AV Geeks Lunch 4-22-2020 with Kier-la!

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] father and dicky are watching the plumber fix a very important pipe a water pipe while he fixes it all the water in dickie's house is shut off no water will come into the house until the pipes fix being without water makes a big difference to dickie and his family dickey's mother can't wash clothes without water and in the kitchen dickey's family needs water too all these dirty dishes and pan dicky's mother can't wash them without water vicky's father needs water too his hands are dirty but he can't wash them without water and clean hands help us to keep healthy and now dicky is thirsty he wants a drink of water but there isn't any water no one knows when the pipe will be fixed dickey and mother and father will just have to wait ronnie will have to wait too you don't think about how important water is until you don't have it dickey's mother thinks she misses it most of all she can't boil the potatoes or the eggs without water yes she needs water for cooking too and look at mother's plant she can't water it and plants need water to grow today dickey has begun to learn how important water is especially at home but there are many uses for water that dickie has not thought of water in the toilet and the radiator helps us water in the toilet carries away wastes from our bodies and helps keep us healthy hot water goes through the radiator some radiators use hot water to do their work of giving off heat water is so important to homes everywhere that communities must make sure that there is enough water for the people who live in them some towns pump their water from wells that go deep into the ground some towns get their water from rivers to make sure that there will be enough for the people to use dams may be built across the river to collect great amounts of water places like this for storing water are called reservoirs some towns are near lakes and take water from the lakes for the people to use but much of the water from wells rivers and lakes is not pure it has to be made pure to protect the health of the people cities and towns purify water and make it good to drink or use for cooking then it is pumped through pipes to homes and schools and stores and every place where people need it but water is important in other ways too listen what's that look there it is it's the fire engine [Music] the fire engine reminds dickie that water is important to firemen too dickey's father explains how the firemen use water to help put out fires which destroy buildings and are dangerous to people great streams of water from the fire hoses cool things that are burning and put out the fire water is used in other ways too it turns into steam when very hot and steam can be used to make locomotives go dickey thinks water is useful but he wants to play he can't his wading pool is empty we use water for play and fun in summer the public swimming pool in the park is filled with water and dickie and other children go swimming there a swimming pool is lots of fun but you can't swim without water water helps you have fun dicky's father enjoys fun with water too he often goes to a lake near their town to fish many fish which live in the lake are good to eat and vicki's father likes to catch them the lake helps him have fun a lake is a big body of water vicky's father reminds dickie of other ways we use big bodies of water just as dicky's toy boat floats in his wading pool so do real boats float in the river that flows by the town in which dickie lives boats carry people and things up and down the river the river is like a highway for boats and a river is a big body of flowing water ships and boats all over the world use water of lakes and seas and oceans as their highway for carrying people and things water helps people travel for pleasure or business big bodies of water are important to transportation big bodies of water are also important to people who work on fishing boats they catch fish for a living the fishermen on this boat pull in fish that have been caught in their nets waters of lakes and seas and rivers give us many kinds of food foods from crops that farmers raise need water too rain can bring the water that helps the crops grow but rain and water can be harmful also water from rain can wash away good soil and too much water can mean a flood floods sometimes destroy homes and other buildings and are dangerous a flood is water out of control yes water can be harmful but we have seen how helpful it can be to us too talking about water so much certainly makes you thirsty but there won't be any water to drink until the water pipe is fixed here's the plumber now and he's leaving he must be through with his work the pipe is fixed hurry dicky yes dicky's family has water again now water for drinking water for cooking water for brownie water for the plant water for washing clothes water for washing hands and water for dishes yes even water to fill vicky's wading pool yes there is water again dickie and his family missed it but now it's back and vicki is glad for he knows how helpful and important water can be to everyone [Music] hello everybody i'm skip alzheimer of 80 geeks uh welcome to our lunchtime screening event um [Music] let me switch let me use uh technology and introduce you to a long time friend of mine uh kayla janiece kayla everybody can see you so you can wave [Laughter] kayla's joining us from what'd you say an island yes in the wild of canada and you said that the power might go out at any second all right with the price you pay for for this level of amazing isolation yes um so uh you were just telling me a story um about uh the screening that i did with you in montreal yeah and about the film that you picked uh dead is dead which will sort of give people a preface as to the types of films they're going to see on today's program because i do tend to go for the sort of grim and depressing types of films but yeah i wanted you to come up and do an av geeks um presentation of classroom phones at this fundraiser that i was putting on for montreal which was like a music festival in montreal that has a film component and uh and so we were deciding on what films that you should bring and you had had told me about this film called dead is dead and so i was like oh i really want i want to see that movie so bring that movie and you were just like are you sure that you want to play that movie it's pretty grim and i was just like how bad can it be it was like made for a school you know and uh and so anyway we did this event and there was like families there and children running around and stuff like this and then this film comes on and like you gave like a warning at the beginning of it but i just was like it came on i was like oh my god i'm so fired i'm gonna get fired from my job for this because it was so it was just like dead kids in dumpsters you know and just oh i was so brutal just like real footage of like dead children who had od done drugs and uh like in the garbage like their bodies yeah it's thrown i don't know we're nervously laughing about this we're not making light of the fact that there were kids that were dead no it's like nothing because i was just like wow my judgment is so bad you know and um and then so the next i remember on monday at the office just thinking like i'm just gonna get fired for that you know because that just played before all these family and children and stuff and so my bosses were like hey great screening on the weekend river and i was like what i was like did you guys see that movie dead is dead and they were like oh no we were at the bar yes like none of my employers saw them so and i find that even when people complain about stuff it's like if you weren't there to see it it doesn't seem as bad to you yeah so it's like so even if people complained uh it didn't happen so yeah that was that was a surprise and that was probably one of the largest attended shows i've ever done um and it was great because i showed a film strip and and half the people that read the film strip refused to read it in english yes that was so great it made me very happy and i talked about how poor my french was my high school french so i don't know if i um endeared them the audience or what they were