They say Cyrus is the one & only. I think we better have a look for ourself.

What kind of a person rides 400 miles to see a movie he not only owns on DVD but has seen so much that he can pretty much recite the script from memory?

Hey, I'm Eric. Have we met?

Suppose I should explain how this egregious lapse in common sense came to be. As anyone who speaks to me for more than 4 minutes knows, my favorite film is, always has been and always will be THE WARRIORS.



What was already a decades-old obsession was intensified a few weeks back when co-worker and fellow geek Johnny Oh got me the video game for my birthday.

The game is a mixed bag. While the gameplay is sunk by clumsy controls and abysmal camerawork, the writing is amazing. More than half of the game takes place before the conclave, including several bonus missions that detail how The Warriors came to be and how each member seen in the movie wound up joining the clique. You run into several of the gangs that are only seen and not heard from in the film, inlcuding pretty much every set that you see making their way to the conclave during the opening credits.

I used to watch the opening credits as a kid and wonder about those other gangs. Who were they? Where were they from? How tough were they? Are those guys really dressed like mimes? (They're actually named The Hi-Hats, but you can learn that from the trailer on the DVD issued around 2001.) The game actually answers these questions, and some even a hardcore geek like me wouldn't have thought to ask. (Like where Luther scores the badge he wears on his vest through most of the film.)

I was hooked from the moment I saw the opening screen...



...complete with Barry De Vorzon's freaky synthesizer score.

So, I've spent the last several weeks immersed in 1979 Coney Island. My source at the Nuart tells me THE WARRIORS will be running there at the end of August, but a quick peek at other screenings out of curiousity revealed that it was gonna play at San Francisco's Red Vic this weekend.

Immediately, a little voice in my head, one that sounded a little like Swan, said, "We're gonna march right through these lame f**ks' territory."

Which is Warriors-speak for, "Dude, you should go." Not only would I get to see THE WARRIORS, (A couple times) but I'd also get to spend a couple days on my bike, including a sweet ride down PCH on the way home.

After spending the last couple days trying to talk myself out of it, and failing, I threw a change of clothes and my laptop into a backpack and hit the road Saturday morning. The plan was to head out a little before 8, drop my stuff off at my motel room outside of SF, then hit the Red Vic in time for the 4 o'clock show. I could then grab a bite, see a little of SF, then catch the 7:15 show before calling it a night.

But that was going to require covering a lot of ground before mid-afternoon, something I've never had trouble with.

Being out on the road again felt great, even though it was cold and overcast until the sun finally broke through a little north of Santa Barbara. I was greeted with glorious weather for the next couple hours and traffic was light so I was making great time. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, I'll tell you.

I first got a speeding ticket somewhere near the middle of nowhere. Officer Poncherello said he painted me doing north of 80. Everyone on the road was doing north of 80, and continued to do so as he wrote me the ticket, but I've already learned the hard way that the Governator's khaki stormtroopers have a mad-on for a dude on a sportbike.

Unlike most Chippies who seem to be trained in the art of dickery in the academy, the dude was very polite and thanked me for my cooperation and good attitude. It was kind of like having your apartment robbed and finding a note from the thief thanking you for buying such nice stuff.

Either way, I wasn't gonna let this inconvenience get me down. So, I pressed Northward...

...until...

..for the first time in my adult life I ran out of gas. I still don't know how it happened, since I've pushed my bike much farther than the 146 miles that showed on my trip odometer, but my Kawi sputtered and stalled before silently gliding to a stop next to a sign that helpfully told me I was a mile away from the next gas station.

The sign didn't, however, warn me that mile was uphill. I learned that one the hard way as I pushed my 400-pound unconscious bike to the Union 76.

Fortunately, though, I made it without winding up as a hood ornament on one of the Peterbilt's that was whizzing by me on the 101, and my bike fired right up with 4 gallons of unleaded on board, but my once soaring spirits now resembled the cover of Led Zeppelin's debut album.

What was gonna snap my sudden losing streak?



What could I turn to?



What would save me in my darkest hour?



That's right...



Seven-grain almond granola pancakes. All was right in the world again.

But, after spending so much time on the shoulder of the 101, I was a little behind schedule. Fortunately, I was able to zip through San Jose's urban sprawl, lighten my load at the Motel 6 and navigated San Francisco's hellacious traffic just in time to see that real live bunch from Coney climb aboard the subway that would take them to the Bronx and change their lives forever.






The Red Vic is a cool little rep house, very similar to my beloved New Beverly Cinema in spirit and vibe. A very cool setup and one of the few things I miss about living in San Francisco.





As strange as it may sound to pretty much everyone reading this now, I will never get tired of seeing THE WARRIORS on the big screen as God intended. The house was about half full, but one of the fans in attendance was a Ventura-County paramedic I knew from my ER gig at Community Memorial Hospital of Ventura. Small world, huh?

