Will the geeks show up?

Yeah, I’m with you, Ericb. The theatrical experience is the best for movies, but getting oneself in gear to do so takes too much effort – especially when “Avatar” is at the end of it.

Maybe some B-Fest personage can schedule all of the films listed for the next go-round, which would be pretty cool (Slither’s “meh” factor notwithstanding.)

Wild horses couldn’t drag me to care about Scott Pilgrim. If I never have to see Michael Cera’s face again, it’ll be too soon.

Seriously, I abhor this current trend of geek pandering. “Shoot ‘Em Up”. “Kick-Ass”. “Suckerpunch”. Hollywood has decided that geeks are actually all 8th-graders, and should be catered to accordingly. “Look! Hot girls kicking ass! Explosions! That’s what you like, right? Shoot, with the nerds, we had to at least TRY to be intelligent, and look how well THAT worked out. But you geeks eat up any old stupid thing!”

We’re two years away from “Ass”, like Idiocracy. Five years, tops.

Cost is the biggest problem. The slap-dash approach people take today is the second biggest. The walk-in in town overcharges and they don’t even have a very good theater (always too cold, lousy speakers, the image is ALWAYS pouring over the screen’s edges, the seats seem to’ve been designed by the Marque De Sade, and every single screen has some little blob or scratch that catches the light and draws you’re attention away from the movie), the drive-in in another close town is much, much cheaper (they still have $4 tickets! -AND DOUBLE FEATURES!) but you still have the issue of gas prices and they don’t build modern cars with the drive-in in mind. I’d say that when the economy improves it will help the theaters greatly. (Though, the way things are looking right now, I wouldn’t venture a guess as to how long that might be.)

To my eye, ear and mind, the biggest problem with movies nowadays, and the reason I’ve basically stopped going to them, is that they are all the same movie, time and time again. I think the reason is that no one in Hollywood really knows what a “story” is, so they just recycle the bits of recent movies they liked. I’ll wait for Netflix, and in fact I’ll wait for “Watch Instantly” Netflix. I’m more than willing to support an intelligent, well-made film, but they have to start making them first.

“I guess I just like ’50s movies more than modern ones. I won’t bore ya’ll with the details but probably half my DVD collection is B&W films. I only own a dozen or so made since 1990”

That sounds a lot like my library.

I guess I missed something about Snakes on a Plane. I remember it being one of the last things I saw advertised on television, and not caring one whiff about it. I thought the title was the most lazy, stupid, insulting thing I’d ever seen a theatrical film advertised under. After hearing that title, I figured I could go ahead and make a movie called “Bigfoot from Outer Space” and be secure in the knowledge that there had been dumber titles used for features. I’ve not seen the film, but the title turned me away faster than a cross repells Dracula. (I’m not saying the premise isn’t workable, but they really should’ve taken a few seconds and tried to think up a real title.)

Eight Legged Freaks was a disaster mostly because it had no confidence in itself, or so would be my take on it. You had a good setup, but no faith in the audience to play along. It was too campy, and had far too much humor for a film in which people were horribly killed by giant spiders. It could’ve been one of the creepiest movies ever filmed if they’d have just dropped the cartoon music and gremlin noises the spiders made (and the ‘Oswald Rifle’ gag that went nowhere, and the annoying trailer boradcaster, and an opening slightly less insulting to chemical transporters, etc.).

And I can see how Black Dynamite might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Still, and actual wide release and more aggresive advertising and who knows what business it might’ve done.

Alien Trespass was another financial disaster. Did anyone see it? I’d like to know if they actually bothered to play it straight or if it was another spoof.

For me it’s mostly that I just don’t enjoy the “theater experience”. Something about movie theaters has kind of creeped me out since I was a kid. I hate the way they smell, I hate feeling like I am cut off from the outside world (where nuclear annihilation could be happening at any moment and I’d never know until I walked out into a post-apocalyptic landscape full of zombies and incredible melting men) and I’m just socially phobic enough that going to a movie alone requires an effort of will that most movies just don’t inspire (y’all should feel privileged that I ever made it to my first T-Fest, I nearly chickened, SO glad I didn’t). The Expendables MIGHT be enough to draw me into a theater this year, but I won’t cry if I have to catch it at Redbox.

On top of that I hate paying the kind of money that it costs to see a flick these days when I can stay home and watch something way more interesting on TCM or Netflix on Demand. Seriously, the year I was living by myself in San Antonio I saw an unprecedented (for me) 6 movies in a theater in a year because I had a friend that went every week. Only 2 of those movies (Iron Man and An American Carol) didn’t have me leaving the theater cussing every person involved for wasting my hard-earned cash. The last was Land of the Lost, so they got to both steal my cash and rape my childhood all at the same time.

I’m much happier watching at home, where I can curl up in my recliner with a blanket and the beverage of my choice, the temperature is always right, I don’t have to watch the scary parts in the dark, I can hit the pause button when my pathetic attention span wanders off into the dining room and starts playing with the cat, and I can share my beloved monster movies with my boys without bankrupting myself for the privilege.

I admit, I would have made the effort for Black Dynamite if it had played within 200 miles of me. That was a truly stellar film. But at least one of the best gags in Snakes on a Plane really requires access to a pause button, so that worked out better as a rental I think.

