L.A. Connection wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2012 at 12:08am:



Ok I get all that.  All I am saying to Garen is that he pick a more polished film as the closing film of the thon er.... "festival".      

I don;t want to give the impression that the thon was bad.  On the contrary, I really enjoyed this year's thon.  For me, it was one of the best line-ups in sometime.  I liked all of the other movies and really enjoyed most of them.  Scanners, War of the Satellites, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Paul, Attack the Block, Island of Lost Souls, Frankenstein, Re-Animator, Cowboy Bebop were all very enjoyable.

I liked Dimensions and about half of Endhiran.  Galactica, well it was ok.


No all in all it was a most enjoyable year.  I just would have ended with a different film.

L.A. Connection wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2012 at 12:08am:


Well... "Folklore" was no "Sleep Dealers."  I agree with others that it was an unfortunate end to a great Marathon.  It was a lot to take on so much sleep deprivation.  It was a cute idea and they were trying sooo hard... but it really didn't work.  By its halfway point I wanted to punch everyone involved with making it [ETA: rereading this thread, I see I wasn't the only one having that reaction], and well before the end I was kind of hating the entire event.  It was not the way I wanted to feel walking out of the theater.

But if it helps to drive buzz and sell tickets, I'm all for that.  And I'm glad to say the feeling didn't last long.  I thought it was a really good year.  There wasn't a single other film that felt like a chore to sit through.  (Well, I napped during "Galactica.")  And all the films were new to me.

Just a few selected other reactions:

ENDHIRAN — Wow.  Not my favorite of the films but certainly the most memorable.  I think the dialogue with the mosquitos was when I realized it was completely nuts, but I still didn't see that last third coming.  One thing I love about the 'thon is that I get to see some bizarre things I would never have discovered otherwise.  This was one of those.

I love ejs's thought of splitting it up at the intermission and showing the second part later in the schedule.  That could have been a lot of fun.

Question, possibly for Jay Seaver from upthread: if you're used to Bollywood/Kollywood/whatever conventions, which I am not, how much less insane does that make "Endhiran" in context?  I assume the music videos are to be expected, but what about the rest?

DIMENSIONS — I loved the tone and the look of this one so much that I forgave the disappointing denouement.  (If you didn't have the Professor's identity down to at most two possibilities, you've never encountered science fiction before.  When an old guy shows up in the opening scene, doesn't give his name, and talks about time travel, that's kind of a gimme.)  A really affecting and beautifully made film.

Somebody mentioned that, after the Saturday showing, the filmmakers pointed out some interesting details that we might have missed on a first viewing.  Anybody want to share?  Or got a relevant link?

ATTACK THE BLOCK — I was really excited about this from the word of mouth and it didn't disappoint.  Whoever came up with making the teeth glow in the dark deserves a freaking Oscar.  This was probably my favorite this year.

FRANKENSTEIN — never seen it, thought it was great.  Another cultural literacy gap filled.

RE-ANIMATOR — I was a little turned off by the gore till I realized how funny it was.  Excellent choice for the wee-hours gut punch timeslot.

PAUL — much funnier than I'd mostly heard.  I agree that it would have been a fabulous ending film.  Perfect audience to see it with — really, this was the audience it was made for.

All told, great year.  Thanks to Garen and everybody else involved for what I'm sure is more hard work than I can imagine to make this thing happen every year.  I keep trying to rope new people in and I really thought I had a couple of them lined up this year.  Maybe next time.

Hey, do any of the rest of you ever skip films in the theater that you think will show up at the 'thon?  I had a feeling about "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (which I didn't especially want to see anyway, but whatever).  I was dead sure "Cowboys & Aliens" was going to be on the schedule, too.  Though from what I hear that was no great loss.

As far as picture quality, it's the same as last year, only zoomed out a bit more and (sadly) a bit out of focus at times due to my having forgotten to lock down the auto focus. I'm afraid that it was never designed to be a good low-light still camera.

