Dumping "Some Girls": Outtakes movie column, March 17, 1989

 

("Some Girls" opened and died in some major markets in the fall of 1988. It played for one week in Ogden in March 1989, just before debuting on videocassette.)

By DONALD PORTER

If you were running a business -- a multimillion dollar corporation, let's say -- and you had invested millions of dollars in a new product, wouldn't you try to market it, to recoup your money?

Well, not if you're calling the shots at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the motion picture studio. If you're the individual who makes distribution decisions for the financially troubled movie factory, you decide to take a perfectly pleasant, entertaining, fresh comedy called “Some Girls” and dump it into a few dollar theaters in remote locations for a week before shoving it out on videocassette.

Local moviegoers were treated to this very scenario last week, as “Some Girls” opened in a second-run theater, the Newgate Cinemas, for a dollar per person and one screening nightly, at 9:40 p.m.

This is a good example of several things: the ruthlessness of the movie business, the willingness to write off millions of dollars as a loss without even trying to market a film and the horrifying effect a booming videocassette rental industry is having on Hollywood marketing decisions.

When “Some Girls” was screened at the United States Film Festival in Park City two months ago, producer Michael Hoffman expressed doubts the film would receive any distribution. His fears, he said, were based primarily on recent management changes at the studio. As is so often the case, one regime will approve financing for a film and see it through production, only to be fired on or about the completion date. The incoming executives, not wanting to have any of their predecessors’ films do well, intentionally downplay or ignore the films and put their efforts into creating a brand new slate of pictures they can call their own.

I would have thought “Some Girls” might not fall into that danger zone, given that Robert Redford was the executive producer of the film. The fact that MGM was willing to dump a project Redford was associated with indicates to me that the studio is experiencing major difficulties; three-piece suits usually try to avoid offending powers like Redford.

The studio has been rumored for months to be a possible target for a Japanese purchase, with the likely buyer being Sony Corp., which reportedly has been looking to buy an American movie studio for some time. MGM hasn't had a hit -- or released many movies -- for a long while. I'm no marketing executive, but “Some Girls” was a fine film with real potential. It's sexy, funny and smart -- fairly atypical qualities for many comedies these days.

Anyway, it's gone from the Newgate now. There were about 50 people at the screening I attended Monday night, and people laughed a lot. If you missed it, “Some Girls” is due out on videocassette April 18. I suppose MGM will recover its original investment and then some from the sales to video, cable and network television. It's a pity more people couldn't see it on the big screen.

And speaking of marketing decisions, Terry Gilliam's new movie, “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” is scheduled to be released next week. Gilliam previously directed “Time Bandits” and “Brazil.” And, once again, his studio doesn't seem to know how to sell his movie.

In the March issue of American Film, the director said he disagreed with the scientific method used by the market-research team. The team ignored the differing reactions of blue-collar and white-collar workers in the test audiences.

“Anybody in the theaters listening to the two audiences knows that (the white-collar crowd) liked it more,” Gilliam told the magazine. “Yet, the scientific method didn't distinguish. Both of (the separate groups’ reactions) looked pretty bad, so the panic level was rising. They may as well get witch doctors to shake bones or cut a sheep open and look at its entrails.”

Market research is “a way of avoiding individual responsibility, it seems to me,” Gilliam said. “It gives everybody an out. If the film doesn’t work, it’s not their fault. The scientific method showed that people didn’t like it” even thought the white-collar crowd sounded as if they were enjoying themselves.

In two weeks, when the box office reports are in, we’ll see who was right.

Documentarian Bill Couturie, Jan. 22, 1993

By DONALD PORTER

Standard-Examiner staff 

Bill Couturie laughs as he recalls a conversation about his 1988 documentary “Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam,” because it so perfectly illustrates the often absurd relationship between the art and commerce of filmmaking. 

Someone from the company distributing the film into the TV market rang him up: “Now that it’s on commercial television, we need an extra 20 minutes,” this person told Couturie. “Could you add 20 minutes to ‘Dear America’? You must have some extra letters lying around.” 

“Guys, it’s not a sausage,” was the director’s incredulous response. “You don’t just add 20 minutes.” 

In fact, Couturie turned the request into “Memorial,” a short companion piece to “Dear America,” which nabbed an Oscar nomination last year. 

Couturie’s latest film, “Earth and the American Dream,” is playing in competition at this month’s Sundance Film Festival. It’s a sweeping documentary, surveying American society’s relationship to the environment from the landing of Columbus in 1492 right up to present day. And, as you might guess, it takes a disheartening inventory of our society’s abuse of nature. 

