Reflections on B-Fest 2007
Jan. 28th, 2007 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eee1313Another year, another B-Fest...
This year I attended B-Fest with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deeablo, fishdoctorpost, fizzball, Andrew, Cinnamon, Kirsti, and the Scientist. There were also some friends of the others here and there, totalling our group to 14 on and off throughout. For the record, this year's B-Fest wasn't as good as years past. Both deeablo and I agreed that the films weren't really on par with those shown in the past; maybe they weren't bad enough, or silly enough to unite the crowd in mocking. I'm not sure. Both fishdoctorpost and the Scientist had never attended before, and they thought it was fun, so I guess it was. I think maybe we're just used to it being MORE fun.
Anyway, here's how it all went down...
6:05 - The Brain That Wouldn't Die kicked off the festival. Unfortunately the film broke at the final reel, which meant the big secret of "what does the creature in the closet look like?" was never revealed. Thankfully, Andrew & Cinnamon had shown this at their last Movie Dictator, so we were all in the know. We're special like that. Anyway, this would be a taste of technical difficulties to come.
7:30 - The Beastmaster. Nothing like an oily man in a loincloth, a tiger dyed black, two ferrets, and Rip Torn to get the audience going. Cheese at its best.
9:40 - Revenge of the Creature in 3D. Basically it was the same plot as The Creature from the Black Lagoon, which was shown in 2006. Our group spent some time trying to figure out if the opening footage at the lagoon was the same as from the first movie, just with different narration. The black and white film was sometimes pink and black, which made for some big-time headaches when combined with the blue and red 3D glasses. As always, the crowd cheered on the creature instead of the heroes, as is the way it should be. There was also a VERY young Clint Eastwood in the beginning of the movie. Hooray, a REAL actor!
At 11:00 there's a break for the raffle. TONS of bad movies were given out this year, some of which were The Care Bares Movie, some kind of Barbie diary film, and an old feature about Satan vs. Santa Claus. The Mystery Science Theater DVD packs were definitely the crowd favorites.
11:45 - The Wizard of Speed and Time (that's the actual short film, not a link to it on IMDb). This is an annual showing at B-Fest, and the Wizard has become the unofficial mascot (after Bela Lugosi and the other stars of Plan 9 from Outer Space). The short is always shown once while members of the audience lay on the floor below the screen and "run" in place along with the Wizard, and then stomp their feet in time with the song in the second half. Unfortunately this year, there was no sound at all for the short. This meant some confusion for newbies in the crowd, especially when the annual re-running of the film upside-down and backwards began -- this time with sound. Because the crowd was not satisfied with a sound-less Wizard the first time through, the short was then shown a THIRD time. Oh, technical difficulties, must you punish us so?
12:00 am - Plan 9 from Outer Space. For anyone new to B-Fest, or the movie itself, there'd be no chance of understanding ANY dialogue during the film. This is the most audience participation you'll find during the entire festival, with the crowd shouting in response to almost every line spoken, and when there's no dialogue to speak of the audience is busy flinging hundreds upon hundreds of paper plates into the air whenever the flying saucers appear. This, along with The Wizard of Speed and Time, are the only holdovers year after year. It's a classic for a reason.
1:30 am - Savage Sisters. This was the selection to fill the Blaxploitation genre slot of the festival, though the heroines of the film were black, white, and Latina/Asian. It had something to do with a revolution in a Central American country, and Sid Haig was there wearing a sombrero. Utterly forgettable.
At 3:15 they showed Invasion of the Star Creatures, which sucked beyond the telling. I tried to stay awake, but my eyes were burning and I had to shut them. I woke up to find the two bumbling "heroes" of the movie being chased, Scooby-Doo style, by the creatures who were nothing less than men in unitards and bad masks. Horrible.
