The Loft Cinema

The Loft's Favorite Films of 2011

2011-12-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

COMBINED LIST:

1. Melancholia
2. Take Shelter
3. Marwencol
4. Attack the Block
5. The Interrupters
6. Incendies
7. The Last Circus
8. Bill Cunningham New York
9. Meek's Cutoff
10. TIE Drive and The Tree of Life

Steven Soloway, Deputy Marketing Director

1. Melancholia
2. Meek's Cutoff
3. Cold Weather
4. Bill Cunningham New York
5. Marwencol
6. The Trip
7. Waste Land
8. Tiny Furniture
9. The Mill and the Cross
10. The Turin Horse

Alyson Hill, Projectionist

1. Melancholia
2. Incendies
3. My Week With Marilyn
4. Crazy, Stupid, Love.
5. Bridesmaids
6. Heartbeats

7. The Skin I Live In
8. Source Code
9. The Trip
10. The Muppets

Honorable Mentions:
Tabloid, Attack the Block, Bill Cunningham New York, The Last Circus, Take Shelter, We Need to Talk About Kevin, We Were Here

Pedro Robles, Assistant Manager

1. Melancholia
2. Marwencol
3. Incendies
4. Attack the Block
5. The Trip
6. The Skin I Live In
7. Rango
8. Source Code
9. Bridesmaids
10. The Last Circus

Dave Paiz, Facilities Manager

1. The Last Circus
2. Tyrannosaur
3. We Need to Talk About Kevin
4. Melancholia
5. The Interrupters
6. Into the Abyss
7. Armadillo
8. Hesher
9. PJ20
10. Lemmy

Jeff Yanc, Program Director

1. Take Shelter
2. Melancholia
3. Meek’s Cutoff
4. The Skin I Live In
5. Hobo with a Shotgun
6. The Housemaid
7. Rubber
8. A Somewhat Gentle Man
9. Secret Sunshine
10. Bill Cunningham New York

NOT RELEASED IN U.S. :
Our Day Will Come (French / dir. Romain Gavras / starring Vincent Cassel)

Tim Keene, Floor Staff

1. Louder Than a Bomb

2. Bridesmaids
3. Cedar Rapids
4. Source Code
5. Marwencol
6. Win Win
7. Bill Cunningham New York
8. Tiny Furniture

Peggy Johnson, Executive Director

1. Shame

2. Melancholia
3. Attenberg
4. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
5. Drive
6. Rubber
7. Tyrannosaur
8. The Future
9. Senna
10. Certified Copy

Zach Breneman, Business Manager

1. Take Shelter

2. Melancholia
3. The Interrupters
4. Incendies
5. Armadillo
6. Senna
7. Attenberg
8. The Tree of Life
9. The Trip

10. Attack the Block

Honorable Mention:

13 Assassins, Certified Copy, Drive, Four Lions, General Orders No. 9, Louder Than a Bomb, Margin Call, Meek’s Cutoff, Poetry, Rubber

J.J. Giddings, Marketing Director

1. Take Shelter
2. General Orders No. 9
3. Senna
4. World on a Wire
5. Drive
6. Attenberg
7. Melancholia
8. The Tree of Life
9. The Interrupters
10. Armadillo

Honorable Mention:

Bellflower, Hesher, Final Destination 5, Hobo With a Shotgun, Tyrannosaur, Dragonslayer, The Last Circus, 13 Assassins, Attack the Block, Margin Call

Peggy Springer, Office Manager

1. The Tree of Life

2. Marwencol
3. Hesher
4. Le Quattro Volte
5. The Robber
6. Boy
7. Cold Weather
8. Buck
9. Poetry
10. Bellflower

Honorable Mention:

The Last Circus, Take Shelter, Melancholia, The Interrupters, Being Elmo

Dale Meyers, Projectionist

1. Melancholia
2. The Last Circus
3. I Saw the Devil
4. Attack the Block
5. Insidious
6. Biutiful
7. Take Shelter
8. American: The Bill Hicks Story

Ben Truman, Floor Staff

1. Attack the Block
2. Louder Than a Bomb
3. Take Shelter
4. Bellflower
5. American: The Bill Hicks Story
6. The Illusionist
7. Hobo With a Shotgun
8. Drive
9. The Trip
10. Super

Debi Mabie, Education Director

1. Shame
2. A Trip to the Moon (Restored)
3. Buck
4. Bill Cunningham New York
5. Attenberg
6. A Somewhat Gentle Man
7. Being Elmo
8. Super
9. Boxing Gym
10. Resurrect Dead

Honorable Mention:
Marwencol, The Human Centipede 2, Rubber, Santa Sangre, Dolphin Tale, Monte Carlo

Luanne Withee, Membership Director

1. Marwencol
2. Bill Cunningham New York
3. Boxing Gym
4. The Interrupters
5. Restrepo
6. Senna
7. Waste Land
8. Tabloid
9. Buck
10. The Topp Twins

Honorable Mention:
Hobo With a Shotgun, The Housemaid, Melancholia, Poetry, Tucker and Dale vs Evil

Alexandra Bernhardt, Floor Staff

1. We Need to Talk About Kevin
2. The Last Circus
3. Buck
4. Incendies
5. Project Nim
6. Take Shelter
7. Certified Copy
8. Point Blank
9. Attack the Block
10. Bridesmaids

Evan Salazar, Floor Staff

1. Drive
2. The Tree of Life
3. Certified Copy
4. I Saw the Devil
5. Poetry
6. Tabloid
7. A Separation
8. Melancholia
9. Kill List
10. The Illusionist

Award for Movie That I Saw For Some Reason and Was Surprisingly Really, Really Awesome:
FAST FIVE

Mike Wilkins, Projectionist

1. Take Shelter
2. Hobo With a Shotgun
3. Resurrect Dead
4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
5. Attack the Block

Kyle Canfield, General Manager

1. Hugo (in 3-D)
2. Meek’s Cutoff
3. The Interrupters
4. Take Shelter
5. Bellflower
6. Certified Copy
7. I Saw the Devil
8. Senna
9. Attack the Block
10. The Illusionist

Honorable Mention:
The Robber

Hidden Gems: The Ten Films at The Loft Film Fest You Might not Think You Need to See (But You Do)

2011-11-11T12:47:00.000-08:00

We're super excited about this year's Loft Film Fest lineup, and while you might know about some of the bigger films in the festival (Melancholia, We Need to Talk About Kevin, the 10th Anniversary screening of Donnie Darko with writer/director Richard Kelly in person), we're hoping you don't overlook some of the other great films that might otherwise fly under the radar. Here they are in alphabetical order:

1. ARIZONA SHORTS SPOTLIGHT

Alright, so this is kind of cheating, because it's really six films, but what are you going to do? This collection of films really proves that the talent pool in Arizona is incredibly rich. Big things lie ahead for all of these filmmakers. In fact, Guru already played in the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. Not only are these directors going to do great things--they already have.

Monday at 7:30PM in the main theatre.

2. ATTENBERG

In the spirit of one of The Loft's favorite movies of last year, Dogtooth, comes a new Greek mini-masterpiece. Attenberg stars Giorgos Lanthimos, director of Dogtooth, and is written and directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari, who produced that film. But it is completely its own movie. If you can get past the strangeness, it's actually a touching film about the difficulty of connecting with other people. Funny, moving, and unique.

Saturday at 5:00PM in the upstairs theatre.

3. HERE

Here is one of those great romances that works almost effortlessly. Although you never find out a great deal about the pasts of the leads, they come together in the space of the film, and you completely believe it. The film itself also just works. The cinematography blends perfectly with the poetic touches, and at the end, you're reminded that Ben Foster really is one of the best young actors in the game. Really world-class stuff.

Tuesday at 7:30PM in the upstairs theatre.

4. INTERNATIONAL SHORTS SHOWCASE
Okay, we're cheating again (warning: not the last time). Here's the thing. Short films are great. Just like the best John Cheever stories can rival any of the best novels ever written, so can a great short film be completely satisfying within the boundaries of the form. Here we've gathered seven of the funniest, oddest, and all-around most striking shorts we've seen this year. And two of the filmmakers will be in attendance! What's not to like?

Sunday at 7:45PM in the main theatre.

5. LOS OLVIDADOS
Here is a great, award-winning film that has been forgotten by time. It happens every once in a while, and it's always baffling when you finally get around to seeing it: what took so long? Luis Bunuel's films cut to the quick, and his devotion in this particular work to neo-realist techniques, with flashes of his trademark surrealism, makes this tale of street kids in 1950 Mexico both thrilling and gut-wrenching. This film is not available on DVD or Blu Ray, and is being shown in a brand new, restored 35mm film print--for FREE!

Sunday at 11AM in the main theatre.

6. LOUDER THAN A BOMB
Alright, we've all been around the block a few times at this point. We've seen the "competition" documentary a few times, and we've already seen Best in Show. But I kid you not, Louder Than a Bomb will move you. Plain and simple: the kids in this film are incredible. And the film itself weaves in and out of their lives with a deft precision that will keep you laughing and crying intermittently throughout. Do not miss this film.

Friday at 4:45PM in the main theatre.

7. RESURRECT DEAD: THE MYSTERY OF THE TOYNBEE TILES Good, plot-driven documentaries can be hard to come by. Resurrect Dead is a documentary that plays out like a thriller, with a true mystery at the center of it all that's weird & compelling. Watching the gang band together and try and figure it all out is, simply, joyful.

Wednesday at 7:30PM in the upstairs theatre.

8. SLACKER 2011

One of the giants of the independent film movement of the 1990s is Richard Linklater's Slacker. It was a big statement for a generation, and it was a huge statement about Austin. 20 years later, the filmmaking scene in Austin is as strong as ever, and they banded together to creatively re-imagine the original film. It's great to see all of the different voices coalescing into one weird, funny explosion of cinematic energy. Three of the filmmakers will be in attendance, and this is something you might not get a chance to see--ever again.

Friday at 10:00PM in the main theatre.

9. THE TURIN HORSE

Bela Tarr is, simply, one of the greatest filmmakers alive. He has a vision and a voice so unique that his films are almost instantly recognizable. To see a Bela Tarr film on the big screen is really the only way to see it, and it's almost certain you won't get the chance to do so in Tucson again. Do yourself a favor--take a leap. It's an experience you won't regret or forget.

Sunday at 4:45PM in the main theatre.

10. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO KIRBY DICK

If you've seen a Kirby Dick film, you already know he's one of the most provocative, interesting filmmakers working in the documentary form today. He's also an amazing guy and a Tucson native. With this program, you'll get to see some of his early work--like the amazing short documentary "I Am Not a Freak." As a special bonus, you'll also get a sneak peek at his new film, which will be debuting at a major film festival this winter. We're not allowed to talk about the subject matter, but suffice it to say, it's as interesting and button-pushing as you might expect from the man who brought us Outrage and This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Not to be missed.

Saturday at 2:00PM in the main theatre.

MISSING REEL: The Rambling Guitarist

2011-11-09T09:55:00.000-08:00

MISSING REEL: FILMS FORGOTTEN BY CINEMA'S CANON

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Cinema’s canon is well known. If I were to say, “We’ll always have Paris,” or, “No, I am your father,” you’d know exactly what films I was talking about. Not every film that deserves to be alongside those makes it up there, though. Some have even been nearly forgotten, passed over, or practically erased from movie history. This is a column about those films, the ones that exist on dubbed-over VHS tapes and pirated PAL laserdiscs. They are the missing reels from cinema’s history, the empty spaces in its canon.
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THE RAMBLING GUITARIST (1959)

directed by BUICHI SAITO

To many, Japan has only one director, and his name is Akira Kurosawa. It’s not their fault that they think that, though. He is regularly the only Japanese filmmaker mentioned on any “best of” list that has to do with film, the director with the most films released by the Criterion Collection, and has inspired countless films, from Star Wars to A Bug’s Life (that is a theory that is backed up by nothing, by the way. But seriously, watch it again; it’s Seven Samurai with a caterpillar). However, looking at only Kurosawa would be like looking only at Steven Spielberg in the realm of American films: they are the biggest names out there. And, you know, Spielberg doesn’t do much for me and Kurosawa isn’t my favorite Japanese director. He’d crack my top ten, though (Ikiru is a pretty perfect film, so just based on that he makes it).

Personally, I much prefer the other face of Japanese cinema, the face that emerged just as Kurosawa was starting to slow down in late 50s and early 60s. During that time, a Japanese studio called Nikkatsu Corporation starting producing strange, low-budget films brimming with violence and sex. These films starred young actors portraying criminals, musicians, vagabonds, sexpots, and anything else that embodied “cool.” It works for me and it certainly worked for Nikkatsu, seeing as their early films heralded in the Japanese New Wave and a torrent of success and money. Forget the days of the honorable samurai protecting the villagers; these films were all about kids beating the hell out of each other, sleeping around with multiple partners, dancing in seedy jazz clubs, and spitting in authority’s face. Not only was the subject matter innovative, but so was the filmmaking itself. Directors like Seijun Suzuki and Ko Nakahira used their tight budgets to create new and stylish cost-saving techniques, which included, among other things, juicing the hell out of their scope lenses (seriously, watch practically any film from the 1960s produced by Nikkatsu. They’re all in the widest of widest widescreen there is, with the sides of the frame squeezing tightly and everything in the middle looking sort of elongated and bloated. I love it).

1960s Nikkatsu films were all about being young, cool, violent, and the exact opposite of the Japan portrayed in Kurosawa’s films. Nothing exemplified this better than the Wataridori series, and especially the installment The Rambling Guitarist, directed by Buichi Saito.

The concept for the Wataridori series is so ridiculous that it loops back around and becomes cool again: a young man named Taki travels around Japan wearing a leather jacket (sometimes with fringes, but sadly not in Rambling Guitarist) while strumming his acoustic guitar, crooning country-and-western songs. He stops in random cities, falls in love with a girl (that girl is usually, inexplicably, played by actress Ruriko Asaoka, who portrays a litany of different women in these films), beats up some gangsters, and pals around with classic Nikkatsu tough-guy Jo Shishido (whose implanted chipmunk-looking cheeks don’t appear as strange in The Rambling Guitarist as they usually do). The series is B-movie madness, with one of the installments even being a Western, Native Americans played by Japanese and all. What keeps it all together and from ever feeling slight or stupid is the artful cinematography and Akira Kobayashi as the wanderer, Taki. He exudes cool (count how many times I say that word in here), control, and effortless style. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jim Jarmusch had seen a number of the Wataridori films—The Rambling Guitarist in particular—and took inspiration from Taki for the character Jun in his film Mystery Train. All in all, Taki is the violent loner with a heart of gold, and who doesn’t want to be that?

Before I get to the meat of the film, I have to share something. Like any fan of strange, foreign films knows, sometimes it’s really difficult to get your hand on a copy of certain films, let alone a good copy. You see, The Rambling Guitarist has never been released in the United States, and I doubt it ever will be. So, with that being said, my copy is sans subtitles. I had no idea what anyone was saying during the course of the film, besides the small phrases I’ve picked up from watching movies (and knowing things like “I see” or “Hello” doesn’t really help with viewing comprehension).

But this isn’t a highfalutin film. This isn’t an existential gaze into the void. This is a movie with upwards of five bar fights, a shoot-out on a ship—wait, two shoot-outs on a ship, tough-guy stare-downs, and cabaret girls baring copious amounts of leg. Clearly story is the least of this film’s concerns, and the story is incredibly easy to follow, anyway. “Why did those men highjack that boat?” you might ask. The exact answer doesn’t really matter; all that matters is that they did it because they are villains and were paid to. In a movie where a character stops mid-fight to punch out a row of windows for no discernable reason, story is not king.

The very first shot of Guitarist is something out of John Ford: dry plants grow over gravel, a mountain rests in the background, and a hopping wagon carrying our hero is pulled by horse over a dirt path. There is no way we can be in Japan. And yet, immediately after the opening credits play over the films fantastic theme, we are taken to a very urban setting: neon signs, cramped streets, steam rising from the gutters. What exactly happened here? What happened is Nikkatsu’s obsession with American pulp and matinee double features: while Yasujiro Ozu and Mikio Naruse dissected and displayed Japanese life with the same authenticity as Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini did for Italy, Saito and the rest of the Japanese New Wave crew were all about destroying that authenticity. This is the key difference between the French New Wave and the Japanese New Wave: the French were about demolishing and reassembling film. The Japanese were about demolishing and reassembling everyday life. While not affiliated with Nikkatsu, Japanese New Wave directors like Nagisa Oshima and Hiroshi Teshigahara created fantastical films that critiqued and exploded societal expectations. Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes (based on the amazing novel by Kobo Abe) doesn’t mirror real life, but rather comments on it and then dismantles it.

How does this connect with the juxtaposition of environments, moods, violence, and sex found in Guitarist? 1960s Nikkatsu films were concerned with lashing out in a society that rarely lashes out. If a film wanted to have a Japanese man singing country-and-western songs while beating up gangsters on a fishing boat, it could. It didn’t matter if it made little sense or any sense at all. That wasn’t the point. Japanese society at that time found itself artistically stiff, stuck in the same ghost stories and Ozuian family dramas it had been telling for years. Nikkatsu came along and essentially said, “Enough of that. Lets blow the whole thing up.”

Rambling Guitarist finds itself blowing up, literally, a mere three minutes in. While sitting alone in a bar, Taki notices two American sailors beating up some street musicians (for whatever reason, the sailor’s dialogue has been dubbed over by Japanese actors speaking in fragmented English). As the rule of the wandering badass goes, Taki intervenes and proceeds to beat the living hell out of the sailors in a spectacular bar room brawl (which includes Taki doing the odd window-smashing bit). The American sailors are thrown through what seems like upwards of seven sheets of glass, beaten by practically every bar stool in the place, and punched by Taki too many times to try to count. It’s a fantastically unafraid and visceral sequence: there is no way an American director could have gotten away with this scene with the Hays Code in place.

Taki runs from the cops after basically destroying the bar and finds himself in the home of a beautiful woman who takes him to a Japanese crime boss who runs a nightclub. There he runs into the musicians he saved from the sailors—who work for the crime boss—and is offered a job by him. Since he is a rambler, a wanderer, a vagabond, Taki declines and leaves. That is, of course, until he meets the boss’ daughter, whom he quickly falls for.

Like I said earlier, this is not a film concerned much with story. Taki accepts the job, but soon the crime boss finds out Taki is sleeping with his daughter and wants Taki killed. This can all be seen coming. But, again, that’s not the point. The point is the film’s bombastic use of color, harrowing action set pieces, terminal coolness, and complete rejection of all expectations of Japanese art. It’s American B-movies turned up to ten, with a touch of French anarchy and absurdity thrown in. People try to pass off Pulp Fiction as the first of its kind, or they say that Breathless did it before Tarantino decades prior. Well, Rambling Guitarist came out a year before Godard’s Breathless, and while the two films are very different, they’re both striving for the same thing. They are “cool” stews, mixing disparate elements to create something new. But while Breathless winks, Guitarist is cool with no pretensions. The message is all in the content and not how the content is being presented.

As you can see, lots of other films take credit for what Guitarist and similar Japanese New Wave films did. The Japanese New Wave is a movement that is rarely mentioned, and if so, never mentioned in the same league as Italian Neorealism or German Expressionism. It was overshadowed by France’s version, and all of its hard work was just seen as more of the same. This isn’t the case. It’s a radical, revolutionary movement, and one that deserves to be embraced like French New Wave has been. It’s a vital part of Japanese film history, and a vital part of film history as a whole.

Yet, even without all the context, Rambling Guitarist is still a hell of a film. It’s incredibly watchable, filmed exceptionally (I cannot stress how amazing the colors look), and creates a world that is alive and vibrant. It’s abundantly clear that this was a film created with a huge heart behind it. Saito has crafted a strange, violent, and rich world populated with crooks, beautiful women, and a badass who breaks as many hearts as bones in his opponent’s bodies.

So, yeah, I guess you could go watch Seven Samurai again if you want.

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The Rambling Guitarist is not available in the United States.

