Starring: James Duval, Susan Behshid, Jenee Gill, Gilbert Luna, Roko Belic
In his fourth and best feature, Totally F***ed Up, provocative and talented independent filmmaker Gregg Araki delves into the troubled world of gay teenagers. Araki here addresses the disproportionately high suicide rate among gay teens.
Principal among six friends, two of them a solid good-humored lesbian couple (Susan Behshid, Jenee Gill), is the lonely Andy (James Duval), an appealing youth with a James Dean look and vulnerability, who doesn’t believe love exists – until he’s swept off his feet by the handsome, slightly older but vastly more experienced lan (Alan Boyce).
Meanwhile, Andy’s pals Steven (Gilbert Luna), an aspiring filmmaker, and his lover Deric (Lance May) soon experience a crisis in their relationship when Steven strays, trying to blame it on the fact that the new guy in his life just happened to have a bootleg Nine Inch Nails tape to tempt him with. Rounding out the group is easygoing skater dude Tommy (Roko Belic).
Araki effectively punctuates his story with quotes in the manner of one of his acknowledged idols, Jean-Luc Godard, and probing interviews with Steven, who’s always poking a camcorder in his friends’ faces.
Starring: Dame Darcy
A haunted girl, Clara One-Arm, is tormented by ghosts, dolls, her nurse and raw meat.
Starring: Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny, Lillian Roth, Roland Young, Elsa Peterson
Angela Brooks (Kay Johnson) is dismayed by her philandering husband Bob (Reginald Denny), a man who isn’t even good at hiding his dalliances. After he expresses that he finds her to be an icy scold, she heats things up by adopting a Satanic persona, presenting herself in disguise at a masquerade party aboard a Zeppelin.
Cecil B. DeMille expertly controls the chaos as it ramps up from bawdy boudoir comedy to costumed musical, and finally disaster drama in a pre-code filled with hilarious nuggets and plenty of inspiration for your Halloween regalia this year.
Starring: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Pina Pellicer, Katy Jurado, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens
I.B. Technicolor print!
After pulling a bank heist in Mexico, the outlaw Rio (Marlon Brando) and his partner, Dad Longworth (Karl Malden), make a run for it, but Dad has bigger plans than freedom. He betrays Rio and absconds with the loot, and Rio ends up in prison. Years pass before Rio finally breaks free to enact his long-plotted revenge. Tracking Dad to California, Rio learns he’s become a sheriff — which is no deterrent — but when Rio falls for Dad’s stepdaughter, Louisa (Pina Pellicer), he has second thoughts.
Starring: Chloë Grace Moretz, John Gallagher Jr., Sasha Lane, Forrest Goodluck, Marin Ireland, Owen Campbell, Quinn Shephard
The Future of Film is Female is celebrating the first book by filmmaker Desiree Akhavan, YOU’RE EMBARRASSING YOURSELF, with two special brunch screenings that include a tenth anniversary screening of APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR (7/17) and the 2018 Sundance Award Winner, THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST (7/18). To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.
Both screenings include an intro and Q&A with Akhavan as well as a book signing. Books are available to purchase with your ticket or at the event.
Based on the celebrated novel by Emily M. Danforth, The Miseducation of Cameron Post follows Cameron as she is sent to a gay conversion therapy center after getting caught with another girl in the backseat of a car on prom night. Run by the strict and severe Dr. Lydia Marshand her brother, Reverend Rick — himself an example of how those in the program can be “cured” — the center is built upon repenting for “same sex attraction.” In the face of intolerance and denial, Cameron meets a group of fellow sinners including the amputee stoner Jane, and her friend, the Lakota Two-Spirit, Adam. Together, this group of teenagers forms an unlikely family as they fight to survive.
Go here to get your tickets to our Saturday screening of APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR
You’re Embarrassing Yourself: Stories of Love, Lust, and Movies
Writer, actor, and director Desiree Akhavan shares the stories she was told to shut up about—hilarious, horny, heartbreaking tales of a life in pursuit of art, love, and a better haircut.
Starring: William Eadie, Leanne Mullen, John Miller
James Gillespie (William Eadie) is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne (Leanne Mullen), a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny (John Miller), who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.
Admission includes a pierogi tasting courtesy of Veselka
New York City’s beloved Ukrainian restaurant Veselka is best known for its borscht and varenyky, but it has become a beacon of hope for Ukraine. As the second-generation owner Tom Birchard reluctantly retires after 54 years, his son Jason faces the pressures of stepping into his father’s shoes as the war in Ukraine impacts his family and staff.
Narrated by Golden Globe winner and Little Ukraine native David Duchovny, Veselka: The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World is a thoughtful exploration and celebration of family and community, chronicling Jason’s journey to connect with his loving yet detail-focused dad as he reignites his Grandfather’s pro-Ukraine goals behind his creation of Veselka in 1954.
Starring: Mick McCleery, Laura McLauchlin, Sasha Graham, Bernadette Pauley, Candice Meade
Pre-party DJ set by Matt Desiderio at 7:30
After witnessing a beautiful vampire feeding on a victim, a young man begins a life-long relationship with the bloodsucker and is groomed by her to commit horrible acts of murder and torture on her, slowly turning him into a serial killer who stalks the New York City streets with an insatiable appetite for both love and gruesome slaughter.
Always one to elevate the genre he is working in, and SOV films of the era in general, director Kevin J. Lindenmuth takes drained to death vampire tropes and steers them into new twisted territory, successfully adding some refreshing cerebral layers to pair with the stabbings, beheadings and chainsaw kills found in its run time. These thematic moves quickly separated Lindenmuth from many of his contemporaries, not only helping land Addicted to Murder into Blockbuster stores nationwide but spawning two direct sequels that deliver equal sanguine goods.
Starring: Tasha Tacosa, Ford Austin, Randal Malone, Eric Flenner, Phoebe Dollar
When a doomed space mission brings an army of savage and super intelligent giant rats back to Earth, Los Angeles becomes ground zero for survival as the ravenous creatures descend upon the city with an insatiable hunger for flesh and destruction.
From low budget genre auteur Jeff Leroy (Creepies, The Witches Sabbath) comes the mother of all giant rat movies, a gore-drenched sci-fi / horror / action movie stew that’s a homage to the nature gone amok genre of the 1970s, only wired on crank and really pissed off. Leroy crams every frame of the movie with a dirty, dark sense of dread, pitting his cast against not only the monsters, but each other, until every set and character is literally torn to shreds in one way or another. With it’s ample use of practical effects, miniature work, non-stop action and black humor, Rat Scratch Fever is a B-movie masterclass on how to get every penny and drop of sweat up on the screen.
Starring: Jeff Rector, William Marshall, Griffin Drew, Harrison Ray, Karen Black, Denise Ames
Chain-smoking Hollywood action movie star Tony Markham is zapped back in time via a magic artifact to a prehistoric world of flesh-hungry dinosaurs, angry cavemen, and a tribe of exotic, love-starved cavegirls. He must use his modern-day machismo and best karate moves to survive the onslaught of Jurassic terrors while wooing the literal cavegirl of his dreams, Hea-Thor.
Produced, written and directed by fan film pioneer, Marvel Comics scribe and Star Wars novelist Don Glut, Dinosaur Valley Girls playfully and skillfully dives headfirst into the subject matter, including creating a completely new language for the titlular tarts. What could have easily been just a typical late-night slot-filler on Skinemax becomes an epic world-building adventure, complete with stop motion dinosaurs, original music numbers, off-the-wall cameos and more dad jokes than you can shake an Allosaurus bone at.
