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Exxxtasy Show, July 16-18, Chicago
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CINEMA SEEN - "As Seen...Ass Reported!" By William Margold The childishly drawn signs had been pestering our curiosity for over 100 miles, just as the thumb-sized gnats had been annoying us as we drove through Arkansas during a sticky steamy day in the late summer of 1967. My friend Johnny and I had embarked on a cross-country adventure that had already taken us from Los Angeles to Indiana (where I almost died from food poisoning...losing 17 pounds of god knows what in less than a half hour, but that’s another story) up to Montreal for The World’s Fair to New York City to somewhere in Tennessee (where Johnny nauseatingly discovered that okra- laced---and most likely recklessly undercooked pork sausage patties---needed to be eliminated as quickly as possible during numerous "hurry...pull over to side of the road" visits, but that’s another story), and now we were on our way back toward the Pacific Ocean. Although admittedly homesick by this time, but with many, Many, MANY miles to go before we could sleep in own beds once again, we subverted our longing for the trip to end by pretending to be eager for any new adventures that might come our way...so apparently the very homemade looking billboards proclaiming "See the incredible Two-Headed Dog just ahead!!!" were just too much for our muddled minds to resist, and as we drove along...our anticipation grew when each new billboard grotesquely loomed up on the horizon. And then we were parked in front of a foreboding looking cabin in the absolute middle of nowhere, and in retrospect, if we had already seen anything remotely related to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or "Deliverance"---we would never have gone in!!! But there was that damn "two headed dog" barking in our brains like Circe luring Ulysses to deal with, so we each pulled out a dollar, paid it to the liver-spotted hand that extended through an opening, and stumbled into a cold, vile-smelling, very narrow hallway. WAY down at the end of it was an enclosure. As we cautiously moved closer, the sound of buzzing filled the air, and a swarm of hornets set upon us, rendering us virtually unable to really see just exactly what was hideously huddled up in the corner of the horribly dirty confining area. Between the stench and the hornets and the chilling claustrophobic misery of the situation, about five seconds of glancing at whatever was sadly peering back at us in that holding area was all that we could tolerate. We rushed from the cabin and drove away quickly. Many miles from the moment, we finally looked at each other, and could read in each other’s faces that we were never going to admit to anyone, including ourselves, that we hadn’t seen a two-headed dog. And while I am loathe to admit my being made a fool of in Arkansas on a sweltering day in the late summer of 1967, I am certainly not afraid to admit as to how big a fool enduring the absolute emptiness of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY made me feel a couple of weeks ago. Indeed, while director Oren Peli’s stultifying serving of ho-hum house haunting crept by, I could feel myself growing another couple of legs and a tail... and instead of yawning...my expressions of agonizing ennui were becoming brays. (Now that’s a sight worth I’ll bet YOU would spend at least a buck to see. And quite frankly...while I was sorely tempted to attach my face to the fellow featured here as a woeful example of just how I felt...I decided NOT to make more out of the asses that either one of us were already. But you’ll be happy to know that his cause---www.wildburrorescue.org--- has been regularly donated to by LAXPRESS staff members during the past few years.) However...quite angry at myself for being ripped off once...I figured to at least maximize the misery of having spent $6 for a ticket, by rushing right down the hall of the sprawling multiplex just in time to see CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT...and was justly un-rewarded with an outstandingly lame creature feature that wasted the talents of John C. Reilly, Willem Dafoe...and a bearded Salma Hayak! Even madder now, but determined to at least get my monies worth (at two bucks a pop...so that my penurious sensibilities were sure to be somewhat assuaged), I hunted down ZOMBIELAND in the same multiplex, and by default, found myself proclaiming the incredibly unremarkable Woody Harrelson doing away with the walking dead dullard to be best of a truly turgid trio. And I wasn’t through yet...although my head felt like it had been split open with an axe (two large bags of popcorn and a couple of way too sweet pink lemonades aren’t high up on the hunger abatement list) and my eyes were starting to blur---after a bathroom break that included immersing my head in a sink of very cold water...I found SURROGATES about to start up, and throughout the highly uneventful Bruce Willis versus lots of angry robots production, I spent most of the time relishing the fact that I had drastically reduced the price of my dismal day of cinematic suffering all the way down to $1.50 per each serving of utterly forgettable movie moments. And while way beyond feeling anything even remotely associated with being proud of such a pulling off such a dastardly deed...at least I could feel a modicum of pleasure in my perpetual pursuit of trying to get my monies’ worth during these unnervingly unstable economic days. end NOTE: Originally published in LA Xpress, November 12, 2009 issue. |