One movie. Five people, living or dead, at the screening. Who and why?

Today’s screening: “Planet of the Apes”

Embraced as an indispensible entry in America’s sci-fi film canon, Franklin Schaffner’s 1968 “Planet of the Apes” told the story of three astronauts who, after embarking on a near-light-speed space expedition in the year 2006, wake up 1,972 years in the future on a strange planet populated by an advanced society of super-intelligent apes, and primitive tribes of feral humans. More than just a zany series of ape-amok misadventures (but certainly not short on them), the movie ultimately reveals that the mystery planet is none other than the post-apocalyptic Earth, ravaged by man’s nuclear follies.

1. Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Naturalist

Dealing with everything from orchids to apes, Darwin published a variety of theories relating to common ancestry, sexual selection, evolution and the transmutation of species. Given that he didn’t live long enough to see the advent of motion pictures, it would be delightful to watch the old limey’s beard frizz as he observes a city full of chatty, sentient apes running a hierarchal society that has reached the tentative acme of near-human cultural development that exists between the domestication of livestock and the ability to mass produce scratch-and-win games. “What debased natural process wrought such insanity? How did humans revert back to such a state of barbarism and wild nudeness. What’s an astronaut?” On the upside, the rolling should be a lot more comfortable now that he’s out of his grave.

2. John Glenn (1921- ), Astronaut

The first American ever smushed inside a capsule and launched into orbit around the Earth, John Glenn made two space flights: one pre-Apes in 1962, and one post-Apes in 1997. Aboard the Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7, as he made three complete circuits around the planet, Glenn’s biggest fears were probably hull breaches, incinerating upon re-entry and space madness. But that was way back in the days before anyone had imagined that a group of well-meaning astronauts could end up wrangled into medical research by sinister apes who hijacked the future of man. On his second mission, a nine-day jaunt aboard the space shuttle Discovery, I bet all he was thinking about was apes, space and the transience of human love as it applies to apes. I don’t know if re-watching the movie will help to further quiet these fears or simply re-awaken them, but if he gets so freaked out that he has to step outside, I think we can all agree not to let him back in until he picks up some snacks.

3. Jane Goodall (1934- ), Primatologist
Best known for parlaying her obsessive ape gazing into a successful career as an observer and scholar of social and familial relations among chimps, Goodall is the perfect person to explain the inner-workings of Ape City’s social class system. Gorillas are the warriors, enforcers and hunters. Orangutans are the bureaucrats and litigators. Chimps are the scientists and philosophers. Why, Jane Goodall, why? Are chimps actually smarter than the other two species, or merely more motivated to pursue upper level educational degrees? Are orangutans preternaturally adept at administrative tasks, or has their natural understanding of macroeconomics pigeon-holed them into paper pushing and officious drudgery? Are most gorillas police officers because of their strength or because they failed the FBI eligibility exam? I can’t possibly see how this falls outside your scientific expertise.

4. Frederic Bartholdi (1834-1904), Sculptor
Famous for designing “Liberty Enlightening the World,” or, as it’s known in our typically moronified American parlance, “The Statue of Liberty,” Bartholdi personally selected New York Harbor as the site for his creation, and supposedly modeled the statue’s face after the face of his mother and the body after the body of his wife (resulting in a bizarre oedipal fever dream of a figure that’s high screwability factor exists only in relation to the opposite combination of features). Obviously, watching “Planet of the Apes” would be a bitter-sweet victory lap for the French sculptor, who would get see his art portrayed as a singular icon representing all of modern human civilization, but also three-quarters buried, relegated to the Forbidden Zone and used in the service of an out-sized twist ending that’s as ridiculously awesome as it is awesomely ridiculous. Also, we’ll show him art work from “Escape From New York” and scenes from “Cloverfield” and “Ghostbusters II.” Let’s see a smile, Bartholdi! Harold Ramis never used a remixed Jackie Wilson tune to drive any of da Vinci’s sculptures into a haunted art museum.

