Marcus Lindeen’s documentary THE RAFT screens at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood) Friday September 13th, Saturday September 14th, and Sunday September 15th. The screenings begin at 7:30 each evening. Facebook invite can be found HERE.
In 1973, five men and six women drifted across the Atlantic on a raft as part of a scientific experiment studying the sociology of violence, aggression and sexual attraction in human behavior. Although the project became known in the press as ‘The Sex Raft’, nobody expected what ultimately took place on that three month journey. Through extraordinary archive material and a reunion of the surviving members of the expedition on a full scale replica of the raft, this film tells the hidden story behind what has been described as ‘one of the strangest group experiments of all time.’
Admission is:
$7 for the general public $6 for seniors, Webster alumni and students from other schools $5 for Webster University staff and faculty
You see, Jason was my son, and today is his birthday… “
The Original FRIDAY THE 13th (1980) screens midnights this weekend (September 13th and 14th) at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar) as part of their ‘Reel Late at The Tivoli’ Midnight Series.A Facebook invite for the screening can be found HERE
For generations to come the original FRIDAY THE 13th will remain a classic, beloved goldmine of slasher tropes! Who would have thought a movie about a bunch of kids going to a camp where two people died years later would be so full of sex and violence? The critics hated this movie but it was a box-office sensation and anyone who loves slasher films adores it. It’s such easy fodder to tear into but it’s also entertaining despite all the flaws. Bad acting? Check. Bad camera work? Check. Spending four fifths of the movie thinking the camera man is the killer? Check.
FRIDAY THE 13th got some outstanding gore and,moves along fast enough to keep you interested and, despite tons of filler, is so much fun to watch because it’s so easy to sit with friends and riff it. It’s a pretty great horror film and party movie so don’t miss your chance to see it on the big screen this weekend at The Tivoli
Here’s the upcoming line-up for Reel-late at The Tivoli:
Sept. 20-21 SPIRITED AWAY
Friday and Saturday midnight subtitled; Saturday 11:30am in English
Sept. 27-28 REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA
Oct. 4-5 THE LOST BOYS New 2K DCP remaster!
Oct. 11-12 HALLOWEEN (1978)
Oct. 18-19 and Oct. 25-26
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW with live shadow cast, Samurai Electricians!
Golden Anniversaries: Films of 1969 features 6 classic films celebrating their 50th anniversaries. This second edition focuses on 1969 and features a half-dozen films, all screening for free at the St. Louis Public Library (1301 Olive Street St. Louis) over 3 weekends in late summer. (This series kicked off August 31st at 1:30pm with MIDNIGHT COWBOY). On Saturday September 14th at 1:30pm the ’69 film will beTHE WILD BUNCHdirected by Sam Peckinpah. There will be an intro and post-film Q&A with W.K. Stratton, author of The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film. W.K. Strattonwill be selling and signing copies of his book at the event. Admission is FREE. A Facebook invite can be found HERE
THE WILD BUNCH was a ground-breaking, revisionist western from director Sam Peckinpah, Although violence existed in the cinema before this film, it was Peckinpah’s treatment of violence that opened the gates for every subsequent film-maker to show graphic gunshot wounds, throat-slashing, and the like, with shocking realism. THE WILD BUNCH was beautifully shot by Lucien Ballard and featured memorable performances from William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, and many others.
For the fiftieth anniversary of the film, W.K. Stratton wrote The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film , thedefinitive history of the making of The Wild Bunch, named one of the greatest Westerns of all time by the American Film Institute.
Sam Peckinpah’s film The Wild Bunch is the story of a gang of outlaws who are one big steal from retirement. When their attempted train robbery goes awry, the gang flees to Mexico and falls in with a brutal general of the Mexican Revolution, who offers them the job of a lifetime. Conceived by a stuntman, directed by a blacklisted director, and shot in the sand and heat of the Mexican desert, the movie seemed doomed. Instead, it became an instant classic with a dark, violent take on the Western movie tradition.
In his book, W.K. Stratton tells the fascinating history of the making of the movie and documents for the first time the extraordinary contribution of Mexican and Mexican-American actors and crew members to the movie’s success. Shaped by infamous director Sam Peckinpah, and starring such visionary actors as William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Edmond O’Brien, and Robert Ryan, the movie was also the product of an industry and a nation in transition. By 1968, when the movie was filmed, the studio system that had perpetuated the myth of the valiant cowboy in movies like The Searchers had collapsed, and America was riled by Vietnam, race riots, and assassinations. The Wild Bunch spoke to America in its moment, when war and senseless violence seemed to define both domestic and international life.
