Jason & Shirley Revisited
Dir. Stephen Winter, 2025.
United States, 84 min.
In English.

Birth of the Hive Queen
Dir. Tempest Creation, 2025.
United States, 9 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, MAY 1 – 7:30 PM (Q&A with directors Stephen Winter, Tempest Creation and special guests)
SATURDAY, MAY 2 – 7:30 PM (Q&A with directors Stephen Winter, Tempest Creation and special guests)

ENCORE SHOWING: SATURDAY, MAY 23 – 7:30 PM (Q&A with directors Stephen Winter, Tempest Creation and special guests)(Q&A with directors Stephen Winter, Tempest Creation and special guests)

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Low-class, disgusting, and politically incorrect, this paired screening of Jason and Shirley Revisited & Birth of the Hive Queen unearths the revolutionary politic of disrespect which had been previously buried alongside John Waters’ early filmography. Jason and Shirley, played by Jack Waters and Sarah Schulmann, gnaw each other apart, splitting gender, sexuality, race and class down the middle, until what remains is the truest and rawest version of each, as they also consume copious amounts of drugs: upper, downers, in-betweeners, psychedelics, psychotropics, narcotics, depressants, scissoring at each other until one might confuse the pair for sisters in this reimagining of what took place during the historic production of Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason. Similarly, Birth of the Hive Queen invents a new birthing technique for the transy hooker who can’t afford to snip the damn thing off and might just grow a pair of ovaries through spiritual communion with a moth. These two outsider flicks frankenstein the disturbing into the poetics of re-animation; remixing and remastering until the husk of the profane splits apart to reveal beautiful creatures of cinema.

It’s that time of year again. When the birds and billionaires return to New York from their migratory trips down south. When the streets smell briefly of pollen and halal meat before it shifts to the summer’s oppressive shit and piss olfactory explosion. And when Spectacle aligns itself with an international counterculture holiday and publicly notes the fact that we’re all getting high and watching movies (even though we do it daily regardless). That’s right, it’s April 20th. 420. Stoner day. A day of rest and respite before we set fire to the banks on May 1st.

Spectacle has a long history of special 420 holiday screenings. Two years ago the holiday landed on a Saturday affording us the ability to screen a day-long marathon of seven choice stoner cinema nuggets. Last year it fell on a Sunday, and we celebrated with a pot-themed Blood Brunch, and two action-packed flicks: the no-budget British kung-fu BRIGHTON WOK and the once lost, but now found, William Greaves trip to Jamaica, THE MARIJUANA AFFAIR. This year 420 is on a Monday, and while it is not an ideal day for the working class to cut loose, we take solace in the fact that, unlike alcohol, smoking weed all night won’t leave you completely debilitated for work the next day. Perhaps a bit foggy, but you can still operate heavy machinery. Maybe.

This year we also return to the mystery movie format of the 2024 STONE ZONE MARATHONE and years past and present a double feature of mystery marijuana movies from the early 1970s that you won’t know until the opening credits start. Just trust us.

Run of Show:
7:30 pm – Film 1
10 pm – Film 2

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$10 guarantees you a seat for both films, $5 single film tickets will be available for cash purchase at the door on a first come, first served basis.

While we can’t allow you to smoke inside, feel free to get baked to your personal comfort level somewhere outside of the theater’s walls, and/or load your purse up with edibles.

STROBE WARNING. The films in this program contain intense flicker effects that may be unsafe for those sensitive to light.

SATURDAY, APRIL 18 – 7:00PM (w/ introduction by James Otis)

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This April, Spectacle is privileged to participate in THE WHOLE SHEBANG: CELEBRATING KEN AND FLO JACOBS, a month-long fourteen-venue tribute to the two most inseparable and essential heroes of avant-garde film. The couple’s legacy of adroit optical distortion and critical recycling of commercial entertainment –not to mention their role in paving the stone’s of New York’s enduring network of experimental film exhibition and distribution– has made them a guiding constellation for some of the predilections and programming practices of past and present volunteer members of our micro-cinema.

While Spectacle has yet to have screened a Jacobs work, we have dedicated programs to filmmakers who were close friends, correspondents, and collaborators of theirs over the years. Fortuitously, we are thrilled to once again host Colorado-based weirdo art film luminary James Otis, who will introduce this celebratory screening and speak to his own memories and friendship with Ken and Flo Jacobs.

