Author: smacfarlane

FLEEGIX

Posted on by smacfarlane

FLEEGIX
dir. Matthew Thurber, 2019
75 mins. United States.

SATURDAY, JULY 27 – 7:30 PM w/Matthew Thurber in person for Q&A
16MM – WORLD PREMIERE – ONE NIGHT ONLY
(This event is $10.)

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Shot on 16mm film, Matthew Thurber’s FLEEGIX is a science-fiction film set on Earth, although some of the population have become convinced that they are in fact living on the planet Mars. The film investigates the nature of belief systems which overlap, co-exist, and create conflict in any human society. Its subject is the nature of reality. It takes place in a recognizable world of parks, parking lots, gas stations and video stores, which makes the episodes stranger and more tangible. It does not create a fantasy world: the extraordinary is mapped onto a recognizable landscape.

The film is inspired by and loosely adapted from on a Y/A novel by Daniel Pinkwater and Alan Mendelsohn called The Boy From Mars, in which alienated high school students Leonard and Alan escape boredom through developing telepathic powers and learn to travel to other dimensions overlapping their own. Matthew Thurber received permission from the authors to make a film that is a creative interpretation of their book.

FLEEGIX includes both live action, stop motion and hand drawn animated segments. The appearance of animation in the narrative is to illustrate propaganda, such as depictions of newsworthy events on Mars. This film is an organism that grows and continues to develop a web of connected motifs and ideas. FLEEGIX is constructed through the accumulation of short scenes that echo and lead into each other, making connections across time and space. It is a a “Fairy story” whose construction resembles a role-playing game, rather than a simulation of standard motion picture narrative. At the heart of the film is the question as to how Fleegix, a beverage enjoyed by Martians, is manufactured. The film details further conflict among New York Martians who express themselves in animated movement, and the Hand Shadow Punks of Baltimore, who represent a pre-cinematic faction. The film proposes various absurd answers to this question, and the dispute takes on symbolic and mythological proportions.

MATTHEW THURBER‘s unpredictable practice has included: Mining the Moon, a full length musical play; Moon Tube, a week of movies each made in a single day; an olfactory performance, dressed as a giant nose; Mouse Maze, a mosaic labyrinth installed in an elementary school; Terpinwoe, choreographed noise dance about a carrot-based economy; an interactive novel employing Handwriting Analysis. As Ambergris and in other ensembles he has performed at the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Hammer Museum, the Fumetto Festival, Abrons Art Center, and in an eyeglass store. He co-founded Tomato House, an art gallery in operation from 2012-2015, with Rebecca Bird. Finally he is the author of 1-800-MICE, INFOMANIACS, and Art Comic.

Thurber resides in Baltimore, MD where he is working on animated and live action film projects, illustration, and comics. He is the operator of Mrs. William Horsley, a mobile theater devoted to creating works of narrative experimentation and scientific investigation using puppetry. Thurber curates the Sweet16 Cinema Club, a film series dedicated to watching films on film.

JUAN WAUTERS: LIFE THROUGH JUAN’S EYES

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SATURDAY, JULY 13th – 7:30 PM w/discussion moderated by Sadie Benning & 10PM w/discussion moderated by Owen Kline
ONE NIGHT ONLY! NYC PREMIERE!
(These screenings are $10.)

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Spectacle is pleased to invite Uruguayan-born, NYC-based filmmaker and musician  Juan Wauters to the space for a one-night-only screening of recent short-form video works. ROMANE, JUIN 2016 builds a video portrait of the titular Romane, a 19-year-old postal service worker, living in a small village in France as she goes through her daily chores. BOLERO URUGUAY, DIC 2017 is a montage of images collected in Wauters’ homeland set to the tune of Maurice Ravel’s classic orchestral piece “Bolero”. Both videos portray life at its own pace; driven by curiosity, Wauters’ camera stares at people living their lives.

