The long and winding road (that leads to the Mark Goodson screening room)

Over at the AFI, alumnus Brian Udovich and other people who I can't remember host screenings of cool movies; they call it Reel Grit Sundays and they've been doing this for (I think) four years so far. They decided to have a marathon of six films the other day, as a way to countdown to/celebrate reaching film #100; each film would be introduced by former alumni, each coming from a different category in the filmmaking arts and we wouldn't be told the name of the film until the guest speaker intro'd it. The Reel Grit Six Shooter, they were calling it. Badass Digest and the Alamo Drafthouse were also involved (the latter supplied most of the prints). I had the gas money to go, so I went.

I arrived around 9:30 am (the marathon was scheduled to start at 10) and was happy to notice Phil Blankenship (late of the New Beverly Cinema, on-time of Amoeba Music) and film/comic geek extraordinaire Cathie Horlick waiting around as well. By the way, it was Cathie's enthusiastic movie blog that inspired me to create my own, so blame her for the horrific waste of Internet space that is Exiled from Contentment.

The Mark Goodson screening room was where it was all happening; the sign outside said it had 135-seating capacity but it felt smaller, this intimate theater. There was something kind of cool about that, it felt like an extended private party -- which is what it was, I guess -- and when the Reel Grit guys talked about how this all started as a movie night they would have at home, the medium-sized space added to that feeling of being part of a large group of friends gathered to watch movies, and I'm the creepy guy in the corner, not talking to anyone. 

A man carried a large film reel canister marked "Django's Coffin", and at first I thought this guy was screwing up the whole deal, giving up the name of one of the secret movies (I assumed it was one of the many fake Django movies released after the success of the Sergio Corbucci/Franco Nero joint), but I was wrong; the film canister was for accepting donations, since this Reel Grit business all comes out of their own pockets (among the many things they pay for: union projectionists, which I thought they didn't exist anymore, I figured that trade was lost to the minimum-wagers, based on the kids I see manning the projectors at the local multiplex nowadays). 

I smoke weed, so I'm probably getting most of this wrong but the main host was Brian Udovich and he (as well as the other members of Reel Grit) had on a Reel Grit t-shirt, the logo being a six-shooter cylinder. There was a brief AFI film montage that consisted of scenes from awesome movies with the names of the alumni responsible under them, along with the class year, and I assume this was to make non-students get all I Want To Go To There while reminding current students This Is Why You Came To Here. Udovich then welcomed us and talked about how Reel Grit got started and what led to this marathon. He also said that while there would be various people arriving throughout the day, they would be missing out, because they -- unlike us -- would not get the full proper experience of this marathon.

The first presenter came up; his name's Howard Smith and this motherfucker edited films for James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow and James Foley, among others. He knows what the fuck is up, he can handle anything you can throw at him (and in the case of James Cameron, he probably had to). The film he picked was River's Edge, which he edited for director Tim Hunter (who supplied the print); originally, he couldn't work on the film because he was already working on something else, so instead Hunter went with someone else. Well, when Someone Else got too pregnant to continue, Smith was available and he finished cutting the rest of the movie. Seriously ladies, stop it with the getting knocked up, let homeboy pull out in time. 

He talked about how the actress playing the dead girl in the movie kept completely still, never moving even though the location was very cold and uncomfortable, and yet, many people at screenings would swear seeing her move. Smith and Hunter would watch the film and study it closely, and not once did they ever spot any kind of movement from her. Even today, the IMDB goof section claims the dead girl moves, but Smith compared it to staring at one of those large dioramas at a museum, where you swear the fake buffalo's ear moved or the waxed Native American has a tear rolling down his cheek.

He brought up how Hunter considers this a black comedy (as in the Coen Brothers, not Tyler Perry), and it sounded like Smith agreed with him to a point; he also thought it was interesting that there were many screenings where the audience laughed from beginning to end while there were others that were stone silent. It would be interesting to see how this particular audience would take it, he said.

I saw River's Edge once when I was a kid, because the equation of cable + insomnia + parents are heavy sleepers = WIN. Back then, I liked it but took the whole thing deadly serious. At the AFI however, that shit was straight-up hilarious – particularly whenever Crispin Glover was on-screen. Half the time, he said his lines while posing with his arm out like he was about to tell Biff to get his damn hands off her. I don't know if Hunter was using the dark comedy line as some kind of proto-Wiseau defense or if he really meant it, but I would bet it's the latter, because this film does in fact feel at times like a Coen Brothers screenplay directed by late-80's Penelope Spheeris. It helps/doesn't help that the music goes into very dramatic DUN DUN DUN territory while some funny shit is happening on-screen.

