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Insomnia File No. 6: Frogs For Snakes (dir by Amos Poe)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

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If you were suffering from insomnia last night, at around two a.m., you could have turned over to Flix and watched the 1998 film Frogs For Snakes.

And if you were suffering from insomnia, watching Frogs For Snakes would probably have been a good idea because this film is amazingly dull.  In fact, I am not sure that I have the words to express to you just how tedious Frogs For Snakes truly was.  It may be necessary for me to go back to school and learn how to speak in a dead language in order for me to express the boredom that I felt while watching Frogs For Snakes.

And yes, I realize that I’m talking about an obscure film that was released nearly 20 years ago and it might seem kind of petty to, at this late date, make a big deal about how terrible this film was.

But seriously, Frogs For Snakes was really, really bad.  In fact, it was disturbing to think that a film this bad could have actually been made.  It was even more disturbing to consider that this film was apparently given a theatrical release and, all these years later, still pops up on cable so that it can proudly display its overwhelming mediocrity.

Now, I’m going to tell you what Frogs For Snakes is about and you’re going to think, “That actually sounds like it might be kind of interesting.”  Don’t be fooled!  The film may sound interesting but it’s not.

Frogs for Snakes takes place in a stylized, neo-noir version of New York City.  Eva Santana (Barbara Hershey) is an aging actress who claims to have quit the business, though it’s clear that it’s more a case of the business quitting her.  She talks about leaving New York and raising her son in a better environment.  However, until she gets around to leaving, she’s making ends meet by working as a waitress at a diner owned by the kind-hearted Quint (Ian Hart).  And, of course, when she’s not waitressing, she’s working as a debt collector for her ex-husband, a loan shark named Al Santana (Robbie Coltrane).

That’s right, this actress has a gun and she uses it frequently.  However, because Eva is good at heart, she rarely kills anyone.  Instead, she just shoots them in the foot and tells them to pay back their loans while they lay on the floor and scream in agony.  (All that agonized screaming got pretty old after a while.)

As for Al, he’s not just a loan shark.  He’s a theatrical impressario.  He’s planning on putting on a production of David Mamet’s American Buffalo.  He promises his driver a role in American Buffalo on the condition that the driver assassinate Eva’s new boyfriend (John Leguizamo, of course).

Soon, actors all over New York are literally killing to get a role in Al’s play.  Meanwhile, Eva just wants to retire and get out of New York but first, she has to do one last job for Al…

In between all the killing, the characters frequently launch into monologues that have been lifted from other films.  John Leguizamo does a Brando imitation.  Lisa Marie (Tim Burton’s ex, not yours truly) delivers the cuckoo clock speech from The Third Man.  A suggestion for aspiring filmmakers: if you’re going to make a bad film, don’t remind your audience that they could be watching The Third Man instead.

Anyway, the plot sounds interesting but none of the potentially intriguing ideas are explored.  I imagine that the film was meant to be a satire of Off-Broadway ruthlessness but ultimately, the film is just another tediously violent indie film from the 90s.  This is one of those movies where nobody can do anything without spending an excessive amount of time talking about it beforehand and, when things do turn violent, it’s the worst type of quirky, sadistic, drawn-out, “look how crazy we are” violence.

There’s a scene towards the end of the film where Al shoots a group of people in a bar.  This is intercut with clips from the Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin.  As Al leave, he shoots the TV showing Battleship Potemkin and, I have to say, that really annoyed me.  Seriously, just as a bad filmmaker should not remind people that they could be watching The Third Man, he shouldn’t invite them to compare his film to Battleship Potemkin unless he’s willing to back up the comparison.  When Al shot the TV, I found myself hoping that Sergei Eisenstein would pop up and shoot him.

Frogs for Snakes is one of the worst films that I’ve ever seen.  It may, in fact, be the worst but I would need to rewatch Ted 2 before I said that for sure.  But, if you have insomnia, Frogs For Snakes will at least put you to sleep.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice

 

Film Review: Cop Car (dir by Jon Watts)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Cop_Car_poster

Cop Car opens with two young boys, Travis (James Freedson-Jackson) and Harrison (Hays Wellford) walking through a field.  Over the course of the film, we really don’t learn that much about either Travis or Harrison.  They speak in the tones and accent of childhood and the trailer park.  They’re just two ordinary kids, who appear to be bored out of their mind and who can blame them because it appears that they live out in the middle of nowhere.