Having spent years in Jackson Heights, quotidian observation of people in their day-to-day environments has become central to Wauters’ life and artistic practice. This will be the first public screening of Wauters’ short films (which will include a few extra surprises) in New York, and Wauters will be in attendance for a discussion following the films.

Programmed in collaboration with Steve Holmgren and David Powell Steine. Special thanks to Captured Tracks, and Ivonne Sheen for Spanish translation.

SADIE BENNING is an American artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Benning’s work has been exhibited internationally since 1990. Over the last three decades, Benning’s work has taken the form of video, music, and more recently mixed-media works that trouble the distinctions between painting, photography, drawing and sculpture.

OWEN KLINE is a New York based film maker and cinema connoisseur. He is an actor, writer and director, known for THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (2005) and FOWL PLAY (2013), the later featuring Juan Wauters. Kline is currently in the final stages of completing his new film, TWO AGAINST NATURE.

JUAN WAUTERS has covered a lot of ground in the past few years, both artistically and geographically. The New York-based, Latin-American artist has been traveling Latin America extensively, taking time to pause and rethink his life, his art and his career after releasing two critically acclaimed albums on Captured Tracks: 2014’s N.A.P.: North American Poetry and 2015’s Who Me? Wauters originally planned to record his next album while traveling, seeking a break from his life in New York City, the city he has called home since moving from Montevideo in 2002. He settled in Mexico City in 2017 to focus on writing. However, shortly after, he was offered a role in an independent film being shot in Argentina. Never one to turn down a creative opportunity, Wauters packed up his 100 pound mobile recording studio into two suitcases and took off to Buenos Aires. When filming was complete, Wauters wound up writing and recording all over Latin America — from Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, and Chile to Mexico and Puerto Rico — seeking collaboration at every stop with local musicians who embody the traditions and energies specific to each region.

Puerto Rico was one of his first destinations. At a restaurant on the way to Charco Azul in Guavate – a natural swimming hole – Wauters heard a duo playing boleros, music he has been familiar with since his early childhood, but had never experienced in its original context. Those boleros would inspire the repeating melody that makes up the infectious love song, “Guapa.” Later, Mexico City was to become the home of “A Volar,” a beautiful, buoyant track about dreaming wildly that features multiple musicians that Wauters met in Garibaldi, a popular square in Mexico City where musicians for hire gather. Later, he would trek to Buenos Aires, Santiago and Montevideo, creating music and incorporating local traditions into his idiosyncratic, captivating yarns.

Until this point in his career, most of his songs had been sung in English, but revisiting his Latin roots inspired him to record songs in his native tongue. Thus, Wauters gives us the wonderful La Onda de Juan Pablo, the world of Juan Pablo Wauters. Wauters now calls Far Rockaway home, when he is not on the road making music or movies.

Juan Wauters: la vida a través de los ojos de Juan

SÁBADO, 13 DE JULIO – 7:30 pm con discusión moderada por Sadie Benning & 10PM con discusión moderada por Owen Kline
¡SOLO POR UNA NOCHE! NYC PREMIERE!
(Estas proyecciones cuestan $10).

Spectacle se complace en invitar al cineasta y músico uruguayo, establecido en la Ciudad de Nueva York, Juan Wauters, para una única proyección de sus últimos trabajos en video de formato corto .

ROMANE, JUIN 2016 – construye un retrato en video de Romane, una trabajadora de 19 años de edad del servicio postal, quien vive en un pequeño pueblo de Francia mientras realiza sus tareas diarias.

BOLERO URUGUAY, DIC 2017 es un montaje de imágenes recopiladas en la tierra natal de Wauters, acompañadas de la melodía de la clásica pieza orquestal “Bolero” de Maurice Ravel. Ambos videos retratan la vida a su propio ritmo; conducido por la curiosidad, la cámara de Wauters mira a las personas que viven sus vidas.

