Bamcinématek Presents Sneak Previews from IFC Films

BAMcinématek goes Home for the Holidays— a seven-film series of not-so-festive auteurist Christmases, Dec 15—20

Opens with a new DCP remaster of Joe Dante’s Gremlins; all other features in 35mm

The Wall Street Journal is the title sponsor of BAM Rose Cinemas and BAMcinématek.

Brooklyn, NY/Nov 30, 2012—BAMcinématek closes its calendar year with Home for the Holidays (Dec 15—20), a seven-film series of not-so-festive auteurist Christmas fare through the lenses of Minnelli, Huston, Kubrick, Waters, Dante, avant-garde master Jerome Hill, and a guy named Theodore. The series opens with Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984—Dec 15) in a DCP remaster; unfortunately, all extant 35mm prints at the Warner Bros. archive were eaten by Gremlins shortly after their projection booth rampage.

In Dante’s inspired It’s a Wonderful Life-parody-cum-monster movie, chaos gleefully reigns over Christmas in the little town of Kingston Falls. When Billy Peltzer breaks the rules in caring for his furry pet mogwai Gizmo (voiced by mysophobic comedian-turned- game show host Howie Mandel), he adds insult to injury for his grinchy girlfriend, played by Phoebe Cates (“you say you hate Christmas and people treat you like a leper”). Gremlins is chock-full of cameos including Steven Spielberg, Robby the Robot, Chuck Jones, and Red Skelton.

In Vincente Minnelli’s beloved Meet Me in St. Louis (1944—Dec 16), the mounting tension in the Smith family culminates with tiny terror Margaret O’Brien decapitating her father’s snowman stand-in on the front lawn, but Judy Garland manages to calm her beastly little sister with her debut of the now-holiday standard “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Also screening is the yuletide horror gem Silent Night Bloody Night (1974—Dec 18), in which a young Massachusettsan—who might as well be named Tagg Romney—inherits a mansion that was once an institution for the criminally insane and tries to sell it to the town, which is populated by a bevy of Warhol Factory regulars (including cult icon Mary Woronov, Candy Darling, Ondine, and Jack Smith) who are all the while being hunted by a deranged killer.

“I hate you, I hate this house, and I hate Christmas!” says Divine as Dawn Davenport in Female Trouble (1974—Dec 18)—John Waters’ self-proclaimed favorite of his films and follow-up to Pink Flamingos—who wants nothing more for Christmas than a pair of cha- cha heels. The series closes with two final films: John Huston’s The Dead (1987—Dec 19), in which he takes on Joyce’s modernist short story featuring daughter Anjelica and a screenplay adaptation by son Tony, and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999—Dec 20), which was touted as the Christmas movie of 1999, though it was released during the summer—talk about Christmas in July! Kubrick’s swan song screens with experimental auteur and Anthology Film Archives founder Jerome Hill’s haunting mini-masterpiece Merry Christmas, in which painted spectres of Mary and Joseph on a donkey get turned away from the Algonquin Hotel.

Moving from the perverse to the sublime and back again, this series is sure to make for one schizoid holiday season.

Please note that BAMcinématek will be on hiatus from December 21 through February 7.

For press information, please contact: Gabriele Caroti at 718.724.8024 / [email protected] Lisa Thomas at 718.724.8023 / [email protected]

Home for the Holidays Schedule

Sat, Dec 15 6:50, 9:15pm: Gremlins

Sun, Dec 16 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: Meet Me in St. Louis

Tue, Dec 18 4:30, 9:15pm: Female Trouble 6:50pm: Silent Night, Bloody Night

Wed, Dec 19 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: The Dead

Thu, Dec 20 4:30, 8pm: Eyes Wide Shut + Merry Christmas

Film Descriptions

The Dead (1987) 83min Directed by John Huston. With With Anjelica Huston, Donal McCann, Dan O'Herlihy, Donal Donnelly, Helena Carroll. John Huston directed his long-gestating final film, a lyrical adaptation of James Joyce’s seemingly unfilmable short masterpiece, from a wheelchair while he was on death’s door. Adapted by his son Tony and co-starring his daughter Anjelica, The Dead takes place in turn-of-the-century Dublin at Christmastime. The affluent Gabriel and Gretta Conroy see their comfortable bourgeois marriage take an unsuspecting turn when Gretta reveals a haunting love from her youth. Wed, Dec 19 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) 165min Directed by Stanley Kubrick. With Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Todd Field, Marie Richardson. For his final masterpiece, Kubrick created a daydream of Manhattan on a UK soundstage and cast a real- life super couple from mainstream cinema, enhancing the unreality of this film, which plays like one long, sinister erotic fantasy. A physician (Cruise) wanders the streets of New York following confessions from his wife (Kidman), which leads to a series of ethereal sexual provocations. Thu, Dec 20 at 4:30, 8pm **With Merry Christmas (1967-1969). Directed by Jerome Hill.

