I'm happy to announce the folks who took the time to write an Introduction and Foreword to the Cashiers du Cinemart book: Herschell Gordon Lewis and Chis Gore.
I know very few people with their own Wikipedia entries but Herchell Gordon Lewis is one of them. One of the most influential pioneers of exploitation cinema, Lewis anticipated both the "nudie cutie" (The Adventures of Lucky Pierre) and "splatter" films (Blood Feast). Some would even credit him for starting the biker film with his She-Devils on Wheels. The "Godfather of Gore" has made films about politics, fairy tales, swinging, and so much more.
And speaking of Gore (rimshot), Chris Gore should be a familiar name to readers of Cashiers du Cinemart and to film fans in general. Gore made a name for himself in the 1980s via Film Threat magazine. A fellow Michigander, Gore's written books, directed films, and hosted TV shows including a segment on G4's Attack of the Show and IFC's Ultimate Film Fanatic -- of which I was a contestant until I got booted.
That's a long story... one I wrote about in great detail in CdC #14. Now, readers will get to read the other side of the story with Gore's touching foreword to the Cashiers du Cinemart book.
I'm proud to include words by Lewis and Gore in the pages of my book. They're among some great company what with pieces by Rich Osmond, Chris Cummins, Andrew Grant, Skizz Cyzyk, Leon Chase, Michael Thompson, and Andrea White. The book also has original artwork by Nathan Kane, Jonathan Higgins, Pat Lehnerer, and Dean Stahl. With cover art by... well, let me have something to share next month. Stay tuned!
I'm just back from Baltimore and the eleventh annual Maryland Film Festival. I had a blast.
Thanks to Northwest Airline's limited flight schedule, I missed the opening night activities and made it into BWI at 8 AM for the first full day.
Modern Love is Automatic (Zach Clark, 2009)
Melodie Sisk gives a bravura performance as Lorraine Schultz, a nurse who just doesn't quite fit in with the world. She hides behind large sunglasses and a killer pastel wardrobe. After her cheating boyfriend ducks out of her life, Lorraine tries her hand at being a dominatrix; finding a stable of clients for sessions at a local hotel.
Modern Love delights as much for what it is as for what it isn't. Writer/director Zach Clark takes the narrative into some dangerous areas while managing to avoid pitfalls into which other stories have fallen. Just when you think that the film could fall apart or become a trite, generic exercise; Clark and his excellent cast steer things away from the brink. More Info
While BDSM isn't at the fore of Modern Love is Automatic, it's presence is such that it was recommended to me by someone who knew of my current research on fetishism in film. Likewise, I was joined by Lisa Vandever and Alan Levy of the Cinekink film festival.
Things were capped off wonderfully with my final screening of Friday, Craig Baldwin's Mock Up on Mu.
Mock Up on Mu (Craig Baldwin, 2008)
Something of a prequel to 1999's Spectres of the Spectrum, Baldwin explores the sinuous relationships of Marjorie Cameron, L. Ron Hubbard, Jack Parsons, Alesteir Crowley, and the Lockheed Martin company. Setting the story in a fictional future while diving deeply into the past, Baldwin juxtaposes fact and fiction while layering his film with visuals that support his story.
Most remarkable about Mock Up was the way that Baldwin dissected scenes, troweling on segments from other films comprised of the same elements. That is, a scene between two actors in a car blossoms into a dozen similar scenes, cutting between the same shot reverse shot structure, transforming the actors into other players while maintaining a coherent storyline. In this way, Baldwin is salvaging found footage while calling attention to the plastic nature of storytelling. More Info
The screening of Mock Up was terrific but the Q&A afterwards was mind-blowing. Baldwin was in "mad genius" mode for a full forty-five minutes, explaining Mu, his relationship to the story, the reclamation of found footage, and myriad other topics. His presentation was hypnotic, making me think that Baldwin is the best film professor I never had.
Saturday began with the Maryland Film Festival's 3-D screening.
