Latest / Cinema Yūgen / Reviving Cinema: Domenic Migliore's Return to the Big Screen

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Reviving Cinema: Domenic Migliore's Return to the Big Screen · Cinema Yūgen

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G'day. That's right. It's that time again. Time for Cinema Yuge.
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Music.
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Yes, welcome back Yuge Nights. Dominic Migliore.
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The last time I spoke to Dominic was five years
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ago 2020 just before the pandemic
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with the release of his debut feature routines
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a great piece a little cross
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between Jim Jarmusch with a little dash of
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Hunter S Thompson in there great debut
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I'm so happy to have Dominic back to
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talk about his new book an anthology
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of speculative fiction stories titled frame story one of which that he is developing
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for his next feature film please welcome him back to cinema yugen dominic amigliari.
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Hi how you doing mate good i'm doing good
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how you been been like five years what have you been up to
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working on stuff not much
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not much well not much
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is i think an understatement because this is a great book frame story frame
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story it sort of grabbed me for are you a fan of like who like chuck polonuk
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or jerry stall yes i i like chuck polonuk and i haven't read jerry stall but
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i know I like Night Dreams, the movie he did, Night Dreams.
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Yeah. And so, yes, I like both those authors. You should read his book,
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Perv. It's called Perv, A Love Story.
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Okay, I'll look it up. I know he did another book on Freddie Arbuckle. Yeah, definitely.
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I mention it because the start of your story,
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The start of your story, the running of a dead horse.
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I haven't laughed so hard in the first chapter of a book since Jerry Stahl's love story.
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And it grabs you right from the start where it says, I met the devil.
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You haven't met the devil in a men's airport bathroom, have you? No.
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But I've been to that airport in Rome. You have?
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Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. No, and you didn't meet the devil there.
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But that was an incredible start to a story. I met the devil in an airport men's
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room, and it only gets better from there.
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Chuck Polin. Did you like Chuck's book, Survivor?
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I didn't read that one. I read Haunt. You should read that one, too. Did you read Snuff?
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No, I read Haunted and Fight Club.
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Snuff's also a really good one. Did you ever hear about that lady, Annabelle Chong?
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She was the first woman to do the world's largest gangbang.
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Oh, yeah. That's what it's about. Yeah. And it's from the point of view of the dudes waiting in line.
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I've read about that book. Yeah, I didn't read it, though.
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Yeah. It's a hoot. And the ending, yeah, blows your socks off.
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But other favorite stories besides the devil.
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And there's a great line in that story also
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another great line i got to bring up is so i wrote down the
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one thing i would suck the devil's cock for and i won't give anyone else away
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you need to read the book but other favorite stories that that i read in there
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were museum of the dead the mcguffin i like the two stories that are kind of
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just like dialogue exchanges it'll end in tear.
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Suicide hotline another favorite of mine was uh mr goldrod or the tale of the
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three dogs which was yeah another good one which one did you say you're going to turn into a film,
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museum of the dead museum of the dead
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yeah yeah so yeah like
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how far with that are you
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are you writing the script now or the script's
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already written i'm we're waiting on financing now oh
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okay so what where i have some i'm working
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with some people but the script i change you know it's changed so you know i
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changed it for the screen so some of the instead of like the main narrator two
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sisters uh in it and i might have onita from routines play one of the sisters right right yeah,
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So what prompted this book, or is this just a collection of short stories that
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you've had around and collected them?
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There's stories I've had around for a while.
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I've written maybe over a 10-year period, and I have more, but I took these
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ones that I liked the most and put them in a book. Right.
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And the first story, The Runny of the Dead Horses, that's something my grandpa
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used to say. He's Italian.
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And that's why it's about an Italian grandpa.
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And he would always say there's this movie called Running of the Dead Horse, which didn't exist.
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So I used it as a title.
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It's a cracker of a story. Gets you right off the bat with that one.
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And like I said, I haven't been as shocked and laughed as hard at the start
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of a book since Jerry Stoll's Perth, A Love Story.
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Dominic Migliore's Running. No, it's not called Running of a Dead Horse.
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The story's called Running of a Dead Horse.
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The book is called Frame Story. We will have a link for it in the description. Check it out.
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Is it out? Is it technically out now, Dominic, or is it coming out?
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Yeah, it's out now. It's available on endurance.com to order. Right.
