The Awkward Press film project got underway this past Saturday with the shoot of The Vanishing Point, based on my story of the same name from the upcoming Awkward Two anthology. It's fitting that this story was the first to be shot, as it was really the catalyst for the entire project. A few months ago, my friend Eric Kissack told me he was looking for a project to direct while he was between editing gigs. "What a coincidence!" I said, "I happen to have written a story that I believe would make an excellent film!" Because that is how I roll.

Remarkably, Eric dug the story. I went home and busted out a screenplay in a few hours. This is not as impressive as it may seem - the screenplay was only 7 pages long. It is a very short story.

We sent the script back and forth for a few weeks until we finally came up with something we thought would work. I kept waiting for the moment when Eric said, "Hey, I've changed my mind, this is a terrible story," but that never happened. Before too long, he'd signed on two excellent producers (my wife, Sarah, and Eric's friend Lisa) and the ball was rolling.

At that point, I was pretty much out of the picture. Being a writer is the best thing a person can do on a movie, I decided, because you get all the thrill of watching people enact your vision without having to do any of the hard work of actually making that vision come to life. They say we're not very well-respected in Hollywood, but my new pool does not really care how respected I feel. That joke would be much funnier if I was getting paid.

I showed up on set (a backyard in Encino) Saturday morning bright and early at 6:15. In addition to writing the thing, I was also playing a gorilla who shows up at the end of the movie for no reason that I can really explain other than I wanted to wear a gorilla suit. Vision! Most people on the set had no idea I wrote the script and probably wouldn't have cared even if they had known. "Hey," they said when they met me, "you're the gorilla." I did not bother to tell them I was the writer, because I think I was getting more respect just as the gorilla. Although as one of the actors pointed out, my name was on the front page of the screenplay three times - written by, last revision by, and latest revision by. I swear, that was not intentional. I thought Eric deserved a co-writing credit because he was instrumental in creating the final script, but he declined. What a mensch.

Shortly after Sarah and I got there, the lead actress arrived. Her name is Jennifer Irwin, and she's done a lot of really impressive work. She played a conniving executive in Slings and Arrows, which is an amazing Canadian show about a theater company. If you have any interest in laughing or crying or not being stupid about great TV, you should Netflix it immediately. She also played the sister-in-law in Eastbound and Down, which is possibly the funniest television show of all time. She said a very friendly good morning, we introduced ourselves, and then she was led off to get hair and makeup done.

I continued standing around like an asshole until our friend Andrea, who was helping wrangle people up for the day, wrangled me. Eric was not on set yet, and Jennifer had some questions about the script. I got very nervous because I don't really know what the script is about, and I did not want to be that guy who was like, "it is whatever you imagine it to be." So I went back and answered her questions in a way that hopefully did not betray my complete ignorance of my own work.

The first thing we shot was a scene in which the parents exit the house with me in the gorilla suit. I was truthfully very nervous about putting on the gorilla suit. The last time I attempted to wear an animal costume was back in college when I worked at Borders book store. I was asked to play Curious George one day for a special event that was being held in the kids' section. As soon as I strapped on the head, I FLIPPED OUT. "Get this fucking thing off me!" I screamed. Luckily, I was not actually in the kids' section at the time ... I could have given those kids some permanent life scars. I would not call myself a particularly claustrophobic person, but the minute I got inside that hot, giant head, I was convinced I was going to die.

I felt a similar sense of panic when I put on the gorilla head. I was seconds away from saying I couldn't do it, but then a sense of calm overtook me. "You're okay," I told myself. "It's just a plastic gorilla head. Other people in the world have to deal with things that are far more terrifying. Wars and things. You can do this." I didn't know I would have to do it for the next hour and a half, which is how long it takes to film people walking out of a house and onto a porch in movie time. But I got used to it, and I think I might have finally conquered my fear of wearing fake heads over my real head. This is a good thing, because that fear has prevented me from engaging in many of life's finer pleasures.

