Harry here.... these guys... well, what they did speaks volumes... read...
DAY 1: AN OPEN CAN OF FUDGE aka KISS MY DORSAL, VOORHEES
Ahoy there, squirties. 'Tis I, the world traveling and amazingly crusty seaman, Quint, here to share a geek adventure that myself and everybody's favorite chainsmokin' and Dr. Pepper swillin' Indie Indie columnist, Massawyrm, have recently completed. I'll be your tour guide through Day 1 and Massa will be popping up a bit more through Day 2 and will all but take over as your tour through the final days of the great geek adventure.
Let's get down to business, shall we? A short while ago, Massa and myself were notified that those cool cats who put out the Boogeymen DVD wanted to bring us out to LA to attend the junket and the release party when the time came. The time came and they stayed true to their word. A week or so ago they flew us out to LA.
The only thing of note before our arrival in the City of Angels was the fact that the security people at the Austin airport thought Massawyrm was a terrorist of some sort. They did a bit of pat down, scanned every inch of his body, then studied his well used sandles for a few minutes. A Jesus look-alike doesn't stand a chance anymore. They also took him into a private room. I heard a bit of screaming (not sure if it was Massa or the security guards), but when Massa limped out a few minutes later he just had a smile on his face. He still hasn't told me what went on in that dark little room.
At any rate, we were picked up at LAX and taken to our hotel, the Mondrian in West Hollywood. Now, I brought this hotel up to Moriarty shortly before our departure and he was taken aback. "They're putting you up at the Mondrian? Hoity-Toity!" I honestly didn't give a shit where they put us. I just needed a bed and a shower. It was nice to think we were going to play with the rich folk for a weekend, but there was no way we could have prepared ourselves for what we found.
Hoity-Toity is a pretty damn accurate description of The Mondrian. Everything was white or pastel. All the bellhops, doormen... everybody... were pretty boys, WB cast looking people. The elevators had picture frames that surrounded a small video screen showing either tall, green grass blowing gently, waves rolling lazily or, and this one was kinda freaky, a pair of eyes changing expression from happy eyes to sad eyes to angry eyes, etc, depending on which of the three elevators you took.
Going to the room, we found the hallways incredibly dark, "lit like a David Lynch film," our bellhop said. Opening the door into our room was almost blinding coming out of that dark hallway as it was almost bleach white. Massa started referring to our room as Dave Bowmen's room from 2001 and that was fairly apt.
We had all but settled in when it came time to go downstairs and meet up with Peter "If you call me Ralphie I'll shove a Red Ryder BB gun up your ass and pull the fucking trigger until it goes click" Billingsley. You fine folks may remember I interviewed Pete a while back (read it here http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=9456
He pulled up on a dirtbike, checked it with the valet, and started toward us. We said our greetings, I introduced him to Massa, and we headed off in search of a deli or coffee joint. Of course we stumbled upon a Starbucks, being that we walked more than a block in Hollywood, so that's where we went. We sat down and just shot the shit. He told us Made did better than they had hoped at the Box Office, making more than Swingers, and that he and Jon were currently working on a show called Dinner For Five on IFC and that it was all working out great.
During the conversation, it came up that we were going to visit the set of Roger Avary's new flick, The Rules Of Attraction. We started talking about movie sets and then he asked us if either of us had ever been on a porn set. He told us that while working as a producer for the X Show, he visited one and it was one of the most revolting experiences of his life. He went into great detail, but the one thing he said that stuck with me was that it "smelled like an open can of fudge," but he didn't say fudge. He said the granddaddy of them all. The F, dash, dash, dash word.
So, after a bit of shop (and porno) talk with Peter, he had to split and get back to work. He motored off as Massa and myself reentered our hotel room. We were meeting up with my good buddy, Don Coscarelli, but that wasn't for a couple of hours. We had some time to examine the room. Good God, man. No paintings of any sort on the stark, white walls, but instead there were these huge pale peach rectangles that broke up the monotony. That wasn't the kicker, though. Each of these rectangles had a different word in small white print at the very bottom edge. The biggest rectangle had the word "Think" printed in it.
There was a book and a magazine on the table, both covered with a spotless white cardboardy paper with different words embossed on the front. The book was a Chandler novel and had the word "Mystery" embossed on the cover, the magazine's cover read "Remember" and it was a Life Magazine from 1968. That's all weird, but the real kicker is this: on the cupboard that contained the $18 mini-bag of chips and the $20 cookies was a sticker that said "Eat." I shit you not.
