halloween-themed screenings

We got a bunch, so sit tight.

Creature From The Black Lagoon. Fri (9:55), Sat (2:00 3:45 5:30 8:00), Sun (2:00 3:45 5:30 7:30 9:15).  It's old and in 3-D!

A scientific expedition searching for fossils along the Amazon River discover a prehistoric Gill-Man in the legendary Black Lagoon. The explorers capture the mysterious creature, but it breaks free. The Gill-Man returns to kidnap the lovely Kay, fiancée of one of the expedition, with whom it has fallen in love. In glorious 3-D!

The Nightmare Before Christmas. Fri & Sat; 11:30 @ Riverview.  Tim Burton's claymation holiday-fusion piece:

Despite having recently presided over a very successful Halloween, Jack Skellington, aka the Pumpkin King, is bored with his job and feels that life in Halloweenland lacks meaning. Then he stumbles upon Christmastown and promptly decides to make the Yuletide his own.

Hausu. Sun; 5:15 7:00 8:45 10:30 @ Trylon. Not to be missed by campy horror enthusiasts.  Apparently Criterion agrees:

How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movieHouse (Hausu)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions, all realized by Obayashi via mattes, animation, and collage effects. Equally absurd and nightmarish, House might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. Never before available on home video in the United States, it’s one of the most exciting cult discoveries in years.

Strait Jacket. Sun; 7:30 @ The Heights. Presented with Jazz88.

Joan Crawford is really brilliant in this outrageous over the top William castle directed “Axe-ploitation” thriller from 1964. Written by Psycho author Robert Bloch, it tells the tale of Lucy (Joan Crawford) who twenty years earlier took an Axe and murdered her cheating husband and his mistress in a fit of rage, now she has been released from the Asylum cured. But is she, as suddenly strange and horrible things begin to happen all over again. This is a true cult camp horror classic that is not to be missed on the big screen!!! DIGITAL PRESENTATION. 

If those don't tickle your fancy you can instead check out Rocky Horror Picture Show, Paranormal Activity 2 or Enter the Void.

non halloween-oriented weekend screenings: assayas, burnett,

For those looking to escape halloween this weekend, we have these offerings:

Carlos.  Sat & Sun, 1pm @ Walker.  319 min with intermission.  Final film in the Walker's Assayas retrospective.  Tells the story of Carlos the Jackal:

“Assayas adopts a fleet, ever-propulsive style that creates an extraordinary you-are-there sense of verisimilitude, while Edgar Ramirez inhabits the title role with the arrogant charisma of Brando in his prime. It’s an astonishing film . . . Carlos enters deep and dangerous waters as it takes on biography (of a still-living figure), international politics, terrorism, history, religion, sex, and much more and handles all the issues with staggering dexterity, intelligence, and skill”(indieWIRE ).

Killer of Sheep (Fri 7:00, Sat 8:40) & My Brother's Wedding (Fri 8:40, Sat 7:00).  Trylon.  Last of Milestone films retrospective, both Charles Burnett classics:

(K of S) Quite possibly the greatest film about American poverty ever made, Killer of Sheep is an eloquent independent masterpiece. Resurrected by Milestone from 30 years of music licensing issues and dilapidated 16mm prints, Sheep is the story of a slaughterhouse worker trying to keep his family together in Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood. 
(M B's W) A tragic comedy that takes place in South Central Los Angeles, My Brother’s Wedding was buried from the public eye due to mixed reviews of a rough cut. 25 years later, Burnett was allowed to complete his film and his long awaited follow-up to Killer of Sheep was finally released. 

hou hsiao hsien doc at walker tonight

The Olivier Assayas doc on Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao Hsien screens at the Walker tonight at 7:30:

Assayas’ documentary on the renowned director of such films as Flowers of Shanghai also serves as a primer of sorts on politics and society in Taiwan, with Hou as the amiable (and karaokeloving) guide. 1997, video, in French, Taiwanese and Mandarin with English subtitles, 91 minutes. 

