a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.
fri. sep. 4
twin peaks: fire walk with me MIDNIGHT @ nuart theatre
labyrinth MIDNIGHT @ regency fairfax theater
every time i see your picture i cry 8 PM @ echo park film center
thee cormans @ redwood bar
jon brion @ largo
cinecon @ egyptian theatre
ghostbusters, ghostbusters II @ aero theatre
ferris bueller's day off, planes trains & automobiles @ new beverly theatre
the criminal 8 PM, get carter @ silent movie theatre
sat. sep. 5
huntington cads 10:30 PM @ haunted house a-go-go @ bordello
black lips, lightning bolt, thermals, no age, darker my love, mika miko, strange boys, kurt vile, etc @ fyf fest @ la historic state park
cinecon @ egyptian theatre
being there @ cinespia @ hollywood forever
los angeles plays itself @ aero theatre
ferris bueller's day off, planes trains & automobiles @ new beverly theatre
the entity MIDNIGHT @ new beverly theatre
smiles of a summer night @ silent movie theatre
bollyweird! indian musical madness mix 10 PM @ silent movie theatre
sun. sep. 6
cinecon @ egyptian theatre
los angeles plays itself @ aero theatre
ramonas @ el cid
ferris bueller's day off @ cinespia @ hollywood forever
the secret of NIMH 5:45 PM 9:10 PM @ new beverly theatre
pee-wee's big adventure 8 PM @ comedy death ray @ silent movie theatre
mon. sep. 7
the five minutes game: mom 'n pop video shoppe edition 6 PM @ silent movie theatre
cinecon @ egyptian theatre
abe vigoda @ pehrspace
frank fairfield @ redwood bar
the secret of NIMH 9:10 PM @ new beverly theatre
tue. sep. 8
supervan, the van @ grindhouse film festival @ new beverly theatre
wed. sep. 9
mi ami @ troubadour
the crimson kimono, underworld U.S.A. @ new beverly theatre
behind the motion picture canvas: film formats through the 21st century 8 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn theater
the pleasure garden 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
thu. sep. 10
manhattan 8 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn
asteroid #4 @ spaceland
the loons @ bar pink (SD)
camper van beethoven @ el rey
the last picture show, they all laughed @ egyptian theatre
the crimson kimono, underworld U.S.A. @ new beverly theatre
a hard day's night 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
fri. sep. 11
vivian girls @ the echo
nickelodeon, mask @ egyptian theatre
growlers @ american legion post 206
day of wrath, haxan: witchcraft through the ages @ new beverly theatre
the princess bride 7 PM FREE (w/ rsvp) @ santa monica pier
jon brion @ largo
murder in harlem, the blood of jesus @ ucla film archive
like you know it all (preview screening) @ lacma
performance 8 PM, villain @ silent movie theatre
sat. sep. 12
clue @ devil's night drive-in
paper moon, what's up doc? @ egyptian theatre
day of wrath, haxan: witchcraft through the ages @ new beverly theatre
breakin' 2: electric boogaloo MIDNIGHT @ new beverly theatre
jaime hernandez 5 PM @ skylight books
body and soul, within our gates @ ucla film archive
aziz ansari @ largo
pee-wee's big adventure @ cinespia @ hollywood forever
the day a pig fell into the well 5 PM FREE @ lacma
woman on the beach @ lacma
woman is the future of man 9:20 @ lacma
a lesson in love 6 PM, the devil's eye @ silent movie theatre
the impossible kid 10 PM @ mondo macabro mix night @ silent movie theatre
sun. sep. 13
dunes, lucky dragons @ the smell
the love god?, the ghost and mr. chicken @ aero theatre
at the earth's core, the people that time forgot @ new beverly theatre
the victors 7 PM @ ucla film archive
mon. sep. 14
beware the moon, an american werewolf in london @ new beverly theatre
airplane! @ AFI 100s @ arclight sherman oaks
frank fairfield @ redwood bar
birthright, the girl in room 20 @ ucla film archive
tue. sep. 15
hiking @ the smell
kiss me deadly, city of fear @ new beverly theatre
wed. sep. 16
baraka (70mm) @ egyptian theatre
suddenly last summer @ AFI 100s @ arclight hollywood
kiss me deadly, city of fear @ new beverly theatre
the ring 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
thu. sep. 17
2001 (70mm) @ egyptian theatre
the informant! (sneak preview) @ aero theatre
david cross 9:30 PM @ book soup
dillinger is dead, black moon @ new beverly theatre
gimme shelter 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
fri. sep. 18
saccharine trust @ the smell
emeralds @ bootleg theater
meat puppets @ el rey
hope sandoval & the warm inventions @ brookdale lodge (santa cruz)
on the waterfront, one-eyed jacks @ aero theatre
dillinger is dead, black moon @ new beverly theatre
jon brion @ largo
meho plaza @ pehrspace
drive he said @ ucla film archive
turning gate @ lacma
tale of cinema 9:40 PM @ lacma
bronson 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
sat. sep. 19
the pains of being pure at heart @ troubadour
grand hotel 3:30 PM @ egyptian theatre
a clockwork orange, dr. strangelove @ egyptian theatre
a streetcar named desire, baby doll @ aero theatre
hiking @ pehrspace
rosemary's baby @ cinespia @ hollywood forever
c.b. hustlers 4:10 PM, thunder run, white line fever, road games, black dog @ new beverly theatre
juke joint, dirty gertie from harlem u.s.a. @ ucla film archive
the power of kangwon province 5 PM FREE @ lacma
night and day @ lacma
turkish rip-offs night 10 PM @ silent movie theatre
sun. sep. 20
saccharine trust, mike watt, nels cline @ knitting factory
american graffiti @ aero theatre
mary lynn rajskub @ steve allen theater
to catch a thief, the man who knew too much @ new beverly theatre
the freshman 7 PM @ ucla film archive
jeff perkins' light show 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
mount eerie, tara jane o'neil @ eagle rock center for the arts
mon. sep. 21
to catch a thief, the man who knew too much @ new beverly theatre
frank fairfield @ redwood bar
tue. sep. 22
dangerous encounters: 1st kind, aces go places II @ grindhouse film fest @ new beverly theatre
wed. sep. 23
hausu, goke bodysnatcher from hell @ egyptian theatre
criss cross, phantom lady @ new beverly theatre
the lodger 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
thu. sep. 24
the party, the secret life of walter mitty @ egyptian theatre
criss cross, phantom lady @ new beverly theatre
catch us if you can 8 PM @ british invasion mix night @ silent movie theatre
fri. sep. 25
autolux @ el rey
om, lichens @ echoplex
mr. bug goes to town, gulliver's travels @ egyptian theatre
mike watt & the missingmen @ redwood bar
jon brion @ largo
ezra buchla @ l'keg gallery
au revoir les enfants, lacombe lucien @ new beverly theatre
the wild party, horse feathers @ ucla film archive
an autumn afternoon @ lacma
the long good friday 8 PM, the krays @ silent movie theatre
sat. sep. 26
cotton jones @ spaceland
on her majesty's secret service, from russia with love @ egyptian theatre
au revoir les enfants, lacombe lucien @ new beverly theatre
up the creek MIDNIGHT @ new beverly theatre
a city of sadness @ lacma
devil fetus 10 PM, devil's express @ silent movie theatre
sun. sep. 27
autolux @ detroit bar
dead meadow @ brookdale lodge (santa cruz)
the thing, prince of darkness @ new beverly theatre
ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren (w/ new live score by savage republic) 7 PM @ silent movie theatre
mon. sep. 28
the thing, prince of darkness @ new beverly theatre
frank fairfield @ redwood bar
tue. sep. 29
sonic youth @ the wiltern
hope sandoval & the warm inventions @ hollywood forever
projection performances by bruce mcclure 8:30 PM @ redcat
the thing, prince of darkness @ new beverly theatre
wait until dark 1 PM @ lacma
wed. sep. 30
vanishing point 9:45 PM @ new beverly theatre
man on wire 7 PM, in a dream FREE @ ampas linwood dunn theater
a tribute to maurice sendak 8 PM @ silent movie theater
thu. oct. 1
foot village @ the smell
annie hall 9:25 PM @ new beverly theatre
fri. oct. 2
annie hall 9:25 PM @ new beverly theatre
ferris bueller's day off 7 PM FREE (w/ rsvp) @ santa monica pier
trick 'r treat 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
sat. oct. 3
ron silva & the monarchs w/ nick rossi @ mind machine @ bordello
annie hall 5:35, 9:25 PM @ new beverly theatre
michael hurley @ largo
eagle rock music festival
the mystery of the wax museum 7 PM, phantom of the opera @ silent movie theatre
the boxer's omen 10 PM @ wizard battle night @ silent movie theatre
sun. oct. 4
top secret 8 PM @ comedy death-ray @ silent movie theatre
tue. oct. 6
watch horror films-keep america strong, nightmare in blood @ grindhouse film fest @ new beverly theatre
the return of the jerry beck animated spooktacular 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
wed. oct. 7
teenage jesus and the jerks, miko mika @ el rey
linda perhacs and friends @ redcat
soul power, wattstax @ new beverly theatre
the garden 7 PM, crips and bloods: made in america @ ampas linwood dunn theater
the duel (w/ live score by the watts ensemble) 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
thu. oct. 8
soul power, wattstax @ new beverly theatre
andrew w.k. @ largo
damon & naomi @ spaceland
fri. oct. 9
citizen kane 8 PM @ linwood dunn: celebrating a visual effects pioneer @ ampas linwood dunn theater
at midnight i will take your soul 8 PM, this night i will possess your corpse @ silent movie theatre
sat. oct. 10
doctor x 7 PM, dr. cyclops @ silent movie theatre
thee cormans @ redwood bar
wooden shjips @ frisco freakout @ the parkside (SF)
spooky encounters 10 PM @ silent movie theatre
sun. oct. 11
part time punks fest @ echoplex, echo
mon. oct. 12
ken jacobs: towards the depths of the even greater depression 8:30 PM @ redcat
wed. oct. 14
anne coates: profile of an editing master 7 PM @ ampas linwood dunn theater
dawanatron: the eerie electronic sounds of the diabolical dewans 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
thu. oct 15
ken jacobs in person @ ucla film archive
fri. oct. 16
damned: the strange world of jose mojica marins 8 PM, the strange world of coffin joe, strange hostel of naked pleasures @ silent movie theatre
mike watt & the missingmen @ redwood bar
darker my love @ the echo
sat. oct. 17
the third man, night and the city @ ucla film archive
footsteps in the fog 7 PM, the picture of dorian gray @ silent movie theatre
return of the demon 10 PM @ silent movie theatre
wavves, soft pack @ echoplex
sun. oct. 18
they drive by night 7 PM, on the night of the fire @ ucla film archive
victims (US premiere) 8 PM, don't go in the house @ silent movie theatre
mon. oct. 19
black panther films 8 PM @ 7 dudley cinema @ the talking stick
tue. oct. 20
american nightmare 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
wed. oct. 21
the yes men fix the world FREE @ ucla film archive
jay reatard @ el rey
haxan (w/ new live score by eddie ruscha) 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
thu. oct. 22
dan melchior, thee oh sees @ the echo
fri. oct. 23
the long haul, hell drivers @ ucla film archive
awakening of the beast 8 PM, finis hominis @ silent movie theatre
kurt vile & the violators @ spaceland
sat. oct. 24
the haunting 2 PM 8 PM @ alex theatre
abe vigoda, mi ami @ the smell
the clouded yellow, the october man @ ucla film archive
horror of dracula 7 PM, the revenge of frankenstein @ silent movie theatre
haunted cop shop 11 PM @ silent movie theatre
gal costa @ ucla royce hall
sun. oct. 25
robert beavers in person 7 PM @ ucla film archive
mon. oct. 26
no orchids for miss blandish, noose @ ucla film archive
tue. oct. 27
american scary 8 PM @ tv horror host night @ silent movie theatre
wed. oct. 28
hell's bells: the cinefamily mondo remix 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
thu. oct. 29
an evening with r. crumb 8 PM @ ucla royce hall
fri. oct. 30
embodiment of evil 8 PM, hallucinations of a deranged mind @ silent movie theatre
sat. oct. 31
the city of the dead, the skull @ ucla film archive
nosferatu (w/ organ accompaniment) 8 PM @ disney hall
plan 9 from outer space 8 PM @ cinefamily halloween party @ silent movie theatre
wed. nov. 4
broadcast @ troubadour
mon. nov. 9
dunes @ the smell
sat. nov. 14
the homosexuals @ el rey
tue. nov. 17
the king khan & bbq show @ troubadour
WHAT IT IS:
American Nightmare
A different kind of terror, American Nightmare (aka Combat Shock) is a gritty post-Eraserhead exploration of the horrors of reality. No monsters, no vampires, no masked slashers -- this film relies on war, junkies, muggings and waiting in line at the welfare office to carry and punctuate its nihilistic saga of a Vietnam vet's desperate pursuit to save his wife and mutant Agent Orange-poisoned child from the horrors of poverty and urban squalor. Ending with one of the most brutal climaxes ever committed to celluloid, it is an unforgiving and controversial masterpiece. Director Buddy Giovinazzo will bring his original uncut 16mm answer print, a batch of early shorts he made, and join us for a Q & A!
Dir. Buddy Giovinazzo, 1986, 16mm, 92 min.
American Scary
TV Horror Host Night!
(feat. American Scary)
Hey, who was your horror host? If you're tempted to respond, "Whaddaya mean, my horror host?", you probably grew up in the post-local television era. Which means you spent your childhood without a mordantly sardonic costumed creep to introduce (and heckle) your Z-grade shock/shlock fare when you were staying up way too late. Horror hosts are one of the folkways of TV, beginning in the 1950s when broadcast was both local and live, with the indelible Vampira. Each station spawned its own variations on the theme, from the classic "cool ghoul" Zacherley in New York, to Chicago's undead hippie, Svengoolie, to Cleveland's beatnik-styled Ghoulardi (director P. T. Anderson's father!) It just gets weirder from there, in the documentary American Scary, which digs deep to discover that before Mystery Science Theater 3000, there was a whole world of campy characters for every kid -- and stoned sophomore -- to call their own. And we've got our own host, Mr. Lobo, to share even more great goodies and treats that they couldn't pack into the film.....and then, continuing the fine tradition, we'll all watch a rare surprise TV-movie feature from the 70s!
American Scary Dir. John E. Hudgens, 2006, digital presentation, 91 min.
An Autumn Afternoon (Sanma no aji)
1962/color/112 min. | Scr: Yasujiro Ozu, Kogo Noda; dir: Yasujiro Ozu; w/ Shima Iwashita, Chishu Ryu. Keiji Sata.
