FRED Entertainment

DURHAM, N.C. – During lunch a filmmaker tells me that of all the festivals he’s attended with his movies, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is the only one he wants to attend as a spectator. He enjoys how the various screens and activities aren’t spread all over the city. There’s a relaxed atmosphere as the festival-goers aren’t hustling hard to get tickets to sold out screenings. It’s a sweet Southern festival in the middle of Tobacco Road. Even the world’s biggest superstar just hangs out with the festival goers inside of hiding behind a wall of security.

Who is the superstar? Elmo! And we have an exclusive chat with him at the end of this column.

The film selection was once more top notch. An ample number of documentaries received their world debut in Durham. There were a few films that had built a buzz at Sundance, but the four days of Full Frame cost less than one day in Park City. Plus there’s little chance of frostbite. Although this year there was a harsh weather reality during the weekend. On Saturday tornados swept through the region although they missed the area around the Carolina Theater. Inside it was just a whirlwind of screenings.

The Bengali Detective appears to be the documentary bound to become a TV series. It’s about Rajesh Ji and his friends who spend their time investigating unsolved crimes when the Kolkata, India police don’t care. That sounds normal enough. But the detectives are also Bollywood actors so they solve cases and go to auditions. It’s a real life Cop Rock. Daily Show‘s Aasif Mandvi needs to turn this into his next film.

Buck is about the real man Robert Redford played in The Horse Whisperer except it’s so much better than the fiction. Buck Brannaman allows the cameras to join him as he hosts a clinic for riders with troubled horses. We quickly learn how messed up Buck’s childhood was. He was a trick roper that went on numerous TV shows to give off that wholesome gleam. But it wasn’t so. He connects with the horses as kindred spirits. The movie has quite a few fearful moments. Ever see a horse bite a guy’s head? Buck has the ability to calm down the wildest of horses. These aren’t the cute horses in the posters around a seven year old girl’s bedroom. The film rightfully won the audience award. The real Buck is so much more compelling than Redford playing a role. Buck completely eclipses The Horse Whisperer. This film is for more than horse fanatics although it shall be the perfect Christmas gift DVD for anyone with a saddle.

A good documentary makes us remember elements of our pop culture past such as Cure for Pain: The Mark Sandman Story. When I saw this title, I pondered if Mark and his band Morphine would make a surprise appearance. I quickly remembered that Mark had died in 1999. Had it been so long? His low voice and bass driven sound made Morphine a great band for foreplay. It was pure libido. The documentary has a low-fi look since so much of his legacy was saved on VHS tape. It’s amazing how much Mark looked like Jon Stewart. The two appeared on Jon’s pre-Daily Show talkshow. Mark did a lot to make Jon Stewart appear sexy in the ’90s. Plenty of his bass peers lend their voice to the oral history including Les Claypool of Primus and Mike Watt of Minutemen, fIREHOSE and the Stooges. Watt’s the man. Mark’s short and mysterious life gets probed. A lot of it remains a mystery. He died of a heart attack at the start of a concert in the countryside outside Rome. While it sounds tragic, in the context of the film, it’s a great way to go. He wasn’t in a nasty plane crash, found with his head blown off or forced to be a celeb-burnout with a wife obsessed with Hello Kitty on VH1. He departed in a divine bliss moment.

Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel is the perfect introduction to America’s greatest filmmaker. He’s made hundreds of films over half a century. He’s still producing monster movies for SyFy channel including Dinoshark which is featured in the documentary. Many of the Oscar winning directors that graduated from Corman University contribute to the film except for Francis Ford Coppola. He was probably too buy doing the commentary track for the Jack: Director’s Cut Blu-ray. The film is far from a complete view of Corman. But his impact is so huge, it would need an 9 hour mini-series on TCM. The weird element is how they suggest Roger lost his steam in the mid-70s with the release of Jaws and Star Wars. This two films inspired dozens of similar themed low budget flicks from Corman including Dinoshark. If you’ve been eagerly grabbing Shout! Factory’s Roger Corman’s Cult Classics DVD series, this movie is required viewing. They even give us the night Corman received his Oscar honor. The biggest shock of the film comes from Jack Nicholson’s final testimony about Roger. I won’t spoil it.

Dragonslayer reflects the dangers of not turning off the autofocus on the camcorder. It can hurt an audience’s eyes. Although it is nearly impossible to hurt the star of this film. Josh “Skreech” Sandoval is a skateboarder that made a name with chaotic ways in the bowl. He had sponsors that let him live the dream life. Then he messed up and lost his sponsors. He’s a walking disaster zone who attacks an empty swimming pool without any care for consequences. His comeback starts out right when he gets a cute girlfriend, but there seems to be no big plan on how to reclaim his glory. He lives in a tent behind the house of the guy making the movie. This is a wise move to make sure he’s around for shooting times. From this poverty moment, he rides in a limo to guest on a cable sports show. It’s kinda sad when he has to settle for a strange straight job. The movie is a stunning mix of irritation editing techniques yet remains compelling to watch. This is a good warning to kids who think that being a famous skateboarder means being as rich as Tony Hawk. You can be famous and living in a tent.

