5 Planet of the Apes Movies in about 9 hours

Well, goodness.

What can you say about the Planet of the Apes Pentilogy that hasn't already been said?

I love these flicks, enough so that in 2001-ish, Target had the original Planet of the Apes for sale on DVD on a big display with the Statue of Liberty and everything, and I caused a pretty serious ruckus in the video department when I re-enacted this scene from the original POTA.



Like Nova, Jamie remained silent.

SO, this morning I arrived at the Alamo Ritz at 9:35 this morning to see Planet of the Apes unspool in glorious 35mm on the big, big screen.  And all of its 4 sequels.

So on Sunday I'm watching, like, 10 hours worth of Apes movies

A while back I mentioned that The Alamo Drafthouse is having an all-day Planet of the Apes Movie Marathon.  Man, no, I don't know what is wrong with me, but whatever it is, Simon's got it, too, because we're spending all day at The Alamo Ritz taking in 5 (count 'em!  FIVE) Planet of the Planet of the Apes movies.



I've never actually done a movie marathon in this manner.  Usually watching two movies is a row is a bit taxing, and I recall being utterly worn out at the end of my "Let's watch the first two Lord of the Rings movies, and then go see Return of the King in the theater!" brainstorm.  Of course, all that LOTR's was actually more movie than a POTA marathon as we watched those extended, 4 hour versions on DVD.

That said, I am aware:  Its just so much damn Apes.

I like to think, however, that if anyone is man enough to just sit there for 10 hours in the dark eating pizza and slowly getting drunk starting at 10:00 AM and then slowly getting sober so he can get home, I AM THAT MAN.



And I am aware that this is sort of a stupid thing to do.  So, I am also trying to think of what I can do to tip the cosmic scales a bit back into balance.  More on that after Ape Weekend gives me time to ponder my karmic accounting.  

Oh my God, The Alamo is doing a POTA Marathon!

A while back I announced my intention to host my own Planet of the Apes Marathon prior to the release of the new POTA movie.

Apparently, the stars have aligned and The Alamo Drafthouse is planning a spectacular Planet of the Apes Day-Long Marathon.  If you aren't following the Bad-Ass Digest, you're kind of making a mistake.  But that's where I heard about this shindig.  

So, Jamie, sounds like May 29th you'll need to recruit someone else to entertain you.  I'm looking at the opportunity for an absolutely amazing Day of the Apes!

only 2 movies of the 5 star Cheston, because only 2 could handle the Cheston-ness

I really don't know how I CAN'T go see the new "Apes" movie

My Apes obsession crescendoed in the days prior to any blogging or social media. Circa 1998 - 2001, I was all about Planet of the Apes and its sequels. Somewhere, I still have a Charlton Heston action figure and 12" dolls of Cornelius and Dr. Zaius.  Now that I think on it, once, when Jamie was in the hospital, I left her there to go catch a screening of POTA at the original location of the Alamo (with her permission).

My favorite of the series, of course, was the original, which Tim Burton remade into a mess of a surprisingly boring film about 10 years ago. My second favorite was always Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, in which you learn about the early days of the ape revolt, which had been hinted at in the previous films.  Its a sort of cautionary tale/ leninist fantasy of the beleagured apes rising up and striking back at their tormentors (us a-hole humans) who have basically been treating apes as slave labor in the context of the film.

@#$% is about to get real, yo

The trailer above is quite different from Conquest, so its a new story that seems to give a faux-scientific plausible explanation for how the ape revolt could have ever happened. In some ways, its a bit like introducing midichlorians, but after the goofy mutants of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, I'm not sure the franchise maintained the same credibility with even the fans that Star Wars carried for so long.

Everyone who comes to Planet of the Apes has a different perspective,  because (a) its not a series built on a cheery proposition and (b) my own wife just gets creeped out by the make-up, so she won't watch the films even when I can prove that Kim Hunter as Zira is just awesome (she appears in the first 3 Apes films).

see!  even Cheston loves Zira.  Maybe too much.

As a kid, I remember watching the Apes movies when WGN or our local UHF station would have "Ape Week" (5 Apes movies in 5 nights.  It was as good as "Godzilla Week".  Man, UHF ruled.), but unlike Tron or Star Wars I do remember having to work pretty hard to grok the Apes movies.  In a lot of ways, the social commentary and criticism of the movies that I thought pretty clever in 1998 just wasn't apparent to me as a kid.  But, you know, apes.  You had to watch.

The original novel of Planet of the Apes is actually quite a bit different from the 1960's version of the movie, and vastly different from the Mark Wahlberg-starring version, although there's a bit of the "suprise ending" in all three.   Its worth noting that Rod Serling, Mr. Twilight Zone himself was part of the brains behind the movie of Planet of the Apes (1968), which makes total sense if you've seen the movie. 

Anyhow, I'm up for an Apes movie.  This looks properly ridiculous.