Platoon – Podcasting Them Softly

Brothers in BLOOD by Kent Hill

December 1, 2019 by Kent Hill, posted in Podcast

DRY BLOOD . . . WOW! What a movie – minimal in construction, but ocean-deep in subtext . . . with a type of gleeful depravity.

The dynamic filmmaker duo of Clint Carney (writer/producer/actor/artist/musician) and Kelton Jones (the man who induced GOD to Mel Gibson/director/actor) have conjured with the combination of immense talents – and with the aid of a rich assortment of family and friends – a film that stays with you as the credits roll.

The film is a tense, slow-boil of a horror picture that, when it explodes, you’re never quite ready. It is a journey into the tormented mind of character gripped by fear and self-loathing which overflows into a gruesome cesspool of vicious insanity, coupled with exciting, delicious, mischievous and frightening portrayals for Messrs Carney and Jones.

DRY BLOOD has recently completed a very successful festival run, having received an astounding thirty award wins (including many for “Best Picture,” “Best Actor,” “Best Director,” and “Best Writer”), with another twenty-three nominations as well. Highlights from this festival run include “Best Feature Film” and “Best Actor” wins from the Bram Stoker International Film Festival in the UK, as well as the top spot at the Indie Film Playoffs, where DRY BLOOD swept the board (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Writer) in a competition against numerous films from multiple festivals.

Clint Carney, who wrote, starred, and composed the score, says, “It’s been a long and exciting journey to go from writing the script almost four years ago, to now releasing DRY BLOOD to the world. We are beyond excited to work with Dread Presents. They already have number of great films in their catalog and we couldn’t be happier to be a part of their roster, and to be welcomed into the Dread family.”

DRY BLOOD is directed by Kelton Jones, written by Clint Carney and starring Clint Carney, Jaymie Valentine, Kelton Jones, Robert V. Galluzzo, Graham Sheldon, Rin Ehlers, and Macy Johnson.

“Clint and I set out to make our favorite horror movie,” remarks Kelton Jones, the film’s director. “We wanted to make a film that was true to the genre and lived up to the potential of what a great horror film could be. We knew this would be an ambitious task. We hold such a great love for the genre and the masters of cinema who had shaped our childhoods. We felt the best way to honor them was to pour our hearts and souls into making DRY BLOOD. We knew our toughest audience would be ourselves and we endeavored to make a film that we were truly proud of. I feel very grateful to have been able to be a part of such an amazing project, made with love, by people I love. I am beyond thrilled to be releasing this film with Dread Presents.We set out to make our favorite film; my hope is that it becomes your favorite film as well.”

It’s a great little gem of a horror movie that shows us a glimpse of the evil that lurks within us all, but as a production, it showcases what a group of like-minded, talented, and hungry filmmakers can do when they pool their resources. And it is my pleasure to present them to you now…

KELTON JONES

Director Kelton Jones’s love of cinema began as a child in the seventies. His mother owned a quaint flower shop that shared a wall with the singular movie theater on the rural main street of Buffalo, Texas. Kelton would spend his afternoons watching and rewatching the afternoon showings as he waited for his mother to finish the day’s work. When the rare feature film would be shot on location in a nearby town, Kelton would find a way to the set so that he could watch from the sidelines, as the filmmakers would spin their magic. Finally, at age 16, Kelton’s first feature in front of the camera gave him the chance to ask the crew if he could join them after he finished his work as an actor. From that very first film, Kelton has permeated the boundaries between actor and filmmaker craftsman. DRY BLOOD is the culmination of a lifetime spent studying film, working on sets, writing scripts, and acting. While on set, it was not unusual to see him in full character wardrobe setting a light, operating a camera or pushing a dolly as he directed the scene. Though this marks his first feature film as director, he has worked every other crew position on set of previous films, ranging from small independent pictures, to huge Hollywood productions. Ultimately, his choice of projects has always been driven by a deep love of the medium, a passion for a great story, and the opportunity to learn and push his own boundaries.

