It has become apparent that horror films, independent or not, have had a general stigma in the last several years as being a genre that can only boast retreaded themes and overused clichés. Though this perspective is not accurate, there are many out there still propagating the stereotype. This point brings us to a individual in particular: Rob Zombie. His status as a musician has never been personally questioned (I happen to be a big fan of his work in that regard), but his status as a horror director will always be contested. When the first preview for Zombie’s 2012 feature LORDS OF SALEM premièred it was as if Stanley Kubrick had decided to direct THE WICKER MAN. And though this first impression would return periodically, especially during the film’s resolution, the one thought that was constant was that this again solidifies the fact that Rob Zombie is not a good director, nor a screenwriter.

Ever since his debut with HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES, Rob Zombie’s name has been a major personal deterrent. Not a single film in his current filmography boasts truly anything either original or competent. This is saddening due to the fact this feature actually had promise. The idea of witches has been played out in cinema since its inception in the late 1890s, however it follows the idea that there are no original ideas. Though this may be true in the overall scope of filmmaking, there is an amendment to the rule that must exist: There are no original ideas, only original adaptations of those ideas. And this is what audiences hoped against hope when sitting down to watch LORDS OF SALEM.

From the very beginning of the film, it was apparent not only that the pacing was going to be excruciatingly jumbled, focus and retention was to be near impossible with the inconsistency of the editing but that this film had no idea what it was supposed to be. There as too much going on at once, simultaneously accomplishing nothing at all. The story constantly jumps back and forth between past events and present day, as well as delusions and reality. Though this is done with masterful hands in scores of other films and television series, this is never pulled off effectively or even remotely understandably in this movie.

The mess of rapid images and convoluted plots make the film not only a confusing, scare-less and annoying sit, the finish of the movie grants no interest to the audience in wanting to understand the warped imagery or the constant montage sequences that seem to struggle for metaphor. And with these surreal elements, we are treated to a film that is told straight forward as a classic ghost or witch-hunt story. This doesn’t work. It is a film that wants the audience to react a certain way, trying every possible route to achieve it, and ends up accomplishing nothing at all.

Though the score is actually quite skilled at crawling under the spectator’s skin (the only constant highlight of the majority of Zombie’s films), and the performances by many of the actors (notably Bruce Davison, Meg Foster and Judy Geeson) are actually pretty convincing and involved, despite the unconvincing and overwrought screenwriting. The art direction is very stylized and intriguing, playing along with the film’s (surprisingly) well-crafted cinematography. It seems that Zombie has a knack for bringing talented people together to work on his films, but does not have the skill nor the insight required into the medium to execute their talents for filmmaking and design effectively.

While the possibilities that could have been quite ripe if given a lot of time to mature, it says to me that Rob Zombie should have taken the George Lucas route with this film; meaning serving as producer and creator of the story on the film, offering creative suggestions and guiding the characterization as the film progressed. If this position was taken with well-grounded people in the medium taking up the writing and directing reigns, it could have been something special. Off the cuff, Panos Cosmatos would have been an ideal director, as this film’s esthetic (if kept a mainly surreal film instead of the mess it is) is very close to the director’s debut effort BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW. Anthony DiBlasi would have been a good choice as a writer/director, his films (namely Clive Barker’s DREAD) hold close to the attitude of the subject matter. And to finish with a triad of good genre moviemakers, namely the film MAY and the MASTERS OF HORROR episode “SICK GIRL”, all scream out Lucky McKee as an ideal choice.

Whatever could have become of the film or whatever it currently is, the film is a hodgepodge of spiraling plots (with some leading nowhere at all, or are forgotten entirely), confusing editing (footage and sound) and a decent score. This film is something only for true masochistic horror fans (not even fans of bad movies). Not masochistic for reasons of the film being an endurance test due to its content (such as CANNIBAL HOLOCOUST and A SERBIAN FILM), but in the sense that your brain will be punishing you for sitting through LORDS OF SALEM due it is unbelievable ineptitude to accomplish anything at all.

