Neurotrash

15th Annual Ohio Sci Fi Marathon Diary!
9:20am
Up and not happy about it. I slept last night, but I’ve had chronic insomnia all damn week. Today is gonna suck.
9:40am
Showered, shaved, etc. I feel slightly better about life. Maybe.
10:35 am
Arrive at the Drexel Grandview. They let people into the lobby because of the snow (fucking Columbus). They pass numbers around to everyone to insure there’s no line jumping. Seems they’re organized. Could we start on time???
11:00 am
No fucking Rollerball.
So...pissed...
Urge to kill rising...
11:45am
Talked to Jeff Frank and the fabulous Bruce Bartoo, marathon host. I have Kung Fu Hustle for Jeff to watch. He’s been looking forward to it (he missed it at Toronto last year and has been itching to see it since then). Gotta love region free DVD players.
Myself? I can’t wait to see it in the theater. It will be a treat.
12:06 pm
Yep. We started on time. Trailers for a few of the movies we’re going to see (hope Mothra looks better than the completely pink trailer). At the Earth's Core. Doug McLure, baby! We also see a trailer for Primer (which is coming right after Mothra, even), so we get a taste of what to expect.
Duck Dodgers!!! Booya. The world isn’t nearly as fun without Chuck Jones. Someone should have cloned him.
2:26 pm
Mothra is over. Damn nice print. Subbed. In glorious color and Tohoscope. The savages were a wee bit overly eager to rip on it. Urge to kill rising...
Still awake. Good sign.
My knees are getting destroyed by the assclown in front of me, though. He keeps violently rocking back and forth in his chair, smashing into what's left of my poor knees each time. I'm bruised. I might have to beat the tar out of this fucker.
2:43 pm
Bruce announces costume contest at next intermission. Short subject and cartoons before Primer. Cool beans.
4:50 pm
UFO: Fact or Fiction and Primer are over. The original teaser for Back to the Future is great, too. I didn't remember that. Primer, by the way, is the reason why this year's marathon is numbered the 15th Annual (it's actually the 22nd). Time travel paradoxes are a bitch. We also saw trailers for Philadelphia Experiment 1 and 2 (I had no clue there WAS a second one)
Reaction to Primer is pretty good. Marathoners tend to like the small, quirky films (the trailer for PI got a huge round of applause beforehand), so I was reasonably convinced they'd enjoy it. Animated discussions about the film are already springing up as well.
Shane Carruth crafted something that only comes along once in a blue moon: a smart film that encourages dialogue. The science fiction conceit of time travel might not be possible under conventional physics and engineering, but all it takes is one quantum leap forward in knowledge and all that understanding we think we have means jack and shit.
Two friends accidentally build a machine that allows them to reenter the time stream before they enter it. What would you do? Punch out your boss? Become a hero? Bet on the NCAA tournament? What would you do if everything was possible, and you could correct every mistake you made?
The guy in front of me keeps crushing my knees. And now he's fidgeting from side to side, periodically blocking my view of the screen. I don't like this guy.
5:07 pm
Arts editor from Columbus Alive is up jawing about independent film -- they're gonna have the DeFocus Film Festival May 5-8 at the Arena Grand (I'll be living there!). 10 features and 2 shorts programs. Coolness. www.deepfocusfilmfest.com
5:11 pm
The costume contest comes to pass, and the first person up complains about Rollerball being missing. The real news is, the distributor it was booked from...well, the print was disintegrating.
No one's even wearing costumes. They're just coming up and demanding prizes. How. Fucking. Lame. The costume contest itself is usually lame. This is a new low.
The "Rollerball Fans" get more and more annoying. Want to beat them about the head and neck. Urge to kill...rising...
Fuck all the contestants. Up the ass. Sideways. Jeez.
A guy won for saying he's the only member of the Jar Jar Binks fanclub. Brave soul.
Next comes a featurette on the making of The Abyss with German subtitles. Then more trailers...Batman Begins, War of the Worlds. Ghost in the Shell. Cowboy Bebop (which showed at a marathon). Pinocchio in Outer Space...what the fuck? Oh, man. Fuckin' kill me. I'm frightened, ma...turn it off!
