THE YEAR IN REVIEW, PART 1: THE TEN BEST FESTIVAL SESSIONS OF 2015

Leaving the studio dross and multiplex clutter behind (we'll get to that soon), let’s consider the thrill of walking blindly into a film festival screening. You may have read the programme blurb, or liked the director’s last film, or heard some buzz from overseas. Or maybe you’ve just found yourself with an unplanned spare couple of hours. When you stumble on an unheralded gem, that wonderful sense of discovery that energises you…well, it’s why I do what I do. Below are ten films (in no order) that played the Australian film festival circuit in 2015, films that may still be searching for wider distribution, still working the international content markets or already available via various platforms, including self-distribution. Each proved a revelation, a little miracle of pure cinema…

JERUZALEM
Screened at Jewish International Film Festival.
The Paz brothers, Yoav and Doron, drag the Israeli film industry kicking and screaming (literally) into the found-footage genre with this end-of-the-world rollercoaster ride. Utilising the rich biblical influences of the region’s three key religions and working in the latest eyewear-camera tech with a fluid, sure-handed directorial touch, the young filmmakers relate the story of two American tourists (Yael Groblas, pictured above; Danielle Jadelyn) caught up in an apocalyptic uprising of demonic entities, as foretold in the scripture (or something like that). Frankly, logic be damned; the ‘shaky-cam’ moments are terrifying, the protagonists believable, the creature effects superb.  

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT CONCRETE
Screened at Revelation Perth International Film Festival.
“Shot on next-to-no budget over several years with friend and family non-pro actors in key roles, Stewart and Dohan have conjured a high-school classic; a ‘Gilliam-esque’ teen-dream landscape filled with giddy humour, sweet innocence and touching emotion…” 
Read the full SCREEN-SPACE review here.

RAIDERS!: THE STORY OF THE GREATEST FAN FILM EVER MADE
Screened at Sydney Underground Film Festival.
Eric Zala, Chris Strompolos and Jayson Lamb were 11 year-old film fanatics when, in 1982, they set about shooting their wildly ambitious, passion-driven shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of The Lost Ark. In Jeremy Coon and Tim Skousen’s doco, the men reunite to put everything on the line to get the one scene they were never able to conjure – the fistfight between a Nazi heavy and Indy under the whirling blades of a Luftwaffe flying-wing. The staging of the stunt is thrilling, of course, but it is the study in strained friendships and the corrosive impact of a creative dream unfulfilled that makes Raiders! such a bittersweet, emotionally resonant work.  

A FIGHTING SEASON
Screened at Byron Bay International Film Festival.
Clayne Crawford (pictured, right, with co-star Lew Temple) gives a powerhouse performance in silent inner rage as the PTSD-afflicted infantryman returning to his forever altered small town life in Oden Roberts devastating drama, A Fighting Season. Tackling head-on such rich elements as military machismo, the shady ethics of military recruitment and the disassociation that ex-servicemen feel for the very society they were trained to defend, Roberts’ script addresses the neglect and loneliness that returning troops suffer through following repeated hot-zone deployment; Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker tackled similar issues, but with infinitely less honesty and insight.
Read the SCREEN-SPACE interview with director Oden Roberts here. 

THE SPIDERWEB HOUSE
Screened at Melbourne International Film Festival.
Mara Ibel-Eibesfeldt’s fantasy/drama tracks the disintegrating lives of three pre-teens left to fend for themselves when abandoned by their mother in working-class Heidelberg. Sounds heavy, and it is, but the lines between the harsh reality of an adult-free life and the collective power of the children’s imagination soon begin to blur. The result is a wondrous, if occasionally nightmarish fairy-tale vision of the strength of the human spirit and the bond shared between siblings during dire times. As the three kids, Ben Litwischu, Lutz Simon Eilert and Helena Pieske share a rare natural chemistry; they may be the year’s best acting ensemble.

