INDIE BEAT: SOME BEASTS

INDIE BEAT: SOME BEASTS

Posted on by smacfarlane

 

SOME BEASTS
dir. Bruce Cameron Nelson, 2016
82 minutes. USA.

THURSDAY, MAY 18 – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY! FILMMAKER IN ATTENDANCE!

The Playlist‘s Indie Beat podcast returns to Spectacle for a one-time screening of Bruce Cameron Nelson’s SOME BEASTS, with Nelson in person for a Q&A.

Sal (Frank Mosley) has left modern society, his past and his girlfriend to live off the land in remote Appalachia as a caretaker and gardener. But is this remote living freedom, or its own kind of prison? Sal struggles with the isolation of his new job, with the death of a neighbor and a long-distance relationship, and with the discovery of an abandoned child as he wonders where, if anywhere, he truly belongs. Beautifully shot and performed, SOME BEASTS tells its story of loneliness and self-reliance with an uncommon grace.

“This being Nelson’s debut, one hopes that he will continue down this path; regional films with this sort of depth and artistry are always a welcome addition to the canon of American independent cinema, and in a culture where everything is in danger of being co-opted, sorely needed.” – Michael McWay, Hammer To Nail

“A bittersweet tale occupying the margins of the in between, in between the dusk of unrealized, cast off dreams and the threshold of promise and new beginnings.” – Kevin Rakestraw, Film Pulse

THE SEVENTH ART STAND: AGAINST THE MUSLIM BAN

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The Seventh Art Stand is a nationwide screening and discussion series, an act of cinematic solidarity against Islamophobia. In May 2017, participating movie theaters and community centers across the U.S. will show films from the countries affected by Islamophobia and the proposed travel ban. The Network of Arab Alternative Screens (NAAS) joins U.S. theaters in this coalitional effort to elevate the cinemas and stories of our friends and fellow filmmakers abroad. We believe it is crucial to build a tradition of sharing more stories, voices, and faces on our screens.

While our friends at Anthology Film Archives are screening one title from each of the countries targeted by the Tr*mp Administration’s unconstitutional proposed travel ban, Spectacle has chosen to highlight three major works from countries continually affected by U.S. foreign policy (or lack thereof) in irrevocable and disparate ways: Iraq, Syria and Iran.

Special thanks to Courtney Sheehan (Northwest Film Forum) and Jonathan Hertzberg (Kino-Lorber). 

STILL LIFE
dir. Sohrab Shahid Saless, 1974
89 min, Iran
In Farsi with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 10 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 13 – 5 PM

Winner of numerous prizes (including the Silver Bear for Best Director) at the 1974 Berlin Film Festival, STILL LIFE examines the lot of an elderly rail worker and his carpetmaking wife at the moment he’s asked to retire, and the night of a visit from their son – on leave from military duty. Shaheed Saless’ film concerns laborers (and their expendability) during a time of rapid industrialization in Iran; arguably, STILL LIFE introduced the now-standard minimal dialogue and (at times excruciatingly) slow camera movement that would become the hallmark of almost every other internationally popular Iranian director in subsequent years. Nevertheless, Saless is rarely mentioned in official histories about Iranian (or even German) cinema – despite having gone on to make a number of acclaimed and award-winning films in Germany.

STARS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT
dir. Oussama Muhammad, 1988
Syria, 105 mins.
In Arabic with English subtitles.

MONDAY, MAY 8 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 19 – 10 PM

Oussama Muhammad’s STARS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT is a brutal satire of life under the Baathist dictatorship of Hafez al-Assad (father of Bashar, ruler of Syria for the better part of three decades) as well as a sweeping, immaculately detailed study of family disenchantment – with gallows humor to boot. Beatings, dressing-downs and compulsory military service are regular facets of the day-to-day depicted in Muhammad’s feature debut, which was made with state funds – an uneasy collaboration with the country’s then-budding National Film Organization – but has never been screened in its home country as the filmmaker intended. Each member of the onscreen family lorded over by the father figure played by Abdullatif Abdulhamid (cast for his likeness to the elder Assad) struggles to locate their own individual identity; while Muhammad would later explain a need, in making STARS, to “make love with the fear” to New Yorker journalist Lawrence Wright, the film is an uneasy guessing game that takes a bleak view of anybody’s chances of escaping toxic patriarchy – with glimpses of warmth and relief along the way that make it all the more devastating.

