Ed Wood

April 13th, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of one of acclaimed director Tim Burton’s best films, ED WOOD! A wonderful dramatization of the life of Edward D. Wood Jr, this film uses Burton’s best early imagery to tell the story of someone considered one of the worst directors of all time. In 1950s Hollywood, Ed Wood ditches his position as a set worker in an attempt to make his own films. Sparking a friendship with the reclusive and elderly Bela Lugosi, Ed follows his dreams of making movies for the masses, despite his very clear lack of talent for the job! With the help of L.A’s other social outcasts and oddballs, such as Vampira, TV psychic Criswell, European wrestler Tor Johnson, and the local transvestites, Ed plans to make unforgettable dramas and monster movies, while simultaneously hiding his desire to appear as a woman from his girlfriend.

It’s one of the best films about films out there, and one of the strangest biopics of them all, and at the age of 30, ED WOOD has not lost an ounce of entertainment value!

Plan 9 From Outer Space

April 13th, GARBAGE DAY is coming back! This time around, our bizarre series celebrating trash cinema is getting a new addition in the form of Ed Wood’s PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE! Largely considered one of the worst films ever made for multiple decades, this is arguably the ultimate film in the era of atomic-age space schlock! And what’s more, tickets for this Garbage Day film are only going to be ONE DOLLAR! Yeah! and this will play directly after our 30th anniversary screening of ED WOOD, the biopic drama all about the man who made this very film! It’s an awesome double feature! In this wacked out film, space soldiers use electricity to resurrect the recently deceased, forming an army of zombie slaves in an effort to stop humanity from developing the “Solobonite” bomb, capable of threatening the safety of the universe!

Blazing Saddles

Friday, April 12th, we are bringing the classic western Mel Brooks comedy, BLAZING SADDLES to the historic #babcocktheatre in celebration of the film’s 50th anniversary! In a dusty town where everyone’s name is Johnson, a dastardly baron has hopes of building a railroad that needs to pass directly through said town. In order to achieve this, baron Hedley Lemar plans to make the lives for all residents miserable, forcing them to flee. Once the sheriff is killed, the townsfolk demand the governor to recruit a new one, and the baron convinces him to hir Bart, making him the first black sheriff in the west!

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

This Saturday, April 6th, we are showing a terrific film made in Montana (04/06, get it?)! The historic #babcocktheatre will be having a special screening of Michael Cimino’s action packed THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT in celebration of its fiftieth anniversary! Starring a young Clint Eastwood and an even younger Jeff Bridges, old bank robber, Thunderbolt, pairs up with the young and irreverent Lightfoot, getting Thunderbolt’s old crew back together in order to organize and pull off their largest heist yet!

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Announcing the second film in our April series, TWILIGHT TWEDNESDAYS, a retrospective showing of the unforgettable, polarizing, tonally complicated vampire romance series, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON will be playing at the historic #babcocktheatre April 3rd (yeah, we are announcing and playing the films in chronological order, who would’ve thought?? Shocker!)! Following the events of the first film, Edward Cullen departs from Bella, and she tries to find comfort in the company of Jacob Black, but she is consequently thrown into the middle of a centuries-old conflict!

Twilight

ANNOUNCING our next series, which will be playing every Wednesday from the 27th to April 24th, TWILIGHT TWEDNESDAYS! In all sincerity, I am completely uncertain as to what energy I should bring to this announcement. Are these films a romantic time capsule, acting as the poster child for the neo-gothic melodramatic aesthetic that was all over the late 2000s? Are these films the product of an author who made the entire series as a fanfiction derived from the lyrics of My Chemical Romance (yes, that part is actually true)? Are these films as genuinely awful and convoluted as some claim they were upon release? Or have they aged like wine with the passage of time, sending us back to when some of the most heated topics on the planet consisted of which fictional character you sided with?

Regardless of your stance, few film series have ever been so polarizing in the public eye, and what is the point of art, if not to strike discussion between the polarized views of individuals ingesting said art??

What am I talking about? I don’t know! Fun nostalgia high school vampire epics, man!! TWILIGHT opens at the Babcock Theatre March 27th, also participating in this month’s pseudo-series gathering iconic films directed by women for women’s history month! And I think that’s really cool! What are you, a misogynist? Scared of vampires?? Come watch the TWILIGHT films with us every Wednesday!!

Napoleon Dynamite

April 5th, the historic Babcock Theatre is having a special screening of Jared Hess’s NAPOLEON DYNAMITE! Turning 20 years old this year (your youth is behind you!!!), this legendary high school comedy perfectly captures the feelings of alienation from being a natural social outsider in a quaint small town. Napoleon struggles to deal with bullies and his aggressive uncle Rico who has come to look after him after his grandmother’s hospitalization. In the meantime, he helps his friend, Pedro, run for class president, uses his art to ask a girl to prom, plays tetherball, and enhances his SKILLS.

A Night at the Opera

Announcing the third and final film to play in this month’s incredibly entertaining MARXY MARCH MONDAYS series, it’s the group’s 1936 film A NIGHT AT THE OPERA!

The first film from the brothers to not feature Zeppo Marx, this zany opera parody has the three Marx Brothers playing a sly business manager and two oddball friends of two young opera singers as they attempt to help the singers achieve success while simultaneously making fools of their snobbish rivals!

The Virgin Suicides

March 29th, the historic Babcock Theatre has a special screening of Sofia Coppola’s haunting adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES! We will play this excellent film as part of our pseudo-series covering memorable films by female directors for Women’s History Month, in addition to celebrating its 25th anniversary! Mostly existing through the perspective of a group of young male friends, we peak into the strange lives of five reclusive teenage sisters who are sheltered by their strict religious parents. Months pass by as the world around the young women disintegrates in ways that the boys can only theorize from across the street and minimal bits of gossip.

The Slumber Party Massacre

Announcing this month’s film in our ongoing Late Night series, this time it’s Amy Holden Jones’ THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE! Playing at the historic Babcock Theatre March 30th, this is one of five films in this month’s pseudo-series showcasing memorable films from female directors for Women’s History Month! When an 18-year-old girl is left home alone by her parents, she decides to invite all her friends over for a slumber party. Simultaneously, a mass murderer has just escaped from prison and gets right back to killing with an arsenal of power tools, and he eventually makes his way over to the girls’ slumber party, where they start to get picked off one by one!

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