On the Subject of First Time Film Club screening Rocky Horror Picture Show
“the road was long but I ran it. Theres a fire in my heart and you fan it. If theres one fool for you than I am it. I have one thing to say and its, dammit, Janet, I love you!”
A bit of history, my counterpart at Bookmans suggested that we kick off our partnership in the First Time Film Club during Fight Censorship month by picking a film that had been censored. Nothing on my short list of films I simply HAVE TO SHARE with the world really fit, so I had to look a bit.
When I landed on Rocky Horror I knew that there would be a large portion of the populace who already loved this movie. I really had to question if anyone out there felt the way that I did, which was that I love it completely, but not SO COMPLETELY.
It’s a risk, starting with a movie that has a cult following of corseted dance enthusiasts.
Yes. Im starting this project, which means so much to me, with a risk! Dumb idea?
Time will tell.
And… maybe time will let me get into a phone booth, Delorian or police box and fix things if they don’t work out. Seriously, time. I mean, I let you turn me 30. Don’t I get a little tit for tat?
Anyway, the people from Bookmans were nice enough to greenlight this partnership and then they merely suggested we kick off with a censored film. When I decided on Rocky Horror I thought, here is something I can speak to in, perhaps, a new way.
I hope you are willing to join me on a very strange journey. Just a jump to the left and then a small step to the right.
I don’t think there is anyone out there at all that wouldn’t be in for this experience. If you haven’t EVER seen ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW… you NEED to. It will enrich your life and give you infinitely more pop-culture power. Or, at the very least, you will have a great time with us and then walk away able to say, yeah, not for me. Corsets… ick.
If you HAVE seen it and LOVE it but never went in for dance a long midnight showings, come out and meet your friends.
If you HAVE seen it and LOVE it and you DO DANCE ALONG in full costume… come out and see it with us. You can explain to us why toast must fly.
I Can think of no single human who would not benefit from this event.
And… it will get you on board to support First Time Film Club. Support me! And my dream!
Hey man, all I can do is ask.
In closing I will note that the thing that has always stayed with me in my heart is the number where my own Tim Curry begs of us "Dont dream it. Be it."
After all, isn’t THAT my message?
Yoda says Try Not. Iowa farmers say that “If you build it, they will come.” Goonies never say die. Frankenfurter says “Dont Dream it. Be it.”
Join me, wont you?
Wont you.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
On the subject of First Time Film Club and Limitless Possibility
On the subject of First Time Fillm Club and Limitless Possibility
which is dedicated to my friend Allison Reese
Nothing is Unpossible.
It was as if a “far in the future” me would eventually visit a “recent future me” and tell us that one day I would be able to turn my love of movies into something more than a hobby. "Recent future me" would, of course, trust “far in the future me”, as Marty McFly has taught us all to do.
Was that confusing? What I mean to say is, it was as if I could sense that something new and cool was waiting just over the horizon… Better? Also, don’t call me chicken.
For “in the present me,” several things happened around the same time.
I accomplished a goal that had been out of reach for 5+ years: National Comedy Theatre got a liquor license. We built the Lounge and started serving delicious beer.
The thing about the liquor license is, it was something we wanted way back in 2007 before NCT ever even opened for real. At that time we were told we couldn’t have it. We were told, for years, that it was unpossible.
As it turns out, it was not.
I was able to do. Not “do not.” Nor “try not,” as Yoda might put it.
Just as that was all in the process of happening, my friend Allison revealed that she had never seen Star Wars before. I really couldn’t let that stand. I mean, after all, she’s a bright young woman with a big future in front of her. In fact, she’s moving to LA to pursue her dream of being a big time comedian. No one will hire her if she doesn’t know the difference between a Taun Taun and an AT-AT! I did what any mentor would do… I bullied her into coming over and watching all 3 original Star Wars with me.
And it was really fun.
Watching each one accompanied by the fresh eyes of the uninitiated was amazingly entertaining for me.
(movie is paused)
“Now, something is about to happen Allison and I don’t want you going through life with the wrong impression. You are about to see Greedo shoot first and, this is a lie. It is revisionist history. Han shot first. Say it, Allison, say Han shot first.”
“Han shot first.”
(movie is resumed)
Meanwhile, back at the bat cave... I was listening to Riki Lindhome interview Tom Lennon and Chris Hardwick, I was inspired.
I started reading the Nerdist Way.
I started believing that I could make and follow my own nerd path if I worked for it.
If we can serve beer at NCT… we can do anything! Except allow anyone under age 19 to serve that beer…
So... aside from breaking the law, we can do anything!
