SPEAK OUT:

I HAD AN ABORTION

(dir. Gillian Aldrich, 57 mins, 2005)

Fri July 1 7pm - buy tix
Sat July 2 7pm - buy tix

www.speakoutfilms.com

Underneath the din of politicians posturing about "life" and "choice," beyond activists yelling about murder and rights, there are the stories of women who have had abortions. The documentary SPEAK OUT: I HAD AN ABORTION features 11 women, ages 21 to 85, telling their abortion experiences. It was produced by Jennifer Baumgardner and Gillian Aldrich.

Each year more than 1.3 million women get abortions. Often, the experience is life-changing and yet a secret—possibly never mentioned even to closest friends. SPEAK OUT: I HAD AN ABORTION cracks open the abortion issue, revealing the women who make that choice. In SPEAK OUT, you meet 11 women, including Florence Rice, 86, who had an abortion in Harlem; Gloria Steinem, the famous feminist who didn't join the movement until she covered an abortion speak-out as a journalist and finally faced the procedure she had a decade earlier; and Robin Ringleka-Kottke, who found herself pregnant as an 18-year-old pro-life Catholic. SPEAK OUT: I HAD AN ABORTION gets beyond the headlines and talking heads to show that women who have had abortions are our grandmothers, our friends, our mothers, our sisters and ourselves.

THIS REVOLUTION

(dir. Stephen Marshall, 90 mins, 2004)

Wed Jun 29 9pm - buy tix
Thur Jun 30 9pm - buy tix
Fri July 1 9pm - buy tix
Sat July 2 9pm - buy tix
Sun July 3 9pm - buy tix
Mon July 4 9pm - buy tix
Tues July 5 9pm - buy tix

starring Rosario Dawson and Nathan Crooker

Sundance 2005

NYC premiere!

the movie that got Rosario Dawson arrested

"It’s the kind of engaged, political filmmaking that is rarely seen today. . .welcome and powerful."
- HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“THIS REVOLUTION just might be the sleeper hit with the most robust in-your-face message at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.”
- AGENCE FRANCE PRESS

Shot during the 2004 Republican convention, THIS REVOLUTION is a low-budget high-impact thriller for the political set. The story follows Jake (Nathan Crooker), a network war shooter just back from Iraq who is assigned to cover the run-up to the RNC. When he meets and falls in love with Tina Santiago (Rosario Dawson), a young mother widowed after her husband was killed in Iraq, Jake is forced to question his world view. But it is not until he discovers his network has given his videotape of an anarchist Black Bloc group to Homeland Security that Jake decides to take action.

Pioneer Late Nights

COWARDS BEND THE KNEE

(dir. Guy Maddin, 60 mins, 2003)

Fri July 1 10:45pm - buy tix
Fri July 22 10:45pm - buy tix

"Maddin’s masterpiece!"
- J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE

“Might be Maddin’s masterwork!” - NY PRESS

"There is something rather splendid about this extended-play peep show, as if Mr. Maddin had stumbled across a hitherto lost archive of cinema's less-than-innocent past.”
- NEW YORK TIMES

“One of the ten best films of the year! A feverish, hilarious exercise in self-flagellating mythomania.”
- Dennis Lim, THE VILLAGE VOICE

A masterstroke from goofy Canadian cineaste Guy Maddin, director of THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD and DRACULA: PAGES FROM A VIRGIN’S DIARY.

Adapted from a ten-part peephole installation, COWARDS BEND THE KNEE is, in the words of Mark Peranson, “jam-packed with enough kinetically photographed action to seem like a never-ending cliffhanger. . .In this twisted and poisoned wish-fulfillment, the mythomaniacal Maddin casts ‘himself’ (actually, Darcy Fehr) as a hockey sniper made lily-livered by mother and daughter femme fatales, and resurrects his father as the team’s radio broadcaster and his own romantic antagonist. Set in a shadow-suffused hockey arena and a Mabuse-like beauty salon-slash-abortion clinic, the plot drips with Grecian formula, as sordid family secrets spawn unintentional murder most foul.”

A Zeitgeist Films Release.

