Author: mackenzie

FORBIDDEN LOVE: THE UNASHAMED STORIES OF LESBIAN LIVES

Posted on by mackenzie

FORBIDDEN LOVE: THE UNASHAMED STORIES OF LESBIAN LIVES
dir. Aerlyn Weissman & Lynne Fernie, 1992.
Canada, 84 mins.
In English.

SATURDAY, JUNE 6 — 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10 — 7:30 PM (16mm, $10)
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17 — 7:30 PM (16mm, $10)

TICKETS

2k restoration by the National Film Board of Canada, 16mm print provided by the New York Public Library.  

Wryly following in the tradition of the 1965 exploitation “documentary” Chained Girls, Weissman and Fernie’s Forbidden Love is a sweet and tender oral history of mid-century Canadian lesbianism dressed up in pulp trappings. Reveling in the aesthetics of verboten paperbacks and sleazy exposé, this style is merely an ironic wink of a framing encapsulating the true stories of openly gay women in the forties, fifties, and sixties, searching for community, rebellion and love. Nine women dramatize their own personal histories, and the filmmakers additionally interview lesbian pulp novelist Ann Bannon. Along with the feature documentaries of Barbara Hammer and the fictional melodrama of Desert Hearts, Forbidden Love played a role in reclaiming the lesbian narrative from tragedy to triumph, becoming a staple in many young queers’ first KG freeleech queues in the decades since. Lovingly restored by the National Film Board of Canada in 2022 from a 16mm interpositive (the film is shot on a mix of 16mm and 35mm), Spectacle is pleased to show the film both in its recently cleaned-up digital form as well as on a 16mm print, care of the NYPL.

DADDY AND THE MUSCLE ACADEMY

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DADDY AND THE MUSCLE ACADEMY
dir. Ilppo Pohjola, 1991.
Finland, 55 min.
In Finnish and English.

playing with:

P(L)AIN TRUTH
dir. Ilppo Pohjola, 1993.
Finland, 15 min.

THURSDAY, JUNE 11 — 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17 — 10 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 20 — 10 PM
MONDAY, JUNE 29 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS

 

Filmed shortly before his death in 1992, DADDY AND THE MUSCLE ACADEMY stands as the first and only documentary on Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen) featuring the artist speaking about his work in his own words.

The film traces Tom’s journey from rural Finland to his time serving in WWII, where the sight of men in uniform (and the intimacy of wartime) ignited a lifelong erotic fixation. His fetishization of these strong, muscular men—heavily influenced by sharply tailored outfits Hugo Boss designed for the Nazi Party, which Finland was allied with at the time—merged with Tom’s private fantasies, ultimately shaping the iconic leather daddy archetype we now see in normie museum gift shops around the globe.

DADDY AND THE MUSCLE ACADEMY features a cacophony of voices: along with Tom, leather daddies from across America share how his drawings shaped their identities. Featuring art world figures including Durk Dehner (director & co-founder of the Tom of Finland Foundation), homoerotic photographer Bob Mizer, and interdisciplinary artist Nayland Blake, the film reveals how private fantasies became highly influential public iconography.

Tom’s men—hyper-masculine, confident and horny beefcakes—shaped the aesthetics and attitudes of gay culture throughout the late 20th century. The film smartly juxtaposes a comprehensive retrospective of Tom’s illustrations with oiled up men’s men reenacting those drawings, set to a hypnotic, thumping industrial score by Elliott Sharp.

Over and over, they chant like a prayer: “I’m one of Tom’s men.”

Spectacle is pleased to reunite DADDY AND THE MUSCLE ACADEMY with Ilppo Pohjola’s 1993 short P(L)AIN TRUTH, which played alongside the feature during its original New York run at Film Forum. A gorgeous 35mm distillation and abstraction of the gender transition of “Rudi,” and acquaintance of the director, P(L)AIN TRUTH juxtaposes the beauty and freedom of transformation alongside the institutional bureaucracies that keep it in check. Utilizing both analog optical printing and early CGI, the film sets an abundance of powerful images to a haunting soundtrack by composer Glenn Branca. A 4k restoration has been provided by the filmmaker.

Special thanks to Zeitgeist Films and Ilppo Pohjola.

 

MIX NYC PRESENTS: APRIL FOOLS’ DAY

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MIX NYC PRESENTS: APRIL FOOLS’ DAY
dir. various, 1984-2025
US, TRT 52 min.

