What Was 2016: My Writing

"This is how memory works, especially in late winter. The cohesive story we tell ourselves falls away and all that remains is an image here, a remembered word there. We forget what the address of the old apartment was, but we remember he loved the orange kind of Milano cookies best."


"Full frontal shots aren't going to make comic book movies grow up or be more palatable to audiences in telling the exact same origin story. Things will be better when R-rated blockbusters remember their roots and stop being afraid of women, sex, and consequences."

"It's a film resistant to pinning down, slippery and sensuous as water in its images. But its text is a thrilling, numinous reading of how the choices we make, and paths we don't go down, can literally haunt us as specters of lives not lived." 

"The woman had blonde hair. Her mouth was forever frozen into a scream of complete terror. I hated this illustration. But I kept turning back to the page to look at it. The book was from the seventies. She had been screaming for decades in vain. That scared me the most." 

"And so it was that a company that had films like "Missing in Action 3" and "America 3000" on its slate also had this beguiling, elliptically told Nicholas Roeg film about what happens when two Westerners try to engineer a private paradise." 

"In the film's opening, she leads a chorus line in a terrible musical. She puts her back into it, smiling like she's trying to punch you with her teeth, grimly stomping through the choreography like she doesn't notice the audience rapidly leaving for the exits." 

"After getting the Superman franchise the only way Cannon could lure Reeve back for one more go at the role was agree to make a project he'd been trying to do for some time. And so the cost of one of the dumbest comic book films ever made was one the smartest, toughest films of the decade that has since fallen into undeserved obscurity." 

"Corman sympathizes with the youthful impulse to rebel, but he's also keenly perceptive about what happens when rebels age into their 30s, and the growing pains, in work and in love, are more acutely felt." 

"Arguing online that art is not a zero sum game, one that requires the total annihilation of what came before, is akin to spitting into the wind - but that doesn't make it any less true." 

"Coming after the historical epic "Empire of the Sun" and rollicking sequel "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," it was met with the chilly reception of "too sappy" and "too girly," and in the years since it's barely earned more than scorn that the architect of "Jaws" and "Jurassic Park" made a chick flick. Which is unfortunate to say the least, because it's a beautiful, sensitive film about grief and work, centered on one of Spielberg's few female leads."  

"The film is beautiful, shot in autumnal colors; brass, deep reds and the glow of sunsets. The entire film looks like a story being told by a flickering fire: how it was, and how it may be again." 

"In a culture obsessed with youth Bridges brings real depth to his old men. They've seen too much, and that has made them wary. But they are still capable of tenderness. Life's cruelties have not burned out the great well of humanity behind the gruff facade." 

"In a multiple-year slump of diminishing returns, this summer’s crop of blockbusters included some of the most exhausted, sound-and-fury-signifying-nothing films yet."

"The drama in most of his films comes not from huge battles of good versus evil, but rather what happens when a character unaccustomed to good fortune suddenly has a stroke of luck, or what happens when a character is at a crossroads and has to decide who they are going to be, and what they are willing to give in the attempt to change or save their lives."

"The film builds a motif of politics as canny stage management. It’s about carefully pulling the side table over the grease stain on the carpet so the guests won’t see it, or dropping, with passive-aggressive cool, a most unfortunate story that someone told you about the neighbors."

"November is a bleak month. The skies are gray and heavy. It's when the splendor of fall decays into the dying of winter. It's a time for the end of the world. And in the shadow of a shattering election, it feels like we are witnessing the end of an old order." 

"As we were about to reach the museum steps the weather turned in that sudden way late fall has and we were nearly taken off our feet by a gust of wind. It darkened the clouds and the slivers of blue sky faded to a dull bronze. And then the Fear came again."

"We need this comedy more than ever, its wit and madcap slapstick serving a script and performances that still have plenty to say about sexism, class, and office politics." 

"Here was a princess whose first remark to a would-be rescuer is a disparaging crack about his height. She rolls her eyes at the two men who clearly have no plan for getting her safely off the floating prison she’s being held on, so she grabs a gun and starts blasting at the guards who are attacking them herself. She’s brassy, she’s quick to make clear she’s in charge and she doesn’t much care what anyone, hero or villain, thinks of her." 

"And then 2016 happened, and smarting in the aftermath of November 8th it felt very much like everyone who hated Finn (Boyega) and Rey (Ridley) had their revenge. And their revenge was terrible and total. It was the fury of those who never had to ask for a place at the table enraged at the suggestion they put in a leaf to make room for more. It was the petty, ugly temper tantrum that breaks the toy rather than share it with anyone else. It was racism and misogyny standing on top of the pile of ruble and baying well into the night."

Waiting For the End of the World: On Trump, Jehovah's Witnesses and The Late Great Planet Earth (1979)

The woman had blonde hair. Her mouth was forever frozen into a scream of complete terror. I hated this illustration. But I kept turning back to the page to look at it. The book was from the seventies. She had been screaming for decades in vain. That scared me the most.

Armageddon as illustrated in Jehovah's Witnesses literature never shrank from the details. Great plumes or fire and smoke, the earth cracking open and swallowing tiny figures in the background. Leering faces of corrupt leaders and non Witness religious figures. And the beautiful, laughing, mocking Babylon the Great. Riding her seven headed beast and raising her cup to the spectacle.

I've been thinking of that illustration of Babylon the Great a lot lately. Every time the current election groans to a new deplorable low. In these strange days of a dangerous religious fundamentalist wanting to be the first rider of the apocalypse and a tacky bullshit artist who has a good many of god's born again children hoping that he's actually the herald of the end of days my thoughts keep going back to a 1979 "documentary" curio that's gained a terrible currency.

"The Late Great Planet Earth" was based on Hal Lindsay's smash bestseller of the same name. It was Biblical prophecy that ignored the prophetic tradition of warning misfortune if there was no justice for the poor and weakest to make hash out of Revelation with chunks of Daniel and Ezekiel thrown in. This concoction was then presented with a straight face as a "literal" reading of the last book of the Bible which was "clearly" about events in the 20th century that were soon to happen.

The film made of this somehow got Orson Welles to host and narrate it. And if he kept wondering why God had forsaken him to gigs like this he did an admirable job of not showing it on camera. His presence in fact becomes very irresponsible as he gives the whole thing an air of seriousness and import it in no way deserves. Save as a warning for how the religious right was set to deform our politics permanently.

What's not mentioned as a sign of the last days in "The Late, Great, Planet Earth" is as interesting as what is. The film makes nary a peep about abortion as that was still seen a frighteningly Papist thing to be concerned about. There is no mention of the road to Megiddo being paved in gooey cobblestones of wedding cakes baked for gay couples. And shockingly, when the film rounds up a rouges gallery of potential Antichrist candidates Ronald Reagan is included.  

It's also enlightening to see how much of what was about to become the Moral Majority grew out of burnt out hippiedom. Disillusioned by protest movements, dabbling in Eastern religions, and mourning the genuinely alarming ecological devastation humanity had brought forth on its only home flower children were souring into neo cons looking for that portfolio that would be the key to the gated community away from the maddening crowd. Or more perniciously they were looking to underline their importance by being the last generation.