The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Filmis an authoritative history of the making of a movie and the era behind it.
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TheGolden Anniversaries: Films of 1969concludes withWomen in Love Sunday, Sep. 15 at 1:30pm
Writer director Taika Waititi (THOR: RAGNAROK, HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE), brings his signature style of humor and pathos to his latest film, Jojo Rabbit, a World War II satire that follows a lonely German boy (Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo) whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a young Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic. Aided only by his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi), Jojo must confront his blind nationalism. Jojo Rabbit with a screenplay by and directed by Taika Waititi is based upon the book Caging Skies by Christine Leunens and stars Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, Taika Waititi, Rebel Wilson, Stephen Merchant, Alfie Allen, with Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson.
JOJO RABBIT Opens in Theaters October 16th. Check out this new trailer:
Jojo Rabbit offers
a sharply funny, yet profoundly stirring, child’s-eye view of a society gone
mad with intolerance. Drawing on his own
Jewish heritage and his experiences growing up surrounded by prejudice,
writer-director Taika Waititi (whose mother is Jewish, while his father is Māori)
makes a powerful statement against hate with this pitch-black satire of the Nazi
culture that gripped the German psyche at the height of WWII. Waititi takes a story almost too appalling to
approach with sober solemnity—that of a boy who, like many at that time, has
been brainwashed into absolutely gung-ho devotion to Hitler. He then mines from
it a dark, mesmerizing comedy that ultimately unravels the toxic ideas of
anti-Semitism and persecution of the other.
Balancing on a comedic high-wire, Waititi mixes the fury of satire with
an insistent sense of hope that fanaticism and hate can be overcome.
The film follows very much in the footsteps of some of Waititi’s personal filmmaking heroes: Mel Brooks, Charlie Chaplin, Ernst Lubitsch and Stanley Kubrick to name a few. Like those directors, Waititi was in search of a fresh way to re-visit the most unsettling of topics through the paradoxically moral force of out-and-out parody. Waititi echoes Brooks in particular, as a Jewish actor disrupting the enduring power of Hitler’s image with a zany, ridiculing portrait. But much as the film owes to its bold forbearers, Jojo Rabbit feels very much of our times, with its deeply human characters whose blinded foibles might amuse but whose inner predicaments are deadly real and pointedly relevant right now.
“You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.”
Golden Anniversaries: Films of 1969 features 6 classic films celebrating their 50th anniversaries. This second edition focuses on 1969 and features a half-dozen films, all screening for free at the St. Louis Public Library (1301 Olive Street St. Louis) over 3 weekends in late summer. (This series kicked off August 31st at 1:30pm with MIDNIGHT COWBOY). On Saturday September 14th at 1:30pm the ’69 film will beTHE WILD BUNCHdirected by Sam Peckinpah. There will be an intro and post-film Q&A with W.K. Stratton, author of The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film. Admission is FREE. A Facebook invite can be found HERE
EASY RIDER (1969) is much more than a 60s relic – it’s still a great movie even today. I find it fascinating that Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda took Roger Corman material and gave it an European- influenced arthouse approach. Combined with breathtaking visuals, a well-chosen rock soundtrack and some classic, stoned, improvised dialogue EASY RIDER is still an impressive movie all these years later. Fonda had recently made THE WILD ANGELS, Hopper the less remembered THE GLORY STOMPERS, and Jack Nicholson HELLS ANGELS ON WHEELS, but EASY RIDER reinvented the biker movie (or technically created a new subgenre: the “hippy” Biker Film), and things were never quite the same in Hollywood for the rest of the Seventies. The supporting cast is interesting and includes a great role for the fantastically underrated Luke Askew as the “Stranger on Highway”, and cameos from the star’s buddies Robert Walker Jr, Luana Anders and Sabrina Scharf, as well Karen Black and Toni Basil’s New Orleans hookers, Look for Phil Spector’s coke snorting bit part, and a fleeting glimpse of young Grizzly Adams Dan Haggerty. You either love EASY RIDER or you don’t, and I’m most definitely in the former camp. A 1960s generation-defining counter-culture classic!
