IMAGINARY NEW YORK

imaginarynyc

MONDAY, DECEMBER 12 – 7:30 PM – ONE NIGHT ONLY

GET YOUR TICKETS!

New York City exists as much in our collective imagination as it does in reality, and this imaginary conception of the city is due in no small part to its history of filmed representation. In this combination lecture and screening, New School for Social Research professor Zed Adams will discuss the role that the John Lindsay administration (1966-1973) played in bringing on-location filming back to NYC in the sixties and seventies. The effect of Lindsay’s administration was immediate and drastic: in the year before he took office, only 11 films were shot in NYC; in the year after, 223 were shot. Moreover, it was during this period that the “grittiness” of NYC came to be embraced on screen–think of MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969) and THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971).

Apart from the lecture, clips will be played from two documentaries from this period: John Peer Nugent’s WHAT IS THE CITY BUT THE PEOPLE? (1969) and GEORGE PLIMPTON’S NEW YORK (1979), originally made for CBC.

Zed Adams is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of On the Genealogy of Color (Routledge, 2016) and the editor of Giving a Damn: Essays in Conversation with John Haugeland (MIT, 2016).

THE END OF THE WORLD IS ONLY THE END OF A WORLD: A Tribute To Clark Fitzgerald

All proceeds from these screenings will be donated in Clark’s name to #StandWithStandingRock

unclearholocaust-banner

UNCLEAR HOLOCAUST
Detourned by The Anti-Banality Union, 2011
65 mins. U.SS.A.
Amerikan with some Arabic.
Everything is legally protected under the Fair Use Clause of the Copyright Act of 1976
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 7:30 PM

Unclear Holocaust is a feature-length autopsy of Hollywood’s New York-destruction fantasy, gleaned from over fifty major studio event-movies and detourned into one relentless orgy of representational genocide. It is the unrivaled assembly of the greatest amount of capital and private property heretofore captured in one frame, that, with unfathomable narrative efficacy, suicides itself in an annihilatory flux of fire, water, and aeronautics.

“A Terrorist film collective hijacks the U.S. propaganda apparatus and detonates it over New York. Everything is obliterated and the world celebrates. Through fifty studio event-movies abstracted of all demokratic variation, we see the Cinema as it really is; an unequivocal annihilation, the auto-genocidal mass fantasy of a megalomaniacally depressed First World. Every screen is lifted and bares the obscene underside of all these images. Movements of character and narrative burst into pure and mechanically perfect propulsions of a psychotic camera from which all this violence emanates. The Mise-En-Scene becomes an inventory of the dominant visual-auditory arsenal, enumerating and measuring the power of every weapon available to the Spectacle. Utilizing them all with paradigmatic rigor, the Hollywood-Military complex launches an endless pre-emptive attack on its own shadow, the Terrorist. And, as in all encounters between doubles, the former ends up joyously suiciding itself.” -A.B.U. Communique #1

Followed by a shorts program:
10/1/11: UNTITLED TARU DOCUMENT Trailer, 1:32 min.
May Day and NYC General Strike Trailers, 8 min.
Hitler Reacts to Occupy Wall Street, 4 min.
A Resolution, 6:09 min.
Woody Allen on How to Handle Nazis, 0:32 min.

policemortality-banner

POLICE MORTALITY
Assembled by the Anti-Banality Union, 2013
66 mins. U.SS.A.
Everything is legally protected under the Fair Use Clause of the Copyright Act of 1976
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 10:00 PM

Do you ever try to imagine the last crime?
Suspect that Robocop is the 99%?
Or wish that the pigs would off themselves, so you don’t have to?

Leave it to Hollywood and the Anti-Banality Union, in POLICE MORTALITY, the vengeful follow-up to last year’s 9/11 bonanza UNCLEAR HOLOCAUST.

Police Mortality is a partisan mashup of over 120 Hollywood popcorn films about, you guessed it, COPS! The result? One feature-length, schizophrenic supercut about police violence and breaking the news, Michael Bay’s penchant for property destruction and the filmic unconscious, among other things.

After a veteran detective commits suicide, it is up to the homicide squad to turn it into a murder… Then the uniforms start piling up. Strikes, occupations, and riots ensue, and society begins to crumble… finally! Can the force prevent itself from imploding? Will it be more Rambo than Dirty Harry? Is this movie actually a documentary?

