Not as good as regular superheroes, but slightly better than you. |
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*First and foremost, let me apologize to everyone, profusely, for the rampant typos in my last column. Some drinks were had, and my proofreading skills are nominal even dead-sober. I will try to deliver a more tightly-packaged product from now on. *
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The DAWN OF THE DEAD remake and SCOOBY DOO 2: MONSTERS UNLEASHED (both 2004) were released a week apart from each other, and both opened at #1 at the box office on their respective weekends. This doesn't mean much, until you realize that they were both written by the same man. Further, he is the first screenwriter, and so far the only one, in film history to achieve that feat.
That man, of course, is James Gunn.
My affection for Gunn's work occurred gradually, and indeed he became one of my favorite people in film quite without my knowledge. He just kept cropping up in funny places, like herpes. Except without the awkward talk with my girlfriend. I think the first time I really became aware of him was when the first SCOOBY DOO (2002) movie was poised for release. I was really excited for it, because the trailers showed a cast that looked up to snuff, and it seemed like it was going to capture the sense of fun of the original cartoon without taking itself too seriously. In my research on it, I saw that it was written by James Gunn. I was awestruck. Couldn't be the same James Gunn who wrote 1996's TROMEO AND JULIET for Troma, could it?
Yes, yes it could.
I just couldn't wrap my head around it: could the man possibly dip his hand into both pools and make it float?
Yes, yes he could.
SCOOBY DOO may not have exactly been a critical success (28% at Rotten Tomatoes) but it did well with the younger crowd (snagging awards at both Nickelodeon's Kid's Choice and Teen Choice awards, as well as getting an MTV movie award – it also got a couple of Razzies, but fuck those people), as well as doing very well at the box office. It made $275,650,703 worldwide on a reported budget of $84 million. Not too shabby. I, for one, enjoyed it greatly. Fred and Daphne (played by real-life couple Sarah Michelle-Gellar and Freddie Prinze, Jr.) were essentially completely re-imagined, but that is because, as Gunn himself pointed out after going through and watching every single original Scooby Doo episode, they never really had much character development or back-story in the first place. So he went to town with them, and had fun with it. Velma and Shaggy, however, are spot-on. In any review of the film, good or bad, the same thing is always mentioned: Mathew Lillard is eerily well-suited for the role of Shaggy.
I found the film to be an artistic success precisely because Gunn understood what his job was: stay true to the source material while keeping it accessible to both children and parents. I think my favorite joke in the movie was naming Shaggy's love interest Mary Jane.
Now, how do we reconcile that family-friendly fare with Gunn's first foray into film, the aforementioned TROMEO AND JULIET? Well, first let's look at how his involvement in such came to be. As a young Columbia University student, Gunn got an interview with legendary Troma madman Lloyd Kaufman through contacts of his brother Matt (there's lotsa Gunns in Hollywood), expecting little else than an intern position pushing papers. Instead, what he got was a dose of the patented Kaufman exuberance, and an offer to write the script for T&J for the princely sum of $150. As anyone familiar with the Troma business model can tell you, being on set means you do whatever the hell else Lloyd wants you to do, regardless of what you were actually commissioned to do. For Gunn, that included doing some uncredited directing work and a cameo (he found a peanut).
The film has all of the great crassness and vulgarity that the Troma name brings with it, but managed to sneak in some literary aspirations. Like Stephen Blackheart, as Benny Que (Benvolio), reciting some of Shakespeare's original dialogue whilst plugging away at his girlfriend. You know, classy shit. Yet another Gunn, Sean (most notable for his role on The Gilmore Girls) has a very poignant scene where he spends his last few moments on this earthly plane trying to stuff his spilled brains back into his head, ala Derek from BRAINDEAD.
There is also Juliet, as essayed by singer/actress Jane Jensen, as a lesbian frightened to death of penises (as illustrated by an abhorrent dream she has concerning a muscular man with a hideously large penis, complete with a monstrous face). But that just makes her falling in love with the very male and undoubtedly penised Tromeo even more poignant. My particular favorite scene in the movie is when, during yet another of Juliet's dreams, she becomes instantly nine-months pregnant, and her belly erupts with popcorn before birthing a bevy of baby rats, cesarean-style.
The film also features a narrator, in the form of Lemmy Killmeister from Motorhead, whom Gunn once referred to as the second biggest asshole celebrity he has ever met (right behind Perry King). Sounds like a challenge, Lemmy.
