Allan Arkush based most of his early films on his real life. Rock ‘n Roll High School is pretty much about going to New Jersey’s Fort Lee High School. And this film is all about his experiences working at The Fillmore East as an usher, stage crew member and in the psychedelic light show Joe’s Lights, which got him on stage with everyone from The Who, Grateful Dead and Santana to the Allman Brothers and Fleetwood Mac.

I have no idea what experiences helped shape Heartbeeps, Caddyshack II and Deathsport, which he helped finish.

That said — Get Crazy lives in the exact heart of everything I love: hijinks movies, huge casts, rock and roll and cult films. It’s pretty much, well, everything.

This movie takes place on one night, December 31, 1982, as the Saturn Theater is getting ready for its annual New Year’s Eve blowout when its owner Max Wolfe (Allen Garfield, who sadly died of COVID-19) has a heart attack when arguing with concert promoter Colin Beverly (Ed Begley Jr.), leaving his stage manager Neil Allen (Daniel Stern) in charge, along with past stage manager Willy Loman (Gail Edwards). Man’s nephew Sammy (Mile Chapin) is trying to find his uncle so that he can get the rights to the club and sell them while everyone else tries to put on one last show.

This is a movie packed with familiar faces, like Bobby Sherman and Fabian as Beverly’s goons, who continually try to destroy the building and ruin the show. Seriously, there are so many people to get into, like Stacey Nelkin (Ellie Grimbridge!), Anne Bjorn (The Sword and the Sorcerer), Robert Picardo, Franklyn Ajaye, Dan Frischman (Arvid!), Denise Galik (Don’t Answer the Phone), Jackie Joseph (Mrs. Futterman!) and Linnea Quigley.

At this point, you may be saying, “Where are Clint Howard, Dick Miller, Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov?” They’re here. Of course they’re here.

I haven’t even gotten into the bands in this!

Nada (Lori Eastside from Kid Creole and the Coconuts) has a 15-member girl group that plays New Wave, garage rock, bubble gum and when Lee Ving jumps on stage, punk rock. Beyond Ving, Fear members Derf Scratch and Philo Cramer also appear.

King Blues is, well, the King of the Blues. He’s played by Bill Henderson (who was also Blind Lemon Yankovic and the cop in Clue, which also features Ving as Mr. Boddy).

Auden (Lou Reed!) is Bob Dylan, hiding from his fans, driving in a cab all night trying to write a song.

Reggie Wanker (Malcolm McDowell) is Mick Jagger, bedding groupies the whole show before he has a moment of mystic revelation. His drummer, Toad, is John Densmore of The Doors.

Captain Cloud (the Turtles’ Howard Kaylan) and the Rainbow Telegraph have a van just like Merry Pranksters and drugs just as powerful.

I mean, how can I not love a film that has a theme song by Sparks? Come on!

This was directed at the same time that Arkush did Bette Midler’s cover of “Beast of Burden,” complete with an appearance by Stacy Nelkin.

Anyways — forgive the fanboyishness nature of this. Actually. don’t. We should all love movies this much and feel this strongly about them.

I got to interview Allan Arkush about this movie:

B&S ABOUT MOVIES: So how does it feel finally having Get Crazy get released 37 years after it was — for all intents and purposes — a lost movie?

ALLAN ARKUSH: It feels good on two levels. Naturally I couldn’t be happier that the movie will be available looking better and sounding better than it ever has. But in many ways equally rewarding was reassembling some of the original editorial team from Get Crazy and Rock ‘n’ Roll High School to make all of the extras. Kent Beyda and I go back to 1978 and he cut the extra The After Party, but he did more than edited it, using all 60 hours of interviews he wrote it and gave it shape. He also had edited the two 1983 videos. Mark Helfrich from RNRHS cut “Not Gonna Take It No More 2021” from the iPhone footage “Nada 2021″ gave us and I couldn’t be happier about that. The extras were a way for all of us to tell the whole saga of Get Crazy. Tara Donovan, one of my AFI students, working for a year producing it for nothing. Ed Stasium, The Ramones producer did the score and our original music Editor Ken Karman came back to spread his magic. And so many more…No Dogs In Space and almost all the cast and crew. What a joy. But let’s go back to the beginning.