And then, suddenly, their boredom ends.

They comes across a deserted cop car sitting in the middle of the wilderness.  After a successive number of dares, they end up inside of the car.  And then, they discover that the keys are still in the car as well.  Soon, Harrison and Travis are taking turns driving the car, roaring down the highway, nearly running an irate motorist (Camryn Manheim) off the road and basically having a great time.

What the kids don’t know is that the cop car belonged to Sheriff Kretzer (Kevin Bacon), a grim-faced lawman who isn’t going to allow two little kids to make a fool out of him.  Even while Harrison and Travis are playing around in the car, Kretzer is pursuing them.  Along the way, Kretzer is reduced to stealing a truck, gets stopped for speeding, and basically sacrifices any ounce of personal dignity that he may have.  Along the way, cars crash and cows are nearly run over.

And it all sounds like the making of a comedy, doesn’t it?  Just from reading the plot description, you might be justified in thinking that Cop Car is a white trash version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Well, make no mistake.  Cop Car has its funny moments but it is definitely not a comedy.  Sheriff Kretzer may occasionally be a bit of a bumbling adversary but he is no Principal Rooney.  Instead, Kretzer is a vicious and effective killer.

The reason Kretzer was away from his car is that he was busy burying a body in the woods.  And what the kids don’t realize, at first, is that there’s another body in the trunk of the car.  Kretzer is determined to get back his cop car and he’s willing to kill the boys to do it.  Even worse, Kretzer’s badge and uniform give him both the ability and the authority to do so.

There’s one particularly effective scene where Harrison and Travis playing with the weapons that Kretzer left in the car is juxtaposed with Kretzer pouring a baggie of cocaine into a toilet.  But, at the same time, I almost wish that the whole drug dealing subplot had been left out of the film.  When we first meet Kretzer, he’s scary precisely because his motives are unknowable.  He’s an authoritarian with a badge, and a bad mustache.  The more specific the film gets about Kretzer’s motivations, the less interesting he becomes.  Imagine if Kretzer has simply been an unstoppable force of wounded machismo, motivated by nothing more than his belief that his law is the only law that matters.  By making Kretzer a criminal as well as a cop, Cop Car dilutes its otherwise strong critique of the pro-authoritarian strain that currently runs through American culture.

As a thriller and chase film, Cop Car works pretty well, though the first half is significantly better than the second.  (The second half gets a little bogged down with the man in the trunk.)  Director Jon Watts keeps the film moving at a good pace and he shows that he knows how to generate suspense.  There’s a lengthy and narratively risky scene where Kretzer repeatedly tries and fails to pick a lock but the scene pays off in the end and Watts deserves some credit for having faith in the patience of his audience.

But really, Cop Car works largely because Kevin Bacon has become a national treasure.  It’s always fun to watch him throw himself into playing off-center roles like Sheriff Kretzer.  Bacon is smart enough to play up Kretzer’s stupidity without ever downplaying his dangerous and cunning nature.  It’s a great performance in a pretty good film.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: We Are Your Friends (dir by Max Joseph)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

We_Are_Your_Friends

So, this morning, I read some of the harsh reviews that mainstream critics have given the new film We Are Your Friends and I have to admit that I’m starting to get a little ticked off.

That’s not to say that We Are Your Friends is a very good movie.  I saw it last night with my BFF Evelyn and we enjoyed it but mostly, that was because we talked through almost the entire movie.  And yes, I know that it’s rude to talk through a movie but seriously, the theater was nearly deserted.  When we bought our tickets, there was a huge crowd of people gathered outside the theater but it turns out that they were all buying tickets for War Room.

Anyway, We Are Your Friends tells the story of Cole (Zac Efron), a DJ who lives with three idiot friends (who are so identical to the group from Entourage that one of them is even named Squirrel).  He spends his days working at a mortgage company and his nights DJing.  Then he meets James (Wes Bentley), a formerly great DJ who is on his way down.  James takes Cole under his wing and mentors him and teaches him how to get a room dancing.  But, Cole ends up falling in love with James’s abused girlfriend, Sophie (Emily Ratajkowski), which leads to… well, it leads to exactly what you think it’s going to lead to.  Storywise, We Are Your Friends is not going to win any points for originality.