HOMELAND: IRAQ YEAR ZERO
dir. Abbas Fahdel, 2016
334 minutes (in two parts), Iraq
In Arabic with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 24 – 5:30 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 28 – 2 PM

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In February 2002 – about a year before the U.S. invasion – Iraqi filmmaker Abbas Fahdel traveled home from France to capture everyday life as his country prepared for war. He concentrated on family and friends, including his 12-year-old nephew, Haider, as they went about their daily lives, which had come to include planning for shortages of food, water and power. No strangers to war, the Iraqis thought they understood what was coming, and could even manage to be grimly humorous about what they felt would likely be a major and lengthy inconvenience. And then, the war began.

When Fahdel resumed filming in 2003, two weeks after the invasion, daily activities have come to a near standstill, the city is overrun with foreign soldiers, and many areas of Baghdad had been closed off to ordinary citizens. Iraqis endure, seemingly as unwitting as Americans themselves about what further tragedy awaits. Fahdel’s epic yet intimate film paints a compelling portrait of people struggling to survive while their civilization, dating back to ancient times, is destroyed around them.

 

 

 

KINET PROGRAMS 01-05: SELECTIONS

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FRIDAY, MAY 19 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY MAY 25 – 10 PM

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kinet.media is an online publishing platform catered to the dissemination of new and boundary pushing avant-garde cinema.  Aiming to expand the potential of the internet as a space for cinematic exchange, the site provides a localized space wherein works exhibiting a wide range of emerging formal tendencies can come together in dialogue.

Since Kinet’s inception in July 2016, five unique film programs have been published for free viewing. Pursuant this selection films from past programs, Spectacle will host the premiere screenings of future Kinet programs prior to their online release.

For the inaugural screening the following works have been selected:

RÉPUBLIQUE
dir. Alexandre Galmard, France
2016. 12 mins.

This movie was mostly made in Paris in the span of a year, from the attacks of November 2015, the refugee crisis to the protests of early 2016 against several reform projects.

This movie was set in motion by a collaborative neighborhood art project (with Angelina Battais and Victoria Linhares) which was followed by the occupation of Place de la République referred to as “Nuit Debout” that started the night of March 31st, after hours of protest under the rain.

République does not cover all the converging struggles associated with living in Saint-Ouen and in the proximity of such procedures but works through the fragmented forms that were drawn from it. His aim is not to recollect and sum up all of the activities undertaken this year but stands as a remainder for future formalizations.

UNTITLED (CAMERA ROLL)
dir. Douglas Dixon Barker, United Kingdom
2017. 2 mins.

Archiving iPhone images to 35mm film. digital and analogue distortions. In this case the colour blue.

OCEAN FALLS
dir. Ryan Ermacora & Jessica Johnson, Canada
2015. 13 mins.

A lyrical study of the nearly abandoned company town west of Bella Coola that all but withered and died once its existence no longer made financial sense. Ryan Ermacora and Jessica Johnson invite us to marvel at the stark contrast between the vibrant coastal forests and the manmade structures that have fallen into ruin. An almost spectral presence is on hand to impart tales of a rebellious past and we’re left to consider the grim fates that sometimes befall grand schemes.

_______
dir. Karissa Hahn, US
2016. 4 mins.

a piece of my cinematic tension series, one leaning toward release

making a pot of tea, listening to the radio,
a sculpture of pose, a gesture incomplete
– no relief
a tea kettle boiling to silence is a petrified thought
air mattresses are the worst to fold up

TALES
dir. Saskia Gruyaert, Raya Martin & Antoine Thirion, France
2010. 20 mins.

After the death of her boyfriend, a young woman leaves for the countryside in the south of France, seeking nature, spirits and the forest.

VIGIL, SPLIT
dir. Isaac Goes, US
2017. 3 mins.

