Quick note: Want to help me out this week? Go on over to Gather.com where I posted the first chapter of my book, Thank You, Goodnight, in the hopes I can win the First Chapters prize from Simon and Schuster. You’d be doing me a huge solid if I can at least make it to the final rounds and since I’ve never really pimped my book in this space I hope this could be the beginning of something really good or it could mean my writing really sucks and I deserve the mantle of writing a column named Trailer Park. Anyway, thanks for reading… http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976932701
Do you consider yourself a geek?
I ask only because there have been moments in the last week that seem to perfectly illustrate the idea of gripping that lingua franca of oddballs and about how some push it away as far as possible.
When you opened your newspaper, or clicked your way through Digg, on Monday morning the one piece of information which should be old news by now is 300’s triumphant take at the box office over the weekend. It’s success was never in doubt, just how much it was going to pull in was up to debate. I believe even the most aggressive pundits were short a few million in thinking how many people were going to show up to watch a bunch of dudes get all homosocial with one another and then go out to slaughter other humans. The story behind the story here is not so much its financial take but the way in which this movie moved from obscurity to full-on hype by the film’s release.
It honestly started back in July of last year when Gerard Butler, Zack Snyder and the rest of the 300 crew showed up to try and create some momentum for the movie. What should have been a Meet-N-Greet turned into a love fest and it was all thanks to the bright lad at WB who thought, “Let’s create the kind of preview that will leave people talking.”
That was all that had to be thought up in order for this movie to have snowballed into the juggernaut it is today.
Where a lot of people, and by people I mean media hacks who want to lump every marketing campaign that uses the Internet as a means, not as an end, see viral marketing as a failed experiment that ended with the SNAKES ON A PLANE fiasco I can categorically state that the reason why SOAP failed was because it depended on GODZILLA-like ambiguity of its product.
There wasn’t any way that those behind 300 did a little shuffle with their feet as the leached out just enough money shots, had those behind the film come out to embrace it and then followed-up with just small bursts of awareness campaigns that kept the movie in front of you, just not in front of every website and blog that would accept the marketing funds of a studio just hoping for a #1 bow.
So, what does this all have to do with REVENGE OF THE NERDS. Apart from the seemingly disparate time in which they were created and the kind of subject matter inherent in them, these movies show the power of support, support of the public variety.
I can understand that there are some actors that believe that participating isn’t their bag and that the movie should be all that’s important when it comes to the finished product but the funny thing about the Special Panty Raid Edition of NERDS has Curtis Armstrong, Robert Carradine, Timothy Busfield and the movie’s director all providing a commentary track for the new DVD. Noticeably absent is ER’s Anthony Edwards who, depending on what really happened, passed on the chance to put his personal stamp on a film that has really defined the nerd experience in the early 80’s for a lot of people who grew up on this film. I can understand that Anthony just wants to forget this movie was what helped establish what would eventually become his empire but it’s just disconcerting that Edwards would eschew this, being the one real hold-out from a cast that involves dudes who have went on to star in an Academy Award winning movie, a successful syndicated television show, an acclaimed television series that will forever provide a sweet royalty check and a director who, well, he made that one movie with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas that I didn’t think completely sucked.
A movie of this comedic resonance deserved a Special Edition if for the only reason that as long as you thought something was funny about it years ago the movie still holds up as something that shouldn’t be ashamed of, but embraced for what it is. It’s great, real great, to see there were some of the pivotal people for NERDS that thought that, as puerile as it may be, it is what it is and so toss the geeks what they really want.
oint is, you have to admire guys who put on capes, acted in front of blue screens, brought a comic book to life and have no compunction about being proud for a movie that speaks to a large segment of the male population. You don’t have to shout from the mountain about every piece of work you do but it’s petty in a Sean Penn “I never want to talk about FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH” sort of way that’s just glaring to witness. Whenever you take a check from someone you have to internalize it somehow, you obviously thought that trading your time for money was OK, and it was just plain great to see the men of this film just ignore the trappings that go along with what some think makes acceptable work of an actor and what does not.
