Well today I had a damn fun double-feature. I saw LA CONFIDENTIAL and PENITENTIARY. What a great double feature!!! As usual here's how the entire day went:

Woke up and the US Magazine guy was back at my house wanting to continue the interview from the previous day (surely I'm not this interesting). So we talk for a bit in my room (the central nervous system of the awe-inspiring technological wet-dream yall call Ain't It Cool). He is sweating, as it is 102 degrees in my room, seriously that's the real temperature. Right now in fact it's 98 degrees. Sigh. Sweat fatass Sweat. It's good for me. Anyway, I suggest we go eat, and we do.

I take him to another classic food pounding place here in Austin: HUT'S. This place is the greasy hamburger lovers' dream fully realized. The interior is filled with pennants, calendar girl art, buffalo carcasses, pop culture references, etc. Kinda reminds me of my house for sheer magnatude of cool clutter. I get a double meat buffalo DagWood burger with a half and half order of onion rings and fries. Oh yeah, Ice Tea... always Ice Tea. We continue doing the interview, he wants to know about the dark period of my life, and I tell him in the briefest possible way. It's a story that ain't too much fun to tell, and in this new age of using ones tragedies or "differences" to brow beat the media into submission, I'm a bit uncomfortable with it. But he did ask...

He has to go back to New York, so he drops me off at the house. Where I instantly begin making plans to go see LA CONFIDENTIAL. My van broke down, and I'm stranded here at my house. This sucks. I don't like being stranded. I hate it even. So I call up line person supreme, Jan the nice lady, and she picks my father and I up to go see da mubie.

We get out to the Arbor and as I am walking across the lobby, with out any warning whatsoever my ankle collapses. I fall, twisting the hell out of my ankle, my glasses fly ten feet in front of me, the floor rushes towards my large fur covered face. My hands go to block my precious face, I survive. Then my ankle begins throbbing, I can feel it growing bigger like those tiny foam rubber dinosaurs that when you stick em in water they grow gigantic. Oh the Pain. I make my way to a bench and sit down trying to determine if I just twisted it, sprained it or broke it. Doesn't hurt too much, I just twisted the hell out of it. Joy. I get to sit in a movie theater with a throbbing foot.

The line people begin arriving and making fun of my throbbing foot. An evil baseball capped bearded dude named Ron, and this other sadistic monster named Sam. They laugh at me, putting me through the ringer. Of course I would do the same if positions were reversed. In the line a girl is trying to do her Spanish homework without her book, she wasn't doing too great.

Finally they let us in the theater, I'm walking with great shards of pain. I get to my seat with a ticket to win a poster, koosie and a newspaper t-shirt. My friend RoRo shows up as the theater begins filling up. He brings a cold drink. He is a god. The people throwing the free showing begin their lottery process. I don't win. Then about five minutes after that debacle they announce that the theater has no air conditioning so they are moving us to the next theater "in an orderly and cooperative way". Yeah right, sister. She asks the last three rows to go, the entire theater stands and rushes for the door. It's madness. My ankle hurts. My father was gone in a flash. I have no idea where he went. I move precariously towards the exit to go to the other theater. Now feeling the sweat squeeze out of my forehead everytime my left foot hits the ground. Awwww the agony. RoRo stays at my side. We enter the other auditorium, to find my father saving three seats exactly where we like to sit. RoRo and I are in amazement. Wow. We get there, and Dad tells me about the heroic Sam (note: he was one of the line people kidding me about my ankle) bursting into the theater and saving our preferred seats. THE LINE PEOPLE STICK TOGETHER!!!

The film starts about 15 minutes late. The first trailer comes up:

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE- a quick group of cuts showing Ted... oops, Keanu and Charlize Theron in New York. Then we see this close up of Keanu looking into the camera. A gigantic horrific 40 ft Keanu head staring at us, the terrified audience. The frame becomes stuck, as that horrendous presence begins melting before my eyes!!! As if my thoughts had destroyed his image. It was glorius. Keanu melts like the Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ahhhhhhh, all as it should be.