BEREAVE
Screened at Byron Bay International Film Festival.
“Recalling Michael Haneke’s Amour in its exploration of fading memory, mature-age love and dwindling life force but played against the broader backdrop of the noir-ish LA sprawl, Bereave is an achingly insightful, darkly humorous, richly rewarding work…”
Read the full SCREEN-SPACE review here.

ASTRAEA
Screened at A Night of Horror/Fantastic Planet Film Festival.
It was known as ‘The Drop’; the planet’s population all but extinguished in sixteen days by an unexplained natural occurence. Step-siblings Astraea (a superb Nurea Duhart) and Matthew (Scotty Crowe; pictured, right, with Duhart), somehow immune to the new death, have bonded in their struggle. Their journey of faith to find family in Nova Scotia leads them to fellow survivors, cousins James (Dan O’Brien) and Callie (Jessica Cummings), deep in the snowbound forests of Maine. Director Kristjan Thor melds desperation, humanity and survival instincts into a coming-of-age narrative that plays both deeply tragic and soulfully inspiring; earned Best Film honours from the Fantastic Planet strand of the festival.

SUNDAY
Screened at Byron Bay International Film Festival.
“With the cracked, crumbling façade of earthquake-ravaged Christchurch as a metaphorical backdrop, Michelle Joy Lloyd’s sad, sweet two-hander Sunday deftly explores the complexities of balancing the fantasy of youthful ‘true love’ with the realities of late twenty-something adult life…”
Read the full SCREEN-SPACE review here.

THE VISIT: AN ALIEN ENCOUNTER
Screened at Antenna Documentary Film Festival.
Danish director Michael Madsen crafts a profoundly pondered, deeply intelligent and slyly ridiculous second feature with his gripping study in ‘What if…’ hypothesising. Having gathered scientists, philosophers and diplomats of international renown, Madsen poses the question, ‘How would we greet an alien visitation?’ The classic B-movie premise is afforded Mensa-level musings; Madsen’s pristine, high-gloss lensing adds to the (semi)seriousness. The result is a spellbinding piece of pseudo-factual filmmaking. 

HELLIONS
Screened at Monster Fest, Melbourne.
Some critics carped the Canadian indie-cinema great Bruce McDonald’s latest was all homage, no real horror. And, to be fair, there are some familiar beats; the pregnant teenager (Chloe Rose; pictured, right) home alone on Halloween, tormented by wicked mask-wearers, has been done before. But McDonald, like fellow Canuck iconoclast Guy Maddin, is a student of cinema whose talent truly pulsates when he reworks well-established tropes. To wit, Hellions; his giddy, shocking, truly creepy journey down a rabbit hole to Hell and back again is both a disconcerting visual experiment (to accentuate the blood-red moon, much of the film is bathed in a crimson hue) and…well, a little nuts. In a good way.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS: The Ground We Won, Tab Hunter Confidential, Palio, My Skinny Sister, H., Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon, III, Goodbye Mommy, Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous, Black Horse Memories, The Horses of Fukushima.

Read The Year in Review, Part 2: Australian Cinema in 2015 here.
Read The Year in Review, Part 3: Our Ten favourite Films of 2015 here. 

THE BEAUTIFUL WORDS OF MELISSA MATHISON

Screenwriter and author Melissa Mathison passed away on Wednesday, aged 65, at the UCLA Medical Centre, having fought neuroendocrine cancer for several months. Her Hollywood experience was legendary; the political-science graduate from Berkeley befriended Francis Ford Coppola (she would babysit his young children) and became his PA during the production of The Godfather Part II and Apocalypse Now. Over four decades, six of her screenplays would transition to the big-screen (including a co-writing credit with Stephen Zito on Caleb Deschanel’s 1992 drama, The Escape Artist); at the time of her passing, her adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG (the third collaboration with Steven Spielberg; pictured together, below, on the set of ET) was in early post-production. Her work, filled with warmth, humour and honesty, will never be forgotten… 

