25TH ANNIVERSARY!

Roger Ebert's favorite film of 1998 and one of six movies to be blessed with a DVD commentary by the legendary critic. DARK CITY famously shares similar themes and ideas with THE MATRIX, yet predates the latter's release by just over a year. THE MATRIX even reused some of DARK CITY's sets. But whereas THE MATRIX was influenced by anime and martial arts movies, DARK CITY is pure noir. Well, sci-fi noir. It tells the story of a man who struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun, run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.

Part of our Summer Blast! film series.

“[Director] Proyas floods the screen with cinematic and literary references ranging from Murnau and Lang to Kafka and Orwell, creating a unique yet utterly convincing world.” Andrea C. Basora, Newsweek

“…a reminder of how sensuous a visual trip movie watching can be.” Richard Corliss, TIME

“If you don’t fall in love with it, you’ve probably never fallen in love with a movie, and never will.” Stephen Hunter, The Washington Post

In 1941, sisters Thom and Mars have built a machine, LOLA, that can intercept radio and TV broadcasts from the future.

This allows them to listen to iconic music before it has been made, place bets knowing what the outcome will be, and embrace their inner punk well before the movement comes into existence.

But with the Second World War escalating, the sisters decide to use the machine for good to intercept information from the future that could help with military intelligence. The machine initially proves to be a huge success, rapidly twisting the fortunes of the war against the Nazis.

While Thom becomes intoxicated by LOLA, Mars begins to realize the terrible consequences of its power.

Shot on both 16mm and 35mm film. Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

“[A] thrillingly inventive found-footage mockumentary… Shot on film, using vintage equipment, the picture has a scrappy, tactile quality, its ghostly black-and-white images scratched and scorched.” Wendy Ide, The Guardian

“LOLA is a sophisticated piece of science-fiction. Legge’s debut is a conversation-starting whirl through philosophy and strategy. Bound together by a dynamic duo of sisters, LOLA is simply breath-taking.” Kat Hughes, The Hollywood News

A mysterious new priest comes to town and little do the other parishioners know, this ferocious father possesses not only extraordinary martial arts skills, but also crucifix blades and a gold handgun with a holy cross on the handle. In just about no time he's kicking ass for the lord, cleaning up the city streets that seem to be teeming with drug dealers and violent scumbags. Fatefully, while in confession he meets a lunatic claiming to be the bloodsucking, skull stealing "vampire" serial killer ravaging the city. With the battle cry "Open the gates of Hell! For I am the right hand of God!!!!" he sets off on his deadliest mission yet...

“This is the kind of movie where you watch Don Stroud eat corn flakes out of a human skull and make smoothies with blood and beer, all while the psychic cop also has a crucifix knife ready to hear that killer’s deathbed confession.” bandsaboutmovies.com

“Memorable for so many of the wrong reasons – [this] film is nevertheless a fascinating stain on the CV of a whole host of talented creatives” theschlockpit.com

“Deliriously awful… F.” Entertainment Weekly, 1992

ONLY ON VHS! ONLY $3!

WE KILL FOR LOVE goes in search of the forgotten world of the direct-to-video erotic thriller, an American film genre that once dominated late night cable television and the shelves of neighborhood video stores. Balancing film art with scholarship, it pulls back the curtain to reveal the heart and soul of a forgotten and often maligned film movement.

“It’s not simply an interesting history of a sub-genre of cinema. It’s also a fascinating sociological and cultural history of 1990’s America.” Scott Phillips, Forbes

“An unmissable documentary about erotic thrillers, spotlighting many lost DTV films that were figuratively—and literally—made with love.” Josh Korngut, Dread Central

WITH SECRET SECOND FEATURES! Each night’s showing of the documentary will be followed by a secret direct-to-video erotic thriller presented on VHS!

The August 21st screening will be introduced by Matt Lynch of Scarecrow Video and The Suspense Is Killing Us podcast, and it will be paired with one of the most WTF erotic thrillers ever conceived, starring an absolute legend of the genre and featuring a performance that uncannily resembles Christian Bale in American Psycho mode.

The August 23rd screening will be paired with a more noir-inspired erotic thriller written and directed by women (a rarity among the genre), starring an Emmy award-winning actor with one of the most recognizable faces in the profession who also happens to be a longtime collaborator of a multiple Academy Award-winning, modern-day director.

30TH ANNIVERSARY!

Our Summer Blast! film series concludes with one of the greatest Batman stories ever conceived. As Batman continues his war on Gotham City’s underworld, he discovers a new foe who wants to take that war to a whole new level: the Phantasm, a mysterious masked figure who has killed off several of Gotham’s high-profile mob bosses. The Phantasm has a similar appearance to Batman and targets criminals like Batman does, which leads the police to blame The Caped Crusader for the killings. As the police try to stop him, Batman tries to clear his name—and tries to stop the Phantasm before another murder happens.

From the creative team behind the acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series, featuring the voice talents of Mark Hamill as the Joker and the late, great Kevin Conroy as Batman, BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM has been argued by some fans to be the best Batman movie ever made.

“Terrific… really smart and beautifully drawn and intricately plotted.” Gene Siskel

“It has style to spare. And for any kid at heart whose breath catches at the sight of a caped figure swooping across the sky, it has moments when your lungs will be stopped by a Dark Knight to dream on.” Robert Faires, Austin Chronicle

“The Casablanca of Batman movies.” Rohan Naahar, The Indian Express

LET'S SHRED OUR WAY TO HELL!

