You know, why are we there?
I’m fascinated by politics. I’m interested in the most mundane things. Like, for instance, we found Saddam Hussein in a foxhole. One of the Marines on that team comes out a couple months later and says, “Listen, we fuckin’ found him in a house. We put him in that thing, covered it, got the film crews there…” That’s where I’m interested in. I’m interested in Guantanamo.
In other words, I’m interested in mainstream stuff. It’s not Area 51.
Later, John Vanderslice meets for another interview at Martha and Bros. on 24th Street.
BG: Do you realize that whatever you say is going to be completely overruled by Enya, or whatever is going on there.
JV: Should we check to make sure it’s not too loud? I can have them turn it down.
D: You’ve got that kind of pull?
JV: Oh yeah. I used to live down the street. I’ve been here, like, 9,000 times.
[JV asks them to turn it down, saying, “I really appreciate it. That’s great. Thank you.” Then he talks about coffee and tea.]
JV: Well, for me, I’m a tea guy. I actually drink coffee every two weeks. For me, the cleanest way to get caffeine is through really thick black tea.
BG: I get stomach aches from that.
JV: I know, you have to get used to it. It’s like hash or pot. It’s just different. You how you’re like, “Well, pot is kind of superior,” you know?
BG: Are you a big pothead?
JV: No. I don’t do any drugs. I barely drink. I mean, I like the idea of doing drugs. I have no moral quandary with drugs whatsoever. It’s impossible… because of singing…
[Coffee grinding noise.]
BG: Can you tell them not to grind any coffee?
JV: Yeah, totally. I’ll just unplug…no, I’ll trip the breaker. Singers get neurotic for a reason. I used to look at other singers and think, “Wow,” you know? Like, you’d read an interview with someone, and they would have these rituals. They’d have like steam machines or all these bizarre contraptions I thought totally unnecessary. But the thing is, the more shows you play, the more volatile your livelihood is. You’re tied to your health and your body. You know, anything that messes with my mojo. Alcohol. Never drink alcohol on tour. Never.
BG: You don’t drink it to “take the edge off” or whatever?
JV: I wish I could. But alcohol for me, it does something to my vocal chords that — I lose a little bit of control. I lose some resonance in my voice. So I never drink alcohol on tour. And then, there are times when you’re at the Mercury in New York and they give you 25 drink tickets and they’re like, “You can have whatever you want.” They’ve got all these single malts. I’m totally into single malt scotch. If they’ve got some weird shit I’ve never heard about, I want to drink it. So yeah, it’s a bummer, definitely.
BG: Do you do it after the set?
JV: I never drink after. It affects my voice the next day. Alcohol dries out your vocal chords. Like, if you put rubbing alcohol on your hand, you’ll immediately feel what it does to your skin.
BG: It dehydrates you.
JV: It dehydrates you, but because you’re passing it over your vocal chords, you’re a little bit more susceptible. Also cigarette smoke. It’s a problem.
Spy vs. spy
BG: What about this domestic spying bit? That sounds like a Vanderslice song.
JV: Yeah, that’s a hard one. I haven’t really felt the need to write about Total Information Awareness, yet.
BG: What’s Total Information Awareness? Is that the NSA’s acronym or something?
JV: That was the program that John Poindexter, from Iran Contra, was in charge of. It was like, basically, “we’re going to data-mine everything.” Of course, all the civil-libertarians on both sides of the fence go crazy when that stuff’s happening. Did you see the paper today? Grover Norquist, the anti-tax guy, basically the guy who spearheaded the repeal of Proposition 13 in California — the anti-tax California guy — is coming out now saying that he’s totally opposed to data mining. This is a hardcore, right wing constituency that Bush has tapped for a long time, and this guy is now coming after him.
BG: Well, now it’s without a warrant.
JV: Yeah. And that presses all their buttons, you know? That, hardcore, right wing, civil libertarian branch, which is fine with me. It’s great.
BG: OK, here it is. This is kind of random. “I’d harbored hope that the intelligence that once inhabited novels or films would ingest rock. I was, perhaps, wrong.” That’s Lou Reed. You seem to have a novelistic…
JV: There’s a lot of great lyricists working in music. I mean, you could look at the new Destroyer record. You could look at The Sunset Tree. You could look the new Silver Jews record. I mean, there are a lot of very literate, very verbally adept and complex albums coming out. I’ve spent a lot of time with those records. I think they’re rich, and interesting, and well-written enough to stand up on their own from a language point of view.
