Foleyvision and Intergalactic Nemesis Thursday at Ritz

Foleyvision: FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS w/ Intergalactic Nemesis - Thursday 7/1 at 7:00pm @Ritz
Advance tickets available here

This Thursday, a sound effect event will be happening at the Ritz that will blow your ears off. FOLEYVISION, those aurally creative people who brought us new soundtracks for such hits as TURKISH STAR WARS, SANTA VS. SATAN, FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY, and TURKISH WIZARD OF OZ will be bringing an awesome new show: FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS.

When Ming the Merciless projects a deadly ray from Mars to extract all of the nitrogen from Earth's atmosphere, it's up to Flash and his pals to use awesome special effects to save the world from destruction!

In case you've never been to a Foleyvision show, here's how it works. Foleyvision is a group of performers who take old and odd pictures, strip them of their soundtrack, and recreate them live. That means all of the music, the dialogue, and the incidental noises are created in the theatre in a live environment. It's fun, it's wild, and it's one of our favorite Alamo-original programming.

And that's not all. Foleyvision Foley artist Buzz Moran is bringing his talents once again for the Intergalactic Nemesis comic book/radio drama show. Before the feature, enjoy a live, 10-minute performance of the live-action animated play. For those not keeping track, Intergalactic Nemesis is on episode five of their sci-fi adventure, and Molly Sloan, Timmy Mendez, Mysterion the Magnificent, and mystery-man named Ben Wilcott are in the middle of a thrill ride.

Wider than Cinemascope, deeper than 3D, more sonically astounding than THX, it's FOLEYVISION! Every line of dialogue, every note of music, every single sound effect if performed right before your eyes by the amazing Foleyvision cast.

Get your tickets for this great show now.

FINAL FLESH with creator VERNON CHATMAN live

FINAL FLESH w/ Vernon Chatman live - Wednesday 6/30 at 9:30pm @Ritz
Advance tickets available here

We're doing a special screening of the film FINAL FLESH. The writer, Vernon Chatman, is going to attend and provide his bizarre insight into this very unique project. You probably haven't heard of this thing, and that's ok. I'm here to straighten it out for you.

FINAL FLESH is not exactly a film, at least not in the traditional sense. It's four short films based on a common premise and shot by four different "crews." The plot, if you can call it one, is a twisted nightmare: Two women and one man are facing the end of the world.

Chatman wrote four scripts and submitted them to specialty adult-video companies that cater to homemade scripts for niche fetishes. Rather than send a typical dirty scenario, however, Chatman wrote non-sexual, apocalyptic stories that the barely-capable actors and filmmakers then adapted into short, made-to-order videos. The results all share a tone of surreal hell, but with unique looks and performance styles.

If you don't recognize the name Vernon Chatman, it means you aren't watching the credits to some of the best television ever created. Chatman is the madman behind DOGGY FIZZLE TELEVIZZLE, XAVIER: RENEGADE ANGEL, and my personal favorite, WONDER SHOWZEN. That show was one of the best anti-comedy programs of the decade.

FINAL FLESH has a lot of that same energy as WONDERSHOWEN and DOGGY FIZZLE TELEVIZZLE, but forgoes some of the easier laughs for more conceptual head-scratching. This film is funny, its super weird, and its definitely unlike anything you've ever seen before. And with the creator Vernon Chatman live to answer all your questions, this is a must see event.

Get your tickets for this great show now. Perfect for a nightmarish double feature with TRASH HUMPERS at 7:00.

TRASH HUMPERS Monday-Wednesday at the Ritz

SXSW Presents: TRASH HUMPERS - Monday 6/28-Wednesday 6/30 at 7:00pm @Ritz
Advance tickets available here

To be honest, I'm not really sure what TRASH HUMPERS is. The trailer, which knocks my bloody socks off every time I see it, is actually terrifying. I'm not saying that lightly, as one might say about a run-of-the-mill horror film. This little bit or craziness makes me uncomfortable, like I'm watching something that is evil. And I like it.

The word that seems to be circulating among the critics is "nightmare." The film seems to capture something unconscious but definitely frightening. "TRASH HUMPERS follows a small group of elderly semi-mutants through the shadows and margins of an unfamiliar world," SXSW writes.

The film comes from the twisted mind of Harmony Korine, the auteur-provocateur who is responsible for KIDS, GUMMO, JULIEN DONKEY-BOY, and MISTER LONELY. His films are oft-despised for their upsetting aesthetic and unconventional, seemingly nonsensical flourishes, yet even his detractors cannot deny his ability to make a distressing picture. He is a master of the craft of unrest.

His new movie has gotten a lot of buzz, including a heap of controversy at our own SXSW. Some say this is his best picture in years, others walked out in disgust. What's it going to be for you?

Get your tickets for this great show now.

ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED w/ Live Score by MANY BIRTHDAYS

ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED - Sunday 6/27 at 7:00pm @Ritz
Advance tickets available here

Few films can lay claim to a visual aesthetic as wholly unique and pure as this one. Made in 1926, it is the oldest surviving animated film, but it's as timeless as tomorrow. Artist Lotte Reiniger painstakingly created a world in silhouette, inspired by Balinese shadow puppetry, using cardboard cutouts, animated with great skill and care. It's like being carried away by a beautiful dream as we follow Prince Achmed, mounted atop a magical flying horse, who overcomes trial after trial to defeat an evil sorceror and win the hand of a princess. Few subsequent films have been able to achieve a fraction of PRINCE ACHMED's wonder even with a budget of many millions more.

