Joe vs. The 2014 Best Picture Nominees (Round 2)

Only seven more hours to go, folks! Let's keep up that enthusiasm!

It would hardly be a Best Picture Showcase if I didn't have to drive slowly and anxiously in a snowstorm at least once. I don't know what it is exactly, but I've been attending the AMC movie theater chain's annual marathon of Best Picture nominees for six years now, and the stressful pattern keeps repeating itself. Sometimes, it's on the way there. Other times, it's on the way back. On extremely unlucky days, it's both. Maybe the Academy Awards anger the gods or something. And now that the number of nominees has almost doubled and the event takes two days to finish, the odds against me are stacking up.

This year, I was fortunate enough to avoid the snow until the end of the second day. But it was still no fun to have to dig out my car late Saturday, then crawl home at an average speed of 15 mph on streets where there weren't as yet any good ruts to follow. I guess I had been oblivious to what was happening outside yesterday because I was cozy and warm in the hermetically-sealed environment of the ritzy Northbrook Court shopping center. When I wasn't watching hour after hour of award-nominated entertainment, I was dazedly staggering around the wood-and-marble-bedecked corridors of the mega mall, schlepping past Louis Vuitton, Cartier, and Burberry outlets, trying to clear the cobwebs out of my brain.

Let me say that I'm not a great believer in movie marathons. In fact, I think they're a pretty crummy and unfair way to see films. The analogy I always make -- and I'll do it again -- is to eating contests, which are to cuisine what events like the Best Picture Showcase are to cinema. Movies like these, which tend to be serious and on the longish side, suffer a bit when they're stacked one on top of the other. Some of the same basic themes (AIDS, racism, the elderly) and even some of the same actors (Amy Adams, Matthew McConaughey) start to reappear, which may make the audience feel like they've seen the same basic movie two or three times. Still, I plan to keep doing the BPS for the foreseeable future, since it's an efficient way to catch up on a lot of flicks I missed.

And speaking of those, let's get to 'em, eh?


NEBRASKA

Bruce Dern hits the road in search of a million dollars in Nebraska.

Director: Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt, The Descendants)

Based on a true story: Nope. This is an original script by Bob Nelson, a writer whose most prominent credit before this was the sketch comedy series Almost Live!

These things are bad, m'kay: Getting old; losing your mental faculties; greed; old rivalries; getting shot down in the Korean War; PTSD; direct mail schemes that prey on the elderly; the economic decline of small Midwestern towns; nursing homes.

My take: Not long ago, the TV series American Dad did a quite-funny and perceptive episode called "Independent Movie" that parodied the conventions and tropes of "indie" films. What's especially notable for this discussion is that the episode was structured as a "road movie," an idiom that indie writers and directors have returned to again and again.

Alexander Payne's Nebraska is yet another example of the durable form, and it makes a good companion piece to last week's Philomena, as both films concern oft-exasperated middle-aged men chaperoning their oft-stubborn elders through improbable, long-shot quests. While Judy Dench traveled from the UK to the US in search of her long lost son, Bruce Dern wants to travel from Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska to claim a lottery prize he thinks he's won.

There are significant differences, though. Dench's character, while slightly dotty, was still very much in command of her faculties. Dern, however, is a shell-shocked, delusional Korean War vet who only seems vaguely aware of his surroundings most of the time. In last week's movie, Steve Coogan was a snarky, sarcastic journalist who accompanied Dench so that he could turn her experiences into a story and, thus, possibly salvage his own career. In Nebraska, Will Forte is Dern's sad sack son, who agrees to accompany his aging dad on what he knows is a hopeless journey, partly to humor the old man in what might be his final days and partly to spend time with the father he never really got to know.

In the true spirit of indie films, Dench and Dern are neither wholly successful nor wholly unsuccessful in their missions. They don't actually get what they went looking for, but they do get some redemption and satisfaction along the way.

Nebraska is quite an enjoyable, if slightly contrived, movie with touching, vulnerable performances by Bruce Dern and Will Forte and a crackerjack supporting cast, including Stacy Keach as Dern's conniving, blustery ex-partner and Payne veteran June Squibb (who played Jack Nicholson's wife in About Schmidt) as Dern's long-suffering wife, an undeniable force of nature who is not the least bit shy about expressing her opinions. Fans of Mr. Show and Breaking Bad will also be glad to see Bob Odenkirk as Forte's successful news anchor brother.

Some critics have quibbled with Payne's portrayal of small town folks as ignorant, money-hungry rubes, but I would say that Nebraska presents a wide range of characterizations, both positive and negative and everywhere along the spectrum. Not everyone in this movie behaves like Will Forte's bumbling criminal cousins. Pay attention, for instance, to the sweet-natured newspaper editor who has a poignant personal history with Dern. Besides, seemingly more than any major director in Hollywood today, Alexander Payne truly captures the texture of everyday life outside of the major cities. He pays more attention than anyone to how people really dress and what people's houses really look like, both inside and out. There's a definite "lived-in" quality of his movies I truly cherish. And, without spoiling one of the movie's best speeches, I can say that Nebraska has changed the way I look at Mount Rushmore forever. 

My grade: B+


CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

Tom Hanks is relieved of his captain's duties by Somali pirates in Captain Phillips.

Director: Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Supremacy, United 93)

Based on a true story: Yep. But you knew that.

These things are bad, m'kay: Somali pirates; the terrible economic conditions that must exist in Somalia; walking through broken glass; being kidnapped; (maybe) American imperialism.

My take: It's no surprise to learn that this movie was directed by the same man at the helm of two of the Jason Bourne movies. It's a taut action thriller with lots of quick cuts and music that ramps up the tension. You probably already know the broad outlines of the story: Somali pirates hijack an American cargo ship and take its captain hostage, leading to a tense standoff with the US military. Really, the basics were all I knew going in to this thing.

I kind of expected this movie to be one of those queasy, uneasy "fly on the wall" experiences in which the viewer is made to feel like he or she is living this nightmare along with Tom Hanks and experiences the kidnapping from his perspective. But Captain Phillips isn't really like that. For one thing, it moves very quickly and doesn't really prolong the agony of any one situation for a long time. Hanks says goodbye to his wife (Catherine Keener, largely wasted -- and not in the fun way) and gets on the ship, and just a few minutes later, we get one of those scenes in which the approach of a mysterious enemy is monitored on a beeping radar screen. (Fun fact, according to Roger Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary: "Radar screens don't beep. Not now, not ever.")

From there, it's boom, boom, boom. The pirates are on the ship. Boom. They've taken Hanks hostage. Boom. They're on a lifeboat now. Boom. The Navy shows up. What can I say about a movie like this? It's not really the kind of thing I'd go see on my own, but it's fine for what it is. Weirdly, and I don't know if this was intentional, Tom Hanks' character was not that appealing or ingratiating. The actor speaks with an affected, pseudo-JFK-type accent and has kind of a haughty, cold manner. But, still, he's the guy from Big and Forrest Gump and Philadelphia, so we're predisposed to like him.

The script labors to humanize Phillips while emphasizing the alien "otherness" of the Somali pirates, but the movie's most compelling character ends up being Muse, the leader of the hijackers, played by the almost-skeletal Barkhad Abdirahman, who sarcastically nicknames Phillips "Irish." The most effective moments in Captain Phillips occur when the movie slows the hell down and allows for real-time interaction between Hanks and Abdirahman. I wish director Greengrass had included more of that in the finished film.

My grade: B

HER

Joaquin Phoenix starts dating his computer's operating system in Her.

Director: Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Where the Wild Things Are)

Based on a true story: Nope. This was based on an original screenplay by director Spike Jonze.

These things are bad, m'kay: Loneliness; divorce; becoming too reliant on technology; withdrawing from society and the company of real human beings.

