COWABUNGA! – The Original TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES Midnights This Weekend at The Tivoli

“We were awesome! Bodacious! Bitchin’! Gnarly! Radical! Totally tubular, dude! Wicked! Hellacious! I have always liked… Cowabunga……. COWABUNGA!”

America has TMNT fever! Michael Bay’s souped-up TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES reboot raked it in at the box—office over the weekend, but everyone knows the greatest movie about those radioactive ‘Heroes in a Halfshell’ was the same-titled 1990 epic

The entire concept of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was conceived by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird who originally created them to parody the dark, gritty comic books of the early 80s. Of course, the series branched away and became a pop culture phenomenon of its own and when something becomes a monstrous hit, you can almost guarantee a motion picture is right down the alley. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES hit the theaters in 1990 and instead of it being a continuation of the hit cartoon series, the film goes back to its source material and starts its own continuity. Sure, the Turtles are fun, lovable and quirky as heck but they’re very much like their original comic book counterparts, which were edgy and at times grim. The film has a real gruff, grimy look to it. New York City is portrayed with grubby streets full of trash with dark alleyways. Surprisingly, the performances in TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES are pretty much spot-on thanks to a script which refused to be dumbed down and actually dealt with some pretty dark subjects such as gang influence and teenage runaways and criminals. And the one who was responsible for bringing the turtles to life was the Muppet Master himself, Jim Henson – one of his final projects. It’s astonishing what Henson and his crew were able to accomplish with the art of animatronics and puppetry and the men underneath the turtle suits must have had to practice an awful lot to get the film’s fight scenes just right.

Now you’ll have the chance to TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ‘90’s style on the big screen again when it plays this weekend (August 15^th and 16^th) at The Tivoli at midnight as part of their Reel Late at the Tivoli midnight series. I’ll be there both nights with trivia and prizes including stuff from the new movie!.

The Tivoli’s located at 6350 Delmar Blvd., University City, MO. Admission is a mere $8!

The Tivoli’s website can be found HERE

http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/st.louis/tivolitheatre.htm

Here’s the Reel Late at the Tivoli Line-up for the next few weeks:

Aug. 22-23           ARMY OF DARKNESS

Aug. 29-30           BLAZING SADDLES

Sept. 5-6              PURPLE RAIN – 30^th anniversary

Sept. 12-13         GHOST IN THE SHELL