And you get into hip-hop — all the verbal inventions, most of it is in hip-hop. It’s not necessarily in indie rock.
There’s a lot of people operating on different levels. You could say, there’s a lot of arty stuff, purely political — Immortal Technique. He’s the farthest thing from a gangsta that you could get. Or MF Doom. Murs. There’s a lot of these guys that are super arty. Any Def Jux things or Anticon stuff, all that stuff is far away from “thug life.”
BG: Do you listen to a lot of hip-hop?
JV: Yeah. Like tons. The other thing is, you can even see people like 50 Cent or the Game on a different level. I think that when you understand that there’s a coded humor that’s going on in hip-hop. Like when 50 Cent says, “We drive around town with guns the size of Lil’ Bow Wow,” now, is that a threat, or is that a joke? I’m sorry, I laugh when I hear that. There’s so much humor in 50 Cent. C’mon, he lives in a $20 million dollar mansion in Connecticut. There’s a comedy side of the stuff.
And then there’s other mainstream people like Nas. Incredible lyricist, very complicated. He’s like a sentimentalist. I wouldn’t even say he’s a thug. He’s just always writing about memory. He’s so sentimental.
[I hip JV to Andre Nickatina.]
BG: The latest album [Pixel Revolt] is more straightforward. Before, you’ve done cut and paste stuff. It’s more linear. I mean, if you’re talking about hip-hop, there’s sampling. What do you think about that?
JV: Well, it’s hard for me. At some moments I would agree with you that the record is more linear. I mean, you’re saying that the new album is more linear, maybe orchesterally more simple, and more placid, more patient. But we’re doing remixes right now — Scott Solter is remixing the records. And we’re going in and listening to individual tracks.
It doesn’t seem that way to me, for better or for worse. It seems like there’s a lot of textures and a lot of very understated stuff that’s more complicated than on other records. There’s a brute force element that’s missing from that record on purpose. A couple weeks ago, before we started doing the remixes, I would’ve agreed with you, but now when I go back and I hear all these individual tracks, and I hear the textures that are underneath the vocals and some of the main harmonic instruments, to me there’s a lot of cross-rhythms. There’s a lot of harmonic shifts. There’s a lot of dissonance. It’s maybe more varied. It’s more of a relief. Like, Cellar Door has a lot of distortion, has a lot of compression, it’s all forward. Those impulses I have to over-orchestrate, and to, you know, over overdub, have been buried, but they’re still there.
BG: Why the remixes? You did a remix of Cellar Door.
JV: Yeah, called MGM Endings. One reason is that I put it out myself. I can sell them and make money off of them.
BG: You would love Nickatina. Basically, his big underground album that you can’t find is Cocaine Raps Vol. I. There’s this big thing about comparing selling tapes out of the trunk to selling coke.
[Talk turns to Tom Waits, recording at Prairie Sun, and then vocal chord damage and those who have used it in their music.]
BG: Being drawn to that Radiohead thing: You don’t use effects on your voice. Your sound guy doesn’t flip a lot of…
JV: And on records, I have these militant rules about what we can and can’t do as far as using effects. My rule for a long time has been, if we want an effect on an instrument, we have to record it that way. It’s all analog, we don’t use digital recording whatsoever.
[Death Cab for Cutie’s Grammy nomination is discussed and JV mentions that he was part of the committee that chose nominees for Best Engineered Album.]
JV: I was part of a group of people that met in the Bay Area. There were four of us that met at the Plant, and we voted on, for the National Committee, who we thought should be moved into the five spots, right? Then you can vote, as a Grammy member, you can vote on the next round. So basically we were like, pre-voting for the pool of five albums.
It’s interesting, because you have a lot of good albums that are in the pool. The pool is pretty huge. I mean that year there was some very good classical stuff, some really good jazz stuff, Elvis Costello…
BG: That’s apples and oranges.
JV: It’s retarded. What is this, a race? I did it because, when I got invited, I was kind of like, “Wow.” I was honored to be even — to even sit in a room with engineers that I really liked and get to talk about albums was fantastic for me. But, after the process, I thought, this is polluted.
BG: The engineering standards, or what you’re going for, your aesthetics, are totally different.
