As mentioned (I think), the Riff Trax Live! event on Thursday was extremely entertaining.
The guys were riffing the "Citizen Kane of Bad Movies" (Or is it the "Caddyshack 2 of Bad Movies?"), the phenomenally horrible Plan 9 from Outer Space.
The movie, originally titled Graverobbers from Outer Space, features the last performance of Bela Lugosi before his death (he died during the filming, and was replaced by the the director's girlfriend's Chiropractor, who covered his face with a cape to "disguise" the fact that he wasn't Lugosi), former late night TV hostess (and niece of Finnish Olympian Paavo Nurmi) Vampira, and wrestler Tor Johnson, whose face was immoralized as one of the most famous Halloween monster masks.
As anyone who's seen the 1994 Tim Burton movie Ed Wood knows, Plan 9 was produced, written, and directed by crossdressing auteur Edward D. Wood, Jr.
What makes Wood's movies so entertaining - particularly Plan 9 - is that he had no idea how terrible his movies were, and he made them with such passionate sincerity that you can't help but find it all at least a little bit charming.
Still, the movies are absolutely terrible, and thus ripe for Riff Trax-style mocking.
In addition to Riffing Plan 9, the guys kicked things off with a live Riffing of an execrable old short film called Flying Stewardesses.
There was also musical entertainment in the form of Jonathan Coulton, who performed this amusing song (and another nerd-humor song about the future, as envisioned by a thirteen year old in the early 1980s reading Omni in his bedroom):
There were a couple of technical glitches with the broadcast, but nothing major. The only thing that really marred the event was the obnoxious laugh of the woman sitting next to me.
Scott commented that she seemed to let loose with it at inappropriate times, but I don't think that's entirely correct. I think the problem was that she doesn't have any other kinds of laughs in her repertoire, so even when something only warrants a mere chuckle, she cuts loose with the loud, artificial-sounding "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA."
Still, it was a small price to pay for an entertaining evening.
Monday, and the dreaded return to work, is rapidly approaching. I didn't do much with my time off. I picked up my comics on Thursday, did my grocery shopping on Friday, and got my haircut yesterday. Beyond that I've been doing some drawing, but haven't really produced anything worth posting here.
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