Windfall turned out to be the most controversial film of the weekend. While for the past few years we’ve been inundated with the message that green energy will save the world from big oil and gas. However it turns out that wind energy has quite a few draw backs and unmentioned costs to the environment and humanity. The quaint hilly area of Meredith, New York finds itself over run by prospectors wanting to buy claims. But it’s not oil, gas or gold that flows through the dairy land. It’s the wind. Various residents find themselves signing up to allow wind turbines to be erected on their land. What’s wrong with that? Turns out that each windmill is 400 feet high with massive propellers. Just imagine finding out your neighbor wants to construct a 40 story edifice that might block the sun from your house. Expect a little tension will develop? There’s a lot of tension in Meredith as neighbors turn on each other as they fear what will become of their sleepy area when it’s covered in windmills. The movie takes us to a nearby community that went from a dozen wind turbines to nearly 200. The mountains look like they’ve been taken over by alien overlords. The noise is annoying. The propeller blades mess with the sun light coming into people’s houses. It’s not a place Al Gore would want to live. The town fights over this becoming their future. What’s creepy is how nobody from the various wind turbine concerns are willing to show up at the town meetings to calm fears. Here we were thinking they were the good guys in the world of energy, but they come off as secretive and slimy as the guys who want to frack your backyard. This is the above ground version of Gasland. Besides building the windmills, they have to string up major transmission lines to get the energy onto the national power grid. That’s even more land that has to be taken over for the green energy. It would be easy to attack Windfall as propaganda if it was made by a right wing hit squad out to puncture Al Gore’s dreams. After talking with Laura Israel over the weekend, I feel safe in knowing she’s not a tool of the right or big oil and gas. This movie ultimately reminds us that harvesting energy has a major cost. While wind power might be a solution in remote regions, it’s not that great where people live. This is not that small windmill your hippie neighbors set up next to their chicken coop. After the film I spoke with a filmmaker who made a documentary about how the coal mining industry destroys mountain tops. There are people in West Virginia that wouldn’t mind wind turbines on the peaks instead of having them blasted away. That’s a good alternative.

Square Grouper is another installment of the Florida drug lore from director Billy Corben and his Cocaine Cowboys crew. This gives us three tales of marijuana smugglers including a religious cult, small businessmen and a fishing town. Who knew the big weed smugglers out of Jamaica were a bunch of white guys who swore the only way you could pray was getting high on weed? The most shocking part of their story is discovering they bought a mansion on Miami’s Star Island for $250,000 in 1975. A cheap house there now goes for about $10 million. You better be dealing drugs to afford that mark up. The notorious Black Tuna Gang get exposed as square businessmen that came up with an efficient way to distribute weed. The final story is about the tiny town of Everglades City that lived up to its smuggling heritage. When the DEA raided the town, nearly all the male population was arrested. What sets Square Grouper apart from the Cocaine Cowboys films is the lack of bloodshed. Seems that weed really doesn’t make you nearly as violent as the white powder trade. The DVD has just been released by Magnolia so you can have to have your own film festival at home.

Interrupters explores how Chicago’s CeaseFire organization looks to defuse violence in the rougher sections of the city. Many of the members have come from troubled backgrounds and are still dealing with issues. It’s not a pack of naive suburbanites. It’s a rough view of how anger can build. Director Steve James returns to the area of Chicago from his Hoop Dreams days except this is a much harder game. There is a little lightness in the serious film including a birthday party at a roller skating rink that includes Ameena and her family. Her husband does quite a few amazing moves on wheels. After the screening, I asked him how long he’d been a skater. Turns out he didn’t hang out at the rink when he was a kid. He only took it up after hurting his back. He saw it as a good therapy to build up his torso strength. It worked.

Project Nim should forget about being nominated for a documentary Oscar. It rightfully deserves to be considered for Best Picture. It’s a Dickens epic about a chimp. A Columbia University professor wants to see if a chimp taught sign language and raised with a human family could fully communicate like a person. Thus Nim the chimp is torn away from his mother and dropped on a large family outside New York City. The family doesn’t know anything about raising an ape or sign language. Why were they chosen? Turns out the professor slept with the mother when she was his student. The vanity of the professor keeps yanking Nim around. There are dark moments for the poor chimp including him ending up in what can only be called Ape Hell. There’s a creepy scientist who comes off as Slugworth, but redeems himself in the end. Watching Nim’s plight on the big screen emotionally exhausted me. James Marsh’s Man on Wire was great, but his Nim is an emotional step above. This is a great movie. Don’t waste your money on that crappy upcoming Planet of the Apes retread with James Franco. You want to know about the consequences of man attempting to turn an Ape into an “equal,” Project Nim is what to watch. Be alerted that there are scenes of Nim smoking weed. Who wouldn’t want to get high with an ape? Just don’t bogart the joint cause he’ll still rip your arms off.

Gun Fight explores the gun issues of our day. Lately state legislatures have gone out of their way to want people carrying guns in classrooms, tanning beds and kiddie pools. Are we safer or more paranoid when strapped down with fully loaded concealed weapons? Director Barbara Kopple looks at the issue from all the various factions including a student injured at Virginia Tech that’s now a lobbyist. There are NRA members saying their peace. What’s amazing is that a decade after Bowling For Columbine Kopple isn’t rehashing Michael Moore’s movie. She’s got a bunch of new incidents with Virginia Tech taking over for the Columbine High School. The most grizzly moment is when a mother takes her son to a gun range. Seems like a sweet bonding moment. Without much explanation, the mother stands behind the kid and unloads her pistol into the back of his head. The security camera moment ends before the carnage, but it is so chilling. This is currently airing on HBO. After watching the film, I had a chance to chat with former NRA member Richard Feldman. Besides his involvement with gun ownership, he’s part of an indoor shrimp farm. Who doesn’t like shrimp besides those critically allergic to them like Maya Angelou?

The pure highlight of the festival for me was Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey. Not merely seeing the movie, but the thrill of Kevin Clash and Elmo attending the festival. It was Sesame Street rush. The film might still be under a review embargo. Would it be wrong to say that the movie reinforces my belief that the folks that work with Muppets are the coolest people on Earth? It’s not a job, but a calling like the priesthood. They understand their role in the community as educators, entertainers and spiritual healers. During the question and answer session, a woman mentions how much her teenage brother with cerebral palsy loves Elmo. Without being asked, Clash wanted to call her brother and leave him a message from Elmo. After the screening, Elmo and Clash stood in the hallway and posed for camera phone pics with everyone who politely asked. Martin Scorsese didn’t do this. Everyone seemed to just want their pic between Elmo and Clash and not get an autograph. This probably why the duo don’t suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome. I had a chance to talk to Phillip Shane and Justin Weinstein about their numerous roles in the making of Being Elmo while Elmo posed nearby.

