smithee_awards

I is for Inseminoid

Wed, 14 May 2008 03:38:01 GMT

As it happened, Inseminoid was nowhere near as bad as I expected. Of course, I was expecting some sort of misogynistic near-pornography, so really there's a lot of faint praise left to be damned with. What I got was an early-80s (1981) British science fiction film, and although it did feature a penis-shaped ~~monster~~ alien, it was more Quatermass and the Unfortunate-Looking Alien in attitude than The Alien Files.

A xenoarcheological team is exploring a strange underground cavern system and trying to determine more about the (long-vanished) alien race that created it and carved messages into the rock. Unfortunately, a member of the team violates the unwritten "do not go toward strange crystals that grow brighter as you approach" rule, and there is an explosion. In the resulting brouhaha, one crew member is killed (sort of), and one is injured. The injured one goes mad, and is responsible for the deaths (direct and indirect) of a couple fellow crew members.

In the process of all this craziness, one of the female crewmembers (Sandy) is captured, artificially inseminated by an alien (via a glass tube full of beer and ping-pong balls, aka "Insert Classic-Dr.-Who-Quality Medical Special Effect Here"), and released. Or maybe ... she just imagined the whole thing! Because why would the expedition's doctor be present at the insemination?

The doctor claims that Sandy is pregnant, despite administering the standard birth control injections just a month prior. The captain doesn't believe that's possible -- and then the whole matter is dropped, as Sandy starts killing other members of the crew. She stalks and kills pretty much all of them, then gives birth to ~~adorable~~ penis-head alien twins.

Will the remaining crew be able to outlive Sandy? What will they do with the baby aliens once they find them? What happens when the ship comes to pick up our intrepid crew (who you will recall are exploring a cave system, which has left them out of radio contact)? If you have ever seen a film before, you can probably answer at least two of these questions correctly (yes, even if it was an Uwe Boll film).

I went hunting up stills to link in to the review, but then remembered that I still like y'all.

A2 Smithee Nite Out

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:13:12 GMT

Just a remindery that tomorrow is the second official Smithee Nite Out over at the Corner Brewery (8pm onward!). I still haven't decided which games I'm going to drag along so if any of y'all have some fantastic card and/or beer spillage safe board games that you think everyone ought to try, feel free to pack those up and bring them out. Otherwise, it's radio me and my as yet unpicked games.

Here's to seeing some of you locals out at the Brewery!
-Your Friendly Neighborhood Promotions Ninja

Which film should I en-J?

Sat, 03 May 2008 04:50:10 GMT

in-J-nius! Only four films do I have to watch which start with the letter J.

They are as follows:

View Poll: #1181720

Standard Smithee poll caveats apply. Non-standard ones as well. Heh heh heh.

I need to get around to watching Inseminoid. I still have a week....

[EDIT: Everybody but booniverse and pattimst3k voted for The Jackhammer Massacre, so I guess we'll see how poundeth the holy jackhammer, to misquote Adrian Rantilla]

April Showers Bring May Drinking Nites!

Thu, 01 May 2008 13:03:05 GMT

Happy May Smitheeites! Everybody got their parkas? Good! Seriously, 'round these here parts it's COLD in them thar hills. And valleys. And pretty much any place you happen to be at the moment. So what better time to announce

Diez de Mayo
A2 Smitheeite Nite Out
at the Corner Brewery
8pm onward

That would be Saturday, May 10th for those of you who don't know Spanish (hi!). I woulda picked Cinco de Mayo but it falls on a Tuesday and that's never good when you have to work the day after a drinking night. Since tres de Mayo sounds stupid, the 10th it was. Local Smitheeites are encouraged to stop by for some social gathering, possibly some games (I'll be lugging a couple card and/or small table games along) and drinking if you want. I'm not sure if CB has their full menu-y thing yet so plan on light bar snacks (easy sammiches, little snack-y things, the like) if you want to be eating.

I totally need a Smithee Drinking Nite icon. :(
-Your Proper Iconless But Still Friendly Neighborhood Promotions Ninja

I know something else that sounds like thunder, har har har

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:39:56 GMT

Let's run down a bit of a checklist, shall we?

Based on well-known short story by a famous author? Check.

Misuse of modern CGI technology to simulate the look of the future? Check.

Sir Ben Kingsley mugging and having a good time while daydreaming of the yacht he's going to buy with the money from this? Check.

Suggested by lunargeography's sister (the one who lives in Tulsa)? Check.

Dino-monkeys? Check.

Does the time travel involve vaguely insulting science-like talk with no actual attempt at science? Um, duh.

Did the ending remind me of Kobo Abe's Inter Ice Age 4, the first book alphabetically in the fiction section of my high school library? Yeah, sort of. What does that have to do with anything?

Lots and lots of dino-monkeys? Oooh, yeah. Check and mate.

Dino-monkeys hunt in packs!

Ahem.

Loosely based on Ray Bradbury's 1952 short story "A Sound of Thunder," this film revolves around Time Safari, Inc. They take ludicrously-rich people into the past to hunt an allosaur (yes, every client hunts the same allosaur; no, no attempt is made to explain this). They have their own force field generator thingy that creates a safe pathway in the past. Nothing is left behind (the bullets are liquid nitrogen, which dissolve on their own), and nothing is taken to the future (the time machine has a bio-filter that make sure what happens in the Cretaceous stays in the Cretaceous). But just to be sure, you must stay on the path!

