Reader Spotlight: Andy in Boston

It's Andy !It's "Reader Appreciation Month". So we're talking to a reader a day. Get to know The Film Experience community. Today we're talking to Andy Hoglund a '20something living that rock star life'. He writes for The Inclusive

What's your first movie memory?

ANDY: When I was 4 my dad took me to a screening of Pinocchio. I know I probably had watched movies before then (Mary Poppins on VHS), but this is my first legitimate memory of going to the movies. Sitting in a darkened theater, fully immersed -- there’s really nothing comparable to it, I’d say.

I was infatuated with the Universal Horror monster movies. Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man. I still remember – at 4 – watching AMC’s 2pm Monster movie every Saturday. It is rumored that I have seen Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man over 50 times.  I actually once sent Vincent Price a letter when I was in the first grade. He responded back with a signed autograph photo. I still have it hanging in my bedroom along with a picture I drew of him.  Can you imagine a kid who can’t even read knowing who Basil Rathbone and Lionel Atwill is? Or crying because his parents accidentally taped over The Alligator People (underrated Lon Chaney Jr. performance, by the way).

Talk about precocious….

You worked at a movie theater, read movie sites, studied film in college. What was the tipping point for you with movies? 

ANDY:  When I was in grade school, my friends and I formed our own production companies and made movies for the local cable access station. I made short films in high school that almost got me suspended from school – and made me a bona fide legend in the process. No hyperbole. 

So it’s always been a thread that’s followed me through adolescence until today. My college roommate once told me whatever you like to read about online is probably what you should be doing with your life. For me, it’s been about movies. I remember discovering sites like imdb and worldwideboxoffice, then boxofficereport (I see you Daniel Garris), boxofficeguru, and GoldDerby (I still remember Tom O’Neill’s great purge) back when I was 13. The Film Experience is  part of a great wave of Oscar coverage sites I stumbled upon shortly after finding Oscar Watch (now Awards Daily). They fill a real void, offering criticism and analysis of the sorts of things I – growing up – could only wait for EW’s annual Oscar issue to learn about. They are great gateway sites; accessible, but piquing the interest of novices to seek out more in depth material on what makes film great. 

I just love the richness of movies, how collaborative they are. Maybe, at the root of my interest, it’s the storytelling. Who knows?

Who are your three favorite actresses?

ANDY: Favorite? The GOAT? One answer needs saying here… Lori Loughlin. Dscovering "Full House" when I was 6. Life changing. Otherwise, let’s rattle off the usual suspects we all know about, shall we? Michelle Williams, Carey Mulligan and Jessica Chastain are the three greatest ‘Next Generation’ actresses working right now. Some all time favorite performances: Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby, Joanne Woodward in The Fugitive Kind, Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham. 

Have you ever dressed up as a movie character for Halloween?

ANDY: If this counts, I have spent a good portion of the Halloweens dressing up as some member of the Batman universe, beginning in preschool when I went as the Caped Crusader himself.

Andy at 6 ! Awwww

In the 6th grade I went as Alex from A Clockwork Orange. My classmates and teachers all thought I was a generic gangster. The tipoff is in the white overalls and derby. One year I also went as Butch from Pulp Fiction by wearing an old tan motorcycle jacket of my Dad’s and putting a red ball in my mouth (wattt upp mah fckas).

LOL. So inappropriate. Thanks for chatting, Andy. 

Previous Spotlight

Was Oscar Horrors Your "Frieeeeeeend"?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN !

Here Lies... bits and pieces of thieves and murderers all stitched together to form the Robert DeNiro version of Frankenstein's Monster. 

Yes, we close this year's season of "Oscar Horrors" by celebrating the gruesome Oscar-nominated makeup in...(deep breath)... Columbia Tri-Star Picture's Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) . So many possessives! And the film, if I remember it correctly, is possessed. Kenneth Branagh has never been a wallflower as a director and his version of Frankenstein has the exuberant gonzo abandon (i.e. shameless confidence) that also characterized his far more artistically successful reincarnation noir Dead Again (1991).

The makeup designs by Daniel Parker, Paul Engelen and Carol Hemming won Oscar's attention but the team lost to a black and white celebration of a more infamous gonzo director, Ed Wood. 