So now not only were we officially in Dave Bowmen's room, but all of a sudden we existed in the They Live universe as well and we didn't even need to wear those sunglasses to see the scary messages. We turned on the tube for a while to take our mind off of the weirdness of the hotel when what do we see, but Michael Jackson's new music video with Brando, Chris Tucker and Michael Madsen. There was no escaping surrealism in that fucking hotel, I'm telling you.
Soon enough we met up with Don. He pulled up in a pink hearse. I made Massa ride in the back with the empty (or so we thought, but that's another story) coffin. We ended up going to eat at what Don said was the Oldest Restaurant in Hollywood. Over lunch, we were talking about Don's newest flick, Bubba Ho-Tep (http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=9432 and http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=9553 again, you folks might remember I was hitting you with set reports from this kick-ass flick a while back... I haven't forgotten them, don't you worry. More is to come... shortly) and he is close to his final cut.
He also mentioned that another film he directed, Beastmaster, is hitting the DVD shelves soon and filled with lots of goodies, including a very, very, very special easter egg. If all goes according to plan, squirts, we'll be getting you a sneak peek into that DVD very soon.
Now, we were all fed and in Hollywood with about 4 hours to kill before we had to be back at the hotel to join the caravan headed up to the junket. Massa had never been to LA before, so we found ourselves at the Chinese Theater, looking at all the imprints of the hands and feet of a lot of dead or really old people. As we were admiring said imprints, a guy with a handful of different colored tickets asked us if we wanted to see a taping of the Craig Kilborne show. We both said, "Hell yeah!" but found out the show didn't finish taping until about an hour after we were supposed to be back at the hotel.
He ended up calling a cohort over and they looked through what they got and came up with 3 tickets to see Politically Incorrect, with your host Bill Maher!, that finished taping a half an hour before we were due back. With that, we were off to CBS studios (I know full well that it's an ABC show, but it tapes at the CBS studios) and were whisked into the PI set.
Bill Maher looks very... gaunt... in person. He looked rather unhealthy. I figured it must have been the stress of the last couple of weeks, but when I tuned in later that night he looked the same as always. The wonders of television. Anyway, the show was pretty entertaining. It was the one with Mario Andretti and that scary senator guy who, when talking about the Middle East, said, "Kill them all and let God sort out the bodies." Yeah...
So, nothing really of note about PI. We returned to the hotel and soon met up with various DJs from around the country that were also brought out for the junket. We were all loaded into a few vans that took us deep into the Hollywood Hills to the Paramour Mansion, a beautiful and famous haunted house that you might remember from the end of Scream 3.
Apparently a director and his movie star wife lived in the mansion back in the heyday of Chaplin and Fairbanks. Legend has it that she caught him cheating on her with his gay lover and then died in a mysterious car accident soon thereafter. It's said she still haunts that house. Pretty spooky, eh? (Sorry, still got Canada in my system from my Vancouver excursion)
This place was magnificent. There was a view of LA that can only be described as absolutely breathtaking. When the sun set, it was like seeing a field of stars laid out before me. The outline of the buildings were barely distinguishable in the dark, but their shapes perfectly illustrated by the hundreds of glowing windows. It didn't look real. If I had seen this view in a film, I would have sworn up and down that it was a great matte painting.
Anyway, when we got there the party was just starting to swing. There were a couple of digital projectors playing Boogeymen on the sides of buildings, lots of tables with free food set up, a complimentary bar (I believe. Not sure as I didn't partake) and a couple of guys shrouded in dark robes with Omen dogs at their side.
We met up with the ever beautiful and oh so nice Heidi, who was one of the main people behind the whole extravaganza, and she introduced us to a bunch of cool people. Hello out there to Marc, Randy and everybody else who we met that night!
As the talk about Boogeymen and the upcoming Ultimate Fights DVD (which sounds incredible... How about this, Hong Kong fans... they got a running commentary by Tsui Hark!) went on, I noticed a familiar face in the crowd. I excused myself and headed over to noneother than Smilin' Jack Ruby himself. Apparently we were going to have a showdown, myself and Massawyrm and Smilin' Jack and the rest of the 13th Street gang, with Boogeymen trivia. You see, when we first checked out the disk (read about it here!!! http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=10020 ), Heidi made us try out the trivia game. It was 20 questions all relating to the films featured on the Boogeymen disk. We got 19 out of 20 right. We held the title for Supreme Rulers of Boogeymen trivia (although I do have to admit that we got a little help from the radiant Patch the first time out). Unfortunately, the showdown never occurred. It was still fun bullshitting with Smilin' Jack again, though.