For an actor, the voice is perhaps the most important tool for crafting a performance. But on several occasions, it was decided that the actors on the screen were not capable of using their vocal prowess to their fullest. As a result, the actors’ voices were dubbed by other performers.

Here are 10 of the most famous (or, perhaps, infamous) examples of dubbed performances in movie history.

Anny Ondra in Blackmail (1929). When Alfred Hitchcock began shooting Blackmail in 1929, the production was intended to be released as a silent film. However, British International Pictures opted to make a sound version of the film. This created a problem, as Czech-born leading lady Anny Ondra spoke with a heavy accent. Rather than recast the role, Hitchcock had British actress Joan Barry stand out of camera range while Ondra lip-synced Barry’s line readings.

Buster Keaton in Le roi des Champs-Élysées (1934). After being fired by MGM in 1933, Buster Keaton was virtually blackballed by the Hollywood studios. He accepted a starring role in a French production, but Keaton did not speak French. As a result, his dialogue was kept to a minimum – and his relatively few lines were dubbed in by an unknown French actor.

Paola Mori in Mr. Arkadin (1955). Orson Welles cast his third wife, Italian countess and occasional actress Paola Mori, as the jet-setting daughter of a mysterious billionaire (played by Welles). Welles, however, decided to have British actress Billie Whitelaw dub Mori’s lines – although Whitelaw’s posh Anglo voice seemed at odds with Mori’s sensual Italian looks.

Ingrid Thulin in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962). The Swedish star was imported by MGM to play a Frenchwoman in Vicente Minnelli’s epic. However, the studio brass felt that her line readings were too tenuous, so her voice was replaced on the soundtrack by Angela Lansbury. Why MGM didn’t cast a French actress in the first place is unclear.

Todd Armstrong in Jason and the Argonauts (1963). American actor Todd Armstrong had the chance for his big break as the heroic Jason in this highly acclaimed production. However, the producers felt that Armstrong’s American voice did not fit with the mostly British cast. Thus, British actor Tim Turner took over Armstrong’s lines. Armstrong was able to commiserate with his co-star Nancy Kovack, whose vocal performance was dubbed by Eva Haddon.

Arnold Schwarzenegger in Hercules in New York (1969). The Austrian bodybuilding champion’s first film found him with the double indignity of having his name Anglicized (to Arnold Strong) and his voice dubbed by an uncredited actor. Schwarzenegger later expressed regret at participating in this low budget comedy, and pursued a career with his name and voice intact.

Christopher Jones in Ryan’s Daughter (1970). David Lean’s decision to cast American B-movie star Christopher Jones as a British military officer created confusion to many observers, but Lean pointed to Jones’ performance as a British-Polish spy in the 1969 film The Looking Glass War as evidence of his ability to handle a British accent. Alas, Lean did not know that Jones’ performance in the earlier film was dubbed – and Jones’ inability to present a credible British accent forced Lean to hire Julian Holloway to dub the actor’s dialogue.

Linda Blair in The Exorcist (1973). When this classic horror flick was released, the performance by Mercedes McCambridge as the voice of the demon possessed child (played by Linda Blair) was intentionally omitted from the film’s credits. McCambridge sued the studio, and the embarrassment over the studio’s attempt to hide her contribution to the film certainly cost Blair the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Klinton Spilsbury in The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981). Spilsbury was an unknown and untested actor when he was cast in the leading role in this 1981 Western. While he looked great in the saddle, he was incapable of offering a decent performance. James Keach dubbed his performance, which turned out to be Spilsbury’s only appearance on screen.

Andie MacDowell in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan (1984). MacDowell was a South Carolina model who made her acting debut as the British noblewoman Jane in this 1984 retelling of the Tarzan legend. However, MacDowell couldn’t hide her Dixie accent, which required the dubbing services of Glenn Close to scrub up the soundtrack.

