Well, I arrived at the All Nighter Dusk Til Dawn Sci Fi Horror Endurance Test of QT CINCO at a near death state… I had only 7 hours sleep in the previous 48 hours and I wanted to see each and every single last second of all these films…
As is typical of the All Nighters, people arrive with pillows and blankets… looking all comfy… Personally at this point I’m terribly afraid of getting comfy… Comfy leads to drowsy which leads to sleep which leads to missing a jewel onscreen!
Quentin hits the stage with a bit of glove dropping, "First, if you leave, we don’t hold it against you, you’re just not ONE OF US. You know, thanks for visiting our country, but you just DON’T LIVE HERE!" You tell em Quentin!
Quentin starts off with a quick rundown of the titles, THE OMEGA MAN with Charlton Heston, STAR TREK II WRATH OF KHAN "There She Is," he shouts out, "Kirk.. My Ooolld Friend" Then says, Ricardo Montalban gave one of the greatest performances of all time in this film… Followed by SATURN 3 with Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel… Then MGM’s master print of Mario Bava’s PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES and the Gorgeous International cut of Tobe Hooper’s LIFEFORCE… "I called Tobe to tell him that we were going to show this and I got an answering machine message back saying, ‘Ah hell, well you’re going to have a lot of fun, God Damn I wish I was going to be there, working on this thing with Spielberg, but Damn that’s going to be fun, Damn’ and ya know, He means it. Last year for the all nighter he stayed all the way through… a real trooper!" And then finally FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER "This one you can laugh at. This is also our first Puerto Rican Sci-fi/horror film, I’ve shown them from just about everywhere else, but this’ll be a first" Then he said that if we choose, he’d show CURSE OF THE VOODOO which was the original double bill with FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER when they were released!
Then he begins his official introduction of THE OMEGA MAN with, "There’s really nothing I can say about THE OMEGA MAN that you folks don’t already know, so I’m not going to say anything and just get this thing going." There was a pause for about a half second then, "Ya know, I was talking to Frank Darabont, who is a major film geek, after he made SHAWSHANK and he told me ‘I’m in a weird place right now. When I was a kid all I wanted to do was either a remake of DR PHIBES or THE OMEGA MAN." Then continuing to not tell us anything, and getting on with the film Quentin exudes, "Now my print of THE OMEGA MAN is the only known I. B. Technicolor 35 mm print in existence." Then… "Now while you watch this film, you should probably be aware that the director Boris Sagal died via helicopter blades, remember that one zombie in DAWN OF THE DEAD, he went just like that!" That got him giggling in a perverse short of mischievous manner and said, "Ya know in the original THE LAST MAN ON EARTH that Vincent Price made they were all sort of Zombies, and in THE OMEGA MAN they’re Black Albinos… Which is actually pretty fucking disturbing, not that I don’t have anything against Black Albinos, hell I wish there was a whole sect f Black Albinos all wearing leather hooded coats… that would so be the bomb. I’m just babbling so much right now, let’s just start the movie…"
THE OMEGA MAN
I saw THE OMEGA MAN maybe 12 times at the Drive-In when I was a kid… This is one of my warm blanket movies… Now I know, it ain’t exactly a happy flick, but there is just something about this movie that makes me feel good. One Charlton Heston is God, I don’t care what Rosalind Cash says, Heston is God… I mean just watch him in this film. Wandering the streets alone, set to kill these undead fucks, perversions of humanity. Living in that swank fortress, dressing up all Edwardian for dinner with Caesar. That’s as cool as it gets… I also love his internal irony dialogue… That rules.
Like when the fireball launches through the window and he looks at Caesar, "Would you excuse me for a bit," grabs a fire extinguisher… casually mind you… and puts it out, then grabs his automatic long range rifle with infrared night-scope and starts killing the evil Albinos. There’s just something beautiful about that. This isn’t the panic of the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD people, Heston has made peace with his situation… It’s like Ranchers in the old west shooting the coyotes as they approached the house… Just yard matenience.
