Review of Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream (2006) by Dfg D — 09 May 2010

I own a copy of [i]The Rocky Horror Picture Show[/i] on DVD, but I never watch it. Why not? Because I'd want to get a group together to watch it; neither I nor, it seems, Roger Ebert has the slightest interest in watching it alone nor the slightest understanding of those who would. It's a group movie. There's no point in watching it as I watch so many of these films--alone. You'll get a lot of discussion about whether anyone should ever watch any movie alone (though not from me; I like watching movies alone, and my friends don't like watching movies as much), but there is no dispute that films such as [i]Rocky Horror[/i] are group experiences. And this documentary is not just about the group experience; it's about the creation of the subculture that shares it.

In 1970, there was [i]El Topo[/i], the first of the Midnight Movies. It earned $4000 a week--in 1970, mind--screening exclusively at midnight in a scant handful of theatres. This made it apparent that it was a time that could make even the most bizarre, most obscure movies gain a following. And so we got midnight screenings of the already-existing [i]Night of the Living Dead[/i], taking it out of driveins and into midnight screenings. And then, there was [i]Pink Flamingos[/i] and the dyanmo who is John Waters. We wouldn't have [i]Hairspray[/i] and its accompanying to-do without [i]El Topo[/i] and [i]Night of the Living Dead[/i]. 1972 also brought us [i]The Harder They Come[/i]. In 1975, Let There Be Lips. Finally came 1977, David Lynch, and [i]Eraserhead[/i]. All six movies made their success at midnight.

It's an interesting little film, made originally for cable as so many documentaries are these days. However, they manage to get all six directors, not to mention Roger Ebert (though try to stop him talking about film, any more than you can stop me!), producers, and many film critics and scholars who are not Roger Ebert. (They exist!) We don't go much in depth into any one film, simply because there is only so much we can. After all, we have less than an hour and a half, here. Any one of these alone could take more than an hour and a half, even without the always-delightful John Waters being snarky throughout. (I love John Waters, though I don't always care for his movies.) David Lynch looks rather perplexed at being there at all.

I have to admit, guys, that the only one of these which I've seen is [i]Rocky Horror[/i]. I'd never even heard of [i]El Topo[/i] or [i]The Harder They Come[/i]. In fact, we skipped ahead to get to this movie because I didn't notice that I wasn't checking out the book. Raul had the book. (Oh, you knew he was coming up eventually!) I never did get around to borrowing it from him, because I read an awful lot less about film then than I do now. I read it now, because I'm working on my own little mini-film school, here. And, yeah, we all know I'll get to a lot of those films. (There's [i]Eraserhead[/i] in the next letter, of course!) I don't know how much I'll care for them, but I'll watch them.

I miss Raul. I miss Raul a lot. The more I study film, the more I wish he were around to talk to about it. We didn't have a lot in common, necessarily, but we both had film. We will always have film, and I like to hope that, somewhere, he'll find this journal and we'll get back in touch.