A shot-for-shot in-camera recreation of an iPhone movie. Filmed over the course of 1 day from sunup to sundown.

Constraint:
Each individual shot in the iPhone cut (filmed and edited one month prior) was timed and each location mapped. Because the film was edited sequentially in-camera, physical movement through space was required in mimicking the cuts of the digital version – an unfolding of montage in real environments. The iPhone movie was constructed so as to form a map, the 16mm film is the traversing of the points plotted. Periodic shots of empty skies mark the passage of time through color.

The film’s digital counterpart has been deleted.

GOODBYE PHILIPPINES
dir. Miguel Mantecon, US/Philippines
2016. 25 mins.

If to obtain a legacy one must diminish their self, then life, the embodiment of living, must evaporate only to be spread about, felt elsewhere by others, often unknowingly. But not known, is a legacy contested? Goodbye Philippines surveys an undead landscape, textured by phantoms. It is as if this feeling of a legacy regards tradition and cultural custom as memories repossessed by the setting. Here a family less acts and instead sets the scene for departure, in preparation for some entrance, whether it is into a room or a different realm. But is entering here where even the most banal tasks are elucidated and no longer customary, rather made a part of mythology.

Jessica Johnson is an experimental filmmaker living in Vancouver, B.C. She works predominantly with 16mm film making short experimental works that intend to shift perspectives on landscape. Her films have played at Canadian festivals such as VIFF, DOXA, Festival du Nouveau Cinema and WNDX.

Ryan Ermacora (1991) is an award-winning artist and filmmaker based in Vancouver, BC. His work investigates the visible and invisible ways in which humans have engraved themselves into natural spaces and is informed by an interest in avant-garde depictions of landscape. His style is defined through a self-reflexive and structural approach to cinema. His work has been chosen for screenings at DOXA Documentary Film Festival, WNDX, The Vancouver International Film Festival and international festivals.

Born in Paris with both French and Canadian nationalities, Alexander Galmard is a 24 years old moviemaker (aka Aleph Cinema) and electronic music composer (aka Kanthor, aka Jeune Galois), co-founder of QTY (with Isiah Medina) and co-founder of Hisolat Records (with Angelina Battais, aka Abhr).

Karissa Hahn is a visual artist based in Los Angeles.

Douglas Dixon-Barker is an experimental filmmaker from Stockton-on-Tees and currently based around London. His work covers various formats and explores how cinematic forms understand and represent space(s). He is currently working on a new film (IN YOUR ARMS), a book (Spirit Levels), and has recently released a recording of Michael Pisaro’s Add Red on Don’t Drone Alone.
Isaac Goes is a Bay Area born filmmaker and the co-founder of Kinet. He currently lives in Queens, New York and makes movies under the production company Quantity Cinema (QTY).
Miguel Mantecon is a filmmaker based in the Bay Area.

Antoine Thirion was a film critic at Cahiers du cinéma (2001-2009), then at Independencia, an online publication he has founded in 2009 and directed until 2013. He organized retrospectives in France of the works of James Benning and Lav Diaz at the Jeu de Paume, and of Hong Sang-soo and Roger Corman at FID Marseille. With Raya Martin, he conceived two performances at the Asian Arts Theatre (Gwangju, South Korea), How He Died is Controversial (2015) and UNdocumenta (2016). He’s currently writing a feature film with Alain Della Negra and Kaori Kinoshita.

Born in 1984 in the Philippines, Raya Martin has already directed several features and short films. In 2005, he participated in the berlinale talent campus. His film NOW SHOWING was screened at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2008. One year later, the feature film INDEPENDENCIA, which was supported by the Berlinale World cinema Fund, as well as the feature film MANILA were both shown at the Cannes Film Festival 2009. Martin’s latest film, BUENAS NOCHES, ESPAÑA premiered at the Locarno Film Festival 2011, where he was also part of the jury for the international competition. Raya has also been a recipient of the prestigious 13 Artists Awards in the Philippines in 2009. A retrospective of his works have been featured in Paris, Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Las Palmas de Gran Canarias. In 2012, Raya’s films were presented at documenta in Kassel, Germany, and a retrospective of his films was screened at the Korean Film Archive, South Korea, and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, USA.