DIMENTION ZERO is an attempt at art for art’s sake. The film starts with a bleak and intriguing landscape and excellent sounds. Honestly, the sound is the strongest point of the film. However, this landscape is interrupted by a random scene of break dancing and music that does not fit the setting. The movie continues on with the same theme of constantly interrupting whatever mood the director (Andrew MacKenzie, who also acts in the film) had managed to create.

DIMENTION ZERO is not a film about anything. It sadly looses its way two minutes in and never recovers. It comes off as a random selection of bad home movies that have been cobbled together to create a story. The problem with the film is that it has no true story and is left open to interpretation. Calling the film surreal is a disservice to this genre and calling it a work of social commentary is like asking vegetarians to flavor hamburger. I have seen many excellent surreal films in my day, and this is not one of them.

The director does succeed in setting an excellent atmosphere only to destroy it within moments. Trying to find that the film has some sort of inner meaning is like an artist wielding together random pieces of metal and calling it Santa Goes Waterskiing. If you want to find art in something, I suppose you could find it in DIMENSION ZERO…if you were desperate and determined. What I found was not art. What I found was not really anything except the mad ramblings of an individual somehow set to film with no consistency except for the atrocious way that the subject, if the film indeed had a subject, was handled.

I will give credit to the director for performing some interesting camera angles and for loading the film with a bizarre soundtrack. It is the only thing in the presentation that even comes close to working well.

The official Wikipedia page for demoscene defines it as a “computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer. The main goal of a demo is to show off programming, artistic, and musical skills.” While this is exactly what this highly specialized underground culture does, this succinct definition hardly encompasses or conveys the extent of the technology, artistry, dedication, and social culture of this group of people or the work that they do. And one thing that this documentary does wonderfully is to delve into this strange world of computer art, not only providing detailed technical demonstrations of how different types of code work, but also brings us into the culture through experiential footage and extensive interviews with prominent members of the demoscene. While the film itself is purely functional, both technically and stylistically, its formulaic structure merely draws our attention away from the filmmaking and focuses our attention on the film’s subject.

Demos are rather like experimental films created through computer code. While they are like film in the sense that you can watch and listen to them and that they are, in a sense, produced and directed, they are actually executable computer files – programs that you run on a computer like MS Word or Solitaire. They are created not through the combination of video and audio files, but purely through lines of code – just combinations of letters and numbers that render image and sound. The point of these demos is to push the boundaries of a given technology and create something both artistically and technologically exciting. Some push the known boundaries of older technology – like Commodore 64 or Amiga – and others work with newer technologies like PCs. Both try to create amazing images that move and bend in fascinating ways that perhaps were thought impossible to produce on their given platform.

The demoscene started out as a group of computer hackers who cracked games and left “technological graffiti” by recoding the game to create special intros. The practice evolved beyond just leaving a fancy tag in a game and became focused on creating more elaborate and technologically impressive intros. Even so, this subculture of technological artists retains an air of the graffiti artist about them. They somehow seem like technological pirates, or high tech punk rockers – despite the mousy, socially awkward stereotype of the typical computer coder, demosceners possess a touch of the rebel. And it certainly shows in how the film is able to capture their sense of style – all techno-rock or dubstep, hanging out in improbable basement cafes decorated with old wires, computer screens, and keyboards in a tangle of post-apocalyptic steam punk junk. They are hardcore about their scene, talking about competition size categories as if they were marathons – making 4K or 64K demos. Their demoparties aren’t just for networking, workshopping, competing, and collaborating either – they’re for partying too. And based on the amount of vodka seen sitting casually just side-frame, it looks like they know how to party.

