Wild & Woolly Butt-Numb-A-Thon 5 Report


By Rod Whitenack

For a 24 hour period that began at noon on December 5, 2003, I endured severe sleep deprivation and ever worsening cramps in my bum to bring you, our faithful customers, a report on Harry Knowles' (Ain't It Cool News) 24 hour movie orgy birthday bash in Austin, TX. I witnessed 11 films of various genres and assorted rare movie trailers and short films, including two big Hollywood premieres. Before I go into brief detail about the movies, allow me to get all the name-dropping out of the way: "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson and megastar Mel Gibson were there. More on that in a minute.

When I arrived in Austin, I hooked up with ex-Louisvillian Gordon Jones, who used to be part owner the popular St. Matthews comic book/ pop media shop, The Zone. I also hooked up with ex-Highlands Video Vault manager, Rick Heim. I helped Gordon put the final touches on a life size Harry Knowles piñata that was to be bludgeoned to death to provide candy for the masses at Butt-Numb-A-Thon. It seemed to fit the blood-drenched theme Harry was using to advertise this year's festivities.

But on to the films-

Haunted Gold (1932): The only genre film John Wayne ever made, this is basically an "old dark house" movie placed in a traditional Western setting staring an amazingly young looking 25 year old Wayne in one of his first two-fisted Western hero roles. His riding partner is played by Blue Washington in total period racist Step'n Fetchit mode as a wide-eyed, easily spooked black man. Strong racial overtones and uncomfortable racist humor made this opening film a bit of an uneasy experience. Wayne's horse in the film is named Duke and is capable of understanding human speech and carrying out complicated tasks. Wayne ended up taking his nickname from the horse!

The Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941): We only saw most of the first chapter of this insanely hilarious movie serial (NOW AVAILABLE TO RENT AND/OR BUY ON A GREAT DVD AT WILD & WOOLLY!), which was actually from the 1953 re-release print called "The Return of Captain Marvel." It's one of the greatest Republic movie serials ever made and well worth your time to check out. Harry abruptly interrupted the film and suddenly the New Line movie logo appeared on the screen to tremendous applause as we went straight into-

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003): I can't possibly say enough good things about the concluding chapter of the best movie trilogy ever made, so I won't even try. It just opened all over the country, and you can all see it for yourselves. After the movie, Harry went up front and announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Peter Jackson."

Pandemonium.

Two hundred and twenty movie geeks nearly fainted.

Jackson came running down the aisle giving high fives to as many fans as he could. The aisle at the Alamo Theater is treacherous, though, and Jackson fell down hard and rolled over, slamming into the wall upside down five feet away from me. I nearly had a heart attack as I thought, "My God, we've killed Peter Jackson." Before any of us could jump to his aid, he sprung up and went on like he meant to do that! It was a Willy Wonka moment I'll never forget.

Jackson did an hour long Q & A with an eager audience. The first question some joker shouted out was, "Why did you cut out Tom Bombadill?" to which Jackson answered (without missing a beat) "Well, because I've always found Tom Bombadill fans to be very boring." Slam dunk, Peter. After answering many questions about his upcoming "King Kong" project he took a seat in the back of the theater to watch a special film with us. Peter Jackson is a big Buster Keaton fan so the next film was-

Buster Keaton's "The General" (1927): We saw a pristine print of this timeless comedy classic, but a terrific DVD of this film is available to rent at Wild & Woolly. The bonus here was that Harry had arranged for a live, 6 piece jazz band musical accompaniment to perform during the screening. After a bunch of cool "King Kong" trailers from just about every version of the story ever told, it was time for Peter Jackson to depart and the next film to begin.

Oldboy (2003): A violent, downbeat Korean "Memento" styled noir thriller, "Oldboy" will likely be a hit with those who enjoy the new wave of nihilistic Japanese horror and gangster epics like "Battle Royal" and "Versus." I won't discuss the plot, as this film is better first discovered when you know nothing about it.

Next we got an early look at a scene from Will Farrell's upcoming "Anchorman." It's not really my thing, but it'll likely be a hit with hardcore Farrell fans. One of the trailers we saw next really blew me away. It's a crazy mix of death defying stunts and 70s style heavy metal concert called "Stunt Rock." The music is by a band called Sorcery who does magic tricks on stage and hosts wizard battles with pyrotechnic shenanigans that would make KISS jealous. I laughed until it hurt, so of course as soon as I got back to Louisville I tracked down the movie on DVD for us to rent. I also have a live Sorcery DVD on the way. "Stunt Rock": Ask for it by name!

Nid de guepes (2002), translated as "Wasps Nest": A French update of John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13," this is a slick action thriller, but it didn't really have much punch as far as I was concerned. It has a nice build up to the action, but then graduates to a series of undistinguishable gunfights for the remainder of the running time. It's okay.

