I’m A Fan of BIFAN: Part 2

Friendly Interactions & the Comfort of the BIFAN Community

I generally travel solo. Sometimes other people are too wishy-washy about attending events or committing to things and at some point I just decided that I would make sure that I never missed the things that I wanted to go to. No shade on anyone else, it’s a me thing.

Traipsing around on my own? It’s what I did in LA. But Los Angeles has a melancholic and toxic sense of loneliness, it makes you feel shitty being alone. I thought that I liked being on my own there, watching people and reading alone in bars. But I like the independence I have here in South Korea much more. In LA, everyone is a lone alone. Here, people just happen to go out by themselves. It’s a different feeling.

Meeting new friends at the festival felt great! People-watching in Bucheon is top-tier, lemme tell you. And having dinner and drinks post-films can’t be beat! If it wasn’t for Grace I don’t think I would have had 1/10th as good a time. That girl is a miracle.

I only had one night where things went off the tracks. The night after Grace left I got terribly lost in the pouring rain. I walked around searching for the place we had been hanging out for the last few nights, trying to use Naver maps, photos I took, you name it.

I finally ended up crawling into a bbq restaurant when hunger and the downpour got the best of me and simply huddled over my banchan and meat like a wet rat, dripping and grumpy. I had never experienced rain like that in my life. My umbrella was about as useful as my earrings. But I ordered some beer and soju and started eating kimchi. These three items, by themselves or in some combination, can cure almost any hardship. That is fact.

I proceeded to sit there shaking my head and laughing at myself. I looked at my wet dress, my flattened hair, my miserable state. The fact that my ass was stuck to the rubber stool and made a noise every time I moved because…WET. It was fucking hilarious. I felt like I had been thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool. But I considered this: after the films I had seen that day, did I genuinely care about water? To hell with monsoon season. There was meat, beer, alcohol. I was finally out of the pour. It was a phenomenal night. It doesn’t get better than that.

I haz a frown from being so sopping wet. That changed quickly 😀

It has been argued that one of the more unique properties of film as an art form is in its modality; how it functions. In particular, it is the experience of moving image exhibition that sets it apart. The projection of time-based media in a theatrical space shifts the identity of individuals from being separate to communal. When the lights go down, that collection of perfect strangers transmogrifies into The Audience. Anyone who’s been to a movie has felt it. You lose yourself into the sea of spectatorship in that theater and it is glorious! It is why theaters are still important. That magic doesn’t happen at home with Netflix.

For those who go to film festivals like BIFAN, it is an experience that, whether each person is aware of it or not, becomes a central part of the Festival Journey and is instantly heightened. Seeing a film, a viewer is part of The Audience for the duration of that singular work. However, should that same viewer attend a film festival, they become part of something much larger- a community. You become Community Audience. More specifically, you are Festival Audience. You see familiar faces at screenings. Volunteers and staff recognize you and wave, you nod at others you have seen sitting near you…you have shed your skin and are no longer The (singular) Audience, you are Festival Audience.

I felt this hard at BIFAN and I kept thinking: yes, this is why I am here. This is absolutely why I moved to Korea. These people- this community of film lovers- these humans who come to this festival and are so joyful about cinema- that is what I have been searching for.

I felt so welcomed. It was remarkable. One of the BIFAN programmers- Jongsuk Thomas Nam- was so kind to me and invited me to two online events and while I certainly felt awkward and a little fangirlish, I still felt like I belonged. I sang Olivia Newton John’s Xanadu at the BIFAN zoom karaoke with a cadre of folks I had never met. While it certainly would have been better if I had been back at my hotel to sing, I just went ahead and did it sitting at the restaurant I was at (don’t worry it was outside). Soju…helped.

I got a chance to meet Pierce Conran which was great! We had some absolutely fabulous conversations about mutual friends (Hi Doug!), underappreciated UK noir, Westerns and cinema in general. I was just thrilled to get to nerd out. Again- this reinforced that I was in the right place.

Seeing him around the fest and checking in on movie opinions also made me feel right at home- it’s something I love doing, whether or not a friend or colleague and I agree on a film. Seeing a buddy in between screenings and doing the “what did you think? What did you like? What are seeing next?”- is one of my favorite parts of festival-ing. It made me miss Phil Blankenship and Jackie Greed. I always used to do that “check-in” when I saw them at AFI Film Fest.

While I did spend the bulk of BIFAN on my own, these interactions were so joyful and really highlighted how special the Korean film community is and made me even more grateful to have moved here and been able to experience this festival. I experienced no pretension, no weird looks, no looking-down-the-nose simply because I am passionate about my love for cinema and expressive about it.
I felt so happy. BIFAN really made me feel at home.

Then More Movies Happened….

Day Three: Sunday July 12, 2020
The films that I watched this day were:
Blink (Han Ka-ram, 2020) – Korea
Queen of Black Magic (Kimo Stamboel, 2019) – Indonesia
Pelican Blood (Katrin Gebbe, 2019) – Germany

This was a HELLOVA day. I don’t even know where to start.
While Blink had no subtitles, I was able to understand it with the basic Korean that I do know and the rich cinema vocabulary that I possess. I wish I could convey that to the filmmaker and actors since I could even reflect on the performances and the manner in which they engaged with the genre (Science Fiction) and its representation of gender and power structures. It was part of a special aspect of BIFAN called SF8, which is an anthology SciFi series from 8 different directors. Normally I’m not a SciFi person- I’m painfully picky about anything in that area- but Blink was incredible. It hit the right chords for me in the strong woman category, the unusually creative homage to Terminator (but not a rip-off! SO GREAT!!!!) and detective stories (I’m a straight-up sucker for a good head-strong detective, especially a woman detective).
From that I went right into Queen of Black Magic which was A. Great. Horror. Movie. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
But if you hate bugs, that movie is not for you! I may return to this and write about it again because it is a remake of an earlier 1981 film which I need to watch. There were frames of that film in the end credits and I was so enthralled by that. As a film preservationist, it did my heart good to see that and I was genuinely giddy at the way this was just such great horror. But like…I should have known it would be fun and utterly watchable. The name for fun and utterly watchable was right next to the writing credit: Joko Anwar.
Here’s the trailer but SERIOUSLY. IF BUGS SQUICK YOU- DO NOT WATCH THIS.

But Sunday’s movie that made me rethink my eyeballs was a German film by a first-time feature filmmaker named Katrin Gebbe. This film, Pelican Blood, ended up winning the Best of Bucheon Award (and deservedly so). I’ve never seen another movie like it. I thought I knew where it was going and then there was a FULL ON NO-HOLDS-BARRED WTF MOMENT where I exclaimed through my face-mask into the theater: “OH. OK. That just happened then.”
I didn’t mean to. But it happened. And it wasn’t like in other films where I’ve wanted to talk back to the screen for…reasons. The power of this film triggered some kind of feeling in me that set my vocal chords going and by the time the words formed on my lips I couldn’t stop and then there we were.
But Pelican Blood is a film that takes no prisoners and doesn’t give a fuck about you. It’s a film that gives zero fucks, in fact. It’s a naked, raw, terrifyingly brilliant piece of film making that looks at motherhood, childhood, darkness, mental health and all kinds of human pain in a truly extraordinary manner.
I LOVED IT.
I feel weird about wanting to see again because it made me so uncomfortable but it’s such an addictive film to watch. I cannot believe a film like that even exists and I can’t wait to see what this woman makes next.

Day Four: Monday July 13, 2020
The films that I watched this day were:
A Witness Out of the Blue (Andrew Fung, 2019) – Hong Kong
Bloody Daisy (Xu Xiangyun, 2019) – China
The Hand (Choi Yun-ho, 2020) – Korea

I love Hong Kong action films. And I love Louis Koo. Might not be everybody’s thing but hey- I’m not a fan of peanut butter and most people are so…to each their own, right?
Bottom line: A Witness Out of the Blue didn’t have to work hard to please me. But I don’t want to damage the film’s credibility either. It’s a truly funny and enjoyable movie!
You can’t tell by the trailer (which makes the film look like a Very Serious Action Movie) but within the folds of this action-packed Hong Kong heist genre pic you will meet a detective who runs a cat shelter, a parrot who is the only witness to the major crime, and a more than generous helping of quirky side-characters and their background stories. If you’re as familiar with Hong Kong and Asian Action Cinema as I am, then you know this to be one of the most delicious aspects of these films. I adored A Witness Out of the Blue and hope you will as well.

Few films I’ve seen in recent years have made me want to just turn on my heel and go RIGHT BACK into the theater and re-watch the same film, but Bloody Daisy was a film I instantly wanted to watch again. Alternating between scenes of pure drama, action and suspense, this film pays homage to some of the best crime film genres that exist. While the chronology of the picture goes from 1999 to modern day, the life changes, relationship fluctuations and character developments make this a highly charged and multi-layered thriller. The grim nihilism of Hong Kong action films of the 80s and 90s, American film noir and the 70s anti-hero buddy cop films were paid beautiful homage in Bloody Daisy. While I am not certain that the writer/director intended this reading, it is what I received from the film, why I loved it so much and a major reason why I would rewatch it. Aside from the fact that it just rules.

My only criticism (and it almost threw the film for me in certain respects): there is a rather uncomfortable tag during the end credits that has a big thank you to all the policemen working in China, giving all their time and their lives. I find this difficult for me to gauge. It’s very heavy-handed. Therefore, it being China in 2020, I feel a little awkward at this credit sequence message. The feeling towards police globally is not exactly positive and for good reason. On the other hand, Bloody Daisy, an incredible movie ABOUT is not a film about bad cops. HOWEVER the end credit praise was a little off-color for me and didn’t service the film well. I just wondered if he was asked to put that on in order to get the film made or…I have no idea. I don’t want to make any assumptions. It’s uncomfortable.

After Bloody Daisy I went and saw The Hand which was a really fun independent Korean horror short film about a hand that comes out of this guy’s toilet and starts killing people. It was super funny in a Evil Dead kind of way. I stayed for the Q&A which (as with the others I went to) was wonderful, even if I didn’t understand the majority of what was said.

Day Five: Tuesday July 14, 2020
The films that I watched this day were:
Sheep Without a Shepard (Sam Quah, 2019) – China
Impetigore (Joko Anwar, 2019) – Indonesia

So Tuesday was another strong day. I mean, hell. They were all strong days. Who am I kidding? There were some films that I loved and some films I only liked, but I enjoyed every single film I saw and I cannot believe what a good time I had at BIFAN.

So let me give you these trailers. If you are bothered by horror, do not watch the second one. Also, neither is TOO spoilery but if you think you will see these films (Impetigore is about to be available for streaming on Shudder) I would advise NOT watching the trailer and just going in blind:

So Sheep Without a Shepard knocked my socks off. Enough so that it’s probably going to get its own individual post since it’s a remake of another film and I want to watch that film and do a compare/contrast. As those who know me are aware, I have done a lot of work in adaptations and remakes and that is an interest for me. In my research on Sheep Without a Shepard, I found that the originating material was actually an Indian movie made in 2013.
So, that post will come! Bottom line, this film won the Audience Award at BIFAN so…it’s a well-loved film and should be seen.

