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Exclusive Interview with “uncut” A NIGHT AT THE OPERA discoverer Thomas Racz

August 10th, 2008 by Scott Marks

I was in seventh grade when I first met the Marx Brothers proper. There were You Bet Your Life reruns and fuzzy memories of The Incredible Jewel Robbery, but it wasn’t until that fateful gathering of the Boone Booster Club that I first witnessed my first Marx Bros. feature.

The Booster Club was a perk for students attending Daniel Boone elementary school in Chicago’s West Rogers Park neighborhood. One Tuesday morning a month we were allowed to dispense with our studies and watch a real movie, not one of those crappy science documentaries, on school time.

The person responsible for curating the series should have been taken out and shot at sunrise. Instead of screening The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T or the original Babes in Toyland, they exposed impressionable minds to the insipid remake of the latter in addition to Blackbeard’s Ghost (another live-action Disney hellhole), the feature length version of Journey to the Beginning of Time (which worked better in 5 minute installments on Garfield Goose and Friends) and two episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. spliced together to form a feature. There was a Martin and Lewis film, but the clueless booker chose Taurog over Tashlin.

Classrooms full of kids congregated in the school’s assembly hall where uniform focus was unheard of, the sound system was just slightly better than a subway train and the tattered window shades allowed more light to come in than the Sistine Chapel. In spite of all of the hardships cast upon this budding young cinephile, the 107 minutes spent watching A Day at the Races was the single greatest learning experience in eight years of public school education.

As if preordained, WBKB-TV scheduled a 1 am screening of Races later that weekend and I pleaded with my parents that since it wasn’t a “school night” to let me stay up way past my bedtime. My mother, generally the softer touch of the pair, wanted nothing to do with the idea. My father actually stepped up to the plate and, after hearing my appeal, uncharacteristically ruled in my favor. He assured my mother that “the kid will be asleep ten minutes after it starts and we’ll never hear about it again.”

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David Elliott interviewed in San Diego Magazine

July 24th, 2008 by Scott Marks

I’d like to say good evening, and how do you do, ladies and gentlemen. Kup’s world ends tonight with a bunch of bon mots from the lovely Ginette Vicot. (I’d like to point out that long before Jesse Jackson’s corresponding verse, this rhymin’ Hyman had such a funny meter to the roar of his repeater, if you catch my drift.)

It’s been pointed out to yours truly, that not unlike legendary prankster Red ” Aaron Chwatt” Buttons, my friend Donald, err, uhh, David, I should say, Elliott never got a dinner.

You can’t blame a guy for wanting to throw back a few farewell stingers with Burl Stiff and his fellow penman at the Tickled Trout. More than sedi…cough…sentiment and supper, I mean, Dave wanted a chance to bid farewell to his loyal readers who couldn’t wait to rip open the Night and Day section to peruse his latest cinematic missives.

I gotta’ tell you that David was always a good man when we worked together at the Chicago Sun-Times, and according to Essee a very capable wordsmith. I preferred schmoozing with the stars to watching their dreck pictures where I frequently caught some shuteye. If only Elliott had written more about Bears great Sid Luckman, because I never was big on movie reviews. Besides, who am I to critique someone else’s writing? Truth be told, Essee writes most of this crap…Anyway, I’d like to go on record as personally thanking Dave for never letting it be known that I once let loose a trouser fillip in his presence while ascending the Chicago Theatre in their cramped elevator. Yes sir, two rode together and one blew! Heh! Heh!

Since I already ran a photo of Dave and his lovely daughter Samantha, I found it only fitting to publish a shot of his son Tarvis. That Elliott is one loyal foot soldier. I don’t care how much Marshall Field paid me, you’ wouldn’t catch me dead wearing a chazarai Sun-Times t-shirt. Only Manny’s in Elmhurst for this reporter!

Now Ivan Bunny, there’s one for movies! I tell ya’ he sees everything. He was the one that saw Meet Dave. You know, just recently, Bunny’s bald spot finally filled in. I’ll never forget the day he performed a self-inflicted Larry Fine in my office. It was right after he read where Elliott proclaimed The Road to Perdition “the greatest gangster film since The Godfather.” Now I going to stick up for the man because for this reporter’s money Perdition far outclassed Marty Scorceske’s Goodfellows or Casino. I think it was even better than Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot and Feds. (By the way, Mary Gross is a Chicago gal, I might add.)

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Fire in the Hole pranksters ordered to apologize on YouTube

June 10th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Performance artist/stooge Brandon DiCamillo

The term “fire in the hole” originated as a warning emitted by soldiers just after they chucked a live grenade into an enemy bunker. Kudos to Brandon DiCamillo for applying this bit of battle jargon to the war at home.

