1.07.08
Film Farm takes the show on the road for a six-week movie run on Chicken John's Applause Bus. We roll from Ritual Roasters on Valencia and follow through to the Bowling Alley at 6pm, presenting KINGPIN (bobby and peter farrelly, 1996) and THE BIG LEBOWSKI (joel and ethan coen, 1998). I'll play some BOB, too.
The pillows are big, but the space is limited... reserve your spot now. email me - smquestionmark@yahoo.com
$10.00
Monday, December 17, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Weak Ten @ Chez Poulet: Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein
The last Ask Dr. Hal! show will be trailed by an engagement of KrOB's Film Farm, as is traditional.
Tuesday, October 30th, the very Eve of Hallowe'en, we'll show the immortal Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
Chez Poulet -- 3359 ARMY (Cesar Chavez) St. @ Mission SF
Abbott and Costello were America's preeminent film comedians, translating their popular stage act to several motion pictures and becoming part of the 20th century's pop-culture landscape. And, as it happened, in the late '40s Universal Studios realized they had two very marketable items under their contractual roof, as the duo were building a popular film career not too far away from a legion of legendary movie monsters who had been turning out more and more implausible sequels year after year. 1944's House of Frankenstein, for example, is a (very entertaining) monster rally which is practicallyA & C Meet Frank minus the comedic twosome. And so, in the final, magnificent example of Universal's monster world, in which Lugosi gives his all, throwing himself into the Dracula role for the last time, and John P. Fulton's great special effects still entertain, Bud and Lou make cinematic history-- and the best of any of their own comedies. 'The Boys' don't actually meet Dr. Frankenstein, of course, but they do tangle not only with Frankenstein's Monster (Glenn Strange), on whose unearthly, cadaverous physiognomy the old Don Post Monster Mask was based, not Karloff -- but also Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.). The plot is rather interesting-- this far along in the Universal monster movie cycle we now observe a sinister and clearly defined Conspiracy of the Monsters. The story centers around the undead Count Dracula, who has acquired Frankenstein's creature, but wants to improve it -- with a more suggestible, more docile brain-- Lou Costello's, in fact. Surprisingly funny, genuinely atmospheric, and inventive, it's a movie worth cultivating-- a KrOB Klassic.
KrOB will also show his marvelous Eye Noise edits, making this the second-to-last iteration of the Film Farm. a don't-miss for this Hallowe'en Season.
With copyright-free popcorn, drinks of all colors, halloween candy, and, of course, spook-tacular SPY antics and appetizers...
KrOB's Film Farm-- Tuesday, OCT. 30th @ 8PM-- FREE
Tuesday, October 30th, the very Eve of Hallowe'en, we'll show the immortal Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
Chez Poulet -- 3359 ARMY (Cesar Chavez) St. @ Mission SF
Abbott and Costello were America's preeminent film comedians, translating their popular stage act to several motion pictures and becoming part of the 20th century's pop-culture landscape. And, as it happened, in the late '40s Universal Studios realized they had two very marketable items under their contractual roof, as the duo were building a popular film career not too far away from a legion of legendary movie monsters who had been turning out more and more implausible sequels year after year. 1944's House of Frankenstein, for example, is a (very entertaining) monster rally which is practicallyA & C Meet Frank minus the comedic twosome. And so, in the final, magnificent example of Universal's monster world, in which Lugosi gives his all, throwing himself into the Dracula role for the last time, and John P. Fulton's great special effects still entertain, Bud and Lou make cinematic history-- and the best of any of their own comedies. 'The Boys' don't actually meet Dr. Frankenstein, of course, but they do tangle not only with Frankenstein's Monster (Glenn Strange), on whose unearthly, cadaverous physiognomy the old Don Post Monster Mask was based, not Karloff -- but also Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.). The plot is rather interesting-- this far along in the Universal monster movie cycle we now observe a sinister and clearly defined Conspiracy of the Monsters. The story centers around the undead Count Dracula, who has acquired Frankenstein's creature, but wants to improve it -- with a more suggestible, more docile brain-- Lou Costello's, in fact. Surprisingly funny, genuinely atmospheric, and inventive, it's a movie worth cultivating-- a KrOB Klassic.
