| B-Fest
Ho-migod Part III |
| (Venturing
Into Uncharted Territory.) |
Things
always seem to get a little stranger, and
more surreal, during the overnight at
B-Fest. By then, based on previous
experiences, chock full of sugar and
caffeine, and suffering from a terminal
lack of sleep, your brain, convinced that
the films are starting to play tricks on
you, triggers several defense mechanisms,
where all rationality is surrendered to
the Id and his big pointed stick. This
year, we had wised up and got a hotel as I
was determined to stay up for the whole
thing. And it was at this point, as we
moved into the overnight, with a
percolating sense of apprehension and
dread, I realized that these inherent
mental defenses would be useless to Mr.
Well-Rested. And
the more I thought about it, the more I
realized with all five senses still online
and fully alert how much this could really
hurt.
Thus
ends our Philosophical discussions for the
evening as we return you to the
film-festival already in progress.
|
Monkey
Business
|
|
(Aaauugh!
Singing Monkeys!)
|
 It
was truly a humbling sight to behold, for
in spite of the presence of films like Spawn
of the Slithis,
The Beatniks, and a hardcore porn
version of Alice
in Wonderland,
it was a short, Monkey
Business,
featuring a gaggle of singing monkeys,
that broke the back of many a B-Fester
this year. Of course, those monkeys
weren't really talking and singing. They
were real monkeys, whose mouths were
animated over to match the dialogue and
songs; poked and prodded into action by
unseen hands -- or cattle prods, from off
screen.
Paramount
turned out a ton of these Speaking of
Animals shorts, so I'll just say
they're lucky they didn't show the wild
west one with the monkey barroom brawl. I
didn't think it was all that bad. Singing
Monkeys aren't that terrifying, even in
diapers. Singing Monkeys in diapers who've
obviously soiled themselves, however...
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
Sadly,
no poop was flung for the
duration of the short. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
No
monkey lovin' either. |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
Monkey
shall never rochambeaux
Monkey. That is the Law. |
|
|
| Monkey
Hustle |
| (Too
Much Monkey. Not Enough Hustle.) |
 Well,
I think the gist of this movie centers
around a community that is threatened by
the incursion of a freeway. So the
colorful characters who inhabit that
community, most of them con-men like
Yaphet Kotto and his gang of young
hoodlums, or uber-pimps like Rudy Ray
Moore, try to stop this by confusing the
heck out of the audience. Maybe. I think.
Anyways, several lame-ass
cons, one idiot cop befuddlement, two
bitch-slapping cat fights, some soul food,
and a fire hose later, our funky,
pimped-out super-pals save the day by
doing nothing really.
So
what exactly was the point of that scene
with the garbage truck? They put the boxes
in the truck. They pull the boxes out of
the truck, and hide them. Then, they put
them back in again. Then, they ran away
with the boxes that were empty all along. (Well,
they were Quasar brand merchandise
anyways.) And then Yaphet Kotto
gives you three bucks.
That's
some hustle.
So
yeah, it didn't make one dang bit of
sense, but a good time was had by all.
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
Nope
and nada. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
Oh
yeah, baby. |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
The
Black Knight forgot his cod piece. |
|
|
|
Alice
in Wonderland |
|
(Send
in the Dancing Nurses!) |
Ah,
the naughty portion of our program. I'm
sure most of us knew this wasn't going to
be Uncle Walt's version, but when the film
started out slow, teasing the audience,
for just a brief moment, I thought we were
going to get skunked like last year's The
Happy Hooker.
But then young Alice stepped through the
looking glass and all hell of a naked variety
broke loose. When those people dressed
in animal costumes licked her dry? Wow. Once
on the other side, Alice basically goes
through Wonderland curing everyone's
erectile dysfunction, including the
pant-less Mad Hatter and Humpty Dumpty,
and then joins TweedleDum and TweedleDee
in a threesome as they "tweedle"
to their hearts content. Alas, when Alice
goes on to *ahem* service the White Knight
and the King of Hearts, the Queen of
Hearts wants her head, too [...and I can't
believe I just typed that], and a little
loving on the side.
I
think it was at the point when Humpty
Dumpty called for his dancing nurses, who
proceeded to dance and strip, that I
determined that this version of Alice
in Wonderland
was the greatest movie ever made. The
majority of the audience, on the other
hand, sat and watched in a stupefied
silence, with a smattering of groaning or
incredulous laughter, as the film played
out. Seriously, I don't wanna know what
the White Rabbit was doing with that
spoon. *shudder* The biggest
reaction came when the hot-humping
Tweedles revealed, silly, that they were
really brother and sister. The roar got
even louder during the C.H.I.P.s
style freeze-frame credits that revealed
the actor and actress who played them SHARED
THE SAME LAST NAME!