I decided that, once the madness of the Lounge had died down, my next big project would be to start screening movies at NCT. Something inspired by Doug Benson’s Movie Interruptions but with the twist inspired by watching Star Wars with Allison.
I think the Nerd Universe heard me.
A representative of local awesome Bookmans Entertainment Exchange came out to the show and we set out to work together, partnering to bring our Movie Mashterpiece Theatre shows AND the First Time Film Club to the people, on our stage at National Comedy Theatre.
…And now I am in the process of working hard to make that happen.
Our first event is coming up soon, I am nervous and excited. Many thanks are in order, obviously. Thanks to Lori from Bookman’s for helping to make it possible. Thanks to Midnight Movie Mamacita and friend Andrea Beesley for getting the whole thing started in the first place with the MashTerpiece Theatre project. Thanks to Allison for spending her youth playing the “sports” instead of becoming a nerd like me. And thanks go out across the nerd universe to Chris Hardwick, Riki Lindhome, Tom Lennon, and Doug Benson, my heroes who have inspired me.
“You have just taken your first step into a larger world.” –Obi Wan
which is dedicated to my friend Allison Reese
Nothing is Unpossible.
It was as if a “far in the future” me would eventually visit a “recent future me” and tell us that one day I would be able to turn my love of movies into something more than a hobby. "Recent future me" would, of course, trust “far in the future me”, as Marty McFly has taught us all to do.
Was that confusing? What I mean to say is, it was as if I could sense that something new and cool was waiting just over the horizon… Better? Also, don’t call me chicken.
For “in the present me,” several things happened around the same time.
I accomplished a goal that had been out of reach for 5+ years: National Comedy Theatre got a liquor license. We built the Lounge and started serving delicious beer.
The thing about the liquor license is, it was something we wanted way back in 2007 before NCT ever even opened for real. At that time we were told we couldn’t have it. We were told, for years, that it was unpossible.
As it turns out, it was not.
I was able to do. Not “do not.” Nor “try not,” as Yoda might put it.
Just as that was all in the process of happening, my friend Allison revealed that she had never seen Star Wars before. I really couldn’t let that stand. I mean, after all, she’s a bright young woman with a big future in front of her. In fact, she’s moving to LA to pursue her dream of being a big time comedian. No one will hire her if she doesn’t know the difference between a Taun Taun and an AT-AT! I did what any mentor would do… I bullied her into coming over and watching all 3 original Star Wars with me.
And it was really fun.
Watching each one accompanied by the fresh eyes of the uninitiated was amazingly entertaining for me.
(movie is paused)
“Now, something is about to happen Allison and I don’t want you going through life with the wrong impression. You are about to see Greedo shoot first and, this is a lie. It is revisionist history. Han shot first. Say it, Allison, say Han shot first.”
“Han shot first.”
(movie is resumed)
Meanwhile, back at the bat cave... I was listening to Riki Lindhome interview Tom Lennon and Chris Hardwick, I was inspired.
I started reading the Nerdist Way.
I started believing that I could make and follow my own nerd path if I worked for it.
If we can serve beer at NCT… we can do anything! Except allow anyone under age 19 to serve that beer…
So... aside from breaking the law, we can do anything!
I decided that, once the madness of the Lounge had died down, my next big project would be to start screening movies at NCT. Something inspired by Doug Benson’s Movie Interruptions but with the twist inspired by watching Star Wars with Allison.
I think the Nerd Universe heard me.
A representative of local awesome Bookmans Entertainment Exchange came out to the show and we set out to work together, partnering to bring our Movie Mashterpiece Theatre shows AND the First Time Film Club to the people, on our stage at National Comedy Theatre.
…And now I am in the process of working hard to make that happen.
Our first event is coming up soon, I am nervous and excited. Many thanks are in order, obviously. Thanks to Lori from Bookman’s for helping to make it possible. Thanks to Midnight Movie Mamacita and friend Andrea Beesley for getting the whole thing started in the first place with the MashTerpiece Theatre project. Thanks to Allison for spending her youth playing the “sports” instead of becoming a nerd like me. And thanks go out across the nerd universe to Chris Hardwick, Riki Lindhome, Tom Lennon, and Doug Benson, my heroes who have inspired me.
“You have just taken your first step into a larger world.” –Obi Wan
On the Subject of Things That are Happening:
This is happening: National Comedy Theatre and Bookman's Present
Spoof N Cinema: D.O.A.
Its MashTerpiece Theatre! Well loved at Phoenix Comic Con, The Royale and MadCap Theaters... now its coming home to NCT!
If you like MST3K and Whose Line is it Anyway... this is for you!
