A great lineup of films, no clinkers in the bunch, though could have done without another viewing of Top of the Food Chain😁
Good running order and amazing splicing by David on 1 Million Years BC.
Time to retire Dr. Hot Bot. The $30 price increase for SF50 was disappointing

I got a problem with restoration. when you reproduce with yourself you do not produce your twin. you do reproduce the same baby every time you go through the loop but that baby is not the mother's twin. the odds are some thing like 2 raised to the 27000th power. it would not happen on the first time through the loop.
but it was a great movie. and so was upgrade. we should know about these movies soon after they are made. what is the cause of the delay?
what happened to the gort award?

did blast from the past mark the end of brendon fasier's as well as alicia silverstone's carreers? why? (fraziers's comeback notwithstanding)

Dinsdale wrote on Feb 19^th, 2024 at 9:31pm:



Was the early bird price at last year's marathon $70?

kirok1 wrote on Feb 20^th, 2024 at 10:44am:

sorry. that's predestination. not restoration.

First of all, a big THANK YOU to the event's organizers including Garen, Ian, Harry, Dan, Suzanne and so many more. The staff of the Somerville for their yeoman work. And, of course, my co-passengers. On to the movies!

THE MATRIX  (1999) Time does funny things sometimes such as here, making a once ground-breaking spectacle appear almost 'ordinary' now. STILL, the VFX remain very good, it revived Keanu's career and Fishburne is solid. Projected on a good 35mm film print. Reboot: Neo takes the Blue Pill!

ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966) - In tribute to Raquel Welch, this corny caveman flick was never all that despite Harryhausen's stop motion (too bad about the Iguana), Mario Nascimbene's score and Martine Beswick's feral performance as Welch's antagonist. The real 'star' here for this 35mm showing was projectionist David Kornfeld who spliced together two European prints for this one of a kind showing (including a German one) which includes a scene not in U.S. theatrical prints. Bravo!

LAPSIS (2021) - Low key dark comedy about the gig economy where AI tech is ever present. It went over well.

Lost In Space (1965) - The unaired pilot 'No Place To Hide'. Interesting variant to the series without Dr. Smith or The Robot. Would have made for a decent adventure program (it was patterned after the Swiss Family Robinson). Of course, Dr. Smith and Robot eventually became arguably the two most important pop culture aspects of the show. 

READY PLAYER ONE (2018) The 70mm film print was immaculate. The audience enjoyed Spielberg's lite AI adventure which had lots of easter eggs for the sci-fi crowd to uncover.

DREDD (2012) Brutally efficient reboot of the Judge Dredd character has more in common with ROBOCOP than the Stallone original. Not much in the way of exposition, but the balletic cinematography and graphic action carry the day.

MAD MAX (1979) - George Miller's original remains one of the great exploitation films. Mel Gibson's title character goes the Joseph Campbell hero route and perfectly sets up the burnt out shell of a man that is seen in the series follow-ups. The homo-erotic undertones are fascinating to ponder. The sequels are more elaborate, but, MAD MAX stands its ground and shows Miller's mastery of the medium from the get go.

PREDESTINATION (2015) Intriguing and said to be faithful to the Heinlein story. The screenplay is oddly structured with a very long prologue and a rushed ending which flattens out the momentum of the piece. Fantastic performance by Sarah Snook and a very solid one by Ethan Hawke.

TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN (1999) - A special thank you to Director John Paisz for recording a special video intro just for this showing (tip of the cap to Gerald Perry). As Paisz notes, FOOD CHAIN is an offbeat combo of Twin Peaks, Petticoat Junction and Sci-Fi. In some ways its easy to see why this bizzaro hybrid never caught on, but this is a kinky, wicked piece of indie filmmaking which is out there just waiting to be discovered as a cult film. Seek it out!

UPGRADE (2018) - Not a bad set-up, that, unfortunately, settles in too quickly into a typical, if unusually nihilistic, action film. The lead character isn't very interesting but Leigh Wannell's script raises some intriguing notions of AI.

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS (1957) It's little over an hour long, but Corman's creature feature gets in a few choice bits courtesy of Charles B. Griffith's (LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS) screenplay

DEEP BLUE SEA (1999) - More aquatic schlock, if at a much higher price tag. The story never takes itself too seriously and the cast plays it to the hilt. For some reason, I had heard that the 'CGI Sharks' were terrible for years - they are not. Sure, they aren't perfect, but they work well enough.

BLAST FROM THE PAST (1999) - 'Starring three Oscar winning actors” may not have been foreseen when Hugh Wilson cast Brendan Fraser, but the actor plays the man-child very well here. Alicia Silverstone was near the height of her fame and makes for a winning Eve to Fraser's Adam. And, if stuck in a bomb shelter for 3 1/2 decades, who better to play parents than Sissy Spacek and Christopher Walken? It's slight, bordering on sit-comish, but a fun way to end the festival.

The shorts were Chuck Jones' Duck Dodgers In The 24 1/2 Century (1953) and 'Hair Raising Hare' (1946) with an amusing Peter Lorre animated mad scientist and Gossamer's first appearance

Thanks to everyone involved!

We could only stay until about 10pm due to work commitments on Monday, but we really enjoyed the movies we saw.  'The Matrix' still holds up although the amount of gunfire is more disturbing in our current world than it was when I first saw the movie. 'One Million Years BC' was an interesting film for that period, but it really didn't work for me. 'Lapsis' was a lot better than I expected, but the ending didn't feel resolved; it just seemed to "end".  I've seen 'Ready Player One' a couple of times, definitely more fun to watch with a crowd that was getting all the references and Easter eggs.

The 'Lost in Space' pilot was interesting; you could see Irving Allen's attempt to hook people with various vignettes. "Family of the Future", "Fighting the Elements", "Lost Civilizations".  I thought the placement was good; it did allow folks to take a dinner break. I'd recommend programming something short in that dinner slot to allow that opportunity.