The True Disco Inferno: The Films of Damon Packard

By
 / 28 November 2007

In Wednesday’s overview, we discussed the majesty that is the Damon Packard canon. In one ever-evolving oeuvre is insight into one man’s soul, his heart, and his intellectualized infatuation with the media that made up the filmstrip of his life. Yet without access to this material, without seeing it firsthand, it is possible to remain skeptical of Packard’s presumptive perfection. Besides, anyone who really wants to get into the inner workings of this hotwired savant needs to find themselves lost in his rampant cinematic collages. Therefore, these mini-reviews of his most meaningful movies (and short film collections) will hopefully provide perspective into one of the leading avant-garde archivists working in film. It will also argue for Packard’s place among the unsung greats in a cultural category that mistakes popularity with aesthetic success. These amazing works will never be erroneously viewed as popcorn fare. Equally important, the dull as a dirge Hollywood hit factory will never be favorably compared to art. Packard, however, can claim an inventive, near timeless air.

Anyone interested in purchasing these fantastic cinematic masterworks can contact Packard via his MySpace Page, or go to the official rating: 10]

It stands as a singular work, a piece of art so carefully conceived and executed that even in two distinctly different versions it’s a solid cinematic masterpiece. Packard poured his life into this unhinged honorarium – every movie obsession, ever TV touchstone, every film-based fantasy that found its way into the director’s internal diorama. Pasted into it was an equally shocking view of life living in LA, a narrative of daily street strut hard knocks that turned the frequent flashbacks in on themselves. Toss in the clear cult dimensions of Packard’s preoccupation with Stephen Spielberg (the original cut has an extended sequences inside the infamous ET ride at Universal Studios) and a weird sense of self-loathing (though already chubby, Packard plays himself as a fake padded elephantine presence) and you’ve got a package perfect for a think tank of therapists to study and speculate over. Naturally, this is nothing more than the filmmakers own take on the typical ABC Movie of the Week material – lost ghost gal running aimlessly through ethereal post-modern architecture – but with everything else he includes in the mix, Reflections of Evil becomes an amazing manifestation of the new millennial malaise.

Still there are those who can’t stand this seemingly self-indulgent mess. They view Packard as an aimless wannabe whose fan boy fascinations get the geeks all hot and bothered. Sadly, such criticism misses the major point. A film like Reflections of Evil is akin to jazz – it’s not the narrative notes that Packard is hitting on, it’s the remaining cinematic beats he’s purposely avoiding that are important. Like David Lynch’s sometimes indecipherable dream logic, this is one auteur that sees the rules not as a restriction, but as a way of rationalizing his otherwise outsized vision. Reflections of Evil is great because it takes risks, defies expectations, blatantly confronts apprehension, and demands that you pay attention. It’s not confusing on purpose – it’s complex because it can be. Without studios mandating demographically friendly edits or staid script streamlining, Packard is free to indulge in the kind of improvisational, atmospheric mise-en-scene that all of cinema is supposedly built around. He’s not producing commerce – he’s creating canvases. Most geniuses don’t get recognized in their own lifetime. Thanks to DVD, Packard may bypass that artificial fame claim all together.

The Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary (2003)[rating: 9]

Purists prefer to think of George Lucas as a magnanimous despot, the uber unpretentious overlord of an empire built upon nothing more than good time entertainment spectacle and a USC education. So what if his Star Wars is nothing more than a collection of horse opera clichés strung together with Akira Kurosawa clarity and a devotion to dopey ’30s serials? They never hurt anyone, and generations grew up on their motion controlled imagination. But Packard knows better. He understands that deep inside the Skywalker family legacy is a lot of loose Lucas family ends, shortcomings and dysfunctional talking points that eventually led to the less than meaningful prequels. The Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary uses DVD material from the Phantom Menace/Attack of the Clones release, as well as other making-of memorabilia, to forge a critical vision of Lucas as completely out of touch with cinematic reality. Workers are depicted using porn voiceover groans to emulate character concerns, their leader lovingly oblivious to the XXX footage flashing before his bearded puss. Crappy effects are celebrated, ridiculous psycho-speak (reminiscent of Alan Alda’s dissertation on comedy from Crimes and Misdemeanors) used to refer to narrative mythology and art design.

Of course, almost all of this material is faked – Packard imposing his own crafted comedy onto the otherwise typical EPK tenets of the standard DVD featurette. Lucas doesn’t come off cruel so much as clueless, a doddering old dofus who still thinks model spaceships and CGI creatures can successfully replace the movie magic of imagination, invention, and intrigue. He doesn’t understand that he successfully stunted an entire genre by focusing on silly string instead of story. Watching him look over a manqué of a proposed character, eyes glinting with computer generated possibilities, is far more satiric than having one of Packard’s fictional employees drop the F-bomb in front of the filmmaker’s supposed presence. Indeed, the brilliant move here is to have the moments of direct outrageousness. They play perfectly within the context of the story, but also highlight the real satire stuck inside the Skywalker saga’s self-styled seriousness. Some may think that The Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary is nothing more than a gimmicky takedown of an already overworked target. The truth is, Packard lets the former ’70s maverick dig his own egregious grave.