The main piece of the evening is TWO WRENCHING DEPARTURES, an under-seen and moving digital adaptation of a 1989 nervous system tribute performance made in the immediate wake of the deaths, only days apart, of Jacobs collaborators Jack Smith and Bob Fleischner. The footage of the artists is made into a flickering frolic through the Lower East Side, set to the soundtrack of the Ramon Navarro vehicle THE BARBARIAN (Sam Wood, 1933). These images also made their way into Ken Jacobs’ epic six-hour STAR SPANGLED TO DEATH (2004), an anti-patriotic omnibus that also includes James Otis’ ON YOUR OWN, the gut busting found footage opener of Spectacle’s 2025 Otis retrospective.

ON YOUR OWN will precede the feature presentation, as well as FOR JAMES OTIS, a Ken Jacobs eternalism made from one of Otis’ many dazzling iPhone panoramas.

Special thanks to Andrew Lampert and James Otis. Extra special thanks to Nisi Ariana, Aza Jacobs,
and Diaz.

TWO WRENCHING DEPARTURES
Dir. Ken Jacobs, 1989/2006.
United States. 90 min.

Preceded by:

ON YOUR OWN
Dir. James Otis, 1981.
United States. 2 min.

FOR JAMES OTIS
Dir. Ken Jacobs.
United States. 1 min.

Total Running Time: 93 min. + intro

The late 1980s and early 1990s marked a decisive period for documentary film in China, especially in the months and years following the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. A new kind of cinema began to emerge: one that captured contemporary urban and rural life “on the scene” (现场) and at the margins. One of the most important collectives at the forefront of China’s New Documentary Movement was the Structure. Wave. Youth. Cinema. (SWYC) Experimental Group. Yet many of the films made by this group have remained largely unseen due to censorship and state interference.

The “SWYC” acronym also alludes to the names of the group’s four core members: Shi Jian (时间), Wang Zijun (王子军), Kuang Yang (邝杨), and Chen Jue (陈爵). Formed in the late summer of 1989 in a China Central Television (CCTV) dormitory, the group would go on to have a major impact on the aesthetic development of documentary cinema in China in the following years, especially through the films and television series its members directed and produced during their long careers within state media institutions. Seen together in what is, to date, the most expansive SWYC retrospective, these works restore a long-missing chapter in Chinese film history and offer critical insight into life in China during a period of rapid and enormous social, political, and economic change.

TIANANMEN
(天安门)
Dirs. Shi Jian, Chen Jue. 1988–91.
China. 420 min.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, APRIL 11 – 2 PM

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An eight-part documentary series originally commissioned by China Central Television (CCTV) and filmed in the late 1980s but shelved after the June 4th Tiananmen crackdown. Co-directors Shi Jian and Chen Jue completed the film independently in 1991—but their efforts to screen it were blocked. TIANANMEN offers insight into the lives of Imperial-era survivors; assesses the pressures of economic reform; delves into post-Cultural Revolution liberalization; and glimpses the avant-garde, counter-cultural, and rock music scenes in the capital city. Over a sprawling and eclectic seven hours, the film captures contradictions and anxieties about life in China; above all, it reflects a guarded but strong-willed sense of optimism about a China suspended between past traumas and an uncertain future.

I HAVE GRADUATED
(我毕业了)
Dirs. Shi Jian, Wang Guangli. 1992.
China. 93 min.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, APRIL 3 – 5 PM
SUNDAY, APRIL 12 – 7:30 PM (w/ Q&A)
FRIDAY, APRIL 24 – 10 PM

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An independently produced documentary made discreetly by co-directors Shi Jian and Wang Guangli (while the former was working at CCTV), I HAVE GRADUATED is a stirring tribute to the graduating class of 1992—the last class to have experienced the events of June 4th, 1989. College seniors from various Beijing universities are interviewed in their dorms and around campus, speaking frankly about love and sex, careers, emigration, and the future of the country as they fill their final days at school with songs and last goodbyes.

ONLY ONE EARTH
(只有一个地球)
Dirs. Chen Jue, Jiu Ke. 1990.
China. 81 min.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.

