Last Movie Night

Just one movie this week because I have a feeling Bad Movie Night is going to be interrupted by a birthday party. It's not the last movie night, we're watching the nutty birthday romp Last House on the Left. It's Mari's birthday and she wants a night on the town. But when her friend gets her mixed up with some shady characters they're on a collision course to wackiness! Of rape and torture.

This is our third Wes Craven movie, after Invitation to Hell and Deadly Friend. They remade it last year with the kid from Breaking Bad, who starred in that great Weird Al biopic trailer and the girl from Garfunkel and Oates that's not the funny looking one. The original received an X rating even after Craven cut 20 minutes from it. He ended up forging an R rating and releasing it. The UK wouldn't allow it to be shown uncut until 2008, banning it 4 separate times for some reason. Well I got my hands on this horrifying, shocking film. The library had a copy.

Oh, it's based on Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring so it's classy. And someone wrote a book about it (only one copy left!). I can't think of any other Bad Movie Night movies that have books about them.

Here's what happened last week:

Killer Kid Movie Night

Children. They're bad enough with the yelling and the boogers and their stupid hair and music that is different than my music. Now imagine they are killing you while listening to The Cobra Starship on "ear buds". When I was a kid we just had Starship, content enough to be knee deep in the hoopla.

The Children. It's bad enough having to take the bus to school and having that weird leather guy sit too close to you even though THERE ARE EMPTY SEATS AVAILABLE. Maybe that was just my experience. Anyway, these children have it somewhat worse when nuclear fallout turns them into zombies. Or something.

Remember Julie Brown from MTV? No, you're thinking of "Downtown" Julie Brown. No, "Wubba Wubba Wubba" was her too. Look, that Julie Brown needed the Downtown qualifier because there was another one who wasn't as "downtown". Downtown means black. Point is, she's naked in Bloody Birthday. This movie is the first in a long line (if four is long) of birthday movies. Now is the time to celebrate Aries. We should watch just the Brazilian birthday party scene from Signs:



Ah, who am I kidding. We should watch the whole movie. It's so good!

Here's what happened last week:



Here's the remix:



Related: The Saturday Night Live sketch with Jon Hamm that Jeff mentioned.

Raimi Makes Number 1

Raimi starts the birthday season today. Here's the latest picture of him (amongst his toys) taken with my new camera. This post is really about my new camera.

Wisconsin Film Festival Schedule Is Out

Here are the first things that caught my eye with the Wisconsin Film Festival (April 14-18th) schedule:

The Host: People went crazy for this giant monster movie. I wasn't that impressed by it but I'll take what I can get given that last year there were NO horror movies. Apparently they are doing four of Bong Joon-ho's movies. You can get two of these movies (The Host and Memories of Murder) at the library right now. But if anything is made for the big screen, it's giant monster movies.

Duck, You Sucker: I just started thinking I should lift my ban on watching Westerns. I never cared for them but haven't seen any of the classics. That recently led me to Sergio Leone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is in transit from the library as we read) and, look here, he has a movie at the festival. Plus that title is awesome.

The Magic Sword: A Bert I. Gordon (The Amazing Colossal Man, Earth vs. the Spider, Village of the Giants) movie at the fest? Turns out he's from Kenosha and graduated from University of Wisconsin–Madison. Huh, certainly the best director ever to come out of Kenosha. This was a Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie. And it says Bert I. Gordon is going to be there!

Haim Movie Night

Werewolves and vampires. What a classic night of horror to honor the life of Corey Haim.

Silver Bullet is directed by Daniel Attias. You’ve never heard of him because after this movie he fell on tough times and had to turn to TV, directing numerous episodes of Miami Vice, Northern Exposure, Buffy, The Sopranos, Alias, Six Feet Under, The Wire, House and Big Love. Quite a fall from grace after his werewolf movie. It stars Internet meme Gary Busey:



Including this best thing the Internet has made (loudness warning).

Like most vampire movies The Lost Boys can't help being a little gay.