While we were watching the movie, Evelyn and I agreed that Zac Efron is a strange actor.  I mean, yes, he’s hot and yes, he’s talented enough that he can walk while delivering his lines but, at the same time, his dramatic performances always feel oddly empty.  You watch him and you get the feeling that he’s still trying way too hard to prove that there’s more to him than just High School Musical.  He’s like the guy who you have crush on until you actually get to know him and discover that, beyond his looks, he’s really not that interesting.  Efron always seems to be putting in a lot of effort but, whenever you watch one of his performances, you get the feeling that there’s not much going on underneath the beautiful surface.  For all intents and purposes, Zac Efron is the anti-Gosling.

And some movies have made good use of Efron’s limits.  He was perfectly cast in Me and Orson Welles, for instance.  And he’s good in comedies, where he can play against his good looks.  But in a film like We Are Your Friends, where you’re actually supposed to have some sort of emotional stake in his hopes and dreams, Efron just feels miscast.

That said, I still enjoyed We Are Your Friends and I think that a lot of the reviews have been a bit too harsh.  Why did I enjoy the movie?  It all comes down to the music and the dancing.  If you love EDM, you’ll find a lot to enjoy in We Are Your Friends.  And if you’re not into EDM — well, then fuck off.  I could sit here and write another 500 words about how clichéd the storyline is but, ultimately, that’s not what the film is about.  The film is about the music.  The film is about the ecstasy of dancing all night and then waking up with the beats still playing in your head.  At its best, that’s what this film captures.  It’s not a great film.  A month from now, I have a feeling that it’ll be a struggle to remember much about We Are Your Friends.  But I’ll probably still be listening to the soundtrack.

That’s what a lot of the harsh reviews are missing but then again, most mainstream film reviews are written by people who are too old to appreciate EDM in the first place.  EDM is music for people who are young and who are still capable of enjoying the present and dreaming about the future.  Boring old mainstream critics will never get it and that’s why the reviews of We Are Your Friends feel so condescending.  The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads: “We Are Your Friends boasts magnetic stars and glimmers of insight, but they’re lost in a clichéd coming-of-age story as programmed as the soundtrack’s beats.”  Now I know how those Christians who went to see War Room feel whenever a reviewer thinks he’s being clever when he says that one of their films “doesn’t have a prayer.”  It’s all so condescending and cutesy.

Listen, We Are Your Friends is not a particularly good film.  But it’s not as bad as you might think.  The plot is bad but the music is good and really, isn’t that the point?

Film Review: Shaun The Sheep (dir by Richard Starzak and Mark Burton)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Shaun_the_Sheep_MoviePosterIf you want to see a film that will truly make you happy and actually give you a reason to feel optimistic about the future of civilization, then you simply must see Shaun The Sheep, the new stop-motion animated film from Aardman Animations, the same people behind Wallace and Gromit.

The film tells the story of Shaun, a sheep who lives on Mossy Bottom Farm.  Though Shaun and the other sheep have a good relationship with both the farmer and the farmer’s dog, Bitzer, Shaun still finds himself growing bored with the monotonous routine of life on the farm.  He wants to take a day off and go down to the Big City.  (It’s even identified as being the “Big City” on a nearby road sign.)  Shaun comes up with a plan.  He and his fellow sheep trick the farmer into watching as they jump over a fence.  The farmer falls asleep.  They put the farmer in a trailer, the inside of which they’ve disguised to look like the farmer’s bedroom.  The farmer will sleep through the day and, by the time he awakens, Shaun will have returned from the Big City.

And it’s actually a pretty good plan but we all know what they say about the best laid plans of sheep and men.  The trailer ends up rolling away, eventually reaching the city.  Once the farmer wakes up, he gets a blow to head that causes him to develop amnesia.  However, despite not knowing who he is, the farmer has enough vague memories of shearing the sheep that he quickly finds work as a hair stylist.  Working under the name “Mr. X,” the farmer is soon a minor celebrity himself.

Discovering what the sheep have done, Bitzer goes to the city to search for the farmer.  When he doesn’t return, Shaun and the other sheep come to realize how much they actually did like life with the farmer.  They go to the city themselves, searching for both the farmer and Bitzer.  However, once they arrive, they find themselves being stalked by A. Trumper, a fanatical animal control worker.

(Shaun the Sheep is a remarkably good-natured film, with almost every human and animal being kind at heart.  Trumper is the only exception.)

