Rocky Horror Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As pleasantly surprised as I was by last summer's musical remake of Hairspray, I can't say that the prospect of sequel potential ever once came to mind. Thankfully, that's why we have Hollywood bean counters and the like, who see the success of that film, Mamma Mia! and High School Musical (including a fair amount of CD and DVD sales for each) as reason enough to have John Waters -- who wrote the 1988 original -- whip up a treatment for a Hairspray sequel.

According to Variety, returning for the project is director Adam Shankman and ... um, no one else at the moment. There isn't a writer attached, nor are any of the original stars lined up to return, although I have little reason to think that most of the young cast wouldn't be down for another one (just what is Nikki Blonsky up to now, anyway?).

Warner Bros. hopes to have Hairspray 2 (Hairspray-ier?) in theaters by July of 2010.

Whatever happened to Saturday night? It's back, as The Rocky Horror Picture Show returns to the Bay Area after a five-year absence. Regularly scheduled midnight showings will begin this month at the Clay Theater in San Francisco and in January at Landmark's Guild Theater in Menlo Park, according to a press release issued by Landmark Theaters.

The live performance group Bawdy Caste will be accompanying screenings at both theaters, combining the theatrical and the cinematical with their on-stage antics.

Made in 1975 by director Jim Sharman, the film is a rock musical about a transsexual from Transylvania (Tim Curry) who sexually awakens two stranded teenage travelers, Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon). Pop star Meat Loaf also appears. The film fit perfectly into the midnight movie phenomenon of the early 1970s, begun by films such as El Topo, The Harder They Come and Pink Flamingos. But Rocky Horror became a phenomenon all its own, inspiring an entire subculture.

The film has not shown in San Francisco in some ten years. Much has changed since then, including the film's release on DVD, the rise of the internet and the official Rocky Horror fan page. Here, viewers can learn all the call-and-response cues at which to shout out one-liners ("Say It!"; "Not Meat Loaf again," etc.) or hurl props (rice, newspapers, paper plates, etc.). But any true fan would warn that the only way to see it is live, in the theater.

I'm already shivering with aniticip... ("SAY IT!!!")... ation.

I did not realize until I posted a Vintage Image of the Day for Shock Treatment that the "not a sequel" to The Rocky Horror Picture Show was one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Two days after I posted the photo, I bought the DVD and threw out my old VHS copy, so I can enjoy the highest resolution, most gorgeous images and sound possible when I indulge my secret love for the 1981 cult classic.

In my Vintage Image of the Day post, I called Shock Treatment the sequel to Rocky Horror. As others have noted, this isn't strictly true. However, some of the characters are the same. Remember Brad Majors and Janet Weiss? (Keep your audience-participation nicknames to yourself.) In Shock Treatment, the happy couple is now married, but something's wrong with their relationship, something they themselves can't quite express. The characters are played by different actors -- Cliff De Young and Jessica Harper take over the roles held by Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon in Rocky Horror. On the other hand, cast members from the first movie also appear in Shock Treatment, but as different characters.

Last week, it was Susan Sarandon's birthday so I posted an image of her as Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And today, it's Jessica Harper's birthday, so it only seems right that I post a photo of the actress as Janet Weiss Majors in the 1981 sequel, Shock Treatment. Harper's early film career is marked by a number of cult favorites: she was one of the schoolgirls in the classic horror film Suspiria and starred in the midnight favorite Phantom of the Paradise. She also appeared in Woody Allen's Russian spoof Love and Death, Allen's Stardust Memories, and Steve Martin's first failed venture into drama, Pennies from Heaven. In recent years she's moved to occasional guest roles on TV shows.

Shock Treatment is a mighty strange little film, set almost entirely in a TV studio with a plot that revolves around television shows and stars. Although Brad and Janet are back, they're played by different actors (Cliff DeYoung and Harper). Actors from Rocky Horror are in the sequel, but they have different roles. In the above photo, you can see Nell Campbell (who played Columbia), Patricia Quinn (who played Magenta), and Richard O'Brien (who played Riff-Raff) all playing alleged medical professionals. The medical aide in the right-hand corner of the photo is Rik Mayall, whom I always remember from The Young Ones although he's had better roles since then. I could go on and on, but the DVD was finally released last month, so you might want to see Shock Treatment for yourself.

[Photo via Shock Treatment Daily, a LiveJournal community that regularly posts screenshots from the film.]

October 4 is a popular movie-star birthdate: I could have picked a photo from a film starring Buster Keaton or Charlton Heston, or perhaps Felicia Farr. But it's October, I've been thinking about Halloween, and costumes, and here it is Susan Sarandon's birthday. So why not find an embarrassing photo from the film Sarandon probably wishes most that we'd forget, The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Sarandon was in her late twenties when she played innocent heroine Janet Weiss in the movie, which eventually turned into a midnight-movie staple and a cult classic. Millions of people have seen Sarandon cavorting onscreen in her bra, yelling "Slut!" when she appears, and enhacing her dialogue with lines of their own.

Many people have at least one Rocky Horror story in their past; and if they don't, maybe they ought to. When I was in high school, it was an interesting thing to do after midnight if we couldn't get into any bars. (I lived in New Orleans, so we didn't see the movie that often.) In college, I fell in with a bunch of people who performed scenes from the movie live as it played on the screen at Sena Mall theater in Metairie. I tinted my hair red and performed as Columbia a few times one summer -- the challenges were to keep the tube top and later the bustier from slipping down (in the movie, Little Nell's bustier actually does fall at one point, but I didn't feel the need to be that faithful to the film), and to writhe on the floor with the guy playing Eddie ... movie-theater floors can be pretty nasty. Eventually the theaters where we performed the show all closed and we went back to watching movies on VHS.

Do you have a Rocky Horror Picture Show story you can share in public? If so, do tell all.

Several "Top 11" lists over at BBspot. Some of them are funny, but some of them you'd really have to be a geek to get, which I guess is the whole point.

My favorites? Netscape From New York, I Know Who You Hacked Last Summer, The House on the Hill Without Broadband, Das Reboot, and Rocky Horror Powerpoint Slide Show.

If someone could explain Mad Vax Beyond PDP-11 though, I'd appreciate it.