Wicked Lives

I didn't go for scary, I went to increase my literacy. And dance a little.

FilmRoasters, the crew who shows bad movies and comments all the way through a la "Mystery Science Theater" was showing the 1978 horror classic "Halloween" tonight. Needless to say, I'd never seen it.

Which is not to say I'd never been to a FilmRoasters' event because I had. Three times. I knew the drill.

The bludgeoning of the cheesy film was taking place at Bottoms Up so I arrived in time to order a monstrous slice of their famous "Karen combo" pizza (no, it really is named that), featuring all kinds of my favorite things: Italian sausage, onions, spinach and Ricotta.

I don't know what Karen it's named for, but she had great taste.

While I ate, the Roasters got warmed up with a bad '80s TV show called "The Master" about a ninja and his pupil, notable mainly for big '80s hair, a Trump-less Las Vegas and a soundtrack by Bill Conti of "Rocky" fame.

By the time that corniness ended, there were eight people in the audience and five of them were gabbing loudly because they hadn't come to see the movie.

After more than a few pointed barbs in their direction, they got the hint and moved out on the patio so that the remaining three of us could hear the movie's bad dialog and the roasters' pithy improvisation.

They asked how recently the audience had seen the movie (um, never) and said, "If the last time you saw "Halloween" it was scary, it's been too long." The event invitation had warned that, "Only really old people still think it's scary."

The only thing I already knew about "Halloween" was its soundtrack and that's because local musician Scott Burton was a huge fan of director John Carpenter's soundtrack and had transposed it from piano to guitar and I'd heard him play it on several occasions near Halloween.

The first thing I learned about "Halloween" tonight was that the virginal Laurie character was Jamie Lee Curtis' first film (the credits "introduce" her).

Then the Roasters set about mocking it at every turn.

When the first babysitter has her nude scene, someone cracked, "Seventies boobs were different." You mean high and firm without being fake? Yea, they sure were.

They made fun of the nurse in her cap and cape. The turned the murder's voice into Darth Vader imitations and said things such as, "I hate a guy with a car and no sense of humor" about one of the teen-aged victims.

And like with previous screenings, the Roasters were profoundly impatient with the '70s style of film making, making frequent comments about long shots, extended takes and showing the viewer everything.

"Film it all, film her walking up the whole street!" one guy shouted when she took five steps on camera.

Call me old school, but I found it refreshing to see a film that allowed scenes to unfold and wasn't just a non-stop montage of quick cuts for the ADD set.

But the '70s details were on point: Laurie doesn't date because all the guys think she's too smart. Don't feel bad, Laurie, I didn't get asked to prom, either.

When she and her girlfriend take off in the enormous '70s car (not wearing seat belts, natch) for their babysitting jobs, they share a joint in the car on the way, her friend saying,"Come on, we have just enough time" and the Roasters retorting, "There's always time for marijuana!"

At her babysitting job, Laurie dons a full apron to make popcorn for her charges and carve a jack-o-lantern ("Remember when we used to say jack-o-lantern?"). Really, an apron?

As the murderer stalks them in his car, someone quipped, "Is anyone concerned that the killer is driving a station wagon?"

Not in the '70s, baby.

When a character says he thinks the murderer's former house is haunted, the Roasters said, "Haunted by eight bad sequels! And number three made no sense!" I wouldn't know.

Once all the sexually active babysitters have been murdered and Laurie thinks she's killed the killer, she sits sobbing on the floor in relief and post-terror. "She's sobbing because there's going to be a sequel."

So now, ladies and gentlemen, I can say I've seen "Halloween," the film credited with beginning a long line of slasher films based on Hitchcock's "Psycho" and a reminder that boobs were better in the '70s.

Or something.

Having upped my cultural literacy over a slice, I opted to finish out the night at Balliceaux to see Red Light Rodeo.

Walking up the alley, I saw a small crowd near the door and just as I came up behind them, one guy reared back with his leg and kicked my hand with his shoe. When he realized what had happened, he joked, "Don't sneak up on a brother like that, girl!" and then apologized. I chalked it up to my quiet shoes on the cobblestones.

Inside, I found a small but exuberant crowd in the back room, many of the women dancing already to Red Light Rodeo's take on bluegrass honky tonk, including two who finished "Sitting on Top of the World" by falling on the beer-slicked floor laughing their faces off.

The band was bigger than I expected with drums/percussion, acoustic guitar, upright bass, mandolin/electric fiddle and electric guitar/pedal steel and all dapperly dressed in bolo ties, western style shirts and a couple with cowboy hats on.

When the band took a break, a woman decided to talk to me, commenting on how I'd been observing the room as I sipped my tequila. I found out she left Richmond for the West Coast only to return and wonder why she'd ever left. In other words, a familiar tale.

