Seeing a movie in a theater is a fairly standard affair. There’s the shelling out of $5 to $9 for a single ticket (more if you opt for the 3D craze). There’s popcorn, sodas and candy that will probably cost you at least $10. Then there’s finding a seat, sitting through 15 minutes of previews, and then maybe the movie you are seeing has a few redeeming qualities.
This is one option to movie going, and I enjoy going to see a new movie as much as anyone. I actually recently took advantage of the Majestic 12’s Wacky Wednesday deal, which allows, with a valid student ID, a ticket to any showing on Wednesdays. But, there’s another deal on Wednesday that locals should take advantage of. The Mise En Scenesters Film Club meets almost every two weeks on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. to show two “untraditional “films for only $2 admission. I use the term untraditional loosely. Some of these films are great quality, beautiful, fascinating; some are bizarre and mesmerizing; others are creepy and haunting. Also, most of these movies are hard to find items that Netflix doesn’t offer.
The film club welcomes all with a friendly, casual and fun atmosphere to their Collective Clothing warehouse location, where the films are projected onto a sheet on the warehouse door. Seating is set up in rising fashion and with a top level just like a theater, and refreshments are offered as well. Water, sodas and popcorn are $1. The Moccasin Bend Brewing Company, whichCollective Clothing shares the warehouse with, often provides a keg for $4 beers. Attendees are also welcome to bring their own snacks, beverages, and comfy chairs. They are also encouraged to cheer, laugh, and talk during the film within the scope of politeness.
Before the show, there are previews like any good theatre has. These previews are made by the film group members for upcoming movies they plan to show. An upcoming selection of films for Mise En Scenesters documentary night includes “Johnny Berlin,” Errol Morris’s “Gates of Heaven,” and Les Blank’s “Gap Toothed Women.” Another upcoming event will be a horror themed night of found footage from the Australian flick “The Tunnel” and the Norwegian “soon-to-be cult-classic” “Troll Hunter.”
The films during the most recent Mise En Scenesters event included the strange and hilariously bad film “StuntRock,” and the even more bizarre “Beaver Trilogy” featuring a young Sean Penn as a drag queen.
To describe “Stunt Rock,” I think one character from the film said it best: “It’s like we pick up the audience and violently shake them for an hour and then drop them.” That’s exactly what I felt like had happened to me after “StuntRock.” The loose premise of this movie is that an Australian stuntman named Grant Page heads to L.A. to provide stunts for a new movie called “Undercover Girl.” Page is pummeled by gunfire, falls from buildings, sets himself on fire, fights with a cheetah, and makes himself a human arrow in his series of fascinating stunts in a pre-digital effects world. Then the movie gets very strange indeed when Page visits his cousin, who is in a rock band called “Sorcery,” an act that features duels between the King of Wizards and the Prince of Darkness.
Page helps Sorcery perform stunts in their shows, and begins a semi-serious romance with a magazine writer that loves Sorcery’s music and wants to do a piece on people who let their work consume them. The flashbacks, tangents, and use of every bit of stock footage of stunts in existence makes the movie long, painful, but too entertaining to turn away. After a 15 minute intermission of music videos and homemade cartoons, the club regrouped to watch the second film in the double feature: “Beaver Trilogy.”
This coming of age story begins in 1979 with a chance meeting in a Salt Lake City parking lot where filmmaker Trent Harris is approached by a small-town dreamer from Beaver, Utah. Harris jumps at the chance when the young man invites him to come to the small town of Beaver to film a talent show.
At the show, the man dons black leather, a blond wig and performs in drag as Olivia Newton John, which Harris captures on tape. In 1981, Harris revisited the story in “Beaver Kid 2,” on a home video camera with a budget of $100, and featured Sean Penn as the Beaver Kid re-enacting the same scenario. Harris rewrote the script, cast Crispin Glover in the lead, and in 1985 compiled the final segment, “Orkly Kid,” as an American Film Institute project. The three pieces were re-edited, compiled, and finally screened at the Lincoln Center in New York City in 2000, resulting in the Beaver Trilogy.
If summer movies aren’t measuring up to the cut, and you want to see films that you won’t be quite able to describe later, visit a Mise En Scenesters Film Club event. More information about Mise En Scenesters events can be found on their Facebook page.
Email Erica Tuggle at reporter@hamiltoncountyherald.com.