Inferno (Roy Ward Baker, 1953)
This strange hybrid of man-against-nature and crime films stars Robert Ryan as Donald Carson, a businessman who's spent his privileged life bullying others, maintaining his position at the top of an empire while crawling to the bottom of a bottle. His hot wife, Geraldine (Rhonda Fleming), has taken a shine to mining expert Joe Duncan (William Lundigan). After Carson breaks his leg in the desert, Joe and Geraldine run off to get help with the intention of covering their tracks and letting the hot sun take care of their mutual problem. Leave it to hard-headed Carson to fight to survive.
Apart from the striking setting and some interesting playing with various planes of vision, Baker doesn't play much with the 3-D in the film. There are only a few "trick" shots to dazzle the audience during the climax. Regardless, Inferno is enjoyable for Ryan's performance and the landscape.
Stingray Sam (Cory McAbee, 2009)
Cory McAbee met and exceeded the high hopes I had for this new outing. Set in the same universe as his American Astronaut, McAbee plays the titular character, a lounge singer on Mars enlisted by his former partner in crime, Quasar Kid (Billy Nayer Show bandmate Crugie) to save a little girl (Willa Vy McAbee) from the clutches of the first male birth, Fredward (Joshua Taylor). Comprised of six smaller chapters, Stingray Sam is a modern serial with each section being a self-contained unit with a cliffhanger ending... and a snappy song!
Stingray Sam is yet another brilliant effort from McAbee. The only bad thing is that the soundtrack and DVD aren't yet available. I can't wait to see this movie and hear these songs again! In the meantime, the opening track, "Mars", can be heard on the Goodbye California EP. More Info
Lightning Salad Moving Picture (Kenneth Price, 2008)
I was prepared to give Lightning Salad Moving Picture fifteen minutes and move on if it didn't hold my attention. I stayed through the entire film and loved it. Its anarchic story structure leaves the viewer guessing what strange situations the main characters, the Superkiiids (Cory Howard & Jonathan Guggenheim), will get into next.
The crux of the moving picture has the Superkiiids tasked by "Zemeckis" to make Back to the Future Part 4, lest the project fall into the hands of "Hanks". To say that the Superkiiids don't really make too many inroads with this projects is an understatement. But, they certainly have some wild adventures with Meankiiid, Futurekiiid, Princess, and some other fun folks along the way. Filled with surreal situations and some quotable non sequitur dialog, Lightning Salad Moving Picture was an unexpected delight. More Info
Teplitz: The Tyranny of Paradox (Sean Guinan, 2008)
This challenging, dreamlike work deals with the nature of dreams and the fluidity of reality. The story follows Paxton Teplitz (David Bendena) as he joins the Whalers, a group of metaphysical explorers who make forays into the Ravenswood "Ocean" -- a pocket of memories into which our dreams escape. Teplitz and his fellow Whalers wear painted faces and dated garb, reminiscent of a Terayama film. In the Ravenswood, Teplitz alls into a trap set by the demon Jeffrey -- casting him into an inane job at a video distribution center.
Slightly uneven in its pacing (the 9-to-5 segment is fun but goes on too long) and with some clunky dialog, the look and sheer audacity of the film make it an interesting experience in experimental narrative. More Info
Sunday didn't go as planned with breakfast taking longer than it should have. Regardless, I made it to "Tent City" in time for the panel on Film Criticism in the Digital Age. I didn't say much -- probably for the best.
Immokalee U.S.A. (Georg Koszulinski, 2008)
This powerful documentary explores the lives of migrant workers in Immokalee, Florida, showing some of the subtle (and not-so-subtle) methods employed to perpetuate a modern day system of indentured servitude. While set in Immokalee, the smaller story stands in for a larger whole -- a national issue that doesn't get the attention it deserves. More Info
Nollywood Babylon (Ben Addelman & Samir Mallal, 2009)
Lost in the shuffle of Poliwod and Not Quite Hollywood, Nollywood Babylon tells the tale of Nigerian cinema. From the colonial days to the present, Addelman and Mallal explore the national cinema's themes and distribution via insightful interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen's 167th film, Bent Arrow. The filmmakers do well to frame Nollywood Babylon with the charismatic Imasuen and to capture the poverty of the country, contrasting it to the elaborate, palatial churches that have taken over as money-making ventures. With the urban blight and money-grubbing churches, it was like looking at Detroit -- though the government of Lagos may be a little less corrupt. More Info
The day after the fest, Programming Manager Skizz Cyzyk along with Jen Talbert interviewed me for The People Versus George Lucas. The footage looks great -- even with me in it. I tried to capture the sheer mania that often grips me when discussing the foibles of George Lucas and the failure of "The Prequels" (and Return of the Jedi). Hopefully a second or two of it gets into the final film.