Evan Salazar is an undergraduate student of Creative Writing at the University of Arizona. He wonders if Jo Shishido ever regretted those cheek implants. He can be contacted at salazar1@email.arizona.edu.

THE LAST CIRCUS / Staff Review by Dave Paiz

2011-10-14T13:09:00.000-07:00

The Last Circus is the best, most brilliantly bizarre psycho clown movie you'll see this year. It's also a quasi-monster movie and brutally tragic love story that left an indelible imprint on this reviewer’s psyche. The tale of an ill-fated love triangle isn’t exactly a new one, but director Alex de la Iglesia executes this one in a wildly over-the-top and unpredictable fashion that boggles the mind and blisters the senses.

As the newest member of a small traveling circus, Javier (Carlos Areces) is the Sad Clown, a kind, bespectacled man-child who falls hard for the wrong woman and ends up paying dearly for it. As the son of a Happy Clown who, years before, unexpectedly discovered a monstrous side of himself he never new existed, Javier unknowingly embarks on a similar path in the name of Love, and the end result isn't pretty.

In this case, and illustrating why it’s rarely a good idea to get romantically involved with a co-worker, Javier becomes infatuated with fellow circus performer Natalia (Carolina Bang) - the abused wife of the charismatic, yet relentlessly brutal Sergio (Antonio de la Torre), the Happy Clown and de facto leader of the circus. Sergio is a violent, drunken beast who humiliates Javier on stage and off, and beats Natalia senseless when his fragile ego is challenged. Despite his brutish demeanor, his fellow performers defer to him out of fear, and because the Happy Clown is the main attraction and unrivaled backbone of the circus.

Following a selfless act of kindness, Javier quite unexpectedly finds himself the object of Natalia’s reckless and ill-advised flirtations. The two then engage in a sort of clandestine puppydog courtship that ultimately pits Javier against Sergio in an epic battle of clown versus clown for the heart of the woman they both love. What follows is a dizzying descent into madness, and a deeply symbolic depiction of what happens when fantasy overwhelms reality, and the selfish desire to possess and control another consumes everything in its path.

Javier's character is the only one given much of a back story, and we're left to guess about why Sergio and Natalia are the way they are, but what the film lacks in character development it more than makes up for thematically and stylistically. Circuses are all about appearance and performance, and the absence of character depth and detail underscores their largely symbolic roles as the distilled essences of male and female egos driven mad and ripped asunder by love and lust.

The last time I remember seeing “The Last...” as part of a film title was The Last Airbender. As the original Spanish title of the film is Balada Triste de Trompeta (A Sad Trumpet Ballad), the studio execs probably felt that The Last Circus was a more marketable title. Rest assured that de la Iglesia’s film is in no way related to M. Night Shyamalan's most recent pile of cinematic excrement.

If you can imagine a cinematic love child endowed with the stylistic DNA of Terry Gilliam and Robert Rodriguez, and midwifed by Brian DePalma, or Tony Montana as The Joker in a phantasmagorically surreal sequel to John Woo’s Face/Off, then you’ll come close to de la Iglesia’s dark, demented vision of love, betrayal and revenge.

With a pulse-pounding score and gritty, hyperkinetic cinematography that veers from the ethereal to the violently nightmarish, The Last Circus is a richly textured hallucinatory feast for the senses, and an unqualified must-see for anyone with a taste for the weird and unconventional.

THE LAST CIRCUS opens Friday, October 14th at The Loft Cinema.

TABLOID / Staff Review by Evan Salazar

2011-08-31T17:28:00.000-07:00

There is a point in Errol Morris’ new documentary, TABLOID, when a tabloid journalist is speaking about a sex act perpetrated by the film’s main focus, Joyce McKinney. Straight faced, he says, “She chained him up,” but then he lets loose with a smile and says, “Well, I guess she used ropes, but ‘chained up’ sounds better.” In a film about lies, scandal, and the delusions people carry with them, it’s a surprisingly honest moment about myth-creating and fact-skewing. With this brief, candid aside, the journalist displays that he is willing to embellish the truth with the most provocative word-choice the facts allow. His ability to be honest about that doesn’t seem surprising – he writes for tabloids, after all, which even its journalists must be aware aren’t the most prestigious of news sources – but in a film all about fantasy and insular world-building, it is a very telling, funny, and finally, wise moment of self-awareness. Joyce McKinney could learn a thing or two.

Armed with a darling southern drawl and golden locks of voluminous hair, Joyce McKinney was the tabloid queen of the late 70s and early 80s. Her tale involves kidnapping, private detectives, the Mormon Church, bondage, disguises, and even cloning. The pieces fit together, believe it or not, but the way all these events are perceived through different sets of eyes is the focal point of the story. The film only has two real sources of information: McKinney, and the tabloid reporters writing about her. McKinney is clearly unstable (which the film never attempts to explore the origins of, one of its only true flaws), and the tabloids are, well, tabloids. They make their living off of giving exaggerated reports of already ridiculous stories, so who are we to trust? Other faces temporarily chime in, but these people were either only in the midst of the situation for a short while or are tenuously, if it all, connected.

We are left only with the woman who inspired all this mayhem, or the reporters who made the mayhem international news. Neither side can be totally trusted, yet I personally found myself on the side of the journalists. Throughout the film, McKinney proves times and time that again she is unstable, manic, and a pathological liar (a bit about her fingers being bitten off and her intestines being ripped out by a dog, all the while holding up both of her hands – all fingers in tact with no visible scarring – raises multiple, if not infinite eyebrows), and yet she is none the wiser to it. She has been living this life since the 1970s, and now in interviews conducted almost 35 years after the fact, she still holds onto her self-righteousness and victimizing. Even when the things she speaks out against might deserve criticism – religion, gossip, invasion of privacy, et cetera – she still comes across as slightly crazed and unhinged. She’s incredibly charismatic, however, and it’s no wonder she was such a huge deal for a short while. Her tongue is lightning fast and her wit sharp (when asked if she forced a man to have sex with her, she claims you can’t force a man to have sex with a woman if he doesn’t want to: “It’s like putting a marshmallow in a parking meter”), and she comes across as intelligent, overall. Which is important – the film never seems like it is trying to make a point of how crazy she is, and it never feels manipulative. Instead, Morris is confident that her words, the journalist’s words, and the newspaper clippings and photos will do the talking for themselves. And they certainly do.

If it’s not clear already, this is no “dry” documentary – I don’t think Morris has a dry documentary in him, anyhow. It’s lighting fast and well edited, and filled with hilarious and inspired interviews. I am not a big documentary guy because I find a lot of documentaries go too wide, too broad – war, health, nature, et cetera – and there is only so much depth you can mine from such nuanced things in 90 minutes. Unless you’re Ken Burns and have ten-hour plus documentaries, the level of sophistication you can give to such huge topics seems meager at best to me. But Morris is a master of the quirky, small, and strange – films like VERNON, FLORDIA or GATES OF HAVEN hone in on a small, small portion of the world and allows these small places and people to offer up big ideas. They’re specific, esoteric – and because of that offer up a much more filling and interesting viewing experience. TABLOID is no different. It is a strange, harrowing journey filled with all the pieces of a great dime store novel in a master filmmakers hand. And it’s all true – well, sort of. Maybe?

Evan Salazar is a member of the floor staff at The Loft Cinema and is currently going to school for Creative Writing at the University of Arizona. He doesn't mind being told he looks like Woody Allen. He can be contacted at salazar1@email.arizona.edu.

THE LAST MOUNTAIN / Staff Review by Dave Paiz

2011-08-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

"The epicenter of the climate change battle in the United States is Appalachian coal, and the epicenter of the battle around Appalachian coal is Coal River Mountain."
- Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council

In the opening moments of Bill Haney's new documentary, "The Last Mountain," the president of the West Virginia Coal Association makes the snide and vaguely contemptuous assertion that most Americans don't know where their electricity comes from, and that they even see it as some kind of entitlement.

While there may be a kernel of truth embedded in that statement, that hardly justifies the ongoing destruction of the Appalachians by those who value profits more than people. Once you blow off the top of a mountain, it ceases to be a mountain. And once you blow the top off an entire mountain range, all that's left is a desolate field of rubble and a variety of health and environmental woes that didn't exist before. And situated in the center of a field of toxic rubble that used to be mountains lies West Virginia’s Coal River Mountain, the titular focus of the film.

"The Last Mountain" is easily one of the most compelling environmental documentaries I've ever seen, and makes a strong case that the war between Big Coal and average citizens struggling to preserve their environment, their health, and a sustainable future for their children, has implications that concern us all.

The key to making a really good documentary is to present the subject from as many different angles as possible, and Haney manages to present the fundamental views of all parties that have a stake in this fiercely heated conflict.

Currently, nearly half of America's electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants, and roughly 1/3 of the coal needed to keep those plants running comes from the Appalachian mountains.

The coal industry has determined that the fastest, cheapest way to extract the coal is by literally blowing the tops off the mountains, using enough explosives each week to equal the bomb that leveled Hiroshima. Unfortunately, in their relentless pursuit of short-term profits, they've largely ignored the long-term damage done to the environment by way of flooding and pollution of area waterways, as well as numerous accounts of cancer and other insults to human health many believe are directly associated with the coal industry's practices.

What began as a local struggle has grown into something much bigger, and become a major focus of longtime environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who features prominently in the film.

As the debates surrounding climate change and corporate control of our democracy grow louder with each passing day, "The Last Mountain" couldn't be more timely. It's a classic David vs. Goliath story that pits ordinary citizens from all walks of life against a monolithic and seemingly implacable foe with the power to buy off politicians at the highest levels, break the law, shape the scope of public debate and manufacture consent as it deems fit.

If you’re not already dead inside, the film will shock, sadden and enrage you, before finally showing an inspirational glimmer of hope offered by sustained, non-violent civil disobedience and the transformational long-range potential of renewable energy sources.

The Last Mountain plays Wednesday, August 24th at 7:30PM only, as part of our ongoing One Hit Wonders series. This screening is co-presented by The Southern Arizona Green Chamber of Commerce. A post-film panel discussion will take place with the following local environmental experts:

ARDETH BARNHART, Program Director of Renewable Energy at UA, formerly with AzRISE
PABLO GARCIA-CHEVESICH, researcher/consultant in watershed management specializing in land reclamation & erosion control
VINCENT PAWLOWSKI, 27 years in engineering, holder of a new degree in Sustainable Community Development from Prescott College
DAVID SCHALLER, President of his energy & climate consultancy after a lengthy career with EPA, specializing in Sustainable Development & Climate Change
KATHERINE KENT, owner of the Solar Store, will moderate the panel.

POETRY / Staff Review by Evan Salazar

2011-08-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

The reason Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING is so scary is because the Overlook Hotel is perpetually saturated in light, never allowing the Torrance family to escape the terrors that haunt its walls. The twins don’t hide in dark shadows – they are fully visible. Even when Danny does his best to shut his eyes and wish them away, they stay in full light, their terror un-obscured and completely unhinged. When what scares one the most is partially hidden, the full picture never materializes and one is allowed to not face all of its cruel characteristics; but when one’s fears are in the open, dosed in bright light, the terror is inescapable.

While not a horror film by popular definition, Lee Chang-dong’s newest film, POETRY, operates under very much the same idea of THE SHINING: What is most frightening, awful, and cruel about the world is basked in the South Korean sun for all to see in this film. There are few scenes shot at night, little (if any) use of dramatic shadows, and simple, elegant photography work by cinematographer Kim Hyun-Seok – yet the story explores dark, awful truths about human cruelty, ageing, and loneliness. The darkness creeps in the corner of the frame, haunting each of the characters and the spaces they live in. At certain points, the subtle drama explodes, and one realizes just how palpable and heavy everything preceding the explosion was. But that’s just the thing: all of the heft and bleakness of the film is handled with a deft hand. It quietly crawls into your skin and lays dormant until emotions cannot stay suppressed any longer. The film has a tight, knowing grip on the viewer’s emotional valve. It starts at a quiet hiss, and quickly ratchets up to a flood.

I don’t want to spoil much of the film’s plot. The journey that the character Yang Mija takes is a disquieting, emotional, and finally, enigmatic one. She is a kind older woman, a feeling woman. She also contains reserves of anger, emotional carelessness, and a large pool of sadness. Actress Yoon Jeong-hee carries the whole film, and her face is a prize to film itself. She packs so much into a tiny twitch, a quick smile, the narrowing of her eyes – and this is all only heightened by the circumstances her character finds herself in, by the fact that she may have to lie, that she may have to sacrifice things, or that her health and life might be taking a different path than she so desires. Again, I don’t want to spoil much of the film’s plot, so I am going to refrain from specifics, but at a certain point the plot doesn’t even matter that much – it’s all about the character of Mija, her questions and worries, her strength and also her feelings of hopelessness.

Of course, the film is called POETRY, and there is a lot of depth mined from simply the concept of poems, writing, expressing one’s self. There is a striking moment where Mija’s poetry class is asked to answer what the most beautiful moment in their life was, in hopes of it unlocking poetic inspiration. Some are confident in their answers, speaking of love and family; the most interesting answer to me, however, was one middle aged man’s answer about moving out of a cheap basement after 20 years and finally living in a real apartment. He claims he has had no beautiful moments in his life, but maybe that is the only moment on its way to something resembling beauty. It’s a sad and emotionally bare moment, and it perfectly encapsulates the spirit of poetry. In fact, one can argue that his answer is the most poetic, beating out confessions of love or family or childhood memories. The film explores the realm of poetry with a great deal of care and interest – it is never overly sentimental or sickly sweet, but rather subdued, calm, introspective. And when married with the other components of the film, it shines like a beacon of hope across the bleak reality of human suffering.

POETRY, much like the style of writing it takes its name from, is a fluid and sinuous film. It is completely absorbing and rewards those who ease into its deliberate pace. The film asks you to find the beauty, the heart in the ugly and cold – to discover the way you wish to view the world. The film understands that this may take awhile for one person to discover, and so it takes its time answering its own questions, as well. By its end, POETRY becomes a haunting reverie about losing and then gaining something in return. Human minds can still reach far out and grasp what they want, even when everything else falls in its presence.

POETRY opens Friday, August 5th at The Loft.

Reflections on Kids' Fest / By Peggy Springer

2011-08-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

The 2011 Tucson International Children’s Film Festival, or Kids Fest for short, began Saturday, July 23 with the Annie Sing-A-Long and ended Sunday, July 31 with Babe. During those nine days of fun, movies, prizes, popcorn, kids, babies, grown-ups who came as parents, and grown-ups who came just to see the films, we saw many of the same faces just about each day, and some faces we saw everyday. Thank you for coming to the movies with us. See you next year!

to the little smiling girl dressed exactly like Annie (wig and freckles included) accompanied by her parents also dressed as characters from the film,

and to the dad and daughter who practiced singing all the songs in the car on

the way to the theater that first day,

to the boy who pumped his fist in the air with excitement when he learned he could

go find a seat in the theater as soon as he entered the lobby with his mom,

and to all of you who were waiting at the gate each morning before 9:15 am,

to the little girl who described in full detail what she was wearing the day before

after she asked me if I remembered her,

and to the happy eyes and eager hands waiting to get free books from Bookmans

on Thursday before the movie Holes,

to the many polite Pleases and Thank Yous for the tickets, popcorn, give-aways,

and raffle drawings,

and to those of you who made perfect paper airplanes to throw at Jeff onstage

before King Kong,

to the family who said they would have been there everyday except they were going

on vacation at the end of the week,

to the little girl who explained on the second-to-last day that she hadn’t been there

for a couple of days because her mom was having a C-section (“A C-SECTION!”),

to the young boy who oinked and wore his pig ears all throughout Babe,

and to the young man who thanked Jeff genuinely and eloquently for making this

festival accessible to anyone and everyone,

to the parade of youngsters who circled the lobby with their faces painted before

Who Framed Roger Rabbit led by the proud leader of the incredible Tiggies,

Kids Fest is for everyone but we do it for all of you.

Words by Peggy Springer, Administrative Assistant.

Photos by Steven Soloway, Office Manager.

THE TRIP / Staff Review by Evan Salazar

2011-07-28T11:55:00.000-07:00

Michael Winterbottom is one of the few directors who deserves the title of “eclectic” or “quirky.” You’d be hard-pressed to find one of his films that is much like the others, as he jumps freely from the quasi-documentary to the full-on documentary to thrillers and then to, at its core, artful pornography (lets be honest, 9 SONGS is not much more than porn intercut with some live music and strained attempts at plot – which is by no means a bad thing, you know, it just is what it is). In the vein of continuing to do what absolutely no one expected him to do next, Winterbottom directed a six episode British miniseries called THE TRIP, which brought back Steve Coogan (TROPIC THUNDER, 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, HAMLET 2) and Rob Brydon’s fictionalized portrayals of themselves from an earlier Winterbottom film, A COCK AND BULL STORY. The miniseries was then edited into a feature-length film and brought over here to the States, and that is what we are presented with here.

The film’s plot is simple—so simple, in fact, that calling it a plot seems almost a bit overblown. Steve Coogan plays a version of himself that is insecure, arrogant, and angry, and after his girlfriend abruptly leaves for America, he finds himself traveling solo through Northern England on a restaurant tour set up by a magazine. Too afraid to be alone for too long a time, Coogan invites his sort-of-kind-of friend Rob Brydon along. Brydon is affable and kind, but also carries doubts and fears of his own. The major difference is that Brydon doesn’t use his insecurities to scrutinize and demean others, unlike Coogan, who can’t help but sneer at everything he comes into contact with. The film is a collection of conversations and moments between the two at high-class restaurants and local sights. They riff on each other’s jokes, they compare impressions of famous actors (the Al Pacino and Michael Caine impressions are hilarious, and I’d be remiss not to mention their spot-on Woody Allen impressions), and they both occasionally stew in the other’s misery.

Fans of British comedy and television will notice similarities between Coogan’s character and Ricky Gervais’ character from his HBO series EXTRAS. Both are addled with aspirations that far out-reach their actual skill sets, and so they turn their anger for themselves into anger for others. They both also see themselves as big stars deserving more than they are given: Coogan deems his past film and television work pedestrian, instead wishing for the mainstream American success he knows he deserves. Brydon is the antithesis to Coogan, finding solace in family, his minor success, and living his life with levity. Coogan’s self-hatred has morphed into an ever-present cynicism, while Brydon saves his fears for phone calls to his wife late at night.

Did I mention this was a comedy? Because it is. All great comedies have dark underbellies, and this one is obviously no exception, but it’s worthy to note how truly funny this film is. Major portions of the film are made up of Coogan and Brydon riffing off each other’s jokes for extended periods of time, doing their best to out-funny the other. Coogan and Brydon are naturally funny people, and even when in the midst of the more dramatic scenes of the film, find an excellent comedic rhythm. No two people could be funnier to watch compare a drink’s consistency to snot or riff on anachronistic dialogue in costume dramas.

The film is also beautifully shot. The low-hanging grey clouds and hilly moors of Northern England lend themselves to somber beauty, and the documentary-style camera movements bring a lackadaisical, voyeuristic quality to Coogan and Brydon’s conversations—it’s as if you were sitting two tables away from them in the restaurant. The film’s beauty really can’t be stated enough, though: shots are framed with clear and apparent care, like during Coogan’s first conversation with his American girlfriend over the phone. There is a wonderful shot of him standing at the apex of a hill in silhouette as clouds roll across the landscape, and it’s this attention to visual beauty that almost brings the film’s comedic elements to a whole new level. The marriage between the melancholic visuals and humor create a profound effect on the overall product; the film is not self-serious, but it is very genuine in its ideas, motives, and words. It is a film full of care, and it is apparent that the actors believe in each beat the film takes.

THE TRIP is perhaps a British version of a Woody Allen or James L. Brooks film; comedy with darker, deeper veins beneath its surface. It’s completely hilarious, but also thoughtful and maybe even a little sad. It does its balancing act with poise, allowing both sides weight evenly. A moment never gets too heavy that a joke can’t save it, nor does the film ever stray too far from the its emotional core. And that’s the film’s strongest component, how well it has its finger on the pulse of human emotions and interactions. It all feels very real, very funny, and very thoughtful.

