Movie night
Friday night I realized at the last minute that my plan to clean the house a little and then rent an Italian zombie movie/talk to the Baroness on IM wasn't going to happen. I called Stalwart Dan but we couldn't agree on a film to go out to see, and neither of us had a free living room to watch a flick in, so we gave up. It was 6:30 or so by this point, so I decided against trying to contact anyone else, so I cleaned the kitchen a bit, got Mexican for dinner and then retired to my room to read and play a little Age of Empires.



Stalwart Dan and I, however, did make plans for the next night-to watch Simon, King of the Witches, Trainspotting or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I spent Saturday doing some minor chores and then I was pleased to find that SD brought along Simon, King of the Witches a weird, low budget film SD had told me of often.

I'm not sure how to describe Simon, but let's just say it's odd-as-hell. Andrew Prine (of Grizzly and The Town that Dreaded Sundown) is at his most entertaining as Simon, a self-styled "magician/warlock" that lives in a storm drain. Oh yeah-our hero ladies and gentlemen. He's, as Dan put it, "the Mitchell of the occult world". The film opens with Simon talking directly to the audience-"My name is Simon. I live in a storm drain. I'm a magician".

Soon dear Simon is busted for vagrancy. He meets a young hustler in the joint and the two become friends-though the hustler seems to offer himself to Simon, it's not clear that anything comes of it. Soon the hustler is taking Simon to see the local big wig gay Hugh Heffner type, Hercules. From there we get a series of vignettes with the interconnecting thread being Simon's quest to become a god and his really undeveloped romantic relationship with the D.A.'s pill addict daughter.

The film doesn't make all that much sense, but I found Prine to be damned funny as Simon and the extremely dated nature of the whole affair is quaint and charming. Definitely worth watching, I may try to get my own copy.

I really regretted going with Grizzly as the second film-Stalwart Dan had brought along Trainspotting, and, in retrospect, it would've been a better choice than the slow, almost scene-by-scene without the talent remake of Jaws that it is. Stone, Dr. Kimenstein, the Ant Queen and Bova Fett joined us for the second film, and I can only say that I'm not sure if they found the few bear suit scenes and the out-of-left-field ending compensation for the leaden pace of Grizzly. I am serious considering trying to sell off my copy at this point.

Stalwart Dan, Dr. Kimenstein and the Ant Queen all left us and Commisoner Gordon and her friend, who recognized me from my days as a sort of minor-Hercules figure at Brandeis (okay, okay, I'm kidding, but I did throw a lot of parties and I keep meeting people who I don't recognize who were at said parties) joined us for the insanity that is Fantasy Mission Force. Though not as good as the first time I saw it, I'm keeping this piece of craziness around.