2-D is Played Out

Sorry it took me so long to get this review finished, but my fantasy football team is preparing to do battle with a man called Anonymous, and I’ve committed all of my free time to figuring out how to hand him his first loss. Seriously, that bastard is 7-0, and that’s just ridiculous. You hear that Anonymous? Your reign of terror is coming to an end, my friend. I dare you to bench your starters. Then we’ll see how tough you are. Coward!

Wow. Now you know how truly cool I am. Anyway, let’s get down to the 3-D revolution.

Friday the 13th Part III in 3-D
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a non-IMAX movie in 3-D. I think the floating arm in Jaws 3 might actually be the last piece of 3-D brilliance I saw in the movie theater. If you’re too young to have seen an ‘80s 3-D movie, well…you’re too fucking young. You’ve also missed out on a great piece of pop culture that never really caught on. It’s a lot like the jet pack; totally kickass in every way, but for some reason not accepted by the masses.

The beauty of these old 3-D movies is that they’re just settling into the technology, so most of the 3-D action has nothing to do with the plot at all. Friday the 13th Part III featured a 20 second scene with a yo-yo going up and down, people would lay brooms and rakes down menacingly so the stick would be pointed at your eye, there was a mouse that walked towards me, popcorn exploded in my face, and a joint came my way from the requisite horror movie stoners. That’s not to say that the killing didn’t come in three dimensions, because every kill involved an object (e.g. harpoon, pitchfork) either being thrown at the victim or protruding from the victim’s back, so the audience didn’t know whether to scream, jump out of their seats to avoid the object, or laugh at the kids in the row in front of them who kept talking about Warcraft the entire movie.

I can’t do justice to the absurdity of the 3-D or to the fun of it. The lovely Sherpa and I had a great time at the movie as did everyone else in the theater. It’s ridiculous, but it’s also quaint in a way; a remnant of a decade that understood that technology shouldn’t be used for communication or study, but for making horror movies more badass and for flying around with a self-propulsion jet pack strapped to your back. That shit was important once, and I for one miss those dreamers who have long since been silenced in deference to those who want to make the Internet faster or want to cure disease. Fuck that. Get me a flying car, a hover board, and make me think a harpoon is headed for my eyeball. That’s fucking progress.

The movie gets 2 ½ -Griecos on its own. It’s horrible in every way. I mean there’s a three-person motorcycle gang that shows up for no real reason at all, and the plot holes are huge even for an ‘80s slasher picture. However, Friday the 13th Part III has vast significance on a pop culture level. It introduces Jason’s hockey mask and machete. We all know Jason’s not in the original (shut up, I’m not including the dream sequence at the end of the movie), and in Part II he wears a burlap sack and kills mainly with an axe, so the importance of Part III can’t be denied. While I believe Michael Meyers’s mask and simple blade are far more terrifying, there are few horror icons that are as recognizable as Jason’s mask and weapon of choice.

With the 3-D, the film easily gets 4-Griecos. You should all try to go see it or something like it, which brings me to my next point: The Alamo Draft House in Austin is the greatest movie theater on the planet. You should all come visit and check it out. I watched 27 hours straight of “Twin Peaks” there, I’ve seen horror movies that don’t get shown anywhere else, and that’s only a small piece of what they do.

OK. I’ve done my advertising for the day. I must now return to the land of fantasy where my second place team is readying themselves to shock the world next week.