just like you said i think they remember and i think they love being able to read things in french to be defiant in that way so why don't you give us a little brief introduction to who you kayla janiece is okay people that are watching this are seeing to your right uh a list of all the different things you have so many hats that you wear um yeah i know i can't i can't seem to pick one thing [Laughter] but yeah so i have been a film writer and programmer for since the late 90s so i started a fanzine and then that morphed into a film festival i put on an independent horror film festival because horror phones tended to be my specialty for a long time um uh so in addition to programming which i also later worked for the alamograph house i think that's how i met you that is correct yeah and uh but then in addition to that or you know concurrently with programming i was writing books before so i would write essays liner notes and things but then i started writing books i wrote a book about luciano rossi italian bit actor and i wrote a book called house of psychotic women which is probably the one people most know of everything i've done and i started a school called the miskatonic institute of horror studies which puts on classes in horror history theory and a little bit of production and that has branches in london new york and l.a so there's different co-directors in each city and different classes in each city for that um i work for severan films which some of you may know who put out sort of horror and exploitation films and i work on a lot of the bonus features there's a team of us who do it but it's um but i'll produce and edit bonus features for them as part of my normal job which is which is a really great job and uh trying to think of what else i do so i have a publishing company small press company called spectacular optical where i publish books by other people predominantly anthology projects where i'll curate a topic and then have various writers uh write for that so i have one that i put out on christmas horror and there's one that was actually curated by sam deegan all about the films of john roland and we have one coming up on the films of robert downey senior so yeah so various things you know but usually all film related and all uh kind of niche film related i would say okay so let's use that as a as a pivot point for you to talk about the first film that you want to show and i'll let you pick which one okay um i think i'm trying to maybe i'll start with uh all my tomorrows oh boy um do we want to set it up a little bit or do you want to just let people yeah i mean i guess the one thing i'll say is that all my tomorrows is a film that as part of my miskatonic institute um one of the classes i do myself i don't do many of them but one of them might be myself is about core or horrific scenarios in classroom safety films and industrial films and things like that and so all my tomorrows is kind of one of the films that i love showing in that class and i have traumatized people with it as far as australia and scotland um and it's it's it's a it's made by a guy named ron with clothes who he made in 1979 and it is using a style that he uses for several of his fins um where he does everything in slow motion and so there's kind of uh dissonant sound and or dissonant audio visuals where you're sort of you're hearing all the sound playing in normal time but the visuals are actually moving in slow motion it's kind of an amazing effect that he uses a lot and um and it just tell it's an anti-drug film uh but it's also it's like so 70s and it's just i love everything about it and i've seen it now so many times there are like lines that i can just you know i can just quote so many things from this film um so why don't we start with that one all right so here is uh all my tomorrows um and this just as a reminder these are amazing films yet they are all kind of downers so here we go [Music] attention all visitors visiting hours will be over in five minutes [Music] number two [Music] porter [Music] [Applause] [Music] i wish i could tell you why it all happened how sure but why that's what would be important to know me i wasn't so different from other girls i liked a good time who doesn't sometimes i was restless bored out of sorts felt sorry for myself i had this kind of dumb job where i couldn't make enough to be out on my own so i still had to live with my folks with mom and dad always telling me what i could and couldn't do this is the way it's going to be i don't want to hear another word about it i'm telling you this for your own good mom was having sort of these nervous spells and i don't know she was finding fault with me half the time made me sort of nervous too sometimes i'd sneak some of her tranquilizers you know kinda help you ride things out dad always seemed to have a lot on his mind sort of remote but sometimes annoyed especially at me is that all you're having for breakfast chris was in that real fresh stage a real pain stop it no mom of course always thought he was perfect everything was all sort of blah just one stupid day after another it sounds silly now but i kind of thought life was passing me by dr richard hey you got anything planned for tonight uh not after i get off work six months and three days ago just ten days before christmas wayne stopped by and asked me to go to a party at fred and mary ellen's place i guess i could come back at 8 30 right okay sure i did yeah i always felt kind of excited when i was with wayne i never knew kind of what he'd do next i'm not so crazy about that boy parties with wayne were fun someone always had some grass and there was always plenty of beer anybody i know sometimes wine nothing drastic you know just something different from the real drag parties mom and dad wanted me to go to after going out with wayne i wouldn't feel so restless for a while i sort of feel like i was where the action was by the time we got to fred and marielle the party wasn't [Music] we had some drinks when you're having a good time the drinks look down and easy all right never had any of this you don't want to lose any of this good stuff what are you talking about [Music] [Music] [Music] not worrying about a thing i don't know what to do man hey where'd you get all those reds one's planning one spot some of the kids were popping reds i'd never done that but i always heard that if you wanted a real high that was the way to go [Music] i thought it would be fun to try i mean why not it sounded exciting and i was always gung-ho for anything exciting just a few little old pills really [Music] [Music] me i got dopey couldn't keep my eyes open i lay down on the bed and they forgot about me for a while finally wayne tried to rouse me she's not moving piggy oh my god she stopped breathing what do you mean somebody what i mean what's wrong with you she's like i don't know what to do can she hear you no she isn't she's not moving at all peggy peggy can you hear me i don't know what to do get out of the way you don't even know what's matter with her god i don't think she's breathing call somebody someone tried to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation [Music] yeah i know what i'm doing the ambulance people came some of the kids split we got mine she's not breathing on the floor wayne was scared to death but he i staged know she's not breathing right now get the bag up [Music] [Applause] try hyperventilator rob a little bit faster she's been a while without antioxidants hey what's good looks like you know you know what she took we're gonna get some i don't know yet how old is she she's 18. you know where she lives at yes sir okay rob hype later then you're set we'll go ahead and entertain what you took you ready do you have any of them around still if somebody could please find one of those right he looks good on the bottom take a look at that secret barber taller sirens wailing in the night dr mark looks like an od donner well alcohol and looks like barbiturates too let's get this suction set up i think she might have created something how long ago was the ingestion about a half an hour ago best we can figure okay let's do that [Music] took a chest out here okay all right good job pressure wasn't doing too good all the way up a little low couldn't