Film Forno

St. Alphonsus Deconsecrated Church, where Angel Heart was filmed

We’re back from the great City Of New Orleans! It is an amazing place and I encourage everybody to visit, some people go for Mardi Gras and never leave!

The City is fueled by alcohol, music,sex, murder and beignets! I saw a sign on a building that said something like ” This is a government of LAW not of MEN.” Maybe the government is of law but the people are all passion. The law does not carry that much weight down there. I mean the police will arrest someone for committing a crime but that does not deter people from committing the crime.

Shop Widow in The Quarter

The Ethos is a hot blooded one, a patois of Tchapitoulas Indian, African slave, French, Cajun, Creole and whatever else got tossed in the gumbo pot. “Iko, Iko” was an Indian war cry that the local musicians picked up on.

This is New Orleans!

But don’t get me wrong, I love this city, the music, the cuisine, the bars, the buildings and the people. They are very friendly and willing to talk, it’s really refreshing.

Central Grocery- Home of the Muffaletta!

Everything there is pretty intense although usually in a laid back way. The tropical atmosphere, the lush plant life, the rain that can come and go 5 times in a day. It’s intoxicating. The wonderful smells of the city, they brought back memories of my childhood, aromas I haven’t come across in 30 years.

But down to business! Which Beignet is better? Cafe Du Monde VS. Morning Call! Beignets are kind of like archetypal donuts, like the zeppole that was sold at Italian street fairs or Feasts, that celebrated a Saint’s name day. They’re fried dough with powdered sugar and they’re good!

3 A.M.- Cafe Du Monde Beignets

Cafe Du Monde is in the French Quarter, Morning Call was moved lock, stock and countertop to Metarie, just outside of NO. We tried both and they’re both great but Morning Call’s Beignets are lighter, fluffier and just better!

Morning Call Beignets

The ones from Du Monde come covered in powdered sugar, at Morning call you have to powder them yourself with a shaker. But check them out for yourself on your next visit to New Orleans, I’ll be back there as soon as I can!

I’ll Meet You On The Corner Of Rampart And Dumaine!

P.S. Our screening of One Night With You was great! We met some super cool people there who really dug the movie! That was the cherry on top of the NO sundae!

Me with the beautiful Ali Duffy, the Festival’s Executive Director

Peter Brook directs a young amateur

This masterpiece is another film I was exposed to at a young age through the auspices of The Million Dollar Movie. It had to be fairly soon after it was released theatrically (1961) I think I first saw it around 1963 or ’64. It made an indelible impression on me, I can still remember vividly many scenes and I have not seen it since back then! I found a Life Magazine article about the making of the film and the images here are from that.

Still Somewhat Civilized

A plane crash during a future nuclear war strands a group of English school boys on a deserted tropical island. All the adults are killed and the boys must fend for themselves. They start off by being democratic, electing a leader, setting up rules and regulations, it seems to be going well. There is an unforgettable image of a group of choirboys marching up the beach, single file, dressed in their choir robes singing a Latin hymn, Kyrie Eleision. This music is perfect, eerie and unsettling in this context. Needless to say as time passes and the school uniforms turn to rags the boys revert to primitive forms of existence. The choir boys become hunters and begin acting wild, like Pagans. They kill a wild boar, roast it, and devour it in an incredible scene. The eating of meat turns the boys even more wild, setting their bloodlust racing. They find a “monster” living on top of a nearby hill and begin worshipping it.

The boy playing Piggy had to keep stuffing himself between takes to remain big, he lost weight anyway

Eventually sacrificing a weak boy named Piggy. He is overweight and subject to much ridicule, the hunters take his glasses to start a fire thereby incapacitating him and finally they crush him with a huge rock, toppled from a sea cliff. It’s pretty horrible.

As the clothes disappear so does the morality

My hat is off to Peter Brook, he took amateur boys, some as young as 7 years old to an island for 3 months and created this whole brave new world, it’s nothing short of a miracle. The images and performances are absolutely superb.

Peter Brook, maestro of theater, hand picked these boys and engaged in a bit of make-believe, play infused with ritual, the basis of all theater, cinema, art. A raw and savage creation, bursting at the seams with vitality, life force, nature.