THE BLACK STALLION (1979; Dir: Carroll Ballard)
Having worked as a TIME correspondent, Mathison was encouraged to tackle her first screenplay by Coppola, playing the mentor role. With fellow feature debutants William D Witliff and Jeanne Rosenberg, Mathison crafted the adaptation of Walter Farley’s novel into the first of her classic family storylines. Under the stewardship of director Carroll Ballard and visionary eye of DOP Caleb Deschanel, Mathison’s lean, spiritual tale of the desert-island friendship between Alec (Kelly Reno) and The Black Stallion has endured; in 2002, it was admitted into the National Film Registry by the US Film Preservation Board.
Classic line: “’Cause this Black, he can outbreak ya, y’know? He can outbreak ya. You’d just be sittin’ in mid air.” – Henry Dailey (Mickey Rooney).
Says Mathison, “We all agreed the movie should be like a children's book, with just pictures. That's when I learned to take out the words, to tell the story visually, which is the best training there is." (LA Times; July 9, 1995).

E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982; Dir: Steven Spielberg)
With John Sayles and Ron Cobb, Steven Spielberg had written a 99-page treatment called Night Skies, a sequel-of-sorts to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While in the midst of the action-movie mayhem that was the Raiders of the Lost Ark shoot, Spielberg met his leading man Harrison Ford’s girlfriend (and future ex-wife) Melissa Mathison. She took the script’s final scene, in which an alien is abandoned on Earth, and crafted a first draft, entitled ‘ET and Me’, in just eight weeks. ““It was a script I was willing to shoot the next day,” Spielberg said on the DVD commentary of the film’s 30^th anniversary re-release. “It was so honest, and Melissa’s voice made a direct connection with my heart.” The writer’s first sole screenwriting credit would become the most successful film of all time and earn her an Oscar nomination.
Classic line: “I'll...be...right...here.” – E.T.
Says Mathison, “In 1982, I was not yet a parent, but I was a stepmother, and had been a consummate babysitter and an older sister. The kids in E.T. can be directly linked to kids I knew. I even stole some of my little friends’ best lines: i.e. ‘penis breath.’ What adult woman could have thought of that?” (The New Yorker; October 3, 2012).

TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, Segment 2: KICK THE CAN (1983; Dir: Steven Spielberg)
Working under the pseudonym ‘Josh Rogan’, Mathison adapted the original teleplay, ‘Kick the Can’ by George Clayton Johnson for the anthology reworking of Rod Serling’s cult TV series. Although it appears mid-film, it was the final segment shot during the troubled production. Following the on-set deaths of Vic Morrow and two child actors while filming John Landis’ opening segment, Joe Dante and George Miller had shot their contribution; Spielberg, back behind the camera for the first time since ET, was tasked with delivering his special brand of magic in the tale of old folk literally rediscovering their youthful selves. Critics weren’t kind (the New York Times said the “rather ugly, sentimental comedy” was “inept in every way”), but retrospectively the narrative clearly captures Spielberg and Mathison at the most whimsical, least cynical juncture in their professional lives.
Classic line: “Fresh…young…minds…” – Mr Bloom (Scatman Crothers).

THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD (1995; Dir: Frank Oz)
Mathison’s first ‘family film’ in over a decade was an adaptation of Lynne Reid Banks beloved fantasy, in which 9 year-old Omri (Hal Scardino) finds a new friend in a tiny plastic Indian (played by native American actor Litefoot, of the Cherokee nation) that comes to life. It achieved middling box office upon its initial release but, like much of Mathison’s timeless work, has become a childhood staple for generations.
Classic line: “You are always a great people, but it is not always so good.” – Omri (Hal Scardino).
Says Mathison, “"If children are given some real content, they can feel powerful with their own understanding of it. I think a movie like 'Indian in the Cupboard' will instruct them how to proceed as people. They can think about whether they would have done something the way a character did, how they would have felt about an event in the story.” (The New Yorker; October 3, 2012)

