Joe Neff wrote:
So yeah, things have changed. And may continue to change. But looking over the history of the Marathons, what have you traditionally preferred in your lineup balance? I've generally held fast to the philosophy of balance, unless the extra premieres are well-worth seeing. For example, I was decidedly underwhelmed by SF27, mainly because several of the premieres were pretty weak sauce. And they ended up pushing several rare prints into the wee hours of the night. And the final NIGHT OF THE LIVING DREXEL in 1994 had far too may schlocky premieres (on top of too many schlocky films in general), almost none of which were even decent. Premieres for premieres sake? Not a fan.
I tend to be pretty much in agreement with Joe here, and SF27 actually is a great example of what can happen when you front-load a lineup which results in diminishing returns. That year featured the awesomeness that was
Stingray Sam, but also threw in the kitchen sink with
Ink,
Sleep Dealer,
Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission, and the unnecessary sequel
The Lost Skeleton Returns Again. And don't get me started on that 30 minute monster movie parody that somehow made the poster and was advertised like it was some sort of big deal.
Okay, so the Garriott doc booking is defensible because we were only the second audience in the country to see it and there was no predicting how boring and ordinary it turned out to be. I thoroughly enjoyed
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, though I know a few regular marathon goers who would disagree. But even I'm smart enough to know that it was NOT going to work again on it's own merits, let alone up against the standards of what a good marathon "premiere" should be.
Ink and
Sleep Dealer were both interesting in their own way, but here's the problem: both suffered from the inclusion of the other. If either one of those had been the ONLY premiere of the lineup, along with
Stingray Sam thrown into the mix, they would have been thought of more highly I expect.
The result that year is a giant cluster of below average leading into the wee hours, where many slept through what should have been a Marathon highlight of a gorgeous print of
Battle in Outer Space which was relegated to the 3AM slot. Follow that with the horrible placement of
Galaxina next to last and you have a lineup that just doesn't work at all as a whole.
Then again, one could make an argument for a premiere heavy lineup like SF15 in 2005 that actually DID work well. I mean, you can't go wrong with
Primer,
Steamboy,
The Apple and
Code 46. Sure, that horrible Matrix parody was a mistake, but merely a pimple in an otherwise solid lineup of films.
Steamboy's not my cup of tea, but all four of those premieres were heavy-hitters and diverse enough so as not to take away from the enjoyment of any of the others.
So yeah, it's nice to be pleasantly surprised by something, but in recent years there has just been too much thrown at the walls, with not much sticking. I can't speak for the last two years because I wasn't there, but looking on as an observer, it appears to be a little better than that year. At SF28,
Troll Hunter is pretty good, and
Buckaroo Banzai was still able to be showcased early in the lineup, but did anyone really care about watching the ho-hum
Lunopolis at 3AM? Then at SF29, from what I hear
The Last Push went over well and didn't suffer from being in the same lineup as
Electroma and
The Captains. But, think about this, what if instead of those stinkers we had a genuine classic or a recent successful film? That just elevates something good like
The Last Push even more, dontcha think?
I don't really have a solution, but I think history has shown when it comes to "premieres" and recent fare, less is more. And more special, I think.