KIMCHEAP: KOREAN BOOTLEG ANIME PART 2

KIMCHEAP: KOREAN BOOTLEG ANIME PART 2

Posted on by spectacletheater

From the far reaches of the dollar bin comes four more bargain basement Korean anime productions from the 80s and 90s, dubbed in lackluster English by Joseph Lai of Hong Kong. Featuring minimal animation and plenty of recycled footage from other Lai pickups, as well more than a few nods (or swipes, if you’re nasty) from popular Japanese anime of the era (and occasionally an inexplicable cameo from a b-list Marvel Comics villain or two). Despite their budgetary limitations, sometimes nonsensical stories, unmenacing alien invaders with names like “Andrew,” annoying whiny robots and dumb space kids, these films have a certain rotten charm and are sure to hold your attention in a certain “what the hell could possibly happen next?”
kind of way (and, when the hell happens next, in a “hm, that was pretty neat” kind of way).
Film descriptions taken from the original dollar store DVD packages.


PROTECTORS OF THE UNIVERSE (aka Super Teukgeup Mazinger 7)
dir. Gyu-hong Lee, 1983
73 minutes, South Korea
Dubbed in English.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 1 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 8 – 10:00 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 27 – 5:00 PM

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In the far reach of space, a new star evokes. At that very moment, a horrible roaring sweeps across the universe. This sudden roaring, like a helpless howling, breaks the peace of the universe.

Antarichi, a planet of peace and perfection, is overtaken by a greedy bionic human Alfred. Opposing the belief of his creator Casiofia, he attempts to conquer the Universe. His first step is to destroy the city Orion.

Kanann, King of city Orion, is shocked by the sudden attempt of the new born star. He finds no way to combat so he sends out SuperSpeeder to seek help from earth.

A fierce and bloody battle begins. With the reunion of Super Speeder and Mazinger 7 and a group of brave warriors, Alfred if finally defeated. The bionic human is exploded and the colony destroyed. City Orion is rebuilt and Universe is back to peace, Thanks to the Protectors of the Universe.

SPACE THUNDER KIDS
dir. Elton Reins, 1991
82 minutes, South Korea/Hong Kong
Dubbed in English.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 1 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 11 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 20 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 26 – 7:30 PM

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The Dark Empire is determined to conquer the Universe and get rid of anyone who acts against it. The Space Thunder Kids, made up of three valiant youths, are responsible for patrolling the space and obstructing the invasion of the Dark Army.

Doctor Sparta, a scientist, is pursued by the Dark Army after the devastation of his planet. He flees to the Earth and meets Doctor Rhodes, who develops advanced weapons for the Guardian Army.

The Dark Army bombards the Earth aggressively and kidnaps Dr. Sparta and Rhodes. The space Thunder Kids come ot the rescue with the fighter robots, and together with the aid of the Gaurdian Army they successfully save the two scientists and shatter the Dark Empire.



SOLAR ADVENTURE (aka Roboteuwang Sseonsyakeu)
dir. Seung-cheol Park, 1985
62 minutes, South Korea
dubbed in English

TUESDAY, AUGUST 8 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 17 – 10 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 21 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30 – 10 PM

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Siporta, the space conqueror, has captured the only being in the universe that can stop him: the Canon Robot. Now invulnerable, he decides to conquer Earth. Meanwhile, space-traveler Arcady arrives on Earth to help the people stop Siporta. The only way to operate the Canon Robot, he explains, is through emotional wavelength.

While teaching the people of Earth to use the emotional wavelength to operate the robot, Siporta realizes that he cannot control the Canon Robot. He decides to melt it down and use the parts to create his own combat robot.

Now the people of Earth are in a race against time to save the Canon Robot from destruction so they can use it to defeat the otherwise invulnerable Siporta. And even if they free the robot, are they prepared to operate it? The clock is ticking…

Alien giant robots came to the tensionfilled North- and South Korean border. The communist and the capitalist Korea both try to convice them to fight on their side against the other.