That belief is one I know all too well. And one that terrifies me as it colors my past and stains my future. Waiting, wanting, wishing for the world to end succeeds in killing the present, and the present moment is all any of us have. If you tell children they have no future they will believe you. So many kids I went to Kingdom Hall meetings with met with getting kicked out of "The Truth" via drugs, unplanned pregnancy or both. Being told, over and over and over, that we were no part of "The World" and juuuuust around the corner was that glorious future on paradise Earth where we could wander apple orchards while holding koalas (if the other sort of illustrations in the literature was anything to by) lead to a worldview helplessly disconnected from the present.

It's that's disconnect, and hunger for the center not holding that I see swirling in Trumpism and giving it hideous life force force. The selfishness, more explicitly the White selfishness, that will burn down the house we all live in rather than share it. That panic, fear and despair that the good life is slipping away and will not be coming back that leads to monstrous beliefs and actions. And yes, plenty of Serious People have calmly lectured that we've been here before and these people are not the majority and these movements always burn themselves out. But an angry minority can do a devastating amount of damage.

And "The Late Great Planet Earth" saw it coming, but not in the way it intended. In section of the film about potential Antichrists a talking head warns "If fascism ever comes to the United States it'll be called Americanism." It's impossible not to hear "Make America Great Again" in that. And it's impossible not to see a radicalized Christian fundamentalist base fed on decades of apocalyptic fantasies decide that if you want a Second Coming to happen you better jump start it yourself. And yet, I despair at the lethargy I see from the left. The insistence on utopia and moral purity that conveniently removes the person from the responsibility of any direct action or effort beyond hitting "retweet". We have the potential as a people to do so much, to repair, rebuild and prepare a better world for the future generation. But we chose not to.

So I'm starting to realize that Jehovah's Witnesses got it kinda right. But Armageddon didn't come in balls of fire and bowls of judgment. It came in smartphone aps and apathy and smart water and curdling sense of the common good. It came in Baby Boomers voting over and over to dismantle the social safety net. It came in Whites viewing their racial hold starting to fray and panicking. Babylon the Great came riding an Uber and getting drunk on cold brew coffee and craft beer. Her lips slick with the blood of "I'm not racist but...". As in all things, the supernatural was not needed. Humans proved capable of building an Apocalypse just fine on their own.

Watch "The Late Great Planet Earth" on YouTube.

A Holiday Treasury of My Writing This Year

On "Fury Road" and Italian Post Apocalyptic movies in particular...

How diversity in Blockbuster directors is desperately needed and "Jurassic World" is the absolute worst...

Some James Horner (RIP) scores you should give a listen to...

Remembering "Attack the Block" and who we allow to be heroic...

A look at one of the 80s most unusual and beautiful love stories...

Encountering the sacred in secular art...

The films that inspired the floor plans of "Crimson Peak's" Allerdale Hall...

The dames, broads and badass ladies of Schwarzenegger's Golden Age...

When 20th Century Fox backed the wrong horse in 1977...

"I don't believe it...I don't believe it...."

I was in my early teens and I had the growing suspicion the world was not going to end soon. I felt great dismay at this. I had been a Jehovah's Witness all my life but after my mother's row with the organization over a family member we weren't Witnesses anymore. And in one swoop I was no longer allowed to see the kids I'd grown up with. I was left with the kids at school I had been warned repeatedly were Worldly and were bad associations who would spoil my chances of getting to hug a koala bear in paradise Earth (if the illustrations in The Watchtower were anything to go by).  I was lost, restless and looking for escape. My mother began her hunt for a new religious tradition that would eventually land her a perfectly nice new church. But I already knew organized religion and I were not going to be getting back together.

It's not that I didn't trust another denomination to produce a sense of the sacred and numinous in me. It's more that I had never, ever had that feeling in all my years of being a Witness. Jehovah's Witness' Kingdom Halls tend to be drab looking buildings. And it's an aesthetic that carries down to the faith itself. In an effort to purge itself of anything that remotely smacks of "Christendom" (read: Catholicism) Jehovah's Witnesses have carefully soaked and stripped religion of any sense of ritual, celebration, and marking of time. The pagan origins of most major Holidays, and birthday observances, meant those went right out the window. And Witnesses had no youth programs at all. Why would you bother with those things after all, when the world is ending next Tuesday? And that meant life was carefully marked by all the things you avoided doing, instead of the things you did.

I would always feel guilty about looking longingly at decorated Christmas trees. And I would feel even more guilty when we'd tour an old cathedral when traveling and I'd get a sense of reverence and of the centuries that had passed under its arches. In the immediate aftermath of leaving the Witness, or "The Truth" as insiders call it -big red flag right there-, I longed for a sense of purpose. And it came via a video store rental box.

I had picked it out because it had a spaceship on the cover, and I liked "Star Wars". And I watched, with an increasing sense of the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, as a a great mystery unfolded. Strange lights were flickering across the sky, a group of WWII planes lost decades ago are found in Mexico, an Indianapolis lineman can't stop creating images of a strange tower. And in the middle of the Gobi Desert a cargo ship is found, the people documenting it taking an understandable moment to stare in incredulity before recording it.



And I forgot it was "just" a movie. I entered into it, crouched behind the scrub grass, holding my breath as the ships came in for a landing at Devil's Tower. And John Williams' score, a perfect blend of the magisterial and the fragile sense of wonder wound around my cells and made them light up like the Mothership as it returned to the sky. I cried when Truffaut signed to the alien and it signed back and I felt so happy and alive as the credits rolled. I reveled in what I'd just seen. None of it was "real" and yet it's not that I didn't care, rather it's that I saw stories, good stories, great stories, have a deeper truth and reality of their own. And that it did not diminish movies' power to know they were the result of many different people pooling their skills to create worlds out of sound stages, costumes and matte paintings. Rather it spoke of the medium at its best, that when everything came together the viewer could be transported and changed. That secular art could be sacred too.

I had longed so much for a sense of the numinous and I'd found it at last. In the shivers that ran up my spine as the people looked into the cockpits of the empty planes and found their late forties calendars and photos in pristine condition. In the host of hands pointed up when asked where the music they were singing came from. I spent the next several weeks staring intently at the night sky, wondering if someone was looking back. I couldn't help but notice that instead of the Jehovah's Witness fixation on Armageddon here was a story with the message that great change was coming from the heavens, and it didn't want to destroy, it wanted to talk. It's worth remembering the original meaning of "apocalypse", which is the sense of a veil being lifted and a revelation of new knowledge. I had changed, I now knew things I didn't before.

And I knew I could never return to the gray twilight of going to meetings at the Kingdom Hall, going out in service, going to assemblies and patiently waiting for that apocalypse that was just, no really, we mean it this time, around the corner. It set me on the path of the addicting process of seeing a great film for the first time. That sensation of a hole being blown through my mind and my worldview.  The sunlight streaming through the rubble and peeking through it to find in wonder that the world had gotten bigger, more mysterious. That feeling was there in everything from the phantasmagoria of "The Red Shoes" to the endless green jungles of "Aguirre: The Wrath of God". It's why I have no patience for the most tiresome type of non believer who feels it's very, very important to sneer that it's just a "myth" or "fairy tale". Forgetting that myths and fairy tales are the bedrock of humanity, the stories we tell to make sense of the chaos. Just because it's a trick doesn't mean it's not magic. Some people find that sense of awe in religion, I found it in art. Movies are my church and I watch them in faith, hope, and charity that the next one will change my life.

