Wow.
I write this from a Toronto hotel room, but any of you who were there at the New Beverly in LA last night know what a treat Joe Dante's THE MOVIE ORGY was.
Joe, in typically modest fashion, downplayed it at the start and warned us that it was dated.
But it was amazing, all 4 and a half hours of it. Almost like the You Tube of 1968, an amazing collage of TV ads, old shows, reels of B-movies and public service announcements. And brilliantly edited together to create endless callbacks.
The crowd were great and I've never seen Joe so pleased. The Orgy played as great as it did in the late sixties.
And what clips? Post war PSA's on women's problems or "The Curse", highly disturbing musical cat and mouse abuse from Andy's Gang, TV shows cut down to their most succinct points; not to mention insane Colgate, Nabisco and aspirin commercials.
I was in good geek company with the front row comprising QT, Bill Hader, Moriarty from Ain't It Cool News, Andre Dellamorte from CHUD, my good friend Michael Bacall and the lovely Julia from the New Bev. And we all lapped it up.
Truth be told, I briefly snuck out to get coffee and chocolate, but this took 5 minutes of a 270 minute running time!
Check out this great article in Variety on the show last night...
Variety Article On Movie OrgyAlso Moriarty's take on the night...
AINT IT COOL ARTICLEAnd Andre from CHUD's take...
CHUD ARTICLEI'm glad I was there. Such programs don't come round to often.
Thanks to Mister Dante for an awesome season.
P.S. I'm a SPEED CRAZY fan forever now.