The Greek myth is reimagined as a post-apocalyptic skateboard rock opera in the fourth entry of our Summer in the City film series, SHREDDER ORPHEUS — a low-budget hallucination that drops somewhere between the music video for Devo’s “Whip It,” a Bones Brigade skate tape, and a surrealist art project. The story follows Orpheus (played by writer/director Robert McGinley), a rock star who descends into hell in order to save his kidnapped wife (and the universe) from Satan and his hypnotic TV signals.

The screening on Saturday, August 26th will be followed by a live, in-person Q&A with Robert McGinley!

“Rejected by the Seattle International Film Festival at the time of its release and celebrated with arthouse screenings and an official soundtrack release a decade and a half later, Shredder Orpheus is the independent-as-fuck retelling of the Orpheus myth set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland created out of stolen locations and shipping containers, narrated by punk poet Steven ‘Jesse’ Bernstein, with a soundtrack composed by Roland Barker.” David Schmader, Filmlandia

At only 14 years old, Aurora lost everything during the horror of the Armenian genocide. Two years later, through luck and extraordinary courage, she escaped to New York, where her story became a media sensation. Starring as herself in Auction of Souls, an early Hollywood blockbuster, Aurora became the face of one of the largest charity campaigns in American history. With a blend of vivid animation, interviews with Aurora herself, and 18 minutes of surviving footage from her lost silent epic, AURORA'S SUNRISE revives a forgotten story of survival.

“Aurora’s Sunrise is far more than a bricolage documentary. It is a testament to survival… essential viewing. [Director] Sahakyan gives Aurora’s words and experiences new life and is an indelible piece of documentary work that demands to be seen and felt for all the real-life tragedy it explores.” Nadine Whitney, Alliance of Women Film Journalists

“CRITIC’S PICK! [Sahakyan] creates a reconstructed, yet still personal record of a long-unrecognized genocide. The film’s coherence is a reflection of both the skill of the filmmaker, and the heroic efforts of Aurora herself to ensure that her view of history would not be forgotten.” Teo Bugbee, The New York Times

Since 1959 at the age of five, David "The Weatherman" Wills has been recording and reporting on his life, self, and anything he likes (such as the weather, toilets flushing, and intercepted cell phone conversations) and broadcasting it to anyone interested. Together with childhood friends Richard Lyons and Mark Hosler they formed Negativland, which quickly became an absurd and noisy multimedia world without boundaries, ownership or privacy. Negativland's complex chaos of plunderphonics poses both serious and silly questions about the nature of sound, media, technology, control, propaganda, power and perception in the global village. Is what you're hearing and seeing true or simply familiar? The medium reveals that any message is all in our heads.

Director Ryan Worsley will be present for a live, in-person Q&A, along with Mark Hosler, David Wills, and Jon Leidecker of Negativland joining virtually!

“Worsley successfully depicts the mix of buffoonery and consciousness-raising that define Negativland.” Marc Weidenbaum, The Wire

“Every bit as mind-altering as its subjects.” Oscar Goff, Boston Hassle

“If you want to be inspired by individuals who dare to bust down the doors of art’s gatekeepers, then Stand By For Failure is the way to go.” Alan Ng, Film Threat

BASED ON (possibly) TRUE EVENTS.

In 1935, Hungarian-American parapsychologist Nandor Fodor began his investigation of a strange occurrence on the Isle of Man. An average British family, the Irvings, claimed to have been contacted by a mysterious entity at their farm: a talking mongoose. Named Gef (pronounced "Jeff" and voiced by Neil Gaiman).

An inside look at The Elephant 6 Recording Co., the ’90s rock collective that launched Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control, The Apples in Stereo, and more!

Around 1985, a group of Louisiana high schoolers began experimenting with whatever random instruments and gear they could find. Influenced by psychedelia, and with little to distract them, they birthed a musical revolution.

“The definitive document about a scene that is exceedingly difficult to define.” Bradley Gibson, Film Threat

50th anniversary screening of Sergio Martino's classic work of towering terror, presented by David Cotner, author of the book A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (1973).

A History of Violence (1973) is a memoir of the human race. Its concept is simple: take the date in 1973 on which a violent film was first screened – and go beyond the film to see the world that exists outside the theatre. It’s a book that realizes that the line between life and cinema is as much a horizon as it is a terminator. A History of Violence (1973) takes you across that horizon to places in time you never even imagined existed. Because bombs don’t explode in only one direction.

From the end of the ‘70s giallo boom, TORSO finds director Sergio Martino reveling in the genre’s time-honored traditions while also laying groundwork for the modern slasher. It delivers copious violence, sleaze and one of the tensest cat-and-mouse games ever committed to celluloid.

A maniac prowls the streets of Perugia, targeting picturesque university students. Alarmed at the plummeting life expectancy of the student body, Jane (Suzy Kendall) and her friends elope to a secluded country villa to discover that, far from having left the terror behind, they’ve brought it with them…

David Cotner is a culture critic, composer, and conceptual artist. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the L.A. Weekly, the Village Voice, the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere. He lives in and around the greater metropolitan Los Angeles area.

David will also be appearing at the inimitable Apparition Books in downtown Renton on Friday, September 1st at 7pm for An Evening of Violence with David Cotner: Author Presentation and Book Signing.