The Mini Microcinema

From Microcinema's website, "The Mini Microcinema is dedicated to showing film/video/media that breaks from standard cinematic convention. We are a community that celebrates the art of the moving image, both contemporary and historical, from both near and far. Our programming consists of work created outside of mainstream production and distribution systems, ultimately challenging Hollywood standards of form and content. The Mini Microcinema welcomes makers and viewers interested in exploring the potential of the cinematic medium."

Microcinema will have screenings every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Tue/Thur doors open at 7 and screenings start at 7:30. Saturdays the doors open at 1pm and the screening begins at 1:30pm. There will be 100 free tickets per screening. Show up early for popcorn and Rhinegeist beer.

The Microcinema is inside People's Liberty located at 1805 Elm St in Cincinnati, OH. directly across the street from Findlay Market.
You can find details and the schedule here.
Pictures from the opening reception.









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Watch This

The last movie on the Watch This list and AFI's #1, the official greatest movie ever made, Citizen Kane. Another movie I've never seen and I had high expectations and it didn't disappoint. From writing to acting and cinematography is was mind blowing.
Of course we all know Orson Wells was genius, and when he dropped the bomb, in 1941 mind you, that news runs 24hrs a day he had me hooked. I mean really, all these kids think they're inventing new worlds and chit! No, not really, its just we can actually put all these abstracts in practice with the internet.
I think he also foretold blogging when Kane wrote his manifest for the front page of his new newspaper and one of the editors told him he couldn't write in the 1st person.
Being the last Watch This event the Al & Al show pulled out all the stops, a screening at the Esquire and lunch at Virgil's Cafe.

really fat ties and super skinny knots. the exact opposite of how i rock them

we all knew how it would end, but not how we would get there. Charles Kane struggled through the whole movie, he would not let anyone define him, he defined himself no matter the cost and it cost dearly.


Thanks you guys, what an incredible idea. My appreciation for and the way I watch movies has changed, I do not sit and watch quiet as passively as I used to.
Same with friends I've made along the way, it was your project, I just held tight to your coattails and was pulled along.
We laughed. A lot. We cried a few times and sat in awe often, because of its imagination and ingenuity, sometimes in horror at the movies atrociousness.
What a year long trip its been.

After that a drive to NKY for good eats at Virgil's. Seems like we packed a whole weekend into last Saturday morning.


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the Force is an energy field created by all living things it surrounds us and penetrates us and it binds the galaxy together

This edition of Watch This hosted by the Cincinnati Athletic Club, what is left to say about Star Wars? Not much if you're a geek it has permeated our entire lives.
With an audience full of techies and geekies whats left but to present Star Wars in 20 tweets.


@AlexShebar R2D2 and C3PO: the original ro-bromance. #StarWars #WatchThis

@5chw4r7z i keep adding f-bombs from han solo in my head. makes way more sense

@5chw4r7z "chewy. lock in the mother f@kin power!" see, an r-rated star wars would have been awesome x 100

@LivingInGin Yoda: "Get medieval on your ass I will."

@5chw4r7z marching into the mother f@kin detention center is not what i had in mind #mystarwars

@LivingInGin No way that overhead door is code-compliant. I guess there's a reason they call it the Death Star. #WatchThis

@5chw4r7z this is some mother f@kin rescue ~ princess leia #mystarwars

@Megebee Luke is whiny, Han is a jerk, and Leia is a bossy bitch. Why do we like this movie so much? #StarWars #WatchThis

@armonde I'm not sayin Han's a gold digger, but he aint messin with no broke... Princess #WatchThis

@LivingInGin That trash compactor would rent for $2000 a month in Brooklyn. #WatchThis

@5chw4r7z dig those high tech targeting systems. wouldnt robots make better gunners? #starwars

@jamespilcher @5chw4r7z droids outlawed for military use after clone wars!

@5chw4r7z 0_o that fighter pilot has a red shirt on, hes screwed

@armonde Yes Luke, I'm sure you did used to "Bullseye" "womprats" with your "t-16" back home. You innuendo isn't needed at this meeting. #WatchThis

@5chw4r7z how can @allisonjo1 fall asleep in the middle of star wars?

@5chw4r7z damn! the end of star wars is so inspiring, i want to overthrow an evil republic now

@AlexShebar Damn good movie. Damn good people. Damn good time. #StarWars #WatchThis

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Watch This: The African Queen

The Watch This series is down to #17 which means if you haven't been to a show yet, you're running out of time quick. The movies that are left are incredible and you could do worse than Schindler's List which we're hosting November 24.
So The African Queen, Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn have incredible crazy chemistry, either that or they're just that good. The few action scenes were over blown but the acting carried the movie, its easy to see why this was in the top 20 greatest movies of all time, there aren't too many craftsmen around that put up performances like this.
We watched the movie in the theater room of the East 8th Lofts, love these spaces in old buildings.

Only the Al half of the Al & Al show was present for the intro so Ms. 5chw4r7z helped out.