CLODIA – FRAGMENTA

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CLODIA-FRAGMENTA
Dir. Franco Brocani, 1982
Italy, 116 min.
In Italian with English subtitles.

MONDAY, MAY 8 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MAY 17 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 27 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 30 – 7:30 PM

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In 1896 Marcel Schwob published Imaginary Lives, a work of what we’d now call biographical fiction which became a primary influence on Jorge Luis Borges (he used it as a model for his book A Universal History of Iniquity) and Roberto Bolaño. It’s out of print in English, which is a god damn tragedy. Among tales of Captain Kidd, Burke & Hare and Lucretius we find the story of Clodia, an “impure woman”, whom we know about primarily from the writings of Cicero (who called her the Medea of the Palantine). Clodia was many things: a poet, a philosopher, a potential murderer, and a public drunk, but more than any of this she was known for her many, many, many affairs, which led to a tawdry court case. This could easily turn into an E! True Rome Story, but Schwob (who wrote the absolutely masterful The Book of Monelle, which IS in print) brings his severe erudition and Symbolist tendencies to the fore.

Fast forward to 1982 – when experimental director Franco Brocani (NECROPOLIS) released this meditation of Schwob’s tale of Clodia’s scandal, taking cues from the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet (and maybe a little Jean Rollin?). Often consisting of an empty red screen as the narrator recounts Schwob’s tale, intercut with languid tableaux reminiscent of Peter Greenaway or Raul Ruiz, CLODIA-FRAGMENTA is ultimately a film about desire transgressing the mores of society and the rule of law. Perfectly capturing the Symbolist nature of the source material, it’s a film that requires patience but pays back that investment tenfold. Never released on VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray anywhere, it’s a film that resists plot summary. Spring is in the air at Spectacle!

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2016)

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REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2016)
dir. Taralyn Thomas & Jean-Luc Unger
2016, 93 min.

¡! BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND ¡!

SUNDAY, MAY 7 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 13 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MAY 15 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 23 – 7:30 PM

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73QU13M 4 4 D734M is a ballz2thewall, no-budget, feature-length “remake” of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM; part crowd-pleasing avant-comedy, part vitriolic attack on hollywood & mainstream american “culture,” part mind-bending technical experiment in sound and image! Filmed in 3 days and edited over 2 years, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2016) is a farcical, hard-hitting drug drama and genuine DIY meltdown.

REQUIEM has previously screened at Dynasty Center and Memphis Hotel in Los Angeles, CA.

MATCH CUTS PRESENTS – FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK & DIANA’S HAIR EGO: AIDS INFO UP FRONT

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TUESDAY, MAY 9 – 7:30 PM

INTRODUCED BY BASEERA KHAN

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MATCH CUTS PRESENTS and Spectacle Theater present a double feature of Isaac Julien’s FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK and Ellen Spiro’s DIANA’S HAIR EGO: AIDS INFO UP FRONT, with a special introduction by artist Baseera Khan.


FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK
dir. Isaac Julien, 1996.
UK, 52 min.
English and French w/ English subtitles.

FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK explores for the first time on film the pre-eminent theorist of the anti-colonial movements of this century. Fanon’s two major works, Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, were pioneering studies of the psychological impact of racism on both colonized and colonizer. Jean-Paul Sartre recognized Fanon as the figure “through whose voice the Third World finds and speaks for itself.” This innovative film biography restores Fanon to his rightful place at the center of contemporary discussions around post-colonial identity.

Isaac Julien, the celebrated black British director of such provocative films as Looking for Langston and Young Soul Rebels, integrates the facts of Fanon’s brief but remarkably eventful life with his long and tortuous inner journey. Julien elegantly weaves together interviews with family members and friends, documentary footage, readings from Fanon’s work and dramatizations of crucial moments in Fanon’s life. Cultural critics Stuart Hall and Françoise Verges position Fanon’s work in his own time and draw out its implications for our own.