I also swung by Atomic Books to talk to Benn Ray about the status of the Cashiers du Cinemart book. Seems like all the lights are green for the October release. This means that I should be back in Charm City right around then for a book signing and possible MicroCineFest event! See you then, Baltimore!
Here's a rough swipe at the table of contents. Still pending. I made some notes about some of the changes included, though every piece has been proofed and edited for clarity and re-fact-checked. My proofreader, Lori Hubbard Higgins, did an amazing job combing through my abhorrent prose.
A Dynamite Double Feature - CdC favorite Rich Osmond looks at some explosive '70s cinema
Psycho Vixens - Rich Osmond examines two flicks about girls gone wild.
Tragically Obscure: John Paizs’s (The Big) Crime Wave - Combination of two articles about Paizs by Skizz Cyzyk from CdC 9 & 10
The Four and a Half Worlds of Parker - Updated piece (formerly "Three and a Half Worlds") which has been edited and expanded. Includes some insight from the creator of Parker, Donald Westlake
Madness in the 20th Century - This article about Charles Willeford has been updated and tightened up
The Serious Moonlight: The Cinematic World of David Goodis - Updated to include discussion of "Goodiscon" as well as expansion of the "Goodis on TV" section
The Dark Places of James Ellroy - Updated to include discussion of Street Kings and L.A. Sheriff's Homicide
The Cashiers du Cinemart Manifesto - So perfectly written, nothing could make it better
All The Good Guys and the Bad Guys that I've Been - One of my favorite pieces from Cashiers du Cinemart, this is an appreciation of Paul Williams by Leon Chase
The Prize is Your Life - I expanded this article to include several other "people hunting people" movies
Oedipal Ketchip - A terrific discussion of Shuji Terayama's films by Andrew Grant
The Highlander Returns! - Two rants from Mike Thompson about the wonder of the Highlander films. This was updated to include cuts of the films that have been made available since the early days of Cashiers du Cinemart
Double Impact: The Duplicity of Jean-Claude Van Damme - Brand new piece that has never been published
Lone Wolf & Cub - Edited and updated for clarity
Tarantino:
Tale of the Tape - The whole epic story of Who Do You Think You're Fooling? and the controversy surrounding it. Updated and severely rewritten
Ironic Press Release - My facetious discussion of You're Still Not Fooling Anybody
Attention Enemy - Following up with the You're Still Not Fooling Anybody fun
Tarantino in a Can - A look at Tarantino's obsession with the bathroom in his early works
Star Wars:
The Lost Cut - Discussing the early version of Star Wars that will never see the light of day again
Jar Jar Done Gone - How The Phantom Menace put heat behind the Fan Editing movement
Triumph of the Whills - This piece now combines three different rants about the madness of King George Lucas
Star Wars Documentaries - "They Came, They Saw, They Sat"
Scripts:
8mm - Mike Thompson compares what we saw to what Andrew Kevin Walker wrote
The Uncredible Hulk - Another great Thompson rant, updated to include the latest incarnation of Hulk and the Ang Lee version, too
Cat Woman - Thompson declaws this kitty
Digging up the Bones of Indy Jones - Severely rewritten and updated version of "Jonesing for the New Indy Film" from CdC 9 that traces the trajectory of Jones through several proposed sequels
Travis McGee & The Lonely Silver Screen - Combination of the CdC 14 and 15 articles
Return to the Planet of the Apes - Combining observations about the POTA remake from CdC 10 and 13
Superman: Grounded - Updated to include Superman: Doomsday and the reaction to Singer's reboot of Superman
The Metamorphoses of Alien III - Includes additional content
Gremlins - A thorough look at an early draft of this classic flick by Chris Cummins
Black Shampoo:
Interview: John Daniels - Edited and updated
Interview: Greydon Clark - Edited and updated
Interview: Tanya Boyd - Edited and updated
Interview: Skip E Lowe - Edited and updated
A Few Notes on Black Shampoo - Edited and updated
Can You Feel the Love? - Edited and updated
DVD release - Edited and updated
Interview: Gerald and Gary Lee - Brand new interview with the men who made the music for my favorite film
Interviews:
Crispin Glover - Brand new, never published
James Ellroy - Edited and updated
Guy Maddin - Updated / Additional Content
Monte Hellman - Edited and updated
Richard Crawford - Edited and updated
Taylor Negron - Edited and updated
Svengoolie - Edited and updated
Bruce Campbell - Edited and updated
Keith Gordon - Edited and updated
Dr. Demento - Edited and updated
Life:
Theater Work Story - Highly edited and rewritten
Fish out of Water - Andrea's reaction to the UPC in Bowling Green
Mike & Andrea go to Breakfast - Never before published tale of woe from Andrea White
Brendan Fraser + Monkey = Fun! - A new party game from Skizz Cyzyk
Afterword
Stay tuned to the blog or the facebook for further updates as they come!
