AFTER SIGHT 25

LIVING GODS OF HAITI: 16MM SCREENING

 RITUALISED FREQUENCIES
AN EVENING OF REVERENCE, REFLECTION AND REBELLION
A specially curated film programme, live music, and visual art, all examining the meaning and construction of rituals and the creation of sacred spaces.

The Banditas will be projecting 16mm archival anthropological films (including Maya Deren's seminal Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti) that explore various ritualistic histories and environments. Accompanying these films will be specially composed live soundtracks by Cut Hands and Howie Reeve (Tattie Toes) with guests.

Also joining us on the evening will be artist Ariadne Xenou who will be presenting upon the theme of death rituals and exhibiting a site-specific installation.

Saturday 21st July
Doors are 19.00 for a 19.30 start
Tickets £7
book tickets

Venue: Church of the Sacred Heart
Lauriston Street, Edinburgh.
map of location and more info

TICKETS

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Mac & Devin Go To Highschool, 2012 (****) 

hilarious Rudy Ray Moore-inspired comedy vehicle for Snoop which also functions as a paean to the joys of smoking weed, has a top soundtrack, and a sexy cast clearly having a lot of fun making a movie that, like RRM's films, is anomalous to the usual Hollywood industry drivel

A Star Is Born, 1976 (***) 

it's all about the casting: already shuddering at the prospect of Tom Cruise and Beyoncé's remake, it's a shame that Streisand's first choice of Marlon Brando wasn't in this rock version of A Star Is Born because that would have been awesome - instead we're stuck with the beady-eyed puny-voiced Kris Kristoffersen with whom LS clearly has such little chemistry that she constantly feels the need to tilt her head sideways and/or brace to avoid too much intimate KK contact; three stars for her outfits and singing alone

Elevator, 19 (**)

obscure Dutch Stephen King-ish horror that has quite a creepy atmosphere and some reasonably scary moments to enjoy, sadly it soon gets heavily bogged down in that backwards-and-forwards mystery-solving drudgery so popular in European thrillers

... even more shakycam/fake documentaries

Welcome To The Jungle, 2007 (*)

my personal quest for shakycam/fake documentary bottom-of-the-barrel completism finds a dud when all could and should have been so great: essentially a remake of Cannibal Holocaust on location in the beautiful lush forests of New Guinea! the outcome is sabotaged by some hapless hopeless directing and irritating try-hard repertory-quality acting from the protagonists

Poughkeepsie Tapes, 2007 (**)

the promising concept of a serial killer's cache of personal tapes ends up even drearier than one of those real late night cable true crime documentaries, interminable talking detective-heads, endless laborious TV reports, atrocious acting, and the killer's 'shocking' footage is laughably coy

Skew, 2007 (**)
in a genre you can tolerate slow pace and even boredom if there's a sense of a decent pay-off coming, Skew is a severe letdown; for fuck's sake, I even forgave them the supernatural elements

Troll Hunter, 2010 (****) 

enjoyable mockumentary of a group of students following a hunter on the trail of some real trolls within the icy forests of Scandinavia; whilst I suspect the plentiful Norwegian in-jokes aren't quite as funny as the producers like to think, the troll scenes and scenery and overall tension make the movie fun right to the end

Evidence, 2012 (*) 

Blair Witch meets Modern Warfare 3 meets Predator; in fact so insanely ridiculous is this it's almost worth seeing - it's as if the producers wanted to make a big-scale zombie/alien action blockbuster on a budget of $5,000

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GLASTONBURY AFTER HOURS

Stabbers Conspiracy by Cut Hands features in Julien Temple's new documentary Glastonbury After Hours: Glastopia; the film premieres on BBC4 all this weekend.

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Piranha 3DD, 2012 (*) 

after Alexander Aja's gleefully entertaining Piranha 3D, my modest hopes for this sequel were quickly dashed by the pathetic rubber piranhas, by the cheesiest use of 3D since Friday The 13th 3D (without the attraction of Jason), by the ridiculous coyness of the lead 'actresses' in the 'sex' scenes, by the sub-American Pie humour, and by a David Hasselhoff barely able to stand up let alone deliver a coherent line 

Atrocious, 2011 (*****) 

if you're as much a shaky-cam/fake documentary diehard as myself, then you're in for a treat - for me, Atrocious goes straight into the pantheon of POV greatness and arguably ranks 3rd only to The Blair Witch Project and the likewise Spanish [Rec]; note, get the 75 minute original and avoid the awful English dubbed version

