Damn, The John Gulager Low Self Esteem Curse is contagious. I'm trying my best to fight it myself - but I'm finding it rather difficult. Can't... Help... It... This recap is going to suck. I'm just not a good writer. I get embarrassed when I read stuff I've written. Sigh... It's hopeless. If Greenlight were on a major network, the term "Gulager" would have entered the national lexicon by now, as in, "Bob, your annual report was good - don't get all Gulager on me now," or, "Timmy if you don't stop your crying I'm going to go Gulager alone!" Although anything with "Gulager" in it would never have an exclamation point afterwards. The guy has never said a statement in his life that warrants such punctuation.

So with bottles absinthe and pills in hand, I fired up the TiVo to see what depressing things first time director John Gulager would pummel us with this week. The episode began with a 5:30 AM call time for Day 8 of Feast's filming. The pre-dawn start time was so Gulager could rehearse a bit with his actors for once. In the first scene to be shot, Beer Guy (Judah Friedlander of, um, Project Greenlight fame) was to be doused with the movie monster's projectile vomit. Thus fulfilling reality show rule # 11; Thy show must air at least one barf or pee scene. Poor Judah was the same guy who had the pleasure of shooting maggots from his nose last week. The director and crew took great pleasure in knocking the esteemed Mr. Friedlander off his feet with the voluminous pressure hose spray of green goo. Yet, even when he's laughing, Gulager looks like he's about to cry. What a sap. During the shooting, Friedlander came up with some lines that went something like, "Aaaaaahhhh... Uuuggghhhh... Eeeeaaaahhh!" At this, co-star Navi Rawat gushed, "Judah's ad libs were brilliant!" Yes folks, that is the level of cinematic genius we are dealing with here.

During this nonsense, Chris F'n Moore showed up to review some footage. Chris f'n liked what he f'n saw, mother f'er. Unfortunately, script supervisor Harri James did not. She (yes, Harri is a she and she could pass for Project Runway's superbitch, Wendy Pepper) lamented that the page counts were wrong as well as some other esoteric gobbledeegook that no one cares about. My use of the verb "lamented" was purposeful, for as you may have guessed, she was a close personal friend of Gulager. And if you are his friend, you certainly lament a lot. First assistant director Stephen Maloney was also grousing and complaining - about Harri. He was also beginning to take too much control over the scenes and confusing the actors - who to listen to? Experienced 1st AD Stephen who kinda sucks or 1st time director Gulager who totally sucks? (This is called foreshadowing, by the way.)

As the show went to commercial, I realized that all we ever see of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon anymore are on these bumpers. Can't they at least show up and lend some A-list support to the struggling cast? Sheesh, what a couple of pricks. Then again, some of the B-list (as opposed to the C and D folks) like Henry Rollins, Jason Mewes, and Balthazar Getty are only seen silently stirring in the background once in a while. Whatsa matter Rollins, afraid you're destroying any credibility you had for your show? (Seriously, click on the link and listen to his short little auto-loaded rant and then think about him being in Feast. "Irony. I-r-o-n-y, irony."

By now, those involved were starting to feel like poking their eyes out rather than watching the dailies. Taking metaphor to new heights, Friedlander did just that. Actually, the monster did it for him, but in a televised workman's comp claim, FX guy Gary Tunnicliffe really did gouge a giant fake claw into the poor actor's eye. Christ... Maggots up the nose, knocked down by vomit, eye nearly gouged out; and all for this crappy movie. Does he even have an agent?

Speaking of scenes going wrong, lovely Jenny Wade was the next victim of the special effect department. Gulager sheepishly mumbled something to her about her scene being, "kinda squirting a little thing." 2 minutes later and covered with fake blood, Jenny stormed off to go cry in her trailer. Forced into dealing with someone else's problems for once, Gulager trundled off to try and soothe things over. This ought to go well... Looking like a T. Rex with his stubby little arms bouncing in front of his rotund torso, Gulager stammered and stuttered about how, "the thing is, the thing is, um, err, it won't happen again, y'know?" His stubby little sausage fingers picked at his jacket and his eyes averted to the ground. Yup, there went the first swig of booze into my gut. This guy is killing me.

Posted by on April 26, 2005 9:03 PM