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PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2017 6:46 pm 
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Joe Neff wrote:
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The 1993 IT CAME FROM THE DREXEL NORTH! The 7th edition of this legendary event also marked my first ever Marathon! Some notes:

-After years of reading about the Marathons in HOOT (Irv Oslin's wonderful cartoon free weekly, and a longtime supporter of our humble events), my interest in them had sorta faded into the background. Plus, as I've said before many times, I never figured that my parents would let me attend when I was younger. But now at a ripe old 16, a good friend of mine suggested that we attend. Little did I know how profoundly this little movie fest would influence/warp my life.

-Part of what made the Marathon so memorable for me was the bookending of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, neither of which I had ever seen in their entirety. Man oh man, what a way to end an event! My friend and I still talk about it to this day.

-THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS never made the final lineup, but premieres of BLOBBERMOUTH (featuring new dialogue by the comedy troupe The L.A. Connection...no relation to our pal from Boston) and George Romero's THE DARK HALF (which played in the middle of the night) did.

-The infamous BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS story! Slated for next to last in the lineup, this Corman actioner played just fine for about an hour, but then kept breaking in the projector. Finally, in an effort to stay relatively on time (a hazy concept in any Marathon setting), the rest of the film was cancelled in favor of getting to Donald Sutherland and friends. Upon exiting the theater that day, Marathoids were able to pick up some of the broken BATTLE film frames in a styrofoam cup by the front doors!

-Seeing the Director's Cut of THE ABYSS was a real treat. And I still maintain that for any of its flaws, ROBOCOP 2 is the perfect late Marathon film to wake up the audience.



I forgot all about Battle Beyond the Stars! I remember being a junior in high school and seeing Bruce at a record convention about a month or two before the marathon and asking him if he could give me any clues. He told me about The Abyss director's cut that I didn't even know existed. I had thought the theatrical one was decent but I didn't love it. Bruce got me excited for the director's cut-Bruce was a rock star in my eyes (still is)-and boy did that movie deliver. I remember one of my idiot friends decided to drop acid (while the other 12 in our group were sober) at the marathon and started going nuts during a Twilight Zone episode. If I remember correctly there was an alien amongst the patrons of a diner and a strong sense of paranoia when my friend just shouted "It's You!! It's you!!!" The whole theater burst out laughing.

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 2:14 am 
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rustywoodenrobot wrote:
My first year was the 9th (Atomic Cafe) when I was 19-years-old. I'm 41 now. Although I'm a die hard, and I have loved every single year since for each year's particular distinct lingering flavor in the memory, I would like a return to the 9th in one particular aspect... bear with me. I'm a father to a two year old little girl, and I'm thinking forward to the day when I will take her for her first marathon experience. Granted, this is not happening for a while, nor am I wishing for her to grow up too fast and have a horde of horny goth assholes showing up on my front porch and me ending up in jail for murder. All in good time.

What I remember about my first experience was walking into the lobby to an incredible presentation of volunteers decked out in hazmat suits, handing out mysterious knicknacks and packages as I worked my way down the cow chute. It was all incredibly mysterious, strange and amazing. The very next year, all of that effort in the front door presentation seemed to disappear. Walking in hasn't so much been a part of the overall experience since. Last year, 2016, we didn't even get wrist bands or quirky hand stamps! Bring back the darn wrist bands and hand stamps!!! No matter if they're *necessary*. They are part of the experience - pleeeeease.

This is not a complaint, as I am ridiculously grateful that after 30 years, the marathon exists at all and that so many recognizable faces are still showing up. It really is one of the absolute favorite things I have to look forward to every year. I'm simply voicing something real that I've thought over the years on the hope that it may help those in charge when planning. Duck Dodgers, Gravity, Spaceboy should be programmed in religiously and never be omitted. It makes the experience.

I have assumed, through the passing of years, that the front door presentation sort of deteriorated after the 9th because our venues were always up in the air after that. But now, we clearly have a rooted venue in the Bexley Drexel (SO glad we can again call a Drexel theater home). So with this consistency and solid venue every year, how about a renewed focus on the in-the-door overall presentation? Bring back the hazmat suits. Those were too cool.