THE TRIP opens at The Loft Friday, July 29th.

The Loft's FAVORITE FANTASY FILMS

2011-07-22T15:37:00.000-07:00

Of all the genres, one could argue that Fantasy is the most open to interpretation. Typical Fantasy plots tend to involve either children or the mentally unsound (or both), and feature supporting characters like goblins, faeries, and the like. But beyond such limited conventionalities, Fantasy is what film is all about; when we walk into a theater and watch frozen images moving at 24 frames per second, watch actors reading lines from a script in manufactured rain or sunlight, we pretend for a little while that it's "real." In honor of the new film THE TROLL HUNTER, which opens today at The Loft, here are our favorite films that we deem Fantasy.

Kyle Canfield, General Manager

Willow

Alexandra Bernhardt, Floor Staff

Spirited Away

Pretty much every one of Miyazaki's movies is in the fantasy genre, and many of them are great, but Spirited Away is my pick because it really stuck with me. It has a nice mix of cool and creepy moments, it's kind of like a Japanese Alice in Wonderland. I had never been so fascinated by (or so fearful of) bathhouses until I saw this movie.

Steven Soloway, Office Manager

A Matter of Life and Death

Evan Salazar

Princess Mononoke

I admittedly don't watch many fantasy films. It's not really a genre that ever has much for me. But one of my favorite directors, Hayao Miyazaki, makes films that are, more times than not, on the fantasy tip of things. Sometimes his fantasy is a bit more subdued (like my favorite film of his, My Neighbor Totoro), but other times he embraces all of its tropes, and I think Princess Mononoke is one of his best examples of that. A girl raised by wolves, other-wordly creatures, curses, insane battle set-pieces, and a general sense of adventure lend itself to be a pretty great fantasy story. The difference between this and other fantasy films is its non-pandering emotional warmth and sense of adult intelligence. Lots of fantasy films depend on nostalgia and broad-stroke emotions, but Mononoke is a lot more nuanced. Its message of environmentalism is present in a lot of fantasy films, but its fair approach to both sides and adult treatment of these issues makes it noteworthy. It's not all black and white. Plus, the movie looks cool as hell, so there's that, too.

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention The Never-Ending Story was one of my favorite flicks when I was a kid. I never got sick of that thing.

Tim Keene, Floor Staff

Northfork

Not quite a true fantasy film, but a beautiful fantasy.

J.J. Giddings, Operations Director

Forbidden Zone

Peggy Springer, Administrative Assistant

A Life Less Ordinary

This is a hard question for me, and I've decided to go with this favorite from the late nineties directed by Danny Boyle. I love watching Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz fall in love while Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo work very hard to make it happen. Plus there's Stanley Tucci, Ian Holm, Dan Hedaya, Tony Shalhoub and Maury Chaykin to watch as well. The soundtrack rules, everyone has funny lines, and it's super strange, funny, and charming.

Jeff Yanc, Program Director

The Reflecting Skin

This amazingly strange, and unfortunately obscure, British gothic/horror/dark comedy/fantasy about the nightmare of childhood could probably best be described as Days of Heaven as directed by David Lynch after he’s channeled the ghost of Ingmar Bergman. Set in the 1950s American heartland of rolling wheat fields and battered farm houses, this story of a young boy who uses his very active imagination to cope with the terrors of real life is poetic, perverse, sometimes operatic and always very unsettling. Ignored by his neurotic (and possibly dangerous) parents, the boy creates a world of his own, convincing himself that the reclusive English woman who lives next door is really a deadly vampire, and that the decomposing fetus that has suddenly appeared in the family barn is really his murdered best friend come back to Earth disguised as an angel. And when a pack of sinister leather boys in a black ’57 Chevy start cruising the countryside and kidnapping young boys for evil purposes, it REALLY starts to get weird. It also stars a young Viggo Mortensen as the kid’s older brother, so why this great, bizarre movie is still so underrated remains a mystery to me. If you liked Viggo in Lord of the Rings, why not check it out?

Pedro Robles, Assistant Manager

Pan's Labyrinth

My all time favorite fantasy film is El Laberinto del Fauno. This great tale wins my heart for the reason that I would have enjoyed watching it at any age. As a child, I would have been hypnotized by the fantastic and terrifying characters. As an adult, the mixture of history, gore and the bending of reality just sings a song of love to my heart. Every shot in it is incredibly beautiful and stands up to repeat viewings. Guillermo del Toro, I love you.

Anthony Cutrone, Floor Staff

Big Trouble in Little China

Zach Breneman, Business Manager

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

As a kid, fantasy was by far my favorite genre. The obvious escapism of the fantastical is probably what did it, but I was also attracted to the danger implicit in any fantasy story (the donkey scene in Pinocchio and the pink elephant scene in Dumbo fueled my dreams for years). My love for surrealism was also most likely founded here. Although I watched the films of Terry Gilliam more (Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), the first time I saw Akira Kurosawa's Dreams was personally revolutionary on a couple of levels--it was my first foreign film, my first non-linear film, and it terrified me like nothing else I'd ever seen. But what scars us sticks with us. I've only seen the film twice, but its images are forever seared into my cerebral cortex.

THE TROLL HUNTER opens Friday, July 22nd at The Loft, and plays daily at 10PM.

2011-07-05T11:03:00.000-07:00

AMERICA, F**K YEAH! THE "TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE"

SING-A-LONG

AND CURSE-A-THON!

AMERICAN: THE BILL HICKS STORY - Staff review by Dave Paiz

2011-06-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

In 1994 the savagely funny bundle of energy and awareness known as Bill Hicks left this mortal coil to rejoin the cosmos in the Arms of the One True God That Is Love and await the moment when All will again become One. I was going to open by stating the obvious - in this case, the fact that Bill Hicks was a truly gifted standup comic that died way before his time - but opted for something more or less in line with what Hicks himself might have penned for himself, had he been given the chance.

If you're like me, then you totally missed out on Hicks' all-too-brief rise and fall and continue to mine the depths of your skull trying to figure out what freaking planet you were on back then. I don't know about you, but for me, the window of time between the late '80's and early '90's was a bit of a fugue state, and many of the details of that era have mercifully been lost to the ravages of time and good, old-fashioned American hedonism. So on second thought, it's probably a good thing you're not like me, because I did a great many irretrievably stupid things back then, not the least of which was never getting into Bill Hicks when he was in his raging, stomping the mf'ing terra prime.

More than just a comic, Bill Hicks was arguably the sharpest satirist and social critic of his generation and a fiery intellectual who made gelatinous potted meat product out of many of America's most cherished sacred cows. As it turned out, I was first introduced to his ideas by way of the industrial/psychedelic art-metal band Tool, whose epic 1996 release "AEnima" was dedicated to the late comic genius. Those who'd like to know more about Hicks without braving Tool's darkly beautiful, brain-melting musical stylings would do well to check out American: The Bill Hicks Story, a solid new documentary from directors Matt Hartlock and Paul Thomas.

Inspired early on by the likes of Woody Allen and Richard Pryor, Hicks' dreams of comic stardom initially took root in Houston, where he quickly made his mark on the local comedy scene while still in high school. Drawing initially from his strict Southern Baptist upbringing, Hicks poked fun at his family life and the various absurdities he observed during his weekly comic adventures in the so-called adult world. His act soon became wildly popular, but Hicks, perhaps sensing on some level that he didn't have much time on this earth, set his sights much higher, and he soon left the stagnant confines of Houston for Los Angeles and the all-encompassing nexus for standup comedy in the known Universe - The Comedy Store.

It's always seemed to me that once comics establish their voice, their shtick, they tend to stick with it throughout their career and never change. That was never the case with Hicks, who always felt that he was destined to shake up the status quo and constantly pushed himself to break new ground. This is where Hicks' story takes a familiar turn. Feeling like he'd hit a mental wall, and with his competing dreams of rock versus comic stardom stalled on both fronts, Hicks began to experiment with alcohol and psychedelic mushrooms with mixed results that forever changed his outlook on Reality.

And as anyone who's spent a fair amount of time jabbing their Third Eye with a cattle prod will attest to, once you hop on the Magic Bus, your ideas start getting, shall we say, more and more out there. Predictably, Hicks' material started veering off the beaten path, and mutated from observations about his family, to commenting on America and the nature of Reality itself. Largely relying on a dynamic visual style that combines still and moving images, the film also brings Hicks' story to life via interview footage from friends and family and a lot of great standup footage from Hicks himself. Rather than a distraction, the animation really enhances the film, most vividly during the hallucinogenic sequences.

Bill Hicks broke a lot of boundaries in a painfully short period of time, and we're left to wonder about what he'd be like today had he not succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. The time since he's been gone has seen the birth of the Internet and Facebook, the Bush v. Gore debacle, and cultural excreta like Reality TV and Fox News. Every day seems to bring with it some new conspiracy theory or brain-jarringly weird belief. Politicians on both sides routinely embellish reality to suit their own ends. In the midst of endless war and economic stagnation, we appear to be at a crossroads and enmeshed in fierce debate over what kind of nation we want to be moving forward in a post-911/post-Osama world. While he'll live on through his recorded material and this lovingly crafted documentary, it's a damn shame Bill Hicks didn't live long enough to lend his voice to the chorus of those now challenging us to throw off our assumptions, truly think for ourselves, and find a better way to live on this earth.

Review by Dave Paiz, Loft Cinema Facilities Manager and host of "Bat Country Radio" Saturdays from 2-4 a.m. on 91.3 FM KXCI.

AMERICAN: THE BILL HICKS STORY starts Friday, June 3rd at The Loft Cinema. ONE WEEK ONLY!

The Loft's Favorite Westerns

2011-05-20T18:16:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of Kelly Reichardt's new award-winning new Western re-vision, Meek's Cutoff, here is a list of The Loft staff's favorite westerns, new and old, good and bad. Mostly old and good.

Steven Soloway, Office Manager

My favorite western, hands down, is John Ford's MY DARLING CLEMENTINE. Instead of making the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral the film's centerpiece, Ford focuses his lens on the little day-to-day things -- haircuts, romance, friendship, poker, drinking.

My favorite scene:

Peggy Springer, Administrative Assistant
I have limited knowledge and exposure to Westerns, but the Coen Brothers have made two in the last few years that are both among my favorite films of all time, so of course NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is my favorite western, and the recent TRUE GRIT is a very close second. I love NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN for many reasons, but mostly because it's so cool. The performances are all amazing and I love how there is no score/soundtrack at all and the only music in the entire film is at the very end/end credit sequence. So Cool! Following very closely to the Cormac McCarthy novel, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN explores what happens when one individual quickly loses control of a situation he never had control of before, but he likes to think that he did.

Alexandra Bernhardt, Floor Staff

My favorite western is 3:10 TO YUMA (2007). I enjoy this film because it's more than just a shoot-em-up, it's a western with emotional impact and engaging characters. Also, one of my favorite performances by Russell Crowe.

J.J. Giddings, Operations Director

DEAD MAN. It's the western I've seen the most and I could watch it any time, any where. Plus it has an amazing cast and a killer score by Neil Young.

Luanne Withee, Membership Director

This is easy for me: THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD because it is awesome!

Kyle Canfield, General Manager

UNFORGIVEN: Gene Hackman vs Clint Eastwood... need I say more? (Because if I do, it would probably take a 20 page essay to touch on every point that makes this film one of the all time greats.)

Daniel Terry, Assistant Manager

RIO BRAVO. Why? Why not? The Duke, Dino, Angie Dickinson, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, Angie Dickinson and Angie Dickinson! What's not to like? Seriously though, it's just a great story with a great cast by a great director. It's near perfect in every way.

Dave Paiz, Facilities Manager

I hadn't really given this much thought prior to yesterday, but I'm going to have to go with, BUTCH CASSIDY & THE SUNDANCE KID. Redford & Newman at the top of their game. Solid screenplay by William Goldman, great music, and one of the best endings of any movie - EVER.

Peggy Johnson, Executive Director

My favorite Western is SEVEN SAMURAI by Akira Kurasawa. Having grown up in the SW and been raised on Westerns, there are very few of what would be considered "classic Westerns" that I can tolerate (see REEL INJUN from the Loft Film Fest 2010 for a sampling of reasons). I also love all the remakes of SEVEN SAMURAI, from MAGNIFICENT SEVEN to LAGAAN to SHAOLIN SOCCER!

Dan Steen, Assistant Manager

I'm gonna have to go with THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, because it's the first western I saw that was genuinely funny (Chief Dan George is amazing), and for its relatively positive portrayal of Native Americans.

Tim Keene, Floor Staff

Mine is SHANE. I remember the longing, the loss.

Anthony Cutrone, Floor Staff

THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE is my favorite western. It's not a shoot-em-up western by any means, but it's a very human story about greed, isolation and trying to find the American dream in the wilds of central Mexico. The acting is top notch and this movie showed that John Houston was becoming one of the great American directors. It's just one of those movies that blows you away the first time you see it. It was nominated for 4 Oscars in 1949, including Best Picture, and won three. Best Director, Best Writing and Best Supporting Actor. A fun note, Paul Thomas Anderson stated that he watched THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE every night before filming THERE WILL BE BLOOD.

Evan Salazar, Floor Staff

WILD WILD WEST. It has a giant mechanical spider and Will Smith. Remember that one part where that thing blew up and Will Smith shot that gun? That part was awesome.

(My real answer is THE WILD BUNCH but that's not as fun!)

Jeff Yanc, Program Director

MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER. This great, atmospheric Robert Altman western, starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie as a scummy gambler and an opium-addicted prostitute who become business partners in a desolate Old West mining town, feels like a hazy drug dream filled with lots and lots of snow, bizarre supporting characters, weird overlapping dialog and a very lugubrious soundtrack by Leonard Cohen. This is truly unlike any western I've ever seen.

Zach Breneman, Business Manager

For me, Alejandro Jodorowsky's EL TOPO is the perfect blend of Western ideals mixed with surrealism and heady psychedelic mysticism. Although it by turns spoofs and deconstructs Westerns, it also IS one (much in the same way BLAZING SADDLES is a Western). It's also unlike any film ever made, before or since. Truly one of a kind.

Kelly Reichardt: All Disquiet On The Northwestern Front - Matt Wavrin

2011-05-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

"I was scouting for Wendy and Lucy in Tucson on Highway 10 in the middle of nowhere and this van blew a tire right in front of me and went into the ditch. So I pulled over. It was this Mexican woman, she was mid-forties, maybe my age. She had no shoes on, just socks. I asked if she had AA or a spare tire. No. Well, do you have a cellphone? Yeah, but they just turned it off. She said, “Before I bought this Pepsi, I had $20.” That’s where she was at. So I gave her a ride to the next exit which was about half an hour away and we borrowed a jack from a trucker and circled back around. So now I’m like an hour out of my day and trying to figure out how deep I’m going to get into this. But she was so unpanicked by her situation. She was going to visit her husband and she was very accustomed, clearly, to shit going down like this and having to scramble. She was on her knees on the side of the road getting this tire off when a cop stopped. The cop never made an effort to help her but he kept telling me to be careful. What she was doing was way more dangerous but he stood there and watched her and kept telling me to be safe and get out of the way. She just took the whole thing in stride, which really made an impression on me."

-Kelly Reichardt

A little over 2 years ago, I went to see something called "Wendy And Lucy" at The Loft Cinema in Tucson. Having heard good things about Kelly Reichardt's previous film, "Old Joy," I was anxious to watch it, but was not expecting to be as affected as I was. Truth be told, I didn't see a movie as uniquely powerful the remainder of the year. It announced a new filmmaking voice, but because of Reichardt's complete confidence as a director, it didn't need be loud, brash, gratuitous, violent, ugly, shocking, or controversial to burst onto the map. Its emphasis on character, dialogue, and human (as well as human-animal) relationships was so refreshing to see, it almost made you forget that most movies these days don't focus on these basic elements.

Based on a story by Jon Raymond (with whom Reichardt is again collaborating on her new film, "Meek's Cutoff") the sad predicament that Michelle Williams' Wendy gets herself in makes you feel for her, especially in this day and age. Reichardt described her film thusly: "If you don't have a net and you've had a shitty education and you don't have the benefit of family that's in any better situation than you're in, how does one improve their lot? Not even reaching the middle class, but how do you just get a toehold in the next level?" Wendy is a lost soul looking to find work in Alaska, when her hopes get derailed by a case of car trouble and a run-in with the law. "Old Joy," too, is concerned with a similar character, Kurt (musician and sometimes-actor Will Oldham) who has a wandering spirit in contrast to his old friend (Daniel London), a man content with family life. Kurt only wants to relive the connection the two friends once had, but it appears his friend has moved on.

Reichardt's new film, "Meek's Cutoff," can be considered a Lost Trilogy of sorts. Set in 1845 on the Oregon Trail, it concerns three families that are led, rather misled, by Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood) through the Cascade Mountains, enduring what you might expect if you ever played the classic computer game. Reichardt focuses on the plight of the families, particularly their need to find water as they become more skeptical of Meek's guiding abilities. Reichardt carries over actors from previous films, including Michelle Williams and Will Patton, but there are also new faces in the cast, such as Paul Dano ("Little Miss Sunshine," "There Will Be Blood"), Zoe Kazan (yes, granddaughter of Elia Kazan), Shirley Henderson ("Marie Antoinette," "Trainspotting") and Neal Huff ("Michael Clayton," TV show "The Wire").

Although Reichardt made her debut with 1994's "River of Grass" (a little-seen independent set in her home state of Florida), she has only three shorts to credit, in addition to the aforementioned features. In the meantime, she teaches film at Bard College in New York. According to Reichardt, the gap between feature films (12 years passed between "Grass" and "Old Joy") had much to do with her financing frustrations, most certainly the thorn in the side for most independent filmmakers wishing to tell more personal stories.

"Meek's Cutoff" opens at The Loft on May 20.

-Matt Wavrin is a former Loft volunteer and devoted audience member (2001-2010). A graduate of The University of Arizona's Media Arts B.A. program, he now resides in North Carolina and is waiting for a miracle. Please send him one.

SAINT MISBEHAVIN': THE WAVY GRAVY MOVIE - Staff review by Dave Paiz

2011-05-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

As one of the last of the psychedelic movers and shakers that helped shape the 1960's and beyond, it's a bit strange that Wavy Gravy has never had his own full-length documentary before now. Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Story ends the long wait for fans of the '60's icon and is an inspiring tribute to one of the most colorful, witty and deeply spiritual characters of his generation.

Ten years in the making, the film, directed by Michelle Esrick, traces the arc of Wavy Gravy's life, from his humble beginnings as beat poet/spoken word performance artist Hugh Romney, to his eventual emergence as a countercultural icon and tireless force for good in the world.

Some people take acid and make great art, others take acid and go certifiably insane. After falling in with Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, Hugh Romney took acid and soon discovered he could get even higher by helping those who need it the most. And for the last four decades he's done exactly that.

From sharing a room with Bob Dylan, to helping feed the masses at Woodstock, to crossing the Khyber Pass on the roof of a bus on the way to feed flood-ravaged people in Bangladesh, to his current status as countercultural elder statesman and hippie Dumbledore at his own performing arts camp for kids, Wavy Gravy's story is a rambling psychedelic epic like no other.

And after being at the crossroads of some of the most pivotal events of his generation, the man himself remains quite humble and down to earth, with a seemingly unassailable optimism that's increasingly rare in this cynical age.

Esrick does a great job in maintaining just the right distance from her subject and sketching her portrait from many different sources. Featuring lots of archival footage and interviews with family and friends ranging from Jackson Browne, Ram Dass and Buffy Sainte-Marie, as well as Wavy Gravy himself, the film is fascinating viewing for all students of the Sixties, and those devoted to putting their good where it does the most.

Review by Dave Paiz, Loft Cinema Facilities Manager and host of "Bat Country Radio" Saturdays from 2-4 a.m. on 91.3 FM KXCI.

SAINT MISBEHAVIN': THE WAVY GRAVY MOVIE plays Tuesday, May 17th at 7:30PM at The Loft Cinema.

