An Interview with Daniel Bird

This is the concluding entry in a four part series on director Andrzej Żuławski’s recently restored early Polish films — Trzecia częśc nocy (1971) aka The Third Part of the Night, Diabel (1972) aka The Devil, and Na srebrnym globie (1988) aka On the Silver Globe — which I recently had the pleasure to see at the Lincoln Center in New York. The retrospective’s co-curator, writer and Żuławski collaborator Daniel Bird, was kind enough to sit down and talk about the process of restoring these films, their place in Polish culture, and the future of Żuławski’s cinematic legacy.

Diabolique: How did the restorations for The Third Part of the Night, The Devil, and On the Silver Globe come about and what was your involvement with them? 

Daniel Bird: The Third Part of the Night was in the process of being restored, my only involvement in that was asking if Żuławski could approve it. Witold Sobocinski, the director of photography, did an excellent job, and I understand that work on that title went smoothly. As for The Devil and On the Silver Globe, Florence Almozini (associate director of programmer at the Film Society at the Lincoln Center) and myself wanted to present all three titles together with Cosmos. I approached The Polish Film Institute about funding the restoration of the remaining two titles.

Apart from the financing, I was not actively involved in the restoration of The Devil. However, Żuławski got sick around the same time we started work on On the Silver Globe, so I was left with no choice but to take a more active role. Andrzej Jaroszewicz did an excellent job with the grading, and Gosia Grzyb is a brilliant colourist. I am extremely proud to have played a part in this project.

Diabolique: The first two films, in particular, seem to involve a lot of familiar faces, like Żuławski’s first wife, Małgorzata Braunek, and the cinematographer, Andrzej Jaroszewicz, and composer, Andrzej Korzynski. Plenty of directors seem to work with a core cast and crew group, but can you talk about how Żuławski chose collaborators for these early films? 

DB: Korzynski was Żuławski’s friend since his school days. Braunek, at the time, was arguably the biggest star in Polish cinema, however, I don’t think it was Żuławski’s intention to cast her in The Devil. She had just given birth to their son, Xawery, but the casting didn’t work out so she had to put a pillow under her dress and pretend to be pregnant.

It’s worth noting that a lot of those actors are very young, often in their first film roles, and fresh from theatre school. Żuławski prided himself on sniffing out new talent. If Dark Matter [a planned but not realized project] had happened, it would have been the first big role for Marine Vacth, as she was attached. Most of the cast for both The Third Part of the Night and The Devil are fresh from theatre school, and Jonathan Genet in Cosmos is no different. I think it’s a question of recognising talent, managing egos and, ultimately, exerting control.

As for Jaroszewicz, he was the camera operator for Maciej Kijowski, who had been the operator for Witold Sobociński on The Third Part of the Night. Jaroszewicz was as much interested in moving the camera as he was lighting, but of course the two things are connected. If you are going to move the camera about, you have to think about lighting differently. Between them they really pushed this mobile camera to an extreme with On the Silver Globe.

Diabolique: It seems to me that these first three Polish films are also his most overtly political. Would you agree or disagree with that and, if so, do you think there are any reasons for this outside of simply being created in a repressive political environment? 

DB: I would disagree! First, I don’t think any of Żuławski’s films are overtly political. I just read an interview he did in Locarno and he says quite explicitly that there is nothing worse than a filmmaker with a cause. Second, I think they are all, in one way or another, political. Sure, everything is political, but in his case, politics were necessary. Take Possession, when Heinrich says, “I believe no one has the right to impose his will on anybody.” Marc say, “How long have you been fucking me over?” I think that sums up Żuławski’s feelings about Communism; i.e. people who abolish power structures always turn out to be tyrants themselves. Heinrich’s bullshit “liberates” Anna, but leaves her feeling suffocated in a different way.

The commercial market place is just as repressive, but in a different way. Sure, The Devil was banned and On the Silver Globe was shut down, but look what happened to Possession in the US – it got mangled beyond belief and it took 30 years before anyone got to see it properly. Just as careerists rose up the communist system by taking “control” of rogue film projects — like the guy who shut down On the Silver Globe — so do their Hollywood counterparts – how many Hollywood films have been butchered?

Possession is, of course, a problem. Take that line of Anna’s, “No one is good or bad.” In most horror films it is quite obvious who the bad guy is – Jason, Freddy, etc. Hollywood genre cinema is predicated on the good guys versus bad guys, just as Communist cinema is or was, but Żuławski wasn’t a moralist.

 Diabolique: What was the Polish reaction — both in terms of film criticism and the censorship office — to these first three films? 

DB: All three encountered problems of varying severity. The problematic aspect of The Third Part of the Night is that it focuses on the role of the Armia Krajowa, or the Home Army. They are not workers, but intellectuals – writers, mathematicians, musicians. Of course, it is this officer class, these intellectuals, which the Soviet did their best to get rid of, during WWII (for example, in the Katyn massacre), immediately afterwards, and during the early 1950s at the height of Stalinism in Poland. So, by merely presenting this class, and the role they played in the War, it was considered an issue.

The situation with The Devil was more severe, as the film was banned in 1972 and was not released until the 1980s. Officially, the film was banned for upsetting Catholics. Unofficially, it was because the film alludes to the role of the minister of the interior in the student riots of March ’68 which resulted in a purge of Jews from the Polish Communist Party.

In the case of On the Silver Globe, the film was shut down towards the end of shooting, ostensibly for budgetary reasons. There are many reasons for the halting of On the Silver Globe. First, this happened before the visit of John Paul II, before the formation of Solidarity. Second, the head of cinematography, Janusz Wilhelmi, used the production problems of On the Silver Globe to take the place of Jozef Tejchma as Minister of Culture. Third, the Polish economy was in crisis during the second half of the ‘70s. Żuławski got very angry whenever anyone described On the Silver Globe as an extravagance. For me, the “unmaking” of On the Silver Globe is really about the cracks appearing in the Eastern Bloc.

Diabolique: It’s an interesting parallel that you’re drawing between Communism’s insistence on clear morality in art and Hollywood’s determination to have the same. It seems to me that the most interesting — or at least my favorite — filmmakers often explore moral gray areas. Why do you think this is such a constant theme in Żuławski’s films? 