Oh trust me, we'd LOVE to have more check-in theatrics as in the past. Some difficulties always pop up. As the event has grown smaller, it's become tougher to get volunteers for accoutrements like this, much less volunteers who will only show up for an hour or so to add to the showmanship. Space is also a factor. The Drexel has been great to us, but they're also running regular shows in their other two houses, and we already take up a decent amount of prime real estate right at the bottleneck into the three houses. And speaking of bottlenecks, the space in which we have the ticket check-in table is MUCH smaller than it was back in the Drexel North days. Regrettable, but still the reality of the situation. And the behind the scenes infrastructure has also shrunk over the years, which has made certain features like a stylized check-in more difficult to pull off. Not that we've given up on such a thing in general. But it's descended a bit on the priority list of Saturday morning activities.


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 5:05 pm 
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1994 saw the 8th Annual IT CAME FROM THE DREXEL NORTH welcome both SPACE PATROL star Ed Kemmer and KNIGHTS asskicker-in-chief (and Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman stunt double) Kathy Long as special guests. And featured a plethora of filmic attractions both new and old. To the notes!

-As many of you have heard as nauseum, I was in a high school theater production of LIL' ABNER the weekend of this Marathon. So my thespian pals and I couldn't make it to the Drexel North until around 4pm. And thus, with a sold out crowd in attendance, we waited for four hours to get three seats together, threatening to ask for refunds along the way(!). Many thanks to the legendary, long-absent Lewis Austin, who found the seats for us, thus possibly changing the course of Marathon history. Now if that change has been for the better or for the worse? I'll let you decide. For the time being, I'll let those in attendance for the first four hours fill in their Ed Kemmer and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS stories.

-At the time, I was a bit non-plussed by the selection of films, but hindsight was convinced me that this was one of the strongest lineups of the Drexel North years, if not the history of the event in total. The guests went over boffo with the crowd, the premieres were all strong in their own way (ZEIRAM was a particularly inspired bit of kinetic lunacy), Spielberg's wonder-infused masterpiece made its first Marathon appearance, a classic 3D film, and an absolute knockout closing stretch of BUCKAROO BANZAI, GHIDRAH THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER, STAR TREK II, and TERMINATOR 2. It should be noted, as well, that part of my lukewarm reaction at the time was probably fueled by the fact that I slept through most of the DESTINATION MOON to STAR TREK II slate, Al Capp's hilbilly opus having drained me of some much-needed energy. Or maybe it was the 7-11 brand turkey and roast beef sandwiches that I brought to eat that did me in. Nonetheless, I would give anything to relive this entire event with a full night's rest and no play to perform. Although whether I'd rather re-experience it as a budding 17-year old obsessive or a 40-year old caffeine junkie, I don't know.

-From a historical perspective, this was yet another year in which the Sci-Fi Marathon sold out in advance, seemingly boding good things for the future. But the spectre of change also loomed large. The previous fall, before the 666th Annual NIGHT OF THE LIVIGN DREXEL, the owners of the Drexel North began shopping around for buyers. The Franks owned the business, but were renting the building, so the future was suddenly a bit less unclear. I distinctly remember a mildly panicked me calling the theater in September of '93 to ask about the possible sale, and being told that any such thing wouldn't happen for a long time (in part, according to whomever I spoke with, because of asbestos content.) So I remained assured that all was fine. How little did I, or any of us, know.....

-By the way, I missed this yesterday, but SF7 was the first attempt to hold a Nite Flight mini-event for anyone who was shut out of the advance Marathon sell-out. The pitch was that six of the films would show from midnight to noon at the Drexel for a discounted price. But ticket sales for the short version were so low that the offer was made to those folks to hoof it up to the Drexel North and take some of the empty seats that always materialize halfway through the Marathon. The only other attempt at such an endeavor (so far) was at the 2010 Science Fiction Marathon.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 5:37 pm 
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Joe Neff wrote:
-By the way, I missed this yesterday, but SF7 was the first attempt to hold a Nite Flight mini-event for anyone who was shut out of the advance Marathon sell-out. The pitch was that six of the films would show from midnight to noon at the Drexel for a discounted price. But ticket sales for the short version were so low that the offer was made to those folks to hoof it up to the Drexel North and take some of the empty seats that always materialize halfway through the Marathon. The only other attempt at such an endeavor (so far) was at the 2010 Science Fiction Marathon.

