You read about it in the most recent issue of Hitch, and now Hitch contributor Chris Sharpe’s feature-film debut, SEX MACHINE, is hitting DVD on May 1, from Anthem (the same people who had the foresight to release FRANKENHOOKER). You can order it now. Do it not because we’re quoted on the back, nor because we wrote the jacket copy – do it because it’s actually an enjoyable, fun, well-made movie!
I received word yesterday that film director Andy Sidaris died last week at the age of 76 from throat cancer. I didn’t even know he was sick. Even if I did, the news still would have saddened me.
I got to know Andy nearly seven years ago, when I approached him about doing an interview for Hitch. He liked the issues I had sent, so he wholeheartedly agreed to a phone interview (it became the cover for Hitch 25, one of most popular issues ever). I think we talked for more than an hour. I’ve interviewed lots of celebs and big shots and famous people, but Andy literally was the nicest of them all. He was funny and genial and a real character, but what I took away most from that was the respect and gratitude he showed me.
And it didn’t end there. Every few months or so, the phone would ring – usually during dinner – and I’d answer and hear “Rod, Andy Sidaris!” in his big, booming voice. Sometimes he’d call to let me know what he was working on and what he needed promoted. Other times he’d just call to thank me for past support and that was all. He was always “up” and a pleasure to talk to. Watch Andy on the special features of his DVDs; that’s exactly the Andy I knew.
Although I never got the chance to meet him personally, I’d still consider him a friend. When his wife Arlene e-mailed me the news yesterday, my heart dropped. It was a crushing start to the weekend.
Andy may be gone, but he’ll never be forgotten. He lives on in memories and, of course, in his movies, none of which are boring. In his memory this week, you should watch one. Better yet, you should admire the female form, blow up a remote-control vehicle and have a champagne toast in a hot tub. That’s what he’d want, don’t you think? –Rod Lott
In elementary school in the very early ’80s, I saw a lot of great movies with David Huckabay. FLASH GORDON. UNDER THE RAINBOW. And, as part of one of his birthday parties, SUPER FUZZ.
Today, I don’t how such an Italian cheapo flick ever got a major theatrical release, but I’m glad it did. For a quarter of a century, pieces of it have been forever stamped on my brain. And now, as with FLASH, its cheesy greatness can be appreciated on DVD. (Carrie Fisher’s dress being removed by a midget, however, sadly remains relegated to VHS.)
Sans usual partner Bud Spencer, the great, toothy Terence Hill stars as Dave, a cop who suddenly gains super powers from a nuclear explosion, much to the amazement of his rotund partner Willy, played by a so-hammy-he’s-on-rye Ernest Borgnine and his screwed-up teeth. Dave can make things happen with his mind! He can predict when elephants will round the corner! He can float! He can walk on water like Jesus Christ! He can run in fast-speed! He can catch bullets with his teeth! He can do all of this and more … unless he sees the color red. Then he’s shit outta luck.
Dave and Willy pursue the stock villains behind a counterfeit money scheme, as Dave learns more about his powers and romancing Willy’s flat-chested laundress niece (Julie Gordon, the poor man’s Susan Dey). Accompanying every single feat of superhuman strength is perhaps the greatest theme song ever written in the history of cinema. If you’ve already seen this flick, no doubt you can hum it. It must be played something like every five minutes in the movie, yet it never gets old. Be-boop-be-boop-be-boo-boo, be-boop-be-boop-be-boo-boo!
Somerville House’s disc features a passable print of the film (retaining its original SUPER SNOOPER title), but I’m not looking for pristine visuals in SUPER FUZZ. As long as it retains that madcap zaniness, all’s good. It does, so it is. More movies should end with the heroes falling through the Earth all the way to China. Then they’d be memorable. –Rod Lott
There’s one in every office: that “wacky” guy where everything he does or says is some sort of forced craziness. Whether it be recounting a Dane Cook routine, putting up “ironic” posters of monkeys or getting a well-deserved smack to the breadbasket for taking “Talk Like a Pirate Day” way too far, you know who I’m talking about. It’s a facade – an attempt to carve a persona, a personality, where there is none.
And now, they have a new magazine to read. It’s called Geek Monthly. Because it’s for geeks – get it? Not for real, over- or underweight, socially awkward, D&D-playing nerds who wait until 2 a.m. for the latest copy of Windows Vista geeks, but those cool, fashionable ones who wear tight lime-green sweaters, have $500 faux-thick glasses and masturbate to photos of Weezer in between shopping sprees at Hot Topic, whereupon they buy a shirt of Chuck Norris playing an old-school Atari.