Of course, one of the rich idiots doesn't. Something goes wrong, and he accidentally steps on a butterfly. Now, with a volcano five minutes from erupting, you wouldn't think the death of one butterfly would be a big deal. Oh ho ho, this is because you know nothing about the ~~necessities of the script~~ complexities of evolution.

The present starts to change, in weird ripply time waves. At first it's just the climate, then the vegetation, then the lower forms of life (dino-monkeys!), then finally humans. This is ~~because they wanted to make the movie jungle-like yet also urban~~ for reasons of science. It's because humans evolved most recently. It has to be true. A scientist said it.

Anyway, there is a race across town to figure out what was changed in the past. They encounter lethal plant-life with thorns that drive men mad! And also, this is when we first run into the roving packs of dino-monkeys. They end up in a futuristic garage arguing about how best to steal (what must be) the Hummer of the Future. "It has a sonic lock," says one scientist. "If I had some sort of auditory wave generator, I could break into it." They natter on about this, while the expedition's doctor uses his futuristic gun to smash in the driver's side window. He climbs into the car, and suddenly it roars to life. Everyone else looks at him quizzically, and he says, "How do you think I put myself through medical school?"

As the movie goes on, their numbers attrition until finally it's down to the chick scientist and the guy scientist. The chick scientist jerry-rigs a time portal out of a nearby particle accelerator (don't ask; just don't), and the guy scientist takes the roller-coaster ride through time to warn/stop the first team, but in such a fashion that will keep events from repeating. And oh yeah, he'll only have about twenty seconds to come up with something.

One final time, because it undoubtedly would have been Your Friendly Neighborhood Promotional Ninja's favorite part of this movie: dino-monkeys!

In the original story, the title refers to the sound of gunfire. In the movie, though, the futuristic weapons made weird little pswee! noises (as they fired the aforementioned bullets of liquid nitrogen). The time waves would be a nice referent ... but the time waves are pretty much effectively silent. I don't think there is even any thunder thunder in the movie. Maybe it refers to ... the big stompy noise the allosaur makes? Yeah, sure. It's as good a random choice as any the film might make (better, even, because it's almost logical).

Let's see.... Weird animals, strange plant growth, screwing up the present through successive trips to the past, fighting giant critters from a large motor vehicle, cutting corners to save money -- which rebounds to disastrous effect, a big-name actor slumming, the invocation of a real science thing (Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle) by a scientist to explain something it's irrelevant to (nothing is infallible; accidents happen). It would be interesting to find a list of sciency b-movie tropes and see how many of these are relevant to A Sound of Thunder.

Free Ice Cream!

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:49:50 GMT

Yes indeed, loyal Smitheeites, it's that time of year again. Spring has Sprung, the frost is here and of course there's free ice cream at a Ben & Jerry's near.

Why does it always seem like they pick the coldest days to do the ice cream thing? Anyway, head on over to a participating Ben & Jerry's, mention the Smithees and get you a free scoop! Actually mentioning the Smithees won't get you anything but it amuses me in an Arlo Guthrieian sort of way to imagine 50 Smitheeites walking in, mentioning the Smithees and walking out.

Question for All You A2 Smithee 17 Attendees

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:14:17 GMT

So yeah. We had our show and it went (pretty well all things considered) and we were thoroughly set to despise MLB-3. But. It had some advantages over 1800 Chem that gave us pause to reflect. I'd like to ask you Smitheeites who attended what you thought of the new venue (MLB-3) versus the standard venue (1800 Chem). I'll list what we found as pros and cons for each and if you have any other insight, please feel free to comment.

MODERN LANGUAGES BUILDING AUD-3
Pros
-More handicap accessible
-Comfier chairs (cushier, better back support)
-Rows spaced further apart so it's easier to walk in and out of them
-Newer (or newer renovated actually)
-Building located closer to foodstuffs for preshow snacking or intermission snacking
-Building located closer to parking
-No crazy ass long-short-long-short stairs
-Much easier to unload and set up equipment and snacks
-Many more garbage cans double bagged as the U ought to be doing everywhere
-Better sight line on the extreme edges

Cons
-Poor sightlines - front to back
-Poor sound set up (which can be fixed if we buy speaker stands. I'm not exactly sold on that at all really)
-Carpeted floors which makes taping cords tricky and also food spills messy
-Lack of tables for Smithee snacks (we had to scrounge for what we had there)
-First floor bathroom is small and sort of grungy (3 stalls)
-Bathroom at other end of building which made clean-up a little more complicated
-Awkward aisle placement. The projector had to go in the single middle aisle which made ballot collecting tricky. Mind you, LG and I can eventually work around this but Saturday's show was less than perfectly ballot collected
-Single middle aisle meant that people had to climb over one another to get snacks
-Hallways not such a keen place to hang out at intermission
-Closer to big venue areas that might also be doing sommething and adding traffic (Hill, MTheater, League)
-Flip up table not big enough for ballot and snacks
-Chairs less comfy for the ample butted Smitheeite

1800 CHEMISTRY BUILDING
Pros
-Better sight lines - front to back
-Better snack table set up
-SINK! In the room! For to drain the pop after the show
-Better projector set up
-Comfier chairs (seem wider, easier to get in and out of)
-Better aisle placement for ease of ballot collecting
-Located closer to BOOZ AND FOOD (which only really affects us and whoever tends to booz and food after the show)
-Linoleum floor for easier clean up of spills
-Bathrooms closely located to Auditorium, have many stalls and are nicer
-Inner courtyard makes for a better break area
-Tables make better writing surface
-Tradition!
-Geeks can geek out at a geekier place (periodic table FTW!)

