CINEMA SEEN - "As Seen...Ass Reported!"
By William Margold

     The childishly drawn signs had been pestering our curiosity for over 100 miles, just as the thumb-sized gnats had been annoying us as we drove through Arkansas during a sticky steamy day in the late summer of 1967. My friend Johnny and I had embarked on a cross-country adventure that had already taken us from Los Angeles to Indiana (where I almost died from food poisoning...losing 17 pounds of god knows what in less than a half hour, but that’s another story) up to Montreal for The World’s Fair to New York City to somewhere in Tennessee (where Johnny nauseatingly discovered that okra- laced---and most likely recklessly undercooked pork sausage patties---needed to be eliminated as quickly as possible during numerous "hurry...pull over to side of the road" visits, but that’s another story), and now we were on our way back toward the Pacific Ocean. Although admittedly homesick by this time, but with many, Many, MANY miles to go before we could sleep in own beds once again, we subverted our longing for the trip to end by pretending to be eager for any new adventures that might come our way...so apparently the very homemade looking billboards proclaiming "See the incredible Two-Headed Dog just ahead!!!" were just too much for our muddled minds to resist, and as we drove along...our anticipation grew when each new billboard grotesquely loomed up on the horizon. And then we were parked in front of a foreboding looking cabin in the absolute middle of nowhere, and in retrospect, if we had already seen anything remotely related to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or "Deliverance"---we would never have gone in!!! But there was that damn "two headed dog" barking in our brains like Circe luring Ulysses to deal with, so we each pulled out a dollar, paid it to the liver-spotted hand that extended through an opening, and stumbled into a cold, vile-smelling, very narrow hallway. WAY down at the end of it was an enclosure. As we cautiously moved closer, the sound of buzzing filled the air, and a swarm of hornets set upon us, rendering us virtually unable to really see just exactly what was hideously huddled up in the corner of the horribly dirty confining area. Between the stench and the hornets and the chilling claustrophobic misery of the situation, about five seconds of glancing at whatever was sadly peering back at us in that holding area was all that we could tolerate. We rushed from the cabin and drove away quickly. Many miles from the moment, we finally looked at each other, and could read in each other’s faces that we were never going to admit to anyone, including ourselves, that we hadn’t seen a two-headed dog.
     And while I am loathe to admit my being made a fool of in Arkansas on a sweltering day in the late summer of 1967, I am certainly not afraid to admit as to how big a fool enduring the absolute emptiness of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY made me feel a couple of weeks ago. Indeed, while director Oren Peli’s stultifying serving of ho-hum house haunting crept by, I could feel myself growing another couple of legs and a tail... and instead of yawning...my expressions of agonizing ennui were becoming brays.
     (Now that’s a sight worth I’ll bet YOU would spend at least a buck to see. And quite frankly...while I was sorely tempted to attach my face to the fellow featured here as a woeful example of just how I felt...I decided NOT to make more out of the asses that either one of us were already. But you’ll be happy to know that his cause---www.wildburrorescue.org--- has been regularly donated to by LAXPRESS staff members during the past few years.)
     However...quite angry at myself for being ripped off once...I figured to at least maximize the misery of having spent $6 for a ticket, by rushing right down the hall of the sprawling multiplex just in time to see CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT...and was justly un-rewarded with an outstandingly lame creature feature that wasted the talents of John C. Reilly, Willem Dafoe...and a bearded Salma Hayak!
     Even madder now, but determined to at least get my monies worth (at two bucks a pop...so that my penurious sensibilities were sure to be somewhat assuaged), I hunted down ZOMBIELAND in the same multiplex, and by default, found myself proclaiming the incredibly unremarkable Woody Harrelson doing away with the walking dead dullard to be best of a truly turgid trio.
     And I wasn’t through yet...although my head felt like it had been split open with an axe (two large bags of popcorn and a couple of way too sweet pink lemonades aren’t high up on the hunger abatement list) and my eyes were starting to blur---after a bathroom break that included immersing my head in a sink of very cold water...I found SURROGATES about to start up, and throughout the highly uneventful Bruce Willis versus lots of angry robots production, I spent most of the time relishing the fact that I had drastically reduced the price of my dismal day of cinematic suffering all the way down to $1.50 per each serving of utterly forgettable movie moments.
     And while way beyond feeling anything even remotely associated with being proud of such a pulling off such a dastardly deed...at least I could feel a modicum of pleasure in my perpetual pursuit of trying to get my monies’ worth during these unnervingly unstable economic days.      end
     NOTE: Originally published in LA Xpress, November 12, 2009 issue.

