Cult films at 8
No admission--one drink minimum

August 8
Tenth Victim (1965)
Director: Elio Petri

Based on an interesting plot from a novel by Robert Sheckley, this movie features tongue-in-cheek performances by Ursula Andress and Marcello Mastroianni, which are responsible for its status as a cult favorite. Set in the 21st century, the film depicts a society in which population control is facilitated by the use of legalized murder.--an assassination game for fun, in which the last person left alive is the winner.

August 15
Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
Director: Ken Russell

This film is the last of the three original spy thrillers from the 1960s starring Michael Caine as Len Deighton's reluctant British secret agent Harry Palmer (the others in the series were The Iprcress File and Funeral in Berlin; he also reprised the role in the 1990s with Midnight in St. Petersburg and Bullet to Beijing). In Billion Dollar Brain, Palmer has left the spy business and become a private eye, but is blackmailed back into government service. His assignment is to find out the man behind a subversive computer network. The culprit is a fanatical right-wing American general (Ed Begley), who wants to use his computer to launch a war on Latvia, thereby setting the stage for an all-out extermination of the "Communist menace." Palmer must join forces with his old Russian nemesis (Oscar Homolka) to scuttle the general's plans.

 
August 22
At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul: Coffin Joe (1963)
Director: Jose Mojica Marins

Bearing all the defining characteristics of a traditional horror film, including the trademarked darkened cemeteries and ominously cloaked object of dread, Jose Mojica Marin's At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul is more a character study in unabashed nihilism than your typical graveyard scare-fest. Scraping together funding through whatever means necessary (including generous loans from his mother and father, who appear in cameos), working against the odds of having a full crew or any notable locations in which to shot, and procuring a limited and ever-dwindling supply of film-stock, Marin's film remains a remarkable exercise in resourceful filmmaking even before considering that something of such audacity and with such blatant disregard for conventional morals had been attempted at the time it was made. Marin's blasphemous anti-hero Ze do Caixao (translated: Coffin Joe) disregards his fellow villager's religious convictions with hedonistic abandon, laughing in the face of deep-rooted virtues after returning numbed from the Godless horrors of WWII. Coffin Joe's Nietzsche-esque rants and threatening tirades alienate him from the other citizens of his small village who live in constant fear that they will be the next to fall victim to the man who has no beliefs. As much as the film revels in the sacrilegious exploits of its title character, it ultimately serves as a cautionary tale in the vein of a hybrid The Twilight Zone/Tales From the Crypt.

 
August 29
Truck Turner
Director: Jonathan Kaplan

Roger Corman alumnus Jonathan Kaplan delivers one of the best blaxploitation films of the era! Commencing with a series of amusing vignettes, the "gentle but tough" nature of Mack "Truck" Turner is shown, which — along with the camaraderie between our hero and his buddy — lead to a more three-dimensional portrayal than most blaxploitation films offer. But the film has just as many laughs, both intentional and non-intentional (some of the clothing has to be seen to be believed). In 1974, car smashes and slow-motion violence were in vogue, and this high-octane ride delivers the goods on both counts. The acting is as good as one can expect in a B-movie: Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek's Lt. Uhura) puts in a nice performance as a sexy, foul-mouthed whoremonger, and Yaphet Kotto plays the villain with his usual aplomb. Issac Hayes is also superb throughout as both actor and composer).
September 5
Black Tight Killers (1966)
Director: Yasuharu Hasebe

In this lurid, bizarre gangster-spy yarn Daisuke Honda (played by matinee idol Akira Kobayashi), a hard-bitten war photographer fresh from the trenches of Vietnam hooks up with stewardess Yuriko Sawanouchi (Chieko Matsubara, who also starred in Suzuki's masterpiece Tokyo Drifter). Unfortunately, their date is marred by a shadowy foreigner who seems to have dark-hearted designs . Suddenly a trio of leather-clad female ninjas with perfect hair kill the stalker and attack Honda with blades hidden in compacts and bubble gum bullets. Things get weirder from there on out in this bizarrely colored, 60's freak-out, pop-art dream flick.