“A Keystone Kops flick for the Christopher Dorner era… Like no cop movie — and every cop movie — you’ve ever seen.” -The New Inquiry

“The cop film to end all cop films — literally.” -Vice

Every generation has a defining moment. This is ours. This is war. One hell of a war. Civil War.
This is where the law stops… and Police Mortality starts.
Anything is possible. Nothing is forbidden.
The end is just the beginning.
Welcome to a world without rules.
Just remember — when the theater goes dark… don’t call the cops.

Starring: Will Smith, Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington, Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Samuel L. Jackson, Richard Gere, Kurt Russell, Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Paul Newman, Jim Belushi, Mickey Rourke, Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Robert Deniro, Al Pacino, Peter Weller, James Woods, James Gandolfini, Robert Blake, George C. Scott, Tupac Shakur, Charlie Sheen, Reginald Veljohnson, Black Militants, Bill Clinton, The Student Movement, The FBI, The KKK, Lenin, Marx, Michael Bloomberg, Bane, The 99%, and many more.

clarkbanner

MATCH CUTS PRESENTS: ZACHARIAS KUNUK’S ATANARJUAT: THE FAST RUNNER

matchcuts_dec_banner

dir. Zacharias Kunuk, 2001.
USA, 174 min.
Inuktitut, with English subtitles
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14 – 8PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Spectacle Theater is excited to collaborate with critical platform Match Cuts on a new series of screenings.

Match Cuts Presents was established with the mission of programming underrepresented masterworks, with First Nations and Decolonial cinema, amongst others, at its heart. ATANARJUAT THE FAST RUNNER is not only the first feature film made by an Inuit filmmaker (entirely spoken in Inuktitut, and shot on location in Igloolik) but, it’s the first movie made by an indigenous filmmaker about an indigenous way of life that’s completely independent of non-indigenous people or references.

Evil in the form of an unknown shaman divides a small community of nomadic Inuit, upsetting its balance and spirit.

Twenty years pass. Two brothers emerge to challenge the evil order: Amaqjuaq, the Strong One, and Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner. Atanarjuat wins the hand of the lovely Atuat away from the boastful son of the camp leader, Oki, who vows to get even. Oki ambushes the brothers in their sleep, killing Amaqjuaq, as Atanarjuat miraculously escapes running naked over the spring sea ice.

But can he ever escape the cycle of vengeance left behind?

ATANARJUAT THE FAST RUNNER is based on an ancient Inuit legend, set in the Arctic at the dawn of the first millennium. For countless generations, Igloolik elders have kept the legend of Atanarjuat alive through oral history to teach young Inuit the dangers of setting personal desire above the needs of the group.

ATANARJUAT THE FAST RUNNER demystifies the exotic, otherworldly aboriginal stereotype by telling a powerful, universal story – a drama set in motion by conflicts and emotions that have surfaced in virtually every culture known to humankind.

“When missionaries came,” explains director Zacharias Kunuk, “they proclaimed shamanism was the devil’s work. But they didn’t look into what the shamans felt, or how they gave life to the dying, visited the dead, found trails over land and underground or took to flight through the air. When the missionaries forced their religion on us, storytelling and drum dancing were almost banned. Our film is one way of bringing back lost traditions. I have never witnessed shamanism. I have only heard about it. One way of making it visible is to film it.”

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, and produced by Meg Murnane.

THE METHOD

the-method-banner

THE METHOD
dir. Michela Monte, 16 min.
USA, 2016
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15 – 7:30PM *Q&A WITH BROOKLYN LEGAL SERVICES*

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Living in Brooklyn has become an act of resistance, as working-class New Yorkers continue to be pushed out of their homes by real estate developments and landlords who strategically withhold repairs, heat, or hot water. The most successful technique to combat rights infringement is the coordinated work of residents, legal aids and community organizers. This short film documents residents in South Williamsburg, home to some of the largest rent spikes in the city, as they implement “The Method” to saving the neighborhood. After the film, members of Brooklyn Legal Services will explain their services, answer questions, and facilitate conversation. This film was made with the help and continued support of Los Sures (Southside United), St Nicks Alliance, The Peoples Fire House, and the office of Council Member Antonio Reynoso.