5. M. Night Shyamalan (1970- ), Filmmaker

See, M.? This is how it’s done – smart enough to take seriously, exaggerated enough to be entertaining and used to cap off a story a whole hell of a lot more satisfying than, “once, a long time ago, there was this village… Psyche! It was now that the village was. I mean is. Whoops. I’m late for my cameo. Keep on swinging!”

One movie. Five people, living or dead, at the screening. Who and why?

Today’s screening: “Masque of the Red Death”

One of eight gloriously lurid Poe adaptations directed by American B-movie auteur Roger Corman, this colorful tale of pestilence, corruption and Satanism, released in 1964, loosely adapts and combines Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories “The Masque of the Red Death” and “Hop-Toad.” Essentially, the sinister Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) joyfully tortures a village full of long-suffering peasants while hosting an elaborate, hedonistic costume ball for fringe members of the aristocracy, who are seeking shelter from a deadly bleeding disease that’s sweeping the countryside.

Anton LaVey (1930-1997), Founder – The Church of Satan

A mere two years after Vincent Price’s turn as the Satanist Prospero, Anton LaVey, already known around San Francisco for his occult lectures and paranormal research, founded the Church of Satan. Coincidence? Rather than have LaVey expound upon his best known works, “The Satanic Bible” and “The Satanic Rituals,” this film should spur some conversation about his lesser-known books, “The Satanic Chef” and “Satanic Jokes for Goateed Folks.”

Howard Zinn (1922-2010), Political Scientist

Sure, the highly controversial and recently deceased socialist-leaning populist historiographer probably hasn’t even gotten a chance to ghost flush the toilets at “The Weekly Standard,” but I can’t leave him out of this screening. Corman’s portrayal of Prospero’s relationship with the peasants – from the indiscriminate killing to the kidnapping of virgins in the name of forced Satanic conversion – plays out like a series of early scenes from the hypothetical “A People’s History of Europe.” Even if Zinny finds the socially just ending to be insultingly unrealistic, it’ll be worth it just to hear him reminisce about past outrages, present iniquities and the drinking game he played with Noam Chomsky where they watched “24” and solemnly took a shot every time a character’s human rights were violated.

Edgar Allen Poe, (1809-1849), Author

Obviously, Poe should get a chance to watch Corman’s adaptation of his classic story. And, if there’s time, “Wall-E.”

C.J. Peters (1940- ), Field Virologist

Famous for helping to control epidemics of deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola and Hanta Virus (the book “Hot Zone” and the film “Outbreak” were inspired by his research and field work), Peters could provide speculative scientific insight on the titular “red death,” a fictional hemorrhagic fever that spreads rapidly via man-sized crimson-shrouded party crasher. Questions for Peters could include, “generally, what’s the mortality rate of a virus like this?” and “is actual Ebola as monochromatic in its wardrobe selections?”

Aeschylus (?525 BC- 456 BC), Playwright

Though best known for writing stage adaptations of mythological tragedies (“Agamemnon,” etc.), Aeschylus’ oldest existing play, “The Persians,” not only dramatizes the then-recent fall of the Persian Empire, but also opens with what is often credited as the first Western example of a performed dream sequence. As such, Corman’s love of psychedelic dream sequences, as evidenced by Prospero’s mistress’ emerald-tinted descent into Satanic allegiance, owes something to the ancient playwright… and Aeschylus is here to collect (I imagine this as the pilot episode of a series called “Aeschylus Collects,” in which Aeschylus is portrayed as a broken man, displaced in time, with 1,000 lost hopes and 1 gun that shoots nets.)

*On a more serious note – if you haven’t seen Corman’s Poe adaptations, you’re a wiener.

One movie. Five people, living or dead, at the screening. Who and why?

Today’s screening: “Phantasm”

Wonderfully creative, unapologetically strange and beautifully low budget, Don Coscarelli’s 1978 horror film “Phantasm” contemplates mortality and the odd pageantry of Western funereal practices through a consummate horror film villain: The Tall Man – a corpse-enslaving inter-dimensional being masquerading as an undertaker.