Now on to Impetigore. The first thing you should know is that if you get the streaming channel Shudder or have the ability to rent it FROM a Shudder-connected platform, this face-melting film will be available to stream from July 23rd onwards according to what I have read here.
So the question is…should you? Well, if you like horror films, there is only one answer:

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So let’s not disappoint Varla, shall we?
But in all seriousness, Impetigore fucking rules. You know when you’re watching a movie and you’re so deeply involved with it that you absolutely forget that you’re watching a movie?
YEAH. SO Impetigore. That was my experience.
Now, I can’t say that this will happen for male viewers.
This is probably one of the strongest horror films I have ever seen with women as protagonists and central figures. I could probably talk about how much I loved this film for hours based on the dynamism of the women characters and the involvement of puppetry alone but…there is just so. much. to. love. about. this. film. I cannot wait to watch it again when it comes out on Shudder.
Sure, you can certainly see the influence of films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and more but it’s what Joko Anwar did with the idea of homage that I loved. He translated it into creative intent and unique synthesis not simply repetition.

Day Six: Wednesday July 15, 2020
The films that I watched this day were:
Fallen (Lee Jung-sub, 2020) – Korea
Mrs. Noisy (Amano Chihiro, 2019) – Japan
Taro the Fool (Tatsushi Omori, 2019) – Japan
The Interviewees (Hwang Seungjae, 2020) – Korea

So I could definitely feel the Film Festival Fatigue by Wednesday. But I kept going. Because HELLO. MOVIES TO WATCH.

I started out with Fallen which Grace had told me about. There was a lot to like about it. But it was a little bit messy.
Things I quite enjoyed: the smart way that it mixed the idea of a woman writer, true crime and women’s issues that are very specific to Korea. Fallen examines media exploitation of women, molka, Korean society and its response to queerness, bullying and suicide. It loses the path when it starts to go too deep into the Science Fiction realm. It seemed to be trying to handle too many genres at once which disappointed me because the visuals were strong, the performances great and any 3 or 4 of the things the film had would have worked together but not all 5-6. It just couldn’t hold up under all the multi-genre pressure. Worth watching but just difficult to work with at points.

I loved Mrs Noisy. Ootaka Yoko’s performance alone is extraordinary. It’s hard to talk about the film without saying too much but I definitely have some thoughts. I will try to keep this as vague as possible!

While I may have found myself disappointed with what I saw as a traditional return to domestic values in the third act I don’t believe the film can be chalked up to simple recuperation in that manner. The relationships and discussions are far too complex for it to be that easy.

This sensitive and funny women-centered film examines deeply flawed people and critiques modern parenthood in unique ways. While traditional family values are certainly present, they are not overbearing enough to disregard a film as worthwhile as this. Don’t miss it.

So Taro the Fool. Wow.
I’m not a fan of Harmony Korine or Tod Solondz. I just can’t watch their work. And Lars von Trier…well, I like a few of his films but not many. When I got out of Taro the Fool I thought I completely hated it. I thought it was in the Solondz/Korine school of cinema masochism that drives me absolutely insane. And I still think it might be.

BUT DAMN. I couldn’t get that film out of my head for two days. I just kept. Thinking. About. It. I could not stop thinking about it. There are only a few films that I’ve ever had that experience with: Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier, 1996), Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971), Germany: Year Zero (Roberto Rossellini, 1948) and Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985).

I am in no way suggesting that Taro the Fool holds a candle to those films; it doesn’t. Whatever Taro the Fool shares with these other films has no name. Taro the Fool wears discomfort and weirdness as a garment, traverses shock, swims through sadness, visits melancholy and returns to revel in awkwardness and anxiety. Sometimes I like films that have all those elements! But used in this fashion…I still can’t decide!
The lady in front of me couldn’t hang. She straight-up walked out at the scene that reminded me a bit of Alejandro Jodorowsky (who I adore). I get that.
But she missed some heartbreaking monologues that made me think: I don’t know if I like this film, but this scene is some of the most amazing film making and most intense shit I’ve ever seen. I fucking love it.
So…Taro is incredibly challenging. I’m still in the “unsure” category. But I sure appreciate it and thank BIFAN for having given me the opportunity to have experienced whatever it was!

My last film of the night was The Interviewees. There was a lot to like about this film since it is clearly based on actual interviews done with people talking about real-life situations in and around employment, happiness, life, death and other day-to-day existential matters and that non-fiction element makes it interesting. But it also weighs down the fact that it is a SciFi film.
Much like Fallen, I think this film might have been trying to do too much and maybe couldn’t decide where it was going. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the performances, the structure and the “twist.”

Day Seven: Thursday July 16, 2020
The films that I watched this day were:
The Kind-Hearted Man (Yamanouchi Daisuke, 2019) – Japan

I ended the festival with a bit of pink film from Japan. It’s definitely not for everyone so I would advise you look into pink film and decide if that is something that you would be interested in before watching this title. That said, it’s a pretty fun horror film with great scares and SFX make up. So some creepy old dude sex scenes, some kinda hot guy sex scenes, some scenes where I was like: “I don’t know if women’s bodies can actually do tha…oh, um, I guess they can. Learn something new everyday,” and some pretty awesome ghost shit.
I’m not going to complain ONE BIT about ending my BIFAN on that note. It was fun as hell!

After the film ended, I went to get some food and joined a bunch of folks for the Zoom online reception. Again, I felt so honored just to be there. People from ALL OVER THE WORLD were on this zoom call. People who are usually at BIFAN. People who were talking about how much they love the festival, the community, how sad they are they had to miss it but they’ll be here next year. Listening to everyone’s updates from Europe, South America, Taiwan…It was truly an incredible experience. My friend Ivy from LA was on the call too (she was one of the only people I knew on the Zoom Karaoke) and it was really nice to see her.

I’ve gone to a lot of after-parties, tons of receptions in my life. I grew up in the industry, on film and TV sets. It’s not that filmmaking or filmmakers in particular make me feel all geeky it’s just that I have a lot of respect for people like the group that were on this closing night zoom call. It was so obvious that it was a huge international collection of human beings who create genre work and REALLY LOVE THE CINEMA and that awed me.
I just love people who love the movies and these people love the movies.
BIFAN seems to bring those people out and…how magical is that?

I closed my evening at this small restaurant where I got a chance to meet a few of the volunteers who had been smiling and waving at me throughout the festival. I seemed to go into their particular theaters more often than others. Sometimes that just happens during a festival- you end up watching movies in only house 3 and 10 for two days!

Talking to these young women was so much fun. First of all, it was a really good chance for me to actually speak Korean (I rarely get a chance to speak Korean where I work and live- it’s basically all foreigners/English speakers). And I didn’t do as badly as I thought! I only used Papago when I needed to say really MAJOR things and for a word here and there. Also numbers. I am awful at the number system. Both native and sino-Korean. Don’t judge.

Festivals could not happen without volunteers. And these folks basically don’t even get to see most of the movies! So they were on their way out and I asked them to sit (they weren’t sure at first) and then they did. They asked what movies I preferred (I told them), then we just talked about Korea and why I’m here, how much I love it and random other things.
It was one of the best parts of the festival.
I loved being on the Zooms with the people who made the films for BIFAN.
I loved Zoom Karaoke.
I loved seeing the Q&As and I loved the movies.
But I really really really loved talking to these three women who worked so hard to make sure that everyone stayed safe, healthy and happy at the festival.

So grateful to the BIFAN Heroes for their hard work and awesomeness!!

That was a tough job. I watched. If you think being a volunteer at a film festival is hard…trying adding the additional aspects of temperature taking for each film, bracelets, ID form filling out, and monitoring all that information when guests go into the theater.
I was so proud just to be able to thank them and talk about movies and have some laughs with them on my last night in town. It was the best way to end my first, and certainly not my last, BIFAN.

And thank you again to everyone who made this festival possible, from festival director and staff to programmers, jury members and other attendees. It was a dream come true. I am still floating 6 feet above the ground in happiness from this experience. BIFAN has made me the most ecstatic film nerd in the north of South Korea. Until next year film friends….

I’m a Fan of BIFAN: Part 1

Yep. The title is about as Dad Joke and pun-tastic as you can get. But to be honest, it describes my feelings towards the film festival I recently spent a week at perfectly. While it has been a few years since I have devoted any time to serious fan culture studies (it has changed significantly since I was focusing my attention in that area of study) I will stand behind the basic definition of being a fan being an “ardent admirer or enthusiast” of a given subject/topic/area of the world. Especially since I am highly allergic to the newer term the kids are saying “I Stan xxxx thing.” That refers to a toxic state of fandom which…is not my jam. And my experience at BIFAN? Totally a fan experience and not at all a Stan experience.

It’s hard to say what I love most about going to film festivals. I’ve been going for so long and they’ve become such a part of me that it’s difficult to pick out just one aspect.

I have been blessed to have spent many years enjoying films at TCMFF (Turner Classic Movie Film Festival), AFI Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, OUTFEST, LA Asian Pacific Film Fest, Beyond Fest and more. These became as much part of my life as holidays or family events. In some instances, perhaps even more solid and reliable.

So now I’m sitting here in the north of South Korea, recovering from my very first film festival in my new adopted home. And wow. I’m just going to say it straight up: the 24th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) 부전국제판타스틱영화제 was ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS. It was a film festival that felt like it was made for me. Every single film I watched felt like it was designed with me as audience. That was such a new and joyful experience!

Getting to the Festival…

There were some obstacles of course. The most obvious one is that BIFAN is the first festival I have ever had to travel for. Having been born and raised in Hollywood, California, every film festival I attended previous to this had come to me. So I got used to sleeping in my own bed, knowing the weather, being comfortable in the environment, etc. That was not the case here.

So off I went to Bucheon and my lovely friend Tyler agreed to watch my temperamental cat.
Arriving in Bucheon, I had a few surprises because I’m still really getting to know Korea.
The hotel that I thought was close? It was 20 minutes away and it was…not exactly a hotel. It was more of a motel. As in a love motel. But they were awfully nice at the front desk and it was basically clean even though it was the most uncomfortable bed. But hey…no one goes there for the beds. And I wasn’t there that much. I was mostly at the CGV seeing movies and then eating great food! So it was not a big deal at all.
Honestly, I laughed and think it’s pretty funny. Also? Who doesn’t love a good adventure while traveling?

OK, fair. Most people don’t. But I’m flexible. I mean, weird shit happens all the time here and if you can’t roll with it, you’re going to be really unhappy.
Even though a lot of things that I could never have imagined in my most creative imagination have happened since I moved here in November, 2019 (I mean, pandemic?!?!) I never want to live anywhere else.

So, I found my hotel, got situated and got prepared for what I knew was going to be a different kind of week and festival.