My take: Earlier, we discussed the tropes of indie movies as they appeared in Nebraska. They appear again in Her, whose main character, played by Joaquin Phoenix (who looks eerily like a combination of Johnny Galecki and Groucho Marx in this movie) is another dreamy, sad dude like Will Forte's character in the Alex Payne movie. Judging by their respective apartments, though, Phoenix's writer is in a much higher tax bracket than Forte's speaker salesman. But they're both going through rough times in the romance department. In Nebraska, Forte has just broken up with his longtime, live-in girlfriend (Missy Doty), while in Her, Phoenix is dragging his feet in divorce proceedings with his soon-to-be-ex-wife (Rooney Mara).

While Payne's movie sends Forte on a road trip, Jonze's sci-fi flick gives Phoenix a Manic Pixie Dream Girl of sorts in the form of "Samantha" (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), a computer operating system that possesses its own evolving consciousness. For decades, sci-fi filmmakers have been debating the ethics of creating machines who can think and feel like human beings. Generally, from HAL-9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey to David in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, it seems like a really bad idea. I mean, can you imagine being cooped up inside a smartphone in Joaquin Phoenix's shirt pocket? That doesn't sound like fun. No wonder Samantha soon outgrows her limited, humdrum life, answering her owner's e-mails and such.

Her plays like an indie romantic spin on Kubrick's 2001. What if, instead of working together on a space station, astronaut David Bowman and the HAL-9000 computer were involved in a complicated romantic relationship on Earth? Kubrick, though, wouldn't likely have made a movie as self-consciously pretty as Her, which often looks like it was based on a glossy full-color catalog full of furniture, clothes, and technology I could never afford. In fact, aesthetically, the picture-perfect Her is the opposite of the grainy, workaday B&W mundanity of Nebraska. While Spike Jonze has commissioned a soundtrack by Arcade Fire, for instance, Alex Payne takes his characters to a steakhouse where lumpy patrons croon "Time After Time" and "In the Ghetto" at the karaoke machine.

Anyway, I was torn between thinking that Her was a moving, highly original parable about the role of technology in our lives and suspecting that it was twee, precious hipster bullshit about a whiny, over-privileged creep who doesn't know how good he has it.

My grade: B+

AMERICAN HUSTLE

Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, Christian Bale, and Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle. 

Director: David O. Russell (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, Three Kings)

Based on a true story: The film begins with the caption, "Some of This Actually Happened," which is a good, accurate start. There really was an Abscam in the 1970s, and some of the characters in this film do have real-life counterparts. Most of the Best Picture nominees are based on true stories, and they've all been dogged to one degree or another by complaints that they take great liberties with the facts. Why this still surprises anyone is a mystery to me. Spoiler: movies are fake.

These things are bad, m'kay: Taking bribes; lying to friends; using a child as leverage in a marriage; government agents becoming drunk with power and abusing their authority.

My take: On American Hustle's IMDb trivia page is a little nugget of information that, to me, says it all about this film. "According to Christian Bale," reports the IMDb, "much of the movie was improvised. So, during the shooting of the film he noted to David O. Russell, 'You realize that this is going to change the plot greatly down track.' To which the director replied, 'Christian, I hate plots. I am all about characters, that's it.'"

There have been grumblings, both by critics and viewers, that the plot of American Hustle doesn't really coagulate and that the script clumsily employs a lot of obviously Goodfellas-inspired narration to hold itself together. I'm here to tell you that none of that bothered me in the least. I think the naysayers and complainers are really missing the point. What David O. Russell has done here is to assemble a cast with some of the best actors working today and then to give them lots of situations in which they can interact in interesting and entertaining ways. Who gives a rat's ass if it makes any sense? This is about watching actors act.

From an emotional rather than an intellectual standpoint, I very much responded to the way this movie looked and sounded: the sets, the costumes, the cinematography, the music (which ranges from Duke Ellington to Elton John), etc. I'd liken Russell's efforts to those of a jeweler, taking his gems (the actors) and putting them in the best possible setting. American Hustle doesn't really have much of a lesson to teach us all, other than offering us a series of vignettes that demonstrate the eternal folly of the human condition.

Russell's own assessment of his movie is uncannily accurate. American Hustle doesn't really care about its plot but is very concerned with its assortment of colorful characters: politicians, G-men, impostors, and swindlers, all trying to get over on each other. My recommendation is to lighten up and just enjoy this.

My grade: A-

GRAVITY

Sandra Bullock is adrift and abandoned in the pitiless reaches of space in Gravity.

Director: Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

Based on a true story: Uh, nope. The director wrote this with his son, Jonas.

These things are bad, m'kay: Killer floating debris; extreme isolation, namely being stranded in outer space with very limited supplies of oxygen; watching your coworkers die right in front of you; the feeling that your life isn't all it should have been.

My take: I have already reviewed Gravity, so I will refer you to my previous article about the film. The gist of it is that Cuaron has made a movie that, first and foremost, sets a new benchmark in special effects, though I hate to think of his poor actors dangling from harnesses in front of a green screen somewhere. Visually, Gravity is a pure triumph. Other directors will now have to play catch-up to Cuaron.

Storywise? Well, let me say this about that. This is a very intimate, modest movie that tells a small, human story against an overwhelmingly huge backdrop. The script is hokey and melodramatic, but a career-best Sandra Bullock does everything in her power to sell it and make it seem believable. I'm not surprised that, of the nine films, this one is by far the most financially successful. I have no idea how it will hold up over the years, but I don't regret having seen it.

My grade: B+

All in all, not a bad crop of films for the Best Picture Showcase. I think 12 Years a Slave will probably win for Best Picture, though the movies I personally enjoyed most were The Wolf of Wall Street, American Hustle, Her, and Nebraska. See you next year, Oscar.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 33: "Anatomy of a Psycho" (1961)

Anatomy of a Psycho has an extremely opportunistic title, wouldn't you say?

"I walked down the alley and through the door of this little studio, and there behind a desk in this very dingy, small office sat Boris Petroff, who wanted me to write an ad. I said, 'It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Petroff,' and did all the bullshit that you usually do when you're trying to get as many ads out of somebody as you possibly can so that you can make a little more commission."

-writer and director John D.F. Black

Tor Johnson as Lobo in The Unearthly.

Producer/Director Boris Petroff was a significant player in the Ed Wood story, though his name doesn't show up until page 207 (out of 231) in Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. and even then makes only a fleeting appearance.  Ed and Boris were both low-budget independent filmmakers struggling to make it in Hollywood, and they crossed paths several times in the late 1950s and early 1960s, perhaps more often than has been documented.

On his resume, for example, Eddie proudly credited himself with writing the screenplay for the Petroff-directed hillbilly comedy Shotgun Wedding (1963), along with another supposed Petroff production called Talk Sexy, Y'all, which Grey speculates is merely an alternate title for Shotgun Wedding. Since Talk Sexy has never surfaced in any form, it seems Grey was correct in his assumption. 

Moreover, Boris' supernatural thriller, The Unearthly (1957), features Wood regular Tor Johnson as a lumbering henchman named Lobo, the very same character name Johnson used in Ed's films Bride of the Monster (1955) and Night of the Ghouls (1959). The only difference between the Lobo in Petroff's movie and the Lobo in Ed's movies is that the former can (sort of) talk. No true fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will ever forget Johnson's immortal line, "Time for go to bed!" Otherwise, the characters are nearly identical, and Johnson never played Lobo in any other films.

According to its credits, The Unearthly was co-written by someone called "Geoffrey Dennis" -- a pseudonym for erstwhile Star Trek scribe John D.F. Black -- and Boris Petroff's wife, Jane Mann. Jane was the one who, along with the elusive and likely nonexistent "Larry Lee," a man with no other titles in his filmography, got onscreen credit for writing Shotgun Wedding. Since Ed Wood was eager to claim authorship of that film, it is possible that Jane Mann was given a vanity credit by virtue of being the director's wife. As for her supposed contributions to The Unearthly, here's what John D.F. Black had to say on the subject in an interview with author Tom Weaver in a book called Science Fiction Confidential: Interviews with 23 Monster Stars and Filmmakers (McFarland, 2002):

I was working on the script [for The Unearthly], delivering pages, and then I realized it would become a nightmare if I kept doing it that way. So I just didn't show up for ten days, and finished it. I delivered it to Mr. Petroff, who gave it to Jane, his wife, who typed it. I can't type. [...] And then it was time for the picture to be edited and for credits to be discussed, and it turns out that Jane Mann, who was the one who typed the script last, put her name on it. And Mr. Petroff was not gonna pay me.