The Devil Inside, 2012 (***) 

the potential pay-offs for these shaky-cam horror films is staggering; for a budget of $1,000,000 this exorcism mockumentary has apparently already grossed more than $50m in the USA alone - it's certainly more than watchable: the locations are perfect and the exorcisms themselves boast surprisingly shocking effects, even with a suspension of disbelief for the supernatural that is less than willing; on the downside, the priests themselves are not credible and way too much English is spoken, reducing one's credulity further, though never quite fatally 

Sweet Karma, 2009 (***)

mute Russian girl goes underground in the Toronto sex trade to avenge her missing sister; you get lots of gritty and believably sleazy action with some appropriately hard-hitting IDM beats throughout and, most thankfully of all, no Lukas Moodysson-style religious symbolism and/or moralising 

Human Tornado, 1976 (*****) 

the sequel to Dolemite sees even more of Rudy Ray Moore's genius - the opening live stand-up scenes mixed with music and dancing in the club are amazing in their own right, whilst the film proper is as outrageously entertaining as the original 

Iron Sky, 2012 (*) 

teenage boys from Finland in between sessions on their Xbox 360 game consoles make spectacularly unfunny sci-fi comedy drivel about Nazis on the dark side of the moon, all as a vehicle to make the most inanely stupid cheap shots imaginable about America; what an incredible waste of ten million dollars

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CUT HANDS: NEW RELEASE

New Cut Hands 12" single Black Mamba b/w Krokodilo Theme is released on Blackest Ever Black this July.

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Ai, 2012 (*)

Taiwanese romantic comedy initially notable for extraordinarily long virtuoso single shot opening sequence - sadly, the film (gorgeous travelogue though it might be) quickly descends into a mushy nice-guy-loser stereotype comparable to the execrable Love Actually
  
Disco Godfather, 1979 (*****)
put your weight on it! the immortal Rudy Ray Moore in a deliriously enjoyable anti-angel dust romp; get ready to trip out on relentlessly memorable scenes, at times hallucinogenic, others sexy, always stylish, and with a fantastic soundtrack and some of RRM's very best catchphrases

Dolemite, 1975 (*****) 
Rudy Ray Moore's original Dolemite film is full of incredibly infectious fresh energy, outrageous set-pieces and dialogue, not to mention the sheer charisma of the great man himself and his gorgeous support cast; a timeless classic of low-budget cinema

Defamation, 2009 (***) 
a fascinating, often provocative exploration into the nature of anti-Semitism today and, despite being a bit Michael Moore-esque for my own taste, very watchable

Cave Of Forgotten Dreams, 2010 (***) 
Herzog got exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves in southern France, with its collection of artwork dating back 32,000 years; I only wish the privilege had been granted to, say, the National Geographic channel as Werner blows it big time with his excruciatingly overblown narrative, a dreary score, and a ton of eccentric uninformative padding (presumably to justify its 90 minutes); despite these frustrations the caves are still well worth experiencing

The Twilight Saga: New Moon, 2009 (**) 

curiosity got the better of me and with its lusty emphasis on vampires, werewolves, and naked male torsos, you can kind of see the attraction of the genre, and for once the CGI animation is beautifully realised, especially that of the wolves - the major downside to all this is the face painted on a tree that is Kristen Stewart, as the central character, a disastrous bit of casting if ever there was

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FILLMORE DISCOS 67 - 70s RARITIES 6

ACQUISITIONS 19

reading
Pure Lust - Mary Daly
Creative Aggression - Dr. George R. Bach
60 Minutes And The Assassination Of Werner Erhard - Jane Self
Psycho-Cybernetics - Maxwell Maltz

listening
Dead Air - Mordant Music (CD)
Hume/Unborn Vectors - Vindicatrix (12")
Wormhole Shubz - EVOL (CD)
Pizzazz - Patrice Rushen (LP)

viewing
Pulling John - Vassiliki Khonsari
Misinformation - Mordant Music
Imelda - Ramona S. Diaz
The Unbookables - Jeff Pearson

ACQUISITIONS 18
ACQUISITIONS 17
ACQUISITIONS 16

AFTER SIGHT 24

ACQUISITIONS 18

reading
Wickedary - Mary Daly & Jane Caputi
Amazon Grace - Mary Daly
Fanged Noumena - Nick Land
Killing Pablo - Mark Bowden

listening
Sticks, Stones & Breaking Bones - Will Guthrie (LP) 
Before Turning The Gun On Himself - Doug Stanhope (CD)
Golden Rhythm / Ink Music - Volcano The Bear (CD)
A Question Of Re-Entry - Cindytalk/Philippe Petit (12")

viewing
Cave Of Forgotten Dreams - Werner Herzog
Into The Abyss - Werner Herzog
Herb And Dorothy - Megumi Sasaki
Curb Your Enthusiasm (seasons 1-8) - Larry David

ACQUISITIONS 17
ACQUISITIONS 16
ACQUISITIONS 15