Join us for a journey through the dreamscape with a double bill of seminal surrealist films brought to life with all-new live scores by The Flushing Remonstrance.
L’Age d’Or is Luis Buñuel’s 1937 gleeful fever dream of Freudian unease, bizarre humor, and shocking imagery that, once experienced, cannot be forgotten. “The most scandalous of all Buñuel’s films. Surreal, dreamlike, and pornographically blasphemous.” – Pauline Kael.
James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber’s The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) is a visually stunning, avant-garde adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic gothic horror tale. “Tilted, eerie beauty…wisps of silhouette dancing with hazy imagery, creating a perfect nightmare out of Poe’s story.” – Sally Jane Black
Starring: Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle, Audrey Christie, Barbara Loden
Bud (Warren Beatty) and his high school sweetheart, Deanie (Natalie Wood), are weighed down by their parents’ oppressive expectations, which threaten the future of their relationship. Deanie’s mother (Audrey Christie) and Bud’s father (Pat Hingle) caution their children against engaging in a sexual relationship, but for opposing reasons: Deanie’s mother thinks Bud won’t marry a girl with loose morals, while Bud’s father is afraid of marriage and pregnancy that would ruin Bud’s future at Yale.
Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon
Food critic Steve Coogan and traveling companion Rob Brydon trade delicious barbs and clever remarks as they tour various eateries in northern England.
Special 15 year Anniversary guests:
Beverage Director
Nick Dodge – Nov 2012 – July 2024
Chefs
Saul Balton 2011
Russell Dougherty 2011 – May 2013
Michael Franey October 2012 – July 2022
State Your Name cuts past the watered-down version of graffiti you see in music videos and trucker hats to show the true essence of bombing. In New York City — the city that never sleeps — your name and the crew you rep is everything. To society it’s vandalism. To writers, it’s life: late nights, emptying cans, dodging iron giants in subway tunnels, the chase, the beef, the battles, the rush.
20 years after its release, this historical documentary is getting its first theater viewing. We’re calling all real graffiti bombing enthusiasts to come celebrate the anniversary.
For the old school cats, this is a shout out for paving the way. For the new generation: pay your dues and learn your history.
Rising stars and aging vets alike pass through scrappy regional pro wrestling promotions like Absolute Intense Wrestling. For some, it’s their only paycheck. For others, this is their last chance. Slowburn Shoot: An Indie Wrestling Story is a feature-length documentary that takes a raw look at the world of independent wrestling through the lens of AIW. The story is told by some of the biggest names in professional wrestling today as they spill their guts on all of the highs and lows of this emotionally charged, bone crunching sport.
Starring: Toshirô Mifune, Minoru Chiaki, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura, Akira Kubo
A vivid, visceral Macbeth adaptation, Throne of Blood, directed by Akira Kurosawa, sets Shakespeare’s definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan. As a hardened warrior who rises savagely to power, Toshiro Mifune gives a remarkable, animalistic performance, as does Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife. Throne of Blood fuses classical Western tragedy with formal elements taken from Noh theater to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.
Starring: Richard Barthelmess, Aline MacMahon, Loretta Young
Hosted by Caroline Golum and Cristina Cacioppo. Followed by an afterparty in Trees Lounge with a DJ set of pre-code era tunes (and beyond) from Owen Kline plus our signature cocktail special “Blonde in Hell.”
Like so many other young men of his generation, Tom Holmes (Richard Barthelmess) limps back from WWI broke, friendless, and addicted to morphine. Year after year he struggles to find steady employment, hoping to catch the wave of prosperity that buoyed hucksters and capitalists during the Roaring Twenties. But when the Great Depression hits, Tom finds the resolve to do battle once more – not against the German army, but against the wheels of industry! Radicalized by his hardship, he joins America’s growing labor movement to fight, at long last, for a truly just cause. Spitfire director William A. Wellman’s swift rage against the machine has it all: solidarity, showmanship, empathy and economic justice. And he gets it done in just over 70 minutes!
Shakedown is the story of Los Angeles’ black lesbian strip club scene and its genesis. Owned and operated by women, underground and illegal in nature, the club Shakedown is the darker, faster, younger iteration of this dance culture. The film is a window into this world. Shakedown emerged from a post-RIOTS, post-OJ, post-integration but still very racially divided Los Angeles. In this divided city Shakedown is an independent, all black and all female cash economy. Shakedown chronicles the explicit performances and personal relationships of the party’s dancers and organizers including Ronnie-Ron, Shakedown Productions’ creator and emcee; Mahogany, the legendary “mother” of the community; Egypt, their star performer; and Jazmine, the “Queen” of Shakedown.
Starring: Milton Gonçalves, Odete Lara, Stepan Nercessian, Nelson Xavier, Yara Cortes, Wilson Grey
4K restoration
Rio de Janeiro’s criminal underworld is run by an unexpected boss: Diaba (Milton Gonçalves), a femme queen with a taste for power and violence. When the police come after her boy toy, Diaba attempts to find a scapegoat to take the blame and a plot to dethrone Her Majesty arises! Always clad in gloriously colourful outfits and accessories inspired by Afro-Brazilian culture, Diaba runs a mob of eccentric misfits made up of drag queens, pimps, prostitutes, and queer folks of all stripes. The movie’s bold and audacious color palette and camp aesthetic evokes the early films of Pedro Almodóvar, while its stylized and over-the-top violence is giving Quentin Tarantino queer fever dream.
Starring: Suzanne Gregg Ferguson, Dudley Findlay Jr., Michael Hyatt, Jon Kit Lee, Michael Lynch, Claude E. Sloan
4K restoration
Through a campaign of fabulous surprise attacks, an underground band of radical queer HIV+ activists, addicts, and drag queens take to the streets of New York City to combat conservative politicians and government apathy towards the AIDS crisis. A frenetic debut feature from writer/director Stephen Winter, Chocolate Babies unleashes a world of anarchic camp and unapologetic Black queer power in one of the hidden gems of New Queer Cinema, ripe for rediscovery and ready to be introduced to new audiences.
For the film’s 25th anniversary, Frameline has commissioned a 4K restoration of Chocolate Babies in partnership with the National Film Preservation Foundation, the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and the Outfest Legacy Project. Following its festival run in the mid-1990s (playing at SXSW, the Berlinale, and Frameline21), Chocolate Babies struggled to secure major distribution due to its radically independent Black queer vision, but eventually found a home at Frameline Distribution who championed the film and continued to bring it to new audiences. Frameline proudly presents the world premiere of this pristine restoration in rich color and vivid detail like never before.