Now. You might be asking "why, Nathaniel, are we looking at shirtless (briefly) buff Kenneth Branagh and his Bride of Frankenstein instead of the Frankenstein Monster?" I may answer. "Have you seen this Frankenstein Monster? He is DIS-GUST-ING. I don't want to look at him anymore." To the make-up teams credit he really does look like bits of thieves and murderers stiched together the skin being different textures, different elasticities, different stages of decay. The stitches look painful and threaded by unsterile instruments. The makeup effects err on the side of gruesome realism. He looks nothing like the traditional Frankenstein monster with a caesar haircut, green skin and bolts in his neck and Branagh even brings him to life in his birthday suit so the makeup team designed borrowed man parts, too; this monster has nuts but no bolts. 

P.S. I also went with Kenneth & Helena photos because other than the Frankenstein experiment (slimy, nude, mad, clumsy -- an original take from Branagh) the only thing I ever remember about this movie is that it marked the end of that most awesome early 90s film couple Kenneth Branagh & Emma Thompson as he threw her over for Helena Bonham-Carter before Helena then left him for Tim Burton... or something like that. Consider this film Helena's "Bridge to Burton". Here in one film she's yanked from her then familiar Victorian doll iconography and lands painfully into the now familiar decayed gothic doll aesthetic.

The Complete Season 2 of Oscar Horrors  
Psycho -Director 
Carrie - Supporting Actress
The Nightmare Before Christmas - Visual FX
The Spiral Staircase - Supporting Actress
Ed Wood- Supporting Actor

Return to Glennescaul - Short Film
Aliens - Visual FX
Jaws - Editing
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte - Supporting Actress
Phantom of the Paradise -Original Score

Shadow of the Vampire - Supporting Actor
Dogtooth - Foreign Film
Rebecca - Supporting Actress
Monster's Inc - Animated Feature

The Virgin Spring - Foreign Film
Pan's Labyrinth - Art Direction
Them! - Visual Effects
American Werewolf in London -Makeup
Addams Family Values  -Art Direction

Burtonjuice: Thoughts on Frankenweenie (The Original)

BURTONJUICE... on Thursday nights we're looking at Tim Burton films chronologically. Previously we covered his early shorts including the perfect goth calling card in Vincent (1982).

a boy and his dog. til death do they part

As you may have heard Tim Burton is currently rethinking Frankenweenie as a feature film. The Frankenstein story is so familiar as a myth that its ripe for either riffing on and spoofing in. But the short film is so successful at 29 minutes that it's strange to imagine it padded with another hour of footage. I thought I'd type up "things I didn't remember about the original Frankenweenie" but realized that the list would be far far too long as I didn't remember a single thing beyond the premise, that it was in black and white, and that particular boy (Barret Oliver, a major child star in the 80s. What became of him?) and his dead doggie. More after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Links: Frankenstein, Hughes, Zombies, Swampthings

FriiiiiiiiieeeeeeeendAntagony & Ecstasy by way of Green Lantern, Timothy looks back at another ill advised green-hued DC adaptation, Swamp Thing
the Wrap John Landis's son hired to write the reboot of Frankenstein. I was wondering when that stitched man monster would try to lumber through the current supernatural crowds again. Hey, Craig was just talking about the original Frankenstein in the Take Three series.
i09 considers True Blood characters who still haven't had sex with each other yet. Who should? 
IndieWire looks at five female directors on the verge 
Movie|Line says the offer is out for Emma Stone to headline Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. Natalie Portman was previously rumored but I think Emma is a much better idea for this kind of tonally specific project. Portman is too uneven with the fanciful stuff. Superb in Black Swan but less so other times that f/x surrealness have been involved. But will Emma really say yes given that she's already done Zombieland?

Howard HughesMeanwhile I was asking on Twitter why anyone would want a Chris Nolan Howard Hughes bio (he previously expressed intent) now that the news is out that that's the Warren Beatty project that is in the works. So many blogs were all "but what about Nolan's movie???" Excuse me but has no one seen Reds (1981)? If all biopics were as resonant, well acted and potent as that one it'd be a different film world altogether and Oscars love of the same would be fully and thoroughly justified and not just THIS again?(Nolan is excellent at certain things but I wonder why people think he'd be the man for a biopic when depth of characterization isn't exactly his forte.) Warren will play Hughes (who Leonardo DiCaprio already played as a younger man of course in The Aviator) in his later years and it'll focus on a romance with a younger woman. Rumored to be involved or interested in being involved are: Andrew Garfield, Alec Baldwin, Annette Bening, Shia La Beouf, Rooney Mara and Evan Rachel Wood. Oh and Jack Nicholson who gave one of his all time best and least characteristic performances in Reds. No word yet on who will be playing who but the important news is already out in the cosmos: Warren Beatty is getting back to work. Fi-nal-ly.