$10 SPECIAL EVENT

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1 — 10 PM

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In honor of April Fools’ Day, that most subversive and roguish of holidays, co-programmers Lucy Talbot Allen, Jac Renée Bruneau, Xavy Lang, and Payton McCarty-Simas present an evening of foolish film and video. The selected works make use of parody, satire, absurdity, camp, and the grotesque. Indebted to queer practices from cruising to drag to shitposting, these films remind us of the porous borders between humor and theory, between YouTube poop and abstract collage film, and between goofing off and shifting paradigms.

featuring:

PICKLE SURPRISE
dir. Tom Rubnitz, 1989
US, 2 min.

Rubnitz enlists a legendary lineup of Club Kids in his glittering spoof of early television ads.

BUST UP
dir. Cathy Cook, 1989
US, 7 min.

Presented on 16mm! Milwaukee drag queen Holly Brown stars as a Baby Jane-esque grande dame, her dramatic gestures chopped up and re-sutured with chaotic aplomb.

A VERY ROMANTIC MOMENT
dir. Carter Amelia Davis, 2025
US, 2 min.

@annabelle.sweetie.pumkin fields an onslaught of comments and DMs from pleasure-seeking @spatial_jake. The short utilizes shitpost aesthetics and features an unexpected climax…

SEX BOWL
dir. BABY MANIAC (Shu Lea Cheang & Jane Castle), 1994
US, 7 min.

With the bowling alley as a spiritual center, a sultry narrator riffs about an array of lesbian characters and their exploits.

TRUMP BLOWS TRUMP
dir. Christian Meola, 2019
US, 3 min.

The President indulges his carnal side—with himself.

WINNER
dir. Harry Dodge & Stanya Kahn, 2002
US, 16 min.

When a person wins a cruise from a local radio station, the station sends their videographer for a promotional soundbyte—but the winner has other plans for her moment in front of the camera.

FUN WITH A SAUSAGE
dir. Ingrid Wilhite, 1984
US, 16 min.

Wilhite pokes fun at Castro clonedom and lesbian separatism alike by introducing a kielbasa-phallused trickster-masc into these staid San Francisco communities.

MIX NYC (est. 1987) is a non-profit organization dedicated to platforming, promoting, and supporting LGBTQIA2S+ experimental filmmakers and artists. Through our annual MIX FEST and year-round programming, we are committed to showing films that challenge conventional filmmaking practices, test bold ideas, and offer insight into the wide, evolving array of queer experience.

NUMBSKULL REVOLUTION

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NUMBSKULL REVOLUTION
dir. Jon Moritsugu, 2026.
US, 95 min.

$10 SPECIAL EVENT

NEW YORK PREMIERE!
FILMMAKER IN PERSON

FRIDAY, MARCH 13 — 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 14 — 7:30 PM

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We can’t believe we’re saying it—Spectacle’s beloved purveyor of scum-at-large (MOD FUCK EXPLOSION, TERMINAL USA) is headed back to the theater with his first new work in over a decade. We’re thrilled to welcome a true original in person for the New York premiere of NUMBSKULL REVOLUTION, a fully-realized, years in the making DIY opus that concludes Moritsugu’s 29-years of collaboration with his ex-partner, the artist Amy Davis.

Davis stars alongside eternal west coast punk heartthrob James Duval as a duo of warring conceptual artists in a dystopian future plagued by the cyberdrug “Skullfuck.” Shot over a period of two weeks in Marfa, Texas and Sante Fe, New Mexico in a collage of HD and miniDV, NUMBSKULL REVOLUTION is a rapturously colorful satire, full of the filmmaker’s unmistakable capability for endless invention, and a dagger-like salute to the stupidity of it all.

The director describes the film as “a riff on the absurdity of art, warfare of people, material control/secular terror, addictions of every genre, and self-actualization thru internal Jungian conflict,” or more succinctly, “a punk rock BLADE RUNNER for artists.”