Festivaling in the Time of Pandemic

I got one of these packets for EVERY single screening I attended- an alcohol swab and some hand sanitizer. They were handed to me by volunteers as I walked into the theaters.

First off, yes. So let’s talk about That Thing. That Pandemic Thing: COVID-19.
Being in South Korea I absolutely know how lucky I am. Every day I acknowledge my privilege and my heart aches for my friends, family and colleagues in the US. I feel guilty a lot. But there’s not much I can do.
So that’s where my dumb broken brain is at.

As for BIFAN, the presence of a global pandemic (even as well-managed as it is in South Korea) changed everything about the festival:
The people who ran and figured out BIFAN this year took immense care and consideration with the strict medical precautions. I felt completely safe and comfortable there. People in white jumpsuits went into the theaters in between screenings to sterilize the theaters before audiences could enter, temperatures for each audience member were actively taken and observed for every film, people were spaced out in seats so well for social distancing! Everyone stayed masked while watching the films and volunteers reminded those who dipped their masks for a brief moment or two to please remember to keep their masks on.
By the end of the festival I was a total pro at figuring out how to drink a soda or a cold coffee drink with my mask on.

A lot goes into a film festival (especially an international film festival) to make it happen. So how the hell are you supposed to make it go when the world is on fire?!?!? Up until BIFAN, most big events and festivals have just been cancelling here in South Korea. It just didn’t seem manageable or like a controllable process.

Like Sundance, Telluride and the rest of the festival circuit, BIFAN usually hosts big parties, international guests for juries and Q&As…the event is an EVENT. But the BIFAN staff knew this was impossible this year. Even if Korea could host some dinners, it was impossible for filmmakers and guests from other countries to join simply due to quarantines and the economic burden that this would have put them under. The savvy part of a very well planned festival was the recognition that, while this year would have a loss of the crazy in-person celebrations, there was still the possibility to make the festival HAPPEN. THAT part WAS possible.

But how?

BIFAN put an extreme amount of work into their festival that platforms extreme works. They made it a hybrid festival- partially online, partially in-person. They still had the industry meetings, the filmmaker school support forums, and all the other the non-exhibition events that I generally don’t participate in that they have every year. I WAS ABSOLUTELY BLOWN AWAY.
These are never events that I attend. I don’t want to make films, I just want to watch and write about them. However, as a film archivist and preservationist I believe strongly in matters of access and the kinds of access that the BIFAN team made happen for film professionals at BIFAN was UNPARALLELED. I’ve never seen anything like that. It was groundbreaking in a way that it can be used in the future for other situations and BIFAN is on the cutting edge in this way.

The hard work that BIFAN put into making sure there was going to be zero infections at the festival was obvious and something that I felt very confident in. As a researcher, I had put a lot of time looking into the lengths the staff were going to in order to make the 24th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) 부전국제판타스틱영화제 safe and not only was I not disappointed but I was impressed!

Here in South Korea we haven’t had any COVID infections stemming from movie theaters audiences. People have continued to go to the movies and that is not where sicknesses seem to come from. While audience attendance has gone down and some theaters have closed temporarily and/or limited the number of daily screenings, the infection clusters that have popped up recently have generally been traced to external influence, people acting irresponsibly (no masks, large/excessive gatherings of people ) or strict medical precautions not being taken to ensure safety.

I was prepared for BIFAN to be a different kind of festival due to the COVID issues but I was not ready for it to maintain fun and fabulourom the first film to the last film, everything went smoothly. Usually at film festivals I’m used to a few bumps on that first day (and there may have been one or two) but with the added stressors of COVID-19, BIFAN and the staff and volunteers really went above and beyond in a way that I’ve never seen before. When they write about people in South Korea coming together around this pandemic…they’re not kidding. But it was also BIFAN and the BIFAN community that made it happen. Incredible work.

These are the bracelets that we were given for each movie. Each film was marked 1-4 (depending what number it was) and our temperatures were taken and we were double checked by volunteers that we had the correct wristbands and had been through the whole process before we could enter the theaters. So thorough and good!

They way that they cordoned off the seats for social distancing. It worked so well!

Ready for my first film of the day, on that Friday morning!

Let’s Watch Some Movies!

Day One: Friday July 10, 2020
The films that I watched this day were:
A Girl Missing (Koji Fukada, 2019) – Japan
Dancing Mary ダンシング (Hiroyuki Tanaka/ SABU, 2019) – Japan
Gundala (Joko Anwar, 2019) – Indonesia
The Sunshine Family (Kim Tai-sik, 2019) – Korea/Phillipines

Friday I watched 4 movies and one Q&A. It was pure joy to be back in the theaters again, with other people, shuffling into the seats, putting bags and belongings down, getting settled in to enjoy. I have to say that it was a little rough for me to have chosen a slow burn thriller as my first choice of the day, but WOW!!!! I was NOT SORRY.
As a woman and a media scholar this film truly knocked me off my feet and I did not see any of it coming.

Please excuse the last vestiges of my nail polish 😥

A Girl Missing よこがお (Koji Fukada, 2019) was not the movie I thought it was going to be and I am so grateful.
It was better and more complex on a multitude of levels. A quietly important film, A Girl Missing is extremely relevant to current perspectives of women and deftly handles societal notions of guilt/blame, and the omnipresent media’s exploitative trend of “anything for a story.” If I go into too much detail, it will ruin it. In fact, I feel like I’ve already given too much away.
Yes, it moves slowly at first. But once it gets going, it’s an internally screaming rampage that cannot be stopped, a train that is off the tracks and all you can do is watch in agony as the narrative just builds to its conclusion. Really an exquisite film.

The next film I went into was Dancing Mary ダンシング (Hiroyuki Tanaka/ SABU, 2019). I was a little underwhelmed by the title of the film but you can’t always tell a book by its cover, right? And I was in heaven! This film was DEFINITELY my jam. Here is the trailer but it doesn’t even begin to cover 1/10th of 1/10th of what is in the film.

What I enjoyed so much was the social commentary and the character building and the genuine humor. I love Japanese dark comedies that are smart and well-made and this one is in that realm. Playing around in the Yakuza, ghost-story, punk rock and road-trip genres, it’s really an original work that only come from Japan. Every review has called it a cult film but I just want to call it a movie that filled me with pleasure and hit all my sweet spots.

So BIFAN was a game changer for me. I had some idea that it would be, but not like this. My next film was Gundala by a filmmaker, Joko Anwar. I’m going to leave the trailer here and let it speak for itself. What I do want to say for Gundala though is that it is extremely strong in its casting and social commentary and the action scenes are KILLER. The villain absolutely RULES and the tension is just *chef’s kiss*! Definitely watch it!

My final film of the day was a Filipino-Korean co-production called The Sunshine Family (Kim Tai-sik, 2019) based off of a Japanese film from 1992 called The Hit-and-Run Family. While I have not seen the original source material (I will- the story is too good to not see where it was born), this transnational interpretation was hilarious, heart-breaking and ultimately uniquely tender and satisfying.
Sure it’s a comedy, but Sunshine Family still manages to platform deep discussions about marital relationships, queerness, mental health and healthy parenting in between scenes of shutting out nosy neighbors trying to keep a…terrible secret.

As I watched, I kept thinking about my dear friend Ferrin. I think he would have really loved it and I really did miss sitting next to someone I love watching a movie that I was falling in love with. It is one of the great tragedies of COVID that this is not a possibility at the moment. When I fall in love with a film (as I do, time and time again) I always enjoy having a “partner in crime” to experience it with me. But at least I knew that there were other people in the theater with me enjoying the film and I could hear them loving the same things I did. That is such a critical part of the film experience. Sunshine Family was also the first Q&A that I went to and while I didn’t understand very much of it (my Korean is not very good), I stayed for the whole thing and I did understand a lot of it and it was so lovely to see these actors in person, in masks, in person.

Day Two: Saturday July 11, 2020
The films that I watched this day were:
Guilt By Design (Lai Siu Kwan, Sze Pak Lam and Yongtai Liu, 2019)- Hong Kong
Signal 100 (Lisa Takeba, 2020) – Japan

I was really taken by Guilt By Design. It’s a very Hitchcockian courtroom thriller with a great deal of action and nifty turns and twists that you may/may not see coming. While I live/eat/ sleep/breathe true crime stories, mysteries, and anything with a tense narrative involving a puzzle to be solved, I am generally the one person who can never see “it” coming. It’s not that I’m stupid, but I’m usually so wrapped up in the story and so tied to the characters (I’m 100% the ideal reader/watcher/audience of any media) and story that I can’t take that step back that my friends can. I really try- and I tried so hard to figure things out in this film! But I was still surprised at the end and so excited (like a little kid at a theme park) when the finale hit. It always pleases me when I don’t get it and the film just goes crazy. I had so much fun watching this!

Signal 100. Holy fucking shit. This went far beyond what I thought it was going to be. There’s almost no words that I can use to describe it. It’s definitely in the Battle Royale-Japanese kids/violence against each other in high school-genre, but it’s like…take that to 11. I loved the polarity of images that occurred between the pre-recorded intro to the film by the woman-director from Japan and then the film itself. While I didn’t understand what she said, she was young, beautiful, pregnant and smiling and Signal 100 was probably the most violent and gory films I saw at BIFAN. Did I like it? OH HELL YES. That movie was fucking great. Here’s a teensy trailer taste…

And with that, I end part 1 of the “I’m a Fan of BIFAN Chronicles.” Please return to this same place for details on Sunday through Thursday!

How I Survived 2018: Films I Became Obsessed With

I don’t generally make lists (I don’t believe in them) but I’m going to half blame Daniel Waters & his excellent cinema-personship for my desire to list the things I saw this year (I read his list today & was like….yeah, there’s some shit I want people to know about) and the fact that I’m getting old & I forget titles of things & such.

Warning: you will definitely see a pattern to much of the content here. I like Korean film and TV. A LOT. Like, not just as a hobby, but like…9/10 things I watch on a daily/weekly/monthly basis are Korean. There’s many many many reasons for this: I love the actors, the political intrigue plots, the corruption angles, the action sequences and the absurd number of serial killers or extremely violent murderous villains with amazing hair and immaculate taste in clothing that are existing in Seoul at any given point in the Korean movie environment.

That said, these are the films I watched this year that blew my mind or just made me super happy to be sitting in a darkened theater with other folks. Or, in some cases, home with my cats.

Please note that this is a mix of new and older films. But all were new-to-me.

성난황소 Unstoppable (English title) / Angry Bull (literal title) – dir. Kim Min-Ho, 2018

Ma Dong-seok is one of my favorite actors ever & the villain in this- Kim Sung-oh is mindblowing. That burgundy suit he wears is 80,000 shades of YESSSSSSS. Also the action in this one was just superb. Flimsy narrative but if you just go: “Cool. Revenge story. Lots of action & badassery” this is great!