VIDEOFILIA (And Other Viral Syndromes)

VIDEOFILIA (And Other Viral Syndromes)
dir. Juan Daniel Molero, 2016
Peru, 103 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
OFFICIAL PERUVIAN ENTRY, BEST FOREIGN LAUNGUAGE FILM ACADEMY AWARD 2017
Filmmaker Juan Daniel F. Molero and star Muki Sabogal will be at Spectacle for Q&As at all opening-weekend screenings.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2 – 7:00PM (US Theatrical Premiere!)
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 – 5PM (with Cinema Tropical’s Carlos Gutiérrez)
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4 – 7:30PM
MONDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 7:30PM
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6 – 7:30PM
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7 – 7:30PM
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 5PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

A Factory 25 release. Special thanks to Cinema Tropical and Marca Perú.

On the eve of the supposed Mayan apocalypse, a sleepy-eyed teenager named Luz (Muki Sabogal) encounters a 20something slacker named Junior (Terom) in a webcam chat room – but the world appears to go on the next morning, and a curious (and ultimately nervewracking) courtship ensues. In VIDEOFILIA, Peruvian filmmaker Juan Daniel F. Molero represents the world not just as it appears “IRL”; the story takes as much place in the capitol city of Lima as it does online, an alterna-verse drawn as a gobsmacking labyrinth of possible selves, where no choice is permanent and everything is thrown up for ingestion – “content” for the fishes. Junior fancies himself a burgeoning porn connoisseur, while Luz begins to experiment with drugs and the odd internet rendezvous to stave off the crushing boredom of a lonely, latchkey day-to-day life. (Molero litters this story with extra-textural signifiers, not the least of which is the Dragonball Z-themed restaurant where Luz works, typically serving much older men.)

VIDEOFILIA doesn’t attempt a 1:1 ratio of tableaux to criticisms; instead, the film finds its aesthetic gripped in damnable present tense, the casual clarity of Molero’s HD camera (for off-computer sequences) ultimately no more reliable than the glitched-out cyberworld occupied by Luz and Junior. It would be too easy to call this a work of magic realism, as VIDEOFILIA’s loose-limbed depiction of day-to-day life evokes SLACKER as much as it does LOS OLVIDADOS. Molero indulges a 21st century beauty that’s goofy, antic and yet harshly sobering – enamored of the possibilities of online, and yet wary of the void staring back at us whenever we sign on. A great darkness is held barely at arm’s length, with datamoshed compression artifacts slowly encroaching on the film’s otherwise spacious wide-panel frames, threatening to swallow Luz and Junior whole and emboss them in pixels; is this the end times, or just a weak connection?

Juan Daniel F. Molero is a filmmaker born and based in Lima. He has also lived in Buenos Aires and New York where he earned his first experiences in film journalism, video blogging, experimental film and film programming. In 2010 he directed the documentary feature REMINISCENCIAS. His work has screened at many renowned international festivals such as New Horizons, BAFICI, FIDMarseille, Valdivia, Lima Independiente and La Habana, and venues such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Museum of Lima and La Casa Encendida in Madrid. His fiction debut film VIDEOFILIA (and Other Viral Syndromes), became the first Peruvian production to ever win the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival, and received the Hubert Bals Fund for Post-Production.

“Compared to other thrillers that treat webcams as a structural gimmick or visualize social media in ways that look corny even by the time credits roll, VIDEOFILIA casts a singular spell.” – John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter

You probably haven’t seen anything like VIDEOFILIA, a feature-length and extremely low-budget experimental narrative from Peru that combines elements from science fiction, psychedelia, and glitch art. Rather than taking risks, so many micro-indies coast by on charm—Videofilia is a rare, and welcomed, exception.” – Michael Joshua Rowin, Brooklyn Magazine

AWARDS:

Post-production Grant from Hubert Bals Fund 2014
Tiger Award for Best Film of International Feature Competition at IFFR 2015
Best Film of International Competition at Lima Independiente Film Festival 2015
University of Lima Jury Award at Lima Independiente Film Festival 2015
Critics’ Award at Atlántida Film Festival 2015
Distribution National Grant from Peruvian National FIlm Board – DAFO 2015
Grand Prix of International Competition at Split FIlm Festival 2015
Special Mention, International Competition, Ayacucho Film Festival 2015
Nominated for Best First Film at the Cinema Tropical Awards 2016


trlb

THE RED LIGHT BANDIT
(aka O BANDIDO DA LUZ VERMELHA)
dir. Rogério Sganzerla, 1968
Brazil, 92 mins.
In Portuguese with English subtitles.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2 – 10:00 PM (with introduction by Juan Daniel F. Molero)

“Sganzerla’s cannibalization of the dominating pop culture and his subversion of the colonized/colonizer dynamics opened for me a whole  world of doors for an undomesticated approach to representing a hazardously mutant identity to which so many of us peripheral beings -aliens to some- are born and subject to. Inspired by the local TV news and tabloids’ headlines (as I also did cut-upping Peruvian chicha newspapers and printed weblogs), THE RED LIGHT BANDIT chaotically portrays the absurd rise and fall of the Brazilian anti-hero of mediated reality.” – Juan Daniel F. Molero

I will never transmit sanitized ideas, eloquent discourses or plastic images before the garbage (…) Crushed and exploited, the colonized can only invent their own form of suffocation: the scream of protest comes from an abortive ‘mise en scène‘ (…) I’ll continue to make an underdeveloped cinema by condition and vocation, barbarian and ours, anticulturalist (…)”  – Rogerio Sganzerla


screen-shot-2016-11-30-at-6-36-33-pm

REMINISCENCIAS (Reminiscences)
dir. Juan Daniel Molero, 2010
Peru, 83 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3rd – 3:00PM  *DIRECTOR Q&A!*

“He is an original: So many avant-garde films feel derivative, but the combination of abstractions and concrete reality–achingly gorgeous and poignant–is unique.”
– Howard Feinstein, Indiewire

“What began as a means of recovering his temporary amnesia by watching his family’s home movies, Molero explored the visual archive of his life, and it gradually evolved into an experimental found footage autobiography. He collages disparate footage from various formats–8mm, VHS, miniDV, HD, and a cell phone camera–ranging from his grandfather’s 8mm films of a family outing at the river, which predates Molero himself, to universal scenes of growing up–the kindergarten classroom, the persistence of a boy learning how to skateboard–and footage he himself shot after his accident, in which he seeks out relatives in remote regions of Peru in the indigenous Quechua community. The singular vision with which Molero weaves a lyrical and visual narrative of his own history is both affecting and radical. Employing both celluloid and video textures, Molero uses the errant visual elements as metaphors for malfunctioning and wandering memory. REMINISCENCIAS is a self-reflexive exploration that both questions and relies on these fragments to remind us of our memories, and to salvage forgotten scraps of time. This unique document of life in Peru is also a testament to the mediated, image-saturated lives of those born after the advent of home movies, and the uncanny and fragmented depictions that these informal documents portray of our lives. ” Aily Nash


screen-shot-2016-11-30-at-6-33-15-pm

QUE SIGUE? Works-in-progress and short films that inspired VIDEOFILIA 
Peru, 80 mins.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4 – 5:00PM  *FILMMAKERS IN PERSON*

QUE SIGUE? features new, in-progress work from Juan Daniel F. Molero, Adam Khalil & Bayley James Sweitzer, along with bonus shorts from Molero and VIDEOFILIA star Muki Sabogal. All four filmmakers will be in person for discussion.

DECEMBER MIDNIGHTS

steeldawn_banner

STEEL DAWN
Dir. Lance Hool, 1987.
USA, 101 min.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 – MIDNIGHT

Patrick Swayze (who is dead) wanders the shitty post-apotcalyptic wasteland with Brion James (also dead, Bladerunner) and Anthony Zerbe (not yet dead, Who’ll Stop the Rain, American Hustle) in this film directed by the producer of Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles)


future-hunters_banner

FUTURE HUNTERS
Dir. Cirio H. Santiago, 1986.
USA, 96 min.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16 – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22 – 7:30PM

Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) meets a visitor from the shitty future is this US/Philippines production co-starring Taiwanese fake martial arts star Bruce Li. From the director of Stryker.