Cons
-The room is in mediocre to poor repair
-Parking not readably accessible
-Building not close to anything really so an intermission snacks run is a bust
-Damn steps. Someone's gonna kill themselves going up and down them. Probably me
-Damn steps make for poor handicap accessibility
-Damn steps make set up and tear down more difficult (the roundabout elevator problem)
-SINK! In the room! Gives off stank fumes
-Never enough garbage cans and the ones that are there are never properly double bagged. Was going to solve by bringing stash of own garbage bags this year.
-Snacks in front make the Guru nervous for the cords and such. Could be solved by switching the snacks to the back row
-Chairs tough to get into because of the 30 degree swing and are less stable

So there you have it. I'd love to hear from both first time Smithee attendees as well as vets about your MLB-3 experiences. Is MLB-3 a better venue? Worse? About the same? Let us know and if you have any other items for the list (throw them in the comments) and I'll add them as they come up.

-Your Friendly and Curious Neighborhood Promotions Ninja
[Edited with new pros and cons 4-25 @ 6:43pm]

H is for Hard Rock Zombies

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:15:59 GMT

I'm not exactly sure what I expected from a movie called Hard Rock Zombies, but I got everything that I might have reasonably expected ... and more. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Or perhaps just a Smithee thing? Distinctly that last one, at least.

The plot is relatively straightforward. A "hard rock" (think Night Ranger) band is passing through town on a tour of bars and civic auditoriums. They are killed by their hosts, but rise again as zombies.

The Devil (as always) is in the details. The band's hosts? Hitler and Eva Braun (in disguise, of course) and their children and grandchildren. After these fiends are killed by the Hard Rock Zombies, they rise from the dead too! So, how to kill the living dead? I will give you a hint ... it has to do with something that Hitler had built (and shows to the band's manager after the band is killed but before they rise from their graves).

Like so many Smithee films, this one walks the fine line between clever and stupid. But it does so with Hard! Rock! The amusing bits are not quite amusing enough to make up for how dull the dull bits are. Which in a way makes it the perfect Smithee film ... better when excerpted than in its entirety.

I watched this a week ago Sunday (April 13, the first day of the two-week period), but it's taken me this long to come up with something coherent to say.

Ann Arbor Smithee 17 Write-up

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:32:13 GMT

Another Ann Arbor Smithee Year has come and gone and despite the universe trying to conspire against us, we prevailed! It took a little scrambling, several extra e-mails, a roll of tear off tape, a bajillionty WE'VE MOOVED-ACK! flyers and eight pieces of sidewalk chalk but I think we showed fate who is prepared for unsuspecting circumstances. HA!

Maybe this year is the year the Smithees start showing their teenage rebellion tendencies because it sure was a rough road starting out. There was room scheduling drama (which was adroitly averted by a loyal Smitheeite), then building closing drama, then Passover drama and finally Dalai Lama Drama (which is just too fun to say!). But like good parents, we lovingly took all these growing pains in stride and with the help of a ton of tape, flyers and half a box of sidewalk chalk, managed to avert any serious crises.

We arrived at the Smithee's new 2008 home an hour earlier than we usually do because we had some last minute directionary plans to put into motion. So at 5ish we pulled up to the Late night access doors of the MLB and then found out that they do not like to be propped open (which is why the case of water is lying about seemingly randomly in the way). We started out with them propped open soas to facilitate the hauling of the snacks but after a while a strident THE DOORS ARE OPEN!!! alarm began to sound. Thus, they remained inconveniently closed the rest of the lugging. Then we also discovered, amidst hauling armloads of stuff in, that one of the three doors is the unlocked one and it's not necessarily always the same door. It was like a giant shell game of building entry until we taped those suckers open from the inside.

5:04...the witching hour at Collingwood. Also...where are the lights?

Ah. Good. They've done a serious overhaul to this room since I was a college going lass. For one, cool clock. For two, awesome AV room...which we didn't have access to. That's too bad, it would have been tres chic if we had.

Wala! The venue. Huzzah for no bigsteppy-littlesteppy-bigsteppy-littlesteppy of the Chem building but boo on the middle aisle not-being-able-to-use-the-AV-room quandry. No cool overhead room meant that the projector sat in the walkway. People also tended to sit close to the walkways which threw off our ballot-fu. lunargeography and I have wrestled the Chem building ballot collecting into a science which didn't translate really well over in the Modern Languages Building.

Better than the Chem Lab, MLB Aud 3 came with a piano! That we couldn't use (upon pain of Choral Society Harassment I think). MLB-3 also does not have a sink which was sorely missed by the end of the show when we had to dispose of the opened drink leftovers. DOAH!

Around 6pm, LG and I took our chalk, flyers and creativity for a walk to the Chem building, marking the way to the new room as we went. We also got sammiches and coffee on the way back. Score for MLB: It's really close to Starbucks and Potbelly's (among other tasty places).