Ralph, the duly elected leader is hunted like an animal by the film’s end

Lord Of The Flies was based on a book by William Golding. The article tells of the book’s history. It’s fascinating. The book was first published in the USA in 1955. It was a flop, all but ignored. The filmmakers went into pre-production in 1959 before the 1959 Capricorn paperback was issued. This paperback edition became a college campus bestseller, usurping Catcher In The Rye. How did the producer’s know this would happen? They didn’t. Film is a commercial medium, to be a success without major stars, a film must catch a cultural wave and ride it to popularity. Maybe they sensed the spirit of change, of youthful rebellion in the air.

College campuses were influenced by the Beats, the Summer Of Love was nearing. The Vietnam War was heating up. Lewis Allen, Peter Brook and William Golding were in the right place at the right time. Below is a video someone posted on YouTube, It has music by Erik Satie and images from the film. Check it out, you’ll feel the primordial power of this film. Then rent it or buy it, but see it.

Mark Boone Junior Kicks Vampire Ass!

Mark Boone Junior is getting rave reviews for his performance in 30 Days of Night but don’t take my word for it, read the quotes below. Maybe somebody in Hollywood will catch on and offer him a lead role, wait a minute! I already did! He’s the star of my film One Night With You, and I predict many more to come.

FROM SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE:
“While Danny Huston is appropriately creepy and menacing as the vampire leader, the standout performance once again comes from Mark Boone Junior, who plays a fearless town outcast who does the best construction equipment beat-down since Sigourney Weaver climbed in that “Aliens” forklift robot thing.”

FROM CINEMATICAL.COM:
“What could be better than Mark Boone Junior driving around in some kind of chainsaw-esque tractor, slicing through multiple baddies while simultaneously blowing away others with a shotgun? Exactly. Nothing could be better. In fact, I think I like this scene better than that sequence in Dawn of the Dead where they’re driving the modified bus around. But that partially has to do with my appreciation for Mark Boone Junior. He just looks like the perfect guy to be in charge of a task like this.”

FROM PULPSECRET.COM:
“In particular, Mark Boone Junior is great as Beau, creating a character that has excellent moments of both humor and pathos.”

FROM LATINOREVIEW.COM
“Although the film is supposed to be a vehicle for Hartnett, he isn’t the leading man you want to root for. Mark Boone Junior, best known as corrupt cop Flass in “Batman Begins” gives a great supporting performance as a grizzled townsman who fearlessly takes on the entire Vampire clan with a snow plow equipped with, flares, dynamite and bear traps. He has a full beard unlike Hartnett who barely grows peach fuzz after not shaving for a month.”

From 411Mania.com:
“The best character in the movie is town recluse and snow plow driver Beau Brower, played by the always cool Mark Boone Junior. His character’s back story is interesting, he’s got plenty of screen charisma, he can act and make you care about him, and he gets three great scenes kicking vampire butt. Why isn’t the movie about him? Why isn’t he able to redeem his death fighting vampires in “John Carpenter’s Vampires”?”

From Epinions.com:
The supporting cast is very nice with my favourite being the amazing Mark Boone Junior (Memento, Batman Begins) playing the stereotypical bad mutha effa who lives on the outskirts of town as a live-for-nothing drifter man’s man.

From SaveAngel.org:
“Mountain man Beau (an awesome Mark Boone Junior) embodies the strange stock that would choose to live somewhere like that…”

From TV Guide.com:
“Mark Boone Jr. makes a vivid impression as eccentric loner Beau Brower…”

What are you waiting for? Go see Boone in 30 Days Of Night and send fan mail to the studio demanding he star in the sequel!

Hey Y’all! We’re having a great time down here in N’Awlins, where the people are friendly, the food is killer, the music is inspiring and the scents, sights, and flavors of living are intoxicating! We went and met our friends, Skip and Mark over at Pal’s Lounge. The quintessential corner bar! It is a place you dream about having in your neighborhood. If you go to New Orleans, Go there! Check it out get a T- shirt or a hooded sweat shirt! I did and it is super cool! Then head over to Casamento’s , Skip took us there. It’s an old joint run by a family.