Born in Martinique in 1925, Fanon received a conventional colonial education. When he went to France to fight in the Resistance and train as a psychiatrist, his assimilationist illusions were shattered by the gaze of metropolitan racism. Out of this experience came his first book Black Skin, White Masks (1952) originally titled “An Essay for the Disalienation of Blacks.” Fanon here defined the colonial relationship as the psychological non-recognition of the subjectivity of the colonized.

Soon after taking a position at a psychiatric hospital in Algeria, Fanon became involved in the bitter Algerian civil war, eventually leaving his post to become a full-time militant in the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN). Out of this struggle, Fanon wrote his most influential book, The Wretched of the Earth, which Stuart Hall describes as the “bible of the decolonization movement.”

Fanon died of leukemia in 1961, just as Algeria was winning its independence. But his seminal texts continue to challenge us to liberate ourselves from all forms of psychological domination.

Text courtesy of California Newsreel.


DIANA’S HAIR EGO: AIDS INFO UP FRONT
dir. Ellen Spiro, 1990.
USA, 29 min.
English.

Recognizing the extreme inadequacy of information on AIDS prevention, cosmetologist DiAna DiAna, with her partner Dr. Bambi Sumpter, took on the task of educating the black community (which makes up the majority of local AIDS cases) in Columbia, South Carolina. This video documents the growth of the South Carolina AIDS Education Network, which originated and operates in DiAna’s Hair Ego, DiAna’s beauty salon. Working in repressive times to teach a sex-positive and compassionate response to the AIDS crisis in the “buckle of the Bible Belt,” the work of the South Carolina AIDS Education Network has met with harsh criticism. Despite political pressure, DiAna and Sumpter refuse to compromise their teachings in order to get state funding. Since 1986 they have been operating solely on the beauty shop’s tips. Their creative strategies and non-judgemental concern offer a model for making a difference.

Text courtesy of Video Data Bank

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

BASEERA KHAN is a New York based artist. Her visual and written work performs patterns and repetitions of emigration and exile shaped by economic, social, and political changes throughout the world with special interests in decolonization processes. She recently had a solo exhibition ‘iamuslima’ at Participant Inc. NYC, and exhibited in BRIC Biennial, Brooklyn, NY (2016) at The Weeksville Heritage Center. Her past exhibitions include Subject to Capital, Abrons Art Center, New York (2016), Arrivals, Out to See, New York City (2014), TX*13 Texas Biennial 5th Anniversary Survey Group Exhibition, Texas (2014), Picturing Parallax, San Francisco State University, California (2011), Hindu Kush, and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco (2009). She was an artist-in-residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Artist Residency, Skowhegan, Maine (2014). She was recently an International Fellow in Israel/Palestine through Apexart, New York (2015). She was also a participating artist in Process Space LMCC (2015). Khan is currently a 2017 Artist in Residence at Abrons Art Center, NYC and part-time faculty at Parsons, The New School for Design. She received her M.F.A. at Cornell University (2012) and B.F.A from the University of North Texas (2005).

MAY MIDNIGHTS

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GALAXY DESTROYER (aka GALAXY, aka BATTLE FOR THE LOST PLANET)
dir. Bret Piper, 1986
95 min, USA
In German w/ English subtitles

FRIDAY, MAY 12 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, MAY 26 – MIDNIGHT

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“I am the king, I am the king
One dead marine through the hatch
Scratch and scrape this heavenly body
Every inch of winning skin
There’s garbage in honeys sack again”

– The Birthday Party, “Junkyard”

In GALAXY DESTROYER, veteran character actor Matt Mitler (THE MUTILATOR, BASKET CASE 2) plays Harry Trent – a role he would reprise two years later in Piper’s MUTANT WAR – a spy who steals a spaceship. While attempting to return to Earth, Harry finds the controls are malfunctioning and is unable to land… After a grueling five years in orbit, Harry comes back around and manages to descend to the planet’s fertile surface. But upon his return, Harry finds his beloved homeworld has been taken over… And while hailed as a hero and savior, he’s tasked with saving the way of life he once held so dear – if only he can figure out how.

A jack of all trades, director Brett Piper (A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL) cut his teeth in the early Eighties, and continues doing so to this day. Piper’s work truly shines when he’s able to showcase his love of practical effects; in GALAXY DESTROYER alone crab monsters, spaceships, and melting faces abound. It’s perfect spring midnight fare!

