'B-Movie Bingo' unearths the treasure of trash cinema
If the star of a subpar '80s action flick were describing "B-Movie Bingo," he'd look like "Rambo"-era Sylvester Stallone, spit "clever" one-liners and survive explosions with ease.
He'd advise viewers to keep an eye out for bad guys stealing boats and shooting at helicopters. He might ask forgiveness for times he stumbled on his lines because there wasn't enough film to shoot another take.
Mostly, though, he'd focus on excessive, exaggerated violence.
Our hero's cliches will be celebrated, in the spirit of fun, when the Indianapolis Museum of Art presents "B-Movie Bingo" on Nov. 21.
The event is an occasion to compete for prizes, enjoy adult beverages and marvel at how bad a film can be.
"I just think it's goofy that they made these movies that were so over-the-top," said "B-Movie Bingo" co-founder Robbie Augspurger. "They had to know it."
Augspurger and a handful of friends invented "B-Movie Bingo" in Portland, Ore., in 2006. The event happens once a month at Portland's Hollywood Theatre, with the IMA representing a rare road trip.
To play the game, audience members watch a movie and fill squares such as "Long Boring Scene or Male Ponytail" and "Suspended from the Force."
Bringing "B-Movie Bingo" to the IMA is the work of Scott Stulen, the museum's first curator of audience experiences and performance.
Stulen's mission is to attract visitors with programming that is engaging, provocative and far from routine. He has a track record with "B-Movie Bingo," which visited his former employer, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, in January.
He said the social element of "B-Movie Bingo" makes it a success.
"Bad movies aren't nearly as much fun to watch by yourself," Stulen said. "They get to be a lot more fun when you watch them with other people."
At the Walker, Augspurger and his crew screened "Samurai Cop" — a 1989 story of organized crime in Los Angeles. According to Eccentric-Cinema.com critic Brian Lindsey, "Samurai Cop" ranks as "the most god-awful example of bungled, inept action filmmaking of the 1980s."
At the IMA's 500-capacity theater known as the Toby, "B-Movie Bingo" will showcase a mid-1980s Indonesian film titled "The Stabilizer."
How did Peter O'Brian, a teacher from New Zealand, land "The Stabilizer's" title role?
"The producers of the film saw him walking through the Jakarta airport," Augspurger said. "They thought it was Sylvester Stallone."
The producers may have been disappointed to learn the truth, but O'Brian looked tough and could fight. He was hired to make his film debut.
Augspurger, 36, grew up near Peoria, Ill., as a fan of action movies. "Up at midnight, watching 'Rambo' on USA," he recalled.
"B-Movie Bingo" evolved from a quest to watch every Chuck Norris movie listed at IMDB.com. All "Bingo" titles are shown on VHS format, and Augspurger transfers films from DVD to VHS, if necessary.
The hunt for movies can be "an endless rabbit hole," said Augspurger, who does his detective work online or at retro-cool Portland shop Movie Madness Video (which displays a prop knife from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" and the baby carriage that tumbled in Brian De Palma's "The Untouchables").
The 1980s and early '90s yielded more than enough trash cinema to keep "B-Movie Bingo" in business.
"I think it was a free-for-all," Augspurger said of the era. "People were a lot less politically correct making movies back then. So anything they could squeeze into a movie and get an R rating, they did."
Augspurger said "B-Movie Bingo" is regarded as a highlight of local culture, which is saying something in the city that inspired TV's "Portlandia" series.
"The best is when an audience picks up on the humor we see in a movie," he said.
Call Star reporter David Lindquist at (317) 444-6404. Follow him on Twitter: @317Lindquist.
"B-Movie Bingo"
• WHEN: 7 p.m. Nov. 21.
• WHERE: The Toby, Indianapolis Museum of Art, 4000 N. Michigan Road.
• TICKETS: $10.
• INFO:IMAmuseum.org, or call (317) 923-1331.