We takea wonderfully terrible bit of Noir and give it a do over! The dialogue and sound effects will all be performed LIVE! for YOU!
Come see! Thursday 8/30 at 9:30pm get tickets right now!
and also this is happening: National Comedy Theatre and Bookman's Present First Time Film CLub: Rocky Horror Picture Show
Its fun, its fighting censorship, its first time First Time Film Club!
at this event you can watch long time fave Rocky Horror- with a twist. Two professional comedians will be hosting your viewing experience- one who is a fan of the film and one who has never seen it before! Fresh-eyes, Nerd-eyes, and YOUR eyes on Tim Curry in drag... its gonna be a good time.
and... we may have an added level of fandom as a few members of the cast of Tempe's Midnight Shows may be there to join us and let us in on some of the secrets of the SUPERFans.
Saturday September 8 3:00pm get tickets right now!
Spoof N Cinema: D.O.A.
Its MashTerpiece Theatre! Well loved at Phoenix Comic Con, The Royale and MadCap Theaters... now its coming home to NCT!
If you like MST3K and Whose Line is it Anyway... this is for you!
We takea wonderfully terrible bit of Noir and give it a do over! The dialogue and sound effects will all be performed LIVE! for YOU!
Come see! Thursday 8/30 at 9:30pm get tickets right now!
and also this is happening: National Comedy Theatre and Bookman's Present First Time Film CLub: Rocky Horror Picture Show
Its fun, its fighting censorship, its first time First Time Film Club!
at this event you can watch long time fave Rocky Horror- with a twist. Two professional comedians will be hosting your viewing experience- one who is a fan of the film and one who has never seen it before! Fresh-eyes, Nerd-eyes, and YOUR eyes on Tim Curry in drag... its gonna be a good time.
and... we may have an added level of fandom as a few members of the cast of Tempe's Midnight Shows may be there to join us and let us in on some of the secrets of the SUPERFans.
Saturday September 8 3:00pm get tickets right now!
Sunday, August 5, 2012
“Would you say I have a plethora of piñatas?” –El Guapo… Three Amigos
I’ve seen a fair few movies. Its safe to say I am a movie fan, a film buff, a complete nerd… if you will.
As a kid my family watched movies. It was what we did. And we went after it with the gusto of an Amish family tending crops or hating buttons. The Stewarts owned hundreds of VHS tapes. A plethora, if you will.
See kids, in those days talkin’ pictures were only available for home viewing on these big, clunky plastic rectangles that had to be physically rewound to the beginning once you had journeyed to the end.
But, if you were frugal, you could totally fit more than one movie on a VHS tape.
2 1/3 movies was about average. This means that, at the Stewart house, if you wanted to watch Die Hard you had to fast forward through Robin Hood: Prince of Theives. Also, as soon as Die Hard ended, the Princess Bride would begin. But, if you got caught up in watching Princess Bride, right after Buttercup declares that she will never love again… you would have to go find the other VHS tape that had the last 2/3 of Princess Bride, Top Gun and 3/4 of Point Break.
You could also expect that the previous viewer had not been kind, had not taken the time to rewind, so before you could experience what happens should you go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line you’d spend 15 minutes holding down the RW button so it would go faster.
It was a great time to be alive.*
My family had a habbit of watching the same movies over and over again. Dad is a Kevin Costner fan and a Bruce Willis enthusiast. My mom likes Elvis and things involving a Hanks/Ryan situation. My siblings, thankfully, share my addiction to timeless comedy classics like the Jerk, Three Amigos, Funny Farm, Monty Python, Death Becomes Her, anything with Tim Curry (Rocky Horror, Clue, Fern Gully, Oscar. You know, the one where Stalone plays a gangster gone straight… you know, Chaz Palmenteri is in it and Marissa Tormei and Isabella Rossolini… stop acting like you don’t know what I’m talking about!). There is a Keanu Reeves fetish we mostly don’t talk about. I am happily and shamelessly pleased by Speed, Point Break, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and, yes, their Bogus Journey as well.
Sabrina, Kenny and I mostly communicate with each other via a system of movie quotes, like semifore. “Earnest, Im in the morgue!” “Flames, on the side of my face…” “El Guapo only kills men, he does not kill crying women.” we are stunted emotionally, but well educated in the currency of pop culture- and way ahead of our times.
