Hard to believe - a full week since! Again, thanks to all those involved in helping put this together. And, yes, I stayed awake all 24+ hours (30 hours total before getting a nap). In fact, I had very few problems at all with even drowsiness (although I kept asking myself "WHY??!!" during MOTIVATIONAL GROWTH....
::)
My review of the films:
Doktor Fang (short) - Not a great idea to show a short film with the house lights on and people still arriving and chatting. I couldn't focus attention. Bring back the Trailer reel next year, please.
Duck Dodgers (short) - Amazing how many times a lot of folks in the audience have seen this, and yet it still entertains! It has become our own private Rocky Horror Picture Show!
JOHN CARTER - Like WATERWORLD a number of years ago, this one attained the level of box office bomb before it even got released. Part of it was the idiotic idea to "hide" the fact that it was set on Mars by changing the title - Really, Disney? You think hordes of ticket buyers would be lured to the box office by a generic sounding guy's
name on the marquee?!! Then, there was the 3D conversion, the poor marketing, budget overruns etc... But, frankly, pitiching a film that is almost as much sword & sorcery fantasy as sci-fi was going to be a hard sell to today's crowd, not to mention the added factor of trying to outrun a $250M budget (add in a drab unknown lead and a long flashback to the Civil War). But, like WATERWORLD, CARTER isn't nearly a bad a film as its pre-release rep (and is much better). It was perfect for
this crowd! The ending, of course, sets up a sequel that will now never happen (unless Disney spits it out as one of their straight-to-video cheapies).
In Memorium (short) - Much better in concept than in execution. The clips often meandered without the honored person being on screen at all. It would have been twice as effective at half the length. It should have shown later in the proceedings as well - you're just starting the Marathon, do you really wanna bum folks out that early? Still, not bad for a first effort.
REPTILICUS - As others have written - this is a Grade A example of a B movie tailor made for Marathon viewing. Cheezy effects, goofy characters, rampant model destruction, cornball dialogue! What more could you want? Best shoutout (during the cut-out human being eaten scene): "I didn't know Terry Gilliam did the effects!"
Tin Foil Hat Contest - We have to do a better job advertising our contests. I mean THREE contestants? What's the point...............?
GHASTLY LOVE OF JOHNNY X - Never have been a big fan of these retro spoofy flicks. Still, the first half-hour or so of this was better than feared. The songs were energetic, the widescreen black & white photography was pleasant and actress De Anna Brooks was sexy and enthusiastic. Nice to see a final cameo by Kevin McCarthy. And, then....the "plot" kicked in, not to mention the "dialogue". After that point, it just sort of laid there. You could feel the air get sucked out of much of the Marathon audience like a balloon being slowly deflated. And, there were still
75 MINUTES TO GO! All these "I'm more clever and talented than those hack 50s directors" can't seem to make films that don't run on well past the joke. And, what is the point of advertising that you are shooting on 35mm and then only showing it digitally? Still, this was a cut above the usual Blamire foolishness.
Trivia Contest - Nice job, Ed. And, thank you to Frank for the 4-pack DVD I won! (I named WAR OF THE WORLDS as the 1953 Hugo Award winner)
WAR OF THE WORLDS: GOLIATH - Like GHASTLY, I feared this on the schedule, but, this also exceeeded by expections - even more so, in fact. It has a clever premise building upon the HG Wells novel and updating it with a sequel that reels in Teddy Roosevelt and Tesla! Not bad for a Malaysian attempt at Anime with some Steampunk stylings. It gets in and gets out in a fairly painless 85 minutes -- but at the sacrifice of much character development.
Asternauts (short) - Pleasant if uneventful. Has a couple of nice pieces of dialogue - "Your cooperation is appreciated if compulsory" - and decently acted.
BATTLE ROYALE - Wow! This one really smacks you in the face right from the get-go with that overwrought Music overture. And, the over-the-top violence really makes HUNGER GAMES seem like kiddie-matinee material. While the film is certainly compelling and well made, I can't wholeheartedly rave about it. I'm sure there are culturally specific references for Japanese audiences, but, I couldn't really discern a point to much of the story beyond the usual parents and society/violence in culture type of thing. It's also important to note that lead actor Takeshi 'Beat' Takano is a major cult actor in Japan, so he's not just a cranky old guy with parenting issues for local audiences.
It's amazing to think that it got the equivalent of a PG-15 rating in it's own country, but, has been released Unrated here. Because of all the sex and violence involving children I have a hard time believing it would even get an R without severe cuts. ROYALE also does a much better job than HUNGER in showing the rules of the game and keeping score of how many are alive. I liked it, but, I think somewhat similarly themed films such as Peter Brooks' LORD OF THE FLIES and even the goofy satiric DEATHRACE 2000 have clearer point-of-views.
Alien Mating Cry Contest - yes, again
SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED - This worked as a balm after the intense BATTLE ROYALE. I have to admit that I may have been a tad too hard on it when it came out last summer:
http://sf.theboard.net/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1339371463 It's certainly enjoyable, but I still think too much time is spent on the secondary characters and the payoff, while internally consistent, is kind of a letdown.
