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Last night, MGM's proud lion opened its mouth and offered its last culinary roar on behalf of The Amityville Horror, the final movie the studio will release before being consumed by Sony. Our steadfast, steel-bellied Special Movie Premiere Food Critic was there to stare unblinkingly into the lion's mouth and critique its final party repast. His report follows:

However history records the second telling of The Amityville Horror cycle, there is no question that this film will be remembered as a great hors d'oeuvre movie. Throughout the film showing at the Cinerama Dome there was a palpable sense of excitement for what would be the last bash of one time catering champ MGM studios. The studio that once changed the face of movie premiere dining with their "mile of salmon mousse" at the 1932 launch of Grand Hotel surely would not miss a chance to make one last mark in the annals of party food.

The party was held at the site of many very loud parties, The Hollywood Athletic Club, with shuttle mini-buses available to carry the guest the two blocks from the theater to the event. The back room was lit in "spooky" lighting and featured a little replica of the beloved murder house from the film.

At first glance, after the no-doubt unreasonably high expectations, the food looked to be a disappointment - a standard meat and lettuce serving of reception grub. But there was more here than met the eye and like the film itself, the premiere strove to wrest sublimity from the hideously vulgar. Unlike the film however, the premiere may have succeeded. The theme, such as it was, seemed to be "baseball picnic food," which while seeming mundane, took the crowd in surprising and often delightful directions.

As noted above, while the masses dove headlong for the buffet, the cognoscenti sensed that the real action was to be had in the appetizers circulating the room at a good pace on little trays. The hors d' were wonderful little mini-versions of all-American snacks - grilled cheese sandwiches, sloppy joes in little corn muffins, and at the end of the night, tiny miniature smores which magically stayed together. Each of these was highly tasty and very successful.

Buffet table one was less successful, however. Parmigiana chicken, for which I give them credit, is a bold and brazen choice for a classy Hollywood event like The Amityville Horror premiere. However, I say if you're going to have an artery-wrecking dish like chicken parm, why not go all the way? This version seemed a little concerned with lightness, shunning the one to one chicken to cheese ratio the Olive Garden has taught me to expect. The rest of the food at this table - mushroom, Caesar salad, roast potato slices, cold asparagus, was ordinary.

Between buffets I misidentified several underage young women as the ghost girl from the movie and was nearly escorted out by security. However, once the hush money tab was settled, I ventured on to buffet number two. And here my endurance was redeemed. This table featured some of the finest pork ribs I've ever enjoyed, soft, moist and literally sliding off the bone. Much as I enjoyed the ribs though, I do have questions about their appropriateness at a premiere buffet. If there is one cause dear to this column, it is that caterers consider carefully the logistical difficulties of eating standing with one hand while holding your plate in the other before choosing their menus; ribs are tailor-made for disaster in this setting. Add to this the issue of how to hit the floor and do some serious schmoozing when you've got a handful of bbq sauce and you can see why ribs were an eyebrow-raising choice, to say the least.

But hey, MGM is shutting down tomorrow, what the hell do these people care about schmoozing? They can drench their golden parachutes in bbq sauce and skydive naked onto the murder house's roof if they want. They are free and their guests were well fed, the ribs were that good.

Goodbye Lion, thanks for a spooktacular send-off.