Gunn hung on with Troma for a while, writing and directing featuettes for their DVDs and cable access television show (in fact, he continued to work with them up to as late as 2000– plus he 
The happy (strange) couple. |
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co-wrote Kaufman's first book, Everything I Need to Know About Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger, as well as contributing some material to the second book, Make Your Own Damn Movie), but made the decision in 1997 to move from New York to LA, armed with a script that he had been getting some buzz with.
That script was for another of Gunn's films that I came across quite accidentally, THE SPECIALS (2000). I was watching TV at my brother's house, and caught a few minutes of a strange little movie about a cut-rate band of superheroes. I went and looked it up online, and goddamn if it wasn't James Gunn yet again. After that I started checking before I put my pants on in the morning, just to make sure he wasn't in them already.
Anyway, I Netflixed THE SPECIALS, and found it to be quite awesome. This was not the first script Gunn had written (for himself, not counting the commissioned Troma work), but the first he felt comfortable with shopping around. His instincts proved to be correct, as the bouncing around of the script got him an agent, a deal to make the movie, a deal to write the screenplay for a proposed Spy Vs. Spy movie (which never happened, but eventually led to the initial SCOOBY DOO gig), and Jamie Kennedy as a roommate when Gunn moved out to Los Angeles.
Kennedy also starred in THE SPECIALS (under a layer of blue paint), alongside Rob Lowe and Thomas Haden Church (the driest delivery alive). Not to mention Jordan Ladd, Sean (once again) and Brian Gunn, Paget Brewster (who takes part, along with Gunn, in one of the most bizarre commentaries I have ever heard) and Judy Greer, long time friend of the Gunn family, who turns in my favorite performance as Deadly Girl, who can summon demons as well as slip in and out of the demon realm. She has the following exchange with Minute Man (played by James Gunn himself), in regards to people mispronouncing his name (it's My-Noot, because he turns small):
MM: I'm thinking of changing my name to Smaaaaall. *gestures with hands*
DG: Small Man?
MM: No, just Smaaaall.
DG: That's a stupid name.
MM: It's better than Minute Man.
DG: It's better than Captain Cuntface, too.
If I hadn't been sold on the film before, I was then. The movie is also great because while most superhero films take place during some conflict, THE SPECIALS takes place when the superheroes aren't really being very super. They're just dealing with their day to day life, and the dysfunction that arises between any group of people who live or work closely together.
As I stated earlier, THE SPECIALS script led to the deal to do the Spy vs. Spy movie, which crapped out yet led to the SCOOBY DOO deal, the financial success of which led to the sequel, which I will only mention briefly. I liked it fine, but it missed some of the magic of the first one for me. It upped the ante, both in terms of monsters and star power (Tim Blake Nelson and Peter Boyle), and should be seen at least for Velma (Linda Cardellini) in a skin-tight red vinyl jumpsuit.
On the set of THE SPECIALS, cast-mate Rob Lowe taught Gunn an interesting way to pass time between set-ups, where one person calls out celebrity names and the other attempts to find extras who look the part. If that sounds familiar to any horror fans, it's because you saw that very same gag in the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, except it was humans shooting zombies instead of pointing out extras. I was excited when I heard that the movie was being remade because, not to be heretical, I never really cared for the original. And then I found out that James Gunn had written the script...I figured I might as well start setting a place at the dinner table for him, because he kept popping up in my life so unexpectedly.
Many hardcore zombie fans slag off the remake for its fast-paced zombies, but according to the FAQ at Gunn's website, the original script had both fast zombies and slow zombies, depending on their respective states of decomposition. But once the wheels really started turning on the pre-production, it became necessary to stream-line the script some, and they decided to just stick with the runners. Personally, I think it adds a little something to the suspense.
Somewhere between the first SCOOBY DOO and DAWN OF THE DEAD, Gunn got married to Jenna Fischer. Most people know her now for her role on The Office, but it is ironic to point out that even though it wasn't until later that they started dating, they had some minor ties previously (she had been in an acting class with his brother Sean when they were younger), and they actually had a brief scene together in THE SPECIALS (she calls him "Min-utt" Man, and after he launches into a tirade about people getting his name wrong she looks at him for a beat, and says, with a disgusted look on her face, "Fuck you!" To which Gunn added during the commentary for that movie, "It was the first of many...."
I mention her because they both did a project together, LOLLILOVE (2004), a mockumentary about a young, well off couple who decide to be charitable to the homeless...by handing out lollipops with inspiring messages on the wrappers. Filmed over the course of about three years, I have to say that this is one of the more bizarre pieces I have ever watched. And I've watched a 
Me and Scooby Doo, cold kicking it live. |
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lot. The couple in the movie are named, get this, James and Jenna Gunn, and James works in the movie industry. It was shot in and around their own home, and features a lot of their friends (including Judy Greer and Linda Cardellini). It was produced by Stephen Blackheart and shot by Jenna's friend Peter Alton.
