Since the dawn of the theater, there have been films that have defined Spectacle’s identity and its ethos—films that transcend the walls of our humble ex-bodega and tap into the sense of radical rediscovery that our collective is always chasing. The weird, the pertinent, the beautiful, and the ineffable—these films have been cataloged in our long-running annual series “Best of Spectacle.” At the end of every calendar year, in a tradition that began in 2013, the collective votes on what films should get a second showing in January. Our January calendars have thus become a repository for some of our fondest memories spent with both packed houses and loyal, solitary midnight Spectacleheads.
September of 2025 marks our 15th anniversary at 124 South 3rd Street, and as such it seems a ripe occasion to play the entire catalog of hits. Unfolding in chronological order until we catch up with the present, Spectacle is excited to unveil the “Best of Best of Spectacle”: a running series of films that built our foundation like bricks and resulted in some of Spectacle’s greatest trailers, posters, screenings and memories.
SHEILA AND THE BRAINSTEM
dir. Matt McDowell and Russell Bates, 1989
79 min. United States.
In English.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 – 5 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 14 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27 – 7:30 PM
TICKETS
Taz, a desert mystic devoted to a lifestyle of non-stop consumption and convenience, travels the countryside in search of a magic brainstem that grants its owner access to a paradise at the center of the Earth. Unfortunately for Taz, three no-good, beverage-obsessed, anti-corporate punks named Sean, Head, and Billy Dork mistake the arcane object for beef jerky and abscond with it in a minimart robbery.
Meanwhile, newlyweds Bruce and Sheila are taken hostage — Bruce by Taz, and Sheila by the punks — but Sheila escapes and sets out on her own, while Taz befriends Bruce. On the long road to paradise (a portal somewhere in Nebraska, where life is everlasting and all stores are open 24 hours a day), conversations about commodity, convenience, love, life, and death trail behind cars like tail lights in the dark.
Filmed in 1989 for $100,000 in and around Gridley, CA, SHEILA AND THE BRAINSTEM is a road movie, a crash-course in punk philosophy, and a commercial for soft drinks that don’t exist. Also, Red Kross plays a bar band (with Bob Forrest on vocals). An ambitious and rewarding first feature, criminally under-appreciated but deserving of a place on the shelf next to REPO MAN, BORDER RADIO and ALONE IN THE T-SHIRT ZONE.
New restoration courtesy of Severin Films.
SPLIT
dir. Chris Shaw, 1989
84 mins. United States.
In English.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 4 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 23 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 28 – 5 PM
TICKETS
The only film by mathematician Chris Shaw, and featuring frenzied, schizoid computer animation from MacArthur Genius Grant winner Robert Shaw, SPLIT is a once-in-a-lifetime oddity; a thoroughly-baked, paranoid foot-chase through the dumpsters of early-MTV Santa Cruz. Starker, would-be messiah and master of disguise, eternally attempts to evade the dystopian fascist forces hellbent on keeping him in a feedback loop of capitalist-driven order. As their surveillance systems are based on “consumption” and Starker eats out of garbage cans and freeloads from gallery openings, he has so far been able to escape the clutches of the freakish, half-machine overlord.
Starker wafts of a Pynchon hero scurrying like a rat through the moribund, chaotic future as envisioned by Derek Jarman or Alex Cox. This 2K restoration of the cult headtrip is some kind of miracle — lovingly transferred by Verboden Video and the filmmaker after the discovery of the film’s original 16mm negatives.
Special thanks to Verboden Video, Warren Chan, and Chris Shaw.
SURFER: TEEN CONFRONTS FEAR
dir. Douglas Burke, 2018
101 mins. California.
In English.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 15 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 30 – 7:30 PM
TICKETS
A young surfer confronts fear. He should be out on the waves, hanging ten with the spray at his back, getting tan under the burning sun. Who – or what – can help this young man, numb and nearly mute, gripped by a fear of death, a fear to act?
SURFER, a film directed, acted, scored, and shot by Douglas Burke and Burke International Pictures, might have an answer to this question. At turns a Californian mystic experience, a Biblical parable, and very nearly an adventure thriller, it is at its heart a sort of SURF REFORMED, where men approach faith with the help of the supernatural. Burke approaches the camera like the rhythms of the ocean, nodding to both YouTube how-to videos and Béla Tarr in the same rolling beat. He is less interested in getting the camera tripod out of the shot than he is in the elusive and crucial process of finding one’s élan vital. The waves of destiny grow bigger with each return to the water, as images of surfers guide our hero to his ultimate challenge. Will the teen confront fear? We intuitively know the answer.
THE SCENIC ROUTE
dir. Mark Rappaport, 1978
United States, 76 min.
In English.
MONDAY, AUGUST 3 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 21 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26 – 7:30 PM
TICKETS
“I wouldn’t even tell you a lie, much less the truth.”
Estelle (Rappaport regular Randy Danson) spends most of her time cruising for strangers and chancing upon murder victims in public places (yet somehow none of them are related to the double-barrel shotgun killer we keep hearing about). She gets involved with a man named Paul, but leaves him once her sister, Lena, returns home from the insane asylum (Lena killed a former boyfriend of Estelle). Once Lena starts bringing men to the house it isn’t long before Lena brings Paul over and a love triangle develops.
Like the ever-changing array of wallpaper in Estelle’s apartment (gold stars against American-flag blue, a 16th century painting, a blown up photograph of Lena and Paul kissing), THE SCENIC ROUTE is a meld of styles and forms that never quite settles into any one direction across its 75 minute runtime. Self-consciously staid framing, recurring references to the Orpheus myth through painting and opera, and repetitive unreliable voice-over are just a few of the devices Rappaport uses to capture the romantic malaise that haunts the characters.
Mark Rappaport on THE SCENIC ROUTE:
“Two sisters. And the man who is caught between them. Love, jealousy and revenge. All the standard components of melodrama – but a very dry melodrama. Expectations are thwarted and rechanneled. Instead of explanations and motivations, visual counterparts are offered. The film slides back and forth between passion and an irony which redirects it but doesn’t dilute it. A film about myths and mythmaking, about the Madame Bovary in each of us, about delusions and romance in a fragile world where violence erupts randomly and unexpectedly. The film was made very cheaply in and around New York where violence is a way of life and everyone always talks of going away.”
