Tuesdays at the Gish Film Series presented by The Culture Club: Cultural Studies Scholars' Associaition

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Upcoming Schedule

*Grey Gardens*
	January 27, 2009, 7:30 pm Directors: Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Muffie Meyer (1975), 100 minutes This documentary, from the Maysles brothers, delves inside the strange lives of Edith “Big Edie” Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edith “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale. The aunt and first cousin to former First Lady Jackie Onassis, Big Edie and Little Edie lived in squalor throughout the 1960s and 70s in a dilapidated estate in East Hampton, New York called Grey Gardens. Amazingly, the isolated mother and daughter were nearly oblivious to their surroundings, which had been condemned by the Board of Health a few years earlier. This film captures their everyday life in a manner both haunting and unforgettable.

*The Intruder*
	February 3, 2009, 7:30 pm Director: Roger Corman (1963), 84 minutes Legendary B-movie director and producer Roger Corman has often bragged that he never lost money on a single film that he made . . . except for this one. Indeed, The Intruder is quite different than other low-budget exploitation pictures that made Corman famous. The film stars a pre-fame William Shatner as a vicious racist who arrives in a small Southern town to incite racial violence. The box-office failure of The Intruder may have caused Corman to swear off “message” films for the rest of his career, but not before he produced this look at racial tension at the beginnings of the Civil Rights era.

The Films of Sarah Jacobson
	February 10, 2009, 7:30 pm Director: Sarah Jacobson (1993-2004), 90 minutes Before her untimely death in 2004, Sarah Jacobson was an independent filmmaker with a do-it-yourself ethic and a distinctly underground sensibility. Working with her producer and mom, Ruth Ellen Jacobson, Sarah produced and distributed a feature-length film, Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore, and a number of shorts. On this evening, we will celebrate Sarah’s life by screening a sampling of her films and hosting a fundraiser for the Sarah Jacobson Film Grant, an annual film grant established by her mother that awards independent female filmmakers.

*A Boy and His Dog*
	February 17, 2009, 7:30 pm Director: L. Q. Jones (1975), 91 minutes Based on a novella by legendary, infamous science-fiction author Harlan Ellison, this film is set in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by nuclear war and focuses on two survivors: Vic (Don Johnson), an 18-year-old boy, and Blood, his telepathic dog (voiced by Tim McIntire). Vic and Blood have a good working relationship: Vic keeps Blood supplied with food, and Blood tracks down women to satiate Vic’s sexual needs. However, when the duo happen upon a bizarre group of survivors who live underground, Vic is forced to make some tough decisions that may adversely affect his relationship with Blood.

*American Astronaut*
	February 24, 2009, 7:30 pm Director: Cory McAbee (2001), 91 minutes This space western musical uses flinty black-and-white photography, rugged Lo-Fi sets and the spirit of the final frontier to bring the film, set in the dirty, isolated vastness of outer space, to life. The American Astronaut follows the adventures of an interplanetary trader (McAbee) through his Homeric intergalactic journey to provide the all-female population of Venus with a suitable singular male, all the while being pursued by the cold-blooded and childish killer, Professor Hess (Rocco Sisto), an enigmatic figure from his past. The film features an original soundtrack by The Billy Nayer Show.

*Freaks*
	March 24, 2009, 7:30 pm Director: Tod Browning (1932), 64 minutes When it was first released in 1932, Freaks was a disaster: audiences were shocked that MGM, Hollywood’s most prestigious studio, would release such a distasteful picture that featured carnival sideshow “freaks” in prominent roles, and the film was pulled from release shortly thereafter. However, Browning’s film later reemerged on the midnight movie circuit in the 1960s and became a cult hit. The tale of what happens to greedy circus performers (Olga Baclanova and Henry Victor) when they cross a community of “freaks,” this film has been touted by critic J. Hoberman as one of the most subversive films ever made.

*The Terror of Tiny Town*
	March 31, 2009, 7:30 pm Director: Sam Newfield (1938), 62 minutes Poverty Row director Sam Newfield amazingly made over twenty-five ultra-low-budget Westerns in 1938 and 1939 alone! One of these films is this oddity, a Western that features an entire cast of little people. All is well in the sleepy hamlet of Tiny Town until an evil gunslinger named Bat Haines (“Little Billy” Rhodes) arrives to terrorize its inhabitants, and it is all up to Tiny Town’s fearless sheriff, Buck Lawson (Billy Curtis) to defeat Bat and restore peace and order. Is The Terror of Tiny Town exploitation or empowerment? It’s up to the viewer to decide.

*The Sadist*
	April 7, 2009, 7:30 pm Director: James Landis (1963), 92 minutes Ten years before director Terrance Malick adapted the story of spree killer Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, into his lyrical film Badlands, B-director James Landis adapted the Starkweather story in The Sadist. If Malick’s Badlands is poetry, The Sadist is, by contrast, hardboiled, dime-store prose: when their car breaks down on a trip to Los Angeles, a group of suburban school teachers are terrorized at gunpoint by Starkweather-stand-in, Charlie Tibbs (Arch Hall, Jr.), and his childish girlfriend, Judy (Marilyn Manning). The hostages will have to become as brutal as their tormentors if they want to survive.

*The Brother From Another Planet*
	April 14, 2009, 7:30 pm Director: John Sayles (1984), 108 minutes Acclaimed filmmaker John Sayles wrote and directed this off-beat story of an alien (Joe Morton), who just so happens to resemble an African-American male, who crash-lands on Ellis Island and ends working as a mechanic in Harlem. The Brother (as the film calls him) begins to integrate into his new life in Harlem until intergalactic bounty hunters arrive looking for him. Sayles’s deft direction and insightful script, coupled with Morton’s wonderful performance, make The Brother from Another Planet a potent immigration allegory.

The Culture Club: Cultural Studies Scholars' Association
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