And there is a real necessity for community in order to keep the demoscene alive. Small and specialized as it once was (participation in the largest demoparties only reached just over a thousand at its height and averaged 150-200 for the smaller parties), the scene is getting smaller – partly due to its most active members spending more time on family or jobs, and partly due to the extreme technological advances in computer generated imagery. The demos being created today seem much less impressive compared to the daily discoveries being made in the scene during the 90s, and far less impressive still compared to like likes of TOY STORY and AVATAR. The new generation just aren’t being pulled into the scene the way they used to – the potential for discovery and advancement is beginning to fade. But as the narrator of the film tells us: it’s up to us what happens to the demoscene, whether it continues to grow or fades into non-existence. Perhaps there just needs to be a revision of rules, a new platform to experiment with, or a groundbreaking new style that just has to be followed up. Overall, the documentary really does something to draw us in to the demoscene. Perhaps what the demoscene needed was this film to tell the world about its existence, to inspire us to create something new, challenge us to design something amazing, and encourage us to create our own scene.

Nothing happens in this film. Seriously nothing. The premise is that a man catches up with a girl and they spend an hour, or so, talking in much the same manner as this: ‘I know you.’ ‘You don’t know me.’ ‘But I’m sure we’ve met before.’ Seriously? There’s no wit, no drama, no romance, no nothing. Just talking, for over an hour!

Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh. Although nothing physically happens in this film (as you can tell, this is my main complaint) the narrative is fairly good, flows well and is quite intriguing, perhaps not enough so to keep my attention for the full hour and ten minutes, but good enough. The male character (Zad) appears to be the human parallel of God, or at least he claims to have wiped out all of humanity with the introduction of a self-made virus (Zitonus) before restarting it again by cloning himself. The female character (whose name we never discover) turns out to be the only female clone created, using the last female chromosomes in existence.

If humanity is to continue then, she has to be prepared to reproduce… quite a few times. Upon realizing this, the woman seems unimpressed and instead chooses to end her life by drowning herself, apparently. The film ends with her walking into the sea, so I assume that’s what’s happening, but then maybe she just fancies a swim?

It just doesn’t work for me basically, I felt it dragged a bit much and that the story could have been summed up in about twenty minutes, rather than the hour spent covering and recovering the same topics and treading round the same backdrop. But then, the film leans toward the sci-fi genre and sci-fi’s difficult to pull off without major money being spent on sfx. There is talk of wars, trips into space and cloning laboratories that would’ve been great to shoot as part of some mainstream action/sci-fi/thriller but just don’t pique my interest enough when spoken of in passing and so don’t fit this context.

On a happier note, the scenery is beautiful, I found it quite intriguing to have a film based around the desert, not enough so to keep my interest for the full film, but still… The actors too were very good, though, at times a bit wooden. But hey, maybe that was part of it?

Overall, a good effort, but it should have been A LOT shorter.

Near the beginning of Alexander Perlman’s brilliant and moving documentary, LOT LIZARD, a long-haul trucker quietly but firmly asserts the centrality of the driver’s work to the basic functioning of the American economy and the everyday lives of all Americans. “It’s a job that’s hard to do,” he asserts, “and very underappreciated.” His words also apply to workers in a satellite economy which revolves around the work of truckers and which includes truck stop restaurants and service stations, truck cleaning services, independent security firms, small-time drug dealers, and sex workers. It is this last group of people documented by Perlman in the elegiac and unflinching Lot Lizard, a title taken from the disparaging term truckers use to describe the women and men who palliate the loneliness of truckers through paid sex and companionship. Inspired by his hitchhiking trip across the country, Perlman’s film looks closely at figures he first barely glimpsed in the shadows of the nighttime truck lots. Over the course of the film, we come to see them in their fully complex humanity and as participants in an equally complex and interlocking economy of which we all are a part.

