Page 133 – Spectacle Theater

I LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM

Posted on February 6, 2015December 25, 2019 by spectacletheater

I LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM
aka A Man in Uniform
Dir. David Wellington, 1993
Canada, 97 min.

FRIDAY, MARCH 6 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 17 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 26 – 7:30 PM

Some ideas deserve more than one film, and more than one author. They deserve some time to knock around the cinematic zeitgeist awhile in work that is not so much derivative as conversational. In this Canadian film from 1993, Tom McCamus plays Henry Addler, a bank clerk trying to make it as a full time actor while caring for his ailing father. Henry has just landed a reoccurring role on a TV police drama. To get into the part he takes his police uniform home and begins to walk the streets of Toronto looking for real life at its worst – and the goodness that only authority can sustain. Eventually, he also acquires a gun. I LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM makes no secret of its debt to TAXI DRIVER. The similarities to the latter film marks one of many self-referentially cinematic elements. The emotional core of the film remains hidden just beneath the surface of a series of film tropes, common imagery, and stock characters. It’s a deeply personal and unique film, but every step of the way it struggles with cliche like an actor might struggle to give something real to a bit part. This is exactly the point, this is a film about pain that’s so hard to explain because it’s been explained so many times before, and about the roles common tragedies force us to play.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: ALBERTO CAVALLONE

Posted on February 6, 2015December 25, 2019 by spectacletheater

BLOW JOB
aka Soffio Erotico
Dir. Alberto Cavallone, 1980
Italy, 78 min.
In Italian with English subtitles

SATURDAY, MARCH 7 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 10 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 15 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, 18 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 26 – 10 PM

Reportedly inspired by Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception, BLOW JOB is a full blown out of body experience. What begins as a romantic retreat quickly heads south when a young couple, Diana and Stéfano, are evicted from their hotel room. Capitalizing on the conveniently timed suicide of their upstairs neighbor, the two sneak off to the races, intent on gambling away the last of their funds. There, Stéfano meets a mysterious, one-eyed woman who enlists his aid in exchange for the name of the winning pony. Fulfilling his end of the bargain, Stéfano and Diana drive the woman to her compound, where voodoo, mind-swapping and naked dance parties unwittingly await them. Building to its explosive, surrealist third act, BLOW JOB displays unexpectedly layered yet winking nuance — nevermind the title.

BLUE MOVIE
Dir. Alberto Cavallone, 1978
Italy, 84 min.
In Italian with English subtitles

MONDAY, MARCH 2 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 6 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 10 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 24 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 31 – 7:30 PM

“Cavallone made his masterpiece with this 1978 film, a sort of BLOW-UP as written by George Bataille and directed by Guy Debord…Much more than just a curiosity for compulsive Italian B-movie fans, BLUE MOVIE is a singular mixture of Situationist polemic, genre deconstruction, and zero budget auteurism.” – Film Comment

Not to be confused with the claustrophobic Warhol film of the same name, BLUE MOVIE is an almost unplaceable genre exercise in trauma and perverse affection. Perhaps the most visually distinctive of the three films in this series, BLUE MOVIE pairs Silvia, grief stricken after an attempted rape, with her rescuer, a mysterious photographer by the name of Claudio, who has some skeletons of his own. What emerges is a bizarre love affair along two parallel tracks of madness.

[Trigger Warning: Repeated scenes of attempted rape.]

Special thanks to Raro Video.

MAN, WOMAN AND BEAST
aka Spell – Dolce mattatoio
Dir. Alberto Cavallone, 1977
Italy, 100 min.
In Italian with English subtitles

MONDAY, MARCH 2 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 7 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 12 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 17 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 29 – 5 PM

A man too concerned with collages to confront his mute wife’s psychosexual mania; a daughter impregnated by her father at her grandfather’s funeral; a butcher a little too devoted to his products — that’s just the tip of the very bizarre iceberg in Alberto Cavallone’s anti-pastoral pastiche, MAN, WOMAN AND BEAST. Elemental though the title may be, this hallucinatory jaunt through an Italian village on the eve of an annual Catholic festival rewards repeat viewings thanks to its rhythmic cuts and roving narrative. By the ecstatic, percussive, feces-covered close, you can no longer be certain if the beast is man, meat, or what the film’s women must become in order to survive.

JUCHE YOUR ILLUSION I: CINEMA OF NORTH KOREA

Posted on February 6, 2015December 25, 2019 by spectacletheater

North Korea’s late Kim Jong-Il was, by all accounts, a legendary cinephile who aimed to surpass the technical and artistic standards of Moscow. He weeded out potential counter-revolutionaries, organized workshops for the studies of Kim Il Sung’s theories of culture and did in fact author the volumes of film criticism published under his byline. The films produced under his leadership engage directly with the concept of juche, a particularly North Korean form of Marxism-Leninism generally revolving around the idea of total, homegrown self-reliance; in the senior Kim Il Sung’s words: “having the attitude of master toward revolution and construction in one’s own country…using your own brains, believing your own strength and displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, and thus solving your own problems for yourself on your own responsibility under all circumstances.”

Initially working as department director of propaganda and agitation, the young Kim Jong Il instituted wide-sweeping reforms in the North Korean film industry, mandating that artists avoid both art-for-art’s sake on one extreme and stiff, dogmatic films that neglect form and artistry on the other. He then actively encouraged people to emulate the heroes from films: “Day after day, leading characters in the works of art become real in each factory and each workshop,” he wrote.

Being at once proudly insular and aspiring to the artistic achievements of great Russian filmmakers and the magic of Hollywood, North Korean film is singularly baffling, enrapturing, inspiring and unsettling. This month, Spectacle presents the series JUCHE YOUR ILLUSION I, featuring feature films and propaganda made in North Korea, including CENTRE FORWARD, PULGASARI, FLOWER GIRL and URBAN GIRL COMES TO GET MARRIED. In April, JUCHE YOUR ILLUSION II will feature films made outside of North Korea that take the country as a subject.