It was weird being inside the suit ... the minute you put on a gorilla head, you become this strange leering presence that intimidates everyone around you. Jennifer and the actor playing the dad (the phenomenal Brian Huskey) bonded with each other while I hulked around like a jackass. For some reason, I felt like I was not allowed to speak when the head was on, which probably made my presence even more upsetting.

After the gorilla experience, the Prisoner and the Boy shot for a few hours, while I hung out on the porch with Brian and Jennifer. They were both incredibly funny and nice and I spent most of the day laughing like a giddy schoolgirl. I did not have much time to bond with the actor playing the Prisoner (who must remain nameless for mysterious IMDB reasons) because he was filming most of the day, but the Boy (Anthony Crehan) was a really great kid. His dad Kevin was on set all day, so I got to talk to him a lot ... he was a great guy, too. Really, an incredibly nice and supportive environment all the way around.

The day ended around 8:00. From what I was able to see, I think it's going to be an excellent piece of Communist propaganda that we'll all be proud to have on our resumes some day. Just kidding. I don't have a resume.

Black Christmas

Video World was tucked off into a topiary-barricaded alcove of the Stony Point Shopping Centre, a swift five-minute Schwinn sojourn from my front door.

No bigger than a boutique, this early-80's video store was infinitesimal in comparison to the cancerous sprawl of the Blockbuster Video chain that had begun to malignantly metastasize its way through America’s suburban strip malls, eventually putting all the mom-and-pop operations like Video World out of business. I was fortunate enough to push through my preadolescence before the big blue-and-yellow Blockbuster awnings started cropping up all across my hometown. Walking into Video World was like immersing myself in a Betamax Shangri-La. Every last inch of wall space, from floor-to-ceiling, was lined entirely in video cassettes. At 8 years old, I had officially found my home-away-from home. Each 4 by 7-and-a-half inch VHS cassette contained a different story, just waiting to be told – and I made it my mission to watch them all. Or as many as my allowance would allow.

Hidden at the rear of the store, buried behind comedy, family, drama (but before you reached the “private room” of adult films at the very, very back) – there remained a single row of videos off-limits to children. Little boys and girls were not allowed to rent the videos from back here at the shadowy edge of the forest.

The horror section.

A kid like me couldn’t help but feel a shift in the atmosphere upon entering the aisle, suddenly surrounded by so many R-rated movies. The carpet seemed to darken, stained somehow. Even the air had a miasma of decrepit breath to it, thicker than the air in the childrens section. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be here, which only made me want to explore even more – go deeper, take just another couple steps in, see if I could make my way past the A’s, past the B’s, even the C’s, until I was utterly immersed in the aisle, enveloped in images of terror from all around.

This – this was where fear resided.

Every kind of fear you could think of, or not think of, was right here – captured on magnetic tape and sealed inside its own cardboard box – little gift-wrapped packages presented in a tableau of carnage.

Deadly Spawn. Faces of Death. Def-Con 4. Xtro. The Stepfather. The Driller Killer. The Stuff. Texas Chainsaw Massacre II. I Spit On Your Grave. The Dead Pit. Black Roses. Headless Eyes. Magic. Black Christmas. He Knows You’re Alone. Class of Nuke 'Em High. Cellar Dweller. Mother's Day. The Prowler.

So go ahead, kid – I dare you. Slip a video off the shelf.

Pick any horror film and take the cassette into your hand. Rub your finger over the cardboard cover with its softened edges. Feel how fuzzy and worn the corners are?

Now look at the cover.

Video after video displayed a frozen moment of terror – either a snapshot of a victim caught in that instant just before the axe comes crashing down upon their cranium or of some hideous monstrosity still covered in the gory remains of its last meal. Too many to list – but I can still remember them all. The corpse of a college coed sitting upright in a rocking chair, a clear plastic bag wrapped around her head. A pair of eyeballs slithering away from the very sockets of their owner. The silhouette of a man wielding a butcher knife, only inches away from stabbing his stepdaughter and her defenseless dog.

Most of these movies have long since drifted off into a sea of beta-obscurity, lost forever in a back catalogue of forgettable movies. But somehow, their cover art remains indelibly rooted within my subconscious. Their Photoshopped tentacles have wrapped themselves around the deeper recesses of my brain and refuse to let go. The image of Freddy Krueger from the front cover of Nightmare on Elm Street II. The pool of melted human remains from the front cover of The Stuff.

