holyfuckingshit: Summer "Camp" / Saturdays in July
Mommie Dearest, I love it here at the Cinefamily Summer "Camp". All we do is watch wonderfully bad movies and eat s’mores every Saturday night. Well, not exactly “bad” movies; they’re just so silly and melodramatic and trying so hard that you can’t help but start giggling. Everything is so exaggerated, over-the-top, and artificial--arch acting, unscary monsters, pouty bombshells, grunting cavemen, and stale dance crazes. It’s wicked awesome! Oh, and my favorite part of Summer Camp is when we sing the camp motto together: “It’s absurd to divide movies into good or bad; movies are either charming or tedious.” I think Oscar Wilde said that--while on vacation in Majorca.
7/11 @ 8pm / HFS: Summer "Camp" The Lonely Lady shown with
Butterfly
Two of the last century's most delicious pop culture forces collide when paperback trash king Harold Robbins meets his cinematic match in the form of baby-faced Pia Zadora, as an aspiring screenwriter who must plow her way through a bevy of skeezy sexcapades in order to rise to fame and fortune. After a bombastically traumatic first act, Pia naturally goes off to Hollywood to sleep her way through a string of older men (even on top of a pool table) before losing her marbles in one of the most obliteratingly funny breakdowns in moviedom. If you think that can't be topped, just wait for the final scene which you'll swear you just hallucinated. Pia (who describes this as "a cross between Rocky and Emmanuelle") also contributes a cover of the inane '60s pop tune "The Clapping Song" to the soundtrack, so prepare to hunt down the LP after you leave the theater. Tragically still unavailable on DVD, this laugh-till-you-drop soap classic stormed the '84 Razzie Awards and still packs one hell of a hilarious punch. Pia Zadora will be here in person at the Cinefamily for a Q&A session after our screening of The Lonely Lady!
Before Zadora's outrageous stint as The Lonely Lady, she flew high as a Butterfly, in a five-course buffet of cinematic soapy indulgence based upon the novel by James M. Cain (who also wrote the source material for such noirs as Body Heat and The Postman Always Rings Twice.) Our tawdry Depression-era tale has Jess Tyler (the always-sharp Stacy Keach) moping over the failure of his silver mine and the struggling, dusty town around him--until his life is complicated beyond belief by the arrival of Kady (Zadora), a pubesquent bad girl who waltzes in wearing long, flowing Bob Mackie gowns (yep, the same guy who did Xanadu), proclaims she's his long-lost daughter from a former fling, and pouts and gyrates her way through one of the most deliciously nutty femme fatale roles ever conceived. Add to that a whole heap o' sinful shenanigans including Keach as her presumed father feeling her up in a tin bath, Orson Welles as a clucking judge scolding juvenile delinquents, and James Franciscus as a jailbait-chasing scuzzbag, and you've got one seriously warped good time. Director Matt Cimber will appear in person for a post-screening Q&A!
Watch the trailer for "Butterfly"!
Tickets - $10
7/18 @ 10:15pm / HFS: Summer "Camp" New Year's In July party (feat. Get Crazy)
With the thousands of cultures there are in the world, it's gotta be New Year's somewhere--right? Right? No? Who cares, we're gonna have a party anyway, complete with streamers, noisemakers, a shit-ton of booze, a midnight countdown complete with a dropping ball--and the absolute ultimate party movie, Get Crazy, the most wild, untamed, unleashed, unbelievable sex-drugs-and-rock-'n-roll movie ever made. Move over, Animal House, there's a new sheriff in Partytown! This devastatingly addictive comedy orgy, set on New Year's Eve, is Rock 'N' Roll High School director Allan Arkush's loving tribute to his bacchanalian days working at NYC's legendary concert venue Fillmore East, and features a nonstop parade of slick rock parody (including Lou Reed as a Dylan-esque mumbling stumbler and Malcolm McDowell as a Jagger clone who ends up having a conversation with his penis), a surprising amount of edgy, dangerous-looking stuntwork, cameo porn galore (Lee Ving! Fabian! Clint Howard!), enough rapid-fire schtick for a dozen Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker flicks, a buffet of salacious souped-up T&A--and a stratospheric level of insane drug use. Every substance in the rainbow is partaken in, joyously and without consequence, almost all provided by the film's mythical El Topo-esque space cowboy, Electric Larry, one of the coolest motherfuckers you've ever set eyes on. Get Crazy is rabid, manic and totally raging, so strap yourself in, tip back that drink--and say goodbye to your brain!