CENTRE FORWARD
Dir. Pak Chong Song, 1978
North Korea, 77 min.
In Korean with English subtitles

MONDAY, MARCH 9 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 21 – 10 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 23 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 31 – 10 PM

“Oh, we are sportspersons of the Leader!” In CENTRE FORWARD, the DPRK’s first soccer movie, overzealous benchwarmer In Son botches his first match for the previously-undefeated Taesongan team. Their shameful loss is followed by a harrowing post-game self-recrimination session in which various team members take turns chastising themselves for In Son’s incompetence. Ultimately, the coach blames his team’s complacency and, remembering that “the Father Leader taught us to make this country a great Kingdom of Sports,” decides to “break from the old training program” in favor of a more merciless regimen. The players become resentful and lazy, drinking beer instead of training, while the party functionary Vice-Chairman implores the coach to go easier on them. Only In Son, inspired by his sister’s relentless dedication to the practice of dancing for “the collective spirit”, pushes himself to master the new program and his own self-doubt, recognizing that “when we beat the foreign teams, the entire Nation will share the joy.” But as the final game winds down with the unpromising score of 0-2, will this humble underdog get the chance to redeem himself – and the entire nation?

THE FLOWER GIRL
Ik Kyu Choe & Hak Pak, 1972
North Korea, 121 min.
In Korean with English subtitles

SUNDAY, MARCH 1 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 5 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 15 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 28 – 7:30 PM

On the petals dewdrops glisten.
Is it there that my tears flow?
The moon is bright but in this dim,
Dark world I know not where to go.

The opening titles proudly proclaim that The Flower Girl is the film version of a revolutionary play first staged in 1930 — or the “13th anniversary of the October Revolution,” as Kim Il-sung describes it in his eight-volume memoir, having personally authoring the libretto after forming an art troupe in a utopian village in Jilin. Curiously, however, the play went unseen for over four decades, until it reappeared, rewritten and “improved” by Organizing Secretary Kim Jong Il as an opera, novel, and film in the 1970s.

Day after day, Ggot-bun faces indifference as she travels to town to sell flowers to earn money for her ailing mother. She, her mother, and her blind sister live in poverty after a shady landlord has impressed them into what is effectively a life of indentured servitude. Ggot-bun keeps her chin up; nevertheless, her fortunes go from bad to worse as she’s abused by Japanese colonialists and sold to work in a horrendous textile mill while her family suffers worse. Is it possible that guerrillas may arrive to slaughter her oppressors and lift the poor flower girl’s spirits?

You’re going to have to sit through some completely awe-inspiring and tearjerking musical numbers staged in front of twilit hillside vistas to find out.

As author Bradley K. Martin has noted, The Flower Girl is North Korea’s Les miserables, supplanting the French Revolution with Kim Il-sung’s regime, with the the sweeping melodrama and embitter class hatred intact. As DKRP cinema goes, this is a AAA production: as representative of the juche concept as The Godfather is of capitalism. How can 25 million people’s sympathies be so drawn to a despotic regime? Because they made The Flower Girl.

“When I saw The Flower Girl, if there was a dry eye in the house, it did not belong to me.” -Bradley K. Martin, author, In the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader

PULGASARI
aka Bulgasari
Dir. Sang-ok Shin, 1985
North Korea, 95 min.
In Korean with English subtitles

SUNDAY, MARCH 1 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 21 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 24 – 7:30 PM

Over the span of 20 years, Sang-ok Shin – sometimes called “the Orson Wells of South Korea” – made upwards of 60 films but all that changed in 1978 when the studio closed. Things would go from bad to worse when in what should be an unbelievable turn of events, Shin and his wife (actress Choi Eun-Hee) were kidnapped by Kim Jong-il. Kim’s intent was to have Shin create films showcasing the power and might of the Korea Workers Party for all the world to see, with Choi Eun-Hee as their star. Before their escape to Vienna in 1986, and after years in prison camps, they would make 7 films – PULGASARI being a crown jewel among them.

While seemingly an obvious Godzilla rip-off, the film is about an evil king in feudal Korea who learns of a coming peasant rebellion. The king gathers all the metal he can find – farming tools, cooking pots, etc – to make into weapons to squash the small army. A dying blacksmith uses the last of his strength to create a monster made of rice – Pulgasari. When his daughters blood hits it, the monster comes to life and traverses the countryside, eating iron – as monsters are wont to do.

Not seen outside of Korea for over a decade after its release, the film has gained a cult following for its special effects – with Kenpachiro Satsuma who was Godzilla for over a decade in the Pulgasari costume!

TRIUMPH OF THE IL: A SURVEY OF NORTH KOREAN PROPAGANDA
Dir. Various, compiled 2015
North Korea, 70 min.
In English and Korean with English subtitles

SUNDAY, MARCH 8 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 19 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 30 – 10 PM

North Korea’s secrecy and isolation make it especially mysterious to outsiders, and some of our most sustained glimpses into the country are via its tenacious and dedicated propaganda department. Obscuring rather than enlightening, the films feature relentless assurances, bizarre Pollyanna qualities and extreme levels of repetition. The Juche philosophy of self-reliance, both for individuals and the North Korean state, takes on a sinister, disturbing quality despite the passionate optimism in the films, lending them a particular sense of despair.

