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Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
24 Hours Of B-Movie Mayhem
Now Playing: 5+2=MISSION HYDRA
Poking around the Internet tonight, I accidentally discovered Ken Begg’s blog, Jabootu's Bad Blogging Dimension. Ken is the host of one of the ‘Net’s more interesting Web sites dedicated to Crappy Movies. Even though he doesn’t update it as often as I wish he would, and even though his politics are much more conservative than mine, I visit Ken’s Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension site about once a month or so, usually to discover he’s posted a new review of something that either I’m dying to see or I have seen and must read Jabootu’s take on it. That means I have to set some time aside, because Ken likes to write. And write. And write. I’m still working on his THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK treatise.

Ken also happens to be a nice guy and one of the sponsors of B-Fest, Northwestern University’s annual 24-hour marathon of Crappy Movies. Ken and I have traded several e-mails over the past few years, but have never met. And that’s entirely my fault, as he graciously invites me to stop by his row and say howdy at every year’s fest, yet I’m always too lazy or too hungry or too intimidated to make my way down to the “VIP” section where Ken and other sponsors and Web gurus hang out. He even offered to help me buy tickets for the 2005 event when it looked like B-Fest tickets might sell out in a hurry (and they did). It turned out I didn’t need Ken’s assistance, but I appreciated the offer and still do.

At any rate, I’ve added Ken’s blog to my list of daily Web sites to visit, and if you’re interested in Crappy Movies, you might want to stop by and check it out for yourself.

I posted about the 2005 B-Fest back in January when it happened, but if you’re joining us late, B-Fest is just how I described it above. You sit in a college auditorium for 24 consecutive hours, staring at the screen at some of the worst--and the funniest--movies on Earth. And there isn’t a lot of time to decompress after each one either, since there’s rarely more than one or two minutes between the end of one and the start of the next on the schedule. Plus, you’re not just watching the films; you’re also “riffing” on them MST3K-style, which is both part of the fun and part of the torture of the event. Especially when you’re plagued by the Gymkata Guys. My first B-Fest was in 2002, when my friend Kevin and I were unfortunate enough to find ourselves about two rows in front of some guys who were among the loudest, most obnoxious and downright unfunniest riffers in B-Fest history. One of the films was GYMKATA, which let to constant cries of “Gymkata!” from the GG. Over and over again. Always punctuated with them laughing their asses off. So it was 24 hours of “Gymkata! Ha ha ha! Gymkata! Ha ha!”

Last year, Kevin, Tolemite (a veteran of three B-Fests now, one behind me) and I found ourselves in front of some guys who may or may not have been the GG. They sure as hell sounded like the Gymkata Guys, even though one of them posted here in January and claimed that he wasn’t at this year’s B-Fest. Usually the shouting trails off as the night goes on, culminating in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE at midnight, which is an annual audience-participation experience along the lines of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. After that is usually a blaxploitation movie, and the crowd normally settles down during the overnight hours, just sleeping or chilling out or sometimes leaving the auditorium to breathe fresh air in the student union. These guys, who I’ll call the Gymkata Guys, because I’m not convinced they aren’t, hardly ever let up, constantly screaming the stupidest, most inane “jokes” and then laughing their asses off. For instance, a horse would appear on-screen, and one would say, “Why the long face?” OK, not a bad pun. Now imagine hearing it every time that horse appears. Every shot. “Why the long face?”, accompanied by hysterical laughter like it was the first time they had ever heard it. The bright side is that the GG have contributed a few in-jokes to Toler and my viewing of Crappy Movies. I can always get a rise out of Tolemite by saying, “That makes me shudder” or “Just in case you wanted to know how the robot got up the hill” or “Get out of the car.” You all know somebody who is loud and pisses you off because he think he’s funny and he isn’t? Imagine being trapped with that guy all day and all night.

The GG aside, B-Fest is always fun. The organizers do a good job mixing up the genres, so if, for instance, you don’t like ‘50s sci-fi movies, well, a dumb martial-arts film will probably be next. Or a comedy. Or a Hammer horror film. Or something from Troma. The last few years, the students have programmed way too much ‘80s for a well-rounded B-Fest, although it’s hard to argue with the titles they’ve chosen, including DEATH WISH 3, BREAKIN’, BREAKIN’ 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, NO HOLDS BARRED… Here’s what was on last year’s plate:

EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS (‘50s SF with awesome Ray Harryhausen visual effects)
THE APPLE (a stunningly bad futuristic disco musical by Cannon--one of the most notorious bad movies ever)
THE SWARM (hilarious ‘70s disaster flick about killer bees--”It’s on a completely different sonic level.”)
THE WIZARD OF SPEED AND TIME short (a perennial, this wonderful film is accompanied by the crowd lying on the floor in front of the screen and stomping their feet to the beat--I don’t know why, as WOSAT is beautiful as it is.)
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (always at midnight and accompanied by flying paper plates and shouts of “Day/Night”, “Wicker/Rattan”, “Bela/Not Bela”, etc.)
BLACK CAESAR (badass Fred “The Hammer” Williamson blaxploitation--too good for B-Fest, really)
SEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE (terrible b&w comedy with hot stacked Mamie Van Doren and hot stacked Tuesday Weld that still manages to be one of my most painful B-Fest viewings)
DEATH WISH 3 (Goddamn, this Bronson sequel from Cannon kicks so much ass, it’s so terrible and hilariously funny--”Teeth!”)
PROJECT MOONBASE (I slept only one hour this year, and it was during this staid ‘50s SF movie written by Robert Heinlein!)
3 NINJAS: HIGH NOON AT MEGA MOUNTAIN (Hulk Hogan and Loni Anderson! And 3 kung-fu-kicking kids! Jim Varney! A radio control heli! Awesome!)
ROBOT MONSTER (very funny, cheap ‘50s SF about a robot/monster/ape/alien with a bubble machine in Bronson Canyon…everyone should see this once)
CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH (not bad for a Troma movie, but not so good for B-Fest in that the crowd can’t mock a film that’s already a mockery)
ADVENTURES OF NEEKA (a compilation of three episodes of the LASSIE TV series)
ICE PIRATES (Robert Urich in a ponytail pretends he’s Burt Reynolds in this smirky, tasteless SF comedy)
IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE (pretty good SF monster movie…it’s the movie that ALIEN ripped off)
BREAKIN’ 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO (yeah, it has a ten-cent title, but I defy you to not have a good time watching it--one dude even went on stage to breakdance during the movie…and he was good too!)

If you’re interested in B-Fest, read my blog entry from earlier this year and get more details of the fun, the exhaustion and the trip to Leona’s.

Posted by Marty at 10:51 PM CDT
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Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 1:59 AM CDT

Name: Tolemite

B-Fest has become my one can't-miss event of the year. it's true that it's not for everyone, but there's honestly something a lot more to it than just sitting and watching movies. The more people you watch a crappy movie with, the better it gets, and B-Fest is the pinnacle of that experience. You might lose your mind if you watched "The Apple" by yourself.

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