And now we come to the highlight of my weekend: An exclusive interview with Elmo. We finally find out what Ernie and Bert do for a living. We also talk about Taxi Driver references on Sesame Street.

I deeply thank Being Elmo‘s James Miller for taking over the cinematography duties. The peculiar thought is that in a year, my daughter will hate my guts for meeting Elmo without bringing her along.

TWISTS OF FATE

Diary was a short film by photojournalist Tim Hetherington about his time between warzones and life at home. He was the co-director of last year’s Restrepo. I wanted to talk to him. I wrote a nice note to leave in his box, but he didn’t make it to the festival. He was too busy working. War calls. A few days after the festival, the shocking news came out that Hetherington was killed when Khadaffy’s forces unleashed a mortar attack at his position. What made this incident strange for me was the other photographer that died from the attack was Chris Hondros. Chris and I worked together at NC State’s Technician newspaper. I was an editor when he started his career in newsprint. What are the odds that a person I wanted to know and another I knew would meet their end in Libya’s violent revolution. People do take risks with their lives to show us what’s really happening. They didn’t hang out at the hotel’s breakfast bar between doing live remotes back to their cable news network using third hand information passed off as reporting.

GIVE MY REGARDS

Most bizarre piece of news during Full Frame was finding out that the documentary that lists me as an associate producer is being transformed into a Broadway musical. Moving Midway shall be the toast of the town. Seems a hedgefund manager craves Grey Gardens green. My role will be played in the orchestra pit. I only hope more people get injured in this production than U2’s Spider-Man: Turn Off Your Brain.

CORMAN CORNER

After seeing Corman’s World, I was overjoyed to get two double feature DVDs with his production wizardry from Shout! Factory.

Roger Corman’s Cult Classics Double Feature – The Ron Howard Action Pack gives us the two movies most responsible for Opie winning the Oscar. Eat My Dust reminded America that Ron Howard wasn’t trapped in the ’50s on Happy Days. He plays the son of a sheriff that takes a major risk to impress the hot girl from school. At the race track, he steals the stock car belonging to Dave Madden (The Partridge Family) and takes the girl for the ride of her life. It’s cross country auto mayhem. This is much more exciting than when he was driving around in American Graffiti. He also gets to team up with his brother Clint Howard for part of the ride.

Grand Theft Auto was Ron Howard’s cinematic debut as a director. He co-wrote the script with his dad Rance Howard. Because of the success of Eat My Dust and a good script, Roger Corman offered Ron the director chair. He’s the poor kid engaged to a rich girl. Her father disapproves. He wants her to marry a dopey rich guy. She swipes the old man’s Rolls Royce and tells Ron that they’re going to Las Vegas to get hitched This leads to a cross country chase when a reward is offered during Don Steele’s radio show. Ron makes one of his finest films with thrilling stunts involving a Rolls Royce going airborne.

The bonus features on this two disc set explore every aspect of these car chase films. Rance admits he wrote Grand Theft Auto for Burt Reynolds. There’s a featurette on the artist who painted the posters for New World that classed up the productions. The big thing is how Ron Howard appreciates that Corman was willing to take him seriously as a director. Odds are if it wasn’t for these two films, Ron wouldn’t have won an Oscar. He’d probably be selling reverse mortgages on TV if he hadn’t put the peddle to the metal.

Fighting Mad & Moving Violation: The Action-Packed Double Feature are two films made by Roger Corman yet distributed by Fox. He wasn’t against working with a major studio. These are two high octane films about conspiracies engineered by fat cats. Fighting Mad is Jonathan Demme’s third directorial effort with Roger Corman producing. This time he has Peter Fonda in the lead as a man pushed to edge. Fonda returns home to discover the coal company is taking over the farms so they can ravage the lands and tear down the mountains. They sell the concept that after the strip mining they’ll build a city of the future. Peter knows they’d going to dump and run. The coal company hates taking no for an answer to the point that they’ll stage lethal accidents to get land. Fonda can’t use legal means to stop his land from being taken. He breaks out his bow and arrow to bring his own form of justice to the coal company. The major excitement comes when Fonda gets chased on his motorcycle by the goons. While it seems natural for the star of Easy Rider to be on a bike, he also has a child actor sitting on his handle bars. This is a stunt that could have gone seriously wrong, but didn’t. Fonda feels like his father as a man who can’t stand injustice in his world. The audio commentary includes Demme, Corman and Fonda chatting away. Demme needs to work with Fonda again.

Moving Violation lets a drifter take the blame for the murder of a deputy. At first it seems like a cute tale of the drifter (Stephen McHattie) getting lucky with the server (The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday‘s Kay Lenz) at a fast food joint. He tempts her to go skinny dippy in the pool of a mansion. However they picked the wrong mansion. Turns out it was owned by Will Geer, the town’s Boss Hogg character. A plucky deputy wants to boost his under the table bribe from fat cat or he’ll blab. Geer has the sheriff shoot his own deputy. The only witnesses are McHattie and Lenz. Where can they go when the law wants them framed hard? They get a little help from Eddie Albert (Green Acres). Their only real salvation appears to be in fast cars and serious stunts. McHattie might be recognizable to audiences as Old Nite Owl from The Watchman or Dr. Reston from Seinfeld. His taking the role seems to be an off shoot of him just playing James Dean in a biopic. He uses those Dean charms on Lenz until the chase scenes go into overdrive. The bonus features include a commentary track with McHattie, Roger, his wife Julie and director Charles S. Durbin.

Fighting Mad and Moving Violation are a well balanced double feature about the filthy rich don’t mind getting dirty when things don’t go their way. Although they allow hired goons to finish the jobs. What’s the good of money if you can’t hire goons with it?