Spectacle rounds out its Juche Your Illusion I: Cinema of North Korea series with TRIUMPH OF THE IL, selections from various North Korean propaganda films, including several which extol the virtues and philosophy of Kim Il-Sung and show the former North Korean leader in less isolated times, shaking hands with dozens of world leaders in the 1970s; a film designed to smooth the transition from Il-Sung to Kim Jong-il; karaoke-style military music videos meant to incite and inspire; and the “Arirang Mass Games”, a pageant of synchronized humanity so massive that it puts Busby Berkeley to shame.

URBAN GIRL COMES TO GET MARRIED
Dir. by Kim Il-Sung University students, 1993
North Korea, 73 min.
In Korean with English subtitles

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 23 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 28 – 10 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 30 – 7:30 PM

In URBAN GIRL COMES TO GET MARRIED, Ri Hyang, the best fabric cutter at an urban clothing factory, joins her all-female coworkers on a trip to the countryside as part of a “Peasant-Worker Alliance” program, where they “must work as demanded by Juche farming method”. Amid montages of joyous rice planting and flowing grain, Ri Hyang encounters the visionary young man behind the collective farm’s duck breeding project, Song Sik. She turns up her nose at first, but his commitment to the fatherly leader’s agricultural innovation protocol and rock ‘n roll drumming skills begin to win her over. When he tells her, “It’s time to feed duck dung to the gas furnace,” she says, “I can help you.” Together, they realize that this duck dung is just the beginning, for it will “contribute to agricultural development,” including “mechanization and chemicalization”.

Featuring a musical interlude where the principal characters perform the film’s titular theme song for assembled workers and peasants, URBAN GIRL COMES TO GET MARRIED claims that “a modern farm village is good to live in,” encouraging the best and brightest young urban women to marry men in the countryside so they can apply their worldly intelligence to the execution of “socialist rural theses”.

DIRTY DIARIES

Posted on February 1, 2015December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

DIRTY DIARIES
Various Directors, 2009
Sweden, 98 min.
Silent/In Swedish with English subtitles

SATURDAY, MARCH 14 – 8 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Tired of airbrushed, male gaze porn with no personality, no panache, no pizzazz? Spectacle’s got you covered. For one night only, Spectacle presents DIRTY DIARIES, a collection of Swedish feminist porn shorts sure to put the vim and vigor back into your love life!

Put together by director Mia Engberg, DIRTY DIARIES is a collection of 12 short films, each directed by a woman, and each dealing with a different aspect of sexuality. These shorts are raw, with every day people as performers, and nearly every proclivity and orientation represented. From an exploration of online sexuality, to lovers cutting each other out of body suits, to an animated short, DIRTY DIARIES likely has something you’re looking for — and just as likely, will make you reconsider what porn is, and what porn can be. Joining us for the night is Rachel Kramer Bussel, sex columnist, editor, and expert on sex and pop culture, to discuss the films and the issues they raise. With a manifesto that includes such points as “Fight for your right to be horny” and “Smash capitalism and patriarchy,” DIRTY DIARIES is porn with a message (don’t be scared away, it’s still hot, too).

Rachel Kramer Bussel is the author of Sex & Cupcakes: A Juicy Collection of Essays and the editor of over 50 anthologies, including Come Again: Sex Toy Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica 2015, The Big Book of Orgasms, The Big Book of Submission, Fast Girls, Gotta Have It and Cheeky Spanking Stories. She is a sex columnist for Philadelphia City Paper and DAME, teaches erotic writing workshops, writes widely about sex, dating, books and pop culture and Tweets @raquelita.

[Trigger Warning: This is hardcore pornography, including bondage, exhibitionism, fisting, and pretty much everything else you can think of.]

Special thanks to Njutafilms and Rachel Kramer Bussel.

SHE POEMS: A SCREENING AND DISCUSSION WITH AÏDA COLMENERO DÏAZ

Posted on January 30, 2015December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

PENTACLE’S KINETIC CINEMA PRESENTS A SCREENING AND DISCUSSION WITH AÏDA COLMENERO DÏAZ
Dir. Aïda Colmenero Dïaz, 2014
Spain, 90 min.

THURSDAY, MARCH 12 – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Guest Artist and world citizen, Aïda Colmenero Dïaz will show an evening of videodance poems made in collaboration with dancers and choreographers from Nigeria, Senegal, and Tanzania.

SHE POEMS is a project created by Aïda to pay TRIBUTE TO AFRICAN WOMEN through poems written in Spanish.

They are “video poems” played by African women artists, They are audiovisual works of contemporary dance inspired by poems written in Spanish language.

SHE POEMS speak about IDENTITY of African women and it is a defense of the human rights of women.

The goal is to place African women in the role of CREATOR, these women will live a process of empowerment and they will be an example for their community,

SHE POEMS want to give a positive image of Africa, profiling strong African women.

SHE POEMS aims to build a Women -Poetry -Dance- African MAP.

Aïda Colmenero Dïaz started her career in Cristina Rota Drama School, after she received her title in Contemporary Dance in the Real Conservatorio Profesional of Dance “Mariemma” of Madrid. She has created a multidisciplinary approach using different body and dance techniques: Contemporary, theater, Yoga, Taichi, Capoeira, Classical dance, technique “Río Abierto”, Butoh, etc…

The only Spanish artist to obtain the diploma in Acogny technique by Germaine Acogny, at the École des Sables, Senegal, Aïda is co-directing LANLA a project to expand Acogny technique at an international level. In collaboration with Ecole Des Sables they have created THE MARCH, The First Open international Dance workshop around Germaine Acogny Technique, in Senegal. Aïda also created the CYCLE OF MODERN AFRICAN DANCE in Madrid.