“Flash-and-trash attitude… all the ingredients of good revolutionary cinema.”
–New York Post

“Moritsugu is a true visionary who knows how to meld images and sound.”
    –Los Angeles Times

 

STRAY CAT ROCK

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Filmed in rapid succession throughout 1970, the STRAY CAT ROCK series captures a moment of cultural upheaval in post-occupation Japan. The five-film series follow the Alleycats, a girl gang led by the magnetic Meiko Kaji (who goes by many names throughout the series, and would soon go on to star in the iconic LADY SNOWBLOOD (1973) and FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION series (1972-73)). STRAY CAT ROCK latched onto the booming popularity of yakuza films, infusing them with a feminist countercultural energy reflecting the international women’s movement and hippie culture brought over to Japan courtesy of the lingering influence of the American occupation. Each installment of the series tackles the politics of its time, and this April, Spectacle is proud to present three of these films and their accompanying themes: racism in SEX HUNTER, student-led anti-war movements in MACHINE ANIMAL, and the enduring power of countercultural ideals in BEAT ’71. Kaji’s character lives by a strict code of honor, leading the Alleycats through a landscape where Americana, youthful rebellion, early psychedelic rock, club culture, and traditional Japanese values collide in an explosion of pop exploitation.

STRAY CAT ROCK: SEX HUNTER
Yasuharu Hasebe, 1970.
Japan, 86 minutes.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, APRIL 4 — MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15 — 10 PM
MONDAY, APRIL 27 — 10 PM

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Shot in a small coastal town sitting in the shadows of the Yokosuka US naval base, STRAY CAT ROCK: SEX HUNTER follows the Alleycats as they engage in a turf war with the Eagles, a band of racist macho gangsters. When Mari, one of the Alleycats, rejects the advances of Susumu, an Eagle, because of her love for her half-Black boyfriend Ichiro, the personal slight enrages Baron, the leader of the Eagles. Haunted by memories of mixed race men raping his sister when he was a child, Baron launches a terror campaign to violently purge the town of mixed race men, starting with Ichiro. As the Eagles’ hateful harassment escalates the Alleycats fight back, forging an alliance with the mysterious drifter Kazuma to combat the rising tide of racial violence and help him find his long lost sister.

STRAY CAT ROCK: MACHINE ANIMAL
Yasuharu Hasebe, 1970.
Japan, 82 minutes.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, APRIL 2 — 10 PM
SATURDAY, APRIL 4 — 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15 — 7:30 PM

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The fourth STRAY CAT ROCK film to be shot & released in 1970, MACHINE ANIMAL begins with an Alleycats gang member stealing a package of LSD pills from a Vietnam war deserter trying to sell the drugs with his buddies so they can buy boat tickets to Sweden and flee Japan. The Alleycats never meant to steal a man’s freedom: after learning the truth — that the drugs are his only ticket to safety — their leader, Maya, is wracked with guilt. She rallies her fierce biker gang to do whatever it takes to make things right and help the boys sell their drugs. Their plans quickly spread throughout the underground, and rival gangs soon descend on them to snatch up the pills for themselves. What begins as an act of solidarity quickly becomes a free-for-all, forcing Maya and her crew to fend them off while racing against time to secure the boy’s escape.



STRAY CAT ROCK: BEAT ‘71
Toshiya Fujita, 1971.
Japan, 87 minutes.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1 — 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, APRIL 4 — 10 PM
SATURDAY, APRIL 18 — MIDNIGHT

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After getting framed for a murder her boyfriend Ryumei committed, Furiko finds herself incarcerated in the Women’s Remand Center. Two months later, she and her chosen sister Ayako escape. While Ayako heads to Shinjuku to rally Furiko’s crew, Furiko returns to her hometown to find Ryumei and confront him. Things get complicated when Furiko and her gang learn Ryumei is poised to inherit his family’s business empire, while his father (who framed Furiko for the murder) is running for mayor: his campaign would be wrecked by a murder scandal, so he kidnaps Furiko and holds her hostage in his mansion. As Furiko’s freewheeling crew schemes to rescue her, they become entangled in a web of political intrigue and corrupt cops. Much lighter fare than the rest of the STRAY CAT ROCK series, BEAT ’71 builds to an explosive climax at an abandoned mine transformed into a fake Western film set just outside of town where hippies, a biker gang, and chimpanzees face off amidst gunfights and dynamite.

 

 

SUKEBAN DOYŌBI

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SATURDAY, MARCH 28 – 1 PM – 1:30 AM

BUY TICKETS

COME CELEBRATE THE END OF WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH WITH YOUR BESTIES AND A KNIFE FIGHT!