"Remember."

So this is how it goes. I'm twelve and watching TV in my Dad's apartment. It doesn't feel weird referring to my "Dad's apartment." And that is my great guilty secret, I'm incredibly relieved my parents got divorced. I change the channel, a group of people are looking worried on the bridge of a spaceship.

"Ooh, that's Wrath of Khan, leave it here, it's a really good one," my father says. Thankful it's not a Western I'll have sit through I obey. And that's how I first see one of my favorite films. My father tells me about Star Trek and Leonard Nimoy. We eat chopped steak sandwiches and watch The Enterprise play cat and mouse with The Reliant in the beautiful lilac, peach and cobalt clouds of a nebula. And when Spock's first question after sacrificing himself to save everyone is "Ship...out of danger?" I start rubbing my nose hard to keep from crying. I'm making a determined effort to stop being my thin skinned, starts bawling at the drop of the hat self. My father squeezes my shoulder, "It's okay, he comes back in the next one."

And that's what I associate the most with those years, watching movies. Renting them from video stories around town. Renting them from the library. My mother is woman who considers "shut up" a curse word, my father rents me "The Terminator". And as much as I want to scream when my father puts me in the middle by unloading on me everything that went wrong with his childhood and his marriage I just have to think of watching "The Long, Hot Summer" or "The Godfather" with him and I let it go. But it gets harder to let it go as the years go by. And I begin to put up walls, and not answer the phone when I know it's him.

I feel guilty about this, and then I'm able to put up walls around that too. But all that falls away when my sister  and I take him to see "Star Trek" in 2009. A film even its abominable sequel won't let me be objective about. Because all I'll remember is the look of sheer delight on my father's face during it. The grin that lit the theater when the end credits music started with a version of The Original Series' theme. It's only later do I realize how important that moment was. When it hits me that was the last movie I saw with my father before he got sick. Before the long, slow decline in various convalescent homes began.

When my father enters the convalescent home is when the terrible waiting begins. I feel guilty about leaving town even though my mother tells me it's the right thing to do. I call my father, not as often as I should. He starts to have trouble remembering that I'm no longer in North Carolina, I call him less unable to bear it. And then I get the call from my mother that it's time to come home. It's Time. And then an even more terrible month of waiting happens. It happens in February, an awful, awful month of gray empty trees and worn brown soil crusted over with dirty ice. There is no catharsis when he dies. Just a terrible emptiness and sensation of walking underwater that lasts for months.

I go back home. Numb, angry that not only did I lose my father, Leonard Nimoy died a week later. That the universe owed me at least Mister Spock still being around. Knowing that the universe could not care less what I think it owes me. Adjusting to the new normal begins. I do well some days, others I just want to sit on the couch with a blanket around my shoulders. I'm frightened by how I've lost any sense of time. Days bleed into each other, I'm not sure if a memory that skitters across my mind happened three days or three years ago. But the dirty ice melts into green grass, and the trees around the deck start to fill out with leaves again. And in July I notice the AFI Silver is playing "Wrath of Khan" in revival.

It's a warm balmy night as my boyfriend and I walk from the car to the theater. I've half joked to him that I'll probably start bawling when Spock dies. And I'm secretly hoping I'm not joking. I've cried in front of him perhaps twice. I have gotten so good at not crying at the drop of the hat that I don't cry at all. We buy our tickets and go in. The shiny chrome and black of the Art Deco interior comforts me along with the pinprick I'm starting to accept as a constant companion that this is yet another thing I won't ever be able to share with my father. We go into the theater and find our seats.

From the moment the deep blacks of the star field shimmer on the big screen I'm transfixed. Sometimes I'm watching the acting, sometimes I'm watching the directing. Other times I'm paying attention to the sound design, or noticing the choices the screenwriter made. I'm paying attention to everything my father taught me to pay attention to. He taught me movies were too wonderful to just passively digest and forget, that at their best they became like old friends you checked in with to see how they're doing.

And it hits me over and over. That without my father I wouldn't be sitting in this theater right now. And it's a double edged sword of realization. That the fraught nature of our relationship made me eager to flee. Yet he was the one person that I could truly be myself around. He shaped my cavernous appetite for movies, for art, for life. And just when it feels like my life is taking the shape and purpose I would be proud to tell him about, he's gone. He sacrificed so much for me and I'll never get to tell him thank you. And so when Spock asks "Ship...out of danger?" I finally put my head in my hands and cry. I cry for just how not at all alright it is. I cry for how it's never quite going to be alright again. I cry for Spock, for Leonard Nimoy, for James Horner and his beautiful music playing over the scene. I cry for how many things get lost, how lost is the natural terminus of all things. And my boyfriend is sitting next to me, not sure whether to leave me be or comfort me, he puts his arm around me and draws me close. And that makes me cry harder because one day he'll be lost too. And so will I.

I want stop but I can't, I shouldn't, it feels like poison slowly draining out of me. A pair of little boys sitting behind me worriedly ask their father "Is she okay?" And I smile a little underneath my tears. The funeral scene is ending and I'm down to just a few drops left. I feel like I'm floating. I begin to come back to myself as the wonderful end title music starts. I feel a bone deep ache at hearing Nimoy recite The Original Series' opening narration. But I'm happy the audience I saw it with was clearly loving it. I'm even happier about the two little boys who kept peppering their father with excited, whispered questions throughout. If things are to be lost, it follows that they have to be found first. And that is the question I wrestle with everyday, will I allow myself the hurt of letting myself be found?

The lights go up, the crowd files out, I stay in my seat until the music and credits are finished. My boyfriend squeezes my hand and we walk to the little cafe in the lobby to sit down. It feels like I've been excavated from my grief, the silt of confusion and sorrow brushed away. I'm part of the human movie again, trying to remember my lines and steeling myself for my invariable exit. It's awful. It's wonderful. I can feel my heart red in my chest as big as the room at the moment in my affection for my boyfriend, our audience, this theater, and everyone in it. Things get lost, so very lost. But things are always, always in the process of being found. I found myself again at the AFI Silver. I think that's just right. I kiss my boyfriend on the cheek and ask him to get me a Cherry Coke from the snack bar. I want to have a drink before our next movie starts.

B-Fest! B-Fest! The Great Barbarian Attack of the Wasp People vs. Black Belt Bingo '13

And 'lo for my tenth year did I trudge to the frozen lands of the mysterious Northwest. And there did I see such sights and wonders as would horrify a lesser mortal. And so did I find it good having shared this experience among my boon companions. My tale begins... 

