Bright Blue Gorilla has big laughs on small budget
Musicians Michael Glover (left) and his wife, Robyn Rosenkrantz, of Bright Blue Gorilla collaborated with producer and actor Fred Beshid in the 2008 film “Karate Film Cafe,” a comedy about a karate studio, video store and restaurant. The film has received awards in festivals in Venice and Cannes and will have its Los Angeles premiere on Oct. 10 at the Downtown Independent Cinema as part of a tour of U.S. arthouse theaters.
By Alex Goodman
Oct. 5, 2009 11:49 p.m.
If extraterrestrials have been monitoring our pop culture for insight into the human species, their interstellar airwaves would be dominated by the likes of “Hannah Montana” and the “Transformers” sequel. They would likely assume, then, that we earthlings are trying to reduce art to a formula with optimal market value.
If only they could see the free-spirited originality of Bright Blue Gorilla.
The Los Angeles-based filmmaking and musical group will be premiering its latest film, “Karate Film Café,” on Oct. 10 at the Downtown Independent Cinema, the third to feature the group’s low-budget, wacky humor.
“Every movie we’ve made, because of the way we make them, because there’s no money involved, everybody does it because they want to,” said Michael Glover, the screen-writing and directing half of Bright Blue Gorilla. “People say there’s something about the movies, this vibe in them, this energy, and it’s really sweet.”
It’s a vibe that comes from making art not just an occupation, but a lifestyle. In 1990, Glover and Robyn Rosenkrantz, his wife and the other creative half of Bright Blue Gorilla, decided to leave Los Angeles. They had only met the year before, when they were both singer-songwriters performing at the Coconut Teaser club on the Sunset Strip, but said they felt a restlessness that has motivated them ever since.
The couple sold their belongings and bought one-way tickets to Europe, where they began touring as a musical group. Glover eventually found, though, that he had ideas best expressed in other ways.
“When you’re touring, you have a lot of time off between shows, so I started writing stories and plays,” Glover said. “We started putting the plays on at some of our shows. Then I entered a playwriting contest from the Eugene O’Neill Theater and my play won, which was totally hilarious because I literally wrote it in twenty minutes.”
The experience inspired Glover to keep writing, but he and Rosenkrantz soon felt the need for another change of scenery, and returned to Los Angeles to try acting again. A few of their songs made it onto television show sound tracks ““ “Feel the Movement” was featured on “Dawson’s Creek” ““ but their big Hollywood moment came when they showed up as extras for “The Last Shot,” a 2004 comedy featuring Alec Baldwin and Matthew Broderick.
The film’s director found out that Glover and Rosenkrantz were musicians, which led to the director rewriting the script to give them a recurring role. It was a small but exciting breakthrough for Bright Blue Gorilla, and after Glover learned film-editing skills working for MTV, they felt it was time to try their own hand at movies.
“We liked the recorded medium more ““ live stuff is fun, but it’s one moment and then it’s gone,” Glover said. “You have a theater production run for a few days or a few weeks, and then it’s gone forever. With a film, you can see it 25 years later.”
Bright Blue Gorilla’s first film, “Sister Sarah’s Sky,” was made in 2005, intended mostly as an experiment to see how audiences would respond. The feedback was quite positive, and they sold enough DVDs to finance their next film. That project, “The Mind of Henry Lime,” was the first partnership between Bright Blue Gorilla and their friend and producer, Fred Beshid.
“Over the years, I’ve had some friends approach me and say, “˜Oh I want to make a movie, will you help me produce it?'” Beshid said. “And I say, “˜Sure,’ and Michael’s the only one who ever came through.”
Beshid brought a more pragmatic mindset to the team, and quickly became a crucial factor in turning Bright Blue Gorilla’s dreams into reality.
“Fred is like the third leg on the table,” Glover said. “Robyn and I, especially being married, we have kind of a symbiotic thing. But sometimes we’re not quite sure which way to go, because we understand each other’s arguments and each other’s point of view, and we ask Fred. And Fred is the great decider.”
Bright Blue Gorilla is now beginning a U.S. tour of arthouse cinemas supporting “Karate Film Café,” their second collaboration with Beshid. The film follows a bizarre karate studio, a failing video store and a café with only the most repulsive food to offer. Glover and Rosenkrantz will play a short set of acoustic songs before the screening, as they often do on their tours.
“We’re wearing all the hats, and it’s a blessing to be able to do that, because our theory always was, “˜Let’s not wait around for someone to do it for us, let’s do it,'” Rosenkrantz said. “That’s why we quit our jobs, sold everything we had ““ I’m not going to wait around for a record company to discover me, I’m going to go live and travel and play music now. And that’s really our motto.”
The official motto of Bright Blue Gorilla is actually “Remain Calm … Share Your Bananas …,” and their name was in fact inspired by the book “Gorillas in the Mist” ““ Rosenkrantz suggested “Blue Gorillas”, and Glover added “bright” so it sounded less depressing.
Not that anyone would ever mistake these two for the melancholy type. Twenty years after they headed off for Europe, Glover and Rosenkrantz are still living a surreal, unpredictable life and loving every step of the journey.
“We had a week in Holland where we played Friday and Saturday for 40,000 people,” Glover said. “And then Sunday there were three drunk sailors in a bar. And a crazy lady. This was our weekend.”
