Jeff Ellis: It's Impossible To Start A Fire If You Have No Desire To Burn

Part Three of Some Of My Favorite Exploitation Trailers (Teenage Mother, The Dunwich Horror, Scream and Scream Again, I Drink Your Blood, and Yor, The Hunter From The Future

Let's continue with part three of my series highlighting a few of my favorite exploitation film trailers. (For part one of this series, click here. For part two, click here. For part three, read on.)

"Teenage Mother means 9 months of Hell!" If just for that line, this trailer would be one of my favorites. However, there is so much more to relish in the trailer for 1967's Teenage Mother. Everything from the amazingly sexist narration ("Yeah, she was a real tease...") to the suggestion that this movie's main goal is to provide a valuable public service is pure old-style roadshow. Even more interesting is to consider that this film was released in the year of The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde. With all the revisionist history of the past few decades, it's nice to be remembered that even in the late 60s, most Americans still looked like members of the Future Astronomers of America.

Of course, if you didn't look like a Future Astronomer in the 60s, maybe you looked like Dean Stockwell in one of the many "guru" roles that he specialized in before relaunching his career with Blue Velvet and Quantum Leap. Check out Dean here in the H.P. Lovecraft "adaptation," The Dunwich Horror. (Also be sure to check out a rather sexy Sandra Dee who, one assumes, was probably trying to break free from her Summer Place image.)

Let's continue with yet another horror film from the late 60s, Scream and Scream Again. While The Dunwich Horror has dated horribly (and, quite frankly, it was dated when it was first released), Scream and Scream Again remains one of the best (and more offbeat) of the various B-movies of the 1960s. I'm not ashamed to admit that the film served as the inspiration for my short story Remembering Michael Powell (which appears in my second book, Oswald Acted Alone).

One more example of metaphorical mayhem from the exploitation cinema of the 1960s. You might not guess it from this trailer but I Drink Your Blood is probably one of the best films ever made about the generation gap. If nothing else, it shows just how easy it is to infect psychotic hippies with rabies.

Let's close this up with something a little less "heavy," as they might have put it in any one of the previous four films. This next trailer is for a film that is amazingly silly. However, I have to admit that I really enjoyed this film when I was around ten years old.

In other words, it's time for Yor, The Hunter From the Future! (Yor was actually meant to appear in several films but, to the best of my knowledge, this was his only cinematic outing. Also, the film's final twist is a bit obvious from the title but when you're a kid, it's actually pretty cool.)

What I Read Today

 

Today, I read I, Tania by Brian Joseph Davis.  This rather thin book presents itself as being the uncensored memoirs of the famous (and infamous) heiress-turned-abductee-turned-revolutionary-turned-victim-turned-celebrity-turned-convict-turned-recluse-turned-dog breeder Patricia Campbell Hearst.  The Hearst Case has always been something of a personal obsession of mine.  Indeed, to me, American history can be divided into two sections: pre-Hearst and post-Hearst.  In the future, the Hearst Kidnapping will probably be remembered as one the seminal events in the generally unfortunate history of American political activism.

However, it should be noted that I, Tania is only nominally concerned with Hearst.  Instead, it uses her life story -- and the story of Symbionese Liberation Army -- as a springboardfor launching satirical attacks on wealthy Leftists, American celebrity, and just about everything else under the sun.  Unfortunately, it's proven increasingly difficult to use the Hearst kidnapping as the base for any sort of effective satire.  For the most part, the actual reality of Patty Hearst and the SLA is already so over-the-top that any attempt to satirize it cannot help but come across as being more heavy handed than thought provoking.  By using the Hearst case as a starting point, Davis has put himself in the unenviable position of attempting to satirize a satire.

That said, I, Tania does contain it's share of memorable passages and, much like an early film from the Zucker Brothers, the handful of hits are so strong that they tend to make up for the frequent misses.  The book's best moments come when Davis provides us with "transcripts" of two film reviews written from the revolutionary Marxist perspective of the SLA.  (The two films in question would be the original Bad News Bears and Cujo.)  Written in the stilted yet arrogant prose of a true believer, these reviews both serve as savage representations (and repudiations) of the type of shrill, political "group think" that gave rise to groups like the SLA in the first place.