EARTH DAY (WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22) – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, APRIL 28 – 10 PM

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Planned for a CCTV broadcast on China’s first celebrated Earth Day but ultimately blocked from airing, ONLY ONE EARTH addresses a world in the midst of ecological crisis. The most visually experimental of the films in this program, Chen Jue uses techniques learned from studying filmmakers like Chris Marker and documentaries like Alexander Grasshof’s FUTURE SHOCK to present harrowing international and domestic episodes of famine, species loss, toxic exposure, animal slaughter, and chemical weapons—while drawing on anxieties and collective trauma carried by an entire generation of Chinese intellectuals at the end of the 1980s.

NOTES FROM BEIJING
(京城散记)
Dirs. Wang Zijun, Sun Yongsheng. 1988-1991.
China. 175 min.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.

MONDAY, APRIL 13 – 7 PM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29 – 10 PM

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Shot concurrently with TIANANMEN in the late 1980s, and viewed as its “sister series”, NOTES FROM BEIJING presents a more personal view on the Imperial Capital and its sprawling 20th century history. Born and raised in Beijing, Wang Zijun combines first-person narrative with archival footage and verité vignettes to give the film a diaristic voice, establishing it as the accrued mental notes of an “Old Beijinger”: a freewheeling collection of assorted wisdoms, anecdotes, and impressions on its author’s hometown.

Like TIANANMEN, NOTES FROM BEIJING was originally conceived and produced as an eight-part documentary series. However, only seven of its eight completed episodes were permitted to air on state television. For this screening, the first six episodes of the original series have been recovered and are presented here.

REFORM SCHOOL STUDENTS
(工读生)
Dirs. Wang Zijun, Wang Lan. 1994.
China. 142 min.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, APRIL 23 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, APRIL 26 – 7:30 PM

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Filmed over four years at three reform schools (工读学校) in Beijing, this shelved documentary series was made by the husband-and-wife Wang Zijun and Wang Lan for Beijing Television (BTV). Granted exceptionally rare access not only to the students, but also to their families, teachers, and administrators, the filmmakers conduct intimate interviews while also grappling openly with the ethics of their own project, fully aware of the stigma attached to those who attend these schools. REFORM SCHOOL STUDENTS is a sensitive, spiritually invested, and reflexive work—a sensibility far ahead of its time.

JUJUBE FRUITS
(大红枣儿)
Dirs. Wang Zijun, Wang Haiping, Yangyang. 1994.
China. 56 min.
In Mandarin with Chinese and English subtitles.

LITTLE MAO AND SPARROW
(小毛与麻雀)
Dirs. Shi Jian, Liu Xiaojin. 1994.
China. 69 min.
In Mandarin with Chinese and English subtitles.

SATURDAY, APRIL 4 – 5 PM

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These two short feature documentaries expand the scope of the SWYC filmmakers’ work beyond the bounds of the Chinese capital—to a night market in Wuhan (LITTLE MAO AND SPARROW), a popular space for street performers, and to a small village in the Taihang Mountains (JUJUBE FRUITS). The films also introduce more overtly experimental elements into the group’s vocabulary, engaging questions of reflexivity through their subjects’ self-aware performances before the camera and, in places, by using reenactment sequences. Both films were produced for regional state television stations but were ultimately cut down for broadcast; this screening presents the full original versions of each.

Michael Blackwood directed and produced over 150 films beginning in the 1960s and continuing through the 2010s, while his brother Christian directed and produced around 50 additional films himself. The largest and most well known portions of both bodies of work focused on the artist, including dozens of profiles with painters, musicians, dancers, and other artists, as well as surveys of contemporary cultural movements such as postmodern architecture, jazz, abstract expressionism, modern dance, modern sculpture, and pop art. In 1966, Michael Blackwood created Blackwood Productions with a commitment “to making films about art, music, and the cultural landscape in New York City,” but went on to produce films around the world. Christian Blackwood, Michael’s younger brother by eight years, made films alongside his brother for many years before venturing out on his own. 

While most of the Blackwoods’ films remain underseen, the four films in this series about New York have never before screened theatrically in the city that inspired them. Each is unique in style – experimental, vérité, essay film, “expository” – but they are all inherently city films. They were made at three major turning points in New York City’s turbulent twentieth century: the dawn of the 60s, the onset of the 70s, and the watershed of the mid 1980s. These four films highlight the Blackwoods’ love for the city and its people and are full of new views of our great, messy, corrupt, beloved city.