Pioneer Late Nights

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

(dir. Steven Spielberg, 132 mins, 1977)

Fri July 1 midnight - buy tix
Fri July 8 midnight - buy tix
Fri July 15 midnight - buy tix
Fri July 22 midnight - buy tix
Fri July 29 midnight - buy tix

ALIENS
ARE
COMING
FRIDAYS
AT
MIDNIGHT

Pioneer Late Nights

PRIMER

(dir. Shane Carruth, 78 mins, 2004)

Sat July 2 10:40pm - buy tix
Sat July 16 10:40pm - buy tix
Sat July 30 10:40pm - buy tix

"PRIMER is the headiest, most singular science-fiction movie since Kubrick made 2001."
(ESQUIRE)

"An ingenious movie about the perils of ingenuity. . .Invigorating. . .Like PI or MEMENTO, PRIMER is the kind of movie likely to inspire both imitators and cultists. . .Carruth has invented something fascinating."
(A.O. Scott, NY TIMES)

* Grand Jury Prize - Sundance Film Festival *

PRIMER is set in the industrial park/suburban tract-home fringes of an unnamed contemporary city where two young engineers, Abe and Aaron, are members of a small group of men who work by day for a large corporation while conducting extracurricular experiments on their own time in a garage. While tweaking their current project, a device that reduces the apparent mass of any object placed inside it by blocking gravitational pull, they accidentally discover that it has some highly unexpected capabilities--ones that could enable them to do and to have seemingly anything they want. Taking advantage of this unique opportunity is the first challenge they face. Dealing with the consequences is the next.

A ThinkFilm release.

PALINDROMES

(dir. Todd Solondz, 100 mins, 2004)

Sat July 2 midnight - buy tix
Sun July 3 7pm - buy tix
Thurs July 7 7pm - buy tix
Sat July 9 midnight - buy tix
Mon July 11 7pm - buy tix
Bizarro Monday program

Sat July 16 midnight - buy tix
Sat July 30 midnight - buy tix

PALINDROMES is a fable of innocence: 13-year-old Aviva Victor wants to be a Mom. She does all she can to make this happen, and comes very close to succeeding, but in the end her plan is thwarted by her sensible parents (Ellen Barkin and Richard Masur). So she runs away, still determined to get pregnant one way or another, but instead finds herself lost in another world, a less sensible one, perhaps, but one pregnant itself with all sorts of strange possibility. Like so many trips, this one is round-trip, and it’s hard to say in the end if she can ever be quite the same again, or if she can ever be anything but the same again.

THREE
STOOGEAPALOOZA

Have a Patriotic July 4th in the company of Larry, Curly, and Moe

Mon July 4 7pm - buy tix

This is a "Bizarro Monday" program. Every Monday at 7pm the Pioneer presents the finest (and trashiest) in horror, sci-fi, exploitation, martial arts, genre, b-movies, and z-movies.

Join Larry, Curly, and Moe fora gut-busting night of laughs and boinks, with this quintuple bill of stoogearific classics.

A-PLUMBING WE WILL GO (18 mins, 1940)
To escape the police, the stooges pose as plumbers and are hired to fix a leak in a fancy mansion. They wind up crossing the electrical system with the plumbing and generally ruin the place.

HOI POLLOI (19 mins, 1935)
A professor bets that he can turn the stooges into gentlemen. After many attempts to teach them etiquette, he brings them to a fancy society party. The stooges new found manners don't last very long, and the party quickly degenerates.

THREE LITTLE BEERS (17 mins, 1935)
The stooges are inept deliverymen at a brewery. When they learn about a company golf tournament, they sneak onto a golf course to get some practice. They quickly annoy the other golfers and destroy the course.

I'LL NEVER HEIL AGAIN (18 mins, 1941)
In this follow up to "You Nazty Spy," the stooges have taken over the country of Moronica. Moe is Hailstone the Dictator, Curly is a Field Marshal and Larry is Minister of Propaganda. The stooges are planning with their allies to conquer the world, which mainly consists of fighting over a globe.

AN ACHE IN EVERY STAKE (18 mins, 1941)
The stooges are icemen who, while delivering ice to a house on the top of a high hill, destroy several cakes that a wealthy man is trying to bring home.

Special thanks to Stoogeologist Michael Schlesinger from Sony / Columbia Rep for helping select these titles. (synopses adapted from imdb.com)

Slamdance presents

Tues July 5 7pm - buy tix

Followed by beer and pizza reception.

The Slamdance Film Festival presents a highlight from their 2005 festival.

