James Ricardo, Opie and a movie whore too

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James Ricardo, Opie and a movie whore too

Now that you have seen the trailer for Opie gets Laid it is time to talk to them man behind movie. James Ricardo wrote, directed, starred in and produced Opie gets Laid and took some time to talk to your friendly neighborhood Movie Whore. Here is what he had to say.

TMW: "Opie gets Laid" looks to be quite funny from the trailer, can you tell us a little more about it?

JR: Opie Gets Laid is just your atypical rock 'em, sock 'em outlandish comedy about the biggest loser on Earth and how he ends up mating, dating and relating to a yummylicious trio of three very different, sexy women at once. They are played by actresses April Wade, Ute Werner and Jesselynn Desmond. It's the kind of comedy that'll appeal to mainstream audiences, movie geeks or just about anyone who likes a cool comedy that's outside the norm.

Plus, if I do say so myself, it's that rarest of all movie creatures in Hell, Heaven or Earth, a comedy that's actually funny. The reaction to the trailer has been overwhelmingly positive. I wasn't sure how to encapsulate an entire feature length movie in just a scant couple minutes but I just whipped out my trusty Mead composition brainstorming book and jotted down some ideas, and using those notes me and my editors managed to concoct somethin' truly righteous. Everyone can check out our official website or our MySpace page at www.opiegetslaid.com or

TMW: You both directed and starred in this flick. What's it like to work both sides of the camera?

JR: It was a blast for the most part. Acting, directing, not to mention writing and producing. I was confident as a mofo I could pull it off, but to be true blue truthful, a couple of times I thought I had gnashed off a helluva lot more than I could swallow, it was mountain of responsibility trying to get all the elements of the film just right. But when it was over the project came together pretty sweet.

TMW: I understand you have another film that your ready to get started on.Can you fill us in on the project?

JR: I've finished the screenplay for another outta sight comedy that's in the style of Opie Gets Laid, or OGL as I like to call it. It's a comedic love story with elements of Lost In Translation, a film I dug a lot, about mainly two quirky characters who forge an unlikely romance and then there's a very unique twist. It's called Nuke Me Slowly. Or perhaps I should say NMS. I like it a lot, it's a very tight script just the way I dig 'em.

TMW: Where do you find your actors and production crew?

JR: Anywhere, everywhere. Mostly it was through posting ads on Craigs List, ads in acting publications, posting other online ads. The Internet is a fantastic way to get the cast and crew you need. If you post it, they will come. Plus getting help from friends like my executive producer Heidemarie Fuentes helped a lot. Even if you're not much of a people person, if you're shy, whatever, you'll find yourself developing the people skills you need to get your project done. You can really knock your own socks off and surprise yourself if you're just persistent enough to go after what you want until you get it.

TMW: What kind of headaches do you run into during filming?

JR: It was pretty smooth overall. But there were location problems, scheduling problems, actor problems. One of my lead actors dropped out a day before filming began and we were shooting all their scenes first! We'd rehearsed and even changed the shooting schedule twice to accommodate them and BAM! They drop an atomic bombshell on us and bail out at the last minute. I had to scramble like Hades through the contact info of other actors I'd auditioned and was lucky enough to find someone that turned out to be even better than who I originally cast. I got a bit overwhelmed once on set and a crew member sounding like a grizzled veteran of many movie sets said to me, "Yeah, welcome to the movie business!" Amen.

TMW: We all have an inner movie whore. What are some of your favorite films that you should be ashamed to love but love anyway, you know the guiltiest of pleasures?

JR: Now you're speaking my language! Truth be told, I'm a big Lucio Fulci fan. The Italians, baby, the Italians. When you watch the Godfather Of Gore's work you know it has flaws galore (gore-lore?) but you can't help digging it.

My favorite guilty pleasure movie of all time though? Darwin help me, it's "Can't Stop The Music" starring the Village People. Best bad movie ever! I was flipping channels one night and came across it and it was like one big celluloid train wreck.

It was directed by veteran character actress Nancy Walker of all people and was the first and only film she directed. It starred the luscious and sexy Valerie Perrin as well as Steve Guttenberg and Olympiad Bruce Jenner making his big screen movie debut. Poor Bruce looked totally out of place.

You can't believe just how unbelievably and gloriously bad it is, it's like a poor man's Busby Berkeley. And the funniest thing of all? Is that they actually try and pass the Village People off as heterosexual! Yeah, right, good luck with that one!

The original title was "Discoland" but it came out just a year shy after that whole scene went into its death throes. Plus it was a movie made to showcase the Village People and they are barely even in it! They were regulated to supporting roles, it was crazy. Producer Allan Carr was a pretty hot item in Hollywood at the time, having just produced the blockbuster movie adaptation of "Grease" and I guess they gave him carte blanche on CSTM. Still, it cracks me up every time.

Plus with the new "Get Smart" film being a hit, I remember seeing the original Maxwell Smart big screen remake, "The Nude Bomb" with Don Adams. At that time I hadn't really watched the repeats of the original series when I saw TNB as a kid so I didn't get a lot of the in jokes. But it was worth seeing again years later for b-movie queen Sylvia Kristel's appearance. I dig the work of other b-movie queens as well. Jewel Shepard, Linnea Quigley, Ginger Lynn Allen, and "Hell Of The Living Dead" star, Margi Newton. But a movie critic amigo of mine, J.C. Maçek III of WorldsGreatestCritic.com fame, is hands down the world's single biggest Margi Newton fan.

I'm also a big fan of movies with babes in bikinis, mindless action and mayhem, horror, almost anything with Bruce Campbell, the usual off the wall jazz. I remember this mondo strange comedy from years ago called "Pandemonium" starring Carol Kane, Paul Ruebens, Judge Reinhold, Tab Hunter and Tommy Smothers. It was a comedic parody of the slasher genre. It takes place at a cheerleader training camp and it's total guilty pleasureville. There's even a bizarre scene in it where actress Candice Azzara's cheerleader coach character Bambi has a milk and cookies bath just before the killer offs her. She strips down to a 1950s Betty Grable pin up girl bathing suit and climbs into a tub filled with milk and chocolate chip cookies! How high were the screenwriters when they came up with that? It's pretty funny though. And ya gotta give 'em points for originality. Plus I love modern day b-movie classics like Bubba Ho-tep as well.

My favorite movies are ones by cats like Kubrick, Scorsese, the Coens, Hal Hartley, Alexander Payne, Coppola, Cronenberg, Lynch, but I can enjoy a good b-movie buzz as much as the next broheim.


It's nice to know I am not the only one that has seen Pandemonium and likes it. You can find the trailer here. I suggest this one to all my movie whores in training.

I am looking forward to the release of Opie gets Laid and suggest you check it out as well. Have a good one kids.

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