November 22, 2009
UTNE READER

Media Diet: Michael Weldon

(Page 2 of 2)

July/August 1995
By A.S. Hamrah, Utne Reader 
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Is there a movie you'd like everyone to see?

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Island of Lost Souls -- the 1933 Erle C. Kenton one with Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi, not the remake. That movie haunted me as a kid, and it still stands out as an extremely disturbing horror movie that goes in directions that most horror movies never go. It's surprising it was even made. Charles Laughton with a whip creating a woman from a panther -- what more could you ask for? I'm also especially fond of movies from the early '60s by directors like Mario Bava, Michael Powell, and William Castle. That was a great time for filmmaking.

Is there a book you'd like everyone to read? 

My book, The Psychotronic Video Guide. It's been many years in the making and it's broken many a publisher, but St. Martin's will be releasing it in early fall '95.

Which contemporary filmmakers' work do you recommend? 

Few directors make more than a couple of good movies. If they make one or two great films, there are usually ten lurking around that stink. I like consistent filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick and Dario Argento. Few directors today can produce a coherent body of work. Argento's recent stuff has been underrated. His half of Evil Eyes was great and I loved Opera. Quentin Tarantino is taking a lot of heat lately, but I love his stuff, not just for the movies he's directed, but also for the ones he wrote, too.

In important matters, whose opinion do you trust? 

The people who work on the magazine with me -- Akira Fitton, who does a lot of the layout, and Fred Brockman, who does the covers, and my wife, Mia.

Where do you find inspiration? 

In the music I love, in my wife, Mia, and in our backyard. We've moved from the East Village to a town three and a half hours from New York City. We got tired of living in the same tiny efficiency apartment after 15 years. It was a two-room place with the tub in the only room that wasn't the bedroom. Now I live among farms and cows with a view of the Delaware River.
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