Microcinema DVDs - Guns on the Clackamas by Bill Plympton

2009-10-29 Blogcritics.org
By Greg Barbrick

Portland, OR filmmaker Bill Plympton’s first feature, Guns On The Clackamas is pretty intriguing. This faux documentary purports to chronicle the 1991 shoot of the most troubled film in Hollywood history: Guns On The Clackamas.

The problems begin almost immediately. The original financial backer insists on giving his girlfriend the lead female role. Director James X acquiesces for the sake of the movie, not even bothering to give her a screen test. When the cameras roll, we discover that she has an insurmountable stuttering problem. She can yodel without stuttering though, so a scene is filmed with her yodeling her lines.

When this approach is abandoned, she is fired. Of course her rich boyfriend then pulls out of the production, and the cast is left high and dry. James X is desperate for money now, and manages to get a couple of Catholic priests interested. Everything is looking good until some pictures of the producer and his dog are publicized. It seems that the pup was a little more than simply “man’s best friend.”

The production is then contacted by the “Man-Dog Love Association” and offered some money, which is politely declined.

Even though nobody is getting paid, they continue to film. To drum up some cash, the crew is directed to remove half of the screws and nails used on the set, and return them to the hardware store for a refund. The resulting accidents mark the first deaths associated with Guns On The Clackamas.

The funniest scene is the one ostensibly filmed at night by the campfire, when the bad guys sneak into camp. There was supposed to be a cloth over the lens to make it appear to be nighttime, but they did not have one. So the whole scene is shot in broad daylight. Definitely a nod to Ed Wood here.

The scrimping naturally extends to catering. On one particularly hot day, most of the cast makes the mistake of eating the macaroni salad. The food poisoning proves to be fatal, wiping nearly everyone out, including the two leads.

But the show must go on, right? To finish the movie, James X films the static corpses of the leads, and has actors dub in their lines. A brilliant solution.

Guns On The Clackamas is pretty funny. In one of the bonus interviews, director Bill Plympton describes it as “Spinal Tap meets Blazing Saddles.” While I would not go that far, The movie does have its moments. Gus Van Sant must have thought so. He makes a cameo appearance as himself early on.

The DVD extras include a five minute appearance on local morning show Portland Today, and a short bit featuring Plympton hawking the film at IFP in New York. For some inexplicable reason, there are also a series of text-only duck jokes here also.

While Guns On The Clackamas is not Spinal Saddles, or Blazing Tap, it is a very good first picture from a director worth keeping an eye on.

2009-09-24 DVD Verdict
By Daryl Loomis

I grew up on Bill Plympton's Plymptoons. His work was inspired; subversive, artistically interesting, and just plain nuts. While his animations were very popular, his rare piece of live-action has never really been seen. Plympton is genuinely funny, however, and a very smart writer. It may not have the same immediate appeal as his animation, but Guns on the Clackamas, his second live-action feature, is an insane riot, rivaling This is Spinal Tap in mockumentary hilarity and besting that classic in absurdity.

Filmmaker Nigel Nado (Keith Scales, Homecoming) is making a documentary about elusive Hollywood producer Holton P. Jeffers during the shooting of his new Western, Guns on the Clackamas. The film is troubled from the start but, when the cast and crew start dying off, Nado chronicles how they manage to complete the film in spite of a cast of corpses.

The opening title card describing the documentary subject as a Producer/Genius cracked me up immediately. What comes after, however, had me in stitches. Nado, walking through the Clackamas woods saying, "The very landscape trembles with the genius of Holton P. Jeffers. The leaves on the trees pulsate with creativity. And the grass and the ground throbs in the knowledge that here in the quiet corner of the universe, a white-hot cataclysm of artistic expression is being generated in the mind of the genius that is Holton P. Jeffers." Nado, a sycophantic caricature of somebody like James Lipton (Inside the Actors Studio) is charming and ridiculous at once, and we immediately understand who we're dealing with. Shockingly, however, Nado might be far more normal than the people he will soon introduce us to. These include a lead actress with a stutter…but only while the camera rolls; a romantic lead with history's worst case of mouth rot; a producer with the world's second larges collection of "Big Eye" art; and a German financier who constantly shake a bratwurst at us. Everybody in Plympton's world is a nut, all lovable and hilarious.

The unabashed pretension of everybody involved in the Western is immediately clear when Plympton shows up the previous work of the producer. "Frog Cowboys" features toads in wigs with voiced-over dialog. Using the same audio, he then made "Vampire Cowboys," and, yes, then "Hula Cowboys." These films are more ridiculous than they sound and to hear Nado describe them as the progression of a great artist just layers on the absurdity.

