Love and a .45 Love and a .45Director C.M. Talkington Responds!
July 1997
Dear Monica Sullivan,
I happened to be negotiating my way through the gridlock of the Internet. In fact, this is the first time that I've "surfed my way" through the silicon data matrix labyrinth. Hard to believe in this world of a "everybody has their own web page" technocracy. Hell, I've been writing on a computer for ten years. But it's only over the last few days that I have been exploring the compu-possibilities of information retrieval and communication on "THE NET". GTE gave me a free trial copy of NETSCAPE for a month, so I figured what the hell? I might as well give it a try. So I did. And just for jollies and kicks, I decided that I would type the name of my film "LOVE AND A .45" into the search engine, just to see what would happen. Hell, I wasn't expecting anything to come back at all. But lo and behold the only reference that I called up was your review. So I wanted to write you and let you know that without question, "hands-down", without any doubt in the vast universe of media, your review is the most "straight-for-the-jugular", "sucking chest wound", "this movie should be burned if it weren't gonna be such a waste of matches and gasoline", the director should be "splayed and flayed"...I've ever read. And believe me that's saying a lot. Because I've fielded some pretty vitrolic and virulent criticism and reviews. But yours soars head and shoulders above the rest.
I appreciate your candor, honesty, and incisive criticism. Though, it does leave little room for constructive or redemptive recapitulation. At least I know that you thought enough about my film to so beautifully disembowel it. I award you the high honor of the "GOLDEN RAZOR-PEN". Signifying the most brutal review that I've ever read for LOVE AND A .45. You should truly feel proud. You beat out one review begining with the complexly subtle statement, "If there were more words for crap, then I would have more words to describe C.M. Talkington's movie "LOVE AND A .45"". But you managed to edge out that incisive comment with the notion, in your own review, that, perhaps, no one directed my film at all. I assure you that some one did direct my film. I did. But I never used the word HAM, when directing them. I don't even like ham. I don't like ham in any form. Ham salad. Ham hocks. Boiled ham. Ham and eggs. Glazed ham. All ham makes me sick. I can't even eat it. But I guess I sure as hell can dish it out.
Funny thing is that I know lots of people that actually live and act like the characters in my movie. And that's who I based them on. But they're all from Texas. And they all eat a lot of ham. There must be a connection. I haven't thought a lot about this movie for the past couple of years. But, with my newfound Internet navigator, I thought that it would be interesting to see if anything pertaining to it still existed in cyber-space. Heckfire, The Internet is all to blame. Without it...I would never have had the pleasure and amusement of reading your review. And you would never have received the honor of THE GOLDEN-RAZOR PEN. Sharpen up your pens and knives because I have another one coming out soon. And it's much worse than the last one. But I really think that it has much more of a "BAR-B-Q'ed RIB or BACKSTRAP sorta feel, than pork shoulder or ham. You decide.
Sincerely,
"Vid Gun" C. M. Talkington
vidgun@gte.net