It’s for that kind of geek. Think of it as their Details.
Issue two finds the overrated Kristen Bell on the cover, who seems to be the latest geek “It Girl,” and here she plays that up, talking about how she’s a STAR WARS chick who’d kill to play Harley Quinn in a Batman movie. Hear that, dorks? She’s just like you! Next time you see her at a convention, be sure to ask her out, because you know she’ll say yes, because she’s a total nerd, too! You guys’ll have so much to talk about.
Moderately entertaining interviews with Tom Tykwer and Guillermo del Toro, and a treatise on CHILDREN OF MEN being the “best science-fiction movie of the decade” are passable reading material, but the standout feature has to be “The Big List” of “108 Things That Rule” – not because it’s so good, but rather because it feels like it was written by a group of slackers circa 1993 while passing around a bong and getting ready to go see REALITY BITES while listening to the latest Teenage Fanclub disc.
Seriously, guys – Quisp vs. Quake? How lame Ewoks are? Pop Rocks blowing your stomach up? Is that the best you could do?
Geek Monthly is the equivalent of the Aryan Nation publishing Ebony. It’s a throwaway rag written by hipsters in need of a goofy persona. It’s a bullpen full of those aforementioned annoying guys in your office, and you can bet at least one of them is prepping an article about ninja outfits right now. –Louis Fowler
Lurker Films’ first two H.P. Lovecraft DVDs gathered up short films based on the author’s work, but this one – THE H.P. LOVECRAFT COLLECTION: VOLUME 3 – OUT OF MIND – features an interesting take on his writing.
Originally shot for the Bravo channel in Canada, OUT OF MIND: THE STORIES OF H.P. LOVECRAFT – the disc’s centerpiece – is a quasi-biography program about Lovecraft, in which the author interacts with one of his fictional characters. What starts out looking like archival footage of Lovecraft speaking into a camera is actually from now, just made to look old-timey.
We watch as Lovecraft walks in the woods, working out some of the names that will become some of his most important creations. Cut to today, where we are introduced to a man named Randolph Carter, who meets an lawyer with a package that’s been waiting for him for some 30 odd years. That package contains a mysterious book that will rock Carter’s world in a huge way.
The movie takes various themes from Lovecraft’s work and combines them in this interesting overview of his work. If you’re familiar with “The Statement of Randolph Carter” and “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” you’re in for a treat. Despite an obvious low budget, they get it right, even getting in a few jabs at other movies made out of Lovecraft stories.
The acting in the film is top-notch; portraying Lovecraft, Christopher Heyerdahl will make you think he is the real deal. My only gripe – and it’s a big one for me – is that there is a scene at the end where Lovecraft walks around a cemetery and comes across his own headstone, large and ornate. Sorry, but Lovecraft’s actual headstone is a lot smaller and is just a granite-type brick with his name and a quotation.
But I’m just nitpicking. Included with OUT OF MIND are two audio commentaries. Both feature Heyerdahl and director Raymond Saint-Jean, while the second also has cinematographer Serge Ladouceur with them. Expect long pauses, even for a film that is just 55 minutes long.
Also included on this DVD compilation are three Lovecraftian shorts. THE OUTSIDER gives away the surprise of the story right away, but for a five-minute flick, it will make readers of the story pleased. The second – a really short piece titled MY NECRONOMICON – shows a man rushing home to read his new book, with dire consequences. Both feature audio commentaries.
The final short film is the real treat of the package: THE MUSIC OF ERICH ZANN, which looks exactly like you would imagine it. Yes, it’s a low-budget student film, but wow! Lovecraft’s story is captured so well, it will make you wonder why no one ever tried to redo it, especially with the technology today that could really go to town with the climax. For this alone, the DVD would be worth grabbing. Following the movie, you get interviews with the ZANN filmmakers; it’s really informative and shows their love for the project.
Also included is an interview with Lovercraft historian S.T. Joshi, who discusses the stories that were adapted for this collection. If you’ve read Joshi’s introductions to the Penguin Classics editions of Lovecraft’s work, some of the info will repeat itself. Still, this is a great collection of films that makes me itching for the previous two volumes. –Bruce Grossman
Buy it at Amazon or Lurker Films.
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