Urge to kill...rising...
5:43 pm
The trailer for The Iron Giant plays. It's one of the few movies that consistently reduces me to a weepy bitch. Hell, I feel it just from the trailer. Damn you, Brad Bird...
The trailer for The Rocketeer plays and then...
5:47 pm
Steamboy finally shows in Cbus. Joooooy. Otomo missed the big steam punk craze by a few years, but boy is it spectacular. The insane design detail goes above and beyond amazing.
Overall, it's just a fun adventure story about a boy from a family of inventors who wants to be one himself. After his grandfather sends him a mysterious package, he gets drawn into a plot to violently haul Victorian London's ass into the Steam Age. Aided by his grandfather and another inventor named Robert Stevenson, Ray Steam tries to stop his insane, clockwork-enhanced father Edward and the O'Hara Foundation from unleashing their steam-driven army on the London Exhibition.
You know...the dub ain't bad, either. Anchored by Patrick Stewart as Ray's grandfather Lloyd Steam, the English language voice actors make the movie sound as good as it looks. I'm a happy, happy boy.
7:44 pm
Update on the idiot in front of me: Yeah, he rammed his chair into my knees a few more times. And I'd had enough. I kicked the back of his seat. Hard. The SOB turned around and stared at me like I'm the asshole. Um, no dude. That would be you. Thanks for making me limp, you dickhead. Die and rot in hell, OK?
I moved a seat over. My knees demand it.
My knees will thank me, I'm sure.
7:48 pm
Bruce is up. The pizza guy misestimated the movie's length and he's not back yet. Thank the gods I didn't order one. Fire Maidens from Outer Space is next, and Bruce encourages the audience to be silent so that they can fully enjoy all the nuances of the acting (Half-hearted, of course -- the movie's a dog and he knows it's gonna get ripped on. Hopefully they have better material than they used on Mothra.).
Bruce continues to hype the dance contest. Oh, man, I'm NOT looking forward to that.
Bruce (the weakling) slept through part of Primer. Damn him to hell. He, like me, had a non-sleeping week.
7:53 pm
The trailer for Warlords of Atlantis ends the intermission. Doug McLure, baaaaaaby! Why WAS he in everything in the 70s? The guy was like Jude Law is today. Atlantis: The Lost Continent. George Pal. Gotta love George Pal. I've not seen this movie. Cool trailer. Wonder if it's available on DVD. Someone find me a DVD of it, dammit.
You know...some of these intermission snack bar commercials from the past...are frightening.
Assignment: Outer Space trailer. Movies like this give sci-fi a bad name, but most of them are soooo fun. The pinkish hue says the claim of "superb Technicolor" is an outright lie. Spaceflight IC-1 trailer. I think they should have called it Spaceflight IC-Weiner after the joke from Futurama. Craptastic. And it takes place in 2015. OMG! They have a head in a jar! IT IS FUTURAMA!!!
Voyage to the End of the Universe trailer. If you get to the end of the universe, and a tree falls in the woods, does the movie suck? This one doesn't...it's got Space Babes!!! Voyage into danger, indeed! Have I mentioned that my knees are much happier here? Much happier.
First Spaceship on Venus trailer and YOU ARE THERE. Shut the fuck up already, bub. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy teaser. Wanna see it noooooooooooooooow. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!! I know where my towel is. Do you? Visit to a Small Planet trailer. Oy. Jerry Lewis. The hoiting. The pain! Freunlaven! Jerry goes BEATNIK!!! Oooooh, yeah!
Sparky the Fire Dog can kiss my ass. That is all. "Remember, a clean home seldom burns." Yeah, Fire Dog. Kiss my ass.
More trailerage. Queen of Blood. She's not as cute as the Princess of Blood, but it's got Dennis Hopper and Basil Rathbone and John Saxon in it. It can' t be bad, can it???
8:14 pm
Spaceboy time. One of those weird, obtuse late 60s/early 70s shorts that fries your brain more than anything else. A bad poem put to film with a doof and some freaky chick in a sparkle suit. Florence Marley from Queen of Blood is in it, and dammit, whoever said she was hot...is WRONG.