SPACE TRANSFORMER aka Micro teukgongdae Daiyateuron 5
dir. Su-young Jeong, 1985
57 minutes, South Korean
dubbed in English

TUESDAY, AUGUST 8 – 10 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 14 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 26 – 5 PM

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The plot focuses around a Cyborg woman named Ivy, who defends the entire universe from enemies with her built-in evil-sensing computers. The enemy infects her with a virus. Now the only one to save her is Diatron 5, the mecha shrunk down to microscopic size that goes in to fight the bacteria. Two kids, a battle station called the “Star Wars” and Diatron’s inventor join her in the battle against evil. Evil being an androgynous woman named Mary, her brother with blue skin who looks suspiciously like Spock and their fleet of robots and forest green demon-like aliens.

KINET.MEDIA PROGRAM 06

Posted on by smacfarlane

SATURDAY, JULY 15th – 7:30 PM – ONE NIGHT ONLY!

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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.

 The site’s latest program will make its theatrical premiere at Spectacle preceding its online release.  Kinet Program 06 – July is comprised of four never before screened works by Neil Bahadur, Jiayi Chen, and Jesse Filian.

FROM NINE TO NINE
dir. Neil Bahadur, 2016.
67 mins. Canada.

There is a dead body sitting outside of a library which an unnamed young man is arrested for.  He escapes, and wanders an unnamed city – spaces take on different meanings in handcuffs.  Featuring clips from THE AQUARIUM AND THE NATION, THE SHOOTING, MAHJONG, REGENERATION, TOO EARLY TOO LATE and INTOLERANCE.

Neil Bahadur was born on Feburary 24, 1991.

THE WORDS ARE NOT WHAT YOU MEANT
dir. Jiayi Chen, 2017.
12 mins. United States.

A stranger’s quest in Chicago, particularly Chinatown, for a sense of being in an uncertain time. It derives from experiences of translation and transportation, negotiations with foreignness and intimacy, and attempts to physically and emotionally inhabit a place.
CASE STUDY OF AN EQUATION
dir. Jiayi Chen, 2017.

4 mins. United States. Originally shot on Super-8mm.

Based on a mathematical equation, the work CASE STUDY OF AN EQUATION is made to ridicule the process of coping with fear, to quantify emotion in space and in relation to others. It is the full length of a 50 foot reel of super 8 film with in-camera editing, and is the result of an immediate investigation and spontaneous measurement of the haunting ghost from a past incident.

Jiayi Chen is an artist born in Chongqing, China, and is currently based in Chicago, IL. She works in film, video, installation and photography. She is interested in language, instructions and correspondence, exploring them in her works and also living with them.

ONE SECOND PER SECOND
dir. Jesse Filian, 2016.
9 mins. United States.
“A chronicle of some time spent with my uncle talking about his years working in factories and riding horses around Northeast Illinois with my grandfather. An attempt to reconcile the landscape they grew up on with the one I now inhabit.”
Jesse Filian is a filmmaker from Illinois.

INDIE BEAT: SMALL FRIES

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THURSDAY, JULY 13th – ONE NIGHT ONLY – FILMMAKERS IN PERSON!

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This July, Indie Beat presents… short films! These small fries run the gamut – non-fiction/fiction, surreal/real, cats/horses. Come for The Cinema™, stay for the Director Q&As!

CLOUDY ALL DAY
dir. Dylan Pasture, 2016
10 mins.

Two struggling performers have a life-changing experience after they accept help from a stranger.

Dylan Pasture once nearly burned his leg off in a swamp. He works as a film projectionist in Brooklyn.

DON’T HANG UP THE FUCKING PHONE CURTIS
dir. John W. Yost, 2017
13 mins.

In the world of altered perception, the cat is king!

John W. Yost has worked in tandem as an educator and commercial producer; creating and directing broadcasts, commercials, music videos, short films, and features. He is the founder of commercial production company, Fifth Column Features and the co-founder of a film collective known as The APB.

TENANTS
dir. Brian Oh, 2014
27 mins.

A pianist pays a lone visit to the empty house where he and his wife had planned to move in together. While playing a song on the piano that stirs up his haunting memories, he encounters a squatter, a teenage girl. Before he takes the girl back home, however, she asks him to teach her how to play the song.

