Mike Olenick brought along the latest of his stunning visual works, his music video for the Wet Darlings "Beautiful Things." It showed just before The Man Who Fell to Earth as part of the tribute to the late, great, David Bowie.

Billed as the "Sci-Fi Surprise Feature", Ship of Monsters was provided to the audience with no English subtitle track. Instead, Bruce (The Host Organism) provided an impromptu "translation" of the film revealing the film's disturbingly strange associations with the event. Who could have known that the film was actually about aliens trying to make their way to the Columbus marathon?

The Drexel theater has since moved to a DCP-only setup (Digital Cinema Projection), so the only formats they were able to show were DCP and BluRay DVD.

Since War of the Satellites had really only been slotted in as a last minute replacement for The Creeping Unknown, when it became readily apparent that we were a full two hours behind, it was dropped from the schedule in favor of a reasonable exit time.

Our hosts were able to get the esteemed directory of The Last Push, Eric Hayden, on the phone for a wonderful late-night interview. He was as enthusiastic and responsive to the audience as the audience was to his film, and both seemed resoundingly happy that the premiere went so well. We hope that in future he'll be able to visit us in person and bring along his next big picture project!

Despite intense preparations and extensive theological calculations and warnings, The Rapture (which had been inconveniently scheduled during the presentation of Cargo) does not appear to have called away any of the faithful who might have been present in the audience. As no refund forms signed by God were submitted, no pro-rated refunds were issued during the event.

Mike Olenick was on hand to give us a bit of insight into his remake of Spaceboy. He had much to say about his investigations into the history of the surrealist gem and his interactions with the Renate Druks estate. Though Spaceboy has a decidedly mixed following among Marathon regulars, we applaude his devotion to this obscure piece and look forward to his next masterwork.

This year, the upside-down-backward gremlins hit the trailer for the remade The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu ... who? Appropriate given the audience reaction from the year prior when faced with the prospect of the remake.

An enormously sad point from this year's lineup. There was a harsh break in the trailer for Eegah which may foretell its doom. Several of the Marathon favorites are beginning to wear thin, and we all hope they can hold out for a few more years. There is no word as to whether Eegah survived, but we're all hoping for a speedy recovery. Also, the print of Cat Women of the Moon was in horrible shape, what little there was of it. The print had been barely cobbled together from many different sources making the 3-D effect a particularly migraine-inducing experience. So much of the print was missing that it was filled in with a montage of oddities and the last Three Stooges short filmed, Flying Saucer Daffy (1958). Even for a film such as Cat Women of the Moon, it wasn't an improvement.

The upside-down-backward presentation of the year was the Marathon "favorite", Spaceboy. What's truly amusing about this choice was the fact that the majority of the audience didn't even notice till after halfway through.

There were a few oddities in an otherwise exceptionally good year for projection. Because the Battlestar Galactica and The Andromeda Strain prints were archival prints on loan for this presentation, they were shown directly from the reels which were provided. This meant a few small breaks while the reels were changed over, and due to a problem getting the second half of Galactica loaded, a small trailer break in-between. Though obviously not ideal, the quality of the prints was so outstanding that the small sacrifice was hardly even noticed.

This year was a special treat, with the ever lovely and tremendously talented Patricia Neal gracing us with her presence. One of the most beloved and wonderful of guests, she attended despite being down with the flu earlier in the week. She had a gorgeous question and answer session following The Day the Earth Stood Still in which she recalled some of the wonderful memories of her career and her days in the Business called Show. After speaking with us, she was presented the first ever "Gort" award by Bruce and Jeff. She was an instant crowd favorite and we hope that she enjoyed her visit as much as the crowd enjoyed having her.

Unfortunately, Slither ended up being unavailable at the last minute, so was scrapped to make up lost time.

It was intended to show a special interview with Kelli Maroney (of "Chopping Mall" and "Night of the Comet"), but the tape did not arrive in time for the Marathon. The interview is expected to be posted on the website.

