Dog Star Man's Film Reviews.

[Deaf_Null]

^ Indeed. Inglorious Bastards is my #1 for 2009 and I'm not such a big Tarantino fan, but damn I loved every second of it. Til Schweiger is a great actor, you should check Bang Boom Bang, it's a very nice crime/action/comedy one with Schweiger.

[Dog Star Man]

Interim(1952)

Stan Brakhage's first film Interim is, by my definition, a masterpiece. Drawing inspiration from other famous avant-garde film makers of the time, (especially the works of Maya Deren), Stan Brakhage paints a neorealist portrait of the struggles humanity faces in the modern world. Interim is about the attempts to find love in the modern world, only to realize it will crumble apart without it flourishing in its natural environment.

Before Stan Brakhages move to more extreme avant-garde, where he single handedly put a huge chasm of influence in its realm, his ealier works like Interim focus primarily on idiosyncrasies of psychological human behavior; much like that of his contemporaries. However, what makes Brakhage unique is that he develops early on the subjects that are important to him, "Life, Death, Sex, and the Search for God". While not as highly prodominant as say in his latter films. Interim lightly indicates these subjects that would become so important in his works down the road.

For anyone interested in early Brakhage, I highly recommend Interim.

My Rating:

5 Stars of 5

[jonnyhiboy!]

Originally Posted by Dog Star Man

The "Newest" Hollywood films, (which I think is what your referring to), that I've seen are Inglourious Basterds and Transformers 2. Mind you I went to go see Transformers 2 with some friends of mine, but I inevitably walked out of the film within the first 15 minutes and got my money back. As far as Inglourious Basterds is concerned, I saw the whole film and was disgusted at the very end of it. Easily one of Tarantino's worst.

I heard it was great, but was hesitant due to the whole themes and tones to the movie. War genre is not my thing at all. Overreated subgenre IMO. Only oens i've liked are Enemy At The Gates and Saving Private Ryan. And yeah, Transformers was almost to much to bear, but when it came to the sequel if i was tired that day i would have fallen asleep. Random flashy action no plot. Suits some action movies, but mostly does not.

[Dog Star Man]

The Harder They Come(1972)

As I sit here writing the review for The Harder They Come, I listen to the film's soundtrack by actor and musician Jimmy Cliff. You Can Get It If You Really Want and the self-titled The Harder They Come play in a loop, for the songs are inseparable from the film and their beat and pulse make the film come alive. Reggae was known before films release, however it really was The Harder They Come that made the genre international with its spectacular hit soundtrack, and it would set the stage for latter musicians such as Bob Marley.

The Harder They Come ran amongst the midnight movie circuit in the 1970's, and in many theaters, (such as the Elgin which was synonymous with the creation of midnight movies), the film played for several years every weekend. It helped introduce American's to Jamaican films, a foreign culture at that time, and was one of the first Jamaican films to be released in the United States.

There is something to be said about this film. Though its soundtrack was, and still is, a total knock out. The film itself, though completely legitimately Jamaican, has an American appeal. It is almost as American as apple pie, and I'm not trying to steal the flame of its rightful Jamaican heritage, but part of its appeal to the American audience is that it works within the context of "The Dream". In America we have all heard of and were raised on the stories of "The Dream", what we know of here as "The American Dream", whether it be Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Dream" for opportunity and equal rights for people of all colors, all the way down to a vision of Al Capone's "Dream" of ruthless renegade corporate ambition. "The Dream", notice I'm not saying "The American Dream", is illustrated in this film. For "The Dream" exists outside of American culture. Everyone has "The Dream", its what keeps us alive; its our hopes, our ambitions, our modus operandi; and without it we may never strive to go forward. That's where this film works. It works on what I like to call the "Universal Concept" level.

The film is about Ivanhoe "Rhyging" Martin, based on a real Jamaican outlaw and folk hero. How interesting that again we see a similar theme and a cross between cultures. The famous/infamous outlaw which is regarded as folk hero is not limited just to the American West, but this sometimes obtuse vision of "romanticized crime" is open wide to the world. Ivanhoe in real life even being refered to as "The Jamaican Dillinger", again, an American-influenced name. And still today his myth in Jamaica continues with the story of "Duppy", (a ghost or spirit), of him exists in Jamaican children's stories. To bridge a gap here, we can see these myths predominat in very own culture; American children are raised on stories of the outlaw west, and mythos such as Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox, (while nothing but a exaggerated myth), are in the same vain as "Rhyging the Duppy". To go further, Jimmy Cliff, (the actor/musician who plays him in the movie), refers to him as "Robin Hood". Again, we work here with "Universal Concepts", and that's the cinematic pulse that helps keep this film standing tall.

