Combat Rock The Clash (1982) The fifth studio album from The Clash was released on this day in 1982. The two biggest hits on the album are probably Rock The Casbah and Should I Stay Or Should I Go, but I like the opening track best. Seems oddly appropriate for the world that we're living in today.
I've always wanted to see Rosemary's Baby at the Mahoning. The last time they showed it was on a Tunnel Vision Tuesday night in 2020, which is a year before we knew the place existed. With any luck, they'll bring it back to the drive-in in the near future, but I was not going to miss my opportunity to see it today on 35mm at The Gap Theatre.
Rosemary's Baby is about as perfect as a film can get. I'm not at all the most qualified person to explain the techniques employed in this film, but it draws you into its world in a way that few other movies can match. Mia Farrow delivers an outstanding performance from start to finish. Every shot... every note of music... every line... every facial expression, even from background characters who have one or two lines of dialogue pull you into Rosemary's world as she is manipulated by nearly everyone around her.
If you ever have the opportunity to see this all-time classic on the big screen, do not miss it.
I'm getting closer to the high score on the Ms. Pac Man machine in the concession building with a new personal best score of 163,070.
While playing Ms. Pac Man, I noticed a VHS tape on the wall near the machine that had episodes of the 90's animated series Wild West Cowboys Of Moo Mesa. I get the pun that they're going for here, but "Bang 'Em High" sounds more like the title of an adult feature than it does a cartoon.
Prior to showtime, there was a live acoustic set performed at the photo op stage outside of the concession building that featured Rich Penecale on guitar and Virgil on vocals. They performed about six songs including this cover of Mary Jane's Last Dance by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
Almost Famous premiered in theaters on September 22nd, 2000, but I didn't see it for the first time until just a couple of years ago. The story is set in 1973 and it follows a 15 year old prodigy named William Miller whose musical tastes were influenced by his rock and roll loving older sister Anita. His writing earns him the opportunity to go on tour with a rock band to write a story about their struggles with success. In the process, he befriends Penny Lane and her group of "band aides" (groupies who don't like to call themselves groupies) and grows to have a complicated relationship with Stillwater guitarist Russell Hammond.
This movie is incredible in every way, picking the audience out of their time and place and putting them in the shoes of its protagonist. It's shot beautifully, the music is perfect, and a standout performance by Kate Hudson who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Fairuza Balk also deliver excellent performances that left me wanting their characters to have more screen time.
Actor Zack Ward appears in a brief cameo towards the end of the film as "The Legendary Red Dog", a roadie for The Allman Brothers Band. He's best remembered for his role as the bully, Scut Farkus, in the 1983 holiday classic A Christmas Story. He's also the actor who was kind enough to give me the greatest photo op that I've had at the Mahoning.
Uncle! Unnnnncleeeee!!!
I'm very thankful to have had the opportunity to see this on the big screen. Just prior to the start of the film, Rob mentioned that there is an extended cut of this film on Bluray which has forty minutes of additional footage. I'm going to have to hunt that down to watch next.
World Wrestling Federation (1985) The show that brought professional wrestling to an estimated 88 million viewers premiered on NBC forty years ago today.
I've been cutting back on t-shirts this season, but this one was too good to pass up. The artwork on the shirt was created by Tom Bifulco and is the same design as what was used on the poster.
Actress Finn Carter was in attendance both nights to meet fans, take pictures, and sign autographs. She played Rhonda LeBeck in Tremors; a role for which she received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
The first movie of Friday night was Joel Schumacher's 1990 psychological horror film Flatliners. It features an ensemble cast that includes Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, and the namesake of the weekend's event, Kevin Bacon. They play the role of five med students who are conducting secret experiments in what appears to be an abandoned church in which they bring their peers to a point where their heart stops (or flatlines) to explore what exists beyond death before they are then brought back through the use of drugs, a defibrillator, and CPR.
I've only seen this movie one time before this weekend. When I was 12 years old, I lived with my dad, stepmom, and stepsister in South Florida. My stepsister and I got along well and we'd often hang out in her room and have a movie night. One of the movies she rented on one of these nights was Flatliners. My memory of this film is that I thought it was cool, but I didn't really remember any of the details. It all started coming back to me as we watched the story unfold on the big screen at the drive-in. My feelings on this movie haven't changed 33 years later. Despite the critical reviews which are pretty rough, I still think it's a very cool and atmospheric film and one that I'd recommend to anyone who loves movies.
The movie that kicked off the second night of Bacon Bits was the 1984 teen drama Footloose. This film has become synonymous with the 80's, but for as much time as I've spent watching films from the decade of my childhood, I have never seen Footloose before tonight. The only thing I knew about the film is that it starred Kevin Bacon and John Lithgow, and it's about a small town where dancing is against the law.
This is not a difficult movie to find so I've had plenty of opportunities to see it over the years, but I didn't think it would be the kind of thing that I'd like all that much, so I never gave it a chance. In fact, I came very close to passing up this opportunity to see it on 35mm on the big screen. I only got tickets to Bacon Bits: Night One when tickets first went on sale last year, and if not for the fact that a lot of my friends on the lot told me that they were going to be at this show, I probably would have sat this one out.
