"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."

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”