CLINT CARNEY

Clint Carney is a well-known Los Angeles-based musician, artist, writer, and filmmaker. His musical work first came into the spotlight in 2004 when he released his first official album under the name SYSTEM SYN. To date, SYSTEM SYN has released seven albums and multiple singles, and performed all over the world. Throughout the years, Clint has also served as a keyboard player and back-up vocalist for the bands Imperative Reaction and God Module. As a fine artist, he is best known for his graphic and disturbing oil paintings. His artwork has been shown in galleries and private collections worldwide and has been featured on magazine covers, clothing lines, and musical albums. His work can also be seen in many major motion pictures, television shows, commercials, and music videos. Clint has created iconic imagery through artwork and props for films by such directors as J.J. Abrams (Star Trek Into Darkness), David Fincher (Gone Girl), Oliver Stone (Savages), Wes Craven (Scream 4), Cameron Crowe (We Bought a Zoo), and more. In recent years, Clint has turned his focus toward film making, working on many different projects as a director, producer, screenwriter, editor, and actor.DRY BLOOD marks his first feature as a producer, writer, and actor. Clint is currently in development on his feature length directorial debut.

FUCK YOU ALL: The UWE BOLL Story Interviews by Kent Hill

November 26, 2018November 26, 2018 by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

I love the cinema of Uwe Boll. How you ask? Haven’t you read the reviews – don’t you know the stories? My answer: Yes.

I have read the press, I know all the stories. I watched as mindless degenerates hiding in their mother’s basements hurled shit across the web, and into the face of one of cinema’s most prolific, most passionate, fiercely independent figures. A man who needed, not a studio, but his own incredible knowledge and production savvy to make movies . . .

. . . all Uwe Boll ever wanted to do.

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But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s set the ‘way-back machine’ for the late 90’s, and I’m tending the counter at the local video store – back when it was really its namesake – and they bring in a new coin-op to keep the punters in the store and spending money. That video game was called House of the Dead.

Supposedly so graphic and horrifying – as well as being literally rated R – HOTD was a shoot ’em up in the best, most fun sense of the genre. Behind the black curtain that was there to frivolously attempt to shield the eyes of the innocent from the mayhem, the masochistic, bullet-shredding magnificence, was a really cool world where the aim of the game was to blast your way through hordes of the undead with merciless glee.

So being a fan, and sneaking off to play while I should have been at the desk – when a friend of mine said, “I hear they’re going to make a movie based of this” – I was like, “take all my money man – this is gonna rock!” (And that was prior to The Rock giving video game adaptations a shot)

I remember going to the cinema to see it, and soon being one of only a handful of people still watching after a good number of folks had walked out. So – why did I stay I can hear you ask? Well there are two reasons. One is simple – I enjoyed the movie on many levels. Yes it wasn’t the game, nor could it have been. I think people operate under the fallacy that just because a video game has a backstory or mythology on which it is based, then it must be simple to adapt into a movie. I believe precisely the opposite to be true. I think truly solid adaptations rely more on the wit and invention of the filmmaker. To combine a good narrative with recognizable elements from the game to appease the faithful.

And, love him or despise him, that is exactly what Uwe Boll could do – and do well. For if he couldn’t dear reader, then those multitudes of investors that he went back to time after time, movie after movie would not have entertained him. If he were not commercially successful, the career of Uwe Boll would not exist, nor could it be captured in the brilliant, candid and touching portrait of a film about a filmmaker, a man, who refused to remain silent whether he was being applauded or damned.

Unlike Dan Lee West’s RAGING BOLL, which deals more with the sensationalist side of Boll’s career, S.P. Shaul’s picture meanders down the quite roads and sheds light on the personal figure behind the media circus, the private man, the family man, the man who in spite of those basement dweller’s vitriol – followed his dreams and fought many a battle to bring them into the cold light of reality.

FUCK YOU ALL, is not a gratuitous middle finger in the face from the man dubbed the worst filmmaker of all time. No dear PTS listener – it is about the pursuit of what inspires, the burden of making visions come alive as well as the reminiscences of a man who worked with and alongside the cream of the Hollywood crop while smiling at the absurdity of it all.

When and wherever you can see this, The Uwe Boll Story, I urge and hasten you. It is filled with insults and hatred but that is always counterbalanced by the friends and collaborators of Dr. Boll, speaking words of praise, constructive criticism, and overall of a man with whom it was always fun to go to work with – and as it is said best, by Brendan Fletcher (a long-time Boll collaborator), and I’m paraphrasing here: but he speaks to the haters of Boll and says . . . “when have they ever risked anything?”

It is a great film about a fascinating artist and I am most excited to present my chats now, not only with the filmmaker responsible for the documentary, but with the filmmaker who inspired him to make the journey . . .

. . . enjoy

UWE BOLL

As a child, Uwe produced a number of short films on Super 8 and video before beginning his studies as a film director in Munich and Vienna. He also studied literature and economics in Cologne and Siegen. Uwe graduated from university in 1995 with a doctorate in literature. Uwe has since directed, written and produced over 30 movies with such stars as Ben Kingsley, Jason Statham, Ray Liotta and Ron Perlman. Uwe also runs and owns the BAUHAUS Restaurant in Vancouver alongside Michelin Star chef Stefan Hartmann.

