Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for July 02, 2023

“Lisa’s Story” was shot on Super-8, wasn’t it?

…What? Seriously, WHAT? “I want you to make sure NO ONE ever comes back to this theater! I’m paying your wife to vomit on everyone! And then—we release the HOUNDS so that they may FEAST ON THE FLESH OF THE LIVING!” MAX: “I shall now mildly smile!” (horrific carnage ensues, also vomit)

Alas, the wonderful world of film medium fades into the sunset, but for the few who remember and care.

“Don’t worry, Mason! These highly degraded acetate copies will make sure that everyone knows it’s on film when they get stuck in the projector and burn! BURN, ahahaha!! Also, our popcorn is made of asbestos.” Note to Tom: Just because it’s old, it don’t mean it’s good.

It’s “Lisa’ Story,” Masonne. Everything about the movie is “slightly out of frame.”

Nothing like deliberate technical issues to endear your venue to its Grand Opening audience of…four people? Still, at least none of them appears to be Moore Who Must Not Be Named.

They will know they are when they picture starts jumping up and down.

Instead of playing the second reel, play the last one.

Also one of the onscreen characters will pluck a loose projector hair à la Magical Maestro.

“Rusty, a special request!”“Yes, Massonne, what is it?”“I want you to mess up the panel change… so nobody will notice my shirt goes from blue to pink before the end of this sentence!”

Guy doing critic’s screening of “Little Indian, Big City,” 1996: “We ran the movie out of order. Here’s the correct reel—” Angry Gene Siskel: “This reel could be the legendary lost footage from ‘The Magnificent Ambersons,’ and this movie would STILL suck!”

That home-sized projector he’s got would never light up a big screen, or hold a 35mm reel. I imagine there is a lot of that old technology, reels & projectors, on the market.

Definitely part of the original experience.

They want know or understand….for the most part!

When do we get out of the theater?

Mason; everyone knows that the Valentine is a “classic” movie theatre, the movies it shows haven’t been produced on digital media. So why fool around like that?

And everyone in the audience can have fun hooting and hollering and throwing popcorn at the screen…

Oh my God. Nostalgia, nostalgia, nostalgia. There’s a REASON things keep changing. It’s an improvement!

Except Lisa’s Story (cue the heavenly trumpets and angels singing) is a recent film, it wouldn’t even be available in this format.

So based on the first two panels, everyone brought their little kids to this premier? Yes, nothing says “enjoyable film for kids under 8” better than a movie about a lady dying of cancer.

Great idea!! That way you can have people walking out saying “God, what an incompetent bunch of idiots! They can’t even thread a movie projector right! We’re NEVER coming back to this dump again!”

Let everyone know you’re a snooty person!

Max: So you want to ruin the viewing experience. For what will probably be our only paying customers. Just to reinforce something that will be mentioned on all of our advertising.

Masone: Well, when you put it like that…

As duty electrician on the Cutter I ran the 16mm projector showing the evening movie and cartoons when we were at sea. Inevitably the film would break two or three times or the sprocket holes were stripped out. Those were the good old days.

Jarree looks pretty messed up. Is he high?

Back in the 70s a friend worked at a small theater as the projectionist. A few times he would ask me to come up into the projection room, and I would help him with switching from one projector to the other. Until then I hadn’t really noticed so much the marks that used to pop up in the upper right hand corner of movies. Those were a signal to the projectionist to switch projectors to start the next reel.

Haha! XD