by canofhumdingers » Sun Jul 07, 2013 10:45 pm
Robot Jox (1990) - Another 35mm print at the Alamo Drafthouse. What a strange movie. It's basically a 1980's Japanese cartoon in live action. The ideas and art direction are fantastic. The special effects were lots of fun (they looked a LOT like some of the effects from Spaceballs of all things, at least in terms of lighting, cinematography, and whatnot). The script was ok. The acting was pretty terrible. But it was a fun movie over all. And man, it SERIOUSLY looked like an 80's cartoon come to life. Think of anything like Transformers or M.A.S.K. or Voltron or the like and everything from set design to costumes to robots looked like they came straight from the same source as those.
Oh, and apparently the original title was Robojox until the creators of Robocop sued.
And as usual, the Alamo did it up right. Every table was decorated with Pacific Rim cocktail napkins and "Kaiju Survival Guide" brochures (featuring the same artwork/information as that survival guide poster in the Pacific Rim thread). They also had free Pacific Rim temporary tattoos at every table. Then they had a raffle giving away pacific rim door prizes including t shirts, posters, kaiju survival kits, and more. I didn't win anything this time, but that's ok.
Finally they had the Houston area mech corps (a club that builds mechwarrior style cockpit simulators that link together to play mechwarrior against each other) in attendance. They were supposed to have some of their simulators at the theater but the forecast rain prevented that. But they DID say we could bring out ticket stub to the other Alamo location next week where they'll be set up all week in celebration of Pacific Rim and get a free turn in a mechwarrior fight!
EDIT: I almost forgot, this was all sponsored by WB, who also gave everyone a free pass to see Pacific Rim at the only real IMAX in town on Tuesday night!!! I really hope my work schedule allows me to go.