I worked at the Fillmore East as an usher and then on the stage crew and working the lights for psychedelic shows. I was living in that environment — which was very exciting — and going to NYU film school at the same time and realizing that you could do so many of the things in your life that you’d like to do. And making a living from it!

So after making Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, I thought that it’d be good to do the next part of my life and tell the story of working in rock ‘n roll. Danny Opatoshu and I got together to write the script and it ended up becoming a real memoir of the events of my life as well as an actual plotline.

We ended up meeting with a few companies and one of them said, “We love this, but you need to set it in the present day.” We changed some stuff around and then before we started shooting, they wanted it to be a broader comedy like Porky’s or Airplane! 

Danny said, “I’m gone,” so we got in more writers, we made the changes and that’s the version that you watched. But when the movie was done, the people who ran the company didn’t like it. They didn’t think there was a market for it. So they dumped it and took a tax loss, then they went under and their library got sold, then got sold again and then it got lost.

They put out the VHS — which was in the thousands and it’s not even in stereo — and that was it.

When it came time to release a DVD, no one could find the negative. The sound elements — because it moved around so much — and all the sales and the paperwork were gone for like thirty years. Thirty years!

I would get calls every couple of years with people from independent distribution companies asking, “What can you remember about where you recorded the audio?” People would say to me, “God, I love your movie, where is it?” And I said, “I don’t know.” I honestly did not. Finally, someone said to me, “Let my company find this movie for you and let’s get it out there.”

They found out that it was at MGM. Wow, MGM had bought the library that had it and now that everything was getting ready to be streamed, they went through their vaults and organized things. So we tried to buy it from MGM and they didn’t want to sell it. And that’s where I decided to call MGM and speak to the people in charge myself and I heard from their Legal Department of Business Affairs and they said, “We’re not interested.”

So that was the end of that.

Then I got a call from Frank Tarzi at Kino Lorber a year later and he said, “We want to put this out, so don’t say anything.” And Kino Lorber negotiated for over a year and then when they said yes, Frank asked if I wanted to do a commentary. I thought to myself that this movie is really my life story, my autobiography and this has been a really long trek. Frank Tarzi has been a big supporter. I called my friends who edited the original film, asked them if they wanted to be involved and they were on board. I called Danny next and said, we can tell our story back to everyone. This gave us the chance to tell the whole thing our way and it really gave us an opportunity to close the circle.

We got a small — very small — budget to make this but hey — I worked for Roger Corman! I’m used to that! So we put together a home movie — using Zoom, because this was made during the pandemic — and it’s amongst people who should really get together and talk more often.

B&S: I’ve always loved Get Crazy because it feels like a story about a great time in someone’s life. It’s my favorite kind of movie — a hijinx movie. It’s the kind of movie where all you need is that quick line: one night at a concert hall…and hijinks ensue.

ALLAN: How did you see it first?

B&S: I know that I rented it at some point and then I had a bootleg. Sorry.

ALLAN: It’s OK. I did too! And I still have the original VHS, because those were the only ways to have my movie.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

In 1998, the Disney Channel Original Movie Halloweentown was filmed in St. Helens, Oregon. Since then, it has seen 50,000 visitors every October, even 25 years later. Yet, just like the town in the series of Disney films—Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge, Halloweentown High and Return to Halloweentown—the locals believe that there are real hauntings. And beyond that, like any small town, there’s plenty of gossip to listen to.

Directed by Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb, this film feels like a real-life Waiting for Guffman. A zombie dance is choreographed by a girl who had to drop out of dance and wants to reconnect with her father. A newcomer to the town has bought a favorite restaurant, the Klondike Tavern, and his social media mistake causes his entire staff to mutiny. A woman claims to the town council that she is being attacked in her dreams and that the town is becoming possessed by demons. A team of paranormal investigators is also investigating the hauntings they claim are real.