-


Interesting. As I'm sure Bruce has told you, the Night Flight originated at the Orson Welles in 1979 (the first Night Flight was my first Marathon!). It was because the Marathon began selling out earlier and earlier. That year all tickets (about 650 spread over two screens) were gone before Xmas! The Night Flight continued until the Welles became toast in 1986 (total ticket sales...800!). Even with the Festival and the large Somerville auditorium, ticket sales are just above half that today. :cry: A couple of Night Flights were attempted at the Coolidge Corner Cinema back in the 90s, but, they have largely been forgotten. How did the 2010 ticket sales go?

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 8:14 pm 
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"This is the last Science Fiction Marathon..........at the Drexel North".

Thus it was with those words, spoken before ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, that Jeff Frank dropped the bomb that would dwarf all the other bomb-related content in this Marathon devoted to 50 years of the A-Bomb. In the years since, I've had a few friends who were seemingly in the know recount the revelation of this news as a fait accompli, a fact that EVERYONE knew. But I'm tellin' ya, the news that the Drexel North was closing was a huge shock to almost everyone in the audience that Sunday morning. A heartbreak above all heartbreaks. The end of an era. Personally, I had been devastated when NIGHT OF THE LIVING DREXEL had been cancelled that past January, but I still held out hope that the Sci-Fi Marathon would soldier on. Man, the whole thing still hurts to this day.

-This ended up being quite the star-crossed lineup, as three of the films on the flier didn't make it to the final lineup. As the story goes, ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS was waylaid somewhere in Florida, and I'm still not sure why THINGS TO COME was cancelled. Of course, the most infamous of the cancellations was that of ROCKETSHIP X-M. After failing to materialize at the 1992 IT CAME FROM THE DREXEL NORTH, this title showed up to the Drexel North in 1995 as a rare nitrate print. Now, as anyone with a working knowledge of film (or anyone who's seen INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS) can tell you, nitrate film is highly flammable without the right projector. And so, faced with the decision to possibly burn down the North or let it live for another month or so, the staff decided to shelf the print. In its place was the ant rampage classic THEM! The full final lineup was:

THE SHADOW
THEM!
THE ATOMIC CAFE
MANT! (excerpts from MATINEE)
DIGITAL MAN (World Premiere)
DR. STRANGELOVE
FIRST SPACESHIP ON VENUS
THE SECRET ADVENTURES OF TOM THUMB (Columbus Premiere)
THE H-MAN
MIND RIPPER (World Premiere)
DARKMAN
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
MAD MAX

It's kind of amazing and sad to look back and see the sudden drop in quality of the premieres over the final Drexel North years. Granted, it's ALWAYS been easier to snag quality/entertaining Horror Marathon premieres. But this event in particular featured the epitome of DTV mediocrity in DIGITAL MAN and a second rate horror thriller in MIND RIPPER. That being said, I absolutely love SECRET ADVENTURES OF TOM THUMB. It's one of those bizarre moments in cinematic time that's never received the wider acclaim it deserves, a breakthrough in the possibilities of animation that is both disturbing and funny.

-Amazingly, this was my first ever screening of DR. STRANGELOVE, and I had almost no idea what it was about. Its gallows humor in the face of impending doom turned out to be extremely appropriate at the end of this final Drexel North Marathon.

-Such was the slap in the face of the apocalyptic announcement before ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK that I don't have a lot of memorable stories about this Marathon. It was a lot of fun. But it also felt like I was finally easing into this Marathon environment, that this was a really cool edition of the event, albeit a smooth-running, steady not ecstatic one. Of course, from great disaster often comes great progress, and even the closing of the Drexel North wouldn't keep the great Marathon machine down for good. But still, the end of the Drexel North years marked a definite closing of a chapter.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 8:22 pm 
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And so...a rebirth.

With interest levels still running high, and Marathoid passions still burning bright, the Drexel had no choice but to keep the Science Fiction Marathon alive. But how? And where? There were still 600 attendees coming to these things in 1995, so a 300 seater like Studio 35 wouldn't work. Likewise the two Drexel theaters. I remember Jeff Frank once saying that bringing the Marathon to the Drexel in Bexley would ruin it like it ruined the Drexel North. Now I might have a bone or two to pick with my former boss over such statements, but I still understand some of the sentiments. But my, how time has proven him wrong.