KrOB will also show his marvelous Eye Noise edits, making this the second-to-last iteration of the Film Farm. a don't-miss for this Hallowe'en Season.
With copyright-free popcorn, drinks of all colors, halloween candy, and, of course, spook-tacular SPY antics and appetizers...
KrOB's Film Farm-- Tuesday, OCT. 30th @ 8PM-- FREE
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Weak Nine @ Chez Poulet: Island of Lost Souls
3359 ARMY (cesar chavez) ST. @ MISSION in SAN FRANCISCO
Island of Lost Souls, a masterpiece of '30s horror. Filled with dank jungle settings, dark caves, and huge mutant plants, Island of Lost Souls percolates with a decadent atmosphere that charms while it also horrifies. With genre director Erle C. Kenton at the helm, the island becomes a sinister, vile environment of creeping shadows that infiltrate right into the souls of the characters on screen. When the shipwrecked Edward Parker, (Prendick in the novel) is abandoned on his South Seas island, Moreau (Charles Laughton) doesn't want any prying eyes on his jungle paradise where he conducts medical experiments on animals, but he quickly sees that Parker might serve a useful scientific purpose. Taking a sadistic glee in his enterprise, he eagerly pushes the shipwrecked Parker together with the almost-human panther woman (Kathleen Burke) in hopes that the two might just sire a child. He waits in the shadows, carefully underplaying his part, while watching his plot take form. His eyes take on a sparkling glee. Laughton's performance is one of the great performances in the history of screen horror as he leads Parker around his island, cracking a whip to scare off hulking vaguely-human brutes who leer from the shadows. Meanwhile, agonized screams echo and the creatures cower while bleating "The... House of Pain!" Based on H.G. Wells's tale of horror, Island of Lost Souls boasts a screenplay by Philip Wylie, the marvelous cinematography of Karl Struss, one of the great cinematographers of Hollywood, a wonderful performance by Bela Lugosi as the "Sayer of the Law," meet who chants "What is the Law?" to a goofy, but creepy bunch of barrel-chested "beast men." One of the beasts in one delightfully decadent scene climbs a tree so he can crawl through a window and into her bedroom. The revenge of the animal-men is one of the most frightening scenes ever filmed for any movie. It got the film banned in Britain until some 25 years after its initial release
Monday, October 1, 2007
Weak Eight @ Chez Poulet: Parents
OCTOBER 10
PARENTS
(dir. bob balaban, 1989)23 8pm - The Show Is FREE!
Featuring super-secret SPY specials and fucktons of all-american opening EYENOISE from yours truly, KrOB.
Free, yes, FREE popcorn can be yours simply by reaching for it!
Mouth-watering drinks and bone-decaying snacks will also be available. order a "long island ice tea" from us while simultaneously feigning ignorance, and get the second one FREE!
Chez Poulet Gallery 3359 Army St @ Mission
We go from Great Guidance (ROBOT MONSTER - 10/26) to Parental Guidance (PARENTS - 10/10) with 2 Meat Scientists and lucid refugees from another local Movie Night. A certain Geekboy, and the classic proud poppa, Dr. Pete Goldie will be in the house preparing STRANGE MEATS (terrestrial oddities you can eat!) for our Feature Presentation. Will we be munchin' on forbidden bi-peds? Who knows?... but fellow carnivores won't be dissapointed as the gourmet mysteries become solved!
Monday, September 17, 2007
Weak Seven @ Chez Poulet: Robot Monster
FILM FARM NOW ON SOME WEDNESDAYS!!
KrOB'S Film Farm presents:
ROBOT MONSTER
(dir. PHIL TUCKER, 1953)
CHEZ POULET - - SEPT. 26th - - 8PM FREE
3359 ARMY (cesar chavez) ST. @ MISSION in SAN FRANCISCO
Every time there's an Ask Dr. Hal! show, there'll be a KrOB's Film Farm two days later. Remember that irreducible maxim. With added features: EYENOISE du JOUR (to be announced) / SUPER-SECRET SPY SPECIALS, FREE HOT BUTTERED POPCORN, DRINKS and those tempting movie theater SNACKS. Mmmmm-- boy!