Arriving on Wednesday we met up with the gang at Morton Grove's finest Best Western. The first round of books and CDs were exchanged and we introduced the crew to the glories of The Himalayan, a marvelous restaurant tucked in an otherwise uninspiring shopping center. Afterwards we pressed onward to Half-Price Books as the simple fact that I will need to live to 825 to tackle even 30 percent of my to read pile is no barrier to picking up more. We retired to one of rooms to enact the sacred tradition of drinking good Whiskey out of motel paper cups and ignoring the movie playing on the TV. This year's example being the Manos level looking The Stoneman.

Thursday was spent making a return visit to the Oriental Institute on the University of Chicago's campus, an unassuming space at first, it houses an impressive number of treasures from the cradle of civilization. A showstopper being the towering sculpture that once graced King Sargon II's throne room. And once again, looking at all the marvels from Ancient Egypt convinced me that Abrahamic monotheism spoiled religion for everyone.

We had a delicious supper at my friend Edward's house and then rejoined the chorus at Hala Kahiki a Tiki Bar right of the sets of Mad Men. You can just see Don Draper morosely nursing a Princess in the corner. I managed to break with tradition by not leaving the establishment embarrassingly tanked.  Another night, another room party. In this case the movie was the rather impossible to ignore The Apple, the gonzo Biblical disco music from the Go Go Boys, better known as purveyors of fare like the several hundred Missing in Action and Death Wish films.

Friday began with finally ticking off Lincoln Park Zoo as a Chicago institution I'd yet to visit. Even in the dead of winter it was a strangely lovely place, with the animals in their indoor exhibits or sent away for the season. A sea lion poked his head out of  his heated pool to look at these strangers who were wandering the frigid paths alone. We stayed in the Great Apes house for a while, watching the two new mothers tend to their babies. I made peace that apparently I wasn't going to see any otters this year as the Shedd was closed and the North American river otters were either sound asleep or away until spring. I parted company with Scott and Sam at the reptile house, my phobia of snakes is such that I told them I'd be happy to wait by the sea lion pool while they took as long as they wanted.

I walked around for a bit and waited, they returned and Scott told me with no small amount of glee that the reptile house also housed the small mammals (great pairing there guys! sheesh!) and there was a pair of Asian small-clawed otters just waiting. I wished for the ability to punch the universe in the teeth but my need to see nature's most adorable animal was too great. I closed my eyes like any grown ass adult would and had Scott lead me past the foul serpents to the glass of their pool. It was worth it, they played, frolic'd, romped, twisted, and flicked through the water and my heart was full as we turned our lamps toward Northwestern.

More hellos were said to returning faces and places to sit were found as the lights went down and the screen lit up...

Breaker! Breaker!, Chuck Norris doesn't have his beard yet so it's not really a Chuck Norris movie proper. In fact it was pointed out that clean shaven a young Norris bore a remarkable resemblance to a lost Carradine brother, and really the movie plays out like a Smokey and the Bandit uped version of Kung Fu. Norris' mellow meditation practicing roundhouse kicking trucker riding to rescue his brother from a crooked town boss. I missed the lunacy of Lone Wolf McQuade.

The Wasp Woman, Roger Corman presents another movie that's more interesting than it was probably intended to be. A standard plot of a person turned monstrous by means of mad science meant to rejuvenate is given fresh legs by centering around the sympathetic portrayal of an aging cosmetics executive who makes the ill fated decision to start freebasing a daffy scientist's royal jelly injections. The WereWasp makeup is laughable, but it's a punchy, enjoyable 80 minutes, and worth noting that Catwoman basically stole this plot and executed it not nearly so well.

Steel, The streak of terrible live action kids movies from the 90s being dark horse favorites continues with this notorious clunker. Hollywood made a game attempt to turn Shaq into a movie star, and while he can do many things well, carrying a movie is not one of them. It's also from the Batman Forever period of comic book adaptations when studios thought superhero movies actually being good would cause the crops to fail or something. The flick is almost the platonic idea of how safe, sanitized,  toothless, and prepacked for the Burger King tie-in movies were in the mid nineties (and living in the age of remakes/boots/imaginings I know things could always be worse) and a hoot to shout down with a crowd. You haven't lived until you've seen Judd Nelson try to be a suave, dangerous arms dealer.

The paper plates flew fast and furious during Plan 9 From Outer Space but I caught a cat nap so as to be awake for...

Black Belt Jones, The movie is a treasure watching it by yourself, but there no substitute for you and two hundred other people singing along to the a capella theme. Jim Kelly plays the baddest secret service/federal agent/bodyguard around, reluctantly agreeing to work for The Man temporarily to protect the neighborhood karate school from being torn down by mobsters. The acting is atrocious, the clothing is worse, and I love it more than some members of my actual family. Enough to really hurt my feelings by tracking down the said to be unwatchable sequel.

The Mole People was one I'd seen before and sleep claimed me again only to leave me unfortunately awake for the worst of the year's bill.

Galaxina, Woof, this one stung. A revolutionary comedy completely free of jokes it seems designed to leave you with nothing but space to ponder the unhappy fate of star Dorothy Stratten. A nominal Star Wars spoof, it feels as long as an actual journey to end of the galaxy and if I could press charges against a movie I would've.

Rhinestone, This had been the mind killer the year it first played, but surprisingly went over quite well this time around. Playing it after something so abysmal helped, also the volume was not eardrum dissolving loud. It's still plenty bad, but with an endearing tackiness of early eighties New York before all the character had been scrubbed out. Stallone is a mess but Miss Parton is the real thing, and I can't be too mad at anything that gives me plenty of chances to listen to her sing, even if it means I'm more than likely going to have listen to Stallone bellow like a lost Barbarian Brother too.

Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman was another I'd already seen and as slashers aren't my cuppa I bundled this and Sorority House Massacre as nap time and then trundled down to the icy shores of Lake Michigan and clear my head in the beautiful, merciless cold with the skyline of Chicago shimmering in the distance. Recharged I found a vacant seat in McCormick auditorium for the home stretch, or stench in this case. As it's well known you had better make peace with the fact you will smell like warm onion dip when this is over.

Beach Blanket Bingo,  I really do hope we'll be getting more beach party movies in the future, as I love 'em with a wholly inordinate fondness. Some thirty-two year olds gamely pretend to be teens while some sixty year olds gravely shake their heads at These Kids Today. There are mermaids, the world's oldest Greaser, sky diving, bikinis with bouffants, and Buster Keaton. Perfect viewing for the frozen days of January. What are you waiting for? 

Steele Justice, This was a fun action entry, nothing special but it committed to being the most 1987 movie ever, complete with plunked in, yeah we've seen Miami Vice too, music video shot at apparently The Michael Mann Memorial Armory. 

The Barbarians, My favorite of the night. It's 1987 again and all the gas has gone out of the sword and sorcery genre. No matter, the film makes up for coherence by lobbing just about everything but the serpent puppet kitchen sink at the screen to give the impression of a story, and it just about works too. I am in love with the production design of this movie, from villain Richard Lynch's discarded Lady Gaga wigs to the Del Toro directs an aerobics exercise video of the female costumes. I mourn that the Conan remake was such a dud, robbing us of the opportunity to get new direct to Netflix Instant trash treasures like this. 