There were more technical difficulties at 4:45, and they switched the order around to show The Hypnotic Eye, a movie about a hypnotist and his assistant convincing beautiful women to disfigure themselves in horrible accidents. This probably had the best opener of any movie shown, as a woman set her head on fire in the first minute, complete with 1960s special-effects flames. Brilliant! Probably one of the most coherent plots of any film shown during the festival as well.
6:15 brought a showing of the Troma film Street Trash. While Troma films have a huge cult following, I have to say that I'm not a fan at all. The extreme gore plus the gratuitous nudity, excessively juvenile humor, pointless violence, and aggressively misogynistic tones turn me off to the Troma films entirely. I tried my best to sleep through this, but was woken nearly a dozen times by the audience making "eeeeeeew!" noises. While a good portion of the crowd tends to like these films, I hope the B-Fest organizers will leave Troma off the roster for future events.
At 7:45 even more technical difficulties brought about a viewing of Tarantula two hours early. It was this year's entry for the 1950s "science screws with nature" genre, and as you can imagine there was a giant tarantula on the loose. Riveting.
Following this was Krull, which beat out Revenge of the Creature for the most REAL actors in a movie: Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, and Freddie Jones (a "hey, it's THAT guy!" of British films). Unfortunately reel three of the film came after reel four, and so right in the middle of the big fight to save the princess in the Black Fortress, we found ourselves back in the forest, seeking help from the Widow of the Web. Wuuuuh? If it weren't for the fact that the Scientist had seen Krull one too many times as a child, I would have been completely confused at first. Then again, most films at B-Fest leave one feeling confused, so it's par for the course.
There was a break for lunch a bit after 11:00, but unfortunately not all of the restaurants in Northwestern's Norris Center were open. Most of the auditorium filed out, blurry-eyed and in rumpled, stinky clothing, to find the building swarmed by the Society of Women Engineers. Pants suits, pumps, and briefcases were everywhere. The women's bathroom was a combination of power suits and pajamas. I'm sure they must have looked at us funny, but after so many hours of B-movies, we wore our funk with pride.
At 11:40 there was even more schedule re-arranging, and the Chuck Norris movie Invasion USA came at us early. Chuck Norris lives in the Florida swamps and fights terrorists. This movie taught me that terrorists are willing to blow you up when you're at church. Is nothing sacred? But when even God needs protecting, He calls on Chuck Norris to kick terrorist ass to protect the innocent. God bless America. And Chuck Norris. This was a Golan & Globus production, which is always the mark of quality. Golan and Globus are the patron saints of all things B-Fest.
Around 1 pm was a movie called Teenage Doll, or The Young Rebels. It was about a girl (who looked eerily like Lee Ann Rimes) who spent the night being chased by a girl gang for accidentally killing one of their members. Completely forgettable, save for the character of Lee Ann's mother, who dressed in poofy sleeves, pigtails, and a hairbow. She was like a cross between Minnie Mouse and Miss Hathaway from The Beverly Hillbillies.
By the time 3:00 rolled around, B-Fest had broken me. While in past years I'd managed to make it for the full 24 hours, this year was too much. I missed out on The Incredible Melting Man and King Kong vs. Godzilla, but I'll live. Besides, by that time the funk of body odors and food was getting to be too much. Someone sitting behind the Scientist and me had a REALLY bad flatulence problem, and we couldn't take much more. deeablo's back was beginning to hurt, and then the smell hit her as well, so the three of us took off. Besides, the idea of heading home to a hot shower and a warm bed was more enticing than seeing King Kong and Godzilla battle it out. Maybe next year I'll do a full 24 hours again. But I'll definitely be going back in 2008.
And yes, I'm using my Ed Wood icon on purpose. :)
This year I attended B-Fest with
deeablo, fishdoctorpost, fizzball, Andrew, Cinnamon, Kirsti, and the Scientist. There were also some friends of the others here and there, totalling our group to 14 on and off throughout. For the record, this year's B-Fest wasn't as good as years past. Both deeablo and I agreed that the films weren't really on par with those shown in the past; maybe they weren't bad enough, or silly enough to unite the crowd in mocking. I'm not sure. Both fishdoctorpost and the Scientist had never attended before, and they thought it was fun, so I guess it was. I think maybe we're just used to it being MORE fun.Anyway, here's how it all went down...