Writer-actor Don Devlin

Very interesting, wouldn't you say?

John D.F. Black has an extensive, thirty-year career as a writer in film (Shaft) and television (everything from Charlie's Angels to Murder She Wrote), while Jane Mann has only three movies to her name... all of them directed by her husband. If Black is to be believed, Mann was nothing more than a typist on The Unearthly. And if Ed Wood is to be believed, Shotgun Wedding's script was all his doing. So if Jane Mann didn't really write The Unearthly or Shotgun Wedding, it is reasonable to assume that she didn't write Anatomy of a Psycho either. Then who did? Well, one obvious answer is the film's credited co-writer, Don Devlin (1930-2000), who has an interesting and varied filmography as an actor, including a pivotal role in Anatomy of a Psycho, along with credits as a producer (The Witches of Eastwick) and a screenwriter (Thunder Island, which he co-wrote with Jack Nicholson). But a dark horse candidate for the film's authorship is Edward D. Wood, Jr.

The IMDb doesn't list Anatomy of a Psycho among Eddie's writing credits, and neither Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy nor Rob Craig's Ed Wood, Mad Genius include it in their coverage of Wood's career. But Philip R. Frey's invaluable website Ed Wood Online does include Anatomy in its filmography section, and the film isn't even shunted off to the "Apocrypha" there but instead is nestled between Shotgun Wedding and Married Too Young (1962), the film I'll be covering next week.

Incidentally, if you are at all curious about the career of the Russian-born director Boris Petroff, who almost always worked under the pseudonym "Brooke L. Peters," I'd highly recommend that you locate a copy of Tom Weaver's Science Fiction Confidential. In its chapter about The Unearthly, John D.F. Black comments in more detail about Petroff's appearance and personality than I was able to find anywhere else.

After poking a little fun at Petroff's heavy Russian accent, Black recalls, "He was a charming man, I would guess somewhere between five-ten and six feet; on the heavy side but not fat." Black also supplies an intriguing little anecdote about actor Tor Johnson:

He was playing Lobo... and he was sick of playing characters named Lobo. [...] He asked, "Why did you name me Lobo?" and I said, "I didn't. Boris did!" He had his "Lobo suit," which was slightly adapted, and that's what you see in the picture [The Unearthly]. That was his own wardrobe. He was a sweetheart. 

Again, let me say that I can find no record of Tor Johnson playing Lobo in anything other than the two Ed Wood movies and the one Boris Petroff movie. Apparently for Tor, those were more than enough.

ANATOMY OF A PSYCHO (1961)

A misleadingly racy lobby card for Anatomy of a Psycho.

The best DVD of the film.

Alternate titles: This film's title is its best selling point. Why give it any other name? In South America, though, the title translated as Young People Without Conscience.

Availability: As a public domain movie, Anatomy of a Psycho is widely and freely available. You can stream or download it from Archive.org if you so desire, for instance. It's also been included in any number of boxed sets, including Psycho-Rama (St. Clair Entertainment, 2009), Pure Terror (Mill Creek, 2010) and Psychos (BCI/Eclipse, 2003). It's available alongside Mario Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970) on a DVD called Killer Creature Double Feature (Madacy Records, 2001), which also contains some extra cartoons. In addition, Anatomy of a Psycho has been released as a standalone disc (Alpha Video, 2006). By all accounts, however, the DVD that offers the clearest, sharpest print of the film is a double-feature Drive-In Collection disc (Vinegar Syndrome, 2013) which pairs it with Richard Hilliard's The Lonely Sex (1959). Although the disc is light on special features, its picture quality far surpasses that of the public domain versions floating around out there.

The backstory: Why am I including this movie in my survey of Ed Wood's career when both Rudolph Grey and Rob Craig skipped right past it in theirs? The culprit is probably writer David C. Hayes, who included this speculative passage about Anatomy of a Psycho in his book, Muddled Mind: The Complete Works of Edward D. Wood, Jr. in a chapter temptingly titled "The 'Lost' Films." Here's what Hayes has to say about the subject:

This film has been on the tail end of drive in double bills for years. It contains juvenile delinquency (what else) and has the patented crazy Wood characters, senseless violence, and an ambiguous moral. For novelty effect, Ronnie Burns stars as the delinquent (he is the real-life son of George Burns and Gracie Allen). Directed by Boris Petroff (for whom Ed had worked previously), the writing is credited to Larry Lee. Poor Larry must have been shunned in Hollywood after Anatomy because he has written nothing since. Unless... yes! Larry Lee is another Ed Wood pseudonym! Here is the evidence: there is a character named Duke (after Wood's friend, Duke Moore), there is a character named Marco (after Wood's friend Paul Marco), there is a character named Shirlee (because Wood loves that name), the film uses the same music as Plan 9 from Outer Space and the characters and dialogue is [sic] really awful and strange. Besides, Rudolph Gray [sic] (a noted Wood expert) also believes that Ed Wood wrote Anatomy of a Psycho. 

That's a densely-layered paragraph, so let me address some of the salient points individually:

• Since Anatomy was a cheaply-available exploitation film, the assertion that it played for years on the drive-in circuit seems quite plausible.

• Like many of the writers and directors of his era, Wood did tackle the issue of juvenile delinquency in such films as Jail Bait, The Violent Years, The Sinister Urge, Night of the Ghouls, and the unfinished Hellborn, as well as such pulp novels as Devil Girls and Hell Chicks.

• It's a matter of personal taste whether the "crazy characters" and "senseless violence" in Anatomy of a Psycho are particularly Wood-ian in nature. We'll discuss that in the "viewing experience" section. As for the issue of morals, Ed Wood was in many ways a very conservative man, and he had no tolerance whatsoever for juvenile delinquency. His films and novels, therefore, often employ a no-nonsense brand of justice with severe penalties for wrongdoers.

George & Ronnie Burns

• Ronald Jon "Ronnie" Burns (1935-2007), the adopted son of George Burns and Gracie Allen, is the top-billed actor in the film, but his character is the wholesome hero, not a delinquent. Although a rather uninspiring presence onscreen, Burns is nevertheless an intriguing pop culture footnote. He may have been one of the first high-profile examples of a child being adopted by celebrities, thus making him a role model or icon to other adopted children. Ronnie, who according to his wife "lived a pretty charmed life growing up," is probably best known for appearing as a fictionalized version of himself on his parents' 1950s TV show. Anatomy was one of his few film roles, but he worked in television into the 1960s, including his own short-lived vehicle called Happy, then ditched acting to pursue boat racing and real estate.

• Anatomy of a Psycho was released two years before the first documented Wood/Petroff collaboration, i.e. Shotgun Wedding. The Unearthly predates them both, but there is no evidence that Wood had any direct involvement in that film. So the assertion that Eddie had worked for Boris Petroff previously is dubious.

• One-and-done screenwriter Larry Lee is the credited co-author of Shotgun Wedding, not Anatomy of a Psycho. Jane Mann and Don Devlin are the writers whose names appear at the end of the film.

• The movie does have a character named Duke Marco (played by William Salzwedel) as well as Duke's two siblings: Pat (Pamela Lincoln) and Chet (Darrell Howe). There's no Shirlee or Shirley in the film, however. The closest is a duplicitous girl named Sandra, whom the IMDb calls "Sandy." However, the fact that the character Patricia shortens her girly-sounding first name to the androgynous nickname "Pat" is reminiscent of the female characters in The Violent Years.