In any case, the opportunity to four wall the Capitol Theater at the Vern Riffe Center in Downtown Columbus seemed like a match made in heaven. A large, luxurious house with seating for upwards of 800. The space for a gigantic screen. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!

But as those of you who experienced the Riffe Center years know all too well, there were a few caveats. The biggest of which was the inability to bring food or drink into the theater. Yeah, the culture shock of going from bringing in almost anything to the Drexel North to having to scarf down nourishment in the lobby was a hard one to take. It's just not optimal to sit in a theater for 24 hours and not be able to eat during the films. But for the time being, this seemed like a compromise worth making if it mean keeping the Marathoid flame burning.

And there was a powerhouse film lineup to satiate the crowd as well! The final IT CAME FROM THE DREXEL NORTH came with the option for the audience to vote for 10 of the films that would be included in this 10th Annual Marathon (with the usual caveats about print availability, etc.) Two notable ballot winners that didn't appear in the lineup were THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, the reason given for their absence being that Studio 35 was showing them on a double feature a month beforehand. Now again, I might quibble with my old boss over such logic. But the lineup was still very solid. FORBIDDEN PLANET, ALIEN, ALIENS, BLADE RUNNER, WAR OF THE WORLDS, and BRAZIL were all stone cold classics (although to this day, I rag on Bruce about scheduling BRAZIL for a 5am slot, as I'd never seen it before.) And the premieres of CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, TREMORS II, and CEMETERY MAN were about as strong a trio of divergent genres and tones as you could ask for, easily one of the best slate of premieres in the event's history. There was also the semi-premiere of PARTY, a short film co-written by Columbus native Jay Woelfel starring Gary Coleman as a godlike figure. It's reception was....mild? But Woelfel was game enough to take some of the audience grilling in person.

Oh yeah, and there was that whole MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE debacle. But I'll let guilty party Kevin Carr retell THAT story. :wink:

On a personal note, I had started working for the Drexel in the fall of 1995, so this was my first Marathon attended while somewhat inside the machine. It was also the first time that I got to know Bruce in a deeper way than just "Hey, how are ya?" Little did we know how entwined out paths would become (oh the humanity!) I distinctly remember pitching Jeff Frank the idea that I would distribute fliers for the event and do any promotion he wanted in exchange for not actually working as a staff member. 'Cause dammit, I wasn't going to miss out on the audience experience!

But seriously, though, this was a great Marathon. The knowledge that, one way or another, this cinematic thing of ours would continue was energizing in ways that are hard to describe. For a shining moment in Marathon history, hope was back in force.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 9:18 pm 
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Truly, the 1997 Science Fiction Marathon was a best of times/worst of times situation.

Some background here. The Riffe Center was, in many ways, a wonderful home. But it was also not a full-time operating movie theater. So the date of the Marathon was always subject to change pending many other events that took place in the Capitol Theater. Such a scenario presented itself in late 1996, when one of Jeff Frank's only options was to book his rental of the venue for the last weekend in January. Not only was this the earliest event date in Marathon history, it was also Super Bowl Sunday. Another growing complication was the projection system. The Capitol Theater not being a full-time movie theater also meant that the Drexel had to rent and install projection equipment for each Marathon, a setup that wasn't cheap by any means.

And there was the "No Food or Drink in the Theater" policy. It was a quirk in the first year, but the prospect of continuing on in this way wasn't entirely appealing. This is pure speculation, but I suspect that this edict (along with the early weekend) helped to turn more attendees away than one might think. And so, after a 10th Annual Marathon that welcomed around 600 Marathoids, attendance dropped in 1997 to around 400. Looking back, this might've been the moment when the logistics of the venue shook the foundation of the Marathon more than anything had in the past.

That's a shame, because this to me is one of the all-time great lineups. Sneaky great, if you will. The bookending of the FLYs provided a nice contrast of the evolution of the genre (and, depending on your tastes, a great cat callback for the bulk of the event.) The maiden appearance of BARBARELLA was a great slice of late-'60s soft erotica. I remain a fan of THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EDWARD D. WOOD JR.; my memories are that it was a fairly well-rounded look at the trash auteur. Also of note was the punkish, psychedelic edge of ALTERED STATES and REPO MAN, the dark speculative fantasy of FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH, and Der Arnold in PREDATOR! And, of course, a return screening of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, in many ways the signature film of this event. (I'll also note that THE ROAD WARRIOR was dropped a few weeks before the event in favor of the Ohio Premiere of GAMERA, GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE, a decision by my former boss that I disagree with to this day. But hey, der past ist der past.)

