Page 121 – Spectacle Theater

WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT

Posted on October 20, 2014December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT
Dir. Cinqué Lee, 1988
USA, 60 min.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29 – 7:30 PM

“Genetically much closer to maudit French literature than to mainstream American cinema, Cinqué Lee’s visually haunting 1980s post-apocalyptic narrative tone-poem should be regarded as a true underground classic!” – Jim Jarmusch

Filmed in the late 1980s, but remaining virtually unseen before its release on DVD in 2010, WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT is a breathtaking, experimental vision of a post-apocalyptic future where love – and color – don’t exist. Director Cinqué Lee (Spike’s brother), a Brooklyn actor and writer who has collaborated with Jim Jarmusch as well as his brother, filmed his powerful vision of a terrible future in an unrecognizable Brooklyn. With no dialogue, the plot is related to us through a monotone, haunting voiceover by leading lady Maria Pineres, the film delivers the story of Europa and Leber, a young couple who occupy a sad, drab world where suicide and depression are constantly foregrounded. Among all the despair, Europa and Leber discover that there is more to the world than their colorless existence.

WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT is a true product of the late 1980s NYC film scene. The film combines poetry, unforgettable visuals, and a minimal jazz score by Bill Lee, into something unforgettable – a truly experimental vision of the future. Recently discovered and released on DVD for the first time, Cinqué Lee’s story of a world full of misery and pain, and two people’s desire to find something else, is a No Wave treasure, and a reminder of the old, weird NYC.

Special thanks to Brink Vision.

ITALO-SLEAZE: B-MOVIE META-RIP-OFFS OF THE 1970s

Posted on October 17, 2014December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

It’s a mini-fest of crazy Italian B-movies created to cash in on more successful brethren, but taken to the nth degree—where the initial source material, the cinematic urtext as it were, is forgotten, and what we have left is the fun-house reflection of a reflection of a reflection. And each reflection must keep getting crazier to top what came before, until all conscious ties to THE FRENCH CONNECTION, George Lucas’s cash machine, or any Hollywood westerns are forever lost.

You can also witness the evolution of the B-movie as the marketplace’s tastes change over the years—and check out some of the madness imitation has created! See a PCP-psychosis Spaghetti Western; a brutal indictment of sexism disguised as a crime exposé; and a Star Wars rip-off so blatant, it’s actually charming…

Much in the same way kids play with random toys without thought, having G.I. Joe and Spider-Man confront each other in the backyard, Italian Space Operas shamelessly and often obviously mash-up chunks of different styles and genre. But when you look at it, all of the films in this mini-series are doing this, some more obviously than others…

MATALO!
Dir. Cesare Canevari, 1970
Italy, 92 min.
Dubbed into English.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9 – 5 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28 – 10 PM

Like EL TOPO’s meaner, stupider, more drug-addled little brother, this Spaghetti Western is in some ways even more mysterious and insane than Jodorowsky’s classic—because EL TOPO knows what it is doing, while often MATALO! does not.

To understand MATALO!—if you dare—consider this: It’s the B-Maestro’s tribute to the late-’60s Biker Movie (where the Hells Angels ride in and trash a town) disguised as a Spaghetti Western. More The Wild Angels than The Wild Bunch!

Never not entertaining (if your tastes dovetail with old-school 42nd Street sleaze), MATALO! spits in the eye of all things Hollywood. Our “hero” backstabs everybody, and then the “good guy” is one of those movie-pacifists who lets himself get stomped again and again before realizing that, gosh, he should use his magical powers to fight back. Meanwhile, the psychedelic influence seems perhaps more behind the camera—how high were they when making this? But thankfully the incoherence is balanced with a vibe of pure hippie hate: These Manson-esque longhairs suck.

After being rescued from a hanging, scumbag protagonist Burt (Corrado Pani) guns down his buddies—because who wants to share the loot?—and hightails it to a ghost town to meet up with his violent and incestuous kin who are just as awful as he is.

