Move Over Karaoke, Now There’s Movieoke

If you've ever stood in the mirror and enjoyed acting out Robert De Niro's lines in Taxi Driver or sat in the theater staring up at the silver screen thinking, "I coulda been a contender" (On The Waterfront) or "I could have been a star," then you just might appreciate what some are calling the next best thing to karaoke. It's called Movieoke (think Karaoke for movie lovers), but instead of singing - or trying to sing - your favorite songs, you recite scenes from your favorite movies. Only ... you don't recite them like a monologue, you act them out before an audience of strangers while the movie is projected behind you. A mirror allows you to view the film in case you forget your lines, and technological improvements are in the works to include subtitles, "like looking in a mirror. Only ... not." (Face Off)

Movieoke just might be the perfect bar game for struggling actors, movie buffs and those starving for attention. "One hundred percent pure adrenaline ... all you gotta do is jump" (Point Break) on stage and re-enact movie lines in front of a crazy crowd of cinephiles. While The Rocky Horror Picture Show fans have been doing it for years, Movieoke isn't limited to performances from just one film. "It's like a box a chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get." (Forrest Gump)

For film fanatics, "resistance is futile!" (Star Trek) Just as karaoke has, for years, attracted singers and music fans (talented or not so talented), Movieoke seems to be attracting movie fans and actors who share a love for cinema, acting and performance.

Behind the success of Movieoke is female filmmaker, writer and director Anastasia Fite, a 25-year-old Cornell Film Production graduate, who took her first filmmaking class at the age of 13. The Brooklyn resident attributes the appeal for Movieoke to America's fascination with pop culture. So far, this new pastime has people from all over the city coming out to play Wednesday nights at The Den of Cin on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

The idea for Movieoke came from a short film Anastasia Fite wrote, directed, and acted in called Shooting Blank, released in 2001, about a woman who suffers a nervous breakdown by the end of the film because she can only speak lines from movies. However, Anastasia sees Movieoke as a positive way for people to relate and communicate through their love of movies. Nobody performing Movieoke claims that "what we've got here is a failure to communicate." (Cool Hand Luke) On the contrary, Movieoke seems to be breaking down barriers by placing movie watching in America's barrooms. First there was theater with intermissions affording time to converse and communicate. Then there was film, in which intermissions gradually disappeared and people were confined to conversation before or after the movie. Then there was video in which people didn't have to even leave the house. Now there's Movieoke - a throwback to an era before movies and theater, when people danced in front of the firelight reenacting scenes from the hunt and celebrating what it meant to be human.

 If this sounds intimidating - the newness of it all, the insanity - realize that to help get people started, Anastasia offers one free beer to anyone who shows up. And why not? "You don't have to live forever ... you just have to live." (Tuck Everlasting) While many people show up excited and nervous about getting on stage, they soon muster their courage, realizing that "if you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker." (Rounders)

Already bar owners from around the United States have been calling Anastasia to learn how they can get Movieoke started in their town. Whether or not it is already being copied in other cities, Anastasia doesn't know; but she did express an interest in taking her personal version of Movieoke to Los Angeles, among other cities, in the not too distant future. As the buzz spreads, film fans will likely find themselves at their local pub watching drunken patrons reenact everything from Arnold Schwarzenegger's "I'll be back" to the Jennifer Beals dance scene in Flashdance.

Anastasia hopes to take Movieoke "to infinity and beyond." (Toy Story) But questions still remain as to whether this new craze will become a fleeting fad or take its place in the legendary canon of barroom games and popular pastimes. There could be a PG Movieoke for kids, with lines from The Lion King and Toy Story. Film students and slacker types might unite under the same roof to recite lines from Citizen Kane and Dude, Where's My Car? Not that interests can't intermix - one couple routinely performs scenes from Night of The Living Dead in "South Park" voices.

Among the more popular items performed at a typical Movieoke venue are ‘80 movies like Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. People enjoy reenacting Jennifer Beals' dance routine in Flashdance as well, in front of a live and often inebriated audience. Anastasia links the popularity of '80s movies in Movieoke to the advent of home video and cable television during that period. In the ‘80s, technological advancements allowed the consumer to watch movies repeatedly until certain movie lines burned an indelible mark upon the viewer's memory. "These movies have literally become a part of us, and it's nostalgic," says Anastasia.

When asked if Movieoke can be interpreted as a denigration of film, Anastasia said no. "I consider it celebrating films with other people. People will go home with notes on movies they want to see because of scenes they've seen on Movieoke," she added. "I've been to a dinner party in which a 70 year old and a 15 year old both expressed an interest in Movieoke. It gets people thinking about all genres and all errors of film. And it gets them to see films through Movieoke eyes."

Imagine it now: A little tipsy, a little tired, you skip into your favorite bar to listen to a bunch of wannabe singers trying their luck at "Margaritaville" only to find that they've been replaced by a few maddened and motley movie lovers shouting out things like, "Open the pod-bay door, Hal," (2001: A Space Odyssey), "They're heeeere!" (Poltergeist).

Is Movieoke here to stay? It may be too early to tell. One thing is certain, though: in a culture fascinated by the regurgitation of pop icons and tireless trends - until everything feels like a reinvented marketing ploy or a B-Horror serial killer who never seems to die - "you ain't heard nothin' yet." (The Jazz Singer)