It's free, so no excuses.

local horror films at riverview tonight

The Riverview is screening two horror films made here in Minnesota at 9:30 tonight.  For $3 (or free, if you come in costume) you'll see the 30-minute short Grinning Faces followed by the 70-minute feature The City.

the robber at the walker wed night

At 7:30 this Wed you can catch German thriller The Robber at the walker, followed by a discussion with the film's director:

One of the most engrossing films of this year’s Berlin Film Festival and New York Film Festival was by a young German director. Based on a true story, The Robber focuses on a Viennese man who is hooked on pushing his body and his luck to the limit. As a successful marathon runner and a serial bank robber, he carefully measures his body’s ability in competition while planning the adrenaline heightened thrill of his crime spree. Heisenberg perfectly captures a man who must remain constantly in motion—a man always on the run. “Heisenberg’s sleek and intelligent genre exercise is at once an action thriller, a love story, a character study, and an existential parable”—The New York Film Festival. A discussion of the film with the director, Rembert Hueser (University of Minnesota) and Winfried Pauleit (University of Bremen, Germany) follows the screening. 2010, 35mm, in German with English subtitles, 96 minutes. 

trash film debauchery at trylon wed

Halloween season means plenty of trashy, dated horror films.  With that said, Trash Film Debauchery lives halloween all year round.  This fall TFD's bringing kung fu horror to your neighborhood, including Wed night's screening of The Dead and the Deadly:

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Trash Film Debauchery The Dead and the Deadly The Trylon Wed Oct 27 7:30  (1982, Ma Wu, DVD, 97min) While the most famous “hopping” vampire film ever made is still Mr. Vampire (yes, hopping—in China, vampires literally hop around), this 1982 spooky ghost busting classic came earlier. A vehicle for moon-faced martial arts favorite Sammo Hung, and the uni-browed Lam Ching Ying, Hung plays a naive simpleton who participates in a complex scheme to commit fraud by pretending that his friend is dead. Only slightly more mature than your average 80's saturday morning cartoon. this turbo-charged horror comedy is a perfect example of crude and bizarre world of 80 supernatural kung fu cinema. Next up from TFD: LADY TERMINATOR 11/15 @ 9PM at the Turf Club.

When has Sammo Hung ever steered you wrong?

the coming week: oct 25

Wed Oct 27
•Dead and the Deadly -- 7:30 @ Trylon ($5).  Trash Film Debauchery screening.
•The Robber -- 7:30 @ Walker ($8).  Played at Berlin & New York Film Fest.  Discussion with director Benjamin Heisenberg follows.

Thur Oct 28
•Portrait of Hou Hsiao Hsien -- 7:30 @ Walker (FREE). Doc on Taiwanese director.  Part of Olivier Assayas retrospective.

Fri Oct 29
•Killer Sheep -- 7:00 @ Trylon ($8).  Last weekend for Milestone Films' showcase.  The 1977 Charles Burnett classic on poverty.
•My Brother's Wedding -- 8:40 @ Trylon ($8).  Also part of Milestone showcase.  Burnett's follow-up to Killer Sheep, finished 25 years later.
•Nightmare Before Christmas -- 11:30 @ Riverview ($5). Part of Riverview's month-long, weekend horror series.

•Dogtooth -- TBA @ St Anthony ($8.50).  Playing through Tues Nov 2.  2009 dark comedy from Greece.  Bizarre quasi-social experimentation involving teenagers on an isolated country estate.

•Rocky Horror Picture Show -- Midnight @ Uptown.

Sat Oct 30
•Killer Sheep -- 8:40 @ Trylon ($8).
•My Brother's Wedding -- 7:00 @ Trylon ($8).
•Carlos -- 1:00 @ Walker ($8).  Last film in Assayas retrospective.  His 2010 5-hour biopic of activist/terrorist Carlos the Jackal.
•Nightmare Before Christmas -- 11:30 @ Riverview ($5).
•Rocky Horror Picture Show -- Midnight @ Uptown.

Sun Oct 31
•Carlos -- 1:00 @ Walker ($8).

enter the void this week at St Anthony

Here's a movie you won't see everyday.  Enter The Void played to rave reviews at North America's two premiere festivals, Sundance and Toronto, not to mention Cannes.  Before you watch the trailer, know that this movie isn't for everybody.  It's probably not for most people.  Feel free to push the stop button whenever.



There was a lot of high praise thrown around in that trailer.  Here's a two word criticism that would most likely have been equally as effective: Shit's messed!  It's playing at St Anthony for the next week.  I'll probably check it out, if I can find time between my habitual Jackass 3D viewings.

army of darkness at riverview this weekend

You heard me.  Army of Darkness, Riverview, today and tomorrow:

Description:

Friday and Saturday October 22nd & 23rd at 11:30pm.
Admission is $5.
The third in director Sam Raimi's stylish, comic book-like horror trilogy that began with The Evil Dead (1982), this tongue-in-cheek sequel offers equal parts sword-and-sorcery-style action, gore, and comedy. Bruce Campbell returns as the one-armed Ash, now a supermarket employee ("Shop Smart...Shop S-Mart") who is transported by the powers of a mysterious book back in time with his Oldsmobile '88 to the 14th century medieval era. Armed only with a shotgun, his high school chemistry textbook, and a chainsaw that mounts where his missing appendage once resided, the square-jawed, brutally competent Ash quickly establishes himself as a besieged kingdom's best hope against an "army of darkness" currently plaguing the land. Since the skeleton warriors have been resurrected with the aid of the Necronomicon (the same tome that can send Ash back to his own time) he agrees to face the enemy in battle. Ash also finds romance of a sort along the way with a beautiful damsel in distress, Sheila (Embeth Davidtz), and contends with his own doppelganger after mangling an important incantation.

more weekend trylon screenings of milestone films

Two more films are screening this weekend at the Trylon for their series "Milestone's 20th: Two Decades of Enduring Artistry:"

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Milestone’s 20th: Two Decades of Enduring Artistry Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life The Trylon Fri Oct 22 7:00 Sat Oct 23 9:05 Sun Oct 24 7:00  (1925, Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoesdack, Marguerite Harrison, 35mm, 71min) Ten years before King Kong, directors Cooper and Schoedsack filmed the harrowing annual migration of the Bakhtiari tribe of western Iran. A pioneering documentary, Grass traveled where few dared to go in 1924 with a movie camera. Accompanied by the live music of Dreamland Faces, tickets are $10.

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Milestone’s 20th: Two Decades of Enduring Artistry People of the Wind The Trylon Fri Oct 22 8:25 Sat Oct 23 7:00 Sun Oct 24 4:55  (1976, Anthony Howarth, HDCAM, 110min) A half-century later, Howarth follows in the footsteps of Cooper and Schoedsack to capture a part of the same tribe traversing the same landscape depicted in Grass. Wind is an invaluable artistic and social addendum to the classic documentary that inspired it.

last night's regis dialogue with olivier assayas at the walker

Some quick thoughts and a recap of last night's Regis Dialogue at the Walker:

The title of last night’s Regis Dialogue at the Walker, “Olivier Assayas: Between Love and Terror,” hints at the dichotomy that most film critics highlight in discussions of the director.  On the one hand he creates character-driven, reflection pieces like Summer Hours and Late August, Early September, and then there are the surreal and often disturbing works like demonlover and Boarding Gate.  But what this dialogue demonstrated is the connection all these films share with the human experience, and it placed his works in the middle of those two camps.
Assayas lived through quite a bit during 1960’s and 70’s France, as anybody in that same environment can attest to.  However, when discussing moments that most defined his art, he often brought up punk rock and American genre films.  He talked about political turmoil in 60’s Paris and new wave cinema with slight disdain.  He was coming into his own just as the rewards of the 1968 “revolution” were supposed to have come to fruition.  Seeing as nothing much changed, Assayas felt the movement was disconnected from reality and thought it was founded in empty ideology.

This disaffection informed his own art early on.  In addition to creating short films, he also expressed his more abstract inclinations in painting.  Kent Jones, the dialogue’s interviewer, found this abstraction to be at slight odds with his more narrative tendencies in filmmaking.  Assayas responded by saying that, in drawing from the abstract, his style of narrative cinema is able to distance itself from directors that look only to other films for inspiration.  His main objective in filmmaking is to make one lose their reference points used to understand film, and in turn be forced to use their brains.  I’d argue that those two ideas aren’t necessarily conflicting ones, but I think the thought's overall sentiment is one admired by a majority of dedicated film audiences.

As the discussion turned towards specific films Assayas created in his over 20 years in the industry, the focus veered a little too much towards the technical.  But out of that topic came the idea of cinema as a heavy art form.  Trucks filled wall to wall with burdensome equipment, endless rooms for makeup and costumes, and everyone from production assistants to camera operators crowding the location all add to this horrible weight used to create such a fragile work.  Assayas seemed pretty worked up when talking about this contrast in production and product and I could sympathize.  His biggest struggle is trying to maintain a light feeling in his work amidst all this weight.

There’s one idea Assayas mentioned that I believe holds the best summary of viewers’ experience with his films.  Late in the evening he stated, “if i tried to rationalize [the film during production] I would not have made it.”  Such notions can be either infuriating or liberating for audiences.  Personally, the idea gives me more of a framework to watch his movies -- probably not something Assayas would want from his audience.

bell museum film night tonight

Tonight is the second of three screenings in Take-Up Productions' and Bell Museum's collaborative film series.  Showing tonight is the 2006 documentary The Chances of the World Changing.  The film screens at 7:00 at the Bell Museum.

Bell Museum Film Nights

The Chances of the World Changing

The Bell Museum

Thu Oct 21 7:00 
(2006, Eric Daniel Metzger, 99min, DVD) After an epiphany in a New York restaurant, Richard Ogust began dedicating his life to saving endangered turtles, confiscating hundreds bound for food markets in Asia. This documentary depicts Ogust as a collector whose growing “ark” begins to exhaust him emotionally and financially as he tries to save lives, including his own.

olivier assayas at the walker tonight

Don't forget about tonight's Regis Dialogue at the Walker.  It starts at 8pm and tix are $14 ($10 for members).

Meet prolific writer/director Olivier Assayas in conversation with Kent Jones, writer/filmmaker and executive director of the World Cinema Foundation. The Regis Dialogues and Retrospectives program, now in its 20th year, brings to the Walker some of the most innovative and influential filmmakers of our time in discussion with leading critics and writers. The Walker Cinema provides an intimate stage for directors to discuss their creative process, influences, and body of work illuminated
with film clips, anecdotes, and personal insights.

king kong at the heights tonight

Take-Up Productions' is wrapping up their B-movie series, "Before CGI: Six Sci-Fi Classics" with a genuine American film classic.  King Kong is probably a familiar story to you all, but the original film is a worthwhile view for those curious about the history of blockbusters.  Despite the $500,000 budget, I'm not convinced that the special effects and stop motion were any more exhilarating for a 1933 audience than they are for today's viewers.  Nevertheless, the film went on to gross $2 million, and as been remade at least twice, the most recent being the Peter Jackson version in 2005.  The story is still an attractive one, and that goes double for the original.  Check it out at the Heights tonight at 7:30.

King Kong

The Heights

Mon Oct 18 7:30 
(1933, Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedesack, 35mm, 104m) The first great special effects film, and still unrivaled for its thrills, King Kong deserves to be witnessed on the big screen. You'll marvel at the great ape's agility and expressiveness, and maybe even shed a tear at his terrible fate. A masterpiece.

horror films roundup: oct 15

It's October, therefore you only want to watch horror films.  Here are some offerings from your local cinematheques:

•Riverview Theater -- The Thing, Fri & Sat @ 11:30

An American scientific expedition to the frozen wastes of the Antarctic is interrupted by a group of seemingly mad Norwegians pursuing and shooting a dog. The helicopter pursuing the dog crashes leaving no explanation for the chase. During the night, the dog mutates and attacks other dogs in the cage and members of the team that investigate. The team soon realises that an alien life-form with the ability to take over other bodies is on the loose and they don't know who may already have been taken over.

•Uptown -- The Room, Sat @ Midnight

This isn't so much a horror film as it is a horrible film (Hmmm, devilishly clever writing I'm sure to not regret).

•St Anthony Main Theater -- Skeletons, Fri - Thu (times vary)

You know what, this isn't a horror film either.  Maybe macabre is a better descriptor.

Two exorcists literally remove the skeletons from the cupboards from people's homes. Some fairly embarrassing secrets are revealed along the way. A case where the skeletons have hidden themselves turns the lives of all those involved. 

milestone films at the trylon

Italian directors invade Minneapolis' premiere microcinema this weekend.  Two films by two of the greatest directors to come out of the boot will be screening Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as part of Take-Up Productions' series "Milestone's 20th: Two Decades of Enduring Artistry."  Film one:

Rocco and His Brothers

The Trylon

Fri Oct 15 7:00 Sun Oct 17 7:00 
(1960, Luchino Visconti, 35mm, 177min) This beautifully restored, uncut, and uncensored print of Visconti's masterpiece tells the powerful story of the Parondi family of five boys and their mother, Rosaria.

I've seen two films by Visconti (La Terra Trema and Senso) and I didn't really get either of them.  By that I mean, I didn't see what was so great the first time around, but I'd love to get another crack at them.  Some Italians you get, some you don't, and I'd love to see this one to give myself another shot at getting him.

Film two:

The Wide Blue Road

The Trylon

Sat Oct 16 7:00 9:00 
(1957 Gillo Pontecorvo, 35mm, 99min) The debut feature by Gillo Pontecorvo (The Battle of Algiers) about a rogue Italian fisherman forced to use illegal methods to provide for his family. Starring Yves Montand as a Neo-realist cowboy of the sea.

Man, how awesome was The Battle of Algiers, huh?  I've heard very little about Pontecorvo's other works, but I think that has more to do with their lack of availability than their lack of quality.  What's weird is that the more I read that description the more it sounds like the Visconti film La Terra Trema.  Cue the "Twilight Zone" music.  Peep them both at the Trylon.