Watch a clip of Electric Larry, the space cowboy drug dealer, from "Get Crazy"!
Tickets - $10 21+ only (this will actually be enforced. Get yer IDs ready!)
SPECIAL SUNDAY SCREENING
7/26 @ 8pm / HFS: Summer "Camp" Lambada shown with
The Forbidden Dance Delta Force. Death Wish 3. The Apple. The Last American Virgin. Ninja 3: The Domination. All of these opuses were produced by those master hucksters, those meshugah mensches, those damned good businessmen--Golan & Globus. The beloved output of their film company, Cannon, lined the compost heap of our trashiest '80s memories, so nothing spelled the end of the decade more than the acrimonious break-up of their business partnership--the Berlin wall went down, but sadly, a bigger wall went up. Together they'd had big hits with Breakin', Rappin', Salsa, and Breakin' 2, so in 1989, with youngsters everywhere Lambada-ing like crazy (don't you remember? Please don't show me that photo with my Lambada pants, grinding against my date, ho!), they both scrambled to be the first to cash-in on the fad. It was war. First, Golan copyrighted the movie title Lambada, but Globus quickly countered by securing the rights to French Pop group Keoma's hit song "Lambada"--thereby denying Golan access to the key tune that launched the craze. Then, in a mad competitive dash to the finish line, they each began moving up their release dates. Finally, on March 16th, 1990, in a day that will live in dance movie infamy--in one of the most petty, personal and absurd film examples of parallal releasing--America was treated to two simultaneous Lambada movies. Both of which bombed, and sucked.
So, to fully embody the spirit of Lambada madness, we present them both for your to choose! Do you prefer the "Stand and Deliver" of Lambada movies, in which students learn math--WITH THE POWER OF LAMBADA! Or do you prefer the one in which the brunette from Mulholland Drive plays an Amazonian princess trying to save the rain forrest--WITH THE POWER OF LAMBADA! It's Lambada vs. The Forbidden Dance, with Lambada music before, Lambada music at intermission and Lambada music after, a Lambada DJ and a Lambada dance party, with a Lambada bartender serving Pina Lambadas! Warning: watching both might give you a Lambada-my!
Watch the trailer for "The Forbidden Dance"!
Tickets - $10
8/01 @ 9:30pm / HFS: Summer "Camp" Magic BMX shown with
Rad
Once or twice a year, the Cinefamily unveils an HFS film that is extra-special, something that's perhaps never been screened in this country, or something that virtually none of you--and we mean none of you--have seen before, a true discovery. Like Lost In The Desert or Dangerous Men, Magic BMX is one of those movies. We can't even find an image on the Internet to share with you, or a review to quote. The thing's not even on the IMDB--but we tell you it does exist! We're not mad! Laugh if you must, but we've seen it with our own eyes! The beast is a lopsided Frankenstein's monster of a creature, found deep within the caves of Hong Kong cinema: it has the body of an E.T. rip-off, but instead of legs it rides around on chrome Skyway Tuff Wheels stolen from Rad, and its head houses the brain of a cheap piece of '80s chop-socky schlock. It's got an alien infant with an Ed Grimley haircut who grants magic BMX powers, a total Nerdlinger Jones lead kid who makes you wanna sock him in the nose (even when he's gained the power), and a "life is cheap" cavalier attitude towards its kids-in-peril bike stunts. This beast of a picture tries to appeal to children, but it's simply terrrrrrifffying! Showing after Magic BMX is Rad, the highly sought-after and fetishized 1986 teensploitation BMXtravaganza!
Watch the trailer for "Rad"!