August Wilhelm von Hofmann (1818-1892), Chemist

One of the most influential organic chemists of all time, Hofmann created formaldehyde by passing methyl alcohol vapors over hot platinum. Perhaps the film doesn’t cast the embalming business in a strictly positive light, but I think Hofmann we’ll be able to enjoy it anyway. It helps that the last (film-related) time he was resurrected was to fact check “Flubber.”

Mary Roach, Author

“Stiff,” the first of Roach’s three works of humorous and informative scientific journalism, examines the varied fates of the human body after death, ranging from crash test dummies to objects of putrefaction experimentation. The book, however, does not cover transformation into undead alien chain gang dwarves. A purposeful, fear-inspired omission? My best guess is probably. I heard she left a famous art museum incident out of her ghost-themed book “Spook” after getting threatening calls from a certain Carpathian.

Will Green, Effects Artist

Green masterminded the construction of “Phantasm”’s famous flying sentinel sphere (in real life, a series of modeled spheres and partial spheres designed for different shots and angles), a head-seeking orb that latches onto a victim’s skulls, drills into his brains and pumps out his blood. In this case, the screening is just a pretense to get Green to help with my T-Bat© – a dual-purpose t-ball accessory that can be used as the tee or the bat. Legally, if I add a skull drill, I can advertise it as “multi-purpose.”

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Genius

Einstein puzzled over some of the greatest scientific conundrums of the 20th century, including the plausibility of space travel and the nature of time. You know how the corpses in “Phantasm” are converted into dwarves in order to condense their mass, such that they can withstand the powerful gravity of the Tall Man’s dimension? I think it’d be fun to have an actual formula for calculating how much any given individual’s height would need to be condensed relative to their respective mass. Also, if he has time, I still don’t understand “Primer.”

Harry Burt (1875-1926), Confectioner

In 1921, when Ohio dessert maven Harry Burt began coating ice cream in fudge and impaling the result on a wooden stick, the Good Humor Bar was invented. Burt also outfitted manned distribution vehicles with small freezers to create the first ice cream trucks. Reggie in “Phantasm” drives an ice cream truck. Burt would be happy to see the enduring cultural impact blah blah whatever. I just want some free ice cream, okay?

One movie. Five people, living or dead, at the screening. Who and why?

Today’s screening: “Freaks”

Todd Browning’s 1931 post-Dracula, pre-code film continues to generate excitement and controversy for its use of actual sideshow performers in telling a story of love, betrayal and a circus freak show, where the only law is the freaks’ code of loyalty.

• P.T. Barnum (1810-1891), Showman

Consummate entrepreneur P.T. Barnum combined his steely determination and incomparable marketing aplomb to create one of the world’s first – and most successful – touring sideshows. Barnum’s attraction, which started humbly in the 1940s with an ad hoc mermaid mummy and a performing dwarf, eventually grew to feature all manner of human anomalies, from a fat lady to a three-legged man. “Freaks” use of real circus performers, and its pro-freak message, would undoubtedly appeal to Barnum, but something tells me he’d be even more interested in examining the film’s out-sized promotional materials.

• Tod Robbins (1888-1949), Author

Robbins short story “Spurs,” about a woman of average height and her dwarf husband, who forces his wife to piggy-back him for a distance equaling the length of France, served as Browning’s primary inspiration for “Freaks.” Among the many differences, Robbins’ story features a scene in which a sword-brandishing dwarf rides a wolf. Who’s more angry at its exclusion from the film – me or Robbins? We’ll find out at the screening. (hint: it’s me.)

• Gretchen Wordon (1947-2004), Museum Director

Philadelphia, PA is home to the Mütter Museum, which contains a wide array of jarred medical specimens, human skulls, antiquated surgical equipment and other bizarre biological ephemera. As the museum’s director from 1988 until her death in 2004, Ms. Wordon used her advertising savvy and dark sense of humor to promote the strange collection; she appeared in numerous television documentaries, helped create a bizarre promotional museum calendar and even made several visits, grotesqueries in tow, to The Late Show. As someone intimately familiar with all nature of medical anomalies, Wordon would be a fun and interesting resource for all the gory physiological details of the freaks’/David Letterman’s various afflictions.

