WILLIAM BANKS VS. PEOPLE’S POPS
dir. Sam Blumenfeld, 2024
United States. 20 min.
In English
World Premiere

THURSDAY, MARCH 7 – 10 PM (W/Q&A)
THURSDAY, MARCH 21 – 7:30 PM (W/Q&A)

ADVANCE TICKETS Q&A

On October 14th, 2018, William Banks was locked inside a walk-in freezer for 45 minutes. “William Banks vs. People’s Pops” examines William’s trauma from the incident and his quest for revenge on People’s Pops, in a delirious yet heartfelt comedy, performed and composed with madcap energy, that defies simple documentary, mockumentary, or fiction categorizations.

Written by William Banks, Sam Blumenfeld and Russell Katz and starring William Banks, Anthony Oberbeck, Jamie Linn Watson, Maya Sharma, and William’s Former Boss, Spectacle is proud to present the world premiere of “William Banks vs. People’s Pops.”

Screenings will be preceded by a foreword by William Banks and followed by Q&As with the cast and crew.

This March, Spectacle Theater dives into the longstanding tradition of the Lunar New Year movie with a pair of Hong Kong holiday classics.

The Lunar New Year movie, or hesuipian (贺岁片), is a tradition dating back to the early years of the Hong Kong film industry, with the February 1937 release of Tan Xiaodan’s BLOOM AND PROSPER timed to coincide with the holiday. By the 1980s, the term took on a whole new meaning beyond just a film’s release date. Lunar New Year movies came to be seen as something of a genre all their own— widely-marketed, crowd-pleasing films, often blending elements of comedy, romance, action, and fantasy, and highlighting the festivities, teachings, and customs typically associated with the holiday.

Join us this month as we (belatedly) ring in the Year of the Dragon with these two timeless New Years classics, each a celebration of food, family, and good fortune in the year ahead.

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD
(富貴逼人)
dir. Clifton Ko Chi-sum, 1987
Hong Kong. 100 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, MARCH 1 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 9 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 18 – 7:30 PM

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TV reporter, Bill (Bill Tung), struggles to make ends meet to support his wife, Lydia (Lydia Sum), and three daughters in a rapidly changing Hong Kong. When Lydia wins the lottery, Bill assumes all their family’s prayers will finally be answered. Yet after a series of compounding mishaps, misunderstandings, and misadventures, Bill begins to wonder if this stroke of good fortune may have ultimately changed the family’s luck for the worse.

Next to the Hui Brothers, who effectively revitalized the concept of the Lunar New Year movie in the early 1980s, Clifton Ko may be the name most closely associated with the tradition. Released on New Years Eve 1987, IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD became hugely popular on its initial run, spawning a string of successful sequels and helping shape the humor, style, and feel-good tone of New Years movies in the years to come.

THE CHINESE FEAST
(金玉滿堂)
dir. Tsui Hark, 1995
Hong Kong. 100 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, MARCH 5 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 15 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 30 – 5 PM

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Chiu (Leslie Cheung) is a triad looking to start a new life as a chef in Canada, starting at the very bottom under the stewardship of overly critical restaurateur, Au (Law Kar-ying). Au, meanwhile, is fighting to save his restaurant against a takeover by the shady, faceless megacorporation, Super Group. When Au and Super Group’s leader agree to a cooking contest at the prestigious Qing Han Imperial Feast, Chiu seeks out the aid of Kit (Kenny Bee), a once renowned master chef whose life was left in shambles following a major personal and professional embarrassment.

Tsui Hark’s food-centric ensemble comedy re-united him with former Cinema City cohort, Raymond Wong, fresh off producing three consecutive, highly successful New Years releases, ALL’S WELL, ENDS WELL (1992), ALL’S WELL, ENDS WELL TOO (1993), and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1994), all directed by Clifton Ko. The film is a testament to Tsui’s versatility as a director, hitting all the right comedic and feel-good beats in keeping with its New Years stylings, while still maintaining the kineticism and grandeur of the wuxia and heroic bloodshed work he’d been best known for. But historical context aside, this is basically “food porn, but with martial arts choreography by Yuen Bun,” and there shouldn’t be much more we need to say to sell this one.

Abbott & Costello… Martin & Lewis… Lemmon & Matthau… These are just a few of Hollywood’s most famous on-screen duos that Pam Grier & Margaret Markov could easily beat the shit out of. Though they only appeared together in two films, Grier’s & Markov’s presences loomed large over exploitation cinema in the 1970s, appearing in over half a dozen “women-in-prison” films between them in the early part of the decade.

With the loosening of censorship practices in the 1960s, women-in-prison movies saw a resurgence in popularity, the setting lending itself easily to the more extreme depictions of sadism, sapphism, voyeurism, and fetish acts that B-movie studios and filmmakers were after. Enter Pam Grier & Margaret Markov, soon-to-be staples of the revitalized genre. Grier, a switchboard operator working at American International Pictures, caught the attention of Roger Corman affiliate, Jack Hill, leading to Corman casting her in his early 70s “prison cycle” of films that included THE BIG DOLL HOUSE (1971), WOMEN IN CAGES (1971), and THE BIG BIRD CAGE (1972). Markov, meanwhile, had only a couple of minor credits to her name before landing her big break as one of the lead roles in another Corman WIP production, THE HOT BOX (1972).