El haber pasado años en Jackson Heights y la observación cotidiana de personas en sus entornos cotidianos, se han convertido en un aspecto central de la vida y la práctica artística de Wauters. Esta será la primera proyección pública de los cortometrajes de Wauters en Nueva York, y Wauters estará presente para una discusión posterior a las películas.

Programado en colaboración con Steve Holmgren y David Powell Steine. Agradecimientos especiales a Captured Tracks.

SADIE BENNING es una artista estadounidense que vive en Brooklyn, Nueva York. El trabajo de Benning ha sido exhibido internacionalmente desde 1990. Durante las últimas tres décadas, el trabajo de Benning ha tomado la forma de video, música y, más recientemente, trabajos en medios mixtos que complican las distinciones entre pintura, fotografía, dibujo y escultura.

OWEN KLINE es un cineasta y conocedor del cine con sede en Nueva York. Es un actor, escritor y director, conocido por THE SQUID AND WHALE (2005) y FOWL PLAY (2013), el último con la participación de Juan Wauters. Kline se encuentra actualmente en las etapas finales de completar su nueva película, TWO AGAINST NATURE.

JUAN WAUTERS ha cubierto mucho territorio en los últimos años, tanto artística como geográficamente. El artista latinoamericano con base en Nueva York ha viajado extensivamente por América Latina, tomándose su tiempo para pausar y reconsiderar su vida después de lanzar dos álbumes aclamados por la crítica en Captured Tracks: 2014’s N.A.P.: North American Poetry and 2015’s Who Me? Wauters originalmente planeó grabar su próximo álbum mientras viajaba por la ciudad de Nueva York, la ciudad a la que llama su hogar después de mudarse de Montevideo en 2002. Se estableció en la Ciudad de México en 2017, para concentrarse en la escritura. Sin embargo, poco después, se le ofreció un papel en una película independiente que se filmó en Argentina. No pudo rechazar una oportunidad creativa, así Wauters empacó su estudio móvil de 100 libras en dos maletas y se fue a Buenos Aires. Cuando el rodaje terminó, Wauters continuó escribiendo y grabando a lo largo de Latinoamérica — desde Argentina, Uruguay, Perú y Chile hasta México y Puerto Rico — buscando en cada parada, colaboración con músicos locales que encarnan las tradiciones y la energía específica de cada región.

Puerto Rico fue uno de sus primeros destinos. En un restaurante de camino al Charco Azul en Guavate — un agujero natural para nadar — Wauters escuchó a un dúo tocando boleros, música con la que está familiarizado desde su infancia, pero que nunca había experimentado en su contexto original. Esos boleros inspirarían la melodía repetitiva que conforma la canción de amor infecciosa, “Guapa”. Más tarde, la Ciudad de México se convertirá en el hogar de “A Volar”, una pista hermosa y boyante, sobre soñar salvajemente, la cual cuenta con la participación de múltiples músicos que Wuaters conoció en Garibaldi, una plaza popular en la Ciudad de México donde se reúnen músicos de contrato. Luego, viajaría a Buenos Aires, Santiago y Montevideo, creando música e incorporando las tradiciones locales en sus idiosincrásicas y cautivadoras creaciones.

Hasta este punto en su carrera, la mayoría de sus canciones se interpretaron en inglés, pero el revisitar sus raíces latinas, lo inspiró para grabar canciones en su lengua materna. Así, Wauters nos regala la maravillosa La Onda de Juan Pablo, el mundo de Juan Pablo Wauters. Wauters ahora llama a Far Rockaway su hogar, cuando no está haciendo música o películas en el camino.

BURNING FRAME: A Monthly Anarchist Film Series

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CALLING ALL LEFTISTS! The past few years have been a whirlwind: exhausting, invigorating, and ripe with potential. It’s tremendously difficult, when in the thick of it, to pause, reflect, or even find a moment to catch a breath. Especially when “it” refers to the rise of fascism on a global scale, with any number of future cataclysms hovering just over the horizon. But we digress.