Even to this day I can conjure up distinct images of grotesqueries from any number of video cassette covers, like photos displayed in a gallery. Your friendly neighborhood video store is presenting its own art show of terror. A monstrosity exhibition.

I was too young to actually watch any of these movies at the time – but I didn't need to. The cover artwork was enough. The shock of the image had a searing effect on my subconscious, imprinting its visual signature on my little boy's brain in far more damaging (and therefore effective) ways. The sleeve activated my imagination by exposing it to images of visceral horror more unnerving than the movies themselves.

This was the true horror here: Not the films and the stories they told, but the preadolescent-mind taking that snippet of information from the front cover (an act of violence, a look of terror, a monster) and letting a narrative develop from there.

For the curious 8 year old who gets lost in the woods of his local video store, entering into the horror section is like being a kid in an anti-candy store. Look – but don’t rent. All a child has are the covers. For an adult in the decision-making process of what-to-rent, the images on the video sleeve are a point of entry into these movies – while for the child, they are the movie.

The images alone are their total and finite experience with the film.

There is nothing else beyond that singular isolated picture.

Viewing these movies becomes completely moot for the underage viewer. It is, within these proposed rules of engagement, totally unnecessary to watch the actual film in order to receive its intended effect. On the contrary, most of the time it’s better not to watch them. The story told by the filmmakers is rendered null and void by the personal interplay between our brimming imagination and the video sleeve itself – taking the raw material of an image and fabricating our personal narrative around it, tailoring them to fit our individual fears. Our imaginations are completely unhampered by hammy acting and sloppy special effects. Budgetary constraints and a lack of talent are no longer an issue. We are absorbing the visual vocabulary of the video's cover art to conjure up a more personalized horror. It is ours, all ours. We created this nightmare. We are making up our own horror movies – and we are the stars now.

Which is all to say: Mission accomplished. As a devout horror fan, I want to lay claim to the idea that the impact of these movies didn't begin and end with the viewing of the movies themselves, but the very ritual of engaging with the tangible aspects of these VHS tapes. The act of entering into the video store and walking down the horror aisle was integral to this ceremony, if not vital – immersing myself in the visual stimulus of over a hundred different horrific images, navigating the aisle until zeroing in on that one video cassette cover and letting it tell its own story within my imagination.

FUTURE-KILL
Written and directed by Ronald W. Moore.

Future-Kill

Designing VHS covers for horror films is a lost art of inducing terror in children too young to watch the movies themselves. As effective salesmanship, these individual images were here to tempt the prospective renter into taking their movie home for the night. The need for an illustration so visually arresting that it convinced us to choose it over all others quickly became a game of graphic design one-upmanship, these sleeves presenting an image that presumably distilled the very essence of the movie onto the front cover – though, more often than not, the cover tended to be the best part of the movie.

Take H.R. Giger's poster for the 1985 film Future-Kill. Writer-director Ronald W. Moore allegedly begged Giger to design the poster art for this sci-fi/horror schlocker. Giger himself had absolutely no involvement in the actual production of the film whatsoever – but his slithery image found its way onto the movie’s cassette sleeve, luring naive renters into watching this fraternity brothers vs. mutant punks yarn. That black and white tendril of a finger stretches over the face of some alien-like mutant, more mechanical than organic, presenting the prospective renter with an unfulfilled vision of horror Future-Kill itself never quite ponies up to. The movie itself had little relation with what its cover promised, much to the dismay of those duped into dropping two bucks for a one-night rental. Future-Kill is often criticized for its cassette cover bait-and-switch – but it does testify to the power of a striking icon. The film itself dissipates from our memories, while Giger's cover design still lingers.

TROLL
Written by Ed Naha. Directed by John Carl Buechler.

The cover for 1986's Troll is one of the more deceptively simple boxes on the horror section shelf. The image on the front cover is a close-up of – yes, a troll, complete with deep-set eyes and pointed ears. Both of its gnarled hands are gripping a child's rubber ball laced in yellow, red, and blue rings. The creature seems to be holding the ball out towards the viewer as a gift.

