Photo by Richard Whittaker for the Austin Chronicle
Our ongoing series of video posts chronicling some of the history of legendary video rental store and Austin film culture hub Vulcan Video continues below. Vulcan, which closed last month after a 35 year run, embodied so much of what makes Austin’s film culture special, and there is no better way to demonstrate this than to let the former employees talk about it. In their words and experiences you can feel the peculiar values endemic to this time and place.
Chapter 3 is about the roundelay of “hookups” that so characterizes (characterized?) local businesses. Pizzas and beer were regularly traded for movie rentals and the staff was able to add calorie consumption to their less than luxurious lifestyles.
Chapter 4 provides the employees with an opportunity to talk about some of the customers they love and miss.
Finally, this special “Easter Egg” is about beloved manager Kristen Ellisor. After Brian and Susan talk about some of the things they respect about the hard-working, highly competent Ellisor, she chimes in, overcoming her reluctance to speak publicly and delivers a eulogy for the store and her customers that we could not bear to cut a word out of. If you can watch this without shedding a tear or three, you may need to consult a tear-duct specialist.
For those still keeping track of the days and months, you know that May Day is almost upon us. And while our plans to celebrate with a screening of the folk horror classic THE WICKER MAN at the AFS Cinema have sadly been cancelled (but you can still watch it at home via Netflix), as a small consolation we offer this music mix: “Sounds of Summerisle: Free Range Psych-Folk,” courtesy our resident DJ, Adult Themes. Turn on, tune in, and frolic in a field (6 feet apart, please).
From AFS Head of Film & Creative Media Holly Herrick:
Independent film is vital to our culture, but the infrastructure to support a career in filmmaking is elusive in the United States. The system that we have in place for independent film includes brilliant people and institutions who are leveraging their best thinking and sweat equity so that visionary work at all budget levels can be made and seen, but the fact is that most emerging artists are under-resourced at every phase of production and distribution. Sometimes this means that filmmakers leverage all of their own resources to get work made, which can result in severe threats to their livelihoods.
Enter Covid-19, which in the film world, means that all of the existing cracks in our infrastructure have become gaping holes. Removing the film festival—the vital launch for any independent filmmaker—from the eco-system leaves filmmakers stranded. With no way to gain momentum for their projects or artistic profiles, they can’t take their next step. For many of the filmmakers selected for SXSW, participation in that festival marked major career leap, one that might mean finding distribution for their work, but almost certainly would help secure their next jobs and opportunities.
The major blow dealt by the cancellation of SXSW was quickly overshadowed by the devastating death toll of Covid-19 and apocalyptic reports from Italy and New York, then the terrible news of job losses and the rising food and housing insecurity. A new short from director Rebecca Stern on The Atlantic posits that our collective mourning for these tragedies doesn’t mean we can’t recognize the threat to our artistic community at this time. Artistic loss and misfortune are something for our film world to grieve, and to be seriously worried about. Artists are set back, and permanent consequences for our culture are certain if we don’t find a way to create opportunities for work to be produced and effectively distributed.
The artists featured in Stern’s THE RUSHtell the personal story of how the cancellation of SXSW directly affected filmmakers in our community. Sarah Brennan Kolb (GOOD OL’ GIRL), Jessica Wolfson and Jesse Auritt (THE PAINT WIZZARD), and Kevin Ford (THE PUSHBACK) had films years in the making that had big plans for their SXSW premieres. We got to know all of these artists well through our programs—Sarah, Jessica and Jesse were recipients of AFS Grants, which brought each of them major momentum at critical phases in their projects. Kevin Ford brought THE PUSHBACK to AFS’s Works In Progress program, where he workshopped his rough cut. The cancellation of their premieres is not something we could have helped these filmmakers to plan.
We hope you have a chance to watch this 5-minute piece and hear from these filmmakers in their own words.
All of us who are incorrigible movie fiends have our go-to spots. Obviously the AFS Cinema is A-1 on all of our lists, but we also hit up the Arbor, Violet Crown and the Drafthouse locations, as well as the Paramount Summer Series. And we have our guilty pleasure spots where we indulge in the fruits of Hollywood’s billions while eating popcorn doused in some complex molecular compound formulated to taste like the platonic ideal of butter.
