This weekend has been a big movie weekend!
A couple of days ago my roommate across the way, Elena, asked me to see a movie that her friend had free tickets for. She told me that as soon as she heard about it she had thought of me, and when she told me the subject of it I completely agreed with her. It was Whip It, which is a movie about roller derby. ROLLER DERBY! Now, I’ve had a minor obsession with Roller Derby for awhile now, only bolstered by the fact that I found that Seattle has a really great scene here with the Rat City Rollergirls. I’m tempted to go try to join myself- I don’t even mind getting the snot kicked out of me.
So of course I said yes and proceeded to powerwalk (very quickly in order to make it on time) with her down to the strange indie theater quite a way down the street from us. Now, the movie stars the girl from Juno and was directed by Drew Barrymore. It’s funny and cute, and if it was a bit of a throw-away movie it was one I really enjoyed. But the best part of the movie was the atmosphere. The theater was packed. The movie was hosted by the Rat City Rollergirls, meaning that all the teams were out in force (and in costume) and full of energy as they skated through the theater throwing t-shirts and fliers to the crowd. There was tons of cheering and lots of people who really loved the movie, which of course made it all the more entertaining to watch.
Later that same weekend I went and saw a bunch of horror movies at another indie theater, the Grand Illusion Cinema. Apparently it’s the longest running independent cinema in Seattle and it totally feels like it. There’s actually a little coffee shop just off the lobby that has THE BEST VEGAN COOKIES EVER. Well, I guess I haven’t really tried all of the vegan cookies ever made, but these were amazing.
The horror movies, on the other hand, were a bit interesting. They were all local “home-grown” horror movies, which meant that some were better than others. There was one where a hitchhiker got picked up by a man carting two mummies and a machine that records dreams, went ahead to stay at his house, looked like he was going to hook up with a really hot girl who tied him to a bed… and proceeded to barf all over his face. She then started to throw up blood. She then started to throw up her stomach. Then her intestines. Then…. I don’t even know what she was throwing up then. It looked like the rest of her organs and skin. Some of it got in his mouth. It went on for longer than I felt comfortable with. She died and he had to burst out of his rope bonds to find… other tramautizing things.
Then there were other movies that I just didn’t understand. I found that sometimes creepy editing and really great cinematography lose out to horrible writing. One movie in particular started out so well too! It set the scene very well with a dancing skeleton puppet and a creepy little girl who spoke without any sound coming out of her mouth. It had some great moments in editing too where individual frames are removed so people and creatures seem to jerk across the screen. But I kept getting more and more confused by the story and the dialogue, waiting for things to finally make sense, but when we got to the end I found that I couldn’t understand anything that happened at all. I’m sorry to say, but leaving me confused is not the best way to make me scared.
But now to bed. Tomorrow’s the big opening day!