After watching the boys and Mercy walk off into the sunrise, I wandered around the Haight a bit. I was pleasantly surprised to find San Fran really is very bike-friendly...



...and I was reaccquainted with Escape From New York, a small chain of pizza joints in the City that would qualify as the only other thing I miss about living in San Francisco.






No, seriously. The best pizza I've ever had. Ever.



I also stumbled across the San Fran Amoeba Records...





...which can't possibly stack up to the Hollywood location. After all, does the SF store sponsor a midnight movie series?

I stepped back into the Red Vic for the 7:15 showing, as planned, and was pleasantly surprised to watch the place completely fill up before the house lights dimmed. Good to see THE WARRIORS fans stepping up to support the rep house.

Before anyone calls for the psych eval, lemme stress that the journey is just as important as the destination on this mini-roadie of mine. After all, I wouldn't have driven to SF to see THE WARRIORS. The Red Vic screenings just gave me a purpose and a destination, i.e. an excuse to spend a couple days on my bike. Combining my two passions -- riding (Especially along the Coastline) and cinema (Especially THE WARRIORS) -- makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

Nah, you're right. I need help. But after I get reaccquainted with PCH.

Where it all went so horribly average...

With age comes perspective. As I look back upon my days as a geek, I'm now able to identify the three key gateway drugs that set me on this course:

1. "Battle of the Planets": Somewhere around 1980, my mom sat me down in front of the television while the American bastard child of one of this groundbreaking anime was playing on afternoon television. My young, spongelike brain got its first taste of constumed heroes/villains, animation, sci-fi AND martial arts, so this was a real tough mother for a first step. (Kinda like skipping booze and pot and jumping feet first into smack.)

2. THE WARRIORS: Also around 1980, my father did his part by planting me on the couch as he watched this on the ABC movie of the week. I very clearly remember the quick hits of dialogue about Cyrus and the conclave during the opening credits; the conclave itself; the DJ who serves as the film's Greek chorus; The Baseball Furies; the rumble in the Union Station men's room against The Punks and their rollerskating, overalls-clad leader; and, of course, "Come out to play-ay-ayyyy..."

The Furies -- a nightmarish KISS/The New York Yankees hybrid -- particularly left an impression on me.

It's been my favorite film my whole life. More on this soon. Really soon. Like, tomorrow, soon...

3. "Night Flight": This one I discovered on my own. A little before MTV; decades before YouTube and lightyears ahead of everything that was on TV and radio at the time, this semi-weekly collection of music videos, documentaries, strange films and animation introduced me to too many things to mention here and clearly helped shaped my taste in all-things pop culture.

So, imagine my surprise when I caught wind of NIGHT FLIGHT: BORN AGAIN, a two-hour restrospective of one of my childhood's key ingredients that would air in Westwood as part of the L.A. Film Festival.




The film itself was more a hodgepodge than a best-of reel. I'm sure copyright laws dictated much of what was shown. But it nonetheless features a slew of great old interviews (Highlight: A young, short-haired Ozzy Osbourne talking about his dual-nature as citizen and performer as well as warning about the dangers of drug use); videos; cartoons; film clips and New Wave Theatre.



The latter was of particular importance. As a child, I hated commercial music and really wasn't given much alternative except for my parents collection of '70s vinyl. New Wave Theatre highlighted the L.A. post-punk scene of the early '80s, and introduced me to several bands I love to this day: X, Dead Kennedys, The Cramps, The Gun Club, the list goes on...

It's hard to remember the dark, pre-Internet days of the '80s, but "Night Flight" served as an alternative to commercial schlock back when such alternatives were very hard to come by. Their influence reached far beyond their sizable audience of insomnicas and kids hungry for something different. MTV was clearly paying attention, as they followed suit by launching shows to try to entice the "Night Flight" audience. ("Headbangers Ball," "Yo! MTV Raps", and the epic "120 Minutes")

The creators spoke about the show's original run as well as their desire to resurrect it. The velvet-voiced Pat Prescott was on-hand as well. Although you never saw her, she was a key component to "Night Flight." Since the show had no studio host to identify with, her voice and the logo flying over the computer-generated nighttime landscape were the glue that held each week's ecclectic collection together.




Meeting her was a particular thrill, made even more thrilling by the fact that she couldn't have been sweeter. I'm not much for autographs; In fact, my collection has been holding steady at one for a couple years now. (MotoGP documentarian Mark Neale on a FASTER poster, in case you were wondering.) But I couldn't resist getting Pat Prescott's scribble on my freebie NIGHT FLIGHT: BORN AGAIN poster.