The Lovely Spy is "Robot Monsterette" - Chief of Stuff for Film Farm
SPY is the Film Farm's October Surprise that came a month early. Yes, after the Exodus (listen to Sal Mineo's version for a complete explanation) of Burning Man and what with the return of ASK Dr. HAL @ 12 Galaxies, KrOB'S Film Farm returns with a wonderful wingman, the lovely SPY. She has recently been promoted to Chief of Stuff because of her startling devotion to detail. How's that?... 3 weaks on the job and, already, she's movin' out of the radiator room? Indeed. For the screening of "Faust", she made chocolate eyeballs dressed like a baltic teenage puritan. For "It's a mad mad mad mad mad world", the super secret SPY special inaugurated the mighty cocktail, by serving up "Old-Fashioneds" the way dear old Dad used to... if Dad had KrOB cNeek as the whisky of choice, that is. and... For "Robot Monster", she appeared as you see her on the cover of Film Farm Magazine, as "Robot Monsterette" and served up Calcinator Death Ale and Ro-Cookies. Mhmm, she's tops!
KrOB'S Film Farm presents:
ROBOT MONSTER
(dir. PHIL TUCKER, 1953)
CHEZ POULET - - SEPT. 26th - - 8PM FREE
3359 ARMY (cesar chavez) ST. @ MISSION in SAN FRANCISCO
Every time there's an Ask Dr. Hal! show, there'll be a KrOB's Film Farm two days later. Remember that irreducible maxim. With added features: EYENOISE du JOUR (to be announced) / SUPER-SECRET SPY SPECIALS, FREE HOT BUTTERED POPCORN, DRINKS and those tempting movie theater SNACKS. Mmmmm-- boy!
The Lovely Spy is "Robot Monsterette" - Chief of Stuff for Film Farm
SPY is the Film Farm's October Surprise that came a month early. Yes, after the Exodus (listen to Sal Mineo's version for a complete explanation) of Burning Man and what with the return of ASK Dr. HAL @ 12 Galaxies, KrOB'S Film Farm returns with a wonderful wingman, the lovely SPY. She has recently been promoted to Chief of Stuff because of her startling devotion to detail. How's that?... 3 weaks on the job and, already, she's movin' out of the radiator room? Indeed. For the screening of "Faust", she made chocolate eyeballs dressed like a baltic teenage puritan. For "It's a mad mad mad mad mad world", the super secret SPY special inaugurated the mighty cocktail, by serving up "Old-Fashioneds" the way dear old Dad used to... if Dad had KrOB cNeek as the whisky of choice, that is. and... For "Robot Monster", she appeared as you see her on the cover of Film Farm Magazine, as "Robot Monsterette" and served up Calcinator Death Ale and Ro-Cookies. Mhmm, she's tops!
Monday, August 20, 2007
Weak Six @ Chez Poulet: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
FREE POPCORN! Cold Drinks! Teeth-Rotting Snacks!
Faith-Based Seating! Double Stuf Stereo Spectrum
Soni-Wave Speaker System!
Just Added -- Just press the button marked BOOZE!
The lovely Spy has joined the Film Farm. She'll be on
hand to serve (KrOB cNeek whisky) Old-Fashioneds at 5
bucks a pop!
opening EYENOISE includes Yo La Tengo's "Sugarcube" Video featuring Bob Odenkirk and David Cross from TV's "Mr. Show" and Lots of Drive-In Theater Concession Stand Ads.
LAST FREE MOVIE NIGHT AT CHEZ POULET (coming back,
though)
August 20th
8pm
3359 Army St. (cesar chavez) @ Mission
Like "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" for
Halloween or anything with Arch Hall Jr. for
Groundhog's Day, or "It's a Wonderful Life" during
wartime, I think everybody should watch this movie
once a year. Somewhere in the netherworld between
Star Wars and Vaudeville, is the one of the greatest
comedies of all time! Film Farm continues it's
tradition of presenting
"It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World"
soon before the Jerry Lewis' Labor Day Telethon, for
the
very 1st time! Oh wait. you probably don't have a time
machine, so that sentence will seem confusing...