A DRAGONFLY FOR EACH CORPSE (Una libélula para cada muerto)
Dir. Leon Klimovsky (1975)
Spain, 85 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles

SATURDAY, MAY 13 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, MAY 27 – MIDNIGHT

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The great Paul Naschy returns, this time as a bare-knuckled detective not afraid to break the rules in search of a mysterious killer who leaves bloodied dragonflies on his victims. Ably assisted by the always amazing Erika Blanc (midnight maniacs may remember her from THE DEVIL’S NIGHTMARE), Naschy discovers secrets and perversions aplenty on his way to finding the killer. It may not technically be a giallo, but the general giallo rules all apply: glamorous models aplenty, op art everywhere, a trenchcoated killer who strikes without mercy (and with slo-mo blood trails everywhere), a shootout on a roller coaster: all we’re missing is a bottle of J&B. Leon Klimovsky (last month’s WEREWOLF SHADOW) is back in the director’s seat and his collaboration with Naschy is as sure-footed as ever, and the domestic scenes with Naschy and Blanc are an absolute treat — Naschy pontificating while smoking a cigar in the tub as Blanc scrubs his chest while correcting his mistakes is the perfect example of what makes these films so adored by fans. This May, we got you covered at the witching hour, so get AS NASCHY AS II WANNA BE!

MAGIC CRYSTAL (aka Mo fei cui)
dir. Jing Wong, 1986
95 min, Hong Kong
In Chinese with English subtitles

SATURDAY, MAY 6 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, MAY 19 – MIDNIGHT

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A breakout hit at a recent FIST CHURCH screening, we’re pleased as punch to bring this uhhhh “loving homage” to films like E.T. and Indiana Jones but with 5000% more Cynthia Rothrock beatdowns.

Andy (Andy Lau), Pancho, and Pin Pin (an actual child named Bin Bin in real life) jet off to Greece to find Andys friend Shen after receiving an urgent message that his life is in danger. After a lengthy montage of them having A LOT of fun in Greece the come to find that sure enough the KGB and Interpol are chasing down Shen after learning of his discovery of an ancient artifact in the ruins. Pin Pin accidentally ends up with it and finds out that this is no ordinary hunk of jade but that it houses an alien who communicates via brain-waves. Pin Pin promises not to tell and the crystal grows a finger so they can pinky swear. Andy pairs up with Cindy (the inimitable Cynthia Rothrock) to track down the evil Karaov (Richard Norton star of GYMKATA which we have definitely never shown) who has vowed to do anything to get his hands on the treasure. Everyone ends up back in Greece for a showdown beneath the ruins as they navigate traps and tricks to return the crystal back to its rightful place – and…owner?

No exaggeration when we say that this film owes much to the work of Spielberg et al but these fight scenes are downright jaw-dropping. Fast, ferocious, and wonderfully filmed. If you missed this at FIST CHUCH now’s your chance to redeem yourself. Not to be missed!

DARK SKY FILMS PART ONE: MAY

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ANOTHER EVIL
dir. Carson Mell, 2017
90 min, USA

NYC DEBUT!

FRIDAY, MAY 5 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 6 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 7 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 16 – 10 PM
MONDAY, MAY 22 – 7:30 PM

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After encountering a ghost in his vacation home, terrified Dan Pappadakis (Steve Zissis, TOGETHERNESS) goes behind his wife’s back to hire an industrial grade exorcist – the bizarre and needy Os Bijourn (Mark Proksch, BETTER CALL SAUL). While implementing a variety of increasingly outlandish “ghost traps,” Os tries to befriend Dan almost as relentlessly as he tries to destroy the home’s “demons.” Dan considers calling the whole thing off, but it quickly becomes apparent that a great evil has embedded itself in his home, and that the fate of his entire family is at stake. Featuring EASTBOUND AND DOWN’s Jennifer Irwin and Steve Little.



HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER
dir. John McNaughton, 1986
95 min, USA

SATURDAY, MAY 13 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 20 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 26 – 7:30 PM

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Warning: This film contains scenes of graphic violence and brutality that may be triggering for some viewers.