Godzilla VS. King Ghidorah, The Japanese can make a bad Godzilla movie too, albeit one that is still nowhere close to the spectacularly hatefully bad of our abortive attempt, and this was a clunker closer. The Ghidorah model was gorgeous, and I'm not staunchly against CGI (well mostly) but still, like here, Godzilla in a suit or GTFO.  

(Note: All images from the invaluable Wrong Side of the Art, click to enlarge, you know the drill.) 

And 'lo did the lights come up for the final time, and were many sorrowful goodbyes said. But it had been a worthy adventure, and one that would be taken again, but that is another story... 

B-Fest 2012: The Fest That Dropped Its Ice Cream On The Yeti And Put It's Weight On It Thought You'd Be Bigger

Well thanks to massive ecological devastation I can't start my b-fest recap with a remark about the blistering cold as it was downright tepid when I arrived. I can however talk about how good it was to see friends old and new, the BMMBers, the locals, the friends of friends, the lovers, the dreamers, and me. But I'm losing track of the thread here so onward.

After the traditional Thursday night tipping back of Tiki drinks at Hala Kahiki we retired to watch the horrifying, and not in a good way, Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf, and took a moment of silence for Sir Christopher Lee's dignity. We parted in good spirits and looked forward to tomorrow.

After a wonderful morning gawking at the wonders in the Field Museum we dutifully made our way to the Norris Auditorium on Northwestern's campus and settled in for cinematic wonders of another sort. The lights dimmed and first up was...

Best of the Best, 80s action nonsense is my anti-drug, and I'm particularly fond of the low rent entries that came late in the decade as the cycle coughed itself out.

Symptomatic of the off kilter feel that characterizes a b-fest flick the Commies have taken a hike so it's US vs. South Korea in a Tae Kwan Do match between a rag tag group of misfits and a team, or in the James Earl Jonsian, TEEEEAM, of seasoned professionals who should be able to kill them just by looking in their general direction.

Eric Roberts and his magnificent of head of hair are on hand to cry a lot, ice cream cones are ruined and redeemed, and James Earl Jones is able to get a nice new extension on his summer house. A terrific start to the evening.

The Astro Zombies, Ted V. Mikel's anti-classic clumsily attempts to combine the police procedural with the mad scientist flick. What the means is a lot, no a lot, still not there, more, yep, that many, shots of clocks, test tubes, and John Carradine attempting to install his stereo. Tura Satana slinks around in some groovy cocktail gowns and nothing happens very slowly. If you must brave this one, don't do it alone.



To Catch a Yeti, Terrible 90s kid flicks have yielded some dark horse favorites for the schedule and this is no exception. What could have been just a 10 years too late made for television riff on E.T. with a little girl and a hideous bug eyed puppet standing in for Elliot and an expensive hideous bug eyed puppet is something quite else thanks to some massively bizarre casting and script decisions.

Meat Loaf plays a tracker sent after the Yeti with all the gravitas called for as if he's auditioning for No Country For Old Men. He's after the creature to secure it for a rich brat. Only they've confused "brat" with "multiple murdering sociopath". Filmed in New York City's famed Little Toronto neighborhood it does not wear out its welcome while providing a more than fair portion of "did I just see that?" moments that b-fest requires.

The traditional midnight screening of Plan 9 Nine From Outer Space had the audience flinging paper plates during the UFO flying sequences with gusto and they were cleaned up just in time to see...

Avenging Disco Godfather, My favorite of the offerings and again the apples and Buicks of the tone is key. This a typical cheeky Rudy Ray Moore movie floating on top of a story about drugs destroying a community as bleak and hopeless as anything out of the more serious side of seventies cinema.

Rudy Ray Moore is the Godfather, former cop, current DJ, and soon to be one man take down squad against the angel dust dealer who is poisoning the locals with his product. Moore's wardrobe is a sight to behold and the drug induced hallucinations of the characters are something out of David Lynch directing an episode of Sanford and Sons. Put yo weight on it and watch it if you haven't.



My brain and body where bailing on me so alas I tripped off into slumber during the reportedly amazing two punch of Death Bed: The Bed That Eats and Tarkan vs. The Vikings, thankfully both are on disc. I awoke to be treated to sound of everyone else sleeping their way through...

Mutant Hunt, Most everyone who didn't sleep through this wished they had but I was oddly charmed by it's utter nullity. Someone attempted to do a reworking of The Terminator and Blade Runner, and the fact that they had only ten dollars and no discernible talent in front of or behind the camera did not stop them.

Set in a futuristic dystopia of empty warehouses and ripped leotards an elite squad of non actors most go after rogue, grossly melting cyborgs. Which they do by standing aside bemusedly while the cyborg kills its latest target. Not much else to stay, only that it comes that near future where there are off world colonies but phones still have cords on them.

Sleep and a walk on the beautiful shore of Lake Michigan claimed me during Guru the Mad Monk and the already seen at a previous fest The Brain From Planet Arous but I made sure to make it back in time to see...



Stunt Rock, A fascinating concoction highlighting the insane feats of Australian stunt man Grant Page. there's a bare handful of story about him traveling to the U.S. to be a stuntman on a TV show but the movie firmly avoids engaging much with it at all and instead had the actors talk about his most dangerous stuns and play set footage of them.

For no clear reason the film decides the best partner for this is a MOR rock group who distinguish themselves with an on stage act involving two magicians dressed as Merlin and the Prince of Darkness hurling fireballs at each other. And again, no plot ever touches these scenes either. It makes for something appealing and would be a good disc to spin in the back ground of a party.


Road House, This had become a cult favorite in recent years and with good reason. Lean mean bouncer machine Patrick Swayze rolls into Jasper, Missouri and sets his sights on cleaning up the Double Deuce, the roughest dive in town. He brings zen koans and shattered knee caps to the people oppressed under the thumb of evil town owner Ben Gazzara. Before long the Deuce is oozing neon tubing, he's bedded the comely town doctor, and Sam Elliot has wandered in needing a paycheck like any of us poor mortals. Remember pain don't hurt, and laughter is the best medicine anyway, so belly up to the bar for a glassful.

And with that the audience fought back against the leaden Werewolf in Girls' Dormitory, the inept The Galaxy Invader, and closed things out with the solid It Came From Beneath the Sea.

And then the lights came up and we blinked in that mixture of sadness and relief that it was over. And as we cleaned up the place we started to formulate our plans as to how we'll all find our way back in here in 2013. Because sure as Rudy Ray Moore hates Aunt Betty, we will.

Last Men, 10 Plagues, and Man Eating Plants in Pennsylvania

Having bats swoop above your head and dance around the tree tops is a pretty damn great way to start a viewing of monster movies, and so it was at the Riverside Drive-In this past weekend. Located in the lovely, lonely woods just outside of Pittsburgh it's two nights of monster and b flicks on the big screen. The event also allowed me to correct the shameful oversight of having never been to a Drive-In as well. The prints shown came from a generous collector and were gorgeous. In between films they played vintage trailers and marvelous conncession stand ads attempting to sell popcorn and soda as epic events in themselves.



The bill this year was represented by 8 films in total.