With appreciation to Curtis Harrington? Fuck you, Curtis. Fuck you for Spaceboy, whatever you did to get that appreciation. Yes. Fuck you. Fuck you very much.
Gah.
Make. It. End.
We torture ourselves with this fucking thing every year. What's our damn problem?
It is, however, an apt lead-in to our next feature...
8:20 pm
Fire Maidens from Outer Space. Well, I now know the answer to the question: "What kind of movie can we make using only a clock, a Coke machine, two levers and an interpretive dance troupe?"
There was a wee bit of fire in the movie, and some women. But no Fire Maidens. They're definitely not maidens. They're kinda slutty. What the fuck? Are they all redheads...down there? I don't fucking get it.
Why are they Fire Maidens if they're from Atlantis? Shouldn't it be Water Maidens from Outer Space? What gives?
This flick was so damn bad, the hecklers actually gave up. It beat the naysayers into submission.
I'm now on good terms with the guy who was destroying my knees. We're buddies. I'm such a pussy.
Life's too short to hold grudges. That, and I'm such a pussy.
I'm not tired yet. Though I should be. That movie was just too weird doofy not to stay up through. I have about 7 lbs of popcorn in my gullet and I've downed about a gallon and a half of soda so far. I miss the bar at the Arena Grand.
9:41 pm
Bruce introduces Greg Thatcher from White Castle (The geniuses who bring us stoner food! Yay! They were nice enough to host the world premiere of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle in Columbus last year (so they could induct the filmmakers and cast into the White Castle Hall of Fame...yes, they have a White Castle Hall of Fame...). They give away crap (but no little burgers. Just t-shirts, hats, and coupons for food. BRING ME FOOD, DAMMIT. I'M TIRED OF EATING NOTHING BUT MY BOTTOMLESS BAG OF POPCORN!!!)
I spot Kevin S O'Brien of Night of the Living Bread fame in the crowd. He shaved his head...odd.
42 minutes battery time on the laptop. Gonna have to con one of the friendly Drexel Grandview employees into letting me recharge.
The Apple's up next. Oh, boy...I think I'm supposed to be frightened.
I think I might run up and order a pizza. Or maybe have some chili. Whatever. Just so long as it's not popcorn.
Popcorn will be the death of me.
9:49 pm
Trailer time again. And projection problems. Fun. They fix it quicklike...before the spot's even over. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe trailer. I actually saw this in the theater when it came out. I was...chemically enhanced. I wonder if Courtney Cox still has it on her resume?
FLASH...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.
God, I love that movie. Got to meet Sam Jones last year, and he's a total fucking madman. Loved him to pieces.
Flesh Gordon trailer to follow up (and what a follow-up). Someone needs to do a new version of the Flash Gordon some with FLESH.....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Then, I can die happy.
Oh, shit. The trailer for Cafe Flesh!!! BOOOYA!!!
PRON!
Yes, we have pron! Some lucky kid is hopefully getting his first look at some early shaggy 80s furpie. Johnny Rico's coming and it's gonna be wild!!!
BIIIIIIIIG round of applause for that trailer.
Rocky Horror trailer. After Cafe Flesh, this trailer seems oddly...tame. I still love it, though. Awesome. Pure cinematic bliss.
Privelage -- some fucked up movie with Paul Jones and Jean Shrimpton, whoever the fuck they are. Weirdass musical shite. Looks odd. It says it's the most controversial movie of the year. Well, it couldn't have been THAT controversial, or I would have heard of it, huh? WhatEVER.
Roller Boogie trailer. I'm sure Linda Blair's very proud about her work in this one. Yup. Whatever happened to the roller boogie genre of films? They could bring it back in a major way with a feature version of that shitty Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Starlight Express.
Whatever happened to Jim Bray? Oh, that's right, he did Roller Boogie. And it ended his career.
Xanadu trailer? Save me, Jebus. I had a friend when I lived in Kent who was absolutely obsessed with Xanadu. Someone claw my fucking eyes out. Please???
21 minutes left on the battery. Hope The Apple starts so I can charge this bad boy. Yup. Here we go.