give me a blood pressure cuff did she ever vomit while she was out there did you know it none that we saw there was no problem with it really he's starting to sound a little wet let's see if we can't get her down here how old is she 16 uh uh 18 i believe 18. how about our pupils have been reactive all along no reaction you have your scriptures and look good that's right my parents arrived at the hospital they hovered and waited while the doctors worked over me oh mother forgive me i was crazy i didn't mean to do anything wrong i'll be all right i'll never do anything like this again i've learned my lesson i'll be all right i will won't help mother help me no one can help me get well i mean the days go by the weeks the months and i'm helpless they feed me with a tube of my nose they catheterize me so i can urinate they bathe me brush my hair and i lie here with a hopelessly damaged brain no good to myself no good to anyone else it isn't fair i'm not a bad person i never wanted to hurt anyone i only wanted to have a little fun a few drinks and a few crazy pills and now this mother comes every day [Music] she won't give up hope prays by my bedside mother [Music] why did i never know how much you loved me dad's face has grown accusing what have you done to us he seems to be asking me you ruined your life dragged mother and me to the brink of despair plunged us neck deep in debt what have you done you think they get cold you were such a dear little girl so loving so affectionate what happened along the way sometimes chris comes he doesn't want to look at me but he can't help staring oh chris don't hate me so i know everything's miserable for you at home now can you ever forgive me chris why don't you die wayne comes now and then he feels so guilty did he ever care for me peggy listen you gotta know this the drug scene you know [Music] i've knocked it off peggy totally you want to hear something crazy i'm into nature foods and jogging wayne do you remember that once i was pretty they say i've been here six months and three days and you know what today's my birthday i'm 19. happy birthday peggy there's mom with the birthday cake she remembers how much i always loved a birthday cake happy birthday [Applause] happy birthday to you [Music] mother mother it's all such a rotten joke do i go on like this forever not dead not alive oh mother why did this have to happen to me i never meant to do any harm really i didn't what did i ever do to deserve such a punishment [Music] yeah okay so kayla um we we bum some people out um i mean it's like it's a it's a bummer but it also has it because it's from a certain time period it also has a lot of funny moments now too so i feel like it's not a complete downer to start on because it does have wayne character wayne who i think is uh kind of good for her oh he's good yeah the mustache and the unibrow at the same time it's it's a lot it's a lot of facial hair um so uh i mean i would say part of this the downer part of this is the fact that it's all in slow motion yeah and i think that you know obviously in this movie you could look at it like he's using a lysergic effect deliberately to accentuate the fact that it's about an altered state through drugs but the thing is he actually uses that effect in other movies there are totally different things yeah i have that in the film the day i died which is about a a kid that drinks and drives and of course dies but he also uses it in another movie that i have not seen but i have read about it that he uses it in this other movie called hitchhiking road to rape oh boy you could just imagine that like oh great oh my gosh oh boy and i guess rape scenes in slow motion are things that are probably stylistically you know in films generally but uh but yeah it's interesting that it's just it was not used just for this film because it's a drug film it's a style that he has used yeah through a bunch of his films and his wife works on these productions as well right it's actually not his wife it's his mother are you serious yes louise is his mother no idea that's crazy okay yeah so his dad was his dad was a guy named richard cloth he was a like a graphic designer in the 30s he had come over from germany and he started he moved to the states and started doing posters graphic posters and stuff and uh when he and his dad met louise flow who was a children's story author and then they got married and they started doing children's books together so she would write them and he would illustrate them uh and then when toronto cloaks started making educational films louise would write and edit a lot of them it makes sense i mean there is a fairy tale cautionary tale aspect to this right but hitchhiking the road to rape is also written by his mother so yeah but he started a company called gordon kercroft productions uh that made these films as like an independent producer and then would i guess sell them or perhaps i don't know if it was like a pitching process what you would get uh you know as with a lot of these things when you have independent producers i don't know if they just sort of get hired by a company who's like we want a drug film or whether he is going around pitching certain parts because this is it's it's got a centron copyright and and three of the films that i have are distributed by centron which had the sales team i guess so three of the films you have what do you mean well so i have the other i have uh uh the day i died and then there's a vdd yeah there's a vd film that he did that's actually very light and funny um the rest of them uh not so much um all right so let's let's talk about what's the second one that you want to uh expose to us uh you know why don't we go with silent snow secrets okay excellent and um so this was i've heard different stories saying that this was actually on a night gallery this was an episode of nightgown no it's a different so same director jean kearney who made this short film in 1966 it was originally commissioned for cbs so it was not even uh originally financed as an educational film although that's how it came to be used but so it's made for cbs but then gene kearney uh also worked on night gallery and he remade the story as an episode of night gallery completely different crew cast everything uh the kid who's in the night gallery version is um a kid named radamus para who was later the kid he was like the child version of david carradine on kung fu oh interesting um but so yeah so so gene kearney was just really interested in this story it's like a 1934 short story by conrad aiken and uh and so he remade it again so this production this short film is a totally like independent thing that was shot in his hometown and uh but then obviously when he started working for a night gallery and he had more of a budget he completely redid it with like an orson welles narration but i think imdb confuses them a lot so i think like people are often not sure which version is being talked about but they are totally separate yeah imdb is absolutely horrible when it comes to educational film attributions um so yeah all right so let's watch yeah so we should watch it and then i have more to say about it excellent all right so let's watch uh silent snow secret snow [Music] just why it should have happened or why it should have happened jublie have said nor perhaps could it even have occurred to him to ask the thing was above all a secret something to be preciously concealed and to that very fact it owed an enormous part of its deliciousness deidra perhaps you could tell us what the equator is the equator line that goes around the middle of the earth the uh the earth is wearing a belt or a sash or someone drew a line around it no no not that i mean well did you forget the word imaginary yes it was as if in some delightful way his secret gave him a fortress a wall behind which he could retreat in heavenly seclusion moving up to the arctic circle we again enter a zone of perpetual snow all he needed to do was to think of that morning the first one and then of all the others suddenly for no reason he had thought of the postman he remembered the postman perhaps there was nothing so odd in that after all he heard the postman almost every morning of his life his heavy boots could be heard clumping round the