Aïda has been based between Africa and Spain since 2009. She has developed her educational project “Africa Danza Training Program” in Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Cape Verde Islands, Tanzania, Guinea Conakry, Madagascar, Gabon; for dancers, actors, circus people, children and women in special situations. Her choreographic work in Africa includes: “Café Toubab” with Alioune Diagne (2009), presented in the Festival Mundial des Arts Négres; and “Fudu” with Papa Sangoné Vièira (2012).

Aïda is touring with KM.O Project “Preludio” created by the Spanish choreographer Paloma Sánchez, co produced by La Nívola and Yakart, in collaboration with Espacio en Blanco of Madrid. She was invited to participate as a specialist lecturer in the map of contemporary dance in Africa in II Encuentro Coreográfico África-España, organized by Casa África and Mercats de les Flors, Barcelona 2011. She was invited as a choreographer by Arigato International to the Forth Forum Global Network of Religions for Children, Dar es Salaam 2012. She was invited as special guest in “Día da criança africana” organized by the United Nations in Praia 2010.

Aïda has been awarded twice by the Ministry of Culture of Spain and AECID (Agencia Española de Cooperación y Desarrollo)

This presentation is supported and produced by: Spanish Embassy in Abuja, Casa África, Goethe-Institut Senegal, Cultura Dakar, Spanish Embassy in Dakar, Spanish Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Acción Cultural Española, SUNU Street, Maison Aïssa Dione, Hotel Sokhamon, MUDA África, Nafasi Art Space, Asociación Yakart.

More info at www.aidacolmenerodiaz.com

ABOUT KINETIC CINEMA

Kinetic Cinema, is a regular screening series produced by Pentacle in conjunction with Spectacle Theater and 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 info on the current Kinetic Cinema season please visit Pentacle’s website.

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 and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

RADICAL HARDWARE V: USE YOUR EYES

Posted on January 19, 2015December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

RADICAL HARDWARE V: USE YOUR EYES
Dir. Iain Marcks, 2014
USA, approx. 75 min.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3 – 8 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Iain Marcks is a writer and filmmaker living in New York City. His words can be read in the pages of American Cinematographer Magazine. His films can be seen wherever anyone is willing to show them. (And starting in 2015, on the Fandor website.) In 2012 he started Radical Hardware – a noncompetitive showcase of Super 8 and 16mm films as a way to connect filmmakers and encourage spontaneous collaboration – hosting several iterations (II, III, & IV) at Spectacle before becoming more involved as a volunteer and running tech for screenings of prints of DER BLAUE ENGEL, DARKER THAN AMBER, and more. This event will gather of all his shorts including the premiere of his newest work, SWITCHED from 2014, followed by a Q&A.

FILMS:
– Gay Panic, Get Lost (music video, 2013; TRT 2:59)
– Mr. Fitzpatrick (short film, 2012; TRT 9:46) A day in the life of a gay man with a foot fetish.
– Xavier, Tell Me All About It (music video, 2013; TRT 5:10)
– Nothing Out There (short film, 2014; TRT 3:15) A short documentary about a missing man.
– Hum (short film, 2013; TRT 13:12) A man is driven insane by a strange sound.
– Antoni Maiovvi, Megametropolis: Escape to L.A. (as producer; music video, 2013; TRT 4:21)
– Switched (short film, 2014; TRT 13:21) A rape-revenge film.

FEBRUARY MIDNIGHTS

Posted on January 12, 2015December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

LOVE ME DEADLY
Dir. Jacque Lacerte, 1972
USA, 95 min.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14 – MIDNIGHT

“A beautiful child woman doomed to love only the dead!”

Before Karen Greenlee’s mortuary escapades there was “Love Me Deadly” the story of Lindsay Finch and her lust for the dead! Ms. Finch is a beautiful California blonde who cruises funerals looking for her next lover. Alas, there are only so many funeral homes in LA, a beautiful woman in provocative mourning attire is sure to be noticed. Lucky for Lindsay she catches the eye of a funeral director who just happens to be the leader of a necrophiliac sex cult! Will Lindsay give into lust or will a chance reading of an obituary lead her to true love?

LOVE ME DEADLY is a sweet and gruesome film made delightfully perverse by its usage of romantic ballads and upbeat songs as a soundtrack. Its juxaposition of soap opera style flash-backs and embalming tables is absolutely sickening in the best possible way. Watch out for the extras in the first funeral scene, they were all members of the original Church of Satan.

THE PSYCHO LOVER
Dir. Robert Vincent O’Neill, 1970
USA, 80 min.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13 – MIDNIGHT

“What did the voice say?” “Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.”

Robert Vincent O’Neill, the director who brought you Spectacle midnight classics Wonder Women and Blood Mania, offers his first and arguably weirdest film, THE PSYCHO LOVER (aka The Loving Touch). Psychiatrist Ken Alden, wants a divorce from his wife Valerie so he can spend his time with his topless girlfriend Stacy at the lake house, but Valerie refuses to give him one. Quite reasonably he decides to manipulate a patient Manchurian Candidate-style (they even mention this in the film!) into performing the murder for him. Marco, our hapless strangling necrophiliac, just may be a little too good as his job, however…

As a plot it may seem a little threadbare, but this basically opens up for some absolutely jaw-dropping visuals (our killer has a perfect O’Neill dream sequence freakout with an overdose of fuzz guitar!), the performance are all well above average, some great bitter repartee between Ken and his wife Valerie, some unexpected turns, and most notably, the actual murder scenes, both psychedelic and brutal. It’d probably be misleading to call THE PSYCHO LOVER an “American Giallo”, but it definitely has both the stylish look and visceral impact of Brian de Palma’s contemporary MURDER A LA MOD. Brainwashing, go-go dancers, home invasion: everything your Valentine’s Day requires.

MUSICAL MUTINY
Dir. Barry Mahon, 1970
USA, 74 min.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28 – MIDNIGHT

OCCUPY PIRATE’S WORLD!