As I've illustrated, we've all seen this film before in America. What we refer to as "The American Dream" comes through in melody with the films opening song, You Can Get It If You Really Want:

You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
But you must try, try and try
Try and try, you'll succeed at last

Persecution you must bear
Win or lose you've got to get your share
Got your mind set on a dream
You can get it, though harder them seem now

You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
But you must try, try and try
Try and try, you'll succeed at last
I know it, listen

Rome was not built in a day
Opposition will come your way
But the hotter the battle you see
It's the sweeter the victory, now

You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
But you must try, try and try
Try and try, you'll succeed at last

You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
But you must try, try and try
Try and try, you'll succeed at last

You can get it if you really want - I know it
You can get it if you really want - though I show it
You can get it if you really want
- so don't give up now

Scarface: The Shame of a Nation and its latter remake, (which came after this film), shares the films under current of an ordinary guy with huge dreams of making it big in a world confined by rules and regulations. What he, Ivan, wants more than anything is freedom. He is a songwriter, a bird, who needs to sing and have the freedom to fly away. He doesn't fit in to the confines of church, the rules of the bible are too constricting. Therefore, the world, and even the heavens, reject him. So when his plans for commercial success of his "would-be-hit" album fail to make ends meet, he resorts to selling ganga, but he doesn't want to be a mere seller, he wants to be at the top, regardless of those who tell them to, "Ask no questions, and tell no lies". Since his methods don't suit well with his superiors, they try and bump him off, but an outlaw will never be taken down without a fight. Freedom for him is too valuable. I suppose it does say something about greed; but it is the greed for money, fame, and power that makes us more free than others. Soon after he has become a "World Infamous" outlaw his "would-be-hit" becomes "hit" with The Harder They Come:

Well they tell me of a pie up in the sky
Waiting for me when I die
But between the day you're born and when you die
They never seem to hear even your cry

So as sure as the sun will shine
I'm gonna get my share now of what's mine
And then the harder they come the harder they'll fall, one and all
Ooh the harder they come the harder they'll fall, one and all

Well the officers are trying to keep me down
Trying to drive me underground
And they think that they have got the battle won
I say forgive them Lord, they know not what they've done

So as sure as the sun will shine
I'm gonna get my share now of what's mine
And then the harder they come the harder they'll fall, one and all
Ooh the harder they come the harder they'll fall, one and all

ooh yeah oh yeah woh yeah ooooh

And I keep on fighting for the things I want
Though I know that when you're dead you can't
But I'd rather be a free man in my grave
Than living as a puppet or a slave

So as sure as the sun will shine
I'm gonna get my share now of what's mine
And then the harder they come the harder they'll fall, one and all
Ooh the harder they come the harder they'll fall, one and all

Yeah, the harder they come, the harder they'll fall one and all
What I say now, what I say now, awww
What I say now, what I say one time
The harder they come the harder they'll fall one and all
Ooh the harder they come the harder they'll fall one and all

He now becomes his own hit, he is the chart-topper. Though he foreshadows his own doom in his own song, he doesn't seem to mind. For living the rogue life of seemingly unlimited freedom is better than living without it and being truly, by his terms, dead. The film even calls out to the notion that the hero "can't die till the last reel", alluding to Django which was seen earlier in the picture. How interesting therefore that we do not see an American western, but rather a Spaghetti western. Is this film trying to beat out the concept, which I mentioned prior to this discourse, that "The Dream" is not limited to America?

It is a marvelous film regardless. Though I have not come around to it completely, (due to the fact I have not seen it as much as I'd like), which inevitably hurts his rating with me; I suspect The Harder They Come is going to be one of those movies which is much ahead of me. It will take time for me to completely be flowing on its cinematic and musical level, but once I get there, I'm sure I will have felt I've reached the promised land; The Land of Opportunity.

