Plan 9

Good gravy, what to add...Plan 9 needs a disclaimer, "If you liked Ed Wood, you will most assuredly not like this movie." Plan 9 would be more excusable if people haven't over the course of decades released low low budget movies that didn't suck terribly.

A notorious dud when it came out in 1959, there's no reason for Plan 9 to age well, (besides the plot/special effects [that felt strange to write]) sci-fi pulp thrillers that would have provided a crossover audience don't exist in print on a large scale anymore. Come to think of it, there wasn't much in the way of too tight spacesuits in this film was there? Hell, flesh in Hollywood has always been cheap and plentiful. Wood didn't even get that right.

To fall short of the pulp sleaze content when this was released was more likely the reason for its ignominy than the crappy effects. All effects were crappy back then, even though some of its offenses appear truly egregious now, I'm just going to assume the gap between awesome effects and terrible effects was much slimmer in the 50's. As for the plot...

I saw this baby a long time ago, and feel it exemplifies the danger of watching a good documentary/docu-drama that was inspired by a classic (that moonlights as a dud). The danger being that you might actually watch the classic.

PS How'd you like that. 100% out of my ass.

Posted by Zack L. at 1:59PM on 11/15/04 in 009: Plan 9 From Outer Space | Comments (0)

California, here we coooome!

I think knowing ahead of time that "Planet 9 From Outer Space" was full of flubs kind of ruined it. Hearing those infamous lines like "Future events such as these will affect you in the future" and seeing the same Bela Lugosi clip over and over and over were funny, but it got old kind of quickly.

So...when given the choice between Planet 9 and the O.C. premiere, I had to go with the guilty pleasure. Better luck next week!

Posted by Jori K. at 5:14PM on 11/08/04 in 009: Plan 9 From Outer Space | Comments (0)

Your Stupid, Stupid Minds!

You're right Karen, this movie was not kitschy bad, it was bad bad. It was difficult to sit through, mostly because the movie moved so damn slow, and the silly mistakes were not as entertaining as they should have been. And, I'll admit, I was happy to start watching the OC, even though I was a little curious to see whether or not Plan 9 succeeded.

Despite my disappointment, I have a feeling that a couple weeks or a couple months from now someone will bring up this movie and I'll have a good chuckle thinking about solaranite or or plans one through eight. In other words, it was worth the pain of sitting through what was undeniably a crappy film so that I can trade memories with computer programmers and film nerds for years to come.

Also, IMDb's list of mistakes is possibly better than the first list I posted.

Posted by Matt J. at 12:45AM on 11/07/04 in 009: Plan 9 From Outer Space | Comments (0)

The Ninth Plan Involves Vampire Zombies

Everyone always says that Ed Wood films are supposed to be BAD, that this is the crux of their charm, but I didn't really believe it until after watching last night's Cinema Ahh*some pick, Plan 9 From Outerspace. I expected kitsch. I expected hilarity. I hoped perhaps to see a little angora.

Especially, as the only person who'd seen the film before, our friend visiting from the Great Canadian North, Robbie was practically rubbing his hands together in gleeful anticipation. He even wanted to insist that we not start the movie until after the pizza arrived, as he didn't want us to miss seeing the first 30 minutes continuously.

However, even the obvious strings holding the "fly saucers" as they circled Hollywood looking for a convenient cemetary to land in or the disregard for switching from day to night shooting in the same scene, couldn't keep my interest. 30 minutes of that stilted dialogue and endless scenes (Ed, baby, learn to edit for pacing!) and I literally fell asleep. Now, I've slept in a number of movie theaters around the greater New York area and on a scale of comfy to uncomfortable, I'd say Matty's Brown Leather Side Chair is more condusive for some shut eye than the NYU classrooms, Anthology Film Archives and Film Forum but less than Walter Reade. Which I guess is a good thing to find out, in the grand scheme of things.

All in all, the best part of the evening was when we shut off the movie and turned on the Tivo-ed premier episode of the OC. I always wanted to know what Seth Cohen's middle name is, and now I do. Ezekiel has an impressive ring, don't you think? By the way, Jori has a great singing voice and she knows all the words to the "California" theme song. Now that's impressive.

Posted by Karen W. at 4:33PM on 11/05/04 in 009: Plan 9 From Outer Space | Comments (1)

Random Facts and Gaffs from Plan 9

I did a little googling and came up with some fun links. So far, the best is a site detailing all the mistakes in the film. The man found 73 of them. I think my favorite thus far is "The flying saucers are making noise--IN OUTER SPACE!!" He also points out that it shifts from night to day incredibly often.

Also, IMDb has some decent trivia. Did you know that the film was funded by a Baptist church and the entire cast let themselves be baptized? 'Tis true.

Posted by Matt J. at 11:31AM on 10/28/04 in 009: Plan 9 From Outer Space | Comments (0)

Plan 9 From Outer Space

Woo! The first film to grace the new Cinema Ahh*Some site. This is prolly Ed Wood's most notorious film. It is, without a doubt, horrible and many consider it to be the worst film of all time. But that's what makes it charming. I figured we should watch this film in honor of the release of Ed Wood's only porn film, Necromania. It's being released by Fleshbot Films, a weblog cum movie distributor, apparently.

When: Thursday, November 4th at 7pm
Where: Matt's Place
RSVP: To Matt via email
Film: Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) [Allmovie.com description]

Don't forget, if you can't make it you can watch it on your own and then blog about it right here! Isn't that amazing?!?

Posted by Matt J. at 6:14PM on 10/26/04 in 009: Plan 9 From Outer Space, Announcements | Comments (0)