HELLBENT
Dir. Paul Etheredge, 2004.
United States, 85 min.
In English.

SUNDAY, JUNE 28th at 5:30PM

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It’s Halloween night in West Hollywood and everyone is dressed to kill hoping to take home costume prizes and more. A group of twenty-something friends plan a big night out as they pursue their crushes, until a brooding maniac clad in leather stalks the gay bars and hook-up spots on Santa Monica Boulevard. Who will go home alone…or even worse, who will never make it home again?

Earlier this year, we lost filmmaker João Canijo. The Portuguese director worked as an assistant director to Manoel de Oliveira, Wim Wenders, Alain Tanner and Werner Schroeter before making his first feature film TRÉS MENOS EU in 1988. His feature film work since then has ranged from macabre noirs to gritty social realism to observational hybrid documentaries and more. He had a career filled with arresting, surprising, dynamic and urgent films. He achieved popular success within Portugal and won awards at international festivals like Berlin and Rotterdam, but his films rarely screen in the United States. Such is the case with his 2023 diptych of mommy issues, broken relationships and family dysfunction MAL VIVER (BAD LIVING) and VIVER MAL (LIVING BAD), which make their NY PREMIERE this May at Spectacle, with two special Mother’s Day weekend double feature screenings.

MAL VIVER
(BAD LIVING)
Dir. João Canijo, 2023.
Portugal, France. 127 min.
In Portuguese with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, MAY 8 – 7 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 10 – 5 PM

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The idea at first was to make MAL VIVER. The film emerged out of a process of development, work-shopping and writing with Canijo and his five lead actresses Anabela Moreira, Rita Blanco, Madalena Almeida, Cleia Almeida and Vera Barreto. It portrays the story of three generations of women who own and operate a hotel on the northern shore of Portugal. The relationships between them have grown bitter, resentful, abusive and poisonous. Canijo himself describes the film as about “the anxieties of motherhood” and acknowledges the influence of Ingmar Bergman’s mother-daughter drama AUTUMN SONATA. Anabela Moreira’s performance is particularly devastating. As the middle generation, she wrestles with her failure as both a mother and a daughter, and weathers the grief from both sides. Her portrayal of depression rings true with detail and nuance. As does her relationship with her pet dog Alma. The always redoubtable Rita Blanco gives a menacing turn as the family’s envious matriarch and the lighting by Leonor Teles gives the hotel interiors a funerary beauty and a suffocating warmth, while the compositions separate mother and daughter, using the structure of the building itself, its door frames, walls, and windows frames, to isolate and divide them.

VIVER MAL
(LIVING BAD)
Dir. João Canijo, 2023.
Portugal, France. 124 min.
In Portuguese with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, MAY 8 – 9:30 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 10 – 7:30PM

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VIVER MAL didn’t emerge through a process of dramatic work-shopping like MAL VIVER. The more episodic sister film to MAL VIVER came as idea to Canijo during MAL VIVER’s filming as the filmmaker began to wonder was happening in the lives of the hotel’s guests, seen only in the previous film in brief glimpses, at the edge of the frame, and heard through off-camera dialogue. In VIVER MAL, the stories of the guests, adapted from the August Strindberg plays “Playing with Fire” (1893), “The Pelican” (1907), and “Motherly Love” (1892) take center stage. The drama of the central family is moved to the background, but they are not entirely absent. In fact, more about their situation is revealed in clever and unexpected ways. The stories of the guests in VIVER MAL intersect and overlap each other and intersect and overlap the story of MAL VIVER, giving rise to strange connections and uncanny repetitions. The sound design utilizes layers of overlapping off-screen dialogue, often shouts, screams and replays of arguments from the previous film and from earlier in this film. Sometimes we can place them and sometimes we can’t, but they are unrelenting and inescapable, reinforcing the idea of an unbreakable cycle of trauma which forms the essential link in the two films.

