I've never been much of a big midnight movie kind of guy.I've seen a couple: Blade Runner and Legend of the Overfiend at the old Vogue Theater in Louisville, but I wasn't quite comfortable with the crowd at Rocky Horror Picture Show's twice monthly midnight showing. Here in Cincinnati, I can't even find a place that shows midnight movies - neither of our two art house theaters do, sadly.
But there's a legend and romance to the idea of the midnight movie, and it's something that has kept its nostalgia even through the reduction and corpratization of the movie houses throughout the nation. Recently, the Onion's AV Club posted an article on 19 Terrific Midnight Movies from the Last 10 Years, and I can happily say that I've seen a bunch of the films and can heartily recommend them.
- #1 - Bubba Ho-Tep - great, strange film that's absolutely hilarious. Weird combination of horror and comedy and fantasy.
- #2 - Donnie Darko - is another freaky film that would work beautifully on a late midnight after a pre-movie evening of a drink or two at a friend's house.
- #3 - Office Space - This one doesn't do it for me, admittedly, but I know enough folks who enjoy the heck out of it, so I'll give it a neutral pass.
- #4 - Memento - It's a hard film to figure out the first time through, and it doesn't get all that much easier as you watch it a second time or more, but it's fascinating. This wouldn't work so well after those couple of drinks, but it'd be a great one to see every couple of months to catch new details.
- #10 - Waking Life - I haven't seen this, but I have been wanting to. Gotta get around to it sometime soon.
- #16 - Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle - This is a true classic of the midnight movie oeuvre. Two stoners head to get midnight snacks - complete with cameo from Doogie Howser - Neil Patrick Harris. Wonderful, hilarious stuff.
- #17 - 28 Days Later - The midnight movie tends toward four styles: comedy, horror, musical, and psychadelic. This one fits firmly into the horror style and is a new-style zombie flick. I thought it was overrated and not as scary as it was supposed to be. The three different endings, though give viewers lots of options as to how they want things to go.
- #18 - Kung Fu Hustle - Oversized comedy, action, and dubbing. It's a midnight movie classic.
- #19 - I Heart Huckabees - Off kilter to the max...this film is the story of an exestential detective agency and their competing nihlist detectives. It's not exactly a linear story, and the people are more than a little strange, but it's not bad. Not my thing, but not bad.
1 comment:
I think the first time I was at the Vouge was early 80s. The rents took us to see "The Producers" there. Good times :)
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