Exploring the Fusion: Crash Games as Art in a Contemporary Gallery

Surprise! Toronto's Neon Dreams Cinema Club is bringing you an encore presentation of STREETS OF FIRE, courtesy of  programmer/Spectacular Optical EIC Kier-La Janisse’s private 35mm print. As it turns out Kier-La’s mint condition print that The Royal Cinema has been keeping safe for the past year is being deposited to the American Genre Film Archive in Austin, TX. But before we say goodbye, we want to give it one more hoorah on the big screen.

So dust off your rubber overalls and get ready to fistpump the night away. Walter Hill’s film that combines “all of the things that I thought were great then and which I still have great affection for: custom cars, kissing in the rain, neon, trains in the night, high-speed pursuit, rumbles, rock stars, motorcycles, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets and questions of honor" is coming back to The Royal Cinema for one final night. Dancing in the aisles will be encouraged.

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Admission: $10 / $8 for members
Tix: https://www.winnipegfilmgroup.com/event/the-saturday-morning-all-you-can-eat-cereal-cartoon-party-4/

It’s the return of the Saturday Morning All-You-Can-Eat Cereal Cartoon Party, with an ALL NEW show curated by film programmer, writer and pop culture connoisseur Kier-La Janisse! As always, this 3-hour trip into the weird and wonderful world of yesteryear’s
animated antics will be accompanied by an all-you-can eat buffet of sugar cereal that is open throughout the show (and yes, there will be non-dairy options too!). The cartoon lineup is always a mystery, but you’ll see both faves and obscurities spanning the 40s through the 80s, all punctuated with vintage commercials and PSAs! So get ready for a sugar rush and an explosion of nostalgia all wrapped up in one candy-coated package.
Curated by Kier-La Janisse.

Feel free to wander in a bit late if you sleep in! Blankets, slippers and pajamas are encouraged!

180 minutes — Not Rated, DV, Various, 2017

ALL NEW PROGRAM!

Program curated by Kier-La Janisse
tickets HERE>>

Remember when Saturday mornings were a wonderland of animated adventures, toy commercials and diabetes-inducing breakfast foods?

On Saturday March 25th at 10:00am, the Mayfair Theatre will tune back in those fuzzy UHF memories of childhood as we present the 11th round of the Saturday Morning All-You-Can-Eat-Cereal Cartoon Party!

The program features THREE HOURS of classic cartoons (including some retro commercial breaks!), PLUS a BOTTOMLESS BOWL OF CEREAL for everyone who attends. Pajamas encouraged!

Admission is value-priced at just $5 Kids Cub members / $7 children | $8 members  | $12 non-members | $9 seniors.

Tickets: http://www.metrocinema.org

Tickets: https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/2017/saturday-morning-all-you-can-eat-cereal-cartoon-party

THE SATURDAY MORNING ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT-CEREAL CARTOON PARTY!
Curated by Kier-La Janisse

Saturday June 24, 2017
10am-1pm | 141 Ontario St North, Kitchener

tickets HERE >>

Remember Saturday mornings? Kids today may not realize the significance of the Saturday morning ritual, but once upon a time, we had to wait a whole week to get our cartoon fix, and when we got it, we tended to binge. In that gleefully gluttonous spirit, curator Kier-La Janisse presents a 3-hour trip down memory lane with a tribute to the eye-popping, brain-addling Saturday morning cartoons of yore, complete with a smorgasbord of delicious sugary cereals (and yes, we have non-dairy too!)! You’ll see both faves and obscurities spanning the 60s through the 80s, all punctuated with vintage commercials and PSAs! The lineup is always a secret, but there will be monsters, sci-fi, sleuths, superheroes and all kinds of 2D silliness, so get ready for a sugar rush and an explosion of nostalgia all wrapped up in one candy-coated package.

Saturday Morning All-You-Can-Eat-Cereal Cartoon Party Volume 12

ALL NEW PROGRAM!
Program curated by Kier-La Janisse

180 minutes — Not Rated
Tickets HERE >>

Remember when Saturday mornings were a wonderland of animated adventures, toy commercials and diabetes-inducing breakfast foods?

On Saturday June 24th at 10:00am, the Mayfair Theatre will tune back in those fuzzy UHF memories of childhood as we present the Saturday Morning All-You-Can-Eat-Cereal Cartoon Party!

The program features THREE HOURS of classic cartoons (including some retro commercial breaks!), PLUS a BOTTOMLESS BOWL OF CEREAL for everyone who attends. Feel free to bring your own spoon and (reasonably sized) bowl. Pajamas encouraged!

Admission is value-priced at just $5 Kids Cub members / $7 children | $8 members | $12 non-members | $9 seniors.

