1988 movie
Rating: 15/20
Plot: A guy tries to make a movie, but people who make movies get in his way.
Tagline: “This is the kind of movie you would make if you had nothing better to do.”
God bless, Mike Jittlov. It’s hard to believe that this movie with the odd B-movie title is pretty much it for a guy with this much talent. And the talent’s evident despite this movie’s flaws. You almost want to forgive its flaws though because this feels like such a labor of love, has a refreshing unpredictability, and has an enthusiasm behind it that is just infectious.
In a way, it reminds me of a one-man band. Take one musician and strap a tuba to him, throw a guitar in his hands, put a bass drum next to his foot, give him one of those harmonica holder deals like Donovan or Dylan used, arm him with an accordion, duct-tape a tambourine to the foot he’s not playing the bass drum with, stuff a nose flute up his nostril, place a piano next to him, and design some sort of experimental electronic instrument that he can play with blinking. If the guy’s talented enough, he’ll be able to play something that sounds like a song, and any crowd watching the whole thing will be amazed. Jittlov’s a one-man band here. He wrote this story, he planned all the gags, he directs, he did the special effects, he produced the picture, and somehow had enough energy left over to bounce around as the movie’s star. And there are some people who try to pull this kind of thing off and make a predictable mess out of things, but Jittlov gets by on his creativity and that aforementioned enthusiasm alone. Are parts of this a little messy? Oh, absolutely. The pacing’s a little off, the plot sometimes gets lost in all the weirdness, and it’s often a little too silly. However, it’s never boring, and you just sort of fall in love with it after a while. It’s nuts, unapologetically nuts, but there’s a vibrancy that reminds you of the wackiness of Pee Wee, a love for his own animated creations that remind you of Harryhausen, and this buoyancy that reminds you of Disney at its most magical.
Rooting for Jittlov’s character in this is rooting for the creative DIY spirit of independent filmmaking. There are all kinds of jabs taken at Hollywood with its red tape and big budget productions and greedy, soulless big wigs. Inspired by Jittlov’s own experiences, the character and his misadventures in filmmaking make you feel good in the context of this story and a little bummed out when you realize that Jittlov ended up doing nothing else after this.
And he totally should have done more than this. The highlights are the stop-animated scenes which are innovative and just plain fun. Jittlov’s wizard character sprints through the streets, defies gravity with wall runs, and manipulates hundreds of film canisters. Jittlov’s the kind of guy who’s going to throw in a special effect or two when there’s really no reason for them at all. His room–in a house he shares with Mom–is the kind of setting where you feel like you have to freeze the frame to catch all the details in it. Characters are Benny-Hill-ized, apparently just because it makes Jittlov giggle and he thinks it might make us giggle, too. Special effects sequences that could been handled much, much easier in the mid-80s are created with this kind of wide-eyed naive love of the old school. And it succeeds in making the whole thing lovable.
I really liked the music accompanying all this wackiness. Parts sound quaintly electronic, like Perrey and Kingsley. There are also some songs with wizard-heavy lyrics that are cute, sounding like something that would have come from a 1970’s children’s show. I’m not sure if John Massari, the composer credited for the score, is the guy who did those songs, but I liked them. There was also a musical motif that ran through this that sounded like the beginning of that “April Showers” song from Bambi.
Really enjoyed seeing two faces in this movie. One was Woody Allen with a brief cameo. I thought it was probably just somebody who looked like Woody Allen, but I checked and it was apparently Woody himself. The second is Stephen Stucker, that annoying dude from Airplane. He plays a piano player and dance choreographer in this, his last role.
I guess I just like how personal this movie feels and what it says about the difficulties in making it in Hollywood. I can identify because I’ve never made it in Hollywood either. It’s not easy to find, but I think it’s worth it for people who dig stop-motion or just creative, different movies in general.
Two more notes:
This movie took five years to make. Told ya–labor of love.
And this movie also apparently has 1,000 subliminal messages. I didn’t notice them, probably because they’re subliminal.