corner at the bottom of the little hill street and then progressively nearer progressively louder the double knock at each door the crossings and re-crossings of the street until finally the clumsy steps came stumbling across to the very door and the tremendous knock came which these constitute the vast wheat growing areas in north america and siberia but on that particular morning the first morning he had for some reason waited for the postman but when at last the steps were heard they had already come around the corner a little up the hill to the first house and even so they were curiously different and he had understood the situation at once nothing could have been simpler there had been snow in the night such as all season he had been hoping for and it was this which had rendered the postman's first steps in audible and the later ones faint and even now it must be snowing the white ragged lines drifting and sifting whispering and hushing seething getting deeper and deeper silenter and silenter [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] queer the effect this extraordinary surprise had upon him all the following morning he had kept with him a census of snow falling about him a secret screen of new snow between himself and the world if he had not dreamed such a thing and how could he have dreamed it while awake how else could one explain it he could not now remember whether it was on the first or the second morning or was it even the third that his mother had drawn attention to some oddness in his manner paul paul dear paul you just don't seem to be listening what the devil is it paul paul now does anyone know the difference between the north pole and the magnetic pole perhaps it hadn't been even the second or third morning or even the fourth or fifth how could he be sure how could he be sure just when the delicious progress had become clear just when it had really begun all he knew was that at some point or another perhaps the second day perhaps the sixth he had noticed that the presence of the snow was a little more insistent the sound of it clearer and conversely the sound of the postman's steps more indistinct not only could he not hear the steps come around the corner he could not even hear them at the first house it was above the first house that he heard them and then a few days later above the second and a few days later above the third gradually gradually the snow was becoming heavier the sound of its seething louder the footsteps more and more muffled when he found each morning on going to the window that the roads and the streets were as bare as ever it made no difference this was after all only what he had expected it was even what pleased him what rewarded him there outside were the bare streets and here inside was the snow snow growing heavier each day muffling the world hiding the ugly and deadening increasingly above all the steps of the postman paul your father thinks you might need a new lamp upstairs for your studies we've been worrying paul we thought maybe it was eye strain that's been bothering you how was one to explain would it be safe to explain would it merely mean that he would get into some obscure kind of trouble and how could he explain his new world how's school going son history was my favorite subject i think i prefer geography especially when it takes one to the north pole why the north pole well it would be fun to be an explorer like perry or it was irresistible this new world it was miraculous its beauty was beyond anything beyond speeches beyond thought utterly and communicable and with each passing day it increased the snow became deeper heavier the sound of its seething more distinct more soothing more persistent [Music] perhaps we'll ask paul paul paul if this goes on we'll have to see a doctor we can't have a war living in another world it's far away there were times when he longed positively ate to burst out with it to tell everyone about it only to be checked almost at once by a sense of mysterious power in his very secrecy it must be kept secret that more and more became clear at whatever cost to himself whatever pain to others perhaps you'll come out of your daydream long enough to be able to tell us won't you paul it is what we now call the hudson river and he thought it was the northwest passage he was disappointed thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] on the walk homeward which was timeless it pleased him to see through the accompaniment or counterpoint of snow the items of mere externality on his way [Music] [Applause] [Music] further on further on there was something else now further on which was already assuming a sharper importance he knew what he was going to look at next it was his own house his own little hill street his silent his secret snow [Music] um [Music] this morning could he be mistaken it was just above the seventh house his own house that the postman had first been audible the knock he had heard must have been the knock on his own door the realization gave him abruptly and even a little frighteningly a sense of hurry he was being hurried he was being rushed did it mean and this was an idea which gave him an extraordinary sense of surprise that he would never hear the postman again was it all going to happen at the end so suddenly or indeed had it already happened ah after supper the inquisition began and now take it slowly and and uh hold it if you can ah how silly all this was as if it had anything to do with his throat or his heart or lungs now paul i just want you to read this as you as you naturally would and another praise have i to tell for this the city our mother the gift of the great god of glory of the land most high the mighty horses the might of the sea no there's no sign of superficial eye strain at all we could have his eyes examined but i believe it's something else even here even among these hostile presences the snow was waiting out of sight with an air that said wait paul just wait is there anything that worries you very much oh no i think not are you quite sure you need an answer at once paul remember we're trying to help you think it over and be quite sure won't you paul just wait till we're alone together then i will tell you something new something cold something sleepy something of cease and peace and the long bright curve of space banish them refuse to speak leave them go upstairs to your room i will be waiting for you i will tell you a story better than the snow ghost i will surround your bed close the windows pile a deep drift against the door so that none will ever again be able to enter speak to them i'm just thinking thinking an idea about what about what yes paul about what anything paul you're making this very painful for your mother what are you thinking about about the snow what on earth my dear what do you mean just snow that's all i like to think about it tell us about it my boy that's all there is there's nothing to tell you know what snow is hurry paul hurry these last few precious hours mother can i go to bed now please i have a headache please [Music] oh [Music] [Music] listen to us paul listen [Music] we have come to tell you the story we told you about you remember in this white darkness we will take the place of everything [Music] wow oh paul paul go away oh paul i hate you and with that effort the seamless hiss advance once more listen it said we'll tell you the last the most beautiful and secret story a story that gets smaller and smaller that comes inward instead of opening like a flower it is a flower that becomes a seed a little cool seed do you hear we are leaning closer to you okay whoo all right kayla [Laughter] you have a lot to say about uh silent snow secret snow yeah um well this would have been a film i mean according to the sort of uh teachers notes and stuff that come with the film it would have been something shown to kids in like grade seven grade eight something like that um and it's one of these films that uh you were mentioning earlier i will uh occurrence it outfit rich you know it's definitely in that realm i have like a surreal literary based story that would have been shown to kids probably as part of like english class you know like as they were reading a story or whatever um and this story i mean as i mentioned it was