Joe Queenan has always been a sardonic wit and he turns his gaze to low budget movie making. In the wake of the stories surrounding Robert Rodriguez's making "El Mariachi" for $7000, Queenan decides that a) Rodriguez is full of shit, and b) to prove that it was impossible to make a film for $7000, no matter what full of shit Rodriguez said.

Thus, Queenan takes us through the tortured production of "Twelve Steps to Death", as the costs rise and filming spluttered along. Then there was the film festival he creates, involving only "Twelve Steps to Death", and awards "Best Film" to, well, you can probably guess.

Not to give the end away but Queenan shows that $7,000 is an impossibly low budget for a feature film, and that "Twelve Steps to Death", as you can probably guess, never won another award. ( )