LOT LIZARD allows the participants in this hidden economy to speak for themselves. Apart from two or three intertitles which provide statistical information about sex work and fill in some detail in the lives of some of their subjects, the filmmakers avoid the trap of explaining away their experiences, emotions, and struggles. But this film is no talking-heads documentary portrait: Director /cinematographer Perlman and editor / musical composer Matthew Doherty paint a moody, lyrical, and evocative landscape of the working world of endless night and claustrophobic spaces which alternate with spaces of domesticity the struggling sex workers have tried to build off the lots with drastically limited resources. The gliding camera takes us through the labyrinth of rows upon rows of parked eighteen wheelers while the soundtrack eavesdrops on the CB radio conversations between the sex workers and their prospective clients. Behind all of this, an elegiac musical score creates an atmosphere of yearning and desperation.

The film follows the stories of three experienced sex workers from the truck lots. Monica sees herself as a skilled professional and lives in a motel adjacent to the lot. Her boyfriend Bobby struggles with Monica’s profession and desperately wants them to enjoy a drug-free life of marriage and children. Betty is in the advanced stages of drug addiction and lives in a trailer near the desert railroad tracks with her boyfriend Mitch and her parents. She can’t imagine a “normal life” away from crack cocaine and the lots. Finally, Jennifer is recently sober and has rented a small house with her daughter Bella and is frantically looking for non-sex industry employment which can pay her bills and rent. Her lifeline to sobriety and sanity is Chaplain Jim, a tattooed preacher whose ministry is run out of a truck on the very lot on which she used to work as a “lizard.”

Like the more stylistically sparse “Direct Cinema” documentary films of Frederick Wiseman, LotLizard examines the intricacy of an institutional place and space, in this case the interweaving experiences and economies of the nighttime truck lot. A lonely trucker sits on a tiny four by six foot cot in the back of his cab and announces, “This here is my living room.” A female sex worker uncomfortably crouches over the dashboard of another cab while using the driver’s radio to contact prospective clients. The maze-like space of the enormous trucks between which the women alternately hide and reveal themselves recall the threatening chiaroscuro city-scapes of film noir. The chain-link fence around the lot itself and the security gate around the motel where Monica and Bobby live evoke prison bars and constricted movement. The sunny, open spaces of the desert become the place where Betty gives her unapologetic assessment of her life. Jennifer’s fragile and precarious domestic space inside the rented house she shares with Bella is paralleled with the motel room shared by Monica and Bobby. Here the fierce and extremely intelligent Monica both resents Bobby’s efforts to get her to leave the life and shares moments of true tenderness with the man who loves her.

Perlman refuses to bring on board sociologists, law enforcement officials, and other “experts” to tell us what to think about the people we see. In fact, law enforcement is portrayed as yet another cog in the economy of the truck lot: Thirty minutes into the film, we are introduced to private security patrols and local police squad cars, and when they descend on the lot, the drivers get on their radios and alert the women, even allowing them to hide in their cabs to protect them from the mercenary, often predatory police. “I’ve see the police beat up the girls,” one trucker says while issuing a warning on his radio. LOT LIZARD portrays sex work not as a social ill to be solved by reformers and police but as work, inextricably bound up with the same economic processes that bring American families the food at their local grocery store. The struggles of the sex workers portrayed in the film take place against the backdrop of other low-skill, low wage work in service industry professions. As Jennifer says while looking through job ads on Craigslist, “These are crappy jobs for $8.00 an hour, and I could work one day on the lot and make the whole $300 for the week and not have to find somebody to look after Bella.” In LOT LIZARD, Alexander Perlman has offered us a look into an unseen world which our everyday world makes possible and even inevitable.

One of the most highly anticipated indie film releases of the last few years has been the modern remake of William Lustig’s controversial 1980 MANIAC… for me. Though personally the original film sporting distinguished character actor Joe Spinell (who also co-wrote the screenplay) and is seen to by special effects master Tom Savini is a masterwork of independent horror, the new film caught me from the moment the casting was released. In place of a Spinell-esque character, the lead is played by the one and only, Elijah Wood. Ever since his minor role as the cannibal Kevin in Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s SIN CITY, it only seemed right that Wood would continue along the horror track because he gave one hell of a creepy performance. But he is not only thrust into the spotlight of the film (receiving the top billing), but also responsible for creating a whole new dynamic for the character. The possibilities of adapting the original material for current day audiences were seemingly boundless, thus something quite enthralling.

