The Ninth Plan Involves Vampire Zombies

009: Plan 9 From Outer Space

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.