cinema 3 satu: Spirit of Ed Wood Blogathon

... and so He did. If you're an Ed Wood fan the above photo and caption not only make sense to you but you probably used that whiny female voice from the movie when you read it in your head. And of course, I don't have to tell you which movie. If you're not an Ed Wood fan, well, I hope after this blogathon you've been persuaded to at least give a couple of his films a look.

I've been blogging for a while and never held a blogathon until now for a couple of reasons. One, I could never think of a topic, and two, I feared no one would show up. The 50th anniversary of the release of Plan 9 from Outer Space (released in July of 1959) gave me the topic that had so long eluded me and my friends and fellow bloggers proved to me I had nothing to fear. With over 50 submissions (fitting given the anniversary) I think I can declare this blogathon a screaming success and I owe it all to Ed Wood. He's the one that actually brought everyone together and did so for a reason that makes me proud. I've heard time and again how we bloggers employ scorched Earth policies on a regular basis and don't enjoy writing about film so much as tearing it down. Of course, I know and you know and any sensible person knows that's not the case. Just look at the outpouring of love whenever a member of the film community falls ill or passes away. And 99 percent of blog content is about movies the blogger loves, not hates. And so it is with Wood.

Ed Wood has been called the worst director of all time but you wouldn't know it from this blogathon. I don't think one of the 50 plus submissions bought into that notion. Most of us are in agreement that Ed was not a very good writer and was certainly sloppy and rushed as a director but he was inspired and sincere and to a lot of people that counts for something. I know it does to me.

From the personal stories and remembrances to reviews of almost all of Wood's movies as well as movies by filmmakers other than Wood, I want to thank everyone who participated from the bottom of my heart. I have had a busy weekend and it continues with a birthday for the youngest son today and the return of the oldest daughter from work on a water filtration project in El Salvador tonight. I may not have time to read and comment on every entry today (although I will certainly try) but know that I appreciate it sincerely.

And now I'd like to take a break for a day or two, well until Tuesday morning at least, and relax. Running a blogathon was quite frankly more work than I thought it would be but I enjoyed every second of it. Monday I think I'll finally set up a Facebook account so prepare to be hit with friend requests from me (and behold my handsome visage). Until yesterday, as I told Bill in an e-mail, he and I were the only two bloggers left on Earth who weren't on Facebook, then the bastard e-mailed me that he had just joined. Son of a bitch beat me to it. Oh well, I'll see Bill and all of you there on Monday.

In the meantime, please - PLEASE - read each and every post in the blogathon if you haven't already. It's one hell of a list of entries and I plan on keeping a permanent link to it in the sidebar, as a sort of repository of all things Wood so that future generations may come here to study the legacy of Edward D Wood, Jr. and stare in gaping awe.

And once more, THANK YOU, each and every one of you who participated either with a post, a suggestion or engagement in the comment section. Thanks to all of you for making it all worthwhile. And thanks in advance to anyone posting today as well.

And now I'm off, like Eros and Tanna surfing the skies in a blazing saucer headed into the unknown of the future, where each of us will spend the rest of our lives. Thanks again everyone!

Friday, July 10, 2009

Ed Wood's Town (L.A. in the Fifties - A Pictorial Tour)

Hollywood Boulevard, 1953. Do you know what's playing at the theatre?

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Groundbreaking for the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel, 1953. Along with some questionable construction workers are Jack Carson, Connie Towers and Byron Palmer.

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The famous Capitol Records building, 1959.

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To the left is Grauman's Chinese Theater, in 1954. Sadly, Ed never had a premiere here.

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Hollywood and Vine, complete with little girl staring at the camera, 1953.

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Hollywood Savings and Loan. Maybe Ed had a bank account here. Maybe not.

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Hollywood Boulevard gets a million dollar facelift in 1956. Attending the ribbon cutting ceremonies are Peggy Castle, Chill Wills, Lori Nelson and a couple of red-tapers on the city's dole.

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The West Hollywood Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. Maybe Ed did research here. Maybe not.

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Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetary, 1956, final resting place of the stars. And no, Bela isn't here, he's here. Criswell is here and Ed is nowhere. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.

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Hollywood Freeway. Maybe Ed drove it to work. Maybe not.

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Finally, the photo I had to end with. It's an auto parade in 1958 and the lead car in this photo has been made to appear to be wearing, that's right, an Angora sweater. Now that's a car Ed would've loved.

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Please click on all the photos to enlarge.