• Though the film has a credited composer, Manuel Francisco (aka Michael Terr), there is some unmistakable stock/library music on the soundtrack, including "Grip of the Law" by Trevor Duncan, which also served as the title music in Plan 9. Furthermore, a party scene in Anatomy of a Psycho uses some of the same gushy romantic music heard at the home of Jeff and Paula Trent in Plan 9. Elsewhere in the film, it's possible to hear some of the same music Ed Wood used in Final Curtain (1957). So Petroff and Wood were definitely drawing from the same music library, but I think these directors generally delegated such responsibilities to their respective music supervisors.

• Again, it's up to the individual viewer to decide whether the plot and characters of Anatomy of a Psycho are "awful and strange" in the Ed Wood tradition. I'm more comfortable with the second adjective than the first.

• If Rudolph Grey (whose last name is spelled with an e) is convinced of Ed Wood's authorship of Anatomy of a Psycho, he doesn't bring it up in Nightmare of Ecstasy. Like I said, Boris Petroff himself barely merits a mention there. Perhaps Hayes is referring to a printed interview or even a personal conversation with Mr. Grey.

Pamela Lincoln

Make of all that what you will. In any case, while Ronnie Burns is the most notable member of the cast of Anatomy of a Psycho, there are others in the film worth mentioning as well. I've already alerted you to the fact that the film's co-screenwriter, Don Devlin, gave himself a good-sized role as an ex-Marine turned thug named Moe. Resident "good girl" Pamela Lincoln  (b. 1937) was once the sister-in-law of TV's Dobie Gillis, Dwayne Hickman, and made sporadic film and television appearances from the late 1950s to the early 1980s. Readers of this blog will probably be most interested to know that she was in William Castle's The Tingler.

Resident "bad girl" Judy Howard had a less-impressive film and TV career, the highlight of which is probably a one-off role on The Monkees. She dropped off the Hollywood radar sometime during Richard Nixon's first term. Ruddy-faced, barrel-chested Michael Granger (1923-1981), who portrays a streetwise but good-hearted police lieutenant here, spent most of his 25-year career on the small screen and seems to have played an awful lot of cops during that time.

The titular psycho is played by Darrell Howe, for whom this movie is most certainly the highlight of his largely-undistinguished career. Anatomy is the first and last of his theatrically-released feature films. His only other big shot at stardom came in the form of an unsold pilot (directed by Ida Lupino, no less!) called Teenage Idol in 1958, a year when the pop charts were dominated by the likes of Fabian and Frankie Avalon, i.e pretty boys with pompadours. This failed, forgotten attempt at a rock 'n' roll sitcom would have featured Howe as the awesomely-named Swivelhips Jackson, but it never got past one episode. Apart from that and a few scattered TV guest shots in the 1960s, Howe's cupboard is bare, daddy-o.

A tale of two anatomies. 

The viewing experience: Though its title obviously evokes both Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Anatomy of a Psycho has very little in common with either of those films, which at the time were recent and controversial hits. About the closest this rather quaint movie comes to those groundbreaking classics is the "jazzy" lettering of the main title, which is vaguely similar to the Saul Bass title sequence from Anatomy of a Murder. 

Okay, while we're being extremely generous, let's point out that Boris Petroff's film does have a sensational murder trial, like the Preminger film, and features a thin, dark-haired young man who holds a knife at least once, just as in the Hitchcock film. But, really, drawing any other connections between them would be stretching it.

At heart, Anatomy of a Psycho is not a courtroom drama, nor is it a psycho-sexual horror film. Instead, this is a pretty straightforward, revenge-themed juvenile delinquent film, and until the last reel, its central character is more of a brooding, sullen young antihero in the Brando/Dean/Mineo mold than he is a psychotic maniac. Anatomy of a Psycho is technically a youth-oriented film, but neither Petroff nor his screenwriters have much of a feel for American teenage culture. The actors, as you might guess, are largely too old for their parts, and there is only the barest hint that rock 'n' roll music exists. We hear one rock tune -- a catchy number called "Round Round Round" -- in the background at an otherwise quite square party. But more importantly, the film is old-fashioned, even reactionary, at the genetic level.

Hitchcock's Psycho gave audiences a glimpse of the future and might thus be termed the first "modern" horror film. Petroff's Psycho, on the other hand, is firmly rooted in the past, its stodgy storytelling style lifted from the chintzy, second-tier noir films of the 1940s and 1950s. This is one of those pictures in which much of the narrative heavy lifting is done by screaming newspaper headlines and blaring radio announcers. Want to show that time is passing? Easy. Just have one of those montages with the flipping calendar pages. Want to establish that a character is in prison? No sweat. Just rig up one of those lighting effects that casts a big striped shadow across the actors' faces.

After a few viewings, I can't really agree with David C. Hayes' assessment that the film is "really awful and strange." Apart from a couple of wonky process shots and some stilted line readings by secondary characters (particularly two little kids who run away from danger), Anatomy of a Psycho is a perfunctory, almost anonymous, by-the-numbers JD flick. Its one big concession to the youth audience is its lingering focus on violence, which as usual is nominally "justified" through a lot of preaching from adult authority figures and the unsubtle message that breaking the law has serious consequences.

Our main character gets his face cut up pretty badly a few minutes into the proceedings and goes through the rest of the movie with a nasty scar on his face as he commits a few brutish if commonplace acts -- one deliberate beating, a few messy scuffles, one debatable act of arson, and a single, semi-intentional stabbing. Hardly the kind of numbers that get you into the Hall of Fame, so to speak. If this is the "pornography of violence," it's strictly softcore. And if you're thinking of that other kind of pornography, forget it. Anatomy of a Psycho is studiously sexless.

I won't waste much of your time or mine with a rehashing of the frankly not-that-interesting plot. The basic setup is not a million miles away from the more serious entries in the East Side Kids franchise. We have a lot of the common ingredients of those films here, including (but not limited to):

• An at-risk youth who has a bunch of loyal friends and hangs out with them in a sort of clubhouse atmosphere, in this case a dilapidated residence called "the Shack."

• A brother in the death house for a crime he says he didn't commit.

• A morally-upright older sister who frets over the at-risk youth and is romantically involved with a very moral and very dull man.

• A cop who is unusually involved in the lives of the youngsters on his beat and is able to banter back and forth with them.

The obvious difference is that Petroff's film takes these elements and tells a pessimistic, consequence-heavy story with them (it's no coincidence that one character name checks Crime & Punishment), while the ESK films preached redemption and rehabilitation.  In Anatomy of a Psycho, a career hoodlum named Duke Marco (William Salzwedel), who stole to support his siblings after the death of their parents, is now on death row awaiting execution for murder.

Back on the homefront, straight-laced sister Pat Marco (Pamela Lincoln) -- who is convinced Duke is guilty and deserves to die -- tries in vain to keep her wild-card younger brother, Chet Marco (Darrell Howe), in line. Against Pat's wishes, Chet visits his older brother right before he's sent to the gas chamber, and Duke swears that he's innocent. (The movie never really does come right out and say whether or not Duke was lying, but all of the movie's most "respectable" characters say that he is.) After the execution, Chet vows revenge on everyone who sent poor Duke to a premature grave, including the judge, the District Attorney, and the trial's star witness.

But here's the catch: Pat is first dating and then engaged to Mickey (Ronnie Burns), the star witness's son! And here's the other catch: Chet's social-climbing, materialistic girlfriend Sandra (Judy Howard) has just ditched him in favor of sleazy rich kid Arthur (Pat McMahon), the son of the judge! You sometimes get the sense that maybe there are only about twelve people in this town. Considering how intermingled their lives are, the characters are remarkably clueless about the true nature of their own relationships. The situation is exacerbated by a script that requires them to withhold information for no good reason, then reveal shocking truths at very inconvenient moments. Mickey, for instance, tells fiancée Pat about his father's involvement at Duke's trial while the couple is attending a fancy party at the home of a judge!