Regardless of whether "Night Flight" takes off again or not, and I have mixed feelings on whether there's a place for it in the year 2k8, it will always be a cherished part of my youth: The first place I heard "Los Angeles", the first place I saw NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and one of the key reasons I haven't become a more productive human being.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Dead Kennedys -- Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

I am I am I said I'm not myself but I'm not dead and I'm not for sale

Stone Temple Pilots tore up the Hollywood Bowl Tuesday night, and I still haven't fully recovered from having my face rocked.

Scott Weiland was in fine voice, the band was razor sharp and, most importantly, they very clearly enjoyed playing. Scott even commented on how thrilled he was to be able to play the Bowl.

They opened with "Big Empty" (Dean DeLeo is amazing on the slide guitar) and "Wicked Garden", played almost all of Core and their greatest (The Beatles-esque "Lady Picture Show" was particularly righteous live) before finishing with "Dead and Bloated" and "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart" (Maybe my single favorite song) as the encore.

STP has always been one of my favorite bands, and certainly one of the most important of the American alternative movement. But I now appreciate them on a whole other level, particularly their ability to switch gears effortlessly between the heavy tracks on Core; their haunting, bluesy melodies; and the '70s classic-rock influenced work toward the end of their original run. Scott is clearly a fragile human being; His very public meltdowns seem to happen in annual intervals. Here's hoping he keeps it together long enough for the anticipated fifth studio album and another tour because I would love to see 'em again.

The previous weekend, I was treated to one of the greatest weekends of my movie-going life. It was a reunion with a couple of old, dear friends and a very, very strange visit with a hermaphroditic mass-murdering villain who moonlights as a lounge singer that you may recognize from one of the biggest bands of the past 35 years.



The Aero Theatre continued its unbe-freakin'-lievable summer run with a pair of films from Savage Steve Holland, whos body of work is small but above reproach.

The iconic BETTER OFF DEAD... kicked things off, and the manic speedball of cinematic weirdness is just as hilarious as it was nearly a quarter-century ago. What I appreciated this time around, however, was its sweeter side. BOD has just enough sweetness to keep the wackiness from spiraling out of control, as seemingly every film does that tries to match its zaniness over the last 25 years.

It's sweeter side? Wow. I'm turning into such a wuss.



The double bill was broken up by the best Q & A I've had the privledge of attending. Holland himself is a ball of manic energy, but in a very engaging, amusing way. His presence isn't grating and overbearing like some other mega-intense filmmakers I can think of.



Holland brought with him frequent collaborator Curtis Armstrong and BOD actress Diane Franklin, who also appeared in a couple other Doom-Generation standards and is still freakin' adoreable.

All three had very fond memories of working on BOD. The actors said Holland is fun to work for and encourages ideas and improvisation, and Holland returned the praise by crediting Armstrong for creating several of his character Charles De Mar's stand-out moments.



The theatre was packed with thirty-somethings who grew up on Holland's work, but one superfan stole the show by bringing a box of BOD-related items to be signed including the air cleaner off his Camaro, a two-dollar bill and some very rare movie items.

ONE CRAZY SUMMER, which isn't the classic BOD is but is still a very good comedy with a few sidesplitting moments. ("Lemme tell you a story about a little fat boy...")

Although I'm normally very allergic to having my picture taken, I got caught up in the zeitgeist and had such a good time watching these two staples of my childhood and listening to the insanely likeable Holland that I mugged for a pic with him.



Saturday at midnight brought Phil's regular New Beverly Midnight, and this one was a monster.

I'd describe NEVER TOO YOUNG TO DIE to all of you but you'd swear I was making it up. Y'see, in the heady days of '86, Uncle Jesse from "Full House" starred in an action film with one of Prince's hoochies and Double-Oh Seven to battle Gene Simmons, who led a pack of leather-and-chains-clad leftovers from one of the '80s countless ROAD WARRIOR rip-offs and Freddy Krueger in an attempt to exort the government by threatening to poison the water supply.

Oh yeah, and Simmons was a hermaphrodite who had a lounge act, nearly made out with Stamos in a couple scenes and killed people with a razor-sharp spike on the end of his right middle finger.

See, told you...

Needless to say, it was AWESOME! I laughed long and hard, as did a very packed New Bev. Chicks dig Stamos, I guess.

It's worth mentioning that the crowd was particularly hot for a THE LAST DRAGON trailer that preceded the film and I'm now making it my life's mission to merciless harrass Phil until he shows it just to shut me up.

Call me Snake...

The movies came fast and furious last week before a slight case of work interrupted all me fun and games. I saw some movies I love, one I found a renewed appreciation for, and a couple I hope to NEVER FREAKIN' SEE AGAIN.

The weekend brought a couple nights with John Carpenter, a filmmaker of amazing ability who had a phenomenal run of 15 years in the '70s and '80s before settling into mediocrity the last couple decades.

Nonetheless, the Aero Theatre was showing the finest Carpenter had to offer, starting with a double feature of THE THING and THE FOG.

