As Fantastic Fest gains in prominence as a must-attend spot on the festival calendar, the special events organized by Tim League and friends are becoming as notorious as the wide-ranging selection of international genre and exploitation films on the official lineup. From shooting lessons to field trips to far-flung barbeque joints, to multiple karaoke parties and totally unofficial after-after parties in the hotel suites of celebrity attendees, the only criticism of the festival that keeps coming up is that there’s actually too much fun to be had, too much to do.
But this is not necessarily a Fantastic Fest-specific problem; with the Alamo Drafthouse chain itself, League has created a year-round home for Too Much Fun for not just cinema nerds, but anyone who likes to wash their pop culture down with copious amounts of beer. This became evident yesterday afternoon when, after a screening of the paraplegic serial killer film Late Bloomer (about which more, later), I snuck out of the Alamo South Lamar to head across town to the Alamo Ritz for Michael Jackson Thrill the World, a sing-a-long, dance-off and drinking contest set to the music video masterpieces of the King of Pop.
But contrary to appearances, the point of the evening, according to host Henri Mazza, was not to have fun. “I don’t care if you have a good time,” he said. “The most important thing tonight is that you learn how to do “Thriller.”
The Alamo is getting together a contingent to try to break the record for the “largest group synchronized “Thriller” Dance,” and they’re also hoping to attach “upwards of 2,000″ “Thriller”-dancing zombies to the back of next month’s Day of the Dead parade. After letting the crowd warm up with a one-minute dance contest (which the young lady above lost in spite of her sartorial dedication to the endeavor) and by singing and dancing along to videos like “Bad” and “Rock With You,” the Alamo brought out a dance teacher to train the wannabe zombies for their future engagements.
Watch three or more Michael Jackson videos back-to-back-to-back and, whatever you think of the man or his music, it’s impossible to deny that no pop star has ever really tried to top him in terms of sheer scope. And even when he’s very, very bad, he’s compelling. The several minutes of narrative exposition tacked on to beginning and end of “Remember the Time” are ridiculous, but audaciously so: it’s no “Thriller,” but that Jackson thought that this –– an epic set in ancient Egypt in which he plays a mysterious shape-shifter who makes out with Iman under the nose of her husband Eddie Murphy and slave Magic Johnson –– was a good idea is, in a way, thrilling.
Though it took the crowd a while to get into it, by the time MJ was yelling about meeting a love interest “in the park, after dark,” a good portion were on their feet, laughing and singing along. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the majesty of the choreographed dance. Maybe it was that, in hindsight, all of the pretentions within the Jackson canon––from traditional heterosexuality to the dominatrix-outfitted teenager trying to prove he’s tough in the Martin Scorsese-directed “Bad”––make us feel like we’re privy to an inside joke. Regardless, like so much else at Fantastic Fest, Thrill the World felt like an illegal amount of fun.
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