Anyway, vengeance-hungry Chet beats the living snot out of the DA's son, puts Arthur's head through a mirror, and starts a fire at the home of the judge. Mickey, Pat, and local beat cop Mac (Michael Granger) all suspect that Chet is committing these antisocial acts, but nobody can prove nothin', see? Things get too hot to handle when Chet's best friend, Moe (Don Devlin), winds up on the wrong end of a knife, and pure-as-the-driven-snow Mickey goes on trial for his murder.

The film's third act is of particular interest because this is the point in the film at which Chet finally strips his gears and goes into histrionic, pseudo-Brando ("Steeeellllaaaaaaa!") mode. You have to slog through a lot of workaday exposition to get there, though. After 73 or so minutes, all of these story threads are either resolved or abandoned, and the audience is allowed to leave.

Chet, Sandra, and a soon-to-be-broken mirror.

But you don't care about any of that, do you? What you want to know is whether or not Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s influence can be felt in Anatomy of a Psycho. Though the dialogue and plot aren't nearly as baroque or ornate as prime Wood, there is a hint of the master's touch here. Most obviously, the film is a good companion or twin to Ed Wood's Jail Bait (1954). Just like Clancy Malone's Don Gregor in the earlier film, Darrell Howe's character, Chet Marco, leads a restless, haunted existence and spends a lot of time wandering the dark, shadowy streets of an unnamed city, unsure of what to do next.

The relationship between the Marco siblings in Anatomy is very similar to that of brother and sister Clancy Malone and Dolores Fuller in Jail Bait. The older sister worries, but the younger brother just won't toe the line. Like Fuller, who falls for cop Steve Reeves, Pamela Lincoln's "responsible older sister" character is also romantically linked to the squarest, dullest character in her movie, in this case Ronnie Burns' colorless dullard. Anatomy concerns a young man who avenges the death of his criminal brother who became a substitute father to him. In so doing, he takes out his anger on the sons of the men responsible for his older sibling's death. This is another iteration of the "sins of the father" theme which popped up in both Jail Bait and Son of the Renegade (1953).

The film's most deliriously Wood-ian creation is the money-crazed, status-seeking blonde Sandra, who throws Chet over for wealthy cad Arthur because he has "class -- something you wouldn't know anything about!" Sandra, easily the film's most fun (and underused) character is an obvious cognate of the gold-seeking women in both Revenge of the Virgins (1959) and Orgy of the Dead (1965). If Eddie has an onscreen surrogate in Anatomy of a Psycho, it's Sandra.

Other Wood-ian touches pop up here and there. Like Eddie himself, Don Devlin's character is described as an ex-Marine, for instance, and it's noteworthy that psycho-boy Chet takes solace in alcohol in his lowest moments. The District Attorney in Mickey's trial makes a textbook Wood-ian demand for "the facts!"

And I'd like to think that it was Ed Wood who crafted the film's single most memorable line of dialogue. When Pat Marco is trying to convince Chet that he should return to school, her reasoning is airtight: "I'm a girl. I don't need to go."

Next week: Another week, another disputed Ed Wood movie starring the son of a famous screen comedian! What can I tell you, folks? It's an awfully small world. And to make things even more confusing, the movie I'm about to review has a title nearly identical to that of a completely different Ed Wood movie which was made a full decade later! Are you still following me? No? Don't worry. In seven short days, this will all make sense. I promise. That's when you and I will travel back in time to the magical year of 1962, when in order to have sex with your girlfriend, you had to marry her. No, really. That's how it worked back then. Bras literally would not open unless you had a marriage certificate. Those were tough times for horny guys, and you can read all about them when I cover Married Too Young (1962).

I somehow sold a story to the Onion A.V. Club

See the picture in the lower right hand corner? That's my story!

Quick update: I managed to sell a story to my favorite entertainment website, The A.V. Club, aka the pop-culture-reviewing spinoff of the satirical newspaper The Onion. It's a goofy little item about child actor Mason Reese. While I realize this is a modest accomplishment indeed, I'm completely psyched about being in the AVC, a site which has been a heavy influence on this blog. Here's a link to the article. I hope you will enjoy it. This was so much fun to write, and I hope I get the chance to write more for them in the future.

Joe vs. The 2014 Best Picture Nominees (Round 1)

A fancy mall.

    
I spent all day Saturday at a place called the Northbrook Court, a million-square-foot shopping plaza about 19 minutes from my apartment. Wikipedia calls it "a very large, upscale super-regional mall in Northbrook, Illinois" and "one of the most upscale collection[s] of shops in the United States." I guess that's about right. The description makes the place sound a little more hoity-toity than it really is. I mean, a mall is a mall is a mall, upscale or not. A little marble, a tasteful color scheme and some parquet flooring won't turn your shopping center into the Guggenheim.

Bottom line: malls are tacky. That's why they merit an entry in Jane and Michael Stern's The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste (HarperCollins, 1990) between "Macrame" and "Mansfield, Jayne." Trying to build the world's classiest mall is like trying to see who can fart the quietest. Northbrook looks huge from the outside, stretching on and on forever like the bad guys' ship in the opening shot of Spaceballs. But once you get inside, where everything is smooth and shiny, you'll feel as closed-in and claustrophobic as you would at any other mall. The dump has some history, though. Some scenes from Ordinary People were filmed there, as was this deathless moment from Weird Science:

Slumdog was my ticket to Hell. Who knew?

Who knows? Perhaps at some point during my many circumnavigations of the Northbrook Court yesterday, I may have unknowingly trodden over the same ground as Robert Downey, Jr. or Anthony Michael Hall. The heart races. The mind reels. Anyway, I was at the Northbrook Court for Day One of the AMC theater chain's annual Best Picture Showcase, a marathon of all the movies nominated for the top prize at the Oscars this year.

In years past, when there were only five nominees, you could watch 'em all in a single, exhausting day. Now that there are nine flicks up for the statuette, the event takes two non-consecutive days to complete. The second and final day of the 2014 BPS is this Saturday, March 1, 2014. I've been doing the Showcase since 2009, when Slumdog Millionaire took home the prize.

Goddamn, this is my sixth time through the process! I'm not sure exactly why I started or why I've continued. Maybe I thought it would be a convenient way to catch up on all the critically-lauded movies I should have seen by the end of the previous calendar year. Maybe I'm a pop culture masochist and just like the idea of subjecting myself to a cinematic endurance test. However you slice it, the Best Picture Showcase is a great big hunk of what I'd call Middlebrow Respectability. These are flicks that critics and audiences can feel comfortable praising -- not too crude, not too artsy, and usually with some kind of socially redeeming value.

From having watched a bunch of them, I can tell you a few things about Best Picture nominees. Almost all dramas, they tend to be longish (somewhere between 2-3 hours is the sweet spot), stately (read: a little dull), and preachy, commenting on the great issues of our time (and of all time) with lots of heartfelt speeches and crying. These films are attractively, carefully photographed and usually feature a lot of syrupy, manipulative music on the soundtrack. An inordinate amount are based on true stories and end with those captions telling you whatever happened to the characters in real life. Most of the plots conform to a simple formula: "____________ is bad." You know, war is bad, racism is bad, slavery is bad, greed is bad, politicians are bad, alcoholism is bad, the Catholic Church is bad, corporations are bad, etc., etc. South Park's Mr. Mackey would have no trouble churning out Oscar-winning screenplays.

So how is this year's crop of nominees? Eh, pretty typical, I'd say. Maybe a little better than usual. Here's my recap of Day One:

PHILOMENA

Judi Dench and Steve Coogan fly the friendly skies in Philomena.

Director: Stephen Frears (High Fidelity, The Queen)

Based on a true story: Yes, specifically Martin Sixmith's The Lost Child of Philomena Lee.

These things are bad, m'kay: The Catholic Church (duh), mean nuns, old-timey Irish orphanages and workhouses, British politics, a value system which demonizes female sexuality, having your children taken from you, Republicans, homophobia, AIDS.

