Rise of the Monster Kid: The JOE DANTE Interview

There is no denying that working for B-Movie producer Roger Corman was often a step towards a lasting career in cinema. Many modern legends of the silver screen had cut their teeth honing their skills within his low-budget limitations, and moved on to star in or direct blockbusters far removed from those humble origins. Names like Nicholson, Cameron, De Niro, Coppola and Scorsese have become synonymous with movie-making to even the most obstinate philistine.

While Joe Dante’s actual name may not resonate as much in the collective subconscious as these luminaries, his work however has managed to reach that legendary status, with films such as THE HOWLING, EXPLORERS, INNERSPACE, his unforgettable version of ‘’IT’S A GOOD LIFE’’ in TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and of course the GREMLINS movies.

Born on November 28, 1946 in New Jersey, the young aspiring cartoonist opted for a potentially more lucrative career when he started working as an editor at 28 at Corman’s studio. Cutting trailers for often uninspiring B-Movies, Dante would sometimes resort to trickery to make them interesting; “We had a famous exploding helicopter shot from one of those Filipino productions that we'd cut in every time a trailer was too dull because that was always exciting.” 

He finally moved on from editor to full-fledged director when he co-directed HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD with Allan Arkush in 1976. The duo was given access to the studio sets after shooting on other productions (including DEATH RACE 2000) had wrapped for the day. The film, a ribald comedy about movie-making, was made for under 55,000$ in less than 10 days and made over $1 million at the box office. He had thus earned his chance at directing another film, PIRANHA, that made Corman over $15 million in profits, and attracted the attention of Steven Spielberg.

''Fiercer than sharks'' touts this French poster for PIRANHA, not even attempting to distract from what film Dante was obviously spoofing.

Relaxing on the set of PIRANHA (1978), Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Joe Dante and Kevin McCarthy.

After revamping the werewolf genre with THE HOWLING in 1981, he gets the call from Spielberg, who was impressed by Dante’s elegant mix of humor and horror on display, and he is offered to work on TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. It’s on this set that he finally gets the hint that he has finally made it in the business; "I do remember realizing that I had arrived in the movie business when making The Twilight Zone movie. It was the first picture that I had ever shot on a soundstage. Standing up on top of our sort of the weird set that we had built and I was looking off in the corner of the sound stage and a grip came up to me and he said, 'Kid, ya see that corner over there?' I said 'Yeah.' He said, 'Errol Flynn pissed in that corner.' I remember thinking I've arrived, I'm in Hollywood. This is it, this is the real thing."

It’s in 1984 that he made the film that would leave a definitive mark in popular culture; GREMLINS. While not his favorite film, it did feature his own brand of rebellious, anarchic humor and his obvious love of cartoons on a grand scale. “It’s the movie I’m going to be remembered for, .If I get hit by a bus tomorrow the headline is going to be ‘Gremlins Director Hit By Bus’. I’ll never do something that’ll outlast that in terms of the public image of who I am – which is fine with me.’’ 

Early Chris Walas designs for GREMLINS and the mogwais.

With an illustrious career spanning 50 years, and a style that is undeniably his own, Joe Dante richly deserves the many accolades he has received over the years, the latest of which being a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Montreal Fantasia Film Festival in August 2018. I had the honor to create a tribute video to precede the ceremony, like I had done in the past for other recipients like John Landis, Tobe Hooper and Guillermo Del Toro among others. In so doing, it gave me the opportunity to take in again his eclectic cinematography, and fall in love again with his unique artistry.

Joe Dante holding his ''Cheval Noir'' Lifetime Achievement Award at the Montreal Fantasia Film Festival.

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THE JOE DANTE INTERVIEW

BRAIN DEAD: It was fun getting reacquainted with your work, and one thing I noticed, not wanting to psychoanalyze you or something, that in a lot of your movies, when there is a family unit, the mother is a very strong character; she’s either a single mom, or defends the family while the father is absent, or hapless, and I was wondering if it reflects how you grew up or…

JOE DANTE: Well it doesn’t really reflect my family, because my father and mother both were strong personalities. It may well reflect the things I watch on television. I mean, the American sitcom is based on bumbling fathers and smart women. (laughter)


BD: True, and we can see it a lot in your movies, it’s omnipresent. It seems like television has been a big part of your education.