Here is the rest of the schedule for Cinema St. Louis’ Golden Anniversaries: Films of 1969 Series
Cinedigm and Smith Global Media announced that the Chicago crime drama CANAL STREET will arrive on digital platforms on August 20, 2019 and DVD on September 1, 2019. The film follows a young man arrested for the murder of a white classmate, while his father embraces his undying faith to fight in court for his son’s vindication. Check out the Trailer:
Bryshere Y. Gray (“Empire”,Sprinter) and Mykelti Williamson (Forrest Gump, Fences) star in this modern-day thriller, written, produced, and directed by Rhyan LaMarr. Additional cast members include Mekhi Phifer (8 Mile, “ER”), Kevin Quinn (“Bunk’d”), Woody McClain (The New Edition Story), and Lance Reddick (“The Wire”, John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum).
CANAL STREET is a telling the story of Kholi Styles (Gray) who is trying to get by in an unwelcoming new world. After he becomes the suspect of a mysterious death of a classmate, it’s up to his father, Jackie Styles (Williamson), an up-and-coming lawyer from the slums of Chicago, to defend his son in court and battle an outraged public before time runs out. Jackie fights to keep his faith and prove his son is not the monster the world has made him out to be.
A legendary performer comes into focus when Pavarotti arrives on Blu-ra Combo Pack (plus DVD & Digital), Digital, and On Demand September 24 from Lionsgate.
A legendary performer comes into focus when Pavarotti arrives on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack (plus DVD & Digital), Digital, and On Demand September 24 from Lionsgate. Directed by Academy Award®*, Golden Globe®**, Grammy®, Primetime Emmy®, and Daytime Emmy® winner Ron Howard (*2001, Best Director, A Beautiful Mind, **1999, Best Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, “From the Earth to the Moon”) and produced by Grammy® and Primetime Emmy®-winning producer Nigel Sinclair (2011, Outstanding Nonfiction Special, George Harrison: Living in the Material World), Pavarotti tells the story of global sensation Luciano Pavarotti, who quickly gained notoriety worldwide for singing the aria “Nessun dorma” at the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy. Featuring testimonies from his fellow Three Tenors members Jośe Carreras and Plácido Domingo, the film also includes archive footage featuring Spike Lee, Princess Diana, Nelson Mandela, and Stevie Wonder. Including making-of featurettes, which dive further into Pavarotti’s work and legacy, the Pavarotti Blu-ray will be available for the suggested retail price of $29.99.
From Academy Award®-winning director Ron Howard comes this wonderfully intimate portrait of Luciano Pavarotti, the most beloved opera singer of all time. Interweaving Pavarotti’s genre-defining performances with revealing, never-before-seen footage, Pavarotti is a movie experience as singularly entertaining as its legendary subject.
Scary Stories, the highly anticipated documentary about Alvin Schwartz’ iconic Scary Stories to Tell in the Darkbook series, will be released on DVD July 16 via Wild Eye Releasing.
Now you can win the Win the DVD of SCARY STORIES. We Are Movie Geeks has two copies to give away. All you have to do is leave a comment below telling us what your favorite scary movie is. (mine’s THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE). It’s so easy!
1. YOU MUST BE A US RESIDENT. PRIZE WILL ONLY BE SHIPPED TO US ADDRESSES. NO P.O. BOXES. NO DUPLICATE ADDRESSES.
2. WINNER WILL BE CHOSEN FROM ALL QUALIFYING ENTRIES.
Explore the history of one of the most controversial works of modern children’s literature: The best selling teen classic Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, which scared a generation of young readers and became one of the most banned books of modern times. Scary Stories creates both the ultimate celebration and dissertation of this iconic piece of horror literature.
Cody Meirick’s film features more than 40 interviews, from family members of author Alvin Schwartz, to fellow children’s book horror authors like R.L Stine (Goosebumps) and Q.L. Pearce, to folklorists, artists and fans discussing the impact that the books have had on both themselves as well as the culture at large. The documentary also explores the various times in which the books were banned or targeted by parent and religious groups as ‘satanic’ or otherwise too macabre for its targeted teen scholastic audience.
Penned by Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is a three-volume series consisting of short horror stories for pre-teens and children that were adapted from American folklore and urban legends. Because of some of the violent illustrations and the subject matter, parent groups, religious organizations and school boards had the books pulled from libraries and schools at various times. A feature film adaptation of the books, produced by horror icon Guillermo del Toro, is due in theaters this summer.
