Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Screenings in the Bay (Monday to Friday): Hell Fest, Fantastic Fest, Night Moves



This is the week of fests as Fantastic Fest begins satellite screenings in San Francisco, while Blood Fest opens in a theatre near you! Early screenings are this Thursday, as per usual, and Friday will be a free for all. This is a pretty familiar premise, and for a while I would get it mixed up with Blood Fest, but I'm still very curious about this one. And it's usually fun to watch slashers in theatres too.

The Outer Wild also opens this week, but only in select theatres. The bay area might need to resort to VOD for this one. 

And finally, Fantastic Fest begins their remote screenings of certain movies this week. We'll have to go to Texas for the full program, but we're still getting a great lineup in the coming days. I've selected a couple to highlight, but you can get the whole lineup at FantasticFest.com!



Opening This Week


Early Screenings Thursday 28th 
Opens Friday 29th
Slasher/ Horror (Google)
A masked serial killer turns a horror themed amusement park into his own personal playground, terrorizing a group of friends while the rest of the patrons believe that it is all part of the show.



Select Theatres/VOD Friday 28th (1hr 25min)
Adventure/ Horror/ Fantasy (IMDB)
In this post-apocalyptic frontier western, mankind has given way to a new breed of beast, mutated from man. A survivor named Laura may be the cure to these mutations but she flees to save herself. Aided by a hunter sent to catch her, she braves the dangerous unnatural wilderness in order to find a fabled refuge of freedom - and only there will she discover the fate of humanity at the end of the world.




Weird Wednesday

Wednesday 26th @ 10pm (1hr 21min)
Horror/ Anime (IMDB)
Mima was a pop idol, worshiped by the masses until fashion dictated otherwise. In order to salvage her career, she is advised to drop music and pursue acting. A soap opera role is offered but Mima's character is less clean cut than desired. Regardless, she agrees and events take a turn for the worse. She begins to feel reality slip, that her life is not her own. She discovers (imagines) her identical twin, a mirror image that hasn't given up singing. Internet sites appear describing every intimate detail of her life and a figure stalks her from the shadows. Her friends and associates are threatened (and killed) as Mima descends into a dangerous world of paranoid delusion. She fears for her life and must unravel fact from illusion in order to stay alive. Perfect Blue represents a major change from traditional anime subject matter, analyzing the pop icon phenomenon, fame and its psychological impact on the performer.


Fantastic Fest

Thursday 27th @ 7pm (27min)
Comedy/ Short (IMDB)
The 27-minute short I WAS A TEENAGE SERIAL KILLER was produced with the encouragement of filmmaker George Kuchar, Jacobson's instructor at San Francisco Institute of the Arts. Like SLACKER meets Valerie Solanas, the film depicts a 19-year-old woman who responds to catcalls, condescension and bad sex the only way she knows how: murder.

-with-


Thursday 27th @ ~7:30pm (1hr 38min)
Drama/ Romance (IMDB)
MARY JANE'S NOT A VIRGIN ANYMORE, Jacobson's only feature film, is a vibrant and vital antidote to every phony Hollywood teen picture, bringing lo-fi realness to the coming-of-age genre. Sure, the usual signposts are here — first job, first time, crushes, friendships, fitting in and figuring it out — but all are handled with utter honesty. The sex is bad, the boys are jerks, the future is questionable, and growing up is ultimately a disappointment. It’s a stark contrast to Hollywood's glamorous lies.


Fantastic Fest

Drug Stories: Narcotic Nightmares and Hallucinogenic Hellrides (2018)
Friday 27th @ 10:15pm (1hr 20min)
Various
What’s the best way to prevent young people from turning on, tuning in, and dropping out? Government entities of the ‘60s and ‘70s seemed to believe that hardline DRAGNET-style narration, groovy medical animation, and dramatic reenactments of bad trips would do the job. Of course, when the old tricks didn’t work, filmmakers had to get more creative. Maybe a small child could better relate the cold, hard facts about dope? And maybe the dangers of hallucinogens could be explained by a sentient tab of LSD?




Double Feature

Chinatown (1974)
Friday 27th @ 7pm (2hrs 10min)
Drama/ Mystery/ Thriller (IMDB)
A private detective, Jake Gittes, hired to investigate an adultery case, stumbles on the plot of a murder involving incest and the privatization of water through state and municipal corruption, land use and real estate. If he doesn't drop the case at once he faces threats of legal action, but he pursues it anyway, slowly uncovering a vast conspiracy.

-with-


Night Moves (1975)
Friday 27th @ 9:25pm (1hr 40min)
Crime/ Drama/ Thriller (IMDB)
Private eye Harry Moseby is hired by actress Arlene Iverson to locate her missing daughter Delly. Moseby follows a twisting trail of clues to Delly and returns her to her mother. When Delly is killed in a freak accident, Moseby investigates the girl's death and discovers that she was murdered.





Wednesday 27th & Friday 27th @ 7pm (1hr 33min)
International/ Drama (Rotten Tomatoes)
Following a banal incident in her local village, 8-year old girl Shula is accused of witchcraft. After a short trial she is found guilty, taken into state custody and exiled to a witch camp in the middle of a desert. At the camp she takes part in an initiation ceremony where she is shown the rules surrounding her new life as a witch. Like the other residents, Shula is tied to a ribbon which is attached to a coil that perches in a large tree. She is told that should she ever cut the ribbon, she'll be cursed and transformed into a goat.



-Huntress

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