DB: I think it has something to do with his generation. He was born in 1940 in Lwow. This means that, for his first four years, he was watching people die. Żuławski had a sister but she starved to death. Remember, existentialism as a philosophical and literary movement flourished as a consequence of the Second World War. Żuławski was very critical of Sartre, as you can tell from the dialogue in Cosmos, but he had more time for Heidegger, which he discusses at length in one of his novels, Infidelity. His hero was Conrad, and I think the way he looked at the world was very similar: man against a godless universe. He was fascinated by religion, but was not at all religious. If you don’t believe in God does that mean you have moral carte blanche? He was interested in the heart of darkness… He disliked horror as a genre, but was obviously very much interested in “the horror, the horror.” At the same time he rated The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alien, The Shining, and Carpenter’s The Thing very highly indeed.

Diabolique: The majority of Zuławski’s subsequent films were set in present day, while these first three Polish films are set in either the past or a fictional world. Do you think this has anything to do with the fact that they were made in Poland and funded by the government? 

DB: Well, period dramas were, as a rule, deemed “safer.” The problems were films which were period dramas about “now,” like The Devil or Ryszard Bugajski’s Interrogation. On the other hand, the films Żuławski made outside of Poland were usually subject to budgetary pressures. I think he often turned this restraint to his advantage; take Cosmos, for example. On the one hand, I don’t think there was ever a question of the film being set during the time it is set, simply from an economic point of view. On the other hand, like L’amour braque and La fidélité, I think the strength of Cosmos is how Żuławski transposes the novel to the present day.

Diabolique: You mentioned that Joseph Conrad was a major influence. Considering the other adaptations he did over the years, why didn’t he ever use Conrad’s work? Secret Agent is a personal favorite that I would have loved to see adapted by Żuławski. It also seems like subject matter that certainly would have been popular in Poland and I know a few other directors, like Wajda, did adapt some of his material. 

DB: Actually, he did write a script based on Heart of Darkness for Wajda to direct during the ‘60s. It was to be produced by Paramount. He changes the sex of one of the key characters, which makes sense in the context of Żuławski’s work as a whole. It was to be produced by one of Selznick’s sons.

Of course, Conrad is deceptively tricky when it comes to making film adaptations. Welles reached the same conclusion. What do you film? What Marlow says? Or, do you film Marlow telling the story? In his proposed version of Heart of Darkness, which in turn was based on his radio play, Welles tried to have his cake and eat it. Marlow, Conrad’s infamously unreliable narrator, is arguably the defining characteristic of Conrad’s modernism, but it does present problems for cinema.

Of course, you can do something like Rashomon, but the effect is not the same as when you read the book — although Żuławski does something brilliant at the end of Cosmos which has nothing to do with the book. Conrad figures a lot in Żuławski's novels. As for The Secret Agent, I think that book is as much an influence on La femme publique as Dostoevsky’s Demons.

Żuławski himself was very critical of Apocalypse Now. For him, Coppola or Milius misunderstood the book. “The horror, the horror” was unbound by place, it was something that could be brought home so to speak. For a while I worked with Żuławski on a script that touched upon the French-Indochina War, and we talked a lot about this. He was very keen on De Niro’s character in The Deer Hunter. Żuławski thought there was a lot more Conrad in Cimino’s film than there was in Coppola’s.

Diabolique: Though you mention that you don’t think any of Żuławski’s films are specifically political, On the Silver Globe seems at least historically bound up with a lot of changes in Polish politics. His uncle’s novel was written in the politically tumultuous first decade of the 20th century and the film was shot during a period of unrest in the mid-’70s. Do you think the film’s subject matter reflects these uniquely Polish historical events? 

DB: First, Żuławski’s film of his great uncle’s book is in no way a straight adaptation. The female characters are pretty useless and the astronauts even bring dogs with them to the moon. This is understandable for a book written a hundred years ago, but it was obviously going to be a problem for audiences in the 1970s. Second, in terms of its message so to speak, there is nothing about On the Silver Globe which is “against” communism as such.

It is not a “spiritual” film like, for example, the work of Tarkovsky. Rather, its subject is spirituality, or our predisposition towards religion, and where that leads us, namely acting and politics.

Both the book and the film are awfully bleak, and like you say, this has something to do with the times they were written. Spengler’s Decline of the West, while largely forgotten today, made a big impact during the first couple of decades of the last century, i.e. immediately after the First World War.

Żuławski’s film has that great scene with the girl on the beach just questioning basic ethical principles upon which to live: Is it right to do this? Is it wrong to do that? On what or whose authority? There is nothing anti-Communist about that. Like Communism, it presents religion as an essentially social development. A good communist sci-fi would present religion as a stage one overcomes to reach some socialist Utopian goal (this is implied in the book of Hard to be a God, i.e. “why is this idiot planet stuck in the dark ages?”).

On the Silver Globe, on the other hand, presents the astronaut as the victim of a religion, which is acting politically — which is arguably something it has in common with German’s film of Hard to Be a God.

Diabolique: Why do you think Żuławski wanted to return to Poland and resume making movies there after so many years in France? 

DB: Because of the collapse of Communism. He returned to Poland in the early ‘90s. It is important to remember that Szamanka is generally considered by Polish critics to be one of the worst films ever made. This says a lot about Polish film critics. One thing which is important to remember is that when the script was refused funding by Polish television, Żuławski turned to private investors both in Poland and from abroad. Whatever anyone thinks of Szamanka, I think this is an important gesture.

Milos Forman said that the difference between filmmaking under Communism and in Hollywood was that the fate of your film depended on the opinion of one fart in the case of the former and the public in the case of the latter.

Diabolique: What would you like to see happen with his legacy? 

DB: Żuławski’s legacy is thirteen incredible films. There is not one dud. Sure, some are more interesting than others, but none, I think, are failures. Personally, I think he is up there with, Lynch or Aleksei German. Of his generation in Poland, he stands alongside Polanski and Skolimowski. Frankly, for me, with one or two exceptions, Kieslowski’s films are generally overrated. Agnieszka Holland is a safe pair of hands, which is why she excels in US TV, where the writer is king or queen. I don’t think Zanussi has made a good film in almost forty years.

In Poland, Żuławski’s reputation suffered because of the scandals surrounding his private life and his non too subtle opinions expressed in his books. However, now that he is no longer with us I hope Polish audiences in particular actually look at his films and learn to appreciate what a talent he was.