Speaking
of C.H.I.P.s,
back in the late 1970's, Kristine DeBell,
the film's adorable lead, appeared in that
show along with B.J.
and the Bear and
was one of the camp counselors in Meatballs.
I remember having a huge crush on this
lady when I was younger, but then she kind
of disappeared off the movie and TV map.
Now I think I know why.
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
No.
But Lewis Carroll's grave just
detonated. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
Yes.
Just not on the lips. Eewwww... |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
Is
that what they're calling that
now? |
|
|
|
Spawn
of the Slithis |
|
(Can
We Throw this One Back?) |
 So,
you wanna know what happens in this movie?
I'll tell you: Nothing happens in this
movie! Well, there is a sea creature that
invades Venice Beach and starts feasting
on the local homeless population. Then,
six equally padded sequences later -- 1.)
About where the monsters came from. 2.)
Why we have to close the beaches. 3.) Why
won't anyone believe us. (4-5.) A couple
of POV stalk and kills. And 6.) A look
into the life of a disco-king's swinging
lifestyle until he and his girlfriend
become chum -- our heroes capture the
beast and then let it go because
"That's the way of the
sea."
Then
the Slithis eats them.
This
was the movie that almost killed me this
year. It was shot through the same
dirty-sock filter as The
Corpse Grinders,
giving everything a strange, blurry,
maroonish tint. Dull. Dull. DULL!
AAaaaAAaaargh. I hate this movie. As Joe
put it so succinctly -- and I heartily
concur -- This movie can kiss my ass.
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
No.
But the entire film was a
train wreck. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
The
Disco King almost got around to
it before his date got gutted,
however, this film can plant a
big old wet one right where I'm
pointing! |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
Yes.
Suffered by the audience. |
|
|
|
Devil
Girl from Mars |
|
(And
the Cosmic Whack-A-Mole Game.) |
 Turns
out Mars doesn't need women, it needs men,
desperately, so they send our villainess
to Earth to round up some breeding stock.
After parking her UFO, she then terrorizes
a quaint English cottage and the denizens
therein with her advance technology that
musters a refrigerator-box-robot armed
with a death-ray. Victory at hand, she
quizzes several Earthmen to see who has
the best qualifications to come back with
her -- an escaped convict, an old
professor, an American Reporter, or a
young boy. (And
it doesn't look real good for us as a
species when the best applicant proves to
be the boy.) The
big American lead happily stands aside and
lets the convict be the hero, and when he
enters the UFO, whose interior someone
pointed out looks like a cosmic game of
Whack-a-Mole, he somehow manages to
sabotage it, causing the ship to explode,
sacrificing himself to save the Earth.
Our
second feature featuring a country house
spook-show theme, its origins as a stage
play are painfully obvious at times. If
you replace the Devil Girl with a Space
Duck, it also plays out like an
extended episode of Courage
the Cowardly Dog.
Considering the time that this was shown
and its content, the film went over
remarkably well for those of us that were
still awake. All I can say is, if her
Martian technology is so danged advanced
then how come she couldn't park her UFO a
little closer to the cottage? Answer me
that one Ms. Superiority Complex? Yeah,
I'm looking right at you. Here, let me tip
and topple your robot over for ya!
Take
that Mars!
U.S.A.!
U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
E'yup. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
The
English are such prudes. Stiff
upper lip and all that, eh wot. |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
Nah.
But that robot sure was a piece of
junk. |
|
|
|
Airport
'77 |
|
(May
Day! May Day! May Day!) |
 A
poem dedicated to Airport '77.
| Wet
Disaster |
| Bermuda
Triangle |
| Plane
in the Water |
| Glub
- Glub - Glub |
| Petroni
on the Prod |
| Red-lining |
Man,
who isn't in this movie.
The
only real question during Airport
‘77
was not whether the plane passengers would
be rescued, but which actor or actress
would leave the deepest teeth marks on the
furniture. Lee Grant holds the lead coming
down the back stretch, but watch out, Jack
Lemon is moving up on the rail.
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
None
that I can recall. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
Several
pieces of furniture take one for
the team. |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
The
747 takes one in the "Bermuda
Triangles" from an oil
refinery platform. |
|
|
|
The
Breakfast Break |
|
(Still
Awake. Still Coherent.) |
Even
though we only got to see four of the five
fingers of Beast, with the massive
delay of game brought on by Fire Marshall
Sally, there wasn't a whole lot of time
for this year's breakfast break before the
next feature was scheduled to spool up.
Hell, there was barely enough time to wolf
down a ham sandwich from the bakery,
recount the horrors of singing monkeys,
and debate on why Alice
in Wonderland
was or wasn't the greatest movie ever made
before we had to stumble back into the
theater, where A&O Films had a nasty
surprise waiting for us...
|