It all started on Jackass precursor CKY. DiCamillo pulls up to a Wendy’s drive through and orders a large soft drink. At the window, he pays for the beverage and just before driving off screams “FIRE IN THE HOLE” before tossing the Coke back at the unsuspecting employee.

Yes it’s mean and of course it’s juvenile beyond belief, but isn’t that what makes us keep coming back for more? Cruel as it is, it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever watched in the comfort of my living room.

If imitation is the sincerest form of failure, Brandon should be branded an overnight success. Soon after his stunt, numerous knock-offs began popping up on YouTube. Two Florida teens emulated Brandon to the letter, but made one fatal mistake. The duo forgot to obtain a signed release before posting their variation of the stunt on YouTube.

It happened on July 25, 2007 when Jessica Ceponis, a fast food worker at the Taco Bell in Merritt Island, east of Orlando, had a 32oz cup of soda thrown back in her face. According to a report in USA Today, Miss Ceponis learned from her customers that the video was posted on line for the world to enjoy. She used YouTube to trace the two boys via their MySpace accounts and befriended them online.

“They were bragging about what they had done and how funny it was,” Ms Ceponis said.

Can you blame them?

In addition, to the apology video, the two boys were sentenced to 100 hours each of community service and ordered to pay $30 each to the restaurant in cleaning fees. To avoid them getting criminal records, the charges will be dropped when they have fulfilled the judge’s orders.

FIRE(S) IN THE HOLE COMPILATION


Fire In The Hole Compilation - Watch more free videos

APOLOGY VIDEO

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Virginia Madsen and the Polish Bros. talk about THE ASTRONAUT FARMER

May 3rd, 2008 by Scott Marks


Virginia Madsen stars in a Polish with all the trimmings


The Astronaut Farmer begins on a beach with a shot of an astronaut on horseback. For an instant I thought I was trapped in a Planet of the Apes sequel.

Far from another Hollywood knockoff, Mark and Michael Polish’s The Astronaut Farmer is the most original and intelligent film about an American dreamer since Jonathan Demme’s equally Capra-crazed masterwork Melvin and Howard.

Billy Bob Thornton, looking like Bogart and acting like Jimmy Stewart, plays Charles Farmer, a NASA dropout who really wants to be a spaceman when he grows up. Working alone, Farmer spent a decade building a Mercury rocket in his family’s barn located in Story, Texas.

Beneath the hanging aircraft at the Aero Space museum, I spoke with identical twin auteurs Mark and Michael Polish and their radiant star, Virginia Madsen. Billy Bob, who was supposed to make it a foursome, had a family emergency and was forced to make a last-minute cancellation. My guess is that he removed the vial of Angelina Jolie’s blood from his neck and it left an indelible stain like a shoplifting security device.

When envisioning the Polish Bros. creative process, images of the duo, conjoined and still in their Twin Falls Idaho garb, locked in a dungeon with quivering quill pens in hand, came to mind. Writer/actor/producer Mark was the first to chime in. “Whoever comes up with the idea usually writes the first outline.”

Writer/director/producer Michael continued: “We’ll each go do a draft, pass them back and forth and within a couple of weeks we’ll have something to read. We have the same way of thinking when it comes to stories.”

As though perfectly timed by the great PR Gods in the sky, The Astronaut Farmer had its landing heralded by the astronaut “harmer” Lisa Nowack. After swapping diaper jokes Mark concluded: “Today, bad publicity doesn’t seem to hurt anything. When it first came out my dad called me from Montana and he goes, ‘This is going to hurt you guys, right?’ He’s from a time when something like this could conceivably be harmful. The word ‘astronaut’ is in a lot of headlines which is definitely good for us.”

The first question a lot of people ask is where did Charles get the money to build a rocket in his back yard. “It’s a fantasy,” Michael laughed, “Whatever happened to entertainment?” Mark took the question more seriously. “Yeah, it’s a fantasy,” he interjected, “but, also, there’s five vessels awaiting FAA clearance. Nobody wants to do their research. The guy in Minnesota has a launch, there’s a guy in Northern California, there’s a guy in the Pacific Northwest, and each have rockets sitting on their pad[s] waiting for clearance.”

Sure enough, I Googled “man made rocket” and found several other “farmers” with ships awaiting approval. “They’re not a Mercury Atlas like in our movie, “Michael added. “We wanted that to be cinematic. They’re more like Spaceship 1.”

From the outset, the Polish Brothers have filmed in Panavision. “I love it,” Michael gushed. “It goes beyond my peripheral vision and I like it that way.”