(ahem) i've said too much.
Edie Adams as Monica Crump, wife of Melville Crump
Milton Berle as edible seaweed company owner J.
Russell Finch
Sid Caesar as dentist Melville Crump (a role
originally meant for Ernie Kovacs before his death in
a car accident)
Buddy Hackett as gambler Benjy Benjamin
Ethel Merman as Mrs. Marcus, mother-in-law of J.
Russell Finch and a very cranky woman
Dorothy Provine as Emeline Marcus-Finch, wife of J.
Russell Finch
Mickey Rooney as gambler Dingy 'Ding' Bell
Dick Shawn as Sylvester Marcus, Mrs. Marcus' son and
Emeline's brother
Phil Silvers as Otto Meyer
Terry-Thomas as Lt. Col. J. Algernon Hawthorne
Spencer Tracy as Captain C.G. Culpepper
Jonathan Winters as truck driver Lennie Pike
Secondary characters:
Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson as a cab driver
William Demarest as Santa Rosita's chief of police
(Aloysius)
Jimmy Durante as Smiler Grogan
Peter Falk as a cab driver
Paul Ford as Col. Wilberforce
Cameo appearances by:
Jim Backus as boozy airplane owner Tyler Fitzgerald
Jack Benny as a man who drives by in a Maxwell,
offering to help
Paul Birch as a policeman
Ben Blue as the biplane pilot
Joe E. Brown as the union official
Alan Carney as a police sergeant
Chick Chandler as detective outside of Chinese laundry
Barrie Chase as Sylvester's love interest
John Clarke as helicopter pilot
Stanley Clements as squad room detective
Lloyd Corrigan as the mayor of Santa Rosita
Howard Da Silva as airport official
Andy Devine as the sheriff
Selma Diamond (voice only) as Ginger Culpepper
Minta Durfee as a crowd extra
Roy Engel as patrolman
Norman Fell as a detective
James Flavin as patrolman
Stan Freberg as a deputy sheriff
Nicholas Georgiade as detective
Louise Glenn (voice only) as Billie Sue Culpepper
Leo Gorcey as a cab driver
Don C. Harvey as policeman
Sterling Holloway as the fire chief
Edward Everett Horton as Mr. Dinckler
Allen Jenkins as police officer
Marvin Kaplan as garage man Irwin
Robert Karnes as Officer Simmy
Buster Keaton as Jimmy the Crook (boatman)
Tom Kennedy as the traffic cop
Don Knotts as the nervous motorist
Charles Lane as the airport manager
Harry Lauter as police dispatcher
Ben Lessy as George the steward
Bobo Lewis as pilot's wife
Jerry Lewis as the man who runs over Culpepper's hat
Mike Mazurki as the miner bringing medicine to his
wife
Charles McGraw as Lt. Matthews
Cliff Norton as a reporter
Barbara Pepper as a crowd extra
ZaSu Pitts as the switchboard operator
Carl Reiner as the tower controller
Madlyn Rhue as Secretary Schwartz
Roy Roberts as a policeman
Eddie Ryder as air traffic control tower staffer
Arnold Stang as garage man Ray
Nick Stewart as migrant truck driver
The Three Stooges as airport firemen
Sammee Tong as a laundryman
Doodles Weaver as a hardware store employee
Jesse White as an air traffic controller
So, anyway... Film Farm is taking 3 weeks off. Soon,
the ASK Dr. HAL show will return to the 12 Galaxies
and Film Farm will expand and continue at Chez Poulet
in Mid-September.
arnold stang blog post on wfmu
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/06/you_wanna_make_.html
Monday, August 13, 2007
Weak Five @ Chez Poulet: Faust
A full-length feature from the Czech animation director Jan Svankmajer.
3359 Cesar Chavez (aarmya) @ Mission Street
Thanks to Chicken John, we have our Film Farm back! What once was an Odeon tradition, in it's last years, returns again after a recent run at the 12 Galaxies. The intimate and casually elegant setting of Chez Poulet is ultimately fine for Film Farm, bringing you all the amenities without the bar-time retrograde. The screen is bigger, the sound is better, and you get to sit in pews, which makes every movie a bonafide religious experience. Drinks and snacks will be available, and, of course, the popcorn, topped with real greaseburg butter, is always free.