Friday Night At The Movies

Friday night, as I struggled to get some sleep, I ended up watching Otto Preminger's Rosebud.  Rosebud, which was released in 1975, was Preminger's second-to-last film.  Rosebud, which was savaged by the critics when it was initially released, is a rather obscure film.  It's never been released on DVD and I had to order my copy (a used VHS tape that still has a faded Blockbuster Video tag taped on it) off of Amazon.  I wanted a copy of Rosebud for several reasons. 

First off, the movie features the film debut of former New York City Mayor and 1972 presidential contender John V. Lindsay.  Lindsay's rather odd-career has been a personal obsession of mine ever since I first read Vincent Cannato's excellent examination of New York in the Lindsay years, The Ungovernable City.  Lindsay plays a U.S. senator in the film and he does so with the just the type of lock-jawed earnestness you would expect from the man who used to call New York "fun city."

  (John V. Lindsay, trying to look pensive)

Secondly, the film was directed by Otto Preminger who, from 1944 to 1962, was one of the greatest directors of all time.  (Of course, from 1963 to 1979, he was one of the worst.)  Preminger directed three of my all-tine favorite films: Laura, Advise and Consent, and Anatomy of a Murder.  Catching Advise and Consent on TV is what first got me interested in the political system.  Laura is a major inspiration for certain elements in my own novel-in-progress, In God's Country.  (One of the novel's main characters is named Sybil Laura Summerall specifically because of this.)  And Anatomy of a Murder -- well, where to begin?  Let's just say that Anatomy of a Murder is the reason why I've been a sucker for any girl who even slightly resembles a young Lee Remick. 

(Otto Preminger)

Third, I wanted to see the film just because it was so obscure and what I have read about it has been so overwhelmingly negative.  Now that I have seen it, I can report that Rosebud isn't so much a bad movie as it's just a terribly uninteresting one.  In this way, it's typical of most of Preminger's later work.  Preminger, like many of the great directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, never seemed comfortable with making films in the "new" Hollywood and as a result, his last few movies all seem to be either trying too hard or not trying at all. 

Rosebud, to its credit, does have a storyline that -- after three decades -- has remained relavent.  A group of youg women -- the daughters of the world's richest men -- are all kidnapped and held hostage by a group of Islamic terrorists.  The terrorists demand a huge ransom.  The families (Lindsay is in this group) respond by bringing in a former C.I.A. agent and hiring him to save their daughters.  The film fails largely because none of the girls have enough personality to really justify all of the trouble. 

That said, Rosebud does have a rather interesting cast; an intriguing mix of familiar actors who one wouldn't necessarily expect to all turn up in the same movie.  One reason for this, of course, is that every single member of the cast seems to be acting in a different film from the other.  The end result is a bit like seeing Robert De Niro hanging out with Ray Romano.  There is, however, an unexpected benefit to the diversity of the cast in that, while watching any of the actors in Rosebud, you can remember and think about better movies that he or she may have appeared in.

When I was a kid, I always loved how all the old Warner Bros. movies would say, "A good cast is worth repeating" before rolling the final credits and, in the case of Rosebud, it does seem worth repeating if just to marvel at the diverse group that Preminger managed to gather.

The kidnapped girls are played by a group of attractive young actresses who -- to be honest -- are never quite believable as lifelong friends.  The girls are played by Isabelle Huppert (playing Greek despite being obviously French), Kim Cattrall (her film debut), Debra Berger (you'd recognize her if you saw her), Brigitte Ariel (nice name if nothing else), and Lalla Ward.  A word about Ward.  When I was a kid, as a result of watching reruns of Dr. Who on PBS, I had  the biggest crush on Ward.  On that show, she played Romana, one of the final companions of Tom Baker's Doctor.  (Ward later married and divorced Baker in real life.  She's currently married to Richard Dawkins.)  However, before both Rosebud and Dr. Who, Ward was featured in the classic English horror film, Vampire Circus (which desperately needs to be released on DVD).  Whenever Rosebud started to move too slowly (which was more often than not), I kept myself from going sitr crazy by thinking about Vampire Circus.

