To all you thousands of budding wannabee movie genius hyphenates grovelling in L.A. waiting desperately for a chance to share your "GOD-GIVEN" talents advancing the art form of the motion picture:

FORGET IT, CHUMPS!

We don't want to be the ones to bum your trip, but having recently attended the American Film Market at MERV'S Bit O' Vegas Cheeze, the Beverly Hilton, we feel it is our duty to advise you sentient "literaesthetes" to trade in your word processors for NINTENDOS 'cause the bottom line is movies -- like pork bellies -- are commodities. If you hadn't figured that out yet the AFM was an ideal spot for a crash course in the realities of free market economics... Film 'em down and dirty, and dub 'em in the Third World language of your choice.

For a week the Beverly Hilton was transformed into the Mustang Ranch of International Celluloid, where producers, exhibitors and distributors from all over the world loiter, checkbook in hand, to buy and sell the latest batch of BLOOD/SEX/DEATH fodder.

In case you guys have forgotten, not everyone on this planet reads and writes; and the majority of the films on the auction block are geared accordingly. The universal language of film is therefore reduced to narratives of SEX and VIOLENCE, mainly for export to Third World countries. "HANNAH AND HER SISTERS" doesn't exactly lay 'em in the aisles in Borneo. Hell, it barely plays in Des Moines, but then Woody isn't what the AFM's about anyway.

Like Bambi and Thumper, we bounced into the catacombs of corporate cinema corruption, eager to taste the magic of the precocious nouveau crop of 1989 film releases... Battery acid would have tasted better. Picture this: Six floors of barkers and shills perched in their hotel suites like spiders waiting to snag their prey in a web of sticky film. Room after room of blaring promo reels, stale bagels, and greedy souvenir collectors. Your mild-mannered reporters actually had to duke it out with a Filipino distributor just to get a couple of "RABID GRANNIES" teeshirts after chasing him down two flights of stairs.

While we're on the subject of freebies, our nod for best canvas tote bag has to go to SKOURAS PICTURES. Although we can't vouch for their film product, we can honestly say we needed those bags to haul forty-five pounds of flyers, press releases, posters, buttons, lobby cards and phone numbers from wandering, winsome vixens engaged in the age old practice of bartering their charms for reduced, up-front distribution fees.

Being intrepid adventurers from the Fourth Estate, we were forced to wear press badges that were about as easy to miss as Fiestaware platters. The way people reacted to those I.D.'s you'd have thought WE were the radioactive reporters, suspect as party-pooping lepers with nothing to buy or sell, or worse, gate-crashing screenwriters looking for impromptu pitch meetings. Okay, we'll 'fess up. We MAY have had a hot unsold spec script (or two) tucked into the tote bags, but how could they have known that?

We simply ignored their slights as a language barrier problem and capered door to door like happy trick or treaters, giddy as all get out. Our bags grew even fuller after we stocked up on perfume samples (Toxique, The Manly Odor of $$$$$$) from TROMA PICTURES.

And then it happened. We came face to face with a mutant from DISTRIBUTION HELL; a luckless soul who'd lost his humanity after enduring too many viewings of his own product reel. You know. Things like JITTERS, STUFF STEPHANIE IN THE INCINERATOR and WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS. The latter title led to our second altercation.

As we had done in the previous two hundred suites we were perusing the piles of publicity paraphernalia, searching for that one meaningful title when a bloodcurdling yell erupted from the bowels of the room.

We point to the eight foot long table piled with colorful 8 x 10 glossies extolling sex and death, and snag a lovely WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS mini-poster.

The Monster tries to pry it from our hand.

The Monster rips it out of our hand.

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But hey, we don't want to be the harbingers of total downerhood. Not only were there lots of nice friendly people (you know who you were, Allison) at the AFM, there were some tasty mushrooms sprouting amidst the cowpies. Treats like SHOGUN SHADOW, an actioner from Japan; CRAZY HORSE, an American entry, and, surprisingly, in the best picture category, MIDNIGHT BREAKS, a British film with a virtually all-Black Rastafarian cast. A local favorite should be ONE MAN FORCE, an actioner starring our own Big John Matuzak, ex-Raider, weight-loss proponent and future leading man.

Of course, even we aren't immune to the charms of gratuitous sex and violence. Our own rave fave was ROBO VAMPIRE, a really cool flick from Hong Kong with enough non-stop action and spectacular special effects to revive even our parched spirits.

Come to think of it, it was a heck of a lot funnier than Woody's last couple of ditties.