KUNDUN (1997; Dir: Martin Scorsese)
Director Martin Scorsese’s interest was pique when his then-agent sent him Mathison’s original screenplay, chronicling the early life and ascendancy of His Holiness, The Dalai Lama. “I read the script and liked its simplicity, the childlike nature of it,” Scorsese told Film Comment in 1998. “It wasn't a treatise on Buddhism or a historical epic in the usual sense.” A devout Buddhist, Mathison had spent time with The Dalai Lama at her home in Wyoming and worked through 16 drafts of her screenplay before the narrative became fully formed. Early screenings suggested it was an Oscar front-runner (it would earn 4 tech category nominations), but Disney allegedly stalled its marketing approach when Chinese officialdom attacked the film over their depiction.
Classic line: “I believe I am a reflection, like the moon on water. When you see me, and I try to be a good man, you see yourself.” – Dalai Lama (Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong).
Says Mathison, “I think it's kind of pretentious or presumptuous to think that you could actually affect anything with a movie. Certainly, I hoped that people would be moved by this truth and maybe want to get involved on some level. I think when you set out to make a political statement through a movie, you're in big trouble.” (Hollywood Bitchslap; May 23, 1999).

BLAST FROM THE PAST: RATING THE SUMMER REBOOTS.

What is a ‘reboot’? Some might argue that several of the films included in the list of seven below are ‘sequels’, such as Jurassic World, which references characters and settings from JP’s 1 through 3. But the ‘Jurassic Park’ brand (tellingly, not used in the reboot’s titling) was dated and damaged, as were The Terminator, Vacation and Fantastic Four franchises. True sequels, such as Magic Mike XXL, Pitch Perfect 2 and Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation, rode on the back of relatively recent, blockbuster instalments. A ‘reboot’ must regenerate interest in a moribund property; for a ‘sequel’, the hard work is already done.

So, as the US summer winds down, it is time to analyse which of the bigscreen rebrandings American moviegoers embraced and which failed the reboot test. (All figures in US$s as of 8/27; source – Box Office Mojo).

JURASSIC WORLD (June 12)
A dark cloud hung over a reboot’s theatrical prospects after Joe Johnston’s 2001 three-quel (despite its global gross of $370million). But the Jurassic Park brand has always been a cash-cow for Universal; home video, merchandising and a 2013 3D re-issue of Spielberg’s original kept that famous logo and all the associated thrills alive across a generation. Colin Trevorrow’s 2015 version garnered mixed reviews (Ed – One 2015’s worst films) but was the box office behemoth the filmmakers (and studio moneymen) anticipated.
Rebooted? Oh, yeah! Debuted at #1 in 69 international territories, earning box office records for the biggest opening weekend of all time domestically, internationally and globally; it only took a record 13 days to reach $1billion worldwide. The first sequel is slated for June 22, 2018.
Domestic - $639.6million; B.O. position - #1. 

MAD MAX FURY ROAD (May 15)
Delayed, then delayed again; reported friction between stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron; industry speculation that director George Miller’s remote shoot yielded hours of plotless visuals. Then, the trailer dropped, and the Internet went wild. Warner Bros spin doctors have already started the Oscar nomination buzz, citing Mad Max Fury Road as a type of transcendent enigma – the operatic R-rated action epic so vast in scale and ambition, the Academy dare not ignore it.
Rebooted? Certainly. But Fury Road was the culmination of a career-spanning vision; it seems unlikely Miller will turn around a quickie sequel. Plus Warners will be more circumspect about budgeting next time around; despite the buzz, opened at 3702 theatres for an ok $45.5million. The week before release, the suits would have projected a late summer total closer to $200million. The $220million global revenue is what will keep Max mad.
Domestic - $152million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #9