Andrzej Wajda runs a film school in Warsaw. On the walls are inspirational quotes from Paulo Coelho. Żuławski once said that if he ever ran a film school he would force students to watch Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood. I know which school I would have picked.

Originally written for Diabolique.

Interview with Michael Brooke on Walerian Borowczyk

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Michael Brooke, a writer, editor, and Blu-ray/DVD producer who has done some great work with Arrow Films and the BFI. Alongside Daniel Bird, he was instrumental in putting together Arrow's fantastic recent Borowczyk set, Camera Obscura, and was kind enough to talk about Arrow's ongoing Borowczyk releases (including some future hopefuls.

Satanic Pandemonium: How did Arrow settle on the titles included in the Camera Obscura set? 

Michael Brooke: The original plan was just to release the titles owned outright by Ligia Borowczyk (his widow aka the star of Goto, Island of Love and Blanche).  In other words, the shorts from Le Concert (1962) to The Phonograph (1969) and the features Theatre of Mr. & Mrs. Kabal and Blanche. But then we discovered that the UK rights had expired on the three Argos features, and Immoral Tales and The Beast were clearly the most attractive titles in the entire collection, so we added those -- and having licensed the features, it made sense to get the shorts too.  Handily, the bulk of the first half of Borowczyk's career is represented by just two rights holders, so it all slotted very neatly into place.

SP: I'm particularly interested in the shorts. It's fantastic to have so many of them together, but what prevented the collection from being complete?

MB: The major omissions are the Polish shorts from 1957-8.  We originally planned to include them, but as of 2013-14 they were only available in standard definition masters, and had been earmarked for restoration by the Filmoteka Narodowa in Warsaw -- so it made sense to wait.  In a completely ideal world, a future Arrow project would be an all-Polish disc with those shorts and his only Polish feature Story of Sin (which is also being restored), but that hasn't been formally green-lit yet.

There are other titles listed in his filmography as "short films", but they're mostly things like Holy Smoke and The Museum -- TV commercials and similar sponsored films made as rent-paying jobs.  It's the six Polish films that are the most important omissions as far as "films de Borowczyk" go.

SP: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne is an absolutely amazing release. How did Arrow settle on this title and why wasn't it included in the set?

MB: Dr. Jekyll had to be released separately because the project was so expensive to develop in its own right -- we had to go back to the original negative by necessity, since there wasn't a suitable video master. And the only way of justifying the cost was to make it a dual UK/US release, which wasn't true of the box set (Arrow doesn't have the US rights to those titles).  I'm also very glad we waited on that title because it meant that we could pull all the stops out in a way that we simply wouldn't have had time to do if it had been part of the box.  Even as recently as February, I doubted that we'd be able to bring it off with absolutely no compromises, but we managed it!

SP: Can we expect any more Borowczyk releases in the future?

MB: I hope so, but nothing has been formally green-lit as yet.  I'd say the most likely followup would be The Story of Sin and the Polish shorts.  We'd love to do The Margin (aka The Streetwalker) but the rights are a nightmare.  But in all honesty the only title we've absolutely ruled out is Emmanuelle 5 because it's crap (and Borowczyk didn't even direct most of it).

SP: And last, but not least, do you have a favorite Borowczyk film?

MB: I think his most perfectly achieved film is Blanche, but my favourite will always be Dr. Jekyll -- and not just because it was my first.

Thanks Michael! I hope winter 2015 and 2016 will bring plenty more Borowczyk releases from Arrow. If you haven't you should pick up the existing Blu-rays as soon as possible (or as soon as your wallet allows). For more, read Michael's articles about Borowczyk's five best films and 10 great Polish films (plus find more on his Arrow page, linked above) -- he is a fount of knowledge.

Interview with Daniel Bird on Walerian Borowczyk

If Daniel Bird’s name isn’t familiar to you, then you likely don’t know much about cult cinema, particularly of the Eastern European persuasion. This British-born cinephile has spent much of the last years living in Poland and he’s one of the world’s foremost experts on Polish expat directors like Walerian Borowczyk and Andrzej Zuławski. He wrote a book on Roman Polanski, has written for the illustrious Eyeball, and is all over plenty of DVD/Blu-ray special features, including Arrow’s Borowczyk box set, which he helped produce. Bird also recently curated the Borowczyk retrospective at the Lincoln Center this April, which is where I had the pleasure to meet him. He let me pick his brain for a bit about Borowczyk's fantastic work.

Satanic Pandemonium: What first drew you to Borowczyk? Not simply the first film you saw, but what about his directing style attracted you?

Daniel Bird: The way he conjures up atmosphere. Watching his films is like visiting new worlds.

SP: You’ve written/spoken about how you managed to track down Zuławski for an interview. What was it like trying to get ahold of Borowczyk?

DB: I took the plane to Warsaw, visited 61 Pulawska Street, where all the former Communist film studios are situated, entered the office of TOR, which produced Story of Sin, and asked for Borowczyk's number. Amazingly, they gave it to me. I immediately called him on a pay phone – this was 1997. I can't say he was thrilled.

SP: Do you have a favorite film of his?

DB: Story of Sin if I am in a good mood, Angels' Games if I am in a bad one.

SP: How did the Arrow project get started? Why were those films in particular included in the set?

DB: Ligia Borowczyk had the rights to nine shorts and two features. However, she did not have materials. I had approached a number of distributors over the years with the idea of distributing Ligia's titles but without success. In 2012 Francesco Simeoni contacted me about producing extras for some titles. I mentioned these Borowczyk titles to him, and he said that he was about to relaunch the Arrow Academy brand, and that this might be the project to announce what the new Arrow Academy was all about. These titles were then combined with those produced by Argos Films, which conveniently covered all of Borowczyk's work, excluding his work in Poland.

SP: Out of his remaining films, is there one in particular that you would really love to see get a special edition release?

DB: I would like to see Story of Sin and the Polish shorts released, as well as La Marge.

SP: I have something of a fascination for male directors' and their relationship with their muses/wives, so I was wondering if you could say anything about Ligia Branice? She seems to be Borowczyk's muse early on, but her appearances in his films trickles off, though I believe they remained married until his death.