While we were waiting out front a nice guy introduced himself and invited us in! His name is Mike and he’s the 5 time Champion oyster shucker of New Orleans! A super guy!

Mike, King of New Orleans Oyster Shuckers!

We had raw oyster, fried crab claws and an oyster Po’Boy. Man, that was good!

Damn! That was Good!

So if you find yourself down here in New Orleans here’s a night on the town, pre-designed, just add yourself, Pal’s for cocktails and Casamento’s for dinner. Then head over to One-Eyed Jack’s and tell Rio, Joe sent ya!

From the first frame of this movie you know you’re in for quite a ride, A big 40’s car hurtling through the desert night, filmed in such a way that you think it’s going to come flying off the screen into your lap.

This movie is so well directed. Raoul Walsh effortlessly takes us on an epic adventure, train robbery, prison, escape from prison,etc. It seems like so many short scenes flowing into another, fast paced full of action, tons of details, at the prison , the machine shop and mess hall all play a role in the story.

Raoul Walsh lost his eye when a jack rabbit jumped in front of his speeding car

The high tech crime fighting tricks of the G men, radio co-ordinating, these scenes remind me of Fritz Lang’s M , where he shows the technology of the police opposed to the tricks of the criminals. Walsh was a master of this fast paced action storytelling. Check out Gentleman Jim starring Errol Flynn. The scenes fly by like scenery outside a train window. Walsh was a master filmmaker. He had a lion for a house cat.

Raoul and his cat

I read Walsh’s autobiography, it’s very good.I found out we both went to the same prep school (Seton Hall). He gives a lot of credit to James Cagney for his portrayal of Cody Jarrett. When Cagney sits on his mother’s lap and when he kicks Virginia Mayo off a chair and a lot of other great bits were all Cagney’s creation, according to Walsh.

Can you shorten the sleeves a little?

This is subversive filmmaking of the highest order! Walsh and Cagney show Cody Jarrett as a psycho killer, merciless to his enemies, able to coolly blast a guy trapped in the trunk of a car, while eating a chicken leg and making a joke! “I’ll give you some air!” Blam, Blam, Blam ,Blam!!! Great!

Cagney grabs a Rat, I mean Edmund O’Brien

The feds are seen as hard working, tireless, prosecutors of criminals but Walsh has the head fed using a long cigarette holder, an effeminate if not depraved prop. Is this a dig at J. Edgar Hoover? The cross dressing tyrant of FBI fame? Later the Fed has his arm in a sling, is he less of a man? And what about undercover rat Edmund O’Brien? Infiltrating criminal gangs by pretending to be a loyal pal, a “kid brother” to Jarrett and others. Watch the way O’Brien escapes from the surrounded payroll office during the climactic end sequence. He runs out under the cover of tear gas and literally slithers on his belly like a snake or a worm to get through a narrow gap in some pipes and into the safe arms of his fed friends.

Come and get me ,copper!

Then he uses his sharpshooter skills to pump several bullets into Jarrett, who’s laughing his head off. “What’s holding him up!” O’Brien asks as he fires another round into his erstwhile friend. But Jarrett is buoyed up by his love for his mother, he’s finally fulfilled her lifelong prophecy, he’s made it to the top. “Top O’ The World, Ma!!” He yells triumphantly and he sees her watching him proudly, her eyes shining with admiration and love for a son only she can love, the flames of Cody’s immanent annihilation reflecting from those eyes that represent the whole world and everything in it to him.

The End of The Hollywood Gangster Icon

opening Night Party!

Hey Y’all! Film Forno is here at the 18th annual New Orleans Film Festival! We’re having a great time thanks to all the nice people of the beautiful city of New Orleans. Everybody is so accommodating, they take the time to talk to you and are friendly as can be. We went to the opening night party and were blown away by Big Sam and the Funk Nation, a super band.

Big Sam and The Funk Nation with Charmaine Neville

They were joined by some incredible guests Ivan Neville, Theresa Anderson, and Charmaine Neville. They rocked the house. I felt the Spirit of the Wild Tchopitoulas rising through the floor of the nightclub!

