If you don't already live in the neighborhood, you may want to take a trip to the U-District this week for any number of strange and interesting films. For example, the Twisted Flicks folks will be doing their comedic dialog replacement thing to the film The People That Time Forgot, ThursdayâSunday at the Historic University Theater. The sequel to The Land That Time Forgot, it promises low-budget special effects, bad acting, and fun for the whole family.
Over at the University of Washington, there's a bunch of shows happening in room 239 of Savery Hall, and you don't have to be a student to attend. The Japanese Summer Film Series plays every Thursday at 7:30 p.m., and on July 28 they're showing Inferno of First Love (1968). You have to admit that's a great title. The movie itself was part of the Japanese New Wave, and it's about the sexual odyssey of teen lovers in Tokyo's Shinjuku district. The following week they're showing Oshima Nagisa's 1960 film The Sun's Burial, an amoral and violent juvenile-delinquent drama set in Osaka's biggest slum. On Friday the 29th, the Socialists take over the room with a screening of the 1953 classic Salt of the Earth. This blacklisted film, made by blacklisted artists, is based on a New Mexico miners' strike, and it shows the oppressed workers going home and oppressing their wives and daughtersâbefore shifting into a feminist film when the women become the ones turn the tide of the stalled strike.
Dennis Nyback returns to the Grand Illusion on Friday with the first of two weeks of films drawn from his archival collection. On Friday and Saturday he'll be showing old, racist cartoons and some preâMickey Mouse cartoon mice. He'll also be hosting a Marcia Brady Fetish Night, featuring a movie where Maureen McCormick plays a high-school slut. He'll follow this on Sunday with some of his favorite films, and a program drawn from his collection of vaudeville shorts. Monday is the night for his new and improved collection of Mormon educational films, followed on Tuesday by smoking, drinking, and sex films. On Wednesday are Dada films and it's "bring your own musical instrument" night. Finishing this week is Gumby movies and Buster Keaton shorts. Really, any night you show up you'll find something worth watching.
There are a couple things happening downtown that I want to mention. In Belltown the Rendezvous is hosting the Silent Speed Film Fest on Friday, July 29. This is a showcase for short films shot on Super 8 and 16mm, and I recommend it even though I haven't heard about any of the films playing.
In film-production news, Chris Roberts (one of the partners in the Alibi Room) is executive producing a feature film that will start shooting later this summer. Working with director Rob Lundsgaard, the movie is called The Stranger and it's the story of an alcoholic writer (is there any other kind?) working on a book about a serial killer who blacks out and can't remember the night when his ex-girlfriend gets killed. I hate it when that happens. Those who want to invest are invited to a fundraising dinner at the Alibi Room on Tuesday, August 2. If you need more information, stop on by and try the drink special: the Blackout. You may want to talk about the film before you have too many of those, though.