BROADWAY EXPRESS + NEW YORKERS (48 minutes)

MONDAY, APRIL 6 – 10 PM (following the 7:30pm screening of SUMMER IN THE CITY)
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29 – 7:30 PM

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BROADWAY EXPRESS
Dir. Michael Blackwood, 1959
United States. 19 min.

In 1957, the vérité documentarian D.A. Pennebaker released his first film: at just over five minutes, DAYBREAK EXPRESS borrows its name from the Duke Ellington song to which Pennebaker set his romantic, avant-garde view of New York’s elevated subway line. Just two years later, Michael Blackwood made his debut with an homage to Pennebaker’s. In BROADWAY EXPRESS, also shot on silent 16mm film and set to an original jazz score by Howard Gilbert, Blackwood takes his camera underground and in the evening hours for a more internal view of both the city’s subway system and the New Yorkers who ride it. Following BROADWAY EXPRESS, Blackwood began his career in the footsteps of Pennebaker and other experimental documentarians of the 60s before refining his own approach to portrait films with more substantial use of voiceover narration and interviews.

NEW YORKERS
Dirs. Michael Blackwood, Lana Jokel, Philip Miller, and Roger Murphy, 1971.
United States. 29 min.
In English.

In NEW YORKERS, the camera floats around the Upper East Side, inviting shop owners and workers, neighborhood idlers and scurriers, mothers and children toward it with an air of joyfulness. A collaboration among Michael Blackwood and three additional co-directors, this open-ended exploration of a neighborhood seems to follow the inspiration of several observers and stays with characters unique to the time and the place, including the owner of a novel type of storefront for bike repairs.

SUMMER IN THE CITY
Dirs. Christian Blackwood and Robert Leacock, 1970.
Germany. 89 min.
In German and English with English subtitles.

MONDAY, APRIL 6 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, APRIL 10 – 5 PM
SUNDAY, APRIL 19 – 5 PM
SATURDAY, APRIL 25 – 10 PM

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SUMMER IN THE CITY is a stunning document of Christian Blackwood’s sensibilities as a cinematographer and a rich portrait of Manhattan at the precipice of its most notoriously troubled decade. It focuses on everyday New Yorkers caught in a moment between fading hope, trust, and promise and looming confusion, outrage, and desperation. The film is composed in vérité style but does not purport to be a fly on the wall as its subjects scowl at, question, and laugh with the cameraman, who is always in motion. The narration, written and read by Uwe Johnson, is at times lyrical and others abrasive. Johnson hides behind his words no less than Christian behind the camera, working out his feelings about New York and its inhabitants and leaving us each moved, delighted, conflicted, and provoked.

The project originated from the German writer, who lived on the Upper West Side in the 1960s:

“In 1968 German Television agreed to coproduce a film with us in which Uwe Johnson would, on-camera, introduce and question the various characters with whom he exchanges news and opinions on his wanderings on the Upper West Side. We proposed to him that he participate in the documentary. Being essentially introverted he was not interested in the on-camera concept, but was willing to make a list of places and situations that he felt should be included in the film. Christian Blackwood took charge of the project. Johnson wrote the narration once the film was edited. It was broadcast in Germany at the time.”

Content warning: Extensive portrayal of heroin use

EMPIRE CITY
Dir. Michael Blackwood, 1985.
United States. 89 min.
In English.

THURSDAY, APRIL 2 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, APRIL 25 – 5 PM

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EMPIRE CITY is a straightforward documentary with a long-form joke underneath its surface. The film begins with notable access to the rich and powerful, and may appear to join in on the praise of the rapid development and new economic growth for which the ruling wealthy class gleefully takes responsibility. Free market enthusiasts could get lulled into the film only to be taken for a ride through Michael Blackwood’s exploration of class dynamics within the built environment of (mostly) Manhattan.

The film focuses on the history of New York City during its “golden age” of 1830-1930 told from the vantage point of the mid 1980s. As politicians, real estate developers, and business leaders celebrate the rebound of New York’s economy, Blackwood begins to expose the dark side of its new economic engine. This hardly-seen documentary contains an abundance of footage, soundbites, and context from this pivotal time.

Special thanks to Ben Blackwood.