Join us, then, for a series that asks: if not now, when? Come for great works of radical political filmmaking, stay for the generative discussions, or even just to gossip and gripe. The hope isthat this forum for authentic representations of successes, defeats, and the messy work of political action, will be thrilling, edifying, and maybe even inspire your next organizing project. To butcher the title of a great film for the sake of a moderately applicable pun: “Throw away your dogma, rally in the cinema.”


I’LL BE YOUR EYES, YOU’LL BE MINE
dirs. Keja Kramer and Stephen Dwoskin, 2006
47 mins. France.
In French with English Subtitles.

THURSDAY, JUNE 13 – 7:30 PM (double feature with IT MAY BE THAT BEAUTY HAS STRENGTHENED OUR RESOLVE)

TUESDAY, JUNE 25 – 7:30 PM (double feature with IT MAY BE THAT BEAUTY HAS STRENGTHENED OUR RESOLVE)

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Stephen Dwoskin: I think [Robert Kramer] was getting worn out in his search a bit, finding a way through, in an abstract sort of way, not knowing any longer exactly how to handle the material without getting into a repetition. Not knowing how far to go! You need a lot of energy to do it, you need a lot of motivation, because making films is a bit like a drug – and if you OD on it, it’s pretty hard. You can get lost very easily in it, like being stoned, and then demobilised, don’t you agree? I don’t know where Robert was in his private life, you probably know better.

Keja Kramer [Robert’s daughter]: I don’t think there’s another life than the film when you are in it.

Dwoskin: Well, making a film is life!

Kramer: Exactly, so he wasn’t living at home; he was shooting every day.

Dwoskin: But it’s also about how one feels about a relationship to one’s self at that time. To keep the ball bouncing – sometimes it’s very easy to give up. Making films for many people … it’s really hard work. If you lose your motivation for a moment, the whole thing could fall apart; it’s very heavy, very intense, and that intensity can be very exhausting …

Kramer: I was laughing to myself about shooting I’ll Be Your Eyes, and the idea of all those situations of dragging the tripod on a bicycle because it was too heavy to carry, and all these cameras on my back, walking out to the middle of a field to change into that green suit and turning the camera on, having nobody behind the camera, wandering around … In those moments, when you’re working within such a lonely configuration, you have only your own motivation to go on, your own self …

Dwoskin: Yeah, it’s the same.

Kramer: … for acknowledgement. But, even working here, when it’s just the two of us, you feel like there’s no world – the whole world is just this world, these images that we’ve pulled in.

– Conversation between the directors recorded 2/11/ 06, published online in Rouge #9

IT MAY BE THAT BEAUTY HAS STRENGTHENED OUR RESOLVE
dirs. Nicole Brenez and Philippe Grandrieux, 2011
74 mins. France.
In French with English subtitles.

“Avant-garde cinema is not primarily defined by its economic origins, nor by a doctrinaire platform, nor a singular aesthetic: it diverts a technology born of military and industrial needs, reinscribes it within a dynamic of emancipation and therefore participates in a vast critical movement that culminates in the 18th century with the philosophy of Kant and the Enlightenment. If the work of art’s primary territory is that of the conscience or the work of faculties, its challenge consists of continuously reconfiguring the symbolic, to question the division between art and life, such as the humiliating division between the ideal and reality. For an avant-garde artist, art only has sense in its refusal, in its contesting, its pulverization of the limits of the symbolic; it exists as an end within itself or as a means of directly intervening in the real…

The portrait here is not a link, not a report, not a clarification, nor an unveiling. It gathers and gives itself the means (visual, stylistic) of reconstituting the unsounded, volumetric, immeasurable properties of a presence, a fortiori when it concerns the presence of a creator with an exceptional historical journey. A two-dimensional image provides us with an approximate figure; it cannot open us up to the being whose contours it adjusts like a skimpy outfit and, more often than not, falls back on an archetype or a cliché. Far from the usual portraits, that of Masao Adachi by Philippe Grandrieux resembles nothing aside from James Joyce’s Ulysses, an inverted Ulysses: a psychic odyssey that guides us from an internal monologue, through confidence, by the objectification of external witnesses, by spatial and temporal contextualization, by epiphanies born of the appearances of faces, by the constructivist revelation of the means of its production, and in its conclusion, describes to us the utter complexity of a being without having consigned him to an identity—as we are wont to do to those we love because, seen through a loving light, they flood us with an inexhaustible infinity.”