stryker_banner

STRYKER
Dir. Cirio H. Santiago, 1984.
Phillipines, 84 min.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10 – MIDNIGHT

Steve Sandor (Bonnie’s Kids) navigates the shitty landscape of a fucked up future. From the director of Future Hunters.


the_murder_of_santa_claus_b

THE MURDER OF SANTA CLAUS (L’ASSASSINAT DU PÈRE NOËL)
Dir. Christian-Jaque, 105 min.
France, 1941.
In French with English subtitles
SAT, DECEMBER 17 – MIDNIGHT

After the fall of France to Nazi forces in 1940, it took little time for the German government to end all film production except for a state-run production company. That company was Continental Films, established in October 1940, and its first film, released a year later, was L’Assassinat du père Noël, translated as The Murder Of Santa Claus. Based on the Pierre Very novel, the film is a kind of fairy tale that slowly turns both more magical and darker, a film at stark contrast to the circumstances of its creation, and yet deeply connected in ways which become stranger and more subversive as we reach the solving of the title’s riddle.

An old watchmaker, playing Santa Claus, is found dead, and on a primary level the film is a detective story led by the rules of the fantastic, as likely to drift into love story or fable as anything. Led by the great Harry Baur (THE GOLEM), who plays the watchmaker with charm to burn, the performances all bring a brio and mystery which ties perfectly with the astonishingly dreamlike setting. Director Christian-Jaque (A LOVER’S RETURN, FANFAN LA TULIPE), in one of his first films, works for the first time with actress Renée Faure, who would become not only his go-to star, but his wife as well. Anyone looking to avoid yuletide treacle should definitely investigate this rarely-seen gem.

Harry Baur, a year later, was arrested by the Gestapo after attempting to defend his wife; he was released in 1943 but died shortly thereafter under “mysterious circumstances”.


80Blocks_banner_2015

80 BLOCKS FROM TIFFANY’S (BEST OF SPECTACLE)
Dir. Gary Weis, 1979
USA, 67 min.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9 – MIDNIGHT

 

Special thanks to Gary Weis

A legendary cult documentary equally infamous for its subject matter as well as its scarcity, director Gary Weis traveled uptown in 1979 to provide an unflinching, hilarious, and sometimes shocking depiction of the South Bronx neighborhood and, in particular, two African American and Puerto Rican gangs known as the “Savage Skulls” and the “Savage Nomads.”

Facing severe sociopolitical decay throughout the 70s, the South Bronx is portrayed as a crime-infested, all out no-man’s-land war zone where the battle lines are drawn between warring factions of youth street gangs.

Commonly referred to as the real life version of THE WARRIORS, the film is a brilliant snapshot of a bygone era and a stark reminder of the damage that had been wreaked on parts of New York throughout the 70s; the abandoned districts, burnt-out buildings and human waste serving as the end point for a decade of mismanagement and unaddressed social problems. Spectacle is proud to present this landmark work in a brand new remastered version.


AN ART APART: CHARLES GATEWOOD

charles-gatewood_banner

ONCE THE TOOTHPASTE IS OUT OF THE TUBE – An Art Apart: Charles Gatewood
dir. Carl Abrahamson, 2015.
Sweden, 58 min.
English
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 – 8PM (WITH DIRECTOR Q&A!)
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18 – 7:30PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

American photographer Charles Gatewood started out in the 1960s as a young man with dreams of showing the world the radical cultural developments that were going on in his country. He met many of the iconic instigators of change and documented them for posterity. As the decades passed, Gatewood drifted more and more into a personal expression of sexual subcultures, both in America and abroad. His powerful photos of pioneers within the tattooing- and piercing scenes helped pave the way for the movement that was to be called “Modern Primitives”. It’s a classic example of when art, and in this example, specifically photography, merges with its general environment and takes on new forms that are impossible to stop. Or, as the San Francisco based photographer himself describes it: “Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, you can’t put it back”.


