- Weird Al Yankovic taking questions from the audience after the movie. Picture courtesy of this nice Austinite.
The Alamo Drafthouse is the gold-standard for going to the movies, not this overpriced Yuppie upstart. Last night they continued to prove it with a special screening of UHF. Normally, I wouldn’t really bother to spend the money and time to go downtown for this film. It has its funny, charming moments but I can see this via cable pretty easily. However, the Drafthouse’s MCs for the Quote-a-Long series pulled the ultimate coup. They got a new print (it only had noticeable scratches when the reels changed, I used to be a part-time projectionist) to show, they held the screening at the larger Paramount Theater (one of those older places built during the early Twentieth Century), fired up the crowd with a sing-a-long to Weird Al’s five most requested parodies:
- “Eat It”
- “Like a Surgeon”
- “Fat”
- “Amish Paradise”
- “White & Nerdy”
I was very thankful the MCs told the crowd to be quiet afterwards; just watch the movie and let everybody else enjoy it the way it was shown originally in 1989. Pretty tough request to make of this audience yet they honored it.
UHF is certainly a very dated flick, even by the Summer it debuted you can tell these jokes were written between 1985-1988: a parody of Dire Straits’ hit “Money for Nothing,” a talk show host being hit with a chair in the face and a fantasy sequence of Al rescuing Michael Richards (yes, Kramer) as Rambo. Victoria Jackson’s clothes gave me a few chuckles too: dresses with puffy shoulders. Certainly better than her current gig with the Teabaggers. The cast has always been UHF‘s legacy for me. Besides being a minor launchpad for Michael Richards (I had heard of him through Fridays with Rich Hall), it also had Gedde Watanabe, Fran Drescher, Billy Barty, Emo Phillips, David Proval (frequent heavy in gangster films) and Dr. Demento.
When the closing credits finished, the highlight of the night appeared…Weird Al himself with the director/co-writer Jay Levey (he has also been Al’s manager since the early Eighties). They proceeded to take questions from the audience. I didn’t have anything worthwhile to ask so I endured some rather inane ones he and Jay fielded pretty successfully. I think he was genuinely thrilled about the turnout to see him. When UHF hit theaters in 1989 it was a dud and he was seriously considering retirement, thankfully Nirvana inspired him to carry on. For this screening, the MCs said it sold out in three minutes. Good thing my co-worker/friend Jeff helped me get through navigating Alamo’s poor redirection on the site because we managed to scored fifth-row seats.
What does Weird Al have planned for the future? An upcoming tour with an album planned later this year (he’s about due, I was hoping he’d have something out for his 50th birthday). He jokingly inquired Jay about why he isn’t on Rock Band and doesn’t have a video game. There was also supposed to be a movie for Cartoon Network but they scrapped all original productions of that nature so the duo are free to offer it to other cable channels.