It starts very fuckin' serious, though; some kid (more on this fucker later) is busy throwing his little sister's beloved doll off a bridge into a river when he hears someone howling. Turns out the howler is some guy who strangled his girlfriend a while ago and is now currently smoking a roach next to her naked corpse. Maybe it's because Smith more-or-less challenged us to find the flaws in Dead Girl's performance, but this chick is scary good and she doesn't even need CSI's quick cuts or Law & Order's moving camera to hide any giveaways, there are long shots devoted to her and she never fuckin' moves or twitches.

The killer is played by Daniel Roebuck, and in real-life he's a really likable horror geek. His character in River's Edge, on the other hand, is very unnerving; he's mostly passive but there's always that hidden threat of this guy possibly blowing at any second, and every time he's hanging with someone, I feared for the other person because I figured it would only take a wrong word for this motherfucker to want to wrap his hands around that person's throat (which is what happened to his girlfriend).

Smith said that this was Keanu Reeves' first American movie and I think the dude is pretty good in it, but then again, I'm kind of a Keanu apologist, so what do I know. He's like the one guy in the stunningly apathetic crowd of friends who's bothered enough by what Roebuck did to do something about it (granted, it takes him a while to get around to it, but maybe he needed some time to let the situation settle in). His home life is a beauty; he gets caught smoking pot by his mom and she's pissed because she thinks he's smoking her stash, and his stepfather (or wannabe stepfather) is played by that Steve Perry-looking motherfucker who played Corey Haim's “pop” in the Fast Getaway diptych.

Keanu has a younger brother, played by this creepy kid who was in Near Dark and Class of 1999; I don't know what it is about this kid, but he creeps me out, man. But in River's Edge, my slight fear of this little bastard was replaced by seething rage at this fuckin' piece-of-shit. Don't give me that “he's just a kid” shit either, fuck this guy, he threw his poor innocent little sister's doll into the river and brags about it, then later on, he desecrates the makeshift grave she made for it. 

The little sister is the only one in the family who doesn't seem completely fucked up, but I fear it's only a matter of time before she ends up being a total shit, hanging out with the wrong crowd, ditching class, drinking beer, wanting to sex up her hippie teacher and next thing you know, now she's in River's Edge 2: Money Never Sleeps and it's gonna be HER strangled naked body that some other fat asshole is smoking pot over. Anyway, a pre-teen with bruises and a bloody nose isn't supposed to make you go FUCK YES but it did when I saw it happen to Little Asshole Brother. The only thing he's got going for him is his mute lackey/friend who carries around nunchucks and sleeps under a Bruce Lee poster. That kid's awesome, and according to Smith, he only got paid as an extra, rather than as an actor. Welcome to Hollywood, son.

Anyway, between Crispin Glover's acting, the This Is Serious Goddammit music, some of the dialogue, and last but not least Dennis Hopper being Dennis Hopper, I'd say this movie was 70 percent laughs, 20 percent depressing, and 10 percent...I don't know what. Maybe the 10 percent is for Ione Skye, because Ione Skye is a swell chick. Either way, it's 100 percent Good Times. It'll probably take me a while to come down from this, but I think Mr. Glover's mannerisms have infected me and I'll probably be acting/talking like him for a while, because it's just one of those performances – and he's just one of those actors. He knows how to kick, too.

After the movie, the Reel Grit crew came up on stage eating hot dogs, followed by screenwriter Jacob Forman, and after making a joke about how we were about to watch Steven Soderbergh's personal un-subtitled print of the entire 5-hour cut of Che, he made his intro short and sweet (his refusal to let Udovich talk about his upcoming projects made it even shorter – so basically his intro should've been "Ladies & gentlemen, let's have a nice round of applause for Working Screenwriter!"), telling us our 2nd film of the day was Prime Cut, starring Muthafuckin' Lee Marvin and Gene Muthafuckin' Hackman.

Now, I've seen this film before, at one of Nicky Katt's movie marathon nights at the Cinefamily/Silent Movie Theatre and I dug it. In fact, click here if you want to read about that night. I'll keep this part brief, since I've already rambled about it before. The crowd really dug this oddball flick; I think it's the weird little touches and detours that make this film what it is. The film definitely has its fair share of badass moments and lines, but it appears to be just as interested in devoting time to off-kilter moments like Lee Marvin being more-or-less forced by an old lady to drink milk poured from a dispenser that looks like a cow (the milk shoots out from one of the udders) or a scene where Hackman's character (running both a meat-packing plant and a drug/white-slavery ring) starts to wrestle with his brother (named Weenie) in the same room where his accountants are trying to do their job, pretending that two adults are not acting like asses a few feet away from them. 

Following Prime Cut, we had a lunch break. There were two lunch trucks waiting outside; one was for Thai street food and the other was a nacho truck. These gourmet food trucks are great because they find new ways to overly-complicate the simplest foods. The food trucks were supposed to be "thematically related" to the films we had just watched, but I couldn't make the connection. Later, I overheard one of the guys involved admitting that there was a mix-up and the trucks that were supposed to show up for dinner showed up for lunch, and vice versa. 