Yasujiro Ozu's final film, produced the year before his death, is the gently heartbreaking story of a man's dignified resignation to both life's ever-shifting currents and society's gradual modernization. Though widower Shuhei Hirayama (Ozu's frequent leading man Chishu Ryu) has been living contentedly with his only daughter, a series of events leads him to accept and encourage her marriage and departure. An elegantly composed and achingly tender distillation of the Japanese master's oeuvre, An Autumn Afternoon remains one of cinema's fondest farewells. "Such a completely realized example of the Ozu art that it seems impossible he did not intend it to be a kind of testament."—New York Times.
At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul
In a feat of pure will and cinematic street smarts, first-time director Marins took a few scraps of film, a 600 square-foot studio and a miniscule budget pieced together by selling his family's house and car, and created this dazzling garage Guignol masterpiece that rocked Brazil's pop culture and psyche with its extreme violence, taboo-smashing scenes, and the creation of an indelible fully-realized character that would go on to capture the imaginations of horror fans around the world -- Coffin Joe! God-defying and child-loving, philosophizing and self-aggrandizing, sadistic and ballistic, prone to proclamations and exaggerations (usually delivered via maniacally melodramatic monologues in Marins' unique acting style), Coffin Joe debuts here as a fearsome undertaker who terrorizes the citizens with his violent, narcissistic behavior. Just for kicks he ties up a woman and lets spiders crawl over her, and, even more horrifyingly, he voraciously eats meat on Good Friday! One of the great debuts in horror in history.
Dir. José Mojica Marins, 1964, 35mm, 84 min.
AT THE EARTH'S CORE
(from IMDB)
A Victorian era scientist (Peter Cushing) and his assistant (Doug McClure) take a test run in their Iron Mole drilling machine and end up in a strange underground labyrinth ruled by a species of giant telepathic bird and full of prehistoric monsters and cavemen. Dir. Kevin Connor, 1976, 89 mins.
AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS
Louis Malle returns to the days of German occupation during World War II to recount the story of the friendship between two schoolboys, one Jewish and the other Catholic. A winner of many awards, including Best Picture in France. Louis Malle---France---1987---101 mins.
Awakening Of The Beast
Banned for almost 20 years, this surreal and insane catalogue of debauchery was Marins’ most controversial, experimental, and provocative film -- and with a full-on, twenty-minute Technicolor trip sequence inside of Coffin Joe's world, it was also Marins’ most explicitly psychedelic. The movie links together episodic scenes of drug use, orgies, and general moral inequity with a Charlie Kaufman-like meta-story with José Mojica Marins/Coffin Joe debating with critics on the detrimental effect of drugs and phenomena like his films on Brazilian culture. And the climax is a real monster -- a bizarre "experiment" sequence in which our hosts oh-so-scientifically dose four degenerates (of various class and demographics, of course) with LSD, give them a Coffin Joe poster to stare at, and watch them all enter a brightly multi-colored hellscape of Marins' devising. Marins’ relationships with authority had always been mutually acrimonious, but here he sets out to make a film that includes everything the establishment didn't want to see. Awakening of the Beast was a cinematic act of defiance and an aesthetic revolution. Incredible.
Dir. José Mojica Marins, 1970, DigiBeta, 93 min.
BABY DOLL, 1956, Warner Bros., 114 min. Director Elia Kazan’s controversial film stars Carroll Baker in a groundbreaking performance as a thumb-sucking child bride in the deep South. Karl Malden stars as Archie, her middle-aged husband, a cotton gin owner who eagerly awaits his bride’s 20th birthday, when they will finally consummate their marriage. But rival Silva Vaccaro (Eli Wallach in his film debut) suspects Archie of burning down his business and takes an erotic form of Sicilian revenge.
BARAKA, 1992, Magidson Films, 96 min. Inspired by the Sufi word meaning "breath of life," BARAKA is a mind-expanding, spiritual journey around the globe -- shot in 24 countries on five continents -- from director-cinematographer Ron Fricke (who photographed the earlier KOYAANISQATSI) and producer Mark Magidson (the Imax film CHRONOS). Filmed entirely without dialogue in a stunning cascade of crystalline, time-lapse 70mm images, BARAKA is quite simply breathtaking. Discussion following with Mark Magidson (schedule permitting).
Behind the Motion Picture Canvas: Film Formats through the 21st Century
“Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.” – Martin Scorsese
The motion picture aspect ratio isn’t just a frame for the picture; in the hands of an accomplished filmmaker, the aspect ratio can have a significant influence on the storytelling process. Join Science and Technology Council member Rob Hummel for an illustrated lecture that traces the history of motion picture formats from the silent era through the 21st century. “Behind the Motion Picture Canvas” will examine the role that emerging technology has played in the evolution of film formats, and how the technical choices made by Thomas Edison and William Dickson at the dawn of the film era continue to influence the way we look at movies today.
The program will include clips from such films as “The Great Train Robbery” (1903, full aperture 1.33:1), “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938, Academy aperture 1.37:1), “White Christmas” (1954, VistaVision 1.85:1), “Lady and the Tramp” (1955, CinemaScope 2.55:1), “Sleeping Beauty” (1959, Technirama 70 2.2:1, Composed for 2.55:1), “The Sound of Music” (1965, Todd-AO 65mm 2.2:1), “Ryan’s Daughter” (1970, Super Panavision 65mm 2.2:1), “Silverado” (1985, Super 35 2.40:1), and “The Accidental Tourist” (1988, Panavision 2.40:1).
Cinematographers, including John Bailey, Stephen Burum, Allen Daviau and Caleb Deschanel, will be on hand to discuss the role of film formats in shaping their creative decisions, including the technical constraints and the creative opportunities that the choice of a film format brings to a motion picture.
Being There
(1979 92 mins)
Director Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude) teams up with comic genius Peter Sellers and Shirley Maclaine for this hilarious magical comedy. Sellers plays Chance, a man who has grown up sequestered within the walls of an estate with only television to keep him company. When evicted, he emerges into the world, his innocence in uproarious contrast to the realities of the city. when people mistake his naivete for deep wisdom, he becomes an influential celebrity, but can his fresh simplicity change the world? Like Harold and Maude, this is a hilarious, moving and intelligent fairy tale.
djs jimi hey and ian marshall spin before and after the screening
BIRTHRIGHT
(1938) Directed by Oscar Micheaux
Micheaux’s second adaptation of T. S. Stribling’s novel (he had directed a silent version in 1924) concerns the struggle of an accomplished Harvard graduate to institute a school for Black children in his Southern hometown. He faces roadblocks along the way from both black and white characters, as the effect of Jim Crow laws repeatedly reveal themselves, etched upon social structures and behaviors and squelching the possibility of social betterment. One of Micheaux’s most politically charged features.
Restored by the Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center.
Micheaux Pictures Corp.. Based on the novel by T. S. Stribling. Producer: Oscar Micheaux, A. Burton Russell. Screenwriter: Oscar Micheaux. Cinematographer: Robert J. Marshall. Cast: Laura Bowman, Tom Dillon, Columbus Jackson, Herbert E. Jelley, Allen Lee. 35mm, B/W, 75 min.
BLACK MOON, 1975, Janus Films, 100 min. Out of circulation for years – at least in the USA - director Louis Malle’s hard-to-see surrealist, adult fairy tale finally became available again thanks to Janus Films. Fifteen-year-old Cathryn Harrison (granddaughter of Rex) is fleeing cross-country in the wake of a war between men and women, finding refuge in a manor (director Malle’s own estate) inhabited by an old lady (Therese Giehse) and a brother and sister (Joe Dallesandro, Alexandra Stewart). Much of the film is set to music and sound effects, with a minimum of dialogue spoken (some of it from animals!). Malle purposely defies logic at every turn, conjuring a world of dreams - and nightmares - as refuge from the crushing tyranny of modern reality. Unicorns, wild naked children, the breastfeeding of an old woman, and a gigantic pig all figure into the mix. Unique and wonderfully strange.
BLACK PANTHER FILMS - 8pm - Rare films on the powerful movement which had provocative rhetoric, militant posture and cultural & political flourishes that permanently altered the contours of American Identity. With the Ten-Point program “What We Want, What We Believe,” they called for "Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace", and captured in uncompromising language the collective economic and political grievances articulated by black radical and many black liberals since the 1930s. 6pm-rare James Brown, Sly Stone and P-Funk films.
THE BLOOD OF JESUS
(1941) Directed by Spencer Williams
Williams’ first and most famous feature depicts the struggle for the soul of a rural woman, Martha, who hovers between life and death after an accidental shooting in her home. The film is striking for the pitch of its religious fervor, and for its construction of an afterlife in which a handsome tempter, sent by Lucifer, leads Martha’s suspended soul to hot nightclubs and other scenes of pleasure; these alternating with dreamy religious tableaux. Williams himself costars as Martha’s husband, Razz, also in need of redemption and profoundly changed by his wife’s near-death experience.
Amegro Films. Producer: Alfred N. Sack. Screenwriter: Spencer Williams. Cinematographer: Jack Whitman. Cast: Cathryn Caviness, Spencer Williams, Juanita Riley, Reather Hardeman, Rogenia Goldthwaite. 35mm, B/W, 57 min.
BODY AND SOUL
(1925) Directed by Oscar Micheaux
Micheaux’s masterpiece stars iconic Paul Robeson in his first screen role as an escaped convict, posing as a preacher in a small town. Behind the cloak of goodness, Robeson preaches his congregation into a frenzy—while working crooked deals around town and molesting "Isabelle," a young woman whose mother hopes to marry her to this virtuous man. This indictment of the power of the clergy is driven by Robeson’s bravura performance (actually a double-role, as he also portrays Isabelle’s kindly boyfriend), matched by the chilling, blind fervor of Julia Theresa Russell as Isabelle’s pious mother.
Preservation funded by George Eastman House
Micheaux Pictures Corp.. Producer: Oscar Micheaux. Screenwriter: Oscar Micheaux. Cast: Paul Robeson, Mercedes Gilbert, Julia Theresa Russell, Lawrence Chenault, Marshall Rogers. 35mm, silent, 102 min.
Bollyweird! Indian Musical Madness Mix
One thing they really understand in India is that every movie's better with a song-and-dance number. So, every one of their films has got'em. And we mean every movie. Be it a horror film, cop flick, inspirational disability drama or E.T. rip-off, someone's gonna start singing and dancing. And what glittery golden gods of the dance floor they are! Tonight we celebrate the Indian cinema's passion with a selection of greatest hits -- a la Mondo! We've carefully culled through hours and hours and hours of Indian film -- and that's per movie! -- to find our favorite Bollywood musical moments, from the silly and strange to the sublime and sensational. We've got an hour-long mix of Krush Groove Krishnas doing the Electric Vindaloo, while Superman and Spidergirl shimmy together in greenscreen nirvana. Then, when it's all over, we're gonna kick back and watch Mahakaal, the Bollywood version of A Nightmare On Elm Street. 'Cause you know what's missing from A Nightmare on Elm Street? Disco dancing. Lots and lots of disco dancing.
The Boxer’s Omen
wizard battle night!
(feat. the boxer’s omen)
Live! One night only! At the Silent Movie Theatre! See the ultimate video-mixed martial arts showdown between good and evil, demon and priest, wizard and ghost. Every good Kung Fu Halloween flick ends with a wicked SFX-laden wizard battle, and you're gonna see the best of the bunch. Witness wizened martial arts Merlins -- who can put you in a half-nelson with just their manly, three-foot eyebrows -- take on black magic sorcerers who use Xtreme incense burning and stone-cold Sanskrit prayers to conjure chakra-shocking creatures and hurl dharma dropkicks. And, blessed Buddha, then we're gonna watch the Wizard Battle movie to end all Wizard Battle movies -- the hexadelical, unstoppable, incredible piece of eye terrorism known as The Boxer's Omen. Guaranteed mug-melter or your money back.
Bronson
(with director Nick Refn in person!)
The Cinefamily presents a special sneak preview of Bronson, the story of Britain’s most violent and expensive prisoner, the ultra-violent career criminal Charles Bronson. With an unnervingly bizarre and disturbing performance by Tom Hardy that fills every minute of the film, and a aggressive and effective storytelling style (our protagonist narrates his tale to an anonymous audience from an Edwardian music hall stage, whilst dressed as a circus strongman), Bronson is a can’t miss experience. Directed by Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn, known for the Pusher trilogy, Bronson is a virtuosic explosion of style filled with twisted theatrical imagery, the music of Wagner, Puccini, and the Pet Shop Boys, and a truly terrifying portrayal of Britain’s most notorious criminal. The latest, greatest gangster film in a long tradition of badass British thrillers.
Dir. Nicholas Winding Refn, 2009, 35mm, 92 min.
Catch Us If You Can
British Invasion mix night (feat. Catch Us If You Can)
It's British invasion mix night at the Cinefamily, and you know what that means. Grab your mates, find a dishy bird or bloke, and get fancy with a flood of fad footage. Telly specials, promo vids, and live rock-outs of the best that Britain brought across the pond to America. Rarely seen scenes from obscure movies and parodies will round the mix out. The, stick around, and have a beer with us to watch Catch Us If You Can, and all will be tickitty-boo. A surprising first film by director John Boorman (Deliverance, Point Blank), this pop Noir rock-'n-roll vehicle for the Dave Clarke Five strays from the rockumentary-fiction structure set forth by films like A Hard Days Night. More serious and sad, Catch Us If You Can is a tale of a media sweetheart rebelling against the machine that groomed him.
Dir. John Boorman, 1965, 35mm, 91 min.
CITY OF FEAR
(from IMDB)
An escaped convict headed to Los Angeles has gotten hold of a substance known as Cobalt-60, a radioactive powder that is explosive enough to blow the city off the map. What he doesn't know is that exposure to the element is slowly killing him, and the authorities must find him and the Cobalt-60 before that happens.
A City of Sadness (Bei qing cheng shi)
1989/color/157 min. | Scr: Wu Nianzhen, Zhu Tianwen; dir: Hou Hsiao-hsien; w/ Tony Leung, Hsin Shu-fen, Chen Sown-yung.
The first ever Chinese-language film to win the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival, Hou Hsiao-hsien's landmark epic uses the story of a single family to reflect the most chaotic period in Taiwan's history: four years that witness the end of Japanese occupation, mass migrations from the mainland, and the rise of martial law. With its rapt camerawork and spellbinding mise-en-scène, A City of Sadness masterfully contrasts the clashes of the gangster underworld with the clandestine struggles of the independence movement. The film officially broke four decades' silence on the country's transition into dictatorship, particularly the fateful uprising of February 28 1947. It also gained sudden, inadvertent poignancy by being released in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre. "As always with Hou, the human dimension is paramount…given the panoramic sweep, Hou turns in a masterpiece of small gestures and massive resonance."—Time Out.
