Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I love the fact that there are a lot of film fans who weren’t really familiar with PJ’s work before THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and now that they’ve fallen head over heels for that particular vision, they’re going back to catch up on what he did before, and maybe they expect more of the same.
Hehehehe...
This is an open letter to Peter Jackson.
Dear Peter,
Last night I went to the Astor theatre in Melbourne, Australia to see a triple feature of Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles, and Brain Dead. You may read the individual rundowns of the reaction (both mine and the audience’s) to these films, or you may simply skip to the bottom, where you will find my contact details so we go about sending you the bill for my forthcoming medical expenses.
BAD TASTE
I found this film to be an inspiration. Like everyone else who reads this site, I’m an aspiring film maker. In Australia, there is only one sort of film maker: low budget. I’m sure you can relate – you’re only a few kilometres to our east, anyway. I was inspired that with what seemed like a really low budget (aside from the pyrotechnics and vast array of weaponry), you managed to keep an audience of several hundred in hysterics from words go.
With the exception of the teenage girls sitting behind me (who, during the closing credits, were heard to remark: ‘Okay, from now on we don’t let Katie pick the movie’), we loved it. Everyone loved it. The exploding sheep was brilliant. The makeup was brilliant. This film was a blast.
MEET THE FEEBLES
It wasn’t so much me as my friend Tristan. He was the one who turned green during this film, which surprised me given his stomach is much stronger than mine when it comes to films. Elephants copulating with chickens, porn-directing rats, drug-addicted Vietnam vet... actually, what was that creature? Most of the time I wasn’t sure if we were laughing out of humour or out of grossness. But I suppose that was the desired result.
I think it was when the walrus was getting the blow job from the cat that my thresh-hold kicked in and I became well and truly desensitised to everything. Really, everything. Nothing can affect me now. You’ve thickened my skin and made me impervious to all suffering or gross-outs.
The final act was truly inspired. I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, but it ended perfectly. It was a good thing they had a twenty-minute interval between films, because it took us about that long to recover in time for...
BRAINDEAD (Also known as DEADALIVE)
I have a challenge for all film geeks reading this: prove to me that Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson are different people. Go on, prove it. At very least, prove they weren’t separated at birth. Brain Dead is the New Zealand cousin of Evil Dead. Forget Freddy vs Jason; I want to see Lionel (Timothy Balme) and Ash (Bruce Campbell) team up to fight the undead. The world would be a better place if this happened.
But further to the Raimi/Jackson connection: both started with low-budget horror films (Evil Dead/Bad Taste), both upped the budgets and continued the grossouts (Evil Dead 2 & 3/Brain Dead), both went legit (A Simple Plan/Heavenly Creatures), and both have proved themselves to be better at blockbusters than the Hollywood stalwarts (Spider-man/Lord of the Rings). Coincidence? Probably! But it’s a cool coincidence.
You should have heard this audience. The laughter was loud and raucous, but when the pus hit the soup... that’s when the applause started. Peter, I swear to you, there was almost a standing ovation of five hundred people when the dude bursts in the door wielding the lawnmower. You truly had us at ‘hello’.
When the film came to a close, the Astor (greatest theatre in the world, you should know) had a surprise for us. They announced a ten minute interval, after which would play...
FORGOTTEN SILVER
I have been trying to see this film for ages. One of our local stations (SBS) plays it, like, every couple of months. Invariably, I find out about it the day after. Last time they played it my grandmother saw it and I had to spend an afternoon convincing her it was a mocko.
The Astor – gawd bless ’em – had secured the rights to play Silver after the three main features. It was worth the wait. But it wasn’t some cobbled-together mockumentary with a few interviews thrown in for padding. There was some serious work put into this.
I don’t want to go too much into it for those who haven’t seen it, but do whatever you can to see this film. Do whatever you can to see any of the above films. Except Feebles, if you can’t afford a psychoanalyst.
Peter, I enjoyed watching your early work, but there are images I can’t get out of my head. The naked hippo running down the corridor. The Muppet-like creature melting from taking the bad coke. The porn star cow squashing her co-star. I... it’s just... the thing is, Peter, I need to eat again at some point. I need to eat to live. And I can’t see that happening in the near future. Maybe you could use Feebles as an aid for those going on hunger strikes.
So, thank you for the films, but if you could see your way to covering my therapy bills, that’d be terrif. Ta.
Latauro
And, yes, I know this isn’t “NEWS,” necessarily, but it’s a slow Monday, and the reviews made me laugh. Cope.
"Moriarty" out.