STAFF SPOTLIGHT: Christian Ramirez

2011-05-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

Christian Ramirez has been a staple at The Loft for almost five years now. In order to pursue her lifelong passion for art, she'll be leaving our employ. We wish her only the best, and her departure is only bearable because we know we'll see her around soon and often as a customer and a friend. Here are her parting words:

Name: Christian Ramirez

LOFT Staff position: Floor Staff, but more specifically Box Office Queen.

I worked at THE LOFT from: September 1st, 2006 - May 13th, 2011 [RIP]

I grew up in: Tucson!

My birthday is: August 31, 1987.

When I am not at THE LOFT I: Like to spend time with my fat cat Mulder, re-watch X-files episodes, taste delicious beers, make potato tacos, watch movies [duh], and make pictures.

I worked at THE LOFT because: It's one of the places that makes Tucson a great place to live. Great films, great beer, great people, and great popcorn.

A few of my favorite films are: The Three Amigos, Amelie, Rushmore, Magnolia, Die Hard 2, The 400 Blows, Blazing Saddles, The Royal Tenenbaums, Selena, Chinatown, The Graduate, Raging Bull, The Big Lebowski, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, To Kill A Mockingbird, anything with Nicolas Cage...

My favorite directors are: Coen Brothers, David Lynch, Werner Herzog, Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, Joon-Ho Bong, Wes Anderson.

My favorite LOFT experience was…: There have been so many - Watching the sunrise with Danny and Dan at Scream-o-Rama, planting the patio flowers with Tim, The Great Oil Spill of 2010, Anthony singing, Dale's muppet laugh that can be heard anywhere in the building, Pedro drawing up plans of attack, Having Whole Foods adventure with Alyson, Listening to Coast to Coast with Pants, Watching Dave chase after people riding bicycles across the patio, Never losing to Evan at cards, Talking hockey with Kyle, and of course all conversations with Dorothy.

My favorite thing about the Loft is…: The staff, I have the best co-workers which makes leaving the Loft incredibly hard.

To my adoring fans: I have loved working at The Loft, and am sad to leave BUT will now be able to enjoy the awesome programing we have from inside the Main theater! It's been great getting to know our members, the community that The Loft has built is pretty spectacular so to anyone who hasn't joined, do it! It's a magical place that everyone in Tucson should support. It's independent establishments such as this that make Tucson unique, and a very special place to live.

Oh! And to anyone who is afraid that they'll never see my beautiful face, don't fret! I am working at another wonderful Tucson non-profit where I will convince you to become a member, Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson!

To get in touch with me on the inter-webs visit: chriiiistian.tumblr.com

The Loft's Favorite Movie Aliens

2011-03-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

Aside from being a radical feminist text, James Cameron's Aliens is also a badass movie about the titular subject--acid-bleeding, Ringwraith-shrieking beings from outer space. Since we'll be playing the film this Friday and Saturday as part of our Cult Classics series presented by Bookmans, we got to thinking about our favorite on-screen extra terrestrials. Here we go:

Dale Meyers, Projectionist

The Mothman, The Mothman Prophecies

Christian Ramirez, Floor Staff

Gonzo, Muppets in Space

"I mean, who can't relate to being called a 'whatever' and have aliens talk to you through your cereal? It's a pretty universal story, really."

Amy Harclerode, Development Director

E.T., E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

Steven Soloway, Office Manager

Jeff Bridges as Starman, Starman

Tim Keene, Floor Staff

Roy Batty, Blade Runner

"Because he holds the longings I feel. The anger, the sorrow, the resignation and the beauty."

J.J. Giddings, Operations Director

The Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman's Breast, The American Astronaut

Dave Paiz, Facilities Manager

The Thing, John Carpenter's The Thing

"You can't see it coming, it doesn't waste time laying eggs, it can hide anywhere, imitate anything and turn your head into one of those disgustingly horrifying crab-spider type-things - game over, man."

Alyson Hill, Projectionist

Zaphod Beeblebrox, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Pedro Robles, Assistant Manager

1. The Aliens, Mars Attacks

"One can't hate an alien race that would put Sarah Jessica Parker's head on the body of a chihuahua. Not to mention their great technology & unique Achilles heel."

2. Stitch, Lilo & Stitch

"Engineered to be a destructive force, one can't help but wonder why they made him so damn cute. If I was lucky enough to befriend this alien, we'd have one hell of a night on the town."

Kyle Canfield, General Manager

"I feel as if this should really be broken into two categories... dangerous aliens and peaceful aliens. Because how does one truly compare a Predator to an Ewok."

Favorite Peaceful Alien: Puckmarin, The Flight of the Navigator

Favorite Dangerous Alien: The Aliens, Mars Attacks

"I think the reason for these choices is because life is best when it's humorous. And even when life is most tragic, I would still prefer being stuck in a situation that can make me laugh, rather than soil my pants at some Face-Hugger Alien coming after me without Ripley around."

Zach Breneman, Business Manager

Mac, Mac & Me

"In this instance, substitute "worst" for favorite. When I was a kid, I truly loved these freakish E.T. rip-offs, and only when I was slightly older did I realize why I'd get a sudden Big Mac craving any time this movie was on. Most blatant product placement this side of Wayne's World, only here it's not a joke."

The Loft's Favorite South Korean Films

2011-03-23T16:50:00.000-07:00

Tonight marks the beginning of a very unofficial, ad hoc, miniature South Korean film festival at The Loft. We'll be playing three recent South Korean films in the span of a week and a half--Secret Sunshine tonight at 7:30, The Housemaid, starting Friday, March 25th, and I Saw the Devil, starting Friday, April 1st. The three films are about as different as three films could be, but they reflect the recent trend of excellent films coming out of South Korea, whether they be the arty, austere films of Kim Ki-Duk (Breath, Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall... and Spring), the polished exploitation of Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Thirst), or the wrenching dramas of Lee Chang-dong (Peppermint Candy, Secret Sunshine). We got to thinking about all of the great films that have come out of this one country over the past decade, and came up with a list of our top five favorites. Here it is:

5. The Good, the Bad, the Weird

A seriously fun movie, Kim Jee-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters, I Saw the Devil) tackles yet another genre: the adventure Western. Hollywood could learn a lesson or two from this great-looking, slick, fun film.

4. Mother
The Loft's 5th-favorite film of 2010, Mother is basically a Korean Hitchcock film. Unspoken tensions, suspense, and mystery are all there, along with a dark sense of humor that constantly catches you off-guard.

3. Oldboy
Winner of the Jury Prize under Quentin Tarantino's Cannes Jury, this is the prototypical Korean revenge film (of which there are many). What puts this one above the rest is the intense, relentless performance by Choi Min-Sik (I Saw the Devil) as the beleaguered Oh Dae-Su, and some truly remarkable set pieces.

2. The Host
The best monster movie in years is also a great film about family, the influence of media, and flatulence. Kong Hang-So (Secret Sunshine, Thirst), the South Korean everyman, stars as the incompetent Park Gang-Du. Worth seeing if only to prove that great CGI should always be secondary to story.

1. Memories of Murder
A flat-out masterpiece of modern cinema, this film sucks you in from the very first moment and won't let you go until the end, by which point the tragedy and humor of a country cop and a city cop trying to catch a serial killer together have overtaken your thought processes. A true must-watch, it's also the third film on this list from Bong Joon-Ho (Mother, The Host), and the third starring Kang Hang-So (The Good, the Bad, the Weird, The Host). They are the Scorsese-DeNiro of South Korea. Here's hoping they never stop making films together.

Secret Sunshine plays Wednesday, March 23rd at 7:30.

The Housemaid opens Friday, March 25th.

I Saw the Devil opens Friday, April 1.

Oldboy screens as part of the Cult Classics series Friday, April 22nd and Saturday, April 23rd at 10:00 pm.

PHIL OCHS: THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE - Staff review by Dave Paiz

2011-02-28T09:09:00.000-08:00

By now it's safe to say that there are probably tribes in the Amazon who know who Bob Dylan is, but you'd be hard-pressed to find many people here in the states who've even heard of Phil Ochs. I thought I'd seen just about everything there was to see about the music and sociopolitical upheavals of the '60's, but Kenneth Bowser's new documentary Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune revealed that I was woefully oblivious to a fairly substantial chunk of what went down at the time.

The world can often be a bitterly cruel and maddening place for idealists. And like many of his generation, Phil Ochs was an idealist who believed that music had the power to change the world. After emerging from the turbulence of the 1960's as one of America's most passionate voices for social change, Ochs spent his all-too-brief life writing and performing music that challenged the injustices and foundational myths of the day.

Maligned by Dylan as more of a reporter than a folk singer, Ochs wrote songs about segregation, racism and war in stark, unflinchingly confrontational terms that differed sharply from Dylan's metaphorical ramblings about watchtowers and answers blowing in the wind. From the anti-war anthem "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" to his cynical ode to Left-wing hypocrisy "Love Me, I'm A Liberal" - Ochs was fearless in confronting absurdity, regardless of which end of the political spectrum it came from.

Through interviews with family, friends and contemporaries ranging from Tom Hayden, Joan Baez, Christopher Hitchens and Jello Biafra, as well as interview and performance footage from Ochs himself, the tragic arc of Och's life is traced against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the Kennedy and King assassinations, and the Chicago riots of 1968. The picture that emerges is that of a man torn between his desire for fame, and his desire to bring about social change.

Eschewing commercialism in favor of charity and benefit work, Ochs was a tireless advocate for unions, the working class and others who were confronting social injustice, and organized countless charity concerts in support of various causes. Along the way he continued to expand his musical horizons and inadvertently planted the seeds for what would eventually become the world music genre. Through protests, demonstrations, absurdist political theater, and the formation of a new political party, Ochs repeatedly threw himself headlong into the teeth of the establishment and was gradually ground down in the process. Over time, the horrors of a seemingly endless war, and the violent deaths of his generation's most inspiring leaders sent him into an emotional tailspin that he never fully recovered from.

An identity primarily defined in opposition to something eventually devours itself when there is nothing left to oppose. Once the Vietnam War was over, Och's focus turned inward, and he soon buckled under the combined weight of his steadily worsening manic depression, and the guilt and regret he carried regarding his wife and child. By the time he took his own life at the age of 35, Och's passionate idealism had tragically given way to bitterness, alcoholism and madness. A deeply moving and lovingly rendered portrait of a true rebel voice whose influence still resonates today, Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune is both a cautionary tale and an inspiring call to arms for those who continue to confront injustice wherever it rears its ugly head.

Review by Dave Paiz, Loft Cinema Facilities Manager and host of "Bat Country Radio" Saturdays from 2-4 a.m. on 91.3 FM KXCI.

PHIL OCHS: THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE plays Wednesday, March 2nd at 7:30PM at The Loft Cinema.

The One Film We Could Watch Every Day for a Year

2011-02-18T16:44:00.000-08:00

81 days ago, a guy named Lawrence decided to start a blog about a singular cinematic project: he is watching the film Julie and Julia every day for a year. We floated this idea around The Loft and came up with the following films that we could, if forced, conceivably watch for 365 consecutive days.

Alyson Hill, Projectionist

RUSHMORE / ELECTION

I'll have to go with Rushmore, since I basically did that when I was 15, and Election, because it will never not be funny.

Amy Harclerode, Development Director

SISTER ACT 2: BACK IN THE HABIT

Don't judge me.

Anthony Cutrone, Floor Staff:

COMMANDO

My 10 Reasons why:
1. Best opening title sequence ever.

2. Arnold!

3. Best one-liners [Matrix has thrown a pipe through Bennett]
Matrix: "Let off some steam, Bennett."

4. David Patrick Kelly.

5. Body count: 81.

6. "We Fight for Love" by Power Station.

7. Sherman Oaks Galleria Mall.

8. It's just as good on Telemundo.

9. James Horner's score.

10. Bill Paxton's cameo.

Christian Ramirez, Floor Staff:

RUSHMORE

I'd totally watch Rushmore every day for a year. I've pretty much already done that in my old house, I'd just leave it in my DVD player and just let it run whenever I was at home and needed background noise. The dialogue is so witty, and even though I've seen the movie so many times it's still hilarious. I'm also totally in love with Max Fischer, Mr. Littlejeans, and Bill Murray can do anything and I'll happily watch it. Also- it easily one has of the best soundtracks ever. Basically, it's great.

Dan Steen, Assistant Manager

GROUNDHOG DAY

Groundhog Day, because that's basically what the movie is about. It would be repetition within repetition! Although I might be forced to turn down the volume during the Sonny and Cher alarm clock scenes.
Also, the Grumpy Old Men movies and Christmas Vacation, as they have already proven themselves to be nearly infinitely watchable.

Daniel Terry, Assistant Manager

YOUNG GUNS

I saw it 3 or 4 times in the theater and when it finally hit HBO I taped it and DID watch it everyday for at least 6 months. I don't know what it is about that flick but I never get bored of it.

Dave Paiz, Facilities Manager

EXCALIBUR

Largely due to the fact that I must have watched it at least 20 or 30 days in a row back in the early '80s when it first hit cable, John Boorman's Excalibur is numero uno among a tiny handful of flicks I think I could watch every day for a year and not get sick of. It's a truly epic adaptation of the classic tale of Love, Betrayal, Forgiveness and Redemption. Tons of bloody, bone-crushing action too. Great music and a great cast that includes a scorchingly fetching Helen Mirren as the sorceress Morgana. The last twenty minutes of this one sends me scrambling for the Kleenex every time I see it. 365 days straight of that might get a bit much. In that case, maybe I should've said Jaws, The Blues Brothers or The Big Lebowski. Oh well, too late. Damn.

Evan Salazar, Floor Staff

SHERLOCK JR.

This was a much tougher question than I initially gave it credit for. While my favorite film is ANNIE HALL, the idea of watching it for a whole year sounds like the most grating experience imaginable. I love Woody, but watching Woody be Woody for a year... that sounds like a bit too much. I decided my criteria would be that it would have to be relatively short, funny, and the jokes have enough replay value to at least illicit a "I recognize this joke as humorous even though I am not laughing or smiling" response in my head by the 100th viewing. So, with that in my mind, my choice is Buster Keaton's SHERLOCK Jr. First of all, it's 45 minutes. Perfect. Also, Keaton can just look at anything with no discernible expression on his face and I laugh. Thinking about it, if I had to watch SHERLOCK JR. every day of the year, it would probably put me in a perpetual great mood. How can that classic stone face not make your worst day just a bit better?

J.J. Giddings, Operations Director

CITY OF LOST CHILDREN

Always fun to watch, and since there's no plot that I can follow, I probably wouldn't get bored by the story after 365 viewings.

Jeff Yanc, Program Director

BLOOD OF A POET

A surrealist French film from the ‘30s about the hell of being an artist might not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but this film is absolutely amazing. Any film I’d watch every day for a year would have to be non-narrative, otherwise the plot would drive me crazy. Luckily, BLOOD OF A POET is both non-narrative AND crazy. This film is beautiful and bizarre and endlessly fascinating, and it seems to mean something different every time I see it. Cocteau was a genius when it came to whipping up hypnotic strangeness. Watching this movie is a bit like falling asleep and having a really sweaty, opium-soaked dream, then waking up and freaking out because you suspect you’re probably still dreaming. This was a major influence on such great weirdo filmmakers as David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky, but it’s really unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s over 80 years old, and the special effects are still confounding. And it’s only 55 minutes long!

Kyle Canfield, General Manager

WILLOW

Because in a world with only one movie to watch, I want something fun, a little intense with a lot of imagination and something that will make me laugh, then cry, then smile and remind me of nothing of the real world that has lost every movie except one... and I think it would probably piss George Lucas off, at least a little.

Luanne Withee, Membership Director

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Liza is fantastic and I have always loved DeNiro. To top it off Scorsese directs! This film is sumptuous & stunning to look at - the sets, costumes and cinematography are terrific. But what really makes it so watchable for me is the MUSIC! The score by Kander & Ebb and all the great nostalgic songs and big band numbers makes this one of my favorite films of all time! This film is a real homage to the big, splashy Technicolor musicals of the 1930’s & 40’s and I LOVE it!

Pedro Robles, Assistant Manager

ROBOCOP / RAISING ARIZONA

1. Robocop: There are so many things going on in this Reagan-era action / sci-fi movie. This film is thick with social satire, existential questions and, my personal favorite, over-the-top on-screen violence. What else can you ask for? Verhoeven's best American film.

2. Raising Arizona: A film of nostalgia for me. I could watch this Coen brother crafted fever dream any day, everyday. The pace of it is so fast, it feels like a 35 minute short film. It's brand of comedy helped shape the person I am today.

Peggy Johnson, Executive Director

STRANGER THAN PARADISE

The film I could watch every day for a year is Stranger Than Paradise. While I'm somewhat opposed to the concept of watching the same film over and over since there are so many wonderful films to discover, if I had to choose it would be this. I think that the only film I could see that often would have to offer an experience very close to listening to music with little emphasis on plot. Stranger Than Paradise is like listening to jazz, with quirky riffs and a rhythm that fits my life.

Peggy Springer, Office Specialist

HOWL

Being a lover of poetry, I also love poetry in film/on film. The format of "Howl" is such that the title poem is recreated (almost) documentary-style, as well as in animation. The courtroom trial of whether or not the work should be censored, along with James Franco's wonderful portrayal of Allen Ginsberg, along with the idea that every word in the film was actually spoken by the people speaking them in the film makes me feel like I'm watching some sort of American History channel about poetry. (Franco) Ginsberg says at the end of the trial/end of the film that the point of the poem "Howl" is frankness--say what's on your mind. Express yourself. I could watch this movie and listen to this movie everyday.

Steven Soloway, Office Manager

SWING TIME

After having seen the 1936 Astaire-Rogers musical SWING TIME at least a dozen times, I could easily commit to watching it every day for an entire year. Stunning visuals coupled with a tuneful Jerome Kern score, not to mention the gravity defying dance sequences, make this film a perennial favorite of mine.

Tim Keene, Floor Staff

THE BIG SLEEP

Humphrey Bogart.

Zach Breneman, Business Manager

DR. STRANGELOVE or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Much like The Big Lebowski, this movie gets funnier every time I watch it. I'm sure there's some kind of bell curve there, and I may regret such a dialogue-heavy movie about 45 days in, but for now, I can't picture not enjoying the hell out of Peter Sellers and the rest of the brilliant cast.

THE ILLUSIONIST / Staff review by Evan Salazar

2011-02-12T18:36:00.000-08:00

Melancholy and poignancy are never more potent than when found in animation; in fact, the presentation of those ideas in an animated feature is almost a subversion of the art form. We are trained to believe animation is child’s fare: simple, routine, loud, and without a dash of subtly. Bugs Bunny isn’t the most restrained of creations. Although the rules of animation don’t say that melancholy can’t exist in two dimensions, their inclusion is perhaps disquieting, or odd. Those are the precise reasons that poignancy is that much more palpable and resolute when presented in animation: it feels as if it shouldn’t be there, and its addition is disarming and emotionally penetrative. Look at Pixar’s UP for instance: what do most people talk about when they mention the movie? The first ten minutes of it.

And if ever there were an award for a film that breaks hearts in the most tender of ways, Sylvain Chomet’s THE ILLUSIONIST would win, hands down. It is the new quintessential example of emotional animation: its elegantly somber and beautiful score, its understated and lovingly-crafted mannerisms it assigns to each character, and its solemn, muted color palette that physically awakens forlorn sighs – they all culminate in an almost Stendhalian daze of pure emotion. The film invites you to reflect along with it, and it asks you with gentleness and care. By the film’s end you feel as if you are the eponymous Illusionist, wondering how the world started turning so fast when you were just getting the hang of its rotation.

