Just added: Author Julian David Stone will be joining us to introduce the film and sell copies of his novel, It’s Alive!, in the lobby!
One man. One monster. One of the greatest horror films ever made.
Our Universal Monster Movie Weekend continues with James Whale’s Frankenstein, the 1931 masterpiece that gave the movies one of their most enduring monsters.
Obsessed with unlocking the secret of life, the brilliant but reckless Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) robs graves and assembles a body from stolen parts, bringing his creation to life with a bolt of lightning. But the creature (Boris Karloff) is not the mindless monster Henry expected. Rejected and feared by everyone he encounters, he soon becomes the target of a terrified mob.
Adapted from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein remains one of the foundational works of American horror, balancing genuine terror with a surprising amount of sympathy for its misunderstood creature. Boris Karloff’s performance turned the Monster into an icon, while James Whale’s striking production design and unforgettable laboratory sequence helped define the visual language of the Universal Monsters for generations to come.
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Get ready to shake what you’ve got as present a limited run of Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!
Haru (Rinko Kikuchi) and Luis (Alejandro Edda) are passionate competitors on Tokyo’s ballroom dance scene, but when tragedy strikes, Haru retreats from the dance floor and into herself. With some encouragement from her friends, she returns to the studio and finds herself drawn to a new instructor (Alberto Guerra), forcing her to confront the possibility of moving forward.
Directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka (Tokyo Vice) and winner of the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award at Sundance, Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! is a wildly stylish drama with just a little bit of magical realism. At the center of it all is Rinko Kikuchi, giving Haru a performance that can move from heartbreak to hilarity in the blink of an eye.
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Trash-Mex is back at The Frida Cinema to present the Mexican horror classic Hasta el viento tiene meido aka Even The Wind is Afraid!
A group of college students, led by Claudia, decide to investigate a local tower that has figured prominently in disturbing reoccurring dreams Claudia has been having. They are suspended from school for their antics, but Claudia learns from one of the female staff members that the person in the dream is a student who killed herself years before and that the headmistress has seen her ghost.
Invoking Dario Argento’s Suspiria and the works of Mario Bava, Even The Wind is Afraid is a Mexican horror film draped in macabre moods and stunning Gothic ambience. Any appetite for genuine chills will be sated in full!
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We’re screening the brand new 4K restoration of František Vláčil’s Marketa Lazarová starting on October 1st!
In its native land, the film has been hailed as the greatest Czech film ever made; for many U.S. viewers, it will be a revelation. Based on a novel by Vladislav Vančura, this stirring and poetic depiction of a feud between two rival medieval clans is a fierce, epic, and meticulously designed evocation of the clashes between Christianity and paganism, humankind and nature, love and violence.
Vláčil’s approach was to re-create the textures and mentalities of a long-ago way of life, rather than to make a conventional historical drama, and the result is dazzling. With its inventive widescreen cinematography, editing, and sound design, Marketa Lazarová is an experimental action film.
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Kwaidan has been given the 4K restoration treatment via our friends at Janus Films, so of course we’re kicking off our October programming with it!
After more than a decade of sober political dramas and socially minded period pieces, the great Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi shifted gears dramatically for this rapturously stylized quartet of ghost stories. Featuring colorfully surreal sets and luminous cinematography, these haunting tales of demonic comeuppance and spiritual trials, adapted from writer Lafcadio Hearn’s collections of Japanese folklore, are existentially frightening and meticulously crafted.
Please note: the DCP version of Kwaidan is a 4K restoration of the original three-hour cut.
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Our Heist Hallucinations series is pulling off its final score of the year with Steve McQueen’s 2018 thriller Widows!
When a botched heist leaves four women widowed and drowning in debt, Veronica Rawlings (Viola Davis) discovers that her late husband left behind a plan for one final job. With nothing left to lose, she recruits Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), and Belle (Cynthia Erivo) to finish the job…and settle a few scores of their own.
Based on the British television series and co-written by Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl), McQueen’s film is a sleek, bruising reinvention of the heist movie, using the mechanics of a robbery to explore ghe women left behind by a criminal world built for men. And the cast is stacked: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, Brian Tyree Henry, and Robert Duvall.
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Yes…or yes?
Our Heist Hallucinations series is going back to the criminal underworld with Jonathan Glazer’s 2000 cult classic Sexy Beast!
Retired safecracker Gal Dove (Ray Winstone) is enjoying a quiet life in Spain when a visit from his old associate Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) threatens to drag him back into the business. Logan has one last job in mind…a daring safe deposit heist in London. Oh, and he’s not taking “no” for an answer. What follows is an unhinged descent into the criminal underworld unlike any other crime film you’ve ever seen.
Glazer’s electrifying debut balances a meticulously-planned heist with a psychological showdown between two unforgettable characters. And then there’s Ben Kingsley, giving one of the great left-field performances of his career as the absolutely terrifying Don Logan. Add in Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Amanda Redman, and a script that crackles with menace, and Sexy Beast is one hell of a way to get your heist on.
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The first film in our Art House of Horrors: Presented by MUBI series for October is the 1968 chilling masterpiece Rosemary’s Baby!
Newlyweds Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) move into a beautiful New York City apartment, where their new neighbors, the overly friendly Roman and Minnie Castevet, take an unusual interest in the young couple. When Rosemary becomes pregnant, her excitement quickly gives way to suspicion as strange occurrences, unsettling dreams, and sinister secrets begin to close in around her.
This landmark Horror classic transformed the ordinary anxieties of pregnancy and domestic life into something truly terrifying that has echoed on in the world of cinema for almost 60 years. Farrow’s unforgettable performance lends a brilliantly oppressive sense of paranoia, making the movie truly unforgettable all these years later.
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Love that burns fast but lasts forever.
Our Heist Hallucinations pick for November is Leos Carax’s 1986 exquisitely stylized sophomore feature, Mauvais Sang!
Two aging crooks are given two weeks to repay a debt to a woman named The American. They recruit their recently deceased partner’s son to help them break into a laboratory and steal the vaccine against STBO, a sexually transmitted disease that is sweeping the country. It’s spread by having sex without emotional involvement, and most of its victims are teenagers who make love out of curiosity rather than commitment.
A dazzling genre-mash of neo-noir, science fiction, crime, and doomed romance that’s anchored by unforgettable performances from Denis Lavant, Juliette Binoche, and Michel Piccoli, Mauvais Sang announced Carax as one of the most audacious voices of the French cinema of the 1980s.
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KCTV AV Club is presenting a very special 30th anniversary of director Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do!
A Pennsylvania band scores a hit in 1964 and rides the star-making machinery as long as it can, with lots of help from its manager. But behind the scenes, the group’s sudden fame tests their strength, their maturity and responsibility, and their ability to resist the temptations that money and notoriety always make possible.
That Thing You Do! has evolved the last three decades from a modest box office disappointment to beloved, wholesome cult classic that’s best enjoyed on the big screen with fellow fans of the film! Don’t miss it!
This will be the Theatrical Cut of the film that runs 108 minutes.
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