Ginger Snaps: Unleashed (2004): This is one of two follow-up films to the original "Ginger Snaps." This one is a sequel and the other one is going to be a prequel. The original "Ginger Snaps" is one of my favorite werewolf films of all time. It's also one of the best films I've ever seen about teen angst and alienation from a female perspective, and it uses the werewolf allegory to explore teenage sexual awakening. It was a Canadian import from 2000 that you really should see if you haven't. This film picks up with Brigette (Emily Perkins) on the run and eventually confined to a mental institution where she's fighting off the both the werewolf curse and a rogue male werewolf who's stalking her. Ginger (Katherine Isabelle) shows up occasionally as a ghost, like the ones in "American Werewolf in London," but this is mostly Brigette's story. Nowhere near as good as the original, this really feels like the direct-to-video movie it is, but it's still fairly entertaining. The werewolf special effects, this time handled by Donnie's friend Greg Nicotero and KNB, are much better than in the original.

Switchblade Romance (AKA "Haute Tension" 2003): This is by far the goriest and most sadistic film I saw this year. Although it's a French film, it owes much more to the Italian sub-genre of Giallo. Lovers of films like Dario Argento's "Deep Red" and "Suspiria", and the films of Lucio Fulci, will be best served by this sick slice of gore pizza. It starts off like a traditional slasher film, but eventually takes a twist that throws everything we've seen into question. Not much of the story makes any sense after the cat is let out of the bag, but this is also true for a lot of Italian Giallo.

Teenage Mother (1968): This one of the most hysterically bad films I've ever seen. It's typical of the teen exploitation films regularly put out by Something Weird Video, but this one has a serious agenda and is concluded by the sloppiest live birth scene ever witnessed! If you ever get to see this, you'll know what I mean when I say it proves without a doubt that white men can't dance.

Undead (2003): This Australian zombie epic has been getting a lot of buzz throughout the horror community, but I'm not sure it lives up to the hype. I'm not sure because my sleep-deprived brain was fighting my body to stay awake during most of the film. It's about extraterrestrials using zombies to take over the planet in the vein of "Plan Nine From Outer Space", and it tries to get laughs from over-the-top brain splattering gore effects. Unfortunately, this film seems be hoping to imitate Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive" and it doesn't have a prayer of measuring up to Jackson's splatterpiece on any level.

The Passion of the Christ (2004): The news broke that the Pope saw this film yesterday, December 18. Well, we at Wild & Woolly aren't going to wait in line behind his holiness to see the most controversial film of the year. We had to see it first! The biggest shocker of all is that, well, it isn't particularly controversial. There is nothing even remotely as radical in "The Passion" as in Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ." Mel Gibson fought tooth and nail against studio politics and financial backers to get his vision to the screen and the result is a blow-by-blow account of approximately the last 24 hours in the earthly life of Jesus Christ shot in ancient Arabic.

Yes, it's the first film shot in a dead language, but against Gibson's first instincts, we were allowed to read subtitles. The opening scene at night, which details Christ's arrest, is shot a mystic blue color scheme in a mysterious, almost mythical forest that recalls the stylistic work of Mario Bava. The remainder of the film is shot in harsh daylight in various shades of desert brown. Devoutly religious actor James Caviezel portrays the son of God convincingly enough and certainly looks the part.

In this nearly completed rough cut, Caviezel's blue eyes hadn't been computer corrected to brown yet. This led to an amusing admission from Mel Gibson who had let his friend Denzel Washington see the same cut recently. Gibson said, "Denzel's first reaction was 'Oh great, another blue-eyed Jesus'!"  Washington had added, "You know that Jesus had to be have been a black guy because he called everybody Brother and he didn't get a fair trial."

"The Passion of the Christ" goes on to detail the whippings and bloody beatings Christ took on his way to his crucifixion in graphic detail. In fact, this makes up the majority of the films' nearly three hour running time. While trying to carry the cross to his death, Christ falls down probably 30 to 40 times in slow motion from every angle imaginable. It's nothing if not gratuitous, and this seems to be Gibson's point. Nothing happens that isn't detailed in the King James Bible regarding these events, or hasn't been presented before on film. Here, however, Gibson doesn't want us to just witness the event. He wants us to feel it. At the end of the film, it's nearly impossible not to feel you've just suffered the pain and humiliation that Christ must have felt at the end of his life, making his forgiveness of his tormentors seem all the more amazing.

It's the very personal vision of a very public movie star turned director who stayed for a 90 minute Q & A with the audience afterwards. When asked about making another "Lethal Weapon" or "Mad Max", he admits that these films seem very "trite" to him now and doesn't think he'll ever be able to make films like that again. He admits that a long period of personal turmoil and soul searching led him to make "The Passion."

"I've been there," he admits to his financial success. "I've had everything I've ever wanted. I've had all the luxuries and seen all the trappings of wealth and fame. I'm not knocking these things. It's certainly nice and certainly better than starving and living in poverty. I've seen those things out in the real world too. But I reached a point where I had everything and realized it ain't that great. It's hollow. It's ultimately empty. There must be something greater out there, something bigger than any of that."

Eli Roth, the young director of "Cabin Fever," was attending Butt-Numb-A-Thon as a fan, and added some levity to the serious tone of the conversation when he asked Gibson his question: "I've got two questions really. One is 'What event in your life triggered the quest to get this film made at all costs?' The other is 'How did "Cabin Fever" do in Australia?"

That's it until next year, Wild & Woolly fans. Have a safe and happy Christmas!