I thought that I had made this perfectly clear but apparently not...
Coming October 2009.... Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers du Cinemart Collection from Atomic Book Company.
This book collects the "best" articles from the fifteen year history of Cashiers du Cinemart magazine with sections dedicated to Quentin Tarantino, Star Wars, Black Shampoo, Unproduced screenplays, celebrity interviews, and much more. Everything has been refreshed, polished, and improved for this volume of movie mayhem.
I'm all like Web 2.0 and sh*t. Yeah, I'm still using using Yahoo Groups for getting the word out about updates but I've also started a group on Facebook so folks can keep up with the goings on at Cashiers du Cinemart. There's a topic that may be of interest on the Discussion Board. Take a look and join up!
2008 was a year filled with travel and new adventures.
January
Early in the year, Andrea and I were invited to Cancun to spend Christmas with her family. This prompted us to sit down with a calendar and go over all known and desired trips for the year. We sketched out quite a few long weekends for us and film festival trips for me. We didn't hit everything that we ended up doing but we were close. Rather than doing one long Mexican vacation in December we chose small trips throughout the year.
February
We started off February with a trip to Las Vegas and a stay at the Planet Hollywood Casino. We really lucked out on this. As (free) members of the Flamingo's "casino club" program, we were sent a postcard for two free nights at the newly-opened Planet Hollywood. "What's the catch?" I asked the customer service representative. She promised that there wasn't any and, wouldn't you know, she was right.
Two nights at the casino, a $50 credit for one of their restaurants, and a free show (their proprietary version of Stomp). We just had to get the flight out and I used miles for it, making this one of the cheapest trips we could do. I spent a lot of the trip reading The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre by Stephen D. Youngkin. It just about broke my arms (it's a weighty tome) but it definitely aided my appreciation of one of my favorite character actors.
March
It was in March when I made the fateful decision to finally give up the ghost and let Cashiers du Cinemart die a dignified death. I pulled the plug on my ailing publication and dedicated much more of my mental faculties to writing for pay. I had been losing money with my writing since 1994 and only made my first penny from a word of prose in late 2007. This felt pretty good and I wanted to keep getting checks (however paltry) for what I had been giving away (at a significant loss) for so many years in the pages of my zine.
By April I was still writing for Detour-Mag.com and added Detroit's Metro Times to my regular repertoire of places to contribute. I approached a few other publications but was thwarted at every turn, usually because my whacked-out sensibilities of cinema just don't play too nice with others.
April
My trip to Philadelphia for the first annual Noircon gathering was rather fateful. I was on a discussion panel for David Goodis's "The Professional Man" with the ever-eloquent Howard A. Rodman and met a number of folks who would appear later in starring roles in 2008 including Noircast.net podcasters Shannon Klute and Richard Edwards. I also finally met Megan Abbott. She's writing novels now, but I remember reading her stuff in the Michigan Daily back when I was in college. And, I also had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Melanie G. Dante who's since invited me to be a part of a book project for 2009.
