and I liked the look of put my heart into that. “For twenty years,
it so much I used all of the portal has been closed. Now it’s
4
them, to extend the about to re-open, to a world where the

issue
dramatic moment. And minds of men are but a dream…” Yadda
it worked. He keeps yadda yadda.
Fluxion collapsing, falling in



slow motion, from all And when did you start making
ART
these different angles. films again?
When I got bored. After a certain point
I love the subtitle: A I could do the advertising job with my
Bad Girl Gets Worse. brain tied behind my back. So I began
She really does go to think about making another movie. At
from being a naughty around that time, my neighbors bought
country girl— a dog that barked incessantly. It was
You see her lying driving me nuts. So I decided to make a
down in the apple movie called The Barking Dog.
orchard reading a The movie centers around two women
magazine, while her who are slugging down margaritas the
sister picks all the whole film. The margarita mix photo-
apples. When her graphed this really lurid color; it looks
sister asks her to like they’re slugging down Bowlene. The
help, Tontileo’s first blender became a visual thread to show
line in the movie is, time passing. I did a lot of close-ups
“Fuck you!” of the margaritas swirling down by the
blades. There’s one close-up shot of
And at the end ice being thrown into the blender, and
she’s definitely a there’s a dead ant in the bottom of the
hardened criminal. blender. That always gets a laugh.
Physically she’s Anyway, these women are friends, but
gone from overalls they are complete opposites. They meet
and kerchiefs to a mink coat, a at her house for their monthly game of
very fashionable, powerful image. The gin rummy, and the dog starts bark-
Which is even more luminous on camera. final scenes where she wears that coat ing. So Barbara, who is a control freak,
She photographs like nothing I’ve ever she’s pretending to pick pockets, and decides to poison the dog. Her friend
seen. All you’ve got to do is light her. we filmed her in downtown Boston—in Judy, on the other hand, is a complete
So we made a movie called Straight front of Filene’s, on subways. We filmed ditz. She’s also a reluctant psychic. She
to Hell, starring Tontileo Lipschitz as a her wherever we wanted to, and that has visions she doesn’t understand. In
farm girl who gets really bored with the was the beauty of making a film like that. a hallucination scene that’s lit with red
farm, steals a train to go to the big city, You don’t have permits. You only have and blue gels, she sees Barbara going
goes on a crime spree, and attracts the an 8mm camera. You come, you go. You past the window at night, dragging
attention of the local crime czar, played get an enormous amount of local color. something. She’s seeing a B story go by,
by Greg Howe, who did the whole It’s like Zorro: You get in, you make your but she can’t put it all together. Still, the
performance in unbelievable drag. This Z, you get out. hallucinations get more and more vivid
guy would glue sequins to his eyebrows and cohesive, and longer, throughout
with Elmer’s and later dissolve them with Straight to Hell got you a job in the film. Eventually she has her grand
Lord knows what other toxic material. Hollywood, right? mal vision, where she sees the whole
He has a furniture fetish. He kidnaps Yeah, I finally decided to move to LA. thing: Barbara’s missing husband getting
Tontileo and sends a ransom note to her When I got here I had a small film festival poisoned at dinner, Barbara dragging a
sister, demanding a three-piece sectional with my friend Harry Hall, who moved blue tarp with perhaps a body in it, dig-
couch. In the basement he has an entire out here before I did. It was just for ging a hole for the body with a pickaxe,
storehouse of furniture that he got from friends and friends of friends, but one the tarp sits up, the body isn’t dead yet,
ransoming beautiful women. But he’s of them was a guy who worked at CBS, and that’s when we see Barbara take
also obsessed with her. Eventually he who said they needed promo writer- the pickaxe and just wale. Although we
lets her out and they fall in love, but then producers. This was 1980. The next never really see anything bloody.
she finds out that he has ransomed her thing I knew I was cutting spots for the
and she murders him. She’s got a little Tim Conway show. I love how you did the sound of the
jeweled six-shooter and she shoots him pickaxe hitting the body.
six times. I did a bullet POV, where the In a way it was a return to your roots, With a melon. The sound of a melon
camera keeps zooming up to the same which were in TV. smashing on the ground was the sound
little hole in his head, which looked like Actually I did the campaign for the new of a pickaxe slicing through his skull. The
a little black dot. I did a number of takes, Twilight Zone when it came out. I really sound effect is far better than anything
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