I never had a chance to see Drag Me to Hell (at that time, finances were so bad I literally couldn’t afford to go to a movie); Slither and Grindhouse, for some reason, didn’t really grab me (although I’ve since wanted to see them after word-of-mouth from people who rented them), and if Black Dynamite played around here I missed it. I did see Snakes on a Plane and Kick-Ass; I enjoyed the latter more, but did not regret either one.

Eight-Legged Freaks, as a couple have said, was just too jokey and lacking in conviction for me. I don’t mind humor, but the squealing, talking spiders just rubbed me the wrong way (among other things). There are funny moments, and there are great creepy moments (the trapdoor spider attack, mainly, despite the utter improbability of it), but overall I was just left with a “Meh…at least it was a matinee so I didn’t pay full price for it” feeling.

As for the three coming out, I’m most likely right now to see SPvTW because of good word-of-mouth from a couple of people I have similar tastes to. Unless it gets terrible reviews I’ll probably see Piranha 3-D before it leaves theaters. The Expendables is the one I’m most likely to wait for the DVD on, but I have to admit it’s tempting. If it gets a lot of positive reviews I might go ahead.

“Hell, I’m still scratching my head over why Eight Legged Freaks didn’t do better.-I think I can answer that–like most of the films mentioned, the advertising screamed “spoof!” I.E, “We have absolutely no confidence in this, and we’re not even trying to make a serious movie. We’ve just made something we can all make fun of, and you all like that, don’t you? Feeling superior to what you’re offered? Isn’t that what geeks are all about?”

That pretty much sums up why I didn’t go see Slither when I had a good chance to do so (and in a nice theater since the local one never booked it but my family wanted to see it so they drove to the next state to see it). I remember the TV spots all saying things like “wickedly funny” and making it look like a comedy. I went right to my “if you don’t have enough faith in the material to play it straight, don’t bother me” state of mind. I thought my brother was in error when he later bought the movie and I refused to watch it for a long time. Then I figured I could do worse one night and borrowed Slither. I actually rather enjoyed it, and would’ve loved to’ve seen it in a good theater! I’ve seen it a couple of times since. The ads pushed me away from something I liked, and that’s just not the way those things are supposed to work! (At the very least, however, it was just the ads for Slither that hit me that way. I tried to watch Eight Legged Freaks again a while back and I found myself getting irritated and ultimately angry with the film! I don’t ask a lot from a MOVIE, we’re talking escapism here, so when one actually ticks me off they’ve done something wrong.)

After getting the backstory on Snake on a Plane (thanks, Mandy!), it does go down a little easier. That 70s Show came about pretty much the same way, and I’ve enjoyed episodes of that. (There has to be a smarter way of naming projects before the title is completed!)

Guess I’m a little more mainstream than most of the regulars here…

I don’t see many films in the theaters (despite being lucky enough to have a second-run theater within about 5 miles of my apartment) because I work the midnight shift while my wife works mornings. This means that we need to find a movie time late enough for me to get sleep but early enough so she can get to bed on time. And balance it with dinner. Needless to say, this requires a fair bit of planning ahead. Still, we usually manage a few movies every year (matching tastes can also be complicated, which is why I didn’t see Drag Me To Hell and she didn’t see Twilight: Eclipse).

Still, some of the films here have gotten short changed. Grindhouse, for instance, was an amazing theater experience. I saw it right before it left the theaters, and there was only about six of us there, but we had a ball, cheering and laughing and everything; it was like a less crowded version of the midnight showing of the Star Wars Episode 4 re-release.

For the complaints about movies like Eight-Legged Freaks not having faith in their material, it’s odd seeing complaints about Shoot ‘Em Up, which did have faith in its material and plays this utterly insane premise straight.

Still, all that aside, one of the biggest factors for my movie going has become, “Will this still work on my TV?” Honestly, that question was one of the reasons I made damn sure I saw Grindhouse in the theater, because… well… that’s the sort of thing that only works in a theater.

Grindhouse was horribly mismanaged across the board. Some theaters only booked one movie or the other, some thought the “missing reel” gags were real, some skipped the intermission trailers… you’d think theater owners would have understood, but I guess not.

I think part of the reason for the split was how people responded to the two parts. From everyone I’ve talked to, Planet Terror was vastly more popular than Death Proof. I enjoyed both parts, but after the balls-to-the-wall action and over-the-top comical gore of Planet Terror (seriously, the zombies were like water balloons), a Tarantino talkie just sucked the energy out of everything. Again, I liked Death Proof, but its tone was just so vastly different than Planet Terror (and the “trailers”) that it didn’t seem to fit.

It was like an Evil Dead 2/Killer Shrews double bill.

Yeah, I believe that the trailers were on the Planet Terror DVD. Just more of the giant middle finger given to Death Proof.

While Don’t didn’t look like my cup of tea, I’m familiar enough with Z grade horror to have gotten that trailer and I laughed my ass off.

Werewolf Women of the SS also completely floored me, especially with the “extra unused footage” of Nick Cage as Fu Manchu. It made no sense, didn’t fit at all, and was utterly perfect for what Zombie was aping. And the look in his eyes as he bellowed “This is my… MECCA!” was priceless.

Grindhouse was so wonderfully ambitious (and the ad campaign was perfect), it’s sad that it didn’t work out. Also, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure theaters were told what to expect, but didn’t have faith in the product, figuring nobody would stick around for 3-4 hours, so they went with the stronger film. Also, I think the distributor dropped the ball on the international scene, where they assumed a lack of history of grindhouses meant those zany foreigners wouldn’t “get it”.