Speaking of books... Cashiers du Cinemart wasn't even cold yet when I decided to start picking flesh from its bones; cannibalizing my past and putting together a "Best of" collection in book form. This started the ball rolling on a project that would fill many hours for the rest of the year.
I also stopped by the Toronto branch of my employer where I hung out for a couple days and spent the evenings with friends. Rita Su and I checked out Evil Dead: The Musical and had a blast.
May
The month started off with a bang as I headed down to Baltimore to partake in the Maryland Film Festival where I moderated a panel on the state of film criticism in this cyber age as well as watched a lot of movies and hung out with some dear friends. It's always a treat to be in Charm City.
I ended the month with an equal bang, heading back to New York City after many years. Andrea and I did the "tourist thing"; taking a tour of the city via double-decker bus. It was a hoot. We also caught Avenue Q and even managed to have dinner with my old friend Leon Chase. I still regret that I missed the performance of his new band, Sister Anne.
June
Andrea and I took one of those mini-trips in June over to Niagara Falls. It was a blast. We did all the touristy things you can do without going broke; Maid of the Mist, Journey Under the Falls, the Butterfly House, et cetera. We stayed away from the tourist trap center of town until the last day when we did the overly expensive Ripley Museum. Fun, but pricey! Again, we got to hang out with a good friend. Dion Conflict drove down from Toronto and we all went to the Flying Saucer restaurant. Excellent.
July
Shannon and Richard from Noircast.net asked myself and Howard A. Rodman to participate in their show. Together we did an episode on Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur. It was a hoot.
I continued to work on proofreading/cleaning up of old articles and gathering them for inclusion in the Cashiers du Cinemart book.
August
The month started with a whirlwind trip to San Francisco/Berkeley where I introduced Shoot the Piano Player as part of the Streets of No Return film series - films all based on the works of David Goodis. This tied in nicely to the feature I did on Goodis in the last issue of CdC.
This year I gave up another thing I had been doing for years - I stopped running SuperHappyFun.com, a bootleg DVD site.
September
I would say, "As usual, I went up to Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival," except that this year may be my last TIFF. I was so disappointed in their lineup and they way that the festival was run; I'm looking into other, better fests that will fit my schedule and tastes more. I've got a short list going but, so far, none are as convenient as TIFF.
I did have fun at the B-Movie Celebration in Franklin, Indiana in September, too, and that's definitely on the short list. It was there/then that I finally got to meet fave director Greydon Clark.
October
With the fall, I began my annual hibernation. The Cashiers du Cinemart book manuscript was in the hands of Lori Higgins all month as she continued to finesse and polish the prose from me and my fellow contributors. I finally got down to work on the piece I'm contributing to a journal in 2009. I'm still not giving too many details about it, in case it falls through. Suffice to say, I spent every weekend watching Fetish/BDSM-related films to expand upon an article I had done earlier in 2008 for the Metro Times. I actually started to get burned out on watching people flog one another. LOL.
November
Research on my articles continued. Weekends were spent taking care of family stuff with my Grandmother passing away the second week of the month.
I got the foreword to the book and was absolutely floored. News on that should be coming in early 2009, I hope. Lori wrapped up her layout and handed the project back to me at the end of the month.
December
I'm back to going over the manuscript for the Cashiers du Cinemart book. One final polish, I hope. There should be some more announcements about this project soon. It sounds like the journal I'm writing for will be out around the same time as the book which will be nice. I'm wondering if I should hold off on taking much more than my January vacation(s - to Las Vegas and Cleveland) and seeing about doing some kind of "book tour" later in 2009.
I'm finally down with the cool kids. After eight volumes, one of the pieces featured in the pages of Cashiers du Cinemart--"The (Slow) Killing of Colonialism" by Adam Balivet--has made the grade and been included in the Zine Yearbook. The collection also includes a ton of other good stuff from the pages of over a hundred zines all handsomely bound and printed by Microcosm Publishing. Pick it up over at Atomic Books.