My Rating:

4 Stars of 5

[Dog Star Man]

Tetsuo: The Iron Man(1989)

Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a difficult film to approach because the film is impossible to comprehend in "conventional" terms. I am not about to make an "unconventional" review, but I will attempt to review its unconventional and experimental-narrative structure. Because it is avant-garde in nature, because it relies heavily on ambiguity and the speculation of the viewer; I cannot pin a film like this to the ground as say I did with Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and The Harder They Come. This however, is the films drawing point, and if you don't except that sort of thing that's okay too, but if you do, I find this film to be quite pleasurable. With a runtime of an hour and ten. The film clocks by so quickly with me that I hardly notice that I even began the film to begin with. That to me is an illustration of something within the film working. I've seen films that run ten minutes and feel like hours, and those are the worst kind; but when you get a film along the lines of say Lawrence of Arabia which runs almost four hours and it feels as if time wasn't an issue, that's when you know you've struck gold. While I wouldn't say I've "struck gold" with Tetsuo: The Iron Man, I will say it is a film which holds high value and regard to my own eyes. It is not a film for everyone, which is why I say, with much emphasis, "holds high value and regard to my own eyes".

Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a Japanese "Cyberpunk" film. In the words of David Ketterer, Cyberpunk is the focus on "High-Tech and Low-Life". We can see this premise working within the confines of films like Bladerunner. Many films, arts, and literature in the 1980's had a common themes that technology would out-influence man's own capabilities, and Tetsuo: The Iron Man works within this theme, but to its utmost extreme. Tetsuo: The Iron Man relates technology on a level of the HIV virus. Let us examine the film.

One of the first sequences of the film involves a woman and a man, (our main character), sitting in a metro terminal waiting for the next train. The woman sees a lump, a glob of technological mutation, laying on the ground. It is the virus that will open the Pandora's Box of cybernetic mutations to come. She touches it with her pen, (phallus perhaps?), and soon becomes infected. Her hand becomes more machine than flesh, and soon she chases after our main character. She is the cyber-sexual predator, and soon her "infection" will be transfered, (had it not already existed mildly), into our primary character.

Later on in the film the man and his girlfriend try to engage in sexual intercourse, but his very sexual member becomes transmutated into an object of dangerous technological influence. To be touched by this mechanical penis means infection and painful death. As the man becomes "The Iron Man" his very infector, the technological-AIDS creator, becomes imbodied in the corpse of his late girlfriend. Nothing can stop him except those who live outside the confines of technological influence, (which is also seen within the symbolis of a tramp), but in the end, nothing can stop technology. The films statement soon becomes, "Technology is the new virus, and it will be victorious".

There is a certain charm to this film which I like. Its rooted deep within the underground. It makes no attempt to become "mainstream" and that's part of its appeal to me. Its narrative, purely experimental; its techniques, simplistic in design, yet complex to the viewer. You must work for this film in order for the film to work for you. That's what really holds the film together in my eyes. That's what makes the film move so quickly along the runtime. You are an active viewer when you watch Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and if one passivly watches the film, they will not only miss its wonderful ambiguities, but they will be missing the very point of the film it self, which is to "engage" much like technology within the film itself engages its victims.

I personally love Tetsuo: The Iron Man, but I will admit, it is not for everyone. To the viewer who likes his popcorn and soda pop whilst watching his latest Hollywood fair, steer clear... but to all those who want "hardcore action", cinema-style, by all means: "Engage".

My Rating:

4 Stars of 5

[Dog Star Man]

The Times of Harvey Milk(1984)

There are few times in cinema in which I am moved to tears. As far as documentaries are concerned, they have been few and far between, but I do remember the moments when they happen. I remember the moment in Hoop Dreams where Arthur Agee is set up to have a match with his sports hero Isiah Thomas, the unscripted joy in the boys face brought tears to my eyes. I remember watching Ken Burn's The Civil War and utterly falling apart of the overwhelming horrors blacks slaves endured on a daily basis, especially realizing that many of the old slaves, who would inevitably be set "free" at the end of the bloodiest war in American history, would never truly know the precious "freedom" we take for granted today. Today I also shed a tear, once again for human liberty and human rights with The Times of Harvey Milk.