DVD SHELF

Melrose Place: Sixth Season, Volume 1 bids farewell to Doug Savant’s Matt. He was the gay resident in the happening apartment complex. Although sometimes it was hard to tell since the network wanted him to just be unsexual. This wasn’t Queer As Folk. He splits without saying many goodbyes since a majority of his friends had been written out of the show. Luckily Savant would say hello to America on Desperate Housewives. At this point Melrose Place seems like a game of musical chairs. Who lives where appears to be a random act of casting. Alyssa Milano is a fresh face around the pool. Lisa Rinnea still has her old lips. The big star remains Heather Locklear. She’s backstabbing anyone who isn’t about to die. One fab addition to the cast is Megan Ward’s Connie. She causes friction upon impact. She was also recently interviewed in the Party Favors for her work on Dark Skies. Not to mention that the legendary Anson Williams directs on this collection. Potsie Weber from Happy Days calls the torrid motion. The season opens with the Sydney dead from the great wedding disaster. Her husband blames others for her death. But he never fingers agents and producers. Of course the cast can now complain about the demise of Soapnet, Melrose Place fans will have to depend on their DVDs for their retro prime time soap fix. Volume 1 has the first 13 episodes. Volume 2 is slated to be released on July 19. That leaves only the final season remaining. So much tawdry action remains.

Penn & Teller Bullshit! The Complete Eighth Season appears to be the final season of the insightful Showtime series. The magicians Penn & Teller give sardonic and insightful investigation to another 10 current events and popular beliefs. Unlike your normal news magazine show, Penn & Teller figure out how to work in some topless action. They are on Showtime. The opening show is about Cheerleders. Why exactly is this school activity not considered a sport since it’s turned into outlandish gymnastics. Safety is secondary because certain uptight academics and well paid bigwigs in the cheerleading industry want your rah-rah child to risk their lives for Bring It On fame. Parents do need to question why their kids are more likely to end up on crutches as a cheerleader instead of as a player. Martial Arts are exposed as not quite a good cure for safety. Does seem you rarely hear about a robber being asskicked by a black belt. Area 51 gets a probe. Does the place really exist or is it just a good moneymaker from people that want to dress like Star Trek characters? Vaccinations pits Penn against Jenny McCarthy. I wish the show could have gone on longer, but after 89 episodes, what topics would they have touched? Do have to thank the show for letting me know about tasty monkfish as a good faux lobster.

The Unknown War – World War II and the Epic Battles of the Russian Front gives the view from the Western front. In the wake of the epic The World At War, the folks at the USSR wanted to tell more of their story from when they battled Hitler and the Nazis. They went into their vast film archive to give even more Burt Lancaster and Rod McKuen joined forced with Soviet historians to create a 20 part series that first tried to air in 1978. The show didn’t go over too well in America thanks to it being aired at the height of the Cold War when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. It also didn’t help that numerous historians pointed out how facts were white washed. Luckily on this DVD set features Willard Sunderland mentioning key omissions like how the Soviet pact with the Nazis secretly divided up the Eastern European countries with a bad invader, good invader strategy. Hitler invaded half of Poland and Stalin rushed in to “rescue” the other half. Rod McKuen explains how the series was created as free programming for indie TV stations in order to sell the commercial time. While there is a bit of propaganda in the presentation, the footage of the Soviets fighting back the Nazis is captivating. This compliments The World At War boxset with more information about the siege of Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow.

Lemonade Mouth: Extended Edition is the latest big musical craze from Disney TV. Five kids stuck in detention at Mesa High School unite to become international sensations. These kids are much more productive than those losers in The Breakfast Club. The kids are lucky because their detention teacher isn’t out to bust their balls. She wants them to do a little music since they’ve pretty much eliminated those programs from the school. The kids unite over their love of a Lemonade machine that’s getting removed for a sports drink that has exclusive rights to the kids. It’s almost like an Idiocracy moment. Eventually they become major superstars. It’s a classic tale of how slightly misunderstood kids can rock out and strike it rich after they overcome an evil principal played by Christopher McDonald (Happy Gilmore). Expect Lemonade Mouth to come to your local arena this summer. Along with a DVD, Disney has included a digital copy of the film so the kids can watch it on your iPhone or iPad during long trips. The DVD has extended Music Scene scene.

Deadly Shooter puts country star Randy Travis in the Wild West. The country star has been having a career resurgence thanks to his mentoring on American Idol. He’s the inspiration for finalist Scott McCreery. Now one of Randy’s acting highlights is coming out on DVD. The real star of the film is Michael Dudikoff (American Ninja series). He plays the Clint Eastwood character that arrives in a remote town after finding prostitute being beaten by local goons. he won’t be putting up with that business. Turns out the goons are part of an outlaw gang that runs the town. When the pain comes down, Dudikoff needs the help of Randy Travis to beat back the goons. It’s a low budget homage to The Unforgiven. Travis makes the film. Fans of Cinemax After Dark will get a treat when Andrew Stevens arrives. As a strange treat, here’s the trailer from the German release of the film.

ROCHESTER, NY – Ever wonder why schools today stink compared to decades ago? Every think tank moron has their dubious reasonings that appeases their corporate masters. But the truth is extraordinarily simple: Schools dumped their education films.

Do you remember those days when the gym teacher had to pad out health class by wheeling in the 16mm projector from the AV department? They’d thread up classic tales about your body, narcotics, driving safety and manners. Things which kids nowadays can’t seem to handle.

When the VCR arrived in schools, the 16mm projector was quickly dumped as teaching tool.
Where did these classic films go? Many arrived at the city dump. However a few lucky tens of thousands found themselves on the racks of the AV Geeks Archive. This repository of cinematic education is overseen by Skip Elsheimer. He started collecting the films after I moved out of the infamous PineHaus. I left that much space to be filled.