The tour began. The mysterious cloaked figures led a group of us around the side of the building into a small statue garden filled with marble people statues. Now, I was the first person in line, following The Great Robed One, so when we rounded the corner I saw one of the statues move quickly into place. It was a lady, made-up perfectly to look like one of the statues. If I hadn't seen her move into place, I wouldn't have even thought she would move. But I did see her, so it came as no surprise to me when she did move. What came as a surprise was the statue standing right beside her moved, too.
The Great Robed One, who was leading us on this tour, was telling us the sordid history of the house, the abovementioned silent film starlet who died mysteriously after finding her husband with his gay lover. As he told the story, at key times, the statues would act... they'd reach out for each other, draw back from each other, he'd stand imposing while she cowered, etc. Great stuff.
Next up was some nonsense with a pentagram and then the séance. The séance was held in a huge dining room, around a massive table. Massa and I stood up against the wall while the 40 or so DJs joined hands around the table with two mediums as they conjured up the spirits of the house.
Now it was quite obvious that the séance was a show, some theatrics, but some of these smartass morning show guys couldn't get into the mood of what was going on and kept giggling and making jokes, totally blowing the ambiance for the rest of us. Sure enough, the mediums started freaking out, weird sounds smashed through the room, the candles on the table burst into flame, vases broke and exploding out from the middle of this table came a 6 foot by 4 foot replica of the Boogeymen DVD. It started spinning around, lit underneath by a bright white light, some fog effects were going as well... then out burst Robert Englund, Kane Hodder and Peter Atkins, the writer of Hellraisers 2-4 and Wishmaster.
The Q&A began. The standard questions were asked by the various DJs and local LA press, here are the highlights: Jason X- Definitely coming out THEATRICALLY in the Spring. Freddy Vs. Jason is still a go. It's been greenlighted longer than just about any project in the history of cinema, but was contractually obligated to begin production AFTER the release of Jason X theatrically. Englund did say that the "makers of Blade" are heading up Freddy Vs. Jason now. I believe he meant the screenwriter of Blade (David S. Goyer) was pounding out a new script, but Goyer has also directed a feature (Zigzag), so who knows to what capacity he'll be involved.
There were a few more questions asked... A couple in particular struck me as funny... Someone asked Hodder what his favorite kill as Jason was. He said it was the kill in "I think Part 6, where a girl is in a sleeping bag and I slam her into a tree a few times." One of the aforementioned smart-ass DJs then shouted out a stupid question to Kane, who you have to keep in mind is about 6 foot 5 inches of solid muscle. The question was, "Have you ever wanted to kill one of your fans?" Without a beat Kane shot back, "Not until now."
After the questions and a brief photo shoot, the horror hosts left the room and we were all ushered out. Massa said he had to go to the bathroom and that he'd "be right back." So, knowing he was dead, I went on ahead and waited in line to get some one on one time with Freddy, Jason and whomever else would speak to me. The show must go on, as it were.
They let the 15 or so press waiting to talk to the horror gods in at once. I stood in the back and watched everybody start to thin out. People were only getting a couple minutes with these guys and that made me worry a bit. If you've read any of my interviews, you know I like to have more time to explore the history of the person I'm interviewing. In the case of somebody like Robert Englund who has been in the industry for so long and done so many things, I couldn't just ask him one 2 minute question. The only thing I could have asked about, without feeling the need to get a little more in-depth, would have been Freddy Vs. Jason (you know, the real news) and he had already answered that in the big Q&A earlier.
I did, however, want to talk to him, so I went to one of the big dogs and got all the info I needed to set up a longer phone interview with Englund, so godwilling that'll happen in the next week or so and be in front of you guys soon. I also had to at least shake his hand. You see, Freddy Krueger was a prominent fixture in my childhood. I was Freddy 5 years in a row for Halloween. To this day, I still have a Freddy glove in my room.
