In praise of indie filmmaker Morty Fineman

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Let us now praise socially conscious independent filmmaker Morty Fineman, who has given us, among his 427 movies:-- "Brothers Divided," the 1969 drama about conjoined twins who get sent to Vietnam, despite one being anti-war and the other gung-ho;-- "The Eco-Angels," a 1971 action flick about five female fighters for the environment;-- "Christ for the Defense," a 1984 courtroom drama in which Jesus returns to settle personal-injury lawsuits by healing the claimants.If for some reason you haven't heard of any of these cinematic gems, don't worry about your film acumen.All you've really missed is the comedy "The Independent," which had a limited release in 2000. But it's out on DVD for the first time (Allumination FilmWorks, $29.98, rated R) now, and it remains a very funny satire of the low-budget exploitation movies of the 1960s and '70s.Starring Jerry Stiller as Morty and directed and co-written by Stephen Kessler, "The Independent" was made in the fake-documentary style of Christopher Guest's films ("Waiting for Guffman," "For Your Consideration") and "The Office."A camera crew is following Morty as he attempts to make his latest movie, "Ms. Kevorkian," about a scantily clad assassin who comes to the aid of death-wishing patients with terminal illnesses. But when his checks bounce and his latest financiers pull the plug -- on his movie -- Morty must take desperate measures to save his career. He's assisted by his estranged daughter, Paloma (Janeane Garofalo), and longtime gofer, Ivan (Max Perlich).As quickly becomes clear, Morty made shlocky movies.Yes, his films often had a quirky, anti-establishment viewpoint and were in tune with the social issues of the day, but they were filled with naked women and were punctuated with bombs, gunfire and buckets of blood.The best parts of "The Independent" are the exceptionally funny trailers and scenes from Morty's movies that Kessler and co-screenwriter/producer Mike Wilkins have come up with. They're fantastic parodies of actual B-movies of that era and have the faded, scratched look of films that haven't been preserved very well.If you believe such real-life guest stars as Peter Bogdanovich, Ron Howard, Karen Black, Roger Corman, Nick Cassavetes, Ted Demme and Fred Williamson, Morty was ahead of his time.Each praises Morty, with Bogdanovich saying that Morty "would try something, and two years later, somebody would copy it and win an Oscar."Corman is a particularly good sport for taking part, given that Morty is obviously modeled somewhat after him.Stiller is a perfect choice for Morty, landing the role just as "Seinfeld" was going off the air, the actor explains in the DVD audio commentary he shares with Kessler and Wilkins. (He played George Costanza's tempestuous father, Frank, in the NBC sitcom.)Son Ben Stiller, who introduced his father to Kessler, has a cameo role as the star of Morty's only major studio film, "Whale of a Cop," a financial disaster in which meddling studio executives changed the lead from a whale to a water-spouting policeman.Jerry Stiller's wife, Anne Meara, appears as Morty's ex-wife, who now lives in the Rolls-Royce she won in their divorce settlement. Even daughter Amy Stiller is in the cast as a professor of film studies who says, "You can learn more from a Morty Fineman failure than you can from a Fellini failure, and you have more to choose from."In addition to a bunch of deleted scenes, all of which are funny yet were cut from the film to shorten it, there's a short feature on Nancy Sinatra recording the movie's title song and a second audio commentary, this one with Kessler and editor Chris Franklin discussing some of the technical issues involved in the making of the film.And don't turn off the movie before checking out the closing credits -- it lists every one of Morty Fineman's films, and the titles are hilarious.(Contact Bruce Dancis at bdancis (at) sacbee.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com.)