Extreme Cinema i Husets biograf
: man 3. jan 2005 16:16Uhh, for alle Københavnerne ser det her da ret godt ud:
PRESS-RELEASE
EXTREME CINEMA at the Husets Biograf in the heart of Copenhagen (Magstræde 14, Tel: 33324077) is a new series dedicated to ground-breaking American cult and B-movie classics that went where movies had never gone before, films that enthralled, challenged and shocked audiences of their day.
ALL SHOWS AT 2:00 on Sunday afternoons
(ALL FILMS IN ENLISH-LANGUAGE ORIGINAL VERSION WITHOUT SUB-TITLES)
JAN. 30th ? 14:00
TRIBUTE TO TOD BROWING; 2 short films and a feature that comprise a 92-minute show.
MYSTERY OF THE LEAPING FISH, 1916, 20 minutes, an amazing find from the era of silent cinema! This 20-minute film was scripted by a young Tod Browning, supervised by D.W. Griffith and featured Douglas Fairbanks Sr. who stars as ?Coke Ennyday?, an nutty Sherlock Holmes-style sleuth who uncovers a drug-smuggling ring based in Chinatown. Fairbanks hilariously overplays his role as the drug-addicted detective, shooting himself up whenever his energy fades. He eats gobs of opium and fells an entire gang of thugs by blowing a handful of cocaine at them. A completely weird film that never could have been made today. If you think silent movies are boring ? think again! Played with a great soundtrack of up-tempo jazz.
DRACULA, 1931 ? a condensed 10-minute version (with all the highlights) of Tod Browning?s breakthrough horror classic from 1931. With Bela Lugosi and a big rubber bat.
FREAKS, 1932 ? The full 62-minute movie, a picture so bizarre and for some, repulsive, that many claim it doomed Browning?s career forever. Using real freaks as actors, he attempted to tell a scary story about love, betrayal and vengeance in the world of the Circus sideshow. He did manage to create excellent atmosphere and many of the freaks are heart-rending as they struggle with the dialogue, but the way Browning exploited their deformities was too much for some to stomach and at the premiere a woman ran screaming from the audience. It was revived many times over the decades, hailed as a masterpiece of the bizarre and claimed as a source of inspiration by everyone from Diane Arbus to Anton LaVey to The Ramones. For the definitive text on FREAKS, check out: http://hjem.get2net.dk/jack_stevenson
FEB. 27th ? 14:00
WILD ANGELS; Roger Corman?s controversial biker film marked the start of America?s fascination with The Hells Angels in the 60?s, launched a wave of similar movies and was banned in Denmark as ?too violent? (later allowed to play after Danish film censorship was abolished in 1969). A classic of American exploitation cinema, it foreshadowed and inspired Easy Rider but in many ways was more daring, realistic and blasphemous and thus an ideal inclusion in any tribute to extreme cinema. See a biker funeral in a church turn into a pot-party and an orgy! See Nancy Sinatra looking extremely cool! See the bikers portrayed as brutal louts and psychopaths! - something that almost got Roger Corman beaten up until he convinced them to just sue him instead. (Note: no additional short films in this show)
MARCH 20th ? 14:00
SHOCK CORRIDOR, one of the most hard-hitting B-movies from America?s most hard-boiled director, Sam Fuller. A crime reporter, hobo, author of pulp fiction, script-writer and soldier, Fuller finally made his way to Hollywood where he began to direct films in the late 40?s that reflected the brutality and immorality he had observed on the ?mean streets? of life. Shock Corridor, the tale of a journalist who hatches a plan to get himself admitted to a mental hospital in order to unmask a murderer, only to go insane himself, is an atmospheric, hallucinogenic B-movie masterpiece shot in a Film-noir style and packed with disturbing social observations on the true condition of man. It?s a powerful, lurid, psycho-sexual melodrama with jagged edges intact. (No additional short films in this show)
MARCH 27th ? 14:00