YOUTH RESURGENCE ‘68: FROM TAKASAKI TO NEW YORK

Spectacle is proud to present this special one-night-only program in celebration of Interference Archive’s exhibition, Resurgence Youth Movement, 1964-67: Teenrevolt, Surrealism, Anarchism. Founded in New York’s Lower East Side in 1964, the Resurgence Youth Movement became a sprawling and boundless web of anti-racist, anti-imperialist, anarchist activity in cities around the country. The exhibition, closing on May 17th, follows the 2023 publication of Resurgence!, the first book devoted to the RYM and its founder Jonathan Leake, which includes selections of all twelve issues of Resurgence, the original mimeographed zine published by Leake and RYM between 1964 and 1967.

From Interference Archive:

The RYM called for the disintegration of the State, the complete destruction of bourgeois society, and a total surrealist-psychedelic revolution of the mind and body. “The Resurgence Youth Movement…advances the new anarchism of body, mind and soul, the psychedelic alchemies of revolution,” RYM wrote in their “Guerilla Manifesto” (Resurgence 6, 1967). Their activities continued until August of 1967, when Walter Caughey was stabbed to death in New York in an unsolved murder that many believe was politically motivated.

Copies of Resurgence! will be available for sale at the theater. We will be joined throughout the evening by special guests including Resurgence! Editor Abigail Susik, underground press scholar Sean Lovitt, and theorist and activist Sabu Kohso.

COLUMBIA REVOLT (Newsreel #14)
Pr. Newsreel, 1968.
United States. 59 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, MAY 16TH 5pm with q+a

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Working between 1967 and 1972, Newsreel was an activist film collective made up of numerous filmmakers who produced dozens of films documenting the political and social unrest of the late 60s and early 70s. Preserved by Third World Newsreel, this is the first opportunity to see the newly digitalized COLUMBIA REVOLT. One of the collective’s longest films, it documents the student occupation of five Columbia University buildings in April 1968.

An early large-scale protest of the Vietnam War, the action exposed links between Columbia’s institutional funding, support of the Vietnam War, and a new gymnasium to be constructed in the nearby neighborhood of Morningside Heights. Led by the Students for a Democratic Society and the Society of Afro-American Students, hundreds of young activists experimented with new forms of organizing, despite violent clashes with the NYPD. The revolt successfully forced the university to abandon its gymnasium project and disaffiliate from the Institute for Defense Analyses, a military research corporation supporting the US invasion of Vietnam. 

preceded by 

GARBAGE DEMONSTRATION (Newsreel #5)
Pr. Newsreel, 1968.
United States. 10 min.
In English.

This short Newsreel film follows a group of young people as they travel from Manhattan’s rapidly politicizing Lower East Side to its Upper West Side, bringing with them heaps of uncollected garbage from their own neighborhood to relocate on the grounds of Lincoln Center.

Abigail Susik and Sean Lovitt will join us for a Q+A discussion following this screening.

THE OPPRESSED STUDENTS
(aka FOREST OF OPPRESSION – A RECORD OF THE STRUGGLE AT TAKASAKI CITY)
(圧殺の森－高崎経済大学闘争の記録)
Dir. Shinsuke Ogawa, 1967.
Japan. 105 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, MAY 16TH 7:30pm with introduction and q+a

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Rarely screened in the United States since their original releases, Shinsuke Ogawa’s films offer invaluable insight into Japanese radical politics and the collective action of workers, students, and villagers. Ogawa dared to imagine a new ethics and approach to documentary production in Japan as he situated himself closely alongside political dissidents and communities and brought the filmmaking process closer to political struggle than had previously been done in Japan.

THE OPPRESSED STUDENTS is an undecorated and patient documentation of a multi-year protest at Takasaki University, which reached its peak in 1967 and 1968 with the students’ unprecedented occupation of university buildings. The film follows a relatively small group of young activists as they struggle to maintain their movement against violent Japanese institutions and the powerful cultural pressures surrounding themselves and their peers. An intimate view of long-term resistance, THE OPPRESSED STUDENTS sits with the messiness and uncertainty of grassroots organizing and reflects the changing feeling of time for those on the frontlines, as persistent and slow struggle erupts into sudden and dangerous moments of conflict.

Abigail Susik, Sean Lovitt, and Sabu Kohso will join us to discuss this piece of history, including how a group of teenagers involved with RYM in the Lower East Side caught wind of THE OPPRESSED STUDENTS and were inspired to adapt some of the Japanese students’ tactics.