Hey, kid: do you like Iron Butterfly? Do you like pirates? Do you like incitements that the youth culture should, in fact, stage a mutiny? A MUSICAL MUTINY? Spokesman of the hippie generation Barry Mahon (director of dozens of nudie-cuties/roughies) had a sort of second act at the very end of his career, directing a series of deeply strange fairytale films (THUMBELINA, SANTA CLAUS AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY) at/for a Florida amusement park called Pirate’s World. As it happens, Pirate’s World was a somewhat hot ticket at the time for touring bands (seriously: by the time this film was released Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Grateful Dead and Traffic all played there), so it was decided to release a concert film, starring Iron Butterfly and a bunch of local bands.

Add to this a storyline about a pirate who emerges from the sea and gets the young people together for a mutiny (ie a free show), a teen chemist who may or may not have invented a new hallucinogen, a subplot about how Iron Butterfly aren’t going to play this cockydoody free show unless they get paid in full and all the footage of smiling groovy Florida pre-teens bopping along to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and it definitely a strange no-man’s-land that covers both midnights and Rockuary! Without giving the plot away, fear not: the kids and the establishment find a way to work together and all was well at Pirate’s World…for another year or so, until Walt Disney World opened and forced the park out of business. THE END.

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL NIGHTMARE
Dir. John Fasano, 1987
Canada, 83 min.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27 – MIDNIGHT

“Toronto is where it’s happening, man.”

Fresh off his tour-de-force acting performance in Zombie Nightmare, Jon-Mikl Thor immediately set to work writing a screenplay titled The Edge Of Hell about a rock band who, while recording a new album at a remote farmhouse, discover it has been infested with demons. Together with the members of his band, a young director named John Fasano (1961-2014) and a lot of rubber puppets, Thor spent ten days shooting the film, a mix of hair metal, questionable effects, convoluted plotting and shirtless frenzy not seen since 1982’s Boardinghouse. Retitled ROCK ‘N’ ROLL NIGHTMARE (you know, like the Spinal Tap song) and released on video, the film lurked in video stores, slowly gaining a fanbase of teenage stoners and delinquents.

It’s easy to see how such a combination has since become the manna of “clever” “funny” “horror” “movie” “blogs”, but it’s the film’s bizarre logic, culminating in a truly astonishing final fifteen minutes (of which we will say no more). We haven’t even mentioned JMT’s shower makeout scene, the adorable smoking cyclops demon, the sweet conversion van, the chest-bursting and all the great Thor tracks! Spectacle is proud to present, for the second time, ROCK ‘N’ ROLL NIGHTMARE!

ANTI-VALENTINES 2015

Posted on January 12, 2015December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

This February, Spectacle presents four tales of rejection, sin, necrophilia, and infidelity…

Join us in celebrating ANTI-VALENTINES: a salute to all the things that make love so awful.

LE BOUCHER
Dir. Claude Chabrol, 1970
France, 89 min.
In French with English subtitles.

Special Thanks to Pathfinder Pictures

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24 – 10 PM

Set in a small French village, Helen is a sophisticated school headmistress who meets the local butcher Popaul at the wedding of a mutual friend. Desperate for some type of connection, the two begin forming a close but platonic relationship, despite advances from Popaul. Lurking in the background, a series of unsolved murders begin popping up around town, leading Helen to suspect that her new friend might be involved…

Touching on several of Claude Chabrol’s favorite themes, LE BOUCHER is the crown jewel of the French New Wave icon’s golden period. Often proclaimed as the French Hitchcock, Chabrol infuses LE BOUCHER with an expert mix of taut formalism and foreboding atmosphere. Featuring exquisite camerawork, a tense score, and career-high performances from Stéphane Audran and Jean Yanne, this is Chabrol in full command.

“Unnerving, creepy and strangely romantic in equal measure… arguably Chabrol’s masterpiece…” -The Playlist

CRIMES OF PASSION
Dir. Ken Russell, 1984
USA, 112 min.

Featuring the original X-rated version of the film!
Along with a brand new video intro from screenwriter Barry Sandler!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – 5 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28 – 7:30 PM

“If you think you’re gonna’ get back in my panties, forget it. There’s one asshole in there already.”

A bored husband’s sexual awakening at the hands of fashion designer-turned-prostitute China Blue (Kathleen Turner) becomes complicated as he must decide between his suburban family and his newfound lust, all while a crazy preacher (Anthony Perkins) lurks in the fringes, hellbent on turning China Blue away from her life of debauchery.

Working from an original script by Barry Sandler (writer of the queer cinema classic MAKING LOVE), Ken Russell spins the 80s erotic thriller into an eruption of flamboyance and excess, featuring manic performances from Turner and especially Perkins… who went the extra mile of becoming ordained AND sniffing nitrate between takes for his role!

Russell’s satire on marriage and sin is a sleazy, stylish, extravagant sexual opus begging to be rediscovered. Recommended if you like blue eyeshadow and big vibrators.

“Kathleen Turner gives the performance of her life… the film remains almost compulsively watchable. Grade: A.” -Entertainment Weekly

“An extremely uninhibited satire on American sexual dreams and nightmares… a comedy so black that it recaptures some of the cinema’s long-lost power to shock.” -Time Out London

Special Thanks to Barry Sandler and Lakeshore Entertainment

LOVE ME DEADLY
Dir. Jacque Lacerte, 1972
USA, 95 min.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14 – MIDNIGHT

“A beautiful child woman doomed to love only the dead!”