And from the Department That Has No Bearing On Films, The Innocence Mission, a band I would gladly slay a few hippies for if they asked nicely, has a new album that came out this week. If you’re into acts like The Sundays and have been aching for music to have in the background while you watch rain falling you could not do better than these stalwarts of musicianship. As a favor to me, buy it and get mellow. Look for an interview to follow shortly so familiarize yourselves.
SHOOTER (2007)
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Michael Peña, Danny Glover, Kate Mara, Elias Koteas, Rhona Mitra, Rade Sherbedgia, Ned Beatty
Release: March 23, 2007
Synopsis: SHOOTER is an action-packed thriller starring Mark Wahlberg as Bob Lee Swagger, a former Marine Corps sniper who leaves the military after a mission goes bad. After he is reluctantly pressed back into service, Swagger is double-crossed again. With two bullets in him and the subject of a nationwide manhunt, Swagger begins his revenge, which will take down the most powerful people in the country.
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Prognosis: Nah. A couple of things:
1. Good for Marky Mark. I really liked him in that middle-of-the-road Oscar contender, THE DEPARTED, let’s be fair that Marty’s re-make wasn’t as good as GOODFELLAS or CASINO, perhaps the AVIATOR, and call it for what it was: passable. What I think that THE DEPARTED did teach me, however, besides the fact that a lot of people bought into cherub-faced Leonardo’s “toughness” was that Marky Mark is really good at this joke called acting or he just has enough charisma that carry him though whatever part he’s given.
2. This movie represents even more responsibility for the pop hip-hopper in a major film. Yes, he had THE ITALIAN JOB but, really, Charlize and the rest of the ensemble was really what helped pull that movie through the box office like a juggernaut.
That said, then, I like the way this movie looks.
I do, however, have some worries that I don’t really need to be at the theater in time when it starts because we’re given all the information we need about this movie in one long introduction. Por ejemplo, when we open up to Marky’s world he’s in the backwoods, evidenced in movies like COMMANDO and CLIFFHANGER the forest is the one refuge where a strong leading man can go for solace or to “regroup” before slugging it out once more for life, liberty and guns, and of course there is something there about why he’s so reclusive. He drinks Bud, most definitely listens to Toby Keith, likes to pump-n-dump with the ladies who obviously dig this kind of guy and, of course, the government wants him for one..,more”¦mission. (By the way, that the hell is up with that Fu-Manchu whispy crap on the boy’s face? Whiskers? Hair? Last night’s conquest?)
So, after we see that Mark can shoot from a mile away with a pimp-ass CGI weapon, that the president is in danger, that he’s one of the “only ones” who could help find this miscreant and, hold the phone, it’s a set-up!
People, I know you’re all, for the most part, smart individuals. Can anyone inform me why I wouldn’t want to just come into this movie a good 20-30 minutes late? We’re almost at the half-way point of this thing yet I know everything I need to get me through this movie without missing a beat.
“I didn’t start it but I am going to see it through.”
This is the BOURNE IDENTITY without insane car chases or exotic locales. I was hoping for a plot twist that didn’t involve a conspiracy where we have people saying how awesome Marky was in his past life as a soldier and that “OMFG! STFU dats pure PWNage lol!!111!!” when Marky gets his cammo all smeared over his face as he comes back for retribution.
I guess the added element Marky’s girl being snatched away from him is fairly original as the sniper hunt near the end of the trailer looks nifty but is it worth a full admission at the theater? Seeing how after I paid to see SNIPER with Tom Beringer and Billy Zane I felt like I had possibly invested in a flick that was marginally worse than THE JERKY BOYS I am not about to get excited at the prospect for a movie that only looks bigger with regard to budget.
Director: Martin Weisz
Cast: Jessica Stroup, Reshad Strik, Michael McMillian, Daniella Alonso, Lee Thompson Young, Ben Crowley, Eric Edelstein, Michael Bailey Smith
Release: March 23, 2007
Synopsis: The sequel to the 2006 horror re-make THE HILLS HAVE EYES which grossed over $41 million at the domestic box office, is written by horror legend Wes Craven and Jonathan Craven and will be directed by Martin Weisz. The storyline follows a group of young National Guard trainees who are attacked by mutants during a training mission in the New Mexico desert.