Take Three: Boris Karloff

Craig from Dark Eye Socket here with Take Three. Today: Boris Karloff

Take One: The Mummy (1931)

Always the consummate character actor, Karloff gave us the most splendidly memorable characters. Famously one of the world’s biggest and best horror icons (along with Lugosi, Chaney Jr., Price and Lee, the frightful five), he played his beasts, ghouls and undead wanderers in exemplary fashion. Take his Imhotep/Ardath Bey, the titular bandaged one in director-cinematographer Karl Freund’s 1931 classic The Mummy. Ten years after being awakened by a group of foolhardy archaeologists Imhotep intends to revive his ancient Egyptian love Princess Ankh-es-en-amon with the help of reluctant modern-day babe Zita Johann.

Museum-based murder and an ancient parchment (the Scroll of Thoth!) cause all the the mummified mysticism. Karloff even has his own Pool of Fate (essentially a steamy bath/psychic porthole), into which he can see anyone and anything, anywhere; and via which he causes the remote heart failure of any old duffer who happens to get in his way. It’s all in the seeing here, all about the Mummy’s eyes. Karloff is given three intermittent extreme close-ups where he glowers into the camera, hypnotising us with his devilish ways. His eye sockets appear as black, lifeless voids into which his bright white pupils emerge through a trick of the light (director Freund was also a celebrated cinematographer). Imhotep is unnervingly memorable.

Take Two: Black Sabbath (1963)

Black Sabbath (AKA I Tre volti della paura or The Three Faces of Fear) was one of Karloff’s key later roles – and a horror-fan favourite. This second segment, The Wurdalak, of Mario Bava's 1963 horror triptych* sees a Russian nobleman seeking shelter in a cottage run by a family awaiting the return of their father Gorca (Karloff). The family fears he may be the titular vampiric creature come back to damn them all to hell or condemn them to a life of blood-lusting misery, whichever comes first. With ashen face and oversized follicle accompaniments (his curly wig, moustache and eyebrows deserve their own end-titles credit), Karloff stands out. And I mean that literally, as well as performance-wise; the star is seen standing outside peering in on the action much of the time. Karloff is also lit by horror-versed cinematographer Ubaldo Terzano in a different, far more singular way than the other actors are. The giddy weight of his presence perhaps aroused nostalgic creativity in Bava. Karloff, so familiar from classic creature features, appears like an ornery flickering wraith from a beloved bygone era.

Bava, like Freund, makes effectively chilling use of Karloff’s penetrating eyes. He knew that all it took to match Boris’ unique ability to transfix an audience with great, creepy eye-work was the requisite camerawork to capture it.

*Karloff’s performance is also notable for the fact that he appears as himself in the interludes, where he introduces the scary stories to follow.

Take Three: Frankenstein (1931) 
and Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

In James Whale’s germinal horror film Frankenstein Karloff is introduced to us simply as ‘?’. He’s a mystery, an enigma: a monster! He’s a confused soul, a man made out of bits of other men, bad men. Karloff comes alive halfway through this epoch-defining original mutant anti-hero movie. He’s first shown via a shot of his hands (as he similarly was in The Mummy and, indeed, in Bride of Frankenstein – it seems to be a recurring trope); he twitches his fingers then rises to meet a world of fear and epic paranoia. It was simply a way of being and walking: arms aloft, that angular, towering body – matched with the bolt-necked, flat-topped patchwork head, fronted by that memorably permanent crestfallen expression. Karloff delivers a beautiful performance, inventively clumsy and expertly physical.

In the first film he was quicker, more erratic. In Bride – with nearly five years' worth of living with the Frankenstein legend surrounding him – Karloff appeared more at home, looser and familiar with the moaning and groaning through fields and ruins, but no less energetically committed. It’s like he dusted off the monster’s clothes four minutes, not four years, after first wearing them so well. As a result, one of Karloff’s monstrous turns can’t truly be judged higher than the other. They’re a complementary couplet, both eminently watchable and always fascinating. But Bride reveals more about the man within the monster. It's evident in the three instances where he sheds a tear. You see that those tears are born of loneliness: he craves companionship. You can feel nothing but vicarious sorrow when the third of his tears works its way down his scarred, sunken cheek.

We belong dead.

...the monster forlornly admits in a last, generous close-up from James Whale. Boris Karloff made this famous monster indelibly his own.

Three more films for the taking: The Black Cat (1934), The Body Snatcher (1945), The Sorcerers (1967)