Nope. False alarm...the trailer for Can't Stop the Music...the damn Village People movie. This. Is. SOOO. Gay. Little kids in Village People get-up? Yikes! HAHAHAHAHA! STEVE FUCKING GUTTENBERG and BRUCE FUCKING JENNER are in it!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
YAYAYAYAYAYYYY!!! The Chubb Chubbs!!! Oh, shit. It's upside down and in reverse. And out of frame. Ooops. Well, they fixed the framing...
Backwards...this is kinda trippy. Yessir. Trippy it is. Freaks.
Forgot Jar Jar was in it. Well, he's upside down and talking backwards, too. Fucking David Lynch wannabe fucker. Fuck you, Jar Jar. Fuck you in your stupid ass.
10:19 pm
Now more projection problems...and then The Apple explodes onto the screen. Oh goodie.
11:47 pm
The dance contest gives me an excuse to bug out of a couple of minutes and hopefully charge the battery a bit.
My fucking god...The Apple...was awesome. It's the weirdest musical since Liztomania. I adored it. And I hate musicals. I hate disco. I loved it. Loved it. Loved it.
I didn't even know Menahem Golan directed a movie. He should have directed more. How fucking odd this movie was... I want the soundtrack. I want the DVD. Geez. I HATE musicals, and I WANT this one. Wow. It was like Ken Russell on bad drugs. Not too much different than Ken Russell on good drugs. Wow.
The audience just HATED it. And dammit, I ate it up with a spoon.
God dammit. I'm supposed to hate musicals.
Ha fucking ha. Someone just complimented me on my Apple. After I watched The Apple. Fuck you, buddy.
Eat it, fucker.
11:59 pm
Ordered my pizza. The pizza guy even made a special note of which order was mine. It's good to be me. Yes, it is. PEOPLE LIKE ME AND I DON'T KNOW WHY!
I'm feeling fortunate to not be watching the dance contest, but so far, the audience seems much more receptive to it than to the costume contest, but I'm hoping that's because people are actually dancing, seeing as noone wore a costume this year.
I might hate the costume contest, but I'm still pissed because nobody saw fit to actually wear one. That's just fucking wrong. IF YOU'RE GONNA ENTER A FRELLING COSTUME CONTEST, WEAR A COSTUME, YOU JACKASSES.
Not tired at all. Not gonna sleep. Not gonna go nuts. Just gonna keep drinking Cherry Coke and eating popcorn and loving the marathon.
Oh, whoever came up with the bright fucking idea to book The Apple...I love you.
People are actually sincerely applauding in there. Can't believe it. Good for the dancers.
Jeff just came over and asked what I thought about The Apple, and my gushing certainly validated his opinion. It's just so odd and weird and fun and weird and sexy and crazy and I didn't know that was Catherine Mary Stuart and the villain reminded me of Sardu from Blood Sucking Freaks and wow I have to own it. It's gonna be one of those movies that weeds out the true freaks from the mere wannabes. Wowowowowow.
If the DVD looks as good as the print we saw...if there is a DVD...you're in for a treat folks. Seriously. It's so totally fucked and random and odd.
Menahem Golan...you're a fucking genius.
The man that brought us the live-action He-Man is a fucking genius. Who knew?
How can I describe it? It's a love story/musical/acid trip with disco and cross dressers and hippies and pop music and BIM marks and shoulder pads and absinthe and God shows up in a white Caddy at the end and saves the day.
As Jeff said, "It's kind of like they wrote the script 15 minutes before they started filming." But you know what? It didn't need it. It has everything. Great stuff. I adored it. Even if the rest of the audience was utterly unresponsive. In fact, fuck the audience for not loving it for the sheer brilliance that it oozed everywhere. Fuck 'em in the cornhole.
I'm saying fuck 'em about a lot of people. I guess I'm in a mood. Fuck you if you can't take it. Yeah, fuck you, too.
12:22 am
My battery thanks me for sitting on my ass in the lobby. We're around halfway through and the "secret movie" is still to come. Fun fun fun. They hinted at the secret movie (more like emergency movie, but these things happen) and no one caught it.
I tell ya, people...get your asses to Columbus and come to one of these marathons. I'll put you up in my crappy apartment. You'll love it. You'll spew cheese. Whatever.
