A man wakes up with no memory in a nightmarish world without sun in DARK CITY.
In a city perpetually shrouded in night, a man named John Murdoch wakes up in a motel room with total amnesia. He is immediately accused of a series of brutal murders (none of which he remembers), a woman who claims to be his wife and a very mysterious doctor. In his quest for the truth about his memory, why the city is always dark, why no one notices, and why people walk around comatose after midnight, Murdoch discovers an underworld run by telekinetics called “The Strangers” who possess the ability to alter the city and its inhabitants. Can he stop them before they destroy him and his mind completely?
Part of Nitehawk’s FUTURE NOIR midnite series.
Invisible aliens in a tiny flying saucer come to Earth looking for heroin and find it in the early 80s new wave scene. 35mm presentation!
This independent science fiction films uses the new wave downtown scene of the early 1980s to show a rather dystopic and ugly version of the future. Campy and stylish with a heavy dose of depressing, Liquid Sky shows a world where tiny aliens descend to feed their heroin-like addiction of a “drug” produced after sexual climax. They use real heroin addict Margaret as their tool to score but she doesn’t mind it when her partners are vaporized because they’re all jerks anyway! With great production design and a heavy dose of punk attitude, Liquid Sky paints a rather dismal portrait of this scene as Marget kills, a scientist tracks the aliens’ intentions, and society falls apart around them all.
Part of Nitehawk’s FUTURE NOIR midnite series.
In his directorial debut, Mike Myers documents the astounding career of Hollywood insider, the loveable Shep Gordon.
Shep Gordon is the consummate Hollywood insider. Gordon has become a beacon in the industry, beloved by the countless stars he has encountered throughout his storied career. Shep is known for managing the careers of many musicians – a career that began with a chance encounter in 1968 with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. He even found time to invent the “Celebrity Chef.” Though the chef as star is part of the culture now, it took Shep’s imagination, and his moral outrage at how the chefs were being treated, to monetize the culinary arts into the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. In this film, Gordon’s unlikely story will be told by those who know him best, his pals.
Brooklyn comedian Donna Stern gets dumped, fired and pregnant just in time for the worst/best St. Valentine’s Day of her life.
For aspiring comedian Donna Stern, everyday life as a female twenty-something provides ample material for her incredibly relatable brand of humor. On stage, Donna is unapologetically herself, joking about topics as intimate as her sex life and as crude as her day-old underwear. But when Donna gets dumped, loses her job, and finds herself pregnant just in time for Valentine’s Day, she has to navigate the murky waters of independent adulthood for the first time. As she grapples with an uncertain financial future, an unwanted pregnancy, and a surprising new suitor, Donna begins to discover that the most terrifying thing about adulthood isn’t facing it all on her own. Anchored by a breakout performance from Jenny Slate, OBVIOUS CHILD is a winning discovery, packed tight with raw, energetic comedy and moments of poignant human honesty.
Based on the novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a man who is driven nearly to breakdown after finding out his life has been usurped by a doppelgänger.
Lost, lonely and invisible, Simon James is shocked when a new employee, James Simon, bears a striking resemblance to himself but is the polar opposite in temperament. He is more assertive, brash, risk-taking. James asks Simon why he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Simon is interested in Hannah, but his shyness keeps him from expressing his feelings for her. James coaches Simon on how to woo Hannah. Then Simon finds that James has gone behind his back and started a relationship with Hannah. This leads to a violent confrontation between Simon and James.
An unflinching portrait of adolescent lust, boredom, and self-destruction, PALO ALTO is a teen movie for the ages.
Shy, sensitive April (Emma Roberts) is the class virgin, torn between an illicit flirtation with her soccer coach Mr. B (James Franco) and an unrequited crush on sweet stoner Teddy (Jack Kilmer). Emily (Zoe Levin), meanwhile, offers sexual favors to every boy to cross her path — including both Teddy and his best friend Fred (Nat Wolff), a live wire without filters or boundaries. As one high school party bleeds into the next — and April and Teddy struggle to admit their mutual affection — Fred’s escalating recklessness starts to spiral into chaos.