DB: Ligia was Borowczyk's wife, muse and collaborator. She was born in Krasnystaw, a town in Eastern Poland, not far from the Ukrainian border. Ligia comes from a noble family. After the War, she moved to Krakow with her mother. They met in Krakow, when Borowczyk was studying at the Academy of Fine Arts and Ligia was still at school. During the mid 1950s they moved to Warsaw, where Borowczyk designed posters and Ligia studied acting. Ligia, of course, appeared in many of Borowczyk's early short films – Dom, Les Astronautes, Rosalie, etc. She also produced the drawings which form the basis of Le dictionnaire du Joachim. Ligia plays a key role in Goto, and Borowczyk conceived of Blanche as a film for her. Originally, she was supposed to play Ewa Pobratynska, the heroine of Story of Sin. However, the character in the book is around twenty, and Ligia was over forty, so she ultimately declined the role. Of course, this genre, if it can be called that, has trouble accommodating middle aged women. That said, Ligia's final film, Interno di un convento (Behind Convent Walls), is one hell of a swan song.

Thanks Daniel!

If you want to be a fraction of the Borowczyk and European cinema scholar Daniel is, check out the following:

A written interview on Borowczyk with CineOutsider and a video interview

An interview with Spectacular Optical on Borowczyk

A great interview with Moon in the Gutter on a number of topics

Slant Magazine’s article on Bird’s short Borowczyk documentaries

His essay on Goto, the Island of Love for Vertigo

Snippets from Borowczyk’s archive on Bird’s blog

THE OPENING OF MISTY BEETHOVEN and Interview with Distribpix

Radley Metzger, 1976

Starring: Constance Money, Jamie Gillis, Jacqueline Beudant, Gloria Leonard, Terri Hall

Though I’ve reviewed a lot of Radley Metzger films over the last month or so, his masterpiece is undoubtedly The Opening of Misty Beethoven, a hilarious, erotic take on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, which also inspired the more famous Audrey Hepburn vehicle My Fair Lady. A sexologist, Dr. Seymour Love, is picked up by a cheap prostitute in Paris and decides to challenge himself and see if he can turn her into a high class, talented mistress of sex. The titular Misty Beethoven goes through a variety of training sequences until she is ready for her first test - seducing a gay artist. During this time she realizes that she has feelings for Love, but he frequently puts her down, obsessed with his own skill as a sexologist. Her ultimate goal is to seduce a famous jet setter and become the year’s Goldenrod Girl (kind of like Playboy Playmate of the Year).  

After she successfully accomplishes this, Love again congratulates himself and insults Misty. When she leaves, he realizes that he is in love with her. Unlike the ending to Pygmalion, she returns to him, except in typical Metzger fashion, Misty is a strong female character and has to have the last word. She winds up taking over the sex school and writing the book that Love planned to write with him happily (and subserviently) at her side. 

The big budget and beautiful locations (Paris, Rome, New York) help to make this one of the most amazing porn films of all time. Despite the numerous sex scenes, this feels more like a ‘70s art house film that happens to include sex in its plot, rather than simply a sex film stretching to fill its running time with loosely constructed plot material. There is a real script and developed characters that we come to care about. This also has some of the finest moments of Metzger’s trademark humor and satire. These elements are typically absent from sex films, but definitely makes Misty Beethoven (and the work of a handful of other directors like Deep Throat’s Gerard Damiano) stand out. One scene in particular involves Misty helping out a sex-challenged man at the opera. While they have sex, the “William Tell Overture” plays to great effect. The soundtrack in general is very well done, with one track oddly sounding like one of the Goblin songs from Dario Argento’s Suspiria. 

The acting is surprisingly wonderful. The innocent-looking, beautiful Constance Money is perfect as Misty Beethoven and I can’t imagine anyone else in the role. The late, great Jamie Gillis is wonderful as Dr. Love. Shaw’s Colonel Pickering character, Henry Higgins’ associate, is transformed into Geraldine Rich, Dr. Love’s friend, played by the lovely Jacqueline Beudant. There are also some great supporting roles from porn regular Terri Hall, Ras Kean, Gloria Leonard, and Casey Donovan as the gay artist. 

There is a lot of sex in this film. Though there are some scenes that advance the plot forward, probably 75% of the film involves at least basic sex acts. This runs the gamut of heterosexual and lesbian sex, though there are almost constant blow jobs, because that is the act in particular that Misty has to master. Metzger enjoyed experimentation in his films and this was the first porn film with a major theatrical release to feature pegging (Misty fucks the jet setter with a strap on while he is having sex with his wife)! The great mix of traditional and experimental, humorous and erotic sex is one of the many things that sets this incredible film apart. 

The wonderful, dedicated Distribpix rescued Misty Beethoven for a lovely, crowd-funded Blu-ray that is probably the most impressive release of 2012. The print was taken directly from Metzger himself and lovingly restored with his supervision. Two versions of Misty Beethoven are available, the “hot” or XXX print, and the “cool” or softcore version. Distribpix has also returned the film to its original 1.85.1 aspect ratio and presented it in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer. Another reason this release is well worth the purchasing price is because of the amount of extras. Beginning with a very insightful commentary track from Metzger himself, there is a second track with High Society publisher Gloria Leonard that serves as a good introduction to ‘70s sex films. 

The 45 minute documentary Behind the Scenes of Misty is indispensable for fans of the film, as is the final interview with co-star Jamie Gillis before his 2010 death. There is a featurette showing the restoration process of the film, plus a “Pop Up Video” style subtitle track that shares information about Misty Beethoven while you watch it. There are also dozens of outtakes, deleted scenes, radio spots, posters, promotional material, and trailers. The 60 page booklet is also a great read and has some essays about Misty and porn chic from Benson Hurst, as well as some collectible cards. I simply cannot say enough good things about either this film or the Distribpix release and both come with the highest recommendation. 

Steven from Distribpix was kind enough to answer a few questions about how The Opening of Misty Beethoven Blu-ray release came to be. 

Satanic Pandemonium: This Misty Beethoven release is amazing. Why did you seek out crowd funding to make it possible?

Distribpix: We really sought out crowd funding to help boost the awareness of the film's restoration, as well as raise some of the money to go toward the Blu-ray process, which is so darn expensive.

SP: How did you make the incredible amount of extras happen?

DP: The amount of extras all happened because we took our time, dedicated hundreds of hours to the project and had the cooperation of some great people all over the world, like our team of language translators and historians.

