All posts by Rod Lott

Reading Material

Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film

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silverscreenfiendTruth is, every hopeless film addict has a story like comedian/actor Patton Oswalt shares in Silver Screen Fiend. The difference is we’re not famous, so who wants to hear it?

Okay, okay, so Oswalt’s knack for making an anecdote as compelling as it comedic may have something to do with it, too.

Because of this, anyone who has experienced the near-orgasmic, adrenaline rush (don’t deny it) of a movie projector flickering to life as the lights fade away — along with your disbelief — will find themselves in lockstep with a kindred spirit …

… who’s way funnier than you or I.

Although Oswalt indeed presents himself more than worthy of the title, the slim volume is really only half about the movies. This is a memoir of a four-year span in his life in the late 1990s, when he worked as hard honing his stand-up skills on the stage as he did at catching whatever double features L.A.’s storied New Beverly Cinema revival house had programmed.

What Oswalt admittedly didn’t work so hard at? Churning out sketches for his actual day job as part of the MADtv writing team. Why do that when he harbored big, shiny dreams of becoming a director? Mainlining movies — new and old, classic or crap — was, he reasoned, the most direct path to calling “Action!”

Chapters of Silver Screen Fiend open with visual evidence of this, reprinting calendar grids of Oswalt’s filmgoing exploits, from Billy Wilder and William Castle to Hammer horror marathons and whatever big-budget blockbuster happened to open at the multiplex that week. The anal-retentive cineasts among us can and will relate; same goes with his devotion to the sacred texts of Danny Peary and Michael Weldon, whose pages Oswalt not only pored over, but decorated with checkmarks as he saw the movies they celebrated.

This book is not like those books, meaning you will not find reviews per se, although the pages are rife with the author’s blessedly unfiltered opinions. Yet it rightfully earns shelf space next to those works of reference, as Oswalt’s sprocket-holed memoir is often hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking and always, always of immense interest. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

The Psycho Lover (1969)

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psycholoverAn alternate title for The Psycho Lover is The Loving Touch — one über-creepy appellation for a movie about a serial rapist whose on-the-job face is smashed underneath a heavy layer of pantyhose.

That felonious fellow is Marco (Frank Cuva, Game Show Models), who has trouble distinguishing his fantasies from reality. Meanwhile, motorboat enthusiast (in more ways than one) and psychiatrist Dr. Kenneth Alden (Lawrence Montaigne, The Great Escape) wishes his fantasies were reality, because he’d like to shack up with his mistress, but his cock-blockin’ crone of a wife (Jo Anne Meredith, J.D.’s Revenge) refuses to grant him a divorce. That chaps the hide and boot-shaped sideburns of Kenneth so bad that he brainwashes Marco into making Mrs. Alden his next victim.

psycholover1If that sounds at all icky, reserve judgment until you see the gangly homicide lieutenant (John Vincent, The Exotic Dreams of Casanova) who looks like Edgar Allan Poe discuss his police work: “You know, Doc, I’m like the proverbial bloodhound: I can smell him in this room and the hairs on my ass stand on end every time I catch his scent.”

No matter the name it plays under, The Psycho Lover is a sexploitation thriller after my own heart. Written, directed and produced by Robert Vincent O’Neill (creator of the Angel franchise), the picture has more on its dirty mind than most programmers of the era and budgetary level. By combining Dial M for Murder with The Manchurian Candidate — not to mention Hanes’ L’eggs line — he ended up with a twisty, inventive, enjoyable slice of sleaze. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

Stonehearst Asylum (2014)

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stonehearstAt Stonehearst Asylum, the inmates are in charge. This crucial bit of info is unbeknownst to Dr. Newgate (Jim Sturgess, Cloud Atlas) when he arrives for training at the remote mountain institution, but hindsight might finger that cuckoo clock in his boss’ office as an eerie, aural clue. The joke practically writes itself. (Same goes for when the opening credits reveal Mel Gibson as a producer.)

Fetching pianist-cum-patient Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale, Underworld: Awakening) warns Newgate to leave the foggy grounds posthaste, but the young physician pays no heed to her admonition until it’s too damn late. Before long, he learns Stonehearst’s true staffers (Michael Caine among them) are locked in cages at the behest of the aforementioned “boss,” the insane-in-the-membrane Silas Lamb (Ben Kingsley, Iron Man 3).

