Talking with Tim

To be able to score another interview with one of the Cinematic Titanic crew after having the good fortune to interview Mary Jo Pehl was not something I had expected. But right after Pehl expressed interest, so did Frank Conniff. Conniff, another original MST3K cast member and writer, was best known as TV’s Frank on the show. After MST3K ended, Conniff diversified into various TV projects, including work on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and Invader Zim. In addition to his current involvement with Cinematic Titanic, he serves as host and performer for Cartoon Dump, a monthly show at Hollywood’s Steve Allen Theatre that aims to feature “live comedy, great music and hilariously bad animation“. We got to talk about both new projects briefly this week. My thanks to Conniff for his time, and to Josh Opitz for arranging both Cinematic Titanic interviews.

Tim O’Shea: You recently wrote about Skidoo (the Otto Preminger film with Groucho Marx as a gangster named “God”). I have seen the film as well and I wonder would that be a film that the Cinematic Titanic gang might like to tackle? Or is it just so weird on its own merits that to mock it would dilute the potency of its sheer badness?

Frank Conniff: I don’t think we could ever get the rights to “Skidoo.”

On the one hand, it would be a fun film to riff on, but on the other hand, it is, as you say, bad on its own merits and maybe it doesn’t need the Cinematic Titanic treatment to be enjoyed.

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As a person who could be sent into near convulsions from laughing at the old Mystery Science Theater 3000 shows, a few months ago when I heard about Cinematic Titanic (which features the creator and original MST3K cast executing what they characterize as “Movie Riffing 2.0″) I looked into it with some skepticism. But almost immediately after playing a Cinematic Titanic teaser at YouTube I was laughing uncontrollably just like old times. I was recently fortunate enough to interview one of the crew, Mary Jo Pehl. This interview was conducted prior to the August 7 release of Cinematic Titanic’s riffing of The Wasp Woman.

Before diving into the interview, here’s the official take on Cinematic Titanic: “Cinematic Titanic is a feature length movie riffing show and is an artist owned and operated venture created by Joel Hodgson, the creator of the Peabody award-winning Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Cinematic Titanic features the original cast and writers of MST3K, which is Hodgson (Joel Robinson), Trace Beaulieu (Crow), and J. Elvis Weinstein (Tom Servo). Filling out the ensemble is Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester) and Frank Conniff (TV’s Frank). Cinematic Titanic’s focus is to riff on the movies we love, which are ‘the unfathomable’, ‘the horribly great’, and the just plain ‘cheesy’ movies from the past.”

And now for the official word on Pehl: “Writer, actor, raconteur, bon vivant and former Mystery Science Theater 3000 writer, Mary Jo Pehl’s work ranges from television to theater, national radio to regional magazines. Her hilarious and thoughtful takes on life have delighted audiences in print and stage.” My thanks to Pehl for her time.

Tim O’Shea: For a collaborative comedic effort like Cinematic Titanic how hard was it for you to get back into the rhythm and dynamics that had been polished during MST3K? Or is it like riding a bike, and everything just fell back into place?

Mary Jo Pehl: It was kind of surprising how easily we fell back into it. I hadn’t realized that it was in my blood! Not only that, I had recently worked with a couple of guys here in Austin who do an homage to MST3K called Master Pancake Theater. They invited me to riff live with them, so I got a little experience actually riffing live on the films and not just writing the jokes. It was good training to actually being in front of the movie.

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<p align=”left”>OK, it’s kind of disingenuous to wish a man who was born in 1893 and died in 1971 a happy birthday, but what the hey. Harold Lloyd, was born on April 20, 1893, was mostly known for being a silent film star, known for slapstick comedy–much in the vein of Buster Keaton.

<p align=”left”>I’m pleased to see that there’s a wealth of information about him, and the official site goes so far as to feature work from after his silent films days. In the mid-1940s, he hosted a half-hour comedy show on NBC radio, The Harold Lloyd Show. Once a month, the official Lloyd website hosts an archived edition of the radio show, which can be found here.

<p align=”left”>Turner Classic Movies has done a great job of featuring the work of Lloyd, but unfortunately I could not find a listing for anything upcoming featuring Lloyd. If you belong to Netflix, there’s plenty of his film work to pick from there. Check him out.

My son is wrapping up his spring break today, and as part of that I took Thursday and Friday off to spend time with him. We went to Six Flags on Thursday and then on Friday I took him and his cousin to see The Spiderwick Chronicles at the local discount movie house.

I was pleasantly surprised by the movie, assuming it would be typical Nickelodeon light fare. In all honesty, I was bewildered to find it was a partially examination of the toll a marriage headed toward divorce can have on the children. I don’t know if the books deal with this at all (and so now I will have to read at least one of the books to see if there’s a hint of this…).

But really threw me was when the end credits rolled around–one of the film’s three screenwriters was John Sayles. I might be wrong, but I’m going to give the family drama element credit to Sayles. I’m not the only one to be caught off-guard by Sayles’ presence in the film–as evidenced by Sean Adler’s February 2008 Q&A with the film’s director, Mark Waters, at the MTV movies blog:

“MTV: I saw a name in the credits — John Sayles. John Sayles?!