SP: Was it difficult to get the rights for the film?

DP: The rights to the film were obtained when Distribpix entered into a license agreement with Metzger for the films.

SP: What releases are on the horizon for Distribpix?

DP: Many releases are on the horizon - mainly Metzger's next film, Barbara Broadcast, and many other films that have been recently transferred in HD.

SP: What is your dream movie to have restored on Blu-ray?

DP: When you say dream movie, I am assuming you mean 'adult film' from our archive, if so, I would say that I am looking forward to restore the 1976 classic, Through The Looking Glass, by Jonas Middleton. I have the elements and it has a grand cult following. With some kool extras and custom art, it might be a great package.

SP: What’s your favorite adult film?

DP: As for my favorite adult film, that is so hard to say. For now I will just say Misty Beethoven!! I also love Weston's Take Off and Chuck Vincent’s Roommates. 

Thanks to Steven and Distribpix for such dedication and such an amazing release! I can't wait to see what they do with Barbara Broadcast, my second favorite Metzger film after Misty Beethoven. 

Portal: Interview with The Curator and Review of Vexovoid

Generally categorized as death metal or blackened death, if you’ve never heard Portal before, I’m hard-pressed to describe their chaotic sound. They’ve built up a cult following over the years and metal fans seem to either obsessively love them or wring their hands in consternation because they don't understand what the hell is going on. Chances are if you like Morbid Angel, Immolation, Beherit, Mitochondrion, or Deathspell Omega, you will enjoy Portal, though they are not exactly like any of those bands. Or any band ever, except maybe Impetuous Ritual, which is loosely a Portal side project. Basically if you've never heard Portal and you like your metal weird, they come highly, highly recommended. 

Began in Brisbane, Australia by The Curator (vocals) and Horror Illogium (lead guitar) in 1994, everyone in Portal uses an alias and wears a mask of some kind to obscure their normal appearance (typically executioner’s hoods). The Curator became famous for wearing a clock mask on his head, but has retired it for a demented pope’s habit and a tattered wizard’s hat, among other things. The Curator and Horror Illogium are currently joined by Aphotic Mote (rhythm guitar), Ignis Fatuus (drums), and Omenous Fugue (bass). 

Vexovoid is their fourth studio album and follows 2009’s Swarth. It sticks pretty closely to their traditional sound: distorted, swirling, down-tuned guitars, disorienting sound effects, guttural, menacing vocals and an overall unfriendly atmosphere. This is bleak, extreme metal that evokes real feelings of horror, chaos, and disorientation. The album is not a huge departure from Swarth, so fans will not be disappointed, but it is also new and complex enough to warrant me listening to it several times in one week. Everyone else should keep in mind that Portal is, to put it mildly, an acquired taste. If you want to be actively challenged (if not outright threatened) by music, listen to the album here and buy it on Amazon or through Profound Lore. The amazing cover art is from the Reverend Kriss Hades and the album is comprised of seven tracks and is surprisingly short, at about 35 minutes. It was released on February 19th by Profound Lore. 

The Curator was kind enough to cross the internet-space-time continuum and answer a few questions about the new album. 

Satanic Pandemonium: So far Vexovoid is my favorite album of 2013. Can you talk about the inspiration behind it and how it progresses what you are trying to do with Portal?

The Curator: Vexovoid was developed and fueled from our own lore. No outer references tarnished its conception, as is with 90% of our works.

SP: How do you summon up the kind of atmosphere you need to write and record?

TC: Portal is merely our interpretation of Death Metal, which we think should be dark.

SP: Your music has always felt very cinematic to me and I’ve read that you have many influences outside of music, such as the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. Can you name any other inspirations?

TC: We are not a Lovecraftian Band. We only borrowed from the Mythos in our infancy and had reference themes on several tracks.

SP: Your live shows are very stylized. Where do you get ideas for your various costumes and how are these produced?

TC: All regalia is out sourced through various global merchants. The way we present ourselves physically is merely an accompaniment for our Aural spectrum.

SP: Seeing Portal at Maryland Death Fest was one of my absolute favorite shows. Do you have a favorite city to play in or a favorite show to date?

TC: America was an eye opener for certain with Portland and Seattle being highlights for myself.

SP: I'm sure everyone who has heard the new album wants to know: When are you coming back to the U.S.?

TC: We would like to cross the divide again in the future; however, I cannot place a date on it. Thank you for your Time and support.

SP: Thanks again! I hope I get to see you guys live sometime in 2013.

I also had to include this: The Top Ten Most Ridiculous Things Written on the Internet About Portal This Month from Chips and Beer. Visit Portal on Facebook. Happy listening, or, rather, very unhappy and possibly sanity unraveling listening. 

Algernon Blackwood: An Interview with Andrew McQuade about Blackwood's Uncollected Fiction

“When common objects in this way be come charged with the suggestion of horror, they stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance; and these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed for me in the darkness a bizarre grotesquerie of appearance that lent to them somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us.”

Algernon Blackwood, “The Willows”

Algernon Blackwood is one of the finest and most prolific English fiction writers specializing in horror and weird tales. He was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn along with fellow weird fiction writer Arthur Machen. Blackwood’s interest in nature and the occult informs his fiction, which is less directly terrifying and more subtly scary. Much could be (and probably has been) written about Blackwood’s work in the context of the sublime. Though he primarily wrote short fiction, he also penned novels, children’s books, plays, articles, journalistic essays, prefaces, book reviews and more, and later made radio and television appearances. Unlike more popular writers like the earlier Edgar Allen Poe or the later H.P. Lovecraft, Blackwood’s work has never been collected in its entirety. 

I highly, highly recommend checking out some of his short fiction. Here are some places to start, both online and in print:

Recommended Books:

Best Ghost Stories - a great collection of Blackwood stories; probably the best place to start if you’re a newcomer. 

Ancient Sorceries - another Blackwood short fiction collection, edited by S.T. Joshi. 