Hey, the heart wants what the heart wants.
As of this writing, all of these locations are closed for the quarantine. Not surprisingly we find ourselves wistfully remembering past moviegoing experiences. Few of us are lucky enough to remember Austin’s theatrical landscape in the ’60s and ’70s, but the ads that follow still fill us with an unaccountable warmth, similar to the aching nostalgia that Wes Anderson once called “a memory of a dream.” Let’s take a timeless tour through some of Austin’s theatrical past.
At the Fox Theater (6757 Airport Boulevard) and Aquarius 4 (1500 S. Pleasant Valley) we have the made-in-Austin OUTLAW BLUES held over for its 6th week. A Mercedes dealership now occupies the spot where the Fox was and condos now occupy the Pleasant Valley location.
At the Southside Drive-In (710 E. Ben White), the Nazi Zombie classic SHOCK WAVES plays on a double with the Shaw Brothers super-robot movie INFRA-MAN. This is a great double feature. A giant Wal-Mart now dominates this corner of Ben White and I-35.
The Varsity Theater (2402 Guadalupe) has a revival of the two Agatha Christie Miss Marple adaptations and is opening the lefty double feature SACCO AND VANZETTI and HARLAN COUNTY USA. Good stuff. This location supported a Tower records for many years and currently the building reflects the complex cultural fabric of the Drag with a Wells Fargo, a Dunkin’ Donuts and a Baskin Robbins.
Here are a couple of very different films screening at the Showtown USA Drive-In (8100 Cameron Road) now the site of an office complex. I wonder if they had seen more than the poster of BELLE DE JOUR when they booked it.
Another venue that took a sudden interest in international art films was the Studio IV (212 E. 6th Street) now the site of Voodoo Doughnuts.
And finally, the classic gimmick of the green blood makes its way to the Burnet Drive-In (6400 Burnet Road), now the site of a self-storage facility. The “green blood” came in little packets and definitely caused those who drank it to experience some pretty weird things, like standing in a long restroom line at a drive-in theater.
When we asked Laird Jimenez for some streaming recommendations, we knew not to expect the ordinary. In his capacity as head video honcho at Alamo Drafthouse, Laird supervises the creation of those often bizarre preshows that many of us are missing so much right now. And, as head programmer of the Weird Wednesday series in Austin, he provides even larger helpings of strangeness. So here, direct from the “Peach Boys and Ginseng Monsters” bookmark tab on Laird’s browser is a selection of Taiwanese fantasy bashers. Enjoy.
Taiwan was not untouched by the martial arts explosion that started in Hong Kong and swept the planet in the 70s. Hong Kong producers and talent looking to save money and work outside of the studio system boosted the homegrown film industry in Taiwan, and international audiences were hungry for kung fu bashers. It was a combination that led to a flood of exports clumsily dubbed in English or hastily subtitled, often given titles by distributors that evoked Bruce Lee either indirectly (see the 1000 movies with “Dragon” in the name) or directly (GOODBYE BRUCE LEE: HIS LAST GAME OF DEATH).
Meanwhile in the United States a special effects revolution was underway. Science fiction and fantasy spectacles featuring exciting new uses of rotoscoping and compositing were breaking box office records. STAR WARS, SUPERMAN, and E.T. were international hits, filling screens around the globe with brightly colored lasers, flying superheroes, and strange creatures.
In Taiwan the martial arts film and these new special effects spectacles came clashing together in a most wonderful and weird way. Movie heroes who before were only masters of a specific fighting style could now shoot lasers and/or fly and carry on conversations with singing, dancing humanoid ginger roots. Fantasy films were nothing new to Hong Kong and Taiwanese cinema, of course, but this new crop of films were made with technology previously unheard of for audiences hungry for more Western style spectacle and martial arts action, making the older films seem downright stagey by comparison.
These movies are colorful pop art sugar rushes, full of narrative digressions, broad comedy, and a charm that stems from their low budgets and presumably short production schedules. Elements of folk tales butt up against elements straight up lifted from Hollywood productions (soundtrack cues especially), and it’s all anything but predictable. I’d place their existence somewhere between a game of exquisite corpse, collage art, and neon colored junk food.