My take: Basically, an odd couple/road movie with Steve Coogan as a disgraced spin doctor who comes crawling back to journalism and finds an intriguing "human interest story" in the form of a retired Irish nurse named Philomena (Dench), who was forced to give up her out-of-wedlock child decades ago and now wants to find him. The movie has a sort of Rain Man-type feel, except that it comes slathered in Catholic guilt. Where Dustin Hoffman was wowed by Kmart and Judge Wapner, Philomena rhapsodizes about Big Momma's House, romance paperbacks, and hotel breakfast buffets. Coogan is the snarky, sarcastic one, and they have a few squabbles over religion and God.

Philomena is a lot like a Payday candy bar. Coogan is salty, and Dench is sweet and nutty. This is the kind of movie you can feel safe recommending to just about anyone, even elderly relatives, unless they're really offended by profanity (both Coogan and Dench cuss on occasion). It seems like every Best Picture Showcase starts with a well-made "little" movie that has no chance at winning the prize. In years past, it was Milk, Amour, and An Education. This year, it's Philomena. Tell your grandmother about it. She'll love it.

My grade: B

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB

Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey are unlikely partners in Dallas Buyers Club.

Director: Jean-Marc Vallee (The Young Victoria; C.R.A.Z.Y.; this is by far his best-known film)

Based on a true story: Yes. Various Hollywood types have been trying to turn Ron Woodroof's life into a film since the mid-1990s.

These things are bad, m'kay: AIDS (again), homophobia (again), the FDA, the pharmaceutical industry, the medical establishment, sexual promiscuity, cocaine, processed foods, and the overuse of AZT.

My take: This was more my speed, though if I'd been the one at the helm of this motion picture, I'd have made it less sentimental, corny, and obvious. It's still pretty good, though. Matthew McConaughey, rail-thin and dressed up like a cowboy pimp, is Ron Woodroof, a hard-living no-account rodeo hustler and electrician who finds out he has the HIV virus and only enough T-cells left to last him another month. He responds to this sobering news at first by scoffing at the diagnosis and partying even more heartily, but he quickly jumps from Denial to Bargaining and spends most of the rest of the movie there.

A quick study in AIDS research, Woodroof stumbles onto a business opportunity as he provides other HIV-positive Texans with experimental, non-FDA-approved treatment, thereby rankling the stuffy medical community and the corrupt pharmaceutical industry. Along the way, he forms unlikely partnerships with a cross-dresser named Rayon (Jared Leto), who lives even less responsibly than Woodroof, and a legitimate physician (Jennifer Garner), who is wary of Woodroof's rogue actions but is undeniably impressed by his courage and efficacy.

The very best stuff in this movie is the interplay between McConaughey and Leto, both surprisingly excellent, and I kind of wish the movie had not tried so hard to mold their story into an inspirational tearjerker. Like I said, though, it's quality stuff.

My grade: B+

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

Leonardo DiCaprio knows how to spend his dough in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Director: Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver)

Based on a true story: Yes. It's based on Jordan Belfort's similarly-titled 1998 autobiography. Belfort himself plays a small role in this film.

These things are bad, m'kay: Wall Street, stock brokers, greed, materialism, cocaine (again), expired Quaaludes, the American legal system, having your children taken from you (again).

My take: "Heaven...  I'm in Heaven!" Occasionally, I like to pretend that certain movies were made specifically for me because they so closely conform to my interests or sensibilities. The Wolf of Wall Street is such a film. Martin Scorsese has given us another heaping slab of sleazy sex, brain-scrambling drugs, and raw, bluesy, primordial rock & roll. I think this was the only movie of the day which didn't have that "serious Oscar movie" music in it. You have no idea how much that helps its case. Just look at the artists on the soundtrack: Bo Diddley, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, Romeo Void, Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, Jimmy Castor, and so much more! That's what I'm talking about! Jesus Christ, there's even a marching band in this thing!

And Popeye -- my favorite cartoon character ever -- is here, too! Of the four films I saw on Saturday, this is the only one I'd ever want to see again. I kind of wish I were watching it right now.

 Let's not kid ourselves about one major point, though: The Wolf of Wall Street is definitely Goodfellas version 2.0. Anyone who tells you differently, even Scorsese, is bullshitting you. And, yeah, it's three hours. Think of it as shotgunning an entire season of a premium cable TV show in one sitting. Someday, I may have to write an essay about a prominent motif in many of the male-female relationships in Scorsese's movies. I call it "the princess and the guttersnipe" plot, and it goes all the way back to Marty's debut, Who's That Knocking at My Door? with Zina Bethune as the princess and Harvey Keitel as the guttersnipe. You can find versions of this theme in Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy and even Hugo. Anyway, I'm drifting away from the main point, which is that I give my highest recommendation possible to The Wolf of Wall Street. See it, ya fuggin' bagadonuts!

My grade: A+

12 YEARS A SLAVE

Chiweti Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender get up close and creepy in 12 Years a Slave.

Director: Steve McQueen (Shame, Hunger)

Based on a true story: Yes, the film is an adaptation of Solomon Northrup's 1853 autobiography, Twelve Years a Slave.

These things are bad, m'kay: Slavery (duh), racism (double duh), rape, the Old South in general, whippings, lynchings, dehumanization, crazy white people, having your children taken away from you (yet again!)

My take: Okay, class, let's have a show of hands. Who here didn't know that slavery was evil and degrading and cruel and violent and morally unjustifiable? Anyone? No hands? Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave strikes me as the kind of film everyone admires and no one enjoys. File it alongside Gandhi and Schindler's List among the movies that people will feel obligated to sit through once and then never revisit.

But don't we need an occasional reminder about the visceral horrors of slavery? Don't we need to see the blood and the welts and hear the anguished screams? Well, yeah, I suppose so...if maybe you were thinking of starting up a plantation next week. Under those circumstances, you might see Steve McQueen's film and think, "Oh, right! Slavery is bad! I nearly forgot!" The movie's artfulness works against it. The cinematography is often postcard-pretty, and the compositions have a fastidious, fussed-over quality to them.

The dialogue, likewise, is stilted and poetic rather than naturalistic and conversational. Maybe that's just how people talked back in the mid-1800s, but even then, I doubt that they would address the issues of slavery so directly, as if they knew they were elucidating certain points for the benefit of a listening audience. Much like Philomena and Dallas Buyers Club, 12 Years a Slave is altogether too concerned with providing "teachable moments" for the viewer. Without them, the movie would be little more than gourmet torture porn.

Thanks largely to the actors inhabiting the roles, especially Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong'o, and Alfre Woodard (whose scene is a stunner), several of the film's African-American characters are vivid and memorable. The film's white characters are largely muddled non-entities, like Brad Pitt's liberal do-gooder, or grotesque cartoons, like Michael Fassbender's sadistic plantation owner, yet another iteration of black-hatted, mustache-twirling Simon Legree. And thanks to composer Hans Zimmer's heavy-handed score, we're never in doubt as to how we're supposed to feel... as if we couldn't just arrive at that conclusion on our own.

The film's most effective passages occur when McQueen shows rather than tells, especially a nerve-jangling scene in which Ejiofor must stand on his tiptoes with a noose around his neck for what seems like an eternity. What makes the moment so effective is all the background activity, with extras going about their business as if nothing horrific were occurring.

My grade: B

Next week: Nebraska, Captain Phillips, Her, American Hustle, and Gravity.

Wordplay: a brief comic by Joe Blevins

I have a lot of time to sit and think when I'm taking the train to and from work. What do I think about during that time? Well, frankly, stuff like this.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 32: "Scare Tactics" (October 1992)

Ed Wood marathon organizer Dennis Ferrara in his office. (Photo by Eric Larned)

Note: The promised review of Anatomy of a Psycho (1961) will be posted on February 26, 2014. I trust you can live without it for seven days. As a change of pace this week, I decided to look back at my very earliest experiences as a fan of Edward D. Wood, Jr. In 1992, when I was a 17-year-old high school senior, I wrote an article for the student newspaper about a local Ed Wood film festival and the eccentric professor who organized it. I recently discovered a copy of this article among some personal effects, and it spurred a lot of memories of my youth. I'm including the entire article for your perusal, preceded by a reminiscence about how and why I came to write it.