*****

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Domo Arigato Mr. Dennis-O

If there is any consensus to this blogathon thus far, from reading all the posts submitted, it is that Ed Wood was not the worst director of all time. No one who made films as entertaining and quickly paced could be completely awful. His films are filled with errors, mistakes and accidents. But the movies themselves are simply low-budget sci-fi/horror no better or worse than most else offered up in the fifties. The main thing is that Ed didn't do retakes to correct errors. If someone walked into a wall or the shadow of the microphone was seen or someone clearly forgot their line, Ed didn't reshoot it. This resulted in the effect that his movies are like watching feature length blooper reels. And that makes them very entertaining. So the consensus seems to be that the spirit of Ed Wood is one where the artist is sincerely making the effort to construct a worthwhile piece of entertainment but because of a lack of self-awareness to his own shortcomings the finished piece is entertaining but for all the wrong reasons.

If we trace the spirit of Ed Wood to other mediums where will it lead us? Who is the Ed Wood of other artistic expressions? Weepingsam at The Listening Ear has nominated Dr. John Button in the literature department. I would like to nominate Dennis DeYoung in the music department. Dennis DeYoung for the uninitiated is the founder and former lead songwriter singer/keyboardist for the rock group Styx.

In the seventies I had a fondness for the brazenly bombastic pyrotechnics of Styx. This was a band that knew not the meaning of subtlety. A refrain did not exist that could not be screeched. Witness their first hit, penned by DeYoung of course, Lady. It starts with a lone piano, some soft fanning on the drums, a line or two on a quiet guitar, all perfectly suitable to a ballad of love. And then comes the refrain - LaaaaaaaadEEEEE!!!! Let the screeching begin! It never mattered where a song started, by the time it got to the refrain caterwauling was the order of the day. Babe, The Best of Times, Come Sail Away, Show Me the Way, Don't Let it End - They all start out quiet and finish up shrill. The Rock and Roll Record Guide, a compilation of reviews from rock critics that has seen four editions since the late seventies, once famously said of Styx, referring to DeYoung's songwriting and Tommy Shaw's falsetto singing, that they could take any song, any melody, and "render it virtually unlistenable."

But none of this would put DeYoung on top as the Ed Wood of Rock with so many other contenders out there. No, no. It takes something really special to do that and I think we all know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Mr. Roboto.

Mr. Roboto is a song on the Styx album Kilroy was Here in which DeYoung envisioned a rock opera where the future sees a police state of moralists who have outlawed rock and roll. One rocker, Kilroy, disguises himself as a robot and brings rock and roll back. Uh huh. So, this idea seemed perfectly reasonable to Dennis and not cheesy at all. And then Dennis wrote a song specifically about Kilroy's plot and Mr. Roboto was born.

Now if you have ever had the pleasure of watching VH1's Behind the Music episode on Styx you will immediately recognize from their interviews that co-leader Tommy Shaw and guitarist James "JY" Young were as confused by this concept as anyone. Tommy and JY immediately smelled the overpowering scent of Limburger but could not convince Dennis otherwise. At a benefit concert in Texas featuring hard rock bands Dennis decided to have Styx perform Mr. Roboto complete with the five minute dramatic stage reading that he had written for he and Tommy to perform. Tommy and JY pleaded with him. "Just let us play Renegade and be done with it." Dennis wouldn't budge. They did the piece, were roundly booed and the seeds of dissent that would eventually lead to Tommy and JY kicking Dennis out of the group he had founded were planted.

And Dennis never saw it coming. He was too damn sincere. And likable in his sincerity. I like Dennis DeYoung and I'm not afraid to say it. In fact, if there is anyone in that VH1 special you come away with sympathy for it's him. Sincerity is quickly becoming a lost art form and Dennis DeYoung is one of the last folks in rock to possess it.

Watch that VH1 show if you have the time. DeYoung is Ed Wood through and through. And that's why his songs will always have entertainment value because he wasn't going for camp with Babe or Mr. Roboto. He was going for gold and even if he didn't achieve it he didn't know he didn't achieve it. And that's got Wood written all over it. All Hail Dennis DeYoung! May the Spirit of Ed Wood live in him forever.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Talk Amongst Yourselves...

...as Ed Wood, Tor and crew talk things over on the set of Night of the Ghouls (aka Revenge of the Dead), 1959. I have to take care of a few things this morning and won't be able to update with my own post or read the great posts of others until around 12 noon. See you then.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

By Any Meager Means Necessary

It may seem obvious but often needs restating anyway: More money doesn't make a movie better. Often times the best movies of the year are those with the lowest budgets. Of course, by Hollywood standards that still means in the millions and these days budgets are out of control. And before anyone starts playing the familiar tune of "but that's because of inflation. Movies have always cost a lot" let me provide some important details. Movies do cost a lot but if you download an inflation index calculator from the Department of the Treasury, as I did a few years ago and have bored people with it ever since, you will quickly discover that budgets in Hollywood have grown far out of whack with inflation.

