The Cowboy and the Quadruped (1989)

Tagline: ‘Love can cross any divide’

It is 1880. Manifest destiny has propelled countless families to leave behind everything they know in order to create a new life, forge a new beginning.

But often the land they found was wild and awash with danger.

This is the story of one man – John McCredie. Bringing his family west and promptly finding gold, he thought he had found his destiny.

He was right, but the path was full of tragedy, and the outcome nothing he could have predicted.

One dark and stormy night, bandits set upon his smallholding. His wife and children brutally killed in front of him, our hero barely escapes with his life. Destitute, he wanders the frontier towns, doing whatever he can for money to fund his chronic laudanum habit.

Until he meets Bonny.

Her long eyelashes draped over beautiful brown eyes, silky hair flowing across her shoulders. At that moment John knows he has the strength to go on. As long as he has her he can reclaim his land and take revenge on the bandits that ruined his life.

Through their ordeals the two bond. Their relationship becomes more than just friendship. John realizes that what he had before had never been enough. Real love can only come about through adversity. And through adversity he had found real love.

Join John on his voyage of discovery, as he comes to understand that love can cross any divide.

***

Long before Ang Lee challenged traditional cowboy stereotypes, I had penned this minor classic. The concept was simple – take the Western formula of one man and his horse and push it to its logical conclusion. In doing so I called into question all our assumptions about love between species with the simple injunction: ‘if it feels good it can’t be wrong’.

Not surprisingly, a film this original found backing hard to come by. Therefore, still stinging from the butchering my feel good classic Cabbage received at the hands of an unsympathetic director, I decided to make this myself. Pooling my resources I assembled a skeleton crew and a director I could trust and began casting. The late 80s was of course dominated by machismo nonsense, and so finding a male lead was difficult. But after much searching I came across an actor, who is now I might add making waves in Hollywood.

Shooting was hard. I demanded to revue the rushes at the end of each day, and anything that spoiled my vision was reshot. This meant that some scenes took much longer than anticipated. It took 45 takes to finally capture the tenderness of that first campfire experience. Added to this, the first Bonny tragically died of shock shortly into shooting. Finding another Bonny proved impossible, and we had to recast and reshoot the lot.

This made it all the more painful when I was informed that most censors looked down on the genre of unconventional romance, and the only market I would be able to distribute in would be Japan. Thankfully, video rental sales easily paid back the $45 000 I spent on production – indeed I had the pleasure of attending a signing only last week.

I am now working on the sequel:

The Cowboy and the Quadrupeds - When three isn't a crowd!

Exploder (1992)

Tagline: Meet Jack Splinter. Now meet his little friend: THE EXPLODER!

Ex-navy seal Jack Splinter, sickened by the folly of war, abandoned the military to pursue a life of calm and meditation in the Alaskan wilderness. Together with Dickhead, his five hundred pound grizzly bear companion, Splinter survived off the land.

Then they came…

Major Flaggat – Splinter’s old Commander – tracks our hero down, and sitting in his spacious log cabin, offers Splinter one last job.

It sounded simple enough; train some recruits, take them on a secret mission to North Korea and leave them to their own devices.

“You’ll be home in three days,” Flaggat had said.

Now everybody’s dead and Splinter is running for his life.

What was the secret mission? Why did they lie to him?

The hunter becomes the hunted after Splinter retrieves the weapon he swore he would never touch again. He’s out for answers, and if he can’t get them? Revenge!
***

Through the beauties of entertainment I decided to tell a story about a ravaged war veteran, used and betrayed by the very institution he had given his life to. My choice to include the experimental localised vacuum depressurisation cannon – Exploder - was chiefly to illustrate the true horror of war. The initial draft of the film had our hero toting a standard M-16 automatic rifle, I decided that this lacked the desired impact and decided to go for the more visceral Exploder.

The results?

Over twelve minutes of footage had to be cut from the reel by the ESRB, rendering the climax - a gruesome confrontation on the stage of the Sydney opera house - both confusing and incoherent.

The actor who played splinter (A certain high kicking gentleman from Brussels) went on to accredit his failed marriage and repeated drug problems to the physiological stress accrued from staring in this feature.

I am currently in the process of trying to get Exploder (in its whole, splattering entirety) a long deserved DVD release.

Watch this space…

Cabbage (1980)

Born with a horrifying learning disorder, his is a world closed off to others. His soft bulging eyes and imbecilic grunts, emitted through buck teeth and swollen gums are a foreign and often terrifying assault on the senses of those who dare try to communicate with him.

But Wesley has a secret…

In the tradition of “Kes” and “Batteries not Included” Cabbage tells the heart warming tale of a child blessed with the ability to talk to vegetables.

Together with his verdant friends, Wesley concocts an elaborate scheme to foil the bullies that have made his life a nightmare, help farmer Keenan reap a hefty maze crop, and of course - get the girl!

Reviews for Cabbage:

The Morning Echo

“Deeply moving and ultimately uplifting.”

Workers Digest

“Deeply upsetting”

I have always found the success of Cabbage rather troubling. It was a very low budget production shot in Coffeyville, Kansas with a no-name cast.

My original intention was to pen Cabbage as a subtle coming of age story, depicting a childs triumph over adversity; however the director they handed it to had a very different vision for my story.