꼬방동네 사람들 People in the Slum / People of Kkobang Neighborhood– dir. Bae Chang-ho, 1982

The Korean Film Archive did a hellova job restoring this classic working class drama and it’s worth watching just to see that gorgeous work alone. But the film itself is also great. Mind you, it definitely gets dramatic– like OH GURL THAT MUSIC SWELL dramatic- but I loved this film. And the lead actress Kim Bo-yeon 김보연 is excellent. It’s available to watch here on YouTube for free. thanks to the Korean Film Archive. Also, this article is really great & talks a bit about Bae Chang-ho who was nicknamed the “Steven Spielberg of Korea.”

Amateurs (Amatörer) – dir. Gabriela Pichler, 2018

This very queer, very funny, very touching comedy made my AFIFest sooooo great this year. I’m a huge fan of movies about adolescent girls saying “fuck you, I’m going DIY you stupid adults” and this is that movie. I died of laughter, I cried a looot and I would see it many more times. There are at least 5 languages spoken in this film- Swedish, Tamil, Arabic, German and English. It is about filmmaking, classism, capitalism and tiny backwater towns with a lotta bureaucratic outdated ways. It is loving and punk as fuck.

Pig (Khook) – dir. Mani Haghighi, 2018

This movie is so funny my sides hurt from laughing. A serial killer is on the loose picking off film directors in the local Tehrani film scene one by one. It’s all at once a satire, a parody of filmmaking as an industry and creative pursuit and ridiculously self-aware. The main character has some amazing rock t-shirts that he wears throughout and the film is just a blast. Want to rewatch many times.

마의 계단 The Devil’s Staircase – dir. Lee Man-hee, 1964

It’s safe to say that this is one of my new favorite film noir/thrillers that has ever been made. If you know me, that’s saying a GREAT DEAL. I will now profess my new addiction to Lee Man-hee and his work, completely setting the groundwork in Korean cinema for the thrillers and horror work that everyone loves today. This film actually scared me at one point! Goddamn Exorcist does nothing to my fear tendrils. If you love Diabolique by Clouzot (1955), this film is just as terrifying in its paranoia and intensity. Again, for those interested, it is available to watch here for free thanks to the marvelous Korean Film Archive.

Cam – dir. Daniel Goldhaber, writer Isa Mazzei, 2018

This film is tits-out incredible. Having been connected with the sex worker world for most of my teen and adult life, I have watched it change drastically based on technology. While those things evolved, the misogyny and judgey-ness stayed exactly the fucking same. For Goldhaber & Mazzei to make this brutally brilliant and powerful film that stands alone as a great thriller/horror film but also functions as critical analysis of agency and identity in an online sexual universe. HFS. I’m alllllllllllllll in. This was my kind of movie. I cannot wait to see what they do next. Tickets already bought & paid for.

화녀 Woman of Fire- dir. Kim Ki-young, 1971

I worship at the film cans of Kim Ki-young. That’s why 2 of his films are on this list. For reference, popular modern Korean directors Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook both call this legendary director a huge influence on their work.

화녀 is a seriously dark and disturbing work. It’s erotic and powerful and troubling and visually fucking stunning. This film’s objective is to make you feel unsafe. Domestic bliss, familial calm, any home/hearth bullshit is tossed out the window to make room for psychosexual violence, lust and manipulation. I LOVE THIS MOVIE. Oh- and it’s also available for free here thanks to the Korean Film Archive! Have a stiff drink or some ice cream on hand. You might need it.

Akasha – dir. Hajooj Kuka, 2018

It may sound odd, but this is an incredible feminist rom-com about a small community set in the Sudan, against the backdrop of the Sudanese Civil War (which is a huge part of the narrative). If that sounds weird and crazy, it is. It has been so long since I’ve seen a film with the humor, feel and joy of 1930s screwball comedy (sans the overwhelming whiteness) that this almost put me into cardiac arrest at how divine it was. Find it. See it. Everything about this film is just amazing.

저는 영화를보고 있어요 Default / National Bankruptcy Day dir. Choi Kook-hee, 2018

Full transparency, I’m a nut for Kim Hye-soo. She’s a hellova actress. And Yoo Ah-in has been one of my main dudes since I watched him in Sungkyunkwan Scandal. Y’all loved in Lee Chang-dong’s Burning this year. You know you did (I did too, FTR). This is a pretty amazing film especially if you are not entirely well-acquainted with the HFS RAGING disaster that was the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Kim Hye-soo plays a financial analyst at the Bank of Korea who is beyond aware of the damages that the IMF will do and has to combat the Very Male industry that she’s in. The film doesn’t shy away from the overt sexism that businesswomen have to face in powerful positions. It’s infuriating and depressing but she is brilliant in this role.

The Night Comes for Us – dir. Timo Tjahjanto, 2018

This Indonesian blood ballet is so exceptionally choreographed and violently HELL YES that I can’t even think about how much I loved it without grinning and wanting to watch it again with other people.

Hold The Dark – dir. Jeremy Saulnier, 2018

It is extremely rare that the litany of horrors that indigenous communities have to handle on a day to day basis make appearances in what we might consider mainstream-esque (or at least a Netflix-sponsored) thriller. Hold the Dark is a difficult film to completely parse. I need to watch it again, for sure. But the fact that I can’t stop thinking about it certainly made me think: yeah, this is something I valued highly. The darknesses that this film explores are various: dying children, the inability of white folx to respect indigenous cultures and their rights, animal behavior, and more. Jeffrey Wright is incredible. And I stand by the statement I tweeted after I watched this: HTD is a Christmas movie.

이어도 Iodo – dir. Kim Ki-Young, 1977

Out of all the films I watched this year (Mandy included) this is the one that really blew my fucking mind. For all intents and purposes, it is a murder mystery and a genre film done by Kim Ki-young. The extremely pithy Wikipedia synopsis reads: “When a man from an island ruled by women disappears, the man suspected of killing him investigates his past.” But that’s like saying “yeah, people die during wars” or “Having the flu makes you feel crappy.” 이어도 is like if Ken Russell and Alejandro Jodorowsky were Korean, got REALLY HIGH and REALLY FEMINIST and were like: “Let’s make our version of The Wickerman, include prerequisite themes of sex, power, gender and erotics, and make a commentary on the erasure of shamanic culture in Korea.” Sound good? HAHHHHHHAHAHAHAH. It’s fucking mindbending and hot.

I love it when US films go strange places but honestly? We just don’t have the history to do it this well. Our history is racism, colonialism and fucked up power structures. Kim Ki-Young is the goddamn master of mindfuckery in cinema and I love it. But you don’t have to take my word for it. It used to be available on the amazing Korean Film Archive’s website but sadly it is no longer there. I would advise that you somehow find and watch this amazing film though.

There were plenty of other films-

도둑들 The Thieves – dir. Choi Dong-hoon, 2012

Wild Search – dir. Ringo Lam, 1989

Destroyer – dir. Karyn Kusama, 2018

Shoplifters – dir. Kore-Eda Hirokazu, 2018

버닝 Burning – dir. Lee Chang-dong, 2018

오아시스 Oasis – dir. Lee Chang-dong, 2002 (Yes, I like this film. No it doesn’t make me a monster. In fact, this is probably one of the most powerful and beautiful films I watched this year).

Sorry to Bother You – dir. Boots Riley, 2018

Skyscraper – dir. Rawson Marshall Thurber, 2018

The Ranger – dir. Jenn Wexler, 2018

And so many more.

These are the movies I can’t get out of my head and make me glad that I do what I do (watch & appreciate cinema & its interaction with human life and politics and whatnot).

I hope that maybe you’ll check out one or more of these. If you do, let me know what you think!

Once In A Lifetime: Spike Lee & Do The Right Thing

I saw a 35mm print of Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) at the Egyptian Theater tonight with Spike Lee in attendance and it was probably one of the best film experiences I have ever had in my film life.

He is, hands-down, one of the greatest film makers that has ever existed. While I am prone to hyperbole in general, this statement is not one of my “OMG ARIEL DRAMA statements.”

The first time I saw this movie I was so embarrassed because there was nudity in it and I was watching it with my parents. On the other hand, that scene? It was one of the first times I felt any kind of erotic feelings in my body. I was also 11 years old. It is the scene where Spike Lee worships Rosie Perez’ naked body with ice. It is scorched into my brain forever and I am forever grateful to Ernest Dickerson & Lee for providing me with images of a man blessing a woman’s body, a mother’s body, for existing.

The film is loud, in charge. It’s punk fucking rock. I cried throughout the entire film.

It’s 2018 and we have seen the deaths of so many young black men and NO ONE HAS LEARNED ANYFUCKINGTHING. Did no one see this film?

What is it that allowed Sal to sit there, in silence, while his goddamn son Pino chased Smiley off right after they had a very explicit conversation about why Sal wanted the restaurant to stay in the neighborhood? Racism. By saying or doing nothing, you say and do EVERYTHING. That one scene is the key for me.

This film is more emotionally viable to me that Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1940), as much as I have a Welles-obsession and have since I was a baby film girl. I rocked myself back and forth in my chair and memories of the LA Riots came rushing back to me like a broken faucet as I saw this film again on a big screen as a 40-year-old woman.

Spike’s Q&A was incredible. Short answers when needed, lengthy ones when necessary. A very potent look when the subject of goddamn Driving Miss Daisy came up (and rightfully so). His exposition on the power of cinema to drive real fucking change hit me HARD, especially as a moving image archivist. He spoke of his documentary Four Little Girls (Spike Lee, 1997), its place in the National Film Registry and how it had actually catalyzed the reopening of that court case, allowing the investigation into what happened. This is what we strive for as archivists and preservationists: ACTION. CHANGE. MOTHERFUCKING JUSTICE.

I saw things in this film I had never seen before- when I was a young girl, I thought the firemen were trying to put out the fire at Sal’s Pizzeria. Now? I saw these same images as those I recognize from Civil Rights footage/stills of firehoses being used against POC. This is a painful film, painfully powerful, painfully important.

I cannot possibly do justice to everything I am thinking tonight about my experience or everything I heard, from Spike, from the film, from my own heart.

I am also incredibly grateful to have stayed for the 35mm of Crooklyn (Spike Lee, 1994) because WOW.
Anyways, I am detailing this at 5am because I have nowhere to write this but here. I am not getting paid to write anywhere or anything like that but I really needed to document this experience. I wish you all could’ve been there with me. I wanted to hold your hand.

FilmStruck Down: Corporate Greed, “Niche” Viewership & Building A Bigger Boat

On October 18th, I wrote a piece about the Asian streaming site DramaFever and how it had announced, very suddenly, that it would be shutting down. In the week since then, the Kdrama and Asian television online community (centered within Facebook groups, Twitter and Reddit comments) have been wildly searching for other ways to access television content legally.

