Category Archives: Intermission

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

SSfiendPBTruth 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.

If you didn’t purchase Silver Screen Fiend in hardcover when it came out back in January, good thing you waited, because the book has gained extra content on its way to this paperback debut: nearly 50 pages of Oswalt’s early film writing, including five reviews he pseudonymously penned for Ain’t It Cool News — a website whose creator and audience seems incongruous to Oswalt’s voice and taste for the likes of Philip Kaufman’s Quills and Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar.

Also in this welcome bonus section are an introductory post to the (sadly) now-defunct The Dissolve, an attempt at aping David Thomson’s Suspects exercise of hashing out bios for fictional film characters and, hilariously, an anti-AFI list of his own 100 favorite movie moments (i.e. “Blade’s entrance at the blood rave”). —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Reading Material: Short Ends 10/11/15

xfilesfaqWith one of the ’90s’ most iconic television series just a few months away from returning to the tube, now’s the time for The X-Files FAQ. (The jury, however, is still out for that subtitle: All That’s Left to Know About Global Conspiracy, Aliens, Lazarus Species, and Monsters of the Week — I mean, what the hell is a “Lazarus Species”?) John Kenneth Muir, who also penned 2013’s Horror Films FAQ for Applause’s ongoing pop-culture line of guides, has the unenviable job of distilling a decade-plus of content into a single trade paperback, yet rises to the challenge by refusing to do what the average reader might expect: give an episode guide. Although Muir does tackle many episodes, he tends to do so in thematic groupings while exploring what made The X-Files click (and sometimes not). Later chapters tackle the guest stars, the two movies, the official spin-offs, the countless knock-offs and, yep, even the porn parodies. The truth is in here.

greatshowdowns3A sequel to 2013’s Great Showdowns: The Return (itself a follow-up to the previous year’s The Great Showdowns), Scott C.’s Great Showdowns: The Revenge features dozens upon dozens more of drawings of depicting some of pop culture’s greatest adversaries. That’s it: They just stand there facing one another, whether “they” are the characters of Fatal Attraction, Child’s Play, Road to Perdition — heck, even the Steve Coogan/Rob Brydon foodie comedy The Trip! And that’s fine, because Campbell — that’s what the C stands for — is a wonderful illustrator; his drawings radiate with immeasurable charm, even when they’re of some of the most evil A-holes the screen has seen. But not everything is decipherable, and there are no words, no captions, no legend at the end to let you know who was who. Not knowing can be frustrating, even if the unknowns number few. To be technical, not everything is a showdown, either. I’d hardly call Jiro dreaming of sushi anything approaching conflict.

skingcompanionGiven that its subject is alive, kicking and ridiculously prolific, the St. Martin’s Press trade-paperback release of The Stephen King Companion: Four Decades of Fear from the Master of Horror marks the third edition of George Beahm’s work, and he’s clearly in danger of busting through the page count of what publishing technology currently allows; as is, it stands at a mighty 624. Although it bears some resemblance to Hans-Åke Lilja’s 2010 brick from Cemetery Dance, Beahm’s is far better written and better packaged, thereby transcending what could have been merely a reference title to pluck off the shelf only if Google failed you. Instead, Beahm’s book can be consumed as an actual narrative or in pieces; it works both ways. Supplemented with a wealth of essays, interviews, sidebars, photos, Glenn Chadbourne’s illustrations and a gorgeous, full-color section of Michael Whelan’s paintings, this Companion resides in a netherworld of not quite a proper biography and not exactly a trivia collection, yet it should satisfy King’s fans looking for either or both. No stone in King’s career path — books, movies, van accidents — appears to have been left unturned.

hollywooddeathFrom title alone, your first instinct is to make fun of something like Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Seventeen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story — Second Edition. Then you realize that, dammit, author E.J. Fleming has done so much research and homework that snark turns to respect. Although the 17 of the title doesn’t sound like a lot of stops, note that those are “tours” — a term Fleming doesn’t take lightly. Arranged between district groupings like Sunset Strip, Brentwood and The Palisades are some 650 sites! The generally curious and the downright morbid can maneuver their way through Fleming’s succinct and exacting instructions, fully fleshed out with the historic, tragic details about the site in question, be it a home in which a celebrity expired or a spot marking one’s murder. From superstars and up-and-comers to everyone I could think of (Rebecca Schaeffer? Dominique Dunne?), they’re all here. It’s not quite as macabre as you’d think it to be; sorry if that disappoints you. —Rod Lott

Get them at Amazon.

