I can't say that I'm a movie buff, I only go out a few times a year. However, once a year I attend the Science Fiction Film Marathon held by the Case Western Reserve University's Film Society. Each year since 1976 they've been showing 30+ hours of SF and SF'ish films. I've been attending them since 1981. I look on it less as an opportunity to see a bevy of movies, as a grim experiment in sleep deprivation...

There are a number of movies that I like. Some I have liked so much that I positively loath them now: Star Wars, Terminator, Alien, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek, Ghost Busters, etc... These are the common favs, and I've watched them too much. Unfortunately I've done similiar things to Buckaroo Banzai, I'm on my way to doing it to Groundhog's Day. I think I'll be coming to loath The Matix, The Fifth Element and Men In Black. I wanted to loath Event Horizon, but they blew it. I think I loath Army of Darkness. I get morose when I watch 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'll be getting tired of Galazy Quest when it hits DVD. I freak out when I watch Heavy Metal or Airplane...but I did that when I first saw them, so it's hard to tell the difference. I want to come to hate The Mummy, but my darling bride doesn't like it when I get nasty movies...so I'll have to find some other way to get my doldrums about it...

Other movies that have tickled me include: The Toxic Avenger, Tremors, Dark Star, Earth Girls Are Easy, Forbidden Planet, Rocky Horror, Young Frankenstein, Highlander, Invasion of The Bee Girls (those who have gone to the Movie Marathon will know why), Quatermass and the Pit (5 Million Years to Earth)...scared the piddle out of me as a kid, The Thing (1982, carrots need not apply), Time Bandits, Tron, Westworld, Blade Runner and Demolition Man (a guilty pleasure, to be sure). Metropolis and Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon), both have images that still raise the hairs on the back of my neck...

Then there is the other side of the list...movies that would send Lucifer screaming into the parking lot. The Black Hole...what can I say...Disney is to Science Fiction what an enema is to clean teeth. Demon Seed...which seems to have been the inspiration for Windows NT. Dune...now, before anyone garrots me...I liked it, it has images that stick with me...and I hated it...it was like having a ten course dinner all in a single bite. Escape from New York...the first few minutes were wonderful...'nuff said. The Fly...more makeup, please...I can still see bits of Jeff Goldblum trying to act. Just Imagine...oh lord...I've heard that this movie managed to kill SF in the theaters. It has gorgeous scenes used by almost all of the black and white SF serials of the 30's and 40's, and it has a singing Martian...dear god...I've tried to watch it twice, but my Parietal Lobe starts bouncing on my Occipital Lobe in a desperate attempt to blind me, so all I know about it is what I can gleen from the bruises on my forehead from repeating banging on the balcony railing.

Lifeforce is a hard movie to watch...um...the less said about that the better. Logan's Run was an insult...argh! Mars Attacks...but sir, what about the other thirty celebrities we have slated? Naked Lunch.........yes...I have to agree with Nelson...there are two things wrong with that title. Quintet...I honestly believe a two hour shot of the tundra would have been a better use of film...and I think the film makers knew this, since the last ten minutes were pretty much exactly that. Thunderbirds...any of them...Gary Anderson made something that enchanted me as a kid, and appalled me as an adult. Toomorrow...I almost gave up the idea of sex after this one...mercy...

Now...one of the perks of the Movie Marathon is that it is rather like a real life version of Mystery Science Theater 3000, with some important differences: it's run longer, it's still running, it's commercial free. On the other paw I think it could really do with an invention exchange. But to my point, the audience tends to throw quips at the screen (paper airplanes were outlawed). A list of these follows...

1) Shut/Close that door...from The Thing (1951). The audience feels compelled to ask screen characters to do this...

2) Jump my bones (changed to "jump her/him")...from Capricorn One. We're slobs. Not only do we know this, we revel in it...

3) Gertie! Okay, this is from the first mix of live action and animation, featuring a dinosaur named Gertie. It's a silent short which has the placards with the action and dialog. Each placard includes the name of the movie (audiences tend to drift, and need this reminder). We like to read text, and this includes the title. Some wiseass started adding this whenever we'd read the credits, billboards, license plates, etc... and it stuck... Gertie!

4) Snake, I thought you were dead...from Escape From New York. Kurt Russell played Snake Pleskin...and so whenever Kurt appears in a movie we say...

5) 2001 before 2010! The nice Film Society people have sometimes failed to followed chronology. We, the audience, will continue to remind them of this until we are too hoarse to shout...

6) We want Bee Girls! When they first showed them movie, someone from the audience protested the softcore nature of the film, so they stopped it. Fortunately the riot was contained...after 24 hours of movies the audience has the consistency of warm Jell-O. We spent the next year shouting this rallying cry, and they rewarded up by showing it the following year. The scenes with the marshmallow fluff have to be scene to be BEE-lieved...

7) Frame!!!...........Thank-you!!! We're polite, if nothing else...

8) Focus!!!...........Thank-you!!! You get the idea...

9) Die! Die! Die! There aren't many things that really bring the audience together...but the power dive scene in Thunderbird 6 had the power to do it...

10) End! End! End! Quintet and Just Imagine were inspiring too...

11) Is it Science Fiction yet? Super-Mario Bros...Cool World...Naked Lunch... If you've seen them, you probably know what I mean...