To call THE THING the greatest horror movie ever doesn't do it justice. Pigeonholing the film into a genre that mostly sucks is an accomplishment akin to being the tallest United States President. THE THING is one of the finest films ever. End of story.

Everyone, from Carpenter to the cast to FX-master Rob Bottin brings their A-game. The film has aged beautifully; An early card giving the setting in 1982 makes the film feel like a modern period piece rather than a 20-year-old relic. The horror is exacerbated by a psychological element as everyone is left guessing who has been contaminated by their extraterrestrial tormentor. Carpenter gives you more red herrings than clues, showing confidence in his story by not playing for the big, cheap scares and holding his cards close to the vest until the very end.
In short, THE THING is just about perfect.



The man himself was there during the intermission to talk about THE THING and his disappointment that the film bombed during the summer of E.T. and took so long to find its now immense audience. For the record, Carpenter knew all along that it's a great film.

I hadn't seen THE FOG in quite awhile and was surprised to find it was a lot better than I remembered it being. Carpenter creates a creepy feeling that overcomes the films obvious budgetary restraints. The cat conjures up scares literally using nothing more than a couple fog machines, a few large hooks a yards of gauze. You know a films freaky when it takes place in a coastal town yet sucks the air out of a lancdlocked theater.

Not to mention it has Tom Atkins, and, as well all know, anything with Atkins will thrill you.



The next night brought an ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK/ESCAPE FROM L.A. double bill. I'll just get it out of the way and say that ESCAPE FROM L.A. seriously disappointed me 12 years ago and nothing has changed since.



Carpenter explained during the intermission that the film was something of a favor to Kurt Russell, who was itching to play Snake Plissken again. He had trouble writing the film, described the shoot as difficult and, based on a few comments Carpenter made on both nights, I get the impression his love of filmmaking had died long before he signed on to this project.

But why dwell on the negatives when you get a chance to see the still amazing ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK on the big screen? The original print we saw was held together only by the grace of God, but fortunately
He wanted us to see all of this highly influentiial masterpiece so the reels made it for just one more show.

Like THE FOG, it's clear Carpenter didn't have much money to work with and, like THE FOG, the film rocks anyhow. No one was a better early '80s badass than Russell. THE THING's MacReady and Plissken (At least from the first ESCAPE) deserve enshrinement in the movie-hero Hall of Fame.

I'm also willing to call Plissken the modern era's first true anti-hero. Sure, Boba Fett beat him to the theatres by a year, but Plissken holds it down in every frame of the film, while Fett does nothing but take an already-frozen-in-carbonite Han Solo to his pimp Jabba, get punked by Luke Skywalker and then devoured by the Sarlacc.

Sorry, Star Wars fanboy, but these are the facts and they are indisputable.



Each night of the Carpenter double shot was followed by a midnight movie, THE APPLE and an very weird Italian zombie film respectively. I'd discuss these two pieces of eye terrorism (to borrow a phrase from Cinefamily's Hadrian), but it'll only delay the healing process.



Actually, it is worth noting that apparently I saw an extremely rare print of THE APPLE, so rare that it likely has never been screened for the public. There were subtle changes along the way including the full version of a song called "Child of Love" that is matched only by It's A Small World in its ability to both infect and annoy to the point of suicide. Didn't mean much to me, but it adds to my heavy rep as a film geek and oughta mean something to the world's hardcore APPLE fans. (All three of you.)

The greatest man (men) I (we) ever knew

My grandfather was the greatest man I've ever known. A testimony to my grandfather's quality is the fact that so many other people would say the same thing about him.

He lived a long, full life, and I always got the impression that he was happy. He loved his family, he seemed to be friends with everyone in a 30-mile radius of him, and his days were full of travel and experiences that many won't have for themselves.

Despite this, up until the day he passed he spoke of nothing as much as his experiences in World War II. His years spent on a destroyer in the Pacific were the ones that left the most lasting impression, and not in any traumatic fashion. As aa younger person, I never quite understood how things done out in the middle of the ocean 40 or 50 years ago could still be so interesting.

I saw SAVING PRIVATE RYAN the other night at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I've seen the film more times than I can count, but it was the first time I'd revisited it in a while. As I saw it with a little more persepctive brought on by age, I was amazed at how much it reminded me of my grandfather.

RYAN is the best war film ever made because it is the most human war film ever made. The battle sequences that bookend the film aren't exhilarating, they're terrifying. The soldiers who are shredded by German machine guns on D-Day aren't the paper targets that pop up in a more traditional "action film." They represent the very real Americans who not only were asked but volunteered to do the same thing 65 years ago.