Italian superstar Lou Castel (who probably wishes he was back in BULLET FOR THE GENERAL) is the “good guy,” who doesn’t carry a gun, but a bandoleer full of…boomerangs, and why he’s here is anybody’s guess, but somebody had to show up and teach Burt a lesson…

As long as you’re willing to deal with utterly corrupt and ruthless cowboys taking a hot dump all over your John Ford/Howard Hawks preconceived notions of what a western should be, you’ll be fine. Every frame of MATALO! oozes that grimy, gritty vibe that usually you only get from a dirtbag late-1960s biker flick…while looking super—like any western shot in Spain should be…

MATALO! is a technically perfect movie, with crisp long-lens cinematography and a very mobile camera, sharp editing and an awesome “in your face” fuzz-guitar/electronico musical score, by Mario Migliardi—having all these technical aspects so top-notch, makes all the madness on-screen that much more odd and disturbing: Did they really know what they were doing with this movie?

TEENAGE PROSTITUTION RACKET
Dir. Carlo Lizzani & Mino Giarda, 1975
Italy, 123 min,
Dubbed into English.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23 – 5 PM

Meandering, schizoid and evil-minded, this film is three intertwined tales of lost virtue whose essential message is “Italian men are irredeemable pigs”—and if you’re a chick stupid enough to get involved with them, they will fuck you over both literally and figuratively. Jumping on the bandwagon of “realistic, but ultraviolent crime/cop movies” that Italy churned in the wake of THE FRENCH CONNECTION, while adding exploitation elements from the “Schoolgirl in Trouble” and “Stewardess/Nurse” genres, directors Lizzani & Giarda deliver a movie Lars von Trier wishes he’d made…

TEEN PROSTITUTION RACKET is a must-see for connoisseurs of “feel bad” movies. This film’s overt subtext (“men suck”) is hammered home with depressing regularity: you witness the almost-artless creation of an awful world of sexual Darwinism. Nasty, intense stuff, that’s borderline depressing, really. Shot semi-cinema verite in an around Milan, it’s a film that makes you feel DIRTY while watching innocent economically deprived young woman after innocent economically deprived young woman being utterly corrupted by some slick pimp.

What’s worse is that sometimes that pimp is Grandma…

THE HUMANOID
Dir. Aldo Lado (as George B. Lewis), 1979
Italy, 100 min.
Dubbed into English

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18 – 10 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24 – 10 PM

Needs to be enjoyed—not only for the kinda decent effects (created by Antonio Margheriti—a.k.a. Antony M. Dawson—the director of those legendarily bad Italian space exploration flicks from the 1960s), or the second unit direction of Enzo G. Castellari (!!!), or the space opera score by Ennio Morricone (!?!), but for the goofy attempt to turn Bond villain Richard “Jaws” Kiel (R.I.P.) into a family-friendly gentle-giant good guy! It’s as if someone from the Sunn Classics studios managed to sneak into Cinecittà for a little while and started messing with the formulas.

A deliriously stupid rip-off of Star Wars that actually seems more like a “lost” episode of NBC’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, THE HUMANOID also tries to ride the coattails of James Bond by casting Kiel alongside his sex-bomb costars from The Spy Who Loved Me, Barbara Bach, and Moonraker, Corrine Clery. As such, the flick often resembles a sober, sort-of-kid-friendly Barbarella, Roger Vadim’s made-in-Italy “Space James Bond” spoof, especially with THE HUMANOID’s combination of nonsensical dialog and “secret mission” action set pieces.

But THE HUMANOID has the added joy of a Hollywood legend chewing the scenery. In one of his last roles, veteran Arthur Kennedy tears it up as a mad scientist seeking intergalactic revenge—the actor needed the paycheck obviously (he doesn’t look too well), but still goes for the gusto. This movie also rips off 1970s mystical martial arts TV show Kung Fu with a little Asian wise child—who is actually a Yoda figure one year before The Empire Strikes Back was released! Hmmmm….

The film’s best value is nostalgia: although THE HUMANOID may have never gotten a stateside release (depending on whom you ask), it’s very much like other colorful and semi-unique rip-offs/tributes to Star Wars that we grew up with, like Battle Beyond the Stars, The Black Hole, Flash Gordon, Message From Space and, of course, everybody’s favorite Starcrash!

BLAST OFF!!! Avanti!

BEIJING BASTARD

Posted on October 16, 2014December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

BEIJING BASTARD
Talk/Reading and Screening with Author Val Wang
Books will be available for purchase

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 8 PM

Author Val Wang will present the works of China’s Sixth Generation filmmakers in conjunction with the publication of her memoir BEIJING BASTARD.

Seeing the underground Chinese film Beijing Bastards in 1995 led the American-born Wang to move to Beijing in the late 1990’s, where she worked as a journalist and became a subtitler and friend to a cohort of Chinese filmmakers whose use of all-new digital videocameras was revolutionizing the country’s filmmaking.

