Director Spotlight: Stewart Raffill
Posted by Ethan
Being a director, I often find myself ruminating on the merits of the other men and women who share my passion for the craft of filmmaking. There are so many people to look up to, people who have inspired me with their talent and vision. The legends, the total fucking geniuses, like Scorcese, the Coens, Depalma, Quintana and so on.
Then there are people like Stewart Raffil.
After garnering a bit of attention in the 70s with his awful swiss family robinson rip offs “The Sea Gypsies” and “The Adventures of the Wilderness Family”, Stewart started to come into real success in the 80s with his films “Ice Pirates” (read: Star wars meets Mad Max meets a bowl of rotting feces), the unexplainable “Philadelphia Experiment”, and my absolute favorite, “Mac and Me”. The touching story of an alien family that gets trapped on earth and the wheelchair bound boy who helps them. Tagline: “Out of this world and into your heart.” This movie incapsualtes everything shitty about shitty 80s movies. Every scene is pure horrifying mangled-bodies-trainwreck disaster. It has such highlights as the now infamous wheelchair fall, the stretchy-alien-trapped-in-a-vacuum-cleaner scene, The skitching with a wheelchair scene, and the most inappropriate terrifying dance scene/Mcdonalds commercial ever to be forcefully inserted in the middle of a movie.
Amazingly, and in pure LA form, Raffil’s career was completely unhampered by any of these disatrous pieces of celluloid refuse. In the 90s he continued to hone his unique style with “Mannequinn 2: On the Move” (instant classic), and “Tammy and the T-Rex”. That’s right, I said “Tammy and the T-Rex”. A “film” about a girl who’s boyfriend’s brain gets trappin the head of an animatronic t-rex from a local museum which showcased the talents of up-and-coming superstars Paul Walker and Denise Richards.
So I salute you, Stewart Raffil. From all of the directors out there trying to make their mark, I thank you for your years of dilligent ilustrations of what not to do. I wish you, the best of luck with your career.