I'm very glad that I did decide to give Footloose a chance because it's a pretty damn good movie! It's not exactly filled with plot twists that you won't see coming a mile away, but it's an entertaining story with solid performances throughout the cast, including an incredible performance from John Lithgow as the reverend (and father of Kevin Bacon's love interest) who is responsible for the town's dance ban.
Since the second feature of both nights features monsters that live underground, Rob included the 35mm commercial of Dig Dug in the intermission trailer reel. I'm always happy to see this hit the big screen. It does a good job of taking the audience out of 2025 and bringing them back to a time when theaters showed a promo for an arcade game prior to the feature film. It's things like this that make this place more than just a drive-in theater.
The second film that was screened on both Friday and Saturday night was the 1990 modern monster flick Tremors. I slept through about 45 minutes of this film on Friday night, but that has nothing to do the movie or my interest in seeing it. First of all, it's hard for me to stay up on Friday nights since I wake up for work at 5:00 am. Second, it started drizzling, so we had to pack up the lawn chairs and head into the car for the second half of the double feature on Friday night. I can usually stay awake even if I'm tired as long as we're sitting outside, but when I settle in behind the wheel in a warm car with the seat back and a pillow behind my head, I almost always doze off for at least part of the film. Finally, I knew that I would be coming back the next night when they'd be playing Tremors again, so the incentive to try to force myself to stay awake and alert just wasn't there. I had no trouble staying up to see it tonight. It was kind of chilly, but there was no rain so we were able to sit outside for the whole night.
Like Flatliners, Tremors was a movie that I have only ever seen one time before. When I was ten years old, I went on a road trip with my maternal grandmother, her husband, my uncle Kuuipo and his wife, and a bunch of my cousins to spend a month staying with my Uncle Sumo and his family in Provo, Utah. I didn't get along too well with my mother's side of the family when I was a kid, and that has only gotten worse as I've gotten older as I haven't spoken to any of them in years. Frankly, I'm glad to not have them in my life and I'm sure that most of them feel the same way about me, so it's for the best. Despite this, my memories of our time in Utah aren't all bad. One of the more pleasant things that I remember from the Summer of 1990 was the movie night we had. One of my uncles brought home Back To The Future and Tremors on VHS from the rental shop. We popped some popcorn and watched both of them in my Uncle Sumo's living room.
I remember that I thought Tremors was pretty cool when I saw it as a kid, but the only thing I remembered about it nearly 35 years later is that it took place in a desert town in the US Southwest, and it's about giant worms that are terrorizing the people who lived there. I enjoyed it even more seeing it on the big screen at the Mahoning.
And that's a wrap on Bacon Bits. I'm not sure if this is going to become an annual event, but there are plenty of Kevin Bacon films to choose from (including one that was shown as a secret feature), so they could keep this going for many years to come if it draws a crowd. It was a fun weekend, so I'm rooting for it to make a return in 2026.
Last night's screening also fell on Virgil's birthday, so there was cake in the concession stand for everyone.
Speaking of the snack bar, I managed to score a new personal best 108,860 on the Ms. Pac Man machine near the entrance to the projection booth, however it's less than halfway to the new high score of 222,600.
As always, the feature hit the screen when the sun went down. When this show was announced, I could immediately picture the cover of the VHS tape box in my mind, but I couldn't remember if I had seen The Funhouse before. I probably would have had a better idea if I'd seen it or not if I looked up the description online, but I didn't want to do that just in case I hadn't seen it before. There's no movie-related experience that I cherish more than going into a screening with absolutely no prior knowledge about the film that I'm about to see, especially when it's a classic horror flick.
I realized about two minutes into this screening that I hadn't seen it before. In fact, I don't think I'd ever even seen the trailer. It's a damn good slasher flick with a lot of incredible scenes that feature the attractions at a traveling carnival. This one gets my strong recommendation to any horror fan.
Short Bus Filter (1995) The debut album from post-grunge band Filter was released thirty years ago today. Its opening track, which peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100, has been misreported for many years as being inspired by the death of Kurt Cobain. In reality, the song was written in 1991 and was inspired by the suicide of Pennsylvania treasurer R Budd Dwyer, which was broadcast on television at the end of his final press conference.
Reese's PB&J Cups Hershey (2025) The most surprising thing about the latest variation of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to hit stores is the fact that it's taken this long for them to think of it. Nothing goes together quite like peanut butter and jelly, and these PB&J cups do a great job of scratching that itch if you haven't had a PB&J sandwich in a long time.
It looks like these are manufactured as a standard peanut butter cup that has an empty channel surrounded by chocolate built into the bottom. The little air pocket is then filled with either grape or strawberry jelly. They're both very tasty, but while I prefer grape jelly in a PB&J sandwich, I think the Strawberry PB&J Cup is my favorite of the two.