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CINEMA SEEN - "A 'Bunch' of 'Wild' Memories!"
By William Margold

     Its title---THE WILD BUNCH---amused me.
     Its director---Sam Peckinpah---who seven years earlier had crafted a brilliant western call "Ride The High Country"---intrigued me.
     And on a Friday afternoon in the summer of 1969, I went into The Pix Theater in Hollywood...and five hours later...because I found myself compelled to sit through the film twice...I sprang from the movie house reborn from having seen, as I would proclaim to my roommates when I got home---"the best movie of all-time."
     (It should be noted here that up until the cinematic lava of "The Wild Bunch" seared my senses...I had clung preciously to 1952's "High Noon" as my all-time favorite film. And during the many years that have followed I have simply reconciled that situation by preserving "High Noon" as the pillar of my somewhat innocent childhood and by making "The Wild Bunch" the bastion of my far-less-innocent adulthood.)
     I was so overwhelmed by my first double dose of "The Wild Bunch" that I brought my roommates back with me to The Pix on Sunday afternoon, and reveled in watching them watching it two more times.
     And although I have long ago lost count of how many times I have had the privilege of seeing the movie---on TV and in each and every one of its VHS and DVD incarnations---perhaps it is appropriate that when I attend the 40th anniversary of THE WILD BUNCH on Thursday November 12 at The Million Dollar Theater---checkout the centerpiece of this page and www.julesverne.org for all of the details--- I may well be seeing the film in a movie theater for the 40th time.
     My title for this column is "A 'Bunch' of 'Wild' Memories"...and before I reflect on a few of them...I would like to humbly present some of the very first words I wrote about the film: "There is more cinematic class in many single scenes of director Sam Peckinpah's 'The Wild Bunch' than most films have in all of their reels. And of all of the scenes, the one that shall live forever in my mind is that of a quartet of noble souls walking proudly toward their inevitable deaths. Peckinpah's tale is a sinewy series of blood-and-guts battles meshed with the throbbing of men's hearts and brains as they sweat and swear away their existences. While the cast is excellent, the film belongs to Peckinpah, and to the violence that he sees in the world. Bodies twitch, blood runs freely, shrapnel chews up men's backs and faces, human beings cry out in hideous protests to pain and death as Peckinpah has made death a paradox: lovely to look at (much of it is in a slow motion/'bloody ballet'), but hell to feel. To flinch at 'The Wild Bunch' is human. To feel nothing is certainly not divine."
     Perhaps my most indelible memory is when---during the casting of an adult movie---legendary adult industry star John C. Holmes spotted a black-and-white shot of Warren Oates on the machine gun (complete with its soundtrack) from "The Wild Bunch" on my office wall in 1977, and grew so wistful that I took it down and handed it to him symbiotically understanding the endangered species bond that existed between a couple of bigger-than-life characters.
     Amusingly a couple of years before, I had attended a morning showing of "The Wild Bunch" at the Beverly Canon Theater, and found myself sitting in front of Oates and Sam Peckinpah. And damn if Warren didn't launch into his perversely gleeful death-rattling howl as he wielded that machine gun in the image that is displayed on this page.
     And tragically speaking of death, I attended a special screening of 'The Wild Bunch' at USC in the spring of 1982 the night after Warren Oates passed away. And there was Sam Peckinpah trying to choke back his tears as he spoke lovingly about his dear friend. Of course, everyone would have understood if Sam had decided not to attend...or if the screening itself had been cancelled. But that would have violated the "wouldn't have it any other way" code of "The Wild Bunch"...and that just wasn't acceptable.
     And finally...I will never forget the plaintive cry of a little boy behind me in the cool dankness of The Fairfax Theater many years ago who exclaimed "Mommy, all the good guys are dead" as the last member of "The Wild Bunch" let out his final sigh.
     My eyes started to glisten while at the same time I couldn't stop from smiling at the wisdom of the child's words.
     That's why I'll be at The Million Dollar Theater on Thursday evening November 12 to pay homage to "The Wild Bunch"...as "the good guys" come alive...by dying all over again.
     end
     NOTE: Originally published in LA Xpress, November 5, 2009 issue.

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