Fantasia is proud to host the world premiere launch of the new book from Spectacular Optical, LOST GIRLS: THE PHANTASMAGORICAL CINEMA OF JEAN ROLLIN, edited by Samm Deighan and penned by all women critics, scholars and film historians. This collection of essays covers the wide range of Rollin’s career from 1968’s LE VIOL DU VAMPIRE through his 2010 swansong, LE MASQUE DE LA MÉDUSE, touching upon his horror, fantasy, crime and sex films—including many lesser seen titles. The book closely examines Rollin’s core themes: his focus on overwhelmingly female protagonists, his use of horror genre and exploitation tropes, his reinterpretations of the fairy tale and fantastique, the influence of crime serials, Gothic literature, the occult and more.

The launch will feature an illustrated talk on July 19^th with the book’s editor Samm Deighan, contributor Virginie Selavy and publisher Kier-La Janisse (Concordia York Auditorium, EV Building), and will be complemented by a rare 35mm screening at the Cinematheque quebecoise on July 27th of Rollin’s LE VIOL DU VAMPIRE, playing in its original two-part form.

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Fantasia est fier d’être l’hôte du lancement en première mondiale du nouveau livre de Spectacular Optical, “Lost Girls: The Phantasmagorical Cinema of Jean Rollin”, édité par Samm Deighan et entièrement écrit par des femmes critiques, universitaires et historiennes du cinéma. Cette collection d’essais couvre toute l’étendue de la carrière de Rollin, de son classique LE VIOL DU VAMPIRE (1968) à son film final, LE MASQUE DE LA MÉDUSE (2010), abordant ses films d’horreur, fantastiques, criminels et érotiques — incluant plusieurs titres obscurs. Le livre examine de près les thèmes au cœur de l’œuvre de Rollin : son intérêt pour les protagonistes majoritairement féminines, son usage du genre de l’horreur et des tropes du cinéma d’exploitation, ses réinterprétations de contes de fées et de récits fantaisistes, l’influence des serials de crime, la littérature gothique, l’occulte, et plus encore.

Le lancement inclura un exposé illustré le 19 juillet avec l’éditrice du livre, Samm Deighan, ainsi que la collaboratrice Virginie Selavy, et la propriétaire et directrice artistique de Spectacular Optical, Kier-La Janisse. En complément, il y a aura une rare projection en 35 mm du film LE VIOL DU VAMPIRE de Rollin, présenté dans sa forme originale en deux parties à la Cinémathèque québécoise le 27 juillet.

Fantasia International Film Festival, in collaboration with Librairie Drawn & Quarterly, present an evening with Grady Hendrix for the paperback launch of his novel MY BEST FRIEND'S EXORCISM. He will be in conversation with Kier-La Janisse, Owner/Artistic Director of Spectacular Optical Publications and founder of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies.

When: Sunday, July 23rd, 2017
Where: Librairie Drawn and Quarterly
Address: 211 rue Bernard Ouest, Montreal, QC
Time: 7-9pm
Free. All are welcome.

Author Bio:
Grady Hendrix is a novelist and screenwriter who has written for Playboy, Variety, and Slate, among others. His previous novel, HORRORSTÖR, about a haunted IKEA, has been translated into 14 languages and is currently being made into a television series for Lifetime. His latest novel is MY BEST FRIEND'S EXORCISM and this September he’ll be releasing a non-fiction history of horror paperbacks in the Seventies and Eighties called PAPERBACKS FROM HELL.

Kier-La Janisse is a film writer and programmer, Owner/Artistic Director of Spectacular Optical Publications and founder of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. She is the author of A VIOLENT PROFESSIONAL: The Films of Luciano Rossi (FAB Press, 2007) and HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (FAB Press, 2012).

Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Accessibility information:

-The bathroom is gender neutral

-The space is unfortunately not wheelchair accessible (details: two steps at the main door, we would be happy to help you lift a wheelchair and make space in the corridor)

- It is not a sober space, our events sometimes offer alcohol

Tickets HERE>>

French director Jean Rollin’s oneiric debut feature Le viol du vampire (The Rape of the Vampire, 1968) was released during the student riots in Paris and—though not an overtly political film—contains a curiously parallel sense of chaos and notoriously caused a riot of its own. Far from a traditional genre film, it betrays the influence of early film serials in Rollins work and features the disjointed, two-part story of four vulnerable vampire sisters living in a remote chateau in the countryside. A young psychoanalyst (Bernard Letrou) is determined to prove that the sisters’ malady is psychological rather than supernatural and that he will find a cure. But his misguided idealism results in death and violence, as well as his own transformation into a vampire at the hands of one of the sisters. Later the couple encounter a sadistic vampire queen, who runs a clinic that experiments on vampires.

