Friday 14 January 2011

Cinema Fiasco, Astor Theatre


Delight in movies others love to hate
Preview by Kate Herbert

Hosts Geoff Wallis and Janet A. McLeod add gleeful commentary to B-grade flicks. Source: Supplied 

IF YOU find B-grade movies painful and intolerable, Cinema Fiasco makes them hilarious and astonishingly entertaining. 

Hosts Geoff Wallis and Janet A. McLeod are film buffs of a different kind - they love to love the films that others love to hate.
They invite others into their obsession, showing their bad movies of choice in the faded, salubrious surroundings of the Astor Theatre monthly on Fridays. During the movie, the pair engages in witty, cynical, cinematic commentary.

"We don't talk over it. Heaven forbid anyone should miss some of that gold," Wallis assures us, should you want to actually watch the movie.

Tonight you can indulge your horror-movie sensibilities with Earth vs The Spider, a movie about an oversized, hairy arachnid terrorising a small town.

It stars forgettable luminaries and is directed by Cinema Fiasco's favourite director, Bert I. Gordon. Wallis says Gordon's films feature things grown to an enormous size, rogue creatures that start eating people. His cheapskate, special effects are usually blow-ups of normal-sized rats or ants intercut with enormous puppet-heads.

Fiasco previously presented two others films by Gordon: Food of the Gods and Empire of the Ants, starring a youthful Joan Collins.

Cinema Fiasco began at the Astor Theatre almost three years ago. Astor Theatre manager George Florence was looking for new and different things to put on at the cinema to encourage diversity of use.

"I came up with this idea," Wallis says. "He (George) liked it, I brought Janet on board and now we co-produce it with him."
Wallis says the idea evolved during the time he and McLeod were poor and bad videos were cheap.

Next Cinema Fiasco: Friday, February 4. Coffy (M) Action queen Pam Grier goes on a rampage against drug dealers.

Friday, March 4, Houseboat Horror (R 18+), The Australian bloodfest about a machete maniac.

CINEMA FIASCO
EARTH VS THE SPIDER
Astor Theatre, Chapel St, St Kilda, tonight 8pm. www.astortheatre.com.au

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