This Week's EYENOISE will feature The Brothers Quay -- look for Du JOUR postings on EYENOISE details.
One of the great Czech filmmakers, JAN SVANKMAJER was born in 1934 in Prague where he still lives. He trained at the Institute of Applied Arts from 1950 to 1954 and then at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts (Department of Puppetry). He soon became involved in the Theatre of Masks and the famous Black Theatre, before entering the Laterna Magika Puppet Theatre where he first encountered film. In 1970 he met his wife, the surrealist painter Eva Svankmajerova, and the late Vratislav Effenberger, the leading theoretician of the Czech Surrealist Group, which Svankmajer joined and of which he still remains a member.
Svankmajer made his first film in 1964 and for over thirty years has made some of the most memorable and unique animated films ever made, gaining a reputation as one of the world's foremost animators, and influencing filmmakers from Tim Burton to The Brothers Quay. His brilliant use of claymation reached its apotheosis with the stunning 1982 film DIMENSIONS OF DIALOGUE. In 1987 Svankmajer completed his first feature film, ALICE, a characteristically witty and subversive adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, and with the ensuing feature film FAUST.....
-----
A tired Czech citizen is handed a map on the streets of Prague; it leads him to a shabby courtyard, a puppet theatre, and a bruising encounter with the powers of evil. He raises the Devil, only to be confronted by a replica of his own face: a typically bleak hint from Svankmajer that we invent our own temptations-that any of us would make a good Faust. The best introduction to Svankmajer remains his short films; "Faust" is less shocking, more narcotic. Still, with its blend of live action, chattering marionettes, and weird, fleshy stop-motion sequences-not to mention the pitch-black of the humor-it throws you off balance more thoroughly than any other movie in town
-----
.....Svankmajer has moved further away from his roots in animation towards live-action filmmaking, though his vision remains as strikingly surreal and uncannily inventive as ever.
8PM AUGUST 132323 C H E Z P O U L E T
F A U S T
A D M I S S I O N23 I S 23 F R E E !!!
Monday, August 6, 2007
Weak Four @ Chez Poulet - Shorts
story without end
(vicki bennett, 2005) 6 minutes
stage fright
(steve box, 1998) 12 minutes
thine inward looking eyes
(thad povey, 1993) 2 minutes
the life and death of 9413 - a hollywood extra
(robert florey, slavko vorkapich, 1927) 13 minutes
fast film
(virgil widrich, 2003) 14 minutes
market street
(tomonari nishikawa, 2005) 5 minutes
rubber johnny
(chris cunningham, 2005) 6 minutes
the world of tomorrow
(kerry conran, 2005) 6 minutes
the mysterious geographical explorations of jasper morello
(anthony lucas, 2005) 26 minutes
la jetée
(chris marker, 1962) 28 minutes
AUGUST 623 8PM 23 C H E Z P O U L E T
3359 Cesar Chavez (aarmya) @ Mission Street
A D M I S S I O N23 I S 23 F R E E !!!
Monday, July 23, 2007
Weak Three @ Chez Poulet: Straight to Hell
J U L Y 3 023 8 PM 23 C H E Z P O U L E T
A D M I S S I O N23 I S 23 F R E E !!!
3359 Cesar Chavez (aarmya) @ Mission Street
Maybe not as quotable, but way more twisted than Repo Man. I like it better. Everyone's strung out on money, guns and coffee in the mexican desert ...and check out who: Dennis Hopper and Grace Jones, Jim Jarmusch, Elvis Costello, Courtney Love, The Pogues, Dick Rude, Sy Richardson (badder than shit), Zander Schloss, Fox Harris, Cait o' Riordan, and, of course, Joe Strummer, who i'll be focusing the EYENOISE on in the show's opening hole....
Tonight's EYENOISE du JOUR features clips from Joe Strummer's silent film "HELL W10", a couple of Clash songs performed on british television, "TABLETOPS" (a music video adapted from "Coffee and Cigarettes" with music by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros), Clash on Broadway, some Folgers commercials and more!
