Gymkata

Time flies when you're trying to come up with clever ways to describe bad movies.
This July 15th is a mixed bag of sorts beginning of course at 6pm with the ever popular Awful Hour wherein we pick at the mouldering carcass of the VHS age.

Then at 7pm, to honor the late Lau Kar-leung who died this last June, we're screening one of our favorite films from his veritable pantheon of greats. We'll be treating you (and ourselves) to the turbo-speed action of Mad Monkey Kung Fu. I wish I could say there was more to this film's plot than simple revenge, but anyway, it's a good sort of revenge and executed very satisfyingly by the masterful Kar-leung and his co-star Hsaio-Ho in one of our favorite (did I say that already?) wu-xia films EVER.

Finally, we're bringing it back down a few dozen notches with the perennial favorite atrocity known simply as Gymkata. If you're not familiar with the premise in which an Olympic gymnast goes all Surviving the Game somewhere in eastern Europe, then nothing I can say will prepare you for what will assail your see-holes on JULY 15th.

See you at the Sunset.

Future Force

Running full tilt with scissors into June we quickly found ourselves face to face with the FUTURE, and boy does it look pretty. Opening the night as usual at 6pm with some VHS cinema salvage for Awful Hour, Monday June 24 quickly gets down to the business of low-budget lawless dystopian nightmares with:

Mutant Hunt, 1987 -  Making good his temporary departure from gay-porn, director Tim Kincaid helms this doozy of a yarn concerning drugs, evil robots and barely clad beefcake; the 80's never saw better! Produced and scored by the Band Brothers (of Full Moon Pictures infamy) Mutant Hunt makes modern day New Jersey look like a walk in the park.

Future Force, 1988 - Subsequently we feast our see-holes upon the late David Carradine in what is assuredly not his finest role in a second dystopian future known as Future Force, a late-80’s straight to video gem with all the charisma of a carbuncle. After pulling society back from the brink of collapse, Tucker (Carradine) and the C.O.P.S. commence to infighting, backstabbing and blowing each other away, just like any good group of law enforcement officers. But Tuck has an ace up his sleeve, and a wheelchair, and a flying laser arm. Yup.

So come won't you, and join us in memorializing the finest in cinematic masochism on the biggish screen at the Sunset, where the beer is always beery and the movies are always of dubious quality.

Sakura Killers

Leaping feet first into our ninth year, we've concocted a selection of oddball cinema sure to make your eyeballs water for one reason or another.

First up at 6pm is the ubiquitous Awful Hour in which we present some of the finest in rescued video tapes from the trash-heap of history. It's looking Christian and instructional if my VHS compass is at all accurate...

Then at 7pm we will witness the siren sounds of Japanese Kaiju gone thoroughly absurd with Frankenstein Conquers the World. Nazi's set the tone before the plot moves to Japan where science struggles to save the day under the onslaught of giant radioactive lizards...

At 8:30pm we're rounding things off with a hearty helping of Gaijin-ninja activities in the form of low-rent American Ninja ripoff Sakura Killers. The political climate of the 80's garnishes an already rich sauce of ninja movie cliche's when the Soviets, eager to destroy the worlds food supply, snatch a top-secret video tape. Hired to retrieve said VHS cassette are Sonny and Dennis, two secret agent types. But before recovering the tape, they must first cruise the bars of Hong Kong (?) and learn ninja skills. This bone-headed classic has been lost to the ages, but we're bringing it back to the big(ish) screen just for your enjoyment!

Join us won't you on May 20th when we will gather together to remember some of the finest cinema ever to be forgotten.

8th Anniversary!

Although it is a fundamental aspect of our program to look through the past, it's not often that we revisit our own. However, it is appropriate when acknowledging another anniversary to sometimes look at how far you've come, and it has been a long journey to get here.
Through thick and thin, up and down, we've brought you:

For Your Height Only: In which a small Filipino Interpol agent foils the nefarious plans of a narcotics kingpin. Hearts will be broken, bases will be raided, discos will be danced and the jetpacks will be smokin' hot in this perennial favorite from the South Pacific. Viva Weng!

