From the Happy Mutants over at BoingBoing comes this review of a film which premiered at Sundance this weekend. Escape from Tomorrow tells the story of a man who, on the last day of his family vacation in Orlando, learns he has lost his job. As the film progresses, the man slowly loses his grip on reality, eventually creating a surreal and nightmarish descent into madness. Of course, the extraordinary thing is that the film was apparently shot without the knowledge or cooperation of the Disney corporation, which has been known to sue daycare centers for copyright infringements and asking Santa to leave their parks. Film critic Drew McWeeny says "It is impossible this film exists... And yet, not only does it exist; but it's fascinating."
Long-time readers know that Uncle P's sister is a self-described "Disney Dork." In fact, last weekend she and the BIL went on their second Disney cruise. And while I personally prefer Universal Studios, I must admit that I have been to Disneyworld at least five times. Which makes Escape from Tomorrow all that much more fascinating to me.
Personal friends know that I adore off-the-wall, experimental and outright bizarre film experiences. Movies like Richard Elfman's Forbidden Zone; David Lynch's Eraserhead; Quentin Dupieux's Rubber; Terry Gilliam's Brazil; David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch andGuy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the the World are very much why I love film so much. They make me feel like I'm not alone in my personally skewed vision of life.
Here's a clip from Escape from Tomorrow, featuring daddy-bear star Roy Abramsohn dealing with his obsession with two French teenagers at a Disney resort pool:
I don't know how director Randy Moore pulled off this film, though I am amazed and excited that he did. McWeeny supposes the movie will never find a distributor and will eventually fall into obscurity, thanks to Disney's phalanx of lawyers. Still, I think that I must see Escape from Tomorrow, if only to satisfy my curiosity and add it to my list of outsider films I've loved or hated.
I imagine this is how most babies and toddlers see Santa
So here we are, as of this writing, 36 minutes into December 22nd and as
every rational human being knew, nothing happened. Of course it is
inevitable that many people died today, making it the end of the world
for them. But if you are reading this, then congratulations! You have
survived the Nonpocalypse. Again.
I keep wondering if there will ever be
a time when everyone realizes "You know what? There probably really
isn't any truth in the vestigial, superstitious beliefs of our mostly science-less ancestors." Probably not. Nonetheless...
Many years ago, I played Santa at the department store where I was a manager (talk about a smooth segue). As the actor on staff, many such jobs fell to me. No pictures or throne or anything like that. I just walked around the store and gave out candy canes and talked to kids briefly. A quick tour of the store and I was done for a couple hours. One afternoon a young mother called to me, "Santa! Please come say hello!" I looked over to see a sleeping baby in a stroller and thought, 'Oh, please save us from screaming.' But the mother looked like she really wanted me to, so I headed over.
"Are you sure?" I asked her.
"No, I promise, he loves Santa."
"Okay, but let me get down so I'm not towering over him." So I squatted down (those were the days when my knees still worked well enough to squat) and smiled.
"Sean," Mom called. "Sean, wake up! Look who's here!"
The baby Sean, certainly less than a year old, roused and opened his eyes and looked around and then landed on me. 'Here it comes!' I thought. The baby Sean opened his mouth in surprise... and started to smile... and smile... the single most beatific baby smile I have ever seen in my life. That moment... that amazing smile... that was Christmas. Twenty-five years later and that moment always comes to mind when I most need some Holiday Spirit.
Of course, it took this post about about nightmarish Christmas things to get me there. All this Apocalypse nonsense; that dreadful business in CT (not to mention the idiocy of the NRA's response) and the seeming interminable week before the holiday vacation had me cranky today, and when BoingBoing shared some strange Christmas videos, I had to talk about them and find a few more. And even though I had a very nice evening tonight, I still wanted to share some weirdness.
This first goodie is called Santa in Animal Land and features a goose (?), cat, dog and frog (?) who are sad that there is no Animal Santa, so the goose (duck?) and the cat head off to find the most horrifying Santa in Puppetland. PeeWee would probably not approve:
I really have nothing else funny or snarky to say about that truly horrifying piece. It's evil speaks for itself.
This next treasure is a short from Castle Films, which I'm guessing is from around the late 30's or early 40's. Merry Christmas isn't overtly nightmarish (well, not most of it) as much as it cries out for the MST3K treatment:
Joel and his bots did take on a Castle short, which while having nothing to do with Christmas, is certainly nightmarish (not to mention probably the funniest short they've ever done, which was paired with one of the funniest features they ever did). If you've seen Here Comes the Circus before, you know you can't wait to watch it again. If you're seeing for the first time, enjoy. If you are Dear D (i.e. coulrophobic) DON'T watch it at all:
This next (also via) drek-tacular nightmare apparently got the Riff-Trax (sort of the Son of MST3K) treatment, but is certainly hilarious and weird and nightmarish all on its own. And it isn't just the sub-amateur acting, mid-century suburban locations, crappy stock footage and terrible camera work. There's actually something very 'Funny Uncle' about the whole thing. Both the Narrator and Santa even sound like child-molesters. Honestly, Ed Wood made better movies. Here's 1963's A Visit to Santa:
"Every doll must have a head. And also, a body!" Was this thing written by a young Thomas Harris? Then there's this gem: "For little girls, a doll is fun to warsh and dress and spank!" My head nearly exploded from that single line alone. Only to be followed by this: "How Ann enjoy these pretty dolls and Dick...(inappropriate and ill-placed pause)... shows no delight." And then even more incoherence: "She'll cook and scrub the whole day long and serve a TV dinner." What? WHAT!?!? TV dinners? What the hell was she cooking all day, Soylent Green? Oh, and the reason for Christmas? "...to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, hundreds of years ago." The underlining is mine. But I suppose that Santa is correct. I mean if the Earth is only 4,000 years old, then Jesus must have lived in 1763 or something. Right? In fact, he gave George Washington a ride across the Delaware on the back of his stegosaurus.*
There, that's better. Tonight saw a lovely dinner with some very dear friends, followed by a fond Christmas memory and some creepy holiday nonsense. Why wouldn't I feel better? Well, the citrus vodka spritzers I had while writing this post didn't hurt.