For the first time, I worked behind the scenes with Bruce, this time on a Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes riff that required Marathoids to submit several ballots throughout the event, culminating in an early morning drawing for a swath of prizes and a ticket for the next year's Marathon. Like many of our subsequent crazy ideas, it was a fun concept that didn't quite stick the landing. But as most of you know, that's never stopped us. And it wouldn't stop us the next year, when we conspired for one of the all-time bizarro Marathon performances/gimmicks.

...but that's a story for tomorrow!


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 09, 2017 1:39 pm 
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1998! The year that GRAVITY came to life!

The whole mess began man years back, when the 16mm print of GRAVITY that would appear for each Marathon became a grand mystery for the organizers as they wondered if this copy would have the Big Sister scene trimmed out by some previous intrepid projectionist and/or censor. And man, if you've never heard the collective grown from a Marathon audience frustrated at the lack of some Big Sister, y'aint heard nothin' yet! This situation reached critical mass in 1997, in which the print was no only missing our beloved nude sibling, but also kept breaking. Holding a live, wireless mike in the audience, Bruce then uttered the infamous words: "That settles it: GRAVITY Live next year!"

And so began one of the more bizarre mini-chapters in Marathon history. The following spring, during a visit to the Wexner Center booth, I was shown the rough outline that Bruce had assembled for such a production. At the top of the list was the idea to ask an OSU theater major who could sing if they'd play the prized(?) role of Jiminy Gravity. Which led to MY infamous words: "Bruce, you know that I've played singing roles in many musicals, right?" And yep, he took me up on my Faustian bargain. Thus it was that I assembled a few high school friends and other associates to form the cast for GRAVITY: LIVE. When we found out that David Wechter, Michael Nankin, and Michelle Stacey would be in attendance? Whoo boy! No pressure at all.

In the end, that trio turned out to be about as gracious a set of film folks as we've met. And despite only getting one live rehearsal at the Riffe Center, we pulled off the production with at least some level of aplomb. And then Bruce proceeded to introduce me to anyone we met over the next year with the phrase "and, of course, he's Jiminy Gravity!". The one downside of my GRAVITY: LIVE experience is that it took me away from large chunks of the lineup. I wouldn't see INFRA-MAN until the Boston Sci-Fi Marathon in 2000, I completely missed Honk, Wail, and Moan playing with THE LOST WORLD, and I STILL haven't seen SPACE TRUCKERS.

But this was a somewhat schizophrenic lineup anyway. The cracks were beginning to show in the Riffe Center set-up, and the construction of the film slate started to fall through those cracks. It was a year marked by too many recent films and not enough heavy hitters. On the bright side, ROCKETSHIP X-M finally made its Marathon debut (in a print provided by Martin Scorsese's film foundation!)

And attendance once again dropped, this time to between 300-350. There have been many theories proffered for the quick decline of the Marathons, and many of them probably combine to form the greater truth. Even though the Riffe Center was a lavish home, it lacked the funky magic of the Drexel North. The no food edict was becoming a real drag on the crowd's enthusiasm. The gap between home video and the theatrical experience continued to shrink, likely enticing more people to stick with their tv's and couches. And for two straight years, the rollout of the event had been mildly compromised. Back in those days, the fliers were still the #1 way of announcing the event (especially via the mailing list), and when they started coming later and later, prospective attendees found it harder to commit. Combine all of these factors (and probably some we haven't touched on) and you get a precipitous drop in attendance and interest that looked like it might be sapping the audience of their mojo.

Later that year, it became apparent that for financial and logistical reasons, the Riffe Center would no longer host the Science Fiction Marathon. But where would this cinematic thing of ours travel next? Howzabout a one year sojourn in a formerly thriving theater which would yield one of the best lineups in Marathon history? But that's for tomorrow...


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 8:48 am 
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So, my whirlwind trip to NYC for my anniversary has kept me from weighing in on the last few of these.