– From “Cultural Guerrillas,” Brenez and Grandreux’s manifesto on the substance of their collaboration, published 3/1/12 at Moving Image Source

JACK YA’ BODY

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In collaboration with Alfreda’s Cinema, Spectacle is proud to present JACK YA’ BODY, an odyssey into the gritty world of underground disco and house-music dance culture through a selection of features, shorts, and found footage spanning NY-Chicago-Detroit in the 80/90s. Opening with Nicky Siano’s LOVE IS THE MESSAGE introduced by Melissa Lyde, this program features talks with DJs Joey Llanos (Paradise Garage), Douglas Sherman (The Loft/Joy), and Tabu (Soul Summit Music). Film critic and 4Columns film editor Melissa Anderson will introduce Derek Jarman’s recently rediscovered WILL YOU DANCE WITH ME?, and we will be joined by award-winning broadcast journalist Mark Riley to close out the program following the final night of MAESTRO.

Programmed by Melissa Lyde and Jimmy Weaver. Special thanks to Electronic Arts Intermix, Nicky Siano, Jeffrey Arsenault, American Genre Film Archive and Vinegar Syndrome.



PUMP UP THE VOLUME
dir. Carl Hindmarch, 2014
147 mins. US/UK.

SUNDAY, JUNE 2 – 5 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 7 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, JUNE 18 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, JUNE 27 – 7:30 PM

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From its humble beginnings in the underground clubs of Chicago, house music has since blossomed into the biggest cultural phenomenon since rock and roll. Fifteen years since its birth in America’s heartland, house has come to dominate pop music the world over: from Madonna to U2, no one has escaped its restless beat. It has turned DJs into superstars and transformed night clubs into global grounds for cross-cultural pollination. In short: house music is a way of life. This is the guiding principle behind the BBC’s PUMP UP THE VOLUME a documentary about house culture from Chicago to the UK.

PUMP UP THE VOLUME follows the evolution of house music from its birth in Chicago to the myriad of diverse music it has since spawned. Born from the ashes of disco, house music arrived pre-destined to change the world. From the underground to the mainstream through countless interviews from the people who made it all happen, Pump includes the birth of all of the major genres that sprang from its fertile shores; acid, techno, trance, drum and bass, UK garage, and more.

WILL YOU DANCE WITH ME?
dir. Derek Jarman, 1984/2014
78 mins. US/UK.

FRIDAY, JUNE 21 – 7:30 PM with introduction from film critic Melissa E. Anderson
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SATURDAY, JUNE 29 – 7:30 PM

Twenty years after his untimely death, a heretofore unknown Derek Jarman film has come to light: discovered by friend Ron Peck, Jarman’s scrappy documentary was shot on location inside Benjy’s, a now closed gay nightclub in East London. Originally shot as experimental B-roll for Peck’s EMPIRE STATE (1987), this uncut 78 minutes includes hot cuts from Frankie Goes to Hollywood, among others.

NIGHT OWL
dir. Jeffrey Arsenault, 1993
77 mins. United States.

SATURDAY, JUNE 8 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 15 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 22 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 28 – MIDNIGHT

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Set in 1984 on the streets of Manhattan’s lower east side, Jeffrey Arsenault’s gritty, guerrilla-style debut feature is a nightmarish tale of urban vampires. In one of his earliest screen appearances, John Leguizamo stars as Angel, a young man on a desperate search for his missing sister. Alongside incredible glimpses of long-gone Lower East Side clubs, NIGHT OWL also features cameos from local nightlight personalities Michael Musto, house music pioneer Screamin’ Rachel, and Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn.

