4 - The Michigan Daily - Weekend etc. - Thursday, February 17, 1994 Documentary filmmaker more Lights, camera, action! With the Academy Awards coniing up, The Daily looks inside Tinseltown and the film industry in a two-part series. Our first is on Sue Marx, an Oscar win- ning documentary filmmaker who proves thatfilm isn't all about glitzy stars and cellular phones. Daily film. staffer Michael Barnes recently had an opportunity to talk with her. Daily: How did you get started? Sue Marx: Well, I started as a still photographer in the '60s and '70s. In the late '60s, I did a documentary style show focusing on Black people living and working in Detroit. We did "Profiles in Black" as a film series that went on for some nine years and won a lot of awards. That went on for a long time until I got thoroughly bored and decided it was time to move on. I had taken a couple of classes in film at Wayne and decided I wanted to make a film of my own. I wrote a grant to the Arts Foundation and did a film about an artist, a portrait of a clay potter. And that was a very successful eight-minute film. It won a ton of awards and I knew that's what I was going to be doing. I started my own company, wrote more grants and did some more films. One of the films I wrote a grant for was "Young at Heart" which then landed an Oscar. D: Have there been any documen- taries which have influenced your work? SM: No. I am not a film buff by a long shot. My work is very personal. I don't take the issue of crime in America and do those kind of hard news documentaries. I like to get into the spirit of people in my films. I have always felt that real people tell the stories better then narrators. D: Could you tell us about "Young at Heart" and the inspiration behind it? SM: Along the way, everyone of us has to do something we feel really good about. After, my mother died ... I could see my father's spirit was getting broken down. I felt that my dad had a lot of living left to do. At that time, he was 80-something. I convinced him to go on a painting tour that I had heard about in En- gland. He met another woman on that trip, another artist that was widowed. They became very good friends, very close. When they came back from the trip, we heard they were seeing each other. I could see life in two people that were very lonely. It was such a sweet story and I thought of turning this into a little film. D: Could you tell us about your affiliation with the Academy Awards? SM: I am now a voting member of the Academy. I was sponsored by Larry Kasdan and Jeff Daniels. It's fun. We receive cassettes and screens for Academy award nominations. D: Your choice for best picture? SM: You select your top five. My list was "Schindler's List," "Phila- than glitz delphia," "The Remains of the Day," "The Piano" and "Strictly Ballroom." D: Is the Academy biased at all? SM: They will let you win if you're small and it seems like the higher profile documentaries are never nomi- nated. There have been countless documentaries that should have, but because they were in wide release, like "Road Scholar," they don't. I think it is a black eye for the Acad- emy. It's biased. This year, Spielberg has done wonders and a lot of people think he should have got it for "The Color Purple." It's hard to tell if it's a popularity contest. They're (the Acad- emy) an interesting breed and I think if they had their way, they would get rid of documentaries all together. D: Really? SM: When I was out there last year...I was able to have a conversa- tion with Robert Rehme, who is head of the Academy, about the issue of documentaries. They wanted to drop the "short doc" this year which would only lead up to dropping the feature length "doc." His feeling is because documentaries are not seen in wide release, they don't belong in the Acad- emy. D: What is your number one prob- lem as a filmmaker? SM: Budgets. We don't run out of ACKR OM From The Brown Jug Family Pizza by the slice " Mama's spinach pie 2 For Tuesdays 2 Subs for $5.00 voting member of the Academy. Academy Award winner Sue Marx is now a ideas. It's also writing grants. Grant writing takes a lot of time away from creativity and from actually making films. D: Your advice to young film- makers? SM; Learn to write grants and proposals. It comes down to how well you can translate your vision to get someone who is totally non-creative, a check writer, to give you money to fulfill your dream. 741-8296 605 Church Wacky and disgusting, 'Dead Alive' pure fun IUM ER EMPLOYMENT METROPARKI HAVE OVER 500 JOE RVAILABLE THI/ IUmmER in OEUGHTFUL PARK EfAVIRoQmEfTI UFEGUARO. ARIURARU/ PUBUC ERVICE RTTEDnoAT. AMAifTEfAlCE AnD MORE APPLY R THE METROPARK EARE/T YOU OR CALL OUR TOLL FREE nUMER 1-8OO-47-PARIS! AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER HNuen-aInIen ei trepelluen Autheritg MRrO iEacs U fmA"R@Rs LOWER KUnaO aUTROPaa floor fMLt Cment floor 8.