It looks like a site that previously only provided TV shows in Korean (OnDemandKorea) is stepping up to the plate, advertising one of the more popular shows in recent years, Strong Woman Do Bong-soon 힘쎈여자 도봉순 as “coming soon with English subtitles” along with other programs. So it’s clear that other streaming sites know that what AT&T called a “niche audience” and cast off like yesterday’s trash is worthy of attention. Which brings me to today’s topic: the devastating news of the loss of yet another streaming site owned by WarnerMedia and their corporate parent, AT&T- FilmStruck.

If you think that this page looks similar to the one DramaFever had, you’re right. The biggest difference is that FilmStruck is giving their members a good month’s notice instead of, oh, like 24 hours. So if you’re a FilmStruck-er, go and watch a shitload of movies RIGHT NOW. Or at least catalog your watch list and take advantage of the amazing ORIGINAL content that they created.

So let’s say for the sake of argument that you never had FilmStruck. Or that it didn’t work for you on your platform of choice. Or you didn’t don’t care for classic/arthouse cinema. And the same with DramaFever and its offerings of Asian cinema and television. OK, totally your choice. That said, the way these channels were removed and why they were removed and the carelessness and thoughtlessness behind the process is unforgivable. We need to start examining the way these larger corporations are eating up smaller media-providing organizations because, in my mind, destroying them is just a “quick fix” so they don’t get accused of becoming a monopoly. Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe the destruction of channels like DramaFever and FilmStruck solidifies their monopolistic practices.

I just keep thinking about the Paramount Decree of 1948 and how that stopped the Hollywood Studio System from having total control over the films that were being shown and (equally as important, especially to the topic at hand) HOW THEY WERE BEING SHOWN. Block booking became illegal and many of the exhibition practices that the major Hollywood Studios were forcing on theaters all over the country were shown to be discriminatory towards independent theaters and were, essentially, bullying tactics. This case…it’s still important. I feel like it’s useful here because I think AT&T is not-so-subtly removing independent media from viewer accessibility and establishing a dangerous monopolistic precedent only to jockey for first place with another corporate entity.

As I documented in my previous article, AT&T is looking to compete with Netflix. They are the parent company of WarnerMedia who, in turn, owns the streaming sites that have been dropped: Boomerang (a cartoon network) [EDIT: I read that Boomerang was going to be one of the losses in at *least* two different publications when DramaFever was axed- as of today, 10/26/2018, I could no longer find confirmation of that channel’s removal so this is an inaccuracy on my part- apologies!-AS], DramaFever (Asian television), and now FilmStruck (Classic/Arthouse Film). AT&T is chomping at the bit for what I see as “a bigger boat.” They want to create a Mega-Monster Streaming Channel with HBO at the helm (sorta as the selling point), and within the Monster Belly it will contain all the bobs and bits that have been swallowed up from the sites that they have killed in the building process.

As a media archivist I know that one of the trickiest things in our business is licensing. Full transparency, these are only my thoughts and my musings so I haven’t done deep research on who has the streaming licenses for the films on FilmStruck but I know that there may be multiple bodies since the film content came from Warner Archive, Criterion and TCM. That said, I also know that Criterion still has content available to stream on Kanopy (a library-based media streaming site) so they may have multiple streaming licenses going (or they may have an educational license for that one?). My point with the licensing? Who has the contracts and for how long? Does AT&T own the streaming rights? Are they going to sit on those materials until they create their Monster Channel and then have a Special Classics/Arthouse section? That’s what they promised the DramaFever community.

The people in the DramaFever community have already moved on. We don’t wait for some über channel. We will find our TV shows and our community where ever and however we can. More importantly, we don’t like being treated like second-class citizens. We watch media that is high in emotion and it’s traditionally considered “trash media” since Western society is uncomfortable with the raw display of emotion. So…we’re a “niche” market.

With FilmStruck, I hope that there can be an equal bounce back. What I would like to see happen is for Netflix, Amazon or Hulu to jump in. They could easily do it. Classic films, arthouse cinema, this community is analogous to the one I align myself with in the Korean Drama world. There are films that are high in emotion or extreme in some way- costume, language, make-up. Geez- no one talks like Katherine Hepburn anymore, amirite? And musicals? But FilmStruck has a MUCH higher draw than the dramas that I watch, and I will readily admit that.

The interesting thing about FilmStruck is that, unlike DramaFever, many (certainly not all) of the materials that are being streamed are available on DVD or Blu-ray which (of course) then begins the conversation (as usual) about viewers being “so glad” that they kept their physical media. I’ve seen the word “hoarding” being used a decent amount which…always makes me a little queasy but if that is how you want to refer to your media library, hey- who am I to stop you?
Obviously, this whole situation brings up ideas of access and economics and such. Streaming is far more economical (and thus accessible) for people who are on a lower budget which is more common in this not-so-awesome landscape right now. So it is something to keep in mind.

As an archivist, I will certainly advocate physical media 100%. But we need to look at all sides of streaming and accessibility and what digital might provide and who/what audiences it might welcome. Additionally, if AT&T is going to put all of this content behind an expensive cable paywall…that certainly doesn’t allow for the kind of openness that FilmStruck was known for.

There is a great danger in not speaking up when these corporations swallow us whole. We simply don’t know what parts will be left. If they are holding the licenses to these films and we have to wait…which ones will they come back with? How long will we have to wait? Can we access only part of the package? I HAVE QUESTIONS.

To all of my wonderful friends and colleagues who have put so much work and love and goodness into FilmStruck: you are why we watch. You are why we will always watch.
I love you from the bottom of my sprocketed reel heart.

DramaFever-less: The Drama of K-Drama

So here’s a thing. I know most of you are not interested in my interest in Korean Drama (Kdrama) but some of you ARE interested in rights/licensing, media technology, labor & economics. This may be a little long but it’s INTERESTING!

So DramaFever, the Netflix of Kdrama (owned by Warner Bros), shut down yesterday with **ZERO** warning. No disclosure to the large fan communities that consist of mostly women viewers. Long story short, it’s a corporate decision. All DramaFever (referred to hereon as DF) materials & their licenses are to be subsumed into a larger channel that AT&T is creating with WB content so they can compete with Netflix. This monster channel is planned to launch sometime in 2019.

Some women were quite LITERALLY in the middle of watching an episode of a beloved show. Imagine being in the middle of watching an ep of Game of Thrones and it just STOPS. A black screen appears with a message that says: Thank you for your loyalty to HBO but like…Sorry. We decided to shut down the company. We’ll be back in a new form sometime next year. OKTHXBYE.

As you can imagine There’s a LOT OF UPSET FANS RIGHT NOW. And I have been chatting with them A BUNCH on the (mostly FB) forums that I am on. Many of them are trying to find other ways to watch particular shows that they were in the middle of watching (Terius is the primary one, at the moment & I’m kinda glad I didn’t start watching that myself). Lots of folx are going the torrent route which I actually am not against in this situation at all. DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES, Y’ALL. GOTTA HAVE YOUR DRAMA. I AM TOTALLY HERE FOR THIS. So lots of ladies sharing info with the community on how to survive but also acknowledging the shitty subbing (subtitling) on occasion, possible viruses, & non-reliability of sourcing the materials this way.

Enter Viki & KOCOWA. They are like the Amazon Prime & Hulu of Kdrama. You can get two different plans on Viki: standard and plus. Standard is a basic Kdrama, no-frills package & some of the content is limited. Plus is no-holds-barred, ALL KDRAMA ALL THE TIME, LET’S DO THIS. Now, Viki & KOCOWA share content but KOCOWA *also* has its own streaming channel but it’s only available on certain platforms (like not on AppleTV or Roku). So some shows are *only* on KOCOWA and some shows are shared and on Viki *and* KOCOWA.

Got that? Good.

So DF destructs yesterday and we are left reeling. A good chunk of the community is just like OMGWTFBBQ. Many are really kinda like: What about GOBLIN?

Goblin aka Guardian: the Great and Lonely God aka 쓸쓸하고 찬란하신 – 도깨비 is a TvN drama starring Gong Yoo, Lee Dong-wook and Kim Go-eun that rocked people on a level that is comparable to, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Game of Thrones in how intensely its audience feels about it. Admittedly, I am one of those people. I actually could not tell you precisely why…yet. But goddamn. That show. To this day I cannot hear the song from it without crying. I’m including it here & it has bits from the show but like…no joke. I’ve never been so internally in pain from a show in my life. I can’t even describe it to you. I think there’s subliminal shit in there somewhere. 20 years of watching things & this show turns me into a complete. and. total. hot. mess.

SO GOBLIN IS A PROBLEM. Because guess who holds the license? DF has it. DF has a lot of shows that it advertised as “DF exclusives” and those were programs that they held exclusive US licenses for and you can BET YOUR ASS that they are not going to give those up to anyone else.

So we, the fans, lose. Meanwhile, it’s sure as shit that the hard-copy purchases and torrents of some of those “DF exclusives” have gone WAY up in the last 24-36 hours. I have no doubt that many fans now have actual physical discs of certain dramas heading to their homes because they were like: fuck this. DF is ready to betray me like that? OH HELL NO. I rewatch this show anytime I’m having a shitty day. I can’t have y’all do that. I’m taking charge here and making sure I can have my dramas when I want them and where I want them TYVM. DF? Suck it.

With DF out of the game, the community is relying on each other and we are kinda going: so…do we upgrade? Do we find other legal streaming sites? Are there other legal streaming sites? (the answer to this is a resounding not so much).

Which brings us back to Viki. Full transparency, I totally upgraded to the Viki/KOCOWA Plus package. I don’t gamble with my Kdrama.

As someone who has been studying media and tech issues for as long as I have, I feel like maybe this is a huge thing that is happening right now whether you care about Korean/Asian television programming or not.

So DF has all these licenses. The channel itself is no more but the licenses are still being held by WB/AT&T and are essentially dead/hibernating for the time being and the content will go live again when the new channel is “resurrected” in 2019. But by then all of their fans will have moved on to new shows and more content. Because that is what we do. We keep watching. We are active and interactive viewers. The Kdrama fandom is not a passive group. It is a collection of (mostly) women who take a lot of pleasure from the programs they watch and we watch them in large quantities. By taking themselves out of the equation, DF has erased themselves from the market itself even though they feel that they will be bringing this content to new audiences.

SO. DF is out of the picture. Whether or not they had the good manners to let Viki & KOCOWA know is still up in the air. If not, Viki has really jumped into the game quickly: they started a 30% off sale on their standard pass yesterday, the same day that DF went down. While no one mentioned it on any of the forums yesterday and I didn’t notice it when I was on their site last night, it is entirely possible the sale banner may have gone up late. Even so…their business instinct is quite sharp. They’re clearly going to benefit from the loss of DF.

There have been comments about Viki/Kocowa’s subbing taking a little longer. But here’s the thing: they use volunteers for subbing. Before anyone decries the labor policies, people volunteer to do the subbing and the work on these shows because of the fan dedication. It is part of an very special and incredible international community that really wants to provide access to everyone who wants to watch these shows. It’s really remarkable being part of these communities and being able to watch the subbing on shows (especially on Viki) because you can tell that the teams really go that extra mile. That said, with this influx of memberships rising from the death of DF, will Viki be able to keep up?