Sabu Kohso is a theorist, translator, and long-time activist in global and anti-capitalist struggle. A native of Okayama, Japan, Sabu has lived in New York City since 1980. He has published several books on urban space and struggle in Japan and his translations include works by Kojin Karatani and David Graeber. His most recent book is Radiation and Revolution (Duke University Press, September 2020). 

Co-programmed with Abigail Susik and Sean Lovitt.

Special thanks to Abigail Susik, Sean Lovitt, Sabu Kohso, Kelly Mill, Amelia Langas, Brooke Darrah Shuman, Jed Rapfogel, Third World Newsreel, and the Athénée Français Cultural Center.

Once upon a time in China and America, there lived two distinct genres of action cinema fated to cross paths. On one side of the world, the western, which combined stylized violence, stoic masculinity, and American cultural mythology to tell tales of honor, loyalty, and vengeance across the Old West. On the other end, the martial arts picture, which combined stylized violence, stoic masculinity, and Chinese cultural mythology to tell tales of honor, loyalty, and vengeance throughout the Middle Kingdom. Two genres operating, two sides of the same coin, separated only by a mere 7,000 miles of distance between countries.

By late-1960s, the traditional western was well past its prime, mostly sustaining via the “spaghetti” westerns coming in from abroad or the New Hollywood and countercultural revisionism taking root at home. At the same time, the martial arts film was in the midst of its own renaissance with the global ascendency of Bruce Lee, Shaw Brothers Studios, and Hong Kong action cinema at large. It didn’t take long for western filmmakers to recognize the thematic overlap between the two genres, and before long the Spanish and Italian film industries began turning out spaghetti westerns with a kung fu twist, beginning with Enzo Peri’s James Shigeta-starring feature, DEATH WALKS IN LAREDO (1967).

The kung fu western trend would arguably hit its peak in 1972 with the major studio release of Terence Young’s RED SUN, a spaghetti western-samurai movie crossover starring Toshirō Mifune and Charles Bronson (coincidentally, stars of both SEVEN SAMURAI and its western reimagining, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN), and the debut of the popular television serial KUNG FU, featuring David Carradine as a Shaolin abbot journeying through the Old West. But the trend didn’t end there, nor did it die out as the spaghetti western craze of the 60s & 70s began to flag. On the contrary, Italian and Spanish studios had leaned even heavier into the hybrid-genre gimmick as a way to sustain appeal, leading to a small mid-70s boom of martial arts-spaghetti western crossovers: A final stand of sorts, in classic western fashion.

THE STRANGER AND THE GUNFIGHTER (LÀ DOVE NON BATTE IL SOLE)
aka BLOOD MONEY
Dir. Antonio Margheriti, 1974
Italy/Hong Kong/Spain. 100 min.
In English

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6 – 10 PM
MONDAY, MAY 11 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 19 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 30 – 7:30 PM

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Martial artist Ho Chiang (Lo Lieh) travels to the Wild West on a life-or-death mission to recover his family’s hidden fortune, after his uncle is mistakenly killed by the outlaw Dakota (Lee Van Cleef) during a botched robbery attempt. Since Dakota is the only man alive with clues to the fortune’s location, Ho breaks him free from the hangman’s clutches, and the unlikely allies set off on a mission to track down the uncle’s four widows, each of whom holds another piece of the puzzle.

THE STRANGER AND THE GUNFIGHTER is notable for being one in a series of international co-productions by Shaw Brothers Studios, as part of an attempt to branch out into other territories and genres. But unlike their first two Italian co-productions, SUPERMEN AGAINST THE ORIENT (1974) and THIS TIME I’LL MAKE YOU RICH (1974), this one is actually good for a change. An offbeat action buddy comedy that can clearly be seen as the template for a similar Jackie Chan vehicle decades later.

