Film

VIDEO/DVD DISCS OF THE WEEK

DVD: Clover's Movie

By Anthony Allison

Vegas-based filmmaker Marko Sakren is taking an unorthodox road to cinematic fame and fortune. After staging a work-in-progress screening of his debut feature as a last minute adjunct to the Dec. 2000 CineVegas film fest, Sin City's wannabe Orson Welles premiered the finished work at a screening March 2, to publicize the DVD release: Not straight-to-tape so much as whisked-to-disc.

But don't look for Clover's Movie in your local Blockbuster or on Amazon.com just yet. So far, this homegrown effort, shot on video and edited on a computer, is only on sale at a few outlets. That's too bad, because this inventive, enigmatic mix of road movie and murder thriller - with a professional post-production polish that belies its shoestring budget - is far superior to much of the mainstream mush that Hollywood marketers turn into box-office megabucks: The Blair Witch Project, anyone?

Like that horribly overhyped horrorfest, Sakren's flick uses the awkward, postmodern device of having the protagonist(s) double as principal camera operator(s).

Armed only with a camcorder and vague moviemaking ambitions, Jamey McGinnis (Bonanza High alumnus Brandon Dooley) tells his Philadelphia mom (smart, sassy Sandra Harden) that he's planning to hitchhike out west to Hollywood, with a detour to visit his estranged father Jack (macho TV veteran Joe LaDue, who last appeared in Ocean's Eleven), a sometime radio host, environmental activist/anarchist and head of a shady, Freemen-style militia group.

Jamey arrives at Jack's isolated Pahrump ranch just in time to witness his father being framed for the murder of a satellite network mogul and, after hooking up with Jack's girlfriend (radiant, charismatic Lara Mazour), the trio hides out from the villain (suitably sinister Jeff Hill) and sinister Federal agents in the supposedly safe haven of an Ely motel room.

Framing this convoluted action, supposedly captured on the wannabe cineaste's ever-present camera, are scenes in which Vegas cops (Finley Bolton and Robin Clifford) and FBI agents (Joe Kucan and Randy Sutton) avidly scan Jamey's tape for clues to two related murder cases. This allows Sakren's characters to critique his movie: "the sound was eughh," "camera handling kinda poor," "somewhat hard to follow," "a little disjointed." So who needs a DVD review, huh?

The self-critiquing critics fail to mention the thought-provoking script (by Sakren and Anthony Mulholland, with a voiceover co-written by Dooley) and some sensitively staged scenes, especially the big emotional moments between Dooley and LaDue.

Jamey's exploration of the roots of his Vietnam vet father's disillusion with the land of the free are nicely illustrated with slick montages of archive images -ranging from 1960s civil rights and antiwar protests, via JFK and the two Kings (Martin Luther and Rodney), Oklahoma City and Columbine, right up to agonizing Sept. 11 footage.

Equally rich is the soundtrack, a smooth mix of oldies - heavy on prehistoric Elton John songs, but also John Lennon, Al Stewart, Carlos Santana and Doris Day - plus newer offerings by local artists The Watson Family, The ILL Figures, Home Cookin', The Lady Frances Show, Mike Gravitt and Mark Huff.

The DVD extras - with Sakren's commentary (revealing how he first met LaDue), hidden scenes (including a 24-minute Vegas sequence introducing Erika Ambrose as Jamey's sexy, sax-playing blonde-bitch love interest, and Tim Dunn as a drag queen) and four alternate endings (satisfying, corny-romantic, cheesy-paranoiac and just plain silly) - are only accessible via a numerical code revealed via a Clover trivia game.

(Spoiler Alert:) For viewers too busy to wade through the arcana of this mystery (it's good, film freaks, but not worth that much of your time) the all-important secret number is 1414. (NR, 132 mins)

[DVD 1.33:1: commentary, hidden scenes, trivia game; available at Tower Records/WOW Superstore, 4580 W. Sahara Ave., 364-2500; Borders Books, 2190 N. Rainbow Blvd., 638-7866; and from the production company, 242-5800 or see www.cloversmovie.com]