Undeniably one of the most harrowing American films of the 20th century, HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER hits Blu-ray with a restoration that cements its reputation as a shocking, thought-provoking nightmare-plunge into the depths of the human soul.

Henry (Michael Rooker, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY), a psychopathic drifter who has left a trail of bodies in his wake, settles for a while at the dilapidated Chicago apartment of ex-prison mate Otis. Into this toxic environment comes Otis’s (Tom Towles, SEINFELD) younger sister Becky (Tracy Arnold), who s fleeing an abusive marriage and looking for a place to stay. Deflecting her brother s incestuous advances, Becky finds herself attracted to Henry and sees him as a potential lover and herself as his possible savior. What she doesn’t realize is that Otis and Henry are now killing together, sinking to ever more terrifying depths of depravity. As Becky tries to get her life back on track, she looks to Henry for a way out. But is redemption even possible for a man like Henry?

In celebration of Dark Sky Films’ 10th Anniversary, Spectacle is proud to present HENRY in their brand new 4K scan, restored from the 16mm original camera negative and approved by director John McNaughton and producer Steven A. Jones, featuring a new 5.1 mix restoration from the stereo 35mm mag reels. Sure to send shivers of mortal dread through a whole new generation of filmgoers, this new presentation puts HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER firmly back into the vanguard of contemporary cinematic horror.



EMELIE
dir. Michael Thelin, 2016
80 min USA

WEDNESDAY, MAY 10 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MAY 18 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 27 – 10 PM

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As their parents head out for a date in the city, the three young Thompson children – Jacob, Christopher, and Sally – immediately take to their new babysitter Anna (Sarah Bolger, THE LAZARUS EFFECT), who seems like a dream come true: she’s sweet, fun, and lets them do things that break all of their parents’ rules. But as the night creeps along and Anna’s interactions with them take on a more sinister tone, the kids slowly realize that their caretaker may not be who she claims to be. Soon it’s up to big brother Jacob to protect his siblings from the increasingly nefarious intentions of a very disturbed woman whose weapon is trust, and whose target is innocence.

Featuring a tour-de-force performance from Bolger and its three young leads, EMELIE is a multidimensional, uncomfortably tense thriller that asks the question: how can you put an end to horror after you’ve already let it in?



WILLOW CREEK
dir. Bobcat Goldthwait, 2014
80 min, USA

TUESDAY, MAY 2 – 10 PM
MONDAY, MAY 15 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MAY 18 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 26 – 10 PM

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A young couple find themselves face-to-face with a terrifying evil when they venture into the heart of Bigfoot country in WILLOW CREEK, comedian-turned-director Bobcat Goldthwait’s (GOD BLESS AMERICA, WORLD’S GREATEST DAD)’s unique spin on the horror genre.

Looking to make a splash with his research videos into the existence of Bigfoot, Jim (Bryce Johnson, PRETTY LITTLE LIARS) and his girlfriend Kelly take a camping trip to the mountains surrounding Willow Creek, California, a small town where infamous footage of the supposed Sasquatch was filmed. Before long the headstrong couple are lost in the woods and discover that someone – or something – is stalking them. With each passing night bringing unknowable danger, the two must use all of their cunning to try to make it out of the forest alive.

COLD SWEAT
Dir. Adrián García Bogliano, 2010
80 Minutes, Argentina
In Spanish with English subtitles

FRIDAY, MAY 5 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 20 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, MAY 25 – 7:30 PM

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When Roman’s girlfriend disappears, he expects to find her in the arms of another man. And find her he does but there is no lover on the scene, only a pair of crazy old men keeping her locked away in the basement of their crumbling mansion. Armed with wild-eyed political ideals and case after case of decades-old and highly unstable dynamite, the villainous duo are conducting illicit experiments on a string of young women lured to their home via the internet. If Roman cannot free his young love, she is likely to end up in pieces, thanks in part to a generous slathering of nitro-glycerine.