Here’s a list of all Blackwood’s available books on Amazon

Mike Ashley’s Blackwood biographries Starlight Man and Algernon Blackwood: A Bio-Bibliography

H.P. Lovecraft’s Supernatural Horror in Literature

S.T. Joshi’s The Weird Tale

Jack Sullivan’s Elegant Nightmares 

Peter Penzoldt’s Supernatural in Fiction

Recommended Websites:

Algernon Blackwood at Project Gutenberg

More Blackwood Stories for free online

Algernon Blackwood Society

Literary Gothic

I recently interview Andrew McQuade - academic, writer and weird fiction fan - about his research on Blackwood and his attempts to collect and read every Blackwood short story. Andrew and I met a couple of years ago at the Dead By Dawn horror film festival in Edinburgh. When I heard he was doing some extensive research on the uncollected works of Algernon Blackwood, I thought it would be a great way to kick off a series about horror writers, particularly the ones slipping through the cracks for newer audiences. Andrew studied at the University of Wales and received a BA in Film and Television and a MA in Audience and Reception Studies.

We sat down (over the internet) and had a wonderful, lengthy chat about the importance of Blackwood and why he is still relevant today. 

Satanic Pandemonium: Why are you qualified to talk about Blackwood?

Andrew McQuade: I have always been fascinated by the experience of being scared. Which isn’t necessarily the same as horror, although horror is certainly the most obvious place to look for this experience. I spent 2008 to 2010 writing for a British horror magazine and, one day, opportunity knocked on my door and I was made part of the regular staff. Working in and around horror every day is every horror fan’s dream, but the experience was ultimately so traumatic that I frankly swore I never wanted anything to do with the genre again. 

And yet, some strange thing drew me back to writers like Blackwood, Le Fanu and James and the guys who, on page, gave me what I’d always wanted from horror – to be scared. It’s worth remembering that for all the negativity in the horror scene on a professional level, the strength and emotional power of its best practitioners is far greater. Blackwood played a big part in turning horror into something enjoyable for me again and, as a result, I’ve spent the last few years collecting as much Blackwood as I could, reading about him, and basically spreading the word of this wonderful man (he was a secret agent in WWI don’t ya know). Call it a moral obligation of sorts, to the fellow who saved me from turning my back on what is, after all, a wonderful thing.

SP: How did you get into horror literature and Blackwood in particular?

AM: Like most folks, my entry to horror literature was a rather cliché one. Some time in my teens I ill-advisedly became convinced Stephen King was the greatest thing in the universe. From him I worked back through all the other canonical and non-canonical writers. Around the same time, I developed a massive interest in folklore and the esoteric, particularly of my own native England, and became drawn to those writers who used this as an influence. I’d found the work of Lovecraft surprisingly empty, in as much as the Elder Gods weren’t rooted in any genuine folk-reality, the remnants of which scatter England profusely. It was all too outré to scare me. But in some of the authors that inspired him, I think particularly Machen and Blackwood, there is that same sense of cosmic mystery, but handled with a more genuine sense of folk realism, and a much more subtle prose style. 

In Blackwood, we have this amazing sense of the wonder of nature and the universe, and its indifference to humanity, which is neither good nor evil. This much he has in common with the Lovecraftian school, except with the difference I think that there is far less misanthropy in Blackwood. He cares about his characters, indeed he always maintained they were based very much on people he knew. And so, whilst there is definitely a philosophical depth to his work, his characters aren’t just ‘labels for ideas,’ which you get a lot in horror, especially horror attempting to be socially relevant. I’ve always seen social relevance as a ‘nice-to-have,’ but we don’t still read Beowulf for that reason. We re-read it because it delivers the goods on an emotional level first and foremost.

Blackwood’s latter work in particular is very interesting because it’s almost as if he’s not directly trying to frighten you, but evoke this mysterious sense of awe. The consequence of this is to be frightened. He was, thus, a master of the indirect, arguably more so than M.R. James, and in doing so was the obvious precursor to the likes of Walter De La Mare and Robert Aickman. Blackwood really has it all – at his best he’s really scary, but his sense of love for nature and people never fades. He was, I think, the master of creating a natural interest and a supernatural interest in his stories, to equal degrees.

SP: What are some of your favourite Blackwood collections and resources?

AM: Literary Gothic is one of the best, if not THE best, websites for horror of the pre-war period. However it is quite academic, and one might argue inaccessible to the casual fan. There are a number of Blackwood collections still in print. E.F. Bleier’s Best Ghost Stories is somewhat ill-titled as ‘ghost stories’ doesn’t really sum up Blackwood with remote effectiveness. This contains fan favourites like ‘The Willows’ and ‘The Wendigo,’ both of which are supremely scary woodland horrors (copied by just about every ‘lost in the forest’ horror movie). Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi’s Ancient Sorceries is also very well edited. Peter Penzoldt’s Supernatural in Fiction is another good starting point for the curious.

The most erudite man in the field of Blackwood is Mike Ashley, who published Blackwood’s biography Starlight Man as well as Algernon Blackwood: A Bio-Bibliography, which contains details on everything Blackwood wrote and where to find it. He also collected a hit and miss collection of unpublished Blackwood in the late eighties for the Equation Chillers range. Jack Sullivan’s Elegant Nightmares is one of the best studies of English supernatural horror, including extensive focus on Blackwood. Of course H.P. Lovecraft sang Blackwood’s praises in his excellent essay Supernatural Horror in Literature and S.T. Joshi has also written on him. 

The problem with much of this material is that its emphasis is purely on the intellectual and thematic, not on technique or the emotionality of the writing. When I’m reading horror my curiosity is always on ‘how was this effect achieved’? That’s the most burning question in my mind, which scholarly works always ignore since, sadly, scholars seem to be intellectually very gifted but emotionally illiterate for the most part.

SP: Amen. I would agree enthusiastically with all of these. Literary Gothic got me into a lot of writers I otherwise would have never known about and that Best Ghost Stories collection introduced me to Blackwood. Can you talk about why Blackwood is so neglected and why all of his works aren't printed in different fancy editions like the works of other horror writers such as Poe, Stoker and Lovecraft?

AM: Copyright. In the U.K., an author’s work goes out of copyright 70 years after their death. Most publishers, rather than pay the author’s family’s estate money, would rather just wait. I’ve heard tell from a number of sources that certain representatives of certain estates of certain authors have placed extraordinarily greedy demands on any works reissued. You can read into that what you will, but ultimately we’re the ones who lose out. 

