Still the Drums, “a patriotic anti-war mystery” from Orange Coast College theater actor-turned-North Hollywood-based-film-stage-television actor and now filmmaker Talbot Perry Simons, makes its world premiere Saturday, Aug. 1, at the New York International Independent Film N Video Festival Los Angeles 2009 (try fitting that on a marquee!).
The fictional drama follows four childhood friends through to their Marines service in Vietnam and beyond. When the remains of one of them who had been missing in action since 1968 are found, identified and returned to the States 39 years later for a proper military funeral, the other three veterans get back together to toast their fallen friend, recall the horrors of war and swap stories about the lingering memories haunting them into their golden years. The mystery centers on twists and turns that emerge along the way.
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Simons, who wrote and directed the film, also plays one of the 60-year-old veterans. Bobby Figaro and Richard Fulvio portray the other two. The characters as young Marines are played by Wesley Edberg, Aaron Houle and Jason Shepard, while Brett Lee Alexander, Jacob Ochsner, Keegan Michael and Adam Kolkin appear as them as boys.
Originally from Brooklyn, Simons was still in high school in 1965 when, at age 17, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. He finished high school while in the service and later relocated to Orange County, enrolling at OCC in 1972. He went on to study at the Lee Strasberg Institute in Hollywood and with private acting coaches.
The one-night-only showing of his first film begins at 8 p.m. in the Regency Fairfax
Cinema, 7907 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles. Go to the “festival” page at StillTheDrums.com for ticket information.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.