IN A LONELY PLACE

(dir. Nicholas Ray, 94 mins, 1950)

Weds July 6 7pm - buy tix

Nicholas Ray directs Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame

Screenwriter Dixon Steele, faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy bestseller, has hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson tell him the story in her own words. Later that night, Mildred is murdered and Steele is a prime suspect; his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humor tell against him. Fortunately, lovely neighbor Laurel Gray gives him an alibi. Laurel proves to be just what Steele needed, and their friendship ripens into love. Will suspicion, doubt, and Steele's inner demons come between them? (synopsis from imdb.com)

A SIDEWALK ASTRONOMER

(dir. Jeffrey Jacobs, 78 mins, 2005)

Weds July 6 9pm - buy tix
Thurs July 7 9pm - buy tix
Fri July 8 7pm - buy tix
Fri July 8 9pm - buy tix
Sat July 9 7pm - buy tix
Sat July 9 9pm - buy tix
Sat July 9 10:30pm - buy tix
Sun July 10 7pm - buy tix
Sun July 10 9pm - buy tix
Mon July 11 9pm - buy tix
Tues July 12 9pm - buy tix

Released by Telescope Pictures / Jacobs Entertainment

visit the film's website

A fascinating and illuminating journey through the cosmos
featuring the cantankerous and brilliant astronomer John Dobson

Directed by film industry veteran Jeffrey Jacobs

On any given night around the world, thousands of people peer into deep space because of John Dobson. An 89-year old with a white ponytail and a knack for comedy, John Dobson revolutionized astronomy. “Possessing a quicksilver wit, a gift for turning a phrase that makes scientific concepts accessible, and an energy that belies his nearly 90 cycles around the sun, Mr. Dobson is one of history’s greatest popularizers of science,” (WALL STREET JOURNAL, September 1, 2004). He is the inventor of the Dobsonian telescope mount, which changed the field of astronomy dramatically, making telescopes accessible to the public on every continent.

A former monk, he is a co-founder of “Sidewalk Astronomers,” an organization encouraging amateurs to share their telescopes and knowledge with others on busy city streets and in national parks. As John says, “The Universe is bigger than the Earth; it’s bigger than the solar system; it’s bigger than our galaxy and we owe it to ourselves to notice it.” The film follows John as he tours the country from the sidewalks of San Francisco to colleges, universities, astronomy clubs, star parties and to Stellafane, a convention of telescope makers in Vermont. It features sequences on sidewalk astronomy, telescope making, the Moon, Sun, major planets, galaxies, Big Bang Theory, and the nature of time and space. We also get to know John Dobson, a fascinating thinker, philosopher, teacher, and inventor who encourages us to think about the Universe. This astronomical and cosmological journey is illustrated with actual footage and photos of space shot from satellites and spacecraft as well as animation courtesy of NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Goddard Space Flight Center and the Hubble Space Telescope Institute.

THE EVIL DEAD

(dir. Sam Raimi, 85 mins, 1981)

Fri July 8 10:30pm - buy tix

IFP
BUZZCUTS

Tues July 12 7pm - buy tix

Followed by beer and pizza reception.

NewFest presents

WOMEN IN LOVE

(dir. Karen Everett, 59 mins, 2005)

Wed July 13 7pm - buy tix

RETURN TO THE LAND OF WONDERS

(dir. Maysoon Pachachi, 88 mins, 2004)

Wed July 13 9pm - buy tix
Thur July 14 9pm - buy tix
Fri July 15 9pm - buy tix
Sat July 16 9pm - buy tix
Sun July 17 9pm - buy tix
Mon July 18 9pm - buy tix
Tues July 19 9pm - buy tix
Wed July 20 7pm - buy tix
Thur July 21 7pm - buy tix
Fri July 22 7pm - buy tix

An Arab Film Distribution Release

drafting Iraq's new constitution - see it from the inside

featuring Adnan Pachachi of the Iraqi Governing Council

Soon after the 2003 Iraq war, filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi returns to Baghdad after 35 years. She accompanies her father, 80-year-old Adnan, who has returned to head a committee drafting a temporary constitution and Bill of Rights. We follow this tortuous process, with its arguments over wording changes demanded by Washington or compromises to satisfy sectarian interests. Moving between the political sphere and everyday life on the streets, this film offers a unique glimpse into the resilience of Iraqis as they struggle to sustain their lives and to fight off a sense of despair and defeat.

STAY UNTIL TOMORROW

(dir. Laura Colella, 92 mins, 2004)

Thur July 14 7pm - buy tix

visit the website

“A wildly inventive and unabashedly sweet comedy. . .Gorgeously shot and subtly acted, this playful and bold feature builds with a slow charm that ultimately pays off big, in a chaotic finale that draws from a passion for the limitless possibilities of cinema."
– Minnesota Film Arts

“Funny and sexy, this is a feel-good movie for the irreverent. . .This unpredictable comedy is a refreshingly real look at a young woman seeking exotic and erotic possibilities.”
- Brattleboro Film Festival

“(STAY UNTIL TOMORROW) boasts a splendid performance from Eleanor Hutchins, as the onetime soap star who descends on her librarian buddy and proceeds to dismantle his ordered existence.”
- BBC

STAY UNTIL TOMORROW is a funny and kaleidoscopic film-within-a-film that centers on Nina, a former teenage soap star who dropped out of college to travel the world, and then never stopped. In the several years since, she has remained attached to the adventurous lifestyle of a transcontinental drifter. Back home for a visit, she drops in unannounced on her childhood friend Jim, and asks if she can crash with him for a few days. . .which turns into a few weeks. . .