When I was growing up, my grandfather used to tell me how candy bars cost a nickel when he was my age, except for the Chunky which cost a dime. It was pretty hard for me to imagine. They were around 35 to 50 cents each throughout much of my childhood, with the king size bars ranging from 79 to 99 cents. Good luck finding one that cheap in 2025.
I fully recognize that I'm about to sound like my grandfather right now, but you could get a hoagie for about three bucks when I was a kid; maybe even less. The price didn't go up too much in my adult life either. I worked at a Subway restaurant in Wilkes-Barre when I was in college and all footlong hoagies cost five dollars... even the cheesesteak. I'm not sure what Subway charges these days, but the Big Kahuna Cheesesteak from the Jersey Mike's shop next to the Starbucks and Ethos in my hometown costs $18.75.
Now I know inflation has gotten out of control and the braying jackass in the White House is only going to make things worse for all of us for the foreseeable future, but $18.75 for a hoagie from a fast food chain is absurd. You can get a ribeye cheesesteak at Campo's on Ashburn Alley in Citizen's Bank Park for $15. They also sell The Heater, which is a ribeye cheesesteak made with buffalo wing hot sauce and topped with jalapeno peppers and jalapeno cheddar cheese, for $16.25. These aren't old prices that I remember paying at my last ballgame either... they're the prices for the 2025 season.
In fairness, it was a tasty cheesesteak, but come on. Jersey Mike himself could sit on my lap and feed this thing to me one bite a time while whispering in my ear that I'm a sexy boy and it still wouldn't be worth damn near twenty bucks after tax.
We had a buy one, get one free coupon which brought the price down to something a little more reasonable, but unless I hit Powerball or get another of those coupons in the mail, this is going to be my first and last visit to Jersey Mike's. It's a good hoagie, but dude... it's a sandwich from a fast food chain next door to the weed shop off I-81.
Before the start of the film, Rob screened 35mm print of the 1955 Merrie Melodies short, One Froggy Evening. This was one of the cartoons that was shown during Opening Weekend last month, but the Chuck Jones classic was the perfect fit for tonight's movie. The cartoon features Michigan J Frog dancing and singing several different songs, the most prominent of which is the 1899 Tin Pan Alley song Hello Ma Baby.
Fans of Spaceballs may remember that this song also appears in the diner scene near the end of the movie. John Hurt appears in a cameo reprising his role from the 1979 sci-fi horror classic Alien. A xenomorph bursts through his chest to his pained cry of "oh no, not again", but instead of menacing the patrons of the diner, the creature dons a top hat and cane and sings Hello Ma Baby while dancing across the bar in the same way that Michigan J Frog does in the cartoon. If you watch that part of the cartoon right before the diner scene in Spaceballs, you'll notice that this scene is more than a simple tribute. Mel Brooks lifted the audio clip of the song from One Froggy Evening to use for the xenomorph's song and dance routine.
Spaceballs has been on my Mahoning wish list since we first discovered the place back in 2021. It premiered in theaters exactly one week before my 7th birthday, but I didn't see it until the following year when it was released on VHS. I've watched it countless times over the past 37 years, to the point where I could probably recite the entire film by heart. Before we started coming here, I never thought I'd get to see it on 35mm at a drive-in theater.
The lot chickens were still roaming around throughout the night. I was half expecting someone in a Gonzo costume to try to take a selfie with them.
There was a costume contest and puppet talent show on the stage prior to the start of the films. I didn't take pictures this year, so these have come courtesy of Ben. Kate entered the talent show with her puppet.
Tonight's double feature began with The Muppets third appearance on the big screen; the 1984 film The Muppets Take Manhattan, and it ended with their 1996 Robert Lewis Stevenson adaptation, Muppet Treasure Island. I think I might have seen clips from the first film at some point in my life because it looked vaguely familiar to me, but this was my first time seeing both of them all the way through.
Truth be told, I've never really been able to get into The Muppets. When I was a kid, I gravitated towards cartoons and didn't have too much interest in puppets. I didn't dislike them, but they've always kind of fell into the same category as clowns, or cowboys, or the circus, or fire trucks. They're all things that I knew that adults expected me to enjoy when I was a kid, but I felt pretty indifferent towards them, and not much has changed. My wife and many of our friends love The Muppets, so I've tried to hop on the bandwagon or at least try to see it through their eyes and share in their joy, but I usually just end up frustrating myself because it makes me feel like something is wrong with me that I can't get into it on the level that everyone else does.
There have been a few Muppet-related things that my wife has introduced me to that have really appealed to me, such as Fraggle Rock, Emmet Otter, The Christmas Toy, and Muppets Mayhem. I also tend to like the darker films like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, so I was hopeful that one or both of tonight's films would add to that list. There were a few moments here and there that made me chuckle, but I didn't really love or hate either of them. They were ok. I'm glad I got to see them on 35mm on the big screen, but I don't have an overwhelming desire to see them again.
And that's a wrap on The Muppets Take Mahoning 3. It's always a very well attended event, and this year was no exception, so I'm sure it'll be back in 2026.
