Watch a Punk Xmas Nuclear-War-Flick? (EMERALD CITIES). You'll get a gold star for trading 'A Partridge and a Pear Tree' for bands FLIPPER & THE MUTANTS! https://bynwr.com/videos/emerahttps:ld-cities
https://vimeo.com/688517434?share=copy Password: rickdoc
You only have few days left to obliterate your holidAY WITH PUNK mUSIC from two great bands, THE MUTANTS and FLIPPER, before 2025 leaves the holidays in the dust, greets us with a new quarter-century of total discombobulation! CLICK HERE.
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Recent EMERALD CITIES REVIEWS FROM LETTERBOXD
★★★★ Watched by Stein Rutledal 27 Aug 2019
“Non linear, meta, punk, Christmas road movie. Captivating and utterly fascinating slice of independent 80s cinema.”
★★★★★ Watched by Virginia Yapp 21 Aug 2020
“The true definition of "NOT FOR EVERYONE," but a five-star work as far as I am concerned. A look at San Francisco in the early '80s complete with A+ punk tunes, drunk Santa, Reagan footage, and so much more.”
★★½ Watched by bravo🎩 18 Dec 2024
“I could never get my footing with this movie. It’s anti-war, anti-nuclear, anti-Reagan, anti-parking ticket, pro-punk, pro-hypnosis, pro-mushroom-eating, pro-Santa Claus, and ultimately unfinished(?). I’ll give this movie this one compliment though: it captured the alternative culture of California in the 80s and 90s really well, better than most Hollywood films of the time.”
★★★★ Watched by Justin Wiese 18 Dec 2023
“Somehow manages to combine a bizarre Christmas arthouse comedy and an experimental video mixtape with documentary style interviews, political tv speeches and a Flipper/Mutants concert. Woah.”
THE MUTANTS (Click HERE for youtube/punk music @ Christmastime/Scenes from Emerald Cities!)
★★★★★ Watched by Ben Johnson 05 Oct 2023
“Emerald Cities is odd. It isn't good, in the way that a movie is good. I don't know if it's so bad it's good. It's a movie to watch when you're tired of movies.
“There's a man in a halloween mask giving a sunglasses wearing, hitchhiking mall santa a bologna sandwich laced with mushrooms, before taking him with him to his hypnotherapy session. There's constant clips of Reagan and congressional hearings about nuclear war. The plot makes no sense, but I'm glad it was there. The editing is bizarrely well done for a movie that comes off as purely amateur. There isn't a single shot that I feel like I can describe as "good cinematography" but every single shot made me stop and think "I like the way this looks".
“I enjoyed so much of this movie that I hesitate to call any of it the best part, but the footage of Flipper (and to a subjectively lesser extent, the Mutants) is fantastic. I've loved Flipper for a long time, and the performance of Love Canal from this movie is my favorite thing they ever did. Possibly my favorite performance ever captured on film. I watched this movie because I watch that clip almost every day on Youtube.
I don't know how to recommend this movie, but I fucking loved it.”
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––And some random stocking stuffers from my ‘indie product line!’
‘Collectible’/1st Edition EMERALD CITIES DVDs (inquires by email: <lightvideo@gmail.com>.
“EMERALD CITIES features Ed Nylund as an alcoholic, part-time Santa who runs a cafe in Death Valley with his actress daughter (Carolyn Zaremba). When the daughter runs off to San Francisco with a punk (Ted Falconi of FLIPPER), Ed follows. He encounters a politician who wants the country to be one big National Park with himself as head ranger (Lowell Darling), an ex-con in a Martian mask (Dick Richardson), punk rock bands FLIPPER and THE MUTANTS, politicians and priests justifying limited nuclear war as manifested on TV, including street interviews (by Willie Boy Walker) about the death of Santa Claus. Although the more bizarre components make this film excellent late night fare, with its allusions to mass media and the health of the nation, it’s much more than just a freak show. Or is it?”
–– Jo Comino
CITY LIMITS (LONDON)
A FILMMAKER’S memoir, TWELVE DEAD FROGS and Other Stories.
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THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CAKE - Production Secrets of a $15,000 IMPROV Sundance Feature
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SLEEPER TRILOGY––Three Undiscovered First Features by Rick Schmidt 1973-1983
HAVE A HAPPY, OLD-FASHIONED, STOCKING-STUFFING HOLIDAY!
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WATCH TEASER/Preview––About my approach to low/no-budget movie production; ”FEATURE FILMMAKING AT USED-CAR PRICES–The Movie.”
[USE password: “rickdoc” to see it].
CLICK HERE
The Teachers and Teachings I pay most attention to these days teach that the “way” we grow, deepen, expand toward Love and overcoming Fear is to truly “go with the flow” instead of resisting it with all the Tricks that Ego comes up with to “protect” us. We need to truly “Feel It to Heal it.” It occurs to me that improvising in the moment, as a style of moviemaking, rather than prescriptive scripting, is actually a way of “going with the flow” artistically that reveals truth, and often beauty, in a way that scripting can’t. Hmmmm. Just a thought . . .
who wouldn't wanna watch a punk Xmas nuclear flick