gustafbanner

WHERE IS HERE?
dir. Gustaf Broms, Sweden, 2009
Sweden 42 mins.
MAHAPRALAYA
for. Gustaf Broms, Sweden, 2015
Sweden 22 mins
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 – 10PM
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18 – 8:30PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Swedish artist Gustaf Broms has, since the early 1990s, developed a symbolic language in order to help him understand his own being. On an adventurous journey stretching over photography, filmmaking, sculpting, collaging, music making and on to performance art, his artworks and the process become pieces of a puzzle that constitute not only the human being called Gustaf Broms but also human life itself in general. The grand scale of Broms’ ambitions signals a willingness to share his highly experimental attitude and its findings with other people. Thus his persona as an artist grows into something more ambitious, yet at the same time more undefined. The multifaceted expressions of his work seem to contain the very same theme, the very same question: where exactly lies “self” in the human being? Who exactly are we and which tools do we need to find out?

Broms films Where is Here? and Mahapralaya describe the human condition in a most poetic and mind-expanding way. Are we taking part of a dream-state? An ultimate reality? Broms’ rich cinematic textures facilitate an extended in-depth journey. Where it ends, no-one knows. But the journey itself is cosmic, colourful and ecstatically exploratory. It will lead you far, far away from where you left off. And you will be grateful for the experience.

ALSO SHOWING WITH THIS PROGRAM:
twiggs-pitch-image
THE SPIRITS OF A PLACE CALL
Dir. Katelan Foisy, 2016
USA, 20 min.

Katelan Foisy is a multimedia artist and writer. Katelan has been featured in NY Times, Elle magazine, Paper Magazine, GQ Italy, Time Out NY, and many others—for her work both as an artist and curator. She has written for Motherboard/VICE, Electric Literature, Luna Luna, ERIS magazine, and COILHOUSE, and has held events with Atlas Obscura and Morbid Anatomy. She was called a “Female Jack Kerouac” by Taylor Mead and a “Modern Day Francesca Woodman” by Cynthia von Buhler. Her film work was featured during the Romani Cinema festival in Paris.

“My films started as back and forth dialogue between a musician and myself. Inspired by “As I was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” by Jonas Mekas; I began to explore the medium as not only documentation, but a magical working crossing time barriers of past, present, and future. They became love letters to cities, people, eras, and places I traveled to.” -Katelan Foisy

PUSHING THE CONSISTENT FAILURE
Dir. Vanessa Sinclair, 2016
USA, 21 min.

Vanessa Sinclair, PsyD, is a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City. She is a founding member of Das Unbehagen: A Free Association for Psychoanalysis, which facilitates psychoanalytic lectures, classes, and events in and around NYC. Together with artist Katelan Foisy, she explores the magic and artistic expression of the cut-up method and the third mind (www.chaosofthethirdmind.com). She contributes to a variety of publications, including the The Fenris Wolf, DIVISION/Review: A Quarterly Psychoanalytic Forum, ERIS Magazine, and The Brooklyn Rail.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

beginningoftheend_seriesbanner

By almost any measure, 2016 sucked. From the death of David Bowie in January to the election of KKK-endorsed Donald Trump to the presidency in November, this year has offered little more than pain, suffering, outrage, despair, loss, bigotry, humiliation and death. As for the good news? There is no good news. Hope is dead. These four films anticipate our inevitable post apocalyptic future.


HandsofSteelbig
HANDS OF STEEL
Dir. Sergio Martino, 1986.
USA, 94 min.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1 – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7 – 10PM
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15 – 10PM
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17 – 7:30PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

The future is pretty fucked in the cyborg arm wrestling movie co-starring John Saxon, directed by Sergio Martino (Torso, All the Colors of Dark).


steeldawn_banner

STEEL DAWN
Dir. Lance Hool, 1987.
USA, 101 min.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 – MIDNIGHT
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16 – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21 – 10PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Patrick Swayze (who is dead) wanders the shitty post-apotcalyptic wasteland with Brion James (also dead, Bladerunner) and Anthony Zerbe (not yet dead, Who’ll Stop the Rain, American Hustle) in this film directed by the producer of Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles.


future-hunters_banner
FUTURE HUNTERS
Dir. Cirio H. Santiago, 1986.
USA, 96 min.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16 – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22 – 7:30PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) meets a visitor from the shitty future is this US/Philippines production co-starring Taiwanese fake martial arts star Bruce Li. From the director of Stryker.


stryker_banner

STRYKER
Dir. Cirio H. Santiago, 1984.
Phillipines, 84 min.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6 – 10PM
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, DECEMBER 19 – 7:30PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Steve Sandor (Bonnie’s Kids) navigates the shitty landscape of a fucked up future. From the director of Future Hunters.