The main problem with all facets of horror, however, is that it’s dictated purely by commercial factors. There is very minimal state support for horror in the way that there is for certain other genres or causes. Recently, some of the made-for-TV horror from the BBC in the ‘70s has been reissued by the British Film Institute, but it’s very much a genre held to ransom by commercial whim. All the power in horror is held by an extremely conservative horror establishment, especially so in film, which means it’s very hard to actually get scared nowadays. Finding good material, in literature or film, takes a hell of a lot of searching. More searching than most of us, with day jobs and other commitments, have time for.

SP: This is a good explanation for why Hollywood would rather do lousy remakes of ‘80s horror classics and churn out 16 Saw sequels than risk investing in anything new. 

You’ve done a lot of work recently on completing the short fiction section in Blackwood’s Wikipedia page. Why did you decide to research his so far uncollected and poorly researched short fiction?

AM: A lot has been done on Blackwood. Mike Ashley has done some wonderful things over the years and I cannot sing his praises enough. However, his research remains pretty much only within the reach of the die-hards. I’ve added bits and pieces to Wikipedia because I think everyone should be able to enjoy this work, not just collectors with bucket loads of cash to spare. That’s a kind of cultural elitism I object to. What’s needed is an institution of some sort to promote horror without the trappings of commercial necessity. Such institutes exist, for example, for gay and lesbian fiction/film, yet there’s nothing for horror. There are those who will say that horror is unimportant in the grand scheme, but it’s important in the small scheme, and it’s important to me. And I hate the way all that is great in horror is constantly brushed aside for the mediocrity enforced by the horror-establishment.

Blackwood wrote well over 200 short stories, in fact, closer to 250. The bulk of this was collected in his lifetime, though some of these are easier to get hold of than others. I had to go to a few different libraries to find Shocks, his final collection, and The Doll and One Other was only released in the U.S. (although both tales from that collection have been issued in the U.K. in other collections). Several tales appeared in periodicals like Pall Mall Magazine, which are kept by the British Library, who keeps a copy of every book published in the U.K. and has a vast collection of Victorian and Edwardian periodicals. The harder ones to get hold of are published in newspapers, for which I’ve had to visit specialist libraries like The British Newspaper Library in Colindale. Beyond Ashley’s book, I’ve gone through periodical indexes to see if I could find outstanding stories. What little I have found has been non-horror - Blackwood also wrote sentimentalism and, at the height of the war, propaganda pieces. In total, there are about 30 or so uncollected works. There are at least five pieces of worthy consideration that weren’t collected by Ashley in the late eighties though and I hope there are still more. It’s a wonderful feeling when you come across something that nobody has probably read in decades.

What I hope to do with Blackwood’s collected fiction, when the time is right, is put it out into the public domain, along with various other writers whose works I’ve collected. Their materials will all be annotated, arranged into order of publication, and accompanied with critical commentaries. I’d also like to include some illustrations to give them a visual appeal that will attract a larger audience. This is really how the horror establishment has kept the likes of Poe and Lovecraft alive in the public consciousness for so long and so well. I need to get more people on board to help me with this, then we can distribute this stuff on the net. The challenge is finding people who also want to keep this project free from commercialism, which has basically killed horror. 

SP: Has Blackwood left any sort of legacy other than his collected and uncollected writing?

AM: It would appear that Blackwood was quite the radio celebrity in his latter years and wrote additional tales for radio that were never put in print! Mike Ashley collected one, “Lock Your Door,” which is quite good. You can only get the scripts/production notes at the BBC, but it’s still an exciting development. He also wrote a number of novels, including children’s, mostly of a supernatural character. As for his essays, letters, book reviews, and other published materials, you could spend a lifetime going into this. He really was incredibly prolific. 

SP: So what’s next?

AM: I can't magic Blackwood back into publication, but I can at least show people where this stuff is. Until I posted on Wikipedia, you had to read his bio-bibliography to find this information, which is like £50 a pop and puts it out of reach of most people. And I think that's unfair. Blackwood shouldn't just be the property of the elite. He wrote for everyone and everyone should still be able to enjoy him. 

I've exhausted all the literary sources, and now have all of his printed weird tales (bar one, which the British Library is currently photocopying for me). The next stage will be to go through his auto-biography, and various other secondary reading, and prepare annotations. A good day for weird fiction!

SP: Thanks so much! Please keep us posted about your efforts. And thanks for sharing this final link, Ghost Stories for Christmas: The Definitive Collection. This BFI collection contains adaptations from a variety of classic horror writers and is the perfect holiday gift for every horror fan!

House of Psychotic Women: Interview with Kier-La Janisse

 

This Wednesday, November 28th, Kier-La Janisse is coming to Philadelphia to introduce her new book, House of Psychotic Women, and to screen the Spanish horror film Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll. Presented by Joseph Gervasi (of Exhumed Films and Diabolik DVD), the event will be held at the Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art, a great new space that has had a lot of exciting film, art and music events in the last year. Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (Carlos Aured, 1974) stars Paul Naschy and concerns a serial killer and three very odd sisters. Its alternative title, House of Psychotic Women, inspired the title for Janisse’s book. Doors are at 7:30 pm and the event is $8.

Janisse is extensively involved in the North American horror community. She’s been a contributing writer for Rue Morgue, Fangoria, Filmmaker and others, and has already published one book with horror/cult publishers FAB Press, A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi. She’s co-produced the documentary EUROCRIME! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ‘70s and been the subject of the documentary Celluloid Horror. Janisse has programmed films at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse and Fantastic Fest, at Canada’s CineMuerte horror film festival, etc. She edited Fantasia International Film Festival’s former online magazine Spectacular Optical and founded The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. She also founded and curated the now-defunct Montreal film center, Blue Sunshine. Learn more about her at her personal site, Big Smash! Productions. 

House of Psychotic Women is an autobiographical study of female neurosis in horror and exploitation cinema. Probably the first book of its kind, House has been getting rave reviews and I’m very excited to read and review it myself. On Wednesday, Janisse will bring copies of her book to sell and will answer questions about it and Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll. 

Janisse was kind enough to answer some questions about her book, recent film screenings and future projects. 

Satanic Pandemonium: How are you choosing films for your recent book tour/appearances? I believe all the screenings so far are covered in your book, but do you follow any other criteria?