Black Sabbath, Italian horror maestro Mario Bava's anthology film. AIP's version of the film shuffles segments beginning and ending with two strong stories wrapped around a sumptuous looking but tepid middle. The first concerns a woman who learns the folly of robbing the dead, and the last is a marvelous variation on a vampire tale with a great performance by Boris Karloff, who also serves as the host of the bumpers between the stories. Here is where having a great print is felt most as Bava was a visual stylist first and the look of the film tells as much, or often more than the acting or oblique story line. Seen in this quality the film was a ravishing feast for the eyes in red, midnight blues, and that strange emerald green that's a Bava staple.

The Last Man on Earth, A loose adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend that has a great central performance by Vincent Price but basically feels like a dress rehearsal for the much superior Night of the Living Dead. Price carries the film and it has it's moments of genuine dread, but the rest of the cast is average, and there needed to be another actor as good for the ending to pack the punch it's trying for. Again the scenes of of the vampirized plague victims mindlessly shuffling and trying to break in to Price's house were an obvious influence on Romero, only he would take these images someplace truly apocalyptic.

Castle of Blood, Some pacing problems keep this from being a first rate gothic shocker. A gentlemen accepts a bet from Edgar Allen Poe himself to spend the night in a reportedly haunted mansion. He scoffs at such superstition but soon after arriving at the abandoned place is confronted by a lovely Barbara Steele begging him to take her away from this terrible place. It builds up some nice atmosphere and once it's revealed what's actually going on at the house it gets some full blooded scenes. But unfortunately it plays at time like the reels are out of order, and that it ran short so the producers had to pad it out to distribution length with a scene of a character picking up a candelabra and slowly walking to the other side of the house, looking around, and then slowly walking back and putting the candelabra down.



Island of the Doomed, Interesting as it's clearly resting on the fault line between old and new cinema horror. 10 years earlier and it's easy to see this as a tame, bloodless, black and white thriller about a group of trapped vacationers on a isle with some lethal plant life. But it's not just being in color that makes the difference, it's the amount of blood, the brazen misbehavior of the characters, and the sheer nastiness of the whole endeavor that announce a new phase is coming. I liked it because of its garishness frankly, even though it featured the most odious of the comic reliefs of the entire two nights.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes, My hands down favorite of the whole thing. Vincent Price plays a hideously scarred mad genius who uses the 10 biblical plagues as a template for seeking revenge on those he believes responsible for his wife's death. But no description can do justice to actually seeing the thing. From the licorice black tone of the whole thing as a very baffled Scotland Yard detective tries to figure out why some of London's finest physicians are ending up in predicaments like being impaled on gold unicorn statues to the otherworldly lovely Virginia North as Phibes' assistant. Who looks right smart in Art Deco by way of LSD get ups and steals scenes without saying a word. Highly recommended.



Dr. Phibes Rises Again, The rather thankless sequel to the utterly bonkers first suffers by comparison. Virginia North has taken a hike and her replacement fits the dark haired mysterious beauty part of bill but nothing else. Phibes really has no business in the story, and indeed pushes aside the much more interesting tale of Robert Quarry's doomed immortal looking desperately for the fabled River of Life. Still, it's impossible to work up too much antipathy to anything that ends with Vincent Price crooning "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" over the end credits.

Count Yorga, Vampire, AIP figured out how to do a vampire in a then contemporary setting right. Robert Quarry is terrific as the titular count, not a tiresome tragic anti hero but a smooth operating predator who you can believe has survived centuries by virtue of always having the upper hand. The scene where he amusingly examines a stake a would be Van Helsing has brought to fell him with is a particular highlight.

I, Monster, Amicus trots out a Jekyll and Hyde adaptation but curiously plays coy with the names, calling Sir Christopher Lee's Jekyll "Dr. Marlowe" in the film. A nice closer, a good solid adaptation, nothing too memorable, but then once you've seen Vincent Price furiously playing a neon pink and orange organ it's going to take a lot to leave an impression. Can't wait for next year.

Vamps, Yetis, and Haunted Woods.

Castle of the Walking Dead, Germany decides it wants to jump on the sixties Gothic revival bandwagon, but does so by way of trying to imitate Mario Bava trying to make a Hammer film. It works quite well though, setting the film in that odd neverland where it's both the 17th and the late 19th century, the women pair very sixties beehives with their Regency gowns, and there isn't a forest or empty street not festooned with glowing, diffused colored lights from places where no light source could naturally be. Sir Christopher Lee is on hand to be genuinely good as a villain and collect a paycheck, and everyone else acquits themselves amiably in this chiller.

Female Vampire, Jess Franco's movies seem to exist outside Outsider Art. While things like The Room or Manos: The Hands of Fate exhibit a sense that someone involved had a basic idea of what narrative film making should look like, even if none of that ended up on screen. But Franco operates out of his own universe. The comely and willing to do apparently anything Lina Romay plays a mute vampire Countess who drains the "life force" from her victims. She wanders around doing this while a heavily eye lined gentlemen stares pensively into the horizon. Eventually the two meet, he dies, and she thrashes around in a bathtub full of Hawaiian Punch and dies of grief. That this does not make me not want to watch a Franco film ever again speaks to his odd appeal. It's pretty much like some exotic candy from an ethnic grocery store that tastes horrid and yet you buy it every time you go.

Holocaust 2000, The Italian Rip Off Machine sets its eyes on The Omen. Loads of fun for all the wrong reasons. From seeing Kirk Douglas' frank disbelief he's in this film to some truly mad reinterpretations of The Omen's key beats. Douglas plays an industrialist trying to build a new super Nuclear Fusion plant somewhere in the Middle East when dark portents and mysterious accidents began to befall the project and anyone who tries to stop it. His fears are compounded when he begins to believe his new, much younger wife may be carrying the Antichrist. Completely oblivious to his grown, creepy, waxy skinned son Angel who does everything but pedal a tricycle furiously around the house. A text book example of Italian Exploitation's charms, primarily in the tradition of having quite a few interesting ideas and ambitions and not quite pulling them off in ways that don't end in hysterical laughter on the audience's part.

Not Quite Hollywood, an invaluable documentary on the colorful and cheerfully vulgar history of Australian exploitation cinema. The interview subjects are candid, the films clips shown are amazing in every sense of the word, and nearly everyone onscreen takes a moment to say something snotty about Picnic at Hanging Rock , a film I like very much, but do enjoy now picturing as the snobby rich kid with good grades the rest of the class can't stand.

Salon Kitty, Tinto Brass' revel in art smut has enough eye poppingly beautiful women doing jaw dropping things to make it a fun revel in bad taste for about the first 90 minutes. However, as it has nothing more to say than Nazism Is Bad and People In Power Are Often Hypocrites it really doesn't justify running over two hours. Still, as a movie of a kind that will never be made again it's a good choice for the more adventurous viewer.

Shriek of the Mutilated, I'm still not certain this wasn't an elaborate practical joke pulled on me. Nominally about a group of college students who go to an isolated lodge somewhere in upstate New York in search of a legendary Yeti that decimated an ill fated search party seven years before. In tone and execution it is nothing so much as what would have happened if John Waters had directed the Scooby Doo movie. At that phrase half of you recoiled in horror, and the other half went immediately in search of this. Both are the correct responses.

