MOVIES
BY RICK LEVIN
DE TAIL F ROM A A RON SUL LIVA N’S TECTONIC JELLY
THUR JULY 17 - WED JULY 23
BAD WORDS
3:50 + 7:25
MOONRISE
KINGDOM
3:50 + 9:00
THE DOUBLE
5:30
UNDER THE SKIN
5:30
ENEMY
7:25
UNDER THE SKIN
9:00
NEW
JELLYHEADS
Tectonic Jelly’s surreal search for the
world’s last live venue
T
wo dudes standing behind a service counter, slinging
cheesecake for the masses and, during down times,
brainstorming a tangle of ideas about music, movies and
the end of the world: This is the genesis of Tectonic Jelly,
a deliciously bizarre short film and companion comic
book series that gets its first public airing Thursday, July 17, at
Bijou Art Cinemas.
The two dudes responsible for Tectonic Jelly are Aaron
Sullivan and Dylan Keim, who at the time their project began
taking shape were pulling shifts at Eugene’s legendary Sweet Life
Patisserie. A budding filmmaker, Keim took Sullivan’s idea of a
post-apocalyptic hero who, with sword and electric guitar in hand,
goes on a surreal search for the world’s last live venue, and asked,
“Why not make a movie?”
The result is a no-budget fantasia that spools out like some bastard
child of Sid and Marty Krofft’s Land of the Lost and Mad Max:
Beyond Thunderdome — a trippy, sexy and hilarious adventure that
borrows elements of ’60s psychadelia, ’80s glam and Armageddon
punk, all held together by a spirit of DIY joy that is infectious.
MONSTER MASH
Bijou curates a summer horror film series
F
ans of scary monsters and super creeps will have a lot to
feast on in coming days, as the Bijou Classic Series
unleashes its “Monster Blockbuster” tribute, featuring
screenings of a handful of legendary films moderated by
local film buffs.
Coordinated by Joshua Purvis, Bijou marketing
director and founder of the Eugene Film Society, the series puts
together a chilling variety of freaker classics — from Jaws to
Invasion of the Body Snatchers — pairing each with a moderated
Q&A and discussion that will tackle critical, historic and technical
aspects of the film.
Purvis says he’s hoping to inspire audiences to look anew at classic
horror blockbusters, and to see both their value and their influence on
movies as a whole. “These films are intelligent films that work well,”
he says of such offerings as King Kong and Alien, noting that these
movies signify a transition in cinematic history from films with more
artistic or informative concerns to those that seek primarily to titillate
and entertain while still retaining cinematic value. The idea, Purvis
says, is to take a second look at monster blockbusters like Jaws and see
them as more than escapist spectacles — to see where they have merit
and influence, both good and bad, in the history of cinema.
Of course, like all renegade art projects hatched and patched
together on the fly, Tectonic Jelly morphed over its two-year
gestation period. “So it originally was going to be a video that we
wanted to show before these live footage DVDs of bands we were
recording at my studio space,” Sullivan explains. “It turned into
more than that, because we only got to film two more bands before
the space shut down.”
And so one door closes, and another opens: Sullivan and Keim
decided to make Tectonic Jelly (the movie) its own unique entity,
casting other Sweet Life employees in supporting roles and shooting
digital footage around western Oregon. And all this time, Sullivan,
who studied graphic arts at UO, was slowly putting together a series
of comic books that expanded on the story told in the film.
“The comic book came to be a companion to it,” Sullivan says.
“I would think I was devising an idea at the time the movie was
being made and filmed, and it got kind of merged in my mind with
this idea I was working on at the time for a comic book.” As
filming progressed, Sullivan, who plays the movie’s loin-clothed
hero, found that he was building a sort of mythic universe in
which the movie became a story within a story, mirroring two
post-apocalyptic worlds.
“It’s H.P. Lovecraft meets The NeverEnding Story,” Sullivan
explains. “I really like narrative ideas getting squished together.” ■
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Tectonic Jelly, the movie and the comic book, receive its Eugene (and world) premiere 6 pm
Thursday, July 17, at Bijou Art Cinemas, with creator Aaron Sullivan in attendance and
copies of the comics for sale; for more info, visit bijou-cinemas.com.
Taking horror films seriously is a radical concept, given the
ghetto that’s been created by an endless stream of slasher flicks and
monster movies that forgo elements like plot and characterization
in the rush to shock and disgust the audience with buckets of blood.
But fear, like lust, is a primal emotion, and when a great director
like John Carpenter (Halloween) taps into our deep creeps, the
results are no less artistic for being totally scary.
“We are a college town,” Purvis says. “We have the population
that can be engaged with this type of programming. The conversation
element, as opposed to having a lecture, is what gives voice to all the
other components of the film culture, that sense of give and take.”
That give-and-take kicks off with a bang at Bijou Metro on
Saturday, July 19, with a screening of Jaws, followed by a
discussion moderated by EW’s Alex Notman and including input
from DIVA “Behind the Lens” host Tom Blank, LCC media arts
prof Ian Coronado and film researcher Mary Erickson.
Alien screens the following week, with the Q&A moderated by
yours truly and featuring input from LCC’s Coronado and Kate
Sullivan, as well as film critic Doug Hennesy. These screenings are
followed by the original 1933 King Kong (July 30), Aliens (Aug.
1-3), Philip Kaufman’s 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Aug.
8-10), Jurassic Park (Aug. 15-17) and ending with John Carpenter’s
excellent remake of The Thing Aug. 22-24. Bijou will also host a
July 30 screening of the original King Kong (1933) at Kesey
Square as part of Eugene’s “Summer in the City” series. ■
Bijou Metro’s Monster Blockbuster series runs July 18 though Aug. 24; times and titles at
bijou-cinemas.com
eugeneweekly.com • July 17, 2014
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