Filmmaker Jarret Gahan has toiled in short form storytelling for well over a decade, producing everything from award-winning short films to music videos to more recently supplemental features for home entertainment releases.
When asked why the transition to feature-length Jarrett says that despite it being a logical transition, it was more happenstance in this case. “Initially it started as a retrospective featurette for a potential DVD release of 'Lesbo-A-Go-Go' (2003). When that release fell through I was left with the featurette and upon reviewing it I realised there was a deeper story to be told and more voices out there to tell it”.
A retrospective documentary on filmmaker Andrew Leavold's debut feature 'Lesbo-A-Go-Go', 'Gone Lesbo Gone: The Untold Tale of an Unseen Film'' is the tale of a man with big ideas but no budget who assembled a crew and set out to make a faux sixties exploitation film. Despite entrapment in distribution limbo for over a decade, 'Lesbo-A-Go-Go' holds minor cult reputation internationally, and 'Gone Lesbo Gone' explores the film's sordid production history as well as its enduring legacy. A no-holds-barred tell-all tale with interviews from cast, crew and industry professionals interspersed with alternate takes, bloopers and behind-the-scenes footage from the film, 'Gone Lesbo Gone' will have its world premiere at the Brisbane Underground Film Festival in January.
Passionate about his work and the film industry, Jarrett says that over the past two decades, it would seem that film taglines have sadly gone the way of the Tasmanian tiger. “While illustrated poster art and teaser trailers have been making a comeback over the past few years, taglines are almost a lost art to marketing a film. Hence I thought it important that 'Gone Lesbo Gone: The Untold Tale of an Unseen Film' not only have an engaging title but a snappy tagline to go along with it, “a story of legend that dared to dream niche on a budget too small to imagine...”
Here are Jarret Gahan's top 5 film taglines:
Family isn't a word, it's a sentence. ('The Royal Tenenbaums', 2001)
By far the cleverest of my favourite taglines, it’s a short and smart use of wordplay, perfectly befitting such a brilliant film.
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Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven.
('A Clockwork Orange', 1971)The most intriguing of my favourite taglines, it’s the first and last time I’ve ever seen Beethoven used in the same sentence as rape or ultra-violence. It gives an idea of story and character without giving anything away. Also the prefix of ‘ultra’ prior to ‘violence’ implies that the young man’s idea of violence is so extreme that it’s beyond our present comprehension of both the word and act, particularly when the hyphenated wording is used immediately after such a heinous word like ‘rape’.
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Be afraid. Be very afraid.
('The Fly', 1986)The shortest and simplest of my favourite taglines, it gives absolutely nothing away but immediately evokes a feeling of fear. The film itself – despite being a reimagining of a late-fifties b-movie – takes a very serious and dramatic approach to its source material however the tagline harks back to the very same b-movie on which it were based
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If this one doesn't scare you, you're already dead.
('The Never Dead' aka 'Phantasm', 1979)The most quotable of my favourite taglines, you can repurpose this one with anything you like to deliver an equally effective sentiment like “if this burger doesn’t bloat you, you’re already dead”. This is a tagline that has stuck with me ever since I was a kid, to me it presupposes that you have never quite seen a horror film this before and after you’ve seen you’ll never be the same person again.
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Bernie may be dead, but he's still the life of the party!
('Weekend At Bernie’s', 1989)The most baffling of my favourite taglines, I mean he’s dead but he’s the life of the party, how can this be? Well he is and he is, they made a movie ninety-seven movie all about it and the dead guy Bernie (Terry Kiser) has almost equal screen-time to the other two male leads played by Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy
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'Gone Lesbo Gone: The Untold Tale of an Unseen Film' will screen on 8 January at the Brisbane Underground Film Festival, which runs 8-10 January.