A delirious, old-school horror picture with the most memorable villains in years at its core, Adrian Garcia Bogliano’s COLD SWEAT was a huge hit at SXSW thanks to its creator’s wild imagination and sense of showmanship. Loaded with memorable characters and stylish action, COLD SWEAT is a shocker that never fails to entertain.

MILESTONES

Posted on by smacfarlane


MILESTONES
dirs. Robert Kramer and John Douglas, 1975
United States of America. 195 mins.

MONDAY, MAY 1 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MAY 11 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 21 – 5 PM
MONDAY, MAY 29 – 7:30 PM

Warning: This film contains a scene of graphic sexual assault that may be triggering for some viewers.

MILESTONES Excerpt from Icarus Films on Vimeo.

MILESTONES is a lilting, free-associative masterpiece that follows dozens of characters — including hippies, farmers, immigrants, Native Americans, and political activists — as they try to reconcile their ideals with the realities of American life. In intimate discussions of subjects from communal living to parenting, pregnancy to family, Vietnam to Cuba, city life to country life, and the workplace to the bedroom, the film’s diverse protagonists negotiate jealousies, relationships, and the logistical challenges of their rapidly changing world.

Shot in vivid color 16mm, using innovative, layered sound design and editing techniques as well as slides and archival footage, MILESTONES tracks its subjects through scripted and unscripted moments. It follows them as they share their emotions and dreams, their idealism and disillusionment, their triumphs and defeats of the past, as well as the possibilities for the future.

In a 1976 interview with Jump Cut, Kramer put it like this: “If you ask what’s the political significance of the film, we might say we make no claims for its political significance, because the space that it grew out of was the space in which that was the basic question – what is the political significance of our lives? And that’s the guilt that basically everyone in the film experiences at one level or another… And the clear politics that grew out of the 70’s couldn’t be carried forward because of our own limitations. It’s the responsibility of revolutionaries to claim all the good things in the world, in the revolution, not to make lives that rule it out, not to say, you can’t have beautiful films, for example. You can have beautiful films and be a revolutionary.” To which Douglas added: “The openness of the dialogue in the film, the dialogue between two people, constantly could be almost a dialogue between the two filmmakers because of their isolation.”

Official Selection: Director’s Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival 1975, Berlin Film Festival 1975, New York Film Festival 1975

“MILESTONES traverses the entire nation and marks the passing of an era… Kramer’s most unforgettable expedition.” – Melissa Anderson, Artforum

“As sad and compassionate a movie as I have ever seen… An attempt to keep alive one of the noble, impossible promises of its time.” – A.O.Scott, The New York Times 

” A monument of committed American cinema.” – Kieron Corless, Sight & Sound

“Above all else it is brave. The intensity of the commitment evinced by the film’s characters, the unapologetically mixed-up quality of these commitments, and the sheer force of the emotions that come pouring off the screen make it unlike anything else I know of in that too-lauded period of American cinema.” – Jerry White, Cinema Scope

“MILESTONES is an epic snapshot of our nation at a specific point in time in a brilliant and orginal mash-up of documentary and fiction.” – The Flip Side

Special thanks to Icarus Films.

AN EVENING WITH 8BALL TV

Posted on by smacfarlane

SATURDAY, MAY 6 – 730 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

In March, online public access station 8Ball TV traveled to São Paulo to attend the fifth annual edition of the international independent publishing fair, Plana Festival.

The goal was simple: Recreating 8Ball’s “DIY TV” studio environment for a completely different set of artists, filmmakers, and anyone who wanted to make a video. This program represents the videos created in São Paulo, and the submissions given by locals: PRETXS is a documentary web series that delves into the lives of Sao Paulo’s LGBTQ+ youth; PIXO is a film about the purveyors of “pichação” a uniquely Brazilian style of graffiti; PROJECTING NANCY FLOWERS archives the work of 95-year-old visual anthropologist Nancy May Flowers and her encounters with the Xavante people of Mato Grosso Brazil; OCUPADO is a short documentary about the work of “professional occupier” Careca, shot and produced in Sao Paulo by 8 Ball TV; and finally, artist Diego Fernandes told us to store his film “in a cool, dry place, or a hairy naked chick.”