Ultramania Running Wild! (part one)

Bay Area Film Events has done it again and put on another great show with Ultramania 2005, hopefully the first of many! I had the pleasure to attend the show/mini-convention this past Saturday evening at San Francisco's Castro Theater and it was a fun night filled with high camp, thrills and spills.

I must admit, things got off to an ominous start. I arrived early to the neighborhood expecting the usual SF parking rondelay, only to find a spot right across the street from the theater. So, I was near the front of the quickly forming line, right under the Castro Theater markee when the unthinkable happened. A 5 foot plastic statue of Ultraman plummeted off the markee, blown off by the strong early evening wind! Our hero bounced off of an illegally parked truck and nearly creamed 2 passersby! Thankfully no one was hurt by the incident, though Ultraman arms popped off and the markees neon suffered some damage.

Once safely inside and settling in with their popcorn and Goobers, the full house was introduced of our host for the evening, Mister Lobo.



Lobo is the mildly amusing, slightly creepy bespectacled host of the late night B-movie show, Cinema Insomnia and he brought along the silent but funny robot monster Ro-Man as sidekick. After some idle chit-chat and giveaways, the real fun began. Upon the Castro screen a menacing villain with a very distorted voice effect appeared, threatening to steal the grand prize Ultraman Ibanez Guitar and take over the Earth starting with the Castro Theater! 2 rather cheesy monsters appeared from behind the curtain. Cowering like the nancy-boy he is, Mister Lobo handed the guitar to Ro-man and ran for the hills! Luckily, Ultraman appeared live on stage (courtesy of The Stunt People) and began to kick some serious monster ass. After assuming a few heroic poses, Ultraman unleashed a fury of pretty cool kicks and punches, including a Kirkish standing drop kick and some Mui Thai style knees to the face. Slowed by some well timed blows from the monsters, our hero seemed dazed at times. But in true superheroic fashion, Ultraman prevailed in the end with the help of our free blinking LED power rings held aloft. Both monsters were sent packing, literally tumbling off the stage to the wild cheers of the crowd! The Ultraman stunt show was great fun and many a fanboy's (and future fanboy's) dreams came to life on the Castro stage.

Soon, the first screening of the night began- an episode of the forgotten Japanese superhero show, Fireman! It was delightful to watch this rarely seen 1973 show, with all the same unintentionally funny elements one expects from Japanese superhero shows of the era. Sporting essentially the same basic idea, locations and characters as Ultraman, I doubt Fireman was providing anything new to Japanese audiences in it's time. But it was skillfully done enough to qualify as "so bad, it's good" entertainment for the Castro crowd and we ate it up!

(to be continued in Part Two...)