And as for the actual film, it captures complete attention from the moment the title card appears on screen (after a very sudden and disturbing scene shot involving the first scalping in the film). And this first sequence, along with the entirety of the film, is shot from the murderer’s perspective, with Wood’s face being shown only in reflections. This is a starkly different approach to the material that was not present in the original film. The original was filmed relatively traditionally with some great innovation by frequent Lustig collaborator Robert Lindsay (who shot and co-wrote the very underrated 2008 short ALIUS PRIMORIS), this one was shot by the very talented Maxime Alexandre who is the architect behind the composition of horror staples such as HIGH TENSION and the remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES. Though there are certain shots and partial scenes in which the original does adopt a 1^st person POV, this was the beginning of what sets this film apart from its origin and contemporary films of the genre. Many found-footage based films (such as REC and DIARY OF THE DEAD) are presented with this viewpoint for the majority of the work. However, it is only due to the fact that the camera is an active participant in the story, and very few of these films keep the same perspective for the entirety of the film.

With Wood’s haunting voice and the eclectic score by Rob (just Rob), who recently received a César Award nomination for his score on Régis Roinsard’s POPULAIRE, layer on top of each other to create a seamless enhancement of the terrifying attitude from the original film while still adding its own creative flair. The genuine disturbing fair of the film is evident in almost every scene, with our gaze always dictated by the main character Frank. The only time the film jumps into a third person aspect of a scene is usually during flashback sequences or specifically pinnacle moments in the plot. This is very similar to Gaspar Noé’s ENTER THE VOID where it has almost exactly the same visual style (though regulating any third person shots as over-the-shoulder of the protagonist). This stylization has a hairline difference (pun intented) between very irritating to very innovative, and thankfully this film is the latter. It stands as a venerable hallmark of the Slasher genre that helps regain belief the genre has not gone as nearly stale as the critical community constantly boasts.

The performances, the cinematography, the music, the direction, all of these elements are extraordinarily potent and well crafted. The standalone aspect that brings all of the work together is the editing and the pacing that results from it. The editor Baxter (whom had also served as editor on HIGH TENSION and Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury’s INSIDE) takes a very difficult film and makes it accessible without sacrificing the intensity of the material in the film. This is a hallmark of a true master editor of horror, which is a real rarity and only shared by a few, specifically such as Ray Lovejoy (THE SHINING), Todd Ramsay (THE THING) and Elliot Greenberg (THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES). And with director Franck Khalfoun co-editing, there was a very sharp and taught evidence to the whole of the film. There were no spots where the film dragged, nor were there any unnecessary padding. This film takes material from some of the more notable and notorious minds in horror and matches the threshold that was set by the original 1980 MANIAC.

With the film being produced by the original’s director/producer William Lustig as well as the Academy Award-winning producer Thomas Langmann (THE ARTIST) and French horror icon Alexandre Aja (who is set to release the film adaption of Joe Hill’s HORNS this year) at the helm of the production, this film received all of the most appropriate and experienced handling that could have been expected with a film of this type. Never it panders to the audience, nor does it pull any punches with the gore and disturbing aspects, always elevated even higher by the performance of Wood (whose lines were primarily ADR, inserted during post-production).

MANIAC ushers in a new hope for indie Slasher filmmakers trying to create something new in a genre that has been relatively flaccid or have lost many of the more talented directors/writers/producers to the Torture Porn subgenre and modernized Splatter films.

It is not unusual for film producers to chase down A-list performers in hope of landing a major star in a new flick. But less common is when the situation is reversed: the A-listers actively lobby for a major role, only to face humiliating rejection.

Here are examples of 10 major stars that went out of their way to secure significant film roles, only to be told to go away.

