There are three things that I always look forward to in the month of January. One: To break all those stupid New Year's resolutions. (What the hell was I thinking anyway?) Second: Celebrate m'man Elvis Presley's Birthday on the 8th. (Done and done.) Third: My annual pilgrimage to Chicago for B-Fest.

Ah, B-Fest. A&O Films 24-hour bad movie festival; an endurance test of the mind, body and soul (and intestinal fortitude and underarm deodorant and stamina of your gluteus maximus.) This was my third trip to the event that’s held on the campus of Northwestern University, in Evanston, among the northern suburbs of Chicago.

For the previous two expeditions, my party drove 10-hours to B-Fest - watched 24-hours of film - and then immediately drove right back. If you add that up that’s almost two whole days without sleeping. It made for an epic tale of endurance -- that usually bordered on the surreal (due to lack of sleep), but, when you get right down to it, it's an incredibly stupid idea. 

So I finally wised up and got hotel reservations for the night before and the evening after. I’d never been able to stay awake for the whole thing but this year, with a good night's sleep before, I was bound and determined to make it ‘til the very end. You hear that B-Fest? Here I come and I'm wearing my cup and crash helmet.

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The original plan called for four us to partake in B-Fest this year. Myself, Mike Bockoven and Paul Freeland were going to make a return trip along with a new victim, Mike's friend, Matt. But work schedules torpedoed Matt's involvement and some idiot never mentioned to Paul that we were going a day early. He couldn't get time off, either, so he bowed at as well. (Sorry about that, Paul.)

So it was down to me and Mike, my mother's Caddy (yep, the same Caddy we took to the Lunar Crater), our maps, survival rations, Mike's laptop computer - an adaptor for that computer so we could plug into an ashtray - and a crap-load of movies. Then, with a hearty "B-Fest ho!" we were off like a herd of turtles.

The weather was frigid but the forecasted snow never materialized. We got the computer going and plugged in Pirates of the Caribbean, a movie I had inexplicably not seen yet, that got us across the river and into Iowa where we realized, to our horror, that there was a second time/space anomaly around Council Bluffs. That's right, Iowa has two - count them - two Bermuda Triangles along I-80. 

We spent about three hours in the one by Council Bluffs and 37 in The Dreaded Black of Hole of Des Moines (to find out exactly what that is you'll have to read last year's recap) but we passed the extra time watching the Looney Tunes Golden Collection. Bugs and Daffy got us through Iowa and South Park: The Movie got us all the way into Chicago with only a minimum of lane wandering and road-shoulder exploration (nice stunt driving, there, Mike.)

Remembering our disastrous exit from Chicago last year, I pay real close attention to the route in, so we don't make the same mistake twice. We find the Best Western, with only one wrong turn, and check in a little after 6:30p.m. The only problem is, I can't remember when we were supposed to meet the other members of the B-Board who were also staying there. The lobby was empty, so I feared we missed them.

We clean up, find out a pizza place is nearby and decide to hit that first and then try and track down the others. 

Lo and behold, when we exit the elevator, the lobby is now jammed packed with members of the B-Movie Brethren. TelstarMan (and his friend whose name completely escapes me), Bergerjacques, Marlowe, Nameless Ray, the Grenades (Hen and Jen), Filler Bunny, Professor Mortis and Skip (because his lovely wife George kicked him out of the house.) I know those names may sound funny, but that's all I've known them by for almost three years. We had one stray yet, El Santo, but he managed to catch up with us later.

An evening of high revelry ensued. Many thanks go out to Jen Grenade for taking we collective heads of knuckle under wing and keeping us under some semblance of control. We invade the Prairie Moon Bar & Grill and start partaking in the local spirits. Three beers in on an empty stomach and the old 3Beerman was a very happy camper and, as Telstar likes to put it, "flexed my nerdiness."

After some grub, and a few more beers, the party moved back to the hotel - after a quick side trip to the local Osco for more booze. I pick up a six pack of Old Style while Mortis and several others contemplate what Osco brand Scotch tastes like. The absurdity of that beverage, Osco Scotch, soon became the battle-cry for the entire B-Fest weekend. Walking back to the hotel, we crossed paths with El Santo and brought him into the fold.

I think the party was in Filler Bunny's room. Somebody bought League of Extraordinary Gentlemen on Pay-Per-View and the party got into full swing. Two more Old Styles and a very early morning finally caught up with me. We all decided to meet in the lobby the next day around 3p.m. and head over to the Norris Center, together. Mike and I then excused ourselves and headed back to our room. I think I was asleep before I hit the pillow.

I have to add that my last two excursions to B-Fest the January weather was unseasonable mellow and warm, for both occasions. This year that bad weather caught up with us -- with a vengeance.

I woke up around 9:30 the next morning. Mike was gone, he said something about working out, so I cleaned up and watched Scooby-Doo until he returned. We decided to hit the pizza place we were going to hit last night. A quick check of the Weather Channel says it's 13-below with a wind-chill of about minus-40. That's damn cold no matter where you're from.

We bundle up and head out onto the frozen tundra of Evanston. My excellent navigating skills rear their ugly head, again, and I turn us left one block too soon. Fate was with us as we found a comic book shop where the restaurant would have been, if we were on the right block. So we head in and thaw out for awhile.

