As always, on this binary planet, there are two types of people when it comes to the viewing of movie trailers. There are those who will arrive late, or go buy popcorn, the better to skip the coming attractions. And there are those who could watch movie trailers for a solid hour and a half. Every day. For the rest of their lives.
We're in the latter group, like many people in this addicted-to-celluloid town, and when a great theater like the New Beverly rounds up a whole mess of sci-fi trailers from about the 1950s to 1980s, we'll travel galaxies to get there. No major spoilers here, but we will say that several of the trailers were for excellent movies like "The Empire Strikes Back," "Blade Runner" and "The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension" while others... charmed. Bewitched. Befuddled. And left us with questions, as well as particular images that will be burned upon the surface of our minds forever.
But all of the clips were very colorful, and a few audience members in the show we were at gasped, cheered, and clapped when certain trailers started. "Logan's Run" was a crowd favorite, as was "The Last Starfighter"; "Embryo" with Rock Hudson, too. By the way, "The Last Starfighter" was directed by Nick Castle, who was Michael Myers in the original "Halloween"; but you live here, so of course you probably knew that. It's one of our favorite factoids.
The trailer show is playing with the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still"; the program runs nightly through May 21 at the New Beverly. Zardoz!
