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Aggielife
Film Festival reels
in variety of talent
The Blues Brothers is being shown on Friday, starring John Belushi and Dan Akroyd.
By Amy Protas
The Battalion
H uge Hollywood hits are a staple
of the local movie theaters. It’s
not every day, however, that stu
dents are able to experience indepen
dent and local filmmakers in the Bryan-
College Station area.
The 3rd annual Texas Film Festival
exposes students to those films that are
not commonplace at A&M.
In 1992, the chair of the MSC Film
Society decided he wanted to exhibit
films as an art form versus films as
pure escapist material.
Danny King, MSC Film Society chair
and a senior mechanical engineering
major, said the festival is the society’s
way of pursuing that vision.
“The festival is a fiye-day event
that brings independent and Holly
wood filmmakers to College Station to
exhibit their films,” King said. “It
gives us the opportunity to see films
that won’t be shown at the Hollywood
16 Theater. This is the only chance to
see these films.”
Film Society members take a year
to prepare for the festival. Directors
submit their films and are chosen over
the summer.
This year, the society is incorporat
ing new ideas to make the festival more
educational for the audience.
Amy Klinkovsky, MSC Film Society
vice chair and a senior journalism ma
jor, said the importance of the festival
is the knowledge students can obtain
by attending.
“The most important aspect is that
it exposes students to aspects that are
lacking on the A&M campus,”
Klinkovsky said. “We lack a radio,
film and TV department. This exposes
students to the film industry and
gives students the opportunity to ask
directors questions.”
A workshop on Saturday is new to
the festival this year. The director of
Seeking the Cafe Bob, Jeff Stolhand,
will talk about filmmaking in Texas
and how to coordinate casting and bud
geting for films.
This is also the first year Texas films
and short movies will be featured.
Among the short movies are The Hardly
Boys in Hardly Gold, featuring William
Wegman’s weimaraner dogs. The
Junky’s Christmas will be shown on
Wednesday. William S. Burrows nar
rates the film about a drug addict try
ing to get high on Christmas.
King said he is especially enthusiastic
about the Texas-made film, Jacklight.
“This is going to be it’s world pre
mier,” King said. “It was filmed in
Brenham with an Aggie as a producer.”
Jacklight chronicles six high school
friends whose lives are shaken up by a
death. The other Texas-made film is
■ Seeking the Cafe Bob, which was was
filmed in Austin.
In the past, directors Spike Lee,
Oliver Stone and John Waters have
been featured speakers at the festival.
This year, John Landis, director of The
Blues Brothers and Animal House, will
speak Friday.
King said the society chose Landis to
speak on Friday because he will attract
college audiences.
“We sat down this summer and came
up with a list of filmmakers we wanted
to come,” King said. “We looked at it
from a college aspect. What types of
films appeal to college students. He was
co-writer and director of The Blues
Brothers, so we call him ‘The Original
Blues Brother’.”
Wendy Vinzant, an MSC Film Soci
ety member and a senior environmental
design major, said Landis will be speak
ing for free.
“We used to go through the speaker
bureau that gives a list of speakers,”
Vinzant said. “John Landis contacted
us and mentioned that the academy
will send speakers and all we have to
pay is for food and their hotel. It’s really
exciting that there’s this program that
allows speakers to come.”
Landis will be bringing his own 35-
millimeter film of Michael Jackson’s
Thriller he directed in 1983.
Vinzant said the video will bring stu
dents back to their youth.
“We thought it would be a great
memory for the students,” Vinzant said.
“It’s an added bonus because it was
such a big thing when it came out.”
The festival will end with II Postino
(The Postman) on Sunday.
Scott Stevenson, a movie buff and a
senior management major, said he will
be attending the festival because it is a
unique opportunity at A&M.
“I think it’s one of the best things at
A&M,” Stevenson said. “They have a lot
of cultural things here with the Opera
and Performing Arts Society, but this is
something different. It’s another av
enue for filmmakers to present their
films without having to have a Holly
wood budget.”
Klinkovsky said she hopes students
will attend and experience films as an
art form.
“The main thing I would like people
to get out of this is films as an art
form,” Klinkovsky said. “There are so
many ways to do films. There is this
preconceived notion that you have to
go to New York or California, but you
don’t have to have a big budget to
make good films.”