used on night gallery it was played again on night gallery made into a different version but this original version was made by gene kearney in upstate new york where he lived and the boy who plays the character his name is simon gerard and he was actually the nephew of gene kearney and so he was not a professional actor or anything like that he was his nephew and he asked him to be in the movie and i was able to track down by weird coincidence i was able to track down the mother of the kids so alice gerard um there was a band on youtube who had used footage from silent snow secret snow as their music video the band was called goes cube and they had like mentioned somewhere in their comments like thanks to alice gerard for telling us about simon gerard the kid who you know they had some kind of comment where i was like wait whoa what like they have found this person and so i contacted the band the band connected me to the mother and so i sent the mother a bunch of questions about the kid um and her responses were just amazing and she said that basically the kid really responded to the character had no acting experience but he wanted to play that character and part of why he was interested in playing that character was that he was a kind of weird alienated kid um and it wasn't until i think he was a teenager that he realized that a lot of what he was going through in his own life was because he was gay and he didn't know that obviously when he was a child and he spent a long time being like from a small town and everything like this like getting comfortable with that uh he ended up experimenting with hard drugs and drinking a lot um and so his mother said that you know he really was often a very unhappy person in his life and that he had you know found friends who cared about him and stuff but that he always was kind of separate from things and eventually uh alcohol abuse caused him to have an early death in his in his early 50s and she wrote this kind of amazing thing in his obituary like in their in their hometown paper i just want to see if i can find it but it was like um you know she said about him in so it was palisades new york that's where it was found okay um and she said in their newsletter she wrote there is a tendency to idealize those who have recently left us simon struggled with his own demons at times he was difficult to live with and at times he no longer wanted to live i'm glad he stayed around as long as he did simon was never satisfied with everyday reality he wanted to transform it and much of the time he succeeded and i just thought that was amazing considering that he played this kid in silence no secret snow who just wants to disappear into this world of snow and shut out the real world and how old do we think he was when he played this character he was about 13 13 okay yeah and the other thing that's interesting is that the story was written by conrad aiken and conrad aiken also had issues as a kid because he found his parents dead in a murder suicide oh boy yeah when conrad aiken was like 11 i think his father shot his mom and then shot himself and he found them um and it's interesting that conrad aiken writes about this in his autobiography but he switches to the third person to tell this story interesting but then the other another interesting thing in the original short story of silence no secret snow that he does kind of stylistically is that at the beginning of the story whenever people talk to him like his teachers or his parents or whatever they're they're just in normal quotes just like normal conversation that you would read and as the story goes on everything they say starts to appear in graphics interesting which i thought was just beautiful because it's just like all of a sudden everything they say is starting to become very separate background noise to him you know and that that's actually represented in the way that the story is written um but yeah so it's just like it's a fascinating story it's a really amazing just coincidence that the kid who placed him in this version you know had a lot of issues and it's like uh people nowadays uh at the time i think they would use this story as an example of a kid with schizophrenia and then in more contemporary readings people have read them as a character with asperger's right right i don't know whether the character was actually intended to be either of those things but that's just like how people have read it over time it's fascinating yeah and wow you dug up all the like literal dirt on yeah we took a kind of depressing story and we made it even more depressing but i appreciate the that backstory it's fascinating it's i think that's the one thing that i can appreciate about showing these films is that because they're not part of the like a hollywood studio system you you often involve actors and you involve people that are making the films that are normal people out in the world and they all have these amazing stories yeah some of them end well some of them not so much all right so that leaves uh our last film um in our uh depressing uh three films that we're showing uh in this film snow in it i didn't need to pick two movies with the word snow but i did yeah it's fine i actually did a show in houston texas uh called uh daggett's cold and i show it was in august and i showed all the films that i had with snow in them and we pretended like it was cold outside and and we had hot chocolate and all that stuff um and it was brutally hot it was outrageous um so you want to set up a little bit about cypher yeah so this uh this third movie is called cypher in the snow and when i first saw this movie i believe uh i don't know if i heard about it from you skip but i think how i first saw it was through you because uh i had a i used to have a micro center my montreal could lose sunshine and uh we played a serie we played like a weekend of 60 millimeter uh you know classroom films that we booked from you and we called it downer express suicide weekend and so we were just like trying to get all these like just the whole weekend of depressing educational films and uh and i remember we booked from you the day i died and all my tomorrows um and cypher in the snow it was one of them and there was another one too i remember what and um but so cypher in the snow was a film i had heard of i think from jessie fix and stanford who was a programmer in san francisco um and it is a movie uh that was made by it's a mormon film made by brigham young university um you know they have a i don't know if they still do they they definitely starting in the 50s had a huge film department at brigham young right um and so they would have a lot of the people who uh like a lot of other mormons from the community that would uh some who had gone to brigham young who were students who transitioned into that department and then other people that they would bring in from outside who had uh built professional industry careers but who were mormons also and they would bring them in to like work on films um but cypher in the snow is based on a short story uh i don't want to really say too much about it i kind of when i like let people discover but it's based on a short story it's only a two-page long short story wow that they managed to make into this like 20-minute devastating film but it is like the opening shot of this movie is just like a bam you know like kind of uh you're like okay this is what we're gonna watch um and so yeah so we can put that on cipher in the snow and then we'll come back and talk about it after all right i should say that i've done call-in shows on different call-in radio stations across the u.s and people would call in and ask about films that they saw and in more than one case i had people call me and ask me about this film like they remembered a scene from it oh they remember the opening scene from it um and then the next question is why did they show me this film so we can talk about that all right so here's cypher in the snow yeah [Applause] come on [Applause] come on [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] just one time i'd like to beat him to school [Music] i'm sorry [Music] what happened i don't know that the kid tapped me on the shoulder kind of apologetic like and asked if he could get off so why let