My good friend Steve Nicewanger sent word to me with his bride, wanting to know my three favorite movies. I promptly named two: “The Hustler,” starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason, and “High Noon,” with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. I struggled to name the third movie, but finally came up with a cult classic: George Romero’s “Night Of The Living Dead.” I thought of that third choice on July 24th, 2025. I was sitting in the Tobias theater at Newfields with the Creative Director of this publication, Paula Nicewanger. We were watching “Endzgiving,” a “Dark Comedy” film presented by Heartland Film Festival’s IndyShorts.
In 1968, I was a student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Drawing was one of my classes, which had live nude models, both male and female. I remember thinking, when Carol — one of the models — came into the classroom, stepped onto the stand, and dropped her robe, “Am I really allowed to see this?” One day, Carol was excited to announce to the class that she had been in a movie the previous weekend. We teenaged boys snickered a little, imagining what kind of movie a naked woman would be in. Later that year, we found out: “Night Of The Living Dead.”
“Endzgiving” is an 11-minute film by writer/director Tina Carbone. In it, some friends gather at a home for what seems to be a “Friendsgiving” meal. They sit and chat while waiting for the friend who is bringing a pie. A man stumbles into the door, blithely noting that he had gotten bitten by a Zombie while on the way. The assembled friends, apparently knowledgeable about Zombie habits and the repercussions, agree that the “bitten one” should set the chicken timer to 1 hour, minus 6 minutes since he’d been bitten, the time it takes for the Zombie bite to fully take effect. A horrified hilarity ensues as there are face-flops into food and accidental bites among the friends. As I watched the film, I could not help but think of Romero’s film. When several filmmakers gathered on the stage after the showing and the audience was asked if there were questions for them, I fist-pumped the air to call attention to myself. I was chosen, and taking the microphone, said “This one’s for Tina.” I told her that I had detected a “nod to George Romero,” the producer of the cult classic zombie film, and wondered if she had “taken a bite” from his film. (I wish that I had said “taken a bite,” but I thought of it as I was writing this.) A smile grew on Tina’s face, and she replied that she was a fan of horror films. In a blatant attempt to steal some of Tina’s light, I told her of my experience in art school with Carol, the naked woman who appears at the end of Romero’s “Night.”
Even though the prologue to the film “The Hustler” states “Homestead Bar & Grill … en route to Pittsburgh…” the scene was shot in New York City. But when I was living in southern Indiana in 1978, I was able to visit the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville Kentucky, where some scenes from the film were shot. And that is one of the joys of film: we can sometimes step into the reality depicted on the screen, no matter how bizarre it might be. I have a connection to the city and state that was the location of one famous film, and a passion for the game of pool that is chronicled in another. Now the question is:
Do movie makers still use film?
cjon3acd@att.net