The presenter for our 3rd film of the day was AFI dean Robert Mandel, the director of such films as F/X (“My name's Leo, and we need to talk”), School Ties (“Cowaaaaards!”), and 1996's The Substitute (“Knock that nigga out, my nigga!”). His film pick was 3 Days of the Condor, which was a very influential film for him as a director. He talked about Robert Redford's acting, particularly his strengths in interrogation scenes – but not the kind that take place in a small room between cops and criminals or something like that, he meant more like the kind of scene where a guy catches up to another guy and demands to know Just What The Fuck Is Going On. He also had things to say about how awesome Max Von Sydow was, which was kind of endearing to me, the idea that Mandel felt the need to tell us this because c'mon, it's Max Von Sydow, we know that motherfucker's awesome in everything – that's why they cut him out of the theatrical cut of The Wolfman, they couldn't have him fucking up the underwhelming tone of that movie.

That Sundance Film Festival-creating motherfucker Robert Redford plays this dude who works at the American Literary Historical Society, but fuck that shit, it's all a front for the CIA. Redford's job is to read the fuck out of everything, single out anything that's cool and/or weird, then send that shit out to the big boys upstairs so they can do something with it. One day, he goes out to pick up lunch but when he returns, all his co-workers are dead, probably because that bad Max Von Sydow and a couple of typical postal workers were in that joint blasting the shit out of everyone -- the old lady secretary, the old man security guard, the old boss with the wig (in death, all secrets are revealed). Then I guess they got tired of beating the Grim Reaper to the punch with the oldies, so then they go upstairs to kill some of that young stuff -- the Asian chick, some douchebag guy, and some other douchebag guy who was using the bathroom (motherfucker went out like Vincent Vega, sprawled out on the fuckin' bathtub).

Half of the movie is Redford in paranoid mode – one of my favorite shots is a cutaway to some lady with a baby carriage, who for all we know could be packing a sawed-off in there – and he ends up taking a random New Yorker at gunpoint (played by piss-throwing champion Faye Dunaway) and forces her along for the ride. You know, you watch these movies and you wonder: is this frightened lady eventually going to fall in love with her gun-wielding captor? Because you never fucking know, right? Right.

I'm gonna do that one day, I'm gonna take an airsoft pistol and look for a hot chick and put it up against her side and tell her to act natural. This is a test, you see. Then she's going to krav maga my stupid ass and bust out the taser gun and zero that shit in straight to my balls (or as I like to call them, Wasted Potential), then as she runs off, screaming for the cops, I'm going to be on the ground, bleeding, broken, and with swollen traumatized testicles (at least more swollen/traumatized than usual) and I'm going to wonder if maybe, just maybe, all movies are lies. 

Mandel talked about how both films came out of a time when America (fuck yeah) was soooo not trusting the government (Tricky Dick and Watergate were in full effect). It made me think how nice it would've been to live in a world where you could watch something like 3 Days of the Condor and go “Hey, remember the time when shit was really bad and we didn't trust our government and we were all so fuckin' cynical?” but unfortunately, shit didn't work out that way. 

SPOILERS if you haven't seen this shit, but there's a particularly chilling part where Cliff Robertson (he's the guy with the hair that looks like a toupee but probably isn't) talks about how Americans would never ask the government to pull some rank shit just to keep our engines running and our heaters working, not so much because of moral reasons, but because we expect our government to do those things without our having to ask them. It's like, we want our steaks but we don't want to know about the cows being butchered, hell, we don't even want to know that they came from cows (we'll delude ourselves into thinking that they came from the magical steak fairy), so just serve it to us on our plates and hurry up, 'cause we're hungry.  

John Houseman is in this movie too, playing John Houseman; this motherfucker is always acting like he can't believe you have the fucking audacity (that's French for “balls”) to try to pass the bullshit you're serving him as The Truth -- even when he's busy scribbling on a notepad -- but he's gonna let you make an ass of yourself anyway. Damn, I miss John Houseman, I didn't even fully appreciate him when I was a kid, back then he was just the driving instructor from The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad.

Anyway, this was a solid flick and watching a pristine print projected in 35mm is quite the experience compared to seeing this shit letterboxed on a 4:3 TV set, and when I first saw this movie back in 2003 (on said 4:3 set), there was something familiar about the end credits music. Eventually, it dawned on me – I heard part of this tune before, during the previous summer, in a song by R&B singer Amerie called "Why Don't We Fall In Love". I remember hearing that song on the radio so much during the summer of 2002 that I'll forever associate it (and a handful of other songs) with that particularly happy time in my life – what's that line in the original Ocean's Eleven? Something like “Old times are only good when you've had them”? Fuckin' A, Dino. Check out both songs by clicking on this shit (which I found by Googling “amerie why don't we fall in love dave grusin”). Anyway, according to this movie, the government is shady and all black people should know how to break into cars, so don't bother frontin'.  

