Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers du Cinemart Collection

From 1993 to 2006, I published a zine called HITCH: THE JOURNAL OF POP CULTURE ABSURDITY. With the help of valuable contributors (some of whom even write for this site), I put out 37 issues, most of which were awesome, if I do say so myself (and I just did). Trading zines is big in the zine world, but because mine was usually a 68-pager with a slick cover and actual content (y’know, not just clip art and collages) that would take hours to read, I was verrry selective with whom I would spend the postage to swap pubs.

Mike White’s CASHIERS DU CINEMART was one of the chosen few. I knew I’d love it before I saw it, simply because of the name — a low-rent pun upon the famed French film journal CAHIERS DU CINEMA that advanced the auteur theory of cinema. (I learned that in my college Alfred Hitchcock course. Impressed?)

That’s a long introduction just to tell you that nearly 400 pages worth of articles from CINEMART’s 14-year run have been rounded up for IMPOSSIBLY FUNKY: A CASHIERS DU CINEMART COLLECTION. Bolstered by “13.2% all new stuff,” it’s the coolest film book of the year that you most likely do not know about.

White’s the guy who gained some notoriety for calling out Quentin Tarantino’s theft of Ringo Lam’s CITY ON FIRE for RESERVOIR DOGS, via a homemade tape titled WHO DO YOU THINK YOU’RE FOOLING? The renegade project ignited a media firestorm and made him some enemies, and the first 20 or so pages of IMPOSSIBLY FUNKY are devoted to this crazed saga, from start to finish.

Next comes more than 100 pages of feature articles, including several well-written essays on oddball subjects, such as why Jean-Claude Van Damme played so many damn twins in his career, and a comparison of all the cuts of HIGHLANDER 2. For a movie so wretched, the number of its releases is mind-boggling. This section also gets its hands dirty in pulp, covering the likes of authors David Goodis and James Ellroy whose works were adapted for screen, with a heavy emphasis on Richard Stark’s THE HUNTER‘s pained birth as Mel Gibson’s PAYBACK.

For me, the most interesting section followed, with looks at franchise properties whose earlier screenplays would have made for vastly different films. You get the full lowdown on sequels (ALIEN 3), remakes (PLANET OF THE APES), adaptations (CATWOMAN) and originals (GREMLINS). This stuff is fascinating, even when I didn’t care about the subject (8MM).

Q&A interviews, mostly brief, come next. Among them are Bruce Campbell, Dr. Demento, the aforementioned Ellroy (who comes off a little brusk), Crispin Glover and Taylor Negron, among others. My fave was actor-turned-director Keith Gordon, whose early films (THE CHOCOLATE WAR, A MIDNIGHT CLEAR) I consider to be criminally underrated — a view shared by his interviewer.

Two films earn their own sections. One is George Lucas’ STAR WARS. The other is Greydon Clark’s BLACK SHAMPOO. Wait, say what? Yes, BLACK SHAMPOO. It’s White’s favorite film. After reading eight full pieces on it, you can kind of understand why, even if you don’t agree. What other publication is going to give that blaxploitation flick so much lovin’? That’s right: none, which is exactly why CINEMART ruled among the film-fringe zines.

Now you have to make do with the book. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Cashiers du Cinemart.

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