Couturie’s background is diverse. He began making animated films for “Sesame Street,” then segued into cinema verite documentaries as an associate producer on “Who Are the DeBolts and Where Did They Get 19 Kids?” – the Best Feature Documentary Academy Award winner for 1978. More recently, he produced “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt,” which won the documentary Oscar for 1989 – the film looked at the lives of several people who have died from complications of the AIDS virus – and finished directing a music video for Michael Jackson’s song, “Gone Too Soon,” a couple of months ago. 

“Earth and the American Dream” utilizes a technique that Couturie pioneered with “Dear America”: Lots of famous actors – Mel Gibson, Jeremy Irons, Bette Midler and others – supply the dialogue in “Earth and the American Dream.” In “Dear America,” they read letters written by soldiers to their families, sweethearts and friends back home. In “Earth and the American Dream,” another stellar cast of voices reads from letters, journals, diaries, speeches, newspaper accounts and historical books.

“Obviously, there is some thought to marquee value,” Couturie says from his San Francisco office, explaining his fondness for using major stars. “But it’s not simply that. It’s very hrd in a brief number of words to create a character and to create a sense of time and place. And there’s a reason these big stars are big stars: They’re very, very talented actors.” Rounding up the talent to provide the voices took some doing, the filmmaker insists, even though many of the actors in Hollyw0od agree with his film’s environmentalist point of view.

“They work a lot,” he says, “and when they’re not working, they want to spend time on vacation or with their families. To get through to Dustin Hoffman took me over a year, even though he did the narration on ‘Common Threads’ and helped win me an Oscar.”

For assistance, Couturie turned to the Environmental Media Association (EMA), which functions as a liaison between the environmental community and various media. EMA’s board of directors includes the heads of all of the studios, Couturie says, and super-agent Michael Ovitz, the head of Creative Artists Agency and the man widely regarded as the most powerful in the movie business. “Super heavyweights,” Couturie, a CAA client, calls them. 

“It takes all of that – the Oscar, the track record, CAA’s and EMA's credibility – to get through to these people,” Couturie says. Plus, now it’s the thing to do with documentaries: finding stars to read letters and such in films – a la Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” on PBS and the recent “Lincoln” documentary on ABC. 

“Frankly, these guys are getting deluged with requests. So it’s more difficult to get them, even for worthwhile projects, than it used to be.” 

By sticking to the words of his subjects, and without commenting on them, Couturie avoids what he terms the “official interaction” created when a filmmaker interviews the people in a film. 

“The very nature of an interview changes what people say,” the director says. “It can be for the better, because it can be entertaining. On the other hand, when you interview someone, they can’t not be aware of this big hunk of glass staring at them. Even in a good interview, they’re telling you what they want to tell you, and they’re not telling you what they don’t want to tell you – no matter how good an interviewer you are.” 

Couturie theorizes this is the reason he’s been drawn of late to historical subjects; it’s his desire to permit the story to tell itself. 

“One way I describe these films is ‘history haiku,’” he says, referring to the distillation of some 10,000 hours of film footage reviewed by his staff of researchers – 200 hours of which he dragged into the editing room before whittling his film down to its current 80 minutes.

“With ‘Dear America,’ you could go into the library and say, ‘I'm looking for stuff on Vietnam.’ With this film, there was no limit to what we could look at. I liken it to finding hundreds of needles in a huge, huge haystack. It’s by far the most challenging film I’ve ever made.”

‘Sundance Film Festival: Where Hollywood goes to find new talent,’ Jan. 22, 1993

By DONALD PORTER

Standard-Examiner staff 

SALT LAKE CITY – Left Coast chic and hometown conservatism met head-on at the opening of the 15th Sundance Film Festival Thursday evening. 

The occasion was the world premiere screening of “Into the West,” an Irish-American co-production that marked the beginning of 10 days of what organizers hope will be the best and most representative of this year’s crop of American independent films.

At a reception in the Utah Arts Center prior to the premiere, the Basic Black Crowd – filmmakers, film company employees and assorted others who wear black to fit in – literally rubbed elbows with festival sponsors, reporters and many Utah lawmakers taking a break from their duties up the street at the State Capitol Building. The tinkling of champagne glasses and the snarfing of finger food went hand-in-hand with discussions of all things related to film and the festival.