12:30 am
The pizza man hand delivers my medium pepperoni to me. I'm like royalty or something. Or something. Definitely. Trailers again. Robots. Dark City (I LOOOOVE DARK CITY). The Fifth Element. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Booya. Gonna rock my socks. Can. Not. Wait.
Ex. Cite. Ed.
Trailer for Gattaca, a past marathon fave, and one of the better hard sci fi movies in recent memory. Kinda weak trailer, but I don't care. Good shit. Xander Berkeley (George Motherfucking Mason, who needs to return to 24 as the Mason Hulk..."George Mason SMASH!!!"). Welcome to Gattaca indeed.
Ooopsie. Projection problems. Something broke, methinks.
We MIGHT not get Gravity, by the way. THE short of shorts at the sci-fi marathons. It appears there are "technical difficulties" which probably means the poor print is about ready to disintegrate. No Big Sister for the horndogs??? Well, they got the trailer for Cafe Flesh. They'll have to deal with it.
I'm having a great fucking time at the marathon this year. Then again, I usually do.
Around 5am...well, we'll see if I'm still 1) standing and 2) sane. I really don't think I'm that different when I go a little mad. But, we all go a little mad sometimes, don't we?
12:42 am
Back on track. Hopefully. And now...Code 46...
2:17 am
We're still on time. Wow. Code 46...what a Freudian little mindfuck. Great visual style. Some wonderfully twisted little story ideas. Really makes me wanna see 9 Songs. Tim Robbins can pretty much do anything, can't he? And Samantha Morton, for some odd reason, I find incredibly hot. It's the eyes. She has amazing eyes.
Interesting plot. In the most-likely near future, Robbins is an empathic investigator sent to uncover a fraud case at the Sphinx Corporation, the organization that issues all the travel documents for legal citizens.
Genetics has been advance to the point where cloning is commonplace and viruses can be engineered that will give you new skills, enhance your natural talents or even erase or reorder your memory. They can replace your parts if necessary. Genetic manipulation and screening prohibit you from randomly selecting a mate, though. You have to be approved to marry and/or mate with someone.
His intuition immediately hits on Samantha Morton's character, but he lies and gives up another suspect instead of her. He flirts a bit with her, and they end up spending the night together.
After another of her customers with fake papels dies, he's sent back to Shanghai to fix his screwup on the case. When he gets there, she's nowhere to be found, as she's had a Code 46 violation for an unapproved pregnancy.
There's a number of similarities to a movie I commented on earlier, Gattaca, in that it deals with a society where genetic manipulation is commonplace...and the status of your genetic makeup can affect your career and even citizenship. Both movies deal with science possibility, but that's really where the similarities end. Gattaca is about belonging. Code 46 is about getting away...or not being able to get away.
I've been loving this marathon lineup.
2:25 am
The mystery movie hits the screen. It's The Abyss (theatrical cut, folks...not the director's cut...the marathon is only 24 hours). Great, clean print. Lovin' this lineup.
5:31 am
Soooo pissed.
What kind of troglodyte heckles the climax of The Abyss?
It's not even just a lone shithead. There's like 8-10 of them. Murder is on my mind.
It's a great human moment, and it's the most human of Jim Cameron's movies (even if he was an inhuman SOB on the set). God dammit. I wanna knock each and every one of the fuckers upside the head. Urge to kill...damn near uncontrollable. Would a jury actually convict me if I offed a few fanboy bitches?
Gonna run out to the lobby, drain the lizard and charge the battery a wee bit more. Rawk. Still going strong.
Seven hours or so left to go. Not even hallucinating. I suppose that's for the Vanilla Ice movie. Yes. I said Vanilla Ice. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
Ran into Bruce on the way out. He seems to be holding up just as well or better. And I'd bet the fucker has even less sleep logged for the week. I was worried about me? Damn. I am a pussy.
There's a line about a mile and a half long for the little boys' room. Fuckers. Get out of my damn way, bitches.
Sorry. The line's now two miles long. Fuck.
My bladder is gonna 'splode.
That'll be a fun mess to clean up. Imagine the surprise on the coroner's face...