  (Lalla Ward, the object of schoolboy fantasy)

When the film was moving slowly, it was usually because of it was focusing on the parents of the girls.  Along with Lindsay, this group featured Raf Vallone (who played Huppert's father; an Italian playing the Greek father of a Greek girl being played by a French actress), Claude Dauphin, Adrienne Corri, and Peter Lawford.  Lawford and Corri played the parents of Lalla Ward.  Lawford -- who was rather underused in Preminger's last good movie, Advise and Consent -- is reported to have spent most of the 70s in a drug-induced haze and it's rather alarming to see the once handsome Rat Packer slurring his way through his performance in Rosebud.  Still, the casting of Vallone and Lawford allowed me to think about The Godfather, Part III and the original Ocean's Eleven respectively.

  (Peter Lawford, post-Sinatra)

Bizarrely enough, the mastermind behind the girl's kidnapping is an Englishman who lives in a cave in the Midlle East.  This Englishman is a convert to Islam and bares a disturbing (and coincidental) resemblance to Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now.  Even more strangely, the Englishman is played by none other than future Oscar-winning director Sir Richard Attenborough.  I got through Attenborough's scenes by recalling The Great Escape.

  (Richard Attenborough)

Making Attenborough's life difficult in the mid-East is a cocky young Israeli agent.  This young man is played by the late Cliff Gorman.  Gorman was never a household name but he appeared in a handful of film and found a measure of fame playing Lenny Bruce on Broadway.  When Lenny was turned into a movie, Gorman was passed over for the lead when director Bob Fosse gave the role to Dustin Hoffman.  When Fosse later made an autobiographical movie called All The Jazz, Gorman appeared as Dustin Hoffman playing Lenny Bruce.  I tried to think about All That Jazz whenever I saw Gorman on screen but that movie quickly turned out to be too depressing to really focus on.  So, instead, I remembered the classic exploitation film Angel, in which Gormon -- as a police detective -- saves a young honor student from both a life as a hooker and an angry young serial killer played by Miami Vice's John Deihl.

  (Not Cliff Gorman)

And finally, we have the film's hero, a former C.I.A. agent who is hired by the parents to save their daughters.  This role was originally given to the legendary Robert Mitchum who -- for reasons nobody is quite sure of -- ended up walking off the set during the first few weeks of filming.  Mitchum quit and was replaced by .... Peter O'Toole.  O'Toole, needless to say, is as miscast in a Robert Mitchum role as Mitchum would have been as Lawrence of Arabia.  Strangely enough, though, despite his long career and many great performances, I never found myself thinking about any previous O'Toole films while watching Rosebud.  This was mostly because O'Toole's performance was so full of self-loathing that you simply couldn't look away.  Indeed, O'Toole would not seem this disgusted with himself again until he ended up making Caligula about four years later.

  (Peter O'Toole in Cape Fear)

In the end, it turned out that the best thing about Rosebud was Vampire Circus. 

 

One final note: despite being an obscure and rather dull film, Rosebud (or rather, the making of Rosebud) is the subject of a fascinating book, Soon To Be A Major Picture by Theodore Gershuny.  The book covers every detail of how this ill-concieved film came about and, along with providing a fascinating and sympathetic portrait of the decline of Otto Preminger, it features all sorts of bizarre, behind-the-scenes trivia.  Whether it's Robert Mitchum threatening to kill Lalla Ward, Peter Lawford's inability to remember his lines, or Peter O'Toole missing a day of filming because he's busy physically assaulting literary critic Kenneth Tynan, this book gives you all the details.  In the end, it ranks right up there with The Devil's Candy and Lillion Ross's Picture as one of the definitive books about making movies.  It may no longer be in print but I'm sure you can order it from any number of sellers on the Internet.  However, fair warning should be given that reading the book could possibly lead to you actually watching the movie.

 

What I Read Today

When I wasn't watching movies, I made the time to read a book today.  The book in question was by Orrie Hitt and was entitled Frustrated Females.  The book was originally published in 1962 by Novel Books, Inc.  According to the front cover, Frustrated Females is a sequal to Abnormal Norma and Orrie Hitt is "the one and only who has sold over 10 million paerbacks." 

(That number is actually pretty close to the truth.  It has been estimated that, during the late 50s and early 60s, Hitt produced a new novel every two weeks.)