THE CITY OF THE DEAD
(a.k.a Horror Hotel)
(1960) Directed by John Moxey
Sometimes compared to Psycho for its doubled narrative structure, The City of The Dead begins with college student Nan Barlow visiting the fog-shrouded town of Whitewood, Massachusetts, the site of a notorious witch burning in 1692, in order to research her thesis on the Occult. When Nan goes missing, her brother and boyfriend investigate and uncover a terrifying, centuries-old satanic conspiracy beyond their wildest nightmares. Director John Moxey makes the most of his low-budget circumstances with expressionist panache zooming into looming faces and bathing every corner with shadows and fog.
Producer: Donald Taylor, Milton Subotsky, Max Rosenberg. Screenplay: George Baxt. Cinematographer: Desmond Dickinson. Cast: Patricia Jessel, Betta St. John, Christopher Lee. 35mm, B/W, 78 min.
THE CLOUDED YELLOW
(1951) Directed by Ralph Thomas
When British secret service agent (Trevor Howard) gets the axe, he finds a job cataloging butterflies for an eccentric family, the Fentons, on a remote English estate. But this seemingly benign business is fraught with danger once he falls for his boss’s niece Sophie (Jean Simmons), a troubled young woman who is accused of murdering a local farmhand. Determined to prove her innocence before the cops can arrest her, the pair embark on a thrilling chase across Britain’s Lake District. With echoes of both Gaslight and Hitchcock, The Clouded Yellow is a thoroughly entertaining thriller.
Based on the story by J. Green. Producer: Betty E. Box. Screenplay: Janet Green. Cinematographer: Geoffrey Unsworth. Editor: Gordon Hales. Cast: Trevor Howard, Jean Simmons, Sonia Dresdel, Barry Jones. 35mm, B/W, 95 min.
The Criminal
This print was flown in from Paris for a brief tour of the U.S., so don't miss a chance to see this great genre B-side from art house auteur Joseph Losey. Blacklisted from the American film industry, Losey emigrated to the U.K. to get work, and eventually made this killer British gangster flick which presages the smiling, suited sociopaths and double-crossers that populate the rest of this series. Set alternately amongst the posh London set and grueling prison scenes, with a dash of wintery landscapes, The Criminal has all the hallmarks of those later classics: great outfits, sexy "birds," and a gruelingly foreboding paranoia that seems to pull these working-class psychos down into the muck with each passing frame. With cockeyed German Expressionist angles, a jazzy score, skilled long takes and crazed performances, The Criminal is a vital, stylish film that's sure to look fantastic in all its black-and-white glory on the silver screen.
Dir. Joseph Losey, 1960, 35mm, 97 min.
THE CRIMSON KIMONO
(from IMDB)
Classic, hard-to-find Sam Fuller pic is intriguing noir about two detective partners, one caucasian and one Japanese, who try to solve a complicated murder case. Unfortunately, trouble arises when along the way, both of them fall in love with the key witness. Dir. Sam Fuller, 1959, 82. mins.
Crips and Bloods: Made in America
Directed by Stacy Peralta
Produced by Baron Davis, Dan Halsted, Peralta, Jesse Dylan
Tracing the origins, rise and four-decades-long feud of two Los Angeles gangs, “Crips and Bloods: Made in America” (previously titled “Made in America”) gives viewers unprecedented access into a little understood world. Current and former gang members offer street-level testimony that paints a stark portrait of life in South Central L.A. Digital. 93 mins.
CRISS CROSS
Interesting film noir study with Burt Lancaster as a petty crook, Yvonne DeCarlo as his ex-wife and Dan Duryea as her shady new boyfriend. With Tony Curtis in his film debut as DeCarlo's dance partner. One of the best sleazy underworld films of the 1940s and remade in 1995 by Steven Soderbergh as Underneath. Robert Siodmak---USA---1949---87 mins.
Damned: The Strange World of José Mojica Marins
The only thing stranger than the Coffin Joe films is the story of the man who made them. José Mojica Marins spent his childhood literally living in a movie theatre, and -- with almost no education or financial support -- began making awesome and outrageous horror movies on Ed Wood-like budgets that turned him into a pop sensation and a household name. This Sundance award-winning documentary uses interviews, a wealth of archival footage and clips from the films themselves to tell the tales of Marins’ unconventional methods (including fear tests for actresses with live spiders and snakes, and burying an actor alive), his long-standing battle with censors and authorities, and his seemingly-cursed productions. Lovingly made, informative, and fun, The Strange World of José Mojica Marins is a wonderful primer for those unfamiliar with Coffin Joe, and total paydirt for those who are already fans.
Dirs. André Barcinski & Ivan Finotti, 2001, DigiBeta, 65 min.
The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (Daijiga umule pajinnal)
1996/color/115 min. | Scr: Hyo-seo Ko; dir: Hong Sang-soo; w/ Kim Eui-sung, Cho Eun-suk, Lee Eung-kyung, Park Jin-song.
Against a backdrop of urban desolation, four seemingly unconnected lives become intertwined in Hong's debut film, winner of the prestigious Dragons and Tigers Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival. "Almost a sociological report on what it is like to be living in Seoul in 1996… an unsettling vision of everyday life as the familiar and routine take on an increasingly unfamiliar and terrifying edge."—Tony Rayns.
Devil's Express
At the dawn of the 80s, Hong Kong horror had transformed into a slimy cinematic beast. Demonic possession was in vogue, and movie screens overflowed with poor hexed souls with bright green exploding boils, brand new fangs and claws, and heads that don't just rotate but split open and reveal more heads. But in Hong Kong, instead of vomiting green pea soup, the cursed downtrodden puke bugs, snakes and all manner of creepy-crawlies. And the worm-puking film to beat all worm-puking films is coming your way: Devil's Express! Worms, worms and more worms. We're talking a fixation of wormy sliminess so obsessive and lingering it borders on pornographic. This must set some kind of record for onscreen slimy, buggy gross-outs and grotesque black magic bug-outs. Coughing up worms, worms coming out of severed limbs, and guess what happens when you open up a chest cavity for surgery -- it's filled with squirmin' worms! And as a added extra, we're gonna supply you with even more bonus footage of killer snakes, lewd lizards, and centipede horrors.
Dir. Jen Chieh Chang, 1981, 35mm, 86 min.
The Devil's Eye
The Devil does more than play chess. He also sometimes suffers from acute inflammation of the secretory glands of the eyelid, as we learn from the (made-up) Irish proverb, "A woman's chastity is a sty in the Devil's eye" which provides the basis for this 1960 production. The impetus for the film came from Bergman's producer, who was worried that The Virgin Spring would not turn a profit, and wanted a surefire comedy for insurance. The result was this tale of Don Juan harrowed back from hell to tempt a virtuous bride-to-be into sin, thus clearing up the Devil's ocular distress before it progresses to giant papillary conjunctivitis. It tackles the classic Bergmanian existential themes, but in a one-off, theatrical manner, comparable to Smiles of a Summer Night for its exploration of the bawdy side of folklore.
Dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1960, 35mm, 87 min.
Dewanatron!:
The Eerie Electronic Sounds of the Diabolical Dewans!
Brian Dewan makes his terrifyingly triumphant return to the Cinefamily with cousin Leon Dewan; together as Dewanatron they've come to tickle your spooky bone. Mad musical scientists that they are, they will tend to their self-created musical machines for an October harvest of spooky silent shorts featuring ghostly horror, monster pathos, and creepy experiments. Some instruments hang on the wall and unsettlingly play themselves. Some, such as the Dual Primate Console, require not one, but two people to make them sing. The demented Dewan brothers have scored early animations, Soviet cartoons, Castle educatonal films and even Fritz Lang's Metropolis with their spooktacular devices. Like a carnival side show, freaky and fun, they will reveal their collection of sonic music-making machines and aurally weird you out.
DILLINGER IS DEAD
(from IMDB)
Back home, Glauco, an industrial designer, finds his wife in bed with a serious headache. She has left him dinner but it is cold and Glauco decides to prepare himself a gourmet meal. While looking for some kitchenware, he discovers a revolver wrapped in a newspaper dating from 1934 announcing the death of famed mobster John Dillinger. Dir. Marco Ferreri, 1969, 90 mins.
DIRTY GERTIE FROM HARLEM, U.S.A.
(1946) Directed by Spencer Williams
Another collaboration between Williams and writer True T. Thompson, this eccentric comedy (adapted from a W. Somerset Maugham short story) features Francine Everett as reckless, sexy cabaret performer Gertie LaRue, who has taken a job in a Caribbean resort after cheating her lover (and meal ticket) back in New York. In no time at all, she’s vamping the men in her new home, to the consternation of straight-laced Mr. Christian (Hawkins). The comic turns in this unlikely yarn stand in marked contrast to the melodramas of Williams’ early career, displaying his versatility and range.
Sack Amusement Enterprises. Based on the story "Miss Thompson" by W. Somerset Maugham. Producer: Bert Goldberg, Alfred N. Sack. Screenplay: True T. Thompson. Cinematographer: John L. Herman. Cast: Francine Everett, Don Wilson, Katherine Moore. 16mm, 65 min.
Dr. Cyclops
Director Ernest Schoedsack and an uncredited assist from Merian C. Cooper (best known as one of the team behind King Kong) together prove yet again that size matters -- this time in reverse. Character actor Albert Dekker stomps the terra as a mad jungle genius who responds to those who dare attempt to thwart his quest to harness “the cosmic force of creation” by shrinking them to the size of lab rats. From there, cotton ball asphyxia is just one of the jumbo horrors faced by our half-pint heroes. If a combination of matte work, split-screens, and scaled-down sets wasn’t pleasing enough, Dr. Cyclops is probably the only film to capture these OG effects in two-strip Technicolor, making it an extra-special treat.
Dir. Ernest Schoedsack, 77 Minutes, 35mm, 1940
Doctor X
Rape! Prostitution! Voyeurism! Cannibalism! Technicolor! For 1932, you may wonder which was the most shocking? The answer is -- Technicolor! 'Cause in those pre-Code glory days, it was anything goes! Join Lionel Atwill’s intrepid Dr. Xavier and his beautiful blonde daughter (Fay Wray) on the hunt for the voracious and rapacious "Moon Killer”, who's been preying on the hookers and charwomen of Lower Manhattan. Unavailable for decades, this adaptation of the Howard W. Comstock/Allen C. Miller stage play was greenlit by Warner Brothers (with not atypical foresight) as part of an attempt to get out of their contract to make six films with Technicolor's newfangled and obviously dead-end process. Released before King Kong, this marks the first genre appearance of Wray, who enters...screaming.
Dir. Michael Curtiz, 1932, 35mm, 76 min.
Don’t Go In The House
Next, we're showing Don’t Go In The House, a gritty, disturbing and blackly comic portrait of a pyromaniac struggling to cope with his abusive mother's death. Don’t Go In The House is best described as Psycho Redux -- with flamethrowers! Beautifully shot by Oliver (The Bourne Ultimatum) Wood. Not for the fainthearted! Dir. Joseph Ellison, 1980, 35mm.
DRIVE, HE SAID
(1971) Directed by Jack Nicholson
All college senior Hector wants to do is play basketball. At least, that’s what he thought. As student radicals, lead by Hector’s roommate, stir things up and his fling with a professor’s wife gets complicated, Hector begins to question everything that once seemed so clear. In his directorial debut, Jack Nicholson strips the usual campus coming-of-age story of clichés and artifice to present a sharp, smart portrait of college life in the 1960s.
Columbia Pictures. Based on the novel by Jeremy Larner. Producer: Steve Blauner, Jack Nicholson. Screenwriter: Jack Nicholson, Jeremy Larner. Cinematographer: Bill Butler. Cast: William Tepper, Karen Black, Michael Margotta, Bruce Dern. DVcam, 95 min.
Duel
(w/ live score by The Watts Ensemble)
Duel: the 1971 man-vs.-evil-gigantic-truck TV-movie thriller that sent a 25-year-old Steven Spielberg on his way to becoming one of cinema's most major directors. The Watts Ensemble: a 13-piece crime jazz "arkestra" started by a punk-rock drummer with no formal compositional training, but the ear of a Stravinsky-damaged Devo fan. Tonight: they're pitted against each other for a sound-and-vision battle royal. Duel stands out in the Spielberg canon for its extended sequences of pure image; in a one-time only experiment, we're going to turn it into the silent film it was meant to be,—and bring back the sound and fury in a full free jazz wall of sound. Action, adventure--and arpeggios--will fly.
Dir. Steven Spielberg, 35mm, 1971, 90 min.
Embodiment Of Evil
“Higher than God. Lower than Satan.” Marins’ demonically anticipated, decades-delayed finale to the "Zé do Caixão" trilogy is finally here! More than 45 years after the underbelly of Brazilian cinema was re-carved in his image, Marins has been blessed with the biggest budget ever afforded to him, giving him access to larger, crazier sets and state-of-the-art special effects through which he could unleash his most twisted of visions. This is also the first time that Marins has made a film entirely free of censorial constraints. There will be moments when you absolutely will not believe what you’re seeing! Grotesquery and surrealism abound, drenched in sex, poetry, blasphemy and blood. Spiders crawl over torsos both living and dead, Zé takes a fantastical journey through a giant uterus, hooks tear flesh, and bodies tear in half. Politically charged and unrepentantly transgessive, Embodiment of Evil marks the return of a wildly unique maverick of the fantastic, rougher, freakier, more perverse than he’s ever been before. Your blackest prayers are about to be answered. -- Mitch Davis, Fantasia Festival
Dir. José Mojica Marins, 2008, DigiBeta. 94 min.
THE ENTITY
Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey) awakes one evening as she is being raped by a terrifying, unseen entity. As the attacks continue, she finds that her friends and family simply think she is going crazy. Can a parapsychologist free her from the torment? An under-rated, creepy horror sleeper. Sidney J. Furie---Great Britain---1982---125 mins.