Katharine, my mind was blown, she was hot in an old school way, not the in your face way pop stars are in 2010.


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Watch This: Dr. Strangelove

Watch This movie #28 at Take the Cake.
The premise, General Jack Ripper, an insane general who goes rogue, begins the process to start WWIII.
I tried to watch it in the context of when the movie was made 1964 just 20 yrs after WWII with all the anxiety of the times. We laughed out loud but back then the chuckles were probably of the nervous kind that people like this were (and most likely still are) running the country.
Little known fact Dr. Strangelove was the first movie to use hand drawn script for the credits.
Interesting that when the movie was finally released after Kennedy's assassination Columbia Pictures included a funny, or scary disclaimer depending on your point of view.

"It is the stated position of the United States Air Force that their safeguards would prevent the occurrence of such events as are depicted in this film. Furthermore, it should be noted that none of the characters portrayed in this film are meant to represent any real persons living or dead."

Alex explaining how a hydrogen bomb explodes, and if one did, not even unicorns could withstand the incredible destructive explosion that would occur.




Black humor ran rampant throughout the movie, Dr. Strangelove asking the Russian Ambassadore "the whole point of a doomsday device is that everyone knows you have it. why'd you keep it a secret?"
His reply, We wanted to announce it on the next holiday, because the premire likes surprises.
General Jack Ripper, the commies have stole my essential liquid essence

General 'Buck' Turgidson, you're asking the commies to shoot down our bombers?


The film pretty much dealt with loss of control, General Jack Ripper with his libido. President Merkin Muffley with the generals under his command and General 'Buck' Turgidson with the inability to recall his bombers. The one person with any control in the movie is Major T. J. "King" Kong acting on misinformation who then manhandles the bomb out of a jammed bombbay and then rides it to the ground like the cowboy he was.
With all the sublte sexual jokes running through the movie it would of course end with an eruption of an atomic blast, the big and final finish.

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Watch This, Jaws

Its feeling down right tropical in Cincinnati so what could be more timely for Watch This than Jaws? With Take the Cake hosting a beach themed night no way it could go wrong.
Or could it?

Man, James gets the evening going with the Bikini Bandit Experience, total nonsense but how can girls, guns and bikinis be bad?



We only get half the Al & Al show this week, bummer, but we'll deal.
I didn't remember much of the story, the plot mainly since I only saw jaws once a looong time ago.
Intense.
Yeah, that sums it up, no cheating with CGI, just good old fashion story telling and buildup. An iconic masterpiece really, the theme song still strikes fear or is used in satires for laughs, to this day its a testament to just how much this movie freaked everyone out.
What could go wrong I asked, yes, the DVD sticking and freezing halfway through. What crazy luck they had a second copy to give to the person with the best beach attire.


Nothing to see here people the beaches are full and the water safe, you have my guarantee, go on in.

Quint kinda mutters and sings his way through the movie.
Now I get the joke on the Simpson's with a ships captain showing up at random times muttering weird unrelated phrases.
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Exit Through The Gift Shop

It started simply enough, like anything else does, I had wanted to see the movie "Exit Through The Gift Shop" anyhow, and then the CAC tweeted a contest, the first ten people to reply would receive a free pass to the show. Winning a pass meant not putting it off and actually seeing a movie for once.

I didn't know what to expect and that's what I got, starting with an interview of Bansky stating he's really not that interesting and the movie is actually about Thierry Guetta, a guy addicted to recording everything with his video camera. He falls in with street artists who realize maybe the fleeting nature of their work should be documented. Theiry moves up the food chain of artists until he meets Bansky who knows that while Thierry has captured years worth of film, he has zero ability, and is maybe too insane to do anything with it. Bansky confiscates the film and sends Thierry back home.
Unknowingly Bansky has turned Thierry into a monster who copies everything he's ever seen anyone else do. At this point as events escalate and Thierry's situation became more over the top each minute I realized, is Bansky pulling one over on us?
His genre of graffiti is a glimpse into an alternate world, so why should the movie he made be any different?



If you love graffiti, there's much to like in this movie, there's even a glimspe of Cincinnati with a piece you can see looking east from the CAC, that was sweet, and a few names I recognized, a fast shot of COMA.
Worth a look and a laugh even if you know nothing of the street artists.
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Watch This The French Connection

The latest installment of Watch This is down to #70 The French Connection filmed in 1971.
The film editing was crude by today's standards, the plot was rough and tended to jump around and the whole thing ended abruptly. By today's standards, high school kids with a cell phone could produce a better movie, and most of the people reviewing the movie seemed to dislike it.

BUT, taken in the context of 1971, The French Connection set the standard for cop movies and almost every cop film since follows the same formula. The rogue cop who got a fellow officer killed whom no one wants to work with. They stumble upon a case. It gets endorsed by the top brass, there's a car chase, a shoot out, it all ends badly and the criminals make out better than the cops did.
I liked it, and I want Popeye Doyle's hat.
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