There are too many memories for me to possibly sort through when it comes to the final several marathons at the late, great, Drexel North. It doesn't help that the final Drexel North marathon would also be my final marathon in High School, so as much as I loved the events (and I did), they were just a small part of the fabric that made up that chapter of my life.

The three Rife Center years are ones that I look back at fairly fondly. The "No food" edict was the hardest thing to live with, by far. But the events as a whole those three years were really quite good. And managing it with the extended trailerthon to schedule dinner breaks opposite was a decent compromise.

Truth be told, other than the food, I would've been happy to stay at the Rife Center. I liked being able to park in a covered garage, wait for the event to start indoors, and the plethora of food options downtown was hard to beat (although we would get that again when the event moved to the Arena Grand (RIP)).

And it's hard to complain much about the line-up for the three Rife Center marathons.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 7:53 pm 
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When is a themed Marathon that doesn't stick much to theme still feature one of the best lineups in Marathon history? 1999 has come calling and has its answer for you with the 17th Annual Ohio 24-Hour Science Fiction Marathon!

"17th?" you say? "Wasn't the 1998 version the 12th annual?" Well yeah! You see, once the Marathon was banished from the halls of the Riffe Center, Bruce sought to construct a time machine that would take us back to the Drexel North days for redemption. At one point, we even had a quarter of a million dollars to buy the place with, but somehow it ended up in the Thornton Waxman Institute for Gravitational Reserach's Swiss bank account (one of the great unsolved mysteries of the modern age.) But as we all know, time travel can be a tricky matter. And time itself often doesn't want to have its fabric punctured. And so, years 13-16 took place while we at Marathon Central worked on that time machine. And they were GREAT years, especially the 15th, when Boston's Martian Liberation Organization held the event hostage and played Mars propaganda (er..I mean film classics FREE MARS) for most of the night. At the end of the 16th Marathon, the machine was finally perfected and we all traveled back to 1991! But alas, this shattering of the space-time continuum subsequently thrust us back into early 1999 shortly thereafter, no memories remaining of years 13-16.

So yeah, it's pretty simple, actually. And, of course, has NEVER caused any head-scratching amongst the uninitiated. NEVER.

In a perverse way, it makes sense that one of the most solid Science Fiction Marathons took place during a vagabond year, in a theater whose glory days had long since faded. In its heyday, The Continent was a cutting edge shopping center/night club scene/luxury apartment complex. Trust me, it was one of the cooler parts of town for much of the 70s and 80s. But like many things in Columbus, suburban sprawl conspired to thwart the ambitions of the complex, and by the time 1999 rolled around the once thriving community was a shell of its former self. The Funny Bone remained, but would be gone to Easton a few years later. But smack dab in the middle of the complex was the Sony Continent eight screen theater. Since it was no longer a hot movie spot (Columbus's late 90s multiplex over-expansion having diluted its audience), renting its main screen for 24 hours wasn't too daunting of a proposition.

And lemme tell ya, for as much as I loved the grandeur of the Riffe Center (as Aaron so accurately points out), walking into a 400 seat theater that had a large middle section with a smaller one on each side....with a slightly funky 70s decor.....well, it was almost as if the Drexel North had just shrunk a little bit. Made me a bit misty in my time. And the theater itself was a pretty good spot for the event! Concessions were naturally more expensive, but being able to eat again in the theater after a three year respite more than made up for that. Plus, the staff pretty much left us alone. While there was only a slight uptick in attendance, the important part was that for at least one year, we weren't bleeding any more Marathoids.

For the record, the final film lineup was:

THE TERMINATOR
KRONOS
The OHIO PREMIERE of FREE ENTERPRISE
CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON in 3-D
The MIDWEST PREMIERE of EXISTENZ
MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
The OHIO REVIVAL PREMIERE of MIGHTY PEKING MAN
INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS
DARK CITY
TIME BANDITS
TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY

So how, exactly, did this prominently advertised Time Travel theme end up only featuring three time travel films? From the flier's standpoint, TIME AFTER TIME ended up having no prints available (rest assured, screenable materials have FINALLY become available, and when we do this whole Time Travel theme right, it'll be in the lineup.) But in general, it all came down to diverging booking philosophies. Bruce pushed for THE TIME MACHINE, SLEEPER, and BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, but Jeff had his reasons for not going with any of them. Now, I could sit here and argue those reasons up and down for hours, but it'll be much more productive to wait for the Time Travel Marathon we'll organize soon, when we'll try to have at least the first and third of those titles (and maybe the Woody Allen film as well.) But I hand it to my partner in crime: when he has a concept, he goes with a concept no matter what. And so, the Time Travel Marathon that wasn't really a Time Travel Marathon.

