"if i ran the local cinema...": dream double bills

[DaveCinzano]

okay, here's the pitch - you run a local fleapit, you are in charge of the projector, while your mate's running the bar. ergo, lots of free booze, your choice of chewns in the lobby, and you only have to screen the movies you want to see!

so, what would your perfect double/triple/quad bills be, what seasons would you run, and what shenanigans would you keep rolling in the bar?

i reckon i would have a season of paranoid and conspiracy flicks to start off with:

hidden agenda / defence of the realm (for gritty, depressing uk-based dirty tricks-related drama)

executive action / seven days in may (for high tension yankee spookiness - the first is a fine reinterpretation of the kennedy assassination with burt lancaster heading up a team of shooters)

missing / silkwood (cia/big business collusion on a costa-gavras tip)

klute / the conversation / the parallax view (a late-night screening of three tip-top post-summer of love downers)

so keep em coming!

 

[DaveCinzano]

noo yoik allnighter!

the warriors / assault of precinct 13 / wolfen / serpico / the french connection / escape from new york

loads of stoop action, cops-on-the-take, werewolves, rollerskating gangs and glider stunts!

with plenty of early 80s hiphop, blondie and new wavehe foyer, and that jean basquiat film playing in the bar

idea partly thieved from the cube's recent nyc lower east side night

 

[Sunspots]

Just to stop krs from talking to himself on his own threads again , I'll chip in with:

A Warren Oates all-nighter, comprised of the following:

Cockfighter (a.k.a. Born To Kill / Gamblin' Man / Wild Drifter)

The Wild Bunch

Two-Lane Blacktop

Dillinger

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Race with the Devil

and maybe even Stripes for some light-hearted chuckles...

He was the mack.

 

[DaveCinzano]

what about a sixties radical theme?

we could have mario van peebles' 'panther' running with the fairly accurate post-cointelpro spoof 'drop squad' running as a tragedy/comedy double bill on a black radical tip, with artwank 'zabriskie point' ("...a molotov cocktail is a mixture of gasoline and kerosene... a white radical is a mixture of bullshit and jive..." ) bubbed up with the far finer 'medium cool' to hold up the paler end of things...

bar soundtrack? soledad brother , hawkwind's 'urban guerrilla', and lots of acid rock?

 

[jeff_leigh]

one armed swordsman, Sister Street Fighter, Drunken master 2, Enter the 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Eight Diagram pole Fighter,Dirty Ho

 

[DaveCinzano]

Just to stop krs from talking to himself on his own threads again

cheeky fecker

a fine selection, mind - half of them i haven't seen, but oates was a fine player... just don't get me going abou the superior attention dealt to sound editing in the 70s

 

[rubbershoes]

One night could be for dispiriting films

Bad Lieutenant
Naked
Happiness
Land and freedom

 

[Sunspots]

one armed swordsman, Sister Street Fighter, Drunken master 2, Enter the 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Eight Diagram pole Fighter,Dirty Ho

Dirty Ho was a big disappointment to me.

How about Chinese Super Ninja, Kid With Golden Arm or Five Venoms instead?

 

[DaveCinzano]

war reporters!

okay, how's this for a subtle critique of us foreign policy?

foreign correspondent [reel em in gently...]
the year of living dangerously [us embassy pass on lists of trades unionists and socialists to indonesian military coup leaders]
the killing fields [bombing cambodia back to the stone age brings loony toons khmer rouge to power]
under fire [nick nolte growls his way through nicaragua whilst cia-affiliated merc ed harris shoots a grenade-throwing baseball star from the barrio in the back]

blimey

 

[DaveCinzano]

One night could be for dispiriting films

Bad Lieutenant
Naked
Happiness
Land and freedom

with cheap absinth cocktails and the birthday party playing in the bar..?

 

[Sunspots]

cheeky fecker

a fine selection, mind - half of them i haven't seen, but oates was a fine player... just don't get me going abou the superior attention dealt to sound editing in the 70s

Yeah you're right, I've seen the effect it has!

Krs, seriously... -you know your stuff, so how come you're not more involved with The Cube?...

 

[flimsier]

Star-Wars 4/5/6

Lord of the Rings.

That's the weekend done with.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Yeah you're right, I've seen the effect it has!

Krs, seriously... -you know your stuff, so how come you're not more involved with The Cube?...

i'm lazy?

 

[Sunspots]

i'm lazy?

Yeah, me too I guess. It's a whole lot easier and more fun to fantasise on threads like this than to actually make it happen at The Cube!

Though god knows how many times I have asked them to try and track down a print of 'Cockfighter'*! One of my very favourite books by one of my very favourite authors, and the film was (-and technically still is?) banned in this country.

*It's not a porno, by the way people!...