The story is simple and delicate, based upon an unproduced screenplay by French cinema legend Jacques Tati (best known for his films M. HULOT’S HOLIDAY, MON ONCLE, and PLAYTIME) and concerns an illusionist based upon Tati himself who even goes by Tati’s original surname, Tatischeff. Tatischeff is an old-school magician, pulling rabbits out of his hat and revealing coins from behind little boys’ ears. He goes from club to party to pub performing for anyone willing to look, and even for those who don’t. While staying in a small Scottish village, Tatischeff meets a young woman who truly believes that magic is real and that Tatischeff can make things materialize from thin air. She follows him to Edinburgh where they live in a hotel populated by eccentrics and strike up a loving, father-and-daughter relationship. The original screenplay by Tati is allegedly an apology to his daughter Sofia whom he spent much of his life away from (although this is a debated issue since Tati was also father to an illegitimate daughter who claims the film is meant to be an apology to her) and this invites a sad, desperate reading of the relationship between the illusionist and the girl he befriends: Tatischeff finds in the girl someone who still believes in him and someone he can look after, someone to give him meaning and purpose. But as I mentioned before, this film has something less life affirming and more melancholic in mind.

I don’t mean to paint this film as completely sorrowful and bleak – it’s not. The film had me laughing throughout, whether it was from the Scottish drunk’s incoherent mumblings or the acrobatics’ flamboyant jumping to and fro or Tatischeff’s look of pure befuddlement throughout. The film’s humor is subtle, quiet, and sweet-hearted (although there are some darkly hilarious parts I wouldn’t dare spoil). The film is mostly dialogue free, and its humor comes from the silent interactions between each character – fans of silent cinema like Chaplin, Keaton, and Arbuckle will be in for a modern treat. Its silence also adds to its depth: as anyone who has seen Chaplin’s classic film CITY LIGHTS knows, emotion that is gained so deftly from silent cinema is the most rewarding emotion of all. Its heart surpasses the need for words and connects with you on the most human and immediate of levels. THE ILLUSIONIST’s humor and feeling are skillfully reached through almost-complete silence – it makes you embarrassed for modern films that so badly want to go for your heart with a barrage of words when just a facial expression will do. It doesn’t hurt that the score, written by Chomet, is wonderfully tranquil and sincere. At times it echoes Vince Guaraldi’s score for A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS, and no, I promise that is not hyperbole. It’s that good.

THE ILLUSIONIST has massive heart, but be warned: it is intent on breaking yours. However, you’ll be glad you experienced the film – a film which is unlike so much of what we get today in movie theaters. It is quiet, kind, funny, unassuming, and painfully honest. It’s an achievement in itself that it even got made, and made with such panache for that matter. And lastly, as a huge fan and supporter of all things animated, I feel obligated to tell you that you will be doing yourself a huge favor by seeing this film’s beautiful animation projected on the big screen in 35mm. Nothing beats seeing hand drawn animation on the big screen, and nothing beats the melancholy of a fantastically realized animated film. Absolutely nothing.

By Evan Salazar, full-time student, part-time Floor Staffer, all-around cineaste extraordinaire.

STRANGE POWERS: Staff review by Dave Paiz

2011-02-11T09:37:00.000-08:00

Those with a willingness to defy convention and elevate substance over style are rarely rewarded in American society. This is especially true as it pertains to music. How Stephin Merritt has managed to find success in the face of such depressingly bleak realities is the subject of Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields - a new documentary from Kerthy Fix and Gail O'Hara.

The Magnetic Fields first emerged in the late '80's, during the seismic shift that marked the end of the hair metal era, and the musical renaissance that produced bands like Jane's Addiction, Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Unlike the distortion-drenched, guitar-heavy grunge that dominated the airwaves at the time, The Magnetic Fields' minimalist synth-pop failed to garner much attention outside the realm of college radio. Despite such daunting odds, Merritt and The Magnetic Fields have quietly persevered, and, over the past two decades, become something of a minor cult phenomenon who now include the likes of Peter Gabriel, Neil Gaiman and Sarah Silverman among their biggest fans.

The film focuses on Merritt, longtime collaborator/bandmate/manager Claudia Gonson, and the symbiotic, if not codependent dynamic that lies at the heart of The Magnetic Fields' distinctive sound. Together with cellist Sam Davos and guitarist John Woo, Merritt and Gonson weave a meticulously crafted and constantly evolving web of sound around Merritt's deeply poetic and often cynical odes to love, heartbreak, and loss.

Unlike most music documentaries that reveal their subjects in great detail, and perhaps due to Merritt's guarded, reclusive nature, Strange Powers takes a more scattered, indirect approach in delineating what makes Merritt tick. Through scenes ranging from his cramped apartment in New York City where the Magnetic Fields have recorded much of their music, to the neighborhood gay bar where Merritt channels his lyrical muse, it's quite clear that he is a very private man who prefers to let his music do the talking, rather than engage in cheerfully pithy discussions about his creative process.

In an age increasingly defined by an endless array of plastic pop stars devoid of much substance or depth, Stephin Merritt is one of the few who has chosen the narrow path less traveled by. Strange Powers should appeal not only to longtime fans of The Magnetic Fields, but to music fans in general, and creative spirits everywhere who dream of marching to the beat of their own inner drum.

Review by Dave Paiz, Loft Cinema Facilities Manager and host of "Bat Country Radio" Saturdays from 2-4 a.m. on 91.3 FM KXCI.

STRANGE POWERS: STEPHIN MERRITT AND THE MAGNETIC FIELDS plays Friday, February 11th and Saturday, February 12th at 10:00PM at The Loft Cinema.

MESRINE: PUBLIC ENEMY #1 (PART TWO) / Staff review by Evan Salazar

2011-02-04T14:49:00.000-08:00

A recent trend in foreign films is to allow those who are historically usually considered “the bad guys” to tell their side of the story. THE BAADER-MEINHOF COMPLEX, CARLOS, and CHE have all been critically-acclaimed films about revolutionaries, terrorists, and depending on who you ask, just plain ol’ thugs. The films sometimes walk the fence between giving any definite opinion on their subjects, but the films do not deny that these people had strong ideas and statements. Maybe the idea got away from them, or maybe it was fully realized. Regardless, it’s hard to deny that the groups or people these films focus on stood for something.

Enter Jacques Mesrine (played by the fiery Vincent Cassel), the titular subject of PUBLIC ENEMY #1, a continuation of the MESRINE saga from KILLER INSTINCT. Jacques Mesrine was not a revolutionary, but he certainly wanted to be one. His crimes were not backed by any sort of ideology and the film suggests this was his one insecurity. Mesrine kidnaps a French billionaire and claims that the Palestinian Liberation Front is holding him hostage. “I’m not even Jewish!” the hostage yells back. Frustrated, Mesrine barks ransom orders at the man and storms out. His bluff has been called. Yes, Mesrine was a master of escaping prison and robbing banks, but an intellectual and a radical he was not.

Mesrine was not an anarchist nor a nihilist, but his actions were anarchic and nihilistic. Coming off the high from escaping back to France, Mesrine trolls its streets, firing haphazardly and making up the plan as he goes. The film explores Mesrine’s insatiable need for destruction and respect; “Who is this Pinochet?” Mesrine, reading a newspaper, yells at a prison guard. “Why is he on the front page and I’m not?” So angered by this, Mesrine decides to write a book about his criminal life -- whatever he can do to be relevant and acknowledged.

Meatier than the one before it, PUBLIC ENEMY #1 shines the light more intensely on Mesrine the person as opposed to Mesrine the criminal. He doesn’t have the smarts of fellow thug Francois (played by French cinema mainstay Mathieu Amalric, who has been popping up in practically every French film brought over to America, from THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY to A CHRISTMAS TALE), or the radical idealism of friend Charlie (played by Gerard Lanvin). Mesrine is a criminal in a rapidly progressing world, where idealism is winning out over gratuitous cruelty.

But don’t mistake these philosophical musings for being all the film is about. At 133 minutes, the film spends just as much time in the midst of car chases, gunshots, and jailbreaks. One would most likely call this an action film before they’d call it a drama. Mesrine, now a bit plumper and sporting a mullet, is still a menace; the film opens with a spectacular botched robbery that sets the bar high for the action sequences to come. Action junkies will not be disappointed. The photography is also immaculate: the camera swoops cleanly and coherently through the madness, capturing it all in bloody detail. The film is visually rich, playing with multiple styles and locations that all cohere to create a visceral, gritty mise-en-scene. It is razor sharp and exact.

Looked at as a four-and-a-half-hour epic, MESRINE is a story of dreams that are, inevitably, bigger than the man – no matter how big the man is. Mesrine’s shadow loomed large: he had beautiful women, charisma, and the fear of France in the palm of his hand. But as man is wont to do, he squandered it. The filmmakers, however, did not squander the rich material mined from Jacques Mesrine’s life. They have created a pair of films that are assured, tenacious, and exciting as all hell. Mesrine would have been happy to be paid the honor.

By Evan Salazar, full-time student, part-time Floor Staffer, all-around cineaste extraordinaire.

MESRINE: KILLER INSTINCT (PART ONE) / Staff review by Evan Salazar

2011-02-03T14:49:00.000-08:00

Paced like a freight train, MESRINE PART 1: KILLER INSTINCT (based on the book by the eponymous criminal) is proof that not all French films are existential navel-gazing or romantic strolls down the Champs-Elysees. From its Brian De Palma-esque split-screen opening credits to its sex-and-guns fixation to its boorish, arrogant lead in famed French criminal Jacques Mesrine (played by Vincent Cassel), KILLER INSTINCT is ostensibly the most “American” French movie you are likely to see this year – and that is no way a bad thing. Director Jean-Francois Richet has crafted a rich, engrossing, and exceptionally well-constructed gangster film, and he has made it better than any American has in a long, long time. He hasn’t done this through some sort of subversion of the genre, however: it’s just that KILLER INSTINCT soaks the screen with blood with such ferocity, paints its title character so lovingly, and relishes in its wonderful source material so giddily that calling it a “gangster film” almost feels like one is delegitimizing it. And while the argument of “art vs. genre” films is one that opens up too many cans of worms, KILLER INSTINCT finds itself nestled just fine between both worlds.

KILLER INSTINCT tells the story of infamous French criminal Jacques Mesrine, a former French soldier who didn’t know where to put the aggression he learned in the armed forces after the Algerian War. So, after meeting up with an old friend, Mesrine starts to live a life of crime – prostitutes, gambling, bank robbery, and even murder. He falls in and out of love, goes in and out of prison, and his reign of crime spans continents. KILLER INSTINCT follows our anti-hero along the first half of his odyssey through crime, and the film is quick, sharp, and doesn’t waste a second telling the story. So much happens in the almost two hour running time that the film is kinetically hypnotic.

And despite being spread over two movies, it is expected that some details are skipped over or completely dismissed. This does not hurt the film, however: the story we are presented with is fleshed out and has a bite sharper than most 90 minute films. That is saying a lot considering even a few minutes of un-needed material can bog a movie down. KILLER INSTRICT, on the other hand, is bursting at the seams – but it doesn’t completely break the seal. There’s just enough there.

The film is clearly working in broad strokes; this is not a character study. That’s not to say that Cassel’s performance as Mesrine isn’t bombastic or charismatic or whatever other word you’d like to use to say how simply fantastic he is, though. Cassel makes Mesrine into a larger-than-life character: he explodes with rage, whether he is sticking a gun into his wife’s mouth or crippling a man who talked to a bartender with the wrong tone. With these sorts of films, as well, one has to be careful when portraying a real-life character as nefarious as Mesrine. Does the film condone his actions? Condemn them? Does it matter? I believe KILLER INSTINCT finds a nice grey for it, portraying Mesrine as a troubled man, uncouth and vile… and yet also appearing decidedly human. His charisma is undeniable; his anger is ugly and childlike. Cassel didn’t win Best Actor at the Cesar Awards (The French equivalent of the Oscars) for nothing.

With his moustache, greased back hair, and penchant for wanton violence, Mesrine owns the screen in every frame of this high-octane, full-fledged crime epic. Let it be known, though: KILLER INSTINCT only works okay as a stand-alone film. The story’s conclusion, found in the film PUBLIC ENEMY #1, is needed to give KILLER INSTINCT its proper weight. Sure, KILLER INSTINCT works fine as a stand-alone action film, but the depth the material so deserves is truly found in PUBLIC ENEMY #1. This is not to say that PUBLIC ENEMY #1 is a more nuanced film, but rather that the first film is only half the story. PUBLIC ENEMY #1 is not a sequel: it is a continuation. All that aside, KILLER INSTINCT is a punch in the gut that is so self-assured, it knows you’ll be sticking around for part two, anyhow.

And you thought French films were all just Audrey Tautou and je t’aime this and je t’aime that.

By Evan Salazar, full-time student, part-time Floor Staffer, all-around cineaste extraordinaire.

LEMMY / Staff review by Dave Paiz

2011-02-01T11:07:00.000-08:00

You know I'm born to lose
And gambling's for fools
But that's the way I like it baby
I don't wanna live forever
- Motorhead, "Ace Of Spades"

If Charles Darwin were alive today, it's a safe bet that he'd be wracking his brain over how to fit iconic British rocker Lemmy Kilmister into his theory of evolution. For if you threw Johnny Cash, Hunter S. Thompson, Keith Richards and Sonny Barger into one of Seth Brundle's nifty teleporters from The Fly along with a thimbleful of dinosaur DNA, the end result would still be a pale shade of a man who casts a very long shadow indeed.

Greg Olliver and Wes Orshoski's new documentary Lemmy explores the life and legacy of the 65-year old legend, who has survived nearly 4 decades of rock 'n' roll excess on a diet of little more than speed, cigarettes, Jack Daniels and sheer, take-no-prisoners reptilian attitude.

From his less-than-humble beginnings as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix, through his tenure with '60's Kinks contemporaries The Rockin' Vickers, the '70's space-rock outfit Hawkwind, and the formation of the hugely influential 36-year-old metal juggernaut that is Motorhead, the film is an affectionate and unflinchingly honest portrait of a man who staunchly refuses to go calmly or quietly into that endless winter night.

Having been a Motorhead fan since the early '80's, I was immediately struck by Lemmy's casual, soft-spoken demeanor and seeming absence of ego. Authenticity and humility have always been rare commodities in the music industry, but the grizzled veteran genuinely seems to possess immense reserves of both. In an increasingly hollow, plastic age that seems to fall away faster with each passing day, Lemmy is a walking anachronism and a testament to the power of sticking to your guns no matter what.

While some will likely be put off by his embrace of certain vices, he makes it clear that his choices are his alone, and that he doesn't want to advocate a lifestyle that has claimed the lives of many of his contemporaries. More troubling perhaps is his penchant for Nazi war memorabilia, which some have taken as evidence that he is some sort of a closet Nazi. Lemmy dismisses such concerns with an unapologetic shrug, and leaves the question for the viewer to decide.

Whereas many bands and artists are punch-drunk on ego and image, Lemmy comes across as one who talks the talk and walks the walk without a single shred of pretension. Whether on stage or off, with Lemmy, what you see is what you get. No fakery. No phoniness. Just pure Lemmy. Take it or leave it. Rather than a lavish country estate, Lemmy chooses to live in a tiny, cluttered apartment just off the Sunset Strip that's probably smaller than Mick Jagger's laundry room. And while most in his position choose to wall themselves off from their fans, when he's not on the road, Lemmy can often be found sipping a Jack and Coke, playing video trivia and signing autographs at the Rainbow Bar & Grill.

The film blends current and archival video footage with interviews from a veritable who's who of rock royalty including Alice Cooper, Slash, Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne. Watching these music giants gush over Lemmy's influence really underscores the fact that, rather than just another rock star, Lemmy is the missing link that bridges the gap between early rockers like Buddy Holly, Elvis and Little Richard, and bands like Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax.

To those who might roll their eyes at the thought of yet another decadent rock star baring all for the camera, this isn't the story of just another rock 'n' roll badass, it is the story of THE original rock 'n' roll badass - a lurching Tyrannosaurus Rex of a man who has chunks of guys like Slash and Keith Richards in his stool, and who will likely be gnawing on all our skulls long after the human race is swept into the dustbin of history.

Review by Dave Paiz, Loft Cinema Facilities Manager and host of "Bat Country Radio" Saturdays from 2-4 a.m. on 91.3 FM KXCI.

LEMMY plays Wednesday, February 2nd at 7:30PM at The Loft Cinema.

FELA! / A brief staff review by a non-believer

2011-01-27T17:39:00.000-08:00

As someone who by rule does not enjoy musicals, I was blown away by the fierce, frenetic power of FELA! That title pretty much says it all; it’s in all caps, with an exclamation point afterward, and it’s the first name of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the revolutionary Nigerian originator of Afrobeat, so the production has some work to do to live up to its name. It’s a great testament to the power of Fela’s music that the show has moved from off-Broadway to Broadway to London, and from there transmitted to movie theaters across the country.

The music behind the show is powered by Anitibalas, Brooklyn’s answer to The Africa ‘70. And the music holds it all together, acting as the connective tissue and taking us on a journey through Fela’s discovery of the power of music, then the radical wisdom of Black Power in 1969 Los Angeles, and finally the fusion of both, as he returns to Nigeria a conquering, 27 wife-taking, pot-smoking, freedom-inspiring hero.

But through all of that traveling, we never leave the Shrine, Fela’s home base for his epic shows in Lagos, Nigeria. Sahr Ngaujah as Fela flies with the audience through his past, future, and demons, as a cast of incredible, multi-talented performers swirls around him. The costumes, choreography, and set design during all of this transition almost give the music a run for its money.

Although the story takes us to some incredibly unpleasant places (things were not all roses after Nigeria threw off the bonds of British colonialism, as much of Fela’s music and life attest to), it’s impossible to not be uplifted at the end of it all. Like the man himself, FELA! is nearly a force of nature, and although it did not convince me to seek out more musicals, I cannot now say I hate them all.

Review by Zach Breneman, Loft Cinema Business Manager and amateur musical hater.

FELA! plays Sunday, January 30th at Noon and Tuesday, February 1st at 7:00PM at The Loft Cinema.

