REVOLUTION SELFIE
dir. Steven de Castro, 2017
USA, 115 min
In English & Tagalog w/ English subtitles

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7 – 7:30 PM w/ Q&A (This event is $10)
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21 – 7:30 PM w/ Q&A (This event is $10)

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REVOLUTION SELFIE expands the horizons of documentary storytelling while broadening our understanding about the lesser-known fronts in the global “War on Terror.” Filmmaker Steven De Castro paints a portrait of a 48 year-old Maoist guerilla army in the Philippine hinterlands known as the New People’s Army. But rather than simply presenting interviews and images in a traditional journalistic manner, this film weaves fantasy elements and web-based camera techniques into the documentary form to disrupt our entire matrix of widely held beliefs underpinning the discussion of terrorism, poverty, and the motivations of the warriors who fight in a peasant revolution.

The film is narrated and shot almost entirely from a first person point of view, using a small GoPro action camera that the filmmaker is wearing. Because of this unique shooting angle, the film succeeds at times in giving the audience an almost video game-like immersion in the narrator’s experience.

“Discovering REVOLUTION SELFIE happened at random. The trailer surfaced on some non-movie Facebook group. The trailer brimmed with possibility of some unseen masterpiece. It played many times outside of the country, but, to my non-surprise, American film festivals did not seem to take to it. The ambition of this thing was pretty obvious from my first glance of the trailer — a movie that thinks it is a video game about the Maoist New People’s Army in the Phillipines. Employing a microbudget, rough and tumble guerilla aesthetic, director Steven DeCastro spends time with this group detailing the current political situation in the country while also providing historical context (sometimes hard-hitting and grim, other times very playfully).

These days it is difficult to find a smart “political” film in general. One that actually plays with film language is even harder. REVOLUTION SELFIE is a miracle.”
—Christopher Jason Bell, writer/director of THE WINDS THAT SCATTER and INCORRECTIONAL

YELLING FIRE IN AN EMPTY THEATER
dir. Justin Zuckerman, 2021
USA, 71 min
In English

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 7:30 PM w/ Q&A (This event is $10)
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10 – 7:30 PM w/ Q&A (This event is $10)
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11 – 5 PM w/ Q&A (This event is $10)
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15 – 7:30 PM w/ Q&A (This event is $10)

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YELLING FIRE IN AN EMPTY THEATER is a miniDV curio that follows a young college grad, Lisa (Isadora Leiva), as she attempts to “make it” in New York. Filled with conviction that the best plan is no plan at all, she ends up moving in with a slightly older couple and quickly becomes entangled in their bizarre and crumbling relationship. While Lisa struggles to keep her head above water and maintain her unmitigated freedom, her relationships with her roommates, coworkers, and lovers all start to become casualties in the process.

Made for less than the average rent of a Brooklyn apartment, YELLING FIRE IN AN EMPTY THEATER is a loving ode to the young and naive masses who flock to the greatest city on earth every year. First-time filmmaker Justin Zuckerman offers a distinctive mix of the ridiculous and the real, crafting a timeless tale about the struggle between charting your own path or going back home to Florida.

There will be a Q&A discussion with the filmmakers in-attendance after each screening this month.

A Fandor/Cinedigm release

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17 – ALL DAY

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In early 2022, Spectacle unearthed a series of little-seen grimy genre features from 1980s-90s Hong Kong. Loosely related by virtue of sharing HK’s “Category III” rating classification – the rough equivalent to Britain’s “Video Nasties” label or the deprecated X rating in the United States – the features nonetheless shared an unparalleled ability to confuse, repulse, and entertain in equal measure. The typical Cat-III feature might cycle through graphic depictions of bug-ridden necrophilia, budget black-magic theatrics, and groan-inducing romantic comedy over the course of several minutes without blinking. This December, Spectacle Theater is proud to host a day-long reprise of our exploration of underappreciated Hong-Kong genre gems, featuring both audience favorites from the series and a slew of new mystery selections that will surely test the patience and digestive fortitude of even the most hardened Spectacle genre goober.

CONTENT WARNING: These films contain graphic depictions of violence and sexual assault.

Program details and estimated showtimes are as follows:

WICKED WORLD
Dir. Barry J. Gillis, 1991
USA, 103 min
In English

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26 – MIDNIGHT

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CAN YOU HANDLE THE VIOLENCE? CAN YOU STOMACH THE HORROR? WILL YOU BE ABLE TO STOP THE NIGHTMARES?

Grant Ekland is a dirty cop, with a checkered past that endlessly haunts him. The love of his life was murdered by a serial killer named Harold who slaughtered a countless number of humans in the city of Toronto, Canada, before he was finally locked up and sent to a mental institution. Now many years later, Harold is set to be released back into society, and Ekland hopes for a final showdown with his arch enemy. Nightmares clash into a brand new reality, as Ekland faces a host of problems and obstacles that he himself must overcome, if he ever hopes to face the murderous serial killing madman, and set his own inner demons free.