Palo Alto is an astonishing debut feature from writer-director Gia Coppola, based on the book “Palo Alto: Stories” by James Franco and featuring new music from Devonté Hynes (Blood Orange).
THE DEUCE presents DEADLY FRIEND, a film that did its time on the Deuce at the HARRIS THEATRE where Deuce-Jockey-Jeff first saw it…on a date! He’s loved it ever since.
Plus: Prizes and surprises, Gaffel Kolsch at the after-party, and music by DJ BONES! Hosted and presented by THE DEUCE JOCKEYS: Jeff, Andy, and Joe!
Elm Street meets E.T. as horror maven Wes Craven mines more of the the teen-terror vein – this time with a decidedly dorky twist and some bodacious basketball moves! Bad things start to happen for happy-go-lucky teen-genius neuroscience scholar Matthew Labyorteaux, when his artificial-intelligent robot-buddy “B.B.” runs into a bit of bad luck. And the bad only gets badder when new neighbor Kristy Swanson’s drunk of a dad’s dastardly deeds land disastrously on his doorstep…some people are better off dead!
Craven ramps up the camp into a kooky off-kilter tale of hormones and horror and friendship and frights, that doesn’t skimp on the chills and some choice moments of gleeful gore. Deadly Friend plays a deceptively light-hearted game, but with a demented undercurrent that flows darker than the circles under Kristy Swanson’s deadly-friended eyes…Beeeeee-Beeeee!
Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
Complimentary drinks at the after-party courtesy of Gaffel Kolsch!
Revenge comes home in the new tense revenge thriller by Jeremy Saulnier.
Dwight Evans is a mysterious outsider whose quiet life on the margins is turned upside down when he returns to his childhood home to carry out an act of vengeance. Proving himself an amateur assassin, he winds up in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family. Winner of the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
**Due to a private matter, this screening has been postponed. We will announce a new date shortly!**
ART SEEN presents a screening of Aïda Ruilova’s HEAD AND HANDS along with Pier Paolo Pasolini’s short film, LA RICOTTA. Aïda Ruilova in attendance! Screening before the films is the frieze video: At Home with Jonas Mekas.
Starring director Abel Ferrara (Ms. 45 and Bad Lieutenant) and writer Alissa Bennett, Aïda Ruilova’s new film, Head and Hands: My Black Angel, centers around a conversation regarding director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s life and the last days before his early death. Spiraling out from there, the story breaks into an unconventional and tangential narrative about love, hustlers, desire, drugs, conspiracy, film scripts, and the actress Zoë Lund. The conversation between Ferrara and Bennett is shot with two cameras producing a fascinating look at obsessive tendencies and the self-destruction that often accompany creative brilliance.
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s short film La Ricotta from 1962, a memorable part of the compilation film Rogopa, is “an explosion of disgust at consumer society and its vulgarity, a scabrous reproach to the Catholic Church for its abandonment of the poorest members of that society, a film about a film about the Crucifixion that shows Christianity’s central symbolic event being staged within a circus of depravity. Its Christ is a starving film extra who gives his own box lunch to his hungry family, loses a meal he’s stolen to a visiting movie star’s lap dog, and, after managing to stuff himself with ricotta cheese, dies from indigestion on the cross” (Gary Indiana, Pasolini, Mama Roma, and La ricotta, 2004).
In partnership with frieze. Featuring Absolut vodka cocktails.
Starring: Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Kristen Miller, Elle Russ
Matt Damon! Nothing says Fourth of July like watching marionette puppets battle terrorist cells, hermetic North Korean leaders, and engage in sexual activity. Team America, brought to you by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, tells the story of Broadway actor Gary Johnston who has been asked by the North American anti-terrorist force (Team America) to join their world police! It’s all about being a badass and finding redemption mixed in with a little Kim Jong Il and a whole lot of dirty business. America: f*ck yeah!