View Trailer:
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Prognosis: All Sorts Of Positive. First of all, don’t apologize.
This kind of entertainment needs to only do two things for it to be successful enough, in my book, to qualify as a success:
- Exceed it’s budget with the amount it takes in at the box office and home video sales.
- Be violent, gory, toss in a little T&A if possible and be devoid of anything resembling a plot or logical thinking.
These are the reasons why everyone who hated the first one will love the second and, if it’s successful like the SAW franchise has been, a third or a fourth.
Too many people will look at movies like this and write it off but I say that this trailer is the reason why it’s going to do well enough. It’s vaguely creepy, the story is set up wonderfully and we get juuuuust enough of a tease to satiate your desire to peep the mutants who live in the hills. Never mind that these freaks managed to move on from where they were in the first movie, we got an emotional buy-in with a child saying hello to her mother via cell phone. With this, we’re put on the hook as it contextualizes the people who inhabit this film. We actually care about one of them at least and it’s not even five seconds into this thing.
We’re given an explanation of why this military-style squad possesses cell technology in the first place “National Guard Training.” Perfect thinking. It’s plausible, reasonable and we get our geographic bearings with two complete thoughts.
Further contextualization reveals that this location ALSO, like our first installment (How very convenient), was the site for nuclear testing; anyone look into the likelihood that there really could be crazed mutants walking the earth with all the people going to the “atomic testing” card that has set up so many films, comics, books, etc”¦, in the past? Geez.
So, these “troops” roll into a deserted base where one of our potential victims says, “Where is everybody?” At this stage in the game wouldn’t it be wise to either radio back to HQ or get the fuck out of there, pronto? Again, here I go, with the logic. I have to stop that. Right, trust in the fact that common sense will lose out to sheer stupidity of our characters.
“Last year”¦The lucky ones died first”¦On March 23″¦The lucky ones die fast. “
The above tagline doesn’t get any more perfect than that. Whoever thought that up deserves their double-mocha, soy, frappuccino on the marketing company’s dime all next week. It’s perfectly aimed at that core 17-25 demo.
Mixed in with all this marketing goodness, and it is good, we get slivers of what the mutants look like; an eye here, some movement here behind a lady who, in my estimation, might be taking a dump (Look for yourself and report back”¦), a body shot and an eerie score all make for some good build-ups.
The various quick shots of our invaders, the promise of heavy firefights with government issued artillery, some choice looks at what might happen to a few of the captured and some unexplained splatter all are excellent choices for a trailer that knows what it is and what it needs to do. The tongue lick at the every end? Every bit of brilliant.
Director: Marco Kreuzpaintner
Cast: Kevin Kline, Cesar Ramos Ceballos, Alicja Bachleda-Curus, Paulina Gaitani
Release: April 13, 2007
Synopsis: Adriana (Paulina Gaitan) is a 13-year-old girl from Mexico City whose kidnapping by sex traffickers sets in motion a desperate mission by her 17-year-old brother, Jorge (Cesar Ramos), to save her. Trapped and terrified by an underground network of international thugs who earn millions exploiting their human cargo, Adriana’s only friend and protector throughout her ordeal is Veronica (Alicja Bachleda), a young Polish woman tricked into the trade by the same criminal gang. As Jorge dodges immigration officers and incredible obstacles to track the girls’ abductors, he meets Ray (Kevin Kline), a Texas cop whose own family loss to sex trafficking leads him to become an ally in the boy’s quest.
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Prognosis: Il Est Excellent. I apologize for going down such a low-brow road but from the New Jersey mouth of Carl in Aqua Teen Hunger Force, “That’s friggin’ awesome.”