The bit IF of the marathon is up next...Helix: Loaded. It looks to be a spoof along the lines of the Scary Movie series. Not as funny as a Naked Gun or Airplane movie to be sure...but hell, it might be dumb fun. If it's not...I'll just have to go on a rampage.
Rampages are fun.
4:41 am
Bruce is in there announcing the new inductee to the Marathon Hall of Fame. The Hypno-Toad got 4 votes! ALL HAIL THE HYPNO-TOAD!
Ick. Spaceboy got 11 votes.
This year's inductee...Maria the Robot from Lang's Metropolis.
Ooh. At the Earth's Core is next. Not Helix. I have more time to go psychotic.
Not gonna have a donut. I have enough sugar in me. The print of At the Earth's Core is supposed to be pristine. Goodie. Fuck donuts. Don't need donuts.
My computer is much happier with a little bit of juice in it.
Fack. Trailers are starting and the line for the wee wee room is still longer than Johnny Wadd's joint.
4:46 am
Star Crash trailer. Never saw it. Remember the commercials when I was wee. From the looks of the trailer...I know why I didn't see it. Criminey. Gayer than The Apple. More crappy than Fire Maidens from Outer Space. Planet of the Apes! Get your stinking trailer off my screen, you damn dirty apes! They showed that a couple years ago and the print was so shitty it may as well have been a radio play...with bad audio. I'm sure there's a nice print out there somewhere, but we certainly didn't get it. The pink-hued trailer looks better than it did. Oops. It's the trailer for Beneath the Planet of the Apes. With the Heston in it for about 47 seconds.
I hope he remembers his lines until the end. Alzheimer's is a bitch.
Five people left in line for the bathroom.
Eek. The Core. Hated that movie. So crappy. So very, very dumb. I wonder if Aaron Eckhart had to go into therapy after that piece of shit. I know it drove Hillary Swank back to playing white trash. He should have to do some pennance for it, too.
Battle Beneath the Earth trailer...one of those movies that's always on TCM at 5 am...and I keep finding excuses to get up early for it...and I don't even particularly like it.
I have...problems.
One person left in line. Damn you. Go pee somewhere else, you bastard.
My teeth are floating.
Infra-Man trailer! Infra-Man, fuckers! Booya! Shaw Brothers' sentai equivalent. Chop sockey and man in suit! I gotta steal the HK DVD from my friend Dave. I'm not cool enough to own it myself.
Next up, the trailer for Journey to the Center of the Earth. "See the MUSHROOM FOREST!"??? I'd rather see Attack of the Mushroom People, thankyaverymuch. The Land that Time Forgot. With the prolific Doug McClure. Who was he fucking, that he got all these roles? The People that Time Forgot. Now all we need is the trailer for The Trailer Park that Time Forgot or some movie about the Deep South, since they're all pretty much Stone Age motherfuckers down there. A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell trailer...a perrenial favorite amongst the marathoids...who love to repeat the title over and over again.
"A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL"
"A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL"
"A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL"
Shut the fuck up already.
Urge to kill...rising (again).
5:08 am
Movie sign. Time to watch At the Earth's Core...
Shit. If forgot the time changed. It's actually 6:08 am.
6:29 am
So. Fucking. TIRED.
7:42 am
Made it through At the Earth's Core. Barely. The snoring all around me helped keep me awake.
I'm beginning to have a hard time spelling, too. Thankfully for you, my intrepid reader, I half-assed go over what I'm typing, so it shouldn't be too nonsensical. Or at least, no more nonsensical than I already am.
I'm stuffed up. With luck, I'll spread this cold. Yes. The disease must spread.
Honestly, at this point, My left eye feels like it's half closed and my right eye feels like it's gonna pop out. I'm sure I look like stir-fried shit, but that's not so bad compared to some of the fanboys. On a side note, aside from the bathroom where about a hundred of these fuckers decided to drop quatros (that's two deuces at once), there's no rank odor. I smell stale popcorn and a wee bit of stale pizza. I smell no body odor. It's a miracle!
Thanks, God. You've answered my prayers.
No more trailers before any of the movies. Everything's streamlined to getting us done. We're still pretty much on time and we're hangin' on by a thread.