In the interest of you getting to know me better I should also mention that my Dad, a man of many hats, was a sometime video production guy. We had a full, professional editing bay in our laundry room. It was huge. Like when you see computers in the 70s and they take up 3 stories of a 6 story building. You needed 1000 sq. feet of equipment in those days to do what any kid with a smart phone can do these days. My dad used his editing powers “for good” and would take out bad words, scary stuff or people doin it. I was fully an adult before I found out there was more to the line than “yippee kai-ya...” I grew up thinking that poltergeist was 37 minutes long and not that interesting, and I was at least 20 before I had any idea that Maverick and Charlie were “riding the hobby horse, as they say” in Top Gun.**
It was a great time to be alive.***
Continuing our proposition that you get to know me better, I should mention that I have an innate gift for memorizing things. Rather than memorize something useful, like- maritime law or something- I memorize things nobody cares about. Like the 1985 Val Kilmer classic Real Genius… “You remind me of me. And lately I’ve been missing me so I asked Hathoway if I could room with me again and he said “Sure.”
I would watch the same movies over and over and over again to the point where I achieved complete memorization of not only dialogue but also tone and inflection. As a nerd (which is cool now but, I assure you, was NOT then) and I person with control issues (never been cool at any point in history) my goal has always been to enjoy the things I love so completely that I bind them to my DNA spiderman-style and, as a result, conquer and own them completely. (see: Green Day)
We had laser disc. We had a 72 inch television in 1990. It was 3 feet thick. When my mom went out of town my dad let us rent horror movies. That’s right, we didn’t always turn to our impressive VHS/laser disc collection. The Stewart’s were also regulars known by name to Bill (our slightly more polite version of Randall Graves) at the corner Video +.
See kids, in those days we didn’t have DVRs or NetFlix-es. If you wanted to see something you didn’t own, that wasn’t playing on television at that very moment, you had to get all the way into an automobile and drive over to the corner Video+ and trade money with a professional nerd (as a renter you had amature status.) By doing this you officially entered into an agreement to borrow the movie for 24 hours.
Places like Video+ often had only one copy of each title, this was before even Blockbuster existed. One had to be a bit of a rental store ninja if you wanted to rent Jurassic Park hot off the presses. “Hold on to your butts.”
It was a great time to be alive.
Sometimes as we move through life it can be tough to remember that not everyone grew up same as you. Like, I imagine most Amish people assume that everyone has crops to tend and disdain for buttons. Me? I assume that all people on earth have not only seen, but also enjoyed and subsequently memorized, all the same things that I have.
When I approach someone and say “Pop quiz hot shot…” they will know to respond with “d\What do you do” and then, with more Keanu sass this time, “What DOOO you DUUUUE??” Instead, most regular folk (and especially the Amish) end up backing away slowly without breaking eye contact, palms raised in a universally non-threatening pose.
So, lets jump to this moment right now… I’m standing in the lobby of the National Comedy Theatre and my friend Anthony Lopez (see: Anthony Lopez) finds it amusing to list for me all of the movies he has not seen, Top Gun, the Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense. It is shameful. And there are a lot of people out there like him.
I may never win a gold medal in usefulness, but I can do my part for America and see these wrongs righted. I can show Anthony Lopez a world where Kaiser Souze sees dead people but he hits the breaks and they fly right by.
I declare that NOW is a great time to be alive!****
*It was not.
**See, what I did there was mix in a Top Gun reference with a Breakfast Club quote. Still with me? Great. We are going to be fast friends.
***Again, it was not. We didn’t even have smart phones, for god’s sake.
****You can watch TV on your PHONE! Even Back to the Future 2 didn’t have that!
I’ve seen a fair few movies. Its safe to say I am a movie fan, a film buff, a complete nerd… if you will.
As a kid my family watched movies. It was what we did. And we went after it with the gusto of an Amish family tending crops or hating buttons. The Stewarts owned hundreds of VHS tapes. A plethora, if you will.
See kids, in those days talkin’ pictures were only available for home viewing on these big, clunky plastic rectangles that had to be physically rewound to the beginning once you had journeyed to the end.
But, if you were frugal, you could totally fit more than one movie on a VHS tape.
2 1/3 movies was about average. This means that, at the Stewart house, if you wanted to watch Die Hard you had to fast forward through Robin Hood: Prince of Theives. Also, as soon as Die Hard ended, the Princess Bride would begin. But, if you got caught up in watching Princess Bride, right after Buttercup declares that she will never love again… you would have to go find the other VHS tape that had the last 2/3 of Princess Bride, Top Gun and 3/4 of Point Break.
You could also expect that the previous viewer had not been kind, had not taken the time to rewind, so before you could experience what happens should you go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line you’d spend 15 minutes holding down the RW button so it would go faster.