I saw a riveting, compelling, and every other shocking ““ing you can stick at the end of some verbs, documentary about the sex trade. It only scratched the thin surface of how people are traded, duped and then become prisoners against their will but this movie looks like a nice representation about the drama of what happens when these women are promised one thing only to land themselves in a quagmire of violence and deceit. So, herein lies the issue: How do you make a trailer that not only coveys this but also ties back to something that Ma and Pa Kettle can understand and relate to back in Bumwad, U.S.A.?
You juxtapose, of course.
I really like, I really do, the image of the densely populated terrain, mountainous, in some country that doesn’t look familiar to me. I’m distant from it but see what happens when we then look at the image of some suburban landscape with all these houses that look alike (I’m deep in the heart of one myself). Large foreign capital, large domestic capital. Little baby in far off land, little baby with domestic mama. Some transference starts to happen but there needs to be more in order for this compare/contrast thing to work.
“Every year more than 1 million people are trafficked across international borders…”
And, pop, we get it. We see a woman who has obviously traveled to some country in the hopes of something, we’re not led to know what it is, but she’s violently taken somewhere. Again, we don’t know.
“”¦Against their will.”
Little girl on a bike. She rides and is then kidnapped. Kevin Kline, so good to see him in something that doesn’t involve buffoonery, holds a flashlight but we don’t know what he’s looking for. The utter silence and lack of story could kill lesser flicks but it’s working like a champ here.
We’re given a little something: Kevin is on the hunt for his daughter. A kid, in search of his younger sister. What’s driving a lot of this is the beautiful cinematography and music that doesn’t play too much into our sympathies but rides the moment we’re in like surfers on a crystal wave. These two men, on a mission, juxtapose with the women who have been taken from their lives and put into a situation where there seems be a little aggravated battery and a whole lot of isolation.
And then, from out of nowhere, the music just takes over and it’s blisteringly sweet to listen to as we see Kline, this brother, his sister and Kline’s daughter struggle physically with what’s happening around them. Emotions are just ebbing and flowing and, oddly, none of this feels maudlin or saccharine.
By the end of this thing it’s hard to realize that this is the kind of thing that happens every single day on this planet without any of us realizing it and this trailer captures that panicking feeling if you found out it happened to someone in your own blood line.
Director: Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino
Cast: DEATH PROOF: Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Rose McGowan, Michael Bacall, Eli Roth, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Marley Shelton, Tracie Thoms, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Omar Doom PLANET TERROR: Freddy Rodriguez, Rose McGowan, Josh Brolin, Naveen Andrews, Marley Shelton, Michael Biehn, Stacy Ferguson, Jeff Fahey, Michael Parks
Release: April 6, 2007
Synopsis: Grindhouse ““ noun ““ A downtown movie theater – in disrepair since its glory days as a movie palace of the ’30s and ’40s – known for “grinding out” non-stop double-bill programs of B-movies.
From groundbreaking directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez comes the ultimate film experience: a double-bill of thrillers that will recall both filmmakers’ favorite exploitation films. “Grindhouse” will be presented as one full-length feature comprised of two individual films helmed separately by each director. Tarantino’s film, “Death Proof,” is a rip-roaring slasher flick where the killer pursues his victims with a car rather than a knife, while Rodriguez’s film explores an alien world eerily familiar to ours in “Planet Terror.” Welcome to the Grindhouse – it’ll tear you in two.
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Prognosis: Positive. So, I’m riding along in a car with a new business acquaintance, Amir.
The topic of discussion touches upon Comic-Con and, before letting it known how big of an inward Geek I am, gauging whether divulging the information would be cannon fodder for an uncomfortable hazing with fellow co-workers back at the office, Amir is down with the whole scene. He’s never been to San Diego and wanted to know what the big appeal was in going. I was at a loss to try and put it into words that could wrap around its largess and indescribably strange, and face-meltingly insane, vibe.
But I did relay what happened when Robert Rodriquez and Quentin Tarantino took the stage last year and introduced PLANET TERROR and DEATH PROOF to the world. The footage that Robert showed just lit the place on fire. Apart from Robert’s insistence that NO ONE even think about doing any kind of recording at all, the moment kind of encapsulated what the Con can be if you want to market right. 300 proved what advance word could do and I would expect nothing less of this production as well.