Brian Oh was born in Illinois, USA, raised in South Korea and spent time living in Germany as a teenager. Dropping out of college in South Korea, he moved to Chicago to pursue his film studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Soon after graduating from the school, he moved to New York City and has worked on several short films, documentary, music videos and multi-media projects and shown his works to several screenings and exhibitions.

THE BODY HEALS
dir. Annelise Ogaard, 2017
7 mins.

A dreamy nonfiction dispatch from a plastic surgery vacation in Miami, reflecting on beauty in the moment of metamorphosis after the knife goes in, but before the bandages come off.

Annelise Ogaard is a writer and filmmaker based in Brooklyn. Her independent short films have screened at venues like the Borscht Film Festival, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, New York’s Rooftop Film Series, and the Yale Film Club. She currently works as a producer at Vice Media.

AN EVENING WITH ELINA LOWENSOHN AND BERTRAND MANDICO

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When we heard that our favorite analog film surrealist team Bertrand Mandico & Elina Löwensohn would be coming to Brooklyn for a new project this summer, we couldn’t resist inviting them to host and curate their own night at Spectacle. To any who attended the two-part retrospective of their work together last fall, you already have an idea of what to expect: extreme stylization, grainy black and white or else radiant colors ripening to the edge of decay, constant invention in form and style, baroquely artificial sets, experimentation with the lurid immediacy of genre cinema, and the rich aesthetics of film as a material medium. What sets their work apart from that of many others in a similar vein is a unique sense of play in the material: these are films composed in complete joy at the possibilities of film.

Initially animation-trained director Bertrand Mandico’s films are regulars on the international festival circuit, with his recent works with Löwensohn showing at festivals like Rotterdam, Venice, and Clermont-Ferrand among many others. Elina Löwensohn, whose long list of credits began wih Hal Hartley’s SIMPLE MEN and AMATEUR as well as Philippe Grandrieux’s SOMBRE (and even SEINFELD), isn’t just the star of many of these films, but also often co-writes, hand-processes footage, and recently co-directed ODILE DANS LA VALLÉE which we’ll be showing for the first time. In fact, none of the five films we’ll be including this program, spanning from Mandico’s earliest to the latest collaborative works co-written by the two, have been shown here before.

FRIDAY, JULY 14 – 7:30 PM

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FULL PROGRAM:

IL DIT QU’IL EST MORT (Bertrand Mandico, 2006)
SOUVENIRS D’UN MONTREUR DE SEINS/ MEMORIES OF A BOOBS-FLASHER (Bertrand Mandico, 2014)
ODILE DANS LA VALLÉE / ODILE IN THE VALLEY (Bertrand Mandico & Elina Lowensohn, 2017)
Y-A T-IL UNE VIERGE ENCORE VIVANTE? / IS THERE A VIRGIN LEFT ALIVE? (Bertrand Mandico, 2015)
LE CAVALIER BLEU (Bertrand Mandico, 1998)

PLUS a selection of Bertrand Mandico’s favorites and inspirations from other filmmakers, but you’ll have to join us to find out what those are!

REMEMBERING ERKKI KURENNIEMI

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THE FUTURE IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE
Dir: Mika Taanila, 2002.
52 mins. Finland.
In Finnish with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, JULY 1 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 7 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 12 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 19 – 10 PM

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“We used to distinguish between body and soul. The word ‘soul’ was banned for religious implications, but in the computer age, the meaning is obvious. There is hardware and software.”
Electronic musician, filmmaker, audio engineer, philosopher and media theorist Erkki Kurenniemi is profiled in this consistently mindblowing essay-documentary by Mika Taanila. Rather than a straight biography (which would have opened with Kurenniemi building computers from scratch at the University of Helsinki in the early 60s), Taanila’s collection of five shorts drifts in and out of imaginative, methodical montage-reveries “written” by Kurenniemi’s voiceover. He waxes on psychological future of technology alongside the past, the history of “interfaces” as a series of tactile encounters and trends that have vast, incomprehensible repercussions for humanity.

ELECTRONICS IN THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
Dir. Erkki Kurenniemi, 1968
4 minutes.

DIMI BALLET
Dir. Erkki Kurenniemi, 2002

JULY MIDNIGHTS

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SCARLET STREET
dir. Fritz Lang, 1945.
USA, 102 min.