Gov. Mike Leavitt stopped by to congratulate the Sundance Institute for its efforts; Sundance has been running the festival since 1985. Leavitt stressed that the Beehive State’s quality of life is one of its prime assets, and that “a large part of that is quality of art in every form.” 

Gary Beer, president of the Sundance Institute, remarked that ticket sales for 1993 have exceeded all past festivals, and that some 300 media representatives from around the world will be covering this year’s gathering. 

Additionally, Beer said, approximately 6,000 filmmakers, industry professionals and movie fans will descend on Park City during the next week or so, depositing an estimated $6 million into the local economy. 

Then the action moved across West Temple Street to the Crossroads Cinemas for the screening of “Into the West.” In remarks prior to the screening, the movie’s less-than-effusive star, Gabriel Byrne, called the film “a labor of love,” adding, “We are very proud that it’s been chosen as the opening night film for your prestigious festival.” Then he added, almost cautiously, “It's a genuine family film.” 

And so it is: Directed by Mike Newell (“Enchanted April”) and written by Jim Sheridan (director
of “My Left Foot”), “Into the West” is a film about two motherless boys, their hard-drinking father (Byrne) and a beautiful white horse that leads them all on a wild chase from Dublin to Ireland’s western coast. It’s a sure sign of the gathering’s growing all-inclusiveness that the festival would kick off with a heartwarmer of a movie that’s safe for the kiddies.

The festival’s stature is unmatched in its importance among American independents – those films made outside the film centers of Los Angeles and New York, and without major studio financial support. In 1985, Beer acknowledged, “the pickings were slim” at Sundance. Now the festival is the place where Hollywood comes fishing for new talent, waving money for distribution deals and hiring new directors and writers. 

“Into the West” already has an American distributor, Miramax Films Corp. But most of the films playing in the dramatic and documentary competitions during the festival don’t, so their directors and/or producers will be hoping for success at Sundance and, consequently, a bright future ahead. 

Today, the festival moves to Park City, with alternate screenings at the Sundance Resort and Salt Lake City’s Tower Theatre.

Lawrence Bender, producer of "'Reservoir Dogs," Jan. 8, 1993

EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview was conducted at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival. 

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

PARK CITY - Lawrence Bender sits at a table in the hospitality suite o f Z Place, where press and filmmakers come to mingle, do business and escape the crush of humanity on Main Street during the Sundance Film Festival. 

Bender has a broad smile on his face, conveying his feelings of wonder and excitement to all who see him. He’s been that way for a couple of days, since “Reservoir Dogs,” a gritty crime film he produced, began getting most of the ink and much-coveted buzz at this 1992 edition of the premiere festival for American independent filmmakers. 

“This is a really great time for me,” Bender says ,with barely contained enthusiasm. “I’m like a kid in a candy shop. I’ve made a couple of other movies, but I was a production assistant on a TV commercial two months before we went into production on ‘Reservoir Dogs’ because I had no money.” 

Then Bender, formerly an actor, had the good fortune to pass along a script by his friend and former video store clerk, Quentin Tarantino, to his acting teacher. The teacher, in turn, gave the script to actor Harvey Keitel (“Mean Streets,” “Bugsy”), who read it, loved it and helped Bender and Tarantino get the movie made.

“Harvey Keitel is one of mine and Quentin’s all-time favorite actors,” Bender explains. “And when I got a message on my answering machine from Harvey Keitel that he loved the script, it was the dream of my life come true.” 

But Keitel became so involved – financing early casting sessions in New York that landed Steve Buscemi (“Barton Fink,” “In the Soup”) as one of the lead actors – that Bender asked Keitel, over supper one evening at the Russian Tea Room, if he would become a coproducer on the film. To which Keitel replied: “Lawrence, I’ve been waiting for you to say this. What took you so long?’”

Inspired by Stanley Kubrick's “The Killing,” “Reservoir Dogs” is a film about the aftermath of a botched diamond heist; as the tough guys who took part meet afterward in a warehouse to sort out what went wrong, why and, most important, who’s to blame. 

“But what’s different about this film is that you never actually see the robbery,” Bender explains with the kind of verve he might have used when scrounging for money to make the $1.1 million production. “And when they come back to this warehouse where they’re supposed to meet, it’s like ‘Rashomon’ – everyone comes back with a different story. 

“And as an audience member, you really don’t know what actually happened. ... And then at a certain point in the movie, you start to understand a little bit more than they know. The movie’s sort of structured in chapters, and it’s very intriguing. In most movies, you get the questions and then you get the answers. But in this movie, sometimes you get the answers and then the questions.” 

