| B-Fest
Ho-migod Part IV |
| (Monkeys
and Midgets and Intestinators, Oh
My.) |
And
down the back-stretch we come. Fairly
awake, fairly coherent, and ready and
rarin' to finish this thing, I truly
wasn't prepared for what came next.
|
Gavotte
|
|
(Freedom
Midgets!)
|
 While
someone bangs a ditty on a clavichord, an
easily distracted midget -- decked out in
full Renaissance gear, and powdered wig --
tries to settle into his chair for a quick
snack, but is constantly thwarted by
others who steal his stuff when he isn't
looking, before the whole thing
degenerates into a midget brawl over a
pillow. This
cycle goes on for almost two hours. Well,
it felt like two hours.
I
will never, ever, understand the French. When
I saw the line-up for this year B-Fest, I
was a little disappointed to see that no
Mystery Shorts were on the docket. But
when I picked up a program at the door, it
promised that there were indeed shorts
coming, they just intended to spring them
on us when we weren't looking. Having
already been blindsided with Monkey
Business,
that sent many a B-Fester into a fetal
position to rethink things for awhile,
some cruel person then decided to spring
this infamous short on us right after
breakfast. (What?
Did they want all that food back?) I
had heard the legend of Gavotte
before, but this was my first time
experiencing it in person, and believe me,
once is enough. A note to A&O: You can
lump this thing in with Hieronymous
Merkin as a warning to B-Festers to
behave or you'll show it again.
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
Sadly,
no midget tossing. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
They're
French. Duh. |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
Midget
fight! |
|
|
| The
Forbidden Dance |
| (Nope.
No Lambada Here.) |
 I'm
always amazed at how well these dance
movies go over at B-Fest. I've also often
wondered why they never made a movie about
"The Curly Shuffle" or "Pac-Man
Fever." Did they ever make a
movie about the "Macarena?"
Or the "Ketchup Song?" Anyways,
Laura Herring is the princess of the rain
forest but her tribe is overrun by evil
capitalist Richard Lynch. To save her
people and her land, she heads to America
with Sid Haig -- her witch-doctor strong
man -- and gets to work saving the
environment by becoming a stripper. Okay,
okay -- exotic dancer. Whatever.
She mutually falls in love with a rich
brat, much to the chagrin of his racist
parents, and together, with the power of the
Lambada, sorry, the Forbidden
Dance, win the big dance-off. Oh,
wait, they do that after Lynch
kidnaps Herring and forces her to do the
Forbidden Dance for him privately, where
her lack of any perceivable rhythm but
powerful gyrating hips distract him long
enough for our hero to rescue the princess
and get to the dance contest in time. Huzzah.
I
knew we were in trouble the minute the
movie staked it's claim that it was
dedicated to saving the rain forests. Oh,
brother. When the partners of Golan
and Globus split, they each produced their
own separate movie based on the Lambada
-- Lambada
and The
Forbidden Dance.
Except in the title song, I don't think The
Forbidden Dance
ever used the word Lambada. I don't
think they could without getting sued by
the other production.
At
this point, despite the hotel, still being
up for over 24-hours, I was actually
starting to nod off and zone-out. This
would not do at all, dammit. I retreated
out of the theater and headed for the
vending machines. Thus far, it had been
chips and jerky and Diet Dew. Now, it was
time for some help, and for the first time
in about six months, I slammed two cans of
Pepsi and chased that with a couple bags
of M&Ms as a kicker. The
sugar rush was hitting me before I even
got back in the theater, where I also
noticed I seldom sat still for the rest of
the movie marathon. Whoopee! What
's next?