By the time the men from the 2nd Ranger Batallion find Ryan in Ramelle, two of their own have died, and I desperately want the remaining to standfast and make it home. The battle over the bridge Ryan declines his ticket home in order to defend would qualify as one of the most exciting sequences in cinematic history if I didn't cringe every time another of Capt. John Miller's succumbs to the German onslaught.

My blood used to boil during the Ramelle sequence when the cowardly Upham allows a couple of his mates to die because he's paralyzed with fear. Monday, however, was the first time I felt sympathy toward him. He's scrawny and meek; A scholar, not a warrior. He simply isn't built for combat the way the elite Rangers he's trailing through occupied territory are.

Despite his shortcomings, he volunteered for duty nonetheless. His greatest asset is his brains, so he served by drawing maps and translating in both German and French. Putting a man like him in combat is a mistake, as his inaction in battle proves, but he wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. He was thrust into a situation he isn't equipped to handle, but it's a situation he found himself in only because he didn't allow his cowardice to keep him from contributing to the war effort. And although he doesn't pay with his life as most of the other Rangers do, he pays the cost of war with his humanity as he holds "Steamboat Willie" and a cache of surrendering Germans at gunpoint.

The press told tales of RYAN's cathartic nature for WWII vets, particularly those who were at Normandy, when the film was new. The men who couldn't or didn't want to speak of their experiences in the decades that had passed found someone who eloquently told their story and gave the rest of us a sense of what it was like to be there.

I imagine they embraced the film because it served as a reminder that these extraordinary things really were done by ordinary men, as trite as that sounds, and they were done simply because it was the right thing to do. In an era where our government has perverted the truth to serve their own desires by creating the perception of danger and whipping up a war out of thin air, it may be easy to forget that these men fought because the world truly was in danger from an evil force and an entire race of people was horrifyingly being driven to exintction. I've yet to see how the thousands of American and Iraqi lives that Chaney's war has claimed has made my life any better or safer, but the fact that I can work, play and worship the way I do or the mere presence of any of my Jewish friends is a reminder of what was gained during World War II.

My grandfather was one of the men who just did what was right, and I imagine most people around 30 have people like him in their family. The fact that men like them and countless others were able to do their duty in the face of the horrors RYAN illustrates, and then come home to be fine men of industry, husbands, fathers and grandtathers is yet another testament to their and my grandfather's greatness.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast

Working Out...Reaching High...Dreaming Big!

Sometimes one sees a film that's so powerful, so moving that it transends the cinematic experience. The movie shakes your very existance, changing long-standing beliefs and sending you home knowing that you've forever been changed by a filmmakers' masgnus opus.

None of the films I saw this past weekend even come close to this. But damn if I didn't have a great time.

The Silent Movie Theatre kicked things off Friday with the first double feature in their High School Hell series. One of the many very cool things Hadrian, the ringleader of this cinematic circus, does is run several concurrent series at a time, each occupying a different slot in the weekly lineup. Foe example, each Friday matinee this month is showing psychadelic Italian filnms, while the late-night Friday fare features strange films set in high school.

CLASS OF 1984 was up first, and I vaugely remembered seeing this film on cable as a kid when, I realize in hindsight, that I was far too young to realize what a craptacular movie this is. A pre-credit card warns us that although high-school violence is on the riseat an alarming rate, there aren't any schools like the film's setting, Chicago's Lincoln High School...

...

...wait for it...

...

...YET!

One of the guys from the '80s detective show Riptide, which I only remember because my dad used to watch it and it featured a pink helicopter, is a music teacher who transfers into an inner city high school where the kids are pretty much free to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year dealing drugs, running prostitution rackets and shaking down the large heard of dorks that roam the hallways like African antelope waiting to be fed upon by hungry lions.

Micheal J. Fox proves that you do indeed gotta start somewhere by playing one of the band geeks who is terrorized by the ruthless Steadman and his gang of punks, who seem to occupy the alpha dog slot in the school's heirarchy of organized crime. Roddy McDowall has the film's best scene when he realizes his dream of helping his worthles students the value of education. Since traditional methods haven't worked, Roddy snaps, holds Biology class at gunpoint and promises consequences far worse than summer school for each wrong answer they give.

He inadvertantly snags the movie's second biggest laugh when he attempts vehiclular homicide only to run into another car at 30 mph, which somehow launches his car, rolls it onto its roof and then causes it to explode. Guess dude was carrying a trunk fulla C-4 or something.

The movie would've worked as a laughable guilty pleasure save for an unpleasant scene at the end where Steadman and his gang strike out at Professor Riptide by breaking into his home and kidnapping his pregnant wife...Who just happens to be home alone with the windows open despite the fact that Steadman had recently done a drive-by on their home with a paint gun so everyone involved knows the bad guys have the Riptides' home address. But I digress...