By 7pm, you all started to arrive...

and dig into the snacks. This year's highlights were badmovie's vegetarian bacon bars (hee!), edible Easter Basket grass that nobody edibled, Creme Between cookies, and the bowl of S&Ms which were a mix of mediocre cherry M&Ms and bland to bad chocolate Skittles.

People also brought stuff, as always happens and we wound up with Beer and spices potato chips, cantaloup hard candy, Passover Pepsi (made with real sugar!) and some vile dip something my mother brought. She only paid a dollar for it and it shows. She also brought Cinnabon coffee cake which was AWESOME so I can't ban her from the Smithees quite yet.

Of course there were drawings for cool Smithee stuff:

Here are two people we know winning stuff, which is really weird. It seems like a lot of our friends win stuff even when we try to make things as neutral as possible. A random tie dyed fella picked Ken's name for the trashcan of buttons and Ken picked Sean (who he doesn't even know!) to win a Norbert Crawling Eye Monster hand puppet. Maybe we just have so many friends that statistically someone we know is bound to win something.

The audience boogered around at intermission because MLB only has one small bathroom on the first floor. Strike MLB.

Things that amuse the Ballot Ninja: Last year this lady came with a stuffed octopus. This year her date was a giant stuffed fish. I kinda wonder what exactly didn't work out between her and the octopus from last year. Maybe they decided that they just needed to start seeing other Chordata?

I was also amused by the reaction to the Scarecrow Gone Wild One-liner. I can't remember if it won, but the audience cheered very enthusiastically when Asshole Mike voiced his opinion of splitting up. You go A-Hole Mike!

This fella was challenging our ninjaness (the Smithee ninjas in general, not the royal "our" ninjaness) so I considered taking him out with secret Smithee Ninja-fu techniques. Buuuut then I decided that sounded like a lot of effort so I let the Unhealthy Snacks and bad clips beat him into a vibratory stupor. By the end of the show he was putty. PUTTY! And I didn't have to lift one ninja finger. HOOO!

We resumed the show and ended right around 11:30. The audience is clapping here but there was a heartwarming disappointed "awwwing" when we announced at the end of the Worst Picture category that we had come to the end of another Ann Arbor Smithees.

The counters were still counting so we had more giveaways!

One of us knows winner number three [EDIT: badmovie used to work with him and his name is Chris] but huzzah! Nobody on the Smithee crew knew who winner four was! Except now we do so when he wins next year we can't say that he is some random Smithee fan. Maybe THAT's how it works out?

There were 171 max votes which was a lot lower than last year's amazing 243 votes but very much in line with the slow Smithee growth we've been seeing over the years. Also it's vastly amazing given that three weeks ago we had our room switched and all the publicity had already gone out with the wrong room on it. I'm pretty happy with 171 given the circumstances.

-Your Friendly Neighborhood Promotions Ninja

Smithee Birthday Shout Out

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:37:19 GMT

to alohdark! Here's wishing you a Quixotic and Grimly Whimsical birthday! Errr...that is a decidedly good kind of Quixotic and Grimly Whimsical birthday. That's why the icon is in pink!

Interim Post

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 04:17:30 GMT

To tell you that all the Ann Arbot Smithee 17 pics are uploaded into the A2S17 gallery. ~~I'll add annotation later~~ [Edit: Done!] and even later then, ~~write up a summmary of the sho~~ [Edit: and Done!].

-Your still tired and slightly sore Friendly Neighborhood Promotions Ninja

I yi yi!

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:44:53 GMT

It will probably be a bit before you hear anything coherent about the A2show. It will also probably be a bit before I can finish my write-up of Hard Rock Zombies. So, to tide you over ... here's the "I" poll!

View Poll: #1174048

Y'all should know the drill. Speaking of which, how can you resist a film called The Dentist 2: Brace Yourself? I mean, unless you have a dentist thing....

[EDIT: Battle letter "I" is o-vah! Final tally? Traci Lords (Ice) - 0. Crazy gamers (Interface) - 0. Killer giant prehistoric trilobites (Ice Crawlers) - 1. Deep sea prehistoric cave world exploration (The Incredible Petrified World) - 2. Sara from LA Story (Victoria Tennant) in a ripoff of Alien with a twist (Inseminoid) - 5.]

Zero Hour

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:18:38 GMT

Three hours until showtime so this is, indeed, your last bit of spam before the A2 show. I'm sure everyone knows by now

TODAY!
smithee 17: Almost Legal
MLB-3
7:00 - 11:30ish

Iron Chef Smithee called about two hours ago to see if we needed any last minute things and stuff and also? If we could pull the soda from the chest freezer that would be swell. Soda? Freezer? CRAP! I knew there was something missing from my check list of Smithee prep. So six two liters have been hanging out on our porch since 2ish hoping to melt before they are drunk. At least they'll be cold yeah?

Hope to see the lot of you local Smitheeites (and the few non locals who have driven up!) in about T-minus 142 minutes.

-YFNPN!

Some Thursday Remindery

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:28:40 GMT

Blah blah Saturday April 19th
17th Annual Smithee Awards
Modern Languages Building Auditorium 3
812 East Washington
7pm to post 11pm

Whew! Got that out of the way. Now onto some other blurbit bits. I mentioned in smithee_talk that we discovered that Passover begins on Smithee night. Oi! Iron Chef Smithee sat down and had a bit of a thinks on this and then went shopping for Kosher for Passover snacks. They won't be as unhealthy as the usual Smithee snacks but they will be appropriately edible for you Smitheeites keeping kosher. Huzzah! (and the orange peel thingies look downright tasty!)

