John Roecker

"Wal-Mart has made it known that it will decline to stock Roecker's film, an honor despite itself and one that speaks volumes about Roecker's talents."

"Roecker sure is a romantic about certain things, like art and music, though you might not know it from watching Live Freaky! Die Freaky!, his claymation musical retelling of the Helter Skelter Charlie Manson saga."

"John Roecker's Everything You Wanted to Know About Gay Porn Stars *but were afraid to ask, is an intimate, brave and frequently witty exploration inside the heads of 16 male erotic video performers, many with well-known nom de porns: Johnny Hazzard, Brad Benton, Nick Capra and Jason Ridge."

"Any movie about cult figure Charles Manson needs lots of sex, drugs and blood. But as John Roecker discovered while filming his first feature -- screening Friday and Saturday only at the Avalon -- the key to amping up the gore is an old standby: puppets."

"Roecker seems to have been as inspired by Todd Haynes's legendary underground film "Superstar" -- in which he told Karen Carpenter's life story with surprising tenderness using Barbie dolls and a bootlegged soundtrack -- as by the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen and the "Frosty the Snowman" cartoon."

"I wanted to push the envelope, and I wanted to go so far as to actually offend both the liberals and the right. I think I have succeeded."

"A lot of the times with porn, it's instant fame. The only thing I can compare it to is being a child actor. You get it fast, then there's a shelf-life for it. With mainstream films, you've got to go to acting classes, you've really got to hustle, there's so much competition, but with these [porn] guys, if you're good-looking with a great body, you're in like Flynn."

"I wanted to look at how people deal with death … Why is Henry Kissinger not in jail and Charles Manson is?"

"Manson's the man who's responsible for "killing the Sixties." He really knew how to play up the whole "most dangerous man alive" thing when at the time, the most dangerous man alive was Richard Nixon."

"When they told me they were gonna call the record American Idiot, I was the one who was saying, 'Oh no, you can't.' I was the one who was worried about it. Because when you think about it, we know the song now, but then it was a really fucking bold thing to do."

"Live Freaky! Die Freaky! will be, without a shadow of a doubt, the single greatest film of all time about Charles Manson being the savior to all humanity in the year 3069."

"Writer-director John Roecker's debut, Live Freaky! Die Freaky! will have you convulsing on the floor … with nausea, laughter, or both."

"It's the most obscene film I've ever seen."

"Everything that is good in the arts is done by some sort of diversion."

"When I saw The Passion of the Christ it made me feel better about what I was doing. And I thought, No way is that fucker going to outdo me! I demanded more blood."

"It is hard to explain to people now how hard it was being a punk back then [the 1970s]. If you had short hair, didn't wear bell bottoms and walked down the street, chances are some asshole in an El Camino was going to kick your ass."

"I just don't think religion should be a money making organization. There is never a need to send churches or cults money for any reason. If you want to feel good about yourself or make your God happy, give your money directly to a charity or a homeless person. But once again this is my opinion, and I don't want to be in a position of also dictating."