Shot in a loose, observational style, the documentaries and feature films told intimate stories of people whose lives were unfolding against the backdrop of the country’s unprecedented historical transformation into capitalism, people from young rockers to old grandpas.

In Wang’s coming-of-age story BEIJING BASTARD, the filmmakers play a central role in her development as an artist and writer. She will talk and read from her book, as well as screen clips from the works of seminal filmmakers such as Zhang Yuan, Wu Wenguang, and Yang Lina.

View the trailer for Val Wang’s book:

HIDE AND SEEK

Posted on October 16, 2014December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

HIDE AND SEEK
Dir. Joanna Coates, 2014
UK, 80 min.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20 – 8 PM
SNEAK PREVIEW! ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Followed by a Q&A with producer Daniel Metz and actress Hannah Arterton!

*WINNER – MICHAEL POWELL AWARD – BEST BRITISH FEATURE*
2014 EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL

In an isolated English cottage, four young people from London move in together, seeking to challenge social conventions and their own tolerances by engaging in scheduled partner-swapping. As their inhibitions and past traumas fade, they achieve a unique kind of collective happiness, but the durability of their new living arrangement is tested by the arrival of an outsider who fails to get in tune with the foursome’s radical spirit.

Beautifully shot and thematically captivating, this unique portrait of sexual exploration warmly invites us to contemplate our own self-imposed boundaries. HIDE AND SEEK never jumps to conclusions about its characters, instead giving them space to grow organically through four remarkable lead performances and exquisitely captured imagery.

“Hide and Seek is one of the most bewitching and elegant British films of the last decade.” -Front Row Reviews

“A tangled web of flesh and desire.” -Cine Vue

KINETIC CINEMA PRESENTS A SCREENING AND DISCUSSION WITH DAVID FISHEL

Posted on October 14, 2014December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

KINETIC CINEMA PRESENTS A SCREENING AND DISCUSSION WITH DAVID FISHEL
Dir. David Fishel, Various Years
USA, approx. 90 min.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13 – 7:30 PM

Pentacle is pleased to have filmmaker and editor David Fishel return to Spectacle to curate another evening of Kinetic Cinema. In his last screening, Fishel explored cinema as dance and editing as choreography. On November 13, Fishel will present shorts and feature excerpts made in the last year and a half which draw on these ideas. His work questions current expectations in cinema technology and whether we are making an unfair trade off in our quest for ever more pristine HD clarity.

DAVID FISHEL is a NYC based filmmaker / video-artist who dabbles as an absurdist poet, animated storyteller, experimental sound artist, and obnoxious performance artist. Mr. Fishel is a graduate of the University of Iowa where he focused his studies in Cinema and Comparative Literature and Intermedia / Performance Art. Fishel has worked and collaborated with Hans Breder, Phill Niblock, Thinkdance, Luke Murphy, Jason Batemen, John Kolvenbach, and The Hatch-Billops Collection.

In 2004 , Fishel broke ground with a feature-length experimental narrative motion picture, EXQUISITE CORPSE which challenged conventions of narrative cinema by presenting a story via randomized scenes on a programmed DVD.

Fishel’s DaveyDanceBlog, an ongoing performance/video art series that lives on the internet, spans 6 years and includes over 150 distinct videos which features appearances from several international performers/choreographers.

Fishel’s work continues to make his own single and multi-channel video work. His film work has screened at festivals internationally, while his music videos, promos and shorts are routinely broadcast globally. He is also the creator and MC of GinsbergGainsbourg, a multi-lingual spoken word series based in NYC with sister groups in Paris, London, and Istanbul.

ABOUT KINETIC CINEMA

Kinetic Cinema, is a regular screening series of Pentacle’s Movement Media curated by invited guest artists who create evenings of films and videos that have been influential to their own work as artists. When artists are asked to reflect upon how the use of movement in film and media arts has influenced their own art, a plethora of new ideas, material, and avenues of exploration emerge. From cutting edge motion capture animation to Michael Jackson music videos, from Gene Kelly musicals to Kenneth Anger films, Kinetic Cinema is dedicated to the recognition and appreciation for “moving” pictures. We have presented these evenings at Collective: Unconscious, Chez Bushwick, IRT, Launchpad, Green Space, Uniondocs, CRS, 3rd Ward, Fort Useless and The Tank in New York City, as well as at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.