And you get something else: unvarnished violence. Point-blank shootouts, sadistic torture and bleeding wounds are included in the price of admission – which, Bender asserts, is precisely the point. 

“The script is a very visceral, brutal depiction of a group of guys,” he says, looking like he’s answered this question more than a couple of times this week. “And the movie is really about loyalty – not among robbers, but amongst men. And loyalty taken to an extreme – such an extreme that extreme things happen because of loyalty. And you start questioning, ‘What is loyalty all about, anyway?’

“And as far as the violence, Quentin actually feels that film is a place where violence should be shown, because violence and action are very cinematic, and that kind of material can really be shown in a very cinematic way.” 

In this regard, Tarantino’s film recalls the more violent and machismo-infused films of Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah and John Woo – influences Bender eagerly acknowledges. (In fact, Tarantino is currently at work on a project with Woo.)

“We actually shot certain scenes that could have been cut to be more graphically violent, but we didn’t do it because it didn’t work the way we wanted it to,” Bender explains. “And actually, most of the violence happens off- screen.

“So, to me, I’m really glad that people come out with that reaction; because when you see a picture and you don’t see a lot of graphic violence but you get a feeling of brutality, we feel like we’ve done our job.”

Penelope Spheeris, Jan. 18, 1991

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

For the past year or two, filmmaker Penelope Spheeris has been smack-dab in the middle of it.

She spent a year working as a story editor on the TV sitcom "Roseanne," then segued into a gig as director of the rap band 2 Live Crew's long-form video, "Banned in the U.S.A." It's as though she went mining for showbiz controversy and struck the mother lode.

Of her experience on "Roseanne," a TV series now legendary for battles between writers, producers and stars, Spheeris likens it to "having a belated Hollywood boot camp. It was pretty horrendous."

And the matter of her touring with and filming 2 Live Crew, the music industry's bad boys? Well, we'll get to that later.

First of all, who is this Penelope Spheeris, anyway?

Lawrence Bender, January 1993

Lawrence Bender

EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview was conducted at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival.
 
By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

PARK CITY -- Lawrence Bender sits at a table in the hospitality suite of Z Place, where press and filmmakers come to mingle, do business and escape the crush of humanity on Main Street during the Sundance Film Festival. Bender has a broad smile fixed on his face, conveying his feelings of wonder and excitement to all who see him.

He's been that way for a couple of days, since "Reservoir Dogs," a gritty crime film he produced, began getting most of the ink and much-coveted buzz at the 1992 edition of the premiere festival for American independent filmmakers.

"This is a really great time for me," Bender says ,with barely contained enthusiasm. "I'm like a kid in a candy shop. I've made a couple of other movies, but I was a production assistant on a TV commercial two months before we went into production on 'Reservoir Dogs' because I had no money."

Denzel Washington, Jan. 24, 1993

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

PARK CITY -- Denzel Washington said he was tired. And he had reason: He worked until 5:30 a.m. Saturday on an all-night shoot in Philadelphia, then he hopped a plane to Utah for a full-day's slate of activities at the Sundance Film Festival.

Washington was at the festival to receive the second annual Piper-Heidsieck Tribute to Independent Vision award. Last year's recipient was actor John Turturro.

"I'm not really an award person," Washington said. "But I wanted to come up here and see what it's like. And I wanted to talk to Robert (Redford, the Sundance Institute's founder) about some ideas I have."

Washington spent the evening in Park City when he could have attended the Golden Globe Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. He had been nominated as best actor for his work in "Malcolm X." Washington is a familiar face at the movies, having been seen in films such as "A Soldier's Story," "The Mighty Quinn," "Mo' Better Blues" and "Mississippi Masala." He's received Oscar nominations for "Cry Freedom" and "Glory," and won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for the latter.

Robert Rodriguez, "El Mariachi," Jan. 29, 1993

“The great hope is now (with) these little 8mm video recorders and stuff coming out, some people who normally wouldn't make movies are going to be making them. And suddenly one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart, you know, and make a beautiful film with her father's little camcorder. And for once the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever and it will really become an art form."

-- Francis Ford Coppola, "Hearts of Darkness"

Robert Rodriguez

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

It's the stuff dreams are made of: Robert Rodriguez, a film student on break from studies at the University of Texas in Austin, borrowed a silent film camera and some sound gear, took along his writing partner/lead actor, $9,000 and a few props, and in two weeks' time made a quickie action film, "El Mariachi," in the border town of Ciudad Acuna, Mexico.