The tagline, printed alongside the troll's forehead, reads – "Come closer."

The quotation marks are there to indicate that the troll itself is saying this, as if to beckon me to take the ball out from its hands. It's mine. I lost it, it rolled away from me, he found it and now he wants to give it back. But to do so, to take back my ball – first, I must take a strep forward. I must somehow reduce the distance between the two of us and render myself even more vulnerable to this strange little creature. By obeying the troll's invitation, I had to willfully disavow everything my parents taught me: Don't talk to strangers, don't take candy from strangers, don't listen to trolls.

Two individuals, the troll and myself, were now locked in some sort of struggle – his video box in my hands, my ball in his. A decision had to be made: Should I or shouldn't I obey the creature’s innocuous request? What would happen to me if I came just a little bit closer?

Watching the film itself years later was inevitably a letdown. Nothing within the movie even came close to matching that considerable level of dread conjured up by its VHS sleeve. Not a young Julia Louis-Dreyfus, not an elderly June Lockhart – not even a stoned Sonny Bono could strike that same cord of terror within me that I had first felt by merely holding onto the box in the video store, however many years ago, suddenly forced into a life-or-death game of tug-of-war with this runty-looking troll.

That being said, Avatar just did not look good to me. Three words: blue cat people. I'm all for computer animation if it involves adorable Pixar characters, but I have yet to see anyone convincingly combine CGI characters and people characters. I mean, I guess that's why people were so pumped about this in the first place, because Cameron was assumed to be the first person who was able to do it properly. But then the previews came out, and the blue cat people looked like bad video game animation. So I wrote it off as a movie I would not be attending. Until the rave reviews started coming in, and I decided that I didn't want to be left out of the conversation at the water cooler. Even though I am the only one in my office right now and the only person who would try to talk to me about Avatar at the water cooler was me. Also, someone else bought tickets for me.

So I saw it. First things first: go see it. I mean, you have to. I am not the kind of person who gives a rat's ass about special effects. But this is truly a new thing. After awhile you forget that the blue cat people are cartoons. Their lips still look kind of weird sometimes. But the 3D is absolutely amazing. It is very beautiful and very something new. As a work of visual wonderfulness, it meets its goal. You don't even mind that it's 3 hours long, because you just want to keep seeing shit fly around in the air in front of you.

As a movie, though, let's be honest with each other--it's pretty ridiculous. The story, as I'm sure you know by now, is that in the future, we'll be able to grow these avatar bodies and zap into them with brain teleportation machines. That part's just a given; of course we'll be able to do that. And so our hero Jake Sully zaps into one of the bodies and falls in love with a blue cat lady and becomes super into being a blue cat person (in fact: he becomes the BEST blue cat person) and decides to fight the humans who are trying to destroy the blue cat planet. The blue cat people are called the Na'vi, because it's more futuristic to put apostrophes in the middle of names. They look like a bunch of 10 foot tall golems, especially when they all get together at their tribal parties where they all golem around and snarl at each other. Also of note is that the main guy is white but all the Na'vi people appear to be black. That did my head in a little. Why was I still able to identify who was white and who was black, even though they were all blue cats?

In the end it doesn't matter, because the white guy blue cat is kind enough to come in and save all the black guy blue cats from the white guy white guys who are trying to destroy their planet to get at their minerals. It's exactly like how we're destroying Iraq to get all their oil even though they're actually a dignified people who love the land and ride dragons. Or anyplace else we've destroyed; really, there are countless examples, and the Na'vi are a pretty good stand-in for all of them, because war and politics are simple.

