Conor Marsh lives a secluded life with his dog, Sandy, until one day he begins playing Obex, a new, state-of-the-art computer game. When Sandy goes missing, the line between reality and game blurs and Conor must venture into the strange world of OBEX to bring her home.

Baltimore-based writer-director Albert Birney (Strawberry Mansion, 2021 Sundance Film Festival) returns with another delightfully skewed and surreal lo-fi fantasy. Set in pre-internet 1987 and strikingly shot in monochromatic black and white, the film depicts Conor’s (Birney) lonely existence of solitary screen time, transfixed by early Macs with slowly rendering graphics and TVs aglow with the horror movie late show.

Matching these hypnotic images, Birney immerses us in a dense soundscape of warm droning synths, clacking keyboards, malevolent static, chirping cicadas, and the click and whine of dot matrix printers. The film’s dreamy nostalgia soon becomes an analog nightmare as Conor finds himself trapped in a low-tech but high-stakes video game. 

We’ve been waiting to give you the good news for months: legendary director Lav Diaz’s new film, Magellan, is finally sailing on over to The Frida Cinema!

At the dawn of the modern era, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (Gael García Bernal) navigated a fleet of ships to Southeast Asia, attempting the first voyage across the vast Pacific Ocean. On reaching the Malay Archipelago, the crew pushed to the brink of madness in the harshness of the high seas and overwhelming natural beauty of the islands, Magellan’s obsession leads to a rebellion and reckoning with the consequences of power.

A vast, globe-spanning epic from Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz (Norte, The End Of History), Magellan presents the colonization of the Philippines as a primal, shocking encounter with the unknown and a radical retelling of European narratives of discovery and exploration.

As we celebrate the extraordinary career of Rob Reiner, we return to one of his boldest transformations as a filmmaker: the leap from romantic comedy and fantasy adventure into pure, white-knuckle psychological terror. In 1990, Reiner adapted Stephen King’s claustrophobic novel Misery, which we are bringing back to our big screen!

After an accident, acclaimed novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued by a nurse who claims to be his biggest fan. Her obsession takes a dark turn when she holds him captive in her remote Colorado home and forces him to write back to life the popular literary character he killed off.

The last thing audiences expected in the late 80s after the incredible run of Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, and When Harry Met Sally…, was for Reiner to set the new standard for the claustrophobic Horror genre. And yet, he made it look easy! 

Few filmmakers moved so effortlessly between genres as Rob Reiner. From coming-of-age classics to sharp-edged comedy to pulse-pounding thrillers, his filmography is a tour of American movie magic. Tickets to the Remembering Ron Reiner are all discounted to $9.

What dream are you welcoming?

Mamoru Oshii’s (Ghost In The Shell) first live-action feature, The Red Spectables, is coming to The Frida Cinema with a brand new 4K restoration via our friends at Arbelos Films.

Returning to Tokyo years after a failed rebellion by his elite Kerberos police unit, Kōichi Todome finds a city warped beyond recognition: a paranoid surveillance state where noodle stands are illegal, loyalties shift like shadows and reality itself seems to fray.

A mix of just about every genre under the sun, The Red Spectacles promises to deliver a visually stunning new canonized addition to the late night cult classic club.