Before Karen Greenlee’s mortuary escapades there was “Love Me Deadly,” the story of Lindsay Finch and her lust for the dead! Ms. Finch is a beautiful California blonde who cruises funerals looking for her next lover. Alas, there are only so many funeral homes in LA, a beautiful woman in provocative mourning attire is sure to be noticed. Lucky for Lindsay she catches the eye of a funeral director who just happens to be the leader of a necrophiliac sex cult! Will Lindsay give into lust or will a chance reading of an obituary lead her to true love?

THE PSYCHO LOVER
Dir. Robert Vincent O’Neill, 1970
USA, 80 min.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13 – MIDNIGHT

“What did the voice say?” “Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.”

Robert Vincent O’Neill, the director who brought you Spectacle midnight classics WONDER WOMAN and BLOOD MANIA, offers his first and arguably weirdest film, THE PSYCHO LOVER (aka The Loving Touch). Psychiatrist Ken Alden, wants a divorce from his wife Valerie so he can spend his time with his topless girlfriend Stacy at the lake house, but Valerie refuses to give him one. Quite reasonably he decides to manipulate a patient Manchurian Candidate-style (they even mention this in the film!) into performing the murder for him. Marco, our hapless strangling necrophiliac, just may be a little too good as his job, however…

ROCKUARY 2015

Posted on January 12, 2015December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

This February, Spectacle brings you a supergroup of axe-shredding rock films, and it’s our most jam-packed ROCKUARY yet: Parisian punks girls, a Japanese dystopian sci-fi punk odyssey, a demented German children’s opera, French ye-ye pop bliss, Argentinian amateur dancers, Iron Butterfly at a backwoods amusement park, metal heads battling demons, a live document of a seminal punk group, a new wave musical, a tour diary of a legendary drone music collective, a portrait of a hair metal icon, and a portrait of an underground music icon.

For those about to (watch movies about) rock: we salute you!

LA BRUNE ET MOI
Dir. Philippe Picouyoul, 1981
France, 50 min.
In French with English subtitles

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26 – 7:30 PM

Modeled as a punk version of Frank Tashlin’s THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT (whose French title, LA BLONDE ET MOI, was an inspiration for the film), Philippe Picoyoul’s LA BRUNE ET MOI is the story of a young Parisian girl who wants to become a famous punk rock star. Pierre Clementi stars as an older businessman who falls for the girl (Anouschka), and is determined to make her the star she dreams of becoming.

If the plot seems a little thin, it’s because it’s mostly a framework to show some blistering performances from now-obscure French punk/new wave bands, including Edith Nylon, Taxi Girl, Artefact, and Ici Paris. As Clementi and Anouschka bounce from scene to scene, bands perform around them as a part of their world. Even though Clementi often seems like an alien from another planet in most of his movies, he’s most out of place here; a pathetic, balding businessman in love with a scenester who is using him for his ability to make her famous. He does in fact become a creepy, surprisingly effective Svengali to his young protege. More than anything, LA BRUNE ET MOI is a love letter to, and an insider portrait of, a very specific scene that otherwise may have been lost to history.

BURST CITY
Dir. Sogo Ishii, 1982
Japan, 116 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20 – 10 PM

Following the breakthrough success of his biker epic CRAZY THUNDER ROAD, Japanese maverick Sogo Ishii was granted an larger budget for his follow-up and chose to spend it on a half dozen punk bands, post-apocalyptic set design, and nearly 6,000 extras. The unprecedented BURST CITY is the result.

The ripping-at-the-seams plot concerns a clash between a group of punk musicians and contractors attempting to build a nuclear power plant, which soon attracts rival biker gangs, yakuza thugs, and riot police, all escalating into an all-out war.

Groundbreaking at the time for its rapid cutting, kinetic camera work, and renegade characters, BURST CITY provided an immeasurable influence on contemporary Japanese directors like Shinya Tsukamoto and Takashi Miike, simultaneously becoming the first time Japanese punk culture was represented on screen.

A brazen blend of MAD MAX, DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION and ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, BURST CITY is punk rock in its most beautiful, chaotic form.

“A seminal and visionary work… irreverent, manic, anarchic and energetic…” -Midnight Eye

HELP! HELP! THE GLOBOLINKS!
Dir. Gian Carlo Menotti, 1969
West Germany, 72 min.
In German with English subtitles

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 8 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28 – 10 PM

A filmed version of a children’s opera about a group of alien invaders (decked out in avant-garde dayglo body suits and amorphous chess pieces) who land on earth with plans to replace our trees with steel and replace our voices with electronic bleeps. A van full of schoolchildren (decked out in avant-garde German yodeling bodysuits) happen upon the aliens and become trapped. Only a teacher can save the kids and Planet Earth… with the power of MUSIC!

Conceived by the Pulitzer Prize-wining composer Gian Carlo Menotti and commissioned by the Hamburg State Opera, HELP! HELP! THE GLOBOLINKS! was a spectacular critical and commercial failure that is scarcely mentioned in Menotti’s biography and rarely performed today. Luckily for us, Menotti was also a pioneer in adapting opera for television, and filmed the Hamburg production of GLOBOLINKS for German television before it was shuttered away.

Imagine an INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS-themed episode of H.R. PUFNSTUF, but performed as a demented, psychedelic children’s opera and you’re getting close.

“… although Globolinks is a failure as a work of art, that doesn’t mean it can’t hold our attention as a weird curiosity piece… a rarity that’s off the beaten path of even the weirdest movie fan.” -366 Weird Movies

“…grade A ‘what the hell?’ weird… one for the ages.” -Badmovies.org

“…must be seen to be believed.” -The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre

LES IDOLES
Dir. Marc’O, 1968
France, 105 min.
In French with English subtitles

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22 – 7:30 PM

LES IDOLES is a psychedelic, disorienting trip into the French pop world of the 1960s. “Pop” music was just coming into its own then, and writer/director Marc’O, a known stage director and multidisciplinary artist, portrays the new world of pop superstardom as a strange, frenetic world full of debauchery and greed. The plot is barebones, hiding behind the atmosphere and (annoyingly) catchy songs, but consists of an unorthodox warehouse press conference with three pop singers: Charly Switchblade, Crazy Gigi, and Simon the Magician. As the audience is able to ask any questions they want, the facade of the manufactured pop stars slowly starts to fade.