#."II. (313) 463-4581 C313) 697.9181 TOav caiR E METROPaRs Nus Tali METRaOPRKx flow Roche/ttm floor Gibroltor tv C313)t 78i.4242 0313) 379-5020 Kiaanoon aimpna o va a m Mnwpaam farmiWorAneAn Arbor (313) 6854561 001) 426-8211 By CHRIS LEPLEY Kiwi fruits come from New Zealand, right? Barring those little green furry things I'd be hard-pressed to come up with something else worth- while that we've gotten from that isle (at least they haven't given us Yahoo Serious orCrocodile Dundee, though, I-THE MVIES unlike their continental neighbor, Australia). But in my eyes, New Zealand has redeemed itself with the release of what has to be the best zombie movie made in years, "Dead Alive." Yes, even better than the Technicolor remake of "Night of the Living Dead" a few years ago, "Dead Alive" is a hilarious and incredibly disgusting homage to the classic zom- bie tradition. It stars a host of un- knowns (well, they might be known in N.Z., but in America that kind of fame rarely counts) who fight the zombies with cheerful glee and are never at a loss for a witty remark during the dispatching. There always has to be a reason for zombies. The dead can't just pop back up without some explanation, or the audience will revolt, and suspen- sion of disbelief will be lost. In "Dead Alive" this is solved with the inven- tion of a peculiar little animal named the Sumatran Rat Monkey. Whoever is bitten by this nasty little thing starts rotting until they die... but they don't stay dead very long, thank God. Our hero is Lionel (Timothy Balme), a mild-mannered, little man who lives with his overprotective Mum (Elizabeth Moody) and is try- ing to juggle household chores and his relationship with the beautiful lo- cal girl Paquita (Diana Pefialver). When mum is bitten by the dreaded Sumatran Rat Monkey during a trip to the zoo, all zombie hell commences to break loose. A few hours later and mum is oozing pus and goop everywhere, and after a long day of rotting, she passes away, coming back to life seconds laterto rip NurseMactavish's (Brenda Kendall) head from her shoulders (it flips over backwards, giving us op- portunities for the patented 'nurse- head cam' which features upside- down point-of-view shots of the ac- tion). Lionel locks mum and the now- zombified nurse into the basement and rushes off to the veterinarian for tranquilizers, whichheinjects The Sheer gr up the zombies'e noses to put effeCts is wh ossness of the at makes this and the nurse get a little frisky. Zombie mum zombifies the hooli- gans, setting the stage for the entrance of by far the most entertaining char- acter in the film. Forget those wimpy priests in "The Exorcist" who hide behind holy water and rosaries. Fa- therMcGruder (Stuart Devenile) uses his fists to "kick ass for the Lord," and kick ass he does until he too suc- cumbs to the zombies. Now Lionel has four zombies in his basement, and they're soon joined by a baby zombie after Father Mc Gruder them to sleep. a classic... L i o n e I drugs his mum into submission long enough to get her buried, but he has to go back to the graveyard late at night to administer another dose. As he is digging her up, he is attacked by a group of hooligans, one of whom de- cides to relieve himself on mum's grave."That's my mum you're pissin' on," Lionel says, right before mum takes her revenge on the hapless hoo- ligan and his offending organ. eBagels *Pasta Salads *Muffins eSoups *Frozen Yogurt eVegetable Salads (Gis6-Glace) *Fruit Salads eDeli Sandwiches 1%' Lionel's Uncle Les (Ian Watkin) finds out about it and black- mails Lionel into giving him the house. Les then has a huge bash, and as you can guess, there're zombies aplenty after the party-goers meet the deni- zens of the basement. All is soon solved, however, after the party-goers meet Lionel's little friend, the lawnmower. This film is not for the squeamish. The prosthetics designers and 'gore effects specialists' are listed in the front credits of the film, and they deserve it because they obviously got overworked during this production. By all means DO NOT rent the rated version of the film. The sheer gross- ness of the effects is what makes this a classic, and without them, it's just a semi-funny foreign film. It's in the humor and the wacky characterizations that "Dead Alive" rises above the rest of its oft-abused genre. Father McGruder and Uncle Les fight zombies with manic glee, while Lionel just bumbles around in his button-down sweaters with zombified intestines crawling up his pants-leg. The romantic ending where Lionel escapes from his zombified mother's womb to be reunited with Paquita makes this just the perfect date film. Bring a bucket, and don't eat spaghetti before you see it. DEAD ALIVE is avai able at Liberty Street Video. est.1976 Action SoortsWear All Soccer Outerwear 20% off! 419 E. Liberty 663-6771 2 Blocks off State Newsletters, 0 715 N. 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