Some thoughts:

1) Is Viki ready for the kind of online traffic they are about to receive? Do they have enough servers? Are they prepared? I already read one comment from someone who was unable to complete her Kocowa subscription because their servers were overloaded.

2) Will Viki/Kocowa be able to increase the speed in their subbing so that new members are satisfied? Will they be able to negotiate better and more interesting content licenses now that DF is out of the picture?

3) Will another legal streaming site spring up to try to compete with Viki/Kocowa?

4) Will Viki and Kocowa divide licenses and content so that they actually do become more disparate channels, thus making it “worth it” to have both channels for more than just one or two shows?

There is a lot to unpack here. While large communities of viewers have been left in the lurch without any warning, it is equally important to recognize that the US corporate television culture clearly views Asian materials as not valuable or worthwhile. Whether these dramas on Viki, Kocowa or DF are Thai, Chinese or Korean, the primary viewing audience is women and that makes a difference as well. Much like soap operas or melodramas, these works fall into a television genre that has a long history of being relegated to the “trash culture” section or simply being viewed by critics as “low culture” and easily dismissible.

We are going to have to wait and see what happens with Viki and the economics and labor issues. We will have to see whether they hire more staff, whether the subbing system changes at all, whether their servers go down in the next few weeks or whether they totally rock it (I’m crossing my fingers, I wanna continue watching my shows).

But all of the women, including myself, are having some pretty large feelings about Corporate America making decisions about what we should or should not have access to and why. These works are important to us. The women I have spoken to on these forums are not just from the US. They are from all over the world and somehow they find connections to these shows and feel very strongly that having someone else pull the plug was not just rude but removed their agency to explore whatever it is that they love about these shows- fantasy, strength, humor, escape, history or just a good story.

Anyways, the future remains to be seen.

They Only Play Asian Stuff: Centering Korean Culture in LA & Regional Ignorance

Los Angeles is a funny place.

After my amazing ramen/movie night at CGV Cinemas, I went to read my Santa Cruz Noir book (OMGZ Susie, it’s SO GOOD! I’M DYING) & have a cocktail at Frank & Hank’s (thought of you, my beautiful love Michelle).

Some girl at the bar next to me asked about the book since I was having such visceral reactions to it, so I read her a passage over the pounding gangsta rap.

Girl: WOAH. THAT’S SOME BRUTAL SHIT GURL. And you’re laughing?

Me: Well, yeah. I recognize all the locations in the story and…it’s gory dark murdery stuff but…very brilliant!

*She took a picture of the book*

Girl: Imna have to get that.

Me: Oh you need to, 100%.

Girl: So what were you up to tonight?

Me: I was over at CGV down the street, watching a great movie.

Girl: The movie theater over there?!?!? *points towards the door* WHY??? THEY ONLY PLAY ASIAN STUFF. OH BUT LIKE HAVE YOU WATCHED ANY ASIAN HORROR.

Me: *having great difficulty not making life imitate art & make like one of the killers from Santa Cruz Noir*

Yeah. It was weird. And racist. And frustrating. CGV is a great theater. My favorite next to the New Beverly, actually.

I love K-town so very much. I am usually the only white person at the movies I go see and until a while back when I cut my hair into my current “punk rawk” look, I was given a lot of “What are you doing here?” expressions. I find it endlessly fascinating that my hairstyle has changed how I am treated but that’s a whole other conversation.

Back to CGV. I didn’t mind anyone looking at me with the “you don’t belong” expression. I knew that I was entering a non-white space. I belong from the perspective of being from LA and having grown up a few blocks away but…it is not my space. It is, however, the only location in LA that I can see these films and I desperately enjoy Korean cinema, from the soap operas to the gritty procedurals to the gruesome horror. I think the only genre I’m not into is the bubble-gum rom-com and even some of those I like!!! But when I go to CGV Cinemas in K-town I am very aware, as an Angeleno, that this may be my city but this is not my space.

The older Korean couples on date nights love me though. Maybe they think I’m a weirdo sitting alone with my concessions sighing and crying at that historical romcom with them. But I also think they appreciate having younger people in those movies (sometimes those films have a bit of an older draw). Maybe they just think I’m confused and I ended up in the wrong theater? I love seeing how many older couples do go to the movies together and enjoy the experience just like it was “the old days.” I feel like when I go to CGV, people there are really there for the experience and my heart soars.

I always feel really good in those theaters. Everyone there is going to the movies intentionally.

There’s a difference between going to the movies as something to do and going to the movies intentionally. You can do both (many do) but the people I see going in and out of CGV are people I want to go to the movies with. The audience for Believer last night was great. Maybe not super rambunctious like an average US action-movie audience, but they laughed loudly at funny lines and it certainly felt like a community. Which is what I need in a movie going experience and a movie theater.

CGV is really special because like many movie theaters that used to exist in Los Angeles, it offers culturally specific materials that cannot be accessed anywhere else. Korean films on the big screen. And not just on the big screen, but a REALLY DAMN BIG SCREEN. The seats are nice, the sound is great, they have 4 hours of free parking.

And, as I schooled Bar Girl, CGV doesn’t “just play Asian stuff.” More specifically, their focus is on the Asian community (the Korean community to be exact). White folks, or English-speaking anyones, are 100% secondary. But that doesn’t mean that they are not welcome or cannot attend. It just means that they are not the central audience for CGV and that is a breath of fresh air in this world. Yes, I am aware that CGV is a Korean company so obviously that is their focus but still. It’s really great to have this theater HERE IN LOS ANGELES.

Bar Girl was shocked when I told her that they are currently showing Deadpool 2 and I saw a trailer for the next Incredibles movie as well as the new Jurassic Park. She had completely tossed the theater to the side. Hi ignorance and total unwillingness to explore your own neighborhood (she said she lived in the area). Sure, these films have Korean subtitles, but that’s fucking great! This is something called ACCESS. Why shouldn’t everyone be able to see movies? And why shouldn’t we all be able to see as many amazing movies as we can? The fact that I was able to go and see Believer (Lee Hae-young, 2018), the remake of Johnnie To’s masterful Drug War from 2012 is so exciting to me! And by the way?

BOTH VERSIONS OF THIS MOVIE ARE AMAZING!!

They’re playing a comedy at CGV starting on June 22nd. The trailer looked INSANE. I cannot wait. So glad that they take MoviePass. I know that I sound like an ad for CGV (I don’t mind) but I’ve always said that it’s like the Korean Arclight but cheaper. And take a chance if you live in LA, come see a Korean movie with me. They are really great.

See how your calendar is looking for this beauty…. I’m excited AF.

The Americanization of Emily

This post was originally published on the New Beverly Cinema blog on November 27, 2017. It is being republished here with full permission of the New Beverly. For the original post (with different artwork) please see the original post here .

The Americanization of Emily (Arthur Hiller, 1964) was intended to be a romantic comedy until screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky got a hold of it. In his hands, this story became an acidic and expertly composed tale of war’s human fallout. Tackling women’s sexuality and emotional welfare, it examines relationships between masculinity and heroism, leading a full-scale assault on the deification of war. A comedy with surreal overtones and an unusual approach to storytelling, The Americanization of Emily suffered a lengthy period of copyright entanglement making it almost impossible to see for many years.

William Wyler was initially slated to direct, with William Holden as the star, Lieutenant Commander Charles E. Madison. However, Wyler’s high salary and diva-like requests made MGM sideline his directorship. Holden was not much different. He was pricey and difficult to please. Finally, Wyler left, and after many other directors declined the job young up-and-coming director Arthur Hiller replaced him. William Holden’s reaction to the young filmmaker was less than kind and he left.

“I was already cast as Lieutenant Commander Paul ‘Bus’ Cummings when [producer] Marty Ransohoff asked whether I would play Charlie Madison if Holden dropped out. ‘Oh, you bet!’ I said,” remarked James Garner in his autobiography, The Garner Files: A Memoir, “I knew it was a hell of an actor’s part. It was a different kind of role than I’d been doing with a brilliant script from Paddy Chayefsky from William Bradford Huie’s novel. A lot of drama and a lot of humor…a long line of directors had turned the picture down before Marty reluctantly offered it to Arthur Hiller. Marty didn’t think Arthur was ready for it because he hadn’t tackled anything so meaty. As it turned out, Marty needn’t have worried.”

Worrying is a huge part of a producer’s job. It may as well be their unofficial title (“professional worrier”). The Americanization of Emily was one production that certainly made Ransohoff work for his paycheck. You wouldn’t think that the man who helped create Filmways, Inc. and produced beloved TV shows like Petticoat Junction and Mr. Ed was up to the task of battling the MPAA and studio brass, but Marty Ransohoff was That Guy. Nicknamed “the Messiah of the New Hollywood” by Budd Schulberg, Ransohoff went on to become an independent producer for groundbreaking films like The Loved One (Tony Richardson, 1965), 10 Rillington Place (Richard Fleisher, 1971), and The Wanderers (Philip Kaufman, 1979), amongst others. The Americanization of Emily was just the beginning.

Produced by Filmways and distributed by MGM, this film went directly against Sam Goldwyn’s mantra: “Pictures are for entertainment; messages should be delivered by Western Union.” Paddy Chayefsky’s script was FULL of message, which scared the shit out of the MPAA. The concern was that, as James Garner put it, “it put US Servicemen in a bad light and [the MPAA] worried about a box-office backlash…They thought the movie was too extreme for the American public.” This also explained why multiple directors had turned down the project. It was seen as an unpatriotic movie and few filmmakers were willing to be linked to it.

As a result of MPAA issues, there was significant tension on the set and Ransohoff constantly had to deal with the “higher ups.” Arthur Hiller felt this strongly as a young director and it transferred to the way he shot the film. During production, Hiller commented that he “did a lot of scenes in one shot…a lot of that was for safety reasons…Protection, I think I mean. Many times, studios, after you finish filming, want to look and make changes and the more I did in one shot the less they could make changes on.” There had been enough back and forth with the MPAA about the amount of nudity in certain scenes and how many times James Garner could say “Damn” that Hiller didn’t want to take chances. James Coburn vividly recalls Hiller’s shooting style.

Paddy Chayefsky’s script featured Lieutenant Commander Charlie Madison (James Garner) an unrepentant champion of cowardice. Charlie celebrated his ability to live and survive, even through “amoral” means. While Emily Barham (Julie Andrews) fits the “opposites attract” love interest, Charlie and Emily come together based on the most visceral level: a desire for life to continue and the rejection of death. Their relationship is a complicated structure of mutually expressed erotic attraction and sharp, pained revelations. For the record, it is beyond refreshing to have a woman depicted as strong and complicated with a healthy sexual appetite in American cinema. Emily is a great character and Julie Andrews really shines. Thank you, Paddy Chayefsky! Charlie and Emily are honest and open in the film about their sexual relationship. Of course, it’s not just sex that Emily and Charlie connect over. It is fear, bravery and trauma. The evolution of their connection is some of the most thrilling, maddening and sexy screenwriting in cinema.