JV: And people in the room are pretty savvy. They have mixed feelings about the process. So they weren’t all gung ho, pro-Grammy, but I think that they felt that if they weren’t involved, then there would be decisions made… They wanted to be part of the decisions made to push good-sounding records up to the next level.
Tweaking in the studio
BG: Okay, so you’re interested in fucking around with your voice, as long as it fits into the rules of doing it live.
JV: I like using the analog instruments of the studio, meaning analog compressors and mic pre’s and effects as instruments. The great thing for me is, when you start combining all these things — the keyboard into some mic pre you found in a pawn shop into some weird compressor into delay. You get some almost unknowable reaction between these pieces of gear that were made in different decades, for different reasons, for different specs, for the BBC or for an airline company. And chasing down that kind of shit is fascinating for me. That’s part of the reason why I got into the craft of recording.
BG: Back to the studio—you’re annoying people, plugging in all these different things…
JV: It goes beyond that. To me, there is no sacredness to me of someone’s performance. People come in and spend a day recording something and then we erase it immediately. With them right there, like, “none of this is working, we’re going to erase it and move on.” I do it to myself all the time. I erase my own performances all the time. It’s not a feel-good session. You have to have a flamethrower mentality when you’re making records.
BG: So with Spoon and Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle…
JV: Well, those are different. You have to be more conservative working with other bands. It’s not appropriate. John’s singing a song about avoiding family trauma by playing his stereo loud and listening to dance music. It’s a beautiful narrative; it’s a wonderful song. It’s not necessary that you play a vibraphone through an old Federal military tape rack.
BG: The Spoon album’s sort of a deconstructed album.
JV: I would say that they’re more appropriate…
BG: Everyone’s recorded at Tiny Telephone, but you’ve only recorded a couple of people yourself. Like for instance, Steve Albini, another analog master, sought after everywhere. Everyone goes to him to get the “Albini sound” — they want it recorded like that, in that studio, sounding like that. And then, half the time, people come away with, “Well, he’s a dogmatic asshole. That’s not how we wanted it to sound.” But they did want it to sound like that.
JV: Well, the engineer in the equation is Scott Solter. He’s the guy I always work with. I mean, Albini’s a recordist. Albini is not there to become editorially involved with production decisions or with performance decisions. He is there simply as a recordist. In many ways, he’s an old school engineer. And once you understand that philosophy, you shouldn’t have any beefs with it, or you’re in the wrong place. You should understand that he’s going to set up microphones that he likes and understands, in a room that he likes and understands, and use gear that he thinks accurately describes what’s happening from a sonic perspective, and that’s it. That’s his end of the bargain.
BG: Well, there’s always the “the drums are too loud; the vocals are too low.” I love his records…
JV: I think he’s a total genius. I think you could listen to Rallying the Dominoes, the Danielson Family record, and well, you couldn’t necessarily say anything about the balance of that record compared to like, Jesus Lizard. It’s a totally different recording. He may perceive that, you know, the drums are loud in the Jesus Lizard, so they should be placed loudly in the mix. Because that’s what’s happening to them when you play in a room, you know?
But the thing is, Scott and I work tag team. Tiny Telephone is very separate from us working as a team in production and engineering, because the only people that I’ve ever worked with has been Spoon, and I was relatively a small part of that new Spoon record. Like basically, I recorded with them for eight days. They probably spent 60 days on that record. So I would imagine that they had a lot of other decision makers, you know, Mike McCarthy. Jim Eno, the drummer, is a great engineer in his own right. The Darnielle stuff is different because I feel that I understand where he’s coming from and where he wants to go in the studio and I can translate his narratives into a different setting from him sitting in front of his Sony boombox, you know, six inches away.
BG: Going back to the whole thing about rock as literature. I think Cellar Door sort of plays itself out like that, even though they’re not necessarily the same characters. It’s very novelistic. Most rock bands are very first person. Do you get a lot of misunderstanding on that?
JV: Oh, yeah. Someone asked me about my two sons the other day. I mean, yes, people either infer that I’m almost unglued psychologically or they infer that I’ve had a family history and a romantic history that’s really dangerous and fucked up.
BG: John Darnielle has a lot of that stuff, right? But he still does a lot of fictional stuff.
JV: He does a lot of fictional stuff. I think he does more fictional stuff that people realize. He lives in a nice house. He has a wonderful wife. Now, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have demons the size of Detroit in his brain.