The problem, though, with marketing this movie by trailer is that you need to beat people into understanding what you’re trying to do with this project. Simply put, it’s two movies, fake trailers and a whole lot of exploitation done out of ironic love for the genre of grindhouse film. Now say that three times fast in a trailer. Somehow, though, that’s exactly what happens when you’re exposed to the marketing campaign right from the beginning.
The trailer lays it right out for all of you out there who are still a little shaky about whether grindhouse is the name of the film that they’re showing or unsure about whether you’re getting one film directed by two different people. Yes, if you’re reading this you’re more than 99% ahead of everyone else in America but look at it from a layperson’s point-of-view. Out of focus camera work, visual cues, narration that takes all of eight seconds to explain everything and the kind of straight off the street vibe that’s unmistakable.
You get Danny Trejo kicking all sorts of ass, money shots galore, Rose McGowan in all her celluloid dissolving glory sexing it up for the rest of us, and an honest-to-God helpful narrator who is thumping us over the head that these are two, separate films.
Cue Robert’s flick with a 30pt font “FIRST” and have it explained to Ma and Pa Kettle. Done. Toss in some Apple-infused graphics that give the whole sequence a dated look, skim over the plot and tease the audience with just enough T&A and unexplained violent confrontations. Done. Oh, and be sure to keep that one sweet sequence of Rose using her prosthetic leg in a ferocious gun battle. The fan boys love that.
Cue Quentin. The challenge here is getting me to stop thinking about guns and guts. I’m not so sure it’s helpful putting Quentin’s last because there’s a lot of talking in this preview and I ain’t keen on so much jibba jabba when I’m postulating why I’m not seeing even more explosions or violence. Yeah, the car crashes are cool and I am pleased as all hell that Kurt “Jack Burton” Russell is in here but I feel kind of limp, sartorially speaking, in that this movie doesn’t feel like an exploitative, derivative homage to wanton sex and violence.
I’ll still see the flicks, no doubt, but I’m already wondering whether I’m going to be more wooed by one or the other.
As if the release of the first season of Family Ties weren’t enough cause for glee in the hearts of those amongst us that came of pop culture age in the 80’s, we get to throw a round of “huzzahs” for the arrival of Bosom Buddies (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$31.99 SRP). Starring Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari in the legendary dual roles of best friends Kip (Hanks) & Henry (Scolari) and their female alter-egos Buffy & Hildegarde. The reason for the cross-dressing? In order to take advantage of the rock bottom rent available in the women’s hotel where their work friend Amy (the much-missed Wendy Jo Sperber) lives. Comedy, as you can guess, ensues… This really is a true comedy classic that is definitely of its time. More seasons, pronto!
I was one of those that was disappointed to hear that not only would Pierce Brosnan be absent from the newest James Bond flick, but it would also act as a sort of prequel to the whole franchise, rebooting the whole 007 franchise with a brand new, fresh face as a newly-minted double-o agent. It was a welcome relief that Daniel Craig has slipped right into the role of Bond with nary a misstep, and that film itself – based on Ian Fleming’s first Bond adventure, Casino Royale (Sony, Rated PG-13, DVD-$28.96 SRP) – has managed to update the franchise without wholly abandoning what made it so addictive in the first place. I do miss some of the flights of fancy, and I’m unsure of where they go next, but as a reboot effort, it’s one hell of an evening’s viewing. The 2-disc special edition features a trio of in-depth featurettes and Chris Cornell’s music video.
Similar to the Disney Treasures and Nascar Vault releases, a must-have collectible for Marvel comics fans is The Marvel Vault (Becker & Meyer, $49.95 SRP). Billed as a “museum-in-a-book” and written by Roy Thomas and Quick Stop’s own Peter Sanderson, its extensive history of Marvel Comics – reaching all the way back to its origins in the 40’s as Timely Comics and winding up in the present day – is supplemented with numerous reproductions of rare Marvel ephemera, from a Merry Marvel Marching Society membership card to the original Fantastic Four synopsis. It’s an amazing overview of a once mighty company, and the characters and creators that made it so – including names like Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, Gene Colan, Mark Gruenwald, John Byrne, Chris Claremont, Gil Kane, John Buscema, and many, many more.