For more information on the current Kinetic Cinema season, please visit our website and our blog, movetheframe.com.

KINETIC CINEMA is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

PASCALINA (NY Premiere!)

Posted on October 14, 2014December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

PASCALINA
Dir. Pam Miras, 2012
Philippines, 96 min.
In Tagalog with English subtitles.

NY PREMIERE!
Special thanks to Cinema One Originals

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – 7:30 PM

“What to do when your pet bunny dies? Eat it. And cry while you puke, of course. We all have our bad days.” –Ria Limjap (SPOT.ph)

Pam Miras’ first feature film PASCALINA (2012) “[bangs] your head against the genre threshold” (to borrow a phrase from writer Amanda K. Davidson). It’s horror, drama and dark comedy–with mumblecore characteristics–hitting every extreme like it’s no big deal.

Shot entirely on digital Harinezumi, a Japanese-designed 2-3 pixel ‘toy’ camera (with a ‘tiny, tiny mic’), PASCALINA is eerie and fuzzy. Maker SuperHeadz claims that the Harinezumi is “bringing lust to digital!” The effect is carnal and claustrophobic, like sharing a closet with someone.

The look of the the film does much to bring us inside our heroine’s disconsolate head. Pascalina (Maria Veronica Santiago), a young nurse in Metro Manila, is insecure and feeling unfulfilled. Her boyfriend leaves much to be desired, her sisters make her miserable, her boss won’t let it slide when she dyes her hair Manic Panic red… But when Pascalina inherits the curse of the aswang from a dying aunt, everything for her starts to change. For those unfamiliar, an aswang is a cross between a ghoul, werewolf, witch and vampire in Filipino folklore, known for being shape-shifting fetus-eaters.

Winner of Best Picture at the 2012 Cinema One Originals Film Festival, PASCALINA is a must-see, especially for those following an emerging New Filipino Cinema.

PAM MIRAS is a director and screenwriter based in the Philippines. Her short film REYNA (1999) was awarded Best Short Feature at the 13th CCP Independent Film & Video Competition and the 23rd Gawad Urian Awards. Her film BLOOD BANK (2004) won Best Short Film at .MOV Fest, Best Screenplay at Cinemalaya (2005), and has been screened internationally. She is also a screenwriter for television and independent features. PASCALINA is her first feature film. It won Best Picture at the 2012 Cinema One Originals Film Festival and has screened internationally. It was shown as part of New Filipino Cinema 2014 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (Los Angeles) last summer. Miras’ most recent personal work is a short film titled PUSONG BATO (HEART OF STONE), finished shortly after PASCALINA in 2013. It was shown in a program of Tito & Tita films in Echo Park in 2014 and will be included in the 2014 Singapore International Film Festival.

FROM THE DUMPSTER TO THE OPTICAL PRINTER TO YOU: AN EVENING OF SHORT FILMS ASSEMBLED BY GIBBS CHAPMAN AND FRIENDS

Posted on October 14, 2014December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

From the Dumpster to the Optical Printer to You:
a group of short films assembled by gibbs chapman and friends

Chapman in attendance · All films screening from 16mm
Films by Chapman, Kerry Laitala, Jay Rosenblatt, and Naomi Uman

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6 – 8:00 PM

A presentation of short works built from found materials, designed to alarm the original producers, attempting to contact what the word art wishes to describe, a response from the call of advertising and education and a trickle-down from the haves to the have-nots.

Superfluous People (excerpt) 10m
Push Button: a history of idleness and ignorance, 16m
The intellectual 3m
Your tax dollars at work 3m
An examiniation of exhibits A(1)-E(5) 20m
Out of the ether 11m (Kerry Laitala)
Short of Breath 10m (Jay Rosenblatt)
Removed 6m (Naomi Uman)

THE 4TH ANNUAL SPECTACLE SHRIEK SHOW

Posted on October 13, 2014December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

As SPECTOBER IV draws to a close, we invite you to once again bunker down in the Goth Bodega for the 4th Annual Spectacle Shriek Show horror marathon! Starting at noon on Saturday, October 25th we’ll be presenting 7 features (not to mention spooky tunes, trailers, shorts, and more!) over the course of the next 12 or 14 or so hours to chill you to your very marrow! This years line-up is the craziest yet and features films from the 60’s to 2014! As always it’s $25 for the entire day or $5 each film if you are too much of a scared little baby to hang out the whole time.

