Rambo redux, as a homemade, one-man, no-budget movie
source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/jun/17/rambo-remake-flooding-with-love-for-the-kid
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Forget Son of Rambow. A New York film-maker has made an even more lo-fi version of First Blood for the princely sum of $96
"Thank you for coming out on a rainy night," Zachary Oberzan told the back room of Monkey Town, a bar-restaurant-art-space in Brooklyn's Williamsburg, last Thursday. Dressed in a camouflage-print T-shirt, jeans and black leather boots, he was addressing two dozen people slumped on low beige sofas arranged around the room's four walls, on each of which was mounted a video-projection screen. "I know it's hard to leave your apartment," he continued. "In fact, no one knows that better than I."
The line got a chuckle: that night's feature attraction, which would shortly be projected simultaneously on to all four screens, was made possible only by Oberzan's failure to leave the house. Flooding With Love for the Kid, a 107-minute version of First Blood, was made entirely within the film-maker's Upper East Side studio apartment for less than $100 (£61) and with a cast of one: Oberzan, 35, played every part himself, from John Rambo and Will Teasle – police chief of Madison, Kentucky, the town devastated by the pair's confrontation – to Merle, proprietor of the local diner.
The film offers genuinely impressive split-screen shots, potent use of ambient sound effects, strong editing and heartfelt performances. If Oberzan's accents and female impersonations don't always convince, he delivers the key two roles – Rambo and Teasle – with real power. "It looks like a joke to most people," Oberzan had told me a few weeks earlier in his studio-turned-studio, "but there's no irony in it whatsoever."
"It's a fuck-you to the world of TV and films that says, 'This is the only way to make films,'" Oberzan told me. "How much do you need to make a good film that you can get into? If it succeeds, it transports you to a place where the energy and emotions and love for the characters are sincere. Every time I watch a [studio] film all I can see is the catering truck and the contracts the actors signed."
"Thank you for coming out on a rainy night," Zachary Oberzan told the back room of Monkey Town, a bar-restaurant-art-space in Brooklyn's Williamsburg, last Thursday. Dressed in a camouflage-print T-shirt, jeans and black leather boots, he was addressing two dozen people slumped on low beige sofas arranged around the room's four walls, on each of which was mounted a video-projection screen. "I know it's hard to leave your apartment," he continued. "In fact, no one knows that better than I."
The line got a chuckle: that night's feature attraction, which would shortly be projected simultaneously on to all four screens, was made possible only by Oberzan's failure to leave the house. Flooding With Love for the Kid, a 107-minute version of First Blood, was made entirely within the film-maker's Upper East Side studio apartment for less than $100 (£61) and with a cast of one: Oberzan, 35, played every part himself, from John Rambo and Will Teasle – police chief of Madison, Kentucky, the town devastated by the pair's confrontation – to Merle, proprietor of the local diner.
The film offers genuinely impressive split-screen shots, potent use of ambient sound effects, strong editing and heartfelt performances. If Oberzan's accents and female impersonations don't always convince, he delivers the key two roles – Rambo and Teasle – with real power. "It looks like a joke to most people," Oberzan had told me a few weeks earlier in his studio-turned-studio, "but there's no irony in it whatsoever."
"It's a fuck-you to the world of TV and films that says, 'This is the only way to make films,'" Oberzan told me. "How much do you need to make a good film that you can get into? If it succeeds, it transports you to a place where the energy and emotions and love for the characters are sincere. Every time I watch a [studio] film all I can see is the catering truck and the contracts the actors signed."
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