SATURDAY, JULY 1 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, JULY 7 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, JULY 22 – MIDNIGHT

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“How can a man be so dumb?”
The noir and the femme fatale will forever be bound together, merrily going to Hell, dragging all suckers, chumps, marks, rubes and shills into an endless abyss of suffering and death. As well they should! Noir, at its black heart, is about tearing a (seemingly) ordinary Joe to *nothing* while the audience howls for more. We’ll find that here, on SCARLET STREET, but with a director like Fritz Lang there’s more than one twist on the way to the noose. Based on Georges de La Fouchardière’s novel and play La Chienne (also the basis for the equally great Jean Renoir film by the same name), SCARLET STREET is, quite simply, one of the essential film noirs.

The great Edward G. Robinson plays Christopher Cross, the sap in question, at the end of a sad quarter-century of working as a cashier, enduring his wife and putting what little light still shines in him towards his painting hobby. Like most saps, Chris wants little more than to be some damsel’s white knight, and that chance actually arrives when he gets between va-va-va-voom Kitty (Joan Bennett, who was in everything from BULLDOG DRUMMOND to SUSPIRIA) and cheap hood Johnny (Dan Duryea of WINCHESTER ’73). Through a series of scams, lies, forgeries and tragedies, Chris and Kitty begin one of the darkest descents the screen has brought us, with Lang constantly, methodically twisting the knife, masterfully ratcheting up the tension all the way to the end. Fans of Lang’s earlier, more directly Expressionistic work like SPIES and the MABUSE films will find lots to love here, Robinson truly plays one of cinema’s great sad sacks, Joan Bennett is the embodiment of weaponized seduction, all combining to make a film absolutely perfect for a hot summer night when you can’t sleep and your soul cries for something, *anything* but the dreary monotony of our pointless lives. Great date film, too!


A NIGHT IN HOLLYWOOD
Dir. William C. Thompson (1953)
USA, 61 min.

FRIDAY, JULY 14 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, JULY 29 – MIDNIGHT

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“If YOU got what it takes, you can do the rhumba SHAKE!”
Not every city, county or province has it’s own hubba-hubba theatre of the arts for lovers where a regular rube can see a real live American Burlesque show, baggy-pants comedians and all, so not a few eggheads in the film department got to thinking “What if we shoot a full burlesque show, soup to nuts, as though you were right there in the action instead of in the back hall of the American Legion?” and so the roadshow burlesque film was born. Our director here is William C. Thompson, who the hepcats out there know from the amazing DAUGHTER OF HORROR, and the goon crew know as Ed Wood’s cinematographer. He does a real nice job staying out of the way, letting the show do the work, so even the dopiest mark in the theater’s guaranteed laffs-a-plenty, thanks to no less than the great Jean Carroll, one of the first true female comics. We also have some big names on the Burlesque scene: Misty Ayres, who gets unjustly dismissed as a Marilyn knockoff, here in her first film (she’d later show up in the ultrascuzzy BAD GIRLS DO CRY) and one of the true queens of the art, Tempest “The 4D Girl” Storm.

With a surprise at the end (we won’t spoil it, so don’t you spoil it for other viewers!) it’s the perfect introduction to the hurley-burley world of Burlesque in its prime. Don’t forget: the password to get in is PLAY IT ON THE G-STRING!

 

SEE ALSO: SERIES PAGE ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? FOR HERCULES, PLAYING MIDNIGHTS ALL JULY!

ECHO CAVE ARTIFACTS: TRENT HARRIS HELLO 2017

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We live in a staid, corporate, bottom-lined, buttoned-up world of rampant government tyranny and imminent robot control in which our sense of self—our individuality—caves in on us from every direction, every single day. These movies aren’t like that.

Let’s catch up on Salt Lake City-based cult filmmaker Trent Harris.


RUBIN AND ED
Dir. Trent Harris, 1991.
USA, 82 min.