Joe Dante at age 10 or 11. Loving movies and going to weekend matinees, but has yet to discover that his passion for monster films was not an aberration. In a year or two, he would discover FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, and a whole community of ''Monster Kids'' like him.

JD: Well yeah, my generation grew up on television. I’m one of the last generations to be born without a TV in the house. Getting a TV was a big deal. In fact, when I had polio as a kid, I was a big Disney fan, and we didn’t have a TV. So they would take me in their arms and carry me across two streets to a friend’s house who had a TV, and we would watch the Disneyland TV show. And I think after a while my parents got tired of carrying me and just sprung for a TV. (Laughter)


BD: And that’s where you managed to discover a lot of movies.

JD: Yeah! Although I was lucky that I…before I had a TV, we used to live right next to a movie theater. Not right next to it, but pretty close. In a matinee; you’d have two old movies and a cartoon. You’d have all the classics like THE WIZARD OF OZ, Tarzan movies, all the old movies they could rent for cheap. Any science-fiction movie that came out would play on Wednesday and Thursday, but they’d hold it over until Saturday so they could play it at a kiddie matinee, so I got to see pretty much a lot of stuff in the fifties before we got a TV. And when we got the TV, I was introduced to older pictures from the forties and thirties.

John Goodman and Cathy Moriarty embraces in fear while Robert Picardo, Simon Fenton and Omri Katz look on, in this scene from MATINEE (1993). A heartfelt homage to the movie going experience that formed Joe Dante's youth.

BD: And at least those weren’t affected by Pan and scan and…


JD: Not in those days, (Laughter) I didn’t have to deal with that. In fact, I refrained from making movies in scope because I knew they would be pan and scanned on the TV and most people would see them on television, so it wasn’t until people started getting widescreen TVs that I decided I’d go ahead and make movies in scope. Which is a format I really like, but it would drive me crazy to…there is this machine that pan and scanned, and you just couldn’t watch it…


BD: I have this friend who used to work in a post-production facility, and he used to do pan and scan for movies, and he tried to do the best possible work…



JD: They all do, but if there is a character here and a character there, and one is talking and the other one is…you can’t just (Make sound effect with his mouth while moving his hand from right to left) Bzzzzt! That immediately disrupted the rhythm of the editing of the movie. And very often, people were too lazy to pan and scan, they’d just run the center of the picture and you’d have two noses talking to each other.


BD: Even when you were 18 or 19, that’s something you felt strongly about. Actually… (Reaches into a bag and gets an old magazine)


JD: I figured you’d have some musings from CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN. (Laughter)

Issue 6 of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN, published in 1964, one of the many magazines inspired by Forrest J. Ackerman's FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND.

The first installment of Joe Dante's FRANKENSTEIN TV MOVIE GUIDE, in issue 6 of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

BD: Exactly. Near the first page, you have comments about pan and scanning.


JD: The Movie Guide. The Frankenstein Movie Guide. We never got any further than ‘’R’’, but you know there was really little scholarship about those kind of movies, much less listing running times and things like that, so we were pretty much in the forefront of it. I mean, some of the commentaries are incisive, and some are just…obviously the people hadn’t seen the movies (Laughter). It was pretty pioneering.


BD: You didn’t care for THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN!?! (Laughter)


JD: No. (Laughter) I never was a big Bert I. Gordon fan. Although I met him, he’s a nice man. Those movies always seemed sub-par to me…grasshoppers climbing on photos of Chicago’s skyline…Didn’t quite cut it for me.


BD: BEGINNING OF THE END. (Laughter) But you started pretty early…I mean; Forrest J. Ackerman basically was one of the persons that forged your future.


JD: Not just me but a lot of people. There’s a lot of people my age, we call ourselves ‘’Monster Kids’’. And we grew up thinking we were alone, thinking we were the only kids in school who liked these movies. And then this magazine came out and all of a sudden we were validated. It was like: these movies are popular enough to have their own magazine, and what’s more there was a second edition with letters in it. It was like: letters! You mean there’s so many people like me that they can write letters to magazines. And then it became a contest of who could get their names in the letter column of the magazine and it was a validation.