Landis' career full of thrills and challenges
By Michael Landauer
The Battalion
S even Voyages of Sinbad was the first movie direc
tor John Landis ever saw.
“I came home and asked my mother, ‘Who does
that? Who makes the movies?”’ he said. “And she said,
‘The director.’ So at seven or eight, I knew what I
wanted to be when I grew up.”
Landis is speaking Friday night at the Texas Film
Festival before a viewing of his film. The Blues Brothers.
As a grown up, he has also directed Trading Places, An
imal House, Amazon Women on the Moon, Coming to
America and many others. But Landis’ career has not
been limited to directing.
“I’ve done every job you
can do on a set except light
ing director, director of pho
tography and I never was a
hairdresser,” he said. “And it
was very good for me.”
But menial jobs were also
good for Landis when he was
growing up in Los Angeles.
As a mail boy at 20th Centu
ry Fox Studios, Landis got his
first taste of production. He
worked around the sets of
such TV shows as Batman
and Lost in Space and movies
like Beneath the Planet of the Apes.
As a high school drop out, Landis admits he is not
the perfect example of success. He risked his life sav
ings, $30,000, to make his first movie, Schlock, in 1971.
“We just raised the money and made the film with
out a distribution company or anything,” he said. “It’s
a very foolish thing to do.”
It was six years until the release of Landis’ first
major studio production, Kentucky Fried Movie. Given
his success, Landis said people seem to forget these
years, thinking instead that his career just took off af
ter his first effort.
“Well bulls—t,” he said. “I made a movie at 21, but
the job I had after that was being a bus boy at Ham
burger Hamlet.”
Landis made it out of the chain restaurant busi
ness and now finds himself dealing with a complex
motion picture industry. Although he enjoyed a string
of successes in the early ’80s, his 1984 production,
Into the Night, taught him a valuable lesson about
the business.
“There are very few people in this country who can
actually do what they want,” he said. “You don’t have
the freedom or the power to do the movies you want
(after a failure).”
In discovering the reality
of the business, Landis
learned that the cliche that
you’re only as good as your
last picture is true.
“What is so hateful about
that is that ‘good’ in motion
picture industry terms only
means ‘money,’” he said.
When making The Twi
light Zone, an accident on the
set killed three people. Ac
cording to the FBI, the heli
copter involved crashed three
inches from where Landis was standing. Landis, along
with four others, were sued for reckless endangerment in
a long, sensationalized trial. The experience made Lan
dis form a strong opinion about media incompetence.
“People forget that journalism is in the same busi
ness as entertainment — you sell soap,” he said.
But the helicopter accident was not the first tragedy
Landis faced as a director. The death of John Belushi
had a large personal impact on Landis, who directed
Belushi in The Blues Brothers.
“John Belushi is someone I adored — I loved him,”
Landis
he said. “And on
The Blues
Brothers, some of it
was very difficult
because he was a
drug addict, and
we were concerned
he was going to die.
And that was very
difficult, both
work-wise and
emotionally.”
Landis said he has
known others who have dealt with addiction and that
the experience helped him deal with those people.
“The only analogy I can think of is you’re standing
on a pier and some guy’s drowning,” he said. “So you
offer your hand, and they won’t take it. You throw a
rope, and they won’t take it.
“You put a boat in the water, and they won’t take
it. You jump in, try to save them, and they punch
you in the face. You do everything you can, and the
guy drowns.”
Despite attempts to help, Landis said some stories
will always end tragically.
“There’s an incredible feeling of helplessness, and ul
timately it is up to the individual,” he said. “And John’s
story was truly tragic because this is a great guy.”
Landis said he encourages students to ask him
about his experiences at Friday’s program, even if
questions seem too personal.
“People should know that they can ask me anything
and I’ll answer candidly,” he said. “It sounds like bad
advertising, but you are the future and anything I can
do to help.”
He also said he had a great time making The Blues
Brothers despite the tragic story of Belushi’s death.
“I don’t want to make it sound like it was difficult all
the time — just sometimes John was f—ked up,” he said.
“But we had a lot of fun making it.”