Julie Andrews, not in My Fair Lady. The British singer/actress took Broadway by storm as Eliza Doolittle in the original production of My Fair Lady. Although she had no film experience, Andrews was a major star on stage and a highly popular TV performer. She desperately wanted to repeat her stage triumph as Eliza for the movie version and even did a screen test (which, reportedly, was wildly unsuccessful). Andrews was so focused on playing Eliza in the film version that when she snagged her first film role in Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins, her contract stipulated she would be released if the My Fair Lady role came through. Audrey Hepburn wound up playing Eliza in the film – and Andrews wound up with the Academy Award for Mary Poppins.

Ernest Borgnine, not in The Godfather. When Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to Mario Puzo’s blockbuster gangster novel, the studio was hard-pressed to find the right actor to play the eponymous crime boss. Much to their surprise, Ernest Borgnine campaigned aggressively to be considered for the part. Perhaps Paramount was uncomfortable about smart alecks yelling “McHale!” at the screen, as Borgnine’s offer was one they were easily able to refuse.

Tony Curtis, not in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. When Curtis learned that his Operation Petticoat director Blake Edwards was going to helm the film version of the Truman Capote story, he pointedly sought out the role of aspiring writer Paul Varjak. Much to Curtis’ dismay, Edwards hemmed and hawed and tried to keep the actor at arm’s length until George Peppard was signed for the role. Curtis and Edwards would work together on the 1965 comedy The Great Race, though the actor never quite got over the rejection he received.

Dorothy Dandridge, not in Bus Stop. Following her groundbreaking triumph in Carmen Jones, Dandridge found difficulty in securing an adequate follow-up role. Plans for an all-black version of The Blue Angel went nowhere, and she rejected the supporting role of the slave Tuptim in The King and I. Dandridge, however, felt she would be perfect to play the would-be singer Cherie in the film adaptation of Bus Stop. However, 20th Century Fox would not allow either an all-black version of the play, nor would they have Dandridge as the center of white male attention. Marilyn Monroe, of course, was cast as Cherie.

Bette Davis, not in Mame. Why wouldn’t Warner Bros. allow its one-time icon to have the supporting role as the cantankerous diva Vera Charles in its big budget musical adaptation of the Broadway smash? Who knows? Davis actively sought the part, but being a legend was not enough to help her get cast. Beatrice Arthur, who originated the role on stage (and who was married at the time to director Gene Saks), took the role.

Sal Mineo, not in The Godfather. Mineo’s career took off quickly with a pair of Oscar-nominated triumphs in Rebel Without a Cause and Exodus, but then dramatically stalled. The actor tried in vain to get considered for roles in Elia Kazan’s America, America and Richard Brooks’ In Cold Blood, but perhaps his boldest move was to aggressively pursue the part of Michael Corleone in The Godfather. As with the aforementioned Ernest Borgnine, Paramount Pictures was not interested in actors trying to crash their prestige film – and Mineo had to be satisfied playing a doomed chimpanzee astronaut in Escape from the Planet of the Apes.

Ginger Rogers, not in Mary of Scotland.”The dancing queen of the RKO musicals wanted to expand her screen work by tackling the role of Queen Elizabeth I in the studio’s big-budget 1936 biopic on Mary, Queen of Scots. Rogers submitted herself to an extraordinary make-up test to prove she could play the role. But RKO was aghast that their musical star wanted the role, and she was rudely escorted from the regal production.

Frank Sinatra, not in The Music Man. Sinatra fell in love with the Meredith Willson Broadway musical and believed that he would be perfect as the big screen equivalent of the con artist Harold Hill. Alas for Ol’ Blue Eyes, Willson was adamant that Sinatra would have no part in a film version, and Sinatra’s repeated attempts to acquire the screen rights were swatted away.

