The amazing Midnite Movie Mamacita herself, Andrea Beesley-Brown, got an exclusive Q & A session with filmmaker Bob Ray, whose films Hell on Wheels and Total Badass are showing at Madcap Theaters this Saturday, August 21. Hell on Wheels airs at 8:00 p.m., and Total Badass is at 10:00 p.m. Each film is $8. Bob Ray will be in town for his "Down and Dirty Austin Film Tour," so don't miss out on this great opportunity!

Hell on Wheels takes a from-the-trenches look at the dizzying clash of athleticism, exhibitionism, egos, politics and business that is modern-era roller derby. A group of hard-hitting Texas women overcome myriad obstacles in resurrecting and revamping the sport, only to find internal strife ripping the fledgling organization apart. Two leagues emerge from the clash, and what follows ignites an international roller derby revival. Shot over a five-year period by Bob Ray (Rock Opera) and Werner Campbell, Hell on Wheels was edited by award winning editor Conor O'Neill (Murderball, Word Wars, Capitalism: A Love Story) and features original music by And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead.

Total Badass is the Texas tale of a hilarious, crazy-ass writer/publisher/singer/weed-dealer/sex addict/Guinea pig enthusiast/dad/pirate radio host/raconteur and general man-about-town as he rides out the last six months of felony probation and, ultimately, must change his ways when a financial crisis befalls his estranged family.

 

 

Why should people come and see Hell on Wheels?

Well, it’s a despite it being about Roller Derby, it’s about a group of dedicated group of people. A lot of the reviews point out that it’s got funny parts, compelling parts, some parts it gets really tense, it’s got rock-and-roll action throughout, so it’s a well rounded film in the sense that it’s just not for Derby people, it’s not just preaching to the choir, if you will. It has an appeal beyond the Roller Derby itself.

That is completely what I felt having been in Roller Derby for four years; that I could relate to it and it was exactly what we (Arizona Derby Dames) had gone through, which was kind of depressing, ha ha…

Yeah some of the leagues have said that. One woman from the Dockyard Derby Dames said that she has post traumatic stress syndrome watching this, because it was so similar to what happened to them. I think that one thing with the Austin Roller Derby League was that there was no clear structure in the organization when everyone got involved. So by the time that they could figure out the structure, everyone had so much invested, that people that were left empty handed, felt that they had invested a lot of blood and sweat equity in to it and they were sort of left on the outside.

How difficult was it for you to get access to the girls? Were they apprehensive at first?

No, they were really open from the beginning. There were a few factors, one of which was that we interviewed anyone we told them that we weren’t going to use their answers to our interview questions to create other questions, so we never did the reality TV-style to stir it up, that was not our place. We were kind of trying to approach it more old-school documentary, and just let things evolved like Hoop Dreams or Grey Gardens. Where we try not to affect anything, we wanted to be as objective as possible and just present the story as if we weren’t even there.

What is it about Austin that makes it such a magnet for creativity?

Well you’re stuck in the middle of a red state; it’s a very conservative state, a huge state! And Austin has always, since the '60s, had a liberal bend to it and embraced weirdos and outcasts and artists and musicians. If you are liberal and creative and live in Texas, you have very few choices as far as where you can relocate or plant your roots and have a community of like-minded folks, and Austin is the jewel in Texas, for those kinds of folks. There are a lot of people to bounce ideas off of and to work with creatively.

How has the tour being going so far and do people get Austin and what you are trying to put across?

I think so; Austin has a cache of being a pretty nice cool, creative town, so we have that going for us. So far the reception to Total Badass, despite the fact that it has graphic sex, profanity, obnoxious borderline offensive, (well no forget borderline), offensive material, a guy jumping in a trash cans and starting a rap band, crime, felonies, probations, drug tests. The reaction has been fantastic despite the fact that it’s not about someone who is a known commodity; it’s not a celebrity or someone who’s an artist who’s known outside of Austin.

When you started making Hell on Wheels, how soon did it become apparent the girls you were going to focus on?

Obviously the women who became the She-E-O’s and who were involved in management were key, so we filmed all of them. We filmed a lot of the people who were really vocal and those who took a greater role in the involvement of how the organization was run. We knew from the beginning that we weren’t interested in doing a fluff piece, like “look at these crazy rowdy girls”, that was never an interest for us, we knew that it wouldn’t sustain a movie for 90 minutes, that it had to be something more substantive. So we gravitated towards the people who were really vocal.

So is Total Badass going to freak people out?

Oh yeah, absolutely! Chad Holt, the subject of Total Badass, has a magazine, has been a bunch of bands, rowdy bands where he flips off the stage and lands in trash cans. It’s pretty tense and rowdy and then some things happen in his life where he develops quite a lot of emotional fortitude, where there is a heart to the movie and it maintains its humor. I think it’s definitely going to freak some people out, but hopefully a lot of people just think its cool and come out!