The band scored big with a country version of "Louie, Louie" that got just about everyone in the room dancing before it was over. From there, they sang about about liquor and whores, wicked lives and mentioned how their favorite song subject was whiskey ("You and me and whiskey makes three").

Only really old people wouldn't appreciate that kind of music.

Hymn to Her: Fabulous and Beautiful

"It took a woman to show us the light." ~Teenage Mother

What sentiment could more perfectly sum up Mother's Day than that?

After a drive to the Northern Neck to pay homage to my own maternal ancestry (sign on insurance company: "Farmers, please report corn acres planted," and sign on gas station: "Happy Momz Day!"), it was time to let the Mother's Day festivities begin.

To ensure mixing with as diverse crowds as possible tonight, first there was a picnic at Agecroft with music by the Richmond Concert Band.

It unfolded under an enormous magnolia tree and with a straight-shot  view of the conductor, a bottle of Chianti and way too much food.

This year's theme was "Virginia Connections" and featured the works of, yep, Virginians.

An outdoor concert sounds so different than an indoor one, with the sound having endless space to move around in.

Acoustically, I know it's inferior but that's balanced by the pleasures of a picnic with live symphonic music.

After the performance and a stroll of the grounds, it was on to Firehouse Theater for mockery.

Film Roasters was doing their monthly screening of a truly bad movie with Mystery Science Theatre-like commentary from a trio of wise asses.

The cinematic gem we saw was "Teenage Mother" from 1967 which featured the Young Set (complete with jerky go-go dancer, mocked by one of the improv guys as, "Some bronzer and a lampshade and she's good to go") and the star's wardrobe supplied by Betsy Johnson Paraphernalia.

I know my fashion history; Betsy Johnson was the mod designer in the sixties. Her clothes made guys say things like, "I want that chick. She's stacked."

The movie told the story of a sex education teacher from Sweden trying to enlighten an American  high school to much resistance.

Translation: between the dated dialog and endless riffing on it, I was laughing pretty much non-stop.

"Health education being taught by a woman? That's something new!" In 1967, I'm sure it was.

As we laughed along to lines about a teenager's $10 allowance and going to a drive-in to see "Girl on a Chain Gang," we never saw it coming.

"It" was the sex ed teacher's last defense to save her job when the parents got mad at her unorthodox subject matter.

She shut them right up by showing a film of a baby being born using forceps.

That's right, in the middle of this corny 1967 movie with every cliche in the world about teenagers, smoking pot and pre-marital sex, we saw an actual clip of a baby being delivered.

With, I might add, a voice over explaining the placement of the forceps and the accompanying issues.

We saw the baby's head and shoulders come out. Um, happy Mother's Day?

Let's just say that the room got unspeakably quiet as the audience tried to process what was surely most people's first actual birth footage.

When the lights came up, we were instructed, "That's it, you can go home and think about that now."

I'm guessing most people did the opposite and tried to block it out for the rest of their evening.

I thought a better solution was to head over to Richmond Triangle Players for the Ghostlight Afterparty, essentially a piano bar where all the singers are actors.

Afterbirth, afterparty, I always say.

The five hour party was underway when we arrived and the first song we caught was a fine one, "My Funny Valentine" by Carla.

With my J-Ward neighbors a few rows behind, the 'hood was representing.

The superb accompanist Sandy, this time on a grand piano instead of last month's keyboard, did harmony for her daughter's rendition of Carole King's "Where You Lead" in honor of the holiday.

Host Matt kept the show rolling with jokes, tambourine playing and his excellent singing voice.

Walking across the stage at one point, he noticed a stool with a cocktail on it and cracked up.

"That's what I love about Ghostlight Afterparty," he said with no clear idea whose drink it was since no one was onstage then.

Jason did a stellar version of "If I Loved You" after talking about his talented musical mother and why he'd turned out the way he had.

Tonight's guest star was Lisa who set the tone by proclaiming that every time she mentioned her adored 11-year old son Jamie, everyone in the room was required to drink.

A deceptively simple rule and yet one with comic results as the night wore on.

She did a "Mad Lib" version of "A Spoonful of Sugar," singing off a Mad Libs sheet of nonsense words.

Because they're actors, the hamming never stops, like when one guy paused mid-song and said, "Dramatic cross" and moved from center stage to the piano for his big finale.

Of course I saw a couple of my favorite boys, in particular Princess Di (blue pants, pink shirt) and the theater critic (on a date), both pleased as punch to see a friend.

B.C. did a terrific version of "When You're Good to Mama," while Matt shook his booty against the tambourine and Maggie danced across the back of the stage.

Afterwards, Matt noted dryly, "B.C. sings songs in women's registers better than most women do."

And that is why we come to the Ghostlight Afterparty.

Around 11:30 the pizza arrived and the hungry audience took a break and descended on it.