I mentioned it back in our holiday shopping guide last year, but the perfect companion piece to The Marvel Vault bears repeating. While writer Roy Thomas’s Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe (Becker & Meyer/Sterling, $50.00 SRP) would have been a must-have overview of the formative years of Marvel Comics and the equally amazing Lee in its own right, the addition of Stan Lee’s audio remembrances makes it an essential experience for anyone who grew up entranced by Lee’s hyperbolic universe and giddy hucksterism. Attached to the impressive tome is an audio player that, when you come to a cue within the book itself, you can press to hear Stan himself relate stories and anecdotes based on what you’ve just been reading about. In practice, it’s like getting an audio commentary from “The Man” himself, and I can only hope that more books will utilize this unique technology.
Shortly after I Love Lucy ended its classic run as one of TV’s most beloved half-hour sitcoms, Lucy & Desi returned for a series of one-hour specials that essentially acted as seasons 7, 8, & 9 of the couple’s comic adventures, expanding the scope a bit. I Love Lucy: The Final Seasons (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$38.99 SRP) collects all 13 of these Lucy-Desi Comedy Hours, including an incredible slate of bonus materials – rarities like a Desilu/Westinghouse sponsor presentation, original TV spots, original opening and closing titles, original animation, deleted scenes, on-set color footage, and more.
Long before he became a fixture on late night, a young midwesterner named Johnny Carson – then just a staff writer on The Red Skelton Show – filled in on-camera at the last minute when his boss got injured in rehearsal. Impressed with what they saw, CBS created The Johnny Carson Show (Shout! Factory, Not Rated, DVD-$24.98 SRP) to showcase him. Running just 39 weeks from 1955-56, this DVD features 10 remastered episodes from this rare series, in which Carson proved himself a hilarious sketch comedian and commentator on the still emerging TV landscape. This set also contains a 1958 episode of his popular ABC quiz show Who Do You Trust?, an episode of his short-lived 1956 daytime talk show, and a clip from his 1958 two-week run as guest host on The Jack Paar Show. Here’s hoping for more volumes to come…
Partake of half-shell heroics with the complete fourth season of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Lionsgate, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP). The 5-disc set features all 40 episodes, plus a pair of featurettes on Shredder and the evil turtle Slash, and a pizza recipe. You know you need a pizza recipe.
In what has become a rather bland wasteland populated by tired ideas and rip-offs, it’s always nice to see a show that feels genuinely fresh. Created by The Powerpuff Girls‘s Craig McCracken, Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP) certainly fits the bill. Visually appealing, fun, and witty, it’s a show that I’ve enjoyed introducing my young nephew to. The 2-disc first season set features all 13 episodes, plus an audio commentary on the episode “Store Wars,” a behind-the-scenes featurette, promos, end of episode gags, and a gallery.
FBI agent Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia) and his team of FBI missing persons experts return in the complete second season of Without A Trace (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP), hunting down everything from kids on a hijacked school bus, a soldier just returned from war, a college coach, and more. The 6-disc set features all 24 episodes, plus unaired scenes.
Even if they just sat there and talked about how much they loved Dr. Who, I would watch the panel assembled onstage for God, The Universe And Everything (Kultur, Not Rated, DVD-$19.99 SRP). That panel? Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, and Arthur C. Clarke, discussing everything from black holes an the Big Bang to aliens and creativity.
It’s a titanic evening of rock ‘n’ roll history documented in Fats & Friends (Time Life, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP), a concert featuring Fats Domino, Ray Charles, and Jerry Lee Lewis, with a backing band put together by musical director Paul Shaffer that includes special guest Ronnie Wood. As if the music alone weren’t treat enough, the DVD also contains rehearsal footage with optional commentary from Shaffer, as well as a new interview with Paul.