Here's how the calculator works: Put in a salary of $15K in 1970, about what my Dad was making then, and it translates to $52K today. That's about right for where he was professionally at the time for the same job today. So it works with that example. Almost anything you want to try works (car prices, food costs, etc.) Plug in the numbers for a specific date in the past and they come back roughly comparable to what you would expect today.

Except movie budgets.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise - They have skyrocketed beyond all reason. Let's look at a few examples by going to IMDB where one can get estimated budgets (EB) for movies. For instance, Citizen Kane has an EB of 686,033. What does that come to in 2009 dollars? A little over six million. Nowhere near the average 35 million a lower budget(!) drama runs today. What about the bigger movies, the epics? Well, according to the "making-of "documentary on the special edition DVD of Bridge on the River Kwai, that movie cost a fortune to make. A fortune! So it's a good guideline for how much the big budget stuff went for. It's EB is 3 million in 1957. That comes to 15.8 million in 2009. That's how much Slumdog Millionaire cost to make and it's considered one of the lowest budget sleeper hits in years.

What about that 35 million dollar price tag for the average drama today? Well, let's use Star Wars - 13 million in 1977. Again, watching the documentary on any one of the Special Edition DVDs will alert you to the fact that the studio was ready to shut the production down due to time and cost overruns until they saw a rough cut and dollar signs began flashing in their eyes. What's that massive 13 million dollar budget that had the studio in an uproar come to today? 36 million. Three years later for The Empire Strikes Back Lucas was given unlimited budget to do the sequel - 18 million in 1980. Today that's 45 million. And we still haven't even reached the budget of Changeling released last year with Angelina Jolie and directed by Clint Eastwood, a period drama done for 55 million.

So what happened?

Somewhere in the late eighties Hollywood decided to start paying actors and directors tens of millions of dollars per film. Folks old enough to remember will recall the shock when it was revealed that Jim Carrey or Arnold Schwartznegger were going to be getting 20 million for their next movie. Previously stars had made a fraction of that per film. Killer agents had come in and changed the financial schemes. Also, like a hospital charging 8 dollars for each aspirin knowing that insurance will pay for it, the technicians in Hollywood and rental companies and cities themselves starting charging enormous amounts of money for their services knowing Hollywood, now in the throes of blockbuster bonanzas and massive star egos, would pay it. In the early to mid nineties budgets spiked, costing upwards of five times the amount of a comparable movie made just five years before, and they haven't looked back.

If we go back to Changeling we find that Jolie and Eastwood comprise almost forty million dollars of the 55 million dollar budget. The movie made 98 million worldwide. The profit would have nearly doubled if Jolie and Eastwood hadn't toppled the budget with their salaries but that's neither here nor there. The main point is that movies remain the same. There are great ones, good ones, mediocre ones and awful ones no matter what the cost. So why go crazy spending so much on them when you can get the same results for so much less?

Ed Wood of course didn't spend much but surprisingly, spent more, much more than some of the low-budget wonders we know today. Plan 9 from Outer Space had an EB of $60,000. That comes to $296,930 in today's dollars or roughly, 300,000. Once on the other hand cost $150,000 in 2007 which translates back to $33,000 in 1959. So Once, a movie praised and awarded the world over, was made for about half of what Plan 9 cost. Primer was also praised though received no Oscar noms or awards like Once. It was made for a mere $7,000 or about $1,500 in 1959 dollars.

Ed Wood would have been shocked by the budgets of today's Hollywood, a business that has figured out a way to make computer imagery, something that literally doesn't exist in the real world like an animation cel or a model, cost a fortune. Yes, CGI promised to provide movies with extraordinary special effects at a fraction of the costs since there would be no more stunts, miniatures or time consuming animation and yet Hollywood figured out a way to make it cost more. Ed would have been horrified.