SATURDAY, JULY 15 – 5 PM
MONDAY, JULY 17 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 23 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 28 – 10 PM

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“More psy­che­del­ic fun than a bar­rel of mon­keys on mush­rooms!” – Details Magazine

“Quotable, hi­lar­i­ous, and, yes, even moving, writer-director Trent Harris’ bud­dy picture like no other yearns for an audi­ence and cult-classic status. Like, im­me­di­ate­ly.” – Film Comment, Film Society at Lincoln Center

“No reasonable person could deny the genius of any movie involving two republicans, bell­bottoms, a water-skiing cat, a pyramid scheme, Mahler and a squeak-mouse.” – Bamboozled

A real-estate salesman (Howard Hesseman) and a hippie (Crispin Glover) hit the road on a mission to bury a frozen cat in the desert.

What could go wrong?

“I definitely enjoyed the weirdness and quirkiness of the movie… but… jeez, even for a person who enjoys weirdness and quirkiness like me, even for me this movie was pushing my limits. I thought that the non-desert scenes were MUCH better than the desert scenes. Unfortunately, the desert scenes make up the majority of the movie. For people who enjoy odd movies, I’d recommend that they watch this movie, but I’d tell them to hit the pause button and take a few breaks in the middle. It’s a very fun and interesting movie, but it gets to be a bit too much for one sitting. Seriously, this is the weirdest movie ever.” — IMDB user ‘garbuhj’

THE BEAVER TRILOGY
Dir. Trent Harris, 1979, 1981, and 1985.
USA, 83 min.

MONDAY, JULY 10 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 23 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 26 – 7:30 PM

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“A rivetingly strange, multilayered inquiry into celebrity, obsession, and serendipity.” – A.O. Scott, The New York Times

The Beaver Trilogy is a series of three pieces about the same subject: a young man from the small town of Beaver, Utah who is obsessed with Olivia Newton-John. The first piece,”The Beaver Kid” is a documentary. The second piece, “Beaver Kid 2″ is a dramatic work based on the documentary. The third piece,”The Orkly Kid” is yet another dramatic work based on the documentary.

Real life and fiction intersect.

“Yes, this gets the full ten stars. It’s plain as day that this fill is genius. The universe sent Trent Harris a young, wonderfully strange man one day and Harris caught him on tape, in all that true misfit glory that you just can’t fake. Too bad it ended in tragedy for the young man, if only an alternate ending could be written for that fellow’s story. The other two steps in the trilogy do retell the story, with Sean Penn and Crispin Glover in the roles of the young men, respectively. The world is expanded upon and the strangeness is contextualized by the retelling, giving us a broader glimpse into growing up weird in vanilla America. Recommended for anyone and everyone!” — IMDB user ‘afkeegan’

Check out this episode of This American Life about ‘re-runs’ that includes the Beaver Trilogy.


MONDO MOVIE
Dir. Trent Harris, 2017.
USA, 68 min.

SATURDAY, JULY 22 – 5 PM
MONDAY, JULY 24 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 28 – 7:30 PM

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For the first time, forty years of Trent Harris’ short films and videos are together in a single program. An hour and eight minutes of mischief which includes a sing­ing dog, three Mondo Utah Movies, inter­views with favorite free radicals, Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg. Plus DEVIL’S DELIGHT and MISSUNDERESTIMATED, a three-part tangle of words starring President George Bush. And more…


WELCOME TO THE RUBBER ROOM
Dir. Trent Harris, 2017.
USA, 74 min.

THURSDAY, JULY 6 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 14 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 23 – 10 PM

WORLD PREMIERE!

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The Rubber Room is a hangout, home to mumbling mal­contents, drunken poets and bad artists. It is about to be flattened to make room for a Pottery Barn, just another casualty of a dying nation. It seems that all that is good is being destroyed by the hedge fund money hoarding monsters of the earth! Out of this chaos rebel written Alexis Thrill gives birth to a new manifesto… ”What good is art if it doesn’t start a riot!”

MATCH CUTS PRESENTS: LEE SANG-HO AND AHN HAE-RYONG’S THE TRUTH SHALL NOT SINK WITH SEWOL

Posted on by C. Spencer Yeh

ONE NIGHT ONLY – Tuesday July 25 – 7:30 PM

Introduced by Jules Suo

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

MATCH CUTS PRESENTS and Spectacle Theater present THE TRUTH SHALL NOT SINK WITH SEWOL (AKA DIVING BELL), a Korean documentary on the 2014 Sewol Ferry Disaster and the aftermath which followed, framed, and extended the tragedy.