Another five-minute break, then cinematographer Amelia Vincent came up to intro the 4th movie. She's won awards and accolades for her work on films like Eve's Bayou, Hustle and Flow, and Black Snake Moan, and her choice for the marathon was At Close Range, starring Sean Penn and Christopher Walken, and directed by James Foley. "Like father. Like son. Like hell." was the tagline for this film, and Ms. Vincent called it the best movie poster tagline ever. The director of photography was Juan Ruiz Anchia, and Vincent talked about how his lighting was such a revelation to her in comparison to the over-saturated, romantic lighting of guys like Nestor Almendros – she was quick to clear up that she wasn't dissing the Academy Award-winning d.p. of Days of Heaven, she was just basically saying that his style of lighting was becoming very much the style at the time, and as a result, overused.

I could be wrong, but I swear she was also one of the presenters who had originally wanted to pick River's Edge, but she had to go with her second choice because Howard Smith (who also edited At Close Range) beat them to the punch. I say that because she kept mentioning River's Edge along with At Close Range, talking about how both came out in 1986 and both involved troubled youths. She's right; River's Edge involved high school students while the kids in At Close Range appear to be in the 18-20 range, but both are stories about wayward youths getting involved in serious shit. Also, both films feature scenes where underage kids try to buy booze at the liquor store and are met with roadblocks, but then find forceful ways around it.

Both films also feature characters who openly smoke weed at home – what the fuck, man? The closest I ever came to pulling that shit, I had to do it in my room with a towel covering the bottom of the door, Febreze or incense, a sploof, chewing gum and Visine. I also had to lock the door, which sucked because really, what other reason do you have to lock your bedroom door at your parents house aside from jerking off? Well, yeah, I guess I could have had a girl in there, but this is me we're talking about, let's be real. Meanwhile these motherfuckers are smoking joints on the living room couch, giggling their asses off watching television and the worst they get is their mom's boyfriend bitching about having to get up early for work the next day.

Eventually, Penn finds himself needing another place to stay, so he hits up his real daddy, played by Walken. Turns out that Walken makes his living doing criminal shit, breaking into places with his crew, breaking into safes or jacking tractors (this takes place in cow country). At first, Penn's kinda tripping out on his dad and his friends, but not getting involved. Then he meets Mary Stuart Masterson (she's the one who isn't Jennifer Jason Leigh) and because they're young and horny and bored, they fall in love and soon money becomes an issue, so guess who's begging to be a part of Daddy's business? 

Look, I know I'm not dropping a major revelation here by saying that Christopher Walken's the man, but goddamn, this guy can fuckin' act. In this film, he manages to be charming, funny, cocky, mean, scary, hate-worthy -- all while acting like Christopher Walken. It's like the part was already written so well, that any actor worth his salt could knock it out of the park, but Walken is not only a great actor, he's also Christopher Walken. What I mean is that Walken adds so much extra awesomeness to the role, with his mannerisms and very particular way of speaking -- it's like getting the best pommes frites ever and then adding truffle oil to them. I'm sensing a pattern forming -- I guess because it always comes down to food for us fatties, we love food analogies like a fat kid loves cake. Speaking of food and Christopher Walken, I'm sure you've seen this clip already. 

As far as other actors in this film; a shockingly in-good-shape Christopher Penn plays Sean's brother in the film, and Crispin Glover had made such an impression on us during River's Edge, that when we saw him show up in this movie, it was like seeing an old friend. His name was applauded and every time he appeared, we couldn't help but laugh. Kiefer Sutherland is here, and this must have been before The Lost Boys because his presence is barely felt or noticed -- the mute nunchucker from River's Edge had made more of an impression. I didn't even recognize Edward R. Murrow as one of Walken's crew, shit, I barely recognized Tracey Walter in the crew, come to think of it. Stephen Geoffreys is in this movie too, and I get kind of sad thinking about this Tony-award winning actor who then went on to do gay porn a few years later. 

Unless it was something he was into. Like, maybe having sex with hot guys and getting paid for it sounded like an awesome gig to him and he was all like To Hell With Acting. In that case, right on, do your thing. I mean, if some guy came up to me and told me that there's a new category of porn that involves fat, out-of-shape ugly bastards with tiny dicks and zero lasting-power banging hot chicks and that I was perfect for it, you know what? I might take that gig if it pays enough. Sure, there might be some hesitation, but then the talent agent would tell me that there are people who pay big bucks for guys with fat hairy guts who constantly apologize while having sex and I'd finally relent. Dignity left my life a long fuckin' time ago, so why not? Anyway, I do not judge Mr. Geoffreys, I only hope that he was happy during that period of his life, and if he was happy, then I'm happy and so are the gay fans (and straight enemies) of Stephen Geoffreys, the ones who've always fantasized about seeing him suck a cock. 

