International Competition 06

TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS

• The Hideout, Wednesday, 7:30PM
• The Hideout, Friday, 10:15PM

HAPPY PEPPY SPARKY DOGGY

USA 2:40 16mm
DIR Robert Todd
A study in miniature of mixed emotional and aesthetic resonances. Recognition: I know that dog. I've lived near that dog. Pity: What a terrible yard. Does he have enough water? Formal appreciation: What timing! The dog has a remarkable sense of rhythm. And the Synthesis of All: Godfuckingdammit would you SHUT UP!?! -- Spencer Parsons

TRICK OR TREAT PONY

USA 8:20 VIDEO
DIR Ben Coonley
With the help of his equine sidekick, Ben Coonley dives head first into the spookiest of American holidays. By exploring everything from apple bobbing to our seasonal preoccupation with the pigskin, he begins to emerge with a cultural iconography all his own, one which can't help but beg Patti Smith's proverbial question: "Do you know how to pony?" -- Thomas Beard

KRISTY. It's 1980

USA 6:30 SUPER 8
DIR Stephanie Gray
you're a kid with a tragic crush on Kristy McNichol and parents who know better than to let you anywhere near Little Darlings. Cut to just a couple years later, when cablevision and that chain-smoking, Toni Basil-cranking babysitter who always disappears with her boyfriend join forces to make the long-fantasized screening a reality. The plot confuses, the R-rating disappoints, and Tatum O'Neal brays, but the True Icon delivers. Oh Micky! Oh Kristy! Oh Stephanie Gray! -- Spencer Parsons

FAMOUS IRISH AMERICANS

USA 8:00 VIDEO
DIR Roger Beebe
At long last, the burning question has been given the proper perspective: Just how Irish is Shaquille O'Neal? Is he a "White Negro"? Or "Smoked Irish" perhaps? Roger Beebe's reconsidering of often over-, or at least, mis-emphasized ethnic nomenclature comes out swinging like a good Irishman to set the fools straight one more time. -- Sean Gallagher

PAUL SCHRADER'S BAG

USA 12:00 DV
DIR Jason Simon
"June the fourth methodically" -- Gertrude Stein. Simon's lost and found narrative unfolds dryly like an autopsy of fame extracted from the chance mine of the everyday. After the filmmaker finds Schrader's bag on a NYC street, he chooses a poetics of lists to display the identity of the screenwriter (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) and director (American Gigilo, Patty Hearst) known for creating characters on the short end of the moral stick. Obsessively skirting the line between good citizen and ill-intentioned fan, Simon expertly plays the role as if a minor character in Schrader's own "man in a box" series. -- Steve Ausbury

SECURITY ANTHEM

USA 3:30 VIDEO
DIR Kent Lambert
Kent Lambert composes a "Red States Agonistes" in which a chorus of concerned faces from the heartland narrate a tragedy of found poetry. Dirty potatoes, sharp knives, an only son, and too-fast driving augur certain catastrophe that not even the intervention of deus ex machina John Ashcroft can divert or relieve. -- Spencer Parsons

MARSHALLAH, MARSHALLAH, LOOK HOW PRETTY OUR BRIDE IS!

USA/ALBANIA 9:00 DV
DIR Dorian Ahmeti
Old leather-faced men singing at a pitch that could shatter glass. Non-stop machine-gun gunfire. A collapsed bride who moans and cries perpetually. Yes, you guessed it -- it's an Albanian wedding. This rough-hewn piece works as an astounding, all-out, auditory assault. Definitely not like any wedding video you've ever seen. -- Jason Cortlund

ZIJKFIJEERGIJOK

AUSTRIA/NETHERLANDS 3:00 DV
DIR reMI
A short essay on the symbiotic relationship between technology and the occult filtered through Pong. -- David Nolen

CRIMENALS

USA 2:24 VIDEO
DIR Gregory Araya
Glimpsed in the peripheral vision of Chester Gould's third eye, this hard-boiled mutation skulks and skitters among the shadows of angular men, decadent guns and deadly fedoras in a radioactive comic strip of tommy-gun nonsense. -- Spencer Parsons

THE PRINCESS AND THE PEE STAIN

USA 3:30 16mm
DIR Melissa Pearl Friedling
A charming telling of this well-loved tale of incontinence. The extra "e" is for extra pee. -- Anne Reecer

SUN

AUSTRIA 5:30 VIDEO
DIR Siegfried Fruhauf
They look into the sun. And the sun shines. In any town. Something about a boat and a revolver...? Good luck getting it out of your head when you go to bed tonight. -- Jason Cortlund

FORBIDDEN FRUITS

USA 15:00 VIDEO
DIR George Kuchar
"Gardens are so strange. They can be hot beds of heavy floral fantasies..." Another chapter in George Kuchar's peculiar series of video comic books. This time, our fabulous furry hero composes a fugue on growth and decay. Highlights include a lovely transgender fantasy sequence and the most shocking finale since Two-Lane Blacktop. The master is in rare form. -- Jason Cortlund

CALL OF THE WILD

USA 8:00 35mm
DIR Julia Sarcone-Roach
Zoologists may be surprised to see how the animals in this neighborhood prepare for bed each night. The best square-dancing bat sequence in the history of cinema. -- ason Cortlund