THE TRUTH SHALL NOT SINK WITH SEWOL (AKA DIVING BELL)

dir. Lee Sang-ho and Awn Hae-ryong, 2014.
South Korea, 77 min.
Korean with English subtitles.

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.

Jules Suo is a writer/director based in New York City. She is a graduate of Fashion Institute of Technology, she attended New York University for film. Her short film 528NY is a short prequel to DOSI which has screened at film festivals around the globe. Currently in post on her feature film. She is the assistant programmer at Kaffny film festival.
http://www.uisigfilms.com

CHICAGOLAND SHORTS: VOLUME THREE

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CHICAGOLAND SHORTS VOL. 3
Dir. various, 2017
USA. 75 min.

THURSDAY, JULY 20 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 21 – 7:30 PM

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Chicagoland Shorts Vol. 3 brings together the best of the city’s so-called “niche” cinema – experimental genres and works by queer filmmakers, women, and people of color, combining them into one expansive, rich evening of film.

The short films collected in Chicagoland Shorts Vol. 3 span many disciplines: experimental animation, observational doc, music videos. The filmmakers run the gamut from internationally renowned auteurs, young voices, an Emmy-winner, a Fulbright Fellow, and a Wexner resident. Chicagoland Shorts highlights the diversity of Chicago’s film community, helping general audiences experience cinematic versions of Chicago they may have never thought to access.

Featuring:

ZWISCHEN by Lori Felker
BLOKD by Martin Mulcahy
Yo No Soy Esa by Di Delgado Pineda
Ant House by Valia O’Donnell
Giants Are Sleeping by Amanda Gutierrez
Selfie by Valia O’Donnell
Chosen People by Qihui Wu
Grandma and Me Dancing with Hibari by Elliott Chu
Hail Mary by Emily Esperanza
Sparrow Duet by Steve Socki

Vol. 3 is co-curated by Beckie Stocchetti of the Chicago Film Office, Raul Benitez of Comfort Station and the Nightingale Cinema, and award-winning filmmaker Jim Vendiola. For more information, please visit the program website by clicking here.

Full Spectrum Features NFP is a Chicago-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to increasing diversity in the media arts by producing, exhibiting, and supporting the work of women, LGBTQ, and minority filmmakers. We also aim to educate the public about important social and cultural issues, utilizing the power of cinema to foster understanding in our communities.

TROPICAL FANTASY: THE EARLY FILMS OF IVAN CARDOSO

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With our SOUTH OF HEAVEN: Supernatural Mexican Westerns series all but a distant rider in the sunset, Spectacle has partnered with our pals at Camp Motion Pictures to bring the early works of Brazilian basement & beach auteur Ivan Cardoso to Brooklyn’s big screen. Cardoso, though champion of genre film back home, was largely unknown in these United States (outside of VHS releases by Something Weird Video) until only very recently. This July we’re presenting his first four forays into film in the form of 1 short and 3 features featuring more tropes than you can shake a stake at – vampires, mummies, carnivorous plants, masked villains, radio detectives, unlicensed Alfred Hitchcock overdubs, Coffin Joe cameos, and more.



THE SECRET OF THE MUMMY (a/k/a: O Segredo da Múmia)
dir. Ivan Cardoso, 1982
85 min, Brazil
In Portuguese w/English subs.

TUESDAY, JULY 4 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, JULY 11 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 21 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, JULY 29 – 5 PM

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A tale as old as time: Dr. Vitus, a disgraced scientist (Wilson Grey who would go on to be one of Cardoso’s go to character actors for the majority of his career) devotes his dying days to the reconstruction of a map that had been divided into 8 parts and scattered to the winds with their owners meeting most mysterious deaths.

On a trip to Egypt he finds a mummy, Runamb, and brings it with him back to Brazil. You aren’t going to believe this – but it comes to life and wreaks havoc on all in his path obsessing over Nadia, a dancer who had scorned him when he was alive – well, more alive anyway.

