I’m just outside of Page, Arizona – the sandy hills are too scary for our Dodge Durango, so we’ll be hitching a ride into Ape territory with Tim League and the Alamo’s All Terrain Vehicle. They came prepared with anything and everything. Oh accept we’re all terrified of the Lawgiver and the Forbidden Zone. Just like in the finale of the great PLANET OF THE APES… the Earth here is cracked. Lightning bolts are dancing about us… but even worse that towers of illusory flame is… the rain.
This day has been spent upon the north rim of the Grand Canyon, the painted desert… over the very backbone of this land and then in and amongst Lake Powell. Crossing that dam and looking back at the mountains of the Forbidden Zone was just awesome. They don’t look real, they look like matte paintings by Albert Whitlock… they deserve a lavender sky above them. In fact, it’d been so long since I saw PLANET OF THE APES – the original and best version, that I actually thought I wouldn’t recognize any of the landscape… but by golly – there it was! Couldn’t believe it. The whole bloody thing began to play itself out. Didn’t hurt that I had the score to BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES playing – oddly… the music in tandem with the landscape… it actually gave me the creeps… Could have had something to do with the lightning… or just how unearthly it looked around here.
By the time we got back to Page, Arizona – we were suitably jazzed to be seeing PLANET OF THE APES. Only, it was pouring ass rain. I had faith it’d work out, Tim and crew are a come hell or high water type of badass organization. I figured, they’d just get to innovative.
Ok – so the trail to this amphitheater… it was not passable by any vehicle that didn’t have 4 wheel drive and wasn’t weighed down. Well, with the satellite link up to the AICN satellite which is in geo-synchronous orbit with the “Argo” well… as always, we’re heavy. Now where did Tim League suddenly come by this super 4-wheel drive vehicle? Well, back in Austin, Tim is a member of The Benevolent & Protective Order of the Elks… And when he saw a fellow Elk with the exact right vehicle for the task at hand, he greeted him as a brother Elk and instant and blissful cooperation was at hand.
Yes, we’re in secret society territory. As we’re driving along, we ask about the Alamo truck. “No, there was no way to get it in there, so we’ll be going with the little rig and no screen” – No Screen? What the hell was he planning on projecting upon? As we’re ramping up and out of the 5th Sand Dune – I see the amphitheater…
It is a stunner. Smooth stratified sandstone in pinks, oranges, reds and beige. Impossibly smooth and the shapes and lines… so elegant and majestic. In the light of the setting sun the colors pop like that old psychedelic FANTASIA poster from 1970. And this one wall of this natural amphitheater is flat, with naturally formed bric-a-brac around the edges that give it this framed look… as if it had been waiting a millennia for Tim and the Rolling Roadshow to bring Charlton Heston’s magnificent mug to its surface. Surely… “That’s where we’re projecting it,” Tim says as we hit another dune and plop upon the stone floor of God’s theater.
“That’s going to be so cool,” I enthuse.
“Or it could be disasterous,” Tim says as lightning strikes and rain continues to fall. Father Geek, Kubla Khan and I are all deposited – Tim’s rushing back to gather more folks, more supplies… He’s the very picture of Alice’s White Rabbit… “I’m late, I’m late, I’m late – to a very important date! Oh me oh my, I’m late I’m late I’m late!”
I’m so glad I have no responsibilities on this trip other than writing to you about all of this. I can’t imagine all the layers of this particular series of events that Tim and the folks throwing this amazing epic affair would be. As I sit gawking at the beauty of this magical and mystical place – the Rolling Roadshow crew are creating a theater from scratch… Like Scotty patching the Enterprise together or MacGuyver with bubblegum and paperclips – they’re testing the sound system to bounce sound in such a way as to not get an echo effect in this canyon/amphitheater, protect the multi-zillion dollar speaker and projection and generator equipment from the ravages of cloud piss.
More than one member of the crew are licking a finger, holding it to the wind and with binoculars searching the far southwestern skies for… for what? Hope? Despair? What?
It’s now an hour before complete darkness- the amphitheater is beginning to find its audience. More and more folks have begun to spill into the place. Father Geek is about halfway up the rear canyon wallface – Some insane folks are about 40 ft above his position… they’re going to die, they’re probably all on drugs.
As has become standard in these twilight hours – the tour-mates gather about to gossip about their days, the plans for the next day, the accomplishments done in the hours since Monument Valley – and the route they’ll take to Bakersfield, California. Then there’s the Ape-speak… the various ways we each say, “Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!” Everyone is trying to teach my nephew to say it, but he steadfastly refuses to say the word “damned,” yet everytime someone says the line he cackles – though he has no idea what it means – or that it is even from the movie we’re all about to see.
I can’t imagine a time where I didn’t know PLANET OF THE APES – it’s been a part of my life since my youngest days. I had the Mego dolls… all of them. My parents were cool that way, but not quite cool enough to get me the Mego Ape City Playscape. But my Apes fought with Conan and Isis, Captain America and Evil Knieval. They used to fight out on the bar-b-cue pit that was made out of strange rocks in my backyard as a kid his age. At 5 – STAR WARS hadn’t quite happened, but a ton of Apes had – and I loved it.