THREE FROM KAH-WAI LIM

flymetominamibanner

FLY ME TO MINAMI
Dir. Kah-Wai Lim, 2013.
Japan. 103 min.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10 – 7:30PM (WITH DIRECTOR Q&A!)
MONDAY, DECEMBER 12 – 10PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

A tale of two intersecting, international love affairs in Osaka. Busy fashion mag editor Sherine loses her photographer just before a big holiday shoot in Osaka’s fashionable Minami shopping district. With no other options, Sherine takes up a friend’s suggestion their brother Tatsuya, a talented amateur, help out. Meanwhile, Korean flight attendant Seol-a lands in Osaka after Christmas and immediately heads to K-Town to meet her married lover Shinsuke at his shop. Sherine and Tatsuya begin to fall in love, despite knowing Sherine must return to Hong Kong after New Year’s, while Seol-a demands so much of Shinsuke’s time his wife begins to suspect. Both relationships reach a breaking point of choice as the holiday season closes.


magiclossbanner

MAGIC & LOSS
Dir. Kah-Wai Lim, 2012.
Japan. 81 min.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 10PM
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9 – 7:30PM (WITH DIRECTOR Q&A!)
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17 – 5PM
MONDAY, DECEMBER 19 – 10PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

On vacation at an isolated Hong Kong resort, Japanese Kiki and Korean Kkobbi meet and quickly become friends. Or have they met before? The two women spend their time silently exploring the Mui Wo resort and surrounding island, oddly empty save for a lone employee despite a sign reading ‘Full’. Languid pacing and uncertainty take precedent over concrete information, as the two women’s secrets slowly reveal themselves amid a sustained atmosphere of uncertainty and sexual tension.


afteralltheseyearsbanner

AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
Dir. Kah-Wai Lim, 2010.
Malaysia. 100 min.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9 – 10PM
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11 – 5PM (WITH DIRECTOR Q&A!)
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22 – 7:30PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Returning to his hometown after several years away, Ah Jie is disturbed to realize no one remembers him, not even his family. Increasingly depressed, he meets Lao Huang at a noodle shop, where Lao says he can help find the truth behind why no one recognizes him.

 

THE MURDER OF SANTA CLAUS (L’ASSASSINAT DU PÈRE NOËL)

the_murder_of_santa_claus_b

THE MURDER OF SANTA CLAUS
Dir. Christian-Jaque, 105 min.
France, 1941.
In French with English subtitles
TUES, DECEMBER 13- 10PM
SAT, DECEMBER 17- MIDNIGHT
WED, DECEMBER 21- 7:30PM
FRI, DECEMBER 23- 10PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

After the fall of France to Nazi forces in 1940, it took little time for the German government to end all film production except for a state-run production company. That company was Continental Films, established in October 1940, and its first film, released a year later, was L’Assassinat du père Noël, translated as The Murder Of Santa Claus. Based on the Pierre Very novel, the film is a kind of fairy tale that slowly turns both more magical and darker, a film at stark contrast to the circumstances of its creation, and yet deeply connected in ways which become stranger and more subversive as we reach the solving of the title’s riddle.

An old watchmaker, playing Santa Claus, is found dead, and on a primary level the film is a detective story led by the rules of the fantastic, as likely to drift into love story or fable as anything. Led by the great Harry Baur (THE GOLEM), who plays the watchmaker with charm to burn, the performances all bring a brio and mystery which ties perfectly with the astonishingly dreamlike setting. Director Christian-Jaque (A LOVER’S RETURN, FANFAN LA TULIPE), in one of his first films, works for the first time with actress Renée Faure, who would become not only his go-to star, but his wife as well. Anyone looking to avoid yuletide treacle should definitely investigate this rarely-seen gem.

Harry Baur, a year later, was arrested by the Gestapo after attempting to defend his wife; he was released in 1943 but died shortly thereafter under “mysterious circumstances”.