All you need to know about Bus Cummings (James Coburn) is what Chayefsky has written in the script. While it translates to the screen, the screenplay actually does an exquisite job of giving you the Real Bus Cummings. Bus has three “romantic interludes” in the film. The script lists his female companions as “Nameless Broads.” This was not because Chayefsky was a sexist asshole or because it was to reflect on the character of the women. This descriptor was meant to extrapolate on Bus, himself, showing what kind of person he is. Chayefsky asks with this aspect of the script: does anything carry meaning with Bus? How cold and exploitative is he really? The answer is revealed throughout the film, and James Coburn carries the role with sleazy panache.

Critics like Bosley Crowther applauded the film for its bravery, but not everyone was a fan. Many charged it with being anti-military, anti-American, and anti-soldier. The film was accused of ridiculing WWII and mocking the deaths of thousands of men on D-Day (Omaha Beach is a plot point). The Americanization of Emily was castigated for what audiences felt were digs at war heroes; complaints poured in about cruel monologues that “railed” against war widows and the film’s unsympathetic portrayal of PTSD (then called battle fatigue or, as mentioned in the film, “cracking up”). The response, from critics and civilians alike, was enough to make the Navy take notice and they actively deterred the distribution of film prints to any of their bases.

After a public screening during which people expressed their dismay at the film’s content, Arthur Hiller published a response piece in the Los Angeles Times on January 3, 1965. “Goodness, virtue and nobility are so out of place in the context of war that satiric laughter is the only logical response,” wrote Hiller, “[the film shows] war for what it is, a barbaric, inhuman act of man – a miserable hell. It says that one thing we can do toward eliminating war from our world is to get rid of the goodness and virtue we attribute to war. Be grieved by death, but not proud of it. Stop naming streets after generals, stop erecting statues. It says stop applauding war. Stop celebrating war…[the fraud] is in the virtue and goodness we attribute to war. If you glorify war you create a climate for more wars.” What no one understood was that The Americanization of Emily was a dark comedy with a specific devotion to and for the men who had experienced war. The received public criticism only highlighted the unhealthy behavior in American culture that Paddy Chayefsky wrote about ad nauseum within the screenplay: the naked and unadulterated worship of warfare.

A team of war vets created The Americanization of Emily, many of them highly decorated officers. Paddy Chayefsky fought and received a Purple Heart in WWII. James Garner joined the Merchant Marines at 16 years old, just as WWII was ending. He served in Korea on a combat unit, earning two Purple Hearts. Arthur Hiller was part of the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII, navigating for bombers on night missions, dropping bombs on Nazis. It seems insulting to these men and what they experienced that critics, the MPAA and the public dared to think that this film or those involved in it were being disrespectful, unpatriotic or making fun of war.

The vast majority of those who waged censorship battles against the creative teams had no war experience at all. The bulk of the men who made up the Motion Picture Association of America (initially the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America) and Production Code Administration, men like Will Hays, Joseph Breen, Geoffrey Shurlock, never went to war. A few like Eric Johnston and Jack Valenti were vets, but they certainly didn’t have any say over films like The Americanization of Emily.

Legendary actor Melvyn Douglas, who played battle-fatigued Admiral William Jessup, was a veteran of both WWI and WWII. When The Americanization of Emily was courting controversy and being excoriated for its “rude” treatment of men in war, Douglas sighed, “I often wish we were like the British, who have a capacity to laugh at themselves and their own institutions which far exceeds our own…[all organizations] should be able to look at themselves with some humor as well as with seriousness…[I have] seen first-hand some of the excesses that were exploited in the film.”

James Garner and Arthur Hiller stated that Paddy Chayefsky was the only “bonafide genius” they ever worked with. Chayefsky said The Americanization of Emily was one of his two best films. Garner and Hiller list it as their favorite, ditto for Julie Andrews and James Coburn. Marty Ransohoff also counts it as a top-tier bestie. While all these names have done extensive film/TV work, it is The Americanization of Emily that they return to as their crowning achievement.

It was this kind of spirit that allowed the film to be made and gave the film such a dedicated production team. During one of the shots near the close of the film [slight spoiler], James Garner broke a few ribs in a beach scene set up to look like Omaha Beach. He fell on his canteen. It’s even in the final cut of the film. He does a small extra “flop” when he goes down. If you watch carefully, it’s in there.

The Americanization of Emily is not an anti-war film. This is a film that challenges perspectives through the complexity of dark comedy, most specifically satire. This film stands against the rabid glorification of war, one of the great All-American past-times. In this sense, it remains one of the most important films about war that will ever get made.

Kid Blue

This post was originally published on the New Beverly Cinema blog on October 12, 2017. It is being republished here with full permission of the New Beverly. For the original post (with different artwork) please see the original post here .

“I can’t imagine a film set like that again… People leaping out of second story windows, people with blood running down them. I don’t know how a foot of that film ever got shot. There was certainly acid, incredible amounts of drinking, incredible amounts of insanity… I doubt there has ever been a film that crazy.” – Lee Purcell, talking about her experience on Kid Blue

James Frawley’s Kid Blue (1973) is a magnificent film that was far too difficult to see for far too long. There are multiple reasons for a film to be considered rare (lack of promotion, right film wrong time, limited release) and all of them contribute to a film’s disappearance from cinema culture. For a film like Kid Blue to be inaccessible for as long as it has been is really depressing, though the studio quietly, finally, released the film as a manufactured-on-demand disc a few years ago.

Usually when I research a title I can find a variety of information on the given work. But not Kid Blue. It was missing a key component and that fascinated me: there was little to nothing written on the actual content of the film. I located reviews from the time, interviews and biographical texts, but embarrassingly little parsing the film narrative. There are a few blog posts and recent discussions online but not many. Modern takes on the film are notably positive and seem to have resulted from a screening that the writer was lucky enough to attend. This seemed odd to me only because it is a 20^th Century Fox film, it’s a counterculture Western and it has big stars in it: Peter Boyle, Dennis Hopper, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, M. Emmet Walsh. Where is all the conversation?

This absence of film criticism and discussion about Kid Blue made me even more Sherlock Holmesy-curious about it. Until I found my answer: no one saw it and if they did? They didn’t remember it. Realistically, they may have been too stoned for much cinematic recall. But it’s such a good movie! C’mon people! As Susan Campo notes after the release, “the film all but disappeared, despite being picked up by the New York Film Festival and having a gala screening in Dallas on June 19, 1973.” Steven L. Davis corroborates this statement, “The movie made some money but did not linger in the public’s imagination. Though friends in Texas have steadfastly maintained over the years that Kid Blue is a cult classic, in truth the film has all but disappeared.”

While Vincent Canby’s New York Times review from 1973 was mostly negative, he still found the heart to say, “”Kid Blue” is a well-meaning, liberal, anti-fascist Western, dressed up with some good performances by Peter Boyle, Lee Purcell and Janice Rule.” He just found the commentary too heavy-handed. Perhaps it was. But if so, fuck it. Sometimes you need to just make a point. And the points made in Kid Blue are pretty important. It’s a very funny film. Kid Blue aka Bick Waner (Dennis Hopper) wants to go straight after being a bank robber/criminal but is constantly being told that he will never amount to anything. Sheriff “Mean John” Simpson (Ben Johnson) berates him at every turn as does Drummer (Ralph Waite), one of the residents of the boarding house Bick lives in. Bick finds solace in the friendships of Molly (Lee Purcell) and Reece (Warren Oates) Ford. While that relationship soon becomes complicated, so do Bick’s work relationships, leading to an identity crisis and a whole lot more!

Kid Blue is a fascinating look at racism, politics, violence and religion. The Native American characters are brutally honest and complex. Their dialogue, while comedic, resists the white supremacist discourse that is being had all around them while their physical actions disrupt the Manifest Destiny narrative. Some of this is subtle but it’s quite radical for a studio picture. It’s possible that this aspect of Kid Blue would have been seen as problematic to the head honchos, but I did not find any documentation one way or the other. The Hollywood Reporter, however, gave Kid Blue a rave review, calling it “both a counterculture protest film and a comic western film.”

Director James Frawley commented that 20th Century Fox just wasn’t pleased with the outcome. Apparently, they had been sold a different kind of film at the start. He said, “I think they wanted ‘Cat Ballou’ and when they got something closer to ‘McCabe & Mrs. Miller’ they were confused and a little angry.” Frawley was an old hand at political satire and social commentary having directed the TV show The Monkees for a number of years. He would later use his gifts to work with the incomparable Jim Henson on The Muppet Movie (1979). Clearly, Frawley had a knack for comedy with a hint (or more) of sarcastic glee.

But let’s rewind and go back to the making of the film. Because it’s insane. I am authentically unsure about how this film actually got made. It seems like the entirety of that set was a coked-out, gunned-up, hallucinatory lunatic asylum that only sobered up for enough time to shoot a scene.

Kid Blue was originally titled “Dime Box” but retitled by the studio because they thought it sounded like a drug reference. A man named Edwin “Bud” Shrake wrote it. Shrake, a New Beverly Cinema favorite, also penned the scripts for Arthur Hiller’s Nightwing (1979) and William Wierd’s Tom Horn (1980), both of which played the Bev earlier in 2017.

Shrake was more than a screenwriter. He was a journalist, sportswriter, Texan, and a crazy motherfucker. Hunter S. Thompson may be legend, but Bud Shrake and his compadres were no small potatoes. Thompson may have hung out with the Hells’ Angels and Ken Kesey, but Shrake and his crew were ready to take over a town, publish books about famous strippers and by the end of the Kid Blue shoot, their producer decided to leave Hollywood forever and become a monk.

Shrake was part of a Texan counterculture collective called Mad Dog, Inc., a group that co-founder Gary Cartwright described as “a rallying point for writers, artists, radicals, politicians, anyone who felt stifled by the times. The grander and more impossible an idea sounded the better Mad Dog liked it. We planned to open and distribute books and movies, open an all-night general store that sold 88 flavors of ice cream, and start a sanctuary for depressed greyhounds… Mad Dog really blossomed however when we traveled to Durango, Mexico for the filming of a screenplay Bud wrote called Dime Box.” Cartwright and the Mad Dog, Inc. crew drove down to “assist” their Mad Dog homie on the set. They were initially denied entrance to Mexico due to Mad Dog member Pete Gent’s long hair. Being a creative sort and quick thinker, Cartwright told Customs that they were shooting a religious film about Jesus. The Custom Agent quickly waved them through.

Bud Shrake wrote that making Kid Blue “was an experience that changed my life… we arrived in Durango and walked straight into a bizarre meeting at Dennis Hopper’s rented mansion where we found people on acid with pistols. And soon the chief narc of the district landed in a helicopter with armed soldiers and let us know our lives would swiftly get dangerous unless our producer, Marvin Schwartz, paid him $25,000 in protection money.”

