#nitehawk

Long time beloved late night genre movie host, Joe Bob Briggs returned to streaming TV via Shudder for the first time in 17 years.

 I’m an OG fan of his earlier shows Drive-In Theater and Monstervision as well as his books Joe Bob Goes to the Drive In and Joe Bob Goes Back to the Drive In and Profoundly Disturbing: Shocking Movies that Changed History  They are all wonderful but parts of Profoundly Disturbing stick with me to this day and whenever I stay at a hotel which is fairly regular with my comic con schedule, I change the Do Not Disturb signs with a sharpie as an homage to his work. 

When I heard the news that he’d return for a 24 hour+ one time streaming marathon screening of 13 horror films I went into full on #FangirlFlail mode. I could see on twitter other fans were beyond excited, too.

There were awesome new shirts from Fright Rags and I bought one immediately.  It got here the day of the NiteHawk event he was hosting so like the dork I am, I wore it to meet him. That’’s the thing about fandom, sometimes you can’t keep your cool. You just need to fully embrace your passion even when you feel embarrassed by it. #fangirlshame #fighttheshame

We'd made casual arrangements for me to interview him. Although I didn't get the opportunity for the interview, I did get to hang out with him and the Shudder team for a snack and to discuss the upcoming marathon, the industry and horror films with them. I won't lie, that was freaking amazing. 

 The Shudder team was super excited about the opportunity to bring Joe Bob back to TV. I interviewed Shudder Curator, Sam Zimmerman about the upcoming event.

That video can be seen at https://youtu.be/tz_JKuyi2Bg

As the fans geared up for the marathon we shared our squee on social media platforms; and made plans to collectively gather on twitter, facebook, slack channel. (which I will never figure out), twitch and other platforms. Many of us posted videos and photos of how we’d be watching. 

I made a vlog post about how I’d be watching https://www.instagram.com/p/BlMSxr_HxhZ/?taken-by=squeefilmmaker

Joe Bob had written n his regular column in TakiMag about what he called “The Loneliness of the Cord Cutter” Published a few days before the event.

“What we do there is we experience the movie as a group and then we discuss the movie as equals because we’ve all had the same emotional experience. I suppose, if we asked Camille Paglia or some other academic, they would tell us it’s some form of pagan worship.No one ever talks about this. If you ask the specialty theater managers, they’ll tell you about the brilliance of the 35-millimeter film image (true), the awesomeness of the sound system (true), or the various ways the film has been reconstructed, preserved, enhanced, or changed by the director. None of these things matter. What’s essential is the crowd—and it doesn’t matter whether it’s five people or five thousand. What matters is the agreement that “We will tell each other stories and we will feel that rush of knowing who we are and where we are and why we are here.”

Please read the full article here so the writers get paid fairly. They deserve it.

http://takimag.com/article/the_loneliness_of_the_cord_cutter_joe_bob_briggs/print#ixzz5LqJZV9kW

Then the internet failed us. Most of us  couldn't access the stream on any of our  devices. Fans posted various responses on social media. We were frustrated but we were here for Joe Bob and Shudder was doing their best to try to make it work.  Fans posted funny tweets abut it. Fans rooted for Joe Bob and Shudder. We weren't  going anywhere.

Fans started joking that Joe Bob Briggs broke the internet. We were kind of thrilled. The hashtag started trending. Now from a fan’s perspective this was wonderful. We weren't happy that we were missing the event we’d been longing for since #Monstervision got cancelled but there was tribal joy spreading.

I think that we felt that we were alone in our passion for Joe Bob and his work.

Then we discovered we were legion. Yes, we are the weirdos, mister. The Drive-in Mutants, the Monster Kids, the horror geeks. This was one of the best examples of a community of fans who didn't even know we existed coming together that I’ve ever experienced. And I’m multi-fandemic, participating in dozens of fandoms and this response was outstanding,

One of my twitter friends got access to it somewhere in the midst of Sleepaway Camp and offered to share it via Skype with me. Another fan got it going and shared the stream on Twitch with many fans. He was given a 24 hour ban from Twitch but became a hero to the other fans.