The pair would go on to co-star in two productions, Eddie Romero’s BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA (1973) and Steve Carver’s THE ARENA (1974), but despite their brief career overlap, the chemistry between them was undeniable. Two equally headstrong, tough-as-nails vixens making for perfect character foils, but with a combined strength able take down prison guards, gangs, and gladiators alike.

Markov would retire from acting in 1974 shortly after the release of THE ARENA, her penultimate feature. Grier, meanwhile, would go on to become a superstar in the blaxploitation genre, her name synonymous with nearly every iconic blaxploitation heroine from Foxy Brown to Coffy, Sheba Shayne to Friday Foster.

BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA
dir. Eddie Romero, 1973
United States/Philippines. 87 min.
In English.

SUNDAY, MARCH 3 – 5 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 11 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 15 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, MARCH 29 – 10 PM

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Rich girl-turned-revolutionary, Karen (Markov), and brassy former prostitute, Lee (Grier), are the newest inmates at a Philippines jungle prison. The two immediately butt heads, causing enough trouble to warrant a transfer to a maximum-security facility. While en route to the new jail, their convoy is ambushed by Karen’s comrades, allowing her and Lee to escape, albeit still shackled together. With different plans, different enemies, and a mutual hatred for one another, the two fugitives must learn to work together to survive the peril-laden jungles.

Directed by Filipino film legend, Eddie Romero, BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA stands as the pinnacle of Grier’s & Markov’s work in the WIP genre. It was almost inevitable that their careers would cross paths, given that their prior WIP work had all been produced in the same budget-friendly Philippines (in some cases, at the same time). The concept for the film was originally pitched by Joe Viola and Jonathan Demme as a modern riff on Stanley Kramer’s THE DEFIANT ONES, updating its setting and themes and engorging it with titillating content, but keeping the fiery political spirit of the original intact.

The film became a box office hit for American International Pictures, with critics singling out the pairing of Grier & Markov as a “hit with audiences”.

THE ARENA
dir. Steve Carver, 1974
United States/Italy. 82 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, MARCH 2 – MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 14 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 19 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 29 – MIDNIGHT

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When the Roman elite force a group of female sex slaves to become gladiatrices tasked with fighting each other to the death, a Nubian dancer and a Gaulish priestess join forces to mount a vicious rebellion against their male oppressors.

Grier & Markov’s second collaboration landed them in Italy for a T&A-centric take on the story of Spartacus, the pair once again playing adversaries-turned-allies, united in oppression and driven to revolution. Unlike Corman’s previous Philippines-set WIP films, THE ARENA was one of New World Pictures’ few European co-productions, with several of the arena scenes filmed by Carver’s Italian counterpart, Joe D’Amato.

Corman later credited the success of the film to Grier & Markov’s talent on screen, acknowledging that the pair “were beginning to be well known and were emerging somewhat as stars of this kind of film.” Ironically, while the film cemented the duo’s stardom and box office dominance on the grindhouse circuit, its production was also where Markov met her future husband, producer Mark Damon, leading her to retire from acting soon after its release.

THE HOT BOX
dir. Joe Viola, 1972
United States/Philippines. 85 min.
In English.

MONDAY, MARCH 4 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 16 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, MARCH 22 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 26 – 7:30 PM

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Four American nurses working in the republic of San Rosario enter a hellish nightmare when they’re kidnapped by guerilla army to provide medical assistance in their fight against an oppressive government regime. Tormented by every man that crosses their path, the four women must band together in the dense jungle in pursuit of one shared goal: survival.

Prior to her collaborations with Pam Grier, Margaret Markov had teamed up with Roger Corman and writer/producer/director team, Joe Viola and Jonathan Demme, for this unorthodox blend of the WIP and similarly trending “nurseploitation” genres (see: last year’s Stephanie Rothman program). Markov stars as Lynn, one of the captured nurses who begins to sympathize with the revolutionaries once she witnesses firsthand the government’s poor treatment of civilians. As with BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA, Viola and Demme foreground the politics inherent to the film’s WIP themes and banana republic setting, placing the women’s fight for liberation squarely within the context of an anti-capitalist struggle (a theme that some viewers may recognize as a recurring component of Jonathan “A luta continua” Demme’s later life and career).

WOMEN IN CAGES
dir. Gerardo de León, 1971
United States/Philippines. 81 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, MARCH 1 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY, MARCH 12 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 21 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 30 – 10 PM

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After being framed by her drug dealer boyfriend while vacationing in the Philippines, Carol “Jeff” Jeffries is locked behind bars in a harsh prison somewhere in the jungles of Manila. Jeff endures daily torture and degradation at the hands of the prison’s sadistic head matron, Alabama. After learning that a local drug kingpin is out to silence her once and for all, Jeff realizes that the only means of securing her freedom is escape.

