7/04 @ 6pm Mondo America!: The 2nd Annual Cinefamily 4th of July BBQ Blowout (feat. Willie Nelson's 4th Of July Celebration, The Sights and Sounds of Virtual Fireworks and Other Movie Mayhem!!!!)
We’d like to invite you all to the best 4th of July party since the Capitol Celebration of 1778, when George Washington gave the United States Army an artillery salute and a double ration of rum! Well, we’re gonna give you a quintuple ration of cinema with one of our signature Cinefamily "Mondo" nights. It’s all planned out: an open door to our sweet back patio, good music, friends, and that most American of traditions—a BBQ, so bring something to grill! And if it gets too hot, just step inside our nice air-conditioned theatre, and catch our marathon film festival. “Mondo” means a world of weirdness built around a theme, and tonight’s theme is America, so it’s a patriotic free-for-all of film formats, from DVDs to 16mm industrials to 35mm features. We’ll be keeping the fest alive all night long, just like our grill. Plus, for all those who remember last year's 4th Of July screening of the mondo Americana documentary extravaganza This Is America (aka Jabberwalk), we've got its even nuttier 1980 sequel, This Is America 2, featuring the Dead Kennedys, a cocaine church, and a family who eats worms! Check out the highlights of our whole evening:
6PM: We light the grill. We begin the festivities...
8:07PM: VIRTUAL FIREWORKS SHOW!
According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the sun will set at 8:07 PM. We wouldn’t want you to miss the fireworks, so we’ll be screening best-of videos from international fireworks competitions, experimental films and enough jingoistic eye candy to make you oooh and aaah!
9PM-ish: WILLIE NELSON'S 4TH OF JULY CELEBRATION!
The climax of the night is this incredibly rare boozy 'n woozy full-length concert film, shot at the 1977 edition of Willie's very informal annual 4th of July concert festival. Featuring Willie, Waylon, Leon Russell, Doug Kershaw and other great country stars singin', sweatin', partyin'--and most importantly of all, drinkin'. These folks were some of the ultimate party animals, with Leon Russell emerging as the King of Booze in some of the most gloriously inebriated footage ever shot! As Austin, TX's Alamo Drafthouse says: "These good ol' boys knew as much about partying as Marie Curie knew about radium. Be there!!!!"
Watch a clip from "Willie Nelson's 4th of July Celebration"!
Tickets - $12
7/07 @ 8pm
Jerry Beck presents: Frank Tashlin Toons
Frank Tashlin spent the first part of his screen career as an animator, storyman and cartoon director at various Hollywood animation studios in the 1930s and 40s. It was during this period he honed his sense of comedy timing and crafted his most outrageous visual gags. He began his career in New York gaining his first screen credits on the original black and white Tom & Jerry cartoons (not the cat-and-mouse, but loose limbed humanoids). He went west to Warner Bros. and helped Tex Avery revolutionize the pace and humor of the earliest Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Tashlin’s talents next brought him at Disney where he contributed sight gags to various Donald Duck cartoons. He was soon hired away to run the Columbia cartoon studio and for them created the Fox & Crow – a long forgotten cartoon duo who were quite popular during the 1940s (their DC Comic books, which were published through 1968, are worth a fortune). Warner Bros. called Tashlin back in the mid forties and he made his funniest cartoons at this time with the likes of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. Check out the roots of Tashlins genius with this rare screening of Tashlin’s best animation, with rare film prints, curated by animation historian Jerry Beck.
Watch Frank Tashlin's "Scrap Happy Daffy"!