The best of these movies star Taiwanese actress Hsiao-Lao Lin as a gregarious young boy, including at least two movies in which her character’s name is “Peach Boy” (or Tao Tai Lang, a boy literally born from a peach based on the Japanese legend of Momotarō). There’s nothing particularly unusual about an adult female performer portraying a young boy (these kinds of gender swaps are even written into the text of many martial arts stories as women surreptitiously infiltrating male spaces by posing as the opposite sex). Why Lin was so regularly cast as a young boy, however, is a bit mysterious to me, and I can only chalk it up to producers seeing it work once and repeating it the same way they would anything else.
CHILD OF PEACH (1987)
Dir. Chung-Hsing Chao, Chun-Liang Chen
Start with CHILD OF PEACH (a particularly zany clip from CHILD OF PEACH circulated the meme rounds without context a year or so ago, even popping up on Everything Is Terrible’s feed) then brace yourself for its superior and even weirder sequel MAGIC OF SPELL. Be prepared for ridiculous costumes, potty humor, and crude matting on the optical effects. There’s a third loosely connected film MAGIC WARRIORS as well, though a quick search on YouTube only resulted in copies that verge on unwatchable.
Lars Nilsen favorite Tso Nam Lee, whose films played at previous Old School Kung Fu Weekend events at AFS, directed Hsiao-Lau Lin in the laserific KUNG FU WONDER CHILD (sometimes spelled KONG FU WONDER CHILD).
For examples of earlier efforts in this sub-genre there’s 1961’s FANTASY OF DEER WARRIOR, which feels a bit like watching a 1960s TV production of ALICE IN WONDERLAND in the woods.
And 1978’s LITTLE HERO (find a dubbed version if you can for maximum enjoyment, though the most readily available one on YouTube is subtitled) represents a good halfway point between old school kung fu and the new wave of fantasy tinged productions. LITTLE HERO is based on a long-running comic book series about masked villains and a variety of animal themed heroes and villains. It stars Polly Ling-Feng Shang-Kuan (Polly Shang Kwan) as a young boy (the titular Little Hero). She earned this bit of typecasting by appearing in King Hu’s DRAGON INN as a woman who poses as a man (just in case you need to tie your Taiwanese fantasy martial arts viewing to the Criterion Collection).
Our series of recollections by former Vulcan Video employees about the much loved and now departed video store continues with some anecdotes about the many famous people who made their way through the aisles. You’ll hear about the ones who paid their late fees, the ones who paid strangers’ late fees, and the ones who rented their own movies many times. Somehow, none were jerks and all were nice.
Of special interest is the behind the scenes story of the famous Jimmy Kimmel/Matthew McConaughey “commercial” for Vulcan Video. They were probably degenerate Hollywood weasels right? Nope. Super nice and supportive. Maybe watch the commercial first if you haven’t seen it, then check out Chapter Two of the Vulcan Video Exit Interviews here:
Also, since there are a lot of great stories that don’t really have a home in the thematic edits we are preparing, we are going to share the occasional Easter Egg, just a short cut with maybe one fun little story. This one is about the rivalry between I Luv Video (we luv them too!) and Vulcan Video, culminating in a few beer-and-glory-soaked Sunday trivia showdowns at the Alamo Ritz. We’ll let Brian, Susan and Maxim tell you all about it.
If you missed the first installment of the Vulcan Videos: Exit Interviews series, click here, and enjoy.
Please continue to support film culture in Austin. There’s a pretty cool Film Society here in town that works hard every day to keep film culture alive. You can support them (aka us) here.
This Sunday, April 26, marks the 40th anniversary of X’s landmark debut, Los Angeles. To celebrate, we asked our friend Tim Stegall of the Austin Chronicle to say a few things about the band and their seminal album. Plus, we’re now releasing our Q&A for X: THE UNHEARD MUSIC with X founder John Doe, director Bill Morgan, and producer Alizabeth Foley. Read, watch, and enjoy!
