A Movie Festivus for the Rest of Us

-

You know what the problem with the modern movie going experience is? It sucks. There's the teenage employees who don't care, spending $100 for a giant tub of industrially bland tasting popcorn, and the only drink size contains enough soda to drown a goat. Then you have to sit through what feels like an endless barrage of ads, and trailers, and reminders to buy more crappy food. The trailers are all for movies that are re-makes, or just whatever Michael Bay did on his Mac the other night. Nope, the googleplex sucks.

Even when you go to a special screening, as I did recently to see TCM's presentation of Alfred Hitchcock's “The Birds”, it still lacks a little something. This is not the case when you go to the independent/repertory theater. Those places are awesome. Darling jewels of community love, ran by people who live for movies. The Belcourt in Nashville is a shinning example, and my favorite theater on the planet. As much growth that is taking place in our area, I hope it's just a matter of time till we can get one here—I think we're ready to support it. Till that time comes, the modern flat screen has made movie watching at home a very nice experience. I have a little screening room myself, nothing fancy, but you do get a better sense of size when a nice CinemaScope film is running.

I have several reputations: Bon Vivant, Playboy, Stock Car Race Driver, Pheasant Plucker. Yet I am also known as something a connoisseur for a particular type of weird, strange, low-budget movie. “Drive in movies” would be the catch all term for these, but its really just a kind of movie with a really unique vibe, made mainly during the 1950s and 1960s, not all drive in fare. You know the names of some of these movies. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman springs to mind, as does any number films made by those kings of the genre, American International Pictures. AIP, as it's known for short, might be best remembered for the Beach Party movies of the '60s, and some stellar '70s Blacksplotation films such as Blacula.

A common thread these films have, and one that lacks from most modern films is that they are all fun, and rarely take themselves too seriously. I defy you to watch William Castle's masterpiece The Tingler, and tell me you didn't have a good time watching it. I love these movies, they have a weird charm that today's films lack—most them too concern with coating everything in Red Kayro Syrup. I was talking about one of these films with a friend lately, one I just had the pleasure of seeing for the first time, the amazingly out there 1960 opus The Hypnotic Eye. Yes, The Hypnotic Eye, the movie that stops right before the end and tires to hypnotize the audience watching the movie—I'm not joking. The poster for the film gladly proclaiming it as the first movie in that new modern day miracle “Hypno-Magic!!”

It's a textbook example for what I'm talking about, and what has been spawned due to a discussion of it with a friend—touching back to the moving going alternative. The film's plot is the great mystery as to why a number of beautiful women have been mutilating themselves (Ahoy, misogyny!), which becomes clearer when the police, who have an acting level on par with an episode of Dragnet, discover that each of the victims had seen the famed hypnotist Desmond preform. Desmond, is played by French actor, and one time Mr. Ginger Rogers, Jacques Bergerac. Yes, the menacing Desmond, whose French accent is so overwhelming the word “hands” sounds like “hans.” It's true bone shaking terror.


As I began to describe this movie to a friend, and some of the other titles in my collection, the idea was born for a monthly gathering for “weird old movie night”. This was something that I could support fully, as most of the time I try to show these movies to people, they do their best to escape my clutches. However gathering together a group of willing subjects who all know what they're going into—that's just gonna be fun. The first gathering will be at the end of this month, and we will be watching The Hypnotic Eye partnered with Larry Blamire's modern spoof/homage to B movies: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. It should be a fun time for all, and I might even write up a report of how the first night goes. Stay tuned to these pages, cats. See you next week. Follow me on Twitter @ThatAndyRoss

Copyright 2012 Andy Ross

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mr. Thompson, Thanksgiving, and Her

-
Image
I was standing in the fresh market, and I was having a panic attack. I’ve cooked Thanksgiving meals before. I’ve been in supermarkets the day of Thanksgiving with no trouble at all. This was different. I was getting ready to cook Thanksgiving dinner for a woman I found myself attracted to. We had gone out a few times, and each time was even lovelier than the last. Despite my angst and bitter disposition at the universe for the way that romance has treated me, the fact of the matter is, as Morrisey said, “I am human and I need to be loved.” Grocery shopping is one of the ways I relax, I know that’s weird, but that’s me. The rational part of my brain began to counter my panic centers as soon as the attack started. “Dude, you’re in a grocery store! You love this! Bread! Food! Cheese! Cookies! Those really nice organic cleaning products! Chill, brah.” Logically I knew I had this. I’ve cooked entire holiday meals by myself before. But the part of my brain that fuels the anxiety a
Read more

The Strangest Movie I've Ever Seen

-
Image
There are certain movies that defy description. Movies that are so strange, so bizarre, people would swear you were making them up, until you actually produced a copy of the film and showed it to them. There are movies in this world that were designed to be weird from the get go, but nothing is quite as weird as movie that wasn't designed that way. A movie that was made just as any other movie on the yearly slate for the studio. A movie that was made not as a strange B picture, but as a major A production, with a big name cast, a budget, and everything. Such a movie is MGM's 1971 picture Pretty Maids All in a Row . It is, without question, the weirdest movie I've ever seen. Pretty Maids All in a Row is such an odd movie, that I have a hard time trying to wrap my brain around it. It's very much a product of its time, and very much the kind of movie that NO ONE would dare try to make today. It's a film that I had never heard of, until a recent DVD release b
Read more

Blood Cold Mysteries

-
Image
If there is one bit of esoteric classic movie stuff that simply fascinates me, it’s the trilogy of films directed by veteran actor William Conrad—and all released in 1965. They’re the three of only four feature films directed by Conrad, who spent all of his other directorial adventures on the small screen. The late William Conrad was a famed actor, playing Matt Dillon on the original radio version of “Gunsmoke,” and coming to full pop culture fame on TV in “Cannon” & “Jake and The Fat Man.” For this writer, Conrad will always be immortal for being the narrator on “Rocky & Bullwinkle.”  The three films in question all were released by Warner Brothers—where Conrad had a production office it seems—and are: “Brainstorm,” “Two On A Guillotine,” and the film I’m going to talk about today, “My Blood Runs Cold.” One of the reasons I’m fascinated by these three films is my built in soft spot for 1960s, black and white horror fare with crazy, bombastic promotion. I adore the f
Read more