 

[Bonfirelight]

A USA vs USSR triple bill.

top gun / RockyIV / Wargames

Sponsored by McDonalds, The Republican Party and the 1980s

 

[Masseuse]

Rocky (the film all other films take their inspiration from)
Spellbound (Rocky with spelling)
Jean de Florette (Rocky with peasants)

 

[DaveCinzano]

hbo weekend!

now hbo have knocked up some fine, fine features in their time, so how about a weekend of their best full-length tv movies?

on the saturday, start off with the rather long and - in places - depressing 'and the band played on' about the early impact of aids (with hawkeye pierce as a dastardly plagiarising research scientist!), followed by the even more depressing 'conspiracy' (kenneth branagh, stanley tucci, owen teale and frank from 'shameless' as the nazis cooking up the final solution at the wansee conference), which leads neatly on to 'nurembourg', about the trial of senior nazis after wwii (with brian 'better than bleeding anthony hopkins' cox as goering), and to round the night off we better show 'citizen x', with russian cops stephen rea and donald sutherland chasing after a serial kiler (it's way better than that sounds...)

after that lot, sunday needs to be a bit more light-hearted, so to start off with let's have cheesy baseball flick 'comrades of summer' (disgraced pro joe montegna teaches to russkis to wield a stick), followed by 'citizen cohn', with james woods as the bilious and corrupt lawyer roy cohn. to finish off, it has to be 'conspiracy: trial of the chicago 8', about the post-democratic party conference of 1968 which saw pretty much all the defendants and most of their lawyers in restraints and gags in court (it's funnier than that sounds, honest!)

phew

 

[DaveCinzano]

Rocky (the film all other films take their inspiration from)
Spellbound (Rocky with spelling)
Jean de Florette (Rocky with peasants)

good call!

and definitely no manon des sources

A USA vs USSR triple bill.

top gun / RockyIV / Wargames

Sponsored by McDonalds, The Republican Party and the 1980s Bonfirelight A USA vs USSR triple bill.

another fine selection! but what about that one where the russians invade the midwest and only a bunch of bratpackers stand between them and america eating borscht for the rest of history? dammit, whatsitcalled?!

 

[Bonfirelight]

Rambo / Commando / Under Seige.

One man can kill whole armies. These films prove it.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Rambo / Commando / Under Seige.

One man can kill whole armies. These films prove it.

i thought of a broader terrorist/psycho theme, with:

black sunday
die hard
under siege
two minute warning
rollercoaster

a 70s/90s segueway

 

[DaveCinzano]

antipodean anti-imperialism!

utu (sadly underviewed historical drama about maori resistance to anglo invasion, by a director who ended up pushing crap like 'freejack' and 'young guns 2')

the chant of jimmie blacksmith (missionaries try to europeanise an aboriginal boy - and fail)

if we were going deeper into the anglo experience of oz, i guess we would have 'picnic at hanging rock' and 'walkabout', if only for jenny

 

[Bonfirelight]

Fair enough

Goodfellas / Foret Gump / bicentennial man

Life spanning epics.

 

[DaveCinzano]

x

 

[Wolfie]

I once went to see Derek Jarman's Sebastiane and Pumping Iron on a double bill

 

[DaveCinzano]

I once went to see Derek Jarman's Sebastiane and Pumping Iron on a double bill

...which leads nicely into...

jubilee
quadrophenia

yes! it's a toyah wilcox double bill!

 

[Athos]

Police academy 4 and 5.

 

[Juice Terry]

foreign correspondent [reel em in gently...]
the year of living dangerously
the killing fields
under fire

Sorry but you can't have a list of journos abroad in war zones without including Salvador - James Woods drives to El Salvador to chronicle the events of the 1980 military dictatorship

Definitely need a road movie night:-

Duel - Denis Weaver aka McCloud versus giant truck.
Vanishing Point - Kowalski and Super Soul versus the Man.
Two Lane Blacktop - 55 Chevy versus GTO
Mad Max I - Max versus evil
Thelma & Louise - Davis and Sarandon versus men

 

[DaveCinzano]

Sorry but you can't have a list of journos abroad in war zones without including Salvador - James Woods drives to El Salvador to chronicle the events of the 1980 military dictatorship

dang it, youse right!



<kicks self>

 

[JTG]

'picnic at hanging rock'

You know the climactic sequence? Big cliff/long way down to the water?

I've been there

Me: the entire works of Kevin Smith would keep me quiet with a big tub of Ben & Jerry's

 

[ernestolynch]

another fine selection! but what about that one where the russians invade the midwest and only a bunch of bratpackers stand between them and america eating borscht for the rest of history? dammit, whatsitcalled?!

Red Dawn with Patrick Swayze as leader of the 'Wolverines'. You know JC2 and the Pbmen watched that in their formative years.


War is Hell.

Saving Private Ryan/Idi I Smotri (Come and See) - if only to once and for all dispell the myth that SPR is the most gritty and harrowing war-film ever.