“She Had To Leave Los Angeles….”: X’s Debut Album At 40
An appreciation by The Austin Chronicle‘s Tim Stegall
As the world’s population hunkers down in their individual bunkers, garlic garlands surrounding the doors, warding off the evil viral invader COVID-19, X released their 1st album since 1993’s Hey Zeus! Even cooler, since Alphabetland features the prime lineup of L.A.’s premiere punk band – co-vocalist Exene Cervenka, bassist/co-vocalist (and latter-day Austin resident) John Doe, drummer DJ Bonebrake, and guitarist Billy Zoom. Then it gets cooler still: This is the first new material from classic X since 1985’s Ain’t Love Grand, and the first proper full-length since they reformed in the late ’90s to play their hits to throbbing live audiences once again. And wouldn’t you know it? It sounds like an X record! For the first time since 1983’s More Fun In The New World.
Isn’t it curious they chose to drop it digitally via Bandcamp 40 years to the day after Slash Records unleashed their 1st album, Los Angeles? No, no pressure at all, Alphabetland.Great as you are – you are instantlyas classic an X album as any of their 1st four – just compete with a game-changing motherfucker of a debut album….
No one expected, in the year The Clash’s London Calling and PiL’s Metal Box saw US release, for a band from LOS ANGELES, of all places (!!), to release a punk rock record that would completely field strip and dissipate those two titans of modern sound. I mean, wasn’t this the sun-and-fun entertainment capitol of the universe?! How could credible punk rock come from there?! What did Angelinos have to rebel against?!
Turned out Los Angeles succeeded on several levels. X were no musical slouches, for one. Doe was a veteran of Baltimore’s bar band scene. Bonebrake had played in symphonies. Zoom had played with rockabilly titan Gene Vincent, ferchrissakes! The latter factoid proved to be a potent secret weapon – he could link Johnny Burnett to Johnny Thunders! This was punk that did not reject rock ‘n’ roll roots, but revved up the original Fifties rebel spirit to pogo specs, with love and affection. This was an embrace of tradition that could peaceful co-exist with punk’s now-now-now modernity.Only Cervenka was a novice. And what she brought was a sense of harmony closer to Gregorian chants, or even Richard and Mimi Farina. Somehow, the discordant vocal blend with Doe worked.
But what was especially exciting was how this record served notice that a new school of punk songwriting had arrived. Doe and Cervenka’s lyrical sense owed more to L.A.-based writers like Charles Bukowski, Raymond Chandler, or Nathanael West than Chuck Berry. This was hard-bitten poetry about life in L.A.’s margins – more bohemian and hard-boiled and literary than the Sex Pistols. This was poetry without the pretensions of New Yorkers like Richard Hell or Patti Smith, a more down-to-earth way to be punk and artistic. This was Bukowski’s fictional alter ego Henry Chinaski in a punk band! Inadvertently, X was creating a new school of punk songwriters: The Flesh Eaters’ Chris D., The Gun Club’s Jefferey Lee Pierce, The Blasters’ Dave Alvin, The Germs’ Darby Crash, even The Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn. All Los Angeles-based, they benefitted from the door Doe and Cervenka opened. Coincidentally, all were also signed to Slash Records.
But the private nightmare Doe and Cervenka spun across Los Angeles could only have come from their eyes and their pens. Seeing heroin addiction grip friends they’d made in the cramped, toxic basement that was original Hollywood punk palace The Masque, they responded with despondent, pissed-off observations like “Your Phone’s Off The Hook, But You’re Not”: “And now all our money’s gone,” Exene moans with the despair of one jonesing for a fix, but whose partner scored and shot it all up without sharing. “Jonny Hit And Run Paulene” seemed to cross addiction with an ugly rape scenario: “She wasn’t what you call living, really/SHE WAS STILL AWAKE!!” Doe screamed in utter terror. The title track documented the escape of a toxic friend who apparently hated every race, creed and color, and found Hollywood too oppressive: “She gets confused/Flying over the dateline/Her hands turned red….” Grand finale “The World’s A Mess, It’s In My Kiss” appears to deal with some sorta infidelity: “No one is united/Everything is untied/Perhaps we’re boiling over inside/They’ve been telling lies.”