Oh, god, it was over half a lifetime ago.

Michael Moore's Flint-umentary.

From the age of six to my late twenties, I lived in a small town in mid-Michigan called Flushing. Go ahead and laugh at the name. You think I haven't heard every "Flushing" joke already? I resided there for longer than I've stayed anywhere else, but I've not been back in over a decade. Maybe I'll never return. Why should I? There's not much to Flushing, honestly. It's what you'd call a bedroom community. Other than a few small businesses and the usual smattering of shops and restaurants, Flushing is principally a place of residence for folks who work somewhere else.

In fact, most of Flushing's identity comes from its status as a suburb of Flint, a grungy, mid-sized factory town whose economy and population were already badly waning by the time I grew up due to the drastic decline of the city's one-and-only industry, the manufacture of automobiles. For a heavily biased, chronologically dubious yet entertaining take on the long, slow death of Flint, see Michael Moore's rabble-rousing documentary Roger & Me (1989). Short version: Flint put all of its economic eggs in a basket marked "General Motors," then discovered to its horror and befuddlement that the basket had a hole in the bottom.

I was largely shielded from this, since my parents both had steady employment which was only indirectly reliant on GM. Dad taught high school history, and Mom ran a discount children's clothing store before becoming a professor at a nearby community college. We were comfortable. We didn't live in luxury, but money was never a concern. Flushing was located at the exact cusp where urban met rural, but instead of giving the town a delightful sense of diversity, this just meant that many of my schoolmates fell into two categories: mean rednecks with chips on their shoulders and (even worse) snotty, over-privileged brats with a fearsome sense of entitlement. Lord help me, I hated living there. I wanted Flushing to be wiped off the map by a meteor, erasing me along with it.

A vintage issue of The Blazer.

Perhaps to overcome my painful, almost-debilitating adolescent shyness, I was in quite a few extracurricular activities during high school -- the marching band, the quiz bowl team, National Honor Society, that kind of thing. But none of them meant even half as much to me as being a member of the editorial staff of the school newspaper, The Blazer, which advertised itself as "Flushing High School's Independent Voice." How independent it truly was, I don't know. I think the slogan referred to the fact that the cost of the publication was paid for through advertising and not by the local school system, so we were (theoretically) not beholden to the administration.

We didn't have complete artistic freedom, though. There were certainly limits to what we could publish, and, being a wiseass, I ran up against them all the time. As institutions go, schools have notoriously poor senses of humor and inordinately delicate sensibilities. One must therefore be political in such a situation. For me, though, the compromise was definitely worth it. Because of the newspaper, I had a forum in which I could write abut things that mattered to me, namely films and music and comedy. This was before there really was such a thing as the Internet, but not much before. I had no sense of what was coming, technologically, other than the vague awareness that there was some way to receive pornography through the computer.

The Blazer might just have saved my life. One-hundred percent of the credit for that goes to the paper's staff advisor, Ms. Sharrow, who ran The Blazer in a half-strict, half-indulgent way that I found very conducive to writing. She was, hands down, the best teacher I ever had -- not just because she encouraged me to pursue all my arcane pop culture interests (though she did this) and looked the other way when I reviewed R-rated movies like Blue Velvet and Andy Warhol's Dracula (she did this, too), but because she treated me like... well, not like an equal or a peer, but not like a clueless kid either. I mean, I was a clueless kid, but she didn't let on. Students gravitated to Ms. Sharrow. The newspaper office, which during the school day was her classroom, became a hangout for me and several of my closest friends. We took as many classes from Ms. Sharrow as we could and spent our lunches there, too. After school, the room became kind of a clubhouse within the bland, cinder-block confines of our otherwise-unwelcoming and utterly unremarkable suburban high school.

A book that changed my life.

Somewhere in my mid-teens, which would have been the late 1980s or early 1990s, I found Edward D. Wood, Jr. the way other people find Jesus. Eddie died when I was three, and his movies started to catch on when I was in kindergarten, so I can't say I got in on the ground floor of the Ed Wood cult. Well, I could say that, but I'd be lying like hell. The truth is that I didn't even see a frame of his work until I was 17 years old. I knew the name well before that, though. It had been my habit since childhood to flip through video and movie guides -- which back then were brick-sized paperbacks you actually purchased in a bookstore -- and scrutinize all the zero- and one-star reviews. Perhaps that's where titles like Plan 9 from Outer Space and Glen or Glenda? first entered my conscience.

But around my freshman or sophomore year, two seminal "film nerd" books took up permanent residence in my brain: Cult Movies by Danny Peary, which included a lengthy, informative, and humorous essay on Plan 9; and Midnight Movies by J. Hoberman and Jonathan Rosenbaum, which devoted a few pages of its "Drag" section to Glen or Glenda?, including the story -- which I've never encountered anywhere else -- of how Glenda was almost re-released by Paramount Pictures in March 1981. According to Midnight Movies, Paramount even placed an ad for the film in the New York Times, but backed out "at the last minute" and "cancelled the opening, apparently citing the attempted assassination of President Reagan as their reason."

Interestingly, though Midnight Movies does not mention it, John Candy and Dan Aykroyd actually recreated Glenda's infamous "angora sweater hand-off" scene in It Came from Hollywood (1982). The film, which contains clips from both Plan 9 and Glenda, was released by -- you guessed it -- Paramount Pictures. In any event, I was just starting to learn about "underground" and "cult" cinema as an adolescent, and the books by Peary and Hoberman/Rosenbaum became my de facto bibles. It's amazing what a seismic and permanent impact those two volumes had on my moviegoing tastes. Of all the strange, out-of-the-mainstream movies they discussed and dissected, the ones I was most curious to see were the ones directed by Ed Wood. The trouble was, I had no idea how to go about finding them. The local video stores didn't carry these flicks, and the Internet was in its larval stage back then. This was a couple of years before Tim Burton's Ed Wood, so information about Eddie was not so easily located by a Midwestern kid. If Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy existed, it hadn't come to our town yet.

Dennis Ferrara in 2007, essentially unchanged.

Then, in the fall of 1992, a miracle! Flint's Mott Community College, where my mother worked as an English teacher, announced that it was hosting a Tribute to Edward D. Wood, Jr., featuring four of his notorious films, including the Holy Grail itself, Plan 9 from Outer Space. I can scarcely explain to you how incongruous and unexpected this event truly was back then. Ed Wood was far from a household name in 1992, and even if he had been, Flint is not exactly the kind of town to put on a film festival devoted to a cross-dressing "B"-moviemaker from the 1950s. For me, it was like winning the lottery.

Overcome with enthusiasm, I asked my mother to arrange an interview with the festival's organizer, Dennis Ferrara. She and Dennis got along well, so this was easily accomplished. I pitched the idea as a double-page spread to Ms. Sharrow, and of course she said yes, too. I can still remember driving over to MCC with Eric Larned, a classmate of mine who was gracious enough to serve as the photographer for the piece. (I doubt he had any interest in the topic, so thanks for being a good sport, Eric.) We met Dennis in his office on campus, and I think it was Eric's idea to have him pose in front of a huge poster of Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein Monster.

Technically, half of Mott's film festival was devoted to James Whale, who directed two Frankenstein films, but at that age, I didn't give two damns about either Whale or Frankenstein. I wanted to talk about Ed Wood, and Dennis was happy to oblige. He was a witty, chatty guy. If you want to picture him, try imagining a cross between George Costanza and Niles Crane. Dennis seems to have worked at Mott until about 2010. He'd be in his mid-60s by now. The most recent tidbit about him I could find was this article about his participation in the Michigan chapter of the Organ Historical Society. I distinctly remember being especially pleased with this article, even though (acting as my own editor) I didn't put a great deal of thought into the layout or presentation of the material.