"On the one hand, STAY UNTIL TOMORROW is a road movie about an old love; on the other hand, it's about traveling between America and Europe. It's also a musical delicacy."
- 030 (Berlin, Germany)

Jadina Lilien:
Six Short Films

Fri July 15 7pm - buy tix

A showcase of short films made by local filmmaker Jadina Lilien.

"Jadina Lilien has an incrediblyunique and touching way of making films. They are fresh and different - incredible."
- IFILM review

"Jadina has a tremendous sensitivity to the power of details, and a wonderfully vivid imagination…Jadina found a family of Russian musicians, wrote a story based on their situation and then filmed them playing themselves - the effect is quite mysterious and charming."
- CAROL DYSINGER - Editor/Director/NYU instructor

"Stunning work! Everytime I veiw her films Jadina's talent becomes all the more evident."
- SEATTLE MOVIE MAGAZINE review

These six short films directed by Jadina Lilien are portraits of people who are untainted by social limitations and therefore live a life that is a true expression of their uniqueness.The style of combining documentary and narrative filmmaking is used to bring together seemingly opposite realities - "at the point that these two realities meet something unknown emerges which exudes a vitality that seems pure and untouched." These films have a quality of intimacy of being shown a secret.

A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER

(dir. Doris Wishman, 69 mins, 1983)

Fri July 15 10:40pm - buy tix
Fri July 29 10:40pm - buy tix

"an awful, ugly, cheap, and incoherent mess."
- James Kendrick, Q NETWORK FILM DESK

3rd I NY presents

Sat July 16 5pm - buy tix
Sat July 16 7pm - buy tix

A program of South Asian Independent Films presented in association with the 3rd I New York group.

THE RAMONES

End of the Century

(dir. Jim Fields & Michael Gramaglia, 110 mins, 2003)

Mon July 18 6:45pm - buy tix
Bizarro Monday program

Sun July 31 4:45pm - buy tix

Hey! Ho! Let's go!

In 1974, the New York City music scene was shocked into consciousness by the violently new and raw sound of a band of misfits from Queens, called The Ramones. Playing in a seedy Bowery bar to a small group of fellow struggling musicians, the band struck a chord of disharmony that rocked the foundation of the mid-'70s music scene. This quartet of unlikely rock stars traveled across the country and around the world connecting with the disenfranchised everywhere, while sparking a movement that would resonate with two generations of outcasts across the globe. Although the band never reached the top of the Billboard charts, it managed to endure by maintaining a rigorous touring schedule for 22 years.

Woodstock Film Festival

Tues July 19 7pm - buy tix

MAKING GRACE

(dir. Catherine Gund, 86 mins, 2004)

Wed July 20 9pm - buy tix
Thur July 21 9pm - buy tix
Fri July 22 9pm - buy tix
Sat July 23 7pm - buy tix
Sun July 24 7pm - buy tix
Sun July 24 9pm - buy tix
Mon July 25 9pm - buy tix
Tues July 26 9pm - buy tix
Wed July 27 7pm - buy tix
Sat July 30 4:30pm - buy tix

A First Run Features Release

Visit the Film's Website

Ann is a worrier, compulsively analyzing and judging their performance at each stage of the process. Leslie is soothing, a quiet counterpoint. Together they ride the menstrual roller coaster, until finally, one year later, Ann is pregnant. At first both women continue to work. Free time is consumed by pre-birth activity: baby shower registration, Lamaze class and design of the baby announcement. Between events they argue with relatives over how to explain two mommies to their nieces and nephews.

Month eight, Leslie ends her job to prepare for full time mommy-hood. Ann continues to work all hours, holding her now huge tummy as she shuffles from job site to job site, fretting over everything. But Baby Grace is born on time with bright red hair (a trait known to neither family).

Filmmaker Catherine Gund follows the Krsul-Sullivan household during Grace's first year. As Ann and Leslie make their way, we are with them, meeting challenges universal to all families and facing those unique to lesbians.

Fangoria presents

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

(dir. George A. Romero, 1968, 96 minutes)

and

CARNIVAL OF SOULS

(dir. Herk Harvey, 78 mins, 1962)

a ghoulish double bill!