Grizzly Redux: Killer Edition (2005)[rating: 9]

Taking his outright fascination with Spielberg and the phenomenon surrounding the giant’s breakthrough motion picture blockbuster, Packard pulls William Girdler’s goofy grizzly bear rip-off of Jaws and jerryrigs it into that shark tales pristine polar opposite. With slapstick substituting for seriousness, outrageous arterial spray mimicking the modern mandate for gallons of grue, the results rival the best spoofs ever attempted. Girdler’s film is so overwrought and full of itself (the man was a naturalist, and loved the wild, and it shows in every landscape loving scene) that it’s primed for lampooning, but what Packard does is far more meaningful. As with the Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary, he plays with the populist cues within Spielberg’s film, and finds the common ground that many attempted copiers miss. The point of Redux – beyond the blatant referencing of the DVD driven directorial desire to readdress past success – is to expose cinema for what it really is: a craven bastion of unimaginative manipulators who will take any concept (rogue great white shark) and stuff it into a format that hopefully resonates, monetarily, with audiences.

In order to get the full effect of the film, one has to hunt down the Packard tweaked trailer. Taking the exact same voice over narration from the original Jaws ads, and using footage from Grizzly, the pretense is prepared. The movies are so shockingly similar that they appear to symbolically merge. It’s a similar situation with the director’s latest film, SpaceDisco-One. There, he uses Logan’s Run and 1984 in a way that make both works indivisible from each other. Even better, he saves a groan (and snooze) inducing effort by the hands of a noted exploitation pioneer and turns it into a treat. Girdler is a member of the ’60s/’70s passion pit posse, moviemakers who knew that all theaters needed product – and the more provocative, the more profitable. No one would ever mistake his standard operating thrillers for the sex and skin epics the grindhouse was noted for, but in Packard’s perverse view, Grizzly had all the makings of a splatter house sensation. All it needed was a little post-modern modification. His intended revamp was a way to address the distinctions – and it works wonderfully.

Damon Packard Short Film Collection Volume 1 & 2 (2005)[rating: 8]

Lost in the Thinking and Other Commissioned Works (2005)[rating: 8]

Roller Boogie III and Other Commissioned Works (2006)[rating: 8]

Described by the director as his “Poverty Years” (Reflections failed to fly on a heavily editied and reconfigured Go-Kart Films release, while Mockumentary remained understandably unreleased) the lack of financial backing combined with the sudden pressures of notoriety meant little work and even less cash. As a stop gap move, he went small, focusing his mighty imagination on investigating his 8mm past (Packard, as with most cinematic masters, made movies from a young age) as well as taking on more artsy assignments from clients of more modest means. While not officially full length films in the traditional sense (DVD allows for such compilation complications), these collections function as equally important statements in Packard’s considered oeuvre. He proves in them an innate ability to channel his considerable inspiration into almost any format – be it an outright spoof (as seen in made for public access satires of noted mainstream films), to a quick cut homage to unknown efforts from the past (like the montage highlight reel for the animated Superman serials of the ’40s).

Indeed, each one of these compendiums is stellar, featuring such amazing mini-motion pictures as Dawn of an Evil Millennium (the proposed preview for an 11 hour horror epic), a Sage Stallone shot and narrated action flick trailer showing Packard kicking his own car’s ass, the splendid Roller Boogie remix, and the Halloween 3 inspired Thinking. Not only is this amazing imaginative stuff, but the archival value is untold as well. Packard exposes us to things we may never have known existed, like the Harvey Keitel/Johnny “Rotten” Lydon Italian made thriller Copkiller, aka Corrupt, or the equally obscure sword and sorcery effort Hundra. Some of the best stuff remains the amazing Early ’70s Horror Trailer, the Star Trek satire, and the rough cut of the unreleased elfin fantasy film Apple (which Packard attempted while living in a tent in Hawaii for two years). It all adds up to an amazing overview of one man’s complicated cinematic psyche. It also suggests that Packard has more in common with the experimental filmmakers of the past than the dour independent directors of today.

SpaceDisco-One (2007)[rating: 10]

What do you get when you cross 1984, Logan’s Run, and a failed film production viewed from the director’s slightly arrogant perspective? The latest Packard masterwork, that’s what. Using the War on Terror, the failed information skewering of the Fox Network, and the rising media influence of the Internet as a foundation for a narrative about the mindless pursuit of purpose, this amazing feature is even less optimistic than Reflections. It argues that Big Brother has long since stopped being a threat and is now an embraceable reality, much more a part of our everyday life than concepts of personal freedom, love, and respect for human life. By recreating scenes from the seminal 1984 Michael Radcliff adaptation, with amazing work contributed by Simon Prescott (as O’Brien) and Robert Myers (as Winston Smith), we see the truth about our current cultural climate and how close to complete fascism our world really is. Sure, there are moments of chaotic self-reference (Packard can’t release anything without a sly shout out to his past work), and the standard ’70s inserts, but thanks to the subject matter he’s working within, everything about SpaceDisco-One resonates.

In fact, it’s safe to say that time away from the medium, years spent on the fringes of financial disaster has sharpened Packard’s skills. He’s more fluent here, letting performance and words take over for visuals and celluloid stunts. Granted, there is some blatant humor as when our heroines (Stargirl 7and Francis 8 are supposedly direct descendant’s from Logan 5 and Francis 7) discuss Starbuck and the original Battlestar Gallactica, and 1984‘s Ministry of Truth turns out to be the Universal Citywalk. Additional outlandish elements (the title starship has its own roller rink), mean we get more shots of actors racing around like it’s a teen party circa 1977. In fact, one could argue that SpaceDisco-One represents the final word in Packard’s Me Decade fascination. He’s already ripped through the seminal ABC Movie of the Week, reconfigured Jaws and its much celebrated creator, took Lucas to task for returning to the scene of his cinematic mind crime, and even touched on the more obscure, outsider elements of the era. Merging disco with the post-Wars world of kiddie oriented speculative fiction fills in some necessary pop culture gaps. It also suggests that Packard is ready to move on – figuratively and literally. Where he goes next will be interesting indeed. Rest assured, this convert will be there, waiting to see what transpires. You should too.

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