Can Shaun protect the other sheep from Trumper?  Can they track down Bitzer and the farmer?  Will the farmer ever remember the simple joys of country life or will he live the rest of his life as Mr. X, hair stylist to the stars?  You’ll have to watch Shaun the Sheep to find out!

And you really should watch it!  Shaun the Sheep is one of the most delightful films that I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s the perfect movie for kids but, at the same time, it’s smart enough that adults will be able to enjoy it as well.  Yes, a huge part of the film’s appeal is that Shaun is just so cute!  But, at the same time, this cheerful animated film also manages to work in homages to everything from The Great Escape to Silence of the Lambs.  My personal favorite of the film’s many in-jokes was a nod to The Night of the Hunter and no, I’m not going to spoil it for you here.  Why?  Because I want you to see this movie and I want you to have the same joy of discover that I did!

This is a movie that will make you laugh and yes, it will make you cry.  Most of all, Shaun the Sheep is a delightful film!  See it!

Insomnia File No. 5: Black Ice (dir by Neill Fearnley)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Black Ice 2

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night at 2 a.m., you could have turned over to Indieplex and watched Black Ice, a Canadian thriller from 1992.

Why is the film called Black Ice?  Well, that’s a good question.  There’s a lot of snow and ice to be seen in the film but absolutely none of it is black.  According to the imdb, this film was also released under the title A Passion for Murder.  I have to admit that I kind of like A Passion For Murder as a title, simply because it’s so generic and empty that it becomes oddly brilliant.  If you were making a parody of the type of movies that Netflix usually lists in the “steamy thriller” category,  A Passion For Murder is probably the title that you would come up with.

But, as for this film, it opens as all thrillers from the early 90s must, with a man in a suit meeting his clad-in-black-lingerie mistress in a hotel room.  The man in the suit is an up-and-coming senator.  His mistress is the mysterious Vanessa (Joanna Pacula).  When Vanessa pressures him to leave his wife, the senator gets mad and leaves.  Vanessa goes back to her apartment, where she is soon visited by the senator.  She and the senator get into a fight.  She shoves the senator into a window, which shatters and promptly kills the senator.

Meanwhile, Ben Shorr (Michael Nouri) is barely making a living as a taxi driver.  He’s an aspiring writer and, just in case we had any doubts about his intellectual bona fides, he has a pony tail and talks almost nonstop.  (Ben also owns a goldfish that he’s named Travis, as in Taxi Driver‘s Travis Bickle.)  Ben is pretty annoying and when he picks up Vanessa, you’re kind of hoping that she’ll end up killing him like she killed the senator.

But no, it turns out that Ben is supposed to be our hero.  Vanessa asks Ben to drive her from Detroit to Seattle.  And, of course, Ben agrees because … well, there wouldn’t be a movie otherwise.

It turns out that Vanessa is actually a secret agent.  She was supposed to seduce and eventually marry the senator.  Now that she’s accidentally killed him, her supervisor, Quinn, is determined to kill her.  Because this movie was made in Canada, the villainous Quinn is played by Michael Ironside.

The rest of the film is basically Quinn chasing Ben and Vanessa across the northwest.  Along the way, Vanessa and Ben fall in love.  One huge problem with Black Ice is that the audience knows everything about Vanessa before Ben does.  There are a lot of scenes of Ben trying to figure out why Quinn is pursuing Vanessa but, since we already know why, those scenes mostly feel like filler.  If  Vanessa had been as much of a mystery to the audience as she was to Ben for most of the film’s running time, Black Ice probably would have been a bit more intriguing.

As it is, Black Ice is pretty much a standard, low-budget chase film.  Michael Nouri is pretty annoying but Joanna Pacula and Michael Ironside both give good performances.  It snows throughout the entire film and there’s a few genuinely impressive shots of the three main characters running across the icy landscape.  Otherwise, Black Ice is pretty forgettable but it also doesn’t require much thought, which might make it an appropriate film to watch if you’ve got insomnia.

Black Ice

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover

4 Shots From 4 Films: From Russia With Love, Zardoz, Highlander, First Knight

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films.  As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

This edition of 4 Shots From 4 Films is dedicated to Sean Connery, on the occasion of his 85th birthday!