I've been putting together a mental list of folks from whom I'd love to get cover blurbs from for my book. I suppose it goes along the lines of the book review topic I posted earlier this week. I've been pursuing the following folks for blurbs. Some have responded, others haven't:
Jonathan Rosenbaum (busy)
Quentin Tarantino (no response)
Sam & Ted Raimi (no response)
Kevin Smith (no response)
Jack Hill (busy)
Joe Bob Briggs (no response)
Jay Hoberman
John Waters (working on it)
That's not including the fine folks that have given me the time of day and some great blurbs. I'm really pleased by the support that folks have been showing. It's pretty remarkable.
If you know me, you know how OCD I can be. Despite the Cashiers du Cinemart book not coming out for at least a year, I spent a few hours Sunday morning thinking about what periodicals/venues would be good places to review the book upon release. Here's what I came up with so far. Please post a comment if you can think of additional places:
Rue Morgue
Star Wars Insider
Real Detroit
Metro Times (Detroit)
Fangoria/Star Log
Hour Detroit
Geek Monthly
Paracinema
Shock Cinema
Cinema Sewer
Twitchfilm.net
Cinemascope
Cine-Action
Teleport City
Video Watchdog
Chicago Reader
City Paper (Baltimore)
You may have noticed that a lot of these sites are on my links section. Why aren't the others? Because I'm not sure which of them review books and which are strictly movies. Anyway, I'm welcome to all suggestions!
I finally had to put aside the manuscript for the Cashiers du Cinemart book. I was getting too close to it and losing all sense of objectivity. The time was right to move on to another project. With nothing looming on my horizon and all of my old backup discs, CDrs, DVDrs out, I decided to start compiling just about every review that I've ever written just in case a Cashiers du Cinemart sequel is in my future.
That's when I realized something that I'm missing...
Somehow I've misplaced a year of my life. All right, that's a little dramatic. What I actually lost was all of my coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival 2005. I remember writing it, I even remember sitting in the hotel bar as I did it. Unfortunately, I can't find where I put the HTML version of the reviews and the Word version of these were a victim of my ePrize firing.
When I got tossed out on my ass, my own grand plans that every employee should have a laptop got the best of me. On my work laptop were all of my files. Sure, I backed a lot of stuff up from time to time but when you're working 80-some hours a week, regular backups tend to get lost in the shuffle. Worse, the IT department didn't feel the need to give me much more than my iTunes folder on a pair of DVDrs, omitting any copies of Word documents, HTML files, et cetera. This leaves me with a big six month gap in my life into which the TIFF 2005 files have fallen. Boo hoo!
The work on the Cashiers du Cinemart book continues. Unfortunately,
our cover artist fell through (personal issues). We're wishing him
the best while also starting to scour for another hip artist to pick
up the paintbrush for our cover.
As always, I'm looking for something eye-catching and maybe a little
naughty. If you're up for it, or know someone who is, please give me
a shout.
Timing - I'd like to get a cover sketch by the end of October and the finished piece by the end of November. You'd retain the rights to the art, of course, but I'd be able to use it for promotional pieces (postcards, print ads, online ads). Sound good? Drop me a line!
June is turning out to be quite a noir month for me. I've been working on research for July when I'm going to be a guest on Out of the Past, my favorite podcast. The episode won't be broadcast until August at the earliest. I'll be talking to hosts Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards about one of my favorite films, Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob Le Flambeur.
While I'm working on that, I'm also studying up on Francois Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player for my introduction of it at the David Goodis film series at UC Berkeley.
Other French crime films dotting my horizon are Un Flic and Max & The Junkmen - both out on DVD in July (Un Flic for the second time, Max for the first time with English subtitles). I'm hoping to review both of these for the Detroit Metro Times.
All is not French for me, however, as I'm starting research for an interview with Crispin Hellion Glover - I finally managed to get a "yes" from Mr. Glover and I'm working at watching and rewatching as many of his flicks as I can. The one that I need to get my hands on, Jeremy Kasten's Wizard of Gore, is critical as I'm aiming to get this interview out to tie in with that flick's DVD release in August. So far I've had no luck getting a screener of the film or getting a response from anyone who might be able to provide one.