Noon – NIGHTMARE CASTLE (1965)
2:00 PM – SLASH DANCE (1989)
3:30 PM – MONDO MAGIC presented by Massacre Video (1975)
5:30 PM – KOLOBOS (1999)
7:30 PM – MARLEY’S REVENGE: THE MONSTER MOVIE presented by Horror Boobs (1989)
10:00 PM – THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS (2014)
Midnight – BURIAL GROUND: THE NIGHTS OF TERROR (1981)

$5 for individual films! $25 for the whole day!

*****BUY TICKETS HERE*****

NIGHTMARE CASTLE
(aka: GLI AMANTI D’OLTRETOMBA, THE FACELESS MONSTER)
Dir. Mario Caiano, 1965
Italy, 104 min.
Dubbed in English

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 – NOON

“You don’t know the hate I have inside, if you could see it you’d be terrified.”

When a vicious count catches his wife Muriel (played the lovely Barbara Steele) being unfaithful, he tortures her and her lover and eventually cuts out their hearts. Things get even dicier (if you can believe it) when the count discovers that he can’t even get any of that sweet murder money as his wife has left everything to her sister Jenny (*also* played by the lovely Barbara Steele) who is currently in a mental institution. Not one to be out-crazied even from the beyond the grave, the count marries the sister and settles in for a nice quiet life. Naturally, the sister begins seeing visions and experiences terrible night hauntings. The ghosts of the murdered Muriel and her lover have returned and the only way to end the terror is to DESTROY THEIR HEARTS!

First released in Italy and then subsequently released in butchered versions all over the world under various titles and runtimes NIGHTMARE CASTLE gained steam as a late night cult favorite due in no small part to the presence of Barbara Steele (last seen in our humble theater as part of SPECTOB3R in THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH) and the atmospheric cinematography of Enzo Barboni. Spectacle kicks off our 4th year with this gothic classic!

SLASH DANCE
Dir. James Shyman, 1989
USA, 83 min.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 2:00 PM

“SLASHDANCE has the sad atmospherics of a McDonald’s employee training tape.” – Joseph A. Ziemba, Bleeding Skull

An undercover lady cop (played by G.L.O.W. star “Americana”) gets *in too deep* as she tracks a hooded murderer with a saw in a theater who is picking off members of the troupe. That’s pretty much it, you get the idea.

While doing it’s best to ape the likes of DEATH SPA, KILLER WORKOUT, and even STAGE FRIGHT: AQUARIUS (a Spectacle favorite) this late 80’s slasher is at it’s heart a spandex clad PHANTOM OF THE OPERA ripoff and perfect for a mid-afternoon chuckle. Though it packs about 1/10th of the punch of the films it desperately tries to emulate, it does feature some strange cameos and a death by high heeled shoe. If you bring the nachos, this film brings the cheese.

Massacre Video presents: MONDO MAGIC
(aka: MAGIA NUDA)
Dir. Alfredo Castiglioni, 1975
Italy, 99 min.
In Italian w/ English subtitles

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 3:30 PM

“One of the bloodiest and most sever pictures of its genre, MONDO MAGIC made even it’s own distributors, Carl Peppercorn and Irving Worsmer, want to vomit.” – Bill Landis, Sleazoid Express

MONDO MAGIC – more daring than MONDO CANE, more shocking than AFRICA BLOOD AND GUTS.

Journey into a world of primitive African tribes, Indian faith healers, and Amazonian hunters. Witness their barbaric rituals and brutal sexual rites. Enter civilizations where gruesome acts of magic are the cornerstones of their cultures. MONDO MAGIC is a horrifying testimonial to the brutality of man, black and white. Not even your bloodiest nightmares can prepare you for MONDO MAGIC, because MONDO MAGIC is real!

Since the very first Spectacle Shriek Show, our pals at Massacre have had a huge presence in every line-up – 555, DEMON QUEEN, THE ABOMINATION – and this year is no different as they bring us what is without a doubt one of the most jaw-dropping and shocking films of all time! Made during the fevered height of the “Mondo” films craze in the 70’s, this shockumentary changed the game and rocked 42nd street audiences to their core. Not to be missed.