The cinematic documentary format has been for years, and still is today, a shaky format. In his book Making Documentary Films and Videos, Barry Hampe has critisized his very own format for falling into the traps of docudramas, reality television, and docuganda. I tend to agree with his criticism; real documentaries are not Schindler's List, real documentaries are not Survivor, and real documentaries, (currently popular today), are not Bowling for Columbine, or to swing the other way, Stolen Honor. Documentaries, as Hampe puts it, are "truth" or "as close to the whole truth" as one can get. Sadly, much of this notion seems to be lost in a sea of corporate ambitions to use "documentaries" as a way to appeal to a denominator of people not interested in "the truth"; or it is lost the sea of todays highly polarized politics, without care of giving all the facts.

However, I was pleasantly surprised with The Times of Harvey Milk. Here I came into it expecting a "docuganda" film on the politics of the man himself, instead, the impression that was ingrained on me in the end was a cry out for basic human rights. I never once felt coerced into believing a "political ideology", which this film could have easily become, but rather a statement that we should love all our brothers and sisters regardless of race, sexual orientation, or, and especially or, creed.

Harvey Milk was a gay democrat, yet he managed to bring people together and pushed this nation a little further into the notion that equal rights should be just that, equal. That's what the films ultimate statement is on. I don't even think the film is completely, (though it is), a statement on just "gay rights". It is a statement on equality, and that's what makes this film so lasting and true. The minute they showed all the people marching along the San Francisco streets at night to honor the deaths of Milk and Moscone, I couldn't help but cry. It just showed that out of complete chaos and disorder, human decency could still exist. Though the aftermath of the killings was completely unfair, the documentary shows that even in death the spirit and influence of Harvey Milk continues to live on. Even though Dan White got away with murder, Milk still won in the end.

For anyone who is interested in documentaries, I highly recommend The Times of Harvey Milk.

My Rating:

4 Stars of 5

[Dog Star Man]

Glen or Glenda(1953)

A Z-movie picture with a pulse, Glen or Glenda is a hysterically bad movie by infamous director Edward D. Wood Jr. Like many Wood films to come, Glen or Glenda tries to send a message out to 1950's society, but the attempts ultimately backlash due to the directors complete ineptitude. That backlash, however, is the film's charm. Outside of Plan 9 from Outer Space, (which I personally regard as a cinematic masterpiece and it will always hold a secure spot in my top 100 films list), Glen or Glenda is perhaps my second favorite in Ed Wood's schlock fair. From beginning to end it provides bust-your-gut-laughing entertainment.

Tim Burton once said something along the lines that, "What took one person a sentence to illustrate, it took Ed Wood at least five." In a way you could sort of feel bad for the man behind the camera, I imagine Ed Wood wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but that to me is really part of the films draw. He's the cinematic spokes person for the lower common denominator, and I think movies need more of that actually. Sure we can laugh at the results when humor comes unexpectedly. But I recall a certain Hollywood producer who would, regardless of how terrible the film may be, always give a standing ovation to movies because he understood quite well the efforts that went into making them. Granted there are films people aren't going to like, (and I have plenty that I don't enjoy), but I will still have a underlying respect for the project no matter how flawed.

Glen or Glenda is extremely repetitious. In all honestly, a more capable director could have cut this 70 minute film down to about 5 minutes; but then again we wouldn't get the charms of memorable quotes like, "The roads carrying cars, carrying people, carrying out their daily lives," it is easy to figure that if Wood is this repetitious in his very own dialogue the essential screenplay itself would illustrate the same. Wood's point in the film is to make a statement in 50's society that his lifestyle of transvestism should be accepted. So for a good hour he reiterates this point, over and over again. You may say this might get dull after awhile, and for all purposes it really should; but the thing that keeps this film afloat is all its non-sequiturs. Stock footage, Bela Lugosi as "Puppet Master", surrealist dreamscapes, bizarre sexual acts, and staged/filmed footage by Wood himself. This movie is almost a Citizen Kane of terrible results, not ideas.