Over the years, Skip has toured the country and released various video compilations with such titles as “Sex and Drugs,” Social Engineering” and a Lunch Box with a thermos and 4 discs.

Safe…Not Sorry and The Celluloid Salesman are the recently released two volumes of Kino’s Classic Education Shorts series curated by Skip. Thus it was time to have a little email exchange with Skip about the two DVDs and the AV Geeks archive. Let the educating begin.

Party Favors: How many titles are now in the AV Geeks Archive?

Skip Elsheimer: Well, there’s over 23,000 reels but there’s duplication and some titles are more than one reel but I feel pretty confident that I have over 20,000 titles.

Party Favors: Which of the collections was harder to curate for the DVD?

Skip Elsheimer: The real challenge for the DVDs was figuring out which films to pick and which to leave off the DVDs. I had whole other DVDs worth of material for both titles. Celluloid Salesman was maybe a bigger challenge because the concept is a little foreign to most folks.

Party Favors: How often are you on the road with presentations?

Skip Elsheimer: I do monthly shows in the Triangle and then hit the road every couple of months.

Party Favors: Are these topics ones that you’ve explored as themes to screenings?

Skip Elsheimer: Yes. Although, with these DVDs I’ve pulled from a couple of different shows that I’ve done. I’ve done very general and very specific shows on safety and advertising.

Party Favors: Did you do a live performance of the films to see which titles connected better with the audience?

Skip Elsheimer: Yes, I get a good sense of what audiences respond to.. Even so, I do put films on the DVDs that I haven’t screened publicly.

Party Favors: Is it odd to think there’s an entire generation of college graduates that has no memory of a 16mm projector in their classroom?

Skip Elsheimer: Oh yeah, most folks don’t know what the projector is or they don’t understand that I have the actual film on a reel and not on a video tape or DVD. I mention that because a stack of 100 film reels takes up a lot of space and is very heavy. So imagine 23,000 reels.

Party Favors: What do today’s kids receive as far as educational films in the classroom? Do they have time for such things while studying for the No Child Left Behind tests?

Skip Elsheimer: I’m not sure what is happening in most schools. I know that teachers often show feature films or programs taped from the History Channel or Discovery Channel. There are plenty of topics however that aren’t addressed by video nowadays – social responsibility, courtesy and manners, etc. And it isn’t just No Child Left Behind. School shootings increased the need for schools to address bullying and diversity issues (to reduce their liability mostly), so social programs are usually geared towards those topics.

Safe…Not Sorry focuses on the child abduction, school burnings and running with scissors. It reminds kids of the various ways they can poke an eye out.

Party Favors: What made the “The Dangerous Stranger” so alluring?

Skip Elsheimer: This film is the quintessential Sid Davis film. That guy made scores of films but they all have the same feel as this film. Plus it shows us the vocabulary of how we talk and think about strangers and children nowadays. I feel that our society has become super paranoid and it’s not helping protect children any more than before.

Party Favors: Does it explain what child abductors did before the advent of the windowless van?

Skip Elsheimer: I wouldn’t know. The hidden tragedy of these films are that many children are actually abused in their own homes by people they know. That subject is only really addressed in the 1980s films…

Party Favors: How do kids react to seeing “Live and Learn?”

Skip Elsheimer: I actually haven’t screened this film for kids. I’m guessing when it was released some kids would giggle and some would be aghast. Given the film is more than fifty years old, I’m guessing most kids now would just laugh at the slapstick aspect of the film – since it would seem so far removed from their contemporary lives. That was always the challenge of filmmakers – to keep current and relevant to young minds who were quick to dismiss.

Party Favors: Do you think it’s important for small kids to see these films to get a visual as to the consequences to their actions?

Skip Elsheimer: I’m not sure if the films are as effective as the filmmakers hoped. I think talking with kids – not at kids – is most effective.

Party Favors: Has “Jackass” made children forget that most injuries don’t lead to fat paydays?

Skip Elsheimer: I think it’s part of our genetic code that we think watching somebody fall down is hysterical. I’m sure somebody will figure out that even apes laugh at slapstick.. Jackass is just the latest version of the Three Stooges.

Party Favors: We’re you spooked by “Ghost Rider?”

Skip Elsheimer: I was amazed by the ending and that a bus safety film plays as a love story.

Party Favors: What’s the best safety tip you received from watching these films?

Skip Elsheimer: Well it’s not from this set but in “Sudden Birth” – a police training film – I learned to hold tight onto the legs of a just-delivered baby. “They’re slippery!”

Party Favors: What’s the most paranoid piece of advice that was in a film?

Skip Elsheimer:“Dangerous Stranger” is pretty paranoid but there’s another film called “Cautious Twins” which has these animated twin kids being stalked by every creepy adult imaginable just walking to get some bread for their mother. It’s so heavy handed that kids probably would miss the subtly of most child abductors.

Celluloid Salesman teaches us

Party Favors: Is there a real difference between the advice on these films and the various better salesman seminars offered at hotels around the country?

Skip Elsheimer: Well, there are two types of films on this DVD. Some of the films are made specifically for salesmen. The others are advertising to sell the viewer a product, service or concept. The films made for salesmen certainly reinforce the same concepts over and over. The sales pitch films are like proto-infomercials. They capitalize on our desires and fears and laziness – just like nowadays.

Party Favors: Were you motivated to buy any products featured in these films?

Skip Elsheimer: Not these films. But I was involved with a project where I digitized 10,000 TV commercials. After watching 13 hours of Crest commercials, I had to start using Crest.

Party Favors: What happened to the Potato Chip Institute that made “The Adventures of Chip and Dip?”

Skip Elsheimer: They became the Snack Food Association and moved to Alexandria VA as a lobbying body. They lobbied and sued Proctor & Gamble and General Mills when those companies tried to call their potato crisps snacks – like Pringles – “potato chips”.

Party Favors: Did Alistair Cooke make you want to visit Swinging London?

