*Blog entry written on February 18, 2020
My
life kind of feels like it is a holding pattern. I know I am a big
advocate for patience and I seem to have a lot of it, but waiting drives
me crazy as much as the next person. Not expressing my frustration with
that (publicly) maybe my greatest strength.
It is not so much that I cannot do anything with myself. It is that any
decision I make will not have any affect of me in the immediate future.
C2E2 is next weekend. How am I going to afford to go to the show and
afford a room? This spoiled soon to be 40-something has to wait and see.
Dad wants me to get the non-sports elements of the England trip planned
out. How do I do that when I am not around him to review stuff with him?
I am sure he would dig a play about the making of "Jaws", but I need to
be for sure.
When
can I move out and finally be comfortable? The answer is not until May
at the earliest, so grin and bear it until then. Do I have the right to
get upset at having to account for my better quarter's (Eva the Cat will
always get half) absent mindfulness since we will not be living
together after the lease? If I do not get hot about it, I will let her
think it is cool to go around doing what she does to the next roommate.
Then
again, truck drivers and warehouse workers do not seem to mind her. Why
am I trying to make myself sound like a catch? They make more money
than me. I guess they can afford to let people live more slovenly than
my obsessive compulsiveness allows.
This could just all be related to the winter. When things warm up,
things will get better. Of course, aside from sporting events, when do I
really appreciate the weather?
Studying Lee Demarbre's "Smash Cut" at least made the past week worth
noting. I had more fun watching "Knives Out", but aside from
storytelling, I am years away from being worthy to study under Rian
"Second Best Star Wars Movie" Johnson's learning tree. Canadians paying
homage to Herschell Gordon Lewis and trying to get the most out of a
nonexperimental performances from adult film stars seems like the right
place for my filmmaking aspirations to be.
Able Whitman is a struggling B-movie director whose most recent film,
"Terror Toy", debuted to a near total walk out from the audience. This
disaster will not run him out of the business because every investor
needs tax write offs, but he will never be the artist that he strives to
be without proper inspiration.
Outside of the industry, the only person who sees potential in him is a
stripper named Gigi. She wants to see him succeed so badly, that she
sets out to be his muse and will not even take his money from her
performances. Of course everything in Whitman's life turns bad, and she
dies in a car accident as he drove her home from work. Whitman initially
tries to cover up the incident, but after seeing the wretched gore
effects his crew has come up with for "Terror Toy 2", he opens his trunk
to find his inspiration, and Gigi makes no complaints about being
featured in the picture.
After the latest test reel, his producers believe that he is finally on
to something, and if he can keep it up, Whitman will have a blank check.
If it is realistic effects that will make him the director he has
always dreamt he could be, realism is what he will provide. But with
Gigi rotting, where else can he get the viscera for the celluloid? Well,
being mocked by critics, local aspiring documentarians, and producers
who demand rewrites so that their friends' kids have roles, Able Whitman
has a wide menu of options.
My expectations were not very high for "Smash Cut". Sasha Grey was nothing but a name to put on the cover of "The Girl from the Naked Eye"
to garner interest while only one scene. Herschell Gordon Lewis did a
lot for Grindhouse cinema, but what I have seen from "Blood Feast" and
"Wizard of Gore" did not seem worthwhile. But with a disclaimer placed
at the beginning to put you in the grindhouse mood followed up by the
hilarity of the "Terror Toy" screening, you know that the director
implies that he does not want you to take the film seriously at all.
This picture is all about Lee Demarbre knowing what people want to see
from a bad horror movie. He just needs an audience to cheer on his
efforts to deliver it.
I think most fans of no-budget cinema enjoy just witnessing the effort
the directors and actors take to tell a story that, financially, they
have no business in telling. As long as you can at least laugh at the
shortcomings, the director has succeeded in his goal. "Smash Cut" takes
the experiences of being a filmmaker in this genre too personally at
times, but until the film got to the point where a conclusion was
required, the dialogue and shortcuts are amusing enough to keep the
viewer involved.
The actors do not take themselves too seriously and most seem to have
fun playing a long with the ridiculous story. If Sasha Grey would have
gone out and hammed it up, the ensemble would have been stronger, but it
was early in traditional acting career, so showing restraint may have
been the better career move. Her reading from "Hamlet" was solid and her
screams were on point when it came to dealing with the gore effects.
As for the gore, aside from decay effects, it is the best no budget can
offer. They work out great after the low bar they demonstrate at the
beginning of the film. The best element is that the director shows no
respect to the impact they should have on us. Since "Friday the 13th"
was all about shock and showing that it could be done instead of should
it be done, Demarbre has topped himself effects wise when compared to
his classic "Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter" from eight years prior.
Unfortunately, Ian Driscoll may have regressed over that time as a
screenwriter. When telling a story about the film industry, you do not
have to keep driving the point home that the audience should be siding
with the mentally unstable artist's message. If we enjoy that kind of
plot, you do not need to remind us why we are here. Whitman is no Jesus,
so he needs stronger supporting characters to help him out, and they
are almost nonexistent.
I came to a point where I wondered why Demarbre was not at the level of
the Soska Sisters. "Dead Hooker in a Trunk" lacked a budget, but the
characters were strong enough that the minimal gore in comparison was
almost unnecessary. It gave you multiple perspective into how crazy the
journey was that you forgot that the film had no budget. Demarbre and
Driscoll give you fun flicks, but they are not going to make you forget
that they pride themselves on missing elements.
"Smash Cut" is an amusing B-movie that takes pride in being a no budget
affair. The conclusion is very clunky and it can take itself too
seriously, but it lets the audience know that anyone can make a fun
movie as long as you have a fun story. For someone who wants to start in
film with little resources, I definitely appreciated this film, and
with that approach, any smart film goer should too.
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