BD: And you were twelve when you were actually published…

Joe Dante's first ''published'' work in FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND #18 (1962)

JD: I was twelve or thirteen, I sent a list of the best horror films I ever saw, and the scariest movies, none of these ever appeared. Then I’m thinking: the WORST horror movies, and I hadn’t even seen them all. I put them all in there and sure enough that was the article they printed. And it was completely rewritten by Forry Ackerman, with words I didn’t even know. I was always rather ashamed of it later because when the Medved brothers came out with their book (The Fifty Worst Films of All Time) I felt; they can’t complain about this because I’ve already done it, you know. But the good part was that they did draw attention to Ed Wood, whose legacy was more or less non-existent and became well-known enough to have his own biopic.


BD: And I have to say that PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is one of my favorite films ever, right next to Kurosawa’s IKIRU, just because it’s so enjoyable…


JD: When we were kids, it was apparent, even to kids, that this movie was really inept; gravestones were falling over and the grass was really a rug, but that was part of its charm. And you can’t say, by looking at Wood’s oeuvre, that he wasn’t a personal filmmaker. His movies are a reflection of who he was. And God bless him, he got them made!


BD: Yeah! ‘’Filmed in Hollywood’’. (Laughter)

The closing credit from PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.

JD: Proudly! And today it’s a lot harder to get a movie made, but it wasn’t so easy then!


BD: You worked as an editor for Corman, how was it working for him, and do you feel editing is a good step towards directing?

JD: Editing is a perfect step toward directing, because you learn how scenes are constructed and what you need and don't need to shoot in order to make them work. At Corman's you had the opportunity to try everything, subject to budget restrictions, and we were given a free hand within the strictures of what was needed to sell the film.

Legendary Producer/director Roger Corman getting ready for his cameo in THE HOWLING with Dee Wallace and Joe Dante.

BD: You are now an inspiration for many young directors. Who were your own inspirations when you became interested in making movies?

JD: As I learned more about movies I had directors I liked, but as a child my inspiration was, as he was for many of my peers, Walt Disney. Originally I wanted to be a cartoonist and was obsessed with comics and animation.

A few panels from a ''Shoebox'' comic book Dante drew in 1961. He would slide the panels through a slot on the side of a shoebox, and view it through a hole, recreating the impression of watching a film.

BD: Your love of cartoons is very obvious, and we can see Chuck Jones is a hero of yours, I would imagine. He’s a hero of mine too. But I can’t help thinking, especially when watching a film like INNERSPACE, that you had a thing for Frank Tashlin.


JD: I’m actually more influenced by Tashlin than by Chuck. I’ve always thought of Chuck as the William Wyler of cartoon directors because the characters in the fifties became so complex. But Tashlin was an influence and HELZAPOPPIN’ as well is one of my favorite movies. It’s unknown in America because of a rights problem, but it was very influential to me. In fact, when I made GREMLINS 2, it was really meant to be a picture like HELZAPOPPIN’, which is a movie that you can never tell what’s going to happen because it breaks all the rules. And Tashlin was one of the great comics of the fifties. The pictures he did with Martin and Lewis are the best ones, and the Bob Hope movies…he was a really talented guy. AND he started as a cartoonist.

The ''warning'' at the opening of HELLZAPOPPIN' letting the viewer know it will be an anarchic experience at the movies.

BD: You look at Martin Short’s character in INNERSPACE, he might as well have been played by Jerry Lewis.


JD: Yes, it’s a very Martin and Lewis relationship.


BD: Short may have brought a bit more pathos that Lewis could have mustered…


JD: Well, you haven’t seen THE ERRAND BOY, with his puppet scene. There is true pathos here.


BD: Actually, yeah, if you pull on the reins a bit with Lewis, true…and was it on GREMLINS or GREMLINS 2 that you had a board put up where members of the cast and crew could write ideas for gags.


JD: That was GREMLINS, because the technology was so primitive that a lot of the things written in the script couldn’t be done. Still rising action needed to take place and the story needed to be told. So we put up a sign for the crew: ‘’Things we can do to Gizmo’’, for torture and things like that. And they didn’t mind doing it because that puppet was so small, it kept breaking down. And it would end up costing a lot of time, so there wasn’t a lot of love for (him). So we ended up getting a lot of interesting ideas which were doable and could be done cleverly without too much complications, because the mechanics kept breaking down on all those puppets. One afternoon, the production manager came on the set and everyone was asleep, because the puppets were being fixed…for hours in the trailer. And there was nothing much to do, we couldn’t shoot.