But what a lineup it still was! You can't go wrong with the TERMINATOR bookend (more on that in a minute.) This was the first appearance of Terry Gilliam's TIME BANDITS (a personal favorite since childhood.) KRONOS made its first appearance in ten years in a sparkling new print. INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS is quite the fun softcore 70s throwback. FREE ENTERPRISE remains one of the most popular Premieres in the event's storied history, an expertly calibrated satire of/tribute to geek culture. And the last minute addition of Cronenberg's EXISTENZ was a genuinely exciting happening; I still think it's one of his most underrated films, a worthy modern-day follow up to VIDEODROME (appropriate, as it replaced that film in the lineup.) Plus, there was the wonderful DARK CITY on the big screen (with a trailer tribute to the recently deceased Stanley Kubrick right beforehand.)

Of course, there were some oddities as well. The print of CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON could charitably be described as incomplete; it was missing a good chunk of one reel and quite a bit of the actual 3D content. (It would reappear in the 2009 lineup as the amazing Ultimate CAT WOMEN Experience......more about that another time.)

And then there was the infamous TERMINATOR 2 flipped reel, a flaw that would birth a new tradition. Several reels into T2, the reel change occurred and everyone realized that the film was now playing upside down and backwards. On the old Drexel North/Riffe Center reel to reel/dual projector setup, this would've been readily fixed. But the Continent's platter system meant that the film was strung together as one giant reel. Which meant a good half hour wait (at best) to fix the problem. And so, game as ever, the audience elected to watch this one reel upside down and backwards. Which was great fun. And spawned the now annual tradition (at both Marathons) of playing some type of film upside down and backwards.

As we walked into the bright sun that Sunday afternoon, it seemed as if the Marathon had found a new home, and the future looked just as bright. That didn't turn out to be the case, but the fond memories of this 1999 version of the event still remain.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 8:57 am 
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I have so darn many fond memories of this year's event.

As I wrote on the FB page, this was the first year that the woman who would become my wife attended with me. The Continent had an amazing retro feel which brought back memories of the Drexel North. Having food available in the theatres again was awesome, and hey, having the empty screens available for people to go and grab a nap in was an awesome bonus. In fact, when our humble event would get bounced to the Arena Grand and the Gateway, it was thinking back to this year that made me think "Hey, that might not be so bad."

And man, the line-up. Sure, losing out more of the time travel theme was a bummer, as was trying to explain the jump in years to Christina, but what a fantastic set of films.

Bookending the event with Terminator is never a bad choice. eXistanz was bonkers amazing. Kronos, Time Bandits, Dark City, and Free Enterprise were all solid crowd pleasers.

I don't remember Mysterious Island, or much of Mighty Peking Man, but man, this whole event was just solid fun. Are we ever going to be told the full reason behind why the Marathon didn't stay here?


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 9:34 am 
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Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:59 pm
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Location: Drexel North, circa 1993
AEinhorn wrote:
Are we ever going to be told the full reason behind why the Marathon didn't stay here?


I've never been privy to the specifics, but far as I can tell it came down to a combination of things. Four straight years of renting out another theater probably wasn't helping, and there's a decent chance that the Continent wanted more than was reasonable. Another factor is that the theater underwent several changes in ownership and operators around this time. At one point in the early '00s, a former AMC general manager tried to re-open it as a more upscale food and films venue, although that never really caught on. Over the ensuing years, it was taken over by an Indian consortium, another independent group, and the current operators (who use it as a quasi-first run house mixed with Indian films...which means that that previously mentioned consortium, or another one, is now handling things.) It's really sort of odd that the place is still open, as that area has been dead for years.

Circling back around, though, this was also the era in which talks for what would become the Arena Grand were heating up. I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff was looking ahead to 2001 (when the theater was originally supposed to open) and thinking that using the Grandview for one year (and not paying a rental fee) as a bridge was a good bet. Still, yeah, the Continent had its own very cool charm.


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