KOLOBOS
Dir. Daniel Liatowitsch & David Todd Ocvirk, 1999
USA, 84 min.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 5:30 PM

Five strangers agree to live in a lavish house together under constant video surveillance, supposedly for an “experimental film”. The first night unfolds along the lines of any Real World episode, with the attendant personality clashes and flirtations – that is, until blades shoot out of the kitchen appliances, disemboweling Tina, the spastic raver girl, just as the doors and windows slam shut, trapping the survivors. With even more senselessly brutal deaths awaiting them in every booby-trapped room, they turn on each other, eventually uniting their suspicions against their most unstable housemate, artist/mental patient Kyra (who can’t find her pills). But Kyra frantically warns them of a mysterious man she glimpsed on TV slicing his own face off with a razor blade while cackling and chanting “Kolobos…today…I…exist…”

Horror films with a Big Brother-inspired reality TV premise would eventually emerge as a familiar trope in the early aughts with films like MY LITTLE EYE and SERIES 7: THE CONTENDERS but KOLOBOS predated all of them, completed months before Big Brother itself debuted in the US.

Uncommonly for a direct-to-video slasher film, KOLOBOS’S main source of inspiration is Dario Argento, and it is an impassioned tribute indeed, with hyper-gruesome practical effects, set-piece murders, expressionistic lighting, surrealistic logic and an effectively Goblin-esque knock-off score. Loaded also with overt references to Fulci, Bava and early Carpenter, KOLOBOS is one of the earliest explicit odes to 80s horror, even as some of its ghostly phantom effects anticipated films like RINGU and DARK WATER. KOLOBOS is truly an under-appreciated and ahead-of-its-time horror film awaiting rediscovery.

First screened at Spectacle back in May in celebration of it’s 15th Anniversary KOLOBOS fits nicely in what ended up being a very Italian-centric marathon this year while also breaking the mold and making a space all its own.

Horror Boobs presents: MARLEY’S REVENGE: THE MONSTER MOVIE
Dir. Jet Eller, 1989
USA, 83 min.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 7:30 PM

“I don’t know about you, man, but I’m still huuuuungry.”

Two bozos get picked up by a gang of vigilantes out to scrub the streets of scum after mistaking the men for drug smugglers. The problem is – they’re actually smuggling in their aunt and uncle. The four are whisked away to the local island where they murder all the other drug smugglers. You know what though? None of this even matters because once they get to the island – things get really out of hand. Zombies rise from the grave, a giant hell monster shows up, and the vigilantes aren’t too pleased either? How will anyone escape this island alive?

Another marathon mainstay and VHS monolith – Horror Boobs has been providing not only marathon fare but midnight fodder at Spectacle for over a decade!* This years entry is…well, something special indeed. With the Spectacle Shriek Show in full swing this will be the proverbial “third bowl of porridge” to your melted brain.

THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS
(aka: L’ETRANGE COULEUR DES LARMES DE TON CORPS)
Dir. Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani, 2013
Belgium, 102 min.
In French with English subtitles

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 10:00 PM

“I was amazed with the strange colors of this film!” – mario_c, IMDb user

From directing duo Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani (AMER), comes this homage to the masters of classic Italian Giallo horror. Dan returns home to find his wife is missing. With no signs of struggle or break-in and with no help from the police, Dan’s search for answers leads him down a psychosexual rabbit hole. THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS is a bloody and taut fantasia of suspense that leaves the viewer entranced in this highly original erotic thriller.

As this years line-up reaches a boiling point, Spectacle is proud to present this visual symphony, this auditory feast, as our penultimate film this year. If you didn’t catch it while it was here a few months ago, now is your chance. A beautiful, unsettling work that begs to be seen.

BURIAL GROUND: THE NIGHTS OF TERROR
(aka: LE NOTTE DEL TERRORE, ZOMBIE III)
Dir. Andrea Bianchi, 1981
Italy, 85 min.
Dubbed in English

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 – MIDNIGHT

“The gore is heavy, the violence untamed, and frustrations are augmented
rather than relieved.” – Dan Dendle, The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia

Three groups of couples arrive at a stately villa to visit their friend, a professor, who has (unbeknownst to them) recently been killed by the zombies he elected to raise from the dead. As the reanimated corpses converge on the tasty, mortal flesh of the visitors they manage to hole up in the old mansion and fight off the rampage til the break of dawn. And it don’t stop.

BURIAL GROUND is true to it’s roots – an Italian gut-muncher that even works in a skewered eyeball for good measure. Some edits were even passed off as ZOMBIE III to unsuspecting theater goers. The perfect nightcap to this year’s festivities and just in time for the witching hour. Be on the lookout for a small role by Massacre Video’s own Louis Justin in the background! Blink and you’ll miss him!