Ere Erera Baleibu Icik Subua Aruaren
José Antonio Sistiaga: Ere Erera Baleibu Icik Subua Aruaren
(w/ new live score by Savage Republic)
“Basque abstract artist José Antonio Sistiaga painted directly onto film with homemade inks to create this silent 1970 feature. But Sistiaga’s strangely titled work… is different from the films of Stan Brakhage, who didn’t come to film from painting and had his own rhythm. […] [I]ts combination of color and 35-millimeter ‘scope (with about half an hour in black and white) yields the kind of spectacle one associates with musicals and [science fiction] epics.” -- Jonathan Rosenbaum
A hand-painted masterpiece of the 1970s; a legendary band of the 1980s. Sistiaga’s rarely-screened ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren is a work of uncompromising beauty that absolutely deserves a wider appreciation. Savage Republic, one of the unrecognized godfathers of post-rock, formed roughly three decades ago in the midst of the Los Angeles punk rock scene and abruptly disbanded in 1989. In recent years, they’ve reformed and their unique sound (somewhat akin to a Middle Eastern surf band backed by the rhythm section from Joy Division) is as compelling and inexorable as ever. Original members Ethan Port and Thom Fuhrmann, joined by Alan Waddington and Kerry Dowling, will perform their newly commissioned score to Sistiaga’s prodigious work (presented in a stunning 35mm print from Paris.)
EVERY TIME I SEE YOUR PICTURE I CRY
Awarded the 2008 Images Prize at its premiere, Daniel Barrow's newest "manual animation" combines overhead projection with video, music, and live narration to tell the story of a garbage man with a vision to create an independent phone book chronicling the lives of each person in his city. In the late hours of the night, he sifts through garbage, collecting personal information and then traces pictures of each citizen through the windows of their homes as they sleep. What he doesn't yet realize is that a deranged killer is trailing him, murdering each citizen he includes in his book, thus rendering his cataloging efforts obsolete. The garbageman is a failed artist who fears becoming subject to the grip of something overwhelming. This animation traces his attempts to slow down and creatively reflect, in a process of coming to terms with his own self-loathing and fear.
Finis Hominis (End of Man)
Financially crippled by the banning of Awakening of the Beast, and threatened with imprisonment if he ever dared release it, Marins decided with his next film to abandon his gruesome obsessions, and emphasize the fantastical imagination and elemental myth-making skills that led critics to compare him to Bunuel, Arrabal and Jodorowsky. So exit Coffin Joe, and enter Finis Hominis - -a wholly new archetypal creation that, in a sly wink to his censors, is the Jungian opposite of his evil-embodying Coffin Joe character. Or is he? Who is this benevolent, messianic Christ-figure who emerges naked from the sea, puts on the outfit of a sideshow fakir, and goes about leaving a trail of happiness and spiritual fulfillment wherever he goes? Stripped of the horror elements that usually cloak Marins' vision in blood and guts, what is laid bare by Finis Hominis is a director capable of focusing his feelings and observations into intriguing and personal parables -- a philosopher, and an artist.
Dir. José Mojia Marins, 1971, DigiBeta 79 min.
The Five Minutes Game:
Mom 'N Pop Video Shoppe Edition & Cinefamily Labor Day BBQ
We here at the Cinefamily love two things in tandem: busting out the patio grill, and an onslaught of deranged video--so we're closing out a whole summer's worth of nonstop partying with another installment of our highly popular and always-unpredictable Five Minutes Game! What's all this about a game, you ask? We're firm believers in "Every movie is interesting for at least its first five minutes", those fascinating moments when you're still entering the new world a film presents you, and trying to figure out what the hell's going on. What we're gonna do is choose fifteen movies you've likely never seen before (with most, if not all of the films unavailable on DVD), line 'em up, and only show you the first five minutes of each. After all that, you, the audience, gets to vote on which film out of the fifteen we all then watch in its entirety. And, to kick off the evening's presentation, we'll be showing a short doc of our own creation, which follows the Cinefamily crew as we scour thrift stores & mom 'n pop video shoppes, looking for those extra-rare slabs of Five Minutes Game VHS fodder. So, bring something to cook on our grill, and let's get started!
Footsteps in the Fog
With its eerie staring portraits, hissing black cats, ghostly bells and an angry mob hunting down a murderer through the streets of this London “pea souper,” Footsteps in the Fog lurks just outside the box of balls-out Gothic horror. Stewart Granger plays an Edwardian cad who has murdered his wife, Jeanne Simmons is the ambitious scullery maid who knows he did it and, like Eliza Doolittle's evil twin, she sees it as a way to raise her station quicker than learning an accent. But beyond its raging paranoia and perversity (the screenplay was adapted from a tale by W. W. Jacobs, author of "The Monkey’s Paw") this is a love story, or at least a lust story -- Simmons and Granger's real-life marriage may have helped them generate the smoldering heat that blazes under all their stiff button-down clothes. Captured in gorgeous Technicolor photography by Christopher Challis, who shot many a hypersatured classic for Michael Powell, so you can envelop yourself in all those black carriages, smutty subtext, fog, and muuuuuuurder.
Dir. Arthur Lubin, 1955, 35mm, 90 min.
THE FRESHMAN
(1925) Directed by Sam Taylor and Fred Newmeyer
In this hilarious spoof of the college-set films that Hollywood churned out in the 1920s, Harold Lloyd plays a hapless freshman who sets out to become Big Man on Campus by mimicking the manners of the movie collegians with whom he is obsessed. A perfect showcase for Lloyd’s comedic skills, The Freshman proved to be one of the most successful films of his career.
Musical accompaniment will be provided by Cliff Retallick.
Harold Lloyd Corp. Producer: Harold Lloyd. Screenplay: Sam Taylor, John Grey, Ted Wilde, Tim Wheelan. Cinematographer: Walter Lundin. Cast: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Brooks Benedict. 35mm, silent, 76 min.
The Garden
Directed and produced by Scott Hamilton Kennedy
In response to the 1992 L.A. riots, the South Central Farmers started a 14-acre community garden as a form of healing. As this film unfolds, the future of the garden hangs in the balance as developers look to bulldoze the area. 35mm. 80 mins.
THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN, 1966, Universal, 90 min. Dir. Alan Rafkin. Don Knotts is Luther Heggs, an aspiring journalist who scores a big scoop by spending the night in a haunted house. Dick Sargent, Joan Staley and Skip Homeier also star in this comedy classic for the whole family. Hosted by Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood, The People vs. Larry Flynt). Discussion in between films with comedian Dana Gould and daughter of Don Knotts, actress Karen Knotts.
Gimme Shelter
When the Rolling Stones hired cinema-verite documentary pioneers Albert and David Maysles to film what they hoped would be their own "Woodstock", they couldn't foresee that the concert was doomed from the moment they hired the Hell's Angels as bodyguards--and paid them in beer. Gimme Shelter is the definitive Stones documentary, chronicling their 1969 US tour and culminating in the disastrous Altamont Free Concert. On the road to Altamont, the Maysles catch Mick and the boys in their prime at an electrifying Madison Square Garden performance, and capture every moment of intensity, tragedy, and rock 'n roll. Watch music history as it unfolds, as captured cinematic artists. It's Stones night! Come revisit Keith and the gang, and catch some ultra rare Stones footage -- we got some for ya. Dirs. Albert Maysles, David Maysles & Charlotte Zwerin, 1970, 35mm, 91 min.
THE GIRL IN ROOM 20
(1949) Directed by Spencer Williams
A poignant story of displacement, Williams’ drama concerns Daisy Mae (Brock) who has left her Texas home and sweetheart Dunbar to pursue a singing career. After finding some success at her church and at a local nightclub, she is pursued by a schemer who hopes to turn her into a call girl, until a benevolent friend calls on Dunbar to save her from the city. Surprisingly equivocal in its depiction of both supportive and rapacious black characters, the film is a clear assertion of the dangers that awaiting generations migrating Northward from the rural South, even at mid-century.
United Films. Producer: H. W. Kier. Cinematographer: Frank Brodie, Jack Specht. Editor: H. W. Kier. Cast: Geraldine Brock, Spencer Williams, E. Celese Allen, July Jones, Myra Hemmings. 16mm, B/W, 63 min.
GOKE, BODYSNATCHER FROM HELL (KYUKETSKI GOKEMIDORO), 1968, Janus Films, 84 min. Director Hajime Sato unleashed one of the scariest 1960s sci-fi/horror films with this blend of surreal visuals and a 1950s-style storyline. Opening with a shot of a jetliner against an ominously orange sky (to which Quentin Tarantino paid homage in KILL BILL, VOL.1), Sato plunges us into action as the plane is disabled by a flying saucer and crash-lands in a mountainous desert. Heroic pilot Teruo Yoshida tries to control the panic but can’t keep several passengers from wandering off and promptly getting invaded by a creeping blue gel that turns them into vampiric killers.
GRAND HOTEL, 1932, Warner Bros., 112 min. Director Edmund Goulding orchestrates a dazzling parade of iconographic stars and intersecting subplots. Ballerina Greta Garbo, aristocrat John Barrymore, secretary Joan Crawford and cutthroat mogul Wallace Beery are just a few of the legends who make their way through this classic ensemble drama, a film whose influence can be seen in later films by Robert Altman and P.T. Anderson, among many others. Cedric Gibbons’ stunning Art Deco art direction gives the players an opulent setting for their personal melodramas.
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS, 1939, Paramount, 74 min. A pioneering animated classic from brothers Max and Dave Fleischer (who created Betty Boop and brought Popeye to the screen.) GULLIVER’S TRAVELS was a brave attempt to match the phenomenal popularity of Walt Disney’s SNOW WHITE. Adapted from the first part of Jonathan Swift’s satirical fantasy, the story follows Gulliver as he lands in the miniaturized land of Lilliput and finds that prejudices come in all sizes. Plus, some surprise short films. Animation historian Jerry Beck will introduce the screening.
Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind
Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind is a flat-out freakout multi-movie montage of the most insane footage censored from Marins' entire career up to this film's release, and framed by a self-reflexive plot about a man driven to madness by the films, who's convinced that Coffin Joe will come to steal his wife. Marins himself is brought in to cure the man, requiring him to scream in his ear repetitively, "Coffin Joe does not exist! Coffin Joe does not exist!", among other things. During the extended hallucination sequences that make up the bulk of the film, everything, (and we mean everything), is infused with a tripped-out delirium. The soundscapes are distorted and hypnotic, the compositions radical, the colors lurid, the editing associative and assaultive, and the images ripe with potent imagery. We can say without hesitation this is one of the top ten mind-blowers in head film history.
Dir. José Mojica Marins, 1978, DigiBeta, 86 min.
A Hard Day's Night
Start screaming, tearing your hair out, and rushing the stage, IT'S THE BEATLES!!!! AHHHHHH!!!! The Fab Four's first feature-length film, A Hard Day's Night, shot in crisp black-and-white, was given the pop commercial visual funhouse treatment by director Richard Lester. With a zany, boppin', almost-mockumentary style, and stellar performance footage throughout, A Hard Day's Night is pure joy, and also clearly marks the crystallized moment in time when these Liverpudlians held the entire world in their hands. All silliness and rock 'n roll aside, you'll come to see that it's hard out there for a Beatle. Watch Paul babysit his grandfather, George get caught up in a case of mistaken identity, John get snarky with everybody, and Ringo suffer relentless teasing, all rounded out with timeless Beatles classics that will make any ear happy and melt all cynicism from the room. AHHHHHH!! With DJs Mark W. & Larry G. from Club Underground spinning before the show and on the patio afterwards. We'll also be playing BEATLES ROCK BAND inside on the big screen during the evening!
Dir. Richard Lester, 1964, 35mm, 87 min.
(Print courtesy of UCLA Film and Television Archive)
Haunted Cop Shop
Before he hit the big time with Chungking Express, sensitive art house director Wong Kar-Wai cut his teeth by writing this knockabout scream-fest, starring a young Jacky Cheung who went on to star in many of Wong’s biggest films. Still pretty obscure, and hard to find with English subtitles, it’s the first in a string of “spooky police” films -- this case pits a precinct against a horde of vampiric foes on the day of “The Feast of the Hungry Ghosts,” complete with dire warning from an ex-cop monk. Surprisingly creepy, often hilarious and sometimes wildly tasteless, this 1987 oddity feels like a better version of the Joe Piscopo vehicle Dead Heat with a healthy dose of Eastern action mayhem. Lots of exorcisms, acrobatic feats and a grisly game of mahjong add seasoning to a fun stew that manages to take its scares very seriously while tickling your funny bone.
Dir. Jeffrey Lau, 1987, 35mm.
The Haunting
Robert Wise adapted Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House into one of filmdom’s most memorable horror films.
A paranormal investigator (Richard Johnson) decides to investigate a 90-year old haunted house aided by two women with recent psychic experiences (Julie Harris and Claire Bloom) and the owner’s skeptical nephew (Russ Tamblyn).
A true ghost story of the first degree, THE HAUNTING is perfect spook fare to put you in the Halloween spirit.
Presented In 35mm black and white and CinemaScope. (M-G-M, 1963)
Is the Alex Haunted?
Join World renowned Psychic-Medium & Parapsychological Investigator Michael J. Kouri who will appear live on stage!
Runs 2 1/2 hrs.
HAUSU (HOUSE), 1977, Janus Films, 87 min. This long-lost fantasy/horror masterpiece from director Nobuhiko Obayashi has finally surfaced in America. Oshare can’t wait to spend the summer with her father…until he informs her that he plans to remarry. She decides to go away with some friends to visit an estranged aunt…who, unbeknownst to the girls is immortal and can only remain that way by feeding on virgins. Her evil house, with its girl-devouring piano, does the killing for her. Based on an idea given to the director by his then 7-year-old daughter. With Kimiko Ikegami.
Haxan
(w/ new live score by Eddie Ruscha)
The beautifully disturbing 1922 granddaddy of all shockumentaries, Haxan employs a variety of techniques to weave its historic tale of the occult. Mixing and mashing actual documentary footage with "re-enactments" and slide shows (one of such slide shows was so famously used in the opening of The Exorcist), Danish director Benjamin Christensen made a film full of vivid and haunting visuals just waiting to be underscored by an audial equivalent. Enter Eddie Ruscha (of Future Pigeon), a gifted artist and electronic experimental musician with a score he composed to complement the film, one that wowed audiences at the Hammer earlier this year.
Dir. Benjamin Christensen, digital presentation, 1922, 74 min.
HELL DRIVERS
(1957) Directed by Cy Endfield
Cy Endfield, another of this series’ refugees from the Hollywood blacklist, delivers a raw critique of capitalist exploitation in the form of a full-throttle thriller. Stanley Baker plays an ex-con who drifts into a job hauling gravel for Hawlett’s, a trucking company where only the desperate need apply. Spurred on by openly ruthless management, marginal men—including pious, naive "Italian" Herbert Lom and a young Sean Connery—vie to beat the pace set by the unhinged Irishman at the wheel of truck Number 1: Patrick McGoohan, before he was The Prisoner’s Number 6. There’s plenty of action in the rattle and roar of trucks careening along country roads, but the film’s suspense comes from social pressures rather than speed as the rivalry between Baker and McGoohan becomes increasingly explosive. The ultimate use of all those rocks is never mentioned; hauling endless tons of cargo in a race none of them can ever really win, the drivers are embodiments of labor as a road to nowhere. —Juliet Clark, Pacific Film Archive.