him he's dead better call an ambulance [Music] i don't even know who he is [Applause] [Music] is [Music] what do you think [Music] [Music] [Applause] wow [Music] [Applause] hello go right in mr collier mr harness experience here yes oh frank neither of you knew the boy no ned i think he was in my math class last year peggy if you have the evans file would you bring it in please thank you mr schneider it's funny boy never even said he felt bad here it is oh thanks peggy if you take care of these please all right what time is that board meeting you're late for it now sir hmm frank i thought you said you hardly even knew the boy what do you mean well he's written here that you're his favorite teacher his favorite teacher me that's what it says well there were a couple of instances when i helped him with his homework but at least you remember talking with him that's more than anybody else did he have a drug problem i don't know i told you i didn't spend that much time with it i see wish i could be of more help as a matter of fact you can somebody has to contact the parents oh now wait a minute you're the principal don't you think you or mr carlin i've got to be in a board meeting all day besides i don't even remember seeing the boy you at least knew him oh what about my classes we'll cover your classes and incidentally you'll need a small obituary for the school paper you can use my office peggy will be glad to help and uh from the school to attend the boys funeral and thank you very much frank i really appreciate this [Applause] any ideas well here's the address 4015 randolph road mr and mrs nathan tucker stepfather cliff was a good boy i'm sure he was never complained never even said he was sick never said nothing about anything since the day i moved in i give that boy everything i could but he could just never catch on he wouldn't have been so dumb he'd told us he wasn't feeling good cliff wasn't done wasn't dumb i'm sorry cliff's dead and he could never do one thing right and you know it mister i've got all this work to do around here the other day when we had that snow oh you forgot i tell you to go out and shovel those walks you come in and you say i forgot where you been for two hours just do it for a walk for two hours dummy went for a walk for two hours doing what just thinking oh what's up in your hand there it's a wall it's all right buddy it's not even spring yet a willow i ask you to please go out and shovel the walls and you spend two hours thinking about willows when are you gonna start using that head of yours for something besides keeping your ears apart [Applause] yeah and she says he wasn't dumb i should have spent more time with him so you didn't now let it be that's what you've always wanted isn't it harry hey where you going see my son what about my breakfast how's it coming well cliff evans was caucasian never legally adopted by stepfather and has a steady list of bad grades that's the obituary that's the record as far as school goes he appears never to have done anything no clubs no sports no activities at all no friends or students that knew him no not admit it you're kidding nope from the record cliff was a real zero a cipher oh i don't envy your job you know though there's something i just can't get out of my head cliff evans appears to have started out a normal healthy and happy boy look first grade teacher sweet shy child second grade timid eager wants to learn it's a nice looking boy here's a poem he wrote in the second grade poem about frogs by cliff evans i like frogs they sit on great big logs they jump real high up to the sky i wish i could jump high like a frog [Music] this [Music] that's very nice doesn't sound like he was always a zero no he started out just about like every other kid but what happened messed up home i'm sure that was part of it but there's got to be more third grade cliff won't talk uncooperative slow learner it's about the same time cliff's mother and father are having trouble good that's much improved that's right you're doing fine cliff what are you daydreaming about today oh you've always got your mind on something else clear you've got to try harder you know you're the slowest one in the class do you want some help after school do you want me to have your parents in for a conference they won't come why not they're getting a divorce people seem to live up to what other people think of them slow learner the fourth grade teacher says low achiever doesn't mix well with other children i've seen how that happens [Music] we don't need no help yeah it does hi cliff heaven looks just like a stuffed isn't soggy [Music] [Applause] annoying [Music] so [Music] are all the rest of his reports like that it's all beginning to fit isn't it [Applause] once he was labeled everybody else followed stubborn daydreamer slow learner dull not one of them looked past that third grade remark to find any real answers no wonder cliff had a problem do you have my eighth grade report yes it's right there [Applause] introverted lacks ambition socially unskilled well doesn't look like i helped any more than the rest does it peggy what do you mean you have a son don't you yes suppose he lived in a broken home was never legally adopted he was totally ignored how would he feel not a very pleasant thought now add to this six or seven hours a day spent in school where he gets the impression that he's slow and dumb mr collier i don't think teachers intend to treat students that way maybe not consciously peggy but i wonder pretty late just been looking to the cliff evans file we got the coroner's report they were really puzzled said there was nothing wrong that they could tell heart just stop beating i'd better it's okay for the record but there's more to it than that what i think cliff was erased little by little family schoolmates teachers everyone reduced him to a zero finally he just went away low iq right this year was listed as 83 way down but in the third grade it was recorded at 106. it didn't even go under 100 until the seventh grade okay a negative environment can significantly lower an iq over a period of time but what's that got to do with the boy's death even shy timid children have resilience it takes time to break them gradually it happened and i helped me his favorite teacher oh i did the best i could to show cliff how to solve mathematical problems but like everyone else and the things that really mattered to making him feel like a worthwhile human being i kept subtracting frank a lot of people are treated worse than cliff and they survive some do some don't do you remember that study on babies and orphanages yeah they were given all the food and physical care they needed mortality rate was incredible well-fed babies turned their faces to the wall and died when the doctors finally caught on they prescribed along with the food and blankets a little attention a little love cliff held on for a long time finally he just turned his face to the wall too turned his face to the wall and died i see what you mean in a way we all share the blame what are we going to do about it what can [Music] excuse me are you mr coyer yes i am why well i was wondering if i could talk to you for a minute look son i have a lot on my mind right now could we make it some other time uh wait a minute [Music] what did you say your name was my name is leroy jones and i'm going to be in your math class next spring and i was wondering if you could give me some help at that moment i resolve never to forget cliff evans he'll be my challenge from now on each september as i look at the unfamiliar faces i'll look for veiled eyes in an alien world i've promised myself i may not do anything else for them but not one of them is going to come out of my class a nobody a zero [Music] okay wow [Music] so uh while we were watching the movie kayla said yeah this is probably the most depressing of the three yeah i just think it's the most depressing because the kid literally drops dead because no one registers his existence right and that's the thing is so when i was asked uh like hey so why did they show this film to me in the fourth grade my answer was they shouldn't have shown it to him because my for my my takeaway with this and watching a bunch of educational films it is you show kids something