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If you put the link, that's really – I think it's on Amazon as well.
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But it's like, uh, well, definitely people listening to us link in the description, check it out, Dominic.
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So, you know, when you, when you do, are you one of these writers that, that trials film,
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stories out as short stories to see if, to see if people give a shine to the
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story before committing them to another medium such as film? uh.
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I do with some, some stories, maybe Museum of the Dead I did.
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I started out as a short story.
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There's another story in there called Popular Genocide, which is the one at the camp.
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Right. And that one is based on a true story of a real camp that existed that my friend went to.
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And some of the abuses in there are true, but I wrote a script for that as well with my friend.
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Right. and so yeah i i write back of you know some i think will work as scripts some some don't so i.
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Yeah no i was just curious i mean you know
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i mean that was a situation i was in sort of 10 years ago
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i was writing nothing but scripts and i couldn't i
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couldn't give a script away i should have like done something
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drastic and like kidnapped a celebrity's kid that
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wouldn't want to work better but no and
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and so i a friend of mine when i was committing
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sort of crying in a beer one day i said uh you know i can't how am i ever going
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to get a movie made if i can't get anyone to read the script and he says well
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why don't you turn the script ideas into stories short stories books whatever
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and so that became like yeah it was one of those stupid things that you know people,
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you know if your parents said that to you like oh god but you know sometimes
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you can hear things from a friend that you can't hear from anyone else and they're
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like I don't know why you're stressing about movie ideas if you've got so many
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great story ideas write a book,
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write a short story write something, does it have to be a movie,
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and of course at the time you know it was something that.
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Just okay well i'll give it a go and then you know eventually things worked out the way they did but,
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basically a lot of my sort of early writing were
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were film ideas or scripts simply
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rewritten as you know i mean
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all the dialogue was there i just had to you know fill in the
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description quite a lot more than the screenplay i
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was once asked did does writing
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screenplays help your prose or the other way
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around do you uh how do you feel about that don i feel like writing screenplays
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is easier because writing prose is like you know it's you gotta put yourself
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in the head of the person more yes or or and especially if you're writing from
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that person's point of view.
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Which so it takes me some it all depends on the story some stories i write fast
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some take me a long time like i have a few stories i haven't figured out yet how i want to uh,
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to translate them but the script
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but the same thing yeah i wrote stories because
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scripts scripts are harder to get people to read a
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lot of people like routines no one wanted to read routines and
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so I so but if they're short stories people read them more willingly yeah are
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you going to put out your story on audible audiobook there is an audiobook I
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don't know how to get it on audible but there is if you go to the.
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The Dorrance publishing page, there's an audio book available to buy.
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I need to figure out how to get it onto Audible, though. Oh, okay.
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Cool. Well, is that part of the link that you have?
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Yes, the link should, the one from Dorrance.com. Okay.
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That should have all the, it has the book, an e-book, and the audio book. Wow, there you go.
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So, people listening to us, check out the link in the description right now.
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Now, you heard it from the man himself, e-book, book, audio book too.
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So if you want to catch some, I don't know whether, I don't advise the people
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to listen to some of this stuff while they're driving.
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Because it's, you know, look, I was glad I was sitting down because,
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man, I have to say some of, I mean,
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a lot of your stories are incredibly visual.
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Visual i mean i can see i mean museum of
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the dead yeah i can sort of see from the
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story how you're gonna how you're gonna go are
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you are you hoping for a slightly larger budget than routines or yeah i'm hoping
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for a slightly larger budget routines was only shot for forty thousand dollars
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yeah u.s dollars and so we're we're trying to get at least like half a million or something i don't.
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Yeah because i was gonna say there's some stuff in the
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story i don't want to give it away i want people to go down and check out
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the link in the description to check out dominic migliore's frame
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story but yeah i was just curious because there's there's some stuff in there
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that you're going to need a a little bit more change for and yes yeah mainly
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special effects yeah well yeah as soon as you start to put as soon as you start
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to put stuff like that in there the budget just gets,
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up a little bit and yeah so
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no that's that's that's good i mean that's i can
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see it getting done you know nicely for for that for
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that price it's certainly a great story where did
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the idea for museum of the dead come from
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well it came from uh in in
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the u.s and the state i'm in illinois but in the
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state next to us wisconsin they have all these roadside attractions
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like ripley's believe it or not where they
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have all these oddities like oddity
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museums just the this the roadside's full
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of them and i we went to like ripley's believe it or not and
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a wax museum and i got the idea like what if it's i that's why i got the idea
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of what if people stop dying and so the museums were for like instruments medical
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instruments and and things from when people.