Yesterday lunargeography and I finished off the give away Norberts and they are officially cute. Remember to write your name on the ballots at the appropriate time so we can ~~have your signature~~ draw your name for awesome mid show and end show give aways. I'll be pressing buttons tonight and will bring a fist full of extras to the show. Let's try an experiment: If you want a button, come up to me or the lovely ballot bimbo and use the code phrase: "Your Awesomeness, may I please have a button?" That'll keep me amused and you will get a button! Win-win!

Lastly, this year we are trying something new! and Exciting! Which would have been much better implemented last year because of the room switch but oh well. We'll be putting together an Ann Arbor Smithee e-mailing list (whoo!). There will be a sign up sheet at the show for those of you who would like to be on such a thing. We plan on using it to announce the time/date/place of the A2 Smithees in the beginning of the year (ish), a remindery e-mail in April and probably a UCon e-mail announcement as well. Things like last minute room changes are also an excellent thing to mail out to people but other than that, we'll most likely keep e-mail mum. For your weekly Smithee spam, you will still have to come to the LJ I'm afraid.

See you locals this Saturday!
-Your Friendly Neighborhood Promotions Ninja

CHUPA!

Iron Chef Smithee makes comment, request

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:31:20 GMT

Iron Chef Smithee has purchased many drinks. Iron Chef Smithee has lots of snacks and a smallish car. Iron Chef Smithee speaks of self in third person, but medication and therapy help Iron Chef Smithee with that.

Point! Right! Iron Chef Smithee been logging long hours at dollar stores and closeout marts. Iron Chef Smithee rambles a bit this time of year.

Many people like ice with their drinks. Iron Chef Smithee not have room in car for ice plus a chest to keep it in. Anyone who is able to bring chest with ice to MLB Auditorium 3 for Smithees this Saturday will be in good with Iron Chef Smithee.

Iron Chef Smithee willing to do favor for such person. Set aside a Spam Singles for him or her. And if person particularly kind ... lose it again.

T-minus Five Days and Counting...

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:04:49 GMT

Happy tax week to you Smitheeites and what better way to celebrate getting the pinch by Uncle Sam than to relax at the 17th annual Smithee Awards? We've got free movies, free food and drink and of course free giveaways so I'd say we're much cooler than Uncle Sam. Unless you are getting a big fat refund, in which case we're definitely not as cool but remain still more prompt. Truly, we filed our taxes last weekend and have heard naught from the refund department.

To Recap:
17th Annual Smithee Awards
Modern Languages Building Auditorium 3
(note: Different building than you are used to showing up at, unless the last Smithees you attended was Smithee 7 or so)
812 East Washington
7pm to post 11pm
APRIL 19TH

G is for The Gun and the Pulpit

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 23:27:24 GMT

Here lies a short review of The Gun and the Pulpit, which wasn't half bad.

This movie is full of "the guy who" (David Huddleston) and "that guy whose face I recognize from ... where?" (Geoffrey Lewis). Plus it also features Slim Pickens and Marjoe Gortner. Our old pal Marjoe is Ernie Parsons, a gunfighter who's only one step ahead of a murderous posse. In the high desert, he comes across the corpse of a preacher that was recently murdered. He takes the preacher's clothing and horse, and rides on to the town where the preacher was headed. That town is under siege by a rich rancher who is ruling it like his own private fiefdom. This rubs Ernie raw, especially when he sees the attractive eighteen-year-old girl that's being run out of town (along with her younger siblings and recently-widowed mother). He convinces the girl's mother to stay, and faces down the rancher. In the process, he does preach several sermons (that Marjoe can preach -- who'da thunk it?) ... with his gun on his pulpit.

An enjoyable light Western (closer in tone to Silverado than The Outlaw Josey Wales) -- but I simply cannot see Slim Pickens in a Western without thinking of him as Taggart from Blazing Saddles, especially since both came out the same year.

How Do You Get From Here To There, What Do You Do?

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:03:40 GMT

Glad you asked! The camera and I took a little walk this afternoon for your visual edification.

As the map says, from the Chem Building:

The south side for those of you who come in that way...

The north side for the rest of you folk,

Walk down the road (North University) in an westerly fashion.

Keep moseying past the League (the building on the right side of the picture) towards Hill Auditorium (the building on the left side of the picture) and the Burton Tower (the sticky-up pointy tall building).

When you hit the mall like area, cross the street and head tower-wards. Ish.

Behind the tower is a 4 story "squat" fortressy looking building. Congratulations, you have reached the Modern Languages Building. Huzzah! Auditorium 3 is in the back (opposite the tower).

Piece of cake. Tasty delicious moist cake. Mmmmmm.
-Your Friendly Neighborhood Shutter Bug Ninja

Belated write-up: Project Eliminator

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:53:51 GMT

David Carradine kicks ass. It's his job and he's been doing it for years. Many many years. It's kind of amazing that he's still out there kicking ass, because in this 1991 movie, he looks old. Really, really old.