Fleshing out his vision after NOSFERATO IN BRAZIL, Cardoso again takes advantage of the countryside and finds juicy roles for the legendary José Mojica Marins – better known as Coffin Joe – and Regina Casé (THE SECOND MOTHER).

NOSTERATO IN BRAZIL (a/k/a: Nosferato no Brasil)
dir: Ivan Cardoso, 1970
27 min, Brazil
Silent
Screening with THE SECRET OF THE MUMMY

In 19th century Budapest, the titular Nosferato roams the countryside feasting on various voluptous victims and engaging in a number of sword fights. A run in with a prince (you can tell by his hair) finds the bloodsucker on the wrong side of a crucifix. Flash forward to 1970 and Nosferato is now more groovy than ghoulie. More bloodsucking ensues.

Cardoso’s 8mm short certainly sets the stage for what would become some of his more signature moves – a mutated sun kissed soundtrack, the blending of horror and comedy, showcasing the natural beauty of Brazil and it’s inhabitants, and alternating between black & white and color footage.

Torquato Neto, a well known poet and composer in his native Brazil is Vlad all over in this hippy dippy send up of coffin banging alongside Scarlet Moon and a gaggle of others. Tragically, he would take his own life only 2 years later at the age of 28.

THE SEVEN VAMPIRES (a/k/a: As Sete Vampires)
dir. Ivan Cardoso, 1986
100 min, Brazil
In Portuguese w/English subs.

SATURDAY, JULY 1 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 9 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 17 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, JULY 25 – 10 PM

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“Cardoso favors a genre he himself dubs “Terrir” – a play on “terror” and “rir” (laugh) which builds on cinematic codes already internalized by the spectator, specifically those of the classic horror film. With Cardoso we have a parody of parody since the chanchada was already parodic. In a Brazilian synthesis of Roger Corman and Mel Brooks, Ivan Cardoso gives new life to generic cliches, vampirizing, as it were, preexisting films and genres absorbing and preforming the “blood” of other texts.” – Brazilian Cinema by Randal Johnson, Robert Stam.

At no point in his career is the above quote more presciant than in THE SEVEN VAMPIRES. The film is truly all over the place zigging and zagging til it seems like it could burst of out of the screen at any second.

Botanist Frederico Rossi receives a meat-loving-but-mute poisonous plant that his wife immediately dislikes. His futile attempt at making an (pl)antidote only see him devoured and Sylvia mutilated, losing not only her arm but also her interest in dance and socializing. She ages rapidly and takes the last of the antidote and though it seems to help at first it becomes apparent that all is not well…

Not long after, Sylvia is approached about essentially getting the band back together and, rekindling her love of dance combined with her newfound love of vampiric murder, creates “The Transylvanian Follies” a flock of fanged femme fatales.

Graveyard fights, the aforementioned Hitchcock overdubs, and 50’s pop songs lifted straight from HELLO MARY LOU: PROM NIGHT 2 (the superior PROM NIGHT film) follow in rapid succession leaving the viewer with nary a moment to catch their breath.

THE SCARLET SCORPION (a/k/a: O ESCORPIAO ESCARLATE)
dir. Ivan Cardoso, 1990
90 min, Brazil
In Portuguese w/English subs.

SATURDAY, JULY 8 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, JULY 10 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JULY 17 – 7:30 PM

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Opening with a faux national news reel, THE SCARLET SCORPION, is Cardoso’s vision crystalized and funneled through one of the countries most beloved pop-culture icons – The Angel.

A billionaire playboy who fights crime, The Angel was all over comics and radio dramas. In fact, in THE SCARLET SCORPION, the news reel ends with the country at a standstill as the announcement of a new Angel show comes over the airwaves. As the story continues the events of the radio show inspire the work of a copycat – none other than Angel’s archival – The Scarlet Scorpion himself! Angel must match wits with Scarlet Scorpion in order to save the love of his life – a fashion designer by the name of Gloria.

Though not horror by any stretch – THE SCARLET SCORPION is nothing if not thrilling (and hilarious). Cardoso would continue to make films into 2013 with one still listed at “in post-production” on IMDb but THE SCARLET SCORPION caps off our Summer series with a bang.