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Weren't invulnerable. And so then I got the idea of a vampire,
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which there's a vampire in it.
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But yeah, it was roadside attractions in the state of Wisconsin inspired me maybe.
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There's also in Los Angeles, there's Museum of Death where they have photographs of different murders.
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It's pretty gruesome, but that was an idea.
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That was like the title, how I got the title. I changed it to Museum of the Dead.
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And they also have those walking tours, don't they? They take you in where certain people were like.
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Yes there's like serial killer tours there's like
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uh the haunted areas places people were
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murdered yeah like and then
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it's it's i i mean i'm not true over there in the
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states i think i read somewhere once that there's a there's a
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tour like that and they actually drive around an old hearse or
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something like that i don't know that one but i
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believe it yeah i mean it may have
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been america it might have been the uk but but i do
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vaguely remember reading something about this tour and the vehicle that you
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go in is an actual a converted hearse so yeah to put you in the spirit of things
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so when do you think your next like you you're searching for finance now so i mean how
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far away do you think uh think you
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are hopefully in a few months hopefully
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and if we can't find that money i'll do it for cheaper
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but it's probably be a few years still before
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the movie comes out right yes it's
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been it's been an odd an odd time in the
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movie business of late i mean since
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we since we spoke in in 2020 who would have thought all of all of what has happened
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has happened and the the movie business although you know if you if you watch
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there's an old interview on YouTube of Dick Cavett talking to.
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And now I'm going to go blank. Hitchcock? Is it Hitchcock in the field? Frank Capra.
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Oh, Frank Capra. Frank Capra. He's actually talking to a few filmmakers.
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It's Frank Capra, Peter Bogdanovich, and someone else.
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And, you know, they talk about the death of movies. And Frank Capra says in
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that interview, and I'm paraphrasing him here, he said, oh, every 10 years or
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so, they say, and so movies are dying, movies are dying.
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So this conversation has been going on for a long time,
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and to paraphrase Frank Capra again he said in that conversation he said that
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Hollywood may fall right but movies will never die like it doesn't like the
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epicenter of where it happens,
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that won't pull the whole thing down with it Right.
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Yeah. Well, Hollywood's already filming in other locations.
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Like a lot of movies are filmed like in New Orleans, in the Georgia, Georgia,
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in the u.s and they're yeah
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it's just taking a yeah because
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it's too expensive to film in la even l even big studios want want to go to
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other states to get cheaper to cut down on the budget it's like kind of ridiculous
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yeah and i mean um i i think that it's it's it look there's if if.
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Since talking to as many independent filmmakers like yourself as I have over
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the years, you really don't have to be in a certain place at a certain time to make a film.
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There's absolutely, except for the money part,
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which is always a tricky part, but I've seen a lot of inventive people work
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their way around the money side of things and get to the filmmaking side of
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things because, As Orson Welles famously once said,
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filmmaking is 99% hustling and 1% filmmaking, and that's no way to spend a life.
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If anything, talking to great independent filmmakers like yourself over the
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years has taught me and should teach our audience too is you do not need permission to make films, right?
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You don't need permission to read art. You don't need permission to sit down
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and write a great book like Frame Story. Check it out. Links in the description.
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You don't need anyone's permission, and you don't need anyone to tell you that you're ready, right?
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When you're ready, go for it.
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Because you'll never, never know if you never, never go, hey?
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Yeah. Just like your friends. A lot of the short films I make,
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I just make with my friends, people that are not actors.
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And there's a lot of, in Illinois around me, there's a lot of independent filmmakers.
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My one friend, William Lamour, she just made a movie called Derange.
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Which is she shot for like it was like 10 000 it was really cheap and and we
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she made this school this film school look like a psych ward insane asylum and
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i played one of the patients,
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and that and but yeah
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she just decided to make that and you know
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she she didn't she found actors and she didn't need you know
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big money to you know it helps
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if you write a contained story you know like you write
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in a small location then you could do whatever you want really yeah
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i mean there's like this sensible ways to
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approach these things obviously if you sit down to write intergalactic space
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opera you will find it difficult to get funding for such things if it's not
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directly related to intellectual property which has a built-in audience and
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i can't believe the sequel first.