Indeed, much of the film’s beauty lies in the meticulously, at times surrealistic, widescreen compositions. “You gotta frame things that are beyond TV,” he continued. “I went to art school, and just from an artistic approach the compositions work better; you can fit more people in them.”

Of course, close-ups are problematic in widescreen. “Close-ups are overrated,” Mark said. “There is a time and place for them, but whenever I do a close-up, I always think to go even tighter.”

Our 15 minutes together led to 30, and it was time to usher out the behind-the-scenes visionaries and bring on the talent.

One of the wisest nuggets of proper showbiz etiquette came to me from my legendary colleague Fred Saxon. Never tell a celebrity that they look better in person. They make their living coming to you on a screen, and that’s where they want to come across their best.

I resisted saying it to Ms. Madsen, although it certainly was applicable. Looking half her age in a hoodie and black jeans, she didn’t stop smiling once during the course of the interview. Why should she? After years of establishing a sizable reputation in a vast array of indie and commercial features, she has finally reached the point when audiences and critics alike have finally embraced her as an actress to reckon with.

Knowing that she is a former Chicagoan, we began by lamenting the loss of quality egg rolls and how the boxes that Chicago pizzas come in taste better than just about anything cooked in California ovens.

Playing the mother of three and Jiminy Cricket to Billy Bob’s boy astronaut provided Madsen with the most difficult role in the piece. “It was a great script,” she noted. “I didn’t have to try and get them to develop things for the female role or any of that stuff.”

She had a lot to say on the role that wives and mothers play in most commercial films: “More often than not, the wives in films are relegated to the background with the children. A woman’s always got something to say,” she chuckled. “I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t have some type of response at least one time in the film.”

This is a movie about working hard to make your dreams come true, something Madsen is very familiar with. “I can identify with that,” she said. “My rocket was Hollywood. I was a fireman’s daughter who wanted to be a professional actress, so that pretty much was as crazy as building a rocket.”

She has worked consistently since her 1983 debut in Class, but confided, “I’m not always in great projects.” At the beginning of the decade, I feared we’d forever lose her to made-for-cable movies. “I didn’t work much then,” she remembered. “My career was like a runaway train going in the wrong direction. The only way to change it was to crash it, and I had to stop working.”

She wasn’t big box office, didn’t bring financing and many of the people she auditioned for didn’t think that she was any good. She recalled undertaking “a real uphill climb to change the industry’s perceptions of who I was and what I could do. Losing my house didn’t get me down as much as being underestimated. As a woman that just pissed me off.” She let lose a sigh of relief followed by a triumphant laugh. “I got mad enough that I changed everything.”

Her role as the sobering ray of beauty in Sideways gave her career a new lease on life. “It allowed the industry and audiences to see me,” she remembered. “Not physically see me, but to see who I was. I was labeled certain things like the lady on Lifetime television, but no one ever got to see really what I do.” She had roles many in small films with little or no distribution. “Sideways was just another one of those independent films, but this one got seen and became a success.”

She didn’t believe her agent when he said it was a performance that would change her life. “It did,” she nodded. “Going through an awards season with a movie like that gave me a lot of confidence.” Pausing for a moment she continued: “There was a lot of shaming of me when I was younger. Now I’m in my 40s, and it’s great. You can’t touch me, man!”

“Fifty?” She shuddered. “That’s going to be a different story. That’s like a big number Hollywood can’t deal with yet.”

The Astronaut Farmer is that rarity among Hollywood family fare; a PG-rated film that refuses to talk down to audience members of any age. It’s a great time at the movies and one that I highly recommend.

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Miss Edie: Q&A with Edith Massey, John Waters Egg Lady

April 28th, 2008 by Scott Marks

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While dining at a friend’s house last night I reclaimed a box of old audio cassettes left there during a move. It was loaded with everything from pre-recorded music tapes to the complete Sam Kinison audio collection to recordings of the Sig Sakowicz radio show, something that I am not equipped transfer to the internet or else today’s blog would contain an endless loop of “Thanks for taking da’ time” and”All Right!!!”

There at the bottom of the pile sat an ancient Certion 60 minute cassette containing a 1976 interview I conducted with Edith Massey. (Who knew that a Certion would last over 30 years? Come to think of it, what the hell is a Certion?) Edie was making a personal appearance at Northwestern University in conjunction with a screening of Female Trouble. After graduating from Mad Magazine and moving on to the National Lampoon, John Waters was the next (scata)logical rung in my ascension of the fecal pop culture food chain.

