Jason goes to Holehead--Day 7

Two more movies last Thursday, the last night at the Balboa theater (it moved to the New People Center in Japantown starting Friday)

First up was what was supposed to be the opening night film, were it not for DCP issues--Lucky McKee's ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE. This is a great, fun film and I can see why they wanted it for opening night. We start with a student video project showing the popular kids--cheerleaders and jocks--having a great time...all the way up until a tragic accident. In the aftermath of that, the girl who was doing the video project decides to try out for the cheerleading squad. She's actually doing it for nefarious reasons, but becomes friends of the girls on the squad. Then it takes a very weird left turn. The head jock is a major asshole, the weird goth girl is an actual witch, and...I've already given too much away. Let me just say it's bloody, funny, and sexy--all things I like. Great flick.

Then the next show started off with THE SHINNING. That would be the Simpson's parody that was completely unannounced (but all the regulars knew it.) A wise man (okay, not to name drop but it was Ernie Fosselius, director of HARDWARE WARS) once told me that you should always watch the parodies before seeing the real thing. So this was a good move.

Then Stanly Kubrick's classic THE SHINING, in glorious 35 mm! Okay, maybe not "glorious" but in a perfectly watchable, somewhat faded 35 mm print with some of the most iconic scenes cut out (Wheeeeere's Johnny?) Presumably this was done by a rogue projectionist, and I know a lot of audience members were pretty upset about it. Festival producer George actually posted a Facebook apology about it. For my money, it's still excellent. And I've seen enough faded 35 mm prints to not mind what I saw. And I know 35 mm is getting to be rare enough that I appreciate any chance to see it. And if you really want to see it, the screening next Thursday will be on Blu-Ray. You have a chance to see what's more annoying, a faded, chopped 35 mm print or seeing the movie played backwards over itself.

Also, this is the first time I've seen it since watching ROOM 237, so this was the first time I could catch a lot of the weird things--like the car that almost hits everyone before disappearing in the reverse shot, or the fact that Jack's reading a Playgirl magazine in one scene. Pretty cool.

Total Running Time: 234 minutes
My Total Minutes: 344,538