Challenge of the Lady Ninja: A Chinese woman trained in the secret skills of Japanese Yi Ho Ninja returns home to defend the fatherland. Training her own team, these lady ninjas will take on the entire Japanese army with just a few fashionable bathing outfits and steely determination. First time back at the Sunset for nearly 6 years!


Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky: A classic of unmeasurable proportions, Riki-Oh concerns a beefy young man unjustly imprisoned in a hyperbolically harsh maximum hilarity institution. Fighting back against a mob of viciously immoral caricatures, Ricky will smash faces, sever limbs, perforate bowels, gargle with razor blades and grind mountains of quivering muscle into hamburger meat in a literal industrial strength shower of bloody grue right before your weeping eyes. Riki-Oh is good, but in a crowd of fellow revelers, it's truly great.

All this and more at The Sunset, Monday April 15th. Show starts at 6pm sharp!

Hamburger Toast

Sounds delicious doesn't it?

Sleazy Samurai Sunday

In 1970's Japan, the samurai genre had undergone a transition from pure swordplay to gory exploitation. Still, only one director was combining the  genre with even more bizarre and graphic grindhouse staples from the supernatural to the skin flick: Teruo Ishii.

This coming Sunday, March 31st, we're hosting a special showing of two of Ishii's bizarre swordplay tales beginning at 7:00pm with

Blind Woman's Curse (1970): Despite killing a rival gang leader and serving a long prison term, Akemi is released to an ongoing street war in this bloody Yakuza/samurai tale. As the members of her gang are cut down (and flayed) she soon begins to suspect something more evil is at work.

Bohachi Bushido (1973): A wandering and despondent ronin is hired to eliminate the rivals of Yakuza brothel The Forgotten Eight. The women who work in the brothel are also trained swordswomen, and more than willing to participate in the graphic elimination of their opponents.

Be warned, both feature graphic swordplay (which means mutilation and blood) and the latter has some strong sexual content (which means rape and breasts) and both are Japanese language with subtitles. Unless you looked for them, these films would likely never hit you radar screen, but they will be on The Sunset big screen on March 31st for this special Kung Fu Grindhouse event.

Go poke it with a stick at FaceBook... 

Hamburger: The Motion Picture

Greetings and salutations my fellow gourmets. Once again it's time to refract popular USAmerican culture through the lens of trashy cinema. This March 18th the magic of historical memory brings us two amazing doses of endorphin soaked celluloid;

From the fevered brain responsible for The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Movie comes this 90's distillation of 80's Buddy-Cop god Axel Foley, Cop And a Half. After he inadvertently witnesses a crime, the mob targets 8 year old Devon Butler for elimination. It will be up to hard-boiled grumpy cop Burt Reynolds and his moustache to resurrect a career, save a kid and learn to giggle again in this heartwarming tale directed by Happy Days own Fonz. If you were lucky enough to be "of age" you might have been one of the stalwart few who got to witness this siege on the senses in an honest-to-dog theater. If not, well, that's why we're here.

The 80's being a time of frantic commodity fetishization, the very "food" we ate took on iconic status, even at times its own personality. Following the smashing success of his script for Hot Dog the Movie (1984,) screenwriter Mike Marvin decided to break out on his own as a director with 1986's surefire hit Hamburger: The Motion Picture. Who doesn't like a hamburger, they're an American passtime, or so claims the catchy theme song of this forgotten classic. Starring the questionable talents of nobody you'd recognize except perhaps Dick Butkus, Hamburger is a smorgasbord of visual and verbal atrocities so great and nefarious that it was denied entry in to the world of digital media.

From our hearts to your eye-holes, Kung Fu Grindhouse delivers only the "finest" in media entertainment on March 18th at The Sunset in glorious downtown Ballard, Washington.
Show starts at 6pm
FREE
21 and over.
Poke us with a stick over at FaceBook for obnoxious updates.