Skip Elsheimer: No, the possibility of meeting swinging British chicks does however…

Party Favors: What made “This Is…Elk Country” essential to the collection? Is there “This Is….Moose Country?”

Skip Elsheimer: I had so many films targeting women as consumers that I wanted to include a couple for men. It’s a great film about hunting elk and “roughing it” with Schlitz beer and portable batteries. Moose Country? No, but Schlitz has a series outdoor sportsman films.

Party Favors: Have you become a better salesman for the treasures of the AV Geeks archive from the films?

Skip Elsheimer: We’ll see.

Party Favors: Were there any titles you wanted to include, but couldn’t for copyright issues?

Skip Elsheimer: Yes, I am stymied by that all the time. There is a great wealth of material that I would love to share but I’m limited by copyright – even though many of the companies no longer exist or are so big they don’t know they own the copyright. It’s often hard to search out the copyrights on some material and YouTube are hairtriggered in taking down anything copyrighted. We are losing a lot of our cultural history (film, music, literature) because a few companies are greedy and successfully lobby to extend Copyright durations.

Party Favors: Any clue to the topics you’ll tackle in the next Classic Educational Shorts series?

Skip Elsheimer: Well I’m doing two DVDs with Alpha Video soon. How To Be A Housewife and How To Be A Soldier. After that, who knows. I average getting a couple of films a day and have only seen about a fifth of my collection. I’m discovering gems all the time.

Remember that educational films might be the best way to keep your kid from turning out to be a lawless moron unlike those Baby Stalin DVDs. Visit AVGeeks.com to find out if Skip’s bringing his films to your area.

STORAGE RAIDERS

Who knew that “abandoned” storage lockers would contain ratings gold? A&E has Storage Wars, Spike gives us Auction Hunters and finally TruTV has Forbidden Storage. All three shows have the same structure. A bunch of people running thrift shops and treasure hunters converge at storage centers to bid on storage lockers that are unpaid.

My major issue with the genre comes from being shafted in the past by a storage center that first didn’t properly file a check and wanted to auction off our stuff with a week’s notice. Later the same storage locker was robbed when a creep cut off the lock, picked through the boxes and put their own lock on our unit. Who knew how many times they came and went. Naturally the owners of the storage place claimed they weren’t responsible for security. Their security cameras were useless since they weren’t angled right. Even worse, a week later they announced their monthly rates were going up. No larceny victim discount from them.

But even with my antagonism towards the subject, I’m suckered into watching this like the freakish surgery shows that run late at night.

The thing that gets me is that the producers never attempt to find out what happened to the old owners of the lots. There probably is a high percentage of the defaulting owners being dead. Watching the bidders poke their heads into the units and get mesmerized by the auctioneer makes it seem like they’re bidding to be grave robbers. They pick through the belongs like vultures devouring meat on bones of decaying cows – which is also my favorite show on Animal Planet. There’s plenty of time when you see a locker that can easily be understood as abandoned. The one full of dirty laundry and a cat urine soaked sofa wasn’t worth saving. People who figured it was easier to let the storage people toss it in the dumpster. But there are curious moments when there’s a true treasure inside. Once a guy found nearly $2,000 hidden in a painting. Why didn’t the person who rented the locker not just pay up their bill with their stash?

But why dwell on such an obvious question when you’ve got to find out what else is tucked inside various objects? Of the three shows, I prefer Storage Wars for two of the regular characters. Barry Weiss is hilarious. He’s got an old Los Angeles hustler charm to him. He’s willing to do weird things to get the edge on what’s inside the unit like bring night vision goggles, a small person on stilts and psychic sisters. He also has cool skeleton gloves when he’s doing the dirty work. While Jarrod Schulz gets the star billing, his wife Brandi runs the show. She’s six sextuplets short of a TLC series. She’s got plenty of great ballbuster moments. Why A&E doesn’t give her a full biography on their website is a damn shame. They give Darrell’s barely on camera son Brandon the dazzling bio. Give Brandi her due!

In the end, the shows do seems to speak of our rough economic times. People can’t even afford the rent. Others with money fight for their consumer remains. And we sadly witness stuff we hold near and dear get tossed into the dumpster since it isn’t fetching a dollar on eBay. Sometimes you are better off just setting stuff on fire.

When will Flea Market Queens, Plasma Princes and Copper Recycling Kings be coming to TruTV?

MILLION DOLLAR CAMPAIGN

To all readers on Madison Avenue; why haven’t any of you properly marketed smartphones and computablets with the right advertising slogan? What could the most genius way to sell your phone to America? Sit down. Dim the lights. Be prepared to receive the wowza moment that shall get you the executive washroom key. Ready? Here it is:

(Your Product) makes life an open book test.

The ads write themselves. A nerdy guy telling an auto mechanic that there’s no such thing as a Dual Gasperator for his car thanks to a quick search. A dumb jock telling a professor they’re so wrong on historical facts. A driver telling a cop that he can’t give him a ticket for that offense. Isn’t that the best part of having a smartphone with internet access?

The first Don Draper or Brian Kinney that drops me a line gets the deal done.

GREATEST X-RATED COMEDY EVER

This movie needs to get released on DVD by either Shout! Factory or Criterion. This is the movie Kevin Smith thinks he’s made.

HOW MUCH FOR A MONKEY SKULL?

My other new favorite show is Oddities on The Discovery Channel. This is about the Obscura Antiques and Oddities shop in Manhattan. Imagine Pawn Stars with Mike Zohn as Rick Harrison except instead of buying gold, he’s hunting down mummy hands and two faced calf heads. Mike’s assisted by Evan Michelson and Ryan Matthew in procuring only the best of Jim Rose-worthy bizarre items. I’m impressed since this is the type of cool and freaky store you’d imagine stumbling into while wandering through New York City. Sad to think that WalMart now wants to take over the Big Apple. Can’t wait to hear the intercom announce, “Clean up at CBGB aisle.” Oddities does need a visit from Chumlee although a drop by from Amy Sedaris was fun. This is where she bought outfits worn in her Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People book. Oddities gets shown on both Discovery and Science channels.