Besides the interview with Dennis, I included a schedule of events for the festival and a sidebar piece called "Edward D. Wood: A beginner's guide." And "beginner" is truly the word, friends. I based this whole piece based on second-hand information before ever watching any of Eddie's movies. Looking back on it now, I cringe at a few of the factual errors (most of the release dates for the movies are wrong, for instance) and the fact that I merely regurgitated some of the urban myths about Wood (like the ubiquitous "paper plates as flying saucers" canard). Overall, though, I was happy to see that my writing style was still recognizable (to me, at least), even in a story I'd written 20+ years ago. I'm still no Mike Wallace when it comes to interviewing people, so I'm glad I was able to cobble together a coherent, readable article from my conversation with Dennis Ferrara.

Post-mortem: The Ed Wood festival was successful enough to continue for several years in Flint. The print edition of The Blazer folded a couple of years back. Ms. Sharrow has since retired as well. I feel badly for the students at Flushing who will not get to have her as a teacher. My beloved high school newspaper seems to have continued as a blog for a while, but this has not been updated in nearly a year. In a real-world, physical sense, "Flushing High School's Independent Voice" exists only as back issues in the file cabinets, desk drawers, and hall closets of graduates like myself.

Click on the images below to see full-sized scans of the original "Scare Tactics" article from October 1992. Beneath that is the complete text of the piece. Enjoy.

S c a r e   T a c t i c s

MCC Horror Film Festival offers terror for all tastes

For many, the Halloween season isn't complete without the annual viewing of scary movies. Dennis Ferrara, a teacher at Mott Community College, hopes these film fanatics will turn out for MCC's First Annual Horror Film Marathon, a two day celebration of the best and worst of Hollywood's ghoulish past. The marathon begins on Friday, October 30, with a loving tribute to notoriously inept director Edward D. Wood, Jr, including Plan 9 from Outer Space and the transvestite epic Glen or Glenda?, which will last from 6 p.m. until midnight. The second night, a much more serious tribute to English director James Whale, including The Bride of Frankenstein, will also last from 6 p.m. until midnight. I talked recently with Mr. Ferrara about the festival and the state of Flint entertainment in general.  

What do you think is the big attraction to Edward D. Wood's films?  

On the West Coast and East Coast, Edward D. Wood has seen a resurgence. Here [in Flint], I'm sure most people don't know who Ed Wood is. Ed Wood was nicknamed "Hollywood's Worst Film Director." He was just as bizarre as the entourage that followed him: Bela Lugosi as a dried-out, alcoholic druggie; Tor Johnson, the 400-pound Swede ex-wrestler known as "Hollywood's Most Beloved Swede"; the great Criswell, who would sleep in a casket at night and predict very bad predictions, and none of them came true; Vampira; Paul Marcos... Ed Wood was truly a unique phenomenon. He loved wearing women's clothing under his own. He loved angora. 

So, then, Glen or Glenda? was slightly autobiographical? 

Yes, quite. In fact, Ed Wood appears as Glen... [Ed Wood's films] are a phenomenon of poor cinematography, poor lighting, poor everything, poor direction... He's so bad he's good. 

Are there any other film festivals in the works? 

Some want to do foreign film, but foreign film would die in this town. No, we've got to have "schlock" film. I produce a TV series on Cable 18 called Forgotten Feature Flicks on Wednesday evenings starting October 27 from 6:00 in the evening until 9:00 and the specialty is bad 'B" serials, " "B" featurettes, "B" features, cartoons, and interviews... I would like us to have a John Waters film festival, but we have to be very careful how our persona is perceived... Showing stuff like Pink Flamingos and Desperate Living would be in poor taste... People ask, "Why are you choosing 'B' movies?" But why not "B" movies? They're popular. 

Are you expecting the first night to draw a bigger audience than the second night? 

The second night is really sophisticated. I don't know... We will have wonderful projection... We have rear view projection. It will be superior. I'm looking forward to it. I've been working hard for the last four months on it. And we're getting ready for April 2, which will be the Second Annual Horror Film Festival with a gourmet meal that will precede it... a six-course meal... If this was another town, we'd have the place packed. 

Would Ed Wood enjoy festivals like this? 

Oh, he'd love it! The interviews that we will be showing, the 45-minute documentary, people would definitely say Ed Wood would've loved what we are doing here. It's the first Ed Wood festival in Michigan to my knowledge... in fact, in the Midwest.

E d w a r d   D .   W o o d :

A beginner's guide

Dudley Manlove, Joanna Lee, and Duke Moore
do their bit for bad acting in Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Embraced by many as the worst films ever made, Ed Wood's work has long been a popular attraction at film festivals across the country. An entire episode of Seinfeld centered on Jerry's failed efforts to attend a showing of Plan 9 From Outer Space, Wood's masterpiece. Wood's popularity soared when a popular series of books called The Golden Turkey Awards named him as the worst director of all time. Since many people in the Flint area have never heard of Ed Wood or his films, here's a crash course in what makes them so popular.

• Bad sets: To simulate an airplane cockpit, Ed Wood might use two chairs and a blanket. He made graves out of lightweight cardboard that frequently toppled over on camera! The same crummy furniture often turned up in multiple rooms. In Plan 9 From Outer Space, Wood actually used paper plates as his flying saucers.

• Ridiculous dialogue: Wood forced his actors to recite such  memorable lines as "Inspector Clay's dead... and somebody's responsible!" Bela Lugosi's narration of Glen or Glenda, which contained references to "snips and snails" made little sense in relation to the plot.

• Bad acting: No one expected 400-pound Swede Tor Johnson or Lily Munster look-alike Vampira to equal Sir Laurence Olivier, but their performances are worse than they should be. Moreover, the understudy hired to replace Bela Lugosi on Plan 9 after Lugosi's death might have been the only person in Hollywood who couldn't imitate Lugosi's famous accent.

• Weak plots: Glen or Glenda? centered around a confused man who wanted to wear his fiancee's sweater. Plan 9 has aliens bringing the dead back to life and flying through the San Fernando valley, including a cruise down Hollywood Boulevard.

• A complete lack of ethics: Ed Wood knew no shame. He wouldn't hesitate to "borrow" footage from his other films. His films also ran under various titles, possibly to confuse the public into seeing them twice. Plan 9, for instance, became Grave Robbers from Outer Space. Glen or Glenda?, likewise, was shown as Man or Woman? I Led 2 Lives, I Changed My Sex, He or She? and Transvestite.

• Bela Lugosi as you've never seen him before: The actor who became synonymous with Dracula was at the lowest point of his career by the time he met Ed Wood. His roles as The Spirit in Glen or Glenda? and The Ghoul Man in Plan 9 are two of his most unforgettable.

S c h e d u l e   o f   E v e n t s

What: MCC's First Annual Halloween Horror Film Marathon
When: October 30 and 31
Where: Room 1211 of the Mott Building
Cost: $5.00 general admission per evening, $4.00 for students with ID, $8.00 for both nights.

PROGRAM

Friday evening, October 30, 1992 - A Tribute to Edward D. Wood, Jr. 

Introductory Remarks - Dr. Mary Pine, Dean of Arts and Humanities
Historical Remarks - Dennis Ferrara, Speech/Film Faculty
Film Presentation - Glen or Glenda? (1952 - 67 minutes)
Bride of the Monster (1953 - 69 minutes)
Intermission - 10 minutes
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959 - 78 minutes)
Night of the Ghouls (1960 - 79 minutes) 

Saturday evening, October 31, 1992 - A Tribute to James Whale 

Introductory Remarks - Dr. David Sam, Vice President, Academic Affairs
Historical remarks - Dennis Ferrara
Film Presentation - Frankenstein (1931 - 70 minutes)
The Old Dark House (1932 - 90 minutes)
Intermission - 10 minutes
The Invisible Man (1933 - 70 minutes)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935 - 70 minutes)