that they can do or some some behavior something that's actionable exactly and there is nothing that a kid can do in this situation i think the only scene is with the bullying with the snowman but the rest of it is adults it's it's a you know teachers it's the administration it's his parents his stepfather all that stuff is something that adults can do and my thought was my god you showed this to a fourth grader who already feels like nobody loves him and now you add this anxiety that he can die he's gonna die someday exactly so what's what's your take on this and why why does this resonate with you i mean from for i mean a big part of why it resonates with me is just because i love stories about the worst possible scenario in general i just like i respond to grim depressing stories um and i think that i love that i love the just the idea that you can you can self obliterate like you can just disappear like that like people just don't register you they don't notice you they forget about you and that you just become erased you know and and they bring up that comparison in the film of like he erased himself you know um and i think that you know like a lot of kids can relate to that of just not being not being noticed you know so it's like even when he says like oh my parents are getting a divorce you know or whatever nobody acknowledges this like oh yeah this might be a thing that a kid might be struggling with or whatever you know it's like just know the one thing i was saying that it's like because the original short story is only two pages long it's less slightly less than two pages it's really short um and it was written by a woman who was a teacher who claimed that this was based on her true story from her school wow i doubt the real kid dropped dead right you know but it was something about something tragic that had happened to a kid in her school and that she felt it was because the school had not done enough to like reach out to this kid and um you know but the but the very name of the movie cipher the snow you know it's like the whole implication is that this kid is literally a nothing a zero you know he just doesn't count right and so the scene of the bullying of the other kids was a scene that was added for this movie it's not in the original short story um and that's one of the few things that i feel kind of detracts from the theme of the story because in a way it's like the other kids are noticing him they're picking on him um and so it's it's uh you know they are registering his existence right so i mean i actually prefer the aspects of the story that are literally like the kid is just going through life and no one even notices he's there and i love the opening scene on the bus when it's just him sitting there and it's just like a silhouette of his face you know the light is coming in from out the window and his head is down and you just see like the silhouette of his face um and it's just yeah it's just like a beautiful portrait of alienation um and you know a lot of the stuff with the teachers and the and the secretary the secretary character is not in the short story at all um but they needed a way obviously for the teacher to be voicing these concerns that he has right um you know and so uh you know but otherwise it follows the story pretty closely expanding on it where it needs to um to fill out the running time but also the other thing that was interesting about in terms of just like who made this movie you know it's made by mormon university brigham young and i don't know how much you know about the history of the motion picture department like brigham young i mean i know that uh that uh whitaker wenzel yeah like he made a lot of these films um over the years and he had been an animator at disney oh interesting before this so he was like an animator and he was uh getting paid quite a bit by disney but also there was another animation company they were sort of courting him and then he got offered in the 50s to head up a new motion picture department at brigham young um and so he you know it wasn't like his idea to start it but he was the first director of it you know like in charge of that wing of this school and so he started that whole motion picture department and so this movie's made in like 1973 so we're already like almost 20 years after that and it's obviously still going strong at that point and he is still producing those films wow um and so he is the producer of this but it was the cinematography is by reed smoot and it's like heart not uh easy to not easy to forget a name like read smooth but um but he is in fact only one of the famous mormon people named reed smoot [Music] there's another mormon but um but uh but reid smoot was the cinematographer for the wraith you know the 80s movie with charlie sheen oh that's right it's like a guy gets pulled in carson comes back he's like a ghost of a car or whatever um and so he did like a few of these movies and he did tons of like imax movies and stuff like that but he did he was a mormon and he is a mormon and he was very focused on uh on the film productions coming out of brigham young right um one of the things we were talking about while we were watching the movie was that sometimes non-mormon or we think non-mormon people would show up like i have a wedding film that's a film about marriage and gordon jump the guy from wkrp uh was in it but then i pointed out like the step dad is bruce kimble um who showed up in a bunch of it was a character actor showed up in a bunch of uh films and we were looking at his imdb page yeah and like i didn't i didn't pick up on him being in the movie uh but he was in like a bunch of sort of bob cressy lee frost productions and al adamson films um and the movie snakes uh i don't know if you've seen snakes i have i thought it was snakes is a very special movie [Laughter] but yeah he'd been in tons of stuff and i was just like wow i didn't even register him but i've seen so many of these movies that he said tons of exploitation interesting somebody on um on uh i'm sorry i didn't to interrupt but somebody commented that reed smoot worked on uh some films for pyramid uh film company including ballet robotique and rainbow war rainbow war is a pretty amazing film um but uh yeah okay so yeah so there's these people do other things yeah yeah but yeah the bruce kimball that was a surprise i had not picked up on that right oh yeah so depressing sad movie about a child uh dying from neglect um it could happen to you yeah yeah so kids beware [Laughter] run away from home so you can find somebody that loves you i don't know i mean what's the you know like so you were talking about like finding program notes a lot of times the films actually come with program notes that say to the teacher like okay well this is you can here's how you encourage discussion after you show the film or here's like things that you can do to kind of extend the reach of the film and i have not found one for this film so i don't really know like who it's shown supposed to be shown to and what you're where you're supposed to go from here yeah i mean i guess you as you were saying i mean it seems like something more made for teachers yeah the teachers would get something out of our parents more than the kids for the kids you would just get like dread and anxiety right yeah and i i often refer to this as the film that has traumatized an entire generation um and because it's so outrageous um and just yeah it just seems like and i know that there's got to be teachers out there who are like well i have to show this film because this is my favorite film it's like a driver's ed teacher scene i'm going to have to show the highway safety gore film because this is the film that you know everybody wants me to show and it's going to teach them this lesson um whether they want it or not it's going to shove it down their throats um yeah well this was really fun uh caleb any parting observations or things you want to promote or other places that people can find you and um i mean people can just find me on my website so i have like spectacular optical.ca or miskatonic institute.com uh are the easiest places um but yeah i just think people should watch more of the you know to help keep these films alive you know watch these films and