First in line were diehards Charlie Vega, Sean Riley, Jenilee Borth and John Iimes, who showed up dressed as Juno and characters from Reservoir Dogs at 9:30 p.m. Thursday.
They admitted that, perhaps, they'd overestimated their fellow Kansas Citians' hunger for free shit because the bulk of the crowd showed up hours later. A solid 100 were there by 5 a.m. AMC staffers were there as early as midnight with numbered wristbands and silver AMC stickers to verify the original 100.
Norvin Ennis showed up around 5:30 a.m. dressed as a Sith Lord, only to be told he was number 101 in line. He was quickly followed by Clay Jarratt, who'd dressed like Joaquin Phoenix a la his appearance on David Letterman. Charlie Chaplin and Joan Crawford, aka Michael (he didn't want to give a last name) and Spencer Brown, were numbers 103 and 104.
I showed up a little after 7 a.m., so Jarratt filled me in on what I'd missed. "Some drunk guy was here since one in the morning, wearing a bathrobe. I don't know what his costume was -- that could have been a number of things," Jarratt said.
These sorority girls from Rockhurst, dressed as celebrities dodging paparazzi (see the sunglasses?), told me the rest of the story: They'd all been trying to sleep, but the drunk guy and his friends were playing football, being loud and trying to hit a bell affixed to a wall, and spooking passing drivers. The dude finally hit the bell with the football around 7:15 a.m., and I was there to hear the applause -- that was the crowd cheering as a police officer led the drunk guy away in handcuffs.
Foxy Brown and Owen Wilson here (Akila Kincy and Jon Pearson, actually) missed the boat, just barely: They came separately and were numbers 106 and 107. I hope they became lifelong friends.
Alonzo Washington, dressed as Blade (no!) and his friend Armando, dressed as Morpheus from The Matrix, and were numbers 71 and 65, respectively. Washington broke his rule about speaking with anyone from The Pitch just long enough to say that he has "a lot of kids," so a year's worth of free tickets would come in handy. He wouldn't let me take his picture, though.
These med students from UMKC skipped class for free tickets.
Here's number 24, 25 and 23 in line: Goose and Maverick from Top Gun and Chuck Norris.
James, dressed as Owen Wilson from The Royal Tenenbaums (a popular costume), came with his three friends and fellow downtown-dwellers, and said he didn't mind if the free tickets were only good for three-week-old movies and not new releases. "It's probably $500 worth of free tickets, and you get them all at once, not one a week," James said. "We got here around 2 a.m. ... But seeing that guy get arrested makes it all worth it."
Here's one of my favorite costumes: Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High
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At 8:10, the doors of the theater finally opened and everyone filed inside to get their hard-earned reward. "This is as good as money!" said a guy dressed as Wilson, Tom Hanks' volleyball friend from Cast Away, "I'm going to put 'em away before I get mugged!"
As people packed up their overnight bags and chairs and headed home, I ran into an old friend I hadn't seen in awhile, Aaron Blake. And because Kansas City is SO HUGE, wouldn't you know it -- he was the infamous drunk guy. Despite the fact that he smelled like the floor of a dive bar just after last call, police let him go just in time to pick up his 52 tickets. Luckily, most of the folks who'd endured his football fiesta had left before seeing their tormentor turned loose.
If you can stand the poor video quality and my hyena-like laughter, here's Blake telling his side of the story -- and a bonus cameo of Alonzo Washington's back.
There is an extra happy ending: Two people dropped out of line before 8:10, so the Sith Lord and Joaquin Phoenix, numbers 101 and 102, got a year's worth of movie passes, too.
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