I was twenty at the time and writing for the Illinois Entertainer, a small monthly newspaper that specialized in rock music. When it comes to midnight movies, Pink Flamingos is my Rocky Horror Picture Show. (The only things audience members hurled at the screen was there dinner.) I was at the Devon Theatre for Chicago’s first screening of the film (at midnight, of course) and almost every weekend thereafter for the year or so it played.

It screened every Friday and Saturday night and the first month drew negligible crowds. Once word spread, hundreds packed the small, unadorned north side theatre to see if what they’d heard about the ending was true. It was and is, and not a week passed where at least one, sometimes several patrons puked up their beer during the film’s notorious curtain shot. After more than a hundred viewing of the film my gag reflex still kicks in when Divine flashes her quite literal s–t eating grin.

As much as I love Divine and Mink Stole, it was Miss Edie who kept me coming back for more. Did Waters actually have the audacity to convince an addled, overweight, snaggle-toothed senior to strip down to her underthings and play her role in a playpen or was Edith Massey deep into the Stanislavski method?

The interview was taped the afternoon of the show in Northwestern’s Norris Center and Joel Rothman, a high school cronie and Edie-aholic xame along for the ride. Edie was a delight and pretty much an accurate representation of the characters she played on screen, minus Queen Carlotta’s nasty streak. To paraphrase Martin Balsam in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, she was a kook, but a real one.

Edie talks about everything from being a madame to crying over Little House on the Prairie to the reason she didn’t name her cat Muffy.

Scott Marks: Tell me about the new film, Desperate Living.

Edith Massey: I play a queen, Queen Carlotta, and I have ten soldiers, five on each side of me. And I have a fire gun, you know, when anybody gets in the way. Would you like me to give you some of my part?

SM: Oh, sure.

EM: I’ll say one part. Alright…umm…umm…”Welcome to Mortsville (sic), ladies. I read in the big city newspaper that you are wanted for murder.” Uhh… “Murder of a certain mister Brasley Gravel.’ Then I say, “Your are interrupting my flow of power.” Only I say it a lot louder, you know. “Lieutenant Wilson give these two…give these peasants something to…” (She pauses.) You see, I’m just learning it now. “Give these peasants something to eat. They must be hungry after their long day of breaking the law.” Now I say this real loud, of course. And so they feed him cockroaches.

SM: How do you deal with the publics’ reaction if they walk out of Pink Flamingos outraged and very offended? Do you find the film offensive?

EM: No, but can I tell you one thing? I have never gone through that. No one has ever treated me like that. But the honest truth is everybody is nice and friendly with me. I don’t actually do anything really bad. Yet. (She laughs.)

SM: John’s just starting with you.

EM: Oh, I don’t know. In this (new) movie I have a sex scene, but I ain’t gonna’ say no more. I play more mean. Then they’re going to have like, uhh…the part Divine (normally) plays, well Susan Lowe is going to play that. There are two lesbians, you know, and they win a lottery and they kind of take over the town when they win the lottery and start buying stuff. Then we have a revolution and I get killed. I have a backwards day, see, everybody dresses backwards, walks backwards and those that don’t do it get shot.

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As Queen Carlotta in DESPERATE LIVING

SM: Is (John) going to try to offend the audience again like he did in Flamingos?

EM: I don’t think John actually goes to hurt anybody. I don’t think it’s anything personal with John. He just thinks of goofy thing to make because he knows the public likes it. I know him and I know he’s not that way.

SM: How did you feel when you first read the script for Pink Flamingos and saw that at the end (Divine) was going to eat dog s–t?

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Take a ride on SHORTBUS: An interview with director John Cameron Mitchell

October 26th, 2007 by Scott Marks

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When speaking to director John Cameron Mitchell, do not make the mistake of referring to his latest film as pornographic.

“I do not really call this pornography,” he bites. “Pornography has a specific use rather than a specific explicitness. Pornography is made to arouse and is watched to be aroused.”

Not surprisingly, Mitchell, on the Shortbus promotion trail, spoke with great candor from a hotel room in Boston.

“In this case, the sex in the film is not pornography. If you look in the dictionary…,” flustered, he pauses for a moment. “I just get a little annoyed by that term. It’s very limited. I like pornography. In this case, we actually tried to de-eroticize the sex. Pornography is for jerking off to.”

There probably won’t be a lot of stroking going on during the watching of this film, if for no other reason than audiences will be laughing too hard.

Mitchell agreed. “That’s what it’s like in life. Most of the sex in this is rather unsuccessful, desperate and at times ridiculous. Good, spontaneous sex is good for porn, but it’s not good for drama. Shortbus uses sex as a way to reveal more about the characters. I think narrative lowers the hard-on.”

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