THUNDERCRACK! 1975, Underground meets Cult in this twisted pornographic melodrama that takes place on a dark and stormy night when a crazy old widow opens the door of her prairie mansion to a group of lost strangers. Unhinged by the unsettling atmosphere of the mansion and the excitement of their situation, repressed sexual urges burst forth and unlikely pairs are quickly formed. Something of a cock-eyed cross between The Old Dark House and Night of the Living Dead meets Deep Throat, the film skillfully recreates the atmosphere and style of classic B-movie melodramas while juggling a host of far-out plot twists, all of it kept in the air by George Kuchar?s florid dialogue (which one critic described as ?Tennessee Williams on Speed?) and his spirited over-acting as the gorilla-keeper who falls in love with the beast. A leading light of the New York underground scene of the 60?s, with shorts like Hold Me While I?m Naked and Color Me Shameless to his credit (which deeply influenced a young John Waters), Kuchar made the film in collaboration with Curt McDowell who directed. Thundercrack! figures as a central work of the very active (and very sexually active) San Francisco Underground scene of the 70?s and achieved some success on the midnight movie circuit before AIDS put a damper on all such flamboyant public displays of sexual indulgence. A lost and tarnished relic of 70?s San Francisco as well as a testimony to the creative compulsions of Curt?s crowd of court jesters, crazies and concubines, it survives as one of the most spirited and personal if unclassifiable cult films of that most extreme movie decade ? the 70?s. It played at London?s Scala cinema every week for many years and has a loyal following in the UK to this day. ?Genuinely erotic and genuinely frightening? wrote John Russell Taylor in Sight and Sound. (No additional short films in this show)
APRIL 17th ? 14:00
LET ME DIE A WOMAN (AKA MAN TO WOMAN), Made 1972, released 1979 Directed by the recently deceased Doris Wishman, the most prolific female filmmaker in the history of American cinema and a fearless exploitationist to the end. Best known for her ?nudie cuties? like Nude on the Moon and Bad Girls Go to Hell, this picture has an altogether more cut-throat spirit as it tries to untangle the twisted web of transsexualism, throwing in a fake sexologist, gory close-ups of sex-change surgery and roomful?s of the most bizarre looking transvestites you?ll ever see, all dressed in the worst excesses of early 70?s fashion. The film posed as a sex-educational film but one inevitably leaves the theater more confused than was ever thought possible. This classic of ?42nd street grindhouse? cinema, where nothing was beyond the pale, is American exploitation cinema at its most shocking, bizarre and sleazy and serves as a fitting conclusion to our Extreme Cinema program. No film could be more hideous! Come and judge for yourself.
END
PRESS-RELEASE
EXTREME CINEMA at the Husets Biograf in the heart of Copenhagen (Magstræde 14, Tel: 33324077) is a new series dedicated to ground-breaking American cult and B-movie classics that went where movies had never gone before, films that enthralled, challenged and shocked audiences of their day.
ALL SHOWS AT 2:00 on Sunday afternoons
(ALL FILMS IN ENLISH-LANGUAGE ORIGINAL VERSION WITHOUT SUB-TITLES)
JAN. 30th ? 14:00
TRIBUTE TO TOD BROWING; 2 short films and a feature that comprise a 92-minute show.
MYSTERY OF THE LEAPING FISH, 1916, 20 minutes, an amazing find from the era of silent cinema! This 20-minute film was scripted by a young Tod Browning, supervised by D.W. Griffith and featured Douglas Fairbanks Sr. who stars as ?Coke Ennyday?, an nutty Sherlock Holmes-style sleuth who uncovers a drug-smuggling ring based in Chinatown. Fairbanks hilariously overplays his role as the drug-addicted detective, shooting himself up whenever his energy fades. He eats gobs of opium and fells an entire gang of thugs by blowing a handful of cocaine at them. A completely weird film that never could have been made today. If you think silent movies are boring ? think again! Played with a great soundtrack of up-tempo jazz.
DRACULA, 1931 ? a condensed 10-minute version (with all the highlights) of Tod Browning?s breakthrough horror classic from 1931. With Bela Lugosi and a big rubber bat.