This was the first time I'd seen At Close Range. The print (courtesy of Mr. Blankenship) looked great, and it's a good thing Ms. Vincent was playing up the film's cinematography instead of the sound, because there was something up with the projector or the print that caused a buzzing sound that Udovich compared to an electric razor disrupting the film. It wasn't that distracting (for the most part), but the lights were brought up twice and the film was stopped while the union projectionist did what he could. After the film, I heard a couple people say that the buzzing actually made the film feel more tense. 

Not that it needed any help being tense, because in addition to being beautifully shot (there's a great scene between Chris Penn and Walken that opens with their faces being slowly revealed with what I'm assuming was the use of a dimmer switch) and strongly acted, this movie also puts the fuckin' hurt on you slowly, and what seemed a wicked kind of fun in a dark kind-of-way, just becomes unbearably tough to watch near the end. I don't know how much of the true story this film was based on is reflected in the final product, but even if it's only half-true, shit, that's already too much. It's also tense because the film's score threatens to segue to a subpar Madonna song, but thankfully, it waits until the end credits to finally make good on its threat. 

Shit, I have to wrap this up. 

It was dinner time and two new food trucks showed up; one served Italian beef/Polish sausage sandwiches, and the other served I don't know what, I wasn't hungry either way. After, it was time for the 5th film of the night, Jacob's Ladder, which was introduced by production designer Todd Cherniawsky. This guy worked on Avatar, Sucker Punch, and Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland, so he doesn't have to justify himself to you or me or anyone. Anyway, he talked about artists like Bosch and David Cronenberg being very influential on him, and he basically talked about how awesome this movie was. He also pronounced director Adrian Lyne's name as Adrian "Lynn", so either he's wrong or everyone else is. 

Unfortunately, the ending has probably been spoiled for you because the movie's about 21 years old (JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!) and critics usually reference this movie in more current films that have similar endings or they mention the short story written about 100 years before the film, and how that had the same ending as this film. But whether you know the ending or not, it's still a real head-fucker of a movie, filled with images that are at the very least, really fucking unsettling and at the most, the cinematic equivalent to that guy Bushwick Bill beat the shit out of in that song "Mind Playin Tricks On Me" -- the nigga you'll be seeing in your sleep. 

Adding to the What The Fuck-ery of this joint is that in addition to seeing familiar faces like Tim Robbins, Danny Aiello, Mr. Soul Glo (or E.R., if you prefer), Pruitt Taylor Vince with his shaky eyeballs, and Ving Rhames, you also have actors whose appearance now carry an unfortunate comedic weight. I mean, there's a scene where Robbins looks at a photo of his deceased son and he gets all emotional -- except the boy in the photo is Macaulay Culkin, so rather than feel for Robbins' character, the audience burst into laughter because it's fuckin' Home Alone in this bitch! How was Adrian Lyne supposed to know that in a few months following Jacob's Ladder's release, that little cute kid was about to star in a comedy box-office juggernaut? 

Then later in the film, Robbins and his former Vietnam pals go to see a lawyer and the motherfucker's played by George Fuckin' Costanza! This movie is so nuts, that when Lewis Black shows up in a brief part as a doctor, you realize that his is the most down-to-earth perfomance in Jacob's Ladder. Oh, before I forget -- God bless Elizabeth Pena for being so goddamn naked throughout this movie, hell, even when she's wearing clothes she has that naked aura about her. She's just so Wow in this movie, it's not even funny. 

Anyway, I enjoyed Jacob's Ladder even more the second time around. My only issue with it is that after seeing the deleted scenes on the DVD, I watch the film now thinking it'd work even better had Lyne kept those parts in (I'm talking about the extended climax). It might have made the movie a little too over-the-top, but c'mon, I think Lyne should've stopped worring about going too far around the time he shot the scene where some demon shoves his tail through a woman and we see it come out through her mouth. Also, I hate the final title card before the end credits, I don't know why the fuck the movie suddenly felt the need to Teach Us Something with what reads like the kind of conspiracy theory bullshit that probably sealed the deal for Tim Robbins to get involved, fuckin' America-hater. Love it or leave it, buddy. Better dead than red. The South will rise again. 

A raffle was held for all those who contributed to Django's Coffin, and the winner got a poster for the marathon, autographed by all six presenters. Then producer Stuart Cornfeld (The Elephant Man, Cronenberg's remake of The Fly, and apparently every Ben Stiller movie) came up to the stage to introduce the 6th and final film of the night. He had a very convivial way about him, and for all I know he might be a pit bull when doing the producing thing, but he didn't come off that way at all with us. He was mentored by Mel Brooks and Brooks seems like a pretty cool guy in a business sorely lacking in them, so maybe it rubbed off on his protege. 

Like Amelia Vincent, Mr. Cornfeld had also picked River's Edge but after being told about Howard Smith being the early bird catching that particular worm, he picked The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (Joel Robinson's favorite movie!), but was then told that the only print available was unwatchable, so for his third choice he picked The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk (aka The Legend aka Fong Sai Yuk) starring Jet Li.