4 Shots From 4 Films

From Russia With Love (1963, directed by Terrence Young)

From Russia With Love (1963, directed by Terrence Young)

Zardoz (1974, directed by John Boorman)

Zardoz (1974, directed by John Boorman)

Highlander (1986, directed by Russell Mulcahy)

Highlander (1986, directed by Russell Mulcahy)

First Knight (1995, directed by Jerry Zucker)

First Knight (1995, directed by Jerry Zucker)

The Sixth Annual Academy Awards: 1919

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

At the 1919 Academy Awards, Evelyn Preer makes history, Harry Houdini is rewarded for playing himself, and Bolshevism goes on trial!

Jedadiah Leland's avatarThrough the Shattered Lens Presents The Oscars

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer

In 1919, as the Spanish Flu continued to infect and kill millions, the world tried to recover from World War I.  After spending six months at the Paris Peace Conference, President Woodrow Wilson returned to the U.S. and launched an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to bring the United States into the newly formed League of Nations.  On September 25th, while barnstorming across the nation in support of the League, a physically exhausted Wilson collapsed and never truly recovered.  On October 2nd, a stroke left him partially paralyzed and blind in one eye.

Even before Wilson’s physical collapse, the U.S. population had reason to feel uncertain about the future.  On January 6th, the wildly popular Theodore Roosevelt died in his sleep.  Before his death, Roosevelt had been widely expected to run for President in 1920 and hopefully return the U.S. to the peace and prosperity…

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So that was the Unauthorized Full House Story…

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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So, last night, after months of nonstop promotion, Lifetime finally aired The Unauthorized Full House Story and…

Meh.

I have a confession to make.  I am 99.9% sure that I have never seen a complete episode of Full House.  I’ve seen bits and pieces, of course.  But I don’t think I have ever watched a single episode from beginning to end.  And yet, despite this, I still feel like I know everything about the show.  I know that John Stamos was obsessed with his hair.  I know that the Olsen Twins played Michelle.  I know about “Oh mylanta!” or “Cut it out” and “you got it, dude,” and all the rest.  I know that Dave Coulier may have inspired Alanis Morissette.

And, though I’ve never seen an entire episode of Full House, I have seen The Aristocrats, a documentary that features Bob Saget telling an incredibly long dirty joke.  And, of course, I’ve also seen Half Baked, which featured Saget asking if Dave Chapelle had ever “sucked dick for coke.”

So, naturally, I figured that The Unauthorized Full House Story would feature a lot of cocaine being snorted backstage while an actress meant to Alanis went down on Coulier in a theater.  I mean, it had to be unauthorized for a reason, right!?

But no — much like last year’s Unauthorized Saved By The Bell, the Full House movie was notable largely for how little drama it featured.  Apparently, there were no scandals.  There was little to no conflict behind the scenes.  John Stamos was apparently a little stand-offish at first.  Bob Saget occasionally forgot there were children around and made an off-color comment.  Dave Coulier apparently was just happy to be there.

In other words, it was all pretty boring.  But, I still had fun live tweeting the film and apparently, a lot of people enjoyed reading my tweets.  So, in honor of what the Full House movie was truly all about, here’s a collection of my best tweets from last night.

Hell yeah!  But, before they get to Unauthorized Degrassi, Lifetime will be showing Unauthorized 90210 and Unauthorized Melrose Place in October!  Now, those shows will be worthy of being unauthorized!

Short Film Review: The Blood of Love (dir by Jeff Meyers)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Blood of Love

What would you do for love?  How far would you go for the man or woman or thing that you love?  That’s a question that has rested at the heart of many — perhaps almost all — stories.  That’s because love is our most essential need.  It’s something that we spend our entire lives either searching for or trying to hold onto.  And really, is there any greater fear than being alone?  That need to be in love and to be loved is the one thing that everyone has in common.

It’s also the subject matter of The Blood of Love, a short horror film that I was recently lucky enough to view.  Directed by Jeff Meyers and clocking in at a brisk 18 minutes, The Blood of Love opens with Kate (played by a wonderful actress named Mali Elfman) saying goodbye to her husband, Josh (Chris Stack).  Josh is in bed and obviously ill.  He’s also worried about the little black dress that his wife is wearing.  She assures him that it’s just for work and then goes out.

Though Kate does end up picking up a guy once she goes out, she’s not looking for a good time.  Instead, she brings the guy home with her and promptly proceeds to slit his throat.  Meanwhile, Josh is still in bed but now he’s dead.

However, it turns out that Kate has a special machine that will bring Josh back to life.  The machine runs on blood and, unfortunately, Josh is only alive for a day or two before he dies again.  Hence, Kate has to keep finding victims in order to bring her husband back to life over and over again.

