MUTANT ACTION: THE FILMS OF ALEX DE LA IGLESIA
Brattle Street Cinema
Harvard Square, Cambridge
September 30 - October 2, 2005
Spanish filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia could be the unholy love-child of John Waters, Alfred Hitchcock, and Sam Raimi (and wouldn't we all want to see that love scene).
He is a dedicated explorer of genre cinema having experimented with horror (DAY OF THE BEAST), sci-fi (MUTANT ACTION), spaghetti western (800 BULLETS), and, most recently, Hitchcockian thrillers (FERPECT CRIME and LA COMMUNIDAD).

The Comic Book Show
October 29, 30
Nashua, NH
Special guests: Comic giants J.G. Jones (Grant Morrison's Marvel Boy) and Bernie Wrightson (Swamp Thing) alongside stellar NH cartoonists Rich Woodall and Matt Talbot (Johnny Raygun)


Air Lines
Photographs
by Alex MacLean
Peabody Essex Museum
Salem, MA
MacLean’s photographs tell the story of the American landscape and of the people who interact with it.

Save the Green Planet
Koch Lorber Films
Written/Directed By: Jun-hwan Jeong
Release
DVD: September 6, 2005
Theatrical: April 20, 2005

Review From Rotterdam Film Festival

A confused young man thinks that a major industrialist is an alien from outer space who is out to destroy our planet. A wild and wacky début with a suitable style for each scene: horror, suspense, detective, slapstick etc.

Byung-gu, a rather confused young man, is the only one who can save our beautiful green planet. You see, Byung-gu is convinced that the industrialist Kang is really an alien from outer space who is spying for the prince of (the planet) Andromeda, who is planning to conquer the earth. With his dozy girlfriend Sun-i, a circus artiste, Byung-hu kidnaps the industrialist and tries to force him, using extremely interrogation techniques (with an iron as accessory), to reveal his `royal genetic code'. It is essential he succeeds before the next full moon. Kang thinks he is facing a personal act of revenge and doesn't just give up... Débutant Jang Jun-Hwan displays a Kubrickian flair in his mastery of a wide range of genres, without losing track of his target. Comic science-fiction and tough detective elements are augmented with the creative Asian torture scenes we know so well, all to serve the underlying and sombre social criticism: it is not by chance that the baddie owns a large chemical factory. Apart from all the cult tricks, there is also space for (genuine?) emotion, when we find out more about the hero Byung-gu, who is traumatised and misled as he grows to be an `Everyman' in a world full of conspirators.

Acciones Mutantes (Mutant Action)
Written By: Jorge Guerricaechevarría, Alex de la Iglesia
Directed By: Alex de la Iglesia
Release
DVD: 2002
Theatrical: 1993

Review From Philadelphia Film Society

De la Iglesia’s fertile imagination and comic book visual sensibility are already in full bloom in this memorably absurd tale of a mutant terrorist organization that kidnaps the daughter of a wealthy bread tycoon and transports her across the galaxy to an underground bar on an all-male desert planet. The director’s keen sense of the ridiculous keeps viewers constantly curious as to what will happen next in a self-reflexive and hilarious story that never hesitates to kill off seemingly central characters. Most surprising is the extent to which sympathy is generated for a merciless protagonist—the half-burnt-faced Ramón Yarritu (Antonio Resines)—who slaughters his entire team and slaps around his Stockholm Syndrome-suffering captive Patricia (Frédérique Feder). Highlights include a debauched 1980s-style wedding party of society’s hideous “beautiful people,” transformed into an orgiastic bloodbath by the Mutant Actioneers; a ubiquitous TV newscaster-cum-game show host who turns up on planet Axturias to report live on the scene of the ransom exchange; television commercials for LSD-flavored cereal; and Ramón’s former henchman Alex (Álex Angulo), who must carry around the stuffed corpse of his recently murdered siamese twin until the film’s final scene. (Spanish with English subtitles) --Steven Jay Schneider

Interview with Director

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