6:05 - The Brain That Wouldn't Die kicked off the festival. Unfortunately the film broke at the final reel, which meant the big secret of "what does the creature in the closet look like?" was never revealed. Thankfully, Andrew & Cinnamon had shown this at their last Movie Dictator, so we were all in the know. We're special like that. Anyway, this would be a taste of technical difficulties to come.
7:30 - The Beastmaster. Nothing like an oily man in a loincloth, a tiger dyed black, two ferrets, and Rip Torn to get the audience going. Cheese at its best.
9:40 - Revenge of the Creature in 3D. Basically it was the same plot as The Creature from the Black Lagoon, which was shown in 2006. Our group spent some time trying to figure out if the opening footage at the lagoon was the same as from the first movie, just with different narration. The black and white film was sometimes pink and black, which made for some big-time headaches when combined with the blue and red 3D glasses. As always, the crowd cheered on the creature instead of the heroes, as is the way it should be. There was also a VERY young Clint Eastwood in the beginning of the movie. Hooray, a REAL actor!
At 11:00 there's a break for the raffle. TONS of bad movies were given out this year, some of which were The Care Bares Movie, some kind of Barbie diary film, and an old feature about Satan vs. Santa Claus. The Mystery Science Theater DVD packs were definitely the crowd favorites.
11:45 - The Wizard of Speed and Time (that's the actual short film, not a link to it on IMDb). This is an annual showing at B-Fest, and the Wizard has become the unofficial mascot (after Bela Lugosi and the other stars of Plan 9 from Outer Space). The short is always shown once while members of the audience lay on the floor below the screen and "run" in place along with the Wizard, and then stomp their feet in time with the song in the second half. Unfortunately this year, there was no sound at all for the short. This meant some confusion for newbies in the crowd, especially when the annual re-running of the film upside-down and backwards began -- this time with sound. Because the crowd was not satisfied with a sound-less Wizard the first time through, the short was then shown a THIRD time. Oh, technical difficulties, must you punish us so?
12:00 am - Plan 9 from Outer Space. For anyone new to B-Fest, or the movie itself, there'd be no chance of understanding ANY dialogue during the film. This is the most audience participation you'll find during the entire festival, with the crowd shouting in response to almost every line spoken, and when there's no dialogue to speak of the audience is busy flinging hundreds upon hundreds of paper plates into the air whenever the flying saucers appear. This, along with The Wizard of Speed and Time, are the only holdovers year after year. It's a classic for a reason.
1:30 am - Savage Sisters. This was the selection to fill the Blaxploitation genre slot of the festival, though the heroines of the film were black, white, and Latina/Asian. It had something to do with a revolution in a Central American country, and Sid Haig was there wearing a sombrero. Utterly forgettable.
At 3:15 they showed Invasion of the Star Creatures, which sucked beyond the telling. I tried to stay awake, but my eyes were burning and I had to shut them. I woke up to find the two bumbling "heroes" of the movie being chased, Scooby-Doo style, by the creatures who were nothing less than men in unitards and bad masks. Horrible.
There were more technical difficulties at 4:45, and they switched the order around to show The Hypnotic Eye, a movie about a hypnotist and his assistant convincing beautiful women to disfigure themselves in horrible accidents. This probably had the best opener of any movie shown, as a woman set her head on fire in the first minute, complete with 1960s special-effects flames. Brilliant! Probably one of the most coherent plots of any film shown during the festival as well.