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Did you read the other day I was reading on Skeeter?
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Or Blue Skies it also is known.
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That they're doing a sequel now to Romeo and Michelle's high school reunion.
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No, I didn't know they were doing that. My God. I guess it has a cult following, I guess.
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Oh, look, sure. But I mean, I was saying this in another interview late last year.
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It's funny, when a film is successful, Hollywood learns all the wrong things from it, right?
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Most of this is a response to Top Gun Maverick.
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Let's face it top gun maverick yeah and the
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lesson that they learned from top gun maverick was not hey
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this is nostalgia done right we can make a film based on a movie a sequel to
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a film that happened like 30 years ago and make a billion dollars right that's
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what they learned from from top gun maverick they didn't learn hey this is a
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good way of doing nostalgia make sure you.
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Hit all the notes and get people happy and you
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know don't overstay your welcome keep it tight keep it.
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Lean you know the ghost of don.
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Simpson creeping in there but what
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did they learn they learned well okay hey we can make sequels
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to 30 year old 25 year old old
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properties and and sell them
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and make a billion dollars and i mean a lot
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of you know that's the reason i feel that's the reason
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beetlejuice they made the beetlejuice sequel because
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of top gun maverick yeah i feel like that's yeah
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that's why that movie was made and it was very disappointing
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yeah because too much time has
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gone by i mean it's like robert i like
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this robert robert eggers chap but do
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we really want a sequel to labyrinth oh you're
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true nos roger was pretty good but yeah i
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know he'd been work planning that one for a long time but labyrinth
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yeah i don't david bowie's dead
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we really want to go dig open that grave i mean
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jim henson's dead jim henson's dead david bowie's
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dead i don't know why you want to make it and i
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mean is jennifer connelly gonna do like a cameo she's
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the mother my guess is my guess is probably like the
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same way in beetlejuice yeah no no rider
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was back i feel like they're gonna do the same thing oh man
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really i really you know this this stuff the stuff that's going on in hollywood
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really is like like it feels like like a good short story about like here's.
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This here's this business that It used to be like the center of the universe.
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And now it's like Ouroboros, like the snake that just eats itself.
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You know yeah because not that it's not that they've
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run out of ideas it's just they're not prepared to risk
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the money that they used to risk because it's too much of a risk yeah on original
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ideas so they go we have enough stuff here if we repackage it somehow or you
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know revamp it somehow we can put it out and people who liked the first one
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will obviously go and see the second one,
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because a whole bunch of people weren't even born when the first one was around
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so the parents will take the kids and then hopefully the kids will take their
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friends hey and then they'll go and they'll go back and watch the first one
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you can you can hear the register clicking like,
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if they don't realize is those original movies took risks like beetlejuice took
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risks yeah that No one thought someone would want to see that movie.
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All Jaws was even a risk. All those movies were big risks, and now they're just
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like, well, we just redo them, and it's like, well, you're missing the point.
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The reason people liked it was because it was something new they hadn't seen before.
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That's why they like those movies.
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And people want to see new stories, but Hollywood now, yeah,
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they just want to repackage.
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I feel like the tv in the tv shows more maybe they take more risks but even
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those i feel like i feel like tv the tv shows are like they're just long extended
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movies that like aren't memorable,
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yeah i think look the i think the main problem is when you have too many business
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people and are trying to run a business based on algorithms that provide you
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popularity scores or what's popular this month and what's popular next month
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and what will be popular in a couple of months,
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is is no it well it's certainly not a
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way to be creative because ain't there's nobody
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that ever sat down to write a book like yourself frame story check it out links
23:32
in the description dominic megliore no one ever sat down to write a book like
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yours based on i'm i'm damn skippy you never sat down to write any of your stories
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or your scripts based on what was popular at the moment, these are stories that you wanted to tell, no?
23:48
Yes. Yeah. The stories I came up with and yeah, I'm not really interested in
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seeing the continuation of old EPs like Star Trek.
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I'm a big Star Trek fan, but the new Star Trek is just, maybe I'm old,
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but I just don't get, I don't, I don't feel like it's Star Trek anymore.
24:07
Yeah. Well, I was, I've listened to a few good rants about, I'm, I'm, I'm not a Star Trek.
