Hey folks, Harry here with Monki, the super simian spy... Monki is a young cheetah that has just left his jungle home for the pursuit cinema and fun... having just left the zoo he has yet to experience some of the great cool moments in life. He still believes there will only be 15 amazing days... well that would be for the average monkey, but Monki is destined for many amazing days as he'll soon learn. But for now... now he'll chime about the 2nd most amazing day of his hunched over life... Here ya go....
You know, I believe there are about 15 days in everyones life where they just go, "damn, that was an amazing day..." I myself have had only one of those days so far, my graduation day...that was like, a kick in the pants and I got to thinking I'm in the real world.
Wednesday, March 14th, 2001 was perhaps one of the COOLEST days of my life, if not THE coolest. If you would have told me two months ago that a day like this would ever happen, I would have laughed in your face.
Alright, enough with the buildup, let me explain. I woke up and immediately headed down to the Drafthouse to go see Bill Plympton's new movie, Mutant Aliens. This was a great flick, it was a lot of fun, really awesome animation. It seems as though to earn more money for NASA, an executive there plans a huge drama to show to the nation. While a mission is in orbit this executive drains the fuel tanks and leaves the astronaut inside to die. He quickly blames it on the astronaut's daughter and everyone thinks she pressed the wrong button and sent her own father to his death. So, the astronaut reads a statement prepared by the executive that basically says, send money to NASA and this won't happen again.
Cut to, twenty years later. The little girl is all grown up and apparently, in a Contact sort of way, has become a person obsessed with staring at the stars. Of course, she finds her father drifting back towards earth in his craft and after it crashes into the planet, they are reunited. And THEN the aliens come in. They all look cute and furry at first, like giant noses, and then all hell breaks loose. It turns out the astronaut is on a revenge mission. Excellent happy ending too.
This was an awesome movie. I really loved the style of animation in it, very gritty, but at the same time, beautiful. Plympton has a certain style that I have always recognized. It is very unique. Actually he draws all the animation in his films too, which I find to just be amazing. All of those images were drawn by just one man. Eat that Disney. Let's see Mickey meet drag-racin' Jesus. Guess who would win in that race.
Definately check out this film though. You may have to find it at blockbuster or another retail store as no distributor is cool enough to pick up something of this nature.
Back to the cool day...after the movie I jumped into a talking circle with Harry, Quint, and a few others. It took me a second or two to realize that I was in the presense of Paul Dini. The Batman Beyond guy...holy crap. I begin to listen as Paul talks about his movie and how it was censored. Being a geek, I was just so totally amazed by all of this. Then I turn and get Bill Plympton to draw me a monkey on the back of a Mutant Aliens card thingy... how cool is fricken that!!!
So, there was time to kill until the next thing to go to so, as much as I hate water, I hopped onto Quint's ORCA and head back to his crusty old sea-shack. There, I met Lucifer, his dog. Now, I'm sure his dog's name is not Lucifer, but for the purpose of my story, it is. So, I'm cruisin' around the shack, looking at pictures of shark's he has taken, and looking at all the jaws he has nailed to his walls when Lucifer gets the urge for monkey-blood. This beast gets a piece of my arm and rips off a chunk of skin. That was painful enough, but then I actually watched this canine-demon CHEW ON MY SKIN. Gaaaah... too creepy. I had to leave.
Quint and I headed out again on the ORCA and picked up the lovely AuntieMeat and went to the SCRATCH party. (I'll be reviewing SCRATCH in my next post, just so you folks have something to look forward too.) Now, for more coolness factor, I have to tell you that this Scratch party was being thrown by THE DUDE. THE DUDE was going to be at this party. Gaaaahhh...cool. So, swingin' around La Zona Rosa was awesome. The DJs that they had on the turntables were excellent. Z-Trip was fantastic, mixing up all sorts of really awesome stuff. Just before Mix Master Mike was scheduled to come on, Quint walks me over to a really big dude with a mustache and says, "This is monki" (points to me). This large man puts his hand to his chest and says "The Dude, man." Holy lord, I've just reached a new high in coolness points.
So, I just kind of stare in awe of the Dude for a little bit until he realizes he needs to get a hold of someone. I, being a very technoligical up-to-date monkey, loan him my cell phone. The Dude used my cell phone...wow. Then after I got to meet The Dude, I saw Mix Master Mike just tear up the turntables. Wow, an amazing experience.
The night ended with another incredible movie that I will also have to review in a later article, but needless to say, it was really really awesome, and a perfect cap for such an incredible day. So, 2 of my 15 days are used up, I figure I can spread the rest of those out for a few more years...I hope.
-Monki