 

What it takes to make Gizmo move. On the set of GREMLINS, all hoping the puppet keeps working right.

BD: It’s funny because it’s a bit like what was done at Warner Bothers’ Termite Terrace, where everyone was encouraged to write jokes and being paid for their ideas. As long as it wasn’t about bullfighting. ‘’There’s nothing funny about bullfighting’’. (Eddie Selzer, a producer appointed by Warner Brothers at Termite Terrace, the small animation studio on Warner’s lot, was notoriously devoid of a sense of humor, and once peeked into Chuck Jones and Mike Maltese’s office and upon seeing a poster of a bullfight, said: ‘’Don’t ever do a picture about a bullfight. There’s nothing funny about that!’’. Immediately, both artists started working on BULLY FOR BUGS).


Speaking of GREMLINS; this was the first movie for Amblin studio, wasn’t it?


JD: It was.


BD: And was there any kind of pressure?


JD: It wasn’t as much that there was pressure. It was that Spielberg had made a deal with Warner Brothers, and then there was the TWLIGHT ZONE issue (The notorious accident that killed Vic Morrow and two young actors in John Landis’ segment of the Spielberg produced film) that cast a cloud on his relationship with Warner Brothers. They went ahead with that movie purely because they wanted a Spielberg movie which said ‘’Warner Brothers’’ in the front. But they kept him at arm’s length, once the accident happened, they left all of us alone to the point we started thinking ‘’This studio thing is pretty good’’. All this stuff and all these people and they leave you completely alone. But it’s only because of that one movie they were scared of. But when came time for GREMLINS, Steven wanted originally to make a low-budget horror film as his first Amblin picture, and he was going to make it in Utah, non-union. And it became apparent that in order to make the puppets believable, it was going to cost more money, so he went to Warner Brothers and said: ‘’Can we make this a studio picture?’’. Still low-budget for a studio picture, but nonetheless, and that’s how it became a studio movie.

Storyboard illustrated by Joe Dante for a ultimately deleted scene in GREMLINS.

BD: So the story goes that Spielberg had seen PIRANHA…


JD: He had seen PIRANHA, and he kept Universal from issuing an injunction to keep the picture off the screen, because they did that with some other shark movies from overseas…


BD: And stuff like TENTACLES or…


JD: JAWS OF DEATH I think was the movie. Then, he liked that movie (PIRANHA), and he had apparently seen THE HOWLING, and he had hired the lead actress from THE HOWLING (Dee Wallace) to be E.T.’s mom. And when I was first working with him, he was in the midst of mixing E.T. So that’s where that’s started.


BD: He’s a pretty hands-on type of producer?


JD: He’s a very hands-on producer, but he’s also a filmmaker-friendly producer, and it was a little disconcerting for me once I got away from the Spielberg form of access to discover once I was working on my own that the studio is very, very intrusive on my latter movies. But when Spielberg is with you, he’d always take care of interference, and you wouldn’t have to worry about the studio.

Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante on the set of INNERSPACE (1987)

BD: The studio were not understanding the breaking of the fourth wall in GREMLINS 2. Ironic when you think how a hugely successful movie like DEADPOOL basically runs with the whole concept right now.


JD: And by the time I made LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION the powers that be were still skeptical of breaking the fourth wall, despite that fact it was a cartoon staple and stretched back to such hit properties as the Hope/Crosby movies and Strange Interlude. "It takes me out of the movie" they always wail. As if going to the movies to such a painful experience you don't want to be reminded of it!


BD: Where do you stand regarding the upcoming GREMLINS 3? Seems like every successful 80s franchise is being rebooted these days.


JD: I don't stand anywhere, because I never owned the material. I was fortunate enough to be part of the first two movies, but neither Chris Columbus nor Steven Spielberg, much less the studio, liked what I did with Gremlins 2, so there's no way they're inviting me back.

BD: Why didn’t they like it?


JD: Too offbeat, I guess.


BD: If you would have made GREMLINS 2 today, I’m guessing the ‘’Clamp’’ character wouldn’t have been so sympathetic.

Donald Glover as the somewhat sympathetic Real Estate magnate and media mogul Daniel Clamp, in GREMLINS 2.