Ten minutes into the film, having seen the young actor playing Wesley – genuinely retarded I might add - dribbling all over the heaving body of a screaming, buxom blond, assailing her with a fist full of crushed brussels sprouts, it became apparent that there had been a miscommunication somewhere along the line.

A fairly odious court case followed, the desired outcome: having my name removed from the credits.

Despite my reservations, Cabbage went on to become a very successful VHS release, its notoriety reaching its peak at around the time it was banned under the ‘video nasties’ act of 1984.

Cabbage is still very successful in Russia where it enjoys sporadic re-releases and is viewed as a sort of comedy with sex, but not a sex-comedy.

Lord Sexington

The title character - a wealthy, upper class gentlemen living out his life in a Dickensian London, makes a chance encounter with a young chimney sweep named Faulty Bristles.

What starts as mild fascination quickly spirals into an uncontrollable and at times dangerous obsession that threatens to rock the foundations of a then fiercely conservative Britain.

Thoughtful, moving and explicit; follow the hesitant, softly spoken Sexington on his voyage of discovery as we the audience have our notions of class, privilege and sexuality assaulted at every corner by a script that dares to look the viewer in the eye and ask them unabashedly; “Go on, you’ve thought about it, right?"

A shakespearian actor was penned to play lord Sexington and a youthful star was snapped up for the role of Faulty Bristles.

My good director friend AF - delighted with the script – wanted to start production as soon as possible. However, due to the young star's status as a minor at the time of filming, the Screen Actors Guild insisted on having a monitor on set to watch over the young actor.

He was not pleased with the “Whooping cough-death bed” sex scene.

Production was shut down three weeks into shooting. AF did his best to save the film based on its artistic merits but the censors, blinded by prejudice, stood their ground.

Whilst the shakespearian was able to shrug off the whole thing and move onto Hamlet, the trauma of the event left a deep impression on the future fantasy blockbuster star, who, to this day, has no clear recollection of his time spent shooting Lord Sexington.

Tip 34: Beware the nemesis!

Like all good men, I believe I am likable, even attractive, with a playful wit and sharp mind. But, like all good men I have attracted hatred from those who cannot stand to be in my shadow. Those men who have been taken over by envy, who scheme and connive and dedicate all their efforts to bringing about ones downfall. Those men who just want to destroy something beautiful.

You will have your nemesis as I have mine. I will call him D.

For you see, behind his easy smile, his $400 haircut, his immaculate suit, behind the allure of his gently curved earlobes and large masculine hands, lays a man with infinite capacity to hate. And oh, how he has hated me over the years! Though I have great love for my fellow man, I cannot love him. Although I have tried, he will not let me in.

Our feud began in the aftermath of a certain romancing action film in the mid eighties, which I co-wrote, although I of course went uncredited due to legal issues. My vision for the sequel was a brave departure - I felt it time to reinvigorate that symbol of our mighty Empire the Hollywood musical, and by turn reinvigorate a coke addled America caught in the midst of lust and greed. It would be the simple story of a man called Mohammad Jewelie who had the ability to dance through flames – I envisioned a glorious homage to Singing in the Rain where our little Arab friend expresses his wonder at the glory of life under American patronage, backed up by a thousand whirling dervishes singing Yahalla! Yahalla! Glory to the Yankie Saviours! My vision was clear, my purpose pure. The rest of the people in the room looked on at me as if I was their messiah.

But D, consumed with jealously, put an end to my dream. He told me my script was beautiful and sent me away glowing with pride. But a year later all that was left of my magnum opus, the great American movie, was an insipid monstrosity. Incidental points were kept, but the sheer power of song was replaced by a pathetic machismo theme, and D's attempts to impregnate the lead actress. I sometimes imagine the little one as their bastard child sucking at her teat like a malignant growth. That they could appear in the music video together in their matching suits makes me sick to this day. What happened to artistic integrity? And the Jewelie himself: pure sycophancy. It was clear Big Oil had got to my nemesis, and I hated him even more for his weak willed corruption.

My only consolation is that compared to the original this film was a failure. But there is a moral here, and it is deep and it is true. Learn from my mistake. I leave you with this, perhaps the greatest of all war crimes:

Mission Statement

After 25 years in the industry I have decided to join the blogging masses. My simple aim is to deflect the fecal matter of failure expelled by the myriad rotten sphincters of the film industry that belch into the faces of the young, the innocent, the foolhardy, the impressionable and the passionate.

Day after day has gone by where I have sat at my computer, moist with exertion, immersed in the current from the the fifth dimension whence film emanates, supping through the reed at the ebb and flow of true genius. My genius. But to quote:

'With great power comes great responsibility'

I lay semi conscious in my bedroom, watching the dew gather to obscure the half born moon whence an incredible purpose came upon me, like being penetrated by god's unforgiving truth rod. It took time for the immensity to undulate through my body, but once the stars cleared, once the white mist parted, I felt like I had been dragged from Plato's cave and was being made to stare at the harsh sun. My eyes burned. I was Adam thrown from the garden.

So my legion of nomads, take my hand and be not afraid as I guide you. Let me be your eyes. Give your senses to me.

Yours ever faithfully,

Nestlie Coltrane
Producer/Writer