So in these days of penny-pinching and thrifting and desperately trying to save every nickel for that next rainy day I salute those filmmakers currently working, or having done so in the past, on the Ed Wood model of low budget moviemaking. To John Carney, Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Shane Carruth, Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez, Robert Townsend, Sam Raimi, Robert Rodriguez, George Romero, Herk Harvey, Marc Price and everyone else who's ever made a movie on financial fumes, thank you. Thank you for proving it can be done for less than the annual national budget of a small country. The range in quality isn't that much different than the range in quality for the bigger budget stuff but it pays off in hope at a much higher return because it gives hope to aspiring filmmakers, like me, that one day, maybe, we can do it too. Thanks Ed.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

In Defense of Ed Wood

I feel it necessary to kick off this blogathon, this Spirit of Ed Wood Blogathon, by first and foremost defending the man whose name it bears. Not only have I seen several Ed Wood films, and recently watched some of them again, but I have come to the conclusion that to call Ed Wood the worst director of all time is not only wrong but confused as well. Watching Ed Wood's films closely in the last two weeks I have noticed the obvious, that they're not very good, and noticed this has little to do with his direction and almost everything to do with his writing. Ed Wood the director could have used a little more patience for re-shoots, a little more money and a much, much better feel for coaching actors, especially given that he worked with some truly horrible actors, but as a technician he kept the action going and wasn't awful with his choices of camera setups and movements. So why the reputation? It's all in the writing.

Edward D. Wood, Jr quite simply had no ear whatsoever for how people spoke or sounded. In fact, had Wood written the previous sentence he would have written "for how humans spoke" because he did strange things like substitute the word "human" when a person would say a line that screamed for the word "person" or "man" as in this line from Glen or Glenda:

"Doctor, I'm hoping to learn something from you, and with that knowledge maybe save some human from the fate which I have just witnessed a few days ago."

He's referring to a suicide of a transvestite. He doesn't say "save some other person" or "save another man from the fate..." No, he says "human." Nothing grammatically wrong with that of course, it's just awkward. And it turns out, that's a good way to describe Wood's dialogue most of the time: Awkward. It's as if Wood wants to sound studied, formal but that formality sounds stilted, wrong. Also, he really likes the word "human." Later lines in Glen or Glenda include, "All those cars. All going someplace. All carrying humans..." and "Modern man is a hard-working human..."

As for examples of Wood dialogue gone bad there are so many it's almost pointless to quote them here. Look up any Wood movie on IMDB, click on "Memorable Quotes" and enjoy the show. It's the best part of any Wood movie listing on IMDB, the quotes page. That's because that's where Wood's infamy comes from, his barely written word. His direction was no great shakes, but it was his writing, his god-awful painfully awkward dialogue that did him in. Nothing can redeem the dialogue of Edward D Wood Jr. Had someone else written his films they still would have been fairly low-brow, low-budget films I suspect but they wouldn't be infamous.

As for his magnum opus, Plan 9 from Outer Space, it contains enough downright wretched special effects that most people think that's the secret to its badness but again it's the dialogue. The poorly made flying saucers are hilarious to look at and the sadly pathetic attempts at constructing a realistic cockpit set or a flying saucer interior gives one fits of belly laughter but it's the lines - "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" - that keep humans laughing long after the movie's over. The thing is with Plan 9, like most Wood movies, it requires no clever commentary to make it entertaining.

In the nineties Mystery Science Theater 3000 was a popular show on Comedy Central in which the characters ridiculed bad movies that, without constant commentary, might be unbearable to watch. Case in point: Manos, The Hands of Fate. This is probably the most famous episode of the show and if you've ever seen Manos, The Hands of Fate you know it desperately needs commentary. It's not entertaining on its own. It's not "so bad it's good." It's bad, period. In fact, It. Is. Horrendous. It is a monumentally bad movie. It is incompetent from beginning to end. It is, finally, completely, utterly and absolutely atrocious. It truly is one of the worst, if not the worst, films ever made. Plan 9 is not.

Plan 9 is entertaining even if you're not laughing at it. For one thing Dudley Manlove, as extraterrestrial Eros, actually keeps you interested with the velvety rich intonations he gives each and every line. Gregory Walcott's stoicism as Jeff Trent is right in line with most low-budget sci-fi of the era and the recycled theme is just that, recycled. Starting with The Day the Earth Stood Still science fiction has loved to warn us humans that we're becoming too destructive for our own good. Make fun of Wood all you want but he was just using the same cliche that other directors had used and gotten praise for. Plus, his added plot point of raising the dead made it horror/sci-fi and actually moved it beyond plain old cliche but he squanders this opportunity. Instead of having the aliens raise the dead en masse, which may have really been effective, he has them raise only three, a giant man who can't walk straight, a very skinny woman and an hobbling old man. Not exactly menacing.

