Mars Needs Moms

I am not a savvy blogger, nor am I much excited about the social networking aspects of modern society. That said, I felt compelled to tap into the magic of the airwaves to make a few comments about my father's legacy, which has been brought to light as of late with the release of Mars Needs Moms. You see, my father, the late Larry Buchanan, was a filmmaker. In 1967 he made a tiny film titled, "Mars Needs Women." He shot the film in 6 days for a budget of $20,000. The film has since gone on to be translated into 36 languages, including Yiddish, and today enjoys cult status which has it regularly airing (granted, at late night) on TV worldwide.

The film has been batted about for decades as a truly awful film. So, when a major company like Disney, and a major director decide to spend $150,000,000 (that's 150 million dollars) on a film that borrows heavily from my father's (with no mention anywhere I might ad) and the film garners some of the most vehement criticisms and mean-spirited comments I have ever seen, I have to wonder who the real chumps are. Remember, my dad made the original MNW for $20,000. That's probably one day's worth of overtime or a few days catering for the Zemekis film. So it's kind of funny that people even bother hassling my dad's spirit about what he did. At least my dad's film made money for it's investors. I wonder, will MNM be enjoying late night TV viewing in 2055?

Naturally, being the movie business, my father was pretty much screwed out of any money for any of his films. A kind of Don Quixote character, my father just went about the business of making movies, because he loved it.

There is a saying that applies quite pointedly to Hollywood. It goes, "Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan." Zemekis is going to be living this proverb for a while. Yet he certainly wasn't alone in approving the expenditure of $150,000,000 for MNM. Plenty of people who were all too eager to be aligned with the project are now scampering for cover. This is what a director is in Hollywood; a scapegoat. That's a lot of money. How many films could me and my filmmaking friends have produced for that? 100? And one of them would probably have broken through by sheer odds.

I feel this may be the first turn in modern movies, a business that has degraded to a worthless enterprise. I pray this is telling of a generation finally tiring of the banal films they have been fed, a rising up in intellectual rebellion for something new. How many more superheroes can we see bounce through the air in crappy CGI? How many more morons can we see trying to get laid for the first time? My God, shouldn't we be further along than this? I mean, Orson Welles gave us the template for decent films with Citizen Kane back in the 40s.

So, I will continue to defend my dad's actions when he was alive. As it's turning out, he did pretty damn good for just $20,000.

Jeff Buchanan