Yes, X’s Los Angeles was dizzying musically, aesthetically, lyrically, conceptually. No one expected it, and it was explosive in what it delivered. It served notice that one of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest creative forces had arrived, even if only a fraction of the world would pay heed. Blame it on the fecklessness and willful ignorance of radio, bemoaned on “The Unheard Music”: “We’re locked out of the public eye/….No hard chords on the car radio.” And unlike some of the music made in the punk era, this record still sounds fresh and vital. Even as X release new music to rival it. Happy birthday, Los Angeles!
Film writer, programmer, producer, Miskatonic Institute Of Horror Studies founder and all-around creative force Kier-la Janisse has long been a guiding light for other cinematic and cultural explorers – she can usually be found about 1000 miles and 5 years ahead of the rest of us.
Some of our favorites are the Soft Sounds Of Cult Cinema:
And the theoretical soundtrack album for the as-yet-unmade sexploitation film EMMANUELLE IN CHINATOWN, which, knowing Kier-La, is likely to be made at some point notwithstanding the long odds against it:
There are a LOT more here and they are all great listens. Give them a shot and enjoy.
If you get tired of listening to great music and film audio, you might listen to this podcast of Janisse in dialogue with AFS Lead Programmer Lars Nilsen about some of her adventures in film programming.
If you’ve been haunting the AFS Cinema in recent years, you may have gotten the distinct (and correct) impression that we are fans of Elaine May’s work as a writer and director. We’ve shown A NEW LEAF and ISHTAR to audiences who have greeted these films with even more laughter than they received on first release, when mass audiences were perhaps less receptive to this style of comedy. In truth, her humor was always ahead of its time and the subtlety – and sublimeness – of the gags needs careful and intelligent reading. Those of us who feel that ISHTAR is a great comedy may have been in the minority for decades, but the reinforcements are arriving by the day, as younger audiences appreciate the freshness and modern qualities of that long-derided movie.
The work of the comedy team Nichols & May – that’s her fellow great director Mike Nichols of course – is mostly known to us from their recorded audio work, though they also worked in nightclubs and halls. Their work has been preserved on video, but mostly it is of a sort keyed to family audiences. That’s why the following bit is such a treasure. It’s daring observational sketch comedy, from two people whose powers of observation border on the Herculean, and who have the acting skills to put it over.
So, in tribute to Elaine May, born on this date in 1932, we present this sketch. Note that the audio takes a few seconds to come in, and the motion stabilization that someone has applied to the video may induce seasickness, but we think you will agree that the material is worth it.
We asked guest programmer Stacy Brick—whose Family Style series at the AFS Cinema is a showcase for films that the whole family can enjoy—for some picks that will help you and your kids break out of the same rut of four or five movies. Here are her suggestions.
Let’s face it – things are bleak in the “Family” section of all the major streaming services right now. It’s not easy to find something to watch that you can all enjoy together.
I’ve put together a round-up of some of the best Sunday School and Family Style screenings from the last few years that are currently available online. I’ve also added in a few other favorites. I can guarantee that these will bring laughs and interesting conversations with your kids for days (if not weeks) to come.
Now, pop some popcorn, get comfy, and stream away!
TIME BANDITS
Eleven-year-old Kevin discovers he can travel through time by pushing through a wall in his bedroom. He joins a band of dwarfs to hop through time and space to steal riches – meeting the likes of Napoleon, Robin Hood, and King Agamemnon along the way. The film is directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam and his Monty Python mates. It’s a great way to introduce your kids to the troupe, whose “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” is now streaming on Netflix. Be prepared for them to start jumping out from behind corners yelling, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!” At least that’s what’s happening at my house.
Streaming on: HULU, ITUNES, GOOGLE PLAY, AMAZON
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN
Lily Tomlin is a housewife who begins to shrink after a reaction to the chemicals in common household products. In the vibrantly colored suburban neighborhood of Tasty Meadows, Pat Kramer juggles housework and two wild children while her husband Vance (Charles Grodin) writes advertising jingles – which help sell the products that cause Pat to start shrinking. Once she shrinks to dollhouse size, grabbing the attention and hearts of America, she becomes a target for an evil organization hoping to learn her secret and use it to shrink everyone on earth.
