Posted by Bruce on October 06, 1998 at 22:54:55:
Damn, that was a good movie!!!!
Just finished watching LOTM on the Fox Movie channel with a handful of friends who seem to be a lot friendlier ever since I ordered digital cable. {Might also be the imported prosciutto I put on the sandwiches}
We weren't planning on watching LOTM. I have the tape of course and have watched it innumerable times. I alone amongst the gathering was the only one who could be called a Mohicanite. But we were playing around with all the new channels {95% of which I will almost certainly never watch again after the next few weeks} when we stumbled across the Elk hunt...
What can I say? The echo of my banshee-like shriek of "DON'T CHANGE IT!!!" is still hovering somwhere over Northern Illinois. Amid rolled eyes and mutterings of "Where's the dijon mustard?" I settled myself down to a quite unexpected treat. I fully expected my fellow cable surfers to either wrestle the remote from me or make hasty departures {with most of my prosicutto}. But much to my delight, all but one of the group started to settle into their seats, open their eyes and ears...and watch a truly great movie.
Yes I did say all but one. Most of the people present {myself included} are fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a wickedly funny satire that makes hay of some incredibly bad movies by having the cast make often uproariously funny comments while the cinematic drivel plays out before them. Very funny stuff. But only with BAD movies. I mean, you know....BAD movies. Well, one of my guests who just couldn't settle down decided to try the MST3k routine out on LOTM.
He didn't get far.
After one or two obnoxious remarks, I placed a firm hand on his shoulder {he'll have bruises for a week or so} and whispered a very decisive "SHUT UP" in his direction. It had a telling effect, he spent the rest of the night running up my phone bill surfing websites. I was gratified to see that when he made a brief 2nd attempt to distract us from LOTM, my good friend and LOTM novice Donna gave him a look that would boil lead...and he scurried off. {I think he got home safely... I'll check in a week or so}
Anyway, back to LOTM. By any stretch it was a less than perfect viewing experiance. Sound problems of interderminate origin throughout
the telecast. My cat kept hopping on the TV and hanging his Maine Coon tail over the screen. The neighbors upstairs were apparently rehearsing "A Chorus Line". And yet, it was my most entertaining experiance watching the film since....oh since I saw it on the big screen. Having watched it so many times on tape, with the power to pause, rerun etc...I think perhaps I lost some of the beauty of the continuity of the film. Oh I will certainly not stop watching the film on tape, and poring over it frame by frame at times like a film student. But watching the film, as a communal experiance with freinds, where you could lose yourself {and feel them losing themselves} in the narrative, the music, the images....oh how sweet it was!!! Sorry to gush like a love struck teen, but watching LOTM tonight was really a reminder of how much I love this movie.
Oh, and with the one noted exception, everyone left happy to have watched a terrific film, and even happier that I did all the cooking.
Take Care all...
Bruce