But that was Ed. That's how he rolled. He had ideas that others ran with while he stumbled. Ideas that beat others to the punch only to have him blow it. And no matter what the idea, the dialogue was wretched, simply wretched. But his movies weren't the worst and never will be. Neil Sarver said in the comment section here recently, concerning the claim that Wood is the worst director ever, that he was pretty sure the worst director ever, whoever that may be, made films that no one could watch. Like Manos, the Hands of Fate. You can't watch that movie on it's own without running commentary, either your own or someone elses. It's garbage. Wood's movies aren't gems but they're not worthless. They have honest entertainment value on their own. Without any snark. Given a bigger budget and a screenwriter Wood might have amounted to something more but would have most likely been forgotten. I'm glad he didn't have the bigger budget or the screenwriter because now he will be remembered always. As he should. Ed Wood: NOT the worst director of all time. And a pretty good human too.

Let the blogathon begin.

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Saturday, July 4, 2009

Watch out Eros...

...because Monday, July 6th is the big day and it's almost here. And no matter what, this blogathon, centered around the 50th anniversary of Ed Wood's masterwork Plan 9 From Outer Space but focusing on all of Wood's work as well as the work of anyone else working with low-budgets and a can-do attitude, will happen. Why?

Because of death. Because all you of Earth are idiots!

Allow me to explain.

Take a can of your gasoline. Say this can of gasoline is your blog. Now, you spread a thin line of blog posts concerning the can-do spirit of Ed Wood to a ball, representing my blog. Now, the gasoline represents the different blogs, the blog posts. Here we saturate the ball, my blog, with the gasoline, the blog posts. Then we put a flame, representing a link, to the ball, my blog. The flame, or link, will speedily travel around my blog, back along the line of blog posts to the can, or the originating blog itself, so that everyone can read it. It will explode this source and spread to every place that gasoline, our blog posts, touches. Explode the blog posts here, gentlemen, you explode the blog-a-verse.

Yes, you read that right. I hope to destroy the internet with this blog-a-thon. Oh no, wait, I mean, save the internet by preventing you from blowing it up by providing a central repository of... no wait, that's wrong too. Okay I think I have it now. If you take a can of ethanol... no, that doesn't work either. Tanna, would you take over? People probably think I'm mad.

Tanna (to the readers): "Mad? Is it mad that you destroy other bloggers to save yourselves? You have done this. Is it mad that one blog must destroy another to save themselves? You have also done this. How then is it mad that one internet must destroy another who threatens the very existence-..."

Greg: That's enough! In my land, women are for ... hmmm... better not say that next part.

So anyway, show up all week and contribute in any way you can. Remember, it's the Spirit of Ed Wood we're celebrating so it can be about any filmmaker working with meager resources and a grandiose vision. Some may be genuinely good filmmakers, some mediocre, some downright bad. It's up to you. I hope to see you here in the future because that is where all of us are going to spend the rest of our lives!

Friday, June 26, 2009

Jack and Jackie

Jack Webb and Jackie Loughery tie the knot on June 24th, 1958. Jackie is primarily known in beauty pageant circles (the kind Bill and Fox follow breathlessly) as the first Miss USA winner ever in 1952. Also, according to one of the most exemplary Wikipedia biographies I have ever read, she is also a woman. Really, treat yourself. Jack is primarily known for Dragnet of course.

In the photo above they appear to be celebrating their marriage but in reality they are celebrating Cinema Styles 300th banner, and who wouldn't? They're also celebrating Flickhead's Claude Chabrol Blogathon, the upcoming Ed Wood blogathon (no word yet on when the Ed Howard blogathon will take place) and I am assuming, the history of icing. Have a great holiday weekend everyone!*

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*For goodness sake though, eat your pudding responsibly. Also, don't forget to eat your meat. You remember what happens if you don't eat your meat, right?

Friday, May 29, 2009

"That's nothing from this world."

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Name That Actress

You wouldn't know I'm back but I am. You wouldn't know because I haven't been online more than a few minutes this morning because work came crashing down on me from all sides this morning after they cleaned up my floor, which was flooded. And work still beckons but that doesn't mean I can't put up a pic or two and fill everyone in on a couple of announcements.

One, The Spirit of Ed Wood Blogathon banners are up on the sidebar. Click on them for the full-size to download and put on your own sidebar with a link back to here. You know you want to.

Two, the first three teaser trailers for October here at Cinema Styles are completed. Others will follow. Last year I did one trailer which went up in late August. This year it will be six teasers (two in June, two in July, two in August) and a final full trailer in September. Just like Christmas, October Killfest seems to come earlier and earlier each year.

Those are the announcements, here are the pictures. Two of them. Of the same actress. At the start of her career. Arbo, who is she?

cinema 3 satu

Sunday, July 12, 2009

The Spirit of Ed Wood Blogathon

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Thank You Mr Wood