Late Night Beignets at The Cafe Du Monde

We saw Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show last night and Mr. Vaughn was there and did a Q&A after with his producer Peter Billingsly ( He played Ralphie in Jean Shepherd’s classic A Christmas Story, directed by the late Bob Clark). Later we all went to One-Eyed Jacks, a crazy bar in the French Quarter, where they were projecting One-Eyed Jacks, Marlon Brando’s directorial debut and swan song.

One-Eyed Jacks Logo
It’s all one big party here in N’Awlins, so come on down, the festival continues through next Thursday. Our film One Night With You is screening Weds. night the 17tha at 9:15 pm at the Contemporary Arts Center. Check it out and Let The Bon Temps Rolle!

Ishiro Honda cops a feel off a Mysterian

Ishiro Honda created some of the most memorable images of my childhood. Rodan is an amazingly made film. Every shot looks like it was designed in the camera and the flashback sequence is one of the most powerful in Cinema. It’s an operatic monster movie. Ishiro was good friends with mega-director Akira Kurosawa and he directed 2nd unit on some of his epic battle scenes.

Look what a little radiation can do

The H-Man is another cool movie.I was lucky enough to see it projected in Technicolor at Film Forum in NYC, let me tell you, that is the way to see that film! The eye popping color and design. Delicious!. It has an incredible sexiness to it. The gangsters, their babes, the nightclub complete with Japanese Jazz and wild dance numbers. The super slick clothes everyone wears and the monster.

It’s a radioactive slime that slithers through storm sewers and dissolves people leaving only their clothes piled in a heap where they were taken. At one point a gangster kidnaps a woman and takes her into the sewer, he makes her strip and he gets naked so the police can find their clothes and think they were dissolvd into the collective radioactive slime that is The H-Man .

Slime in the Sewer
It slithers into the nightclub office during a rain storm and threatens a performer. Sometimes it assumes a humanoid shape, rearing up on two gelatinous legs maybe some kind of sense memory of when it was a human. The best sequence of the film takes place on an abandoned ship. A trawler finds a ship adrift at sea, the crew board the ghost ship and look for survivors but they can’t find anyone. Unfortunately for them they find The H-Man.

AKA- Beauty and The Liquid People
So open up a bottle of Nigori unfiltered Sake and checkout The H-Man, just remember you need someone to pour your Sake for you and you do the same for them, otherwise Bad Luck and you could wind up slithering in a sewer.

Bud Ekins in The Great Escape

Bud Ekins, the champion motorcyclist and stuntman has died. Probably his most famous stunt was doubling for Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. Bud did the jump over the barb wire fence at the Nazi POW camp. Everyone thought McQueen did the stunt himself but it was Bud.
Mr. Triumph

He also did a lot of the riding in the opening credits of the television series Then Came Bronson starring Michael Parks. It’s hard to get copies of this show but it’s definitely worth it, a very cool show and some of the shots of Bud, driving across an incredible bridge over Bixby Creek in Big Sur, zipping along the beach just at the edge of the breaking surf, are inspiring.

Bronson commercial featuring Bud

By the way Michael Parks is one of the stars of my film One Night With You. Joe Montgomery, my DP, grew up in Hollywood and told me he used to go to Bud Ekins motorcycle shop and watch Von Dutch pinstripe bikes. Bud Smith, an old friend and great editor, was an associate producer and editor on William Friedkin’s Sorcerer. Bud Smith was good friends with Bud Ekins. Ekins did stunt driving on Sorcerer and Smith told me he was in the cab of the truck with Ekins driving when they crossed the rope suspension bridge. If you look at the poster for Sorcerer there’s a picture of the truck on the bridge, it’s a frame enlargement from the 35mm original picture negative. In the next frame the truck falls off the bridge into the river.

The Truck goes over in the next frame!

The two Buds were in the cab. Bud Smith said Ekins was cool as a cucumber, remembering to hold his radio and his cigarettes up over his head so they didn’t get soaked. Bud Ekins did the motorcycle stunt in Bullit as well, sliding across the highway during the great chase scene just before the climactic finish.

