Poor Show, Great Movie

Submitted by AMM contributor Grooveking

RIFF TRAX showing of “Plan 9 from Outer Space”

9/2/09, selected theaters

Let me first admit this: I don’t know shit about this stuff.

I went to this show for a strong dose of comedy (no disappointment there). But I really had no idea what to expect of this special showing on September 2^nd. This whole show was produced by an out fit called Fathom Events, which is a division of NCM (National Cine Media). They produce Internet TV programs, Cinema Media Events, In-theater advertising. Wha? For this event, they hired the talent, booked the venue (Nashville’s Belcourt Theater), produced and recorded the show, and then arranged for it to be shown two weeks later in some 400+ movie theaters on the same date. I did the quick math: there were about 100 viewers at my theater, meaning maybe 40,000 viewers nationwide (although it was probably not close to that many). With the $10.00 ticket, that’s a $400,000 gross. Splitting 50/50 with the theaters, I figure Fathom got about $200K, probably much less. Now I’m beginning to understand why it was so bad.

Now let me say this: I do know some things about some shit.

I spent more than 15 years in my (younger) life in the entertainment industry. Like everyone else, I began as a musician. It didn’t take me very long to realize that wasn’t my strength, so I moved over to the business side and became very successful as a booking agent, an artist manager, a concert promoter and a big nightclub owner. I even traveled as a Production Manager for a 26-city US tour of two RCA Records recording acts. I think I have the creds to evaluate this show. Not only was I disappointed in the technical quality of the Fathom recording of this event, but I believe that the staging and the talent acquisition fell way short. It was advertised as an HD recording, yet the colors were washed and the clarity didn’t match what one is used to seeing up on the big screen. Unbelievably, there were even three total drop outs during the show (the screen went to black with no audio for 5-6 seconds). It reminded me of when I was a kid watching a film strip in the classroom – sans the melting film sequence. The staging was very average and the lighting subpar, as though we were watching a high school talent show in the auditorium. And that provides me with the perfect segue into talking about the talent. In fact, let’s not use that word at all. Let me rephrase: the perfect segue into talking about the performers. No, the entertainers. No, the acts. No, the hacks. Yeah - that’s it, the hacks.

The evening’s host was introduced as the “Queen of the Internet,” leading me to think, “Yeah, man – Alright!” Out on stage strolls Veronica Belmont, whose claim to fame is her internet TV program “Tekzilla” on Revision3. Wha? She is cute (like that’s a difficult requirement for a casting department to meet, right?) but totally devoid of anything closely resembling stage presence. All night long, she (gulp) read her lines from a crumpled paper pad. Was this dress rehearsal? Did any one tell her it was being recorded? Did Fathom even hire a Director and, if so, was he backstage eating a sandwich? Belmont introduces a “special” musical guest, Jonathan Coulton. The Brooklyn native is a singer/songwriter (okay, I’ll give him the songwriter part) who writes a blog as well some slightly humorous songs). He walks up to the microphone and yells, “Hello, America!” Wha? Settle down, little fella. This isn’t LIVE AID. It was all downhill from there. Summary: Very average guitarist with a voice to match. We’re talking Monday night open-mic level of quality here. Hard to believe this is who Fathom came up with. Please tell me he’s the son or brother of someone deep within the Fathom chain of command. Then it would at least add up. And let’s not forget the guy (didn’t catc h his name) who started the show by drawing raffle tickets (“Collect your gifts on our website”) and hawking products (ahhh, the “In-theater advertising” part). God, I hate that. I paid $10.00 to get in. No ads, please. Rounding out this All Star line-up was Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka (another household name) who actually produced a couple of rather clever mock commercials. Lowtax gets a C-, while Belmont and Coulton need to be held back and repeat First Grade. The other guy should have been left on the cutting room floor, or has this cliché now become “deleted into ether limbo”? In any event, get him out of there. For all I know, he’s the president of Fathom Events. Apart from the headlining movie, this show was consistently short of a professional presentation. Ah, yes . . . the movie:

In the end, we all laughed ourselves into tears.

They should have just shown the movie. Ed Wood’s classic stinker, “Plan 9 from Outer Space” is funny enough by itself these days, what with the pie-plates-on-a-string flying saucers and Vampira’s 18-inch fingernails on top of her 14-inch waist to Bela Lugosi (oh poor, dear Bela Lugosi) in his final role. What a way to end a noted career. He died during filming, and Wood substituted a replacement for the balance of the film who kept walking in and out of scenes in that iconic Lugosi posture of the cape over the arm covering the face. However, this version of Plan 9 was greatly enhanced by the reunion of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 trio of Mike Nelson, Tom Servo (Kevin Murphy) and Crow T. Robot (Bill Corbett) and their uproarious interjections. You may recall years ago when they were a TV rerun staple, with their three silhouettes in the front row of a very bad movie, wise-cracking throughout. I loved them then, and they were even better this time. Most memorable comedic comment of the night: regarding cast member Tor Johnson, who played the part of a 400-pound Zombie, “Tor received his name from his mother in remembrance of what happened to her during his birth.” Honestly, I had to remove my glasses to dry my eyes at least a dozen times. People in the theater were laughing so hard they were snorting out their noses and losing their breath which led to choking and coughing which led to maybe calling for an usher – you know what I mean?

After looking at the RIFF TRAX website, I was not surprised to learn that these guys have several DVDs of their shtick available and I may just get some. They are hilarious. It’s really too bad that the Fathom Events folks feel the need to package them with such crap to fill up two hours. Certainly they can figure out a better way and then really be able to shout out “HELLO, AMERICA!”