As with my review of Tetsuo: The Iron Man, I will say Glen or Glenda is not for everyone. The reason I mention this is that some may have a bias that films should act and behave certain ways. I, however, don't share this viewpoint and when it comes to the issue, you could say I am very liberal-minded. Maybe its a fault of mine, but I don't treat it as such. Surprisingly I do have films I really don't like, an example would be The Great Outdoors which to me follows such a "scriptwriting 101" format of comedy that its not funny but dreadfully fomulaic. When I feel something is made for corporatism, (which may be the reason I don't particularly care for contemporary cinema so much), I tune out. That's where I can respect something like Glen or Glenda, its a personal film, no matter how laughably-flawed.

My Rating:

4 Stars of 5

[Dog Star Man]

Dog Star Man(1962-1964)

So here it is, a long awaited review of my namesake, Dog Star Man. This is the film, more than any other film, which liberated my existence as film maker and film artist. The man behind this masterpiece of composition, Stan Brakhage. Oddly enough, this isn't my favorite work of his. I suppose my favorite work would have to be his latter, Black Ice, but something about Dog Star Man has jarred me from all my preconceptions of what "film" is. Its a film for film makers, and looking at it through any other lens would be rather preposterous.

Stan Brakhage had his roots in Maya Deren in the beginning of his cinematic career. Brakhage and many avant-garde artists of the time copied Deren and her poetic dreamlike productions, but come 1962 when Dog Star Man is created, something happens, something even as I write this I cannot explain. Dog Star Man takes the cinematic medium and propels it into a realm that has nothing to do with cinema at all. I don't consider Dog Star Man a film, frankly, I am at a loss of words to illustrate exactly with it truly is. It is art; its medium is celluloid; but somehow it transcends the very medium which it is printed on. Dog Star Man doesn't exist in the known dimensions of cinema, therefore, it is something almost completely incapable of being fully understood. Anyone can view the "film", but it exists in the realms of the mystics, transcending all logical practice in favor of something intangible.

This is a personal review for me, so instead of utilizing the "you" I will substitute with the "I".

As I watched Dog Star Man I not only saw the beginnings of the universe, but its inevitable death as well. The exploration of the concepts that were so important to Stan Brakhage, "Birth, sex, death, and the search for God," come forth not in single file, but rather all at once. It was difficult for me to grasp this concept at first, the very notion that the artist could beat out infinite concepts at once seemed impossible, but I stood boldly corrected. I soon felt I was in the presence of a divine magician, neither white nor dark, but someone who's very nature was neutral; both achromatic and shadeless. I was witnessing the beauty of birth, and the horror of death. I was witnessing something that had no definition except that of "God". It was a spiritual experience for me. Something unlike I have ever encountered before or since. It was visual Zen:

The bamboo-shadows move over the stone steps as if to sweep them,
but no dust is stirred;
The moon is reflected deep in the pool,
but the water shows no trace of penetration.

It is said that once you experience a "Zen" moment, things become clearer, and that certainly became the case after I viewed all of Dog Star Man in its five parts; from Prelude to Part IV. Soon, I became liberated from the tangible world of cinema. I soon realized that there was a God, that the heavens existed, and one didn't have to experience death to find it. I realized that kind celestial beauty was all around me, and at any moment I could meditate and find it. Dog Star Man, therefore, became the film that pushed me ever closer into Eastern concepts of religion and spirituality, a belief that I could truly find and be with that kind of omnipotant beauty and place of powerful calm anytime I wished to be. The fear of death has left me.

The films impact on me wasn't just in its spirituality, but it was also in its aesthetics and practice. Everything about that film that was so mystical and foreign became a fascination to me. I loved the techniques utilized within the film of intercutting, superimpostions, zooms, hand painted celluloid strips, time exposures, etc. Everything I witnessed seemed limitless in creation. However, the thing that has influenced me the most within the film itself, as a film maker, is the very fact that Stan Brakhage had virtually nothing to create this film. He created a masterpiece, and I say that without any restraint, of extremely powerful spiritual, personal, and visually radiant work all by himself. This was one man's vision. In Dog Star Man, Stan Brakhage didn't have lighting equipment, (he used all natural lighting); a crew, (he was alone in the mountains with only his family); a high-end camera, (shooting on 16mm); or sound equipment, (he felt it would subtract the viewer away from its visual magnificence). Stan Brakhage illustrated to me, more than any other film maker, that you don't need these things to make your work, all it takes is the individual, the vision, with the determination to do it. Since my initial viewing of Dog Star Man, in this regard, I have tried to emulate him as much as possible. I've gone out many days and nights filming and experimenting with my own camera. I am therefore free from the confines of narrative structure. The need for crew, equipment outside of camera, high-end cameras, sound, etc. I don't give it the time of day anymore. I just do.