Film Farm is pickin up speed...
FREE COFFEE! (from ritual roasters)
FREE POPCORN!
PLENTY OF DRINKS and SNACKS!
Luxury Seating and Quadro-Sonic Sound System!
A D M I S S I O N23 I S 23 F R E E !!!
3359 Cesar Chavez (aarmya) @ Mission Street
Maybe not as quotable, but way more twisted than Repo Man. I like it better. Everyone's strung out on money, guns and coffee in the mexican desert ...and check out who: Dennis Hopper and Grace Jones, Jim Jarmusch, Elvis Costello, Courtney Love, The Pogues, Dick Rude, Sy Richardson (badder than shit), Zander Schloss, Fox Harris, Cait o' Riordan, and, of course, Joe Strummer, who i'll be focusing the EYENOISE on in the show's opening hole....
Tonight's EYENOISE du JOUR features clips from Joe Strummer's silent film "HELL W10", a couple of Clash songs performed on british television, "TABLETOPS" (a music video adapted from "Coffee and Cigarettes" with music by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros), Clash on Broadway, some Folgers commercials and more!
Film Farm is pickin up speed...
FREE COFFEE! (from ritual roasters)
FREE POPCORN!
PLENTY OF DRINKS and SNACKS!
Luxury Seating and Quadro-Sonic Sound System!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Weak Two @ Chez Poulet: Häxan
J U L Y 2 323 8 PM 23 C H E Z P O U L E T
A D M I S S I O N23 I S 23 F R E E !!!
3359 Cesar Chavez (aarmya) @ Mission Street
Häxan (dir. Benjamin Christiansen, 1922) will be presented in a new experimental format from KrOB: triple-concept stereo! The silent film, released by The Criterion Collection, is in it's two versions. i'll be sampling from both versions' soundtracks (one, with classical music played from it's Danish premiere in November, 1922 featuring Schubert, Wagner, and Beethoven -- the other, featuring an avant-jazz score with Jean-Luc Ponty and a narration by William S. Burroughs) as well as, what i like to call, "soundscraping" to present another new and more personal third version to the film. Anybody who has ever been at my apartment and wanted to watch anything from "Nude on the Moon' to "Creation of the Humanoids", has probably been witness to this process. Yes, a movie with the KrOB "moment"... who knows when the "moment" will is? Fernet Shots? Whip-Its? It's a live mix.
The future home of the ASK Dr. HAL show, Chez Poulet (3359 Cesar Chavez (army) @ Mission Street), is pleased to present an all-new season of KrOB's Film Farm for our city of art and innovation.
Admission is Always FREE!
FREE popcorn!
Beer! Snacks! Sweets!
Opening EYENOISE segment, exclusive to Film Farm! EYENOISE Du JOUR (coming soon)
Film Farm started it's new run at Chez Poulet last night with El Topo. It started kind of shaky when i couldn't get the subtitles to work on the dvd. The Film played for about 20 minutes and only 10 lines of dialogue were left uderstood by anyone who didn't understand spanish....lucky for one guy who came, his girlfriend was there to act as personal interpreter. The DVD bug was worked out by the time the spoken word became a necessary part of the film. The movie's strength is in definitely in it's images. Werner Herzog once said that we are hungry for images, and if we don't have them we will die. El Topo is a legendary film... John Lennon loved the film and showed it with his picture every week for a year at midnight. It became the first midnight movie in history.
We'll get on it with more snacks, although, you're welcome to bring your own.
A D M I S S I O N23 I S 23 F R E E !!!
3359 Cesar Chavez (aarmya) @ Mission Street
Häxan (dir. Benjamin Christiansen, 1922) will be presented in a new experimental format from KrOB: triple-concept stereo! The silent film, released by The Criterion Collection, is in it's two versions. i'll be sampling from both versions' soundtracks (one, with classical music played from it's Danish premiere in November, 1922 featuring Schubert, Wagner, and Beethoven -- the other, featuring an avant-jazz score with Jean-Luc Ponty and a narration by William S. Burroughs) as well as, what i like to call, "soundscraping" to present another new and more personal third version to the film. Anybody who has ever been at my apartment and wanted to watch anything from "Nude on the Moon' to "Creation of the Humanoids", has probably been witness to this process. Yes, a movie with the KrOB "moment"... who knows when the "moment" will is? Fernet Shots? Whip-Its? It's a live mix.
