So no one wanted to go with me to the Turkey Marathon of films at Alamo Downtown last Saturday night (and well into Sunday morning)? Well, fine. Wimps. I went anyway. I decided it would be a mini-adventure, that parking downtown would not be too terrible on a holiday weekend, and that I would enjoy seeing films in genres about which I am not very knowledgeable. Also, I told myself I didn’t have to stay for all four films if I got too tired, although I ended up remaining there for the whole marathon.
I did have a great time, although I wish more people had been in the audience. Maybe 30 people turned up for the first movie; by the time the fourth one ended, the number was down to 10. The Turkey Marathon movies were the kind that improve with a large audience. Still, the people who were there all seemed to be having fun. Tim League introduced the movies and then sat and watched the first two or three—he ran the projector for the final film.
I took advantage of the small audience to nab a sofa. Alamo Downtown has these nice squishy sofas in the back row. I’m not sure if I’d ever seen a movie from the sofas before. I’m not very tall and it’s difficult to see if you’re in the sofa row and the row in front of it is occupied. But no one sat in front of me, so I had a perfect view. I think I should pick the sofas more often, especially if I have someone with me like my boyfriend who can sit on the other half, as opposed to a stranger. (The other half of the sofa I picked had a crack in the seat, so no one wanted to sit there, luckily for me.) Let me tell you, if it weren’t for the comfy sofa I might not have lasted through all four films. I don’t know how those Butt-Numb-a-Thon people last through 24 hours.
Author: jette
turkey, anyone?
Is anyone going to the Turkey Marathon at Alamo Downtown on Saturday night? It’s only $10 for four movies and it sounds like fun. I haven’t seen any of the four movies: Blood Freak, Silent Night Deadly Night, Darktown Strutters, and Inframan.
I’m not very knowledgeable about what I’ll call the drive-in genre, so it would be quite educational for me. I realized last week that I know next to nothing about the Shaw Brothers, for example. Also, I think I should build up my filmgoing stamina with a good quadruple-feature. (I wanted to brave the 24-hour Butt Numb-A-Thon, but couldn’t get in. Not sure I could last through that many films.)
The only difficulty is that I am a wimpy sort of person who likes to get a good night’s sleep, and the films run from 9:30 pm until dawn. I don’t have an office job, so my sleeping schedule isn’t set in stone, but it’s still tough to stay up all night. So I’m toying with the idea of going, but may wuss out at any moment. If someone else accompanied me, it’d be more fun for both of us, plus I’d be more likely to go at all. (The Beau is uninterested.)
So if you’re thinking of trying the Turkey Marathon, let me know.
Speaking of turkey, I highly recommend reading this charming Thanksgiving tale about turkey and tacos. I would like to note that in my family, oyster dressing and cornbread dressing are not inserted in avian cavities. That just seems … wrong, like yellow turkey gravy (ew, gravy is brown, people) or low-fat pecan pie.
if you must shop on Friday …
Normally I dislike shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. The stores are crazy-crowded and the big retailers’ hype of the amazing sales, getting up at 5 am, blah blah blah just annoys me. I don’t go to malls unless there’s an extremely compelling reason anyway.
But … I am going to one sale tomorrow: Mondo Tees, the t-shirt and poster-selling arm of Alamo Drafthouse, is having a big t-shirt and poster rummage sale on Friday. The sale starts at 5 pm at Alamo Downtown; details are available here. How can you not love a sale that includes free beer?
I wrapped Christmas presents in movie posters one year, which was a lot of fun … if Alamo is giving away free cheesy movie posters I may do it again.
Another cool place for holiday film-related shopping is online: Aurora Picture Show, the Houston alternative-film theater, is holding online auctions for all kinds of goodies. The auction is called Foiley’s and starts Mon. 11/28.
Finally, a friend told me that she saw Christmas cards for the Castro Theatre in a San Francisco store. Has anyone seen these online? And why doesn’t the Paramount Theatre in Austin sell similar cards as a fundraiser? I would buy dozens. Guess I should email the Paramount and suggest it … or if I get my hands on the Castro cards, send them one as a hint.
Holly Hunter made out with Austin Pendleton
I would never have guessed in a million years that I would ever see Holly Hunter and Austin Pendleton a-smooching in a film. I am still somewhat stunned. I also laughed my head off.
I want to write a full review of Home for the Holidays, and I am sure I will at least write a six-minute review. But I am still floored about that scene and had to share. Also, it was very weird that Charles Durning’s character had the same name as my grandfather, because whenever Anne Bancroft started yelling at him to do something, it sounded exactly like my grandmother. If you are in my immediate family (which you are not, unless my youngest brother is visiting … hi!), this alone makes the movie worthwhile.
I watched Home for the Holidays in preparation for an essay I wrote for Cinematical about entertaining dysfunctional families in film. If you are reading this entry shortly after I posted it, you can look in the right-hand column and see a link to the entry, so I didn’t really have to post one in the previous sentence.