There is an inherit problem with making a remake of THE OMEGA MAN/the original Matheson novel I AM LEGEND, and that’s the casting of Neville. Heston was perfect in every sense of the word… You need someone that if the world died, was taken over by zombie albino cult fascists… that wouldn’t swallow a bullet, but be self-righteous enough to set about being the TERMINEX BUG CLEANER of the post-Apocalyptic world. And ya know… Charlton Heston would be that man.
There is no quit in Heston. He believes the way he believes and no amount of facts or cases can change his mind. And his Neville follows that. Sure, this movie was the absolute frame by frame justification of the NRA’s mantra of needing guns… This film tells you and shows you the importance of Automatic Weapons… it’s for the day of reckoning obviously.
This print was gorgeous enough to eat. I was just stunned that a print this beautiful is owned by Quentin… not that his films look like shit, but that a print this great exists for THE OMEGA MAN… A lot of these Seventies films were printed on high-fade to going red film stock, and I.B. Tech prints are rare as hell… but this thing is just luscious.
I loved watching the few people in the audience that I knew had never seen the film get wrapped up in it. And again… 70’s films had balls to end the films right! Sigh…
NEXT UP:
STAR TREK II: WRATH OF KHAN
Now folks, I wish to God I could transport each and every last one of you for Quentin’s introduction of WRATH OF KHAN. He started geeking out like you just wouldn’t believe. He became possessed with the spirit of Khan, he loves this film in an amazingly equal way to the way I love this film.
"I like the original Star Trek series, I think everyone that grew up at the time period we did can’t not have a great deal of affection for these guys. But I truly feel this is Classic Trek’s Finest Hour!"
Then he started chatting about Pauline Kael’s review of STAR TREK II… "Kael’s review of STAR TREK II is my favorite review of hers, and Kael is my favorite critic ever. She was actually more influential on me than any filmmaker was. Her reviews just spoke to me. Her review started off as a 3 page retrospective on the career of Ricardo Montalban. How he was a great actor stuck in the ‘Mexican’ role, the ‘Latin’ role and the ‘Chick’ role. Meaning he usually got stuck playing the bimbo to a leading lady, like the chick’s usually got stuck in with leading men. Kael went on to say, ‘What was wrong with Hollywood,’ couldn’t they see what they had?"
"Then Kael says that he never had a part that tested his depth or talent til he played Khan in SPACE SEED and on this episodic science fiction television series he finally got the role that he was meant for. Afterwards he went into obscurity, then FANTASY ISLAND and those Corinthian Leather Car Commercials. And it looked like Ricardo’s career was dying when lo and behold Paramount decides to do a relatively big budget feature film sequel to a guest star appearance on an old Trek episode… and Ricardo Montalban knew what he had! This was the best role of his 50 some odd year career! And he performed it in some sort of weird Shakespearean/Gladiator style epic thing. This is THE REVENGE MOVIE and in this you absolutely believe he has every right to win…"
Now at this point, Quentin is so excited that he’s nearly foaming at the mouth… then in a strange beautiful geek spilling forth… "Ooooh AD-mirAL… Admiral Kirk never bothered to check up on us…. I Wish to go ON hurTING you, I’ll leave you as you left me marooned for all eternity in the center of a DEAD PLANET…. These people have sworn to live & die at my command 200 years before you were born….. Ah KIRK, My old Friend, Do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? IT IS VERY COLD IN SPACE!… From HELL’s heart I Stab at thee! For Hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee…. I’ll chase him round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares Maelstrom and round perditions flames before I give him up…. Oh shit, I’ve turned into a female impersonator up here…"
The audience was sent into Geek Nirvana here… I mean this is Quentin basically performing all of Khan’s lines loudly and greatly exaggerated while laughing giggling and smiling like a hyena on a freshly fallen fawn.