Here are my main problems with Avatar. #1--For all the time they spent fleshing out the Na'vi universe, they never bothered to explain who in the Hell the Earth people were. Some of the Earth people were from a corporation. Some of the Earth people were from the military. Some of the Earth people were scientists. And they all seemed to be living in the same camp, but with radically different goals. The corporation people wanted to get the minerals. The scientists wanted to do science and play basketball in blue cat bodies. And the military people wanted to, I guess, just destroy shit. Which, okay, clearly there is intermingling of corporate and military interests in the real world right now--that part's not completely unbelievable. But there was no indication in the movie of who was supposed to be taking orders from whom, and that made it very confusing. All of the separate elements seemed to be doing whatever the fuck they wanted to do, yet they were working together, yet they were constantly running away from each other ... very confusing.

#2--There is no military leader in the world who has ever acted the way the bad-guy colonel acts in this movie. Imagine General Ripper from Dr. Strangelove crossed with the Predator. He is rabidly insane. And I found that surprising coming from Cameron, because I think Aliens paints a pretty nuanced portrait of military life. The colonel in this movie is more cartoonish than the actual cartoons.

#3--Most of the Na'vi speak English, even though they appear to have no interaction with the humans other than shooting at them with arrows. I do not know why.

#4--A big part of the plot hinges on something you will not see in any preview: the Na'vi have magical hair.

#5--In the beginning, the bad guy says the blue cat planet is worse than Hell. But the blue cat planet is beautiful! They have floating mountains! They have some pretty ugly dinosaurs. But it sure didn't seem worse than Hell to me. Hell is pretty bad.

#6--One scene featured Sigourney Weaver saying, "yoooooou muurrrrddderrreeerrsss" in slow motion while new age music played in the background and futuristic helicopters shot at a tree.

#7--I never knew the name of the blue cat female love interest. She was the main character in the movie, and I think they said her name once.

I could go on, but none of this really matters. It's a stunning film and one you should see regardless of the ridiculousness of the script. But as a writer, it will never fail to annoy me that these movies could be so much better if they took $200,000 out of the $300 million budget and threw it my way. It doesn't matter that it's a story I've seen a million times before. Every story has already been told. You can still tell it with finesse. I mean, good on Cameron for showing us something we've never seen before. But really, if you're going to all that trouble to make your masterpiece, you might want to take a day or two to run your script through the plausibility machine. Thankfully, there's so much going on in the background of this film that you can get a worthwhile viewing experience without paying a lick of attention to the action happening in the foreground.

Oh, and the other thing, which isn't Cameron's fault ... those glasses suck. They're heavy, they hurt my nose, and they're impossible to clean. And the digital displays are unusually bright ... it's like staring intently at a computer monitor for 3 hours. So 3D is cool and all, but until they figure out how to make the viewing experience better, I don't think it's going to revolutionize film-making just yet. Of course, I'm still somewhat skeptical of talkies, so what do I know?

But you went ahead and made the movie that wasn't cool to make, because you are Spike Jones, a self-generating credibility machines. And then you made the previews for that movie so good that I would pay to watch them all on their own. They are not previews, they are tear extractors.

Here's the thing: I saw you that day in front of Square One cafe across from the Scientology center. You rode up on a Vespa and you had a long white scarf around your neck. A riding scarf. And a mustache. You had the gayest 70s porno mustache that has ever been worn outside of 70s gay porn. And you met up with two guys who were just totally normal guys. And you were waiting for someone who kept calling and saying she would be there in five minutes. You stood there the entire time that we were eating, making very normal conversation with your two normal friends, and you never lost your cool, even though your friend was making you all wait. That was pretty awesome.

I really hope you're not a Scientologist.

PS: Awkward One is now for sale! Buy it here!

Must ... see ... immediately ...

The Australian genre flicks of the 1970s and '80s receive a jam-packed documentary tribute in Mark Hartley's "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation." It's a kicky, slightly exhausting look at a bygone era of low-rent moviemaking, whose colorful trove of film clips should delight fans of cinematic esoterica, nostalgic schlock and high octane drive-in fare.

A bit of history: In 1971, relaxed Australian censorship standards ushered in a string of locally produced sex farces with such titles as "Stork," "The Adventures of Barry McKenzie" and "Alvin Purple."

I don't care how good you think you are at making up titles, Alvin Purple has got you beat. From now on, I'm going to have to call everything I write (untitled). Because one just looks foolish trying to compete on that kind of level.