Poor Marvin was in for a hellova time beyond paying off Mexican Officials. As usual in Hollywood, actors wanted to play with the script. Warren Oates considered his part “too homosexual” while Janice Rule wanted to shift the dynamic of her and Dennis Hopper’s seduction scene. These were minor inconveniences to the everyday battle of live non-prop firearms on-set. Oh yes, everybody had a gun at all times. And they were having shooting contests for… no reason. Just because they were drunk or stoned.

Then there was the Dennis problem. While Schwartz had hired a special stuntman to be Hopper’s “caretaker” (more or less) he couldn’t always manage. Hopper was always hanging out with Mad Dog, Inc. folks, smoking dope or drinking tequila. When he got in front of the camera, he was fine. But it was still critical to watch out for Dennis and his drunk or high antics, especially with the knowledge that he kept a loaded pistol hidden in his pocket or boot at all times.

During the first week of shooting Kid Blue, Marvin hosted a party at his place, the first of many. Hopper barreled into the house, begging to speak with Schwartz, Frawley, and Shrake. He told them, “You can’t make the movie, man! Everyone’s gotta leave Mexico now. There’s gunfire in the streets…I almost didn’t get here alive. It’s total panic and chaos and hysteria out there right now. People are getting killed right and left. The fucking noise, it’s like World War II out there!” After a brief investigation, the situation was sorted out. As luck would have it, there was no Mexican Revolution in the streets. Kid Blue could continue shooting. Hopper had simply dropped acid and gone to a local carnival. This was Week One.

Brave Marvin Schwartz held out until the bitter end. Not only did he deal with crazy actors, political corruption and countercultural artists but he also had to handle Studio Politics. I wouldn’t have wanted to be this guy for anything in the world.

20th Century Fox was in the middle of a regime change, during the shooting of Kid Blue making Marvin’s life even more hellish. Studio Head Daryl Zanuck had green lit the project in 1971, but but was out by 1973 (date of release), replaced by new studio head Alan Ladd, Jr. The film (and Schwartz) suffered as a result. The title change (from Dime Box to Kid Blue) was a nightmare and finally drove Schwartz to call Bud Shrake and tell him, “I’ve lost the last fight that I’m going to lose over this movie. I can’t possibly lose any more fights, because as I look out the window right now, I can see they are painting my name out of my parking space. They’re going to haul my car off the lot, and that banging noise you hear is the people moving my furniture and stuff out of my office. We’ve just been bodily thrown off the lot. This movie is going to be called Kid Blue.” Schwartz then proceeded to leave the film industry altogether and became a Buddhist monk in India, calling himself Brother Jonathan.

Despite all the off-screen craziness and absurd conduct, drug-filled get-togethers and events full of “lethally laced” pot cookies, cocaine and “homemade vanilla-flavored LSD,” Kid Blue was indeed shot, edited and released! It was likely a limited release, playing some of the larger cities like LA, NY, Boston, Dallas and a few other urban hubs, but it did get some play. It just got zero support from the studio, no push from advertising or PR and thus died a sad lonely death on its first time out, disappearing as quickly as it appeared.

The Champ (1931)

This post was originally published on the New Beverly Cinema blog on September 30, 2017. It is being republished here with full permission of the New Beverly. For the original post (with different artwork) please see the original post here .

From its very first forays into narrative storytelling, American cinema has made one thing abundantly clear: men gotta be tough. There’s little to no room for sensitivity in the world of the masculine. It makes you soft! You’re a sissy! Thus in most film schools, US film history and genre classes will look at classic American cinema and code melodramas with the feminine. While this is not entirely incorrect (most of the work made in this genre was centered on the experience of women), this trend created a cultural atmosphere that said: “men can’t cry, they can’t feel, that’s the women’s domain” it also looked at sports films and never considered that they might possibly fall into the melodrama category.

King Vidor’s excellent film, The Champ (1931), is not only a melodrama but it has been called a “male weepie.” So, whatever gender you identify with, bring a helluvalot of tissues. No matter how many times you see the film, it still punches you in the gut just as hard as Andy Purcell aka The Champ (Wallace Beery) is known to have knocked out opponents in the ring…or how he currently hits booze and gambling halls. If you’ve seen Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 film, The Wrestler, that would also count as a “male weepie.” But The Champ was really the first of this genre.

Storied to be the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood at the time, Frances Marion had already changed the game for women in film. An author of over 300 film stories and scenarios in her career, Marion directed films, wrote how-to film textbooks and was instrumental in advancing the careers of actresses like Marie Dressler, Mary Pickford and Greta Garbo. Significant in Frances Marion’s repertoire, The Champ was a big success upon release and has remained a classic. To this day, The Champ remains the champ of motion pictures about boxing/boxers. However, without Marion’s magic touch, this film would not have been 1/10th of what it is. Her ability to read Beery as a performer was what gave her the impetus to write the character of Champ.

Marion had designed the role of The Champ especially for Beery after his standout performances in both The Big House (George W. Hill, 1930) and Min and Bill (George W. Hill, 1930), both scripted by Marion herself. When it came time for Marion to create The Champ, there was only one person who could be cast in the eponymous role: Wallace Beery. Originally, The Champ was to be a completely different film. In a conversation with MGM production head, Irving “boy genius” Thalberg, he had suggested to Marion that she write a Western. Having made her last 2 films with her now-ex-husband George W. Hill, she wanted something to get her own name out there, and feel more independent. Thalberg suggested a genre shift and she accepted.

So Marion made her way down to Mexico for a working vacation. What she returned with was not a Western but a boxing melodrama. Frances wandered the streets of Tijuana and Ensenada for inspiration and came upon a scene that completely changed her mind and the story. As she walked through town, she saw a saloon. Suddenly, a large drunken man charged through its doors, a child trailing out after him. Marion clearly heard the young boy shout to the growing crowd, “Can’t you see the Champ needs some air?” As Cari Beauchamp writes, Frances Marion had “gone to Mexico looking for a Western but returned to Irving’s office with a self-styled tearjerker, the tale of a drunken ex-prizefighter and his son which she called The Champ.”

Nominated for a variety of Oscars at the 5th Academy Award Ceremony in 1933 including Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Production, Frances Marion won the “best story” Academy Award for The Champ while Wallace Beery walked away with a much-deserved Best Actor Oscar. This was no small thing for an actor who started his professional life as an assistant elephant trainer in the circus. Beery was notably a difficult man to work with and his personal life was not one to look into if you value his acting. But Marion and Beery had a curiously strong and valuable relationship that allowed the story that she wrote to come through in a powerful way. Thalberg’s initial response to reading Marion’s treatment of The Champ was “I’d like to own the handkerchief concession on your soap opera” and much of that is due to the sweet and sour, hard and soft, breathtakingly brilliant approach that Beery took to the character he played.

There is nothing dated in this work. That’s the glory of it. America still loves boxing, gambling, horseracing. We still have raging addiction and poverty issues. What makes this film stand out above all others is its focus on the deep relationship between a man and his son. Amongst the gambling problems, the alcoholism, Champ’s inability to keep enough money around to properly feed and clothe them both, The Champ clearly loves his kid Dink (Jackie Cooper) and Dink would be lost without The Champ.

Each time I watch it, I always wonder: where are the rest of the films about father/son relationships? Some exist, but not quite on this level. They’re either too saccharine or too “you gotta tough it out, kid!” The Champ is a great example of a film that reaches a happy medium. Sure, it’s a little dramatic, but it still gets the point across and hits home. I’ve read a few articles on this film and they talk about how it “reverses the melodrama” or “inverses maternal relationship representation” and that drives me bonkers. There IS a mother in the film. So it’s not that there isn’t maternal representation here. That’s just ludicrous. What these academics or film critics ignore is that there is a tender and beautiful bond between a father and son that is rarely (if ever) depicted in American cinema.

While their roles are ever-shifting as to who plays caretaker and who is being cared for, there is no question about the sheer amount of love that exists in this father-son pairing. So every time The Champ disappoints Dink, it’s not just heartbreaking, it’s shattering. Jackie Cooper’s performance matches Beery’s in its authenticity. Various articles at the time insist the two actors did not get along, but their professional relationship was clearly beyond any personal adversarial issues they had. Indeed, the two went on to make The Bowery (Raoul Walsh, 1933), Treasure Island (Victor Fleming, 1934) and O’ Shaughnessy’s Boy (Richard Boleslawski, 1935) together. They made an excellent cinematic team!

The male weepie is a highly underexplored genre. Recent films like Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016) have not only modernized the genre but also updated it in a stunning and progressive way. The structure and emotional resonance remain unchanged. Additionally, the need for men to be able to identify and connect with their tears is just as critical. The heartbreak deep within The Champ is as hardcore as that of Moonlight. Further explicated as a masculine-coded melodrama, the male weepie is more than just a dudely tearjerker or a dramatic film with guy themes. Melodrama is defined as “a sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters, exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions.” By keeping this definition in mind and remembering that male weepies are essentially melodramas with a focus on the masculine, we may be able to better appreciate the value of these films as a collective force.

Every boxing, wrestling or extreme sports drama falls under the category of male weepie. This genre includes every Rocky movie, The Fighter (David O. Russell, 2010) and Warrior (Gavin O’Connor, 2011). Requiem for a Heavyweight (Ralph Nelson, 1962) is a male weepie as is Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980). One of my favorites, Fat City (John Huston, 1972), definitely qualifies and Real Steel (Shawn Levy, 2011) counts whether you like it or not. These are, of course, only the sports-related films. There are a few action-related films that fall into this category and a handful of movies that people relegate to the drama section. The importance of many of these films is that they point out the brokenness of men as well as their value. Not a single one of these films praises its protagonist or worships masculinity, saying it’s healthy. They are all extensively critical of the kind of Tough Guy Values that lead our “heroes” to these situations.

The Champ is tops in this regard. It allows every criticism of The Champ that you could think of. He’s a gambler, a loser, and an alcoholic. He’s a bad provider. He takes his kid to saloons, gambling houses and racetracks. Champ has no boundaries or rules. And when he fucks up, he fucks up bad. But he’s not the one who bears the brunt of the gaffe or misstep- it’s Dink. Dink’s entire life has been this; he doesn’t know any different. Watching their exchanges, we know that this is their narrative. But it doesn’t make it any easier to watch or any easier to swallow. Every time Dink’s face lights up, it’s like blue skies and the bright sun shining! Conversely, when Dink’s face falls due to something Champ has done, there is nothing sadder or more hopeless. Jackie Cooper gave this character something really special.

While many films came afterwards that explored the emotional territory of the parental relationship and how traditional masculinity could really fracture a man’s identity or sense of self in comparison to what he FELT, The Champ is one of the first films to identify the value of those things. These are complex discussions and (more often than not) ignored ones. It definitely took a woman to write this story, but one can only hope that men will take the much-needed and valuable lessons that it has to teach.

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The Champ (1931)

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Let’s Watch Some Movies!

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