This film never makes fun of its subjects, instead allowing them to tell their stories. I absolutely loved this and have been raving about it to everyone I can, as it’s a perfect non-spooky way to get yourself ready for the Halloween season. Here’s hoping it finds a streaming home soon so more people can enjoy this fun hangout in a town that has embraced its history as a spooky location.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

A young Brazilian girl, Laura (Rebecca Rosato), has come to Argentina to visit her aunt but once there, schedules don’t work out – her aunt has forgotten that she’s coming to town – and all her luggage is lost in her taxi and what follows is an all-night adventure through a crazy night, ala After Hours. Usually, it’s men that have these late night adventures, but this movie puts its female traveler into some strange places with even odder folks.

Directed by Matías Szulanski, who wrote it with Victoria Freidzon, this was quite the journey. Buenos Aires offers a strange birthday party, a broken nose and so much pizza. It feels dirty, haphazard and at the end, authentic, even if these are the kind of nights that can only happen in a movie. I really liked the look of this film. It feels like being out all night with nowhere else to go, nowhere better to be and we all know nothing good for you happens at 11 PM.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

Directed and written by Casey T. Malone, this is about Stephen Doore (Aiden White), a dock worker who refuses to be vaccinated against a strange harbor pathogen in a black and white world of conspiracies. The acting is strong and I understand the understand how we’re still trying to make sense of the pandemic that we all lived through, as well as the waking nightmare that we find ourselves in today. But a hero who refuses to be part of the program feels strange in today’s climate and I don’t know what that says about us, me or this movie. There are a lot of soliloquies that discuss the secrets that are behind the world, but so many of them seem to go nowhere, as does a lot of this film. Yes, there’s a briefcase that has spirals of something inside it. But like this film, it all feels like wisps of what could have been something more. The bones are there, the muscle and flesh covering it let me down.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

Less a movie and more a true confession – director and writer Shane Brady and his wife Emily Zercher really did lose money in the same way as a hacker stole $20,000 of their money as they bought their first house  – Hacked is them living out what they wish really did happen. Or as the filmmakers say, ““The first ten minutes of this film are based on true events. The rest is what we wish we could have done to that bastard.”

Mark Rumble (Brady) and his wife Amy (Augie Duke) are getting through the pandemic, even if it means selling vacuums to people they are terrified of. Their kids Freddy (Collin Thompson) and Ralph (Owen Atlas) are unfazed – this is a time to play. They’ve seen through the lies of the world and just want to make their videos. And play a video game that causes them to abuse The Chameleon (Walking Dead’s Chandler Riggs), the most wanted hacker in Florida. In response to the ways that they troll him, he steals the family’s downpayment on a new house. The bank doesn’t care. The police can’t do much. And now they’re living in a motel and Mark is forced to donate bone marrow to make ends meet.

Working with CIA agents Nova (Mia Castillo) and Kate (Katelyn Nacon), they plan on taking down the hacker, who has done so many horrible things, including stealing a giant axe like the one in the game the brothers are obsessed by.

I also enjoyed Brady’s Breathing Happy and this is even better. Richard Riehle as Santa? Two brothers whose videos abuse almost everyone they meet? Revenge on banks and those who take advantage of people? I mean, maybe $20,000 isn’t a lot of money to you, but to the average person, it’s life-changing.

This is the kind of film that I love. It’s what I call a hijinks ensue movie. The idea is basic: a hacker goes after a family and erases their lives and steals their cash. But the rest is in those hijinks: moments of sheer lunacy, goofball over the top humor that you can come into and watch at any time. Hacked is a movie made for lazy Sundays, lying on the couch and coming into it wherever you end up, knowing the great parts about to happen. That’s about as high a compliment as I can give.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

Directed and written by Richard Peter Hunter, this is , quite simply, a movie about people being bad. Six people give in to their impulses; this can happen no matter your station in life, whether you’re an ex-con trying to get back to a normal life outside of jail or a rich lawyer in a dead marriage.

Shot on digital video, this feels like life being captured, even if the way the screen fades to black instead of a resolution may frustrate some. My issue with it was that the BDSM was used as an indicator of weirdness or sin; yes, it’s someone cheating on their life and at odds with what they preach, but the desires of this lifestyle aren’t inherently wrong. This came off as a vanilla judgement.

It’s exclusively men behaving badly here, from a dry cleaner who misreads signals and touches a co-worker to a minister obsessed with dead mice, a stray cat and pornography. Some of these evil deeds may just be mistakes. Others are sins. I wonder if we’re complicit for judging between them.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.