FACEBOOK HATES BUNNIES

How dare Facebook yank down Bunny Love’s profile. She’s an HBO superstar on Cathouse. Yet that doesn’t matter to Mark Zuckerberg and his little prude patrol. I miss my updates on the snow conditions in Tahoe.

FOX SHOUT!

Shout! Factory has made a deal with Fox to release a few of their films that haven’t been released on DVD. They’re going to come out with Sylvester Stallone and Ben Gazarra’s Capone, Peter Fonda’s drive-in epics (Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, Race With the Devil & Fighting Mad) and Damnation Alley in the coming year. The first four titles hit the shelves this month with major stars in overlooked roles.

Lucky Lady gives the triple team of Burt Reynolds, Gene Hackman and Liza Minelli when they were at their prime. The trio take us back to the prohibition era when evil people thought they could cure America by banning booze. Liza plays a widow that takes over her husband’s smuggling business around San Diego. She enlists her lover (Burt) and a mystery partner (Gene) to work the boat. They sail out past the territorial waters of the US, get the bottles of booze and sneak them past the coast guard. Things get tricky when John Hillerman (Magnum P.I.) arrives to bring the law to the open sea. The big thing is the hint that the stars are into threesome action. It might have been a period piece, but they were a mod squad. There’s even a role for Geoffrey “I’m not Robert Pine” Lewis. Stanley Donen does a fine job recreating the time. It’s kinda like The Sting with Burt Reynolds. This came out in 1975 so Liza was still on her hot streak post-Cabaret.

11 Harrowhouse comes from that strange era when Charles Grodin was a cinema superstar. He plays a diamond merchant in England that gets a major chance with a major diamond. However things go wrong and the precious stone is swiped. The thieves don’t want the diamond. They want Grodin assistance on a huge theft at the title’s namesake address. He has to drag his girlfriend (Candice Bergen) into the criminal planning. There’s a trio of British greats filling out the cast with James Mason, Trevor Howard and John Gielgud. It’s far from an average jewel heist flick with enough talent on the screen to dazzle beyond the rocks.

Butch and Sundance The Early Days / Death Hunt is a Western double feature. After the success of the original film, the studio wanted its sequel. However it had to wait a decade and get new stars to play the playful outlaws. Instead of Paul Newman, the younger Butch Cassidy was Tom Berenger (Platoon). The Sundance Kid’s boyish face belonged to William Katt (Greatest American Hero) instead of Robert Redford. The good new is that they hired Richard Lester (A Hard Days Night, Three Musketeers & Superman II). He brings the action. There’s plenty of great supporting faces including future Buckaroo Bonzai cast member Peter Weller, Christopher Lloyd and Vincent Schiavelli. The film is a bit more comedic since Allan Burns wrote the script. You might recognize him as a creator of My Mother the Car, The Munsters and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. There’s plenty of slapstick as the duo learn the ropes to being train robbing outlaws. It’s interesting to think that William Katt was pegged as the next Redford before his successful career in Cinemax After Dark favorite films.

Death Hunt features Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin in their later years. Marvin is going after Bronson in the snowy wilderness. He’s a mountie who always gets his man. Bronson has zero plans from being nabbed. Marvin’s woman is Angie Dickinson. It’s pure macho as they race across the frozen mountains. It’s a chilled badass super cinema cocktail. This is based on a true story. Andrew Stevens appears in the film which is interesting since he made the Cinemax After Dark films that William Katt couldn’t book. The film was directed by Peter Hunt. He’s best known as the innovative editor on the first James Bond movies. He went on to direct On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – one of the three best Bond films. The action really looks great. This movie is meant to be experienced inside a man cave with the air conditioning blasted.

THE DVD SHELF

Hoodwinked gives another version of Little Red Riding Hood. The police interrogate the fairytale suspects to get the truth of the story. Famous voices are all over the project with Anne Hathaway as Little Red Riding Hood. Patrick Warburton goes sly as the Big Bad Wolf. The woodsman gets dumber thanks to Jim Belushi. Andy Dick voices a bunny. Case is solved since there’s no way Andy Dick isn’t guilty. The new release comes with both a Blu-ray and DVD so you can have one for the house and one for the car when it comes time to CGI dazzle the kiddies. It looks better in the 1080p of Blu-ray with Warburton’s voice wrapping around you. There’s deleted scenes, a commentary track from the filmmakers, a Behind the Scenes featurette and a piece on how to make your own animated film. This is more fun than Green Hornet.

The Fugitive: The Fourth and Final Season, Volume Two brings to an end the greatest television pursuit show of all times. Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen) has been running around the country in search of a one-armed man that he swore killed his wife. On his trail is Lt. Philip Gerard (Barry Morse). There’s a lot of other adventures before the finale lets the mystery of the homicide be revealed. “The Other Side of the Coin” gets Kimball framed for a robbery since the real crook is the sheriff’s son (Beau Bridges). “The One That Got Away” lets Charles Bronson (Death Wish) recognize Kimble. “Concrete Evidence” doubles up the character actors with Jack Warden and Harold Gould. Jack Lord isn’t all law and order on “Goodbye My Love.” He wants to frame Kimball in the murder of his wife so he can marry his mistress. “The Judgement” is a two part finale that finally gives us all the answers as to what happened the night Kimball’s wife died. I won’t spoil the ending. A bonus interview with composer Dominic Frontiere lets him say that Quinn Martin considered these episodes a major mistake. Since it ended the series, the show didn’t do that well in syndication. He wouldn’t make Star Trek money. The 15 episodes are on 4 DVDs. Now that The Fugitive is all on DVD, will CBS DVD please give us the last season of The Untouchables?