The future home of the ASK Dr. HAL show, Chez Poulet (3359 Cesar Chavez (army) @ Mission Street), is pleased to present an all-new season of KrOB's Film Farm for our city of art and innovation.
Admission is Always FREE!
FREE popcorn!
Beer! Snacks! Sweets!
Opening EYENOISE segment, exclusive to Film Farm! EYENOISE Du JOUR (coming soon)
Film Farm started it's new run at Chez Poulet last night with El Topo. It started kind of shaky when i couldn't get the subtitles to work on the dvd. The Film played for about 20 minutes and only 10 lines of dialogue were left uderstood by anyone who didn't understand spanish....lucky for one guy who came, his girlfriend was there to act as personal interpreter. The DVD bug was worked out by the time the spoken word became a necessary part of the film. The movie's strength is in definitely in it's images. Werner Herzog once said that we are hungry for images, and if we don't have them we will die. El Topo is a legendary film... John Lennon loved the film and showed it with his picture every week for a year at midnight. It became the first midnight movie in history.
We'll get on it with more snacks, although, you're welcome to bring your own.
Monday, July 9, 2007
SPACEDISCO - 1: THE MOVIE
A Few Words about Our Feature Presentation...
- - Spacedisco One
Article by: Witney Seibold
Many people in L.A., especially those even tangentially connected to the vast film industry, have probably heard the title “Reflections of Evil” whispered in hushed tones. It was often brought up in the hallways of b-movie studios and many other straight-to-video production houses. I heard it bandied about much when I interned for Roger Corman back in the day. “Reflections of Evil” was none other than a short straight-to-video experimental horror/collage film of a homeless man going mad and vomiting on the streets of Hollywood.
It was made by a man named Damon Packard (who can be found here) who starred in the thing. It wasn’t hard to find a copy of “Reflections of Evil,” as someone, presumably Packard himself, was leaving DVD copies of it in newspaper racks and video stores all over the county. There was a brief period a few years ago when one could not go into an independent video or record store without tripping over a stack of “Reflections of Evil.”
Damon Packard has returned. His new film/experimental collage/weirdo-freakout-headtrip is called “Spacedisco One: The Movie; or, Beyond 1984.” Keep an eye out. It will probably be gracing a newspaper rack near you soon. And whereas “Reflections of Evil” was amateurish and weird and really really horrible, “Spacedisco One” is… well, its still amateurish and weird, but is far tighter and seems to be having a lot more fun than the three-minute vomiting scenes of “Reflections” could ever hope to produce.
The setup: The daughters of various sci-fi film characters (from “Logan’s Run,” and “Krull”) have banded together to fight evil, and make their way to Oceania where they will be safe. Meanwhile, the lead character from the 1984 film version of “1984” Winston Smith, is taken on a horrifying anti-commercial tour of the Universal Citywalk where people pray and salute the giant TV screen there, constantly showing (thanks to a bad blue screen effect) footage from Fox News and the inflammatory “To Catch a Predator” news “specials.” There is, cut into “Spacedisco One,” a lot of footage from the aforementioned films, as well as TV Carnage-like collages of “Battlestar Galactica,” “Big Brother,” old Atari commercials, and people partying at Burning Man.
The overall effect of the 40-minute oddity is very disorienting, a little jingoistic, forcefully amateurish, and oddly complete. Damon Packard seems to be saying that the films, and indeed everything about the drug-addled decade of the 1970s, was more fun, more relaxed, more open to possibility, whereas true independent filmmakers of today are struggling harder than they’ve ever had to. He also has an open political hared for the hyperconsumer culter of America which only seems to be getting more and more bloated and mutated as time passes.
Or something. It’s hard to tell.