THE WHITE, THE YELLOW, AND THE BLACK (IL BLANCO, IL GIALLO, IL NERO)
aka SHOOT FIRST… ASK QUESTIONS LATER
aka SAMURAI
Dir. Sergio Corbucci, 1975
Italy. 106 min.
In English

TUESDAY, MAY 5 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 22 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, MAY 30 – 5 PM

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In the 19th century, a delegation of Japanese samurai travels to the United States to present the president with a gift from the Emperor, in the form of a divine pony. But when the delegation is attacked and the pony is kidnapped for ransom, the group’s inept servant— and wannabe samurai— Sakura (Tomas Milian) turns to the local Sheriff Gideon (Eli Wallach) for help delivering the ransom money. Along the way, they’re joined by the notorious Swiss outlaw Blanc de Blanc (Giuliano Gemma) who has his own plans for the money.

For reasons inexplicable, legendary spaghetti western director Sergio Corbucci (THE GREAT SILENCE, DJANGO) decided to end his tenure in the genre with this slapstick-y buddy comedy, conceived as a send-up of Terence Young’s samurai-western crossover RED SUN, though with some obvious parodic shades of THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY. Action-wise it’s one of the more polished additions to the kung fu-western canon and is altogether a compelling end to Corbucci’s western career… that is, so long as you can stomach Milian’s Sakura in a performance that borders on Mickey Rooney-levels of offensive Asian caricature (viewer be warned).

MANCHURIAN AVENGER
Dir. Ed Warnick, 1984
United States. 88 min.
In English

TUESDAY, MAY 12 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 23 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, MAY 30 – 3 PM

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Joe (Taekwondo champion and “Korean Charles Bronson,” Bobby Kim) returns to his Colorado hometown after many years to reconnect with Kim, the man who helped raise him after Joe’s father was murdered by a gang of outlaws. When Joe learns that Kim has been killed by the villainous Cheng and his henchmen, he teams up with Kim’s sister, her husband, and a local outlaw for revenge.

MANCHURIAN AVENGER is a rare homegrown addition to the kung fu western canon, filmed on location in Fairplay, Colorado and sourcing a large cast of extras from the surrounding South Park region. Despite its modest scale, the film shoots the moon with its production values, featuring a ton of creative special effects work, charmingly anachronistic costuming, visibly dangerous stunt work, and some genuinely breathtaking footage of its Rocky Mountain surroundings.

When you tell someone in the US that you’re from Newcastle upon Tyne, it will usually be followed by one of three questions: “I guess you support Newcastle United, then?” “Like the Brown Ale?” or “How far is that from London?” The answers, for the record, are yes, yes, and around 300 miles, which, in UK terms, is incredibly far. Newcastle is a city in the North East of England, sitting on the River Tyne about eight miles from the North Sea. Its roots stretch back to a Roman fort and bridge known as Pons Aelius, before a Norman castle built in the 11th century gave the city its modern name. By the 19th century, Newcastle had become one of the great industrial cities of Britain, a powerhouse of shipbuilding, coal, engineering, and heavy industry that helped drive the Industrial Revolution.

The people of Newcastle and the surrounding Tyneside area are known as Geordies, a name tied to both a distinctive dialect and a fiercely local sense of identity. The origin of the term is debated, but one popular explanation links it to the region’s loyalty to King George II during the Jacobite uprising of 1745, or possibly because they favored safety lamps invented by local engineer George Stephenson. What matters more than the etymology is what the word has come to represent: a culture built around working-class solidarity, humor, and pride in a region that has long existed outside the economic and cultural gravity of London. Today, Newcastle is a city shaped by both its industrial past and its present, where remnants of shipyards, coal staithes, and Victorian engineering sit alongside universities and music venues.

Despite this history and character, Newcastle and the surrounding area are rarely represented on screen. The films GET CARTER (1971), GOAL! (2005), and I, DANIEL BLAKE (2016), probably make up the majority of any list of movies set in or around the city. When Newcastle does appear, it often does so through stories rooted in working-class life and the social realities of the North East. These films hint at a place that is often overlooked within British cinema, overshadowed by the cultural dominance of London, even while the landscapes and communities of the North continue to shape the stories told there.