When I heard that Wes Anderson was making an animated version of Mr. Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox, my first thought was, "that is certainly a lesser choice from the Dahl canon." Full disclosure: Roald Dahl has been my favorite writer since I was old enough to read, but I have not read Fantastic Mr. Fox. Is that okay? I just haven't. Maybe it's great. It's probably great. I should read it. Don't judge me!

Unlike you, I have not given up hope in Wes Anderson. I have given him a long leash based on my love for Rushmore and Bottle Rocket. I hated The Privileged Brothers Go to India, but I like his shtick, for the most part. It's whimsical! Get used to it! There is room for whimsy in life. Enjoy the whimsy. Stop being so New York all the time.

Anyway, so Anderson made an animated version of Fantastic Mr. Fox, and here is the trailer:

If you ask me, they should change the name of this movie to Fantastic Mr. Fantastic. Because it looks pretty fantastic, is why I recommend that change. I am starting a movie studio next!

(Via Videogum.)

According to Netflix, Mike and Jeffrey agree with each other on movies 84% of the time. In their weekly feature, The Awkward Movie Challenge, they search valiantly for that sweet 16% that results in big arguments and big laughs.

Mike:

This past June 24th marked the twenty fifth anniversary of the greatest soundtrack ever recorded specifically for a movie. Man oh man, is Purple Rain ever an amazing soundtrack! “When Doves Cry”? That song is awesome. “Let’s Go Crazy”? Even awesomer, especially when Prince gets all Hendrixy at the end of the song. “Take Me With U”? Holy shit, that song is so awesome they don’t even have a word to describe it (you could probably describe it by calling it “Really, really, really awesome,” but that’s four words). “The Beautiful Ones”? “Baby, I’m a Star”? “I Would Die 4 U”? Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yes, there is no doubt about it; Purple Rain is one totally awesome record. Case closed.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the movie for which the Purple Rain soundtrack was recorded (did I mention how awesome that soundtrack is?), which celebrated its own twenty fifth anniversary this past Monday. Purple Rain: the Movie stars Prince as “The Kid”, a wunderkind musician who lives in his parents’ basement and creates music deemed too weird for First Avenue, the Minneapolis club where Morris Day and the Time draw huge crowds by playing music almost exactly like that of The Kid and his band, the Revolution. Except it’s not as good. The Kid meets aspiring singer Apollonia, falls in love with her, and lets her know this by tricking her into jumping naked into a lake. In Minneapolis. In the winter. Shooting her in the back would have been an equally romantic valentine, but then I guess we wouldn’t have gotten to see her boobs. Despite The Kid’s sadism, Apollonia is unable to resist the pubic hairs glued to his chest (or his purple pirate costume… or his Batgirl Cycle…), so she buys him a guitar. When Morris Day gets wind of the budding ingénue, he swoops in to turn her into his personal protégé. The Kid reacts to this news by punching Apollonia in the face.

Prince on his Batgirl Cycle...

Batgirl on her Prince Cycle...

Back at Casa de Purple, trouble is a-brewin’ as The Kid’s equally personable dad slaps around his mom before jamming out on an upright piano that sounds like a $35 Casio keytar. There is also discord in The Kid’s band, where Revolutionaries Wendy and Lisa must contend with their tiny leader’s massive ego to convince him to play a new song they wrote… a new song called “Purple Rain”, that is!

Will The Kid win back the love of Apollonia by making her leap into a bonfire while wearing nothing but a gorilla mask? Will The Kid turn into his evil father, fulfilling his worst nightmares and risking a lawsuit from George Lucas? Will he best Morris Day and the Time at the big Battle of the Bands? Will the water be warm enough for Wendy and Lisa? All this and so much more are revealed 2 U in Purple Rain.