MAESTRO
dir. Josell Ramos, 2003
89 mins. United States.

FRIDAY, JUNE 7 – 7:30 PM with Douglas Sherman and Joey Llanos in person for Q&A
ONLINE TICKETS       FACEBOOK EVENT

FRIDAY, JUNE 28 – 7:30 PM with Mark Riley in person for Q&A
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MAESTRO tells the story of a group of people finding refuge and reason for living outside the mainstream. New York City’s club scene laid the groundwork for what was to come in global dance culture, and Ramos’ turn-of-the-century portrait gives us a rare insight into this secret underground world. Featuring interviews with pioneering dance music DJs, producers and “founding fathers”, and centering on groundbreaking Paradise Garage DJ Larry Levan, MAESTRO devotes equal screen time to past legends and contemporary acolytes of house. Opting for a more personal and candid approach, Maestro shows the true history of its people through a realistic creative aesthetic. Tracing the origins of underground dance culture, Ramos’ documentary is an honest portrayal of these sonic rebels, and the lives they lived and died for.

LOVE IS THE MESSAGE: A NIGHT AT THE GALLERY
dir. Nicky Siano, 2011
80 mins. United States.

SATURDAY, JUNE 1 – 7:30 PM w/introduction from series programmer Melissa Lyde
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
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Directed by Nicky Siano, LOVE IS THE MESSAGE takes the viewer back to the heyday of dance music for one night at New York’s famed club, The Gallery. Opened in 1972 by Siano and his brother, The Gallery’s profound effect on the dance music scene reverberates today in clubs around the world. Before Studio 54, Paradise Garage, and The Warehouse, there was The Gallery, where Nicky Siano could be found in the DJ booth every Saturday night. Grace Jones and Loleatta Holloway both made their first appearances at The Gallery – even Chicago house pioneer Frankie Knuckles used to blow up balloons for the club, often in the company of future Paradise Garage resident Larry Levan. This was a time before disco was capital-D Disco, and before the imposing velvet ropes of the high-society discotheques. In Siano’s own words: “the absolute honesty of the film, not hiding the bad stuff, but putting it in your face, is the only kind of film I could relate to. To see these legends on film is a priceless peek at the reality of being a dance music super star. Please take a look and remember, love will always be the message.”


DEEP IN VOGUE SHORTS PROGRAM
Dir. Various, 1980-1990.
70 mins.

SATURDAY, JUNE 1 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, JUNE 6 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JUNE 24 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JUNE 30 – 5PM

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DEEP IN VOGUE is a curated selection of shorts and clips that exemplify the intrinsic energy of the gaudy dance style known as Voguing. HOUSE OF TRES (from Diane Martel, now an iconic music video diector) explores dance styles in 90s NYC nightlife; Charles Atlas’ WHAT I DID LAST SUMMER (aka BUTCHER’S VOGUE) is set in a Meat Market restaurant after hours, starring voguing waitstaff, two sex workers on the run, and a thirsty cop. In DJ PIONEERS LARRY LEVAN, various friends and DJs give firsthand accounts of Paradise Garage DJ Larry Levan; HAPPY BIRTHDAY LARRY features a rare interview with Levan discussing his inspirations. Among other clips, CHICAGO HIP-HOUSE measures the impact of house music on Chicago hiphop during the Eighties and Nineties.

Melissa Anderson is the film editor of 4Columns and a regular contributor to Artforum and Bookforum.

Joey Llanos has DJed for 30+ years, beginning his career at the Paradise Garage, made famous by Larry Levan, and continues to keep the ethos of the Garage alive through annual events and as its key historian and archivist.

Douglas Sherman is the musical host for Adventures in Flight, beginning his career assisting David Mancuso and his seminal Loft parties in a variety of roles including musical host since 1985.