SPECTACLE THEATER IS DELIGHTED TO PRESENT 12½ HOURS OF TITS, HONOR, AND VENGEANCE

Born the love child of 1960s international feminist movements & student anti-war protests in Japan, the delinquent girl boss and her crew were abandoned in a ditch by their parents and raised by the skyrocketing popularity of yakuza films during the same decade. Dripping cool girl energy in chic outfits (sometimes they even match ˖⁺‧₊˚☆), racing motorcycles, torturing their enemies and dancing until dawn at the club, these aggressive women live by a strict code of honor where breaking the rules is met with violent punishment by the hands of your sisters– or a fight to the death.

IF MEN CAN BE HONORABLE SCUM, THEN WHY CAN’T WE?

All day passes $25, $5 per screening at the door.

1 PM

XXXXXX
1987, 93 minutes.

STUPID OVERGROWN MAN-CHILDREN
PLAYING STUPID FASCIST GAMES

3 PM

ANGG
A VERY SPECIAL SUKEBAN EDITION

5:30 PM

XXXXXXXXXXXX
1971, 84 minutes.

OLD GRUDGES, NEW GRUDGES.
WHO WILL MEET THEIR DEATH BY THE SEA?

8 PM 

XXXXXXXX
1973, 83 minutes.

I’LL HELP YOU GET YOUR REVENGE,
BUT DON’T FUCK WITH MY MONEY.

10 PM

XXXXXXXXXXXX
1971, 86 minutes.

MOTORCYCLE MADNESS!

IF YOU WANT TO WIN,
YOU BETTER NOT CUM. 

MIDNIGHT

XXXXXXXXXXXXX
1973, 89 minutes.

IF YOU WEREN’T SO PATHETIC AND HORNY
YOU WOULDN’T BE SO EASY TO BLACKMAIL

WE’RE NOT THE KIND OF GIRLS
YOU’RE USED TO PUSHING AROUND.

warning: some films contain scenes of sexual violence.

ANGST BY AUGUST: ZAPPA and TWIST AND SHOUT

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ZAPPA
Dir. Bille August, 1983.
Denmark. 102 min.
In Danish with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7 — 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12 — 10 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16 — 10 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26 — 7:30 PM

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Danish director Billie August’s (Academy Award and Palme D’or winning director of PELLE THE CONQUEROR) coming-of-age dramas, ZAPPA (1983) and TWIST AND SHOUT (1984), offer a tender yet unflinching vision of adolescent passion, cruelty, and discovery set to the sounds of early rock ‘n’ roll. Overlooked for decades, these gorgeously photographed and dramatically nuanced films—breathtaking in their candor and heartbreaking in their sincerity–are here for rediscovery in stunning new transfers, along with newly produced bonus features, that help bring August’s powerful films to audiences anew.

Three young boys, Bjørn (Adam Tønsberg), Steen (Peter Reichhardt), and Mulle (Morton Hoff), navigate the transition from boyhood to adolescence in Bille August’s stunning, period drama. Steen and Bjørn have formed their own small gang, and invite Mulle to join, but humiliation, cruelty, and violence follow as Steen leads Bjørn further into his loveless, frustrated, and, ultimately, sadistic world. Gentle, funny, honest, and fearlessly dark, ZAPPA is a richly textured and unforgettable, novelesque film.

TWIST AND SHOUT
Dir. Bille August, 1984.
Denmark. 108 min.
In Danish with English subtitles.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2 — 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7 — 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25 — 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27 — 5 PM 

BUY TICKETS

Denmark’s biggest indigenous hit at the time of its release, TWIST AND SHOUT once again follows Bjørn (Adam Tønsbrerg). During the explosion of Beatlemania in Europe, Bjørn plays drums in a rock ‘n’ roll band while Erik (Lars Simonsen) must care for his mentally ill mother. Amid the excitement of music, romance, and sex, the young men must confront the harsh realities of the adult world in director Bille August’s stark and beautiful film.

Special thanks to Altered Innocence.

 

DECODER

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DECODER
Dir. Muscha, 1984.
West Germany. 87 min.
In German, English, and Portuguese.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7 — 5 PM (with MUZAK on 16mm)
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10 — 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12 — 7:30 PM (with MUZAK on 16mm)
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25 — 7:30 PM

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The early 80s of West Berlin was accessible to David Bowie and Nick Cave, however it remained a secluded scene unto itself, a fallen city shared between the French, the Brits, and the Americans. Much of the architecture was unchanged from the war, and a post-war generation of musicians and artists were able to live cheap, work little, squat housing, and stay out all night. Muscha’s DECODER is a Spectacle favorite making a return appearance. This is a must-see on a bigger screen with a bigger sound.