Fortunately, he's not the main ass-kicker of the film. He's delegated that to a younger generation. Frank Zagarino is the designated kicker for this movie. He plays a young mercenary hot-shot hired by Carradine to help provide security for his best friend - a super-scientist type, who has invented a flying laser drone called a "Smart Egg."

This weapon is so deadly that, in a demonstration, it destroys six of the four junker cars set up as targets. Having done this, the scientist has a change of heart and decides to destroy all his research and the prototype and dedicate his life to housing the homeless. I'm not kidding.

They all head back to Carradine's bar to drink and celebrate. At about 26 minutes in, Carradine serenades them at the bar's piano. As a singer, he makes a great martial artist.

Meanwhile, annoyed by the scientist's selflessness, a gang of criminals decides to kidnap the scientist and his daughter and sell them to the highest bidder on the international arms market. In a totally unexpected plot twist, it turns out that the scientist's daughter is actually David Carradine's daughter (played by David Carradine's actual daughter, Calista Carradine).

Highjinx, as they say, ensue. The kidnapping succeeds, the heroes attempt a rescue, fail, and get captured. The kidnappers turn on each other, kill some of themselves off, then decide to head off to the Caribbean. And why not? The heroes turn the tables on the kidnappers, escape, free the captives and live moderately happily ever after.

ecchi movies

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 05:05:12 GMT

...in order to get the "H" movies down to 15, I have done the following:

I eliminated The Horrors of Spider Island from contention. Because I'm not about to watch it. In fact, it's currently loaned out to the Promotional Ninja side of the Michigan Smithee crew.

I conflated five Hercules films into one entry (Hercules against the Moon Men, Hercules against the Mongols, Hercules Unchained, Hercules and the Captive Women, Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon). If you vote for one of these, be sure to let me know which one you prefer. Or I will pick one. Either way.

That still left me two films too many for the poll.

The Female Bunch is set primarily on a ranch in the desert outside of Las Vegas. The Gun and the Pulpit is an out-and-out Western. I eliminated The Hanged Man because I was full up on Westerns.

But that still left me 16, and no obvious cull. Several that I knew I couldn't cull, though.... Until finally, I reached the end of the list alphabetically, and just arbitrarily chopped the last one (Hunting Humans) off. Which left us with these 15:

View Poll: #1166131

Something that you may wish to consider when voting is that the "H" movie will cover the time period during which the Ann Arbor show is presented. Smith happened on the penultimate day of "F," and Origins will come about in the middle of "M". I'm not entirely sure when U*CON 2008 will be (and am too lazy to look it up just now), but I suspect it will happen during W.

Smithee caveats repeat. Poll will be up until 4/12 midnightish. Any anonymous voters will have to comment, and I will count their votes manually (except for Sean K., whose vote is tallied under my badmovie account). I break ties. In case of technical problems, I will work my way down the list. Any unexpected situations will be dealt with.

[EDIT: Wow, look at that. The last two votes push Hard Rock Zombies over the top for a hard-fought 3 to 2 (The Horrible Dr Bone$) to 2 (Hideous!) to 1 (Hands of Death) to 1 (Hercules and the Captive Women) to 1 (How to Make a Monster) victory. At least there will be fewer movies in the next couple of letters. I have 5 for I, and 4 for J.]

April Trivia Question!

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:54:42 GMT

Oh look! April. Must be time for a trivia question then and I happen to have run into one at 4:10 yesterday too. It's a doozer but I will pose it to y'all:

Where will the Ann Arbor Smithee Awards be Held This Year?

You know, at 4:09 yesterday I would have said "1800 Chem building like they always are. Duhhh!" Then we got a message from room scheduling apologetically letting us know that the U is closing the Chem building that weekend. And evacuating it. I had no idea that the Smithees had gotten that noxious over the years. Wow. I wonder if they will be fumigating too.

Room Scheduling has been really good about this and suggested an alternate location for the show. We just need to do the official fiddly bits to secure everything but the new plan is to hold The Smithees in Exile at MLB3. Same bat time, completely different bat place (Modern Languages Building 812 East Washington).

As always, stay tuned for more information as events unfold.

-Your somewhat surprised but completely unpanicked (not at all. We're good. Everything's fine here. How are you?) friendly neighborhood promotions ninja.

So Long, Fare Well, Aufwiedersehen ConBust!

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:25:44 GMT

Bus Tank Shuttle Cab! We actually got to ride in one since we arrived in terminal C and needed to depart from terminal A. As far as I can figure out, Dulles has 3 buildings and 3 terminals and if you land in C and need to go to A or B you need to take the Bus Tank Shuttle Cabs. They are sort of like a double wide subway car on giant roller stilts since they have to pick up passengers on the second floor of the buildings. But first, Sunday at ConBust!

Our second to last discussion panel was scheduled at 9am on Sunday during the guest brunch. ouch. So lunargeography and I decided to wander over at the crack of no coffee and do said panel while the Earl and the Guru slept in. I can't say for sure with the Earl but I do know that all talk and no sleep makes the Guru a cranky lad. I'm normally some sort of cranky anyway so I figured who'd really notice if I were cranky on top of the usual cranky? I might as well be the early morning panelist and besides, I had a vacation day Monday. LG probably came because she is the nicest of us and didn't want to see any of the Smithies eaten alive.