Tales From the Tyne at Spectacle Theater presents three films showcasing Newcastle upon Tyne and the communities built there: TISH (2023), PURELY BELTER (2000), and STORMY MONDAY (1988). Taken together, they offer glimpses of the city across different eras, from the everyday lives documented by photographer Tish Murtha, to the restless energy of two Newcastle teenagers chasing football tickets, to the rain-soaked jazz clubs and redevelopment anxieties of the 1980s. These films reveal a city shaped by industry, community, and change. Together, they offer a glimpse into a place whose stories and voices are too often overlooked by more than just cinema.

TISH
Dir. Paul Sng, 2023.
United Kingdom. 90 min.
In English.

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A documentary about the life and work of Tish Murtha, a working-class photographer from Newcastle Upon Tyne. 

Growing up in the North East of England, Tish Murtha used her camera to capture the raw truth of life in Newcastle upon Tyne during the turbulent years of Thatcher’s Britain and beyond. Her stark black-and-white photographs show children playing in neglected streets, young people facing unemployment, and communities living with the daily consequences of political decisions made far from their homes. Tish Murtha’s photography didn’t just show everyday life; it highlighted inequality and pushed for social change. TISH is an intimate look at her life, her work, and the lasting impact of her art, showing how her message is still as poignant today as it was during her lifetime.

PURELY BELTER
Dir. Mark Herman, 2000.
United Kingdom. 95 min.
In Geordie with English subtitles.

MONDAY,  MAY 4th – 7:30PM
THURSDAY, MAY 14th – 10PM
MONDAY, MAY 25th – 10PM

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The exploits of Gerry and Sewel, two down-and-out teens trying to raise £1000 to buy season tickets to their favourite football team, Newcastle United. 

PURELY BELTER  is a film that feels inseparable from the place it comes from. Set firmly in and around Newcastle, the film captures the rhythm of everyday life on Tyneside, a world of tower blocks, back alleys, and football obsession.

What gives PURELY BELTER its unmistakable flavour is its unapologetic embrace of Geordie culture. The title itself comes from Geordie slang: “pure” meaning very, and “belter” meaning brilliant. The film revels in the sounds of Newcastle, thick Geordie accents and dialogue so regional that some screenings reportedly handed out glossaries to help non-locals decode terms like “howay” and “radgie.” This commitment to dialect is part of the film’s charm. Even the film’s cameo from Newcastle United legend Alan Shearer adds to the sense that the story belongs completely to the city and its footballing culture.

Underneath the humour, though, lies a streak of social realism that makes the film more than just a football comedy. Gerry and Sewell grew up surrounded by broken families, poverty, and limited opportunities. PURELY BELTER balances this bleak backdrop with the resilient spirit of its characters: football becomes an escape, a dream that briefly lifts them above the grind of everyday life. For many Geordies, PURELY BELTER is a Newcastle classic, endlessly quoted in schoolyards, even if it never quite received the same recognition beyond the city. In that sense, the film itself feels like a Geordie phrase: rough around the edges, full of heart, and, in its own way, PURELY BELTER.

STORMY MONDAY
Dir. Mike Figgis, 1988.
United Kingdom. 93 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, MAY 1ST – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, MAY 7TH – 10PM
SUNDAY, MAY 17TH – 7:30PM
FRIDAY, MAY 29TH – 10PM

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A corrupt American businessman tries to strongarm his way into buying a nightclub in Newcastle. However, Brendan, an employee of the nightclub, discovers a darker motive behind the acquisition. 

STORMY MONDAY (1988) marks the debut feature of director Mike Figgis, who spent many of his formative years in Newcastle. The film unfolds as a slow-burning neo-noir set against the decaying streets of late-1980s Newcastle, where smoky jazz clubs and rain-slicked streets become the stage for a web of corruption and uneasy alliances. Figgis brings the classic noir language of outsiders, seduction, and moral ambiguity to a distinctly British landscape, capturing a city caught between its industrial past and an uncertain future.

Roger Deakins’ beautiful cinematography pairs seamlessly with Figgis’s haunting, jazz score, transforming Newcastle’s misty Quayside into a neon dreamscape. Despite a star-studded cast, including Melanie Griffith, Sean Bean, Tommy Lee Jones, and Newcastle local Sting. STORMY MONDAY has fallen into relative obscurity since its initial release.