Tickets - $13
7/12 @ 8pm Family Books and Aaron Rose present: 3 Films About Sister Corita
Cinefamily hosts another “Family Sunday”, where our good friends at Family Bookstore (down the street from us on Fairfax Avenue) will bring in one of their favorite people to curate and introduce a night of films. This time around, Family brings us artist/filmmaker/writer/musician/curator Aaron Rose, founder of NYC's Alleged Gallery, co-editor of the art mag ANP Quarterly, frontman for L.A.-based band The Sads, and director of the documentary short Become A Microscope, based on the life of Sister Corita (1918-1986), a teacher, political activist and possibly one of the most innovative and unusual pop artists of the 1960s. Become A Microscope, shot on location in 2009 on the campus of Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles, serves as a living document of the inspiration she spread to the many people throughout her life--and, as the title suggests, the importance of looking at the world "small pieces at a time". The screening of Become A Microscope will be followed other two archival films on Sister Corita: Mary’s Day (1964) by Baylis Glascock, and Survival With Style (1966) by Cal Bernstein, Alex Singer and Haskell Wexler. Both of these rare films will be screened from their original 16mm prints, and Mary's Day will feature a live score by special musical guests! Co-presented by The Corita Art Center
Tickets - $12
7/14 @ 8pm Etienne! (presented by CineVegas)
Our friends at the CineVegas Film Festival have brought us Etienne!, winner of the festival’s “Filmmaker To Watch” award this year. After Richard’s best and only friend, a dwarf hamster named Etienne, is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Richard decides to take him on a bicycle road trip up the California coast to show him the world before he must put him to sleep. First-time director Jeff Mizushima balances the comedy with the genuine drama between hamster and man. Influenced by 70’s films--in a good way--Etienne! also has a terrific soundtrack with songs by Dan Deacon, Great Northern, The Happy Hollows and others. Preceding the feature is Acting for the Camera by Justin Nowell, a funny and very messed-up 15-minute short that won CineVegas’ Best Short Film Director award.
Watch the trailer for "Etienne!"
Tickets - $12
7/18 @ 7:30pm Early Films by Robert Frank
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Robert Frank's landmark publication, The Americans, and in conjunction with MOCA's exhibition From the Permanent Collection: Robert Frank's "The Americans", MOCA, Los Angeles Filmforum and the Cinefamily present an evening of early films by the renowned photographer Robert Frank. Pull My Daisy (1959, b/w, 28 min.), directed by Frank and Alfred Leslie from a script by Jack Kerouac, is a classic whimsical, even magical work of avant-garde cinema, revolving around a group of beat poets (Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and Gregory Corso) who question a bishop (Richard Bellamy) and his mother (Alice Neel) about art, poetry, and everyday life. Me and My Brother (1965-68, re-edited 1997, b/w and color, 91 min.), Frank's first feature-length film (given a re-edit treatment in 1997 to mark Allen Ginsberg's passing), blends documentary footage of Ginsberg and Orlovsky with fictional constructs, as it explores the inner and outer worlds of Julius Orlovsky, a catatonic who silently observes the world around him. For info on more of LA Filmforum's Robert Frank series at the Egyptian Theater and MOCA (on July 19 & 26), visit lafilmforum.wordpress.com!
Watch a clip of Robert Frank's "Pull My Daisy"!
Tickets - $12
7/20 @ 8pm
Surprises!
(curated by Eric Wareheim & Doug Lussenhop)
Come join Eric Wareheim (of "Tim & Eric") and Doug Lussenhop (DJ Douggpound) for an evening of surprises: music videos, short films, video experiments and TV sneak peeks. Like a Gump-ian box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. Except you know you're gonna get the world premiere of Eric's new music video for Major Lazer/ Diplo for "Pon De Floor". You also know you're gonna get free beer and hot dogs afterwards. And you know it's not gonna suck, like Forrest Gump. It's gonna be fun, awesome, cool, and neat! See ya there! Tickets - $12
8/02 @ 8pm
Comedy Death-Ray Night: Fred Armisen presents And Now, My Love
Description coming soon... Tickets - $14
8/04 @ 8pm
Jerry Beck presents Beatnik Animation Night
Description coming soon... Tickets - $13
8/11 @ 8pm To My Great Chagrin:
The Unbelievable Story of Brother Theodore
"My friends, I cannot see you. I’m blinded by the spotlight. But somehow with my third eye--with my inner eye I can see you. You are a small but utterly repulsive audience." - Brother Theodore
He was considered to be one of the most significant links in the history of comedy, admired by such people as Woody Allen, Dick Cavett, and Eric Bogosian. His television appearances have spanned from Steve Allen to Merv Griffin to David Letterman. His long-running Off-Broadway show was hailed as “diabolical genius”. He was Brother Theodore. Formerly a millionaire playboy living in pre-war Germany, Theodore endured the sobering destruction of his entire family, his fortune, and his own identity, as a survivor of Dachau. Later shipped to America and continually haunted by his loss, Theodore re-invented himself by capitalizing on his dark, existential humor, to become one of America’s most respected humorists and monologists. Combining ultra-rare footage of performances and TV appearances along with puppetry and innovative use of voiceover, To My Great Chagrin reconciles the cryptic, oddly comic fury of Brother Theodore’s performing persona with the stranger-than-fiction chronology of his life.