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I've seen, I've seen all the films, but I'm not a,
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not but you're not a card carrying star trek
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although i think still wrath of
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khan is one of the best science fiction movies ever made yeah
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you don't you don't really have to be invested in star
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trek to to love wrath of
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khan it's just a great movie yeah but by
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all accounts i've heard a couple of the rants about this section 31
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or whatever it is have you seen that i haven't watched
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it yet but i've heard bad things it's based
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on an old star trek ds9 story
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and it's like from so again it's a
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30 year old thing and it's it's
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i think i heard they tried to make it like more like guardians of the
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galaxy or something which again isn't star trek like they
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try like they're trying to make all these star trek properties like star wars
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like i don't feel like they understand what star trek is they're two different
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things totally no star trek's more cerebral yeah yeah no totally no they were
25:14
uh they were tearing it a new one over on the shout out to the film thread boys
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they were they were calling it warm garbage over there so.
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So i take that as it's not very good yeah but oh film threat i like film that
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gave me uh of routines they reviewed routines and they gave it a very bad review
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oh they did oh that's terrible.
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Terrible well i write for them now so that'll change
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but yeah like it i offended them
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somehow oh okay well well look
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look no i still think it's funny no i've just started to write for them and
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they they said you have to be kind that's cool independent films so that's that's
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terrible that they gave you a bad review because a lot of their protocol says
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you know remember these are independent films and they should not be judged
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by the same standard. And it's true.
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When I used to write. I still like film. I like film threat.
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I love film threat still.
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But when I used to write film reviews for a newspaper, I wrote a very good review
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for this independent Western that I saw.
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And everyone was like, I remember a couple of people who were actually there
26:29
at the screening said, I can't believe you gave that a good review. It was crap.
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And I said, but based on what, right?
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I said, if you base the films that are playing at the cinema,
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which big films, huge films, hundreds of millions of, right,
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you cannot compare that film.
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You cannot compare a film to a film which has no excuse for being bad because
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they had the money to throw at all the problems, the script problems,
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the performances, the director.
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I mean, when you have a blank check to go off and make a film,
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it should be good i mean all the other people that
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gave you the check are going to be out for your head but
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you cannot you definitely can't compare and
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contrast independent films or even measure them
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by the same ruler because it's it's
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not apples with apples because there are a lot
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of these films and you know yourself are made
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for i mean not even the
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mineral water bill on a on a marvin movie
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right yeah it's they're
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like i mean i've i've met so many independent
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filmmakers like yourself over the years now and some of the budgets that they
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tell me oh we made this for x amount and i go how no it's it's it's it's it's
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too good because a lot of people wanting to a lot of favors from people.
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It cries a lot. But look at all the classic independent films people love,
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like Night of the Living Dead, Carnival of Souls.
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Those films are still considered great, and if you compare those to the other
28:10
movies of the time, those were huge films, like Ben-Hur.
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You can't compare Ben-Hur to Night of the Living Dead, which takes place in one house. That's true.
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Although a chariot A chariot chase with zombies would be interesting.
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Yes, that would be Rome of the Dead. Yeah.
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Satiracan of the Dead. Yeah, if they took Romero's template and did the mega,
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the gladiator version, you know, ancient ruins of the dead or something like that.
28:46
But anyway, Dominic, it's been great to talk to you, mate.
28:49
As always, I'm glad that you're doing well. I'm glad that you're still in the hunt.
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This is a great book. Everyone listening, the link's in the description.
28:59
This is, you can buy the book, the e-book, and the audio book.
29:03
Frame Story, it's a collection of great short stories.
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I hope you'll check it out. One of them is on its way to the screen.
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We're a little bit out from that, but that doesn't mean you can't buy the book.
29:17
Check out the story and then wait with great anticipation for the next film
29:23
from my guest, Dominic Migliore. It's been great to speak to you,
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mate. Yes, great to speak to you. Yes.
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Dominic Migliore, ladies and gentlemen, please check out the links to his work in the description.
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Yeah, he has got a lot of cool stuff.
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He's got a lot of great ideas on the board. And check out the book,
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links in the description.
29:47
And as always, my little Eugenites, thank you for listening to us on Spotify. or wherever.
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You choose to listen to your favorite podcasts. I'm Ken Hill,
29:56
and until next time, you've been listening to Cinema Yoga.
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Music.