The Cinefamily

TV TUESDAYS: The Best of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (Norman Lloyd in person!)

Bret — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 02:30:00 +0000

The playfully sinister theme swells, the instantly familiar caricature appears, and our rotund host shuffles into frame, shrouded in silhouette — signalling a crackerjack, nod-and-a-wink night out with the murderous maestro. An immediate hit due to its extremely high level of craftsmanship both in front of and behind the camera (including scripts by giants Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch), the suspense anthology show Alfred Hitchcock Presents ran for ten fantastic seasons, with every episode bookended by Hitchcock’s impeccably timed, droll commentary on the fate of the poor fictional souls caroming around its confines. In conjunction with this month’s “Hitchcock B-Sides & Rarities” series, we not only present some of our favorite episodes, but we also are tickled pink to have Norman Lloyd: not only Hitch’s longtime collaborator on the show, but also a world-class raconteur with a voluminous knowledge of pretty much everyone and everything in Hollywood. Norman’s been a showbiz vet for the past eight decades, so you should make a point of hanging out with him and with us for this banner evening, as he regales us with bon mots on the Hitch tip!

Watch Cinefamily’s trailer for “TV Tuesdays: Alfred Hitchcock Presents”!

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Sects, Cults and Mind Control Mix Night (encore!)

Bret — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 05:15:00 +0000

God Is Dead. “So now what?”, asked a generation of soul seekers. Maybe God was now instead a guru, a space alien, a fresh-faced kid, an ex-convict drifter? Maybe God is — us? On the road to enlightenment, those looking long and hard for The Answer in the arms of seemingly attractive, newly-minted cult movements often found corruption, violence, and even madness — leaving decades’ worth of impossible, incredible and indelible documents in their wake. It’s no understatement to say that Cinefamily has collectively been obsessed with this subject possibly more than any other in our history; tonight, we’ll give you a guided tour down these yellow brick roads to the Ultimate Now with archival news broadcasts, Hollywood’s fictional treatments and rare video from the cults themselves. Belief systems that are beyond belief — the sect that worshipped a Hawaiian Punch-swigging adolescent — Moonies, Krishnas, Est, the Children of God, Love Israel, Heaven’s Gate, onwards and upwards!

Watch Cinefamily’s original trailer for our “Sects, Cults and Mind Control Mix Night”!

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IDA's Doc U: A Conversation With Morgan Spurlock

Bret — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 02:30:00 +0000

Join KCRW’s Matt Holzman (Matt’s Movies, The Business) for an in-depth conversation with acclaimed documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock.

The evening’s on-stage conversation will be followed by an audience Q&A, and a reception on the Cinefamily’s backyard Spanish patio!

QUEER/ART/FILM: Let Me Die A Woman (presented by Zackary Drucker!)

Bret — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:45:00 +0000

Last year’s visiting Queer/Art/Film residency — in which queer artists from across the creative spectrum present a title from the wide world of film that’s inspired them — was so much fun that we’re bringing it back from NYC to the Cinefamily full-time, with the help of new Q/A/F curator Lucas Hildebrand! For the 2013 re-launch, the evening’s guest programmer is the extraordinary young performance/video artist Zackary Drucker. Conceiving, discovering, and manifesting herself as “a woman in the wrong world,” Drucker’s work is rooted in cultivating and investigating underrecognized aspects of transgender history. Her perfectly chosen screening: sexploitation filmmaker Doris Wishman’s infamous foray into documentary, Let Me Die A Woman. As it explores the lives of ‘70s transsexuals, the film astoundingly combines comically awkward group therapy scenes, staged softcore sex, graphic surgery footage of an actual vaginoplasty, and an impossibly weird simulated self-castration (what better way to mark Father’s Day?) At once salacious and a rare empathetic representation of transgender experience, Let Me Die A Woman stands as both an outrageous cult classic and a complicated, yet vital text.
Dir. Doris Wishman, 1977, 35mm, 79 min.

Watch the trailer for “Let Me Die A Woman”!

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DOUG BENSON'S MOVIE INTERRUPTION: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Bret — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 23:20:00 +0000

The next installment of Doug Benson’s Movie Interruption, where Doug and his friends (who, in the past, have included everyone from Brian Posehn to Sarah Silverman and Zach Galifianakis) chill on the front row couches, mics in hand, and say whatever hilarious thing pops into their heads while a movie of their choosing unfolds on the screen. For Father’s Day, Doug & Co. tackle one of their favorite father-son team-ups: 1989′s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Special 4:20pm start time!
Dir. Steven Spielberg, 1989, digital presentation, 127 min.

Watch the trailer for “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”!

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FATHER'S DAY MATINEE: Chaplin's "The Kid" & "A Dog's Life"

Bret — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 21:00:00 +0000

In this perfect show for Father and Co., Cinefamily presents one of Charlie Chaplin’s milestone early features! In The Kid, the Tramp adopts an abandoned toddler (Jackie Coogan) whom he discovers in an alley, and raises him to become his sidekick in a variety of schemes and cons. Chaplin’s first feature-length directorial effort, The Kid is a moving and hilarious portrait of paternal love, or as the film’s first intertitle says, “A picture with a smile, and perhaps a tear…” As well, it’s the landmark work of genius in which Charlie the jester metamorphasized into Charlie the full-blooded actor, whose iconic dignity in the face of comic adversity made him one of our greatest cinematic treasures. Plus, we also have A Dog’s Life, the 1918 short that the presages The Kid, and features the Tramp’s sweet misadventures in the company of a young pup, who happily watches as Chaplin hides from the cops, taunts hard-faced gangster types, and tries to get the girl!
The Kid Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1921, 35mm, 68 min.
A Dog’s Life Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1918, 35mm, 33 min.

Watch Cinefamily’s original trailer for “The Kid”!

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VIDEO NIGHTS: Geteven (director/star in person!)

Bret — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 06:00:00 +0000

If the Gods Of Holyfuckingshit! were to descend from the heavens and give us their golden nectar, Geteven would be served in a golden funnel — and you would chug every last drop. In 1993, trial lawyer John De Hart traded his suit and tie for a pair of sweatpants and a machine gun, as he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in this unbelievable piece of work. De Hart plays Rick, a cool cop who likes his shirts tucked in and his women turned loose. After Rick and his partner (Wings Hauser!) are betrayed by the maniacal Normad (William Smith!), we go on a rollercoaster ride of unfiltered insanity: drug deals, gunfights, Shakespeare quoting, Huckleberry Finn-inspired cults, Satanism, soapy baths, baby sacrificing and more! We could go on and on about everything we just wrote, but that would spoil the surprise — the surprise being this entire fucking movie. Fans of Wings Hauser will be blown away by his ability to appear to be on both coke and ‘ludes at the same time. And we GUARANTEE you will want “The Shimmy Slide” to be the song played at your funeral. Geteven is a gift straight from the heavens. Bow before it. Director/star John De Hart in person!
Dirs. John De Hart & James Paradise, 1993, analog presentation, 90 min.

Watch Cinefamily’s original trailer for “Geteven”!

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Progressive Rock Party (feat. "Yes Is The Answer" Book Celebration & "Genesis: Live"!)

Bret — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 02:45:00 +0000

Crimson, Genesis, Pink Floyd, oh my! No stranger to the maligned and the misunderstood in the realm of cinema, Cinefamily is thrilled to now turn the lights up on one of our favorite musical dreamscapes — one traditionally scoffed at by critics, and dismissed by the fairweather flock: vintage progressive rock. To celebrate the publication of “Yes Is The Answer”, the first literary anthology devoted to prog rock’s legacy (featuring contributions by acclaimed novelists Rick Moody, Wesley Stace, Seth Greenland, Charles Bock, and Joe Meno, as well as musicians Nathan Larson and Peter Case), it’s a heady stew of rare 35mm prints, excerpted readings from the book by its authors, and video rarities up the wazoo. First up, the book’s local contributors read from their pieces, followed by killer footage of the bands in question — and then it’s onto the evening’s archival film prints: 1977’s sublime 45-minute Genesis: In Concert, filmed in expansive Cinemascope and unscreened in Los Angeles for decades — and 1983’s Kilroy Was Here, Styx’s 10-minute dystopian filmed “intro” to their worldwide tour of the same name. “Yes Is The Answer” is the first book that dares to thoughtfully reclaim prog rock as a subject worthy of serious consideration — so take a Topographic Journey into the 21st Century Schizoid land of Prog-Lit!
Genesis: Live Dir. Tony Maylam, 1977, 35mm, 45 min.
Kilroy Was Here Dirs. Brian Gibson & Jerry Kramer, 1983, 35mm, 10 min. (Archival print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive)

Watch Cinefamily’s original trailer for the “Progressive Rock Party”!

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Unseen Hitchcock: Home Movies & Other Rarities (feat. "Bon Voyage")

Bret — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

CO-PRESENTED BY THE ACADEMY FILM ARCHIVE

Like classic rock collectors who track down every single 45, every live bootleg and every last recorded morsel of their favorite band, The Cinefamily salivates over underseen Alfred Hitchcock like Dylan fans do over The Basement Tapes. We all know the hits, the “A-Sides”: films like Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo are perennial classics that embody “pure cinema” to most film lovers. But the Master of Suspense’s cumulative body of work is so dense, immense, and endlessly rewarding, that for every known masterpiece there’s a hidden gem — ladies and gentlemen, Hitchcock’s B-Sides. In collaboration with the Academy Film Archive, who’ve been steadfastly conserving and preserving this cornucopia of rare Hitch ephemera for years, we kick off this series with a very special program, including test footage for Hitch’s unmade ‘60s Mod thriller “Kaleidoscope” (inspired by Antonioni’s Blow-Up), a 35mm screening of his WWII-era French-language propaganda piece Bon Voyage, screen tests with Tippi Hedren (that also include a randy Martin Balsam), the extended original Psycho trailer coupled with attendant promo interviews — and, coolest of all, Hitch’s home movies, providing a humanizing portrait of perhaps the most famous film artist the world has ever known.
Bon Voyage Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1944, 35mm, 26 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES 1-YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY (feat. "Heavenly Bodies")

Bret — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 05:00:00 +0000

NOTE: A very special 10PM presentation by Heavy Midnights!

We love all things colorful, spastic and elastic, especially when they’re hardbodies in motion. Flashdance! Jazzercise! Cardiac arrest! We’re breaking out the big guns and kicking off our totally-not-bummer summer with the most transcendently ‘80s fun factory in Canadian film history — PLUS, a triumphant mega-party celebrating the 1-year anniversary of Heavy Midnites madness at no extra cost! Filled with wide smiles, spandexed bods and a driving pop soundtrack, Heavenly Bodies is the crown jewel in the short-lived aerobic-sploitation explosion: a non-stop, sweat-fueled mix of mesh, bump and grind. The story is an age-old classic: when Samantha and her small dancercise studio are threatened by the unscrupulous owner of a rival club, who will come out on top of their televised, winner-takes-all, dance-till-you-drop marathon workout? Grab your leotards & tights to find out — there’s bonus points for attending in your finest exercise gear!
Heavenly Bodies Dir. Lawrence Dane, 1984, 35mm, 90 min.

Watch Cinefamily’s original trailer for “Heavenly Bodies”!

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