Masha Tupitsyn’s LOVE SOUNDS (Premiere!)

Posted on October 13, 2014December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

LOVE SOUNDS
Dir. Masha Tupitsyn, 2014
USA, 247 min.

WORLD PREMIERE!

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – 7:30 PM (PART 1)
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5 – 7:30 PM (PART 2)

“Auditory landscapes can also be interpolations between space and time, space and reality, the psycho-social and the geographic, and temporality and memory. The act of listening involves a transitional state between attention and imagination, between sensual experience and understanding or seeking a possible meaning.”

-Jean-Luc Nancy, Listening

…

Cinema remains the last medium for speaking and performing love culturally. While much emphasis has been placed on the visual iconography of love, with the exception of music very little attention has been given to love as an aural phenomenon since the tradition and practice of amour courtois. Partly inspired by Christian Marclay’s ontology of time in cinema, THE CLOCK, and René Magritte’s word paintings, which textualized the visual tropes of painting with “written” images, LOVE SOUNDS, a 24-hour sound poem and montage, dematerializes cinema’s visual legacy and reconstitutes it as an all-tonal history of critical listening.

At Spectacle, LOVE SOUNDS will be presented in four hours over two evenings. Tuesday, November 4th we will screen Part 1 (sections include Desire-Sex, Sexual Politics, Trust-Betrayal and Break-Ups). The following night, Wednesday, November 5th, we will conclude with Part 2 (sections include Heartbreak, Violence-Death, Fate-Time-Memory and Love).

LOVE SOUNDS, an audio history of love in cinema, concludes Tupitsyn’s immaterial trilogy, and will be presented outside of the cinema as a 24-hour sound installation, accompanied by a catalogue published by Penny-Ante.

In 2011, Masha Tupitsyn commenced her immaterial series with LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film, the first book of film criticism written entirely on Twitter. LACONIA experimented with new modes of writing and criticism, updating traditional literary forms and practices like the aphorism and the fragment. Re-imagining the wound-and-quest story, the love narrative, and the female subject in love in the digital age, Love Dog, published in 2013, was the second installment in Masha Tupitsyn’s trilogy of immaterial writing. Written as a multi-media blog and inspired by Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse and Mourning Diary—a couple in Tupitsyn’s mind—Love Dog is an art book that is part love manifesto, part philosophical notebook, part digital liturgy.

lovesounds_flyer — Flyer design by Morgan Vo

MASHA TUPITSYN is a writer, critic, and multi-media artist. She is the author of the books Like Someone in Love: An Addendum to Love Dog (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), Love Dog (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), a multi-media art book, LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film (ZerO Books, 2011), Beauty Talk & Monsters, a collection of film-based stories (Semiotext(e) Press, 2007), and co-editor of the anthology Life As We Show It: Writing on Film (City Lights, 2009). Her fiction and criticism have appeared or is forthcoming in the numerous anthologies and journals. She is a Senior editor at Berfrois and a contributing writer for Entropy. Her blog is: http://mashatupitsyn.tumblr.com

Text courtesy of Masha Tupitsyn.

LINDA LOVELACE FOR PRESIDENT

Posted on September 30, 2014December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

LINDA LOVELACE FOR PRESIDENT
Dir. Claudio Guzmán, 1975.
USA, 95 min.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9TH – 8:00 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Industry fixture Eric Danville—author of “The Complete Linda Lovelace”—narrates a clip show of very NSFW Linda Lovelace rarities before a feature screening of the ultimate film that could never be made today (thank god)… LINDA LOVELACE FOR PRESIDENT!

When a selection of independent delegates has a hard time choosing a candidate for President, they all come together and pick the most unlikely—and outrageous—candidate of all: Linda “Deep Throat” Lovelace! Join the world’s most famous cocksucker as she takes her ragtag supporters on a cross-country trip to get in touch with voters—and keeps one step ahead of an assassin hired to rub her out!

Released in 1975, this politically incorrect comedy is guaranteed to offend everybody with jokes about race, sex, drugs and politics (and gratuitous nudity, too). The cast includes a host of ’70s sitcom mainstays including Scatman Crothers (CHICO AND THE MAN), Joey Forman (THE ODD COUPLE), Jack DeLeon (GET SMART), comedy legend Chuck McCann and ex-Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz as the bus driver!