Female Trouble (1974) 89min Directed by John Waters. With Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Edith Massey. “I hate you, I hate this house and I hate Christmas!” All that Dawn Davenport (Divine) wants for Christmas is a pair of cha-cha heels. When Santa fails to deliver, she embarks on a path of felony and depravity that ultimately leads to an electrifying demise. Never funnier, Waters still revels in trash, but embraces narrative coherence as never before, and with a dazzling performance by his plus-size diva Divine, crafts a moving piece of melodrama about American society’s sordid underbelly. Tue, Dec 18 at 4:30, 9:15pm

Gremlins (1984) 106min New DCP remaster! Directed by Joe Dante. With Zach Galligan, Hoyt Axton, Frances Lee McCain, Phoebe Cates, Polly Holliday. Of course it’s a Christmas movie! Do you even have to ask? Dante’s inspired pairing of It’s a Wonderful Life and monster movie is a hilarious ride, as Galligan receives a cuddly new pet, ignores the instruction manual, and sees chaos erupt in his small town as a result. Sat, Dec 15 at 6:50, 9:15pm

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) 113min Directed by Vincente Minnelli. With Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer, Leon Ames. This beloved musical follows the middle-class Smith family in anticipation of the arrival of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Garland debuts standards like “The Trolley Song” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” while director Minnelli’s ravishing mise-en-scène evokes an era gone by, including one of his most spellbinding set pieces: the fantastical Halloween sequence as seen through the eyes of young Margaret O’Brien. Sun, Dec 16 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm

Silent Night, Bloody Night (1973) 88min Directed by Theodore Gershuny. With Patrick O'Neal, James Patterson, Mary Woronov, John Carradine. Horror film vet Mary Woronov (who appeared on BAMcinématek’s screens earlier this year in Night of the Comet) narrates this holiday frightfest. A young man inherits a spooky mansion that was once the mental asylum where his grandfather mysteriously set himself on fire—after everyone else in the family had gone crazy or died. What self-respecting spooky mansion in a horror film isn’t a former mental home? When he tries to sell the house to the town and level it, things go badly. Tue, Dec 18 at 6:50pm

About BAMcinématek

The four-screen BAM Rose Cinemas (BRC) opened in 1998 to offer Brooklyn audiences alternative and independent films that might not play in the borough otherwise, making BAM the only performing arts center in the country with two mainstage theaters and a multiplex cinema. In July 1999, beginning with a series celebrating the work of Spike Lee, BAMcinématek was born as Brooklyn’s only daily, year-round repertory film program. BAMcinématek presents new and rarely seen contemporary films, classics, work by local artists, and festivals of films from around the world, often with special appearances by directors, actors, and other guests. BAMcinématek has not only presented major retrospectives by major filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Manoel de Oliveira, Shohei Imamura, Vincente Minnelli (winning a National Film Critics’ Circle Award prize for the retrospective) Kaneto Shindo, Luchino Visconti, , but it has also introduced New York audiences to contemporary artists such as Pedro Costa and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In addition, BAMcinématek programmed the first US retrospectives of directors Arnaud Desplechin, Nicolas Winding Refn, Hong Sang-soo, and, most recently, Andrzej Zulawski. From 2006 to 2008, BAMcinématek partnered with the Sundance Institute and in June 2009 launched BAMcinemaFest, a 16-day festival of new independent films and repertory favorites with 15 NY feature film premieres; the fourth annual BAMcinemaFest, with over 20 NY premieres and one North American premiere, ran from June 20—July 1, 2012.

Credits

The Wall Street Journal is the title sponsor of BAM Rose Cinemas and BAMcinématek.

Steinberg Screen at the BAM Harvey Theater is made possible by The Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust.

BAM Rose Cinemas are named in recognition of a major gift in honor of Jonathan F.P. and Diana Calthorpe Rose. BAM Rose Cinemas would also like to acknowledge the generous support of The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Estate of Richard B. Fisher, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Delegation of the New York City Council, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Bloomberg, and Time Warner Inc. Additional support for BAMcinématek is provided by The Grodzins Fund, The Liman Foundation and Summit Rock Advisors.

Special thanks to Marilee Womack/Warner Brothers; Chris Chouinard & Nick Varley/Park Circus; Janice Calimari/Lionsgate; MM Serra & Katie Bradshaw/Filmmaker’s Coop; Brian Quinn/Grindhouse Film Festival.

General Information

Tickets: General Admission: $12 BAM Cinema Club Members: $7, BAM Cinema Club Movie Moguls: Free Seniors & Students (25 and under with a valid ID, Mon—Thu): $9 Bargain matinees (Mon—Thu before 5pm & Fri—Sun before 3pm no holidays): $8

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, and BAMcafé are located in the Peter Jay Sharp building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (between St Felix Street and Ashland Place) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located two blocks from the main building at 651 Fulton Street (between Ashland and Rockwell Places). Both locations house Greenlight Bookstore at BAM kiosks. BAM Fisher, located at 321 Ashland Place, is the newest addition to the BAM campus and houses the Judith and Alan Fishman Space and Rita K. Hillman Studio. BAM Rose Cinemas is Brooklyn’s only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming. BAMcafé, operated by Great Performances, is open for dining prior to BAM Howard Gilman Opera House evening performances. BAMcafé also features an eclectic mix of spoken word and live music for BAMcafé Live on select Friday and Saturday nights with a special BAMcafé Live menu available starting at 8pm.

Subway: 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, B to Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center (2, 3, 4, 5 to Nevins St for Harvey Theater) D, N, R to Pacific Street; G to Fulton Street; C to Lafayette Avenue Train: Long Island Railroad to Atlantic Terminal – Barclays Center Bus: B25, B26, B41, B45, B52, B63, B67 all stop within three blocks of BAM Car: Commercial parking lots are located adjacent to BAM

For ticket and BAMbus information, call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100, or visit BAM.org.