Cornfeld talked how funny he thought this film was, and not just funny in a Foreigners Have A Different Sense-Of-Humor kind-of-way, he thought this movie was just plain hilarious. He thought Jet Li gave a great comedic performance in between ass-kickings, and if the combo of "Jet Li" and "great comedic performance" sounds weird to you, then you just proved Cornfeld's other point, which is that it's a damn shame that Hollywood hasn't found a way to take advantage of Li's potential in making with the funny. Here in the States, he's more of a serious, scowling motherfucker and I guess he just hasn't found his Rush Hour yet, even though his part in The Expendables comes the closest.

Sorry, Legend of Fong Sai Yuk, you're a really fun movie, Engrish subtitles and all, and I'd love to write about how your fight scenes are both jaw-dropping and fucking hilarious. I'd love to ramble about how after making the audience laugh and applaud for two thirds of the film, you had the fucking balls to introduce some straight-up drama into the proceedings.

And yet -- you managed to not make it feel jarring, you transitioned that shit smoothly. It felt like you were telling us that laughing is good and all, but there are some serious stakes involved, some life and death shit., and sometimes a motherfucker has to get serious on you. Then after making us (and by us, I mean me) damn near tear up at a couple of genuinely tender moments, you commenced with the one-two combo of kicking ass and making us laugh again. I'd love to write about all of that, and maybe even spend a couple paragraphs writing about your success as a Fun Time At The Movies, I really would. I'd also love to write about how we all applauded loudly when the end credits came up, but I've written so much already about the previous films, I just can't. Sorry, Legend of Fong Sai Yuk -- you get assed the fuck out in this blog entry.

13 hours later, the Reel Grit Six Shooter came to an end. Udovich told us about the next Reel Grit screening (I Saw The Devil), then thanked us for coming and for being hardcore, which felt good and would've even felt better, were it not for the knowledge that a select group of people go to Austin, Texas every year in December to sit through 24 hours of movies. But then I remembered reading an online article from a woman who had attended one of those events; she had documented her experience using a timeline; one of the entries came about halfway through the event, in the middle of the night, and it simply read something like "It's getting awfully farty in here", and then I didn't feel so jealous anymore. 

They also serve Crumbs cupcakes over there

In the second week of December, I came across some extra money, and decided not to use it to pay off massive debt. I will die with that debt, so they can go fuck themselves. What was more important was to get out of my stuffy shack, so I drove over to the Silent Movie Theatre in piece-of-shit Los Angeles and bought a ticket for Nicky Katt's Smackum-Yackum Saturday. Nicky Katt is an actor who's been in some cool movies, so you probably caught one of them. You can find out here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0441588/

This past year, Mr. Katt hosted two other all-night movie marathons at this place. The first one involved Good Ol' Boy Southern type stuff, and the second one was called Mug-Melter Monday and was just different movies that were all cool. I went to both of those and they were a good time. They had a barbecue grill available to anyone who brought hot dogs and they had lots of free beer; Shiner Bock and Asahi. They were not nearly as well attended as you figured they would be though, which may have had something to do with being scheduled on weeknights. But the city of L.A. missed out, because they was good times, especially Mug-Melter Monday. That one started at 7pm and ended around 5am. They had a D.J. and a fog machine that went haywire and we saw the first 20 minutes of a crazy-as-fuck supernatural kung-fu flick called Boxer's Omen through that fucking fog. I went by myself, as usual, and if I didn't get so drunk on free Shiner early on, watching everyone else have a good time with their friends would've crushed my goddamn soul. Which is why I love booze. I could always try talking to people, but my testicles are too huge, making it difficult for me to walk all the way across to speak with strangers. Plus I've seen the brave souls who do that, and when they leave, they are usually mocked by those fuckin' assholes. Fuck 'em.

I arrived at 6:30 with a flask bottle of Jack Daniels so I can kill the lonely bug as quickly as possible, but I find out it's not necessary because in addition to Shiner and Asahi, Mr. Katt and the fine folks at the Silent Movie Theatre have supplied free hard liquor! Vodka, JD, orange juice, and whatever the fuck else. Fucking Awesome!

But you know what ISN'T awesome? That there were only about 8 or 9 people when I got there. On a Saturday night. Maybe it's just too early in the evening and it'll get better, I thought. I sit down and watch an old stop-motion short about some lumberjack who makes a clarinet out of wood and plays jazz music with it. Pretty cute. After that, they start the first movie, which is called Something Wicked This Way Comes.

It's about a carnival that comes to a small town, sometime in the 1920's or 30's or 40's, I can't fucking remember. Like most carnivals, the people working for it are evil scary motherfuckers lead by an more evil scary motherfucker and evil scary motherfucking shit happens. This was a Disney flick, and I don't think you'll see Disney make movies like this again, because it's pretty freaky. This is probably the only Disney family movie with a shot of a boy's decapitated head in a basket. There's a lot of freaky shit in this movie; a merry-go-round that either makes you younger or older depending which way it goes, scary bearded guys with moving tattoos, silent red-headed boys and motherfucking tarantulas. There's also midgets. I'm sure lots of little kids went to see this shit and had nightmares for a while. It's pretty fucking sweet, though.