Several minutes of nothing. Then the theater lights darken again.

MAD CITY- I like this trailer. Looks like it could be an interesting movie, don't know if anyone has seen it yet. though.

Then LA CONFIDENTIAL!

WOW. What a tremendous movie. About the time that cool ol LA theater is having the world premiere of WHEN WORLD'S COLLIDE in the background of a shot, I exploded in a rush of geekgasms. Wow, coolness.

Ok, here is the non-spoiler review of the film. I'm not gonna look up the names of the actors, so you'll have to get them by the cross film association I'm gonna unleash on ya.

Ok we have that short little dude who played the PENGUIN as a Hollywood sleazeball reporter, who kinda becomes a real scum of a greek chorus for parts of the film. I haven't seen him this good since the first ROMANCING THE STONE film. Totally believable, and completely fun.

Ok that Pig-dude that trained Babe? He also invented warp-drive. He's amazing as a kind of chief of police in this one. He plays a great older irish sounding aging cop. He'll make you forget both the previous roles mentioned here.

Then there is that damn cool Keyser Soze/John Doe fella. Now, I happen to know several women that have a major Verbal fetish, and they will cream all over themselves with this performance. You find yourself loving his role, and while loving the film, you will want an additional film that follows the life of this character. I couldn't shake his character after the film, imitating his voice and mannerisms. It's a strong character that creates that kind of influence.

Ok, I know you hate her. But Vicki Vale/ the Stepmother from Outer Space kicks ass in this film. Playing the ever so beautiful Veronica Lake look alike. At one point a character tells her she is more beautiful than Veronica Lake. NO WAY. Don't get me wrong, she's mighty fine, but Veronica Lake had an unmistakable coolness that Ms Vale doesn't. That aside, her character is great. You'll fall for her. She is not the most desirable female in cinema this year, which has to go to the girl in IN THE COMPANY OF MEN. I actually fell for that tortured girl.

That evil computer psycho from Virtuosity who went on a Romper Stomper with Sharon Stone in a Raimi Gunfight film. Well he KICKS ASS in this movie. Every now and again you have a character that explodes as a force of nature on screen. A wild uncontrollable on screen male anger personified. This actor does that in spades. An unleashed bull. Jake LaMotta with a badge. This is the other character you want to see a whole movie on. Fantastic.

Then we have an actor I'm unfamiliar with as the Boy Scout of the movie. Mr. Goody Two Shoes. The fresh faced know-it-all. You want him dead, early in the film, till eventually you find yourself coming to realize he is the only character you would really want to be a police officer. Quite a performance to change a gut opinion in the course of the film.

The production design, the score, the camera work, editing, and the film as a whole all whup ass. If you can't stand a period film, that's your loss, this movie runs on screen. There is an awkward 15 minutes in the middle of the film, where it would seem the film should be ending, but don't fret, you won't be disappointed in where the film turns next. My pick for second best film of the year, behind IN THE COMPANY OF MEN. I can say that I also have a fave film of the year... FACE/OFF, but that's just me and my Woo fetish.

Tremendous film making. If this same screenwriter, can deliver PARKER with Mel Gibson, you could have a new kickass film maker wandering the earth. I hope so. We need them. More of them. This film is the type that energizes your batteries an entire season of bad films. You see it just takes one film that you like this much, to make you immune to the bad tastes of crappy middle of the road films like SWITCHBACK.

After the movie, RoRo, Dad and I went home to plan our attack of PENITENTIARY at the Alamo Drafthouse here in Austin. You see, they were suppose to be showing SWEET SWEETBACK'S BADASSSSSS SONG, but the distributor sent them the wrong print, and instead they have this one. S.S.B.S. went to Italy somewhere. Anyway, I've seen that film, but had never even heard of PENITENTIARY.