Continue reading Holly Hunter made out with Austin Pendleton
six six-minute reviews: good night, grimm dying jerk
It’s time for another round of Six-Minute Reviews. I have the timer right here. I sent The Beau a long list of movies I hadn’t reviewed, and he sent me a magical URL that picks the titles for me, one at a time, in random order. (I was too lazy to rip up bits of paper and stick them in a hat.)
I have a huge backlog of films to review, including a few I didn’t include on the list because they haven’t been released in theaters yet (like The Ice Harvest). I’m going to review some of those for Cinematical and hopefully will find time to talk about the others here. Maybe they can get more attention than a six-minute review, but don’t count on it. I also didn’t include movies for which I already have a half-written review; I will deal with them later.
But for now, how about six reviews at six minutes each?
Continue reading six six-minute reviews: good night, grimm dying jerk
Holidailies and other site news
We started working on Holidailies 2005 this week. For those of you who haven’t heard of this, it’s a collaborative project that I’ve been running every year since 2000, back in the days when I had an online journal and not a film blog. (This is a film blog isn’t it? Well, it was. Obviously I need to write more about film, as soon as possible.)
Holidailies started as an informal group of online journallers who pledged to update their sites every day in December. If you want a laugh, you can still see the Nibelung ring of Holidailies 2001 participants. I wonder how many of those sites are still active?
In the past couple of years, Holidailies has become spiffy and feature-rich and amazing, thanks almost entirely to The Beau, the database and code wrangler. About 120 people posted regularly to the Holidailies portal last year, plus another 50 or so who participated informally. We had a readers’ panel picking Best of Holidailies entries every day, too.
This year Holidailies will be even better. The site now has its own domain, we redecorated it with a new color scheme (I was tired of red and green), and The Beau is working on some more cool features. The new design and features haven’t gone live yet, but keep checking the site because it is going to look fabulous.
not so easy
We are driving to the greater New Orleans area this weekend. There’s a birthday party for one of my nieces, so it’s a nice opportunity to visit family without all the craziness of a major holiday. It’s also a good opportunity to see the city of New Orleans, post-Katrina, without all the craziness of a major holiday. I did not want my first look at the city to be at Christmas time.
My boyfriend asked me last night what we are going to do, exactly. I’m hoping we can find something fun in the middle of all the devastation and restoration. I’m not sure what. Driving around New Orleans to see how it looks is not exactly fun. Looking at my grandparents’ old house, ruined by flooding, will not be fun at all. Going to the North Shore to see the relatives at my niece’s birthday isn’t sad, and may be interesting, but it’s not exactly a whirlwind of fun.
hi. remember me?
“Remember me? I’m the fellow you slept on last night.”
Y’all know where that quote is from, right? I’m a little punchy right now, I just saw Prime and Tristram Shandy back-to-back and it’s late and we’re going on vacation in a couple of days and I’m not packed or anything.
Last night I saw The Corpse Bride … not to review, just for fun while it was still in theaters. The voice of Joanna Lumley was in it, and also the theme music from Gone with the Wind. What’s weird is that this is the second movie I’ve seen containing both those elements (Lumley and Steiner). Anyone know the other one? No fair searching on Google or IMDb.
aGLIFF: Chronicles of Halcyon
aGLIFF, the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival, starts on Friday night and lasts until October 8. I’m volunteering for a few nights and hope to see some of the 150 short and feature-length films.
I’ve seen one already that I’d like to recommend: not a feature-length film, but a pilot for a TV series, Chronicles of Halcyon. I can’t review this hour-long episode as I normally might review a movie, because I know some of the people involved. It’s not just that I am biased, but I had a different viewing experience than you would if you saw the show. For one thing, you don’t know such-and-such actress as a former co-worker who dressed as Ed Grimley for the Halloween office party one year. You see what I mean.
Also, I am proud of and pleased with my friends for creating a video that turned out to be more entertaining than I thought it might be. I hope they are able to expand the pilot into a TV series because now I want to know how the cliffhanger ending turns out.
Muppets for everyone!
I had this dream last night in which I was trying to buy stamps somewhere nebulous and the cashier kept offering me those generic-looking American flag stamps. I said that I’d been to the post office and all they had to sell me in 37-cent stamps were the flags and the Love stamps, and did she have anything else here? She did not. I had to buy the flags.
I don’t know what this dream Meant, subconsciously speaking, but I was browsing Metafilter this morning and found a link to some new 37-cent stamps, released today … with Muppets on them!
I have to go to the post office soon anyway, and you surely know that if I can buy the Muppet stamps, I am going to pick up a half-dozen packs at least. I am so tired of the Postal Service releasing some very cool type of stamp in a limited quantity, and then when I want stamps a couple of months later I have to get the flags or the Love. Ugh. I am stocking up on Kermit and Piggy (and better yet, Rowlf and Waldorf and Statler) ASAP.
I bet I end up sending a lot more postal mail in the next couple of months.
Hey, they also have Robert Penn Warren and Greta Garbo 37-cent stamps too. (I mean, those are two different types of stamps. Warren and Garbo were never a couple. Can you imagine?)