The movie ended somewhere a little after 8pm and by then there were around 25 people, which is better than 8, but still pretty small. There's a break and by 8:30, Nicky Katt and this dude Hadrian, who's like the main dude at the Silent Movie Theatre came out to talk about the next movie, called Enter Laughing. I noticed a faint whiff of the sweet, sweet Sonny Chiba in the air before the movie started. To each his own.

Enter Laughing is a movie from the 1960's starring Poppie from Seinfeld. Poppie was a pretty handsome dude back then, playing this kid from New York City who wants to be an actor. He's got the dream of being a famous movie star but doesn't know the first thing about acting. Plus, he's got his parents who want him to become a pharmacist. The title of the movie comes from a scene where he auditions for a play and the first thing he says is "enter laughing". Poppie doesn't know that he's reading the stage directions as dialogue. There's a couple of cute chicks in the movie, and there's another one who's pretty but way too fucking skinny, and it reminds you that chicks like that were the exception and not the rule back then, like they are now. This chick is played by Elaine May, and I know that name because Alec Baldwin compared Tina Fey to this broad, so I guess she's a big deal. Another big deal is that Meathead's father Carl Reiner directed this movie, and it's based on a play that was based on a book he wrote that was kinda based on his life, if you got all that. I dug it, man. It was pretty funny and the audience seemed to dig it as well. There was a part where the director of the play is counting up the donations from last night's performance and he says something like "15 dollars? There were 30 people in that audience..." and either Nicky or Hadrian said something like "I know the feeling" and the 30 or so of us in the audience laughed.

Around 10:30 the movie ended and Nicky & Hadrian returned and talked about the next movie they would play after the break, called Prime Cut, a movie from the 70's with motherfuckin' Lee Marvin and motherfuckin' Gene Hackman. Everyone was pumped and then it was time for another break. Most people went to the back patio to eat hot dogs, talk and drink. I milled around, going back and forth, trying to look like I had something going on, all the while attempting to work my way to higher state of drunkeness.

Prime Cut started around 11 and it was a pretty decent flick. No great shakes, but it's cool to see Marvin being his typically badass self. He's a dude who works for the mob in Chicago, and he's sent down along with a few other dudes to Kansas City to collect some long overdue money from Hackman, playing a guy who runs a meatpacking joint named Mary Ann. Yup, homeboy's name is Mary Ann and they never explain that shit either, so you don't know if it's just a nickname or if it's just the cover name for the company like Sara Lee or Aunt Jemima or if his father was just a fucking asshole who never listened to that Johnny Cash song about a boy named Sue. Mary Ann's a real scary dude too, since the last guy the boys from Chicago sent to collect was sent back to them as a pack of sausages. He also sells drugged-up chicks on the white slavery market. Mary Ann's an asshole.

Of course it's not going to be easy, and there's a couple of cool scenes of Marvin and Hackman standing off and giving each other a hard time. There's a cool chase scene that leads to Marvin and Sissy Spacek (the only time I've ever seen her play the hot chick role) running from a combine as it tries to chop their asses up. The film climaxes with a shootout on Mary Ann's property, which starts at a sunflower field, then a greenhouse and finally in a barn. It's a pretty simple movie with a fast pace and the occasional weird moment, like when one dude tries to stab another dude with a sausage. This was back when you fucking believed in guys like Lee Marvin, you believed they were fucking badasses along with dudes like Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson, the last of their generation. As far as I'm concerned, they were quite capable of doing the shit they did in movies. I don't believe any of the movie star tough guys of today, seeing them as no more than just actors playing tough. Bunch of slack-jawed faggots, to quote the great Jesse "The Body" Ventura in Predator.

There was another break, and I went to get some more free JD. Two college-age girls were serving themselves some booze, and one of them said to the other something like "ok, we're not going to end up as Girls Gone Wild tonight, ok?" and they both giggled. Based on their behavior during Prime Cut, they were more like Girls Gone Really Fucking Annoying. Sorry girls, but nobody likes a drunk chick unless there's sex involved.

By the time the next movie started around 12:45, I was just the right amount of drunk, which was perfect because it was none other than Dangerous Men that appeared on the screen. This movie is like the Second Coming of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Well, the guy who made it passed away a some time ago and the movie kinda disappeared after it's original release. But now it looks like the Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre are gonna bringing it back. They had two sold-out screenings the week before this marathon, and I understand they're going to screen it again in late January. Sounds like they're going to make it the new "So Bad, It's Good" flick to watch, alongside Tommy Wiseau's The Room. Twenty minutes into the movie, the Girls Gone Really Fucking Annoying got up and left, never to return. It was like the movie was too much for them to take. Or maybe they just thought it sucked. Or maybe they were just late for a date rape by some future NFL star.

