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Night Howl
By Karen Reardanz

Mexican Lap Dance: The Flickering Frame Film Society screens strange and absurd celluloid offerings, like the Mexican film 'Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy,' temporarily at the Movie 1&2 in Santa Cruz each weekend. Screen and Screen Again: The Flickering Frame Film Society offers a weekly glimpse into the wide, wide world of weird and wacky cinema STOP THE PRESSES! You need scour the shelves of video stores no longer trying to uncover the offbeat, the weird and the absurd in the cinematic world. Even if by some twist of fate you did find a celluloid treasure (and with the onslaught of mass stores like Blockbuster popping up, such success is more than unlikely), that small screen in the living room just wouldn't do justice to the film find. Enter The Flickering Frame Film Society to ease your movie woes. Started by recent UCSC grads Alice Auyang, Andrew Maxwell and Chris Cohen--a trio that fondly remembers the days when the Sash Mill Theater filled a need in the movie-going community--the society is a knowledgeable lot of movie lovers. Long gone to the big drive-in in the sky, the Sash Mill regularly brought new films to the area that couldn't find a home in mainstream theaters and old films back to big-screen life. While the Flickering Frame kids are hardly looking to emulate their cinematic big brother, they were inspired by the Mill's guerrilla style of radical cinema. But regardless of their inspiration, anyone who's ever had a hankering to see Mothra, Machine Gun Kelly or a Fritz Lang or Andrei Tarkovsky film fest knows the Flickering Frame is like Jujubes and buttered popcorn rolled all in one. The Flickering Frame sprung up about six months ago, screening a sporadic series of midnight movies, then settled into its temporary home at the Movie 1&2, where it's been screening an abundance of ages-spanning, avant-garde treats. At the end of this month, though, our film friends will be out on the street, searching for a new home when the Movie 1&2 bites the dust. Though totally self-sufficient (Flickering Frame comes complete with its very own life-size projector and film contacts), it desperately needs a regular site to continue its movie-house screenings. Now scheduled to sporadically invade the Actors' Theatre and possibly use the Vets Hall (former home to films in the '60s) now and again, Auyang, Cohen and Maxwell would really, really like a home of their very own. They've big dreams for their cinematic venture, aiming to someday gather subscriptions, send out mailers and just get a little closer to the film-loving public. This week's screenings explore a varied collection of filmmaking styles with Jackie Brown star Pam Grier in Coffy (1973) showing on Friday night, director John Boorman's Zardoz starring Sean Connery on Saturday, and Jack Arnold's High School Confidential on Sunday. All films start at 8pm and, for now, will be shown at the Movie 1&2, 324 Front St., SC. For more info about these and upcoming films, call 427-8374. FutureThink A Song for the World, with DJ Little John, DJ Brother and DJ Adam, plays the Brookdale Lodge on Friday. ... What Is Art? plays host to Matty Embry, Paul Sprawl and others, also on Friday. ... Ingrid interviews Geoff Barrow of Portishead on her KUSP show The Lonely and the Damned on Jan. 22 at midnight. ... Marga Gomez performs her comedic romp Pretty, Witty and Gay at UCSC on Feb. 7. [ Santa Cruz Week | MetroActive Central | Archives ]