DECODER is a quiet bureaucratic surveillance drama, but then it’s a color-soaked, Benjamin-tinged struggle over information and control. It stars Bill Rice (who you know from Andrew Horn’s DOOMED LOVE), a man impeccably sensitive and equally expressive under vibrant colored lights. There are fast food joints, great tunes, Genesis P-Orridge, Christiane F, and the true answer to whether music recorded from frogs in distress can incite revolution.

“Information is like a bank – some of us are rich, and some of us are poor. ALL OF US CAN BE RICH.”

Special thanks to Vinegar Syndrome and the American Genre Film Archive.

Playing with:

MUZAK
Dir. Rhody Streeter and Tony Ganz, 1972.
United States. 6 min.
In English.

World premiere of new 16mm restoration print.

But just how far-fetched were DECODER’s systems of authoritarian aural control? In the early 1970s, documenteurs of all things uniquely, perversely Americana Rhody Streeter and Tony Ganz ventured into the bowels of a high-tech new industry: MUZAK. Military scientists, organ players for the New York Mets, and record executives collide as they promise the viewer a future of happy labor delivered via audio transmission. Both wry and slightly unnerving, Streeter and Ganz’s documentary uncannily predicts Spotify’s nefarious algorithms and a present where art is not meant to be enjoyed but quantified into how it benefits American capitalism.

The films of Tony Ganz and Rhody Streeter distributed by the Film Desk.

Special thanks to the New York Public Library, Elena Rossi-Snook, Jake Perlin and The Film Desk, and Rhody Streeter and Tony Ganz. 16mm restoration completed by BB Optics in 2025.

BEST OF BEST OF SPECTACLE

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STUNTS

STUNTS
dir. Mark Lester, 1977
United States. 89 min.
In English.

THURSDAY, JULY 2 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 10 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, JULY 18 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JULY 27 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 31 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS

Director Mark Lester (CLASS OF 1999, COMMANDO, FIRESTARTER) blends murder mystery and stunt reel in a film that sits comfortably next to HOOPER and STUNT ROCK. Featuring Robert Forster (MEDIUM COOL, TWIN PEAKS) and Ray Sharkey (a great back-to-back run on CRIME STORY and WISEGUY) as a stuntman and a reporter trying to figure out who is murdering film’s greatest stuntpeople, it’s got everything from slow-motion footage of cars flying end-over-end, a breezy drive-in vibe, multiple helicopter gags, dirtbikes for days and did I mention STUNTS?

A FEAST OF MAN

A FEAST OF MAN
dir. Caroline Golum, 2017
United States. 82 min.
In English.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 5 – 5 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 11 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 24 – 5 PM

TICKETS

In celebration of Caroline Golum’s new feature film REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE, we are honored to bring back A FEAST OF MAN, which enjoyed a successful premiere run at Spectacle in 2017.

Caroline Golum’s rosé-refracted debut feature A FEAST OF MAN is a hilarious drawing-room comedy that pushes its audience to ask unspeakable questions of itself, performing a ruthless re-exhumation of THE BIG CHILL by way of Whit Stillman, Henry James and a pinch of Bette Gordon. Laurence Joseph Bond stars as Gallagher, a wealthy ne’er-do-well sitting on preciously guarded millions; when Gallagher dies in an untimely accident (kept mysteriously offscreen), his valet James (Zach Fleming) summons the late aristocrat’s closest friends (a murderer’s row of a cast including Frank Mosley, Marleigh Dunlap, Chris Shields and Katey Parker) to the family home in upstate New York, where he presents them with Gallagher’s final will and testament via videoconference. It’s revealed that the tony young codger will bequeath his fortune to the group, split evenly, but only if they agree, unanimously, to eat his corpse. A weekend of flashbacks, double-crosses and coastal-elite hand-wringing ensues: some characters retreat further into forced juvenilia while others, remembering all the slights and jealousies of their near/post-adolescent years, find an opportunity to avenge their lost youth. But throughout, the clock ticks with one question: will they go through with it?