Twilight Zone "Time Enough At Last" - Hard to believe that a 50+ year old TV episode on DVD looks that much better than a brand new 2012 feature released across the country. Of course, Zone was shot on 35mm film and SAFETY on crappy digital. It actually had been a long time since I'd seen this episode. I had forgotten the wife scene and also just how poorly sighted the Burgess Meredith character was (in my mind I always said to myself, "Why doesn't he just find another pair of glasses?"). What's also astonishing is just how much plot, pathos and humanity is conveyed in the final 10 minutes or so of the episode, post-nuke. Compare that to the 105 minute running times of GHASTLY LOVE, MOTIVATIONAL GROWTH....
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN - As noted before, SHRINKING has a fond place in my SF heart. Nice to report that it still does after not having seen it in a long time. The film starts out as one of a long string of post-nuke side-effects films, but, with more heart and humanity than most. The relationship with the circus short-person is touching (in the Richard Matheson novel she's a babysitter - a bit too
icky for 50s audiences!). There are a few scattered awkward moments and an over-emphatic musical score at times. But, those minor qualms are swept away during the astonishing second half (roughly beginning with the Dollhouse/Cat sequence). It becomes one of the era's great survival tales and ends with a haunting existential final soliliquy that blew my mind as a kid and even brought a tear to my eye at the Marathon. The best film on the schedule.
Death of a Shadow (short) Didn't win the Oscar, but this nominated short was a welcome addition to the schedule. It's a morbid chamber piece with some steampunk stylings (since when did the Marathon gain this seemingly permanent sub-theme?). The set is pretty fantastic.
PHASE IV - Saul Bass' small-scaled low-budget tale is still one of the more interesting revenge of nature movies (the 70s had many). It's slowly paced and lacks strong human characters (the ants are actually more interesting!), but, it has a unique vision and tone. It was a pretty daring choice to have a 10 minute prologue without any humans on screen. We are plunged into the ant world right from the get-go. The first shot of humanity is a blurred heat-distorted view of a mechanized vehicle - a jeep. The ending, as it stands, is perhaps a bit too inspired by 2001. Hopefully, the re-discovered one will be released on DVD. What younger Marathoners have to keep in mind is that, save for a few opticals (a couple of them brilliantly composed), ALL the insect footage had to be shot for real. No CGI or model work.
MOTIVATIONAL GROWTH - Not much more to be said, since it has it's own debate thread:
http://sf.theboard.net/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1361296612 All I can add is that I was disappointed to hear that the Director was in the house at 4am but, wasn't given the opportunity to be introduced or do a Q & A afterwards. I'm not saying any minds would have been changed, but, he should have been afforded the courtesy. The film fails on a dramatic level, as well as an entertainment one. The lead is both unsympathetic AND uninteresting.
V FOR VENDETTA - Blu Ray cloudy presentation aside, this was the 2nd best film on the slate. Pretty powerful 1984-ish power to the people agitation mixed with a Phantom of the Opera like "V". It's a bit slower paced than I remember, and the bloody sword-fight battle is over the top and out of keeping with much of the picture (allegedly, it was directed by the Wachowski producers themselves). Still, this is as powerful and incredibly daring a political film to be released by a major studio as "blockbuster" entertainment as you are likely to see. And, it's also very cheeky to have the actor (John Hurt) who played Winston Smith in 1984, play the Big Brother character here!
La Luna (short) - Cute, quaint and sweet
ESCAPE FROM L.A. - Practically a text book example of the unnecessary sequel. A full decade too late. A Director on the decline. And, a lead actor cruising along on past glories. Instead of a good story, its just a re-hash with a bigger budget, larger exposions and a soundtrack amped up to 11. I avoided it on its initial release because I was such a fan of the original and heard such awful things about it. Finally seeing it now, doesn't lessen the disappointment with it. Yes, it's fun to see the cool cameos by Peter Fonda (the surfing bit is just about the best thing in it), Pam Grier, Bruce Campbell and Steve Buscemi, but, this is pretty weak stuff and the CGI hasn't age well at all (the model work in ESCAPE/NY looks better!). Everything that is wrong with the movie is exemplified in the ridiculous Basketball sequence: big bad Snake Plissken has to fight for his life
shooting hoops? WTF??!! I know it's set in 'showtime' L.A., but this was asinine - I half expected a Magic Johnson or Kareem cameo....
FIFTH ELEMENT - I thought this was silly garbage on its initial release and never saw it again. It's still silly garbage. A hodgepodge of BLADE RUNNER, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, INDIANA JONES, SPECIES and lots of better films, this is one foolish ride. I remembered Chris Tucker's Ruby as one irritating character, but, now regard him right up (down) there with Jar Jar Binks as one of the genre's worst ever. Ugh. I couldn't help but think how the one hand-to-hand combat scene with Milla Jovovich has made her career and millions of dollars. Of course, it also prevented her acting from being taken seriously.
So, despite 3 of the last 4 films on the schedule being... uh... less than ideal, this was a fun marathon. The audience was cool. More enthusiastic than the last few, frankly. I think we got into the spirit of REPTILICUS and were suitably respectful of more serious minded films like SHRINKING MAN and PHASE IV (save for the dingleberry during Twilight Zone >:( ).
Thanks again to all those who contributed and attended!