Orson Welles, not in The Last Picture Show. Welles had a close friendship with up-and-coming filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, and he gladly offered the younger artist invaluable advice on the creation of what would become Bogdanovich’s first major hit. But one key bit of advice was ignored – Welles wanted the role of Sam the Lion, but Bogdanovich opted for veteran Western character actor Ben Johnson. Although Johnson initially did not want the role, he took the part and won the Oscar for his work.

Sean Young, not in Batman Returns. Young was originally cast as Vicki Vale in Tim Burton’s Batman, but was forced to withdraw after she suffered a broken arm. When Burton was casting the sequel Batman Returns, Young fancied the role of Catwoman. Burton, however, was not eager to work with Young, so the actress made a highly publicized pitch (including an appearance on Joan Rivers’ talk show in a Catwoman costume) for the part. Michelle Pfeiffer was cast as Catwoman, and Young’s reputation took a hefty dent based on her outrageous attempt to win the role.

EMIT director JS Mayank sits on the FilmSnobbery Live! couch with host Nic Baisley to discuss his new film, being a working director, film festivals, and more in this extra-educational episode. We also tease our interview with documentarian David Rich and take questions from the audience to win fabulous prizes*.

*Note – prizes may or may not be fabulous

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Jeff Nichols is fairly new to the filmmaking scene, but he is certainly making a favorable impression with the quality and scope of his projects. He is that classic auteur combination – a writer/director – with full control of both the story and the way in which it is presented. His second feature film, Take Shelter, released only a year before this latest endeavor, was a storm of slow tension the likes of which you’ve never seen, and featured an unforgettable emotionally restrained performance from Nichols regular Michael Shannon. His projects are unique, effective, and beautifully made – and Mud is no exception.

While not quite the tension-fest that was Take Shelter, there is a certain suspense about whether man-on-the-run Mud (Matthew McConaughey) is going to catch up with the law and what will become of the two young boys who have befriended him. What is more distinct about Mud is its mix of wistful romanticism and hard social realism. Some have noted that the film is rather like an adult Huckleberry Finn, but the similarities go beyond the superficialities of the Mud character. It’s the film’s mix of daring adventure, social commentary, and cultural exploration that reminds one of Huck Finn. And while Huck may be grown up, it still manages to be a coming of age story – not only for the boys who help him, but really for Mud himself. It tackles issues like love, – both enduring and fleeting – relationships between fathers and sons, between society and nature, and the nature of friendship. All the while, it weaves a fascinating, adventurous story, both beautiful and romantic.

Mud is filmed in a harsh, faded color scheme, which somehow gives Mud a dangerous edge beyond his mountain man appearance. It also gives the locations – sometimes a town of rundown houses, motels, and strip malls and sometimes the open water and a wooded island – both a beauty that can hardly be explained and an ugliness that lies just beneath. The film takes pleasure in the ordinary, revealing the unexpected worth in junkyards, river houses, motels, and disused parking lots. Most intriguing is what brought the boys to Mud’s island in the first place – a boat that had been washed up into a tree by the last floods. A boat in a tree is a most striking and unusual image – it is still one of the most memorable things about Herzog’s Aguirre: The Wrath of God – and Nichols uses that to his advantage. He doesn’t linger on it unnecessarily, but it still leaves an impression, becoming a sort of strange castle in the sky. And when it finally comes down and meets the water again, it seems both at home and out of place.

Finally, the performances throughout the film are incredibly good. The boys, Tye Sheridan as Ellis and Jacob Lofland as Neckbone, are a match made in heaven. They have the casual interaction and the thoughtless devotion of the best friends they play. Lofland provides comic relief as the brazen, self-interested, cursing Neckbone, while Sheridan provides heart and pathos as confused, coming-of-age Ellis. Matthew McConaughey probably gives the performance of his life as Mud, the romantic, misguided, charming, lie-telling, heartbroken, forest-dwelling, homeless hobo. He is grizzled and dirty, but he’s compelling and endearing. And most surprisingly of all, he kept his shirt on for almost the entire movie. And at least when it inevitably came off it was for the sake of symbolism.