It has been announced by Scholastic, Inc. that 
I know it’s probably too late to save Studio 60.
Long before Comedy Central’s The Daily Show was a glimmer in creator Lizz Winstead’s eye, there was another program that brilliantly satirized programs like 60 Minutes and 20/20 – it was Michael Moore’s TV Nation. One of the TV Nation correspondents was a Brit by the name of Louis Theroux, whose segments included memorable visits with the “new” Klu Klux Klan and NRA rocker Ted Nugent.
Sadly, the Best of Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends volumes available in the UK have not made their way to the US yet, but his recent companion book thankfully has.
THEROUX: Back in the TV Nation days… I don’t want to distance myself from anything I’ve done, because they were all things that I had to go through. And some of that stuff still holds up. In those days, really, I was making short segments – six, seven, eight minute segments – and it was about making some jokes, eliciting some outrageous or ludicrous comments from the people that you’re with, thereby to make their beliefs seem strange or ridiculous, and get out. So occasionally it might seem that they could be… when I look at myself in some of them, I was perhaps a little bit callow, a little bit… let me think. Not in all of them, but in a couple of them perhaps, I don’t think maybe I totally leveled with the people I was with, and perhaps I didn’t… maybe, again, it was the notion of it being a shorter segment, but I was facing…
THEROUX: The BBC had been partners in making the TV Nation shows, and they used to have a guy who’d come over called David Mortimer, and he was the BBC’s man in New York who would help produce the show a little bit. He approached me during the second season and said, “We’d love to do something with you if and when the time comes.” When the second season of TV Nation wasn’t picked up, he said, “We’d like to offer you a development deal.” And that’s what I did. I think it was a three month deal where I had to come up with ideas, and one of those ideas was Weird Weekends. Which was really just the idea of covering TV Nation type subjects, or the sorts of subjects I’d been covering at TV Nation, but in greater length and in more depth.
THEROUX: That’s right. And I think… you know, that’s one of my favorites, and I think one of the reasons it’s interesting is because he really… what can I say? He’s working as hard, if not harder, than I am. He’d obviously been thinking about making the documentary, about being elusive and trying to keep things moving and evading my questions and coming back at me with stuff and saying, “Next, next, next,” and all this kind of thing. And I think because that really made a big difference, and I think it’s one of those ones where, because you’re watching it thinking, “What’s going on with this eccentric character, and is he going to give anything away?” It really sustains the story, I think.
THEROUX: That was pretty awkward, actually. I’ve come to realize in making these documentaries that one of the things I enjoy about being in worlds that are different from the one I inhabit is a kind of invisibility. And that I can escape from my normal life, my day-to-day existence, and just sort of inhabit a parallel existence, whether it’s in a mega casino in Vegas or in a strange religious group in Topeka, Kansas. But when we were making the Hamiltons program suddenly I was in the spotlight. Instead of invisibility I was more exposed. People began writing articles about, “What is Louis Theroux doing in there,” and, “Who is this geeky character in the margins and why is he making a documentary.” And so that part of it was uncomfortable for me.
So I woke up on Wednesday, March 7, and I saw that in addition to Tuesday’s Arctic temperatures, so low that weathermen warned that if you expose any bare flesh outside, you risked getting frostbite, that the sidewalks were buried in snow, and it was still falling. I again thought how lucky the New York Comic-Con organizers were that this didn’t happen during the weekend of the con. I wondered if I’d have trouble getting to a concert in Manhattan that night. Well, I thought, probably nothing worse would happen today.
The panel in the Javits Center’s Special Events Hall was titled “Stan Lee: An American Icon,” and indeed he is. Roy Thomas, Stan’s protégé in the 1960s who succeeded him as editor in chief, was supposed to interview him onstage, but had to cancel his trip to New York at the last minute.
I normally don’t take too much satisfaction in pointing out the demise of a periodical that I bought on a consistent basis and enjoyed the hell out of for simply the level of respect given to the medium.
Director: Judd Apatow
Director: Peter Berg
Director: Chris Rock
Director: Steven Soderbergh