That’s Bud doing the jump

I heard him on the radio one time telling of how Steve McQueen would buy whole batches of motorcycles from him, then he’d forget to make payments, Bud would have to go up to Steve’s house and repossess the bikes, then McQueen would find out , come down to Bud’s shop, yell at him, pay up, take his bikes back and they’d be friends once again! Goodbye Bud, you led a colorful life and gave us a lot of thrills at the movies.

Check out the dents in the front wheel!
Here’s a quote from Trailblazers about Bud’s racing career:
“In the 1950s, Bud Ekins was one of the first Americans to compete in Europe in the World Championship Motocross Grand Prix circuit. He also earned gold medals in the International Six Day Trial (now International Six Day Enduro). When he returned from Europe, Ekins dominated desert events. In 1955, riding a Triumph, Ekins won the Catalina Grand Prix. He also won the Big Bear Run – three times!”

Thus spake Frankenstein after learning from the blind man about the finer things in life. I agree, not only do I agree but I go one step further, I make wine! My wife and I have a small vineyard next door to our house. We grow Syrah, We turn it into wine.

No, we don’t use our feet!

You can hear all about it tomorrow (Saturday) at noon and Sunday at 8pm on the KPCC, 89.3 FM show Off-Ramp (you can stream the show live from http://www.scpr.org or download the podcast from their website after the first airing). Here at Film Forno we love film but we love wine and food as well! And we’ll be writing all about it in future posts. So stay tuned in! Drink wine, watch movies, enjoy life!

The little Old Winemaker, Me

Check it out! The wonderful folks over at KPCC put up a video promo of the show!

A Real Gone Cat

We’ve lost another rarity, an original voice in the Galaxy of Film. Charles B. Griffith, the creative motor behind some of Roger Corman’s best, most original films.

Bucket Of Blood, Not Of This Earth, Little Shop Of Horrors, and a weird one I liked as a kid The Undead, it had a ton of atmosphere maybe because a lot of it was filmed in an old ice house, also a lot of the dialog is in verse.

A Scene from The Undead, shot in an Ice House

Bucket Of Blood is a very funny film that also documents the Venice Beach beatnik scene and the whole bongo playing coffeehouse artiste genre. Not Of This Earth is a super creepy evil alien takeover story with some excellent voice over and a cast of crazy characters. Check these out if you get a chance.

Charles B. also wrote some seminal biker flick’s for Corman and American International. Check out John Cassavetes and Mimsy Farmer in Devil’s Angels and Peter Fonda with Nancy Sinatra in The Wild Angels.

Cassavettes in a Biker Flick? How Cool Is That!

Looks like a Jack Davis Drawing to me

Griffith would crank these scripts out in a week or two days or however much time Roger gave him maybe that’s why they’re so full of “spontaneous poetry”. Yeah daddio he was the Jack Kerouac of B movies or as Quentin Tarantino dubbed him “The Poet Laureate Of The Drive-In“.

Groovy Graphics
So Fare Thee Well Charles B. Griffith. They’re all laughing and snapping their fingers at The Big Drive-In in The Sky.

Trailer For A Bucket Of Blood

Here’s a cool interview with him:http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/05/35/charles_b_griffith.html

To celebrate the end of the Bunuel Blogathon I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. I looked up his old address in Hollywood, went there and took a picture. I got the address from some correspondence published in a book of his collected writings. This is where he lived with his family directly after he lost his job with the Museum of Modern Art in New York and right before he went to Mexico to make films. Around 1945/46. The 101 freeway was blasted through his old neighborhood about 100 yards from his house but this was several years after he moved to Mexico. Across the street is a new building I think it’s a school so we’re lucky his place is still there.

Bunuel’s Hollywood Hacienda-5642 Fountain Avenue

I watched a French documentary on Bunuel that one of the Blogathoners linked to on Google video. It was very good and at the end when the filmmakers went to Calanda they found the house Bunuel was born in being torn down. They filmed it’s demolition and put the end credits over it. Somehow fitting for a Surrealist admirer of the Marquis deSade

Here’s a trailer for a new Samurai/Spaghetti Western Opus:Sukiayki Western Django. It looks pretty crazy, I’ll have to check it out. Also it features a guest appearance by the Crown Prince of Genre Art House Kick Ass Cinema: Quentin Tarantino!