The Loft's Favorite Films of 2010

2010-12-28T13:53:00.000-08:00

Combined List:

1. Dogtooth
2. A Prophet
3. Tie Exit Through the Gift Shop AND Black Swan
4. Inception
5. Mother
6. A Serious Man
7. Tie Winter's Bone AND The Social Network
8. The Maid
9. Monsters
10. House

Individual Lists:

J.J. Giddings, Operations Director:

1. Enter the Void
2. Dogtooth
3. A Prophet
4. Big River Man
5. Alamar
6. Trash Humpers
7. Exit Through the Gift Shop
8. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
9. Black Swan
10. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Honorable Mention: Fish Tank, Animal Kingdom, Bad Lieutenant, Winter's Bone, The Oath, Mother, Samson & Delilah, Please Give, Marwencol, The Maid, A Town Called Panic, Love Exposure

Steven Soloway, Office Manager

1. Dogtooth
2. Double Take
3. House
4. Trash Humpers
5. Exit Through the Gift Shop
6. Revolucion
7. Cairo Time
8. House of the Devil
9. A Serious Man
10. The Human Centipede

Luanne Withee, Membership Director

In No Order:
The Good, The Bad, The Weird
Mother
Prodigal Sons
Valley of the Dolls
Winter’s Bone
Last Train Home
The Maid
House
Psycho
La Dolce Vita

Evan, Floor Staff

1. Dogtooth
2. Toy Story 3
3. Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
4. The American
5. Wild Grass
6. Inception
7. A Prophet
8. The Social Network
9. Exit Through the Gift Shop
10. Animal Kingdom

Honorable Mention: Greenberg, Shutter Island, Kick-Ass

Tim Keene, Floor Staff

1. Winter’s Bone
2. The Maid
3. Please Give
4. A Prophet
5. Inside Job
6. Exit Through the Gift Shop
7. I Am Love
8. Jackass 3-D

Amy Harclerode, Development Director

1. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
2. The Last Station
3. The Messenger
4. An Education
5. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (The way only The Loft could do it.)
6. Coco Before Chanel
7. Bronson
8. A Single Man
9. Valley of the Dolls
10. My Dog Tulip

Peggy Johnson, Executive Director

Dogtooth
Animal Kingdom
Breathless (re-release)
Breathless (Korea)
Howl
Enter the Void
A Prophet
The Maid
I Am Love
The Messenger
Samson and Delilah
Boy
White Ribbon
My Dog Tulip
Heartbreaker

Alyson Hill, Projectionist

1. The White Ribbon
2. Black Swan
3. Dogtooth
4. An Education
5. A Serious Man
6. True Grit
7. Easy A
8. A Single Man
9. I Am Love

Pedro Robles, Assistant Manager

1. The Social Network
2. Black Swan
3. Inception
4. Dogtooth
5. The American
6. Lebanon
7. Shutter Island
8. True Grit
9. A Prophet
10. The White Ribbon

Jeff Yanc, Program Director

In no order, except for #1
1. Dogtooth
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Fish Tank
The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector
I Am Love
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Lebanon
Monsters
The Maid
House
Winter’s Bone
Greenberg
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?
**Favorite trashy movie and best reason to pay extra for 3-D glasses: Piranha 3-D**

Dave Paiz, Facilities Manager

1. Inception
2. Valhalla Rising
3. Revolucion
4. Exit Through the Gift Shop
5. Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage
6. A Serious Man
7. Big River Man
8. Splice
9. The House of the Devil
10. Life During Wartime

Anthony Cutrone, Floor Staff

1. A Prophet
2. Dogtooth
3. The Social Network
4. Mother
5. Best Worst Movie
6. Inception
7. Black Swan
8. True Grit
9. Animal Kingdom
10. The Good, The Bad, The Weird

Dale Meyers, Projectionist

In no order:
Inception
The Girl/Stieg Larsson Trilogy
Shutter Island
A Serious Man
A Single Man
House of the Devil
Un Prophete
Valhalla Rising
The Town
Black Swan

Christian Ramirez, Floor Staff

1. Black Swan
2. A Prophet
3. Dogtooth
4. The Social Network
5. Double Take
6. Toy Story 3
7. Inception
8. Exit Through the Gift Shop
9. The Kids Are Alright
10. Monsters

Daniel Terry, Assistant Manager

1. A Prophet
2. Dogtooth
3. Black Swan
4. True Grit
5. Monsters
6. Winter’s Bone
7. Inception
8. Easy A
9. Never Let Me Go
10. The Good, The Bad, The Weird

Zach Breneman, Business Manager

1. A Prophet
2. Mother
3. Dogtooth
4. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
5. Animal Kingdom
6. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
7. Black Swan
8. Big River Man
9. The Social Network
10. Exit Through the Gift Shop

Honorable Mention: Fish Tank, Samson & Delilah, Daddy Longlegs, Valhalla Rising, Marwencol, Everyone Else, Last Train Home, Love Exposure, I Am Love, Boy

Kyle Canfield, General Manager

1. A Serious Man
2. Mother
3. Exit Through the Gift Shop
4. Monsters
5. Black Swan
6. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
7. I Killed My Mother
8. A Prophet
9. $9.99
10. True Grit

First Friday Shorts, Oct 1, 2010 by Howard Salmon

2010-10-05T17:28:00.000-07:00

Very enjoyable First Friday Shorts. Lots of creativity, originality, and humor: moustache rides, the return of the Wambolt brothers!

There really is a scene happening at the Loft with First Friday Shorts. There are a few familiar names that consistently submit films, and it seems that Max Cannon (the MC) is friendly with many of them. In fact, as I sat there, watching short films, watching the audience hoot and holler, and watching Max moderate the whole shebang, I suddenly felt like I was witnessing something significant, and I’ve come to a few conclusions: low-budget, hastily thrown together films are the “new punk rock”; for businesses to grow and thrive, they must create their own communities and subcultures; and that video (and film – same thing) is the preferred art form for today’s kids. The movies are just about the same length as a pop song (i.e. about 3 minutes), and there’s a strong interactive experience: between the MC (Max), the audience, and the filmmaker. The only other place you can get this type of audience participation is in a nightclub, watching a band. The Loft, with FFS, appears to have bridged the difference between watching movies and attending the live show.

The winning film tonight was called “$40 Shy” by Grant Hunter. The story was about a guy who was telling his girlfriend what he did over the weekend—how he had a “Lost Weekend” with a friend of his, which included drugs and sex with a prostitute, all paid for with his girlfriend’s credit card. The audience loved this movie, cheering as if the home team had just scored a touch down. This film started out with a couple in bed talking to each other, while the “flashback” part of the movie was composed of a series of still black & white photos that illustrated a voice over narration of the events in the story. Simple but effective.

It seems as if some of the film makers are friends with each other, and joining forces to increase their chances of winning the prize. This became clear with three separate films that were shown one after the other, all which contained the same actors: Jesse Moore’s “Taco Stand”, Nick Wambolt’s “Inbred Auto Repair”, and Tim Wambolt’s “Moustache Ride”. The Wambolt brothers are local celebrities for their submission last month, which completely satirized Mike Sterner, Max Cannon, and First Friday Shorts—and ended up winning the $200 prize. This month, they each turned in weaker entries, but Tim Wambolt’s “Moustache Ride” turned out to be the running joke of the evening, with Max using every opportunity he could to taught each film maker with remarks such as “speak up, as if you had a moustache!”, or “how many of you here would give this guy a moustache ride?!” (or something to that effect)

One movie that I liked was called “GTFO”, which stands for “Get the F*ck Out!” The movie starts with one guy shouting at another “get the f*ck out of my house!”, only to find that “f*ck” is a substance that’s alive in his refrigerator, and needs to be removed. The movie is thus about the process of getting the “f*ck” out of one’s house. Apparanantly, it requires a sponge mop.

Other movies screened tonight were: “I’ll Kill You And Your Whole Family” by Diana Stapleton (a warped and twisted version of the old “Mr. Bill Show” from Saturday Night Live, but without Mr. Bill); Grant Nelson’s “Vampires of Last Christmas”, which was about a spoof band giving a spoof interview (in the studio) about what it was like making their (spoof) album.; and a movie called “Shocking Shameless Shindig”, which juxtaposed shots of three sexily-dressed girls (with rifles) playing cards in the wash vis-à-vis scene from old black and white animated cartoons.

The last movie not gonged was a low-budget Kung-Fu action film called “Short Fists”. This featured some hastily-recorded footage of two brothers (one tall and chubby, the other short and small) fighting either with their Kung Fu moves. But the real star of that movie was the overdubbed sound track: all of the dialogue was added later as a voice-over, which didn’t quite synch up, just like those old Kung Fu movies! Brilliant touch.

After the audience voted for their fave movie, Grant Hunter marched to the stage to get his giant $200 check. While posing for photos, Max gave Grant a peck on the cheek. At First Fridays, you can feel the love, big time.

Howard Salmon is the author of “Al Perry Comix”, and is the publisher of “SLIT” music & art magazine. His website is www.howardsalmon.com

Essential Review: Spirit of the Beehive - Justyn Dillingham

2010-09-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

When the Loft's formidably knowledgeable Jeff Yanc introduced the first showing of Victor Erice's 1973 classic "Spirit of the Beehive" on Sunday, he noted that the rather better-known 2007 film "Pan's Labyrinth" had, to say the least, "borrowed" a lot from this Spanish classic. But while the two films share a number of elements—a setting, fantasy erupting into the world of a small child, an important plot point revolving around a watch—it's hard to imagine two films more different in tone. Whereas "Pan's Labyrinth" is a violent and disturbing film that troublingly blends history with fantasy—I walked out of it at the end feeling like I'd been bludgeoned with beer bottles—"Spirit of the Beehive" is so quiet and seemingly realistic a film that it sometimes feels more like a documentary, with its long, gorgeous shots of the Spanish countryside and carefully detailed scenes of ordinary people going about their business. You walk out of it thinking about what you've just seen, and what it all meant.

At the beginning of the film, two little girls living in a small, rural Spanish village go to see a rare screening of the 1931 "Frankenstein." Ana, the younger sister (Ana Torrent), is fascinated by Boris Karloff's monster and wonders "why they killed him" at the end of the movie. Her slightly older sister, Isabel (Isabel Telleria), tells her that movies aren't real -- but that the monster himself is, and that he's a "spirit" who lives in a nearby barn. So Ana sets out to find him, but what she eventually finds is very different. This story blends quietly with other stories involving the girls' parents. The father, a beekeeper, spends his days absorbed in his hobby; the mother spends her days writing letters to a lover in France. Neither of them ever know that their young daughter is struggling to understand death, a concept that has never occurred to her before. Ana, of course, doesn't realize this; she thinks she's looking for the monster. Instead of overwhelming the film, the suggestion of fantasy expands and deepens its vision; the filmmaker seems to be suggesting that there is something inherently mystical and incomprehensible about life, no less than death.

Erice focuses his camera on the sort of things other directors quickly cut away from. He seems to be genuinely trying to understand the world the way a child sees it. In one remarkable scene, the father takes his girls mushroom-hunting. "If you're not sure a mushroom's good, don't pick it," he tells them. "Because if it's bad, and you eat it, it's your last mushroom and your last everything too." He crushes the mushroom under his foot. We do not see Ana's reaction to this, but we can feel it -- we can sense her horror and bewilderment. In the age of video games and Twitter, it's all too easy to forget that children live in a different world than the rest of us, one in which adult assumptions and ideas play no role. Movies do not have the same impact on children that they do on adults, and something that an adult takes for granted can bother or bewilder a child for days.

Ana's experience has a powerful context; the film takes place in the years following the Spanish Civil War, that grim rehearsal for World War II (One-line recap: after democratic Spain's government was overthrown in a coup, a motley crew of rough-hewn anarchists, democratic socialists, volunteers and Stalin-backed communists fought against General Francisco Franco's Nazi-backed right-wing fascists, and lost). The war haunted artists and intellectuals for decades, inspiring Picasso's grim mural "Guernica," Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and George Orwell's classic piece of reportage "Homage to Catalonia." By the 1970s, our cultural memory of it (at least in America) seemed to have dwindled to a running joke on "Saturday Night Live" ("In other news, General Francisco Franco is still dead..."). But "Spirit of the Beehive" doesn't require any prior knowledge at all; it works both as a unique study of the lives of ordinary people at a certain time and place, and as a universal examination of what the world looks like to a small child. That's more than enough reason to see it.

"Spirit of the Beehive" is playing Tuesday at 7 p.m. Admission is free, with a suggested donation of $5.

-- Justyn Dillingham is a 2009 graduate of the University of Arizona.

South of the Border Review

2010-09-04T16:38:00.000-07:00

Oliver's Stone's new film South of the Border is all about shaking people up. Well, it certainly shook up our own Dale Meyers. Check out his review of the film here.

HORROR MOVIE MEMORIES by The Loft Staff

2010-08-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

Jeff

I have a lot of early horror movie memories, but one of my strongest was when my dad took me to see the original ALIEN when I was 8 years old because I insisted on going. I had read about the movie in a horror magazine, so I knew about the big gross "chest-burster" scene, and when the scene was just about to happen during the movie, I ran out of the auditorium, hid in a bathroom stall and refused to come out until the movie was over. I didn't get to see the chest-burster scene or the last hour of the movie until years later when it came out on VHS and I was ready to handle it.

Zach

Having been terrified by Pinocchio at an early age, I was probably too sensitive for horror films, but the blood and guts and the sublimated meditations on death have always intrigued me. The first horror film I watched through to the end was Night of the Living Dead. George Romero shot it in locations I'd been around all my life, and in Pittsburgh, watching the film was a rite of passage; everyone knew someone who was in it. Despite how scared I was, something about the slow, unstoppable force of the film kept me watching. Zombies have occupied a large swath of my subconscious ever since.

J.J.

I was around 10 or 11 when we went to visit my uncle in Maryland and to keep my sister and I busy while the adults hung out they let us watch a movie. She and I sat in a dark room in a strange house in the woods and watched Poltergeist. It was easily the most frightening experience I ever had watching a movie and we both still talk about how much it scared us as kids.

Daniel

My very first horror movie memory would be when I was just a couple weeks shy of my 5th birthday. Salem's Lot was airing on TV and naturally my mom wouldn't let me watch it. Just like any kid would do, I tried to find reasons to leave my room. "Mom, I gotta go to the bathroom." or "Mom, I want some water." Well it just so happened that when I left my room to go to the bathroom, little Danny Glick was very (un)dead and floating outside of his brother's window trying to get in. Needless to say, after seeing that, I actually did have to go to the bathroom. To this day, thinking about that gives me the willies. So, thanks for bringing it up. :)

Pedro

The first movie that horrified me was, honestly, ET The Extra Terrestrial. The Loft got it as a Cult Classic once & the first half of that movie still terrifies me. The first real horror movie I saw was An American Werewolf in London. While my mum was out, my father popped it in the VCR and asked' "If you want to watch this, you can't ever tell your mother." I of course agreed & my mind was blown. I still, to this day, can't imagine a better way to be introduced to the genre.

Tim

My first horror film memories weren't of a specific movie, but were as a kid watching World Beyond at 1030am on Saturday mornings. If you survived the morning cartoons and didn't need to go and clean your room or help dad mow the lawn, you could watch a 'Mondo Monday-style' flick on Channel 5, the local, independent TV channel. Watching them made me feel grown up, a little bit older; I knew a little bit more about the world. If I remember correctly, the show's theme music was off of Pinik Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, though some have said it was Santana's Black Magic Woman.

Dave

I saw 'Jaws' in a Corpus Christi multiplex I was about 8-9 years old, watched about 1/2 of it from the lobby, peeking through the entry doors into the theatre, and for a long time after that, being alone on a boat in shark-infested waters was THE recurring motif in my absolute WORST childhood nightmare.

Peggy

The flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz scared me to death. Also the Blob was the scariest thing ever - I was so scared that the blob would start oozing out from behind the screen.

Christian

The House on Haunted Hill (1959) is the first horror film I ever saw. I watched it with my dad on the Turner Classic Movie channel when I was probably about 4 or 5. There are a few things that really stick out in my memory- the opening scene with the screams and disembodied heads, Vincent Price and his mustache, the haunted organ, and the walking skeleton had me hiding under the covers. I remember it scaring me a lot but not wanting to tell my dad so I could continue watching movies with him.

Steven

When I was 8 my family and I were visiting my grandparents in Michigan, and my dad decided to rent the first Nightmare on Elm Street to keep me and my cousins, who were the same age as me, occupied. The film was bloody and creepy and scary. Needless to say, I didn't do much sleeping on that trip.

First Friday Shorts, August 6th, 2010 - Howard Salmon

2010-08-13T07:51:00.000-07:00

This was a looong First Friday shorts. I must have been in the theater for over three hours. There were that many films. Tonight’s fest was a packed house, and marked the return of local cartoonist Max Cannon as MC. He started off great; he has a great repoire with the crowd, and Max seems to relish it, extending his role as MC into a sort of impromptu comedy routine that sometimes goes on a bit long. He likes to bait the crowd, and get them all riled up, which is a lot of fun…until he violates the rules of the road. As with every First Friday shorts, the rules are explained at the beginning: a film is given a chance for three minutes, and after that point, the audience can demand that it be gonged. In explaining the rules, Max made the point that The Loft is the “last bastion of democracy”, since the fate of each film rests upon the direct vote of the audience. Tonight that didn’t happen.

The first sign that something was amiss was with Daniel Haye’s film called “Fruitcake”, which is a disgusting movie where the filmmaker has about 30 bums from the bowels of New York spit loogies into a bowl of fruitcake batter. The filmmaker explained, on camera, that he was going to cook up the result, and bake it for his father (it reminded me of last month’s equally gross movie “Baked Alaska”). Well, the audience booed loud and hard for this gross disgusting movie be gonged…but the MC wouldn’t have any of it. He wanted to see Mr. Hayes’ father eat the logy-filled fruitcake (which he did). Four people in the row ahead of me got up and walked out, noticeably angry (they later returned). The crowd voted to have “Fruit Cake” gonged…but votes calls were overrided and it was let to run it’s full course! Although the ideal of pure democracy was promised here tonight, it was subverted well before intermission.

Max once again stayed the Executioner’s Gong by intervening to save the retro-styled black & white computer animated surrealist film called “Danger Elf” by filmmaker Peter Linn. The audience roared with disapproval, at length, that this brilliant film be gonged, but Max ignored the audience and let it run in its entirety “for esthetic reasons”. The filmmaker obviously impressed Max because it out-did Red Meat with the Red Meat esthetic. It was as if Max had the rug yanked out from under him in the department of weird retro computer drawn cartoons. Imagine Salvidor Dali taking over Max’s Red Meat strip and turning it into a multilayered, multivalent dream sequence that just would not stop. It evoked the originality and bizarre quality of old surrealist art without recycling any of it’s clichés: it felt very original and it went on and on and on, never getting tired, always staying interesting. It really was quite amazing. It obviously took a lot of work, but the audience hated it. The audience’s cry to gong this film was loud, long, and sustained. but Max let it play because I think he felt respect for it (as did I). However, ignoring the loud chorus of jeers was a bad call, for it was unfair to the audience.

During the latter half of this short film marathon, we were treated to something very unusual: a serious documentary (“Plaza Entraga” by Cesar Luitron), which is about photojournalists who endanger their lives when covering the drug war in Mexico. The audience sat respectfully for the entire during of the film, and when it was over, the whole theater gave it an enthusiastic round of applause! Surely this film would win the coveted $200! (‘Fraid not) In a night filled with graphic violence, sadism, rudeness, and gore, it was really nice to see someone submit a film that took life seriously.

Derek Waters gave us “Deep Waters”, which is basically a claymation video where a beach bum meets various cartoon clay-animated sea-creatures. This was good enough for national TV (on “Adult Swim”).

Stan Brown submitted “Sheep Chingon” (sp?), which was about two guys acting out an intense drug bust confrontation…in a really nice house with a swimming pool. This was all about story (and no costumes of props), and appear to be a spoof of a certain genre of tough-guy films. However, tonight the filmmaker was at a baseball game, leaving his buddy to hopefully collect the $200 prize money. Max did not speak too kindly of that stunt, and encouraged all filmmakers to who submit movies to First Fridays, to actually show up; no stand-ins.

Connor Pepper gave us “The Tea Man and the Ruffian”, which he described as “an ancient Zen tale retold”. Had the feel of an old ‘70’s styled TV show, great old ‘60’s Motown-styled music, and close-ups of people pouring tea. Maybe it was some weird story about politics today. Who knows, for it was gonged! (one of the few)

Next was Chris Keaton’s “Gathering Souls”, which was an incredibly violent and sadistic film that was hard to watch; violent and tasteless (that is, it wasn’t my cup of tea..er, blood)…except that it contained some very creative camera work, utilizing slow motion, and layered imaging effects. And to top it all off, it became a ghoul-fest, with characters chomping on each other’s necks. It goes to show you that good camera-work can save a horrible script and difficult imagery.

Daniel Geoffrey’s “The True Meaning of Life” is about a guy who spends all his money so he can watch TV for two years straight. He also pays other people to watch TV for him so he won’t miss anything. Toward the end of this movie, the filmmaker addressed the camera, saying that he doesn’t care what happens to him, for his life means nothing, so he might as well watch all the TV he can. It makes you wonder how his life would change if he turned his TV off (Oh yeah! He’d submit a film about watching TV to First Fridays!)

Bianca Rudiker entered “Zombie Guest”, which she described as a “zombie comedy with blood and guts”. Surprisingly, this was very well acted (in a campy sense), and was made with professional actors. This movie was just as good as any of John Waters’ early movies. It had the feel of “Leave it to Beaver”, but with a zombie vibe. There are a lot of very well-made movies submitted to the Loft’s “First Fridays”, but obviously, only one can get picked as the $200 prizes winner. Good job on this one, Bianca, even though it got overlooked.

Other films were, “Arizona Chainsaw Massacre” (more gore); and a very violent piece called “Payment Due” which showed some macho guy shouting and strutting around shirtless around a battered and gagged woman who was tied to a chair. When the red light shown on the gong, the audience once again roared its disapproval, and demanded the gong…but Max again grew a deaf ear. Tempers flared! People in the theater shouted remarks such as “hey bald guy!”, “gong the MC!” , and “what about democracy?!” Amidst all of the noise, I can’t even recall if the movie was even gonged.