BG: I think he does. “I dreamt of a house / Haunted by all you tweakers with your hands out.” I love that line.
JV: Dude, I played with the Mountain Goats. I did a West Coast and an East Coast tour, and I sang that song with John every night. That’s probably one of my top three songs of all time.
BG: With your stuff, though, how much of it is…? I might be totally wrong on this, but you can tell with a song like “Speed Lab.”
JV: But “Speed Lab” is a metaphor for starting a band or starting a studio, and having those things implode. So “Speed Lab” is, while it’s not about a speed lab, a meth lab…
First off, I have a great sympathy toward a lot of different people. I have sympathy for people who work in methamphetamine labs. I’m sure there’s a lot of people who work in meth labs, they might have been backed into it, it might be a family business. Who knows? And, to me, you know…[sings] “Recording Studio, brr nanna nanna…” You know what I mean? Speed lab…let’s put a finer point on it. What’s interesting about writing about stuff is that you sharpen the blade, that you exaggerate, that you explode personal experience. And become so super egocentric that every slight becomes this great, damning. Listen, if you really write down Morrissey’s gripes on a piece of paper. OK: “Lonely, sad…”
BG: “Horny.”
JV: Yeah, “horny.” Maybe, yeah—“would die in a car wreck.” That’s not the beauty of writing. Like “Up Above the Sea” on Cellar Door. That song, I mean, do I really have a bluebird that haunts me? But is it about depression? Maybe. Is it about Saddam Hussein? Maybe.
BG: Do you think that you’re constantly looking to metaphor-ize your own experience?
JV: Yeah, definitely. Because, part of it is that it’s an allegory. I feel saner. I feel more human and I feel more normal and more cope with stuff if I write music. So evidently, this is very important that I translate something that’s going on up here onto the page. But my own aesthetics dictate that narrative is interesting or it’s egregious.
BG: Some people are naturally diarists. Andre Gide, Jim Carroll…that’s what they’re known for. Do you think that there’s something in you that’s naturally, in music writing? That’s a fictionalist?
JV: Yeah. Absolutely. I would’ve been comfortable if I’d had the skills to be a novelist. And I would’ve been comfortable if I’d had the connections and the wherewithal to do it all again, to be in movies. What I’d really like to do is make movies. I mean, I would never do it. I think people who switch crafts, I mean — good luck. It would take me 20 years to figure out cameras. I would like to be a cinematographer.
BG: Do you ever write?
JV: I stopped. I did a couple of interviews for DIW, I interviewed Grandaddy, I did a Radiohead Hail to the Thief review, I did an article about Pro Tools, and that was it. I was like, “Man, it takes so much. Writing is hard.” It took me forever to edit myself, to finish a piece. I’m very wary of anything that takes me away from writing music. It really is hard enough. Touring is, like, you put walls up.
BG: Do you do a lot of in-stores and stuff like that?
JV: I came up with this idea that on the day Pixel Revolt came out, that I was going to play a bunch of free shows around the country. And that it was all going to be non-transactional, all ages. Doesn’t matter where it was. Acoustic guitar and voice, that’s all it was going to be. And it could be anywhere. So I played in, like, a bake sale. I played tons of record stores. I played an art gallery. A house party. I played a backyard. I played tons of on-airs. Between the shows, I probably played 35 times that month. And they were all open free shows.
I was able to rent a car, drive from place to place, and just show up with a guitar and play. We would have contests. Like I played at Amoeba in LA, and I invited everyone at the show to bowling that night. We had enough people for seven lanes of bowling. So then we have this contest: Whatever lane had the highest score would get into my next show for free.
Anything that’s like, getting out of a dark club with a bunch of graffiti. That’s fine, but when you do that every fucking night. It’s like, anything to get you away from that is great.
Dishin
For a complete schedule of the 10th annual Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival shows and events (May 14–22), go to www.mcmf.org. Check Noise, the Guardian‘s music blog, at www.sfbg.com/blogs/music, for more Mission Creek festival coverage.