share these films and like give archives and programmers an excuse to show them and and save them because there's so much there's so many these amazing stories behind these films that were often made for a limited time limited usage and um you know people kind of forget about them but there's a lot of really amazing stuff there all right well maybe we'll have you back uh the longer this goes um and maybe we'll have you pick some films that are not so freaking depressing if we're incapable yes um that still kind of tickle your brains in the way in the way the films that you like but also you know everybody it wouldn't just be so bleak um because these are like i said these are brilliant films but um i would not show these three films together except for you um so i'm gonna i have to give like a palette cleanser i can't let people just sit and stew in this so i'm gonna show a ludicrous film from my collection um kayla thank you so much for uh joining us oops i accidentally just switched over to it um hold on all right i'm so jarred but anyways thanks again kayla for uh coming out uh or joining me electronically uh i should say that we're gonna have another guest on friday uh doug edmonds who appears in ghost rider an amazing bus safety film that was filmed in pennsylvania and uh he gets to talk about his experiences being on a haunted bus so as a as a palette cleanser here's malacca pelica do skip two uh it is has it is ludicrous uh it is an example of imagination going crazy um so enjoy this [Music] one shiny day so i've heard folks say a sister and a brother change themselves to bean bags change themselves to be invest and went not far away they traveled to the kingdom where imagination loves to play malaca palace could do skip to malaca pala could do skip strange things can happen there [Music] and almost always do in malacapala could do skip to they found all sorts of things like a talking foot with wings well haven't you ever seen wings with a foot before huh no i used to belong to a postman gosh that's a shame maybe if the postman had springs on his shoes you wouldn't have gotten sore or if he had marshmallows under his feet or shoes made from clouds or rollers on his shoes yeah with the propeller on the back to push him along or if the postman had shoes raised in the back you would have been walking downhill all the time good ideas beanbags now i'm the postman here and i have a letter for you goodbye [Music] what does it say it says hi there the kind demands that you come to him and find the kind what's the kind maybe that's like a king maybe anyway let's find out what he wants [Music] hello beanbags you are a king and not a kind your letter must have been misspelled no it wasn't i got tired of calling myself the kindly king that sounds like i'm patting myself on the back so i shortened kindly king the kind my full name is kinda awful the kindly king of malaca up the doo-doo amelica how does it feel you are [Music] you see you see my kindness is mixed up as its name i have been waiting for two beanbags to fix up to solve all my problems what is your problem problem oh i wish that i only had one problem bring in that toad i'll show you one big problem my mistletoe won't kiss me anymore a mistletoe has mistletoe hanging over her head she's supposed to kiss everybody but she won't kiss me why how could they get the mistletoe to kiss the kind again the kind missed the kisses of his mistletoe friend think and imagine how can it end they use their minds and now the kind has got his kiss again enough you beanbags are really amazing it's that direction [Music] you beanbags are so good at solving my problems i now appoint you as the official problem solvers and the entire kind of [Music] now for your first official problem burping bertha she eats bad foods all the time she has set a bad example so we want to ship her out of the kingdom but in order to ship her we have to know how much she weighs and we don't have a bathroom scale big enough to weigh her so the problem is how do you weigh burping bertha exactly right but how can we weigh something this big it certainly is an enormous problem they had to find a way if they could not weigh her in the kind then she would stay think and imagine what can they say they used their minds and now the kind can send big burping birth to far away [Music] you beanbags are really smart problem solvers you were able to weigh burping bertha now we can move her [Music] once we get there you can see for yourself the problems we have with our smiles [Music] you see these are the official smiles for the entire kind of [Music] now how can a kind run his kindness without smiles all they need is something that will give them fun for a while so they'll smile make a smile smile how could they get the smiles to smile when they were oh so sad smile hill was filled with gloom why were things so bad think and imagine how could they make the sad smiles glad they used their minds and now the kind has the smiley smiles that he has ever had my condom is happy again you beanbags are wonderful [Music] here you go sign right here [Music] hey everybody our thermojim has finally arrived come on let's get it started what is a thingamajig well your thingamajig can be anything you want it to be or do anything you want it to do a thing of a jib can set you free to do what you want be anything you want to be talking about [Music] you're a can set you free to do what you want be anything you want to be you're a thing in my jibs you're imagining mine and everybody has one even a kind your imagining mind can set you free to be anything you want to be but don't you want to be a great kind of course maybe but now with my i can be i can be of beanbag kind [Music] kind beanbag a kindly king of malaca pelican do skip two thank you thank you little beanbags for all your help but now that i have my thingamajig now that i'm a beanbag i can handle everything myself gee that makes us happy but if we're not needed then we have to go i'm glad we could help solve your problems goodbye little beanbags goodbye kind beanbag goodbye [Music] one shiny day so i've heard folks say a sister and a brother who turned themselves to beanbags changed right back to children and traveled home again they thought it was such fun to find a place to play games in their mind in malaca paligandu skip to malacca palakker to skip two they found it was such fun to find a place to play games in their minds in milwaukee can do skip to malaca palace wow so this is the film that drives people off on youtube i guess i was like shifting uh people's psyche um transmission too much uh going one way or another and i know that some people have already seen this before and they they already get it um i watch this film a lot um not just because it has the name skip in it but um because it is it it's fascinating i've watched a lot of the crocus production films um and i'll be showing some more of those uh in the future um and they uh they're fascinating almost all of them use stop motion um the stories are very very strange and um don't always make sense this one is just over the top um and and what i say is that this film is not about drugs but might have been influenced by drugs in the making of it um so thanks everybody for uh joining uh me and joining kayla janiece who came to us from british columbia via the internet um i hopefully you enjoyed quote unquote um got to actually watch the films and kind of think about them um i appreciate kayla because we've been working together and i've been providing with content and she's been doing research and talking about the films in other contexts uh and so i figured you guys would dig that so if you like what you saw or you appreciate what you saw there's a thegeeks.com you can go there and buy dvds and see other things that we've done in the past and also patreon is a place you can donate for future things um so tomorrow one o'clock no depressing films i'll try not to make them depressing uh we'll be back to our normal format and then friday uh we'll watch ghost writer and ghost rider um we'll talk with an actor the main actor of the film and talk about his experiences uh being on a haunted school bus thanks again everybody for coming out and i will see you again tomorrow take care you