A few more facts about this book's cover.*

The cover says that this was a "50cent Novel Book."  When I bought it earlier today, it cost me twenty dollars.  That may seem like a lot to pay for a 128-page paperback by an obscure author.  However, to me, an author like Orrie Hitt is not obscure.  To me, an author like Orrie Hitt is a hero and an inspiration.

It features a black-and-white photograph of a man staring through a window.  On the other side of that window are two women.  The one in the foreground wear a sheer nightie while the one in the background is in the process of pulling her blouse over her head and exposing her pristinely white bra.  There are two notable things about this image.  First off, the woman in the background appears to have been clipped out of another picture and then pasted into the current scene.  Secondly, there is no scene in Frustrated Females that corresponds with this image.  Instead, the image appears to correspond with the plot of Unnatural Urge, another Hitt novel, also from 1962, that deals with a peeping tom in upstate New York.

The cover tells us that Frustrated Females is "For Adults."  And, indeed, by the standards of 1962, it probably was.  Now, there is something rather admirable about the lengths that Hitt goes to describe sexual activity without actually describing sexual activity.  There is also something rather touching about the fact that this "adult" paperback contains only one instance of profanity ("Godammit!" someone exclaims at one point) and, when attempting to convey that are certain setting is sleazy, tells us that someone had written "four-letter words" on the walls but refuses to go so far as to specify what any of those words might actually be,

The cover tells us that Frustrated Females is the "story of Lena -- whose husband wasn't enough for her -- and Amy -- who nothing was ever enough for!"  It is not surprising to note that the only thing accurate about that blurb is that the novel features a character named Lena and a character named Amy.  This is not meant to be a criticism, however.  That blurb -- and the fact that, ultimately, it has next to nothing to do with the actual content of the book -- neatly represents everything that makes true pulp fiction such a joy to experience. 

The book's plot actually centers around Al Ward, a ruthless, sociopathic millionaire who owns a company that manufactures and sells birth control pills.  As his wife refuses to sleep with him, Al responds by sleeping with apparently every other woman on the planet, including Lena and Amy.  Lena ends up dying as the result of a botched abortion, Amy eventually leaves Al for a good and honest cop named Bert (perhaps he was named for the cop Ward Bond played in It's a Wonderful Life), and Al ends up allowing a horrifically disfigured union boss to take advantage of his drunken wife.  Along the way, Al also flirts with communism before coming to his senses and seeking redemption by confessing to a murder that he did not commit.  The feeling one gets from reading the book is that Hitt pretty much made it up as he went along.  This makes it all the more remarkable that it's actually a rather well-written, entertaining book.  The characters are surprisingly memorable (Al Ward is so incredibly amoral that it's hard not to like him just a little), the hard-boiled dialogue suggests that Hitt was a bit more self-aware and witty than most mainstream readers would allow themselves to believe, and the plot is just absurd enough to hold your interest.  Plus, I'm usually wary of mixing ideology and fiction but Hitt makes about as persuasive a case for the Libertarian political philosophy as I've ever read.  In many ways, Frustrated Females is almost a readable version of The Fountainhead.  Forget Ayn Rand.  Give me Orrie Hitt!

----

* I wanted to include a picture of this book's cover with this entry but unfortunately, I need to get a new scanner and I couldn't find a picture of it on the web.  So, instead, allow me to present the cover of another one of Hitt's books.  If nothing else, it will give you a general idea of the type of books that Hitt was producing every two weeks or so.

Philip Jose' Farmer, R.I.P.

Writer Philip Jose' Farmer died on February 25th.  He was 91 years old.  It should be noted that, in recent years, Farmer's death was prematurely announced quite a few times and, in fact, I even once referred to Farmer online as being "the late writer, Philip Jose Farmer."  I received an e-mail that same day from Win Eckert, one of the leading students of Farmer's Wold Newton Universe, correcting my error.  Unfortunately, I feTarzan Alive ar that I shall not be receiving a similar e-mail after posting this.