Ane Brun
This Scandinavian neofolkie — it’s probably safe to say — is the only musician at Mission Creek who’s also had the pleasure of performing alongside Annie Lennox. Fittingly, sweet dreams are indeed made of the beautifully understated hymns on her putf8um-selling (overseas, at least) second album, A Temporary Dive (DetErMine/V2). The recording radiates so much warmth that even its bleakest lyrics — e.g., "I’m crawling on your floor, vomiting and defeated" — can’t help but sound strangely comforting. With Volunteer Pioneer, Tingsek, Ben and Barbara, and Fiji Mermaid. Sun/14, 8 p.m., Argus Lounge, 3187 Mission, SF. Call for price. (415) 824-1447 (Jimmy Draper)
Cloud Cult
Cult leader Craig Minowa suffered the loss of his two-year-old son in 2002 and has since used the tragedy to become an obsessively prolific writer and eco-activist. Hailing from Minneapolis, Cloud Cult offers a tie-dyed indie with the slightest hint of trip-hop and includes multimedia, such as live painters, as part of its stage show. With Hijack the Disco, Ebb and Flow, and Radius. Tues/16, 8 p.m. Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., SF. $8–$10. (415) 647-2888 (Izquierdo)
Edmund Welles Bass Clarinet Quartet
The bass clarinet is the granddaddy of all woodwinds, with a deep, warm tone and a punch, if used the right way. No one does it better than "the world’s only composing group of four bass clarinets." This foursome tackles Radiohead’s "Creep," original compositions with a metal sensibility, and even the Knight Rider theme with skill, humor, and a taste for the experimental. Tues/16, 9 p.m. 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission, SF. $6. (415) 970-9777 (Eliana Fiore)
Ettrick
With 6/6/06 so rapidly approaching, it’s comforting to know that we’ve got hell’s house band right here in our own city. Enter Ettrick, a sax and drums duo that offers up a bludgeoning amalgam of black metal and skronk sure to summon the apocalypse. Jacob Felix Huele and Jay Korber rotate instruments to create an excruciating free jazz that feels like being trapped in a metal shed during a thunderstorm. Noise fans have no business missing this show. With Moe! Staiano, Tussle, Jackie O-Motherfucker, and Weasel Walter Quartet. May 20, 8 p.m., The Lab, 2948 16th St., SF. Call for price. (415) 864-8855 (Kate Izquierdo)
Hello Fever
The LA gothic garage-rock trio shows us how good an unholy alliance between Blonde Redhead and Joy Division can sound. Comb your hair over your eyes, stare at your shoes, and think very angry thoughts — this is the soundtrack to your angst. With Hey Willpower, Anna Oxygen, and Flaming Fire. May 17, 9 p.m. 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission, SF. $8–$10. (415) 970-9777 (Izquierdo)
Joules
Technical without being contrived, and lush without being wimps, this Seattle post-math trio takes unduutf8g guitars and peppers them with beats of varying persuasions. Check out Joules’s MySpace page for "Hole Ole," a flamenco send-up with hand claps that morphs into a crashing sonic expedition. With Crime in Choir, Modular Se, and Madelia. Tues/16, 8 p.m. Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. Call for price. (415) 550-6994 (Izquierdo)
Sunburned Hand of the Man
The band jams folk-drone psychedelia without all the hippie baggage — awesome! For almost a decade this Boston collective of improvisers has cut its teeth in the experimental-noise circle on distortion-charged blowouts, backbiting electronics, and tribal-chanting powwows. With the Alps, the Cheapest and Best, and Effi Briest. Tues/16, 9:30 p.m. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. $8. (415) 923-0923 (Sabbath)
Vincent Gallo
Actor, musician, and painter extraordinaire Vincent Gallo is no stranger to controversy. After the online sperm auctions and the fire-eater scene with a certain deep-throater, it should come as to no surprise that the Republican-happy, onetime break-dancing b-boy and ex–Calvin Klein model is the talk of the town. Though the Buffalo, NY, native’s narcissistic reputation might not earn him any brownie points, his musical contributions are something of another world — he has a sharp know-how for fabricating song structures seeded somewhere between the modestly stark, incredibly warm, and overtly depressive. He’s the sole producer and performer on his recordings in the same way that he’s the singular auteur behind Buffalo 66 and Brown Bunny, and like those absorbing films, his short, penetrating songs leave you salivating for more. You can only hope Gallo’s debut musical performance in the Bay Area will leave you with the same afterglow his movies do. With Sean Lennon and Carla Azar. May 19, 9 p.m., Bimbo’s 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. $20. (415) 474-0365 (Chris Sabbath)