I would start out by saying that I’ve finally recovered from the weekend, but that’s not true. I haven’t recovered, I had to go to work anyway.
So yes, another B-Fest behind us, and while it wasn’t the best I’ve been to, a splendid time was had by all, and for only the second time, I managed to make the entire 24 hours with only a small bit of napping. In the time-honored tradition of Fest attendees with websites, I am hereby proud to present my second ever B-Fest diary. The first, tragically, has been lost to the internet.
(below the fold, because I’m pretty sure that no-one actually wants to read it).
It’s not just sitting in the dark and making jokes about the films to your seatmates. It becomes something like Carnival. People dress up, shout loud jokes across the auditorium, and clamber onto the stage in front of the screen to act out recreations of the films, or vignettes mocking them. Imagine watching a 16 episodes in a row of a more life-affirming Mystery Science Theater 3000 and you start to have the idea.
What is unfortunately the case is that in the last couple of years, as the fest’s popularity has mysteriously exploded (2005 was the first sell-out year ever, and it did so during the pre-sale; 2006 sold out in less than 90 minutes, and many of us still didn’t have tickets 36 hours before the show), the energy of the thing has lessened. Frankly, I tend to blame MST3K, or at least its mentality; there is a difference between loving bad movies for their badness and snarking on bad movies for their accidental irony, and as students keep comprising a greater percentage of the audience, I fear for the ultimate direction of the Fest.
Also, this year continued the trend of skewing too much to the 80’s and 90’s. The practical reason for this is obvious – 16mm prints of vintage b-movies are harder and harder to find – but a monster picture from the 50’s is simply more fun than a sci-fi musical from the 80’s and nothing can change that.
But enough harping. I had a great time, and I’ll happily do it again in a year. To the diary!
5:15 PM, 27 January – arrival
At this point, I had already been awake for 11 hours and change. For the first time ever, I failed to nap the afternoon prior to the fest, and I was a bit worried. A quick high-carb dinner fixed that, and I spend some time chatting with the friends I was sitting with (word to the wise: never do B-Fest alone! I did my first year, and I’ll never stop regretting it, although that was probably the best Fest I’ve been to). A frustrating lack of newbies I was personally connected to, although some friends-of-friends were new, and that was something
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
Not a great choice to start things off, this is the film that essentially killed the superhero genre (the Batman franchise notwithstanding). It involves a sinister plot to create a nuclear villain, but really, the whole thing is just a skeleton for a whole bunch of cod-liberal pieties about disarmament. Now, I have no problem with the notion that nukes are bad, but it’s presented very…hamfistedly…and I really couldn’t help but be embarrassed for Chris Reeve, who shepherded the story. There wasn’t a lot for the crowd to chew on, and we started chanting “End! End!” about 15 minutes before it did – never a good sign for the first film. More boring and badly-paced than “bad.”
Creature from the Black Lagoon
A controversial film: many felt it was too classic for the Fest. I disagree. This, like the final film on Saturday, is an unabashed matinee-style genre picture, and I think it was a great choice to remind the crowd that there is such a thing as a great b-picture. The other exciting news was that they found a 3D print, and distributed glasses. It amazed me how well the 3D was integrated into the film, and I actually caught myself admiring the cinematography several times. In most cases, it was just an annoying gimmick, but the 3D here added a good deal.
About now, two shorts were screened: “Knights on Bikes,” by none other than Ken Russell, and an art film from, apparently, the 1960’s, starring Germaine Greer and not appearing on the IMDb. Both were nigh-unto incomprehensible, and sort of unpleasant. And there was only one knight, on one bike.
Godzilla
The grotesque Emmerich/Devlin version from 1998. It’s a tradition to end with a Godzilla film, but this pretender is so widely despised that I think the planners knew we would all riot. A surprisingly good choice, much like Battlefield Earth in 2002, as it gave us all a chance to hate on the excesses of Hollywood CGI blockbusters. And odious comic relief (and there’s a lot of it here). And a seemingly endless stream of Jurassic Park jokes during the seemingly endless third act chase through Madison Square Garden with a host of baby Godzillas.
During the raffle, the tickets to either side of mine numerically won. I did not. As always.
“The Wizard of Speed and Time”
The beating heart of B-Fest. Mike Jittlov’s tiny little scrap of the most amazing visual effects ever made for no money whatsoever is screened every year. Describing it would be pointless, but it really is the best moment of every year. Everyone with the energy to do so (and at 11:45, we all have a lot of energy) runs onstage, and starts running in place with the title character. Then the film ends, and then they restart it, and we do it again, upside-down and backwards.
Plan 9 from Outer Space
The backbone of B-Fest. Ed Wood’s colossal failure is the longest-running film at the Fest, appearing every year at the stroke of midnight. The only time we drift into Rocky Horror territory, as most of the routines and jokes are highly formal and constant. Such as calling out “day” and “night” as the time of day changes arbitrarily within scenes, “Bela” or “Not-Bela” depending upon who is playing the Bela Lugosi role at any given moment, and the storm of paper plates everytime a flying saucer appears.
Coffy
A phenomenal blaxploitation film starring Pam Grier, although my ability to love it was tempered by remembering it from just four years ago. Too soon! Still, this is one of the best of a B-Fest classic genre, and I know a lot of newbies probably never saw it. A lot of great gags from the audience, many of which I recall from 2002. Most revolved around the weirdly-recognizable cast, and the pure funkiness of the clothes…and the afros, my god, the afros.