Pam Grier, in just her third-ever film role, steals the show as the villainous Alabama, flipping the script on her earlier role as one of the tortured inmates in Jack Hill’s THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, released the same year. Apart from Grier’s standout performance, what sets this entry apart from most other 1970s WIP releases is the grittiness and brutality with which the prison conditions are portrayed. In contrast to Corman’s other productions, de Leon mostly eschews tantalizing scenes, moments of levity, and feminist or other political subtext in favor pure grindhouse exploitation. What’s left is a portrait of prison life so harrowing that one notable future Grier collaborator once referred to it as “soul-shattering, life-extinguishing”, describing its final shot as one of “devastating despair”.

“These films were not made together; nor with the idea of showing them together. But when they came together, we felt they had an attitude in common. Implicit in this attitude is a belief in freedom, in the importance of people and the significance of the everyday.

As filmmakers we believe that:
– No film can be too personal.
– The image speaks. Sound amplifies and comments.
– Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim.
– An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude.”

This was the manifesto of Free Cinema as written in 1956 by four friends and filmmakers: Lindsey Anderson, Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, and Lorenza Mazzetti. Three of them – Anderson, Reisz, and Richardson – would all go on to become massively successful film artists in their own right, but Mazzetti’s career was less public and less mainstream. When she passed away in 2020 at 92 years of age, she left behind the legacy of a remarkable life and a small but powerful body of work that, when contrasted with her peers and collaborators, is largely underappreciated. She was a novelist, a filmmaker, a painter – and an intensely political ideologue who understood the importance of eschewing the power structures that contributed to the exploitation and suffering of people everywhere. Mazzetti herself narrowly escaped execution at the hands of Nazis in 1944. At the time, she was living with her cousin Robert Einstein (brother of Albert) and his family when retreating German officers slaughtered everyone in the house – Mazzetti was spared because she did not have a Jewish last name. This hellish experience colored Mazzetti’s life and would bring a theme of alienation into much of her work.

The two films presented in this program, K and Together, are some of Mazzetti’s earliest. Upon arriving in England, she practically forced her way into admission at the Slade School of Art, telling then principal William Coldstream that she should be let in because, in her words, “I am a genius!” He did as he was told. Later, without permission, Mazzetti “borrowed” film equipment to make K and flippantly told the development lab to bill the school directly. Coldstream allowed Mazzetti’s film to screen under the condition that the audience reaction would determine her future at the program. Not only did her peers applaud the work, but Denis Forman of the BFI was in attendance and offered her the option to make a film that she wasn’t risking jail time for. The result was Together – the first publicly funded film made in the UK by a woman director.

*Special thanks to Another Gaze Journal for their recent and much-needed reissue of Lorenza Mazzetti’s 1961 novel The Sky is Falling (Il cielo cade) and for their assistance in coordinating this program.*

SUNDAY, MARCH 3 – 7:30PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 16 – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 31 – 7:30PM

ADVANCED TICKETS

 

K
Dir. Lorenza Mazzetti,1953
United Kingdom, 29 min.
In English

K is perhaps the first film adaptation of Franz Kafka’s 1915 novel The Metamorphosis. Mazzetti’s work here presaged the Free Cinema movement with her on-location shooting and inclusion of non-actors. She also crafted a rather humorous portrayal of Gregor Samsa owing much to the performance of the character by the late British painter Michael Andrews.

TOGETHER
Dir. Lorenza Mazzetti (with Denis Horne), 1956
United Kingdom, 51 min.
In English

Shot on 35mm and with a budget of only £2000, Together brought the aesthetics of Italian neo-realism to the British working class and was the only fiction film presented in the first Free Cinema program in 1956. The story follows two deaf friends living in a shoebox apartment in London’s East End as they walk each day to their factory jobs, on the way experiencing life in suspended silence. Throughout the film, the two men are hounded across barren bombed-out lots by rowdy children, dirty and smiling, whose real playground songs are a time capsule used as backdrop here in Mazzetti’s work. Sprawling across outdoor markets filled with buskers, beggars, produce stands, and street food and on into cramped bars, circus shows, and alleyways, Together is as much a documentation of a long gone part of London’s past as it is a heartbreaking tale of the alienation of outsiders.

TESOROS
(AKA TREASURE)
Dir. Flavia Furtado, 2023
Chile. 90 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles

SATURDAY, MARCH 2ND – 5 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 16TH – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20TH – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27TH – 7:30 PM + Q&A

ADVANCE TICKETS

ADVANCE TICKETS Q&A

This March, we’re delighted to present the New York Premiere of Flavia Furtado’s TESOROS, a documentary about flea markets in South America. In her dreamy tour through Chile, Brazil, and Argentina’s flea markets, Furtado pieces together a tender portrait of Latin American street vendors that doubles as a biting critique of capitalist culture. The filmmaker’s striking bricolage—a blend of street interviews, personal anecdotes, and urban legends—provides an illuminating glimpse at an undervalued corner of the Latin American economy.

Flavia Furtado is a Brazilian-Chilean filmmaker and DJ. Her films have shown at Anthology Film Archives and New York’s Experimental Film Society. More recently, she was selected to participate in Berlinale Talents.

Special thanks to Flavia Furtado, Kevin Gonzalez, Steve Macfarlane and Sylvie Shamlian.