This experimental, black and white film was actually shot in two separate, similarly-themed parts due to funding issues, and combined to make a feature. It set the stage for Rollin’s early career in the sense that it focuses on the director’s unique, fluid reinterpretation of vampires—the subject of his first four features—but also introduces a number of themes that would continue throughout his career: a society made up primarily of women, vampirism as a social experiment that is far more than just a supernatural curse, and the tragic conclusion of a pact between two doomed lovers.

– Samm Deighan, editor of LOST GIRLS: THE PHANTASMAGORICAL CINEMA OF JEAN ROLLIN

This screening is in French language only (no subtitles) and will be introduced by Virginie Selavy, a contributor to the book LOST GIRLS: THE PHANTASMAGORICAL CINEMA OF JEAN ROLLIN, which will be available for sale at the screening.

Info: http://www.motelx.org/en/events/blood-and-roses-rollin-and-borowczyk-between-art-and-exploitation
Dates: 9 September
Schedule: 16h00
Runtime: 60 minutes
Language: English
Place: Sala 2 - Cinema São Jorge
Price: Free Entrance

PhilaMOCA hosts a screening of Jean Rollin's 1979 cult classic FASCINATION in celebration of Spectacular Optical's book release of LOST GIRLS: THE PHANTASMAGORICAL CINEMA OF JEAN ROLLIN. Book editor Samm Deighan will introduce the screening with a talk on Rollin.

Canadian micro-publisher Spectacular Optical is pleased to announce a new book focused on the career of French fantasy and horror filmmaker Jean Rollin, LOST GIRLS: THE PHANTASMAGORICAL CINEMA OF JEAN ROLLIN, penned by all women critics, scholars and film historians. This collection of essays covers the wide range of Rollin’s career from 1968’s LE VIOL DU VAMPIRE through his 2010 swansong, LE MASQUE DE LA MÉDUSE, touching upon his horror, fantasy, crime and sex films—including many lesser seen titles. The book closely examines Rollin’s core themes: his focus on overwhelmingly female protagonists, his use of horror genre and exploitation tropes, his reinterpretations of the fairy tale and fantastique, the influence of crime serials, Gothic literature and the occult, as well as much more.

FASCINATION (1979):
In turn of the century France, a thief on the run takes refuge in a remote castle occupied by two young women. Thinking them harmless, he decides to take the girls prisoner, unaware that he has stumbled across an all-female cult of aristocratic blood-drinkers in this innovative and erotic twist on the vampire genre.

Doors 7:00 / Program 7:30 / $10 admission
Tickets at http://www.philamoca.org

“If watching horror films is cathartic because it provides a temporary feeling of control over the one unknown factor that can’t be controlled (death), then wouldn’t it make sense to assume a crazy person would find relief in onscreen histrionics?” So asks Kier-La Janisse in her fascinating work of self-analyzing pop cultural autobiography, House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films. On one hand an unfailingly candid account of growing up the hard way in a dysfunctional family, the book illuminates the role horror and exploitation movies – especially those that focus on mad and deadly dangerous women – came to play in Janisse’s life as she sought both refuge and clarity in the dark and (often) forbidden world of cinematic horror. At once a fan’s tribute to an otherwise often maligned genre, a piercing and rigorous account of how horror reflects and distorts the subjective experience of female madness, and a fascinating breakdown of movies with such titles as The Legend of the Wolf Woman, Mermaid in a Manhole, Man, Woman and Beast and The Whip and the Body. What is the attraction of horror? More specifically, what does the genre hold by way of a reflection (or perversion) of the experience of growing up mad and female in today’s post-everything world? Join us for this fascinating conversation.

Tickets : http://www.rendezvouswithmadness.ca/festival2017/

Co-presented with Pages Unbound and Rue Morgue

In art, literature, and film, the witch is a shapeshifter. She is a gruesome villain and a studious heroine, a spiritual guide and an enchanting seductress. The witch’s narrative can shift effortlessly, transforming her from vixen to hag and healer to hellion based solely upon who decides to tell her tale. But despite these disparate depictions, the witch’s presence is inextricably tied to patriarchal anxieties about powerful women and unruly female bodies: her representation always reflects or refutes societal perceptions about femininity.

In this illustrated talk, New School faculty member and author of Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive Kristen J. Sollée will trace the witch in visual media from the early modern era through the present, examining her legacy as an icon of female power and persecution, and as a potent feminist symbol. Beginning with the 1922 Swedish film Haxan to offer perspective on the historical origins of the witch, the talk will include clips and analysis of Mario Bava’s 1960 film Black Sunday to examine what film theorist Barbara Creed calls “the monstrous feminine,” and TV classic Bewitched to offer visions of the “good witch” as the women’s liberation movement begins to coalesce in the early 1960s. Sollée will also use aspects of George Romero’s Season of the Witch, anime classic Belladonna of Sadness, Lair of the White Worm, The Witches of Eastwick and The Craft to analyze conceptions of female sexual expression, and Anna Biller’s The Love Witch to undress the witch through the female gaze.