The script is credited to Fischer (who also directed), though it was mainly just a structure and certain plot beats that needed to be hit. Almost all of the dialogue was ad-libbed, which Gunn is both blessed and cursed with being good at. Blessed because he is hilarious, cursed because he seems, as evidenced by the behind-the-scenes footage, to have difficulty turning it off, leading to an exasperated Jenna. Such as the infamous anal sex scene, where he is talking about just that thing on the phone with an imaginary Richard Suckle (a producer on the two SCOOBY DOO films), no matter how much he was asked to stop.
My favorite things about the film are the wedding video and the photographs that they show on screen periodically throughout. Considering that they are all real. They had a photo-shoot with a photographer once who delivered to them terrible pictures...but instead of throwing them away, they chose instead to prominently display them in a movie. It works in the sense that it gives you a feel for how disconnected from reality the James and Jenna of the movie are. And the wedding video, something that on its own would be quite touching, shown in context to the movie James and Jenna comes off as almost pathological.
The movie was of course put out by Troma, and even includes a bit part for Lloyd Kaufman as a priest (they had to teach him how to cross himself convincingly). So if you pick up the DVD, which I strongly suggest, you get a lot of nice cross-over featurettes and interviews from other Troma stuff, such as the film's visit to the Tromadance festival, and an interview with Gunn from another Troma DVD set.
All of this - including stuff I didn't mention for length reasons, such as his association with "The Splicers", some shorts he has written, his full length fiction novel The Toy Collector, and his alleged one-time cult involvement – led to SLiTHER (2006). The success of the SCOOBY DOO franchise had been a mixed blessing for Gunn: it afforded him some notoriety and financial security, but it also almost pigeonholed him into being the guy who adapted cartoons to movies. It was having a friend take the chance on letting him write DAWN OF THE DEAD that directly led to him being able to make SLiTHER (a script he wrote on spec, with no studio interference). He decided to direct it because he was worried that other candidates for the job would not get the balance of horror and comedy - as he explained to SLiTHER's leading man Nathan Fillion, the movie is not a comedy, but a horror film with comedic elements.
And what a good thing he was given the opportunity to direct the film. It was both a critical and an artistic success, if not so much one at the box office. In it, a strange alien entity (known as The Long One on set - but never actually named in the film) falls to Earth in a meteor, and proceeds to infect sometime protagonist - sometime villain Grant Grant, who mutates and turns some folks into breeders and others into zombies, but has a nagging feeling in his very human brain - love for his wife. It seems that the creature had never before known love.
The movie is a valentine to the over the top horror films of the 80's that Gunn grew up on (as did I). If you watch the film closely, you will find many references. My favorite of which is the Hennenlotter Saddle Club (Frank Hennenlotter is the director of such seminal horror films as BASKET CASE, BRAIN DAMAGE and FRANKENHOOKER – and who is listed at IMDB.com as having a new film, BAD BIOLOGY, in post-production – his first new project in 15 years).
Alongside Fillion and Henry are Elizabeth Banks and Michael Rooker, most known to genre fans for his work as the title character in HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. Along with the other lesser known names, the cast does a simply terrific job of conveying Gunn's script to the screen. It's such a fine balance between humor, creepiness, romantic-comedy, and balls-out gore. Play it too straight or too campy, and it would all fall apart. I should also note that along with simply being a kick-ass movie, the DVD has magnificent and plentiful DVD extras: it gives you an amazing amount of bang for your buck.
I had been troubled for a while because there had been no word on new James Gunn product, but I am happy to report that he is listed as the writer and director of the proposed (sometime in 2009) THE BELCOO EXPERIMENT. It has much the same behind-the-scenes team as SLiTHER, but no announced cast yet. We will have to simply suffice with the following plot synopsis:
"A group of 83 American expatriates who work in a building in Sao Paulo, Brazil, find themselves trapped in their workplace; a voice emits over the speaker system, forcing them through a series of murderous moral decisions."
I hope this one gets done, because, quite frankly, I need more Gunn.
James: I wish I knew how to quit you.
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| Agent Provocateur |
Every other Sunday
Eating the flesh of lesser film geeks since '72.
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| Zombie Boy |
Zombie Boy is not a Hollywood insider, just a movie
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