Over the course of his long career, Farmer was often pigeon-holed as a "science fiction" or "fantasy" author.  And indeed, he was an author who not embraced so-called "genre" fiction but celebrated it as well.  However, a rather sly and subversive sense of humor also ran through everything Farmer wrote and he was that rare writer of "popular" fiction who not only understood what made the conventions of a genre work but also knew how to subvert those conventions without scaring off the reader.  As a result, his books can even be enjoyed by someone like me who, typically, tends to have a toxic reaction to anything labeled "science fiction."

Farmer was probably best known, to the general reader, for the River World series.  Clever as those books are, I think they actually pale in comparison to some of Farmer's lesser known works.  In particular, his taboo-breaking Image of the Beast is just as shocking today as when it was first published four decades ago. 

However, to many, Farmer will always be best known as the man who wrote two highly accomplished and very entertaining biographies of two fictional characters. Tarzan Alive (1971) and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973) both served to give new life to two classic pulp characters who were in danger of being forgotten. 

After decades of Tarzan being turned into a parody in cheap movies and a campy television show, Tarzan Alive reminded readers of why the original, literary Tarzan had captured the public's imagination in the first place.

Doc Savage, meanwhile, served as my first introduction to this legendary figure and it inspired me to start collecting not only the 60s era, paperback Bantam reprints of Doc Savage's adventures but to start reading the original adventures of several of the other fictional characters that Farmer mentioned while telling Savage's life story. 

Indeed, I owe  the two things that have brought my the most happiness over the past few years -- my love of pulp fiction and my hobby of collecting old books -- to Philip Jose Farmer.

One of my prize possessions is a hardback, first edition of Tarzan Alive.*

Philip Jose Farmer, R.I.P.

-------

* What I do not have, and desperately want, is a copy of Doc Savage: An Apocalyptic Life.  Considering how much that book really has affected my life, it's a bit strange that I've never actually owned a copy of it.  Instead, I would just check it out from the Richardson Public Library.  Unfortunately, during the ten years I was living in Denton, Texas, something happened to the library's copy and I haven't been able to find it in the seven years since I first moved back to Richardson.  So, if anyone out there has a copy that they might be willing to sell, please feel free to e-mail me at jeff_p_ellis@hotmail.com.

Revolutionary Road

As planned, I went and I saw Revolutionary Road earlier today.

My reaction to the movie was similar to my earlier reaction to Frost/Nixon.  If Revolutionary Road had been made decades earlier, it would have been a great film.  It is, of course, based on Richard Yates's 1961 novel.  The novel, with its attack on suburban conformity and its penentrating portrait of a marriage that becomes a soul-destreoying prison, is one of the influential books of the late 20th century,  Unfortunately, as a result of that influence, the American public has spent the last thirty-to-forty years seeing movies that present the suburbs as a pastel Hell.  As such, this long delayed film version of Revolutionary Road actually comes across as being derivative of older films that wouldn't have even existed if not for the original book.  If this movie had been released in the 60s or the early 70s, it would still have retained the power to shock.  However, in the present day, Revolutionary Road comes across as a heavy handed cartoon that would, at times, be nearly unwatchable if not for the outstanding performances of Leonardo DiCaprio and especially Kate Winslet.

Director Sam Mendes is on familiar ground here,  His earlier film, American Beauty, also attacked the suburbs by surrounding the film's only full realized characters with a bunch of cardboard cut-outs that were meant to represent reality.  Mendes's direction here is actually superior to his work in American Beauty.  However, considering that American Beauty was perhaps the most overrated film of the 1990s, that's not saying much.  Visually, Revolutionary Road has an inventive spark to it that American Beauty lacked.  If you watch the scene where Winslet dances with the neighbor or where DiCaprio and Winslet argue in the woods, it quickly becomes obvious that Mendes has improved as a film director even if he still, far too often, frames his actors as if we were watching a stage play as opposed to a movie. 