Now, however, Rodriguez jokes that his movie is "The Little Film That Could." In an unprecedented move, Columbia Pictures is giving the $7,000 film -- yes, Rodriguez came in $2,000 under budget -- a limited national release in 52 theaters in late February. The film is currently playing in competition at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, and was a hit at festivals in Telluride, Colo., and Toronto.

Katt Shea, June 1992

I interviewed B-movie writer-director and actress Katt Shea in a hotel room during the 1992 Sundance Film Festival.

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

PARK CITY - Katt Shea opens the door to her hotel room, just far enough to reveal her head.

"Hi," she says, smiling. "Wait just a minute, while I put on my pants."

Once clothed, she ushers her guest inside, sits cross-legged on one of the two beds, petting a rather large canine she insists is a puppy, and chats about her new film, "Poison Ivy." Shea directed and co-wrote the $3 million psychological thriller with her husband, Andy Ruben. It stars Drew Barrymore, Sara Gilbert ("Roseanne"), Cheryl Ladd and Tom Skerritt, and deals with a scheming teenager (Barrymore) who hastens the demise of a dysfunctional Los Angeles family.

After a Sundance Film Festival screening the night before, which was in January, Shea and Ruben took to the front of the auditorium and fielded questions: Does the film constitute male-bashing? Why is the poor girl depicted as the evil character? Is the sex between the older man and the under-aged teen proper? Is the film politically correct?

"Hints on how to enjoy the Sundance United States Film Festival," Jan. 12, 1990

One of the illustrations for this piece by Cal Grondahl

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner

The people who run film festivals struggle with this question constantly: Is the festival for the general public or those in the business?

The suspicion on John Q. Public's part is that film festivals are for cineastes -- nose-in-the-air film buffs and glitter people. But that's not the case, at least in Utah. The 30,000 or so people who flock to the Sundance United States Film Festival in Park City every year are mostly regular folks looking for different film fare than that offered at their neighborhood malls.

So, in the interest of destroying the myth that film festivals are the exclusive domain of filmmakers, actors, producers, journalists and the rich, here's a thumbnail instruction manual on how to enjoy yourself at the Sundance United States Film Festival, which runs Jan. 19-28 in Park City.

Kenneth Branagh, January 1996 (Sundance Film Festival)

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff
SALT LAKE CITY – For 10 days every January, Utah is off-Hollywood, catering to Dream Factory players, actors, agents and a clot of energetic, enthusiastic young filmmakers hoping the Sundance Film Festival will launch their embryonic showbiz careers.

They were swarming like hungry locusts Thursday night at Sundance's opening night premiere of "A Midwinter's Tale," the latest from writer-director Kenneth Branagh ("Henry V," "Much Ado About Nothing"). The festival commandeered the whole Crossroads Cinemas and much of the adjoining Marriott Hotel's ballr00ms to celebrate the festival's 11th year under the direction of Robert Redford's Prov0 Canyon-based Sundance Institute.

Richard Lester, Jan. 26, 1990

Richard Lester

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner
PARK CITY - Richard Lester has been directing feature films since 1961, including "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," "Robin and Marian," "The Three Musketeers" and two "Superman" films. But it seems like the only movies people ever want to talk about are two he made in the mid-'60s starring The Beatles: "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!"

So Lester has learned to be philosophical about having achieved his most popular success so early in his career.

"They were wonderful times," he explained to a group of filmmakers, actors, journalists and fans at the Sundance United States Film Festival last Saturday. "I had three years at the center of the universe. … It was a privilege."

Lester was in Park City for a birthday tribute, and a screening that evening of "A Hard Day's Night." His quick trip to Utah came in the middle of making another film that will document Paul McCartney's current world tour. It seems he just can't shake the Beatle connection.

Clint Eastwood, Jan 25, 1990

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner

PARK CITY -- It was impossible not to notice Clint Eastwood when he entered the room. Sure, he's a head taller than most people and, obviously, his face is one of the most recognized on the plane. But that doesn't explain it. Not exactly.

There's just an indefinable something about him that won't permit otherwise rational people to let him pass unnoticed. But he wasn't at the Sundance United States Film Festival to talk about himself or to promote a new film. Rather, the topic of discussion -- for a scant 15 minutes, anyway -- was the man who gave Eastwood his star in the Hollywood firmament: the late Sergio Leone, who died last year after suffering a heart attack.