Oh, and there’s also an ogre.

stonehearst1Much more than Kingsley’s presence will remind viewers of Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, as this exercise in Gothic trappings plays like a prequel — think Shutter Island: Ye Early Years. Like that 2010 thriller, Stonehearst Asylum comes well-crafted, yet deeply flawed. Based on Edgar Allan Poe’s (very) short story “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether,” the film is largely inert despite sumptuous visuals and the confident hand of director Brad Anderson (The Call).

On the basis of his exquisite, highly recommended 2004 novel, the 1920s-set and similarly themed Inamorata, screenwriter Joe Gangemi would seem to be the ideal adapter of Poe’s material; unfortunately, the work is long-winded and gaseous without becoming offensive. Such an upward climb is its pacing that I gave Stonehearst three separate tries to hook me, yet I admitted defeat in that final run, throwing in the towel with one-fifth left to go. Shorn of some curlicue story turns, the film would feel far more spry, perhaps “within two shakes of a whore’s tail.” —Rod Lott

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Documentary

Jingle Bell Rocks! (2013)

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jinglebellSo wide is the appeal for Jingle Bell Rocks! that the documentary can be embraced by Christmas-music fanatics and foes alike. From Thanksgiving to New Year’s, its subject is virtually inescapable to the ears of America’s shoppers, drivers and diners, yet what tickles the tympanic membrane of one tortures another. While lending credence to both groups, the film unmistakably stands on the side of letting such sounds snow.

Its audience surrogate is also its director and producer, Mitchell Kezin. To say he’s (chest)nuts over holiday harmonies is an understatement; the man collects seasonal slabs of vinyl and polycarbonate plastic like a skid-row prostitute does STDs. In this, his first feature, he travels cross-country to talk with fellow collectors, as well as creators of timeless classics and outright obscurities.

jinglebell1Among them are cult filmmaker John Waters, who shared his love for oddball, tinsel-strewn tunes with the masses via the 2004 compilation album A John Waters Christmas; Run-D.M.C.’s Joseph Simmons, who recounts how he wrote the 1987 charity track “Christmas in Hollis” over a spliff and eggs; and The Flaming Lips ringleader Wayne Coyne, whose mother’s unreliable TV memories led the alt-rock iconoclast to birth the 2008 sci-fi film Christmas on Mars (certainly the only soundtrack album to contain such Yuletide gems as “The Gleaming Armament of Marching Genitalia” and “In Excelsior Vaginalistic”).

Bringing a side dish of gravitas to the party is Kezin’s own narrative about how his Christmas-music obsession is fueled by hole-in-his-heart memories of hearing Nat King Cole’s “The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot” as a child pining for his absentee father. His bittersweet recollections culminate in a moment that gives Rocks! a climax that can be forgiven for feeling a little forced, because Kezin has accumulated so much goodwill in the interim. With impressive animated sequences and, ironically, no soundtrack disc of its own, it’s a doc as accomplished as it is infectious. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Wax (2014)

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waxSpanish filmmaker Víctor Matellano’s Wax bears more similarity to 1953’s classic House of Wax than 2005’s official remake. With one foot planted firmly in horror cinema’s past, Matellano uses his other to sidestep between the decidedly more contemporary subgenres of found footage and torture porn. There’s room for all — perhaps even too much, as not enough time is allocated to each or any.

What is in too-great supply are the unruly curls atop the head of journalist Mike (Jimmy Shaw, Lord of Illusions), a dead ringer for Simply Red lead singer Mick Hucknall. Eager for cash, Mike is hired by a TV producer (Geraldine Chaplin, 2010’s The Wolfman) to spend the night — if he can! — in a reportedly haunted Barcelona wax museum. Hence the title and all.

wax1Mike’s still grieving over the murder of his wife and child by kidnapper-cum-cannibal Dr. Knox (Jack Taylor, Succubus) a year prior and — wouldn’t you know it? — the sinister senior surgeon lurks and stalks the halls after hours. In the basement is where the old man carries out his acts of Hostel behavior on his victims (most of them bare-breasted young women), keeping them sedated just enough for them to withstand the pain of being eaten alive as they watch.

Essentially, we have three distinct styles of shock shoehorned into a film that feels like it can’t pay homage to one without placating today’s audiences with doses of the others. Because of that, Wax fails to truly take hold, although it comes close. Still, if you are a fan of movies set in wax museums — and this one takes a meta step to share that pleasure — the film is worth the price of admission, and the feature-debuting Matellano proves himself as a talent to watch. Just don’t be suckered into a rental because of the touting of late Spanish fright-flick legend Paul Naschy high atop the credits; only his voice appears, none of it recorded for this low-budget, high-ambition project. —Rod Lott

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