Many of you can’t imagine the pre-Star Wars days of fandom. The days where the world of the fantastical was ruled by Ray Harryhausen, George Pal and… Apes. I remember I had a ‘Ben Cooper’ (I think) made Halloween costume where I was Dr Zaius. About a year ago I met the TV Dr Zaius at an Austin convention and I geeked rather strongly about it all. I still remember when 20th Century Fox invited us all to GO APE with that wonderful recruitment poster to see all 5 Ape films. That was such a cool time.
Now things are so cluttered. Everything screaming for attention weekly. Everything “special.” It’s one of the things that attracted me to this Rolling Roadshow event. It was a chance to get excited about something intimate, yet absolutely truly captivating and unique that this all is. I love that I’m far off the map of my “usual” territory both physically and mentally. I have no idea what the box office gross this past weekend was and I really don’t care. To me, I’m lost in a world of atlases and destinations, views from a window at 75 miles an hour. Everyday it’s transforming around me and how cool is that?
The nephew is playing with some of the regulars on this journey and it’s beginning to get dark dark… and to the northeast is the edge of the storm system that was blowing over. The V in the rocks opens up a sunset view of otherworldly colors – and the Roadshow crew have lit Tiki Torches that are now lighting the way to the bathroom and the amphitheater itself. Hotel buses are bringing in loads of folks – each finding a place upon the rock.
Tim begins to explain the uniqueness of the screening the audience is about to experience. Then the lights go out – and almost collectively you could feel the heads look to the sky… it is now devoid of cloud cover… crystal clear. Gorgeous. The trailers tonight would be Heston and Monkey related Tim had told us… but the first two trailers had another significance to me.
The first trailer was for TWO-MINUTE WARNING – the football stadium thriller starring Heston and BROCK PETERS – I’d read earlier that day that Brock had passed away. It’s cool and sad to see him tonight, the very night I heard he had died. Then the trailer for SOYLENT GREEN screens and there’s Brock Peters again. Neither of these are particularly his shining cinematic moment – but neither of these are particularly negative either. I really have a fond spot for both those titles, yet just seeing him on screen this night makes me wish I was watching TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, but then… the trailer for THE OMEGA MAN comes on… bliss. “Because the last man on earth ALWAYS carries an AUTOMATIC WEAPON! Because the last man on earth is Not Alone!” “Your name is MUD!” Giggles come from the audience. Then the last trailer hits… MONKEY HUSTLE starring Yaphet Kotto and Dolemite, mutherfucker! This was followed by BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES – and my nephew got his first look at Apes – and his reaction, “Is this a Star Wars movie, I want to see this!” Heh.
The trailers played wonderful on the sandstone – and oddly I thought the pinkish hued rocks would give a “Eastman Color” look to the PLANET OF THE APES print, but not at all. The projection bulb was so bright that it lit up that sandstone as if it were a screen.
This isn’t to say that it was a perfect. There was a slight dimensionality to it all – but it gave the film an increased level of being dreamlike. For example – when Taylor is looking through the bars and talking to Nova – and both of them have their faces pressed fully between the bars… there was something slightly warped about it, but not in a headache way, but in a THIS IS SO DAMN COOL & WEIRD way.
My nephew loved PLANET OF THE APES – he thought it was very “badass” – which is my nephew’s highest recommendation for a film, and usually only reserved for films with martial arts, swords and with stop-motion animation.
I wasn’t expecting the PLANET OF THE APES screening to really blow my mind, but this place – this gorgeous locale, spending all day in and around here looking at the beautiful locations in the Lake Powell area… and then this amphitheater which was just amazing. At points in the film, where I had the film memorized… sometimes I’d just look up at the powdered stars of the Milky Way and I noticed the dancing beams of light from the projector… a man made Northern Lights. There was a feeling in this place that was hard to pinpoint – but it dawned on me afterwards. Had a black monolith and neo-man been dancing around us… it would have been perfect.
We were looking at cave paintings at 24 frames a second – and though thousands of thousands of years have passed, some call them millions, millions? Hmm… EEEEK, having a flashback. Seriously though, the screening was so unique. No artifice of mankind cluttered the imagery. In a word, it was magical.
This amazing film. I can’t believe how wonderfully this movie moves in comparison to the Burton remake. The only real enhancement between the two was Rick Baker’s stunning make-up, but in all other ways – this movie absolutely owns the remake. It just flows so quickly. And the arrogance and ego of Taylor is just so convincingly projected by Heston. You don’t doubt his character for a second.
But even more so… the simian cast is more at ease and natural in their characters. As much as I enjoyed Tim Roth’s chimp, Roddy MacDowell’s was just so real to me. I don’t know why, maybe it’s just an absolute love I have for Corny and Zira. Everytime they were onscreen – I smiled. I also saw my nephew utterly entranced by Zira. The magic of Kim Hunter. She just makes you want to hug her. I swear she makes her makeup blush, it’s the damnedest thing, and it’s all in her eyes and body posture.
After the screening we went back to our Best Western overlooking the Forbidden Zone and while the nephew was asleep, Father Geek and I stared out the window and just smiled. This really is a magic trip.
Now, we’ve got to head to California for the screening of NORTH BY NORTHWEST. I can not wait to meat the cropduster from Hitchcock’s film. He shared one of the most iconic cinematic moments in the history of films with Cary Grant – and I can’t wait to hear what he has to say. Bakersfield here we come!