• Dee Dee Ramone (1951-2002), Musician

Always brilliantly proving that, through the chaotic chemistry of punk, even something as innately simple as pop music can be reduced down to a core structure and wailing energy, Dee Dee Ramone turned the freaks memorable initiation chant of “Gooble Gobble, Gooble Gobble, we accept her, one of us” into the terse, shouted rallying cry, “Gabba, Gabba, hey!” Subsequently, the topically named “Pinhead” became, along with “Blitzkrieg Bop,” the Ramone’s signature song. It’d be fun to convince Dee Dee that he was back from the dead because he was, in fact, buried in a pet cemetery.

• Alex Winter (1965- ), Actor

You probably know Alex Winter best as time-travelling slacker Bill Preston, Esq. Winter also starred in, co-wrote and co-directed the woefully underrated, and relentlessly strange, 1993 comedy “Freaked,” in which his character is kidnapped and chemically mutated into a deformed sideshow performer. The film also features Brooke Shields, Sam Raimi and Deep Roy in their only appearance together outside of the easiest “Marry, F***, Kill” question ever.

One movie. Five people, living or dead, at the screening. Who and why?

Today’s screening: “Ghost Busters”

This revelatory 1984 horror comedy gave the culture such enduring cinematic icons as Zuul, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Ernie Hudson.

Charles Barton (1902-1981), Actor, Director

As horror comedies go, there’s none more classic or beloved than the Barton-helmed “Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein,” an uncontestable grand slam for the titular comedians and the last great film featuring Universal’s “Big Three” monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and The Wolf Man). It’s seems unfair Barton died just three years before “Ghostbusters,” one of the greatest modern horror comedies, was released. Granted, he did also miss “Idle Hands.”

Kate Fox (1837-1892), Medium

Kate and her sister Margaret are generally credited with inadvertently jump-starting the 19th century Spiritualist movement when, through a system of taps and knocks, they began to communicate with an alleged ghost. Kate later grew up to be regarded as the more spiritually gifted of the two. After enjoying the spooky comedic stylings of Canada’s Dan Aykroyd, I will woo Kate with some spirit rapping of my own – “I’m a big big ghost and I like to haunt, I love to rap, something something haunt. Word.”

Sammy Stephens, Entrepreneur, Entertainer

Speaking of hip-hop, Sammy Stephens made a name for himself in the (ahem) respectable world of viral Internet memes with the TV commercial rap (and corresponding dance step) he composed and performed to promote his business, Flea Market Montgomery, a 73,000 square-foot mini-mall analog. Sammy can critique the Ghost Busters’ television ads and offer some helpful pointers about how to turn their dull slogan (“We’re ready to believe you”? ZZZZZZZZ!) and amateurish TV ads into marketing gold. Or at least oxidized YouTube copper.

Robert Bess, Inventor

Bess got tons of Travel Channel play just this past weekend for inventing his “Parabot,” a containment system supposedly capable of imprisoning spirits. (Yes, I, too, thought ‘Parabot’ sounded like some kind of county-owned handicapped android designed to laser blast elementary school kids into being polite to cripples.) While we watch a movie about ghost containment system, I can tell Bess how original his idea was. Bess’ next project is inventing a bus that explodes if it doesn’t retain a speed above 55 mph. He calls it the “GimpMobile.”

Ray Parker Jr. (1954- ), Musician

Oh, Ray Parker, serenade me with your melodious Ghostbusters theme. My plan is to mute the opening of the film, say “Take it Away!” and start beat boxing. Ten bucks says Parker just glares at me while, from the other side of the room, we hear, “living rooms, bed rooms, dinettes, oh yeah! You can find them at the market. We talkin’ ‘bout flea market”.