I am off from the Day Job for the next ten days and am looking forward to sleeping in, spending time with most of the people I love most in the world and maybe venturing out for a day trip or two. I have many gifts to wrap (and just a few left to get) and lots of cleaning to do in the next few days, but that's okay. I'm finally actually looking forward to my very secular version of Christmas, in which I choose to celebrate those I love with gifts, food, laughter and good times.
And that is Christmas, too.
More, anon.
Prospero
*Art challenge. Submit your artistic interpretation of Jesus giving
Washington a ride across the Delaware on a stegosaurus (or any dinosaur)
and the best entry will win a piece of show biz memorabilia.
I don't know when my zombie fascination started. Probably with George Romero's 1978 masterpiece, Dawn of the Dead. The nightmares didn't start until much later, though.
The first one I remember distinctly was incorporated into my screenplay Army of the Dead, though I had the dream at least 10 years before I even started writing screenplays. Of course, the screenplay I am working on now was almost entirely inspired by a zombie nightmare.
And last night, after watching the season finale of "The Walking Dead," I had a doozy, in which Uncle P's own mother was a cheek-less zombie, though she wasn't fully aware that she was a zombie. She kept asking, "I'm supposed to eat people? No, that can't be right." The dream eventually got silly, involving a castle about to be flooded to destruction, Dear D and a Katy Perry zombie that just couldn't be put down, even after her head had been bashed to bits with a chrome tire-iron...
Of course, much of that can be directly related to "TS-19," but most of it was just completely off the wall, as most of my dreams (nightmares or not) are. Occasionally, a dream or nightmare is so vivid it ends up being a full screenplay, as with Comatose Joe and my current project, though usually only certain elements make their way into my writing, as in Chimera and The Cow Says: Moo! More often than not, my dreams are so bizarre, they defy interpretation. Case in point - I recently dreamt that I was part of a theatrical production which was reproduced by another race of beings in a dimension which vibrated on a different frequency than ours. And that's all I can tell you about it without you thinking I'm completely insane (which no doubt, many of you already think, anyway).
I keep a dream journal on my nightstand, and write down the significant details of dreams I think my have potential commercial value, but save the weirdest ones to share with friends and family (none of whom are surprised those dreams' weirdness). I suggest that you do as well. You have no idea when your subconscious might come up with a brilliant idea or two...
I had two very different nights of dreaming last night and the night before.
Wednesday night/Thursday morning, I had two very nightmarish dreams. First, I dreamt that I had to retrieve some item or other from the storage space in my house, a room which to which we have always referred as "the unfinished room," simply because that is exactly what it is. Anyway, as I was getting ready to close the door, I noticed a large, horrific bug of some kind scuttling across the plywood flooring. The thing was huge; almost rat-sized and colored unlike anything found in nature in obnoxious shades of red, green, blue and yellow. I thought to myself "That's too horrible to live" and promptly stomped on the hideous thing. But when I raised my foot, I found that I hadn't done it any damage at all. Instead, the little beastie turned about, puffed up and starting squirting something akin to acidic green slime at me. I raised my hands to protect my face and quickly slammed the door shut. Curiously, I felt no pain, but knew instinctively that I had been covered in acid. In the absurd logic of a dream, I next found myself in the shower, watching with detachment as bits of clothing, blood and flesh slid down the tub drain.
After awakening, happy to find myself whole and entimologically unmolested, I checked the time on my alarm clock (4:09 AM), quickly recorded the dream in the black side of my reversible dream diary, rolled over and almost instantly fell back to sleep, assuming that the dream was the result of seasonal influences.
Which is when I had my second nightmare of the morning. A very dear friend's birthday is on Halloween. I bought him a truly hilarious and spot-on present while in Chicago on business and plan to see him sometime next weekend to celebrate. In this dream, he had arrived at my house in preparation for us to go out. I wasn't quite ready to go, so when a knock came on the door, I asked him to get it. He opened the door and before anyone could say anything, a madman burst in and started hacking at my friend with a cleaver. I awoke screaming my friend's name and crying. Now the clock read: 6:47 and my hand trembled as I made another entry into the black side of the book, despite knowing the dream was the result of seasonal (and personal) influences.
Less than immediately, I fell back into a dreamless state until the alarm went off. I went about my day trying to shake both dreams' disturbing qualities. I am sure that both scenarios (or variations thereof) will appear in a future play, screenplay, novel or short-story.
Last night proved to be a very different and surprisingly inspirational night of dreaming. I found myself dragooned into appearing as a costumed-character at an event celibrating the success of a new animated children's show on a prominent kid's cable network. While happy for the extra cash the gig provided, I was annoyed at having to wear a hot and uncomfortable character costume (I've worn my share - they're no fun). But the kids' enthusiasm upon seeing their favorite characters "in the flesh" was almost palpable. Since I plan on actually using the characters in this dream to develop an actual animated children's program, I won't go into detail here, but I will tell you that I am often amazed by the detail one's subconscious can display when inspired. The dream even provided clever character names along with the hilarious visuals. Friends both old, new and yet to be appeared in the dream as well, portraying the other characters from the show.
Thoughts? Am I insane? Do I watch too many movies or drink too much Diet Cherry-Vanilla Dr. Pepper? Or am I just a weirdo who has dreams that match the rest of my personality? I know it's a dark and scary place up here, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Your thoughts and comments are always welcomed.