A FEAST OF MAN is not like other movies: Golum’s screenplay (co-written by the prolific Dylan Pasture) is at once laden with one-liners and hijinks, yet keeps the audience guessing how blackened its heart really is, how low its comedy of rich people’s poor manners can, and will, go.

WHO IS BOZO TEXINO

WHO IS BOZO TEXINO?
dir. Bill Daniel, 2005
United States. 57 min.
In English.

SUNDAY, JULY 5 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 10 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 31 – 5 PM

TICKETS

Shot in 8mm and 16mm over 16 years, the infamous WHO IS BOZO TEXINO? is an experimental documentary searching for the identities and stories behind the ubiquitous and yet esoteric art of hobo graffiti found on the sides of boxcars, grainers and train bridges spanning North America from coast to coast. Landing somewhere between outsider art and subculture minutiae—utilizing the conjecture, half-truths, tall tales and mythology that occupies the jungles and campfires—Daniel interviews an array of old timers, hobos and rail workers as well as streak and moniker heavyweights like Herby, The Rambler, and Colossus of Roads.

THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE

THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE (EL TRIANGULO DE ORO)
aka LA ISLA FANTASMA
dir. Jairo Pinilla, 1984
Colombia. 93 mins
In Spanish with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, JULY 3 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 9 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JULY 20 – 10 PM

TICKETS

Presented in collaboration with Petroglyph Media, which has been dedicated to preserving and restoring the works of Jairo Pinilla. Anthony Napolitano of Petroglyph will be at the theater for an introduction on July 9th, and Blu-rays of Pinilla’s FUNERAL SINIESTRO—which also contains THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE—will be available for purchase, in anticipation of our screening the restoration of FUNERAL SINIESTRO in August.

An ostensibly straightforward mystery thriller riffing on a bygone generation’s worth of toxic whispers about the Bermuda Triangle, this film (also released as LA ISLA FANTASMA) uses the Panama Canal Zone as a jumping-off point, from whence a young girl and her father vanish out on the high seas. Jack Mendelson, her swollen uncle (who may also be a mercenary/private detective?) decked out in a leather vest and ripped bell-bottom jeans, goes searching for them, with the remaining nephew in tow. Their axes form a puzzle, leading them to a moss-ensconced island housing a mythic miniature pyramid made of solid gold – but the triangle is treacherous, and exposure to it begins to cost Jack his sanity.

Well before a man-eating plant has taken center stage, you’ll agree that EL TRIANGULO DE ORO is one of the wildest and most imaginative horror movies ever made, including at least one set piece that should be legendarily famous: a showstopping martial arts throwdown between Jack and a cadre of shady characters in a seaside cantina. The bar patrons’ horrified reactions teeter between tragedy and farce, another example of Pinilla’s surprisingly un-rushed editing style: Pinilla builds mystery through gorgeous location photography, decking each scene out with more telephoto zooms than you’ll find in most contemporaneous Hollywood thrillers. Speaking of which: both films in this series betray Pinilla’s penchant for overlaying snatches of music from overhyped American movies of the day. An insaniack final twist (complete with flashing strobes and bedraggled first-person long takes tiptoeing through walls of ivy, reeking with death) adopts the perspective of a child, played by Pinilla’s real-life son Jorge, to dreamy, haunting and hilarious effect.

Thanks to Anthony Napolitano and Jairo Pinilla.

THE GOLD OF LOVE

THE GOLD OF LOVE (DAS GOLD DER LIEBE)
dir. Eckhart Schmidt, 1983.
West Germany. 86 min.
In German with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 17 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, JULY 28 – 10 PM

TICKETS

Schmidt’s follow up to DER FAN plays a bit like the same film detuned to a harsher register. The palatable pop of new wave superstar “R” is replaced by the raucous tremors of actual rock band D.A.F. (Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft), whom teen Alexandra Curtis (yes, half-sister of Jamie Lee) harbors an unhealthy obsession. While the horror of Der Fan came from its chillingly slow descent towards a maniacally bleak outcome, the follow-up pretty much starts in a post-punk underworld with no hope of escape — tears of blood run down the protagonist’s face within the first half an hour, after she finds herself without any cash to gain entry to D.A.F.’s show. The rest of the film chronicles her attempts to see the group at any possible cost, traversing a zonked-out, eternally nocturnal Vienna in the process.