A couple more shorts; one was a documentary about thrillseekers that was just deadly boring, and the other was a little comic piece about how the ancient Assyrians invented the superstition of not walking underneath ladders. Actually, the superstition should be “don’t walk underneath hanging corpses with sharp objects in their pockets,” but who’s counting?
Gas-s-s-s
The last film Roger Corman ever directed, which should tell you a lot. It’s a beyond-incoherent fable about what happens when everyone under 25 is killed. It might also be a Christ allegory. I’m not certain. I can’t even quite tell if it’s pro- or anti-hippie, but it was clearly made by a non-hippie. A great choice for 3:15 AM, because those of us who watched were tired enough to find the whole thing surreally memerising, and those who were tired didn’t have to feel they missed anything.
I swear to got there was another short here, but I’ve forgotten it.
Tromeo and Juliet
I really hate Troma films, and so I’m fairly discouraged that this appears to be turning into an annual event (last year’s was Class of Nuke ’em High). I hoped to sleep through this one, but Gas-s-s-s left me too wired, and I got maybe 20 minutes of shallow dozing. As the title suggests, it’s Romeo and Juliet with a Troma twist, which means plenty of T&A, violent death and maiming, a touch of incest, and general bad taste. Which is all fine, except it’s so knowingly bad…very grating.
Graffiti Bridge
The Prince-directed sequel to Purple Rain, and a film I was quite looking forward to. Sadly, it was largely just a collection of bizarre Prince videos hung upon a nonsensical plot involving dueling clubs and a mysterious spiritual ghost woman. The two girls right in front of me were both very into the Prince-ness of it, but the audience seemed largely sapped by the time we got here, and I managed to grab another 20 minutes.
Earth Girls Are Easy
The second consecutive 80’s musical, in a scheduling choice I found questionable. This one was a bit easier to take, although the movie was very flat and the audience was largely unengaged. It was monumentally of its decade, which led to a few jokes, but not much. The plot is about three furry aliens (Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans) who wander around L.A. under the guidance of a manicurist (Geena Davis). I went out early for breakfast and missed what was apparently the film’s best scene.
The 10:00 breakfast break! Spent the time cleaning up and getting some fresh air, and even though it was a bit rainy, it was good to get out.
Rhinestone
The last and best of the 80’s musicals: Dolly Parton teaches Sylvester Stallone to be a country singer, to win a bet. Stallone wrote most of the screenplay, Parton wrote all of the songs. Not too challenging for the B-Fest crowd, but much fun was had at the expense of Stallone’s ability to do much of anything. The sort of film so self-evidently ludicrous that all we had to do was laugh.
Cobra Woman
A late swap into the schedule. I found the plot hard to follow, but it basically involved a tropical island ruled by an Evil Woman, who was eventually overthrown by her Good Twin. Although there was a lot of leering at the pair in their revealing-by-40’s-standards clothing, this was much more positive towards strong women than I would have expected. Sabu and a monkey co-starred. The audience was dead to this film.
I think that “People Soup” played here. An Oscar nominee (!) directed by Alan Arkin, it involves two kids who, over an agonizing realtime ten minutes, invent a potion that turns them into animals, but they do nothing interesting with it. Arkin’s own children play the characters, and I can only hope that they make no effort to remain in contact with him, and that he will die alone.
SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2
No question, the find of the fest. Probably the second-worst thing I’ve ever seen here (after the unmentionable one of 2002), it was directed by Rhinestone-helmer Bob Clark, and involved…
Okay, I can’t describe the plot in the order the movie presents it, but basically, in 1932 a German scientist invented a youth formula which his 8 year-old son tried to steal, but ended up giving it to his 6 year-old brother. In 1962, the elder brother is played by Jon Voight, and running an East German baby smuggling ring, when the young brother – Kahuna – shows up (still apparently 6) and forces Voight into hiding. In 2004, Voight attempts to launch a giant baby brainwashing program using a truly hideous kids’ show (cross an Oompa Loompa with a frog and a radish, and you’re most of the way there), but Kahuna and four toddlers stop him once and for all.
There’s so much going on that I can’t do justice to…it was a really remarkable experience, and much like The Film From 2002 That I Won’t Name, the audience was enduring it more than interacting. Gags were made, but mostly we all just moaned in pain a lot. A brilliant pile of shit to set us up for the glorious final film…
King Kong
A lot of controversy as to whether a film that is by common consent an honest-to-god masterpiece ought to be here, especially as it doesn’t even meet the “cheaply-made quickie” definition of a b-picture. I say if a film about a giant ape kidnapping a blonde can’t play at B-Fest, something is wrong with the world. Besides, it neatly filled the tradition that the last film be a giant monster movie, even if it’s not Japanese. The auditorium filled with a respectful silence as we enjoyed a movie we had all seen before, and will all see again, on a really clean print.
Thus endeth B-Fest 2006. I’d say you all have to get tickets for next year, but it was hard enough this year. Hopefully by then, A&O will be able to screen DVDs, and get us out of the 80’s rut that we’ve been in the last three years. Needless to say, I’ll be doing this again either way. I already can’t wait.