That said, Mendes -- far too often -- seems to be using a sledgehammer to get his points across.  I knew there would be trouble when, early on in the film, I realized that Dylan Baker was playing one of Leonardo DiCaprio's coworkers.  Don't get me wrong.  Baker's a good actor (remember him in Happiness?) but whenever he shows up as an officemate, you know that he's going to be the epitome of the hated status quo.  Indeed, Mendes could have avoided showing us any further scenes of DiCaprio at work.  All he had to do was show us that DiCaprio's coworker was Dylan Baker and the audience would have automatically said, "Okay, he works with Dylan Baker so we know that his job is pointless, terrible, and turning him into a soulless, robotic conformist."  However, Mendes has to go further by giving us several scenes of Dylan Baker talking office politics with DiCaprio and by specifically casting the most trollish actor possible to play DiCaprio's boss.  Seriously, I sat through these scenes of DiCaprio at his job muttering, "Plastics" under my breath.  What it takes Revolutionary Road two hours to say, the Graduate managed to say with just one line.

As well, it's not enough that DiCaprio and Winslet initially find their suburban home with the help of an insincere, empty headed real estate agent (played by Kathy Bates).  No, instead, Bates shows up randomly throughout the film, screeching "Yoo-hoo!" at the top of her lungs, and staying eternally positive no matter what.  So, just in case you missed the fact that Bates represents the empty-headedness of suburban America, Mendes gives you a few more chances to figure it out.  Whenever Bates shows up, she is followed by her mentally disturbed son, played by Michael Shannon.  Since Shannon is insane, he has the power to see the truth.  This was pretty heady stuff back in '61 but now, it's as much a stereotype as the loyal, African-American best friend or the whore with a heart of Gold.  While Shannon gives a good performance, his character is such a heavy handed, literary invention that it only serves to remind the viewer of just how false and artificial a movie Revolutionary Road actually is.  Indeed, whenever Bates and Shannon are onscreen, the film becomes less a warning against conformity and more a warning about the dangers of letting airheaded real estate agents bring their abrasive, mentally disturbed children to dinner. 

However, Mendes is to be applauded for the performances he gets from his leads.  For me, Leonardo DiCaprio has always been a problematic actor.  While he is undeniably talented, DiCaprio often times seems to be either miscast (Gangs of New York) or else trying too hard (Titanic).  It doesn't help that DiCaprio appears to be some sort of Benajim Button-type character. DiCaprio has the talent to play adults but not the face. Seriously, has this guy aged a day since the release of Romeo and Juliet?  And there were a few times -- especially in the scenes where he was flirting with the new secretary at work -- when DiCaprio's performance did falter.  However, in his scenes with Winslet and especially in the scenes where his character is alone and trying silently make sense of what his life has become, DiCaprio is never less than convincing.  DiCaprio is saddled here with an incredibly unsympathetic character.  Indeed, the audience groaned at quite a few of DiCaprio's lines.  Not because the lines were badly delivered but because DiCaprio delivered them with such a perfect combination of smarm and self-pity that you literally recoiled in disgust.  It takes a lot of talent to not only make such a character convincing but to also, in the end, even make him somewhat tragic in his shallowness.  DiCaprio pulls it off.

That said, the film truly belongs to Kate Winslet.  Sam Mendes is, of course, married to Winslet.  This is their first onscreen collaboration and it results in Winslet giving an amazingly vulnerable, rather heart breaking performance,  While it takes a while for DiCaprio to win the audience over, Winslet captures our attention and sympathy from the moment she appears on the screen.  Wisely, neither Mendes nor Winslet (or Yates for that matter) make any attempt to turn the character into a saint.  While her character is definitely the victim in this film's vision of suburban society, Winslet does not give a meek performance.  Her character is a fighter and the fact that Winslet bring so much strength to her performance makes her ultimate fate all the more tragic.  Taken with her work in The Reader, this performance should establish, once and for all, that Kate Winslet has become the actress that everyone always claimed Meryl Streep was.

Still, as good as the leads are, they can't disguise the fact that Revolutionary Road ultimately has little new thematically to offer the audience.  Indeed, it is ironic that Yates' once shocking and controversial novel has ultimately become one of the safest, most predictable movies of the last few years.

 

Trying to Work Up The Desire To Actually Sit Through The Best Films of 2008

I was planning to go and see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button today.  Button, of course, is the latest film from director David Fincher.  It's based loosely on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button, a man who lives his life backwards.  What that means, essentially, is that Ben is born looking like an old man and proceeds to look younger with each passing year.  By the time that most of us end up looking like Mickey Rooney, Benjamin Button ends up looking like Brad Pitt.  The film also features Cate Blanchett as Pitt's love interest and it's been generating a lot of Oscar buzz.

