I'm back from my annual pilgrimage to the Somerville Theater in Boston for the 24-Hour Science Fiction Film Marathon, which runs from noon to noon Sunday to Monday over Presidents Day weekend. It's a wonderful bit of folly. We had more snow than I might have liked, but my coats and layers were up to the task. Time to get back to giving games to gamers!
This is an old key, newly revealed, and should work like new. If you have trouble with it, please let me know.
Thanks for the giveaway!
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Oh wow that sounds amazing! And it's been running for 50 years!
Such a cool lineup too. Some of these old movies, I'd love to have a chance to see on the big screen.
We were just discussing Algol in the movie thread recently. It's cool that they have shorts too.
How long have you been going every year?
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Yes, the 50-year mark was a nutty fun thing this year. I started with SF7 (we think) at the Orson Welles Cinema, which is where it got its start; back then they had a "Night Flight" ticket that ran from midnight to noon in addition to the 24-hour run, so I joined the Thon in progress that year (the 24-hour tickets were sold out when I found out about it, so I took the partial). A few years later the Orson Welles burned down, and the Thon went nomad, working through most of the cinemas in the greater Boston area. An event like ours takes a lot of work for the staff and projectionists, though, so we were generally in place only for a single year. We fetched up for a few years at the Coolidge Corner cinema in Arlington, but they didn't love it, and eventually we found the current venue - the Somerville Theatre, in Davis Square - which has been a happy home. They embrace the weirdness, and have a projectionist who has loved the challenge over the years.
There used to be serials shown between the main features, which was both fun and tedious. Serials are like that. With a stable home at the Somerville, the Thon grew into a full Boston Science Fiction Film Festival, with shorts programs, world or U.S. premier screenings, panels, a home-grown award (the Gort), and then the Marathon at the end. I don't go to the rest of the Fest, but I go to the Thon as often as I can. I missed a few when I lived abroad, but I've been to most of them since I started with the 7th. I'd say 30 at least, but who knows?
I read along with the Algol discussion. This was my first time seeing it. It's an odd film; not as good as I had hoped, but fun to watch. It's quite long and not always smart about its story. There's usually a silent film in the program at the Thon, with a live accompanist. The monster in Algol is essentially unfettered capitalism, in the way that the monster in Metropolis is industrial oppression; here it comes from a demon planet, via a new technology for perpetual energy, and ultimately the movie is more a parable than an adventure.
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Just looking at the program, I can imagine the level of chaos for the organization, but also the love it takes to get something like this going for so long.
And wow! 30?? damn, no wonder you speak of it as yours! There is a scifi festival in Toronto I used to go to before I left Canada but it was a competition so the quality varied a lot and there were no oldies, ofc, which is a shame. Every science fiction movie in the past 25 years (and more) has built on all the B-movies and oldies and they are fun to watch on a big screen.
We have a couple of independent theaters in Paris that show old movies from all eras but they rarely show scifi, beyond stuff from the 70ies-80ies and they'd never have Barbarella or movies like that. They're too high brow lol
Algol is an odd duck and yeah I think at this point its value is mostly historical but it definitely was ahead of its time despite the clunky script and you're right, the symbolism in the story is much like Metropolis, albeit less successful in the metaphor, and that's what sci-fi was invented for, really. To create situations and place that differ wildly from our own but tell us things about ourselves and our little world.
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ty
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You're Breathtaking
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Thanks for the giveaway.
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Ty mtfbwy
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Thank you very much for the key! ANd sorry for delayed activation.
Have a very nice weekend!
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