Hmmm. I think Helix: Loaded is gonna be projected off a DVD. They're testing the video projector with Blade Runner. Odd. Helix came out as a theatrical release this March. Or was it last March? Who fucking knows?
Eh, fuggit.
Wow. I just noticed, they're setting up the projector off to the side in the seats. I'm obviously losing what meager powers of observation I possess.
8:59 am
Fully in the middle of Helix: Loaded. It's stupid. It's juvenile. It's vulgar. Occasionally, it's kind of fuckin' funny.
It bags on The Matrix, Fight Club (right down to cut ins of their Tyler Durden ripoff), Star Wars, The Hulk, Donnie Darko, Point Break, Minority Report, Pulp Fiction, Harold and Kumar, Bill and Ted, Speed, Barber Shop, etc.. It's chock full of jokes about gummi bears, midget mentors, transexuals, Wang Chung, bums, the self-help movement, drugs, naked breasts, nut juggling ass jockeys and potty humor. Kevin Smith probably thinks it's the bee's knees. It's got Vanilla Ice in it, too. Sort of. He just sorta appears now and then, even though he's supposed to be one of the core characters.
This movie beats more jokes to death than a Borscht Belt comedians' retiirement home.
"Anally probed, and all you get is a cookie."
Too true, man. Too true.
9:54 am
Thank fucking god. It's over. I feel dumber. I really do. That movie has warped my fragile little mind.
I really don't know what's next. I haven't looked at the schedule all fucking night. I think maybe Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. All you idiots that hate on Sky Captain can gargle my nutz till my butt cheeks turn blue. Aside from Gwynneth Paltrow's utterly incompetant ace reporter, that movie was aces.
10:02 am
Man, I love this score. So much going for this movie and they muck it up from being perfect by making their ace reporter a bumbling idiot. The design. The color. The sound (best sounding machine guns in ages). Sky Captain is a thing of beauty. And then Gwynneth Paltrow starts "running".
You know...I can accept the running thing. She's not an Olympic athlete. But her lame-brained stupidity when it comes to her camera, her film, and every other prop she comes in contact with just make me wanna slap the bitch silly.
Is it me, or was Jude Law born to play a pulp hero?
B-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. I'm gonna shut up now and watch the moobie.
11:42 am
I had to get on my feet, otherwise I was gonna pass out. Oh, boy was I gonna pass out. I enjoy Sky Captain more every time I see it, but it's better on the big screen. Third time's the charm, but I'd bet I'd like it even more a fourth...or fifth.
We have one film left. I can make it. I'm dog tired. I'm beat. But I'm still in semi-possession of my wits, and I'm gonna see this fucker through.
Then I'm gonna go home and pass out. Yeesh. Week from hell, capped by 24+ hours in cinematic heaven.
11:57 am
First Men in the Moon starts. Have I mentioned that I love Ray Harryhausen? This is another great print.
I am so sick of soda at this point. I don't think I'll want another for a few weeks. Ugh. Nasty.
I haven't seen this movie in quite a while. Time to shut up and watch once again. And not pass out. Must not sleep. The pods will get me. I've been warned.
1:28 pm
Fuck's sake, I'm beat. I really don't know what's keeping me going right now. It's not the caffeine or sugar. It's not willpower. It must be pure neanderthal stupidity.
I figured I'd write a bit to keep myself busy and therfore awake. It's not really working. Everything about me is drooping, leastways my ego right now. I am done. Put the fork in me.
This movie's gotten awfully loud. Maybe my brain just hurts and I'm sensive to sound. Whee.
Soon. Soon it shall be done. And I can rest. Beautiful, restful sleep.
Winding down. Minutes left.
1:38 pm
It's DONE. I'm EXHAUSTED. Time to clean up and go home.
Of course, this thing would be nothing without all the wonderful people who sacrifice their time, sanity and social lives to make it happen. People like Jeff and Cathy Frank from the Drexel Theaters, MC Bruce Bartoo, Joe Neff and the wonderful Drexel staff. And, occasionally, one or two of the fans. Except the idiots in the costume contest. You wanna enter a costume contest...WEAR A FUCKING COSTUME.
zzzzzzzZZZZZZ*snort*zzzZZZZzzzZZZzz