“I think he’s the best goaltender in the history of the NHL.” –– Wayne Gretzky
There will be a Special Event Premiere Screening of “Making Coco: The Grant Fuhr Story” Tuesday, October 1st at 7pm at Ballpark Village in St. Louis (601 Clark Ave. St. Louis). Doors open at 6pm with Red Carpet Photo Opp. There will be aQ&A after screening with Fuhr and Kelly Chaseand Darren Pang moderating. The documentary features interviews with hockey legends Wayne Gretzky, Brett Hull, Mark Messier, Theo Fleury, Martin Brodeur, Jarome Iginla, Glenn Anderson, Chris Pronger, Glen Sather, Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe, Kelly Chase and of course, the great Grant Fuhr. Ticket information can be found HERE
International award-winning filmmaker Adam Scorgie is proud to present the US Theatrical release of MAKING COCO: THE GRANT FUHR STORY. “Making Coco” makes it theatrical debut in St. Louis October 1st at Ballpark Village after being an official selection at SIFF (Seattle Film Festival), Nashville Film Festival, Closing Night Gala film at the Calgary Film Festival, and many others.
Barely 19, Grant ‘Coco’ Fuhr became starting goalie for the most exciting team in NHL history. In his mid-30’s as a St. Louis Blue, he played 79 games in an 82 game season to set a league record, then followed that ironman performance by playing 73 the following season on a completely rebuilt knee
During the decade and a half between, he employed his acrobatic style and cat-like reflexes to backstop five Stanley Cup champions and two Canada Cup winners, cementing a reputation as the ultimate “money goalie”. He also got himself demoted to the minors for calling the hometown fans jerks, announced his retirement at the age of 26 in an attempt to force a famously hard-nosed general manager to renegotiate a long-term contract, and was suspended for an entire NHL season for conduct deemed “dishonourable and against the welfare of the league” for cocaine use, only to return and redeem himself as one of the game’s true greats.
Grant Fuhr was the first black superstar in hockey. He won 403 regular season NHL games and is a member ofthe 2003 class of the Hockey Hall of Fame MAKING COCO: THE GRANT FUHR STORY is the story of Fuhr’s life, on and off the ice.
“Making Coco” will be released exclusively in theatres at six local St. Louis Marcus theatres for one-week starting on October 4th, 2019 with a very Special Premiere Screening Event at Ballpark Village on October 1st including a Q&A with Grant Fuhr, Kelly Chase and others with Darren Pang as the moderator. Also included at the Ballpark Village event will be several one of kind signed Grant Fuhr masks designed for the occasion by Armori Steele..
We all recognize Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta and even Chicago as hubs for Hollywood, but we are usually considered “flyover country”. Midwest filmmakers plan to disrupt that with the first annual In Motion Filmmaking Conference November 2nd at Covo co-working space in downtown St. Louis. In Motion is organized by Continuity, a non-profit whose mission is to expand diversity in media production through skills-based training, mentorship and opportunities for untapped talent. The conference is sponsored by the MO Film Office, Wildlife Command Center “Movie Animals”, Bruton Stroube, Explore St. Louis, SAG-AFTRA , Cinema St. Louis plus over a half dozen additional organizations.
This one-day conference will afford both novice and professional filmmakers from St. Louis as well as the surrounding Midwest region the opportunity to learn from industry experts, network with peers, and participate in Continuity’s ongoing efforts to expand diversity in film. All profits from In Motion will go to Continuity’s programs. Attendees will hear from filmmakers whose films have played at Sundance and premiered on Netflix and national television. With a dozen more speakers yet to be announced, over 25 speakers have already committed including Damon Davis (director of “Whose Streets”), Stephanie Tobey (Producer of the Netflix documentary “Abducted in Plain Sight”) and David Johnson (President of Coolfire Studios – Producers of “Fast N’ Loud” & “Welcome to Sweetie Pies.”) A Pitch Competition and Happy Hour networking event will round out the day’s activities. Tickets are on sale now at www.inmotionconference.com.
“The support for the conference has truly blown away our expectations, and we continually hear from filmmakers ‘Thank you so much for organizing this! Our region really needs it’,” explains Dan Parris, Conference Director of In Motion and executive director of Continuity. Continuity is supported in the planning of the conference from a committee of eleven local artists and influencers.
In Motion is looking to fill volunteer slots and additional sponsors for the event, including the Presenting Sponsor of the conference. To inquire about these remaining opportunities, visit the contact page atwww.inmotionconference.com.