Rape is only implied, and the scene is very long, but the unpleasantness is still a little too real for a ridiculous, laughable film like this. The mood was killed, just as the film was reaching its epic conclusion as Riptide snuffs Steadman's gang one by one in the wood shop, auto shop, the gym and the roof of the auditorium where the band geeks, who've been raised up from nothing by Professor Riptide, are giving their year-end recital with a chance to impress school board officials and possibly get invited to the state competition. Think it's concidence that Riptide and Steadman are settling their differences right next to a skylight directly above the stage the band is playing on? Riiiight.

CLASS OF 1984's "sequel", CLASS OF 1999, followed and was much more enjoyable. Director Mark Lester, who not only brought us CLASS OF 1984 but also the Governator's homo-erotic masterpiece COMMANDO, learned from his mistakes on the first CLASS OF film and went freakin' nuts on its followup.

In a future so wrought with school violence that the police have given up and sequestered the areas around schools, turing them into lawless "Free Fire Zones" that resemble sets left over from The Road Warrior, a school in Seattle have resorted to robotic teachers who have been converted from their original military application to lay down the law in the classroom.

Believe it or not, it's even more ridiculous than it sounds, and it was brilliant!

A bleached-platinum-blonde, ice-blue contact-lens wearing Stacy Keach is the mastermind behind the school's new disciplinary policy. Not content to phone it in, ponder where his career went wrong and spend his per diem on mini-bar booze, Keach goes ballistic with his role and sets the tone for the film. The biggest laughs come from Keach's non-speaking additions, like the way he holds a banana during a stand-off with Malcom McDowell, who plays the school's hapless principal, and how he chugs a glass of milk in a fancy restaurant.

McDowell, on the other hand, definitely phones it in and quite visibly wonders where his career went wrong as the school's hapless principal. Fortunately, he meets his end midway through CLASS OF 1999 so he can't serve as a buzzkill during the film's epic conclusion.

The delinquents finally strike back against their robotic oppressors, who try to restore order via weapons concealed under their human-looking facades. As we all know, the only thing better than a character with a weapon in place of a limb are three freakin' characters with limbs in place of limbs!

Pam Grier + flamethrower arm = GENIUS!



Saturday night at The New Beverly Cinema brought the semi-regular midnight movie. This week was a double-dose of awesome, as midnight-movie guru Phil celebrated his 30th birthday with a free showing of the '80s aerobics epic HEAVENLY BODIES.



HEAVENLY BODIES was a special film for several reasons. For starters, a scene very early in the film shows plucky aerobics black-belt Sam(antha) drumming up business for her new aerobics studio near a poster of FLASHDANCE.

Now, quickee, exploitation rip-offs of hugely successful films were nothing special in the '80s. In fact, Cannon Films made a fortune and kept my VCR busy as a child with a massive library of such movies. But if memory serves me correctly, HEAVENLY BODIES may be the first to openly acknowledge the film it's ripping off by featuring a poster of its source in the first five minutes. It also means they wrote, produced, and cast the film quickly enough to start filming while the movie they ripped off was still in the theaters. Such an impressive feat becomes obvious once HEAVENLY BODIES starts to roll and you realize they cut corners on trivial things like plot and dialogue.

Don't misunderstand me here. I'm not saying the plot and dialogue are lame, I'm saying they're non-freakin'-existant. The painfully cute Cynthia Dale easily spends 90% of the films' running time leading tightly choreographed aerobics routines and expressing her emotions by spontaneously breaking out into dance.

When the big gym across town tries to crush Sam's aerobics studio, she suggests they settle their differences in the time-honored tradition of team aerobics.

Yeah, seriously.

HEAVENLY BODIES is perfect midnight-movie fodder, and one of the better times I had at the New Beverly Midnights, which is really saying something. The crowd was hot (Despite several drunk chicks sitting to the far left who may have been the unfunniest people I've ever heard open their traps), and the atmosphere was intensified by Phil's request that people show up in legwarmers and spandex. Nice.

High culture? No, definitely not. But the weekend did feature a couple epic guilty pleasures, and HEAVENLY BODIES will be a hard midnight film to top.

Wait, did I just read that NEVER TOO YOUNG TO DIE is playing at the Bev in a couple weeks? Kids, we may have a new number one...

Broken-Hearted-Hoover-Fixer-Sucker Guy

In news unrelated to absolutely anything of relevance, I've done a recent 180 on my lifelong hatred of Starbucks and am pretty much willing to declare it the greatest thing ever. They now finally brew a decent cup of coffee (Pikes Place Roast, which is their only that doesn't taste like it was dunked in Liquid Plum-R), they make really good sandwiches and they now have free wi-fi, which will give me something to do while I'm waiting for the show to start at The New Bev.

Speaking of the Bev, some last-minute booking shenanigans led to an impromptu double bill of ONCE and WAITRESS, two acclaimed indy films from last year that I got to see on the big screen rather than via red envelope.