JD: Well, first of all, I wouldn’t have based him on Donald Trump. At the time, he was an icon in real estate, and the character was a composite with Ted Turner. Trump was considered kind of a joke at the time. Even when he was running as President, he was kind of a joke. Well, now he’s not a joke anymore. If he was a joke, he’d be a sick joke. I think what he’s been doing is appalling and he is upending the entire structure of Post-War politics and I can only think of one reason why he would want to do that, and he’s meeting with them this week-end. (This was the week-end of Trump's infamous meeting with Putin)


BD: Was there a sense of competition between you and Landis when you both were working on werewolf movies at the same time?


JD: Not really, because THE HOWLING originated independently from AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. John had been hoping to make his film for years, and when it hadn't come to fruition I asked Rick Baker to come on board my film and, frustrated he hadn't been able to explore his makeup ideas, he said yes. That was enough to galvanize John to get his film going and of course Rick had to leave our project, since he'd promised Landis years ago that he'd do his werewolf movie. But otherwise there was no connection between the two projects.

Joe Dante checking out Rob Bottin's work in THE HOWLING.

BD: Pino Donaggio, who worked on PIRANHA and THE HOWLING, soon was replaced by Jerry Goldsmith as your regular composer, and he has pretty much been your voice for most of your career. How was your working relationship?


JD: Jerry’s one of the reasons I’m here now. When you’re making a movie, and something isn’t working out: ‘’Jerry will save it!’’ And he always did! He classed out my act! (Laughter)

BD: As if it needed it! (Laughter)

JD: With Jerry, the relationship was obviously great since I did more features with him than anyone (only Franklyn Schaffner comes close). As for Pino, I was flabbergasted that he would be interested in scoring PIRANHA after his brilliant work on DON'T LOOK NOW. He spoke little English so my friend Paul Bartel would translate into Spanish, which Pino did speak. Of course the two pictures I did with him were low budget, so I couldn't fly to Italy to attend the scoring sessions. The first live session I attended was with with Jerry for The Twilight Zone Movie. We hit it off and I was lucky enough to have him score every project I could afford him for.


I treasure the music I got from both Jerry and Pino, which improved the movies immeasurably.

Joe Dante with Jerry Goldsmith during the mixing sessions of LOONEY TUNE: BACK IN ACTION (2003), his last score to make it into the theaters.

BD: You were supposed to direct THE PHANTOM, which is why you appear in the credits as a producer, but you are not a fan of the finished film as I understand it.


JD: The late Jeff Boam, who wrote INNERSPACE, had solved the inherent silliness problem with The Phantom character by treating it as an elaborate spoof. I went to Australia several times for location scouting and preliminary work. We had cast the movie, hired a crew and built an entire jungle village, when suddenly one of the executives decided they didn't like the script and cancelled the whole thing while I was on my last flight down under. I got off the plane only to be told to fire everyone and come home.


They later resurrected the project and shot it completely straight, which made it seem ludicrous. I'm told the first preview was a total disaster. My name is in the credits because I stupidly refused to be bought out, pissed at how I'd been treated after having worked on it for so long. I shoulda taken the money. I never saw the picture.


BD: I assume you are not keen on the whole superhero genre...

JD: At my age I have superhero burnout. I've been reading and watching this stuff since the early fifties and the magic eludes me.


BD: I really enjoy TRAILERS FROM HELL and now THE MOVIES THAT MADE ME podcast. Your love of cinema is infectious and these feel like the coolest form or film course.


JD: Well, we hope to make a little dent in today's cluttered media culture. There are more movies available to be seen in various ways than at any time in my life, bit film culture has taken a hit since the 70s and 80s. We're attempting to cut through the fog and point people to movies and filmmakers they may never have known are out there.


BD: You're back working with Mick Garris after your terrific episodes for MASTERS OF HORRORS. He has been instrumental in keeping your status as a masterful horror director alive and well. How was your experience on NIGHTMARE CINEMA?

David Slade, Mick Garris, Ryûhei Kitamura, Joe Dante, Alejandro Brugué, the five twisted minds behind NIGHTMARE CINEMA.

JD: Mick put together NIGHTMARE CINEMA over a ten year period as an adjunct of his hopes for an international season of Masters of Horror, which never materialized because nobody wanted to fund it. The idea was that it would be shot all over the world by various local directors. So it morphed into this portmanteau movie along the lines of classic Amicus pics like ASYLUM and THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD, with five stories, three by non American directors. It was fast and cheap but fun to do. All the directors worked independently, and we never saw the finished film until the premiere screening in Montreal at Fantasia Fest.