Some guy who called himself Joke Harmonica showed a movie called “Homage” which had blurring visuals run through a “watercolor” filter, while we listened to a female voice read shameful memories, all while Joke Harmonica strummed along with a guitar. The audience listened respectfully.

The last piece was called “Reinstate the Constitution”, which was just some simple movie clips of the sky: some with clouds, some with rain, some with fireworks. It looked like it could’ve been shot on a cell phone camera. The best part of the movie, however, was the title, for it summarized the struggles between the audience and Max to decide the fate of each film. The power struggles for gonging rights can be a fearsome thing to behold.

The winning film, “The Death of My Father” (“continuing in the patricide theme” said Max) by Ari Grabb, was a black and white film that started with a kid shaving…and ended with some guys saying, over a bloody dinner, “The hamburger was my son!!”) I wish that I had more to report on this movie, but I’d dozed off for about a 30 seconds…and missed half the movie! And that was the movie that won? Ha!

Howard Salmon is the author of “Al Perry Comix”, and is the publisher of “SLIT” music & art magazine. The 30th anniversary issue come out next month. His website is www.howardsalmon.com

Undefeatable (1994) - Billups Allen

2010-08-09T16:18:00.001-07:00

In Hong Kong productions like Undefeatable, it is important to suspend disbelief enough to accept that everywhere the characters go they will encounter people who know kung fu. It is an especially difficult premise to carry in suburban Maryland. Godfrey Ho directed over a hundred karate movies, many notorious for being bad. He is the Ed Wood of Hong Kong Cinema. I honestly don’t think the fight choreography is as bad as it is made out to be. Certainly not the worst I have ever seen. The fight sequences do however contain loads of unnecessary slow motion segments, arbitrary close ups, bad cutaways, and some ridiculous clothes ripping. While filming these scenes, Ho trots out every cliché in martial arts filmmaking. And when they are used up, he brings them out again. And again. And Again.

Five time World Karate Champion Cynthia Rothrock gained notoriety as a film star in Hong Kong. In Undefeatable, she portrays a waitress who takes part in street fights to earn money for her sister’s college tuition. Her sister is kidnapped by Stingray (Don Niam). I’m sure I don’t have to tell you he is also a karate master. Stingray, who seem to be teetering on the brink of sanity at the beginning of the film, loses his mind after his wife leaves him and begins kidnapping women who resemble her. You can tell the minute he loses it because he sprays streaks in his hair with some sort of red hair dye he got at the mall in a scene that some writer meant to be as intense a the transformation scene in Taxi Driver. As a crazed martial arts kidnapper, Stingray abducts women in some particularly public places causing some especially noticeable brawls with karate expert boyfriends. It is hard to imagine nobody would notice Stingray engaged in a full on kickboxing match in front of a shopping center in the middle of the day. In spite of his loud abductions, the police aren’t able to close in on him until they bring in a karate master who analyzes the wounds on the dead bodies and determines that the killer is using a martial arts style that only three people in the area are using. But these are the least of the convoluted ideas holding this plot together.

Undefeatable is endlessly entertaining. The dialogue is wooden, but consistently wooden so as every line comes across as a gem. The street gangs are awesome in that way where they say tough things that don’t sound tough and wear clothes that members of a street gang would never wear. The cops have the luxury of making clever observations in the middle of action sequences. The script reads as if the writers are constantly trying to dig themselves out of a previous scene. This is a movie that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It keeps you on the edge of your seat for the wrong reasons, but in the end, you won’t be able to look away.

Billups Allen’s interest in writing began composing lyrics for punk rock bands. Lyrical duties led to an interest in writing poetry and short stories. Several of his short stories were published in a book entitled Unfurnished published by Florida’s now defunct Schematics Records. Allen currently lives in Tucson, Arizona where he writes Cramhole comic zine and writes criticism for Razorcake Magazine, the Tucson Citizen, and the Tucson Weekly.

The Third Man — Justyn Dillingham

2010-08-08T12:17:00.000-07:00

Some movies are of their time and place, and stay there, but The Third Man brings its own time and place with it whenever and wherever it plays. “Of all the movies I have seen, this one most completely embodies the romance of going to the movies,” wrote Roger Ebert. “I saw it first on a rainy day in a tiny, smoke-filled cinema on the Left Bank in Paris. It told a story of existential loss and betrayal. It was weary and knowing, and its glorious style was an act of defiance against the corrupt world it pictured.” The film was shot in postwar Vienna, and it’s hard to think of any other film that captures its setting so well; after seeing it, you might find that ferris wheel and those sinister balloon men popping up in your dreams. With its dreamy, sideways shots, The Third Man sometimes looks as if it was filmed in a giant ashtray, with bombed-out buildings sticking out of the rubble like cigarette stubs.

The film, from a Graham Greene story, tells the story of Holly Martins (the always excellent Joseph Cotten), a writer who comes to Vienna to see his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to discover that Lime is – well, that’s complicated, it turns out. As Martins sets out to discover what became of his friend, he spirals into a world of sardonic British agents, shifty-eyed physicians and an enigmatic actress (Alidi Valli, credited simply as “Valli”), all of whom had something to do with Lime’s unusual career. Soon Martins finds himself caught up in a rather more morally puzzling story than the pulp Westerns he writes for a living. He thinks he can play the good guy, but in this story, there are no good guys – and, very possibly, no bad guys.

Why is Orson Welles so universally associated with The Third Man? After all, he’s barely in the movie – his scenes, added up, probably don’t amount to more than ten minutes. Yet that’s his face beaming out of the poster, and the trailer, and the most famous shots in the movie. The movie’s unusual style – its skewed perspective and gorgeous chiaroscuro black-and-white compositions – are rather Wellesian, but he didn’t direct the film. Nor was Carol Reed, the director, a one-hit wonder; his 1947 Odd Man Out, a masterful thriller with James Mason as an Irish rebel pursued through the rainy Dublin night by British police, is just as striking and powerful as The Third Man.

Yet, somehow, it’s Welles’s presence that gives the film its greatness. (Welles, who spent his career donning fake noses and capes, played the character with no makeup; it may be the closest he ever came to appearing on screen as himself.) With another actor in the role of Harry Lime, the character would simply be a villain; instead, Welles plays him as a disarming charmer – a real charmer, not the villainous kind – and we find it difficult to condemn him. He’s the representative of everything postwar Vienna has become, and somehow still the likable all-American friend Holly Martins finds it so difficult to forget. Perhaps Harry Lime is a scoundrel and a cad, or maybe there’s a little Harry Lime in all of us. Then there’s that famous speech about how the Italy of the Borgias produced the Renaissance while the best poor, peaceful Switzerland could lay claim to was “the cuckoo clock,” a speech Welles allegedly wrote himself and which he delivers with a kind of rapid-fire grace, as if he were afraid he would stumble over words that he clearly meant to be remembered, and quoted, forever.

“When the picture came out,” Welles later remarked, “the Swiss very nicely pointed out to me that they've never made any cuckoo clocks.”

— Justyn Dillingham is a 2009 graduate of the University of Arizona.

The Green Slime (1969) - Billups Allen

2010-08-02T11:02:00.001-07:00

The Green Slime opens with a 60s, psychedelic rock theme song that repeats the title of the movie over and over again as the chorus. That is a sure sign of an excellent film in my opinion. This low budget sci-fi movie combines all the best plot points of Armageddon (1998), Alien (1979) and Moonraker (1979). It starts with some scientists blowing up an asteroid heading towards Earth. For my money, this concept serves better as a half hour sub-plot. Then there is a “people disappearing off a space ship” plot that culminates into a “guys in space suits floating in space shooting at aliens” battle. All this is packed into a 90 minute running time.

Ex-Toho employees designed both the special effects and the monsters. By 1969, they must have been seasoned art directors. By seasoned, I mean you can no longer see the strings on spaceships and asteroids. It was a magical time for moviemaking when people weren’t concerned so much with the fact that things would burn and smoke in space. This film exhibits the best of those late 60s special effects where everything is painted with bright colors and, even though nothing looks real, the style of the film outweighs the lack of convincing special effects. The film is laden with bright colors and crazy spaceships. Besides all the plot lines from other movies, the aliens also look suspiciously like the aliens form The Simpsons. If I didn’t know better, I might be led to believe that this is one of the most influential sci- fi movies ever. Director Kinji Fukasaku directed a long list of films until his death in 2003. After his death, his son took over his last film production. How cool is that?

The Green Slime - Monday, August 1st at 8:00 p.m.

It's MONDO MONDAYS at The Loft, celebrating weird, wild and wonderful flicks from the Mondo side of the silver screen! Admission is only $3.00, and don't forget to check out our yummy "Mondo Munchies" snack bucket ... fill a cup for a buck!

Billups Allen’s interest in writing began composing lyrics for punk rock bands. Lyrical duties led to an interest in writing poetry and short stories. Several of his short stories were published in a book entitled Unfurnished published by Florida’s now defunct Schematics Records. Allen currently lives in Tucson, Arizona where he writes Cramhole comic zine and writes criticism for Razorcake Magazine, the Tucson Citizen, and the Tucson Weekly.

BODY ROCK (1984)

2010-07-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

It makes sense that Body Rock was made the same year as Breakin' (1984). All the good dancers must have been making Breakin’ when Body Rock was being filmed. Where as the cast of Breakin’ was largely a group of unknowns who knew how to dance, part of Body Rock’s budget went to pay Lorenzo Lamas. Chilly (Lamas) is a cut-rate rapper/break-dancer who runs a crew called the “Body Rock Crew.” The BRC are, according to Chilly, ready for their big break despite the fact that only a few of them dance competently. But the big break comes when an uptown businessmen wants Chilly to perform in his club. He goes on to achieve great fame in the club circuit despite the fact that he has no discernable talent. He is able to sleep at night under the notion that he is eventually going to ease everyone from the BRC into his club act so they can all “make it” like he has. But after a few leather jackets and sexual encounters with strangers hot for his fame, Chilly quickly forgets his roots. The BRC must struggle without him.

First of all, isn’t this the plot of Breakin’? Krush Groove? Both of these movies came out the same year as Body Rock. The differentiator is that there were talented people in those movies. Lorenzo Lamas is hilarious as he lumbers through the movie like a rapper in a fast food training video. The best parts of the movie for me were the ludicrous stage productions put together by the club choreographers after he “makes it.” One where the lights go out and these neon skeletons dance around him incompetently is worth sitting through the whole movie to see.

Breakin’ was essentially a pretty awful movie, but the dancing saves it. Here, the dancing saves the movie as well; only it is all the terrible moves making the movie worthwhile. The best dancer in the whole thing is a young man named Magick (La Ron A. Smith). There is an awesome montage where Magick teaches Chilly to dance. Of course, when it’s over, Chilly can’t dance any better than when he started.

Another bizarro-world parallel between Body Rock and Krush Groove/Breakin’ is that Chilly forgets his friends and must eventually choose to if or not to redeem himself. I don’t want to give the story away, but I will tell you that if he does happen to come crawling back to the BRC, it is because he has no other choice. In Krush Groove, for instance, Joseph has to make a moral choice regarding whether or not to realize who he was. In Body Rock, the moral is that talentless schlubs who fall into high paying jobs should not burn bridges.

Body Rock - Monday, July 26th at 8:00 p.m.

2010-07-14T11:00:00.001-07:00

LOFT STAFF SPOTLIGHT

Name: Wang Dang Dingle Dangle Diddly Doodly Diggity Danny...or just Daniel :)

LOFT Staff position: Projectionist and such

I have worked at THE LOFT since: September 11^th 2009

I grew up in: A lot of different places in North Carolina

My birthday/age is: 12/03/74

When I am not at THE LOFT I: to be camping on the mountain, away from it all. I also like recording original music under the banner of Project 774.

I work at THE LOFT because: I love movies and The Loft tends to show the better ones. I stay at the Loft because it's populated with good people.

A few of my favorite films are: I can only put a few? Ok. Cool Hand Luke, Shaun of the Dead, Halloween, House of the Devil, Invasion (aka Top of the Food Chain), Friday the 13th part 4, Die Hard, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Bronson, The Empire Strikes Back, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Road House, Black Christmas, Hot Rod, Caddyshack, Blazing Saddles...I'll stop now I guess...

My favorite directors are: Edgar Wright, The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorcese, Paul Thomas Anderson, Danny Boyle, John Carpenter, David Fincher

My favorite LOFT experience was: So far? Working the overnight on the Scream-o-rama last year. Such a long, silly night finished off with drinking coffee on the patio and watching the sun come up with Dan-ager and Christian.

My favorite thing about the Loft is: I couldn't pin it down to one thing. I love it all. Cleaning the theater while the Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout CD plays. Getting turned on to new movies and music by my co-workers. Mondo Munchies! Cleaning the popper (no really, I actually like doing it) Watching Rocky people lose it on the floor while running around the lobby to hit a cue. Anything Dave says.

Make up your own question here: How can I find out more about your music? Gee whiz, thanks for asking! Just search Project 774 on Facebook. All the music is free, as music should be!

Mondo Monday - CAGE (1989)

2010-07-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

Once in a while, a movie comes along that makes you wish you could ask why. I have to be careful not to make fun of Lou Ferrigno for one, very primary reason: I wouldn’t want to fight him in a cage or otherwise. He does appears to have a sense of humor about himself as exemplified in his recent appearance in I Love You Man (2009). I can’t help wondering how it came about that he was convinced to play someone who suffers brain damage to the point of having the mentality of a child. My instinct is to feel a bit offended for him. Was that part of the original story? If so, did they consider Ferrigno because they thought he could handle portraying someone with brain damage? He seems like a nice guy, but it probably goes without saying that he is not much of an actor. A lot of my time watching this movie was spent trying to piece together how they approached this subject with him. You would be surprised to discover that there is very little written on the subject of Cage.

Ferrigno’s character Billy Thomas is a soldier fighting in Vietnam who becomes a hero when he rescues fellow soldier Scott Monroe (Reb Brown). Thomas suffers heavy brain trauma during the rescue. After what I am pretty sure is an unintentionally homoerotic convalescence scene, the movie flashes forward twenty years to Los Angles in 1989 where Thomas’ hair has not changed. Monroe and Thomas are running a bar together. Across town, an underground cage match is taking place. Most of the story is about two mob guys trying to trick the dimwitted Thomas into participating in this underground fight circuit. They think he is a sure thing, but Monroe won’t let Thomas fight. Thomas is a sweet guy, but when he gets angry, well, you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

The film has some wonderfully inept scenes, including some of the least suspenseful fight sequences ever put to film. There are 28 stuntmen listed in the credits but you wouldn’t know from watching it. There is also one of those really unrealistic 1980s gangs terrorizing the bar where they work. The Chinese Mafia, a device that 1980s action movies were obsessed with for a short period of time, is also involved in the fight ring. For all of the wisdom you would expect from the world’s oldest organized crime syndicate, they are not smart enough to just kill their enemies. Inspired by techniques perfected by Dr. No, they collect them all into a room for the purposes of killing them at a later, more convenient time. I don’t want to give the ending away, but I will tell you instead of waiting around to die, the good guys get it together for the purposes of trying to escape towards a terrifically abrupt ending. The film is hopelessly optimistic at the end by leaving an indicator that there will be a sequel. And there is, apparently. There is even less information available on the subject of Cage II (1994). I guess the producers felt they had not explored all the layers of Lou Ferrigno’s performance as a gigantic child.

ESSENTIAL CINEMA - Buster Keaton's The General

2010-07-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

Though it's all but disappeared as a subject for Hollywood, you could make a good case that the American Civil War helped launch the movie business. After all, it provided the spark for the first blockbuster, D.W. Griffifth's 1915 "The Birth of the Nation," a film whose first half still impresses with its uncanny visual veracity -- you could be watching tattered newsreel footage of the war itself. Only Griffith's bilious sentimentality reminds us that Hollywood's worst qualities were born here, too. (The surreal racism that blights the film's second half, which portrays the Ku Klux Klan as heroic freedom fighters battling the sinister ex-slaves, makes it seem like a film made in some parallel universe where the South actually won the war.) But 11 years later, a far greater artist made an infinitely greater film, one that the world's most famous movie critic would rank among the ten best movies ever made. Strange to say, that film was a boisterous comedy made by a great comedian, and one that can still leave them in the aisles, as they say, today.

The film is "The General," Buster Keaton's 1927 masterpiece, though I hesitate to apply the word "masterpiece" to anything this funny. But Orson Welles (who ought to know) once said that Keaton's film was a hundred times more gorgeous-looking than "Gone With the Wind," and the proof is on the screen for anyone to see. Whereas that great Hollywood epic concerns itself with large matters -- an epic romance, an epic war, the fall of a city, the disappearance of a civilization -- "The General" concerns itself with the adventures of an ordinary young man and his love for his train. His story is set in the South, but the war doesn't concern him too much, except that it leads to him getting rejected by his girl when the Confederate army turns him down. The film, loosely based on a real historical incident, concerns Our Hero's attempt to steal his beloved locomotive, The General, back from the Yankees. (Oh, he also needs to rescue his girlfriend -- but you suspect that the train is really what matters here.) Complications ensue and of course, it all winds up with a terrific chase scene -- one of the best in the movies, and apparently the single most expensive movie sequence filmed up to that time.

In his day, Keaton was eclipsed by Charlie Chaplin; later, it became hip to say that Keaton was the real genius, and Chaplin a mere crowd-pleaser. In fact, there's no reason to choose; between the two of them, you have two types of comedy that cancel each other out. Chaplin is funny because he does funny things; he can't walk into a room without the ceiling caving in, or the floor turning into a skating rink. Keaton is funny because he doesn't do funny things; instead, he remains perfectly still, almost untouched as the world falls apart around him. If the ceiling caves in, you can bet that Keaton will have his back turned to it, lost in some reverie. He greets catastrophe and triumph alike with a thoughtful, melancholy gaze -- and, of course, he always comes out on top. In my favorite shot of "The General" (also, incidentally, one of the most dangerous stunts ever filmed), after being rejected by his girl, Buster glumly sits down on one of the coupling rods between two of his train's wheels to think. The train starts moving and the wheels begin to turn. Keaton remains sitting there, going around and around and around. Still thinking.

Buster Keaton's "The General" plays at The Loft Cinema Sunday, July 11, at 1 p.m., and Tuesday, July 13, at 7 p.m.

-- Justyn Dillingham is a 2009 graduate of the University of Arizona. He ever so slightly prefers Chaplin to Keaton.

Top Ten - The Loft's Favorite Silent Films

2010-07-09T11:56:00.000-07:00

Buster Keaton's THE GENERAL is this month's Essential Cinema film. In honor of this classic silent film, The Loft staff has submitted some of their favorite silents. Enjoy!

10. Safety Last

9. The Passion of Joan of Arc

8. Sunrise

7. Napoleon

6. City Lights

5. Roundhay Garden Scene

4. Metropolis

3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

2. Un Chien Andalou

1. Nosferatu

ESSENTIAL CINEMA is The Loft's FREE monthly series of classic art films on the big screen. See old favorites, hidden gems and exciting re-discoveries the way they were meant to be seen - with an audience and on the big screen in glorious 35 mm!

Buster Keaton's THE GENERAL

Sunday, July 11th at 1:00 p.m.
and Tuesday, July 13th at 7:00 p.m.

First Friday Shorts, July 2, 2010 - Howard Salmon

2010-07-03T14:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight, at “First Friday Shorts”, there was something for everyone: animation, gross-out humor, art films. campy mini-dramas, gratuitous sex, gratuitous violence, and music videos. The previews alone constituted their own mini film festival: they were raunchy, hilarious, gross, and full of cool style. For example, there were ads for a Joan Rivers “tell all” documentary, a children’s film festival (e.g. the Muppets), a movie called “Trash Humpers” about people humping bags of trash, a slasher flick (“Boarding House”), a documentary about the artist “Banksy”, and “Team America World Police” Curse-A-Thon (in honor of the upcoming Fourth of July holiday).

When the event started, we learned that Max Cannon wasn’t able to attend tonight. so local comedian Mike Sterner & his sidekick Bridgitte would takeover the hosting honors. Mike had an interesting way of hitting the gong: instead of bashing it, like in one of those old Kung Fu movies (to announce the entrance of the Emperor), Mike would gently tap it and then hold a microphone up to it. The resulting gong noise ended up sounding like weak amp feedback.