We arrive at the theater. My ankle screaming, no way was I going to attempt the stairs. So bright boy Harry heads for the elevator shaft. This is one of them handicap cheapo elevators, super slow, open air, not for the claustrophobic. I get in, there is this sign saying "up and down", I immediately flash to my KING OF THE ROCKETMAN instructions, "so easy a child can use them" So I press the red button next to the "UP". KLAXONS begin blaring, sirens sound, red lights flash. People rush to the top of the elevator shaft, the insanity of the moment was not lost on me, stuck in the bottom of the elevator shaft. Then I was saved from certain doom by an Alamo Drafthouse emergency taker-care-of-er person, who like Jack in SPEED dove into the elevator shaft and told me not to press the EMERGENCY BUTTON, and explained the "so easy a child could use them" instructions. You see, you're suppose to press up to go up, and down to go down. Duh!

As I began my ascent upwards toward my darkened theater, I began thinking about death scenes in rickety elevator shafts. I couldn't think of any, so I felt comfortable with the knowledge that when I plummeted to my death I would most certainly have an original death scene in the AIN'T IT COOL TELEVISION DOCU-DRAMA about my early demise. At least I would have that.

I safely arrived up top. And talked with the cool Alamo people about LA CONFIDENTIAL and asked about PENITENTIARY, which noone knew anything about. Good, I say. I'm going in cold, a great way to see a film. I saw TIM the guy who runs the Alamo Drafthouse taking his 8mm projector into the theater, this was a bit shocking, cause after all, I assumed we would be seeing a 35mm print of the classic film, but I was told that the 8mm was for a short film shot here in Austin called SWEET SWEETROLL'S BADASSSSS SPIN. Cool, an 8mm short, how many damn theaters will do that? Not many that I know of. Supporting your local film people by giving them a forum to exhibit their short films, inspires the creative types to continue, and you never know where the next big thing will come from.

Dad, RoRo and I sat and devoured ice cold water, while RoRo ordered a delicious looking sandwich and a coke. Then the theater went dark and the whine of the 8mm projector drifted to my ears. This was a cool little short 8mm film that was about how a Austin drag type (you have to be from Austin or familiar to get this reference) tries to earn money to get in a laundry dryer for a spin. Pretty cool shot of a guy looking in a newspaper coin return from inside the coin return. I liked that shot. Funky boots, and neat music. It was only about two and a half to 4 minutes long, but enjoyable and non- pretentious which is always my fear with short films.

Then the typical legendary cool trailers of the Alamo Drafthouse began. I highly recommend that you "cool" theater owners out there find neat old trailers from yesteryear to show, not to advertise a coming attraction, but to set the tone for the film you are showing. Sometimes the trailers shown before a film can ruin the film, like the recent showing of 1000 ACRES that had a LITTLE MERMAID trailer attached to the beginning of it. Light hearted musical kids fare in front of a depressing film about the futility of life. THEY DON'T GO TOGETHER, but these do:

The first trailer is the classic CONVOY trailer. FANTASTIC trailer that lights up the screen and has you hollering to see the film. Sam Peckinpah knew how to cut a trailer. Cut to the CONVOY song, you see Kris Kristofferson pre-Millenium and Ernest "Cabbie" Borgnine in all his redneck glory. This toe tapping trailer had me licking my chomps in anticipation. I wanna see the movie NOW!!!

How do you follow that trailer? With SGT KABUKIMAN NYPD of course. Oh my god I laughed during this trailer, "The first accidental Oriental SuperHero!!!" Man, Kabukiman rocks. To see him in all his bumbling kung fu samurai glory fighting the forces of evil in this Troma classic is to live.

Now, I figured after CONVOY and SGT KABUKIMAN NYPD nothing could top it, that the film would have to begin, but boy was I wrong. No, ol Tim and the Alamo fun bunch reeled up RUSS MEYER'S BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRAVIXENS. These gigantically busted cartoon girls running and bouncy about, leaping and screwing, and moaning and yelling. This here is what fun film going at a cool theater is about. I mean hell, the movie hasn't started and already I had my money's worth. What the hell.

Then PENITENTIARY unfurled it's inept reels on screen. Music by Franke Gaye and starring NOBODY. Basically this is what all those people out there that warned you about a certain type of movie were talking about. This is what this movie is about: