The Projection Booth Celebrates Maudit May

DETROIT - April 30, 2015 - PRLog -- The Projection Booth podcast (www.projection-booth.com) celebrates "Maudit May" with a look at four films which have been overlooked, neglected, or not properly released.

If not coined by, the term "film maudit" was made famous by the 1949 Festival du Film Maudit wherein Jean Cocteau curated a slate of film that he considered unappreciated.  Since then, the term has become bastardized by critics like Peter Labuza and Drew Hunt who used the term to defend bad movies that some viewers consider good.

"I'm sorry, but Nacho Libre is not a film maudit," quips Projection Booth co-host Mike White.  "We're trying to get back to the original definition of 'maudit.' We've discussed unreleased or under-represented films on the program before: Jerry Lewis's The Day the Clown Cried, Allan Nicholls's Dead Ringer, and John Paizs's Crime Wave.  We've also focused on films that suffered in their creation like David Lynch's Dune and Ken Russell's The Devils.  We even discussed one of the original films maudit, Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons."

Orson Welles makes another appearance on The Projection Booth in Maudit May with a program dedicated to Welles's as-of-yet unfinished film The Other Side of the Wind.  The subject of a recent book by Josh Karp, the story behind Welles's film may prove as compelling as the star-studded film itself.  The Projection Booth's episode -- released on May 6, the centenary of Welles's birth -- features Karp along with Other Side of the Wind actor and Welles scholar Joseph McBride and the co-author of Gary Graver's Making Movies with Orson Welles, Andrew Rausch.

While Other Side of the Wind has never been completed, the other films in Maudit May have played limited theatrical engagements before being swept away with time or by their creators' decisions.

Tom Schiller's Nothing Lasts Forever stars Zach Galligan (Gremlins), Lauren Tom (The Joy Luck Club), Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray (Ghostbusters).  Produced by Saturday Night Live's Lorne Michaels, the film disappeared after a brief theatrical run in Seattle in 1984.  Since then, the film has made appearances on television with an occasional retrospective screening.  The Projection Booth speaks with Schiller, Tom, Laila Nabulsi, and author Michael Streeter who wrote Nothing Lost Forever about Schiller's colorful career.

Wyn Chamberlain's Brand X spotlights performers familiar to fans of Andy Warhol's Factory (Taylor Mead, Candy Darling, Ultra Violet) along with other New York luminaries (Sam Shepard, Sally Kirkland). A skewering of advertising and politics of the day, The Projection Booth speaks to Chamberlain's son, Sam, about the film's pedigree and disappearance.

Finally, The Projection Booth looks at George Lucas's Star Wars.  Having suffered from numerous changes over the years, Lucas now claims that the original version of the film has been lost.  The Projection Booth discusses what that original version was and how the film impacted movie-making.  Special guests include set decorator Roger Christian along with The People Vs. George Lucas director Alexandre O. Philippe and Michael Kaminski, author of The Secret History of Star Wars.

"Star Wars may be an odd choice," admits White, "But we seem to forget that the movie we see today is not the movie that played in May of 1977.  It wasn't called A New Hope, Greedo never shot his gun, and it was glorious."

The Projection Booth releases new episodes every Wednesday via iTunes, Stitcher, and their website, www.projection-booth.com.