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Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2008 - 13:33:17 |
Rumors have been floating around American and English film circles that our beloved bad girls Lindsay Lohan and Drew Barrymore are vying for the most coveted title role in a remake of a cult classic: "Barbarella."
But not until three Denver comics can rip the film from its science fiction/soft porn cradle and place it on its rightful platform of uninterrupted, crude comedy.
In a style pioneered by the Sci-Fi Channel's "Mystery Science Theater 3000," comedians Matt Vogle, Harrison Raines and Chris Atencio, who perform regularly at Denver's Comedy Works, sit in the back of the theater at the Tivoli's Starz FilmCenter with microphones and sound effects, giving bad movies their comedy debut through commentary.
"It's such a different show from anything else that's out there, it's its own unique thing," said Vogle, who, along with Raines and Atencio, has been tearing apart cult classics at the Starz FilmCenter for the past three months as part of the Mile High Sci-Fi series.
The material that spews from a sex-crazed Jane Fonda in "Barbarella," making its debut at the Starz FilmCenter at 8:30 p.m. Aug. 24 and 25, lends a new, unique perspective on a plot that Vogel said can be dubbed no less than the brainchild of a few screenwriters and a few more bottles of tequila.
"Barbarella" stars Jane Fonda in the title role, as a soldier sex-fiend hired by the President of Earth to defeat Durand Durand (yes, that's where the band got the name) on a planet where a new sin is created every second. Barbarella heroically and famously fornicates her way to victory.
"They are doing these films a service, they are saving them," said Keith Garcia, the program coordinator at the Starz FilmCenter. Past films of the Mile High Sci-Fi series include "Flash Gordon" and "Escape From New York."
While the crew of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" relied on B-list science fiction films littered with fishing string and giant blood-thirsty rabbits, the Mile High Sci-Fi series picks films that were at some time more mainstream, feeding off cliches and the audience's familiarity with the film.
"People come in with a preconceived notion of the movies," which is useful but not necessary, Vogel said.
The Starz FilmCenter, a prime theater, shows "films as art," according to its website.
It even changes up the atmosphere in the theater for Mile High Sci-Fi, Vogel said, allowing Radio Flyers of Dale's Pale Ale to roll up and down the aisles during the show. After Vogel, Raines and Atencio introduce the film and hand out door prizes, the atmosphere becomes pretty relaxed, though additional heckling from audience members is discouraged, Vogel said.
"Come and let three professional comedians do all the work for you and just enjoy what they do for the movie," he said about the experience.
Mile High Sci-Fi plans to continue the series through the fall and September's film will be hand-picked by voters online until Sept. 1 at www.milehighscifi.com.
The nuggets up for next month include: "Anaconda," a 1997 film starring Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube; "Star Trek II: The Wrath of the Kahn;" "Baby Geniuses" and "Barbed Wire" starring the freshly-augmented Pamela Anderson Lee. So far, the Trekkies are leading the vote. Vogel said he hopes, should the "Kahn" win, that they come with open minds.
"And hope they don't bring their pewter dungeon and dragon figurines and bludgeon us with them," he said.
Vogel is rooting for the Star Trek film, he said, "because you can only make so many jokes about blondes and big boobs."
The remainder of the series, which will be picked by Mile High Sci-Fi, will be "bottomless" films, thick with plot and lines ripe with vulnerability. "Exorcist" is tentatively planned for October.
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