As I waited for the line to interview Englund to thin out a bit, I noticed that Kane Hodder was sitting by himself, not talking to anyone. I'm a huge Friday the 13th whore and I especially love the character the Hodder brought to Jason, the heavily breathing creature, the hulking unstoppable monstrosity. He took Jason from being just a maniac in a hockey mask to real honest to god monster, an almost animalistic killing machine.
So, I couldn't resist going up and talking to Kane. Massa popped up, alive after all apparently, and we went over to talk to Jason. As I introduced myself, he stood up and towered over us. He was very intimidating even in person. I told him I was Quint from Ain't It Cool News and his eyebrows raised and he said, with a smile, "You guys are from Ain't It Cool News? I guess that means I have to kiss your asses, right?" We were flustered a bit, but assured him it was not necessary to kiss our asses. We talked a bit about Jason X, which he's really proud of, and then he was called away. I'll see if I can snag an interview with Kane in the next few weeks for you fine folks.
Shortly thereafter, Englund had finished his interviews and was recording an answering machine message for one of the DJs in full Freddy voice. As geeky and terrible as it would be to ask Robert Englund to record a personal answering machine message... how cool is he to do it? I mean, this man has essentially been Freddy Krueger since 1984, always called Freddy, always associated with the Nightmare films no matter what else he's done and yet he hasn't pulled a Harrison Ford and disowned the films that made him an icon for a whole generation of people. He loves that he's Freddy and was posing for pictures, assuming the posture and mannerisms to totally make someone like me geek out incredibly.
So, he finished, was led over to Massa and myself and we were all introduced. He was an extremely kind and enthusiastic guy. He always had a story to tell and he told them very well. One of the first things brought up was stupid questions during interviews, stupid interviewers and just the interviewing process in general. He told us about this one interview where he referred to the Freddy glove as the "Change Your Religion" glove and the interviewer didn't have the foggiest idea what he meant by "Change Your Religion glove." No earthly idea whatsoever. I'm sure most of you can guess what he meant by the term "Change your Religion," but this lady just couldn't understand, so he had to tell her the story behind it.
During the shooting of Wes Craven's New Nightmare (Or "Nightmare 7" as Englund called it), England had a few different "gloves." If you've seen the movie, you know that the typical Freddy glove is thrown out the window and the new design for the character has the knives coming out of his fingertips, so now it was an actual appliance to be worn, not just a glove you can slip on and off whenever you want to.
So, they're shooting a scene from the end of the movie where Freddy's in a pit-like area with a huge snake trying to get at the little boy. England is all dolled up, in complete costume and makeup, wearing the main (aka sharp) glove and he has to piss. Unfortunately to piss would require him to spend some time getting out of costume and then some time getting him back into the costume thus putting the show behind schedule. Being the professional he is, he waited it out and stayed there, needing to piss badly, until Wes got his shot. When Wes called an end to the shot, Englund raced off the set, got into the bathroom, unzipped and, completely forgetting he still had his glove on, jabbed himself right in the dick. "I got myself pretty badly," Englund said. Hence the term "Change Your Religion" Glove.
That's about all we talked with Englund about. I promise to get you guys the good stuff on V, Nightmare Cafe, Great Smokey Road Block, 976-EVIL and, of course, the whole Nightmare On Elm Street phenomenon... that is if I do get that interview.
Englund bid us a fond farewell and adieu and was ushered out. We shot the shit a bit with Peter Atkins, but soon decided it was time to try to head back as well. We'd both had a full day and were exhausted. We sat and enjoyed the abovementioned amazing view for a minute, digesting the day, letting it sink in and then headed off to say our goodnights. We got back to the hotel and headed straight for bed. We had to get our rest. The next day promised to be just as cool and crazy as this one, if not cooler and crazier. I had no idea what to expect from Roger Avary's set of The Rules of Attraction. James Van Der Beek? Was Eric Stoltz going to be there? I know this is set in the American Psycho universe, as the film centers on Sean Bateman, Patrick's little brother... I hated American Psycho. Was I going to hate this one as well? These thoughts ran through my head as I closed my eyes and let sweet nothingness wash over me.
Stay tuned, squirts. We got lots more adventures to share. Day 2: Crouching Stoltz Hidden Nolte, Coming Soon! Many thanks to Universal and BEI for the above pics. Dem's copywritten, folks. This is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
email: Shoot your seed here me mateys!!!