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
Behold
the power of Sid Haig! |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
Nice
and squishy. |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
Nobody
takes it in the groin like Richard
Lynch. |
|
|
|
The
Beast of Yucca Flats |
|
(Beware
the Wheels of Progress.) |
 M'man
Tor Johnson plays a defecting
[...defective?] Russian scientist who gets
bushwhacked in the deserts of Nevada by
the KGB. As Tor retreats into the scrub,
he's just in time for the latest A-Bomb
test! Absorbing the radiation, Tor
turns into the Incredible Bulk
and hulks around the desert, killing all
who come in his path, while a morose
narrator laments about getting steamrolled
by the wheels of progress. As that
narrator droned on and on, Mike found his
philosophy on life very similar to L. Ron
Hubbard's. Then, when a nuclear family of
four loses two, as the children wander off
in the desert and run afoul of our
monster, two redneck patrolmen, who decide
to shot first and ask questions later,
mistake the father for the
psycho-murderer. This merry homicidal
chase goes on and on until Tor finally
keels over, I assume, from heatstroke
while a lonesome bunny solemnly grieves.
The
craptacular duo of Coleman Francis and
Anthony Cardoza strike again. I'm still
trying to figure out what that opening
assault before the credits had to do with
the rest of the movie, but my brain isn't
functioning properly right now.
Is
this what A.D.D. feels like?
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
Oh,
yeah. Rednecks shooting at
innocent bystanders from a plane
definitely counts. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
Tor
love Bunny. |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
Tor
takes several to the Johnsons. |
|
|
|
Fortress |
|
(Behold!
The Power of the Intestinator.) |
 In
the far flung future of 1999, yeah I
remember when this happened, Zero
Population Growth is the norm, so if you
breed out of season you go to jail. When
Christopher Lambert and his wife get
caught with one in the oven, they're
incarcerated in a co-ed underground prison
that's guarded by Spaceballs led by
the obligatory sadistic warden. Each
prisoner is force fed a small explosive
device that will give you a lethal case of
indigestion if you break out. Dubbing this
doodad The Intestinator, we watched
as our feisty couple find out the warden
is really a cyborg with a bad case of
Ro-Man's Syndrome, who wants to know what
love is, and this helps them engineer
their escape.
That
'70s Show references were flying fast
and furious during this in reverence of
the presence of Kurtwood Smith as the
warden. I love Red Foreman as much as the
next guy, but Mr. Smith will always be
Robocop's arch-nemesis, Clarence Bodiker,
to me, no matter whose foot gets broke off
in my ass.
I
mostly blame the sugar for my constant,
and consistently bad, impersonation of
Christopher Lambert's Highlander motto --
"There can be only Juan!"
And it was also the general consensus of
the audience that The Intestinator
will run for governor in California in
'08. G'night folks. I'll be here all
week. Tip your waitress and try the veal.
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
No.
But some air-sickness bags
would still have been
appropriate. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
Nope.
But the Intestinator will give
you a nice forced rectal. |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
You
can't have a good prison riot
unless somebody does. |
|
|
|
The
H-Man |
|
(Done
Broke. And Broke Real Bad.) |
 Kudos
should go out to A&O films for the
relatively low number of technical
glitches at this year's B-Fest -- a
problem that plagued last year's event.
There was really only two big glitch this
year, but unfortunately, one of them
happened during a film I really wanted to
see.
I'd
never seen Toho's The
H-Man
before, and was really looking forward to
it, but just as it was getting up to speed
the film broke, and broke real bad, and
they weren't able to fix it. *sigh* In
it's stead, several shorts were thrown
into the breach to fill up the allotted
time. When they reran Monkey Business
again, it was highlighted by a brilliant
interpretive simian dance put on by Skip
Mitchell on the stage. Yes, Skip, that
lone person clapping was me. Didn't
that hurt?
Next
came Thinking About What We Watch
on TV, which I recall being subjected to
the back in grade school. Say it loud! Say
it proud! I'm white and I is ignorant. Yeehaaw!
The
Man of Stone appears to be an edited
down version of an expressionistic
[Eastern?] European gothic thriller, where
a narrator gives us a very non-secular
version of the legend of the Golem, as all
references to the anti-Semitism that
triggered the use of the monster is
glossed over. The short was visually
stunning, especially when that thing
squished that guy's head, and I'd love to
see the full version of it. The fourth
short tries to show us the Keys to
Courtesy by debating whose manners are
better: kids or adults. To get the
answers, a newspaper editor sends his glandular
dysfunctional children out to uncover the
truth; highlighted by a leering old man
grabbing at the young girl. That was me
yelling out "Bad touch! Bad
touch!" Whose
manners are better? Well, the film is a
little ambiguous here.