Streaming on: ITUNES, GOOGLE PLAY, AMAZON
THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT
Two 14-year-old prep school girls become fast friends in this quirky coming of age comedy. Val has a crush on famous avant-garde concert pianist, Henry Orient, who is busy trying to seduce married women. The girls follow Orient around Manhattan with many mishaps and misunderstandings along the way. The slow motion sequence of Val & Gil romping through Manhattan is one of the best film tributes to the city. The film feels honest and fresh over 50 years after its release. Peter Sellers stars as Henry Orient in his American debut. After this one, introduce your kids to Inspector Clouseau!
Streaming on: AMAZON
MON ONCLE
Jaques Tati directs and stars as Monsieur Hulot in his first color feature. The film centers on Hulot’s quest to connect with his sister’s family, the Arpels and his nephew in particular. The Arpels are a modern family set on dragging Hulot into their stark, modern existence but he is much more comfortable in his old, crumbling neighborhood with familiar vendors and packs of dogs wandering around upturning trash bins in the cobbled streets. Tati uses Hulot’s slapstick to show how consumerism and technology actually make day-to-day life more complicated despite promising otherwise. Even though it’s subtitled, the dialogue in the film is unimportant (most of it is unintelligibly spoken) which, along with all the sight gags, makes this an ideal comedy for children of all ages.
Streaming on: ITUNES, AMAZON
THE BLACK STALLION
You probably saw this one countless times when you were a kid, but how much do you remember? Take it from Roger Ebert who said, THE BLACK STALLION has “terrific energy, beauty, and excitement. It’s not a children’s movie; it’s for adults and for kids.” Make sure you watch this beautiful film on a TV, the cinematography is stunning.
Streaming on: ITUNES, GOOGLE PLAY, AMAZON
SPACEBALLS
Despite its PG rating, there is lots of salty language in this one (along with one F-bomb at the end). I wouldn’t program it in the theater – but times are different right now. If you have an older kid (10 or up) who’s into STAR WARS, they will love this. And honestly, so will you. There are so many ridiculous jokes about 80’s pop culture you haven’t thought of in forever, it will make your head spin. Plus John Candy!
One of our favorite local businesses closed recently, but let’s get this out of the way: It was not unexpected; the sky is not about to come tumbling down on all of us; Austin is not over.
But this is a moment to hear from the people who, over the course of many years, worked at Vulcan Video, rented us videos, gave us some very good advice, occasionally some very bad attitude, and, above all else, embodied a huge part of what we mean when we refer to Austin Film Culture.
The people that you will meet, or renew your acquaintance with, in the videos that will follow over the next few weeks, are true scholars – some of them have the sheepskin to prove it, others come from the film school of hard knocks. All of them care a lot about movies and about the connections that movies foster among people. We admire them, and we are grateful to all of them for sending us their recollections and observations.
We have not been bound by any need to sugar-coat the experiences recounted here, but, despite some of the more unorthodox business practices you will hear about, we think that Vulcan was a heroic citadel among not only video stores but, in fact, among all cultural institutions. Shaggy and spiky though it may be, the legacy is staggering and will live on and on, like a particularly stubborn MS-DOS point of sale system.
We start the series with an episode about some badly behaved customers. We have ten times as much material about beloved customers and we’ll share that as well, but, let’s face it, we need to get people hooked first, and that means we start with a shot of the strong stuff.
Thanks to all the Vulcans everywhere. The candle may have gone out but the flame still burns.
If you prefer podcasts, you can also follow along on the AFS Viewfinders podcast (available via your favorite podcast platforms).
Lars Nilsen here, of AFS. In commemoration of the new virtual release of the doc THE BOOKSELLERS, opening this Friday via AFS, we wanted to have a little panel discussion with some of our favorite local booksellers. Full disclosure: I have known these folks for nearly two decades, so we’re having a little fun here – and the discussion at times verges on some more vulgar content – but not too vulgar.
There’s also a technical abnormality throughout that sounds like an intoxicated duck with intestinal gas jogging, so that’s annoying, but we’re all learning here and I think that the discussion is interesting enough to overcome the distraction of the farting duck sound.
Anyhow, whether or not you see THE BOOKSELLERS with us – and you should! – enjoy this panel with South Congress Books’ Sheri Tornatore and Half Price Books North Lamar’s Merrit Spencer and Turisa Rucker. And read a book!