Since last week, I'd been planning to go see it today but when the actual time came, I just couldn't find much enthusiasm for the prospect of actually leaving the house, going down to the theater, buying a ticket, finding a seat, and then sitting through the actual film.

It's hard to say why.  After all, the film features Cate Blanchett, who I adore when she's not playing Bob Dylan.  It's directed by David Fincher who is responsible for two of my favorite movies: Fight Club and Zodiac.  I've heard good things about the movie from people that, in general, I respect.

And yet, I really have absolutely no desire to actually see it.

Maybe it's the fact that, in the commercials at least, everyone seems to be speaking with the thickest, most overdone Southern accents since Will Smith came down from Heaven to improve Matt Damon's golf game in The Legend of Bagger Vance.  As a general rule of thumb, the thickness of a fake Southern accent is usually directly related to the overall thinness of the film it is featured in.

Maybe it's the fact that Hollywood doesn't have a good history when it comes to adapting Fitzgerald.  If you don't believe me, try sitting through the 1974 version of The Great Gatsby.  This is probably the only film in history that could have been improved by firing Robert Redford and Mia Farrow and replacing them with Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw,  (Actually, Steve McQueen would have made the perfect Gatsby but McGraw would have been too young to have played his Daisy...)

Maybe it's the fact that, for the past few months now, I've had the "quality" of this film shoved down my throat.  I've been told by so many people that this is an "important" film that I "have" to see that I now have absolutely no desire to see it.  The hype on this film has been so strong that I almost feel like I am now obligated to see it and that I am just as obligated to then declare the film to be poignant and moving.

Actually, that's a fairly accurate explanation of why I'm even less enthusiastic about the prospect of sitting through Frost/Nixon.

Still, I know that I will eventually sit through both of them before this upcoming week is concluded.  (Benjamin Button, I'll see on either Monday or Friday.  Frost/Nixon, I have planned for Tuesday.)  And who knows?  That feeling of obligation might actually pay off.  They might actually be great films.

We can always hope, eh?

Today is the day!

Today's the day!

My third and, in my honest opinion, best short story collection, Fish Can Not Carry Guns, has officially been released by Xlibris.  Expect to see it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and all the other online book sellers within the coming month.  As for now, copies can be purchased directly from the Xlibris web page.

From the back cover of Fish Can Not Carry Guns:

"Welcome to Glory Hole, Texas!  Spawned from a marriage of bloodshed and greed, Glory Hole is a town where certain unfortunate incidents are best not discussed.  Whether it's the true identity of the mysterious and doomed Sybil Grimm or the ex-Scientologists meeting in the back of the community center or the dead Samoan midgets buried in Casper Perryman's basement, Glory Hole is a town full of secrets.  In this darkly humorous book, Jeff Ellis exposes those secrets.  Fish Can Not Carry Guns is not just the story of Glory Hole.  For better and worse, it is the story of us all."

Fish Can Not Carry Guns. 

In these uncertain days of economic panic, global warming, reality television, Barack Obama, 90210 revivals, Sarah Palin, smaller cell phones, bigger SUVs, and a Wal-Mart on every street corner, no trip through the hidden darkness of America is complete without it!

It's royalty check time!

I recieved a royalty check from my publisher today.  I always look forward to getting those checks, despite the fact that the monetary amount involved in always almost pathetically small.  However, that check serves two very important purposes to me.

Number one, it reminds me that, despite the occasional appearance to the contrary, I actually am a writer.

Second of all, it means that someone out there actually bought one of my books at some point over the past six months.

Thank you, unknown stranger.  I hope you enjoyed them.

Something I Do Not Want To Hear In 2016

“Hi.  I’m here to tell you why, when you go to vote tomorrow, you should cast your vote for me, Al Franken.”

(Remember the old Al Franken Decade bit from Saturday Night Live?  According to Tom Shales’ brilliant book, Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, one of the reasons why Franken ended up leaving SNL was because he was miffed when he wasn’t selected to be the new anchor of Weekend Update after one of the show’s periodic cast shake-ups.  I have a feeling that, a few years from now, the people of Minnesota are really going to be wishing that Franken had gotten that anchor spot…)