Kier-La Janisse: So far all the films are things that are covered in the book, but there is some talk about doing it at some festivals tied in to new films that fit the theme, which I've discovered people are a lot more interested in than I had anticipated. A lot of times when I select the films, or give programmers a selection to choose from (it mostly tends to be a collaboration with the programmers for those venues, more so than me just being an outside curator), I'm looking for films that I feel don't get enough play on the big screen or that are representative of some of the major themes in the book: destructive familial/pseudo-familial relationships, overcoming childhood trauma, and the externalization of that trauma as a physical being or force. Or else, as in the case of The Entity, which I've selected for a few events, it relates directly to my retelling of a personal story in the book. Of course you also have to think about the draw of the film, so sometimes I don't pick certain films that are major entries in the book (Antichrist, Possession, The Piano Teacher) because they get frequent bookings for the big screen already, or have had their theatrical release too recently, which isn't as interesting for programmers as playing something rare.

SP: What are a few of your favorite films that you wrote about in House of Psychotic Women?

KJ: Well, The Piano Teacher for sure. Frighteningly, the character of Erica Kohut is one I can relate to a lot, and thinking about her keeps me in check. Obviously if I was just like her I wouldn't have written this book, but I do sometimes relate to the characters that are the most exaggerated reflections of my own issues. The Brood, Antichrist and Possession I think of as a triptych: they're really all the same film, and I love them all. I love The Haunting of Julia and Marnie. Marnie is totally fucked up, but very fun to write about. And Rebecca - actually one of my big regrets about the book is that I didn't cover more of the paranoid woman films from the ‘40s, but I just hadn't seen enough of them at the time. Films that have less to do with psychotic women but were in the book because of how they were important to me at a key age, like Born Innocent, Streetwise, Christiane F. and Out of the Blue, are also some of my favourites. And Toys Are Not For Children is completely disturbing and not very well known, so I'm programming that for an upcoming event at SF Indie. 

SP: As a fellow horror fan with a traumatic childhood, there were a few films that I saw at a relatively early age and really related to on that level. Many of them certainly fall within territory covered in your book, like The Stendhal Syndrome. Are there are films like this that affected you at an early age

KJ: Stendhal Syndrome came out when you were at an early age? Ha ha. I feel so old now. Well, Carrie was a big one. It's funny because although I talk in the book about relating to Carrie White, her mother is really the psychotic woman of the film. So the film's inclusion in the book is kid of two-fold. I read Carrie over and over again as a kid, I remember doing my book report on it multiple times throughout my schooling, all the way up to my graduating year! The Watcher in the Woods I found very scary, especially since it dealt with a missing girl named Karen, and that was the name of my sister who had run away from home. 

SP: You’ve become a pretty recognizable/well-known figure as a horror fan, writer and festival programmer. Can you talk a little about your overall experience being a woman within the mostly male-dominated horror genre?

KJ: I have?? Tell that to the distributors who don't call me back when I try to book films! Ha ha. Actually as far as my experience as a woman in the genre, the only time it ever even came up was one year at Fantastic Fest I had to be on the international team for their annual Fantastic Feud, and Paul McEvoy from Frightfest announced into the microphone in front of 300 people that our team had lost "because we have a girl on our team." I know now that he's not as bad as all that, but at the time I was furious. But other than that, I've never felt that anyone treated me differently. If anything, most of the male genre fans seem stoked when women accomplish things in the genre world.

SP: I’ve heard nothing but good things about your book so far. What kind of feedback have you been getting from horror fans?

KJ: I've only read a handful of reviews, which luckily have been good, but other than that, I sometimes see people recommending it on Facebook. Very few people have talked to me directly about it though - maybe it makes them uncomfortable. Some of my friends have told me they liked it, but I haven't heard much at all from people I don't know other than this handful of reviews I mentioned. BUT - Tim Lucas, who I don't really know personally but who's a genre legend from Video Watchdog and of course his mammoth Mario Bava book, raved about it on Facebook the day he got it in the mail, and that was stunning to me. That was a huge compliment to have Tim Lucas plug my book. Of course I'm still waiting for all the bad reviews from people who will think it's a self-indulgent pity-party, but I tried really hard to have some levity in the book so that it wouldn't come off that way. I definitely don't think my life has been as tough as some reviewers have made it out to be, but people adapt to different things I guess, it all depends on what you're used to. So it's been weird reading some reviews where people characterize my stepfather as a monster, but perhaps that's a failing in my writing that I don't convey enough how important he was to me. I would not be working in the genre now if it wasn't for him; despite our turbulent relationship he was the one who really made genre films a staple of my childhood. 

SP: What are your plans for the future, especially in terms of writing projects?

KJ: I have a few things I'm working on for other people's books - an essay on kids' horror films and children's spectatorship in the 1940s for a book called Fragments of the Monster: Recovering Forties Horror (being edited by Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare, Kristopher Woofter and Charlie Ellbe); working on some reviews and an essay for a book about Made-for-Television films that is being put out by Headpress, and I wrote an essay on Nelvana's The Devil and Daniel Mouse and Rock and Rule for a prospective Carlton University textbook which should come out next year. Aside from that, my own next book project will be called A Song From the Heart Beats the Devil Every Time (a line from The Devil and Daniel Mouse) about the effects of the counterculture era on children's programming, with a focus on the immediate post-counterculture years of the ‘70s, and going up through the ‘80s a bit. Basically just an excuse to spend the next few years watching fucked-up kids shows like Chocky. 

SP: I understand your small film venue, Blue Sunshine, was closed semi-recently. Do you miss it? And do you have any plans to do something similar in the future?

KJ: Well I loved Blue Sunshine, it was probably my best exercise in independent exhibition in terms of both personal fulfillment and community impact. Ultimately our overhead - rent and electricity - was too stifling; even when we went through months where almost every show was sold out we still somehow ended up in debt. But we were locked into a two-year lease, and so the cash flow just became more and more dire, and my partner and I were literally starving and selling our personal belongings just to make it through to the end of the lease. Once the lease was up, we were out of there - I think we could have made it work in a less expensive venue - we took on an expensive place for the central location and the fact that it was really well-maintained - but after the two years we were so burnt out form being broke that we needed time to recover. I don't know if I'll do it again - I do think it can work, but I've been doing it too long and put too much of my money into exhibition, now I want to just be one of the people that pays $5 to get in. Other people who aren't as jaded can take over where I left off, and in fact one of our former programmers and volunteers has started up something of his own called The Noah, so now I get to just go watch movies and not have to be the one putting it on.

Thanks so much, Kier-La! See you Wednesday.