(Courtesy of:http://uwebollraw.com/)

SEAN PATRICK SHAUL

Sean is a Canadian Documentary Filmmaker who became aware of Uwe Boll whilst working on the production, Assault on Wall Street. His first encounter the wild, unchecked hullabaloo of an Uwe Boll movie. Sean would then go back and watch a number of the master’s films before lightning struck – Uwe would be the subject of his next documentary. Boll never one to have a problem with being candid – Shaul received and all access pass to the life behind the great director – enough to construct this, his definite portrait of the man, the myth, the mouth . . . the man named, BOLL!

PLEASE VISIT: http://prairiecoastfilms.com/

Space Operatic: An Interview with Stephen van Vuuren by Kent Hill

May 28, 2018 by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

I applaud anyone who makes their way on this crusade, some might say foolish crusade, to make a film. It can be a long, arduous, laborious. And thinking on that word laborious, now consider making a film that has to be stitched together using over 7 million photographs with animation techniques pioneered by Walt Disney on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. No CGI. And I know that sounds sacrilegious in this day and age where a film without CGI is like a day without sunshine.

However, the film that Stephen van Vuuren has, albeit laboriously, constructed In Saturn’s Rings, is a unique master-work that is as beautiful and immersive on the small screen I watched it on as I can imagine it being played in its large format form.

Sparked by Cassini‘s arrival at Saturn in 2004 and the media’s lack of coverage, van Vuuren produced two films. Photos from space missions — including images of Saturn taken by Cassini — were included. But van Vuuren was not satisfied with the results so he did not release them.

While listening to the Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber one day in 2006, van Vuuren conceived the idea of creating moving images of Saturn based on a pan-and-scan 2.5-D effect. The technique involves creating a 3-D perspective using still photographs.

After discussion with audiences at IMAX conferences, van Vuuren decided the film title Outside In (the title of the short version) was not a good match for the film’s sensibility. The Giant Film Cinema Association had been publicising the film and surveys it conducted supported this. It was during a discussion in 2012 about the film’s climax where he was describing Earth “in Saturn’s rings” that van Vuuren realized he had found his new title.

Although narration had originally been removed in 2009, by 2014 van Vuuren realized that a sparse narration was necessary for the film. This amounted to 5 pages and about 1200 words in total. After listening to many voice actors one stood out and he asked LeVar Burton (Star Trek: The Next Generation) to be the narrator for the film.

The culmination of these elements, plus a lot of hard work, has resulted in something that is essentially more than a film. Like Kubrick’s 2001 which inspired him, van Vuuren has crafted an experience of what it may by like to drift through the far reaches of space to the planet that has always been the physical embodiment of his childhood fantasies. And I for one am grateful he stuck to his guns and made a movie that, even though it’s not a tale from a galaxy far, far away, it is the universe at its most wondrous…

“Roadblocks won’t stop somethin’ that can’t be stopped.” : Remembering The Wraith with Mike Marvin by Kent Hill

May 8, 2018 by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

The Wraith was like many a glorious find back in the day at my local video store. The cover had a holographic shimmer to it – a strange robot-like character standing in front of some bad-ass, customized car that looked as though it would be more comfortable zipping through the galaxy rather than flying at break-neck speeds along the long stretches and cactus-lined roads of Arizona.

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Yes sir, that cover held the promise of sci-fi mysticism combined with heat-thumping vehicular action to rival the Road Warrior.

Oddly enough, Dr. George’s post-apocalyptic action-adventure was the template for Mike Marvin’s Cult Classic. When the man who started out making skiing films came to Hollywood and saw an opportunity to fuse High Plains Drifter with Mad Max 2, one would assume it was a concept any studio would be happy to throw their weight behind.

But, then as now, the movie business can be treacherous, and Marvin’s experiences making The Wraith were far from pleasant. As a matter a fact, they were a nightmare. Plagued by unscrupulous producers, a tragic death while filming – along with all the other perils of production – it is a wonder that this certified 80’s classic ever made to to the screen.

Lucky for us, however, thanks must go, in no small part, to a string of wonderful performers, a dedicated crew and a talented director at the helm, The Wraith survives as a one of a kind mash-up of genres that has endured and is, for this film writer at least, yet to be equaled.