But first, COFFEE! I can not rationally talk boobies first thing in the morning until I've had something to eat and a little cuppa Joe. We may have delayed the panel by a bit getting our caffeine on but apparently Northampton also feels the same way about 9am boobies. We had nobody show up for about a half hour. *sniff* Then people started straggling in bit by bit until 10 or so of us were having a rollicking time talking "R". Well OK, we mostly talked about boobies, a little bit about butts and even less about dangly bits (because you never get any good dangly bits in movies). *YAY* I'm not sure we were as informative as I thought we should have been but people seemed to enjoy it and hey. 9am Sunday panel with 10+ people. Not so bad.

All I can say about finding this on the chalk board is 'last day of the con'. It made me laugh though. Sounds like one of those phrases you say in shock and surprise. "Voldemort's Nipple! I left the stove on!"

We wandered about in a Third Day of Con Haze but managed to catch some fun costumes.

Kep as one of Gaiman's Endless: Delirium. She has actually shaved her head in sporadic bits and dyed what was left a vibrant teal. Wow. I'd totally vote for her and I don't even know if she was competing in anything.

I have no idea who this is inside but outside it's CAT BUS! (From Totoro). The costume has a small soot sprite hanging like fuzzy dice from the rear view mirror and a small totoro thing-it riding a-top the bus.

I don't think this was our video taping person but she was wandering about the con the whole time snapping pics. Her camera is way better than my camera. Jealousy? I has it.

Don't let Talia tell you she can not dance to Irish jigs and reels because she totally can. Or at least she fakes it well enough to look like she knows what she is doing. She also had the coolest skirt ever.

Finally our last panel was on and I thought, "Who's going to come to a panel about promoting crap at a Sci-Fi/Fantasy con? Nobody, that's who." I brought turtle blanket makings just in case but lo! 10ish people wandered in and only two of them were there for the free candy. I totally went off notes half way through the presentation but I think it went well. I learned some stuff too, which is always cool.

We packed up, headed out and jammed in a van with Jennie Breedon (who is a person you wouldn't mind being jammed in a van with because she has teh funnay). And the whole crank at Orbitz for changing up our flights? Entirely rescinded because someone apparently turned off some switch in Chicago which cut out all the computer-y calculat-y stuff what makes airplanes fly. At least fly easily. Planes going into or out of Chicago were either delayed until they turned the switch back on or the pilots were forced to do serious trig math whatever to figure out where and how to fly their planes by hand. We, on the other hand, were not flying through Chicago on the way back anymore so Hooray Orbitz!

And now, bit of relaxing and then the Ann Arbor Smithee Show!
-Your tired but generally happy and still friendly neighborhood promotions ninja.

The Wonderful Thing about ConBust

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:26:32 GMT

Is that ConBust is a wonderful thing!

Having been to one ConBust already (heh! We're vets! *chucklesnort*) we had more of an idea of what the con was all about so this year we volunteered to do some panels and discussions. We thought up four Smithee related panels: Making Movies the Smithee Way, I Stayed Up to Watch the End of This??!?, "R" We There Yet, and Promotions-Fu. We also volunteered to help out with a couple others that the ConBust peeps thought up and wound up soloing When Fandom Goes Wrong. I'm not sure what they are trying to say about us but we decided that we could give that a go.

But first, brunch! Brunch arrived way too early in the morning but we managed to straggle in for coffee and goodies (Panera, wrock!) and to chat with the other guests. The lady in copper and gold is Patty Briggs (who is awesome) and she is talking to Jennie Breeden of The Devil's Panties (who is the short dark curly haired lady sitting away from the camera). Jennie Breedon wrocks too, in case you wondered. You can also see Phoebe Wray in the very back with the orange hair and blue shirt. We just met her this year and she's pretty cool as a person but I can't tell you if she is also a wikid writer or not because I haven't read her stuff. Yet.

You can also see Jennie Breedon's incredibly cute brother in the trench coat looking like Captain Jack from Dr. Who. Heh! Jennie has some funny stories about growing up with a hot brother which are a hoot to hear. The Guru is also in the pic looking rather jet-lagged or pensive. I think he's getting his thoughts together for our first presentation.

"Making Movies the Smithee Way" or How not to make a movie. The Guru had put together a presentation complete with clips for some of the basic pitfalls of movie making. Here he is exemplifying Ludicrous Premise with a Clip from Leprechaun 4: Leprechaun in Space. We had a good handful of people attend and they seemed to like it.

Any Questions? Good! It's time for lunch then.

The student commons had a bunch of banners up for student things and there was the ConBust banner hanging out among them. We are amused that it says "The Smithee Awards and More!"

After lunch we hosted the rescheduled panel "When Fandom Goes Wrong" and had a rollicking time talking mostly about fanfic and Harry Potter with a bit of Star Wars and Anime thrown in. lunargeography was more in her element here because half the talk was Anime and half was fanfic and she is more in tune with both than the rest of us I think. LG is our official ambassador to the Amine fan it seems and she does her job well.

Our next panel was "I Stayed Up to Watch the End of This?!?" which was a general discussion of B film. You would not believe the people who popped out of the woodwork for this. Apparently, Smith College has a lot of B movie fans. The Earl called the discussion "research" and was furiously writing notes on a pad of paper. Be afraid, Smitheeites, be very afraid.