TERMINATOR GENISYS (July 1)
‘What-just-happened?’ plotting, disregard for franchise canon and that ridiculous title were just some of the major miscalculations star Arnold Schwarzenegger and director Alan Taylor made in trying to breathe life and energy into the Terminator tradition. All that was lean and thrilling about James Cameron’s first instalment is all but gone in a clunky time-travel storyline that ground the film to a halt far too often. The stink spread quickly amongst Arnie’s US fanbase, who stayed away in droves…
Rebooted? …while international fans backed the Austrian Oak’s return to the Cyborg character to the tune of $263.6million (or 75% of its gross, and still counting). Whether the ageing action star will be back for a Genisys 2 may come down to foreign dollar involvement.
Domestic - $89.1million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #14

VACATION (July 29)
New Line Studios wanted us to believe that the four previous adventures of The Griswold clan were ‘beloved’ enough to warrant a reboot, and a vulgar, witless one at that. Star Ed Helms hasn’t found much love outside of The Hangover pics; here, he embodies a grown version of Anthony Michael Hall’s wise-cracking ginger Rusty from the 1983 original. Series veterans Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo are shoe-horned in. The Amy Schumer vehicle Trainwreck and Seth MacFarlane’s Ted 2 had left the R-rated comedy crowd fatigued by the time Vacation premiered.
Rebooted? These comedies are relatively cheap, so a new raft of decreasingly worthwhile sequels may eventuate.
Domestic - $52.4million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #18 

FANTASTIC FOUR (August 7)
From director Josh Trank’s Twitter tirade (“A year ago I had a fantastic version of this”) to star Miles Teller’s Esquire interview backlash to the mainstream media’s bloodlust box office coverage, Fox’s Fantastic Four became the cause celebre of summer movie scandals. An expensive and troubled production makes for good copy. Yet, despite the public flaying from all quarters, it crept into the summer box-office Top 20 and clawed its way to $50million, plus $80million from overseas. (Ed. – We liked it).
Rebooted? Clearly, no. That said, should Fox turn over the negative to Trank and let him cut together the version he envisioned, perhaps give it limited engagements ahead of a home video push, it might be reassessed in a more favourable light. Frankly, what have they got to lose?
Domestic - $50.1million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #20 

POLTERGEIST (May 22)
Despite being heavily web-tracked throughout its development, Gil Kenan’s reboot of Tobe Hooper’s 1982 suburban haunting classic was met with a resounding ‘meh’ by patrons when it landed early in the summer. The original impacted a generation of teen moviegoers, capturing the social and cultural zeitgeist; the reboot, toned down to appease a PG13 mandate, was wan and uninvolving. (Read the SCREEN-SPACE Review)
Rebooted? Unlikely. Couldn’t crack $100million globally, suggesting only the ‘we’ll watch anything’ first-weekenders and melancholy 40-somethings were tapped. No chance the drawcard in the cast, Sam Rockwell (pictured, above), will reprise a role he seemed bored with the first time around.
Domestic - $47.4million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #22

HITMAN AGENT 47 (August 21; trailer, below)
Aleksandr Bach’s rebooting of Xavier Gens very minor 2007 vid-game adaptation landed with a thud, the core demographic of young males prefering a second helping of surprise smash Straight Outta Compton. The third DOA franchise hopeful for 20^th Century Fox this summer (behind Fantastic Four and Poltergeist); the Murdoch stable couldn’t crack the US Top 10, their biggest hit being the Melissa McCarthy vehicle, Spy ($110million; #11). Canned by critics, HA47 may spawn straight-to-vid sequels but the brands theatrical pulse has flatlined.
Rebooted? No.
Domestic - $9.1million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #39

MAD MEN: WHAT MRA ADVOCATES CAN LEARN FROM GEORGE MILLER’S ANTI-HERO.

“I'm a white male aged 18 to 49! Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are.” – Homer Simpson.