FREAKS, 1932 ? The full 62-minute movie, a picture so bizarre and for some, repulsive, that many claim it doomed Browning?s career forever. Using real freaks as actors, he attempted to tell a scary story about love, betrayal and vengeance in the world of the Circus sideshow. He did manage to create excellent atmosphere and many of the freaks are heart-rending as they struggle with the dialogue, but the way Browning exploited their deformities was too much for some to stomach and at the premiere a woman ran screaming from the audience. It was revived many times over the decades, hailed as a masterpiece of the bizarre and claimed as a source of inspiration by everyone from Diane Arbus to Anton LaVey to The Ramones. For the definitive text on FREAKS, check out: http://hjem.get2net.dk/jack_stevenson
FEB. 27th ? 14:00
WILD ANGELS; Roger Corman?s controversial biker film marked the start of America?s fascination with The Hells Angels in the 60?s, launched a wave of similar movies and was banned in Denmark as ?too violent? (later allowed to play after Danish film censorship was abolished in 1969). A classic of American exploitation cinema, it foreshadowed and inspired Easy Rider but in many ways was more daring, realistic and blasphemous and thus an ideal inclusion in any tribute to extreme cinema. See a biker funeral in a church turn into a pot-party and an orgy! See Nancy Sinatra looking extremely cool! See the bikers portrayed as brutal louts and psychopaths! - something that almost got Roger Corman beaten up until he convinced them to just sue him instead. (Note: no additional short films in this show)
MARCH 20th ? 14:00
SHOCK CORRIDOR, one of the most hard-hitting B-movies from America?s most hard-boiled director, Sam Fuller. A crime reporter, hobo, author of pulp fiction, script-writer and soldier, Fuller finally made his way to Hollywood where he began to direct films in the late 40?s that reflected the brutality and immorality he had observed on the ?mean streets? of life. Shock Corridor, the tale of a journalist who hatches a plan to get himself admitted to a mental hospital in order to unmask a murderer, only to go insane himself, is an atmospheric, hallucinogenic B-movie masterpiece shot in a Film-noir style and packed with disturbing social observations on the true condition of man. It?s a powerful, lurid, psycho-sexual melodrama with jagged edges intact. (No additional short films in this show)
MARCH 27th ? 14:00
THUNDERCRACK! 1975, Underground meets Cult in this twisted pornographic melodrama that takes place on a dark and stormy night when a crazy old widow opens the door of her prairie mansion to a group of lost strangers. Unhinged by the unsettling atmosphere of the mansion and the excitement of their situation, repressed sexual urges burst forth and unlikely pairs are quickly formed. Something of a cock-eyed cross between The Old Dark House and Night of the Living Dead meets Deep Throat, the film skillfully recreates the atmosphere and style of classic B-movie melodramas while juggling a host of far-out plot twists, all of it kept in the air by George Kuchar?s florid dialogue (which one critic described as ?Tennessee Williams on Speed?) and his spirited over-acting as the gorilla-keeper who falls in love with the beast. A leading light of the New York underground scene of the 60?s, with shorts like Hold Me While I?m Naked and Color Me Shameless to his credit (which deeply influenced a young John Waters), Kuchar made the film in collaboration with Curt McDowell who directed. Thundercrack! figures as a central work of the very active (and very sexually active) San Francisco Underground scene of the 70?s and achieved some success on the midnight movie circuit before AIDS put a damper on all such flamboyant public displays of sexual indulgence. A lost and tarnished relic of 70?s San Francisco as well as a testimony to the creative compulsions of Curt?s crowd of court jesters, crazies and concubines, it survives as one of the most spirited and personal if unclassifiable cult films of that most extreme movie decade ? the 70?s. It played at London?s Scala cinema every week for many years and has a loyal following in the UK to this day. ?Genuinely erotic and genuinely frightening? wrote John Russell Taylor in Sight and Sound. (No additional short films in this show)
APRIL 17th ? 14:00
LET ME DIE A WOMAN (AKA MAN TO WOMAN), Made 1972, released 1979 Directed by the recently deceased Doris Wishman, the most prolific female filmmaker in the history of American cinema and a fearless exploitationist to the end. Best known for her ?nudie cuties? like Nude on the Moon and Bad Girls Go to Hell, this picture has an altogether more cut-throat spirit as it tries to untangle the twisted web of transsexualism, throwing in a fake sexologist, gory close-ups of sex-change surgery and roomful?s of the most bizarre looking transvestites you?ll ever see, all dressed in the worst excesses of early 70?s fashion. The film posed as a sex-educational film but one inevitably leaves the theater more confused than was ever thought possible. This classic of ?42nd street grindhouse? cinema, where nothing was beyond the pale, is American exploitation cinema at its most shocking, bizarre and sleazy and serves as a fitting conclusion to our Extreme Cinema program. No film could be more hideous! Come and judge for yourself.
END