Guest List: Tom Lisanti’s Top 6 Essential Pamela Tiffin Movies

pamelatiffinTom Lisanti’s affection for cult-movie starlet Pamela Tiffin runs deeper than most. Heck, he’s even written a book about her brief career in film, the newly available Pamela Tiffin: Hollywood to Rome, 1961-1974, released by McFarland. Lisanti has penned eight books total centered on Sixties Cinema (also the name of his website), including Drive-In Dream Girls, Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood, Film Fatales and Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies. Here, to commemorate his Tiffin title, the author contributes a Guest List to Flick Attack, counting down a solid half-dozen of her silver-screen appearances. So without further ado and in chronological order …

tiffin-1231. One, Two, Three (1961)
Pamela Tiffin’s second motion picture contains her most memorable performance (she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress) and catapulted her to the top of the sixties starlet heap destined for stardom. A fast-paced, hilarious satire set in Berlin and poking fun at Communism and Capitalism, it was directed by Billy Wilder and written by him and I.A.L. Diamond fresh off their Academy Award wins for The Apartment. Tiffin plays impetuous Southern belle Scarlett Hazeltine who, while under the care of Coca-Cola’s man in West Berlin C.R. MacNamara (James Cagney delivering a brilliant rapid-fire performance), sneaks across the border into East Berlin and marries Communist Otto Ludwig Piffl (Horst Buchholz) causing all sorts of comedic trouble for MacNamara. He first undoes the marriage only to have to turn Otto into a capitalist son-in-law in good standing once the boss’ daughter’s pregnancy (“Scarlett is going to have puppies,” his daughter announces) is discovered.

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Guest List: Stephen Jones’ Top 5 Horror Stories That Also Have Been Adapted for the Screen

artofhorrorFew know horror quite like Stephen Jones. Therefore, he’s a natural to compile The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History for Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, just in time for Halloween! Also just in time for Halloween: this list of five screen-adapted terror tales, which we’ve whittled down from the renowned anthologist’s full list of 10 favorite spooky short stories of all time on our sister site, Bookgasm.

warningcurious1. “A Warning to the Curious” by M.R. James
adapted as A Warning to the Curious (1972)

No horror anthology would be complete without a contribution by M. (Montague) R. (Rhodes) James (1862-1936), that English master of supernatural fiction. The Cambridge Provost invented the modern ghost story as we know it, replacing the Gothic horrors of the previous century with more contemporary settings and subtle terrors. Although his tales have been much imitated, they have never been surpassed, and amongst the very best is “A Warning to the Curious,” which, with its cursed object and doomed protagonist, perfectly exemplifies everything that is memorable about the author’s fiction. I was proud to compile Curious Warnings: The Great Ghost Stories of M.R. James, a definitive collection of James’ fiction beautifully illustrated by Les Edwards, for Jo Fletcher Books a couple of years ago.
 
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Guest List: Stephen Romano’s Top 10 Films of Obsession, Deception and Survival

metroKnown to cult-film buffs as the man behind 2008’s amazing grindhouse tribute book, Shock Festival (and its accompanying gotta-get DVD companion set), Stephen Romano recently made the move into novelist with such well-received works as the thriller Resurrection Express, the supernatural Black Light and now, Metro.

My new novel, Metro, is about a group of young pop-culture bloggers and film nerds who find out that someone among them is actually a ruthless hitman, trained from birth to blend into his environment, ready to be activated at any moment. And when that person finally goes rogue to protect his friends in a night of bloody horror, nothing will ever be the same for any of them. It’s a story that asks the loaded questions: Are your friends who they seem to be? How many endemic spies and assassins walk among us? And when the cloak reveals the dagger, what would it take to break the conditioning of such an assassin?

Continue reading Guest List: Stephen Romano’s Top 10 Films of Obsession, Deception and Survival