The
Wizard of Speed and Time? Still zany,
still creepy. Wheeeeeee!
And
now that I think about it -- Where the
heck is What
is Communism?
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
Maybe. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
Maybe. |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
Maybe. |
|
|
|
The
Magnetic Monster |
|
(And
the Old Bait and Switch.) |
 A
scientist
thought it would be a good idea to bombard
a radioactive isotope with alpha waves for
200 hours. His intentions might have been
noble, but the end result is a mass that
feeds on energy that could, conceivably,
consume the world. What? It's made of Solarnite?
Richard Carlson leads a strike team of
scientific eggheads that try to find and
contain the rogue isotope, and then
destroy it to make the world once more
safe for democracy. And then his new
family can get a house, with a big yard,
trees and white picket fence etc. etc.
etc.
This
was a movie that I pitched in to help
sponsor through the B-Movie
Message Board. I won't apologize for
it, even though I understand it was the
cause of at least three audience member
committals to the loony bin, and one
unconfirmed suicide. Truthfully, The
Magnetic Monster
plays out like one long episode of The
Outer Limits,
and it's a pretty good movie that played
at the wrong time during a 24-hour film
festival. Too much science and not enough
action turned the tired and surly audience
on it very quickly. Also of note, the film
was supposed to be the giant monster grand
finale, but someone had the foresight to
talk A&O films into switching it
around with The
Big Brawl
so the festival would end on a more upbeat
note.
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
Isotopes
don't like airplanes. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
Isotopes
don't kiss and tell. |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
Isotopes
don't have nards. |
|
|
|
The
Big Brawl |
|
(And
the Old Switch and Bait.) |
 Jackie
Chan's family runs afoul of the mob in
prohibition-era America, and he fights
them off as they try to force his father
into their protection racket. But the Don
is impressed with his fighting skills,
especially his display during an
anachronistic roller derby sequence, and
wants Jackie to fight for him in an annual
street fight in Texas -- The Battle
Creek Brawl -- for a large pot of
cash. Jackie
refuses until they kidnap both his
brother's fiancé and Mako, his trainer,
so he fights his way through several
rounds of opponents, each one tougher than
the last. He does eventually win, but
plenty of plot threads were still up in
the air as the credits rolled. Well,
if they don't care I guess I won't either.
 So
Jackie Chan catches us on the rebound
after The
Magnetic Monster.
The audience roared with delight as
Jackie's girlfriend was played by Kristine
DeBell, old Alice herself. The
roars reached deafening levels whenever
Mako challenged Jackie to be pure in mind,
body and spirit, so we encouraged him to
stay the hell away from her because he
didn't realize where she's been. I also
assume Jackie's last opponent, the big
bald guy, who liked to kiss his opponents
while beating the snot out of them, went
back to the Fatherland after his
defeat, joined the Luftwaffe and
was eventually chopped up by a propeller
after a brief dust up with a certain
archeologist with a penchant for raiding
lost arks. The poor sap.
|
Airline
Disaster :: |
Nope. |
|
Wet
Slobbery Kissing :: |
If
Jackie wants to stay pure, he best
keep his lips off Alice. |
|
Blunt
Groinal Trauma :: |
Yes.
A lot of 'em |
|
|
|
Is
This the End of B-Fest? |
|
(Close.
But Not Quite.) |
Yeah!
Wohoo! I did it! I stayed awake for the
whole friggin' thing. That's right. I
kicked B-Fest ass! I'm the god. I'M THE
GOD. I'M THE -- OH MY GOD, I'M TIRED...
We
pitched in and helped clean up the
auditorium. C'mon people, those of you who
scrambled out so fast, you can do better
than that cleaning up after yourselves --
with a special shout-out to the goof who
spilled the Gold Fish Crackers and then
proceeded to grind them into the carpet.
