Jason watches "Repo! The Genetic Opera"

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Last night I went to the fabulous Parkway Theater, the original Oakland speakeasy theater where you can get a pitcher of beer and a pizza (or nachos, sammiches, etc) to enjoy during the movie. And this was a movie that goes very well with beer.

It's very, very difficult to intentionally make a cult classic film. Cult film fans can tell when you're pandering to them, and they don't respect it. In fact, most cult classics are films that are so far out there that you can't imagine the filmmakers thinking about an audience at all--they make the film for themselves and if a cult finds it, good for them.

With that said, "Repo! The Genetic Opera" is still perfectly primed to become a cult classic (and judging by the members of the N. Cal Repo Army singing along last night, it already is). Sometime in the near future, organ failures have become an epidemic. In steps Geneco, the corporate answer for organ transplants. You can even finance your transplant at a reasonable rate. However, if you can't keep up the payments they send in a Repo Man to take back their property (organs with ubiquitous bar codes, gotta love it). There's also a powerful (and powerfully addictive) painkiller harvested from corpses. And the founder of Geneco, Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino) has a terminal disease. Problem is his two sons (Bill Mosely and Nivek Ogre of Skinny Puppy) are either obnoxious or hideous, and his daughter (played by Paris Hilton) is a total skank (big stretch for her, but I actually have more respect after her self-mocking role). There's a battle for his inheritance, and there's a love triangle from 17 years back, with murder, revenge, and a poor imprisoned daughter who might just be the perfect heir (and her father, Anthony Head, as the ultimate secret Repo Man). There's also Blind Mag, the voice of Geneco and recipient of their first eye transplant. And as if the plot wasn't operatic enough, it's an actual opera, so it's all sung. And it's directed Darren Lynn Bousman who also directed Saws II through IV, so you know the set design is appropriately gory and creepy. But it moves along at comic-book pace (in fact, with comic book intertitles to move it along faster) so that the gore is presented as comedy more than horror. Think a sensibility more akin to Peter Jackson's "Braindead" (or "Dead Alive" as the US version is called) than any of the Saw movies.

So yeah, it was perfect to watch while drinking beer, but I assume I would've enjoyed it sober, too ('cuz I'm that kinda guy). So maybe it doesn't have a beerequisite, but there's certainly beer-hancement to be had.

Oh, and if I happen to have any readers who live in the Anchorage area and have nothing to do after say, the end of this month, "Repo!" will be playing at the Anchorage Film Festival. It plays December 6 at 10:15 at the Bear Tooth Theater. Coincidentally, that's another theater where you can get beer and pizza during the movie. I think this film has found it's type of venue.