All I can say is that “Spacedisco One” is… is… It just is. Damon Packard has given it to us, and will continue to give it to us. Take it or leave it, it will be there.I learn through some rudimentary web research that Packard is the son of an art curator, and has worked with many of Geroge Lucas’ people in his numerous ambitious amateur projects. The bio I read also pointed out that he lives in a rented trailer in squalor. But I think after “Spacedisco One,” I have a regard for the man. “Refections of Evil” made me nauseous, and “Spacedisco One” confused me. By all accounts, his other films are not much a departure. The results are mixed, and often stultifyingly psychedelic. But God bless him for sticking to his guns, and trying to keep zero-budget filmmaking alive in his own way. We need people like Damon Packard.
Indeed. Film Farm is very pleased to present this encore SF screening of the movie.
The Show begins with about a half-hour of KrOB EYENOISE. Then, the man himself, Damon Packard will be in person to showcase a hand-picked selection of his short films and trailers. BRUTALLO will be on hand to sell Packard's films as well as other choice rarities from the great BRUTALLO website!
I urge anyone who has ever put the words independent and film or conspiracy and lunchbox in the same sentence to see this film... bay areans won't get another chance anytime soon!!!
07.19.2007
8pm - - $5.00
The Dark Room Theater
2263 Mission Street (between 18th & 19th)
San Francisco
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Weak One @ Chez Poulet - EL TOPO
Well, it didn't take long. Not even a month could go by without restraining the awesome demand for a KrOB movie night. Yes, San Francisco, I heard you. Movies are art. Now more than ever. How could I possibly take the profits from the 12 Galaxies marathon run of Film Farm to use for my own private and selfish ends? ...especially now, when our city's very future is at stake?
"The apocalypse is now! Americans know this, that the only hope is the flying saucers. Do you know how i see the world? like a person who is dying. It's a worm who is dying to make a butterfly. We must not stop the worm from dying, we must help the worm to die to the butterfly to be born. We need to dance with death. his world is dying, but very well. We will make a big, big enormous butterfly. You and I will be the first movements in the wings of the butterfly because we are talking like this." - Alejandro Jodorowsky
The future home of the ASK Dr. HAL show, Chez Poulet (3359 Cesar Chavez (army) @ Mission Street), is pleased to present an all-new season of KrOB's Film Farm for our city of art and innovation.
Admission is Always FREE!
FREE popcorn!
Beer! Snacks! Sweets!
Opening EYENOISE segment, exclusive to Film Farm! EYENOISE Du JOUR (coming soon)
Thanks to Chicken John, we have our Film Farm back! What once was an Odeon tradition, in it's last years, returns again after a recent run at the 12 Galaxies. The intimate and casually elegant setting of Chez Poulet will be ultimately fine for Film Farm, bringing you all the amenities without the bar-time retrograde. The screen is bigger, the sound is better and they'll be live accompaniment for silent films -- look for Du JOUR postings on details. Drinks and snacks will be available, and, of course, the popcorn is always free.
The surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky created his own midnight cult version of the Spaghetti Western that, once seen, is not easily forgotten. Some of his macabre and mystical images linger, both fascinating and strange.
An armless man carries a human torso on his back. Together they make a bodyguard to a glazed hermetic gunslinger who cannot be killed by bullets to the chest.
A gunslinger fires shots into the sand, which sprout an oasis. After bathing with his woman, he awakens buried under the dirt.
The fallen wanderer, shot dead with bullets, is dragged away by a parade of freaks, little people, cripples, and lepers who live underground in the vast desert.
I was a seed
Watching itself grow on a tree
Knowing
I was the tree,
But feeling
Apart from it.
Earth and water
Came together
With my energy
And the fruits and branches
Were larger far beyond
What I had ever thought.
I sat there
Watching myself grow.
I wanted to leap up out of
The depths of the earth
And drop into the heart of the fruit
Be the future seed, one of them,
Not be the origin.
The Desert is a Circle ((( mp3 )))
Man of 7 Years ((( mp3 )))
Flute in a Quarry ((( mp3 )))
Together ((( mp3 )))
El Topo's Dream ((( mp3 )))
Slowest and Saddest Waltz ((( mp3 )))
Freakout #1 ((( mp3 )))
E E L L T EO EP EO
JULY 16th 8pm Chez Poulet
3359 Cesar Chavez (aarmya) @ Mission Street
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)