Starring: Cynthia Dale, Richard Rebiere, Walter George Alton, Laura Henry, Stuart Stone
Samantha quits her job to open an aerobics studio and competes with a larger club’s lead instructor to become an aerobics instructor on a local fitness television show.
Starring: Ricki Lake, Divine, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Sonny Bono, Ruth Brown, Debbie Harry, Jerry Stiller, Vitamin C, Michael St. Gerard
When Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake), an overweight teen, auditions for a spot on a popular teen dance show, she beats out the spiteful Amber von Tussle (Colleen Fitzpatrick), winning over Amber’s boyfriend (Michael St. Gerard) in the process. After meeting some black students at her school, Tracy begins to push for more racial integration on the dance show. This gets her into trouble on many sides, especially with Amber’s pushy parents (Sonny Bono, Deborah Harry).
Starring: Jennifer Beals, Michael Nouri, Lilia Skala, Sunny Johnson, Kyle T. Heffner, Lee Ving
Alex Owens (Jennifer Beals) is a beautiful young woman who works a day job in a steel mill and dances in a bar at night. When Alex discovers that her handsome boss, Nick Hurley (Michael Nouri), is both interested in her and supportive of her performing career, she renews her efforts to get accepted into a prestigious dance conservatory. Although Alex is frightened of failure, she is cheered on by Nick, as well as by her mentor, former ballet performer Hanna Long (Lilia Skala).
Starring: Eddie Barth, Irene Cara, Lee Curreri, Laura Dean, Antonia Franceschi, Boyd Gaines
Young men and women audition for coveted spots at the New York High School of Performing Arts. Those who make the cut discover that it takes a lot of hard work to become a star and sometimes difficult decisions have to be made. The youngsters grapple with heavy issues such as homosexuality, abortion, attempted suicide and illiteracy. On top of their unique struggles, the students must deal with the mundane pressures of adolescence like homework, heartbreak and rejection.
Starring: Sondra Locke, Robert Shaw, Sally Kellerman, Mary Ure, Mitch Ryan, Leonard John Crofoot
Join The Deuce in June as together we part the curtains of concealment and – orb-glazed – aghast agape agog! – gaze unflinchingly upon the naked face of Fatherly failure… of patriarchal pretensions pummeled to paralyzing perplexion… too transfixed to glance away… try not! For there is no shielding your eyes from A REFLECTION OF FEAR!! Together we shall drown – The Deuce and you… this June – in a deliriously dreamlike descent to the depths of a daughter’s undying love for her dear daddy… that may well be as deadly as it is undying!!??!!
Admittedly attractively “manly” (being Robert Shaw after all) yet dud of a deadbeat gone-for-long dad – in need of divorce to remarry (Sally Kellerman!) – drops by the sprawling mansion of Matriarchy in which the women he’d abandoned reside… namely his still wed-to wife, her mother, and, most notably, his now 16-yr-old timidly taciturn, doll-doting, microbe-magnifying dweeby daughter (an already 20-something pre-Eastwood’d Sondra Locke!!) – direly disrupting the delicate balance already barely held and dovetailing said dweeby daughter into a desirous delirium for said sad-sack yet strangely sexy dad whose freaked-out fiancée fears the feeling may be more than a tad too mutual!! And… amidst this miasma of madness… a masked murderer roams about the grounds… doing murdering!!
Famously fantastic filmer Fraker’s sole directorial foray into horror, for which he corralled fellow lensman legend Laslo Kovacs to handle shooting duties – the camera-cranking couple together creating a go-for-baroque Grand Guignol of gauzy Gothic ghoulishness that eschews blood and gore for more subtle and genuinely unsettling spine shivers… For which, in an uncannily coincidental – albeit probably unconscious bit of double-billing bravado by the Brandt Theater honchos – hawking “The Height Of Horror!” to their Selwyn (and down the 42nd Street block Apollo, the following fearsome week) patrons, teaming it with doomy-gloomy Brit-horror mad-scientist fright-flick The Creeping Flesh – from yet another fellow cinematographer titan-turned-director (and back again camera-helming a handsome heap of David Lynch features) Freddie Francis (“who made your flesh crawl with Tales From The Crypt!,” touted the ads) – for some promised “Shock!” and “Suspense!” that’s sure to have you Deuce-Daddies doo-dooing in your drawers! Leave it to The Deuce to hold a mirror to your mores – for you to see A REFLECTION OF FEAR!!
Starring: Vinnie Bilancio, Wendy Winburn, Elizabeth Barris, John Goff, Tim Gannon, Curt Swobel, Daniella Green
Broke college student Bob Martin rents a room from the alluring Crystal Traum, who introduces him to her New Age belief system, Crystalnetics. As Bob embraces the teachings, his health and mindset dramatically improve. But when a detective reveals a string of mysterious deaths tied to the cult, Bob uncovers the chilling truth behind the religion — and its terrifying, inhuman leader.
From veteran indie auteur Jeff Leroy (Creepies, Rat Scratch Fever) comes a razor-sharp, unapologetically bizarre takedown of a certain star-studded New Age religion (you know the one). This twisted tale brims with a sense of doom, draped in shadowy femme fatales and is dripping with grotesque, gooey stop-motion creature chaos. Leroy doesn’t pull any punches, layering the film with satirical bite and underground grit, ultimately shaping a surreal fever dream that pays homage to pulp horror while taking aim at the power and absurdity of cult celebrity.
Starring: Fred Hechinger, Finn Wolfhard, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Billy Bryk, Abby Quinn, Pardis Saremi
Hell of a Summer follows 24-year-old camp counselor Jason Hochberg (Hechinger), who arrives at Camp Pineway thinking his biggest problem is that he feels out of touch with his teenage co-workers. What he doesn’t know is that a masked killer is lurking on the campgrounds, brutally picking off counselors one by one.
A shorts program curated by Sacha Jenkins
All City
Dir: Henry Chalfant, 1985, 16 min
From Henry Chalfant, (Style Wars), comes what was intended to be the first installment in a regular television series on New York’s hip-hop culture, with a specific focus on graffiti made by kids.
VideoGraf
Dir: Carl Weston, 30 min
By writers for writers
Magic Bluebird
Dir: Mike Delmar, 2024, 35 min
A journey back into the shadowy heart of early 70’s New York City, pure 70’s madness from the depths of Fear City. Through a hallucinatory blend of raw archival footage and vibrant animation, the viewer is pulled into a kaleidoscopic descent where gangs rule the night, neon signs flicker on the streets, and reality blurs into a fever dream of subway writing, music, and surreal visions.
Starring: Michael Angarano, Maya Erskine, Michael Cera, Kristen Stewart
Rickey, an energetic and free-spirited young man with a Peter Pan complex, convinces his long-time friend Glenn to hit pause on his blissful domestic life and embark on an impromptu road trip across California.
Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Richard Ayoade, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Benedict Cumberbatch
The story of a family and a family business. Benicio del Toro plays tycoon Anatole “Zsa-zsa” Korda, one of the richest men in Europe; Mia Threapleton is Sister Liesl, his daughter/a nun; Michael Cera is Bjorn Lund, their tutor.
