the 600 square foot home: friday date night - grind house at the mad cap

Jeremy and I decided to do drinks and a movie on Friday. We dropped Espen off with Grandpa Joe and off we went. The movie was playing at the Mad Cap theatre (the old Harkins on Mill) so we headed to Tempe for a quick drink before the movie started. We ended up at Robbie Fox's, an Irish bar/restaurant in Tempe. Their onion rings are DELICIOUS and it doesn't hurt that they serve them with a red pepper aioli! So good. We had to kick back our drinks and eat up our rings in a hurry so we could run down the street to the theatre to catch the 8pm movie. While we were waiting in line Jeremy pointed out a poster for Birdemic and said, that's the other movie we're seeing tonight. THE OTHER MOVIE? I knew that we were going to see the awful film The Room, but what other movie was he talking about. Apparently all of their showings our Grind House Double Features and we were their to see both. I wasn't sure how I felt about watching 2 movies in one night, two of the worst movies ever made in case you didn't know. But that all changed after seeing The Room.

This movie is notorious for being hands down one of the worst films ever made. The acting is horrific, the story, wait, what story? The bad green screen, the creepy characters, the whole thing is bad bad BAD! Although this film is the worst ever it has gained a large cult following, and they are not the type who sit still and quiet in the theatre, taking in the cinematic gem, no, these are the types that crack jokes, incorporate props and bring a Rocky Horror Picture Show feel to the experience. I don't think I have ever laughed as hard as I did during this movie. The audience was in such a good mood, they had all obviously seen the film before and they knew the drill. They knew to yell 'Hey Denny' or 'Hey Johnny' or 'Hey Mark' anytime that character walked into a room, they knew to throw plastic spoons at the screen ever time a framed picture of a spoon was in a shot. They brought footballs to toss around every time (and it happened a lot for no reason) the actors tossed a football around. The list goes on, and it was amazing. Towards the end my face hurt from laughing, but I noticed that I was becoming increasingly irritated watching such a terrible movie. When it ended, I almost didn't want to go back in after intermission to watch Birdemic but the director of the film was their so we felt we should at least stay for a bit. Holy crap, thank God we did!

This couldn't have been any worse than it was. It was the Arizona premier, so no one in the audience was prepared. During the opening credits I don't think people knew exactly how to act or react since the director was in the audience with us, but seriously about 1 minute in to the most hilariously awful opening credits ever created the entire audience lost it and they rolled with it till the end. It was amazing. Everyone was yelling out one liners, cracking jokes, clapping, cheering, covering their ears when the birds would start to shriek. My favorite part was when in the movie the characters were in a board meeting where the CEO announced that their company was purchased for 'a billion' dollars and everyone in the seen began shaking each others hands and congratulating each other...but this went on for far too long, so the next thing you know, EVERYONE in the audience at practically the same time began to reach across rows and aisles to shake each others hands, it was hilarious. We stayed till the bitter end but when it was over and the Q&A began we ducked out. That was probably one of the most fun things I have ever done in my life, just utterly silly and fun.

If you ever get the chance to see these films, in this kind of setting you must go, you will not be disappointed.