This interview was conducted before I was able to sample Mike’s great and candid commentary on the Region 1 DVD release of the film. And while some of what he relayed to me you will find on that release, the truly glorious thing that I experienced was to hear these insights, plus a couple that were not covered in that commentary track, first hand from this journeyman warhorse of a film-maker.

So seek out the The Wraith, those of you who have not yet experienced it. Let this interview, hopefully tantalize your interest to learn more about this incredible film that really was both ahead of its time, a product of its time and most assuredly one of a kind…

Ladies and Gentlemen…Mike Marvin.

33rd Santa Barbara International Film Festival: Willem Dafoe Honored with Cinema Vanguard Award

February 2, 2018February 2, 2018 by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Film Festivals, Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Willem Dafoe is an actor. He’s not a celebrity, he’s not a movie star, he’s an actor. An actor’s actor like Robert Mitchum or Lee Marvin. He arrived early in Santa Barbara where he was receiving the Cinema Vanguard Award with an hour and a half long Q&A moderated by Deadline’s Peter Hammond. Dafoe took his time with his fans lined up; taking photographs and signing autographs and then spending an ample amount of time speaking to the press.

Dafoe is currently on his third Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. He was first nominated for Oliver Stone’s PLATOON, then SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, and now for Sean Baker’s THE FLORIDA PROJECT where Dafoe plays a motel manager and surrogate grand father to a six year old daughter of an unruly tenant.

Inside the Arlington Theare, a highlight reel started and showed everything from STREETS OF RAGE to PLATOON to THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST to SPIDER-MAN and THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Noticeably missing from Dafoe’s greatest hits and Hammond’s Q&A were the four (soon to be five) collaborations with Abel Ferrara and his three films with Lars von Trier. To be fair any one of Dafoe’s performances from any one of his films would be worthy of being in the reel; yet those seven films are incredibly seminal to the Dafoe canon.

He spoke about being fired from his first feature film, Michael Cimino’s HEAVEN’S GATE for laughing out loud at a joke during a set break. He then went on to speak about how he was asked by Cimino to narrate a feature length documentary about the making (and unmaking) of HEAVEN’S GATE.

Dafoe spoke freely about his rich filmography. He stated the most physically demanding performance of his career had been when he played Jesus for Martin Scrosese. He talked about how taxing the crucifixion scene was, and how he could only stay in that pose for a maximum of twenty minutes before his body would start to give out.

Regarding MISSISSIPPI BURNING, Gene Hackman actually did hit him, they really smoked marijuana during the party scene in PLATOON, and how he was on three foot stilts doing motion capture work for JOHN CARTER ON MARS.

Dafoe is overly deserving for an Academy Award. Both on the account of his performance as Bobby Hicks in THE FLORIDA PROJECT and for one of those “lifetime achievement/we owe you one” Oscars. As Bobby Hicks, Dafoe is playing the guy, and for a career of playing that guy, he finally gets to shine and give one of his best performances as the guy.

Hollywood’s best-kept Secret: An Interview with Scott Windhauser by Kent Hill

November 9, 2017 by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

Scott Windhauser might seem to have simply fallen out of the clear blue sky recently. Truth is, he has been in the game for quite some time. He worked his way up through the ranks, paying his dues, making connections – but all the while, working quietly on his own scripts.

The turning point came when he wrote a screenplay. You know the one, the kind of script that gets you noticed, that gets them to return your phone calls, that’s peaks the interest of the movie gods. Now I’m not going to spoil it here, you’ll have to have a listen, but the premise was really cool stuff.

But, as things often happen in Hollywood, another picture, that took place in a similar setting, came out around the same time and the backers started backing away. It’s times like these that separate the men from boys. It’s like Michael Douglas’s line in The Ghost and The Darkness, “Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit. Well my friend, you’ve just been hit. The getting up is up to you.”

Scott did a little better than just getting back on his feet. He went back to the forge and starting producing a veritable war chest of material, most of which is on its way to release as we speak. There’s some that Scott has also directed like Dead Trigger starring Dolph Lundgren as well as Cops and Robbers with Tom Berenger and Michael Jai White. Then there’s the Rob Cohen(The Fast and The Furious, XXX) directed Hurricane Heist (or Category 5 as some of the advertising is calling it) and Tsunami L.A., along with numerous other projects big and small in the works as well as on the way either this or next year.

Scott Windhauser folks. His is a name you may not have heard, but the times they are a changin’. He fought his way through the minefields of La La Land, he’s given a script a ‘Nic-polish’ (have a listen, all shall be revealed), he has even bumped into John Williams, the man who wrote the cinematic themes of our youth.