WAITRESS started out well enough, albeit a little sugary for my taste, but wore out its welcome very, very quickly. The seemingly bottomless well of quirkiness that the characters drew from got downright annoying and writer/director/actress Adrienne Shelly's apparent disdain for men surfaced in a collection of one-dimentional male characters who range from lame to flat-out irrirtating. Earl, the insecure, unstable, abusive husband of the title character, got to be so painfully unpleasant that I considered leaving the theater before the credits rolled.

Pretty much every character in the film winds up cheating on their spouses at some point. The women cheat because their husbands are so terrible, so Shelly gives them a pass. The men cheat because...well, they're guys and apparently that's what we do even when we're married to sweet, attractive women.

I'm sorry the tragic cloud of Shelly's murder looms over this film, but my sorrow over what happened to this poor woman doesn't change the fact that sitting through WAITRESS was one of the most grueling experiences I've had at the cinema.

ONCE, one the other hand, may be the best romantic film I've ever seen, which isn't saying much considering the vast number of romantic films I haven't seen. But now that I've seen (And loved) both this and JUNO, maybe I'm just doing what Ajax accuses the rest of the boys from Coney of doing when they wouldn't let him chase tail.

I loved the characters, a nameless young man and woman who meet on the streets and are brought together by their love of music and what feels like destiny. Yes, I completely realize how utterly lame and cliche that sounds, and all who know me know how much I freakin' hate lame and cliche. But the characters, their lives, the emotions all feel very real.

They have baggage, they type that real people accumulate through love's inherent imperfection and not the "We need something implausable to drive the story" variety that usually gunks up most of the crappy love stories Hollywood cranks out. The film's authentic aura is actually helped by ONCE's low-budget trappings. The lack of Hollywood gloss make you feel like you're really glancing in on a couple weeks in the lives of the main characters.

I loved The Guy and The Girl (As they're listed in the credits) probably because they don't ask to be loved. They don't speak in movie "Ain't I charming?" speak. They don't even speak in the type of "Ain't I charming?" speak we in the real world tend to fall back on when we're trying to get over with a romantic interest. He's just a guy I liked from the get-go. She's sweet but tough, adoreable but fierce. A girl who's suffered enough disappointment to be hardened but not embittered by it.

I'm going to tread lightly here because I don't want to ruin anything for those who haven't seen it, but I've been thinking about the ending since the moment the screen went black. Roger Ebert said it makes sense if you really think about it. Well, Rog, I've been thinking about it for days now, and I still only think I kinda get it.

In one of the key scenes, Guy learns Girl is married to man she and her daughter left behind in the Czech Republic. He asks if she loves him, and she replies in Czech even though she's fluent in English. I cheated and went searching for the translation of her answer, and she said pretty much what I and anyone who sees the movie figured that she said. Her motives for answering him in a not-really kinda way along with the answer itself probably explain the ending...I think.

I'd be interested in hearing what anyone else thinks about the ending. (i.e. Someone smarter please freakin' explain it to me.)

CURRENTLY LISTENING: The Raconteurs -- Consolers of the Lonely (Jack White is the new savior of the universe.)

Pleased To Meet You, Hope You Guess My Name

True to my word, I've gone on a full-blown, depression-and-angst fueled, no-coming back movie bender the past several days that has even left me wondering if someone can actually be addicted to cinema. But, it did keep me from cutting myself or writing lame poetry like those mascara-wearing kids who I always see through the windows of the Dennys near my flat.
I would've been bouncing off the walls had I stayed home the night I got back from my road trip, so I went inside just long enough to drop my duffel bag off then headed back out to the New Bev for the last night of their anniversary program, which celebrated the theater's 30th birthday by recreating its original lineup from May '78.


The Bev is pretty much my favorite place on God's green Earth, short of The Turks & Caicos Islands. I've been there so much the past year that I've gotten to know the owner, his co-programmers, the concession-stand operators and most of the other die-hard patrons. I even have a regular parking space: On the sidewalk next to one of the coming attractions posters.

Wednesday night brought a double bill of BEDAZZLED and THE RULING CLASS. I was a little lukewarm on THE RULING CLASS, which started well and featured an amazing performance by Peter O'Toole but meandered toward the end and wore out its welcome with the the extraordinarily dark turn it takes in the third act.
BEDAZZLED, though, was a revelation; So good that it immediately erased all memories of the crappy recent remake.
Dudley Moore is quite brilliant as he plays what amounts to several different characters, switching gears in every misguided wish the Devil grants him. And Raquel Welch in the late '60s may have been the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
But what I enjoyed most was Peter Cook, who I wasn't familiar with prior to seeing BEDAZZLED. He portrays Lucifer more as a prankster than outright Prince of Darkness, but it was his motivations that were most interesting. His havoc wreaking activities aren't born of deep-seeded evil, but rather the role he's forced to play since God needs a foil and another option so those who choose to follow him do so out of faith. Nothing personal, Earth, it's just his job.
The soul-stealing is his ticket back into Heaven; Nab one billion, Lucifer says, and God will allow him back into Heaven where he'll do things right this time and not get the boot from the Lord.
The cinebender continued the next night at The Silent Movie Theater, a venue I only recently discovered but am falling in love with more and more with each screening there.