I keep playing with the idea of trying to actually get the Cashiers du Cinemart Book published by a "real" publisher. You know; query letter, book proposal, the whole bit. I've also been toying with the idea of another book due to my dissatisfaction with a recent read. As I read a book (that will remain unnamed for now) I realized, "Heck, I can write something better than this." I don't usually have that kind of ego, so maybe there's something to that. I'm ready for my sophomore slump.
I've been banging my head against the wall trying to think of who I can/should ask to pen an introduction to the Cashiers du Cinemart book. I have a few rough criteria.
They can write fairly well
They actually have read an issue or two and liked what we were doing for all the years CdC was around
Their name will be recognizable enough to garner the attention of at least one person (other than their mom).
Any suggestions/volunteers? A celebrity intro isn't required, but it sure would be nice!
Oh, and they have to get their stuff to me in the next six to eight weeks (I'm flexible).
I'm working on gathering some blurbs for the back of the Cashiers du Cinemart book. So far these are the best I've come up with:
"An amateur fanzine put together by a bitter hack... poorly executed and a waste of time. The writing is weak and uninformed." - Chris Gore, Film Threat
"A thin, primitive hobby publication with an obvious ax to grind... Killing one more tree for [this] pointless, directionless, self-aggrandizing 'zine with nothing to offer is a sad, selfish waste." - Dave Williams, Film Threat Video Guide
For some reason I think I'm rather proud of getting these badges of honor over the years. I continue to hunt for other opinions by people I respect.
I'm not having any luck contacting my regular artists for Cashiers du Cinemart. I'm really hoping for a great/memorable/eye-catching cover for the Cashiers du Cinemart book -- and I want to pay my usual price (not a damn cent).
If you're interested, please send me some samples: mwhite at impossiblefunky dot com
Work on the Cashiers du Cinemart book is going nicely. Revisiting these older pieces has been interesting. I've been working to reconcile some of the similarly-themed articles, eliminate some of the time references ("recently this new movie came out" ten years ago), and kill some of the more glaring grammatical errors.
One of the more onerous chores has been the elimination of my qualifiers. Too many "however"s, "therefore"s, et cetera. I want to tighten this thing down with a socket wrench.
Logistically, I've been trying to track down Nathan Kane to get his permission to reprint his cover art in a discussion of the zine's evolution. No luck yet. I'm also wondering what the heck I'm going to do for the cover of the book and if I'm going to just call it "The Cashiers du Cinemart Book" or if I'm going to give it an easier title. Maybe I'll take Charles Willeford's advice and use a two word title. "Stinky Britches"? "Tough Facade"? I'll think of something. I won't bother asking for help or suggestions since the "Comments" button on the site doesn't seem to be working.
What: Panel discussion on the State of Film Criticism Where: Tent City at the Maryland Film Festival (across from the Charles theater) When: Sunday May 4th, 2008 in the Panel Tent Who: Michael Sragow (Baltimore Sun), Chris Kaltenbach (Baltimore Sun), Lee Gardner (City Paper). Moderator: Mike White
Which brings us to "Why" -- Apparently there's something in the air at the moment as this discussion seems to key in well with a recent event at New York's Moving Image Institute which began an interesting dialog about this subject which I hope to follow up on during this panel discussion.
Check out some of the coverage of the event over at Shooting Down Pictures and SpoutBlog:
Magazines as collectibles (Lost, Dr Who, Star Trek, etc.)
Distribution systems suck. Are Magazines/journals on their last legs?
Books (tie ins, biographies, film guides, scripts, a few actual
attempts at re-viewing. Intentional hyphen.)
Cheapening the "Brand" (continuity mistakes and Easter eggs, Top ten lists)
Criticism versus reviews versus theory versus semantic masturbation
Confusion of film reviews versus film criticism. Thumbs aren't theories.
Now that I know who the folks on the panel are, I'm going to have to do a little research. I've had the pleasure of listening to Kaltenbach in the past when he's introduced Sunday Movies at the Charles and I don't think he views himself as "Critical Royalty," but I'll be curious to ask him and the others about their attitudes when it comes to plebeian film reviewers.