The Warrior and The Sorceress, There's no need to make a parody of the Sword and Sorcery genre when it was perfectly capable of sending itself up with good natured brio. This is gloriously fun, with David Carradine playing the title role in yet another riff on Yojimbo set on a totally not Tatooine planet in some grim post apocalyptic future. Our hero wanders into a village that is in such dire straights its women have no clothes. Two rival warlords are constantly squabbling over the one village well and Carradine sets to playing them against each other. Well worth tracking down, and some of the best acting comes from one warlord's nearly immobile, ruff wearing lizard puppet sidekick.

Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century, Oh Italy I miss your great rip off factories that once ran noon to midnight pumping out helplessly cheap, often insane copies of whatever was making the most money in the states. This carbon monoxide copy of the '76 King Kong is an oddly cheery affair with a Yeti with huge Keane painting eyes befriending a blond and her mute little brother. Amazingly it does not end with the Yeti taking a tumble of an Italian standing in for Toronto (!) landmark but rather suggests they were hoping for a sequel. My viewing companion perfectly nailed this as "The Wonderful World of Disney's Mighty Peking Man."

Whales, Giant Monkeys, and Pumamen: B-fest 2011

I've come around to thinking the A&O folks pick the perfect weekend for b-fest. After all if you're nuts enough to want to see a blaxsplotation version of Frankenstein why shouldn't you also be nuts enough to want to travel to Chicago in the dead of winter? I sat out last year and was rewarded with a nicely low key event this year, reconnecting with old friends, making some new ones, and seeing some more Things That Cannot Be Unseen thanks to the lineup.

Arrived on Thursday to have dinner with the mysterious El Santo (a.k.a. Scott) a learned gentleman of the tide lands who is said to have done something at a remote Antarctic research station that is only spoken of in awed whispers as "The Prometheus Incident." Joining us was Edward (a.k.a. erm, Edward) a warrior poet of his Queen's army and renowned for having been captured by a fearsome Raj and earning his freedom by bench pressing a tiger to impress the ruler.

Both made for great company at The Himalayan, a terrific Indian/Nepalese place where the sauces where so good you felt the only way you could express your full gratitude was to rub them into your face arms and hair. We resisted and retired to Hala Kahiki, a charming kitsch oasis where the drinks seemed designed to remove you from your dignity as quick as possible. The night closed in Bro Rag and Mal's room over an expensive bottle of Vodka and a Yokai film that deserves much closer examination at a later date.




The next day was the official start of the show but the day left plenty of time for sight seeing. I finally got to visit the Shedd Aquarium. There must be something in our evolutionary memory of the sea that can account for the pupil dilating, blood pressure lowering effect of just watching whales swim. It was a lovely afternoon watching a Beluga with her calf, a pod of Pacific Dolphins arc through the air, Sea Otters dance around each other, and strange creatures out of Weird Tales that make their homes in the dark crevices of the oceans. All too soon it was time to go but I settled into Norris Auditorium in anticipation of the other kinds of strange wonders that where about to be unleashed onscreen...

The Pumaman
This is one of my favorite MST3K episodes so I was curious if it'd feel flat without those cow town puppets in the corner. Happily it took flight with the audience with much greater ease than its hapless hero. Whisper thin paleontologist Tony Farms discovers he's the heir to the powers of Italians trying to cash in on Superman with just 10 dollars.

When he puts on a tacky belt he becomes The Pumaman! , clad in Dockers and a long sleeve crew neck t-shirt and endowed with the power of awkwardly flailing in front of aerial footage of London and the power of constantly getting his Puma-Ass handed to him. The belt is given to him by Andean Shaman Vadinho. There's a long, ignoble tradition of movie sidekicks doing all the actual heavy lifting but it reaches new ridiculous extremes here. Vadinho throws all the effective punches and takes down head villain Donald Pleasence when Pumaman finally gets painted into a Puma-Corner.

Sometimes these spaghetti exploiters are graced by a much better than they deserve score from folks like Ennio Morricone or Goblin. Not so here and it's prefect really, if your hero is wearing a poncho from the Juniors department it only behooves him that his soundtrack should sound like someone holding a tape recorder over the sample button on a Casio.




Top Dog
The real surprise entertainer of the night. What looked to be a tepid way too late riff on Turner And Hooch instead held interest by having some of the most schizophrenic tonal shifts ever. Scenes of cops getting shot point blank in the head are next to scenes of the dog waggishly stealing some food off of lead Chuck Norris's table. It's as if Cannon got the rights to the Benji property but decided to fashion it as yet another Death Wish sequel. It might not scale the heights of divine madness like Lone Wolf McQuade but it was quite fun to watch the dynamic non-acting of its cast or how the filmmakers took great pains to not take advantage of any of San Diego's many attractive shooting locations.

Mama Dracula
While the first two features tried to shamelessly ape previous successes to make a quick buck this bizarre wonder obviously had capital A Art on it's Laudanum soaked mind. An engagingly strange, at least until the 90 minute mark, romp that retells the Elizabeth Bathory legend by way of a lost Andy Warhol/Paul Morrissey Dracula feature.

Louise Fletcher is in full Frau Blucher accent tending two Tiny Tim vampire sons in a sumptuous country estate and feeding her habit through luring young victims into the clothing boutique she runs on the side. And while all this going on she has a Harold Lloyd reborn as a new wave singer mad scientist on staff trying to invent a perfect synthetic blood so she can quit risking discovery to maintain her eternal youth and beauty.

This would have worked best as a hypnotically weird 20 minute short. As it is it doesn't have the loopy energy to sustain a 2 hour running time and devolves into a showcase of some admittedly splendid Art Nouveau furnishings. Still, I'm glad b-fest unearths films like this and I'd love a director's commentary.

Plan 9 From Outer Space
Ed Wood's masterpiece and one that's become as familiar as an old friend. I'm more interested in seeing what folks have scribbled down on the paper plates that are thrown during the flying saucer footage. You find some real gems, and some real care. One person does nifty ink drawings of beloved cult actors who've left us in the previous year.

Blackenstein
Alas I had wanted to stay up for this but I could feel the dread hand of exhaustion clutch itself around my heart and so slept through it only to awaken to the eldritch horrors of...

Manos: The Hands of Fate
The Spiritual Ancestor of The Room in that it falls so outside the conventions of basic narrative storytelling let alone every kind of cinematic convention it almost becomes a brilliant piece of Outsider Art. Another MST3K classic this was a bit harder to endure without the wisecracks as the grainy landscape footage and queasy hopeless pall hanging over the film makes it feel like watching atrocity footage with the actual atrocity bits snipped out. But again, I'd love a director's commentary for this too.