Vocal sections of the Men’s Rights activism community have been bleating about the heroic central roles that women play in George Miller’s Mad Max Fury Road (no, I won’t provide links). As a director, Miller has always favoured strong female characters and attracted top-tier actresses to his all-to-rare projects (Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer in The Witches of Eastwick; Sarandon again, in Lorenzo’s Oil). Most importantly, what the MRA knuckle-draggers fail to realise is that powerful female characters have always been central to his Aussie action franchise. (WARNING – SPOILERS AHEAD)

Pictured, above; Star Charlize Theron with Mad Max Fury Road director, George Miller.

MAD MAX
Joanne Samuel (Jessie; pictured, right, with Gibson).
Mel Gibson’s Max Rockatansky barely raised an eyebrow when Charlie copped a saucepan in the throat. When his best mate Goose got cooked, he had a hospital freak-out but began coping by taking some time off work (“Any longer out on that road and I'm one of them, you know?” Max says to his burly boss, Fifi.) But Max only went full-tilt ‘mad’ when they took his Jessie. The epitome of 70’s feminism strength and hippy loveliness, Joanne Samuel’s Jessie was the all-powerful feminine yin to Max’s borderline psychopathic yang. The ‘Mad Max’ we know today only exists because he was denied a strong woman counterpoint. As the clip below suggests, nor would you want to mess with the great Sheila Florence's gun-toting May Swaisey. So convincingly did Gibson embody the ‘unhinged widower’, he adapted the character into all his other career-defining roles – Martin Riggs in the Lethal Weapon series, William Wallace in Braveheart, and Reverend Hess in Signs. 

MAD MAX 2
Virginia Hey (Warrior Woman); Arkie Whitley (The Captain’s Girl; pictured, right).
The decimated wasteland of Miller’s amped-up sequel is ruled by leather-clad boy-gangs, lead by The Humungus (Kjell Nilsson). Women walk amongst them, but exist only to serve their crude, misogynistic lustings; the sole, sordid glimpse offered of a woman’s lot amongst the marauders is when a captured envoy is gang-raped. But when Max enters the more civilised realm of the refinery community, women characters emerge as strong, intelligent leadership types. Most notably, Virginia Hey’s towering action-heroine presence as Warrior Woman (clearly a foreshadowing of Charlize Theron’s Furiosa in Fury Road); and, Arkie Whitley’s nurturing, hopeful earth-mother, The Captain’s Girl. 

MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME
Tina Turner (Aunty Entity; pictured, below); Helen Buday (Savannah Nix); Justin Clarke (Anna Goanna); Tushka Bergen, Emily Stocker, Sandie Lillingston (Guardians).
In Miller’s third instalment, a woman not only takes a central role for the first time in the franchise but is also afforded the coveted ‘villain’ part. As the overseer of Bartertown, Tina Turner’s Aunty Entity is to the post-apocalyptic enclave as Gordon Geeko was to Wall Street – a decadent, ungrateful wallower in trappings of wealth manufactured by the hardship of the those below her (As she says, “I’m up to my armpits in blood and shit.”) The director adorns Turner with an MTV-noirish ambience; just as the biker bad-boys of Mad Max 2 were manifestations of base male urgings, Aunty Entity is female sexuality at its most alluringly dangerous. Post Bartertown, Max is escorted to a place of social and spiritual rebirth, aka ‘The Green Gorge,’ by Helen Buday’s Savannah Nix; borne of dreams and perpetuated by mythology, it is populated by the innocent and nurtured by Justine Clarke’s angelic Anna Goanna. This is the New World, a place fresh in formation, yet forging a new dialect steeped in tradition (“We knows now finding the trick of what's been and lost ain't no easy ride. But that's our trek, we gotta' travel it”). For Max, this is as close to the future that a life with Jessie once promised; though unclear to his damaged self at first, he has already chosen this path. Fittingly, Gibson’s tenure as the character ended amongst women and children, whom he both saves and who save him.