Susan killed it with her rendition of "The Man That Got Away" and a duet of "Suddenly Seymour" had half the room singing along.

Pianist Sandy and Audra wowed the crowd with "Just a Housewife" before we got to the last song of the night.

According to the non-actor, non-singer who took the stage, she was a straight white girl rapping like a straight black man about, you know, having what you need.

It was at that point that Princess Di turned to me and sniffed, "There's fifteen men singing along to this in the back row."

Indeed they were and having a grand old time.

And wherever their mothers were, I'm sure they'd have been very proud of them.

Cause especially on Mother's Day, it takes a woman to, well, do it all.

See the light?

Doctors Who Smoke and Other Laughs

When you go to a FilmRoasters event, you expect comedy, not drama.

What could be funnier than listening to a few improv guys with microphones skewer a B-grade film for an appreciative audience?

And tonight's event was long overdue given that they'd been on hiatus while the Firehouse got renovated and then got snowed out last month.

I know because I was one of the dedicated souls who trudged through that wet, sloppy snow to see if the doors were open that cold February night.

So I was eager for tonight's event, as was the FilmRoasters virgin accompanying me.

When we got there, they were showing a Spiderman short from the 70s and already mocking everything in sight.

Stereotypes still abounded in the 70s. The cop was jolly/tough and Irish.

When Spiderman climbs a high-rise and removes window bars to gain entry, someone cracked, "Why do you need bars on the twentieth floor?"

After a lot of corny dialog and bad seventies hair, the short ended and the organizer asked how many were first timers.

The girl next to me was and he asked her how she'd come to be there.

"I googled things to do in Richmond tonight and this came up," she admitted.

Ah, the powers of Google.

They showed a preview for May's event, an hysterical-looking film called "Teenage Mother" with the tag line, "Nine months of trouble" about a girl who was a little too easy with the boys.

I can't wait.

Tonight's main feature was "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and while I'd heard of it, I'd never seen it.

But it had big news like Patricia Neal (Oscar for "Hud"), Robert Wise director (he did the "Sound of Music") and composer Bernard Herrmann (he of all those Hitchcock collaborations).

Not exactly B-movie people.

The film had been made in 1951, so naturally I was fascinated by the period details. Gas station attendants, a radio store, TV announcers all being old guys, every man wore a hat.

When the "glowing flying saucer" arrives on earth and the spaceman walks out of it in his fitted, shiny suit, a guy cracked, "Looks like Bowie."

"Our world, at the moment, is full of tensions and suspicions," the TV anchor warned the viewing audience.

As opposed to, say, now?

When a TV personality is interviewing people on the streets, he mistakenly asks the disguised spaceman what he thinks.

"I am fearful when people substitute fear for reason," he says succinctly and the TV guy moves on, not happy with such a non-hysterical response to space invaders.

Three quarters of the way through the film, there was a series of crashing sounds on the steps down from the bathroom.

A man returning to the film had apparently lost his footing and fallen down the staircase to the first landing.

People rushed over to help, the film was stopped and an ambulance was called. Within twenty minutes, he had been taken to MCV for treatment.

One of the organizers noted, "The day the FilmRoasters stood still."

The film was continued but it took most of us a while before relaxing back into mindless laughter over cheap shots, corny humor and witty commentary.

When the spaceman is shot and taken to a hospital, he miraculously heals in hours due to the advanced planet he comes from.

Two doctors discuss his case, one wondering how he recovered so quickly.

"Their medicine is that much more advanced than ours," says one of the doctors, lighting a cigarette for the other as they both smoke and discuss the case.

You think?

The movie wasn't without partisan commentary, either. "People, my foot! They're Democrats!"

The improv guys were especially impatient with the 1950s style of film making, making frequent comments about long shots, extended takes and showing the viewer everything.

"Okay now every cop car in the force is going to be shown pulling out!" said one attention-short guy.

If it's not quick cuts to some people, it's boring.

On the other hand, their 21st century humor over mid-20th century film was hysterical.

After the earth sands still and everything stops working, one cracked, "Did you try alt/control/delete?"

The movie took place in D.C., where a woman comments, "There's nothing strange about Washington, D.C."

I feel pretty certain that even in 1951 there was plenty strange in our nation's capital.

At the end, the spaceman and his robot leave D.C. and life returns to normal.

Or as normal as it ever got during the Eisenhower years.

My FilmRoasters virgin and I finished off the evening with desserts from Lucille's Bakery.

A tiramisu bomb and Mexican chocolate pyramid were obscenely dark chocolate and paired beautifully with King Family Loreley as we discussed the partisanship of the movie we'd just seen.

It made for a somewhat anticlimactic ending to the evening the film stood still.

Drama, my foot! It was a pretty funny way to spend an evening.