By 2:10, Nicky & Hadrian returned and let the audience vote by applause which of the three choices given would be played next:

--Star Hops, a goofy T&A movie from the late 70's

--It's Always Fair Weather, a Gene Kelly musical

--Revenge, the Kevin Costner flick about bloody motherfuckin' Revenge.

It came down to a tie between Revenge and Fair Weather. We left it to Nicky to be the tie-breaker and he chose Fair Weather.

I voted for Revenge, but I'm glad Nicky picked It's Always Fair Weather, because it's pretty damn good. This was the follow-up to Gene Kelly & company's smash hit Singin' in the Rain, but this one didn't do nearly as well in the box office. Too bad, because it's got some great set-pieces, my favorite being a dance sequence with Kelly on rollerskates. I almost jumped out of my seat and screamed "FUCK YEAH" at the end of that one, and if I was sloppy drunk at that point, I would've, but luckily I was calming down with the booze by then. I wasn't alone in my enthusiasm; there was crazy applause at the end of most of these routines.

Some weird shit happened, though. I guess there was a mistake and we watched the movie with one of the reels in the wrong place. What this meant was that it got to a point in the movie where people were referring to shit we didn't see, leaving us scratching our head wondering if maybe this was like Reservoir Dogs, where you never see the robbery but only hear about it. But then, after the exciting climax, the missing reel was played and it was like some Memento/Tarantino shit, where we now get to see all the shit they were referring to that happened before the events we DID see. Once that reel ended, everything was back in order. The audience was still with the movie the whole way, though. It felt like that anyway. The applause seemed genuine.

Another break, then the next film at 4:05: Star Hops. STAR HOPS? What the fuck?! Hardly anyone applauded for that movie when we voted. Fuckin' Revenge was the runner-up -- we should be watching Kevin Costner banging Madeleine Stowe and slicing motherfuckers throats open (not at the same time, though) right now! Someone behind the scenes had a hard-on for this movie and got his or her fuckin' way, I'm guessing.

Whatever. Star Hops is about two chicks who decide to buy the drive-in burger joint they work at after their boss quits. To improve business, they spruce up the place, wear skimpier outfits and hire a French chick who graduated from the Le Cordon Bleu but isn't taken seriously by her peers because she's a woman, or something like that, to work the grill. There's also an evil oil magnate who wants that property, so he recruits his son to get a job there and fuck shit up from the inside. It's pretty goofy and harmless and it ends the way you'd think it ends, with the bad guys punished and the good girls living happily ever after. The only thing keeping me interested was the main chick, the late actress Jillian Kesner. She was very pretty and had a smokin' body, so Ms. Kesner -- along with the free coffee I was drinking -- kept me awake.

A couple of interesting things during this screening occurred. At one point, it looked like Hadrian and Nicky were having a bit of a heated discussion. Hopefully not. But it did look kind of serious. Then halfway through the movie, Nicky stood up with his lady companion and said out loud: "Hadrian? This movie sucks!" then they both left. I don't remember seeing him at the end of the evening. Maybe I was in the john for his closing remarks.

It was around 5:40 after Star Hops and our last break, then it was on to the final movie of the night: a documentary called Blue Water, White Death, about a team of oceanographers looking to capture footage of the Great White Shark for the first time ever. This was before Jaws and before Shark Week, so this flick was a pretty big deal back then. Hadrian told us that it also served as partial inspiration for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

It was pretty interesting, and I could totally see what Wes Anderson took from it for his movie. My favorite being the onboard folk singer, who I figured was just an Anderson original, but no, he took it from here. It would make a cool double bill with Life Aquatic. Cool shark footage too.

By 7:30, it was all over. Not even a "thanks for joining us". Just lights on, blank screen and silence. Get the fuck out. Only 8 or 9 of us remained, which was also the same number of people at the beginning of the evening. We slowly got up and made our way out of there. I noticed Marc Heuck from the Nuart Theatre and the tv show Beat the Geeks was there with his lady friend. I threw away my coffee cup and empty beer bottles and got ready to meet the day.

I would like to think they'll do more of these marathons, and it kills me that not nearly as many people showed up as I thought should. Come on, there was free beer and booze! And a place to barbecue hot dogs! That's some really cool shit for a movie theater to offer people and unless more show up to take advantage, I fear they'll just stop going out of their way like that in the future. Then when I tell people what the Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre used to do for its patrons, they'll just tell me I'm full of shit. And that's fucked up.

Anyway, goodbye 2008. You fucked my shit up something awful and made me consider drastic things to kill the pain. Fuck you, 2008. Don't let the door hit you on the ass, you motherfucking cocksucking low-life piece-of-shit scumbag asshole cocksucker motherfucker. Fuck you and die.

2009, I hereby warn you to come correct. Be good to me, baby.