Night Catches Us is a tough drama about the return of a Black Panther (Anthony Mackie) to his Philly home in 1976. It’s not a warm homecoming since people swear he snitched out his fellow Panthers. His only real support is Kerry Washington. She ought to have a reason to hate his guts. It’s not an over the top film dealing with such an explosive topic. There’s a few faces from The Wire in the production. Wendell Pierce (Treme) gets to be a bit of the law once more. Jamie Hector (Marlo on The Wire) maintains his smoldering intensity in the role of DoRight. This is so much better than a Tyler Perry production.

Monsters is what happens when you combine a good story with the budget of a SyFy channel alien flick. It doesn’t always have to turn out flaky. A NASA space probe crashes in Mexico and unleashes intergalactic lifeforms that take over the northern part of the country and a bit of Texas. A photojournalist (Scoot McNairy) on the southern end of the infected zone gets a gig to bring back the boss’s daughter (Whitney Able). Their dangerous journey keeps getting derailed by greedy travel agents, shoddy equipment and giant spider-like monsters. The film becomes a bit of a romance as the two head North without a guide. This is finally a date film with aliens. It’s Love in the Time of Monsters. Some nerds might be disgusted that it’s not full of lasers and space ships zipping around with a rah-rah message. Not all low budget monster films have to feature Tiffany and Debbie Gibson wrestling in a wedding cake. Monsters should have been up for a Best Pic nom at the Indie Spirit Awards.

Ong Bak 3 gives a third (and supposedly final chapter) to Tony Jaa’s Thai action epic. He’s best known for bringing elephants into the martial arts genre. The film opens with Jaa’s Tien completely messed up by the wicked Lord Rajsena. There’s probably a really great cultural plot, but ultimately what makes this film work is the sadistic grace of Jaa. He knows how to not only dish it out, but take a beating. It’s like Passion of the Christ on his body. He’s not afraid to look like a bloody mess during his struggle. The locations around Thailand look amazing as Jaa unloads the fury. Jaa is pound for pound the best cinematic ass kicker going today. The bonus feature is the HDNet special about the film.

The Guardian: The Final Season wraps up Simon Baker’s first major US series. The premise has him as a partying attorney that gets busted on drug charges. His penalty is to perform 1,500 hours of community service. Since the first season, he’s gotten straightened up even though he has lapses. “Big Coal” has him fighting for a sick guy who is getting stiffed by his insurance company. Henry Gibson (Blues Brothers), Nick Searcy and M. Emmet Walsh (Blade Runner) guest star. “The Father-Daughter Dance” has Nick sue a fertility clinic for a white couple that had a black baby. But there’s a nagging suspicion that the wife might have gone outside the clinic. High School Musical fans will scream with Zac Efron appearing in “Without Consent.” Erik Estrada pops up in “The Bachelor Party.” These are the last 22 episodes of the series. Baker now is the star of The Mentalist so don’t feel too bad that series ended before hitting five seasons.

Have Gun Will Travel, The Fifth Season, Volume 2 wraps up the penultimate season with 19 episodes on 3 DVDs. Paladin (Richard Boone) continues to perform the dirty work necessary around the Old West. He’ll go anywhere and solve anything for a price. “The Exiles” brings him into international intrigue as he’s hired to go after exiled nobles that might have stolen bonds on their way off the throne. Another royalty in exile needs his services in “The Hunt.” However this time the guy wants to chase down Paladin since he’s bored by shooting elk. Harry Dean Stanton is a murdering rapist in “The Waiting Room.” “The Trap” presents more of Frank Sutton (Gomer Pyle‘s Sgt. Carter). William Conrad gets to go cowboy in “Man Who Struck Moonshine.” He’s running a still. “Coming of the Tiger” enters the great James Hong. Where is his Kennedy Center Honor? “Jonah and the Trout” hooks Bill Mumy (Lost In Space). Richard Boone is still cool after all these years as the man in black out to solve problems for a price.

ReBoot: Seasons 1 & 2 contains the revolutionary Saturday morning cartoon. Back in 1994, this became the first computer animated cartoon. The show was a bit like Tron in that it took place inside a Mainframe computer. Bob is the guardian of the area. He gets help with Phong, Dot Matrix, Enzo Matrix and their dog Frisket. They all must help defend their world from Megabyte, Hexadecimal, Mouse, Hack & Slash. They are computer viruses from an era when such evil didn’t come in an email letting us know they love us. Although Megabyte will enter core control chamber disguised as an upgrade. There’s a bit of nostalgia watching these old codes battling it out in the programming. This was a time before social networking became all the rage in the computer world. There’s 23 episodes spread over two DVDs. Youthful geeks will get a buzz out of the Computers 101 action. There’s an audio commentary that explains how they pulled off this CGI action 17 years ago. The kings of Facebook were kids watching this show back in the ’90s. You can order ReBoot: The Definitive Mainframe Edition directly from Shout! Factory’s website if you want all four seasons and bonus features.

BLU-RAY HEAVEN

The Reef was once given the more colorful name of Shark Bait. Hard to tell why they changed it unless parents were reluctant to give their kids a movie that suggests a feeding frenzy. The movie continues the Freddie Prinze Jr. genre of plucky young guy aching to get the girl. In this case he wants to hook up with a fish voiced by Evan Rachel Wood (True Blood). She’s a famous fish model on the coral reef. Freddie’s big rival is a shark that’s a little bit psychotic. He might get eaten. The CGI isn’t overwhelming and doesn’t quite dazzle on the Blu-Ray 1080p. Seems a big part of the budget went to loaded up famous voices including Andy Dick, Donal Logue, John Rhys-Davis, Fran Drescher and future Oscar winner Rob Schneider. The Reef is aimed straight at young kids. The shark action isn’t that angry and intense. The bonus feature is a DVD that you can run on the mini-van’s player to keep the little ones occupied.