Screen used Movie Prop doc goes on the Block
DIRECTED BY JUAN PABLO REINOSO/2024
BLU-RAY STREET DATE: APRIL 30, 2024/VIRGIL FILMS (via Kino Lorber)
How much would you pay to own a piece of cinema history? I’m talking about the hollowed-out Bible from The Shawshank Redemption. Wilson the volleyball from Cast Away. A model X-wing fighter from Star Wars. If your answer is any less than a six-digit dollar amount, movie prop collecting is the wrong hobby for you.
With all the filmmaking flourish of a less exotic Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, the new documentary Mad Props is more reality TV than big-screen-worthy movie. Even this Blu-ray release, itself free of any extras other than the feature presentation, feels like overkill. Once things are introduced with the provocative question of “What is it that drives people to pay thousands of dollars for movie studios’ trash?”, filmmaker Juan Pablo Reinoso quickly abandons that level of self-deprecation in favor of a feature-length show-and-tell travelogue. Which is too bad, as a certain absurdity of reducing cinephilia to discarded albeit unique screen used high-dollar bric-a-brac grows increasingly absurd as Mad Props plays on.
We first meet other devoted prop collectors in England and elsewhere before moving on to chatting with actual film industry craftsmen responsible for creating many of the now-sought-after items. For some reason, actors Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street) and Lance Henriksen (the android Bishop in Aliens) are along for the prop-shop visit.
Things get off to the bumpiest of starts as we meet our host, obsessed movie prop collector, Tom Biolchini. From the look of his home and the way he’s shopping items in a fat glossy prop auction catalog, it’s immediately obvious that Biolchini is not particularly struggling to make ends meet. We quickly learn that he is “a banker” (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Vast Bank, to be exact). So that explains that. Unfortunately, it also immediately communicates that collecting authentic movie items is very much a rich man’s game. (And yes, as depicted, this hobby does indeed appear to be extremely male-centric. No female prop collectors are featured, though several quite-tolerant wives are briefly heard from).
After the frankly insufferable opening segment wherein Biolchini talks about why prop collecting should be taken seriously, shows off his collection, makes his family (seated in nice, matching lawn chairs in their manicured yard) engage with his auction want-list, and pointlessly talks up the coolness of his hometown, Tulsa, the documentary hits the road to meet some fellow collectors. Many have camera-ready in-house mini-museums to proudly display their treasures. One shares his philosophy: “If you display it right, it becomes art.” “And if you think about it, movies are art.” Yep. Cinema hasn’t been known as the seventh art since 1921 for nothing…
Biolchini as the host hobbles the film; its editing and rushed camerawork sink it. Its entire ninety-plus minutes is composed of hurried reality TV-style footage seemingly captured on the fly. Meanwhile, an actual museum curator who articulates a sound validation of props as cultural artifacts worth seeking out doesn’t turn up until near the end. Her presence would’ve helped far more at the beginning. On the whole, patchwork assembly of Mad Props seemingly reveals it to be a far-too-disparate project that defied any kind of post-production taming.
Various collectibles are fixated on by the participants but barely shown onscreen for any length of time. When the camera should settle and luxuriate on the item in question (be it Thor’s hammer, Indiana Jones’ whip, or the many, many things from various Alien and Predator films… so, sooo much from Alien and Predator films…. ), it’s zipping around on its way to the next thing. For a documentary devoted to validating the coolness of these prized pieces, intentional lingering is necessary.
As a lifelong film buff who’s also worked in art departments on professional film productions, I went into Mad Props with more of a vested interest than the average viewer. Sadly, the oldest props in this movie are from the original Star Wars (1977). Per the narrow interests of the collectors featured, no movie prior to that might as well exist. Even within Biolchini’s acknowledged favored genre of horror, such legacy collectors as Bob Burns or the late Forrest J. Ackerman fail to warrant even a mention.
While makeshift passion projects such as this should always be encouraged to exist, Mad Props reminds us that simply existing does not make for a worthwhile viewing experience. For the handful of interesting and funny anecdotes that it delivers, I’ve given the film a very generous two stars out of five on Letterboxd. That, however, is all the mad props that I can muster for Mad Props.