Quentin then says, "There’s only one problem with Star Trek II, the extras blow, I mean look at them, they can’t type much less fly space ships, I mean where the hell did they get those people… Oh and the fact that Chekov could not have met Khan is a giant faux pah because SPACE SEED was a first season episode and Chekov wasn’t on the series yet. But beyond that bit of fanboyness there, Chekov just can’t fucking act. I mean they should have just given that part to Sulu who can act, I mean George Takei is the fucking bomb man!" And with that he left the stage…
STAR TREK II: WRATH OF KHAN
Well… Quentin said it all… I mean this movie is a thing of perfection. I love this movie deeply deeply deeply. This is the EMPIRE STRIKES BACK of Star Trek, and I would hold it equally as dearly. It doesn’t have the audacity of effects, but dammit, Montalban is just so damn good, and the crew is so dead on perfect… and the film is written to absolute perfection… Well even people that hate Trek generally will kiss the ass of Khan. It is Glorious.
The film played like gangbusters. Ya know.. instead of making some shitty STAR TREK 10, just remaster the sound, clean up a super master print of STAR TREK 2 and re-release the damn thing!
The audience was cheering nearly everything that Khan did… and the rest of the film as well… The crew has never been so perfect… the battle just relentless… the danger so real… The emotions raw and vital. This is like some strange opera… and I love it!
But if I wrote everything I loved about the film, I would write 3000 words and never get finished with this night, so I have to move on though I want to… like Quentin.. spend a gigantic amount of time talking about the genius of this film.
Next up was SATURN 3…
Quentin took the stage giving us the quick rundown on the flick… Noting how odd it was for Stanley Donen, director of SINGIN IN THE RAIN and ON THE TOWN to do this flick. Then there was Kirk Douglas and Harvey Keitel… and then there was Farrah Fawcett Majors… "Farrah was the biggest shit of the world at this time, just huge and this movie had some serious FFM Breasts in it. The only thing that bugs me is the billing. Farrah comes first, couldn’t she of had enough respect to let Kirk go first, I mean Kirk Douglas man" He then went off on the wonderful ‘Eyeball In Danger’ Scene… Then Harvey Keitel as the wack job scientist with his Robot named "Hector?" "Harvey is more threatening than the fucking killer Robot"
Then Quentin went on to tell the Keitel story of SATURN 3. Apparently, Keitel had been fired from APOCALYPSE NOW, took the role for SATURN 3 and apparently Stanley Donen just hated Keitel, he hated Keitel and they fought so much, that Donen redubbed Keitel’s whole performance. And in the film, Quentin compares it to those Italian Horror films where they dub Chris Lee’s voice and he just wants to scream.
Well, the story got pretty funny. Turns out when Quentin was in SUNDANCE’s script workshop thing with RESERVOIR DOGS, Stanley Donen was one of the instructors/advisors and he knew that Quentin was going with Keitel in the lead and just told Quentin that he didn’t envy him, "Now Harvey’s a fucking sweetheart of a guy, they just didn’t get along. But years later I get this print of SATURN 3 and I had always heard it was a bad film, but the print was cheap and I watched it and dug it. So I bumped into Harvey, knowing all this history about SATURN 3 and sort of say, ‘Harvey I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I just saw SATURN 3 and I really dug you in that’ and then Harvey says to me, ‘I love my performance in SATURN 3, I’m very proud of my work in it"
"The key scene for me is when Keitel’s character finds this dog, and he’s never seen a dog before so he picks it up looks at the dog’s mouth and then turns it around and looks up its ass. Then Donen screams out ‘CUT! Harvey what are you doing?’ and Harvey says, ‘Well I’m a scientist, I find this dog I’m going to check it out’ and Donen shouts at him, ‘No No, you are not going to looking up a dog’s ass on my movie’ and then Kirk Douglas chimes in with how he likes that actors thing that Harvey was doing!"
Absolutely classic…
SATURN 3
I’ve seen the film before, but I’ve never seen it with an audience. The film is pretty psychotic. Kirk Douglas is on another planet, stripping naked at the drop of a hat, showing off that physique of his at every chance. Farrah Fawcett gets naked all the time too. Harvey Keitel is just a scary creepy homicidal pill-popping horny mad scientist. And the robot, Hector, has just got the hots for Farrah too.
As a matter of fact, that’s what this movie is about… It is about fucking Farrah Fawcett and who gets too. Will Farrah fuck youth? Will Farrah fuck old age? Or will she fuck a machine? It is the story of the modern woman, pleasure another or just herself.