LES IDOLES started as a stage play; director Marc’O assembled some of his regular troupe of stage actors, including Bulle Ogier (in her first major film role!) and Pierre Clementi, to bring this 1960s French pop farce to the big screen. Marc’O assembled quite an impressive roster to help him out: Andre Techine acted as an assistant director, while the film was edited by Jean Eustache (there’s even an unfounded rumor that early versions of THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE included a scene on the LES IDOLES set). The costumes and settings alone are enough to make this worth seeing; but it’s the zany, weird, but relatable performances by Bulle Ogier (as a France Gall stand-in), Pierre Clementi (Johnny Halliday), and Jean-Pierre Kalfon as a palm-reader turned singer that bring the film to life.

LIVING STARS
Dir. Mariano Cohn & Gastón Duprat, 2014
Argentina, 63 min.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1 – 5 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 8 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23 – 7:30 PM

This remarkable, moving documentary presents dozens of real people in Buenos Aires, in long static tripod takes, simply dancing to pop music. In their kitchens, offices, and garages, identified in the film by their name and occupation, they include all ages, diverse lifestyles and all levels of talent, each with a common and infectious enthusiasm. In the background, their pets, families and friends go about their lives – playing video games, welding, reading magazines, watching with amusement or joining in. Everything in the frame, both incidental and carefully arranged, contributes to a loving portrait of each person, and of the universal qualities of all people. The seemingly simple premise has an overwhelming cumulative effect of shared humanity and pure joy, consistently surprising and endlessly fascinating.

“There’s a world of backstory in the details: the mom willing to steer a fan so her son’s cape will flap in the breeze, the brother who rolls his eyes as his older sister gets sexy, the daughter who can’t stop laughing as her dad shakes it to the Spice Girls. I’ve never seen anything that gave me more hope for equality and tolerance than a young man in his kitchen in full drag grinding it to “Toxic” in front of his entire family. When his wig flies off, grandma leaps to hand it back, and as he slipped it back on with a diva flourish, the crowd around me burst into applause.” – LA Weekly

MUSICAL MUTINY
Dir. Barry Mahon, 1970
USA, 74 min.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28 – MIDNIGHT

OCCUPY PIRATE’S WORLD!

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL NIGHTMARE
Dir. John Fasano, 1987
Canada, 83 min.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27 – MIDNIGHT

“Toronto is where it’s happening, man.”

Fresh off his tour-de-force acting performance in ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE, Jon-Mikl Thor immediately set to work writing a screenplay titled The Edge Of Hell about a rock band who, while recording a new album at a remote farmhouse, discover it has been infested with demons. Together with the members of his band, a young director named John Fasano (1961-2014) and a lot of rubber puppets, Thor spent ten days shooting the film, a mix of hair metal, questionable effects, convoluted plotting and shirtless frenzy not seen since 1982’s Boardinghouse. Retitled ROCK ‘N’ ROLL NIGHTMARE (you know, like the Spinal Tap song) and released on video, the film lurked in video stores, slowly gaining a fanbase of teenage stoners and delinquents.

SCREAMERS LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO SEPT 2ND 1978
Dir. Joseph Rees, 1978
USA, 40 min.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5 – 10 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27 – 10 PM

Legendary art punk icons, The Screamers, abandoned the conventional electric guitar sound of rock ‘n roll for synthesizers, drums & base, and a surplus of distortion. Headed by frontman Tomata Du Plenty, who was famous for his convulsive & theatrical stage performances, and keyboard player Tommy Gear. The group was lauded as the pioneer of New Wave music, and yet they never released a single record or album (only live recordings and bootlegs are available). To combat the band’s lack of recorded material, Joe Rees of Target Video, released this concert footage shot in a tiny club before an appreciative crowd in 1978 San Francisco. The set list includes “Vertigo,” “Beat Goes On,” “122 Hours of Fear,” “Another World,” plus five rare videos that have never been released before.

“The Screamers have become caged icons of their former selves. Tomata’s tight-bodied, shorthand contortions, the whack attack of his voice. Tommy Gear throwing his body around like a mallet in a rubber room. Their set was a model of surgical efficiency, ice on the bare wires of tension. In the pit beneath Tomata’s teeth, the audience, like iguanas, slithered faster to the cold beat.” -P.M./Gamma/Alucard, Slash Magazine #12

STARSTRUCK
Dir. Gillian Armstrong, 1982
Australia, 94 min.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22 – 5 PM

Gillian Armstrong’s STARSTRUCK is an energetic rock musical comedy, with a kitsch aesthetic that feels like LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE FABULOUS STAINS, but if the protagonist were Cyndi Lauper.

Jo Kennedy stars as Jackie, a young woman from a working class family who owns a diner, but she dreams of being a big rock and roll star. With the help of her cousin, Angus (Ross O’Donovan), who has sights on being her manager, she gets a gig in a local open mic, but it doesn’t turn out to be her big break. Instead Angus resorts to convincing Jack to perform an outlandish publicity stunt, walking “topless” on a tightrope between two buildings. This attention lands her in the papers, and she soon becomes a media darling garnering attention from a famous rock promoter, Terry Lambert (John O’May). When she ditches her band (and her beau) for a television spot, she’s shocked to find out (in a Busby Berkeley style swimming number) that Terry is a homosexual. Of course, nothing in this movie could be a downer for very long, and soon Jackie is shooting for the big time, falling in love, and saving the family diner from foreclosure.