MW: We have to remember John Sayles started his career doing movies like “Piranha” and werewolf movies for Roger Corman. He’s got this real fun fantasy horror side to his sensibility. I think he did rewrite work on “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” He’s got that part of him that loves working on these movies. The big thing that John did was he said, “Let’s take on all five books of this series and tell a complete story as opposed to trying to make a piecemeal.” He kind of was able to sift through that and find a general story structure, as well as ground it in the sense of a very real family going through some very real difficulties.”

I’ve always had a healthy respect for Sayles, be it for films like Lone Star or Passion Fish, but now looking back at his career, I really am kicking myself for failing to see 1994’s The Secret of Roan Inish yet. Well, off to Netflix to remedy that oversight.

Charlton Heston is dead. But in some ways, once the impact of Alzheimer’s started robbing his mind, I dare say to some in his family his dying process had already begun back in 2002 (with his announcement of the disease).

I’m a liberal who believes in reasonable levels of gun control. So clearly, my philosophy is not in line with the NRA (which Heston led in the late 1990s). A man should be evaluated by the sum of his parts–as an actor Heston was in many classic films–made classic partially by his performances. As a private citizen, Heston served in World War II,  then in the 1960s he participated in civil rights protests (as evidenced here)–long before becoming more conservative and a Republican.

But of course, for every relatively nice Daily Kos diary post in tribute to Heston, there are ill-conceived, insensitive posts like this one. Mourn for the passing of Heston. You don’t have to agree with him completely, but one should respect his body of work as a whole. And one should hope that none of us or our loved ones are ravaged by a disease like Alzheimer’s.

I wonder and worry about the increasingly lack of civility on the Internet–like folks who choose to mock the dead. To paraphrase Joseph Welch’s comment to Joseph McCarthy back in 1954: “Have we left no sense of decency?”

I sure hope we do.

And I equally hope that Turner Classic Movies has a planned Heston marathon in the near-term.

Well to be honest, Saturday was my birthday, so I was swamped offline for a good part of the day.

That being said, I’ve decided to join my friends over at Blog@Newsarama, as a regular contributor with its Quote, Unquote column. Here is my first installment.

Then tonight, I decided to lurk in the comments section of PopSmart (Creative Loafing Atlanta’s A&E blog) while they liveblogged the Oscars. It was the most fun I ever had watching the Oscars, honestly. An I got to learn more about a local indie movie theater and a filmmaker while talking with fellow commenters.

I’m unsure how well I will keep doing the third post of the week on the blog. Of course, as the readers, I understand if you say to yourself: “I’m unsure how well I’ll come by to read your blog, pal.” But rest assured, I will always have an interview up by late Monday evening and a post on Wednesday. The Saturday post is slowly morphing into a “sometime during the weekend” timed post. But hopefully my thoughts while late, will still interest.

So I was watching the Harry Carey documentary, Hello Again Everybody: The Harry Carey Story, this afternoon and I think to call it a documentary is a misnomer. It’s more of an endearing tribute, clearly done with the cooperation and participation of his family and friends. There were few bits of an objective inkling to the project, except for acknowledging that he was not strongly connected to his family until the last 10 years of his life.

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I don’t know about you, but the Britney Spears 24/7 channels are getting to me. Fortunately, I can turn the TV off.

But in an election year, at a time when we have actual stories of consequence being ignored for more “interesting” celebrity news, I seek the rationale and reassurance of traditional media outlets.

My local library has The New Yorker among its periodical holdings. And to make things even better, this particular library system allows you to check the magazines out. Tonight I found myself reading David Denby’s essay on the films of Otto Preminger from the January 14, 2008, issue.

To help ward off the legions of TMZs that seem to be doubling in size every day, The New Yorker is of help in many other ways. In addition to the magazine, The New Yorker offers online content, blogs and even audio confort in the form of podcasts. For example, a click here will offer listeners “The New Yorker’s poetry editor, Paul Muldoon, [as he] talks with Matt Dellinger about rock and roll and the state of poetry.”

If I can always find forms of media that engage me, rather than seemingly killing off brain cells as a victim of poor taste pop culture, I’ll be fine. At least that’s what I tell myself.

The Eighth Annual Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (AJFF), which runs from January 16-27, 2008, is positioned to offer a substantial variety of choices to 2008 AJFF attendees. To fully grasp the scope of this year’s AJFF, I posed a series of questions to Kenny Blank, AJFF’s Executive Director, and he was kind enough to give me some insightful answers. My thanks to Mr. Blank for his time and to Becky Biggs for facilitating the interview.

Tim O’Shea: This year marks the eighth year of the festival–how much has the festival changed since it first launched in 2000?

Kenny Blank: While the goal remains the same, to use film to build bridges of understanding between the many different cultural and religious communities in Atlanta, our festival has grown in scope and complexity. In order to meet the expectations of both our audience and our sponsors, including our presenter the Atlanta Chapter of the American Jewish Committee, we have improved the post-film discussions, bringing in more filmmakers, actors and writers; we have expanded our outreach and publicity by using the most up-to-date technology; and we have worked hard to create a high-class festival atmosphere that makes all those attending feel like they are someplace special.

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