The metaphor is just buried inside a science fiction flick, but it is there and fairly obvious.
Kirk Douglas makes me laugh in this thing and Harvey Keitel is just creepy bizarre cool… And the whole film is worth his last appearance and Farrah’s Eyeball injury scene and the Farrah nudity… She has got to have the greatest nipples in history!
NEXT UP…. Quentin takes the stage to introduce… PLANET OF THE VAMP
IRES and LIFEFORCE!!!
Quentin is giddy about this one, he got the print from MGM and he’s never seen the jewel of Mario Bava’s career on the big screen.
Then he launched into… "Back when Ridley Scott’s ALIEN came out, there was that whole movement amongst film geeks that ALIEN was just a ripoff of Mario Bava’s PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES. Now I know this because I was one of those ok? But as time has grown on, I don’t believe Ridley Scott has ever even seen PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, he’s not cool enough to have seen PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, he’s just all super rich commercial cool billionaire for that. Scott just isn’t hip enough to have watched PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, ok? You see, part of the currency of being a film geek is that we have the knowledge to know where things come from, the antecedents for stories and we’ll shoot our mouths off about it!"
Absolutely hilarious rant…
Then he started in on LIFEFORCE… "You see that poster out in the lobby, the reason I have that poster is it came from when I was working at VIDEO ARCHIVES… Cannon used to just release posters for things long before they ever came out… They’d send the stuff to videostores and place ads in trades with art long before their films were ever made!" He talked about how he first saw this at, I believe, the Pickwood theater in Los Angeles and just knew that it was too fucking cool to hang around. That the audience just wasn’t going to find this jewel, and went back with everyone he knew that following Thursday to the theater and watched it again. Then he went off on how Mathilda May is like the all time greatest hot babe in flicks… Then he shouted out… "They’re SPACE VAMPIRE MOVIES and They’re BACK TO BACK, it don’t get much cooler!!!!"
PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES
This print was gorgeous. Mario Bava understood colors like hardly anybody else… there is a lurid candyshop of death look to the film. The space costumes are just about the coolest damn space outfits in the history of film. Black patent leather with yellow trim… Sort of like that Wolverine costume, but far cooler. The space ships, the screens… everything just gorgeous… even when the rotting death damage is done… Beautiful.
Now, I was holding strong with consciousness and doing good… I’d been popping Penguins Caffienated Peppermints like a junkie and his Flintstones… But about 40 minutes in… I had an… ahem… Extended Blink. I don’t know what happened. I’ve never slept during a movie before, but suddenly… I was out. The wonderful Bobbie Jo’s shoulder was so comfy and her hair smelled great and suddenly Bava land went bye bye and I was dreaming. I folded my head, I’m told, upon a large lump of paper that Quentin had given me earlier, sort of a hard square dead tree of a pillow, and I was off… Floating… Light as a feather, dreaming of a bride in a white wedding dress all bloodied and beaten, comatose in a hospital bed looking like a waking dead goddess… when suddenly…
APPLAUSE
Whoa, what where, when I’m INNOCENT!
Oh shit, I was asleep. Everybody staring at me like some sort of hillbilly full of shine. Suddenly Quentin is standing next to me…
"So ya fell to sleep did ya?"
The automatic lie device popped into motion, "Oh no no no, I was watching through snake eyes."
"Oh no, you were asleep, I was going to wake you up when I came over, but you just looked too cute asleep."
OHMYGOD, the guy who invented the medieval on your ass bit, just said I looked cute asleep… "MOMMY!!!!!"
This was terrible. Not because of the embarrassment, but because, when the hell am I ever going to get the chance to see this movie on the big screen again. JESUS, this ain’t right!
Suddenly in mid-paranoia and shame, LIFEFORCE began… and Christ this print was gorgeous. Patch had never seen it before and was orgasmic throughout… Me, I watched with a gleeful smile… I dearly dearly love LIFEFORCE… to me, it is my favorite Tobe Hooper movie after TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE…