Saturday July 23 9pm
$9 double bill! - buy tix

DOUBLE BILL, only nine bucks!

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

High quality 16mm print

They keep coming back in a bloodthirsty lust for HUMAN FLESH!

The dead come back to life and eat the living in this classic zombie film. Several people barricade themselves inside a rural house in an attempt to survive the night. Outside are hordes of relentless, shambling zombies who can only be killed by a blow to the head.

CARNIVAL OF SOULS:

Is there death after life?

35mm print

Mary Henry is enjoying the day by riding around in a car with two friends. When challenged to a drag, the women accept, but are forced off of a bridge. It appears that all are drowned, until Mary, quite some time later, amazingly emerges from the river. After recovering, Mary accepts a job in a new town as a church organist, only to be dogged by a mysterious phantom figure that seems to reside in an old run-down pavilion. It is here that Mary must confront the personal demons of her spiritual insouciance.

Bizarro Mondays Program

THE TINGLER

(dir. William Castle, 82 mins, 1959)

Mon July 25 7pm - buy tix

Scream for your life!

Starring Vincent Price!

** WARNING! A TINGLER HAS RECENTLY BEEN SPOTTED WITHIN THE PIONEER THEATER. ATTEND AT YOUR OWN PERIL! **

Vincent Price stars as Dr. Chapin, a scientist who discovers a caterpillarlike parasite that grows in the human spine when someone is afraid and that, unless they scream, can grow large enough to kill them. He solemnly dubs this creature the tingler. Philip Coolidge plays the owner of a nearby cinema who befriends the doctor and whose deaf-mute wife suddenly receives all sorts of shocks, like the sight of a bathtub full of blood with a hand reaching out from it. Since she can't scream, she dies, and Chapin gets his hands on her oversize tingler. When it eventually escapes inside the movie theater, the film within the film, and then the film itself, stops for an announcement from Price, out of character, urging the audience to scream their heads off.

CINEWOMEN NY presents

The Calm. . . After The Storm

Tues July 26 7pm - buy tix

Cinewomen NY website

Followed by beer and pizza reception.

A program of short films from filmmakers working with the Cinewomen NY group.

M
(dir. Arzuna Veloz, 13 min)
"M" is about survival and the inspiration to keep living after loss. It is the story about a girl who finds strength within herself even when the world around her is crumbling.

L-O-V-E
(dir. Tamiko Joye Ball, 28 min)
A young woman gets caught in a dangerous love triangle with her ex-boyfriend and incarcerated lover. As she tries to make sense of her situation, her life is turned upside down when her lover is released from prison and her ex-boyfriend
won't let go.

Beautiful City
(dir. Patricia Mulcahy, 23 min)
Beautiful City explores the myth of a safer city during the Giuliani yeas; from the perspective of the inhabitants of one crime infested neighborhood. The backdrop of the glittering New York City skyline provides a striking contrast.

Sparks
(dir. Virginie Danglades 15 min)
A beautiful dancer who works as a cleaning lady at the hospital showcases her electrifying talents while dancing luxuriously in front of the patients. . .and when she dances, their world comes to a stop.

JUST ONE LOOK

(dir. Riley Ip, 96 mins, 2002)

Wed July 27 9pm - buy tix
Thur July 28 9pm - buy tix
Fri July 29 9pm - buy tix
Sat July 30 9pm - buy tix
Sun July 31 9pm - buy tix
Mon Aug 1 9pm - buy tix
Tues Aug 2 9pm - buy tix

An Asian Cinevision Release

“Sometimes hilarious, sometimes melodramatic, JUST ONE LOOK always rings true.”
– SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

A valentine to 70s Chinese cinema – from Bruce Lee mania and Chang Cheh kung fu flicks to the Taiwanese melodrama tearjerkers – JUST ONE LOOK evokes a time past with a loving eye for details and an infectious sense of wonderment. Set in the sleepy island of Cheung Chau in HK, this coming-of-age film follows Fan (SHAWN YU, INFERNAL AFFAIRS 2) who sells sugar cane sticks outside a cinema. Growing up believing that his policeman father was killed by a local thug (Anthony Wong), Fan enrolls in a martial arts school and vows revenge. As Fan slowly faces up to the truth of his father’s death, he finds himself caught in a romantic tangle with two girls (Chung and Choi of Canto-pop sensation Twins). Ip peppers the film liberally with film clips from that era, as well as treasured paraphernalia like hand-painted billboard posters and tinted photographs of stars. JUST ONE LOOK is a paean to one of the golden ages of Chinese cinema, a period gone but not forgotten. A treat for everyone who loves Chinese movies – and movies in general, for that matter.