By juxtaposing leading scholarly research on European and American witch hunts with art and pop occulture artifacts, this talk will delve into the complex legacy of the witch from past to present, exploring how the divine and demon feminine have been harnessed to both frighten and inspire diverse audiences for decades.

Tickets $12 adv / $15 door
https://www.miskatonic-nyc.com/events/witches-sluts-feminists-exploring-the-demon-feminine-in-film/

Join us for the Xmas Holiday edition of the Saturday Morning All-You-Can-Eat-Cereal Cartoon Party! Curated by film programmer, writer and pop culture connoisseur Kier-la Janisse, this 3-hour trip down memory lane is a tribute to the eye-popping, brain-addling Saturday morning and Christmas season cartoons of yore, complete with a smorgasbord of delicious sugary cereals (and yes, we have non-dairy options too)! The lineup is always a secret, but you’ll see holiday episodes of Saturday morning faves as well as long-lost prime time specials and vintage animated short films – and an all-new lineup of retro commercials and PSAs in between!

Adult: $16, Student/Senior: $14, Children 12 & Under: $12 - Admission includes cereal. Metro passes: Silver Screen passes only (subject to availability).

Tickets: http://www.metrocinema.org/film_view/6586/

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary:  An Evening of Yuletide Terror
presented by Kier-La Janisse

For many, Christmas is an annual celebration of goodwill and joy, but for others, it’s a time to curl up on the couch in the dead of winter for a good old fashioned fright. The festive holiday season has always included a more somber side, and scary tales of child-stealing demons to ghost stories told ‘round the fireplace go back to pre-Christian celebrations. These long-standing traditions have found modern expression in the Christmas horror film, a unique and sometimes controversial subgenre that cheerfully drives a stake of holly through the heart of cherished Christmas customs.

To celebrate the release of Spectacular Optical’s new book Yuletide Terror: Christmas Horror on Film and Television, contributor Kier-La Janisse will present a trio of short subjects in the moody British tradition of seasonal terror tales, providing insight on these subversive film and television presentations that allow viewers to engage in different ways with the complicated cultural history of the Christmas season.

Program:

Introduction by Kier-La Janisse

A Ghost Story for Christmas: “Lost Hearts”
Director: Lawrence Gordon Clark | UK | 1973 | 35mins

Based on an M.R. James story featured in his 1904 collection Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, “Lost Hearts” was the fan favourite of the BBC’s seminal holiday series A Ghost Story for Christmas (1971-1978). Simon Gipps-Kent plays a young orphan named Stephen who is whisked away to the sprawling country estate of a supposed distant relative, Mr Abney (Joseph O’Conor), an eccentric old doctor who is revealed to be an alchemist looking for the key to immortality by experimenting on young children. The ghosts of Stephen’s two predecessors attempt to warn him, their presence signaled by the haunting hurdy-gurdy music the episode is now famous for.

We Always Find Ourselves in the Sea
Director: Sean Hogan | UK | 2017 | 20mins

A lonely recluse prepares to celebrate Christmas alone when a figure from his past unexpectedly reappears. But are the old ghosts stirred up by her arrival just bad memories or something more? In this windswept tribute to the classic English ghost stories of M.R. James and the 1970s A Ghost Story for Christmas series they spawned, writer/director Sean Hogan reteams with his co-producers on Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD (2014) and The Devil’s Business (2011) star Billy Clarke to bring this Christmas horror short made especially to coincide with the Yuletide Terror book.

The Avengers: “Too Many Christmas Trees”
Roy Ward Baker | UK | 1965 | 52mins

Prior to his stint directing for Hammer and Amicus studios, genre fave Roy Ward Baker was paired with prolific writer of TV espionage Tony Williamson for this nightmarish Christmas episode of classic British spy-fi series The Avengers. This sinister seasonal episode opens in British intelligence officer John Steed’s (Patrick Macnee) dream, in which he is taunted by a deformed Santa and stumbles upon the corpse of an old colleague. Upon waking he remarks to Mrs. Peel (Diana Rigg) that his friend was “dead as a doornail”—this reference to A Christmas Carol just the first hint at the episode’s Dickensian obsessions. Steed finds that his dream was premonitory; when Mrs. Peel whisks him away to a holiday weekend at the stately home of a rich book publisher, he finds everything in his dream to be coming true. Director Roy Ward Baker’s knack for horror comes through, and subverted Christmas imagery abounds in this surreal and unsettling episode. (Kier-La Janisse)

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Free Admission

Bar Le Ritz PDB Website