For the 13th consecutive year, Shorts HD and Magnolia Pictures present the Oscar-Nominated Short Films, opening on Feb. 9th. This is your annual chance to predict the winners (and have the edge in your Oscar pool)! A perennial hit with audiences around the country and the world, don’t miss this year’s selection of shorts. The Academy Awards take place Sunday, March 4th.
DeKalb Elementary – Reed Van Dyk, USA, 20 minutes
The Silent Child – Chris Overton and Rachel Shenton, UK, 20 minutes
My Nephew Emmett – Kevin Wilson, Jr., USA, 20 minutes
The Eleven O’Clock – Derin Seale and Josh Lawson, Australia, 13 minutes
Watu Wote/All of Us – Katja Benrath and Tobias Rosen, Germany, 22 minutes
Starring: Richard Gere, Valérie Kaprisky, Art Metrano, William Tepper, John P. Ryan
Preceded by video intro from director Jim McBride, plus a look at the alternate ending
Co-presented by Fun City Editions
Richard Gere is electrifying as Jesse Lujack, a small-time criminal obsessed with the rockabilly tunes of Jerry Lee Lewis, the Silver Surfer and Monica (Valérie Kaprisky), the beautiful French exchange student he spent a passionate couple of nights with in Vegas. High-tailing it to Los Angeles to rendezvous again with Monica, Jesse steals a fast car and accidentally shoots and kills a highway patrolman. Now the most wanted fugitive in L.A., Jesse should get across the border to Mexico as soon as possible, but Monica leaves him breathless…
Co-writer and director Jim McBride (David Holzman’s Diary and Great Balls of Fire) and co-writer L.M. Kit Carson (Paris, Texas and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) boldly set out to create an American version of Jean-Luc Godard’s groundbreaking debut Breathless and the result is a wildly energetic and imaginative neo-noir romance that has become a cult classic.
Starring: Bradford Dillman, Joanna Miles, Richard Gilliland.
On March 15, The Deuce-Jockeys bring you William Castle’s production of BUG – the picture you see with your eyes closed!
An earthquake releases a strain of mutant cockroaches with the ability to start fires, which proceed to cause destructive chaos in a small town. The studies carried out by scientist James Parmiter, however, reveal an intent with much more far-reaching consequences.
Starring: Jan-Michael Vincent, Leo Rossi, Lance Henriksen, Charles Napier, Rip Torn
This April 19: Spring into action when special-guest “Uncle Bill” Lustig visits THE DEUCE to introduce his hard-hitting tale of 80s LA dis-organized Crime: HIT LIST – as it pummeled the pugnacious patrons of the Cine-42 in March of 1989!
Maniacal, Machiavellian mob-boss Rip Torn hires unhinged hit-man/surly shoe-salesman Lance Henriksen to tie up some loose ends… but a mundane mistake leads to murderous mayhem!! When an erroneous kidnapping gets dutiful dad Jan-Michael Vincent moderately miffed – he goes gunning for vengeance on the seedy streets, in a riotous race to save his son from the mafia scum…
Shoot-outs in kiddie Laser Tag emporiums, and perilous parking-garage car chases ensue! A glut of B-Movie genre antics and action: Gangsters! Gritty urban grime! Crime! Courtroom pyrotechnics! Pissed-off-Pop revenge!! With stolid stalwarts Charles Napier and Leo Rossi along for the ride, HIT LIST runs the gamut delivering the thrills – and Lustig’s direction doesn’t let down! Put this lusty piece of perfectly furious fun on your short-LIST of things to do this month – don’t miss this HIT!
Starring: Stephen Furst, Barbara Bach, Sydney Lassick, Lelia Goldoni.
“For too long, it has been hiding… waiting… watching…” – On May 10, THE DEUCE unearths THE UNSEEN – the 1980 freak-out by Danny Steinmann – writer and director of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning!
A freelance reporter and her two friends accept an invitation for cheap room and board in a large farmhouse offered by a friendly, but shady, museum owner. Unknown to the women, an unseen hostile being lurks in the basement.
When a law office is hit by a virus that causes its victims to act out their most-violent urges, a recently fired employee uses the building’s quarantine as an opportunity to strike back at his company’s heartless executives in this sharp horror satire. He’s joined on his mission of revenge by a disgruntled client. Presented by Shudder.
Starring: Mouna Hawa, Sana Jammelieh, Shaden Kanboura, Mahmoud Shalaby
In Arab-Israeli female director Maysaloun Hamoud’s feature debut, three Palestinian women sharing an apartment in the heart of Tel Aviv find themselves doing the same balancing act between tradition and modernity, citizenship and culture, fealty and freedom.
Lalia, a criminal lawyer, loves to burn off her workday stress in the underground club scene. Salma, a DJ and bartender, starts a budding relationship with a female medical intern. And their new roommate Nur is a younger, religious Muslim university student whose conservative fiancé is horrified by her secular friends.
Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams, Randy Quaid, Linda Cardellini
Brokeback Mountain is an Ang Lee film about two modern day cowboys who meet on a shepherding job in the summer of ’63. The two share a raw and powerful summer together that turns into a life long relationship conflicting with the lives they are supposed to live.
Starring: Teyonah Parris, Nick Cannon, Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Hudson, Angela Bassett, John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson
A modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes set against the backdrop of gang violence in Chicago. After the murder of a child by a stray bullet, a group of women led by Lysistrata organize against the on-going violence in Chicago’s Southside by withholding sex until the men of Chicago lay down their arms, challenging the nature of race, sex and violence in America and around the world.
Starring: Laura Dern, Nicolas Cage, Willem Dafoe, Harry Dean Stanton, Isabella Rossellini, Crispin Glover
Shot after the pilot of “Twin Peaks” and released at the height of the show’s popularity, Wild at Heart was the first time that a David Lynch film hinged on being a DAVID LYNCH FILM. The story of a pair of young lovers on the run from the young girl’s psychotic mother sticks largely to convention, but doesn’t lack in the director’s token knack for violence and dark humor.
Rather than deliver a juicy, pulpy crime story, Lynch offers up a sun-bleached, heavy metal version of The Wizard of Oz, complete with witches, yellow brick roads and the clicking heels of ruby slippers.
