Starring: Simon Rex, Bree Elrod, Brenda Deiss
Finding himself down and out in Los Angeles, ex-porn star Mikey Saber decides to crawl back to his hometown of Texas City, Texas, where his estranged wife and mother-in-law are living. Just as this dysfunctional family seems to be making things work, Mikey meets a young woman named Strawberry working the cash register at a local doughnut shop. He falls right back into his old habits.
Starring: Cory McAbee, Rocco Sisto, Gregory Russell Cook, Annie Golden, James Ransone
20th Anniversary screening with writer/director/star Cory McAbee in person!
The story of a rare-goods trading astronaut’s intergalactic adventures, this playfully odd object is the creation of Cory McAbee, who wrote the music as well as writing, directing, and playing the lead. A gumbo of genres – musical, western, comedy, sci-fi, experimental – The American Astronaut obsesses over women, who are talked about but rarely seen, revealing a strange world of ruminating men, meeting in taverns and worshipping at the feet of “The Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman’s Breast.” Comparisons to David Lynch and Guy Maddin may be hard to escape, but this is inventive and inimitable in its own right, with muddy black and white cinematography and a line-up of craggy faced men who aren’t too tough to break out into song.
Starring: Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt, Michael Stefani, Art LaFleur, Telma Hopkins, Richard Herd
Film courtesy of Full Moon Features and the American Genre Film Archive
Print courtesy of Chicago Film Society
“A slice of history caught in amber, from a time when B-movie filmmakers tried to please their audience above all else.” – BLOODY DISGUSTING
Tim Thomerson (Dollman; Zone Troopers) thunders into his iconic role of time-traveling bounty cop Jack Deth in this sizzling slab of straight-up psychic sci-fiyahhh. The year is 2247 A.D! When Deth learns that a mind-controlling madman has whipped back three centuries to the mid-1980s, he shatters the time barrier to bring him back, dead or alive. But what Deth isn’t counting on is an army of obstacles including laser assassins, a drunk in a Santa suit, and a crew of knuckle-dragging punks listening to a hardcore version of “Jingle Bells!” Yep, it’s a Christmas movie, the most harrowingly hectic holiday blast of them all. With a young Helen Hunt (Twister) as Deth’s 20th century new wave partner, it’s a ten-fisted neonized post-nuke noir that will enslave your brain while you party like it’s 1985!
Starring: Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston, Courtney B. Vance, Gregory Hines, Jenifer Lewis
A cleric begins to doubt himself and is visited by an angel. The heavenly emissary is supposed to help the good reverend over his midlife crisis, but he is distracted by the cleric’s lovely young wife.
Starring: Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent, Embeth Davidtz
At the start of the New Year, 32-year-old Bridget (Renée Zellweger) decides it’s time to take control of her life — and start keeping a diary. Now, the most provocative, erotic and hysterical book on her bedside table is the one she’s writing. With a taste for adventure, and an opinion on every subject – from exercise to men to food to sex and everything in between – she’s turning the page on a whole new life.
Starring: Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton, Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Rachel McAdams, Craig T. Nelson
Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney) wants to bring his girlfriend, Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker), to meet his bohemian Connecticut family at Christmas. Straitlaced Meredith, feeling she needs backup, asks her sister Julie (Claire Danes) to come along. Hoping to win the approval of her boyfriend’s parents Sybil (Diane Keaton) and Kelly (Craig T. Nelson) and the rest of the family, instead Meredith succeeds only in highlighting her uptight personality and making Everett doubt his intentions.
Starring: Vanessa Williams, Vivica A. Fox, Nia Long, Michael Beach, Mekhi Phifer
When Ahmad Simmons’ (Brandon Hammond) diabetic grandmother, Josephine “Big Mama” Joseph (Irma P. Hall), falls into a coma during an operation to amputate her leg, it throws the Joseph family into chaos. Ahmad watches as his mother, Maxine (Vivica A. Fox), and aunts Teri (Vanessa L. Williams) and Tracy (Nia Long) struggle to adjust to the family matriarch’s sudden absence, fall into old rivalries, share memories, and work to maintain the long-standing tradition of Sunday family dinners.
Starring: Brittany S. Hall, Will Brill, Gail Bean, Drew Fuller, Ben Levin
Young couple Renesha (Brittany S. Hall) and Evan (Will Brill) negotiate a variety of questions, judgments, and other comments on their interracial relationship. Yet, the most significant test for the strength of their bond arrives in the form of a brutal sexual assault Renesha suffers. A frantic Evan must then drive the distressed Renesha across the city in hopes of securing a rape kit, encountering further prejudice along the way.
Celebrate the release of BLEEDING SKULL! A 1990s TRASH-HORROR ODYSSEY from Fantagraphics with author Annie Choi in person!
The debut from Black filmmaker Ronald K. Armstrong, Bugged! is an ultra-fun DIY creature feature that was shot in NYC. Following a freak lab accident with major Re-Animator vibes, a woman named Devine hires the Dead and Buried Exterminators to rid her house of overgrown crickets. The bug-busters soon realize that these aren’t just large crickets, but radioactive beasties with a lust for blood! Filled with ambitious practical effects and a charming mood, Bugged! is an important chapter of 1990s horror from a Black perspective.
Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Gina Rodriguez, Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger, Patricia Belcher, Kim Estes
Two con artists have spent 26 years training their only daughter to swindle, scam and steal at every turn. During a desperate and hastily conceived heist, they charm a stranger into joining them, only to have their entire world turned upside down.