Those who had been clamoring to see Jason X at the Marathon may have been surprised this year when the trailer for the movie was this year's candidate for upside-down-backward presentation. Personally, I couldn't think of a better way to show the film.

The shorts from the Science Fiction Museum which were shown were: Wireless, Microgravity, Heartbeat, They're Made Out of Meat, Scribble, and Cost of Living. Of all of them, They're Made Out of Meat seemed to get the most agreeable audience response.

Though unable to attend in person, a special recorded interview was shown with the lovely Anne Francis immediately following Forbidden Planet. She was very enthusiastic and spun many a tale of her years in showbiz.

You will notice that the numbering sequence seems a bit odd here. Apparently the paradoxical nature of time travel has caught up with us. You will remember that instead of the 13th marathon, we were propelled forward to the 17th (see the 17th marathon for more information.) With the advent of Primer, it seems we've slipped backward now to experience the 15th.

This year's Upside-Down-Backward-Presentation? The glorious Marathon favorite, The Chub-Chubs. I have to say, the steadfast presentation of something in this format continues to intrigue me. I suspect the influence of the Illuminati. Still, all-in-all ... as much as I enjoy The Chub-Chubs, watching it scroll through backward is about 100 times more fun.

This was an unusually bad year for projection problems. These ranged from a complete lack of heads during the first 20 minutes of The Amazing Transparent Man to a lack of volume on every presentation not shown in 35mm (and some that were.) Most were tolerable, or short, but it was definitely far from ideal.

Kevin McCarthy was unable to attend due to illness, but sent along a videotaped interview and a number of signed photos in his absence. He was most apologetic and we hope to see him at a future event.

Intentional or not, what seems to have become a tradition of Marathons-Past resurfaced. True to form, the Battlestar Galactica trailer was shown upside-down-backward. It's an understandable mistake, given the amount of film that needs to be built-up/broken-down for such an event, and it certainly made watching the trailer a much more memorable event. Happy Accidents are what make the Marathons great.

The Powers That Be decided this year to cut Twilight Zone: the Movie into several different episodes to show throughout the Marathon. Because of time constraints, it was opted not to show the second Twilight Zone segment, Kick the Can, or the fourth Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. Doing so finished the Marathon respectably close to noon, a necessity since the house had a 1:00 PM show going in after us.

In a brilliant move that would galvanize marathon go'ers for generations, the fourth reel of Terminator 2 was shown backward-and-upside-down. As most of the people still awake and watching felt it was a unique improvement on the film, it was continued through to the end.

"A long time ago in a theatre not far away [name] did knowingly and willfully submit to strange and inhumane experimentations with an illegally modified W.A.B.A.C. Machine which twisted time and deposited all those who entered in a weird alternate time tangent apart from the popularly acknowledge existenz of "life as we know it" in a bizarre attempt to return to the pre-pharmaceutical grandeur that was the Starship Drexel North and subsequently blasted off in another direction/dimension as far as temporal elasticity could be stretched before snapping us back to the "present day" thus resulting in the four "lost years" and the passengers memories of those thrilling Ohio Science Fiction Marathons 13, 14, 15, and the oh so sweet 16 unfortunately lost in time, floating off in the ether of the might have been."

While it was planned to show Earth Girls are Easy, only half of the print arrived, so Them! was shown in its place.

This year saw a live performance of Gravity (with the esteemed Joe Neff playing "Jiminy Gravity" and musical accompaniment by "Honk, Wail, and Moan"), prompted by the rapidly deteriorating copy of the print being used by the Marathon. The directory donated a mint print of the film for use in Marathons to come.

Midway through the marathon, it became clear that we were not going to make it out anywhere near our projected exit-time, so Invasion of the Saucermen was cancelled.

It was originally intended to show a nitrate print of Rocketship X-M, but upon examination the print was found to have some deterioration and shrinkage, and since the Drexel North was not rated for nitrate, with a packed house, Them! was shown in its place.

The print of Battle Beyond the Stars was in such bad shape that by the third reel it had no hope of staying in one piece going through the projector. After repeated breaks, it was shelved in favor of making up lost time.