The score will be provided by Many Birthdays, who, in their words, encompass "dance, punk, cinema, noise, beats, words, color and texture using drums, echos, distortion and paint. Their shows are a mixture of voices, instruments, projected video, English and Japanese, chaos and construction." Join us for an evening of music, light and magic.

Get your tickets for this great show now

Your weekend plans should include heckling Vince Vaughn.

The Action Pack presents

JURASSIC PARK: THE LOST WORLD in HECKLEVISION!

Sunday, June 27 at the Ritz

Get tickets in advance HERE!

Unless they're the ultra-hilarious Master Pancake Theater, there's nothing more annoying than people heckling a movie. Their voices interrupt the characters, and even if their jokes are really good you end up missing some key line of dialog that would make the next joke even better. We first started doing Hecklevision because we thought, "Man it sure is fun drinking beer and making fun of movies, but how can we expand this from our living rooms to incorporate more people (like a whole theater full)?"

Enter Hecklevision - We pick some hilariously horrible movies (but movies we can't help but love anyway) and through the magic of MuVChat technology we let you text your heckles silently, then they appear up on the screen below the main action. When you don't have anything to contribute to the heckle conversation you can sit back and watch the movie and still hear every single line while enjoying other peoples heckles on the screen. The beauty of Hecklevision resides in the fact that you can assign yourself a nickname or none at all for when your heckle appears on screen, so if your joke totally bombs, no one has to know (except you). We started with the easy targets of Lifetime Original movies, but have since started going after the big boys because frankly, it's way more fun.

And this week is no exception with The Action Pack's presentation of The Lost World: Jurassic Park II in Hecklevision. When IMDB has such trivia listed for your movie as "As Kelly is doing her gymnastics in the shack before kicking the Raptor out, you can see the hand guards that gymnasts use," you know your movie is ripe for The Action Pack's Hecklevision treatment.

Seriously, apart from the overly elaborate teenage gymnastic raptor kicking, if you had a plan B site for your ridiculously expensive and wildly dangerous dinosaur operation, would you really not include fences? And if you're Steven Spielberg and you want to make a serious action movie, would you really cast Jeff Goldblum and Vince Vaughn as your dramatic leads? Well, hecklers, feel free to set your phones to pre-historic because we are going to blast this one back to the Triassic period. And if we can't blast, at least we know it might be susceptible to a uneven bar summersault kick.

(Greg MacLennan)

Talkin bout TRAMPLED UNDER FOOT! C3 PRESENTS offers up 3 pairs of tickets to Led Zeppelin 2, The Live Experience! Thursday July 1st @ La Zona Rosa!!

SXSW Presents IT CAME FROM KUCHAR

IT CAME FROM KUCHAR - Wednesday 6/23 at 7:00pm @Ritz
Advance tickets available here

The Kuchar Brothers, George and Mike, are the wittiest and most palatable of the underground filmmakers from the heyday of 8/16mm filmmaking in the 1960s. Unlike the dreadfully boring exercises of the structuralists like Michael Snow and Hollis Frampton, the baffling images of experimental filmmakers like Andy Warhol or Stan Brakhage, or even the surreal and indecipherable films of directors like Maya Deren and Kenneth Anger, the Kuchar Brothers’ films are fun, crazy, and accessible. Most importantly, they don’t feel like a school lesson.

Their style is a meshing of a lot of diverse instincts; utilizing home-movie techniques and film stock, a satirical use of high-camp, a handful of bizarre science fiction musings and a very unhealthy dash of good old fashioned American sleaze, their films are great because they exist in a space of free-spirited moviemaking, wholly outside of the Hollywood system but emulating the Hollywood film through excess.

There’s a new documentary about the brothers and their films. This doc is a detailed and humorous portrait of the Kuchar Brothers' life and work, and is filled with great interviews and stories about the 1960s and filmmaking in the shadows of American culture. Both brothers led unique and bizarre lives, and this movie captures the insane and twisted stories of George and Mike and the underground cinema movement in general.

This is a must see for anyone interested in alternative cinema, or even anyone interested in no-budget filmmaking generally.

Only 1 showing left of this great documentary. Wednesday 6/23 at 7:00pm.

Get your tickets for this great show now

SXSW Presents AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE this week at the Ritz

AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE
SUNDAY, MONDAY & WEDNESDAY AT RITZ
BUY TICKETS HERE

If you have the guts to face beasts and bare bodies, come explore the hidden history of the American exploitation film. This doc digs deep into this often overlooked category of U.S. cinema and unearths the shameless and occasionally shocking origins of this popular entertainment. Exploitation cinema has left an indelible mark on American culture, and this informative and amusing documentary proves that its principles and popularity endure to this day.

Narrated by Robert Forster, AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE boasts an incredible list of interviewees, many of whom are speaking on-camera for the first time. The list includes Larry Cohen, Joe Dante, Don Edmonds, David Hess, Jack Hill, Jonathan Kaplan, John Landis, Herschell Gordon Lewis, William Lustig, Ted V. Mikels, Kim Morgan, Eddie Muller, Lewis Teague and Fred Williamson.

Get ready to have your brain's ass kicked.

For these special screenings, we'll be running 13 minutes of exclusive outtake interviews following the closing credits! DO NOT MISS!

Sponsored by SXSW