Riff Trax Live: Plan 9 From Outer Space

The worst movie of all time gets the MST3K treatment by three of that show's stars: Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbitt, and Kevin Murphy, performing live from Nashville, Tennessee and broadcast to the AMC 16 Theatre in Paramus, New Jersey (one of the few theatres in the Tri-State area to host the event). The purpose of the show (for those who have never followed Mystery Science Theater, The Film Crew, or RiffTrax) is to showcase feature-length films (often, if not exclusively, some of the worst ever made) and provide running comedic commentary throughout. The original Mystery Science Theater premiered in 1988 and ran until 1999, garnering a large cult following and several Emmys for writing. Being fans ourselves (and having converted several people myself), I reserved tickets and took Lacey to the show, anticipating a brief introduction to the movie and then diving right into the show.
Here the event was vastly different than what was expected: an entire movie theatre full of fans (completely full. The show was sold out), broadcast live (at points the signal was lost, which prompted shouts of "Oh no!" in unison from everyone) and even featuring fake commercials (from Something Awful regular Rich Kyanta, the most amusing being a fake ad for the "Three Day Mill Event") and a sing-along session (by geek musician John Coulton, who "Re: Zombies" and "The Future Soon"). Host Veronica Belmont was amiable, although she seemed slightly nervous in her first minutes on-stage, although she visibly mellowed out.
The show featured the afformentioned Ed Wood anti-masterpiece, and an instructional short "The Flying Stewardesses" being the opening act. While it was somewhat obvious that Nelson, Corbitt and Murphy had rehearsed some of the lines beforehand, there were still many instances where they were visibly confused by the content of the films; at certain times during the show, three video images of each host would appear on-screen alongside the film (think picture-in-picture) and show the hosts reacting and commenting. While it was amusing to see the bemused reactions to the films they were watching, after the second transition to the picture-in-picture it got very distracting (it wound up appearing another 3 times in the course of the show). Eight times out of ten, the jokes and riffs hit their marks (and even when they didn't, I'd notice things in the film that were just too ridiculous to not be funny), and the hosts even referenced the MST3K episode The Atomic Brain when poking fun at actor Tor Johnson, who played the police chief in Plan 9 and Lobo in the aforementioned MST3K film (I think I was the only one to directly notice the reference).
What most surprised me, however, was simply the amount of people in the theatre. Young people, old people, people my age, an entire family, and (to the right of me) a single well-dressed 30-something who disappeared about an hour into the show and when he came back to his seat he smelled of rum and vodka. Awesome.
It was nice to realize that there were so many people within a ten-mile radius who took time out to sit down to laugh at (and with) an inexplicbly failed film (one that isn't bad conceptually...just executed poorly for a variety of reasons). Towards the end of the film it also dawned on me how, despite its horrible execution, Plan 9 From Outer Space still managed not only to fill an entire multiplex theatre in competition with summer blockbusters, but managed to do so a full fifty years after it was made. That's something to be fuckin' impressed about, folks.
I hope the turnout was well enough that there is another event. I might just get a group to go this time.

In personal news, I am currently waiting to hear back from from the director of a website focusing on sustainability and social awareness and activism. I applied to write a 30 minute script abuot Buckminster Fuller, and am hoping I get the job (despite the fact that it's non-paying...but could lead to paid work in the future). Getting paid to write? Sign me the fuck up. That's half of what I want to do with my life!