I’m being a wisenheimer because that’s what it takes for me to enjoy Purple Rain, which is often really bad. With the exceptions of Wendy and Day, who has a definite smarmy charm, the acting is uniformly awful. The script is amateur hour and the film is twenty minutes too long. The Kid’s bedroom, with its porcelain drama masks and satin-clad harlequins, is creepier than all the sets in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre combined. There’s also that discomforting misogynist streak. Like the scene where The Kid humiliates Apollonia at Lake Kookamunga, the one where Day asks his crony, Jerome, to body slam a girl into a dumpster is played for laughs. Such mean-spirited moments aren’t fun, but Prince acting out a psychodrama with a puppet is. So is the ridiculous dialogue (Morris Day: “I wish you could see my home; it’s so exciting. In my bedroom… I have a brass… waterbed.”) and the way Jerome holds up a giant mirror so Day can check himself out on stage. Purple Rain may be the only feature film to ever benefit from being shot and edited like a music video, and all of those stunning performance sequences can be thoroughly enjoyed without a wisp of irony. No disrespect to the recently deceased Jacko, but Prince really was the greatest all-around entertainer of his generation. The guy’s got a forty-octave vocal range and can make his guitar sound like a crash-landing UFO just by licking it. Best of all may be the grossrotic grand finale in which Prince jerks off his guitar and blasts spooge all over the audience. It’s a scene worthy of John Waters. That final shot in which His Purple Badness looks coquettishly over his shoulder and directly into the camera is even sleazier, possibly because by breaking the fourth wall, Prince is tacitly telling the viewer, “Take heed… I’m cumming 4 U next.” Be gentle with me, Prince.

Mike gives Purple Rain… 8 coquettish Princes!

Next up, Jeffrey blasts his critical spooge all over U!

Johnny Depp as the Mad Prop Comic

Here, by contrast, is John Tenniel's classic interpretation of the Mad Hatter.

John Tenniel's Mad Hatter

Now, it is useful to note that John Tenniel's illustrations were in the first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, meaning they were approved by Lewis Carroll himself with all respect to the original text. It is also useful to note that the Mad Hatter in John Tenniel's drawings is not a Bozo-haired S&M drag king.

See, here's my problem with you, Tim Burton. You are not very funny. I'm sorry, but you're not. Pee Wee Herman, he's funny, and so you made a funny movie with Pee Wee Herman. Somehow you pulled off Ed Wood, a movie that was mature, well-paced, funny, and touching. But did you see Mars Attacks? Did you, Tim Burton? Did you watch your own movie that you made? Because it was not funny.

The worst things you do are adaptations and remakes, and you seem to do an awful lot of those kinds of movies. I don't know how you managed to sap the humor out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but you did. It is practically impossible to remove the humor from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That's like removing the cute from a koala. Watching your version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was like watching a koala with rabies and knowing that I was going to have to kill it later by myself with a safety pin. The day I saw your version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was the day the clown cried.

And now you're doing Alice in Wonderland, because of course you are, because there is nothing more Tim Burton on earth than Alice in Wonderland. Except for that part about how even though it has a sinister edge, it's also one of the funniest books ever written. My guess is that your interpretation of it is going to be all sinister edge with, I don't know, a fart or two. Which, come on, Tim Burton. Just because Lewis Carroll liked to take pictures of naked little girls doesn't mean you have to punish the rest of us. I'll admit, this one's a little better:

Cyndi Lauper

... or it would be a little better if Helena Bonham Carter wasn't the only woman you knew. You should meet more women, Tim Burton.

And you should stop ruining my favorite books, please. If you make another adaptation, please choose something that is not very good. Like Marley and Me. A little of your gothic S&M touch could really do wonders to Marley and Me.

The English version also includes the voice talent of Sean Penn, Iggy Pop (!), and Gena Rowlands.

Now, a little free association here... Gena Rowlands is the widow of 1970s auteur filmmaker John Cassavetes (she also starred in several of his best movies). John Cassavetes was a total badass before dying of cirrhosis of the liver in '89.

John and Gena's son, Nick Cassavetes, is also a film director. His films include
The Notebook, and the recent My Sister's Keeper.

Whether or not you like these movies, it's pretty indisputable that they're mainstream Hollywood puff. It's fascinating to me that the son of one of the guiding lights of the 1970s movement against this kind of puff is now creating it himself. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, really... but it's pretty ironic. Some film student should definitely write a PhD thesis about it, if you ask me.