This is why Dog Star Man has become the most important film to me in my individual experience. I don't expect anyone to share this experience, but this is the experience that I have that must be told. If you read this review and become interested, all the better, by all means, view the film for yourself and come to your own conclusions. Its a film which expands my vision and propels me to create and live.

My Rating:

5 Stars of 5

[Dog Star Man]

Ed Wood(1994)

Ed Wood has become a personal comedy to me. There are probably other comedies I find more enjoyable, but this is the one that really sticks with me.

I have been a fan of 1950's and 1960's B and Z movies since I was a kid. The whole retro space-age stuff really clicks with me; down to diners made in the shape of foods, "atomic cars", and bowling shirts. It was a time of camp, and the B and Z movies of the era reflected this better than any other films I thought. Sure, Alfred Hitchcock was in his "Golden Age" in the 1950's, and I watched his films with much admiration, but they were timeless classics. His films, and many of the great films existing within that epoch, transcended the times all together and left them behind. This isn't a bad thing, in fact its a very good thing, but to truly capture the times of that era, I felt I had to go deeper into the recessions of B and Z cinema. As a kid, I had seen movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space, knowing it was considered one of the worst films ever made by the world's worst director. But I was so enamored with its humor and camp value that I didn't consider it a movie as terrible as people made it out to be. I hadn't seen any other Ed Wood picture until years later when they finally released a box set, (which I own), that included a majority of his films. By that time I had seen Tim Burton's Ed Wood and had grown an even further appreciation for the man who created films which I adored as a kid. The film soon shared a view which I shared as a kid, there needed to be a righteous ode to these classics that were severely overlooked as celluloid trash. Even though these films didn't share the polish of a Hitchcock or Kazan picture, they were still just as important as the major productions.

Ed Wood is also about one man's "Persistence of Vision" in quite literal terms. His films are terrible, but he has a vision he is unwilling to compromise. Ed Wood desires nothing more than to make a picture, and he will go to any length to get his movies made. He doesn't exploit others to get the picture made, (though Bela Lugosi's own son thinks differently), rather he just doesn't give up, he sees things though to the very end even in the roughest times. When financing is all washed up, he tries finding another backer, again and again. I honestly think that story should be told to any film maker trying to produce a movie. Ed Wood is perhaps the most honest about producing and its troubles in all its regards.

The movie is also a portrait of two artists; Ed Wood, and just as important, Bela Lugosi. The two become inseparable in this film. They are tied together as one. The film could have taken the route of painter, (Wood), and painter alone, by going into the director's other films like Jail Bait and Night of the Ghouls; but for this movie, the painter (Wood), is nothing without his paints (Lugosi), and vise versa. The two soon become a director/actor duo that is seen time and time again throughout cinema history. The films may not be as applauded as say Kurosawa/Mifune, Hitchcock/Stewart, or Scorsese/De Niro, and in this case, Burton/Depp; but something should be said about relationships like these, a there is a true friendship, a bond, which the film poignantly illustrates. Though Lugosi's son thinks Wood exploited his father, he never once asked Lugosi, (going through financial trouble himself), to sport the money for his films. Ed Wood was rather an admirer of the man and his work, and Lugosi could have died without making Ed Wood's films, but then he would have died without doing what he loved to do. An actor needs to act; just as much as a bird needs to fly. Its not the sky in which the bird flies, or the stage in which the actor acts, it is the very nature of doing what you were put on Earth to do which is important. That's all that truly matters, and that to me is what this film illustrates. It is not the ends, rather the means of artistic vision.

My Rating:

5 Stars of 5

[Bullitt68]

I love Ed Wood, too. Johnny Depp's performance was great, Martin Landau was hysterical, and Tim Burton did a hell of a job bringing this obviously personal film to the screen.

It doesn't have the same kind of personal resonance for me since I'm not the biggest fan of '50s and '60s shit films, but I do have a soft-spot for the so-bad-it's-good genre and making a film that's a celebration of the king of the so-bad-it's-good film is great fun