The Manitou
This, THIS, is one of the great ones. An only in the seventies premise with an an only in the seventies cast. Tony Curtis plays a conman psychic running a racket on the rich little old ladies in his San Francisco neighborhood whilst wearing a Doctor Strange robe. His sweet deal is shaken up one day when he receives a call from a former girlfriend. She's asking for a ride to the hospital because it seems there's a fetus growing at an alarming right at the base of her neck. And nobody blinks. The next day the attempted removal goes disastrously wrong and it becomes clear the more Curtis investigates that the fetus is actually a reincarnated Medicine Man from a long extinct tribe desperate to be reborn and reclaim his powers. And nobody blinks.

Can Tony Curtis and Not Really Native American Shaman Michael Ansara stop Misquamacus from ushering in an era of darkness? Will a hidebound by tradition doctor finally accept the unbelievable when a floor of his new hospital is turned into a paper mache ice cave? And and is a topless Susan Strasberg shooting lasers at a space lizard enough to right the cosmic balance? Tune in, turn on, and completely loose your mind and find out. Highly, highly recommended.




Undefeatable
Cynthia Rothrock attempting to act put me back to sleep so thankfully I apparently missed the cornucopia of audience rape jokes (stay classy guys!). And I kept napping through I Accuse My Parents to find I'd taken one hell of a wrong left turn at Albuquerque...


Night of the Lepus
Another of the great ones. With another unbelievable cast, this time serving a tale of giant killer bunny rabbits running loose in the Southwest. Yes Giant Killer Bunny Rabbits. And again, nobody blinks. I can tell you about this film, you can even look up clips on YouTube but nothing compares to sitting in a theater and seeing a herd of bunnies charging through a darkened miniature set, and the war drums are pounding on the soundtrack and you know characters are about to get killed and yet you can't stop noticing their wiggly little noses, or their pert little cotton tails, or their long, adorable ears. The producers tried, oh how they tried, but there is no way to make a horrifying Earth's Vengeance Reaper out of something you want to rub on the belly.

American Ninja
American Ninja 2 was one of my personal favorites of 2009's schedule so it was with much enjoyment I watched how the rich legacy began. Not as full on delightfully gonzo as the sequel the first concerns pouty Michael Dudikoff arousing the ire of his bunk mates at basic training by not remembering his past and being better at everything than them. Steve James is not at full Steve Jameson awesomeness yet but he gets his moments, particularly when he and Dudikoff team up to take down the bad guys and their Skittles ninja army.

And while it's not as mad as the second it's still a Cannon film and so takes place in the Cannon universe. A universe where there are more Uzis than cops, and the most surprising people have Uzis, and so long as your shirt is sufficiently ripped and your headband tight you can skirt due process.

Skidoo
This was an unpleasant surprise. I have a copy of this but I'd seen it in pieces. Watched in one sitting it unfolds into a paisley kidney punch of that hideously perfect Anti-Entertainment, The Unfunny Comedy. What felt like a wacky misfire is revealed to be a joyless slog watching Old Hollywood trying to deal with a counterculture that they are baffled by at best or have outright contempt for at worst.

The latter feeling is easy to understand as the hippie characters are as likable as the ones in a Dirty Harry film. But the squares, played by a once in a lifetime lineup of Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frank Gorshin, Cesar Romero, and Burgess Meredith among others, are as embarrassing as your parents trying to ask about that "Tronic" movie and if your FacePlace friends like that Lady Gogo singer.

Still if you ever wanted to see all the villains from the Batman TV series together and tripping balls it's the only game in town. Notable for only achieving a measure of genuine wit at the very end as Harry Nilsson, who composed the film's score, sings the end credits. It's not just relief that the movie is at long last over but the bit actually achieves the breezy, let it all hang out tone that the film has been failing at for the last ninety wretched minutes.




Cool As Ice
I thought about sitting this one out as it played at my first b-fest back in 2003, and I was more than content to go another 8 years without seeing it again. I absolutely hated it this time too but it turned out to be fun to revisit my hatred, nostalgia hatred if you will.

Vanilla Ice does a remarkably good job playing a hateful tool bag whose motorcycle gang gets stranded in a small town leaving plenty of time for Ice to charm the locals and nearly decapitate his love interest with his bike by way of tying to impress her. Michael Gross is on hand to give the required "I've got electric bills like everyone else okay?" performance.

Perversely the film looks great, it has some neat production design and it's beautifully shot by Spielberg's frequent, Academy Award winning collaborator Janusz Kaminski. But the seeping charisma vacuum that is Vanilla spoils any chance of this elbowing its way onto the shelf of terrible musicals I have far too much patience for. A Jager shot of a movie, in that every so often I have one to remind myself I really, really don't like Jager shots.

Mighty Peking Man
I love giant monkey movies. I even love terrible giant monkey movies. Which is fortunate because because outside a few notable examples most are complete rubbish. Expecting the 1976 King Kong to be a hit pretty much every other country with a functioning film industry rushed out a copy. Most were as regrettable as their model but managed to suck in a far more entertaining manner and for far much less money too.

Our mopey hero leads an expedition into the jungle where he discovers that once again Eastern ape suit technology lags far behind the West. He also makes the acquaintance of a manque Sheena who was able to forage a Lancome counter in the unforgiving heart of the jungle. He makes the rather easy to foresee as unfortunate descision to bring both back to civilization. It ends badly for just about everyone save him.

Another example of the evening's odd mini theme of so called heroes causing more trouble than they solve and suffering no consequences for it what so ever. It was a great capstone to the lineup and as the lights came up I felt that traditional pang of sadness that another year had come to an end and I relief that I would soon be able to grab a hot shower to slough the filth of too many caffeine drinks and Vanilla Ice's complicated haircut off me.

Thanks again to the A&O folks, and to everybody who made it. And to those who couldn't here's to 2012 and you were there in spirit. Even when Carol Channing did a striptease for Frankie Avalon. In fact especially then.


(photo taken from jima's flickr stream)

Scraps: Alex and Evie, beginnings

"Oh Evie, Really?" Alex's eyes shone in disbelief. Alex didn't handle upheaval well. I tried again, "Alie, I think we should try to humor him, just go along-," her eyes darkened, "just this once! I know, I really do. But we're not going to make it a habit."

Alex had been sitting cross legged on the kitchen table, she jumped down and began to pace. That was a good sign. She might still say no but at least she was giving it some thought. Her feet padded against the floor, she'd kicked off her her pumps when she'd walked in the door earlier. They lay in the corner, the glitter over the toes sparkling in the light. The apartment was mostly lit from the light from the street lamps and business signs outside the window streaming in. Our tiny kitchen was our conference center. Neither of us took to cooking much and Alex had put forth the great idea of using the cupboards for our growing collection of books.

Alex continued to pace, her breathing slow and even. I stood up and nervously ran my hands over the skirt of my dress, smoothing out invisible wrinkles. My dress was forest green velvet, a few shades darker than my skin. I watched Alex pace, looking more and more like a big cat in a cage. I didn't like it. I knew she didn't and that's why she paced. She would pace and pace herself into frustration and finally force herself into action.

Her lips were pulled into a thin line, the glint of her fangs barely visible. Her spots seemed to shift in the half light of the kitchen, it was getting darker. She stopped stock still. "Oh to hell with it," she sighed. She turned to me, "Get your coat, I'll grab my shoes. Let's do this."