Mark Riley is an award-winning broadcast journalist with 40+ years of experience hosting and directing radio programs and pioneering media strategies that attract a loyal, diverse audience.

Tabu is one of the founders of Soul Summit Music, a Brooklyn-based outdoor disco/house-music festival and has DJ’ed globally for over 25 years.

Alfreda’s Cinema screens films that tell Black/POC stories that resonate with depth and love, the richness and culture of our history, our dynamics, our shapes, our colors, and our truth. Programmed by Melissa Lyde, Alfreda’s Cinema continues as a bi-monthly series at Metrograph with programs, talks and special appearances that aspire to bridge communities.

MANGOSHAKE

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MANGOSHAKE
dir. Terry Chiu, 2015
104 mins. Canada.
In English.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JUNE 9 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 14 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JUNE 17 -7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 22 – 7:30 PM

ONLINE TICKETS       FACEBOOK EVENT

Bummer in the summer! What happens with a pack of listless teens stop being polite, and start getting real serious about making money with their competing DIY fruit drink stands?

A special treat from our neighbors to the north, Terry Chiu’s coming-of-age send-up left audiences in stitches from Austin to Buenos Aires. Scrappy, honest, but hardly saccharine, Chiu’s improvisatory style and keen eye for interpersonal pettiness goes toe-to-toe with the more polished debuts of his better-heeled colleagues. See the film birth.movies.death called “the heart inside the roughest cinematic outsider art,” when MANGOSHAKE lands at Brooklyn’s outsiders-only cinema.

MATCH CUTS PRESENTS: HANGIN’ WITH LEO!

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19th – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

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HANGIN’ WITH LEO!
prod. Doug Waterman, 1998.
32 mins. United States.
In English.

Hangin’ With Leo!! – Leonardo DiCaprio: The Unauthorized Documentary VHS

MATCH CUTS is a weekly podcast centered on video, film and the moving image. Match Cuts Presents is dedicated to presenting de-colonialized cinema, LGBTQI films, Marxist diatribes, video art, dance films, sex films, and activist documentaries with a rotating cast of presenters from all spectrums of the performing and plastic arts and surrounding humanities. Match Cuts is hosted by Nick Faust and Kachine Moore.

REYNOLS “SINTI BOTUVA TAPES”

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SUNDAY, JUNE 16 – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Acourtis from Reynols in person for Q&A! (This event is $10.)

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REYNOLS “SINTI BOTUVA TAPES”
dir. Various, 2018.
Various, 81 min.

Screening to celebrate the release of the boxset REYNOLS “MINECXIO EMANATIONS 1993-2018” on Picadisk.

“SINTI BOTUVA TAPES” compiles videos of Argentine cult band REYNOLS. The band started in Buenos Aires in 1993 and it integrates Down Syndrome drummer Miguel Tomasín along with guitarists Roberto Conlazo and Alan Courtis, The film shows a diversity of live concerts and various activities over a period more than 25 years.

The film includes:

1. Saludo Vincher Vinchas (Dir. Miguel Mitlag)
2. Colegio Cristoforo Colombo, 1994 (Dir. A.Ruiz and unknown)
3. No Music Festival, The Tonic, New York 2001 (Dir. Mike Shiflet)
4. Flesh Sound Bs. As.,1999 (Reynols selected archives)
5. Somewhere near Kingston, New York, 2001 (Dir. Mike Shiflet)
6. Papagayos en la luz, Flesh Sound, Bs.As., 2001 (Reynols selected archives)
7. O’Hara Mansion, Ohio, 2001 (Dir. Reynols)
8. Fusa, Bs.As., 2001 (Reynols selected archives)
9. Lo Pawe Recy Plays Norway (Dir. Tom Løberg)
10. Camio Flatdas (Dir. Reynols)
11. Lor Nindio Pepelacho in Brussels (Dir. Christophe Piette)

THE PROSTITUTES OF LYON SPEAK

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THE PROSTITUTES OF LYON SPEAK
(LES PROSTITUEES DE LYON PARLENT)
dir. Carole Roussopoulos, 1975
46 minutes. France.
In French with English subtitles.