The first movie, “Tapeworm 2”, I found to be amazing. I was very impressed by it, for reasons I’ll describe in a moment; it ended up being the crowd favorite, with it’s creator, Brian McAdams, taking home a $200 prize check for his entry at the end of the night. “Tapeworm 2” was an incredible mix of three types of animation: largely made with old fashioned stop-motion animation (using Lego toys), with added Flash animation and what looked like CGI effects (e.g. waving computerized flames). The “sets” were just whatever furniture happened to be in the way, with the entire movie having been shot in and around someone’s house. The soundtrack was some old fashioned heroic classical music, connecting it yet again to the traditions of an earlier era. The “plot” involved the adventures of pieces of blue masking tape who inch around like microscopic organisms. Very creative, industrious, and humourous. What a great way to start out the film fest!

What followed after that never rose to the level of “Tapeworm 2”, but was still a lot of fun. “Taking Advantage” was a campy drama that looked technically professional, but lacked direction. It got gonged, and I found Bridgitte’s confrontational stance towards the filmmaker a bit rude (“Your movie has no passion! Oh, now are you going to tell us we suck??” she taunted the filmmaker after it got gonged). “Nerds Gone Camping” was a low-budget ridiculous story that felt totally amateurish, except that it had an excellent sense of comedic timing (GONGED!) “Baked Alaska” was a story about the filmmaker mixing roadkill into cake batter, and cooking it for his mother, who lives out of a trailer in Yellowstone National park. There were many shouts to gong this sucker…but Mike let it play out. (We all got to watch the filmmaker’s mother eat roadkill cake)

Of course at any “First Friday Shorts”, there are those who give up even trying to please the crowd, and instead make films that are shorter then three minutes. There were a handful of those, and one of them was actually pretty good. It was comprised of several quick cuts of close-ups of various tools at a construction site. The fast pace kept it interesting, even though it really wasn’t about anything. When it was over, Mike Sterner pointed out a lesson we could all take home with us: if your movie is cut extremely tight, it will be interesting.

Another art film that impressed me was “Movement Andante”. This entire black-and-white silent film consisted of a closeup of a fleshy hairy crack. I couldn’t tell if it was a closeup of someone folding their arm, or if it was a piece of carpet. It was also undulating in a repetitive way, giving the illusion that something sexual was happening on the screen, but it was actually a very abstract closeup of something flexing and contracting over and over again. The audience watched it for the entire length of the film, obviously seduced. But there’s no way that a minimalist art film is going to win the $200 prize! But it was a memorable part of the lineup.

There were also some creepy horror type flicks, which felt like a tip of the hat to David Lynch, and at the end, there was a funny and erotic gameshow spoof called “Hookup”, which was very titillating, on at least two levels.

Tucson’s got talent! Tune in next month for another review of the Loft Theater’s “First Friday Shorts”

No More Popcorn: The Curious Legacy of Troll 2 - By Matt Wavrin

2010-06-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

Troll 2 (1990) occupies a unique spot in trash film history. Shot in Utah by Italians, it packs so much craziness into its 95 minutes that one is left with an overdose of genuine oddity. What is Troll 2? A condemnation of vegetarians, according to Rosella Drudi, who co-wrote the story with the film’s director, Claudio Fragasso (credited as Drake Floyd). Or is it about evil, vegetarian Mormons? Who knows? What is obvious is that the film bears no relation to the original 1986 Troll with Sonny Bono, and in fact contains not trolls, but goblins. All of this, and some serious homoerotic undertones to boot.

In case you’re confused about the fact that they are indeed goblins, the name of the town to which the Waits family travels is called Nilbog (“Goblin spelled backwards!”). Troll 2 blurs the criterion for what makes a bad film, though it is indeed considered one of the worst of all time. In terms of technical matters, acting, and nearly every other superficial category, yes, it is a bad film. If one considers pure entertainment value, originality, daring, comedic value, and extreme weirdness as a high virtue, it is hardly a bad film, and its cult has only grown over the years.

This cult is of concern to Michael Stephenson, who played young Joshua, pisser of hospitality, in the film. His documentary, Best Worst Movie, shows the repercussions of being involved with such a travesty. The cast recalls the supreme embarrassment felt after seeing Troll 2 for the first time, and the film shows what has happened to the cast after two decades of shame. Fragasso seems to fashion himself a Fellini-esque auteur and believes his film to be great and detests the actors. The father in Troll 2, George Hardy, is a divorced dentist in Alabama and serves as the documentary’s star. Don Packard, who played the demented drugstore owner, confesses that he was actually going through some serious mental issues during the filming of the movie. Margo Prey, the Waits mother, is now a paranoid cat lady who wishes not to be involved with the film’s newfound popularity. What it all adds up to is that being part of a baaaad cult classic has its rewards and its pitfalls, such as being totally ignored in England and at a horror convention in the States. Yet there is such sweetness in Stephenson’s film—it is about the love of movies, no matter the artistic value. And that’s not something to piss on.

Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958) - Billups Allen

2010-06-28T12:10:00.001-07:00

Frankenstein’s Daughter is one of those great, nonsensical science fiction movies from the late 50s where the science and motivation of the characters doesn't make much sense. Dr. Frankenstein’s grandson (which I believe isn’t possible as the story takes place in 1958) wants to continue his family’s eccentric work. But this particular Dr. Frankenstein, hiding in America under the moniker Oliver Frank (Donald Murphy), isn’t as much an insane genius as he is just a jerk. He is taking advantage of poor Professor Carter Morton (Felix Locher) by using his lab, screwing up his research, and drugging his daughter. It sort of serves Morton right for not asking for references. Frank cannot even produce a fake I.D. that says who he is. For a Frankenstein, he is a pretty lackluster mastermind.

When Frank drugs Morton’s daughter Trudy (Sandra Knight), she becomes this sort of Frankenstein’s monster/werewolf hybrid. She runs around town in a bathing suit terrorizing people. This is endlessly amusing to the local police department. When Frank is not drugging Trudy, he is sexually harassing Trudy’s friend Sally (Suzie Lawler). Frank turns Sally into the permanent monster that is inherently promised by a Frankenstein narrative. The monster is a man in a very masculine looking mask. There is noting remotely feminine about the monster, which is not created from the only daughter in the story, which is not Frank’s daughter anyway. A better title would be: Frankenstein is Sexually Harassing Someone’s Daughter’s Friend, Eventually Turning Her Into a Man. I guess that doesn’t fit on the marquee. On the plus side, Frank’s monster is better behaved than his creator; it knocks on the front door of the house before revealing itself.

If this sounds at all complicated, it really isn’t. Because of the thin plot, Frankenstein’s Daughter contains one of my favorite elements to be occasionally inserted into movies from the 1950s: a performance by a rock band. The Page Cavanaugh Trio, a white bred-pseudo rock group, does a couple of numbers to fill out the run time. It’s a nice break in the action for both the actors and the audience. I felt refreshed after their songs, fully prepared to return to watching people run around in masks. Frankenstein’s Daughter is misguided, 50s-sci-fi fun. There isn’t much to it, but it manages to entertain on a lot of levels.

Frankenstein's Daughter - Monday, June 28th at 8:00 p.m.

It's MONDO MONDAYS at The Loft, celebrating weird, wild and wonderful flicks from the Mondo side of the silver screen! Admission is only $2.00, and don't forget to check out our yummy "Mondo Munchies" snack bucket ... fill a cup for a buck!

Billups Allen's interest in writing began composing lyrics for the band Shoutbus and later for the band Corn on Macabre. Lyrical duties led to writing poetry and short stories. Several of his short stories were published in a book entitled Unfurnished published by Florida’s now defunct Schematics Records. Allen currently lives in Tucson, Arizona where he writes Cramhole comic zine, writes reviews for Razorcake Magazine and the Tucson Citizen. www.billupsallen.com

PSYCHO - Justyn Dillingham

2010-06-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

"There is not an abundance of subtlety or the lately familiar Hitchcock bent toward significant and colorful scenery in this obviously low-budget job." The world came to disagree with Bosley Crowther, grand poobah of the New York Times's film section for 27 years -- a man whose stuffy pronouncements irritated Pauline Kael so much that she made fun of him on virtually every page of her first book -- on the subject of Hitchcock's "Psycho," long since enshrined as a masterpiece and a turning point in the history of movies. But in some ways Crowther wasn't wrong. Hitchcock deliberately eschewed both subtlety and prettiness in the film; it was meant to hit audiences with all the grace of a murderer's knife, and audiences in 1960 reacted as if the knife had come slashing right through the screen.

To explain why audiences found the film so shocking, it is useful to explain what they might have come to the theater expecting. In general, there are two types of Hitchcock films. In the first type, an innocent man falls into dangerous circumstances and must fight his way out. He is mistaken for someone else, or wrongly implicated in a crime. This was the basic plot of "The 39 Steps," "Saboteur," "Strangers on a Train," "The Wrong Man," "The Man Who Knew Too Much," and "North By Northwest." In the second type of film, a puzzle falls into the lap of an innocent protagonist, and he or (usually) she must solve it. This was the plot of "The Lady Vanishes," "Rebecca," "Suspicion," "Spellbound," "Shadow of a Doubt," "Vertigo," and "Rear Window." Only once did Hitchcock sharply deviate from this pattern in one of his great films. In "Psycho," the audience is placed in the role of the innocent protagonist, and everyone we see on the screen is guilty. The entire film is a set-up, and the joke is on us.

For years, Hitchcock had made a game of toying with the audience's sympathies. He particularly seemed to relish pushing the audience to identify with his villains, like Claude Rains's sad-sack Nazi war criminal in "Notorious," so put upon and deceived by the film's heroes. Another favorite trick was to make the hero seem unscrupulous or weird. Hitchcock's heroes quarrel with their fiancées, peer into strangers' windows and joke about murdering their ex-wives. Hitchcock had never gone so far as he did in "Psycho," however, and the elaborate game he played with the press to drape a curtain of mystery around the film -- his playful attempt to "spoil" the film in his famous trailer, his injunction that no one be admitted to the theater after the beginning -- suggest that he knew all too well what a dangerous film he had made. At one point we watch a character watch a car sinking into a swamp. The car suddenly stops sinking, and we tense up -- will it sink? It does, and we feel relieved, just like the character. Then we realize that we've been tricked into identifying, however momentarily, with a person most of us would never want to share a hotel room with, to say the last.

The film's dangerousness lay in the way Hitchcock broke one taboo after another, with the casualness of a kid popping a sheet of bubble wrap. The opening scene shows a couple -- obviously unmarried -- lounging in a bed in a rundown hotel room. Later, for the first time in Hollywood history, a toilet is seen flushing. And then -- well, if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. (I've avoided talking about the plot as much as I can, since it's my experience that while everyone kind of knows what "Psycho" is about, a surprising number of people have never seen it -- perhaps, unfortunately, because they think they already know what happens.) But these small violations of Hollywood convention prepare us for what comes next, when the film plunges us into subjects so startling we can't even imagine the characters in other Hitchcock films talking about them. Much of that shockingness has been lost, partly because the film achieved what it set out to do. It's often been said that Hitchcock was successful because knew just how far he could go without alarming the censors. In this film, Hitchcock did go too far, and he got away with it because "Psycho" was enormously successful. At one point he considered releasing the film without the approval of the censors; a few years later, the censors themselves were out of a job, in part because of what Hitchcock had achieved in "Psycho."

Hitchcock was famously impatient with explanations. He thought they got in the way of the suspense. (In "North By Northwest," we never find out exactly what kind of agent Cary Grant is supposed to be mistaken for, or what the villains are trying to accomplish.) So it's a little puzzling that he ends -- or almost ends -- "Psycho" with a long explanation of what we have just seen. Perhaps he felt that the film would be too overwhelming and disturbing without it. He must have taken heart from the film's success, for his next film, "The Birds," contains no explanation at all for what has happened. There is no "villain" except the universe itself, and that film ends where it does because there is simply nothing else to add. And just as "Psycho" ends, Hitchcock pulls one last trick -- in the long, sinister final shot-- that suggests that even that explanation, after all, is a little phony, and that perhaps there is no explaining what we have seen. After all, that nice young man wouldn't hurt a fly.

Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" is playing at The Loft Cinema, Wednesday, June 23, at 7 p.m.

Justyn Dillingham is a 2009 graduate of the University of Arizona. His favorite film is “A Taste of Honey” (1961).

LOFT STAFF SPOTLIGHT - Anthony

2010-06-15T12:03:00.000-07:00

Name: Anthony Cutrone A.K.A Twan

LOFT Staff position: The popper of popcorn, the seller of tickets, the cleaner of theatres and the giver of love.

I have worked at THE LOFT since: 2008, after the summer of touring the west coast and being unemployed. Thank the stars for the LOFT!

I grew up in: A house, but I was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona.

My birthday/age is: 02-02-1987, Groundhogs Day. 9lbs and beautiful. Thanks Mom and Dad!

When I am not at THE LOFT I: Collect records, taste beers, chill with my cat Ripley A.K.A. Ripples, read (lame), watch movies, sleep, attend school, make films, dream of once again making music, roller blade, but usually I’m at THE LOFT. If I’m not working, I’m watching movies on the big screen.

I work at THE LOFT because: I am addicted to movies. It’s a serious condition, which there is no cure. It’s the best job and I work with the best people. It’s the best place in Tucson.

A few of my favorite films are: Jaws, The Thing (1981), Body Double, 400 Blows, Millers Crossing, The Conversation, Magnolia, Breathless, Mean Streets, Rififi, Memories of Murder, Hidden Fortress, Manhunter, Robocop, Taxi Driver, Eyes Wide Shut, Once Upon A Time in The West, Alien and Aliens, Terminator and T2, Thin Blue Line, Rear Window, Teen Wolf, Close Encounters, Star Wars Trilogy, Big Trouble in Little China, Let The Right One In, Blade Runner, Midnight Cowboy, Blue Velvet, City Lights, Z, Commando, Fright Night, The Brood, Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

My favorite directors are: Kubrick, Carpenter, Kurosawa, De Palma, Godard, Scorsese, Morris, Herzog, Coen Brothers, P.T. Anderson, Coppola, Bong Joon Ho, Cronenberg, Jean Pierre Melville, Mann, Tarantino, Polanski, Hitchcock, Spielberg, Paul Verhoven, William Friedkin, Sergio Leone, James Cameron, Lucio Fulci, Lynch.

My favorite LOFT experience was: Watching Fright Night at 3:00 A.M. during Scream O’Rama and when Mark Ibold, the bass player for Pavement and Sonic Youth came in to watch The Messenger.

My favorite thing about the Loft is: It’s a non-profit, the Beer, the staff, the movies, the regulars, the secret portal in the up stairs theatre and the feeling of being a part of something magical.

Make up your own question here: If train A leaves Chicago traveling 100MPH and train B leaves New York traveling 150MPH and the distance between the two cites is 600 miles how far from New York will it be when the two trains meet?

To get in touch with me send me an email: whatawampeteris9@hotmail.com

The New Barbarians: Warriors of the Wasteland (1982) - Billups Allen

2010-06-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

There are so many awesome things going on in this movie that I can’t keep up. Decapitations. Impractical weaponry. Futuristic codpieces. The opening is a model of a cityscape becoming engulfed with nuclear fallout while a cheap keyboard drum machine churns out an 80s action theme. This Italian pseudo- Road Warrior story is a typical low budget apocalyptic nightmare from the 80s.

After the 2019 nuclear war (heads up), a band of settlers are roaming, attempting to survive on their hunter-gatherer skills. On their tail are The Templars. The Templars want to wipe out humanity. They never say why they want to wipe out humanity, but they make a point of mentioning it often. As self-proclaimed “ministers of revenge,” the Templars are doing a lousy job; there seem to be pockets of humanity all over the place. They drive techno cars endowed with a variety of weapons that impale, shred, and burn victims who are too stupid to run in a canted line. Fortunately for the Templars, battles take place on flat ground so everyone can run in a straight line away from their tyranny.

The film’s protagonist is an ex-Templar named Scorpion (Giancarlo Prete). The Templars want him dead. They never say why Scorpion is an ex-Templar, but the Templars do attempt to rape him in one of the strangest scenes I have ever seen. Out of nowhere, Black Caesar star Fred Williamson appears in this mess as Nadir. Nadir and Scorpion don’t get along either, but they spend a lot of the movie showing up in the nick of time to rescue one another.

The 1950s were wide open to science fiction films thwarting the conventions of science since no one had ever been into space. People knew better in the 80s, but there was “what if” nuclear paranoia leaving the decade wide open to post-apocalyptic nonsense. Most of these movies are worth watching for one reason or another. Loaded with unnecessary stunts, terrible acting, horrible special effects, and an excessive amount of headbands, The New Barbarians: Warriors of the Wasteland is the cream of the crop.

The New Barbarians: Warriors of the Wasteland - Monday, May 31st at 8:00 p.m.

The Loft Cinema

The Loft's Favorite Films of 2011

Hidden Gems: The Ten Films at The Loft Film Fest You Might not Think You Need to See (But You Do)

MISSING REEL: The Rambling Guitarist

THE LAST CIRCUS / Staff Review by Dave Paiz

TABLOID / Staff Review by Evan Salazar

THE LAST MOUNTAIN / Staff Review by Dave Paiz

POETRY / Staff Review by Evan Salazar

Reflections on Kids' Fest / By Peggy Springer

THE TRIP / Staff Review by Evan Salazar

The Loft's FAVORITE FANTASY FILMS

AMERICA, F**K YEAH! THE "TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE"

SING-A-LONG

AND CURSE-A-THON!

AMERICAN: THE BILL HICKS STORY - Staff review by Dave Paiz

The Loft's Favorite Westerns

Kelly Reichardt: All Disquiet On The Northwestern Front - Matt Wavrin

SAINT MISBEHAVIN': THE WAVY GRAVY MOVIE - Staff review by Dave Paiz

STAFF SPOTLIGHT: Christian Ramirez

The Loft's Favorite Movie Aliens

The Loft's Favorite South Korean Films

PHIL OCHS: THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE - Staff review by Dave Paiz

The One Film We Could Watch Every Day for a Year

THE ILLUSIONIST / Staff review by Evan Salazar

STRANGE POWERS: Staff review by Dave Paiz

MESRINE: PUBLIC ENEMY #1 (PART TWO) / Staff review by Evan Salazar

MESRINE: KILLER INSTINCT (PART ONE) / Staff review by Evan Salazar

LEMMY / Staff review by Dave Paiz

FELA! / A brief staff review by a non-believer

The Loft's Favorite Films of 2010

First Friday Shorts, Oct 1, 2010 by Howard Salmon

Essential Review: Spirit of the Beehive - Justyn Dillingham

South of the Border Review

HORROR MOVIE MEMORIES by The Loft Staff

First Friday Shorts, August 6th, 2010 - Howard Salmon

Undefeatable (1994) - Billups Allen

The Third Man — Justyn Dillingham

The Green Slime (1969) - Billups Allen

BODY ROCK (1984)

Mondo Monday - CAGE (1989)

ESSENTIAL CINEMA - Buster Keaton's The General

Top Ten - The Loft's Favorite Silent Films

ESSENTIAL CINEMA is The Loft's FREE monthly series of classic art films on the big screen. See old favorites, hidden gems and exciting re-discoveries the way they were meant to be seen - with an audience and on the big screen in glorious 35 mm!

Buster Keaton's THE GENERAL

Sunday, July 11th at 1:00 p.m.and Tuesday, July 13th at 7:00 p.m.

First Friday Shorts, July 2, 2010 - Howard Salmon

No More Popcorn: The Curious Legacy of Troll 2 - By Matt Wavrin

Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958) - Billups Allen

PSYCHO - Justyn Dillingham

LOFT STAFF SPOTLIGHT - Anthony

The New Barbarians: Warriors of the Wasteland (1982) - Billups Allen

Sunday, July 11th at 1:00 p.m.
and Tuesday, July 13th at 7:00 p.m.