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 Karaoke
Goes to the Movies

AT LOWER EAST SIDE CLUB, PATRONS MIMIC FAMOUS FILM ROLES

By DANIELA GERSON Staff Reporter of the Sun

It took just one beer, a stage, and a flickering projection of "The Breakfast Club"
for Matthew Dujnic, a 29-yearold Manhattan computer programmer, to transform into a
1980s bad boy.

"Face it, you're a neo-maxi-zoomdweebie!" he said, echoing actor Judd Nelson to the
delight of the mostly 20-something audience.

Mr. Dujnic jumped around the stage, matching his movement to the high school drama
unfolding on the screen behind him. With the volume turned down, Mr. Dujnic flowed on
tempo, getting occasional help from the DVD subtitles.The only times he was thrown was
when the script included a swear word; Mr. Dujnic knows the lines from the made-for-TV
version.

At Den of Cin, a campy Lower East Side basement venue, movieoke, a twist on karaoke
where bar goers act out favorite scenes with a little help from friends and subtitles,
is the new Wednesday night entertainment. While a similar concept has worked for
"Rocky Horror Picture Show,"can playing along with movies have the same entertainment
power as music?

Last Wednesday night, with fudge at the bar, free Rheingold beer, and an almost
unlimited supply of movies that Anastasia Fite, the 24-year-old "Den mother," fetched
from the associated Two Boots video store upstairs, bar goers were enthused by the
concept, even if the logistics needed finessing.

"I wish I'd thought of it myself," Mr. Dujnic, who is becoming a regular at movieoke,
said after finishing his "Breakfast Club" role. "For once my ability to memorize
massive scenes in movies has a use."

Ms. Fite, who created movieoke last October, said that often, "Instead of speaking in
my own words, I'll act out words from movies." After completing a stint as assistant
to a director of "The Sopranos" she took a job managing the Den of Cin and working on
programming at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater. With access to the projector and the
video library, the idea for movieoke "just all sort of came together in my head one
day," she said.

For those who don't know movies by rote, playing scenes can be a challenge since the
subtitles are on the screen behind where the actor stands on the stage. But on
Wednesday night,after screening scenes from favorites like "Taxi Driver," "Better Off
Dead," and "Badlands," more members of the audience began to lose their inhibitions
and join in for an ensemble piece of "Terminator 2."

"The idea is incredible and it was a lot of fun to do," said Adam Nowak, a 33-year-old
comedic actor who donned dark sunglasses to take the stage as Arnold Schwarzenegger in
"Terminator 2." But, he added, "It's way too loosey-goosey. The technology needs to be
improved a bit,"suggesting options like pre-selected DVD scenes and a second screen.

These are ideas Ms. Fite, whose uninhibited theatrics as a naked balladsinging vixen
in "The Wicker Man" set the mood for the night, has considered. She has plans to make
a DVD of the "best-of scenes" and to use a reflector to show the screen in front of
the stage.

The publisher of Karaoke Scene magazine, Peter Parker, said he "thought I'd heard
everything" about karaoke, but movieoke was new to him. He had concerns about how the
technology could work and if movie scenes could have the same mass appeal of music.

Karaoke, he said,"Is very democratic, it appeals to all people across all stratum,
ethnic or socioeconomic. Music has almost a narcotic effect on people, it makes people
happy. I just don't know if [movieoke] would have the same broad appeal."

But the frequenters of Den of Cin, while a select group, said they were entertained
and convinced there was a future for the concept of movieoke.

"Movies are so ridiculously popular," Mr. Nowak said. "I think it totally could take
off."

[photograph]

MOVIEOKE Anastasia Fite acts out a scene featuring actress Britt Ekland from the 1973
film 'The Wicker Man' at the Den of Cin on Avenue A. TOBIAS EVERKE