I'm pretty sure that I fit into that category though I feel that I'm more in a grey area between the bloggers and the floggers, that I was in my little zine ghetto for so long that I missed the populist revolution while still in the mindset of "Kill Yr Idols" where I rejected many of the pillars of the film criticism pantheon while trying to hoe my own row. That's not to say that my bookshelves aren't littered with works by Gerald Peary, Molly Haskell, Andrew Sarris, etc. (three of the speakers at the MII event). There are writers whose works I enjoy, those who I respect, and even those who fit into both categories. I just never felt beholden to the Paulene Kaels of the world (though I'll hand it to the gal for also disliking SHOAH).
It's ironic that only now, after all these years, I finally have started to set my sights on trying to fit in with the misfits. I made a list of the few magazines who are still kicking and whose work I respect. I dropped them all a copy of Cashiers du Cinemart #15 and a cover letter asking about lending my pen to their pages. So far, the return tally has been exactly one. I'm hoping to hear from more of these fine rags soon though I have the fear that, like with CineAction and Shiznit.co.uk that I'll be too lowbrow for one publication but too highbrow for another. I need to find me a few good "midbrow" magazines who'll love my assbackwards awkward style.
Tonight I met with long-time CdC contributor Mike Thompson and cinephile/proofreader extraordinare Lori Higgins to discuss possibilities of a book version of Cashiers du Cinemart which would collect the "best" articles out of the last fifteen issues/fourteen years.
It was an interesting experience. I printed out a six page spreadsheet with the names and authors of every article that's been in CdC (and online-only articles, too). We had only a few groundrules going in with the biggest being: "No reprinting of articles of people who have fallen off the face of the Earth or who will give me a hard time." Otherwise, we tried to keep some themes in mind as pillars—STAR WARS, PLANET OF THE APES, Quentin Tarantino, overlooked films, interviews, unproduced screenplays, and alternate versions—and then anything else that caught our fancy. I killed most, if not all, of the book, music, and zine reviews.
I decimated a lot of the early issues, knowing that my writing back then was at its weakest (that's not to say that it's strong now). Mike had an interesting idea about the early pieces, however. He's asking that I not rewrite them in order to show some of the evolution of the magazine. Otherwise, I'd be rewriting a lot of things from the ground up. I'll already be combining and rewriting quite a lot of stuff. I also will be pulling out a few nuggets for pieces that I've been meaning to expand as well as doing some follow-ups to things that need updates.
In short, there's a lot of work ahead but it'll be a labor of love.
With the demise of the print version of Cashiers du Cinemart, I've been attempting to branch out a bit. To that end, it looks like I'll be working with Detroit's Metro Times! My first piece went out this week. As part of their gala "Food Issue," I penned a piece on cannibal films. Click here to check it out, or pick it up at your favorite local haunts if you're in the Detroit area (page 39). (Oh, and please feel free to "Digg it").
Indy Request
I'm going to be revising an article from Cashiers du Cinemart #9, "Jonesing for the New Indy Film". What I really need to get my hands on is the elusive Frank Darabont draft of the Indy 4 script. Do any of you Hollywood Insiders have access to this? It's a bit of a holy grail. ;)
Archives Updated!
Just about every article from Cashiers du Cinemart #15 has been put up in the Archives section of CashiersduCinemart.com.
RIP: Jules Dassin
Little did I know that my review for Jules Dassin's RIFIFI would be running just a few short days after the director passed away.
Lunch with Me
Be sure to check out Detour-Mag.com for a daily helping of lunchtime cult reviews. They've been running at noon. You can also sign up for email updates via my RSS Feed.
Upcoming Travel
For all my peeps in Toronto, Baltimore, and NYC; I'll be coming out to these fine locations over the next six weeks.
April 14-17 - Toronto
May 2-4 - Baltimore
May 29-June 1 - NYC
Hope to see you when I'm there!
Facebook
BTW, I have a profile on Facebook. Feel free to befriend me! Just don't confuse me with the other Mike White.
I'm finally down with the cool kids. After eight volumes, one of the pieces featured in the pages of Cashiers du Cinemart--"The (Slow) Killing of Colonialism" by Adam Balivet--has made the grade and been included in the Zine Yearbook. The collection also includes a ton of other good stuff from the pages of over a hundred zines all handsomely bound and printed by Microcosm Publishing. Pick it up over at 
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