The film’s songs, written in part by Tim Finn of Split Enz, might just be the real main attraction:

THE TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS ON TOUR
Dir. Matsuo Ohno, 1972
Japan, 102 min.
In English and Japanese with no subtitles (minimal dialog).

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26 – 10 PM

Fluxus artist and composer Takehisa Kosugi assembled a crew of young musicians and hit the road in a VW bus from Rotterdam to the Taj Mahal, playing a series of shows along the way in which the band used traditional instruments run through a series of electronic effects to create long sheets of drone both pulsing and timeless. Filmed by Takehisa Kosugi’s mentor Matsu Ohno (perhaps best known in the States for his sound effects/score work on the television series Astro-Boy), the film moves at the same pace as the music itself, a pastoral road movie following a band far more likely to play temples than clubs.

Kosugi’s rambling, spontaneous and worldly compositional method is perfectly matched by his open-ended touring approach, with a heavy emphasis placed on pure immersion in local culture and music. The resultant cinema-verite of the sticklike ebullient longhairs taking in the sights, trying the local fare, jamming on seaside cliffs and hanging with historic heavies like Don Cherry makes for a meditative and mimetic biopic of the entire touring experience, replete with an evershifting language-barrier. Ohno, a longtime mentor and collaborator of Kosugi famous for his own pioneering electronic music, proves to be the optimal observant eye for a performance-centric film about, ultimately, the joyous negation of sonic, cultural and music-business protocol.

THOR: AN-THOR-LOGY 1976-1985
Dir. Frank Meyer & Paul Harb, 2005
USA, 93 min.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23 – 10 PM

“Prior to his leap into the rock world, Jon Mikl Thor introduced himself on the world as a bodybuilder, having won Mr Canada and Mr USA titles. Taking advantage of his beefcake physique, Jon created Thor the Rock Warrior, incorporating theatrics into his rock shows. He also appeared in a number of B movies, one of which – Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare – he wrote, produced, starred in and scored. Released in conjunction with the new Thor studio album, Thor Against the World, is An-Thor-Logy, a new DVD retrospective covering the first decade of Thor’s career (1976-1985), featuring live footage, music videos, interviews and television appearances.

The DVD begins by running through a collage of 70’s clips and Thor describing his beginnings and how he wanted to create a comic book hero on stage. The live show antics are circus-like in the theatrics department, with Thor bending steel bars between his teeth, having bricks broken on his chest with a sledge hammer and more. The DVD really paints the whole picture, even including a 1976 appearance on the Merv Griffin show with Thor performing The Sweet’s “Action” in totally over-the-top glitzy garb. We then go through the years with a series of music videos from Thor’s glam rock phase, having recorded the videos on his own in the pre-MTV days. The glam stuff is pretty wild, coming across as a hip shaking Norse god version of Bowie or Ian Hunter. But as we get into the early 80’s we see Thor evolving into the heavy metal style that has characterized his music to this day, which is also when the music really started to get good and more aptly fit the image Thor had created.”

From Aural Innovations

WESLEY WILLIS’S JOY RIDES
Dir. Chris Bagley and Kim Shively, 2008
USA, 80 min.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27 – 7:30 PM

A portrait of the self proclaimed rock ‘n’ roll star and “Chicago City Artist,” Wesley Willis. An underground rock icon and revered artist, the late, great Wesley Willis attracted and offended people the world over. WESLEY WILLIS’S JOY RIDES follows the life of the prolific and controversial artist on his journey from obscurity to fame.

A Chicago native, Wesley Willis became an underground rock icon, revered artist and hero to many before his untimely death in 2003. Termed by some as an “outsider artist” due to his schizophrenia, the film examines Wesley’s ability to draw people in despite his intimidating facade. Through his force of personality and his artistic talents, Wesley’s music and art attracted people from all walks of life. Greeting people with a headbutt and a request to say “rah” and “roh,” Wesley quickly stood out in a crowd. Through interviews with friends and footage from the last four years of Wesley’s life, a portrait emerges of a man whose day-to-day existence was wrought with pain and joy. Although his life was troubled, Wesley never stopped creating. He continued to draw pictures and write songs up until his death.

NEGATIVE PLEASURE presents SELF DEFENSE and THE THRONE OF HELL

Posted on January 10, 2015December 24, 2019 by spectacletheater

Negative Pleasure, publisher of Felony Comics, Jeans and Night Burgers, returns to Spectacle Theater with another phantasmagorical cavalcade of dread-drenched cinematic bedlam.

SELF DEFENSE
Dir. Paul Donovan, 1983
Canada, 84 min.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – 8:00 PM

In the Canadian vigilante epic SELF DEFENSE, gang members take advantage of a Halifax police strike to go on a gay bashing rampage, but when they besiege an apartment complex, the residents fight back with booby traps and, yes, self-defense. It’s a Nova Scotian bloodbath in the tradition of DEATH WISH 3 and HOME ALONE. From Paul Donovan, director of video store staple DEF-CON 4 and the unpopular sci-fi series LEXX.

THE THRONE OF HELL
Dir. Sergio Goyri, 1994
Mexico, 94 min.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – 10:00 PM

In THE THRONE OF HELL (EL TRONO DEL INFIERNO), from Mexico, an archeological dig unleashes Beezelbub, forcing the Vatican to call in master exorcist El Hombre. In a battle of stop Armageddon, the forces of good call upon the power of the Seven Seals and the sword Excalibur to take on the devil himself. Bloodshed ensues. A lot of it. Guts, too. And some brains. Starring and directed by Sergio Goyri, star of the Mexican stage version of MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS and creator of the Black Stallion and Still Loving U fragrances.