Things, happenings, events, random comic book and movie related rantings and stuff going on in and around the astonishing infinite multiverse earths of geek-in-chief of the Mayfair Theatre, Zomkeys writer, and occasional director and producer of projects for Batturtle Productions
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The fine and brilliant cinematic work of Bruce Campbell makes it's return to the Mayfair this weekend with a late late show offering of director Don Coscarelli's adaptation of writer Joe R. Lansdale's 'Bubba Ho-Tep'.
Small budget indie films with big imaginations often have a lot more heart and soul and quality than their big budget Hollywood counterparts. This film is no exception in that category in comparison to the average $200 million dollar rushed franchise blockbuster that turns out empty and soulless and just plain not good. It's too bad that we don't live in a world where it was more financially viable for a movie studio to fiance 100 movies of this size, instead of a solitary 'Transformers'.
'Bubba Ho-Tep' comes from Don Coscarelli, director of Beastmaster and the Phatasm series. The film was inspired by the story by Joe R. Lansdale, who besides for being a great writer of books and short stories, also wrote some of my favorite Jonah Hex comics and Batman animated episodes. And what's the story you ask? Why, that same ancient rehashed tale about an old age home where-in lives a man who may or may not be Elvis Presley. He befriends another tenant who may of may not be JFK (and also happens to be African American). Elvis is played by Bruce Campbell, JFK played by Ossie Davis. They team-up to battle a cowboy mummy who's terrorizing their fellow elderly.
It is all as bizarre and awesome as it sounds and you can catch it Saturday April 30th at 11:30pm at the Mayfair.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Took us a lil' while to get this organized, as these cross-over business things do at times (boring red-tape stuff and figuring out logistics and schedules and other such dull things), but I'm happy to announce that at long last Auntie Loo's Treats amazing cupcakes will be available to purchase at the candy bar at the Mayfair. Just when you thought that we couldn't possibly be any cooler, we now offer you this! If you're familiar with the bakery, then you already know how awesome their stuff is. If you've never sampled their offerings, be sure to get one next time you're in to see a movie. Good news, bad news: you will be instantly addicted and contemplate a life-style possibility of eating cupcakes all day every day for every snack and meal forever. Which upon contemplation, really isn't that bad.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Sweet Tarts Takeaway, the web series that I worked on and will work on again in the future, is up for an audience choice award via the Mingle Media TV Network. So take a moment, click the link over to their site, and give the show 2 thumbs up. Preliminary voting is open through April, if it makes it to the next round I will be pestering for more votes accordingly.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
That is a very small percentage of the amount of plastic spoons tossed haphazardly through the air during a screening of 'The Room' by the movies adoring fans. Adoring, yet possessing very poor choices in their cinematic tastes. Not that I'm up on any kind of pedestal for my amazing movie watching habits of course...I mean, I not only own a copy of 'Ultraviolet' on DVD, I watched it with audio commentary.
Tonight though (or I guess technically last night now)I sat in the Mayfair box office and got to witness a young woman burst into tears of joy as she stood a few feet away from Tommy Wiseau waiting to meet him and get an autograph. This happened last night as well but I missed it. I've been talking about 'The Room' and its director endlessly the last couple days. I am completely fascinated by the turn of events that would lead from a bad independent little movie undeserving of any attention at all getting attention. The chaos theory effect was amazingly in it's favour this time. 'Cause really the film should have come and gone and never be seen by anyone and sit on a shelf and be lost to ages.
Instead, Tommy Wiseau's horrible movie has sold out shows occupied by audiences who hang off his every word and cheer at his every statement, no matter how nonsensical or how hard to understand he is. And they have a hell of a good time yelling back at the screen, singing along with happy birthday wishes, and laughing uproariously for 99 or so minutes. I don't understand how someone could not be in on the joke. I would think that his feelings would be hurt by such a reaction. But he is totally not hurt by being mocked and laughed at, I promise you. I think that he thinks he's made a 'Citizen Kane' of a movie that makes him worthy to be thought of as being the caliber of a director the likes of Martin Scorsese.
If you like movies and haven't come out to see 'The Room', or more importantly seen 'The Room' on a night where Tommy is on hand to sign autographs and introduce the movie, you haven't lived yet as a fan of motion pictures. One last chance for you to attend, Sunday April 17th at 10:30pm at the Mayfair.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
I should have done a post in the days leading up to our special event at the Mayfair in honour of our 20th month straight of screening 'The Room'. Failing having done that though, I now have to at least comment on the insanity that was having the director of what many a folk think is the worst movie of all time drop by.
It's a weird world that we live in, and now more than ever celebrity is in a strange place. Whether we blame YouTube or Charlie Sheen or TMZ for that, I do not know. The attendance of Tommy Wiseau at the Mayfair equaled one completely sold out show and one packed show. I understand the phenomenon of taking joy from a bad movie, I think it's safe to say that I have seen more bad movies than most. Not only that, I've for some reason done it on purpose. I'm not a movie critic that has to watch movies all day long to pay the rent. I will sit down with a friend and on purpose, when there are so many other worthwhile things to do out there, and watch 'Sharktopus'. We of course didn't expect it to be any good. And none-the-less spent 89 minutes of our lives which we can never get back watching a movie starring Eric Roberts fighting a horrible special effect of a half shark half octopus.
I was curious is Tommy Wiseau was real, or if he was like the fake documentary of 'Spinal Tap' or Paul Reubens playing Pee Wee Herman. I can confirm that he is in fact real. Bizarrely freakishly real. He functions very well in a world of adoring screaming fans, I can't imagine him buying groceries or applying for a passport. Here is a theatre full of people who are paying to see an awful movie and applaud the man who made it. And he seems to have no sadness over the fact that a whole lot of people are laughing at him, not with him. He posed for pictures, he signed autographs, he sang happy birthday to some lucky fans, he tossed around a football with people in line outside of the theatre, he schmoozed the fans next door at Quinn's while they grabbed a drink before the midnight show, and he never ever took off his sunglasses. A grown woman cried in his presence, akin to a teenage girl meeting a Beatle in the early 60's. A teenage boy spotted him in the lobby and started screaming and yelling and I was pretty sure that the kids head might explode.
It was one of those nights where on repeat occasions I was taken aback and couldn't quite believe that this was my life. I was given leftover fish & chips by the most horrible filmmaker of our time. And that was just night one! Two more shows tonight and a special last minute addition with Tommy sticking around for one more screening of 'The Room' on Sunday April the 17th at 10:30pm. More insanity to come I'm sure.
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