MAD MAX FURY ROAD (again, spoilers)
Charlize Theron (Imperator Furiosa; pictured, below); Zoe Kravitz (Toast the Knowing); Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (The Splendid Angharad); Riley Keough (Capable); Abbey Lee (The Dag); Courtney Eaton (Cheedo the Fragile); Megan Gale (The Valkyrie); Melita Jurisic, Gillian Jones, Joy Smithers, Antoinette Kellermann, Christina Koch (The Vuvalini).
The world promised by The Keepers of The Green Gorge did not pan out, yet the pseudo-English language seems to have stuck. Could the descendants of Anna Goanna’s tribe have survived as The Vuvalini? Is the fabled land sought by Theron’s Imperator Furiosa conjured from memories of The Green Gorge?  The mythology reinforces a narrative arc that brings Tom Hardy’s incarnation of Max back under life-reaffirming feminine ideals and fulfils his messianic role as ‘Captain Walker.’ It also ensures his righteous passage through the carnage of Fury Road and strengthens Miller’s thematic positioning of women as the keepers of the future world. Is it just a coincidence that the stillborn child of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s The Splendid Angharad is a son, or does his passing suggest a patriarchal future is already doomed? One wonders how the MR whiners might react to such a notion…

MONKEY SHINES: DAVID LETTERMAN, A PLUSH TOY AND A CABIN BOY.

From Chevy Chase, Jon Stewart and Craig Ferguson to Jimmy Fallon, Martin Short and Whoopi Goldberg, the ‘Chair Behind the Desk’ late-night hosting gig has seen a great many talented talkers ease the sting of fickle fame with a shot at chat show popularity. But one man reversed the big-to-small screen stigma, melding television immortality and movie stardom.…well, sort of. Remember David Letterman in Cabin Boy…?

Adam Resnick and Chris Elliott connected as staff writers on NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman in the late 1980s. Integral to the core creative team, the caustic Resnick and off-kilter Elliott befriended the notoriously prickly but comedy-savvy ex-weatherman, who was being groomed for the chair left empty by the great Johnny Carson. But when sly manoeuvring by rival Jay Leno infamously robbed Letterman of that spot, the Indiana native downed tools and took some months off to rework the format for a new employer, CBS.

As the high-profile ‘War for Late Night’ was unfolding, Resnick (picture, right; on The Late Show in 2014) and Elliott watched the fate of their old boss from afar, having decamped to LA. They produced two seasons of Fox’s bewildering comedy series Get A Life, described by one critic as an ‘anti-sitcom’; Resnick’s unique comic perspective attracted the likes of Charlie Kaufman and Bob Odenkirk, while Elliott upped his Hollywood profile with acting gigs in The Abyss, New York Stories and Groundhog Day.

The time was right for the writing duo to graduate to feature films. From their off-centre chemistry sprang a starring vehicle for Elliott, a weird re-imagining that combined elements of MGM’s 1937 adventure Captain’s Courageous and the Greek epic poem, The Odyssey. The pitch found favour with the Disney offshoot, Touchstone Pictures; for the mini-studio, the key factor was the chance to secure the services of the pair’s script collaborator, Tim Burton.

"Disney was sort of kissing (Burton's) ass at the time because they wanted him to make a deal there," Resnick told a packed Q&A audience in 2005. "(The film) would’ve been great, if Tim had gone through with it. But he changed his mind at the last minute." The proposed budget of $40million took a hit without Burton’s marquee name; Touchstone now wanted the same script shot for $10million. Meanwhile, the studio fostered Burton’s pet project, Ed Wood, while the director was also working on Cabin Boy. Said a circumspect Resnick in 2012, “I don’t like to disparage the people that were involved…” (Pictured, left; Burton on the set of Ed Wood).

Burton’s eleventh-hour departure did not halt production, with Resnick taking on directing duties. The shooting script followed an uppity ‘Fancy Lad’ who mistakenly boards a rustic vessel, The Filthy Whore, and finds himself at sea with a band of gruff seamen (Brion James, Brian Doyle-Murray and James Gammon), a dim-witted swabby (future Conan O’Brien offsider, Andy Richter), mythical creatures (Ann Magnuson’s randy Octo-woman; Russ Tamblyn’s half-shark/half-man) and a pretty long-distance swimmer (Melora Walters).