I'll try to do better next year. And hopefully have new music that won't trip the copyright censor.

kirok wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2012 at 8:10am:


Oh, sure.  Absolutely.  Dealing with dreck is an important part of the 'thon.  I'll never forget the cheers that erupted at George Segal's tragic death at the end of "The Interminable Terminal Man."  Or the god-awful "demonlover," which if memory serves had a lot of deceptive false endings to prolong the agony.  And I'm sure we'll all be remembering "Folklore" similarly years from now.  But having it last on the schedule, with no chaser, was not fun.  I don't think the reaction would have been nearly so intense if it hadn't had to be the closing film.

L.A. Connection mentioned "Sleep Dealers."  That was a genuinely deserving film, which also happened to have a hugely cathartic happy ending.  I felt really good leaving that year.

I think it'll help now that we know what the deal is, and won't necessarily be expecting a crowd-pleaser at the very end.  Expectations management, you know?  Next year I'll probably have my stuff together just in case I want to duck out during the last film (although I'll be very surprised if we get another "Folklore" as the selection).

God, I hope the "Folklore" people aren't reading this forum.  They seem like really nice people and they so obviously put their heart into it.

(Neil_N — the video is just fine, I was only curious.  I love having these and I hope you keep producing them.)

Some comments on prior posts:

Jay Seaver wrote on Feb 20^th, 2012 at 5:07pm:


It really doesn't matter if we had 70mm installed by now: there probably are no 70mm prints available for  BRAINSTORM. For all the shouting about showing ALTERED STATES in 70mm this year, we were not even able to procure a 35mm print, because the studio only offered Blu Ray (and we saw how THAT looked on the big screen with DIMENSIONS & FOLKLORE!). I did manage to find a private print of ALTERED STATES, but even the print collector admitted that we "probably didn't want to rent it because it had faded totally red".

You really have to add a few more "really really"'s about Rai's prettiness. 

Neil_N wrote on Feb 21^st, 2012 at 2:42pm:


Surprised an anime purist would prefer dubbed. But, I disagree about the movie working for non-fans of the series. As enticing as it was to see and hear, about 10 minutes in, I felt that the characters were already acting like it was reel 3 of the movie. I kinda figured out what was going on, but felt that all the nuances were inexplicable.

ejs wrote on Feb 21^st, 2012 at 7:14pm:


Totally agree. At 2 hours the audience would have loved the experience. But, by the 3rd hour, I think a lot of attendees were simply worn out (accounting for the smattering of boos). But, as Jay will attest, it is not unusual for Indian films to hit the 2 1/2 hour mark and more. It's a cinema tradition (not to mention a cheap night's entertainment for the masses). And, we did consider splitting the film in half at the intermission point and running something short like WAR OF THE SATELLITES in between so the audience could catch their breath. A good 5-10 minute Intermission alone would have been helpful, but it was a no-go because the schedule was so packed.

I enjoyed most of the 'Thon!  Thanks to all who helped make it a fun event as always. 

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES: Good reboot of the franchise.  Smart story with a few issues.  It's on my list to watch again. 

ENDHIRAN: A fun time, but way too long.  An one and half hour version would have been more than acceptable.

DIMENSIONS: I appeciated the effort the filmmakers put into this movie.  Making a period piece on an indy budget is probably not the easiest thing to do.

FRANKENSTEIN and ISLAND OF LOST SOULS:  I can never grow tired watching these two movies.  Thanks for including them.

PAUL: A nice suprise and should have been the 'Thon closer.  Would have been a great, fun way to end it. 

FORKLORE: An amazingly unpleasant movie watching experience!  Almost a perfect example on how to NOT to make a feature-length movie.  A 5-10 minute short film at best.  Too bad this was the last movie.  I should have left after viewing it for 10 minutes.  Ugghhh!!!...

L.A. Connection wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2012 at 11:40pm:


I think the biggest problem with the video projection is that the projector itself was underpowered. There are excellent video projectors that can throw enough light to make it more watchable in Blu-Ray.