6:15 brought a showing of the Troma film Street Trash. While Troma films have a huge cult following, I have to say that I'm not a fan at all. The extreme gore plus the gratuitous nudity, excessively juvenile humor, pointless violence, and aggressively misogynistic tones turn me off to the Troma films entirely. I tried my best to sleep through this, but was woken nearly a dozen times by the audience making "eeeeeeew!" noises. While a good portion of the crowd tends to like these films, I hope the B-Fest organizers will leave Troma off the roster for future events.
At 7:45 even more technical difficulties brought about a viewing of Tarantula two hours early. It was this year's entry for the 1950s "science screws with nature" genre, and as you can imagine there was a giant tarantula on the loose. Riveting.
Following this was Krull, which beat out Revenge of the Creature for the most REAL actors in a movie: Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, and Freddie Jones (a "hey, it's THAT guy!" of British films). Unfortunately reel three of the film came after reel four, and so right in the middle of the big fight to save the princess in the Black Fortress, we found ourselves back in the forest, seeking help from the Widow of the Web. Wuuuuh? If it weren't for the fact that the Scientist had seen Krull one too many times as a child, I would have been completely confused at first. Then again, most films at B-Fest leave one feeling confused, so it's par for the course.
There was a break for lunch a bit after 11:00, but unfortunately not all of the restaurants in Northwestern's Norris Center were open. Most of the auditorium filed out, blurry-eyed and in rumpled, stinky clothing, to find the building swarmed by the Society of Women Engineers. Pants suits, pumps, and briefcases were everywhere. The women's bathroom was a combination of power suits and pajamas. I'm sure they must have looked at us funny, but after so many hours of B-movies, we wore our funk with pride.
At 11:40 there was even more schedule re-arranging, and the Chuck Norris movie Invasion USA came at us early. Chuck Norris lives in the Florida swamps and fights terrorists. This movie taught me that terrorists are willing to blow you up when you're at church. Is nothing sacred? But when even God needs protecting, He calls on Chuck Norris to kick terrorist ass to protect the innocent. God bless America. And Chuck Norris. This was a Golan & Globus production, which is always the mark of quality. Golan and Globus are the patron saints of all things B-Fest.
Around 1 pm was a movie called Teenage Doll, or The Young Rebels. It was about a girl (who looked eerily like Lee Ann Rimes) who spent the night being chased by a girl gang for accidentally killing one of their members. Completely forgettable, save for the character of Lee Ann's mother, who dressed in poofy sleeves, pigtails, and a hairbow. She was like a cross between Minnie Mouse and Miss Hathaway from The Beverly Hillbillies.
By the time 3:00 rolled around, B-Fest had broken me. While in past years I'd managed to make it for the full 24 hours, this year was too much. I missed out on The Incredible Melting Man and King Kong vs. Godzilla, but I'll live. Besides, by that time the funk of body odors and food was getting to be too much. Someone sitting behind the Scientist and me had a REALLY bad flatulence problem, and we couldn't take much more. deeablo's back was beginning to hurt, and then the smell hit her as well, so the three of us took off. Besides, the idea of heading home to a hot shower and a warm bed was more enticing than seeing King Kong and Godzilla battle it out. Maybe next year I'll do a full 24 hours again. But I'll definitely be going back in 2008.
And yes, I'm using my Ed Wood icon on purpose. :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-29 04:17 am (UTC)I must confess, though, that I saw Beastmaster several times in the theater... and, um, actually owned a poster of Marc Singer/Dar from the movie. It was aimed perfectly at the young teenage female SF&F fan demographic... even if it really bore almost no resemblance to the novel by Andre Norton.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-29 04:29 am (UTC)I knew there was a reason I thought you should stick with him!!
(the bladed crazy ninja star was the thing of DREAMS when we were kids)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 04:20 am (UTC)Have they ever shown Q? How about Sorceress, the most hysterically funny bad movie I've ever seen? Picture twin Penthouse pets who think they're men 'til they're 20-something - and so does everybody else.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 03:37 pm (UTC)