Based on a story by J. Kruse. Screenplay: Cy Endfield, John Kruse. Cinematographer: Geoffrey Unsworth. Cast: Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins, Patrick McGoohan, William Hartnell. 35mm, B/W, 108 min.
Hell's Bells:
The Cinefamily Mondo Remix
If Halloween is the Devil's favorite holiday, then surely heavy metal is his favorite music. Our Sound of Horror series ends with a mind-bending, soul-stealing, ear-shattering tribute to the Satanic roots of heavy metal -- from the born-again perspective. As our primary source material, we're doing a remix of Hell's Bells -- an incredibly well-argued and researched Craig Baldwin-esque video essay exposing heavy metal's awesome power to corrupt our youth. Witness how rock and roll mocks Christ, tempts the libido and promotes the worship of Satan, all through album covers, music videos, backwards messages and occult iconography. Convincing as hell, you'll believe rock n' roll is stuff of Beelzebub -- turn it up! And, as our final piece of damning evidence, we present a live performance from hell's houseband Nilbog, specializing in covers of themes from our favorite horror movies.
Horror of Dracula
The poster child for pre-Exorcist modern horror, Hammer’s thrilling and unapologetically blood-stained adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel made bona fide movie stars out of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. And, fifty years after the fact, Horror of Dracula remains a tent pole of the horror genre. Director Terence Fisher and cinematographer Jack Asher use the lush palate of Technicolor to create the first romantic and fully seductive vampire film. Not since the heyday of the Universal monster rallies had a nightmare-scape seemed so palpably alive, and able to infect the waking world. Lee brings to his undying Count all of the “wrath and fury” that Jonathan Harker wrote home about. “This is better than Citizen Kane,” somebody once said. “And it’s in color.” Technicolor, to be precise.
Dir. Terence Fisher, 1958, 35mm, 82 min.
HORSE FEATHERS
(1932) Directed by Norman McLeod
The Marx Brothers turn their inimitable comic anarchy lose on the campus Huxley U. where Groucho, as Prof. Quincy Adams Wagstaff, has just been installed as Dean. There’s a plot involving the college widow and the big football game but who cares? The Brothers’ fourth outing with Paramount and their second with director Norman Z. McLeod, Horse Feathers is one of the funniest of their career.
Paramount. Producer: Adolph Zukor. Screenplay: Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S. J. Perelman, Will B. Johnstone. Cinematographer: Ray June. Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, Thelma Todd. 35mm, 68 min.
The Impossible Kid
Mondo Macabro mix night (feat. The Impossible Kid)
Mommy, what's a Mondo mix? Well, Mondo mixes are Cinefamily's signature homemade long-form modern video montages of found footage madness that can blow your mind and put a smile on your face, may or may not be hazardous to your health, renew or destroy your faith in humanity -- but just might change your life. We promise. So would you like a little Mondo with your Mondo? 'Cause tonight's it's Mondo is "Mondo" Mondo Macabro! Presto! We whisk you away to the furthest corners of the world to see clip after obscure clip of exploitation insanity. Allegro! First, we leap to the rural shanty screenings of Indonesia. Demento! Off we go to the literal underworld VHS-vendor catacombs of Lagos, Nigeria. Not enough for you fellow mondo masochist globetrotters? Fear not, next we celebrate the biggest l’il superstar of Mondo Macabro -- the late great 2'9"-tall James Bond of the Phillipines: Weng Weng! We'll screen his best moments, then watch The Impossible Kid his rare follow-up to For Y'ur Height Only. Viva Weng Weng!
In a Dream
Directed by Jeremiah Zagar
Produced by Jeremy Yaches
Over the past four decades, artist Isaiah Zagar has covered Philadelphia with mosaic murals. “In a Dream” chronicles this work and his tumultuous relationship with his wife, as a new chapter in their life unfolds. Digital. 78 mins.
THE INFORMANT! 2009, Warner Bros., 108 min. Dir. Steven Soderbergh. Matt Damon stars as Mark Whitacre, the highest-ranking executive ever to turn corporate whistleblower. Based on Kurt Eichenwald’s 2000 book, "The Informant!" follows the bipolar, Ivy League Ph.D. executive at giant food conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland who exposed the company’s price-fixing tactics. Steven Soderbergh reunites with OCEAN’S ELEVEN collaborator Damon for another blend of populist entertainment and docudrama along the lines of the director’s ERIN BROCKOVICH. Discussion following with producer Gregory Jacobs.
Jeff Perkins' Light Show
"Light sculptures hover in space, slowly growing and merging into primitive, but at the same time, futuristic forms. The present, the rational world, is erased. Hypnotic, entrancing and unpredictable, they awaken the unconscious mind, and evoke primordial, inchoate existences pre-dating H. P. Lovecraft's ancient Cthulu gods. The dreamer journeys into numberless spaces, worlds beyond comprehension which change and merge, collapse and grow into archetypes of a primeval, timeless connection with the fetal mind." -- Peter Mays
Alongside artists such as Nam Jun Paik and Yoko Ono, Jeff Perkins was a member of the Fluxus group in the mid-1960s and later in the early '70s, an innovator and practitioner of psychedelic light shows as a member of California’s Single Wing Turquoise Bird (who played live along with rock bands like The Velvet Underground and The Grateful Dead). First performed in the late '60s and early 70’s in Venice, CA, his light projection pieces are highly minimal but not at all static. This evening, Jeff will be performing a live set (with a special musical guest), using hundreds of slides and four projectors. The slow flickering dissolves, from patterns to minimal shapes, will optically trick the mind into thinking it's a constant moving image -- a show not to be missed.
JUKE JOINT
(1947) Directed by Spencer Williams
Williams shines as star and director in this rural comedy about two con men posing as famous actors, who take rooms in a boarding house and coach the landlord’s daughter for a beauty pageant. True T. Thompson’s screenplay offers rich material for several characters doing hilarious comic turns; chiefly Williams himself as Bad News Johnson (a.k.a. "Vanderbilt Whitney") and July Jones as cohort "Cornbread" Green. The broadly-drawn characters are as lovable as figures from a Eudora Welty short story. It’s touching to see Williams in such a nuanced part, four years before assuming the role of "Andy" on TV’s The Amos ‘N Andy Show.
Sack Amusement Enterprises. Producer: Bert Goldberg. Screenplay: True T. Thompson. Cinematographer: George Sanderson. Cast: Spencer Williams, July Jones, Inez Newell, Leonard Duncan, Dauphine Moore. 16mm, B/W, 68 min.
KEN JACOBS IN PERSON
"A stereo-photo of an ocean wave slowly turns and churns. The hidden forces of Cinema conspire with an instant of history to produce actions that never were or could be. 3D for everyone (one eye will do)."—Ken Jacobs
One of the key American media artists of the postwar era, Ken Jacobs (Tom, Tom, The Piper’s Son; Star Spangled to Death) has crafted a unique, powerful and ever-evolving body of work over a career that has spanned five decades. Appropriating and reinterpreting existing media artifacts, and subverting conventional modes of presentation, Jacobs has applied his highly original techniques to both formal considerations and social and political topics with equal aplomb.
This program showcases some of Jacobs’ most recent work, much of which creates new forms of three-dimensional depth, and is presented as part of a week-long artist residency in Los Angeles, in cooperation with RedCat, LA Filmforum, and CalArts.
Ken Jacobs: Towards The Depths of The Even Greater Depression
A Nervous Magic Lantern Performance
West Coast premiere
“Makes Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D look as flat as an episode of South Park.” The New York Times
The revered avant-garde filmmaker (Star Spangled to Death) and “paracinema” champion has a repertory of techniques to realize astonishing optical effects. In his live 3-D shows, Jacobs variously manipulates a film projector’s mechanisms, painted plastic cells, and sometimes objects, to summon otherworldly abstractions with vertiginous depth of field. “My self-constructed ‘Lantern’ uses neither film nor video,” he explains. “Abstraction can offer the opportunity to meet and grapple directly with risky situations, taking real chances instead of identifying with some actor-proxy on a movie set. The question of what we are looking at becomes of less urgency than from where in space we are viewing, and where and of what consistency and shape and size is the mass confronting us at any one moment. It might be best to think of what you and others see as a group hallucination.” Jacobs is also screening Disorient Express (1906/1996, 30 min., 35mm, silent).
In person: Ken Jacobs
KISS ME DEADLY
One of the most outlandish finales of all time is just the icing on the cake of this bizarre, one-of-a-kind film, years ahead of its time. Private dick Mike Hammer foils the attempt of some crooks to steal a crate of radioactive materials but finds himself unable to protect the woman he originally signed on to help. The avant garde meets pulp literature in this fast and violent thriller, filled with tilt shots and symbolic imagery, which had a major influence on the young directors of the French New Wave. With Ralph Meeker, Cloris Leachman, and Strother Martin. Robert Aldrich---USA---1955---105 mins.
LACOMBE LUCIEN
This brilliant film by Louis Malle is set during Germany's occupation of France and follows a young French peasant, rejected by the French resistance, who joins the Gestapo instead. His opportunistic role as a collaborator is threatened when he falls in love with a young Jewish girl. The unflattering portrayal of the resistance and the devastating depiction of the amorality of power resulted in a severely negative reaction to the film in France, motivating Malle's move to America. "Malle's film is a long, close look at the banality of evil; it is--not incidentally--one of the least banal movies ever made" (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker). Louis Malle---France---1974---138 mins.
A Lesson In Love
A Lesson In Love was a sublime little comedy Bergman made for fun -- and for the money. As a man and a woman meet on a train, we learn of their past lives and questionable choices, leading to head games and jealousy bringing them together. It's a portrait of a couple wrapped up in the elusive parts of their partner, simultaneously attracted and frustrated. Bergman pulls off the tricky duality of giving you laughs, while also analyzing and dissecting the subtle strings pulled to make relationships work. A warm and touching film that you won’t want to end.
Dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1954, 35mm, 96 min.
Like You Know it All (Jal aljido mothamyeonseo)
2009/color/126 min. | Scr/dir: Hong Sang-soo; w/ Kim Tae-woo, Ko Hyun-jung, Uhm Ji-won.
Rivalries, sexual indiscretions, and communal drinking abound as arthouse filmmaker Ku is drawn into assorted awkward social and romantic configurations: first in the small town of Jecheon where he is officiating as juror of a film festival, rendered with puckish delight by Hong, and later when Ku turns up to address a class of film students on Jeju Island at the invitation of an old college friend. Hong's newest film, another work of minimally adorned and sharply perceptive behavioral comedy, made its world premiere at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. "Wryly perceptive in its deconstruction of artistic egos, sending up pretensions while at the same time making what sound like first-person declarations about creativity…Hong's funniest film."—Lee Marshall, Screen International.
The Lodger
Hitchcock's third film, which solidifed his reputation as English cinema's "Boy Wonder," is the Master's first tango with the legend of Jack The Ripper. A retired couple having trouble making ends meet rents their upstairs room to a creepy toff (matinee idol Ivor Novello) who keeps to himself but likes to go out at night. Meanwhile, the London police are looking for The Avenger, a strangler of blonde showgirls, and the couple's daughter Daisy is just the murderer's type. The dazzling sequences that introduced German Expressionism into mainstream English cinema are justly famous, but Hitchcock (who has not one, but two cameos here) adds touches of sly humor such as the cuckoo clock that greets the campy Novello when he emerges from the fog to inquire about the room for rent.
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1927, 16mm, 83 min.
THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY
Stark and sizzling, boozed to the gills and bursting with energy, The Long Good Friday is one of the crown jewels of British crime film. Armed with enough rich, thick street slang to dress a Christmas goose and with a sheen of class laid over its trashy heart, the film is a superior slice of kitchen sink gangsterism. Director John "Frenzy" Mackenzie gives us a career-making performance by Bob Hoskins as Harold Shand, an East End thug-turned-businessman whose entire empire starts crumbling over one seedy, slow-burning weekend. Hoskins explodes across the screen in what the The Criterion Contraption characterizes as "a writhing mess of ambition and desire," in an incendiary yet sensitive turn that makes the viewer both loathe and empathize with Hoskins all at once. Topped off with meaty supporting roles by Helen Mirren and jowly Euro-noir stalwart Eddie Constantine, and a killer, over-the-top Eurotrash score full of frenzied synths, sax 'n strings, The Long Good Friday will rock you hard.
Dir. John Mackenzie, 35mm, 1980, 114 Min.
THE LONG HAUL
(1957) Directed by Ken Hughes
Racketeering is the principal cargo in this well-tuned tale about a trucker in trouble. Victor Mature (in a role intended for Marlon Brando) plays Harry Miller, a deactivated G.I. stranded in England with his Liverpudlian wife. Harry signs on as a driver for a lorry combine only to find that mobsters rule the road. Joe Easy (Patrick Allen), the ruthless thug who runs Easy Hauling, plays it fast and loose with his freight, but not as loose as his curvaceous cohort Lynn (Diana Dors, the British Monroe). Once Harry catches sight of her, Dors becomes the soft shoulder on a road to nowhere. Though Hell Drivers emphasizes rivalry among the drivers themselves, both of these big wheelers saw the hauling biz as a shiftless world of lowballers and hijackers. Caught up in the momentum, Harry must choose between a pedestrian life with wife and child and the felonious fast lane.The Long Haul offers no rest stop for the wicked. ––Steve Seid, Pacific Film Archive.
Based on the novel by Mervyn Mills. Producer: Maxwell Setton. Screenwriter: Ken Hughes. Cinematographer: Basil Emmott. Editor: Raymond Poulton. Cast: Victor Mature, Diana Dors, Gene Anderson. 35mm, B/W, 88 min.
LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF, 2003, 169 min. Dir. Thom Andersen. A must see for Los Angeles history buffs and cinema enthusiasts who will marvel at the hundreds of archival and film clips revealing an almost secret history of the City of Angels! "This cinematic essay focuses on the discrepancy between the lived in urban reality of Los Angeles and its various century-deep cinematic mythologies, the movie is about more than just what the movies get wrong. It’s about the way the imaginary space of cinema intrudes upon the actual space of our lives, so that the L.A. of the movies becomes a kind of separate urban reality unto itself." – Toronto Star. Discussion following with director Thom Andersen.