Tickets - $10
8/08 @ 8pm / HFS: Summer "Camp" Mondo Summer (feat. The Blue Lagoon)
It's time again for a Mondo mashup mix night of found video--and this time our target is SUMMER!!! You're gonna be sunbaked, beach-bummed and busted when we BBQ your brain with our mondo mix of sunburnt video flotsam. It's gonna be so much fun, it'll be hell! Hell on earth, we tell you!!! We're gonna play your soul like a steel drum! Put that fucking lei on--we said PUT IT ON! Stop crying! Limbo! Limbo 'til it hurts! You got a bad back, a thrown disc? We don't care, get...under...that...limbo...stick...NOW. And you--don't stop playing those steel drums! Don't stop till you get enough. And there's never enough steel drums! STEEL DRUMS!!!! bong! b-bong bong! BONG BONG! bong b-bong! BONG BONG bong! BONG! BONG! AhhhhhhH! Steel drum circle, anyone? Hey, look what the tide dragged in! Why, it's a brand-new 35mm print of The Blue Lagoon, that incredibly horny, naked turtle ridin', 13-year-old girl fantasy of emerging sexuality that'll steam your clam wiiiiiiiide open.
Watch a clip from "The Blue Lagoon"!
Tickets - $10
8/15 @ 9pm / HFS: Summer "Camp" Troll 2 shown with
Monster Dog
Bad movies in the 1990s found it impossible to top this offering from the decade's first year, a mind-roasting experience of joyous
incoherence and dazed non-acting from director Claudio Fragasso that offers more entertainment value than all of Uwe Boll's anemic works combined. Shot in Utah by a crew of Italians (who likely didn't understand a word being uttered by the actors), it's the story of the highly dysfunctional and completely clueless Waits family, who decide to swap houses and live for a while in the town of Nilbog, where the vegetarian townspeople have something sinister to hide. Though it has nothing to do with trolls, this does feature aerobics, popcorn as a supernatural sex aid, a ghostly grandpa, people turning into green slush, a sheriff named Gene Freak, the diabolical goblin queen named Creedence Leonore Gielgud, a life-saving bologna sandwich, deeply confusing homoerotic subtext, and the ultimate dinner table spoiler. Every single line of dialogue will wedge itself in your head for eternity, so come forewarned.
From the mind of Claudio Fragasso comes another baffling slice of Euro horror, this time starring Alice Cooper as Vincent Raven, a rock star shooting his latest music video at a spooky mansion with his sexy '80s groupies. The locals, however, think he's part of a ridiculous and very confusing supernatural legend involving werewolves and dog packs, which leads to some mistaken identity and lots of gunshots. Soon the cast is under siege from the title creature, a sort of slimy were-canine. Oh, and the madness all kicks off with a hilarious music video, and in true Eurotrash fashion, Alice is dubbed all the way through. A true obscurity best known to archaeologists of straight-to-video horror trash, this pop culture curio can now be experienced in all its original 35mm madness for one night only. Slip on your best vintage metal shirt, slap on some eyeliner, and prepare to howl the night away.
8/29 @ 8pm / HFS: Summer "Camp" Summer Camp Summer Camp
It's time for the grand finale of this Summer "Camp", and we're blowin' it out with SUMMER CAMP SUMMER CAMP!, an all-night summer campground movie extravaganza! Pack up your sleeping bags, grab your teddy bears, and round up all your BFFs for screen gems ranging from '80s sleepaway madness to the Christian camp experience, to a raging fistful of Gorp. Hurtle yourself back to that magical time (when you weren't too old for a pantie raid) by watching these romps, and making friendship bracelets with us--the person with the most bracelets at the end of the night wins the popularity contest. Makeovers will be given, rumors will be circulated and s'mores will be eaten--and lots of movies will be watched. If you're extra-lucky, you may even witness a sexy pillow fight or two. Tickets - $10
The Lonely Lady
New Year's In July party (feat. Get Crazy)
Lambada
Magic BMX
Mondo Summer
Troll 2
Summer Camp Summer Camp
