Description: KCCS is doing another month of screenings for Black History Month, starting with a trip down racially insensitive memory lane: our friend and Park Slope film archivist Movie Mike and the Black Film Preservation Society’s Walter Taylor present rarely-seen 16mm film on the big screen in Freddy’s Backroom. Prepare to be awed by a deluge of political incorrectness as Movie Mike and Mr. Taylor unspool buried race cartoons and one-reelers time forgot.
Show includes Mike’s reel of ’30s era Race Cartoons, ’50s TV adventure Ramar of the Jungle, and Walter’s reel of Hollywood clips titled Great Ladies of Jazz, chock full of choice vocals. We’ll wrap with a performance film of standup by Richard Pryor. All on crisp celluloid.
From Movie Mike: “ We must keep a historical perspective when viewing this stuff, using film as time travel to visit our cultural past. We’ll experience social, cultural and political attitudes that time forgot! To understand where we are now, we must see where we have been… If you are sensitive, this stuff may hurt your feelings. Try to remember, history is not what we wish it to be, it is what it is, and it ain’t cute!”
Description: Our first show of 2012 – the year the world ends – will be at our old haunts- Freddy’s Bar and Backroom. Director Keith Miller and DP Alex Mallis will present the trailer for their brand new Bk-shot feature Welcome to Pine Hill (headed for Slamdance in January) and discuss their kickstarter campaign (viewable here).
The story: A recently reformed drug dealer working as a claims adjuster by day and bouncer by night, Shannon Harper receives earth-shattering news that compels him to make peace with his past and search for freedom beyond the concrete jungle of New York. With a cinema verite style rooted in very real life,WELCOME TO PINE HILL features an extraordinarily intimate performance by Harper playing himself, supported by an eclectic mix of real people and improvised performers. Traveling from the backyards of Brooklyn crack houses to the lush Catskill Mountains, the film is a meditative journey about how we choose to live our lives. In collaboration with the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, of which director Keith Miller is a part, WELCOME TO PINE HILL is a 2011 Independent Filmmaker Lab participant and Miller’s debut feature.
Followed by Blue in the Face (US, 1995, 83min), Paul Auster and Wayne Wang’s follow up to Smoke, starring Harvey Keitel, Lou Reed, Michael J. Fox and Jim Jarmusch in a series of improvisational sketches about our favorite borough.
Details: Wednesday January 4th, 8:30pm at Freddy’s, 627 5th Ave btw 17th and 18th St. D/N/R to Prospect Ave.
Free, but of course we hope you’ll be inspired to chip in and help this project get out into the world (that means funds for color correction, mastering to tape, festival submissions, marketing and publicity expenses…)
Description: We’re oh-so-happy to welcome back cartoon collector extraordinaire Tom Stathes, who will thrill us with some antiquated ‘toon treasures on 16mm in time for Xmas. From Tommy: “To celebrate Christmas 2011, Tom Stathes digs out vintage Christmas cartoons for your enjoyment. We’ll be screening more of an hour’s worth of rare and obscure animation from the 1920s through 1940s on actual 16mm film with a projector. By doing this, Tom is not only keeping alive a form of film presentation that is now quickly dying but also replicates the old semi-professional projected 16mm film screenings which were common in schools, clubs, private homes, and neighborhood cinemas in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Come be a part of our fun and unique holiday experience!” More about Tom’s efforts at his site Cartoons on Film
We’ll have tasty and boozy holiday beverages for a suggested donation, and Tom will have DVD transfers of some of his vast ‘toon collection for sale for all procrastinating holiday shoppers.
Details: Thursday December 22nd 8pm at LaunchPad, 721 Franklin Ave btw/ Park and Sterling. 2/3/4/5 train to Franklin Ave.
Description: KCCS programmer Nick Shimkin has curated a lineup of some of the more impressive, thoughtful, occasionally even artful, short docs and bits of media from the Occupy Wall St. movement so far. Join us on the eve of the three month anniversary of the occupation of Zuccotti Park to enjoy the hard work of some incredible and vital media-makers and engage in a discussion on the role of film and media in people’s movements. More here soon; for now, details on the facebook invite
Details: Friday December 16th 6-8pm, CUNY Professional Staff Congress offices- 61 Broadway 16th Floor. trains: Wall St. 4/5, Rector St. N/R, Broad St. J/Z
Free, snacks generously provided by PSC’s “Labor Goes to the Movies” screening series. Hope to see you there!
Description: Midnight show at Spectacle! A film near and dear to our hearts: Sewage Baby (aka The Suckling, dir. Francis Teri, US, 1990, 80min). In the pre-Roe vs. Wade ‘70s, a young woman goes to a back alley abortion clinic (which doubles as a whorehouse), only to have her aborted, nuclear waste-drenched fetus return as an ungodly fanged monster and wreak havoc on her, her boyfriend, and everyone else responsible for its sorry fate. Lovingly filmed in Brooklyn in 1989, with zero regard for good taste and common decency.
Description: A twisted double feature of inspired hyper-gore and pop-culture curios from Japan: Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura & Naoyuki Tomomatsu, 2009, 84min) and 964 Pinocchio (Shozin Fukui, 1991, 97min). Description of the latter, courtesy IMDB: Pinocchio 964, lobotomised cyborg sex slave, is thrown out onto the street by his owners because of his inability to maintain an erection. He is befriended by a criminally insane, memory-wiped, homeless girl. Meanwhile, the corporate entity who manufactured and sold him plots to kill him because of his malfunction.
Preceded by a horror short of our choosing.
Details: Wednesday October 26 / 8pm / at LaunchPad, 721 Franklin Ave btw/ Park and Sterling. 2/3/4/5 to Franklin Ave.
FREE / BYOB / popcorn provided. **Probably not appropriate for small children, squeamish adults, or anyone else, really**
Description: LET’S GET FRANKENSTONED!Kings County Cinema Society welcomes back curator and 16mm archivist Movie Mike to get the jump on Halloween in real 16mm film at Freddy’s Backroom.
From Mike himself: “We’ll start with some vintage cartoons, then see two short condensed-feature reels made for home use before home video existed: Bride of Frankenstein (1935, US, James Whale) with Colin Clive as the nervous mad scientist, Ernest Thesiger as his giddy mentor Dr. Pretorius, Karloff as the pathetic monster, Whale’s tilted camera angles and Franz Waxman’s truly great score… and Son of Frankenstein (1939, US, Rowland V. Lee) with its eerie German-expressionist tilted sets and deep shadows, Basil Rathbone as the monster-maker’s arrogant heir, Lionel Atwill as the one-armed gendarme, plus Karloff as the creature and Lugosi as his only friend.
Finally, a screening of the full-length feature from Britain’s Hammer Studios: Revenge of Frankenstein (1958, UK, Terence Fisher) with Peter Cushing’s thoughtful and sensitive portrait, so different from Clive and Rathbone’s interpretations. Sentenced to death for monster-making, he escapes the guillotine and goes off to open a charity clinic under a new name. But he can’t resist stitching up a new patchwork bod for his deformed friend’s brain to inhabit.”
ALL ON CRISP 16MM!
Details: Wednesday October 5th at Freddy’s Bar & Backroom, 627 5th Ave btw/ 17th, 18th St. M/R to Prospect Ave.
Short reels at 8pm, feature at 9pm. Free, but we’ll pass the hat for the archivist/projectionist.
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