It was a great time to be alive.*
My family had a habbit of watching the same movies over and over again. Dad is a Kevin Costner fan and a Bruce Willis enthusiast. My mom likes Elvis and things involving a Hanks/Ryan situation. My siblings, thankfully, share my addiction to timeless comedy classics like the Jerk, Three Amigos, Funny Farm, Monty Python, Death Becomes Her, anything with Tim Curry (Rocky Horror, Clue, Fern Gully, Oscar. You know, the one where Stalone plays a gangster gone straight… you know, Chaz Palmenteri is in it and Marissa Tormei and Isabella Rossolini… stop acting like you don’t know what I’m talking about!). There is a Keanu Reeves fetish we mostly don’t talk about. I am happily and shamelessly pleased by Speed, Point Break, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and, yes, their Bogus Journey as well.
Sabrina, Kenny and I mostly communicate with each other via a system of movie quotes, like semifore. “Earnest, Im in the morgue!” “Flames, on the side of my face…” “El Guapo only kills men, he does not kill crying women.” we are stunted emotionally, but well educated in the currency of pop culture- and way ahead of our times.
In the interest of you getting to know me better I should also mention that my Dad, a man of many hats, was a sometime video production guy. We had a full, professional editing bay in our laundry room. It was huge. Like when you see computers in the 70s and they take up 3 stories of a 6 story building. You needed 1000 sq. feet of equipment in those days to do what any kid with a smart phone can do these days. My dad used his editing powers “for good” and would take out bad words, scary stuff or people doin it. I was fully an adult before I found out there was more to the line than “yippee kai-ya...” I grew up thinking that poltergeist was 37 minutes long and not that interesting, and I was at least 20 before I had any idea that Maverick and Charlie were “riding the hobby horse, as they say” in Top Gun.**
It was a great time to be alive.***
Continuing our proposition that you get to know me better, I should mention that I have an innate gift for memorizing things. Rather than memorize something useful, like- maritime law or something- I memorize things nobody cares about. Like the 1985 Val Kilmer classic Real Genius… “You remind me of me. And lately I’ve been missing me so I asked Hathoway if I could room with me again and he said “Sure.”
I would watch the same movies over and over and over again to the point where I achieved complete memorization of not only dialogue but also tone and inflection. As a nerd (which is cool now but, I assure you, was NOT then) and I person with control issues (never been cool at any point in history) my goal has always been to enjoy the things I love so completely that I bind them to my DNA spiderman-style and, as a result, conquer and own them completely. (see: Green Day)
We had laser disc. We had a 72 inch television in 1990. It was 3 feet thick. When my mom went out of town my dad let us rent horror movies. That’s right, we didn’t always turn to our impressive VHS/laser disc collection. The Stewart’s were also regulars known by name to Bill (our slightly more polite version of Randall Graves) at the corner Video +.
See kids, in those days we didn’t have DVRs or NetFlix-es. If you wanted to see something you didn’t own, that wasn’t playing on television at that very moment, you had to get all the way into an automobile and drive over to the corner Video+ and trade money with a professional nerd (as a renter you had amature status.) By doing this you officially entered into an agreement to borrow the movie for 24 hours.
Places like Video+ often had only one copy of each title, this was before even Blockbuster existed. One had to be a bit of a rental store ninja if you wanted to rent Jurassic Park hot off the presses. “Hold on to your butts.”
It was a great time to be alive.
Sometimes as we move through life it can be tough to remember that not everyone grew up same as you. Like, I imagine most Amish people assume that everyone has crops to tend and disdain for buttons. Me? I assume that all people on earth have not only seen, but also enjoyed and subsequently memorized, all the same things that I have.
When I approach someone and say “Pop quiz hot shot…” they will know to respond with “d\What do you do” and then, with more Keanu sass this time, “What DOOO you DUUUUE??” Instead, most regular folk (and especially the Amish) end up backing away slowly without breaking eye contact, palms raised in a universally non-threatening pose.
So, lets jump to this moment right now… I’m standing in the lobby of the National Comedy Theatre and my friend Anthony Lopez (see: Anthony Lopez) finds it amusing to list for me all of the movies he has not seen, Top Gun, the Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense. It is shameful. And there are a lot of people out there like him.
I may never win a gold medal in usefulness, but I can do my part for America and see these wrongs righted. I can show Anthony Lopez a world where Kaiser Souze sees dead people but he hits the breaks and they fly right by.
I declare that NOW is a great time to be alive!****
*It was not.
**See, what I did there was mix in a Top Gun reference with a Breakfast Club quote. Still with me? Great. We are going to be fast friends.
***Again, it was not. We didn’t even have smart phones, for god’s sake.
****You can watch TV on your PHONE! Even Back to the Future 2 didn’t have that!
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