I used to make fun of people who collected Hummel figurines or limited edition coins from the Franklin Mint, but the other day while I was walking around my apartment it struck me that so many of my prize possessions- that sit on desks or are arranged on shelves- are oddball movie promotional items. And I’ve amassed a ton of them. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
I vividly recall a screening of Richard Linklater’s wildly entertaining Slacker. Set over a 24-hour period, the movie eavesdropped on nearly 100 “slackers” in Austin, Texas- the crazed, the drunk, the bored and unemployed. One character was trying to sell Madonna’s pap smear to startled strangers. What was so memorable about the screening was that when you left the theater you were presented with little jars filled with water and a glass slide floating in it with the title of the movie. Most critics were appalled and refused them, but I was overjoyed and the jar still sits on my bureau.
To promote Fight Club, David Fincher’s inspired adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, which starred Edward Norton as a man who teams up with a shady soap salesman (Brad Pitt) to form an underground fight club, critics were sent pink bars of soap with the film’s title branded on the top. It also came with a metal soap tray. I loved the perverseness of this promotional treat and kept it for years until one uncomfortably hot summer the soap melted into a big pink puddle.
Joel & Ethan Coen’s brilliant dark comedy Fargo was set in a snowy Minnesota in 1986 and starred a hilariously sublime Francis McDormand as a very pregnant cop investigating a used car salesman (William H. Macy) who paid two psychotic goons (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kill his wife. The combination of offbeat comedy and startling violence thrilled me. But I loved the film all the more when I got a little box in the mail containing a snow globe with a tiny sign that read “Fargo” and a replica of McDormand kneeling down by a body next to an overturned car. I covet this globe, and, even though the water inside has yellowed with age, I still shake it lovingly in the dead of night.
I absolutely adored Ghost Dog- The Way Of The Samurai, Jim Jarmusch’s hip-hop reimagining of Le Samourai, with a soulful Forest Whitaker as an enigmatic, bearlike contract killer who raises pigeons on his New Jersey rooftop and studies the way of the samurai, pledging loyalty to a small-time mobster who once saved his life. Publicists for the movie sent beautiful, black-lacquered jewelry boxes with the title imprinted on the top. I keep my most cherished memories inside that box.
In director Spike Jonze’s blazingly bizarre feature debut Being John Malkovich, John Cusack starred as an office worker who discovers a little door behind a filing cabinet at work that is a portal into actor John Malkovich’s head. The publicists sent critics a small wooden Matryoshka doll, and inside, in decreasing sizes, were resting dolls painted with the faces of Malkovich, Cusack, Catherine Keener and Cameron Diaz. I loved the movie so much I never could throw this away.
Takashi Miike’s Audition electrified me when I first saw it. It concerned a middle-aged widower (Ryo Ishibashi) who is encouraged by his teenage son to find a new wife. With the help of a film producer friend they advertise for actresses for a nonexistent movie so he can check out the prospects. When he meets the shy, beautiful Asami (Eihi Shiina) he is immediately smitten. But what’s with that twitching, tied-up burlap sack in her apartment? The last twenty minutes are hair-raising and outrageous. To promote this twisted gem they sent me a little hypodermic needle with “Audition” written on it filled with a blood-red liquid. (If you’ve seen the movie or saw the poster you’ll get the chilling reference). The liquid has long-since evaporated but I love playing with my little hypo. It resides in the same room as my “Horror Hypo” that Grindhouse Releasing sent to promote the Blu-ray release of David Durston’s I Drink Your Blood.
Jim Mickle’s bittersweet, bloody action film Stake Land starred Nick Damici as a vampire hunter who takes an orphan (Connor Paolo) under his wing on his search for a safe haven in a in a post-apocalyptic America. Because I loved the movie so much, a publicist sent me a real folding pocket-knife with the movie’s title etched into the wooden handle. I love having that nearby, just in case my apartment is broken into by an army of fanged Con Ed workers.
Quentin Tarantino’s rousing action epic Kill Bill starred a glorious Uma Thurman as a woman who has sworn revenge on a group of assassins and tracks down them one by one, making her way to their leader (and former lover) Bill (David Carradine). One of my favorite villains was Daryl Hannah’s Deadly Viper- Elle Driver, who murderously shows up in the hospital where Thurman has been lying comatose, dressed in a white nurse’s outfit, with a patch over her lost eye and Bernard Herrmann’s haunting theme to Twisted Nerve as her soundtrack. I cherish my little black eye patch with the movie’s title imprinted on it, and wear it from time to time when I watch game shows.
The remake of The Amityville Horror was a boring turd, even though it starred a frequently shirtless Ryan Reynolds as the dad who turns psycho when he and his family move into a haunted house in Long Island, New York. But they sent me a fabulous snow globe for the movie which, when you flick a switch underneath, glows the cursed house blood-red. It makes for a wonderful night light.
I’ve amassed quite a few vomit bags handed out to promote certain horror movies. From the notorious original one for Mark Of The Devil, to one for Dr. Butcher M.D. and my favorite- to promote Takashi Miike’s outrageous gangster gore-apalooza Ichi The Killer– about a cry-baby killer in a superhero costume who is sent in to slice and dice entire rooms full of bad guys.
Eli Roth’s Hostel: Part II was one of those rare sequels that not only upped the ante, but crossed into hard core horror art as well. Both movies concerned hapless backpackers in Europe who get drugged and dragged to remote warehouses only to become victims for rich decadent killers. In the movie, the wealthy clients have tattoos for “Elite Hunting,” which becomes a secret code between them. I still have a few “bloodhound” temporary tattoos from that darkly funny, disturbingly visceral film.
The one thing guests ask about is the golf ball I have on my desk with the title “Funny Games” on it. That references the fiendishly upsetting Michael Haneke film about a couple and their young son who are taken hostage by two white-glove wearing psychos while vacationing at their lake home. The men spend the evening playing games of humiliation, torture and murder and often a golf club and ball are used for maximum pain.
The other favorite has to be one of the original ghost viewers from William Castle’s 13 Ghosts. The 1960 kiddie horror film was about a family that movies into a haunted house and a special pair of goggles enables them to see the spooks. William Castle came on the screen at the beginning of the film to instruct the audience how to use the “Ghost Viewer.” If you wanted to see the apparition you looked through the red lens, but if you were too afraid you looked through the blue lens. You cannot imagine how cool that was for a 10-year-old boy in a packed theater of screaming brats. Every time I walk by the glasses, lovingly framed in the kitchen, I am transported back in time to when movies not only offered me escape but enflamed my imagination with the crackpot possibilities of cinema.
What a touching and personal column. Never knew about the Fargo snow globe. Hilarious!