Sometime later, we met up with Lynn Flewelling who invited us to go to dinner with a couple other guests and such. SQUEEE! It's like when you get to sit at the grown-up table for Thanksgiving! We tried to not go all fangirl/boy and I think we did a pretty good job. We got to talk with Annette Curtis Klause who is also wikid cool in person and whose stuff I now have to go read. I feel like I'm name dropping a lot here but ConBust is that kind of small con where you can indeed talk to these people up close and personal like. Countless times I saw one or two of the authors talking in a small group in the halls here or there and that's just what happens. It's awesome!

Then it was time to pack it in and walk back to the hotel. We were scheduled to run a panel at 9:00am the next morning during the Sunday brunch. Urrrgh...who is up for talking about boobies at 9am? That's just not right...it's supposed to go coffee THEN boobies. Alas.

-Your Coffee Lacking but Still Friendly Neighborhood Promotions Ninja

ConBust 08: The Smithees @ Smith

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:05:30 GMT

Hey all you Smitheeites, we're back home after an AWESOME time at ConBust. I didn't have the laptop this time out so you didn't get a blow by blow (almost) live action report of the goings on but I did take lots of pictures. My notes are pretty sketchy but lemmie see if I can reconstruct them anyhow. I'll post Friday's Fun today, Saturday's Fun tomorrow and Sunday's Fun on Wednesday but all the pics are up as I write. If you are a clever little Smitheeite you can peek at the gallery and have a look-see into the FUTURE!

We started our Friday off a little later than we would have had we been actually working but still earlier than I like given that we were running a show that evening. Our flight left Metro around 10 and a double handful of time change and we zoomed the zoom of flying zoom to O'Hare. Orbitz decided to change up our flight last minute like and routed us through Chicago on the leg out and Dulles on the leg back. Ergo, we never got to meet up with slyon for eats of meats. We did get to kick around O'Hare for a spell and admired the stuff there that they had to admire.

ONWARD! Did you know that airplanes can pivot in place? Truly! They can spin on one back tire if they want to, effectively chopping their turning radius to zero. I never knew that about airplanes but ours did just that coming out of O'Hare. Wild.

We got in relatively earlyish (4:15 from a scheduled 4:30) and beebopped randomly along the walkway until we met up with Liz of the one Z and Cameron (of the no Zs) who were holding a sign saying "ConBust: Patricia Briggs/Smithee Awards". CoooOOOooool! We felt all important like (even if Patty Briggs's name came first). Patty's plane was scheduled to land at the same original time as our plane so we hung around waiting. And waiting. And waiting. At 4:45 her plane was still listed as "On Time" and at 4:55 we spotted us a Patty. Her plane was still "On Time'. I'm not sure if it ever really "Arrived" actually.

Airports are strange.

We figured that our first panel was a bust (heh) because we didn't get rolling until a little after 5. Hartford is an hour away from Northampton and we weren't going to make the 6:00 panel time but! Barring weirdness, we would have a good half hour of set up time for the Show. There was no weirdness and the Con Schedule had undergone a final revamp in which our 5:00 Friday panel was moved to Saturday at 1:00. Huzzah!

Snacks Table Jr. About 75% of the foodz here was acquired by Sean Whose Name is Nate, our local Northampton friend. He may have overbought a bit but he did Iron Chef Smithee proud. He even got Doritos...evil unexpected flavored Doritos. Huzzah SWNiN!

The Smithees at Smith audience and half of lunargeography doing her Ballot Bimbo thing.

More Smith audience. Do you know what's really confusing? Clarifying "Smithees". Apparently, the women who attend Smith College are called "Smithies" while we call ourself "Smithees". You really can't hear the difference between "ie" and "ee" when you are talking so there was some confusion when we were talking Smithees to Smithies. If you take a good look at this pic, you might notice one of the Smithies video recording a Smithee. She was doing a class project on "live presentations" and asked if she could film the proceedings. We told her she couldn't tape the show bits because we don't let people do that (copy right issues) but she was more interested in the human element than the show element. Check it out: The Smithees going academic for the Smithies.

I don't think I've ever been a class project before.

The fella with the hat is a Smithee vet and he brought his friend with him this year. I think we traumatized her a wee bit.

Here we are randomly gabbering during the break. Nothing is in focus but the Cheez-its and I have no idea why. Unhealthy Snacks have a track record for that at Ann Arbor and it appears as if Snack Table Jr. is taking after the original.

The show went well and I think the top vote was somewhere around the very high 30s, possibly even breaking 40. A quick unique head count told us that over 40 individual people attended the show but as usual people came and people went. I'd say we got a little more people this year than last year and it seemed to me that our overall average was at least 5 higher than last year. I was pleased by the attendance and the audience was pleased by the show. And we all learned that you don't piss off a razor blade wielding monkey.

Words to live by.

We cleaned up, headed out and collapsed for the night. Friday: The End.

-Your tired but still somewhat friendly neighborhood promotions ninja

As Good as "on time" as it gets...

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:26:43 GMT

Happy "one day late birthday" to arkaycee even though LJ might say that this is posted on the 30th. At least I hope LJ says this is posted on the 30th...we shall see if I understand time correctly. If I do, then I will have gone back in time and let everyone know that this Smitheeite is older! Which they still would be if I botched the post dating time fanagling. Or something. Hey, I just got home from ConBust and technically it's Monday...I think I'm doing pretty well for only havingh about 70% higher brain function! Happy Birthday!