I was first there a couple weeks ago when the venue hosted Nicky Katt's birthday party, which lasted until 5 in the morning and featured a strange assortment of films, ranging from JOHNNY HANDSOME to SONG OF THE SOUTH(!)
My favorite features are the rows of couches up in front...

...and the patio out back...

...where they fire up the grill (BYOHD) and have buckets full of beer on special occasions like Nicky's Mug Melter birthday bash and, as it turns out, last Thursday's screening of HOOTENANY HOOT.

This little exploitation quickee that apparently was trying to take advantage of a short-lived folk music blip on the pop-culture radar in the early '60s that I'm guessing four Liverpudlians promptly took a sledgehammer to. More on those guys later...
HOOTENANY was far from good, yet amusing, but only memorable for two reasons:
A. A performance by Johnny Cash, who is on-screen for about four minutes. I'd be amazed if The Man In Black spent more than three hours on set.
B. A pair of performances by Judy Henske, a woman who flat out wails. You'd never guess such a booming voice would come from this gawky brunette when you first see her, but she absolutely steals the film, even running circles around Mr. Cash.
Friday night was devoted to the third of my unholy trio of obsessions, Guitar Hero, briefly interrupted by a red-envelope viewing of IN THE NAME OF THE KING; A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE which isn't even worth mentioning except to say it's sad to see what's become of The Bandit 30 years on.
I was back to it Saturday night at the Silent Theatre for a very interesting double bill from the beginning and end of the '60s.
WHAT'S HAPPENING! THE BEATLES IN THE U.S.A. was an interesting look at the Beatles as they blew through New York City and D.C. like a force of nature to film their landmark performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. I was amazed by how nonchalant the very young Beatles were as they were completely transforming the rock-and-roll landscape, and I imagine they had to know that's exactly what they were doing considering the size of the crowds that mobbed them at every stop.
I was also very interested in getting a glimpse at their personalities. Paul seemed kinda quiet and cerebral, yet very much comfortable as the front man. George and Ringo were the joksters, especially Ringo who seemed to have an endless supply of energy and was having the most fun with his newfound supermegastardom. John was the quiet one, often caught sitting off by himself while the others were cutting up for their entourage.
The decade that the Beatles kicked off with such sunny optimism came crashing to a halt in GIMME SHELTER, which was a brilliant and chilling look at the doomed Altamont Free Concert of '69.
Much of the footage very capably and powerfully speaks for itself, but what I found interesting were the shots of Mick Jagger watching the footage, frame-by-frame, of Meredith Hunter drawing his gun on a Hell's Angel and the biker parrying the pistol away before drawing a knife and wildly stabbing Hunter in the neck; The first in a barrage of injuries inflicted by the Angles that would kill the 18-year-old and, ultimately, the '60s.
Jagger is speechless, which left me wondering what was running through his head. His legacy, which would forever be linked with this kid's murder? His career, which might have been on the ropes following a colossal disaster that had his band's fingerprints all over it? Sadness? Obviously, since only the most calous among us can watch murder in slow motion and not feel for the victim. But was it a combination of sadness and disappointment that an evening of free music from some of the biggest bands on Earth that was supposed to be the world's largest party went so horribly wrong?
I love documentaries, especially those that chroncle the history of rock and roll. It's kind of trivial to label a film the chronicles the end of such an important decade in this country's history as a music doc, but music seemed so much more important back then. Those old enough to remember tell me these angry, disenfranchised days we live in now don't compare to those angry, disenfranchised days becuase we don't have the spectre of the draft looming over our heads. The draft fueled this country's very public, very vocal discontent in those days, and the music, much of which feels relevant again, echoed the sentiment.
(Will there be a FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH that people will listen to when discussing what went so horribly wrong in Iraq?)
With GIMME SHELTER still resonating in my mind, I rolled to the Bev to close my personal triple feature with ZARDOZ.

I'd tell you about it if I had the slightest freakin' idea what assaulted my brain that night. ZARDOZ is a drive-by on your brain, a menagerie of strange images that don't even come close to add up to a film no matter how much you try to find the metaphors.
But, the place was packed, the crowd was hot and the film is indeed an experience, so it was, as the Saturday midnights always are, a phenomenal time.
I mean, how many opportunities do you get to see Sean Connery in a wedding dress?
(Answer: Not many, thank God.)

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Stone Temple Pilots - Core