“One fan, known only as Cthlhu on Twitter, saw fit to help out the horror community as best he could by broadcasting the highly sought-out special on his Twitch stream. As a result, many fans were able to see the broadcast they’d been waiting for since the year 2000. Twitch, however, didn’t find the solution particularly heartwarming, as they suspended the user for 24 hours. Cthlhu didn’t seem to mind. (Please read the full article below so the writers get paid fairly)

https://www.inquisitr.com/4986333/horror-icon-joe-bob-briggs-comes-to-defense-of-fan-on-twitter-after-overwhelming-shudder-premiere/

I finally got the stream up on my laptop  around 1 am and watched till about 5 am and it was everything I’d hoped for. By the time I got up the next day, Shudder had posted all the films that had aired up that point on their site separately so we could all catch up.

Then the man himself posted in his column 

“You don’t write, perform, shoot, edit and broadcast a 24-hour show and then feel good about nobody being able to see it. You start out with a fear of disappointing the audience—I have the greatest fans in the universe, and I love them, and they’ve saved my ass a thousand times, and so preventing them from seeing the opening title card is sort of my ultimate nightmare.” Please read the full article so the writer gets paid fairly by using the link below.  http://takimag.com/article/breaking_the_internet_joe_bob_briggs/print#ixzz5LqLVQ1hh

“But, Joe Bob, people will eventually see it, the important thing is that you broke the Internet.”

“If that’s the important thing, it shouldn’t be the important thing. Not everyone can hang around for two days monitoring their devices. The casually interested observer, who might have been barely intrigued enough to sample the show, was gone after 15 minutes and never came back. “Breaking the Internet” is not a happy thing for those of us who believe communication is better than gossip.”

Please read the full article by using the link so the writer gets paid fairly

http://takimag.com/article/breaking_the_internet_joe_bob_briggs/print#ixzz5LqL7ZT3Q

I absolutely understand Joe Bob’s disappointment. Any creator wants their hard work to be enjoyed, appreciated and successful. As a filmmaker and someone who’s worked in media for over 20 years, I get it. It was rough. On a much much smaller scale of course I’ve had panic attacks as I watched the tech person struggle to get my film screening during a panel. It’s an awful feeling.

But as a professional fan, it was an absolutely amazing experience. Now I know dozens of other weirdos that are just like me and I bet if Joe Bob wants to return to do any kind  of short or long term hosting, we’ll all be there with him.

Update: Announced only moments after I posted this! 

Now recite The Drive-In Oath along with the rest of us Mutants.

Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, and more on the set of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976).

Some of Tribeca’s 2017 Midnight filmmakers have chosen their favorite Midnight movies for a special screenings series to run concurrently with the festival at Nitehawk Cinema, including titles like Taxi Driver, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure (1997), and Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (2011).

Tribeca Midnite Selects

NITEHAWK CINEMA ARE SCREENING ‘1984′ in 35MM AND ‘MAD MAX FURY ROAD’ FOR GOOD CAUSES

On April 4, along with 90 cinemas across the United States, Nitehawk Cinema will screen 1984 in 35mm as part of National Event Day and our Booze & Books programming. A portion of ticket sales proceeds will be donated to the New York Civil Liberties Union. 

This date was chosen because it’s the day George Orwell’s protagonist Winston Smith begins rebelling against his oppressive government by keeping a forbidden diary. These theaters owners also strongly believe in supporting the National Endowment for the Arts and see any attempt to scuttle that program as an attack on free speech and creative expression through entertainment. This event provides a chance for communities around the country to show their unity and have their voices heard. 

We'll be presenting MAD MAX: FURY ROAD with Abrams Books on March 15in celebration of their new publication Why I March (images from the Women’s March from around the world), and also part of our Booze & Books programming.