Do Not Attempt Sober

To celebrate its love for acetate, the Film on Film Foundation presents two movies which may be respected in retrospect, on copious amounts of LSD. The Last Movie won the Critic's Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1971, and bombed everywhere else. The movie begins as a Hollywood film crew departs the small Peruvian village where it has been shooting a Western. Inspired by the movieland gore, the villagers construct fake camera equipment and real acts of violence. The simple plotline becomes wholly hallucinatory under Dennis Hopper's haywire direction and editing (flashbacks, flash-forwards, superimposed titles, missing frames, misplaced projectionist cue-marks). So abysmal was the reception for The Last Movie, its title almost became prophetic; much to the chagrin of cult-movie lovers everywhere, Hopper didn't direct another feature until 1988.

Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? led to Joan Collins' divorce from famed songwriter, co-star, and director Anthony Newley, and not solely because of her underwater fellatio scene. The hilarious X-rated mock autobiography follows the life of a child entertainer turned somewhat pedophilic womanizer through home movies and outrageous musical interludes. No other movie musical can lay claim to synchronized dancing astrological signs, Newley's unabashed bare ass, Joan Collins, Milton Berle, and a white bed in the middle of a beach. Don't forget the party favors.
Wed., June 4, 7 & 9:15 p.m., 2008