THE LOVE GOD?, 1969, Universal, 107 min. Dir. Nat Hiken. Don Knotts plays a Hugh Hefner-esque stud (!) in this hilarious comedy from Nat Hiken, the creator of Sergeant Bilko. Co-stars include Anne Francis, Edmond O’Brien and James Gregory. Great score by Vic Mizzy ("The Addams Family").
Man on Wire
Directed by James Marsh
Produced by Simon Chinn
In 1974, Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between New York’s twin towers, in a feat that became known as “the artistic crime of the century.” Petit and some of his co-conspirators recall this extraordinary adventure in this Oscar®-winning documentary. 35mm. 94 mins.
MR. BUG GOES TO TOWN (aka HOPPITY GOES TO TOWN), 1941, Paramount, 78 min. Dir. Dave Fleischer. The residents of Bugville have enough trouble dealing with the villainous C. Bagley Beetle, but their problems increase when they learn a skyscraper is to be built on the vacant lot they inhabit. Together the bugs try to find a way to save their homes in this delightful animated musical.
MURDER IN HARLEM
(a.k.a. Lem Hawkins' Confession)
(1935) Directed by Oscar Micheaux
Micheaux’s adaptation of his own novel and earlier silent film, Murder in Harlem tells the story of a night watchman wrongly accused of murdering a young woman in a chemical factory. Intricately plotted, the film becomes more fascinating in its depiction of the insidious power dynamics around race, when the real assailant (a white factory owner) employs one fearful black employee to frame another. Lem Hawkins (Alec Lovejoy), the false witness, is depicted with deceptive complexity; his shuffling, unsophisticated demeanor falling away to reveal a grim sophistication as he realizes all too well the danger he himself faces as a possible scapegoat.
Micheaux Pictures Corp.. Based on Micheaux’s novel, The Gunsaulus Mystery. Producer: A. Burton Russell. Screenplay: Oscar Micheaux. Cinematographer: Charles Levine. Cast: Clarence Brooks, Dorothy Van Engle, Alec Lovejoy, Andrew Bishop, Lorenzo McClane. 35mm, B/W, 98 min.
The Mystery of the Wax Museum
This classic Technicolor thriller set in a wax museum combines the eerie atmosphere of the silent German Expressionist classics, elaborate and intimidating Art Deco set design, and classic '30s horror tricks –- dark, rainy London streets, lengthy periods of silence, long shadows on the wall -– to make one of the creepiest mystery films of its decade. The third and final Warner Brothers feature filmed in the improved two-color Technicolor system, which enhanced both the color and clarity of the film, Mystery of the Wax Museum features gorgeous, sensual pastel tones in its rendering of 1921 London and 1933 New York City. From prolific Hungarian director Michael Curtiz, of The Mad Genius and Doctor X (not to mention later classics like Casablanca) fame, Mystery of the Wax Museum is a landmark of early color, and early-'30s pre-Code horror films.
Dir. Michael Curtiz, 1933, 35mm, 77 min.
NICKELODEON, 1976, Sony Repertory, 122 min. Dir. Peter Bogdanovich. A hugely entertaining slapstick farce and heartfelt valentine to the earliest days of the Hollywood movie industry. Ryan O’Neal stars as the bumbling young lawyer who accidentally stumbles into directing, Burt Reynolds is the hot-tempered leading man, Tatum O’Neal is the brains behind the operation, and lovely Jane Hitchcock is the object of everyone’s affections. Co-starring John Ritter, Stella Stevens, Brian Keith.
Night and Day (Bam guan nat)
2008/color/145 min. | Scr/dir: Hong Sang-soo; w/ Kim Young-ho, Kim You-jin, Seo Min-jeong, Park Eun-hye.
In self-imposed exile from his native Seoul, a married photorealist painter wanders the streets of Paris. But a roundelay of chance meetings in the City of Lights entangles him in the emotional lives of two Korean women. Hong lucidly observes this chronicle of one man's confused attempt to savor a rootless year. "One of Hong's lightest and most easily digestible metaphysical meals to date."—Derek Elley, Variety.
NIGHT AND THE CITY
(1950) Directed by Jules Dassin
Richard Widmark’s trademark combination of sleazy glibness and sweaty desperation finds its ideal expression in the role of London club tout and compulsive striver Harry Fabian. Described by a rival as "an artist without an art," Fabian attempts to make his mark as a promoter in the Greco-Roman wrestling racket, a sport that takes brutality to the level of art both in and out of the ring. With its chiaroscuro cinematography and stylized portrayals of underworld characters—Francis L. Sullivan as a grotesque club owner, Googie Withers as his ambitious wife, Herbert Lom as a vicious racketeer, Polish champion wrestler Stanislaus Zbyszko as "Gregorius the Great"—the film sketches a place that is nominally London but really a realm of fevered urban imagination. The recurring image is of Fabian scrambling through dark alleys, trying and failing to get ahead of his fate—an appropriate motif for director Jules Dassin, who made the film while in exile from McCarthy-era Hollywood. —Juliet Clark, Pacific Film Archive.
Twentieth Century Fox. Based on the novel by Gerald Kersh. Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck. Screenplay: Jo Eisinger. Cinematographer: Max Greene. Cast: Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Hugh Marlowe, Francis L. Sullivan. 35mm, B/W, 95 min.
NIGHTMARE IN BLOOD
A horror film convention comes to town, bringing with it the mysterious actor Malakai, known for his many roles in vampire films. What the unsuspecting film fans don't know is that Malakai is a real creature of the night and hungry for human blood. A tongue-in-cheek spoof of horror films, this feature provides a few good scares and a ton of in-jokes for the horror buffs. John Stanley---USA---1978---90 mins.
NO ORCHIDS FOR MISS BLANDISH
(1948) Directed by St. John L. Clowes
"It has all the morals of an alley cat and the sweetness of a sewer!" blared a contemporary review of this controversial 1948 noir. No Orchids bubbled forth from the depths of British Poverty Row studio Renown to shock the English nation with its casual brutality (multiple murders in cold blood in the opening reel, another killing involving a grandfatherly innocent bystander) and leering perversion ("I don’t have ta drink ta want you," opines one ruthless Romeo). The film concerns a hard-partying society dame who falls for her vicious kidnapper, a crime syndicate overlord. Simultaneously revolting and revolutionary, its Z-grade budget, inexpressive cast, and total disregard for bourgeois sensibility make No Orchids play like some unholy alliance of Ed Wood and Georges Bataille, a Poverty Row Grand Guignol. Monthly Film Bulletin declared it "the most sickening exhibition of brutality, perversion, sex and sadism ever to be shown on a cinema screen"—in other words, unmissable. —Jason Sanders, Pacific Film Archive.
Based on the novel by James Hadley Chase. Producer: George Minter. Screenplay: St. John L. Clowes. Cinematographer: Gerald Gibbs. Cast: Jack La Rue, Linden Travers, Hugh McDermott. 35mm, B/W, 102 min.
NOOSE
(a.k.a. The Silk Noose)
(1948) Directed by Edmond T. Greville
"We don’t have any gangsters here," claims a London newspaper editor to his hot-to-trot reporter from Chicago at the beginning of this energetic programmer, a fascinating combination of American noir aesthetics with British slang, style, and location. Yankee fashion hound Linda Medbury (Carole Landis, who died tragically after the film was made) quickly proves her boss wrong, uncovering a ruthless London crime ring led by the fast-talking Bar Gorman and the slick Sugiani, neither of whom will stop at killing women to keep their empire going. Fortunately Linda’s got her British hubby on her side, an ex-commando who’s organized a gang of his own (complete with Chelsea jerseys) to help smash the syndicate. A John Alton–esque sense of light and shadow, as well as director Edmond Greville’s impressive visual flourishes, provide a flair that’s pure Hollywood noir, but the zippy insults, class concerns, and seedy postwar settings are as British as they come. —Jason Sanders, Pacific Film Archive.
Producer: Edward Dryhurst. Screenplay: Richard Llewellyn. Cinematographer: Hone Glendining. Cast: Carole Landis, Derek Farr, Joseph Calleia, Nigel Patrick, Stanley Holloway. 35mm, B/W, 95 min.
THE OCTOBER MAN
(1947) Directed by Roy Ward Baker
"I couldn’t have done it . . . could I?" In a twist on the wrong-man theme, this hybrid of playful murder mystery and psychological melodrama stars John Mills as an innocent man whose own self-doubt makes him a suspect. After a bus accident kills a child in his care and leaves him with a fractured skull and troubled mind, Mills seeks refuge in a small hotel whose very proper residents greet him with a mixture of curiosity and condescension. When an attractive lodger goes out to post a letter and doesn’t return, the neighbors, the police, and Mills himself all begin to wonder whether he might be responsible. Erwin Hillier’s cinematography shrouds the action in an atmosphere of misty, pervasive melancholia, and Mills brings an otherworldly, fretful presence to Eric Ambler’s alternately sardonic and empathetic scenario, which hints at the struggles of men shattered not by accident but by the recent war. —Juliet Clark, Pacific Film Archive.
Based on the novel by E. Ambler. Producer: Eric Ambler. Screenplay: Eric Ambler. Cinematographer: Erwin Hillier. Cast: John Mills, Joan Greenwood, Edward Chapman. 35mm, B/W, 110 min.
ONE-EYED JACKS, 1961, Pennebaker Productions/Paramount, 141 min. Originally intended as a project for director Stanley Kubrick (based on various scripts by Sam Peckinpah and Rod Serling, among others), ONE-EYED JACKS became (in)famous as the only film directed by Marlon Brando -- who also stars as an outlaw bent on taking revenge on former friend Karl Malden. Film critic Kevin Thomas will introduce the screening.
ON THE NIGHT OF THE FIRE
(1939) Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst
Ralph Richardson stars as Kobling, an upwardly mobile barber desperate to escape the crushing poverty of his grubby neighborhood. When his status-conscious wife racks up debts at the local department store, Kobling pays the proprietor with stolen Pounds Sterling. When the cops trace the store’s bank deposit to stolen bills, the proprietor threatens Kobling with blackmail. What begins as a petty theft soon turns to murder and a frightening witch-hunt by the townspeople. With noir-ish elements, this frank and fatalistic drama paints a nightmarish vision of working class Britain.
Based on the novel by F.L. Green. Producer: Jeff Somlo. Screenplay: Brian Desmond Hurst, Patrick Kirwan, Terence Young. Cinematographer: Günther Krampf. Cast: Ralph Richardson, Diana Wynyard, Romney Brent. 35mm, 84 min.
THE PARTY, 1968, MGM Repertory, 99 min. Dir. Blake Edwards. For most of its length, THE PARTY is a wonderfully restrained homage to Jacques Tati, with Peter Sellers in perfect pitch as an awestruck Indian actor who disrupts a chic Hollywood gathering with the help of French songbird Claudine Longet. The final 15 minutes prove that any great joke deserves a totally outrageous punchline. Cinematography by the great Lucien Ballard (THE WILD BUNCH).
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
Paul F. Tompkins presents
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
For September’s CDR night, we welcome comedian Paul F. Tompkins (Mr. Show, The Sarah Silverman Progra), who's picked Tim Burton's 1985 debut Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, a film which never ceases to delight. Paul: "The movie is funny and silly and inventive and old-fashioned, yes, but overall it seems to revel in the pure joy of comedy. It's as if the movie is saying, 'What's better than laughing?'"
Dir. Tim Burton, 1985, 35mm, 90 min.
THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT
Patrick Wayne (son of The Duke) and Doug McClure star in this adventure film based on the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs--the third in a series of '70s features that includes The Land That Time Forgot and At the Earth's Core. A team of explorers returns to a mysterious island occupied by savage warriors and terrifying monsters to rescue a friend lost there years before. The special effects are well behind the times, but this is still a very fun. Kevin Connor---Great Britain---1977---90 mins.
Performance
Mick Jagger stars in his only leading role as Turner, a reclusive rock god whose personality begins to shift when he opens his home to Chas (James Fox), a ruthless gangster on the run. Still the ultimate British combination of art and sleaze, this cinematic crowbar to the cranium introduced the world to two fearless directors. Nicolas Roeg went on to cult fame with The Man Who Fell to Earth and Don’t Look Now, while his co-helmer, the late Donald Cammell, struggled to turn out only three more features, which included White of the Eye and the technolust extravaganza Demon Seed. Film critic Danny Peary described Performance as the movie equivalent of someone “resting their dirtiest fingers at the back of your throat,” which is exactly how a rock-infused kitchen-sink crime film should feel. If you haven’t seen it, prepare for a mind-expanding mix of killer music (including the often-copied song “Memo from Turner”), brutal violence, truly erotic sex scenes, and enough visual bravura to fuel a dozen Cranks.
Dir. Donall Cammell & Nicolas Roeg, 1970, 35mm, 105 min.
PHANTOM LADY
(from IMDB)
Unhappily married Scott Henderson spends the evening on a no-name basis with a hat-wearing woman he picked up in a bar. Returning home, he finds his wife strangled and becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Every effort to establish his alibi fails; oddly no one seems to remember seeing the phantom lady (or her hat). In prison, Scott gives up hope but his faithful secretary, "Kansas," doggedly follows evanescent clues through shadowy nocturnal streets. Can she save Scott in time? Dir. Robert Siodmak, 1944, 87 mins.
Phantom of the Opera
This grand version of Gaston Leroux’s classic is as much a grand romantic opera as it is a horror film, which may be why it got the Technicolor treatment usually reserved for westerns, musicals, and other spectacles. And while perhaps not as beloved among horror fans as other versions of the tale (the emphasis here is on the word OPERA), it has a real and understandable following among music lovers and classic film fans. Claude Raines (beloved for his work in Casablanca & The Invisible Man) delivers a sympathetic performance as the Phantom, and real opera singers like Nelson Eddy and 18-year-old songbird Suzanne Foster were hired to play the leads and sing its Oscar-nominated music. This million-dollar risk for Paramount paid off; crane-shots, massive and spectacular sets (including a full-scale re-creation of the Paris Opera house), and gorgeous photography make this the most lush adaptation of the tale set to celluloid.
Dir. Arthur Lubin, 92 minutes, 35mm, 1943.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Though The Picture of Dorian Gray came several years after a cycle of “classic” horror films like Dracula, Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Albert Lewin’s version of Oscar Wilde’s strange tale is psychological horror at its best. Lewin, a friend of the Surrealists and collector of their art, began directing after decades of working as a writer-producer. His penchant for high stylization and his fascination with unusual protagonists with dark obsessions made for the best, and most faithful adaptation of Wilde’s famous novel to date. Harry Stradling’s deep focus photography earned an Academy Award while the infamous Technicolor reveal of the eponymous portrait is an iconic fright film image; the painting itself -- an original by American magical realist Ivan Albright -- is one of the most horrifying images ever featured in film, a surreal reflection of what each of us can become if we lose our humanity to careless egotism.