I snag a couple of books then we press on but find out Chicago Style Carry Out is not a Chicago style pizza place, but an old style deli. There is utter chaos behind the counter as several workers take orders and scream instructions at each other. You have to pay close attention or your order will be overwhelmed and forgotten and the proprietor might kill you for your trouble.

We snatch our food, in the nick of time, and find some seats. The restaurant is colder than it is outside. Icicles have formed in my goatee and we're inside!

Filled up with food, we head back into the teeth of the icy wind, to warm up, and I yell at Mike to stop using my mighty girth as a wind break. We enter a holistic dog food store, so Mike can get something for his dogs, Max and Cole.

We've got a lot of time to kill, yet, so we head in to a convenient Barnes and Nobles. I find two compilations by the impeccable Tom Weaver where he interviews B-Movie genre veterans. I want to buy them both but they're kind of expensive. We have enough time, so I buy a cup of hot chocolate and read all the interviews that I'm interested in the more expensive book, then put it back and bought the other one for the ride home.

Back to the hotel, then, and we start making preparations for B-Fest. We don't have a hotel room for Friday night, since we'll be at an all night film fest and figured we'd save a little money, but Mike is worried about leaving his lap top in the car in the cold. Bergerjacques saves the day by letting us stash our stuff in his room. Thanks, m'man, we owes you big.

We head down to the lobby and wait for the others. The wait is passed with a stimulating conversation with a woman who claims to work for the IRS. Her specialty? Tracking down and arresting tax evaders and she's here in Chicago on a case. Amazing. We get a few nice tax tips but the conversation starts to turn a little ugly when it veers towards politics, so I take the opportunity to roust everybody up, and out, to head over to the Norris Center.

Frozen Food.

Holey-snikeys, I can be a real idiot sometimes. I left all my food in the car and discover that my soda is frozen solid. The other food is okay but I'll have to be very careful when opening these things or soda-shower for everybody. What a flipping dunder-head.

We get to the Norris Center lickety-split; and props to TelstarMan who tuned us all in to staying at the extremely close and convenient Best Western. I gather up my frozen digestibles and head inside.

McKormick Auditorium, B-Fest Ground Zero, isn't open yet, so we veg in the lounge area and I finally get myself a piece of pizza. We get the OK to move our stuff in, so we stake out an area for ourselves and fellow Board Members. That's right, this year we moved down from the back row and sat amongst the Brethren. (And don't worry, ya'll, I doubled up on the deodorant.)

As H-Hour approached, concerns grew at the absence of the Stomp Tokyo gang, my bosses and beloved sponsors. Okay, okay, I really just wanted several of their spiffy B-Fest cups. I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Soon Chris and Scott were there, with Tuber and the always affable Joe Bannerman (head honcho over at Opposable Thumb Films) and I finally got to meet Ken Begg, the patron saint of B-Fest and the brains behind Jabootu Nation.

We head back out to get our tickets. 

Now on the way to B-Fest last year, Mike asked me about tickets. I told him not to worry, we’d buy them at the door. He then asked but what happens if they’re sold out. "Well?" I answered. "That would really suck."

Again, we played it smart this year and I reserved us tickets online. It's a good thing, too, because word quickly spread that there were only 19 tickets left to be bought at the door. 

Now I've only been to three B-Fests but the audience has grown, exponentially, since I started coming. So it was inevitable that it was going to sell out one of these years, due to it's growing reputation, and I also began to worry with that mass of humanity, packed into the auditorium, along with all the stuff clogging the aisles, I hoped a Fire Marshall never got wind of it -- or we're all screwed.

Mike and I got our tickets but I told the organizers that the other two reserved seat holders were still on the way -- in case another B-Boarder needed them; and sure enough, they did. I gladly turned them over to Megalemur and his party, who put them to good use. (You're more than welcome, buddy.)

It was getting close to six o'clock in the p.m., so we wandered down towards our seats. I took the aisle, Mike beside me and Bergerjacques beside him. Marlowe, Mortis and Bunny were in the row ahead of us as the lights went down and the amazing colossal movie marathon finally wheezed to life.

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Movie Time!

The schedule for this year, I feel, was better than last years. (Nothing will top 2002, though.) What follows is a brief plot description and reactions to the films endured. 

It was also determined, afterwards, over egg rolls, that three common themes threaded their way through all the films: airline disasters - wet slobbery kisses - and a character getting kicked in the junk or some other kind of groin trauma. So I've listed the instances where they all occurred for each film.

So, here we go, lock and load, and be careful opening that frozen Diet Dew ya idgit! (Watch out Marlowe!)

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Something strange is going on over at Mystery Mountain - OoOOooOo - so John Agar and a guy I call Rampart (because he played the Doctor on Emergency) investigate by running their jeep into some convenient rocks. Inside a cave on Mystery Mountain - OoOOooOo - they find Gor; the giant inflatable brain from the planet Arous. 

The early '90s saw a spat of live-action fighting-giant-robot movies and Robot Jox was the best of them. And, I assure you, "best" is a very relative term. A Cold War parable (wasn’t the Cold War over by the ‘90s?) set in the far-flung future, rival nations square land disputes by pitting specially trained combatants inside giant, tripped-out robots that are packed to the hilt with weapons of mass destruction and let them beat the hell out of each other.