Here’s what happened last week

Bonus, all the Space Mutiny names:

MST3K-less Movie Night

Since Friday the 12th makes Jason Voorhees sad we're going to have Bad Movie Night on Saturday. To make it special we're going to watch the out-of-print The Incredible Melting Man and the worst movie we have ever watched (source: IMDB's Bottom 100) Space Mutiny. Both these happen to be Mystery Science Theater 3000 selections but we don't need them to enjoy bad movies.

I wanted to do The Incredible Melting Man with Body Melt and have Melting Night where I could serve melts while listening to "I Melt with You" by Modern English and exercise using the Myofascial Energetic Length Technique. But except for some great scenes (NSFW):



...Body Melt is pretty boring. TIMM benefits from an early effort from make-up superstar Rick Baker.

Space Mutiny stars Raw Force's, Night Train to Terror's, Deadly Prey's, Memorial Valley Massacre's and Jack-O's Cameron Mitchell. That makes this number six and puts him in the lead.



The previous worst movie we ever watched, R.O.T.O.R., has "fallen" out of the Bottom 100. And for good reason, that movie was great.



How about The Lost Boys and Silver Bullet for next week?

Here's what happened last week (NSFW):

Don't Miss Lists

Movies



Paper Heart - Marissa wants to see this movie with Michael Cera and the girl from Knocked Up who's the girlfriend of one Seth Rogen's roommates. Seems she also played "Party Goer" in Cloverfield. Wasn't Cloverfield great?



Up In the Air and An Education - I don't think I'm going to get these in time for the Oscars on Sunday. Are they good? I just know that I couldn't think of any food puns to make them snacks at the party. Maybe we could just serve airplane food and, um, English school cafeteria food?

Big Fan - Patton Oswalt plays a big football fan in a movie from the guy who wrote The Wrestler. I don't think it's a comedy. Marissa and I saw Patton at the Cinematic Titanic show in Milwaukee and he was great!

Demon seed - Alright, this is the second time this has been listed. The first time I put it on hold they cancelled it almost immediately and removed the listing. This time it just says:

Number of Copies: 0

NUMBER OF HOLDS: 0

And doesn't let you put it on hold. Stop teasing me with Demon Seed library!


Panic In Year Zero! - I like apocalypse movies. I like exclamation points.

Breastfeeding: What's a Dad Supposed To Do? - I'm going to watch TV!

Diseases Don't Just Happen! - I was just going to make fun of the title but after finding the cover art to put at the beginning of this post I knew I had to have it. In fact, it's worth putting in here twice and bigger this time:


Plus, you know, exclamation point.

Weeds, Season 5

Prom Night in Mississippi - The AV Club just reviewed this documentary about the first-ever integrated Senior Prom at one high school in Mississippi. This was in 1997. I was sad the library didn't have it then. Now I am happy.

Zardoz - The library finally got Zardoz on DVD! Now I can find out what director John "Deliverance" Boorman was thinking in the commentary. Plus, another apocalypse movie.


Music



Volume Two by She & Him - The second record from M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel isn't out yet. Oh, I finally watched The Happening and I don't know what the hell Zooey was doing but I didn't think it was totally terrible.

Ladies Movie Night

March is the month that ushers in spring, the traditional time for doin' it. This custom finds its origins in the annual drunk hook-ups on spring break in Miami Beach. So we're watching movies with a sex bent.

Eating Raoul was originally going to be part of Cannibal Movie Night but all those Italian cannibal movies have real animal killings and that's not very fun. Which is too bad because Jungle Holocaust is the man-nakedest movie this side of At Play in the Fields of the Lord. It's our fourth Paul Bartel/Mary Woronov pairing. Since Woronov was also in Night of the Comet without Bartel she's been in as many BMN movies as Clu Gulager, Linnea Quigley and Cameron Mitchell. Who will win in the end?



Frank "Basket Case" Henenlotter came out of hibernation in 2008 when a rapper named R.A. The Rugged Man financed Bad Biology. And it came out pretty much how you'd expect a Henelotter/rapper collab to come out. Craaaaaazy.

There's also an Oscar Night Party on Sunday with theme snacks like Avachard, Inglourious Basted Turkey, Couscous: Based on the North African Dish by Semolina and The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Peppers. Nothing from Mastering the Art of French Cooking though.

Here's what happened last week: