This Is Out Of Context...
The blog of Alexandra Franzen
Best. Night. Ever.
Sunday, 13 April, 2008
My first Midwestern winter has officially kicked my ass into full-throttle gloom and despair. I’m contemplating getting a gym membership, just for the endorphins. That, or a hypnotist. These are bleak times, indeed.
So when my friend N--- (see what I just did there to protect his privacy? So Victorian!) called me up and suggested a "night of revelry" (read: "night of not sobbing in a fetal position with a sleeping mask over my eyes and Morrissey wailing through my iPod") I immediately turned to my hefty stack of coupons and contemplated what discounted shape said night might take.
"Ah ha!" I cried aloud, frightening my goldfish from his watery slumber. "2-for-1 coupon for The Heights Theater in Columbia Heights! Night = sorted." I called the long-standing cinema to inquire as to what films were playing, but had difficulty understanding what the recorded voice was blathering about. Something to do with Korea and Robots? Whatever. No one can argue with 2-for-1 cinema tickets!
N--- and I arrived at The Heights with a general sense of mirth. But had we any idea what was in store for us? No, we had not. For not only was the film we were about to see (for the low, low price of $5 each) a black-and-white, independent sci-fi flick entitled "Cave Women on Mars," but it was the aforementioned film’s world premiere.
Which meant:
- a ninety-year-old organist in a white suit and red bow tie performed the overture on an organ that rose and descended into the stage not once, not twice, but three times
- the entire cast and crew were there, dressed in 1950s get-ups
- free cake shaped like the planet Mars was distributed at the interval, along with...
- free pin-up girl calendars featuring the film’s starlets
- a second film, "The Monster of Phantom Lake," immediately followed the first
- the second film was a sing-a-long movie
- my life was forever changed
Thank you, Shadow Creek Studios (the Minnesota-based purveyors of last night’s cinematic entertainment) for restoring my faith in humanity. Oh, and it goes without saying that both movies were outstanding homages to classic 1950s filmmaking, complete with cheery sexist humor, anti-Nazi references, mid-century teenage slang ("Don’t be such a fream!"), and lots of stupendously overwrought plot devices ("you’re the spitting image of the murderer’s dead wife! You know, the one he murdered!"). I even added a new term to my film studies glossary: "pause acting." It has something to do with William Shatner. Well, let’s be fair: it has everything to do with William Shatner.
I’m eagerly awaiting Shadow Creek’s upcoming venture, "Attack of the Killer Robot." And why not?