"It was an odd year for me, my life in '63," Eastwood recalled as he sat before an audience of journalists and other assorted gawkers in the Yarrow Hotel. "I had an offer to go to Rome and make an Italian-German-Spanish co-production with an Italian director whom no one had ever heard of."

"Outtakes" movie column, Jan. 19, 1990 -- Alberto Garcia, film programmer for the 1990 Sundance United States Film Festival

The 1990 festival's poster

It was customary for me to do stories in advance of each year's edition of the Sundance United States Film Festival. (Notice the name still retained remnants of the Utah/U.S. Film Festival.) I interviewed Alberto Garcia in an upper-floor, makeshift warehouse office in northwestern Salt Lake City a week or two before the festival began.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Some might say Alberto Garcia has a dream job. Beginning this year, he's been given the monumental task of selecting the competition films at the 1990 Sundance United States Film Festival. He's the man who has the final say on which films will play, and which ones won't.

Given this level of responsibility, you assume that the man who programs the festival -- who selects all the dramatic and documentary films to compete in 1990 -- would be, shall we say, older.

Then Garcia enters the room to be interviewed, and all preconceived notions go rocketing out the window. All of 23 years old, ponytail falling down his back, black T-shirt and jeans, he looks like a student volunteer, not one of the people running the show.

"Outtakes" movie column, Dec. 14, 1990

Robert Redford

As I recall, Vincent Price's derisive remark concerning Robert Redford during a 1984 speech at Utah State University drew a big laugh. Charles Laughton, he said, was wonderful when it came to playing tragedy. And Boris Karloff was a sweet man who nonetheless could terrify an audience.

But Redford, Price quipped, was quite remarkable at being, well, Redford.

I laughed right along with everyone else -- that conspiratorial laugh we commoners share at the expense of public figures who are wealthy and famous and talented. Redford is something of an easy target, after all; he's good-looking and people tend to notice that more so than his finely tuned artistry in front of the camera.

“Clerks” (1994)

I definitely ventured against the critical grain on this one. And Kevin Smith has gone on to a successful, entertainingly iconoclastic career.
$28,000 film just ain’t that funny
By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff
The ultimate expression of prevailing slacker chic, “Clerks” arrives in Utah theaters today, trailing awards -- from Sundance and Cannes -- and critical praise in its wake. But just why it’s been so flattered with tony prizes and positive reviews is a puzzlement.

Yes, “Clerks” is witty. And, to be sure, it’s quite an achievement for a micro-budget of less than $28,000. (For comparison, the average Hollywood studio movie costs upwards of $30 million, excluding prints and advertising.)

But if you strip away the irresistible background story of a pair of resourceful first-time filmmakers who scratched together the funds to make their movie by maxing out credit cards and filming in a convenience store where one of them was employed, you’re left with an ultra-low budget oddity that’s more profane, sexist and vulgar than it is intelligent or entertaining.

John Woo interview, from 1992 Sundance Film Festival

In the early 1990s, a good friend of mine, Scott Bowles, turned me on to Hong Kong movies. Very quickly, I craved all I could get from director John Woo and one of his favorite stars, Chow Yun-Fat – at that time, neither were known to any American fans outside a handful of people. To see their bootlegged films – that was the only way to see them at that time, since nothing had yet been officially released on tape for the U.S. market – was always flat-out thrilling.

Then I got lucky, and Woo’s “Hard-Boiled” played a midnight slot at Sundance in 1992. I had seen it, bootlegged, of course, but it was great fun to watch in Park City’s little Egyptian Theater. Best of all, Woo was on hand to introduce it. The joint rocked.

I snagged an interview with Woo the next day. We spoke upstairs at “Z” Place, a nightclub that, during the festival, served as the hospitality suite for filmmakers and journalists. It should also be noted that Woo was probably the only guy in Park City wearing a sport jacket and tie -- he seemed to take all of it very seriously, and wasn’t dressing down to impress the off-Hollywood crowd. The actual newspaper piece I wrote is still stuffed somewhere in a box, but the verbatim transcript of the Q&A was on my hard drive. Woo had recently moved to the United States – he and his wife had had an anchor baby here years before – and he had not been shy about saying he was coming due to the impending communist Chinese takeover of Hong Kong in 1997. He had been an outspoken critic of the totalitarian government, and he was a Christian, and he suspected both of those things would make it difficult for him to work after the British relinquished control in ’97. His English was OK, but still a little rough; I’ve preserved it to give you a flavor of the interviewed as it happened.