Sunday, February 22, 8:30pm reception followed by film at 9pm
“…A delightfully tongue-in-cheek homage to a fictional East German space project” – Jay Weissberg, Variety
How proud we all are to have this sterling document of the eternal perseverance of the International Communist Movement! Comrade Director Jim Finn’s even hand is ever present in this chronicle of the INTERKOSMOS project, the heretofore secret pinnacle of USSR and DDR collaboration in the unforgiving vacuum of space. Please appreciate many fine displays of Socialism in action, not to mention an inspiring drill march by two proud field hockey teams. There is even an inspiring song about a Guinea Pig who becomes an Interkosmonaut himself! Let it always be known that regardless of the mission’s relative successes or failures, the resolve displayed by our Comrades in this film will terrify the powers of the bourgeoisie to their core. And the music is very well recorded. [From The Young Person’s Filmic Appreciation Periodical, 1978. Translated from the German] read more »
Sunday, March 1 at 9pm
“…An often hilarious, sometimes inscrutable, always original film that’s part pop-cultural fantasia, part capitalist critique” – New York Magazine
Drug orgies, spaceships and monsters, oh my… Rising from the hippie-UFO scene comes MOCK-UP ON MU, the newest cult film from the infamous Craig Baldwin. MU follows the intertwined lives of Jack Parson, inventor of rocket fuel; Marjorie Cameron, new age sex leader; and L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer–turned–Scientology founder, as the insansational ’60s feeds them with the occult, beatniks, and spaceships to the moon. Baldwin has made cult masterpieces like Tribulation 99 and Sonic Outlaws, and may know every conspiracy and urban legend invented from Alcatraz to Bermuda. The cultural historian and culture jammer literally lives in a basement film vault with wireless Internet. His takes on the lurid history of the universe are crazed yet commonsensical. Mashing up real events with rumors and miles of found footage, he creates an elegiac fairy-tale so cohesive that you’ll feel like a manic scholar afterwards. read more »
Sunday, March 8 at 9pm
“…Conjures a Lynch-like vision of the rotting underbelly of Middle America” – Stephen Holden, New York Times
Not every depraved underworld is going 100 miles an hour. The thick atmosphere sometimes slows reality down. James Fotopoulos’ amount of work goes against the odds: four feature films, three more in post-production and more than twenty shorts, all by the age of 25 with no major funding. All with a strong sense of vision and technique: this is about a body of work, not a simple attempt to shock. What comes from these films is an honest exploration of unexplainable emotion vs. simple reality. Levey, tormented by his power plays at work and at home, keeps a tense, close eye on his girlfriend June. He starts to panic as he hears stories about her work as a lingerie model from his friend Ed. She soon drifts to another boyfriend with sketchy ties to her world. In the end, she is drawn to the steamroller life of Ed, who likes empty bottles and heavy guns. Fotopoulos’ minimalist style looks into the gutter of avant-garde. Not really underground, not heady for it’s own sake. The powerful imagery and crushing sound is reminiscent of the feeling of staying too long in Vegas: time changes, stretching into a unique world. read more »
Sunday, March 15 at 9pm
“…A meticulously designed re-imagining of ‘classy’-minded ’70’s-era soft porn…pops with parodic joy” – Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times
The opening narration says it all: “This is a story about a housewife during the sexual revolution. The time is 1972, the place Los Angeles, and the people…ordinary.” After that it takes about 30 seconds for boobs to show up, but this is not porn—it’s an insanely well-replicated ‘70s sexploitation flick. Abandoned by her husband, Barbi (played by writer/director/natural wonder Anna Biller) is dragged into trouble by a girlfriend who spouts women’s lib to coax Barbi into discarding her bra and going out on the town. Barbi quickly becomes a Red Riding Hood in an urban forest full of wolves, discovering much more than she ever wanted to know about nudist camps, the hippie scene, orgies, bisexuality, sadism, drugs, and bohemia. VIVA gets it genre down pat, but it’s more than just music, hair, flesh, and a pastiche of color that make it so rewarding—the actors are perfect. Dad-cum-boyfriend Jared Sanford‘s look is eerily dead-on, and his laugh will slay you. The girls are curvy and spaced out yet totally in control of their destinies. The dialogue and delivery continually provide payoff as the girls take it off, reveling a simultaneous celebration and criticism of the world Biller has created. Prepare to be wow-wow-wowed. read more »