Keep this crap up and they aren't going to
let us have any food in there at all,
kids. This isn't your parents house. Take
in all you want but leave only footprints
behind -- know what I mean? The rain
forests are counting on us people. Didn't
you watch The
Forbidden Dance?
After
cleaning up and a quick group photo, Mike
and I headed to the Caddy but found some
idiot left the dome light on [...sorry
about that, Mike] and the battery was
toast. Bergerjacques comes through again,
saving a call to AAA, and gives us a
boost. A nicer guy you'll have trouble
finding than old BJ. During
the hotel party before the marathon,
several of the B-Fest virgins wanted to
have a post-party afterwards. I didn't
want to temper their enthusiasm, but I
knew from experience that all you really
wanted to do after B-Fest is take a shower
and go to bed. And not necessarily in that
order. So the party was scrubbed but we
gathered for dinner at a Chinese Buffet
House. El Santo manages to track us down
again, the man is truly amazing, and we
recap the experience over egg rolls.
Everyone was leaving at different times in
the morning, so we made our goodbyes there
and headed back to the hotel.
Upon
arrival, we have to pass through a
convention of Scientologists who've
commandeered the hotel's convention
center. I was a little creeped out by all
the chains and padlocks on the doors --
and got even more creeped out when Tim
explained what the Church of Scientology
was all about. Wow. There was a
message for us when we got to our room:
the weather was worsening back home, so
the earlier we left the better. Not a
problem. Not even the knowledge that a
thousand zealots were congregating below
me kept me from slumber, sweet slumber.
|
Heading
Home |
|
(Let
it Snow. Let it Snow. Let it Snow.) |
The
next morning, we packed up and headed out
without a hitch -- except for that part
where I fell down a flight of stairs. But
I'm okay, really. The Caddy starts up
fine, we pop in Telstarman's B-Fest 2004
CD and then almost drive into Lake
Michigan as Mrs. O'Leary's 3rd Grade brass
ensemble butchers "Also Sprach
Zarathustra." We we're laughing
that hard. As we head down Lake Shore
Drive, I see the wrong exit we took last
year that got us lost, even though it's
marked right. So we ignore the signs, keep
going for just two more blocks, jump over
to Congress Blvd, that dumps onto the
Eisenhower, and we we're out of Chicago in
less than 20 minutes.
You
got to be %^#@ing kidding me! Man, my
excursions into Chicago are like the even
and odd number Star Trek films. One
trip no problems, the next a study in
terror. Of course, this means we're
totally screwed next year.
The
trip home goes pretty fast as Mike gets me
addicted to Firefly.
And why was that show cancelled again? The
weather and the roads weren't great, but
manageable. As we got closer to home,
however, it got worse and the frequency of
cars in the median and the ditch increased
dramatically. Seriously, there were easily
over a 100 cars off the road between Des
Moines and Lincoln. We make it through the
Black Holes okay, but as soon as we
cross the Missouri into Omaha, our luck
runs out as we hit a furious blizzard. And
since it was Super Bowl Sunday, not a plow
was to be seen. Just a big white sheet of
make your own lane, on a four lane road,
with visibility down to nothing. It was
white-knuckle time, but we didn't stop the
movie. Luckily, between Omaha and Lincoln,
the snow stopped, and after Lincoln the
roads were clear all the rest of the way
home.
|
Parting
Shots |
|
(Thanks
Again, Everybody.) |
This
honestly was the most fun I've ever had at
B-Fest. And it was a pleasure meeting all
of the newbies, and equally great to
finally put some faces on some people I'd
been talking to for a long time. It was
good to see Skip, Marlowe, Ragnarok and
the Stompers again, too. Hopefully the
good Dr. Freex will be able to return next
year. BJ? Thanks for everything. Mike?
Thanks for driving despite all the f---ing
f---tards in their f---ing SUV's who f---ing
sucked out on the road. And to A&O
films for putting up with us and putting
on a fine show once again.
As
always: See ya'll next year at B-Fest
2005.
|