However, with each resurrection, Josh is alive for a shorter amount of time.  Finally, Kate makes one final attempt to bring Josh back to life permanently but it leads to a series of twists that neither she nor Josh sees coming.

With its mix of graphic gore and delirious romance, The Blood of Love can be favorably compared to the work of the great French filmmaker, Jean Rollin.  (I am, in particular, thinking of the classic The Living Dead Girl but Josh’s short term amnesia also reminds one of Rollin’s Night of the Hunted.)  The short film plays out with a Rollinesque dream-like intensity and Mali Elfman’s gives a remarkably brave performance as Kate, making her both sympathetic and scary at the same time.  Special mention should also be made of Norman Roth, who plays a mysterious character named Mr. Ashling and gives the type of enigmatic performance that brings to mind the type of mad scientists and magicians who would have been embodied by Lionel Atwill or Vincent Price in the past.

The Blood of Love is playing the festival circuit.  Check out its Facebook page by clicking here.

The Things You Find On Netflix: Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s The Island of Dr. Moreau

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

lostsoul

I have never actually seen the 1996 film The Island of Dr. Moreau but I certainly have read a lot about it.

It’s one of those films that seems to get mentioned whenever film critics start talking about the worst films of all time and, as a result, the story of the film’s production has become legendary.  The film’s shoot was difficult, for reasons of both nature and human nature.  The film was shot in the inhospitable Australian rain forest and shooting was briefly shut down due to a sudden hurricane.   Richard Stanley, the original director, was unceremoniously fired by New Line Cinema and apparently proceeded to go native in the Australian wilderness, smoking a huge amount of weed while the studio executives feared that he would return and burn down the set.  Veteran director John Frankenheimer was brought in to finish the film and clashed immediately with the film’s notoriously eccentric and difficult stars, Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando.

And I have to admit that, every time I read about The Island of Dr. Moreau, there’s a part of me that wants to track down and watch this film and see how bad it could possibly be.  But, every time I find myself too tempted, I think about a shirtless Val Kilmer lounging around in a kilt and I quickly change my mind.

Val

Bleh!

Fortunately, if I want to get a feel for the insanity behind the film’s production, I no longer have to actually watch The Island of Dr. Moreau.  Instead, I can just get on Netflix and watch an entertaining documentary called Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Lost Soul could have just as easily been called Everybody Hates Val Kilmer.  Val himself declined to be interviewed for the documentary and I have to say that I think that was a huge mistake on his part because literally everyone who did agree to be interviewed appears to absolutely despise Val Kilmer.  It’s not so much that everyone tells a story about Val’s bad behavior as much as the fact that, decades later, everyone still seems to be so traumatized by the experience of having been  anywhere near him.  (German actor Marco Hofschnieder especially seems to take a lot of delight in doing a devastating yet hilarious imitation of Val Kilmer smoking a cigarette and complaining about every line of dialogue, regardless of whether it was his dialogue or not.)

The documentary also includes plenty of crazy Marlon Brando stories but there’s a noticeable difference between the Brando stories and the Kilmer stories.  Brando is portrayed as being an almost tragic figure, a great actor who hated his talent and, as a result, went out of his way to give performances that mocked the very idea of even trying to be good.  As annoyed as everyone seems to have gotten with Brando, there’s still an undercurrent of affection to the Brando stories.  That’s something that is definitely lacking from the Kilmer stories.

(According to the documentary, Brando was not a Val Kilmer fan.  When Kilmer asked Brando if he had visited the Australian reef, Brando replied, “I own a reef,” and reportedly didn’t speak to Kilmer for the rest of the shoot.)

As interesting as the stories about Brando and Kilmer may be, the heart of the film rests with Richard Stanley, the promising young South African director whose brief “mainstream” film career was pretty much derailed by the drama surrounding The Island of Dr. Moreau.  Interviewed at his home in France and captivating the audience with both his intense stare and his mordant sense of humor, Richard Stanley describes both his vision for The Island of Dr. Moreau and the pain of having that vision snatched away from him.  Not only does he confirm that, as has long been rumored, he did sneak back onto the set as an extra but he also explains that the production’s problems were largely due to a mishap involving a warlock named Skip.

Lost Soul makes for an interesting cautionary tale about what happens when an artist has to deal with the establishment.  Watch it with Jodorowsky’s Dune and have yourself a double feature of “what could have been” cinema.