SUNDAY, JUNE 2 – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
(This event is $10.)

ONLINE TICKETS          FACEBOOK EVENT

The state is a pimp. The greatest one!

In 1975, escalating tensions between the local government and sex workers in Lyon, France came to a head. Following a scandal linking the vice squad with area brothels, the police made a show of cracking down on sex workers, dramatically increasing fines for soliciting, and retroactively retrieving an old law which condemned repeat offenders to prison. Dozens of women suddenly faced jail time and the loss of custody of their children.

Pushed to the edge, on June 2nd, about a hundred women took over the church of St. Nizier in the center of Lyon. They set up a dormitory inside the church, as well as a monitor on the street outside to broadcast their message to onlookers and passersby. Their protest action itself was short lived, but it captured national attention, and sparked a wave of similar church occupations throughout France. Today it is commonly regarded as the birth of the modern sex workers rights movement.

Pioneering feminist documentary filmmaker Carole Roussopoulos visited St. Nizier during the occupation to speak with activists about their lives, their work, and the repression they faced as sex workers. She recorded these interviews with the utmost simplicity, forgoing artifice to bear witness to their stories. In this vital document, she invites us to do the same.

This program is part of SEX WORK IS WORK, an ongoing benefit series exploring sex work in film, programmed in protest of the SESTA/FOSTA law. All proceeds from this event will go to Lysistrata Mutual Care Collective and Fund.

Poster by Henri de Corinth 

GOLDSTEIN

Posted on by smacfarlane


GOLDSTEIN
dirs. Philip Kaufman and Benjamin Manaster, 1964
85 mins. United States.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JUNE 9 – 5 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 15 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, JUNE 17 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JUNE 23 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26 – 7:30 PM

ONLINE TICKETS         FACEBOOK EVENT

A curious document of mid-’60s low-budget filmmaking, GOLDSTEIN is the directorial debut of Philip Kaufman (THE RIGHT STUFF, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS remake, and co-creator of Indiana Jones, etc). Initially conceived as a novel inspired by Martin Buber and Yiddish folklore, Kaufman was urged by Anais Nïn to turn it into a mystical screwball film. Enlisting many of the major players of the Second City Troupe (Del Close, Viola Spolin, Severn Darden), plus comedian Jack Burns, author Nelson Algren, and a pre-SHADOWS Ben Carruthers (did you know his son was the original drummer of Megadeth?), it’s a free-wheeling parade of mid-century improvisational acting and a tour of ’60s Chicago. Most impressively, the film was photographed by Aldofas Mekas, whose ingenuous camera-sense shows with some very adhoc tracking shots and creative use of widescreen. It debuted at Cannes in May 1964, where it was lauded by the likes of Jean Renoir and Francois Truffaut and took home the Prix de Nouvelle Critique — though viewers expecting magisterial arthouse should look elsewhere, because GOLDSTEIN is pure American scrap.

SHEILA AND THE BRAINSTEM

Posted on by smacfarlane


SHEILA AND THE BRAINSTEM
dir. Matt McDowell and Russell Bates, 1989
79 min. United States.

THURSDAY, JUNE 6 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, JUNE 10 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, JUNE 20 – 7: 30 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 22 – MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26 – 10PM

ONLINE TICKETS      FACEBOOK EVENT

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.

Ahead of its first-ever physical release, Spectacle is pleased as punch to present this rarity throughout the month of June.

“Expanding a kind of throwaway Robert Altman gag, it’s a pop road film about America as a chain-store complex. Boasting a staunch heroine who extricates her consorts from a maze of tract housing, it droops into the Twilight Zone for a bodysnatcher parable about the conformity of rebellion.” – Dennis Delrogh, L.A. Weekly

Presented by Barbarian Video.