For the first part of the film, Plympton gets by on letting us laugh at his characters' quirks, but as the plot gets going, we can start to see how clever and multi-layered Guns on the Clackamas is. It takes a highly skilled singer to purposefully sing badly; they have to think about what they're doing constantly. Similarly, the Western is so unbelievably terrible that it smacks of meticulous planning. The Weekend at Bernie's-style parts with the dead actors still in scene is a good immediate gag. The whole of it, however, with actors walking behind matte paintings, shooting day-for-night and forgetting the filter, and masking the actor's stand-ins a la Jean Harlow after her death during the filming of Saratoga all show how much forethought went into these scenes.

The actors sell it the idea perfectly, as well. No matter the role, the performers have the perfect touch of self-seriousness and that's then only way a film like this can work. If I don't believe that the actors in Spinal Tap, this film's largest influence, really feel like they're making great music, the film is sunk. In that classic and in Guns on the Clackamas, this is the great success of both. I was sold within the first few minutes and wanted more at the end.

The DVD from Microcinema fits perfectly with the film. The full frame image is grainy and dirty, but this makes sense with the documentary style. The scenes of the Western look a little better, though they are intended to be incompetent, so still look pretty bad. The stereo sound is quite good, with clear dialog all the way through and a great soundtrack by Hank Bones. The extras are slim, but what has been included is excellent. The audio commentary is one of the more interesting I've heard in a while. Plympton is an intelligent guy and an engaging speaker, so he works very well talking about his influences, inspirations, and all the family friends and local actors who performed in the film. Most interesting is a story he tells about the spontaneous nature of the filming. During an interview with the Western's cinematographer in front of a city courtyard, a fight breaks out between a bum and some guy over a bouquet of flowers. It comes out of the blue and no mention is made of it. They didn't try to reshoot, however, because you can't write that kind of commentary. Finishing us off, we have a local television interview with the director, as well as some festival footage and a series of punch lines to a duck joke that goes unfinished in the film.

Guns on the Clackamas may be a terrible Western and a lame documentary, but it's a fantastic comedy. At times clever, ridiculous, intelligent, and juvenile, it's just my kind of thing. Plus, it's filmed in Oregon and I love seeing the old stomping grounds. If you want to see a great mockumentary but have seen Spinal Tap a million times already, Guns on the Clackamas is for you.

2009-09-03 dvdfile.com
By Grey S. Wears

My first thoughts upon receiving Guns on the Clackamas was, “Bill Plympton made a live-action film?” Little did I know it was his second, and sadly, according to his commentary, his last.

Guns is a mockumentary involving the making of a fictional western of the same name besieged with production and marketing problems the worst of which is the death of all the main characters during filming.

I am a fan of Bill Plympton’s animated work and the man himself. When I saw him at the Annie Awards earlier this year he came across as very down to earth and personable. Plus I am a great admirer of his ability to work outside the studio system and make a living.

Perhaps I held some preconceptions when I began viewing Guns that restricted me from enjoying it, but the good news is that I laughed more and more as the film continued.

At the opening, a documentarian supposedly hired by the producer attempts to get access to the set only to be refused by the seemingly sole security guard. The film borrows from so many Hollywood stories, some of which I was unaware of, but most of which Plympton explains in the commentary track, from the reclusive Howard Hughes-like producer, the avant guard director whose never seen without his dark sunglasses to the actor with such bad breath his costar is unable to kiss him.

While obviously low-budget this works with the setup of the film itself. Plympton not only leaves matte shot edges visible to play up the cheapness of the film within the film he actually plays with the usage, having one of his actors walk behind scenery that is perceived as the distant background. The cast of wacky characters and one of Plympton’s most structurally sound feature scripts makes for a fun time throughout.
The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The 1.33:1 presentation on this DVD is passable (barely), but its lack of general quality control works within the structures of the film itself. Hairs in the frame and flaws abound, but I would assume much of this is from the original source. This is a low-li affair at heart, so while it merits little accolades as far as detail, color accuracy and black levels are concerned (all are sub-par), the fact remains that it looks like it should, for better and for worse.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The simple stereo sound mix here is of a somewhat higher quality than the video, but it's still not wildly successful. The documentary-style production audio fits the structure of the film fine, and as dialogue goes. all the characters can be understood (when they should be). Otherwise it’s not rocket science here.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

While the screen-specific audio commentary seems to randomly enter and exit and seems to be offset with Plympton referring to things that aren’t on-screen yet, it is also very informative. He seems to have more to talk about than there is time to fit it all and yet there are blank, however brief, areas with no commentary. Technical issues aside it is an interesting, illuminating listen.

We also get a fun interview (5:29) with Plympton and one of his actresses, a clip from IFP (1:37) (mostly opening sequence with very little substance, but it gives a brief feel of the film festival scene), and the duck jokes are different punch lines to a joke that was included in the film, which ares good addition since only their set-up appears in the film.

Final Thoughts

While This is Spinal Tap stands as the towering success of the mockumentaries, Guns on the Clackamas plays as a funnier and more relatable For Your Consideration. If you are a fan of Bill Plympton
or mockumentaries you will likely get laughs from the film.