Program directors Tony Timpone and Mitch Davis flank the directors of NIGHTMARE CINEMA (minus Slade) at the Fantasia Film Festival World Premiere of the film.

BD: We have to end with your stock company of actors who appear in most of your films; Kevin McCarthy, Robert Picardo, Paul Bartel, Dick miller. Is this a way for you to evoke the era of studio pictures where actors were contract players for a particular studio, or is it more a way to feel comfortable surrounding yourself with familiar faces on a set?


JD: Well, it is nice to have your friends around when you're shooting. And one of the perks of filmmaking is meeting and getting to work with the actors you grew up watching on screen. And if you look back at the cast lists of films directed by everyone from Preston Sturges and John Ford to Ingmar Bergman and Ida Lupino you'll see the same names and faces appearing over the decades. Plus I always enjoy watching movies where familiar faces pop up. That's one of the joys of revisiting classic studio movies. I mean, who's the new Lionel Atwill? Probably no one. But when he pops up in a ham actor part for Lubitsch in TO BE OR NOT TO BE, it's heaven.

Joe Dante's longest running contributor and stalwart, Dick Miller, with Jackie Joseph on the set of GREMLINS 2.

BD: In many of your films, for instance in LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION, characters mention they would love to be in more ‘’relevant’’ movies. But you’ve touched more relevant subjects, like THE SECOND CIVIL WAR…


JD: Which is becoming true as we speak. Again. As it’s been doing every year since we made it. (the interview occurred at the same time as the family separation crisis at the US/Mexico border) Well, every movie I make has some sort of political content. I believe ALL movies have a political content whether they intended or not. The movies that I do have been accused of having subversive messages hidden in the movies, and they do express my beliefs and my opinions. I have a rule that I won’t make movies that I wouldn’t go see, which rules out a lot of things. And some of the things I DO take on, I like to try to personalize. And one thing about working for the studios; it’s that very personal identification that scares them, because they want it to be a mass audience entertainment and they don’t want it to be too idiosyncratic. They find themselves in the position to hire somebody for what it is that they’ve done successfully and then tell them: ‘’You can’t do that!’’. That’s why a lot of people… George Miller is a perfect example, as he felt he was better off going back to Australia, because there was a climate where he could do things the way that he wanted.

Being a cog in someone else machine is really not very rewarding.

Joe Dante with Beau Bridges on the set THE SECOND CIVIL WAR, the 1997 HBO Tv Movie that is proving to be especially prescient these days.

A knock at the door interrupts our interview. We had gone a bit over the 20 minutes we were allocated, and it was time for Joe Dante to move on to the next journalist. As I leave after the usual pleasantries, I curse the fates we haven't had more time to discuss further his later career. His iconoclastic THE BURBS (1989), the charming ode to fifties movie going experiences MATINEE (1993), his sole foray in 3D movie making THE HOLE (2009), or his dark comedy BURYING THE EX (2014) with Anton Yelchin, just to name a few.

In recent years, Dante has kept busy working on television, notably on EERIE, INDIANA (1991), SPLATTER (2009), and the popular HAWAII FIVE-0 reboot, and has, as previously mentioned, been quite active online with his  highly recommended YouTube channel TRAILERS FROM HELL where fellow filmmakers and comedians comment trailers for their favorite films, as well as his new podcast he co-hosts with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Josh Olson; THE FILMS THAT MADE ME. If like me you enjoy hearing knowledgeable, interesting people talk passionately about films, I suggest you head there right now.

Of course, he is far from done with feature films, and has been working on pre-production for years now on THE MAN WITH KALEIDOSCOPE EYES, a movie about the man who launched his career; Roger Corman, and his efforts to direct the 1967 LSD drenched THE TRIP written by Jack Nicholson and starring Peter Fonda. Production has yet to start on the film, but a live reading of the script featuring Bill Hader as Corman was successfully directed by Dante himself in late 2016.

An anarchic voice masquerading as a mainstream director, Joe Dante remains to this day a truly unique filmmaker who has, to paraphrase Anton Yelchin's Max in BURYING THE EX, ''challenged us to stop accepting the world, face our inner monster, and find the strength to conquer it.''

Joe Dante standing next to the humbled author.