Dir. Albert Lewin, 1945, 35mm, 110 min.
Plan 9 From Outer Space
Cinefamily Halloween Party
(feat. Plan 9 From Outer Space: 50th Anniversary!)
What better location for a Halloween throwdown than at a place with serious Hollywood Gothic history (just Google our name plus “Laurence Austin”). First we all sit down and celebrate that charmingly creaky and creepy b-movie legend, Ed Wood. For the uninitiated, Mr. Wood was a filmmaker who pooled all his resources to make movies in the '50s and '60s; the thing is, the films aren’t very good. In fact, they're legendarily "bad", at least by any conventional definition -- glued together with the no-budget, eager showmanship that later gave him the unfair title of "Worst Director Ever" and a fervent cult following from Danzig to Tim Burton. But let’s destroy the “so-bad-it's-good” term. Ed Wood made lovable movies with strong atmosphere, awkward dialogue, implausible plots and a static style that is as strange and seductive as it is hilarious. It's been 50 years since he made his magnum opus, Plan 9 from Outer Space -- with an all-star cast of Tor Johnson, Vampira, Criswell, Bela Legosi -- and we're here to celebrate with a rare 35mm screening!. Introduction and Q & A with Ed Wood screenwriters Larry Karaszewski & Scott Alexander! Then, once the movies over, we’re gonna clear the couches, make a dance floor, and have a real monster mash! Vittles and libations! Costume Prizes! Karoake on the big screen! Halloween!
Dir. Ed Wood, 1959, 35mm, 79 min.
The Pleasure Garden
Even the greatest filmmakers have models when they're starting out, and Hitchcock is no exception. The Pleasure Garden, about two chorus girls working at the Pleasure Garden Theatre in London, mimicked the risqué melodramas Cecil B. DeMille made before getting religion. Although Hitchcock’s filmmaking career didn’t take off until the release of The Lodger in 1927, The Pleasure Garden was already indicative of his directorial talents. Hitchcock established his own style early on, with small traces of Hitchcockiness evident in the very first scene: a dirty old man in the front row of the orchestra at the title establishment gets caught studying the chorus girls' legs through his binoculars. The Pleasure Garden was Hitchcock’s first film, and is now a must see for all enthusiasts.
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1926, 35mm, 75 min.
The Power of Kangwon Province (Kangwon-do ui him)
1998/color/110 min. | Scr/dir: Hong Sang-soo; w/ Oh Youn-hong, Paik Jong-hak.
Over the same weekend, a professor of literature and his former student make separate pilgrimages to the film's namesake holiday destination—a wooded, mountainous region that overflows into North Korea—as Hong gradually reveals how their lives are interconnected. Reminiscent of Kieslowski in its contemplation of missed connections, chance, and synchronicity, Hong's sophomore film is the first of his twice-told tales.
PRINCE OF DARKNESS
There is something evil in the basement of an abandoned church that fascinates a small group of scientists and grad students and terrifies members of the clergy. With Donald Pleasence, Victor Wong, Lisa Blount, Jameson Parker and Alice Cooper as the leader of a group of street zombies. John Carpenter---USA---1987---102 mins.
Projection Performances by Bruce McClure
Locative Enigma—Frameshape of Hard Mettles—A Personal Problem: Projection Performances by Bruce McClure
“Bruce McClure doesn’t make films, he performs them... Twirling knobs, flipping switches, and adjusting lenses, he coaxes a bank of whirring projectors into producing images impossible to record.” The Brooklyn Rail
Alpert Award-winning film projection artist Bruce McClure has performed extensively in cinematheques, festivals and museums in the United States and abroad, including recent dates with Throbbing Gristle in New York and Chicago. “Looking down from the scaffold renders circumstances unfamiliar; perspective is held in suspension as flattened repetition of identical units proceeds with no horizon in sight,” he says of his mercurial performances. “In an instant, the gate is activated, clearing the way for a measured whoosh forestalled by a tautening rope. During that interval, seemingly eternal scenes flash before one’s eyes, cut short by a final whack and bounce of light. The assembly, shrouded by the staging and the loop, is seized by duration as it simultaneously approaches and recedes. Gallows humor is a grim simile for a projection performance, and if this is a joke then where is the punch line? Answer: There is never enough time before an execution.”
In person: Bruce McClure
Return of the Demon
(brand-new HD Transfer!)
An unjustly overlooked entry in the late ‘80s horror-comedy craze that swept Hong Kong, the generically-titled but definitely outstanding Return of the Demon pits a trio of treasure hunters against a brain-sucking demon who’s determined to become human again by killing off 47 people, extracting hteir gray matter via his spiky and very lethal headband. Wizards, hateful cops plucked from Cruising, a shitload of smashed eggs, an inexplicable human-to-canine transformation and a libidinous ghost with one hell of a nasty streak provide plenty of entertainment here, but the real surprise is a batch of sprinting zombies way before Danny Boyle made them mainstream in 28 Days Later. Good stuff all the way and still insanely hard to find, this is vintage fun from the writer of Mr. Vampire and more fun than being kicked upside the head by a pissed-off Chinese demon from hell.
Dir. Ying Wong, 1987, HDCAM, 96 min.
The Return of the Jerry Beck Animated Spook-tacular!
Trick or treat, a few weeks early. For the second year in a row, animation historian Jerry Beck will be screaming… err, screening a selection of strange and creepy Halloween related animated cartoons using vintage prints in 16mm and 35mm. Prepare to be dazzled by animated witches, warlocks, goblins, pumpkin-heads, black cats and friendly ghosts! Milton the Monster, Casper, and all the famous monsters of filmland will be here. Special guest animators will show their films and discuss their ghastly influences.
The Revenge of Frankenstein
The true superstars of Hammer horror -- director Terence Fisher and DP Jack Asher -- are back in action for this first sequel to the taboo shattering The Curse of Frankenstein. Tossing Mary Shelley right out the window, Hammer advertised the entirely original creation as “the World’s Greatest Horrorama” in “Supernatural Technicolor.” While British critics declared it “a crude sort of entertainment for a crude sort of audience,” your mileage may vary. Peter Cushing is in top form as the indefatigable Baron F, but the one to watch is Michael Gwynne as Frankenstein’s Monster, a devilishly handsome sod who passed through society’s meat-grinder to become a slobbering hunchback with a ravening hunger for human flesh. Hammer’s crowning glory is its “Frankenstein” series, of which this entry is one of the best.
Dir. Terence Fisher, 1958, 35mm, 89 min.
The Ring
Hitchcock's first film for a studio that had some money to spend, The Ring dials up the faintly tongue-in-cheek Expressionist razzle-dazzle of The Lodger applied seriously to a melodrama set in the world of professional boxing. Surpassing the melodramas of his role model Cecil B. DeMille, the young genius keeps the fire lit under his very grown-up sexual triangle in one imaginative sequence after another: a working-class fair filmed documentary-style, boxing matches that are individual gems of narrative construction, a wild party where the camera gets drunk, a wedding reception invaded by carnival folk, and, of course, boxing rings, gold rings and champagne bubbles spun out of the title. One reviewer called it "the most magnificent British film ever made."
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 16mm, 1927, 72 min.
ROAD GAMES
Stacy Keach stars in this Australian thriller as a truck driver out to stop a serial killer traveling the highways murdering helpless hitchhikers. Nominated for four Australian Film Institute Awards, this suspenseful shocker takes many cues from Hitchcock with its many twists and turns. Also stars Jamie Lee Curtis. "A clever, eccentric thriller" (Creature Features Movie Guide). Richard Franklin---Australia---1981---101 mins.
ROBERT BEAVERS IN PERSON
This presentation of work by avant-garde filmmaker Robert Beavers represents the filmmaker’s Los Angeles debut, after a career spanning from the mid-1960s to the present day, and is organized in conjunction with the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, who will present Beavers’ complete cycle.
"Beavers’ films occupy a noble place within the history of avant-garde film, positioned at the intersection of structural and lyrical filmmaking traditions. They seem to embody the ideals of the Renaissance in their fascination with perception, psychology, literature, the natural world, architectural space, musical phrasing and aesthetic beauty." -Susan Oxtoby, Pacific Film Archive
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, 1947, MGM Repertory, 110 min. Dir. Norman Z. McLeod. Danny Kaye’s comic talent finds its perfect showcase in this story of a shy man who lives in two worlds -- one real, the other the product of his fanciful imagination. Virginia Mayo and Boris Karloff co-star in this classic (and very loose) adaptation of James Thurber’s short story.
THE SKULL
(1965) Directed by Freddie Francis
Do you dare look through the eyes of the Marquis de Sade? How about through his eye sockets? That’s just one of the shocking special effects shots in this Technicolor creepfest starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Christopher Maitland, a collector of Occult objects who acquires the Marquis’ skull only to become possessed by the evil spirit it holds within. Christopher Lee plays a fellow collector who tries to warn his friend before the skull strikes again! Director Freddie Francis, better known as the cinematographer on such films as Karel Reisz’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and David Lynch’s The Elephant Man (1980), fills the Cinemascope frame with the lurid details of the devilish artifacts in Maitland’s study, stoking the atmosphere of doom and dread in this psychological tale of terror.
Producer: Milton Subotsky, Max Rosenberg. Screenplay: Milton Subotsky. Cinematographer: John Wilcox. Editor: Oswald Hafenrichter. Cast: Peter Cushing, Patrick Wymark, Christopher Lee, Jill Bennett, Nigel Green. 16mm, 83 min.
Smiles of A Summer Night
Flirtatious and sharp, farcical yet delicate, Smiles Of A Summer Night is considered one of the greatest tragic comedies of all time. Set in the Swedish countryside at the turn of the century, Smiles Of A Summer Night is a tale of bourgeois lust and attraction. Four women, all beautiful, young and unwilling -- and four men, unsatisfied and restless -- find themselves together for a weekend in which they push the boundaries of '50s Swedish moral standards. With women controlling their sexual destinies and men floundering in their attempts at chivalry, the film is a giggle of a good time. Come frolic with us in the Swedish sunshine.
Dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1955, 35mm, 108 min.
Spooky Encounters
While the most famous “hopping” vampire film ever made is still Mr. Vampire (yes, hopping -- in China, vampires literally hop around), this tasty fix of hilarious horror came first, and is actually better in many respects. A vehicle for moon-faced martial arts favorite Sammo Hung (who also directed), it’s better known in American Chinatown circles as Encounters of the Spooky Kind. The plot’s your standard haunted house chestnut about a guy who decides to show off his bravery by staying in a spooky house overnight, while the nasty guy who’s schtupping his wife decides to bump him off by hiring a black magician to infest the house with the undead. Armed with only a few handy Taoist tips, our hero faces the spoooooookiest night of his life! Only slightly more mature than your average Scooby-Doo episode, this turbo-charged horror comedy pays off with a slam-bang climax you have to see to believe. Spring on over for the coolest bouncing bloodsucker movie you’ll ever see on the big screen!
Dir. Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, 1980, 35mm
Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures
This low-budget, smash-and-grab '70s Coffin Joe vehicle finds our anti-hero as an otherworldly and omnipotent demigod of death, whos dayjob is running a hotel....of death!!!! Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures is a bit of a patchwork, with Marins even sharing directing credit, but nonetheless it features some of his best moments. The playfully smutty opening sequence in which Coffin Joe is summoned by a harem of skillfully choreographed dancers in multicolored negligees plays like a diabolical Scopitone -- the kind in which men wearing monkey masks and plastic breasts are jabbed harshly into the otherwise smooth editing flow. Of the many hypnotic and spell-casting incantations that traditionally open his films, the cosmic and colorful mobile of planets that float through the frame is one of his most beguiling. And as a cloud of strangeness encircles our hostel and its patrons in the last act, Coffin Joe implements some of his undeniable raw editing talent to create a montage of obscure imagery, striking close-ups, and simple yet stimulating effects with the natural flow of a gifted experimental filmmaker. A late night treat for us Coffin Joe connoisseurs.
Dirs. José Mojica Marins & George Michel Serkeis, 1975, DigiBeta, 90 min.
The Strange World of Coffin Joe
Based on his television series of the same name -- a kind of cross between The Twilight Zone and Tales From the Crypt -- The Strange World of Coffin Joe is an omnibus film of three tales of depravity and horror, all filmed in that silvery, Night of the Living Dead black-and-white that made gore looks so good and nightmarish in 1968. Never before has Marins’ love of horror comics seemed clear; each episode plays like a grizzly and fun E.G. Comics "monsterpiece", complete with ghoulishly ironic twist endings, lurid sexuality, and caricatured villains that meet their demise to our delight. The final sequence is of special note, with Marins joining the cast as a professor proving to a young couple through a "scientific" and sadistic experiment that love does not in fact exist, but ends in a crescendo of cannibalism that proves it does -- we all love a good Coffin Joe movie!
Dir. José Mojica Marins, 1968, DigiBeta, 80 min.
SUPERVAN
(from IMDB)
A man named Clint enters a solar-powered van called Vandora into a competition called Freakout.
Tale of Cinema (Geuk jang jeon)
2005/color/89 min. | Scr/dir: Hong Sang-soo; w/ Kim Sang-kyung, Uhm Ji-won, Lee Ki-woo.
Art and life are intertwined in Hong's most mind-bending twice-told tale. A former film student not only believes that his hapless love life is the source material for a tragic short film by a classmate; he also becomes obsessed with its leading lady and sets about pursuing her off screen. Hong playfully intertwines filmgoing and lovemaking, zooms and ellipses, as the male psyche is bared in all its doggedness and uncertainty.
THEY ALL LAUGHED, 1981, HBO Films, 115 min. Peter Bogdanovich uses the private-eye genre as a vehicle to deliver deeply romantic insights about love, marriage and regret. John Ritter and Ben Gazzara work for the Odyssey Detective Agency, a firm where the investigators are more concerned with their own complicated love lives than with solving any cases. Audrey Hepburn and Dorothy Stratten co-star in this hilarious ensemble dramedy, a film that Quentin Tarantino declared one of the 10 greatest ever made. Discussion in between films with director Peter Bogdanovich.
THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT
(1938) Directed by Arthur B. Woods
Just released from prison, small-time hustler Shorty Matthews (Emlyn Williams) pays a visit to an old girlfriend–only to find her murdered in her room. Assuming the cops will finger him for the crime, he hits the road, finding refuge with long haul truckers, and later with a dance hall hostess (Konstam) and a sex crime fetishist (Ernest Thesiger, in a memorable performance). Not to be confused with the American film starring Humphrey Bogart, this British proto-noir is unapologetically gritty. "An exceptional thriller with fine feeling for locale–seedy dance halls, rain-swept highways, shabby pubs." – Elliot Stein (adapted from a note from Film Forum).
Based on the novel by J. Curtis. Producer: Jerome Jackson. Screenplay: James Curtis, Paul Gengelin, Derek Twist. Cinematographer: Basil Emmott. Cast: Emlyn Williams, Ernest Thesiger, Anna Konstam, Allan Jeayes. 35mm, 84 min.
This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse
After the overwhelming success of At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, Marins pulled out all the stops for his second picture, making the Coffin Joe movie that was perhaps his masterpiece -- and, oddly enough, a romance of sorts. Focusing on Coffin Joe's "love life," the plot is about his attempt to find a single superior woman to be his ideal mate, one that will help him in his quest to continue his bloodline by creating the "perfect" spawn, using his own perverse selection process—a kind of cross between "The Bachelor" and "Fear Factor". In almost every way, Marins ups the ante from the first film, but without losing At Midnight’s punk filmmaking pleasures (the scratched-on-film title sequence alone is shatteringly cool). You likes the tarantula crawling up a girl’s nightie? Here's an army of tarantulas! Here's a roomful of cuties for them to crawl all over! You like the nightmarish ending of the first movie? Here, in a hallucinatory and bravura dream sequence, Coffin Joe is dragged into an incredibly realized carnivelesque hell, with undulating flesh carpets and Cocteau-like body parts sticking out of icy cavernous walls, all exploding onto the screen in full bleeding color! Viva la Coffin Joe!
Dir. José Mojica Marins, 1967, 35mm, 108 min.
THUNDER RUN
(from IMDB)
Charlie, a Korean War veteran, is driving a truck which is transporting plutonium from Nevada to Arizona. But there are a bunch of terrorists who want to steal the stuff... Dir. Gary Hudson, 1986, 90 mins.
Top Secret!
"Weird Al" Yankovic presents
Top Secret!
Weird Al takes the Cinefamily stage for October's edition of Comedy Death-Ray! Sharing insight, music videos, and other surprises, Weird Al has also selected a classic Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker comedy to share with you all. Al sez: "It's underrated and often overlooked, but for my money, Top Secret! is the funniest movie ever made." Years before he rocked the screen as Jim Morisson, Val Kilmer played his first feature role as another kind of rock n' roller, Nick Rivers, and yes, that is actually Val Kilmer singing. A demented and hilarious cross-spoof of Elvis flicks and WWII spy thrillers in the tradition of other Zucker brothers comedies such as The Naked Gun and Airplane! Join us on the patio afterwards for beer and hot dogs.
Dir. Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker and David Zucker, 1984, 35mm, 90 min.
A Tribute To Maurice Sendak
In 1963, with just 10 short sentences, a dark and dreamy emotional landscape of hairy monsters and tropical jungles, and one wannabe feral child, Maurice Sendak created one of the most critically acclaimed and popular childrens' books of all time-- "Where the Wild Things Are". In this loving tribute to everyone's first favorite author, the Cinefamily will show original animated adaptations (on 16mm!) of "Where the Wild Things Are" and "In the Night Kitchen", along with new short films made by Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze while the new live action adaptation of "Wild Things..." was in production. Jonze had been friends with Maurice Sendak for more than five years before he began working on his feature film, and these new short films capture a sometimes melancholy but always wickedly funny Sendak as he reflects on his Depression-era childhood in the Brooklyn shtetl, a joyous day at the World’s Fair, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, his books "In The Night Kitchen" and "Higgledy Piggledy Pop!", his two beloved Hermans (Melville, and his German shepherd namesake), and a long-buried secret. Lance Bangs, co-director of Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak will be in attendance!
Trick ‘r Treat
A killer of a directorial debut from X2/Superman Returns screenwriter Michael Dougherty, Trick ‘r Treat is the best Halloween movie you’ve never seen. This film has been played only once before in Los Angeles and seen only by a few thousand nationwide. A vivid intersection of Halloween folk traditions, throwbacks to classic Hollywood scare fests, smart storytelling, and morbid humor, Trick ‘r Treat is a reminder of why we fell in love with Halloween in the first place. With four interwoven narratives that create the perfect poetic rhythm between horror and comedy, this film is like a gore buffet, unified by the appearance of the most adorable, devious, and memorable Halloween mascot yet. It has the perfect amount of creativity injected into a genre that has gotten way too comfortable with campy and kitschy remakes and sequels. Director Mike Dougherty will be in person to present the film, show some rare early work, and do a Q & A!
Dir. Michael Dougherty, 2008, HDCAM, 100 min.
Turkish Rip-Offs Night
Turkey is truly the wild, wild Middle East of mondo macabro. Here you find the outlying reaches of world exploitation, where the heroes are macho men who can beat you up with just their moustaches, and the copyright infringement flows as freely as the currents of the Bosphorus River. From the wholesale plundering of battle footage from American sci-fi smash hits (with which to mash into their own space operas), to the endless cavalcade of scene-for-scene, shot-for-shot, unauthorized remakes (Turkish Exorcist, Turkish Death Wish, Turkish Young Frankenstein) -- the bandits of Turkish cinema were unstoppable. These films were lawless, shameless, and hilarious. Infinite ambition and infinitesimal budgets lead to cheap remakes that resemble a high school theater version of Apocalypse Now; to make up for their poverty, these filmmakers upped the sadism, mayhem, and titillation to their tastes and our delight. Tonight, we offer a seminar in the finer points of Turkish film facsimiles, complete with scene-for-scene comparisons, provocative clips, thoughtful commentary, and a movie in which Spider-Man shoves a woman's head into the blades of a motorboat's outboard engine.
Turning Gate (Saenghwalui balgyeon)
2002/color/115 min. | Scr/dir: Hong Sang-soo; w/ Kim Sang-kyung, Yeh Ji-won, Choo Sang-mi.
In Hong's biggest Korean box-office hit, an out-of-work actor embarks on two consecutively turbulent relationships. The film takes its title from an ancient legend about a commoner executed for courting the King's daughter and reincarnated as a snake, which then kidnaps her, only to be washed away in a storm before the eponymous temple entrance. "You never know where it's going from scene to scene… a surprising cinema of understatement and psychological richness."—Phillip Lopate, Film Comment.
THE VAN
(from IMDB)
Bobby is a shy Los Angeles teenager who buys a sleek chevy van for himself to impress, pick up, and seduce various teenage girls to spruce up his dull life while trying to get money by drag racing other vans to finance operating it.
UNDERWORLD U.S.A.
(from IMDB)
Fourteen-year-old Tolly Devlin sees four hoods beat his father to death. Twenty years later, the killers have risen to the top of the crime syndicate and Tolly has a plan for revenge. Dir. Sam Fuller, 1961, 99 mins.
UP THE CREEK
Bob McGraw is in his 12th year of college, goofing his way through life. Bob, Irwing, Gonzer and Max are the four losers forced and bribed to represent their university in an intercollegiate raft race. Forced and bribed into this role, they make some friends, the lovely Heather Merriweather, but mostly enemies, among others a whole team of marines, and preppy IVY-leaguers determined to win. Dir. Robert Butler, 1984, 96 mins.
VANISHING POINT
With its peculiar combination of drive-in movie sensationalism and a vaguely existential theme, this car chase thriller has built up a loyal cult following over the years. A former cop and race car driver (Barry Newman), now moving cars for a living, makes a bet that he can drive a spiffy Dodge from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. Pumped up on amphetamines and guided by the words of a blind disc jockey (Cleavon Little), the driver's high-speed gamble makes him a counter-culture hero and the police's most wanted man. A blockade seems to mark the end of the ride, but the driver has his own, unexpected plan for escape. A memorably odd film that falls somewhere between the absurd, action excesses of Gone in 60 Seconds and the far more artful Two-Lane Blacktop. Richard C. Sarafian---USA---1971---99 mins.
Victims
(US Premiere!)
Cinefamily’s favorite book on exploitation cinema is the massive, well-researched tomb by Stephen Thrower, "Nightmare USA: The Untold Story Of The Exploitation Independents". Going where no in-depth study has gone before, "Nightmare USA" is the reader's guide to what lies beyond the mainstream of American horror, dispelling the shadows to meet the men and women behind fifteen classic years of exploitation's golden age of terror! We’ve asked Mr. Thrower to curate a night for our Halloween festival, and he’s cooked up a doozie. The evening starts with an incredibly rare 35mm screening of Victims (this is the US Premiere after 30 years!), a criminally-neglected gem of psychological horror bolstered by superb naturalistic performances -- a film which never even had an American theatrical release! Paulie (played by writer/director Daniel DiSomma, aka Tony Vorno) is falling to pieces. His every encounter with the opposite sex ends in violence, while stirring up memories of his prostitute mother and her brutal pimp. Dir. Daniel DiSomma, 1977, 35mm
THE VICTORS
(1963) Directed by Carl Foreman
An explosive title sequence designed by Saul Bass sets the unsettling tone for writer-director Carl Foreman’s groundbreaking WWII epic. Following an army platoon from the invasion of Italy to after the fall of Berlin, Foreman up ends the genre by emphasizing the moments of exhaustion and nervous tension that come between combat missions. Packed with stark imagery, jarring juxtapositions and gripping performances by an all star cast, The Victors was the only film directed by Foreman who was blacklisted by Hollywood in 1951. This screening features the original roadshow version of the film which was pulled from theaters after its initial release and cut by nearly 20 minutes for subsequent runs.
Based on a novel by Alexander Baron. Producer: Carl Foreman. Screenwriter: Carl Foreman. Cinematographer: Christopher Challis. Editor: Joan Morduch. Cast: Vincent Edwards, Albert Finney, George Hamilton, Melina Mercouri, Jeanne Moreau. 35mm, B/W, 175 min.
Villain
After appalling the gay community with his swishy turn in the little-seen Staircase, Richard Burton made amends by starring as the meanest, baddest gay gangster in movie history: Vic Dakin, a razor-happy mama’s boy based on the life of infamous Ronnie Kray. This dark, gritty and violent saga was overlooked in 1971, the most notoriously violent, taboo-bashing year in movie history (which also brought you Straw Dogs, Get Carter, A Clockwork Orange, The Devils and tons more), but it is much easier to appreciate now. Support as the younger badass is lent by Deadwood’s Ian McShane, who plays Vic’s pumping boyfriend. But it’s Burton’s show all the way, as he faces off against a dogged police inspector (Nigel Davenport) determined to take down the whole gang. Written by the busy team of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (The Bank Job), Villain feels like a particularly nasty, grimy extension of the gangster scenes from Performance as filtered through the mind of a grindhouse junkie, which obviously makes it a must-see.
Dir. Michael Tuchner, 1971, 35mm, 98 min.
Wait Until Dark
1967/color/107 min. | Scr: Robert Carrington, Jane-Howard Carrington; dir: Terence Young; w/ Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin.
A blind woman fights against drug smugglers who've invaded her home.
THE WILD PARTY
(1929) Directed by Dorothy Arzner
Paramount's first sound feature, The Wild Party was conceived as a vehicle for silent superstar Clara Bow. A light-hearted comedy set at an exclusive women's college, the film features Bow as the most popular party girl in a dorm full of high-spirited flapper coeds. Critically acclaimed and a box office success, The Wild Party also helped establish director Dorothy Arzner in the sound era.
Paramount. Screenplay: Warner Fabian, E. Lloyd Sheldon. Cinematographer: Victor Milner. Editor: Otto Lovering. Cast: Clara Bow, Fredric March, Marceline Day, Shirley O’Hara. 35mm, 77 min.
WITHIN OUR GATES
(1920) Directed by Oscar Micheaux
This earliest known surviving feature by an African American director dramatizes the difficulties and contradictions of life for Reconstruction-era Blacks through the story of a young woman who travels to Boston from her rural hometown, seeking money for a Southern school for poor black children. Closely following Griffith’s The Birth of A Nation and the Chicago race riot of 1919, the film is a stern rejoinder to the suggestions of Griffith and others, that blacks were the villains rather than the victims of Reconstruction. The film infamously depicts a lynching in perhaps the only such scene ever presented on American screens.
Restored by the Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center.
Micheaux Pictures Corp.. Producer: Oscar Micheaux. Screenwriter: Oscar Micheaux. Cast: Evelyn Preer, Flo Clements, James D. Ruffin, Jack Chenault, William Smith. 35mm, silent, B/W, 78 min.
Live musical accompaniment by Michael Mortilla.
Woman is the Future of Man (Yeojaneun namjaui miraeda)
2004/color/88 min. | Scr/dir: Hong Sang-soo; w/ Yu Ji-tae, Kim Tae-woo.
The drunken reminiscences and one-upmanship of two friends on a snowy afternoon lands them on the doorstep of a mutual acquaintance–the woman they both loved and lost–who is hardly charmed by the impromptu reunion. Titled after a Louis Aragon quote which caught Hong's eye on a French postcard, Hong's film detects that the present can be as filled with unanswerable longings as the past. "Memory, desire and raw self-interest clash against one another with startling poignancy… intellectually stimulating, aesthetically bold."—Manohla Dargis, The New York Times.
Woman on the Beach (Haebyonui yoin)
2006/color/127 min. | Scr/dir: Hong Sang-soo; w/ Kim Seung-woo, Ko Hyeon-jeong, Song Seon-mi.
Hong concluded his first decade of feature filmmaking with this summation of his central preoccupations: "karmic irony, self-deceived desire, squandered second chances, and unforeseen abandonment" (J. Hoberman, The Village Voice). A filmmaker struggling with a new screenplay sets off on a wintry retreat to a desolate seaside town in search of inspiration… or perhaps just to procrastinate. Either way, he winds up wooing his production designer's girlfriend and even a local girl who looks just like her. Selected as the best undistributed film of 2006 in critic's polls by both indieWIRE and The Village Voice. "One of recent cinema's deepest portraits of an artist."—Richard Brody, The New Yorker.
THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD
(2008) Directed by Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, and Kurt Engfehr
Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno are "The Yes Men," a unique duo of disrupters who infiltrate corporate events disguised as participants to expose the dangers of a market-ruled world as their hosts/victims look helplessly on. Their second feature documentary tracks the daring pair from Bhopal, India to post-Katrina New Orleans as they pursue the unsuspecting targets of their scathingly funny brand of activism.
In person: Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno.
35mm, 90 min.