Watch a clip of Brother Theodore on "Letterman"!
Tickets - $12
8/15 (12pm & 7pm) & 8/16 (3pm, 5pm, 7pm & 9pm) Handmade Nation
In 2006, artist and first-time director Faythe Levine traveled 19,000 miles to document today's burgeoning craft scene, one packed with inventive creators and designers no longer interested in simply cross-stitching samplers or painting floral scrolls on china! This scene has emerged as a marriage between historical technique, punk culture, and the D.I.Y. ethos, and Handmade Nation is a warm and funny celebration the weird, the woolly, and the one-of-a-kind. The film is a time capsule of sorts, capturing the craft explosion through firsthand interviews with makers like papercut artist Nikki McClure, the Rhode Island-based feminist art collective The Dirt Palace, X-rated latch hook creator Whitney Lee, and Houston's yarn-based graffiti crew Knitta. In addition to The Cinefamily, the L.A. premiere of Handmade Nation is also brought to you in conjunction with ReForm School and Home Ec.Saturday's 12pm premiere screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director, and ticket holders for this show will receive specialized gift bags and surprise giveaways! In-between the two Saturday screenings, during 2-6pm, there will be a mini-craft fair eaturing some of LA's most talented makers, a "Handmade Nation" book signing with Faythe Levine, and hands-on make-and-takes (craft demos). Admission to the craft fair is free, and open to the general public.
8/23 @ 6pm Occult USA:
The Process Church of the Final Judgment
Was The Process Church truly "one of the most dangerous Satanic cults in America"? Or were they an intensely creative apocalyptic shadow side to the flower-powered '60s and New Age '70s. Scores of black-cloaked devotees swept the streets of New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, and other cities selling magazines with titles like "Sex", "Fear", "Love" and "Death", and a theology proposing the reconciliation of Christ and Satan through love. Marianne Faithfull, George Clinton and Mick Jagger participated in Process publications, and Funkadelic reproduced Process material in two of their albums. The inside story of this controversial group has at last emerged with Feral House's LOVE SEX FEAR DEATH by Timothy Wyllie and other former members. Tonight, Feral House and Process Books present a re-creation of an actual Process Church “Sabbath Assembly” ritual. Author Wyllie (Father Micah) will follow to discuss the cult and his time within it in a multimedia presentation. The Sabbath Assembly band, comprised of Jex Thoth (Profound Lore Records), Imaad Wasif (Tee Pee Records), and David Christian (of No-Neck Blues Band) will perform Process hymns and songs throughout. Join us! Tickets - $15 Service begins at 6pm Co-presented by Feral House and Process Media
8/30 @ 8pm & 10:30pm
The Bear
(w/ live score by No Age)
Description coming soon...
Mondo America!: The 2nd Annual Cinefamily 4th of July BBQ Blowout (feat. Willie Nelson's 4th Of July Celebration, The Sights and Sounds of Virtual Fireworks and Other Movie Mayhem!!!!)
Jerry Beck presents: Frank Tashlin Toons
Family Books and Aaron Rose present:
Etienne!
Early Films by Robert Frank
To My Great Chagrin:
Handmade Nation
Occult USA:
