On Film

After my last post on the Another Hole In the Head film festival raised the perennial issue of film vs. video projection at film festivals, I got a comment from Indiefest director Jeff Ross. He informed me that there are indeed five films in this year's HoleHead that will be screened in 35mm. In addition to the previously-mentioned Barbarella and Yaji & Kita, the screenings of Alone, Tunnel Rats and Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer will be shown on film.

As I've mentioned before, I tend to find horror films scarier when shown on 35mm prints in theatres. So this is welcome news for me, especially in regard to Alone, which I've decided I don't want to know anything more about until I get to see it for myself once the festival starts. Admittedly, it made me a tad less intrigued by Exte: Hair Extensions to learn that it would definitely be a video projection, at least until I read the last paragraph of this piece, which unearths the social critique in the film. I remind myself that perhaps my favorite Indiefest experience ever was seeing a well-attended digital screening of Takashi Miike's Visitor Q, which is packed with about as much disturbing social critique as a blistering Pasolini film. Sometimes the immediacy of digital can indeed be scarier than the terrible beauty of the most pristine horror film print.

This seems as good a time as any to put another plug in for the Film On Film calendar, maintained by the same team that presents screenings such as this double feature of Dennis Hopper's the Last Movie on 35mm and Anthony Newley's Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? on 16mm at the Roxie on June 4th, the evening before HoleHead settles in there. It's the best place I know to get the latest information on the upcoming Frisco screenings put together by exhibitors and programmers that almost certainly spent more on their print shipping costs than on publicity. Look at it right now; there's some interesting things happening this week in particular that I haven't mentioned here yet.