That Guy Dick Miller is a documentary that
campaigned on Kickstarter back in 2012. Self described as, "the first-ever, comprehensive look at the life and career of Hollywood's most famous character actor," it was one of the few genuinely compelling projects I've seen pop up and get fully funded on that site. And now it's finally arrived on DVD. Even if you didn't participate in the Kickstarter, it's generally available through sites like Amazon and Diabolik; and as they say, it's, "LOADED WITH BONUS FEATURES." Well, my copy just arrived the other day and I'm pretty excited, so let's see what we've got.
Update 6/4/15 - 1/1/20: A year and a half after complaining about how the only disappointing thing about this neat little Kickstarter doc is that it isn't on blu and, lo and behold, it's on blu! Only in Germany; but hey, whatever works. Subkultur now offers it as a DVD/ Blu-ray combo, fully English friendly, with (more or less) all the extras. I never even realized until I stumbled upon it randomly earlier in the year. Let's see if it's everything it should be.
That Guy, obviously, is about one of the most - if not
the most - beloved character actors in cinema,
Dick Miller. He's been in everything from
Little Shop of Horrors to
Gremlins, but very rarely has he been the focus, tending to play very amusing minor parts rather than the leading roles. He worked so often, you learned to first recognize him, and eventually get really excited every time he'd appear in a film and knock his scene out of the park. You'd just see him hawking books in
The Howling or mopping the floor in
Chopping Mall and you'd know the whole film was about to rise in quality, if only for that brief moment.
And this film does a pretty great job in capturing and relishing that. We hear from a ton of Miller's past collaborators, including
Roger Corman,
Joe Dante,
John Sayles,
Mary Woronov,
Zach Galligan,
Cory Feldman and plenty more. We also spend a good deal of time with Dick himself, in his home, meeting his wife, and hearing from his brothers. Now, if you're expecting something along the lines of
Crumb, this isn't that. It's not a profoundly personal look at a man's life, it's a celebration of his work in film. We do get a little insight into his entertaining personality and home life (did you know he was an artist, too? we see some pretty impressive drawings he's made), but it's really about his film work. Before seeing this documentary about this film, I'd read several criticisms in this regard, but to me they're off-base. The film didn't try and fail to go there; it's just not that kind of movie. It's like complaining that
Halloween isn't funny or
Airplane isn't scary. You'd be right, but they're not supposed to be. You can't really blame a filmmaker for not making the film you'd rather see, if he succeeded in making the film he and others were interested in seeing. And this is a movie some of us, at least, are delighted to see.
Admittedly, though, you kind of have to already be a fan of Dick Miller to really appreciate this film. Just watching it cold with no idea who he is might seem like a moderately interesting but very meandering look at the life of a character actor, that doesn't go in deep enough to draw you in to him as a person. You really have to be interested in the interviews about all the wonderful parts he played and crazy productions he'd been on to get the full effect. Sure, the truly great documentaries will draw you in and fascinate audiences whether they cared about the subject beforehand or not. You know, I don't think most fans of
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control went into the theater out of their keen interests in topiary gardens and mole rats. This isn't that kind of film. But for people who already have their Dick Miller fanclub cards in their wallets, don't worry, this movie doesn't disappoint. It's made up of lots of great anecdotes, stories, behind-the-scenes footage, to the point where every moments a real treat. And if you're only familiar with parts of his career, i.e. certain periods, it may be eye-opening just how extensive it ran.
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| 1) 2015 Indiecan DVD; 2) 2016 Subkultur DVD; 3) 2016 Subkultur BD. |
Outside of some vintage footage from Miller's various works, the majority of the film is in 1.78:1, anamorphic, and was clearly shot in HD. Older footage naturally varies (as you can tell from the first set of shots), but the new stuff shot for this film looks great. Interestingly, the DVDs are not equivalent in terms of PQ. They're all using the same basic master, but the Subkultur DVD is definitely softer than the Indiescan... it looks intentional. Maybe it's just over compression or something, but it looks like they chose to denoise it. Anyway, thankfully, that's only on the DVD, and the blu-ray disc surpasses both DVDs in terms of sharpness and resolution just as it should. The writing on Miller's short, for example, is easiest to read on the blu and it's cheerfully free of the artifacting that surrounds the lettering on the 2015 DVD. That artifacting is smoothed away on the 2016 DVD, which is why it appears the softness is deliberate. But again, that's all academic thanks to the blu-ray.
Both releases give us the choice between 2.0 and 5.1 audio mixes, as well as optional English subtitles. On the blu, both tracks are lossless in DTS-HD. And Subkultur, as you might expect, also include optional German subtitles on the film and special features.
Because, of course, if you only stream or download it, you don't get any of the extras. There's a bunch here, but most are pretty short, and range from 5-8 minutes. Those include outtakes, which are amusing and contain a couple of bits not in the movie.
Robert Forster tells a great joke. There's an interview with
Rick Baker, which is short enough you figure they could've squeezed it into the film; but it's just as good here. And there are two "home movies" shot by Miller's wife on the set of some of his old Corman pictures. They're shot without sound, so they're more than a little dry; but fans of
Big Bad Mama should still appreciate the glimpses behind the camera of that film. Of course there's also the trailer.
Then, on the Indiescan DVD, we get a collection of four trailers for some early Miller films and a photo gallery that had a little difficulty playing properly (the on-screen instructions said to hit the "next chapter" button to advance between photos, but it always skipped me to the end of the gallery). The Subkultur disc has everything in the first paragraph but not those, instead offering us the original Kickstarter pitch video, with the director on-camera talking about his vision for the project. The Subkultur also comes in a slipcover, which the Indiscan doesn't. So there are slight differences in the release extras, but it's pretty minor either way.
The main extra on both versions, however, is almost an hour long. It's a series of interviews and audience Q&As held before screenings. The sound quality isn't always 100% (especially on the first one), but they've all been nicely edited to give us just the good bits. First
Leonard Maltin interviews the director of this doc (
Elijah Drenner, who previously made
American Grindhouse), along with Dick Miller and his wife. And at first it seemed like that was going to be the whole thing, which would've been fine, but then it cuts to a second little panel, with Dick Miller, Rick Baker and
Ernest Dickerson (who directed Miller in
Demon Knight), and finally a third with Dick and Roger Corman, who has a terrific recounting of filming
The Terror with Dick,
Jack Nicholson and
Boris Karloff. And because they're edited, these segments don't get too repetitive or slow.
So a few advance reviews had me worried, but now that I've got it, I'm happy to be able to recommend this to any Miller fan. And now we don't even have to settle for DVD, which makes it all the more satisfying. And yes, both the DVD and blu are all region.
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