“My immediate reaction was, ‘I don’t know how to direct a fucking movie,’ (and) I said no,” Resnick told Splitsider in 2014. “But then all the chatter started. ‘Don’t worry, Adam, we’ll surround you with good people’ and my agents (saying) ‘Do you know how many people would kill for this chance?” In a 2014 interview with The AV Club, the director recalls, “If I were going to direct my first movie, Cabin Boy would be the last sort of thing I’d come up with. It was written for Tim’s sensibility.” The finished film would become the stuff of Hollywood nightmares; debuting January 7, 1994, on a weekend when ice storms shut down much of the US East Coast, and with a tidal wave of negative press crashing against its bow, Cabin Boy sputtered to less than $4million at the US box office. What was once touted as Tim Burton’s follow-up to Batman Begins now seemed destined for movie oblivion…

But one incredible stroke of good fortune had befallen Resnick and Elliot - the Cabin Boy shoot had taken place when David Letterman was between his talk-show commitments. It would be in those fateful few weeks that their old friend agreed to film a cameo as ‘Old Salt in Fishing Village.’ As Fancy Lad wanders a seedy coastal village, Letterman’s cigar-chomping stall owner offers the greeting, “Well, well, well, what’s on your mind, little girl?” After several awkward platitudes and off-colour observations (“You remind me of my sister, Sally. She’s a dietician.”), Letterman brings all his character actor finesse to a line reading that would seal his place in the annals of cinema history…

“Hey, would you like to buy a monkey?

“Adam and I were both really so lucky that Dave agreed to do it,” Elliott told Vulture.com. It is the only character part that Letterman has on his IMDb page, despite being listed in the end credits as ‘Earl Hofert.’ The short scene, barely a minute long, became fuel for Letterman’s caustic brand of self-effacing comedy, with references turning up many times as part of his iconic ‘Top 10 List’ (Top 10 Things Overheard at the Academy Awards - No. 9: If this goes well, I hear they'll offer Whoopi Cabin Boy 2; Top 10 Cool Things About Winning an Academy Award - No. 9: Might get offered the lead in the sequel to Cabin Boy).

When David Letterman hosted the 67^th Academy Awards in 1995, the notoriety of Cabin Boy and the profile that he had afforded his ill-fated bit part meant it was right for skewering on Hollywood’s biggest stage. Despite the professional and personal battering Resnick took following the film’s failure (he told The AV Club, “I never wanted to direct again. I didn’t have the strength to endure that level of failure and embarrassment.”), the director agreed to oversee a short that would air during the Oscar broadcast, in which some of cinema’s biggest stars reveal their Cabin Boy auditions.

The Cabin Boy creative team have both restored their tarnished reputations. Elliott would become a TV regular with recurring roles on Saturday Night Live and Everybody Loves Raymond, as well as scene-stealing turns in There’s Something About Mary, Kingpin and the soon-to-be-released The Rewrite, opposite Hugh Grant. Resnick rose to co-executive producer on the highly-acclaimed The Larry Sanders Show and penned the John Travolta/Lisa Kudrow vehicle, Lucky Numbers, and the dark Edward Norton comedy, Death to Smoochy; in 2014, he published his memoirs, Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation.

Even their much-maligned debut feature has experienced a resurrection of sorts, with screenings and Q&A events filled to capacity with fans for whom the fresh insanity and bizarre tone of Cabin Boy represents a period of studio experimentation long since gone. “We’ve grown fonder of it over time,” says Resnick. “It’s kind of unique; it’s its own little strange thing.  And there are people out there who really like it.”

The Late Show airs its final episode on May 20; Cabin Boy is available to Australian readers via Touchstone (Aust) YouTube channel