Kuchars In Space with George and Mike Kuchar
Saturday, 1:00 pm, Vinegar Hill Theatre
One camp classic from Mike Kuchar joins forces with two shorts by George Kuchar, for an otherworldly mix of cosmic energy and unbridled lust.
Jack Stevenson, writing in Bright Lights Film Journal, calls Mike’s Sins of the Fleshapoids “the single most significant, creatively realized example of ’60s camp cinema sensibility.” A million years in the future, in the aftermath of the Great War, humankind has abandoned itself to hedonism and debauchery, leaving all work to a race of robots. But soon the robots decide to indulge in sinful pleasures of their own, and civilization may never be the same. Filmed in gloriously garish color, with an indelible performance from George Kuchar as the evil Prince Gianbeno, Fleshapoids has influenced underground filmmakers from Andy Warhol to the early works of David Lynch and Todd Haynes. John Waters has cited this film as one of his personal favorites.
Tower of the Astro-Cyclops features French ufologist Jacques Vallee, the reputed inspiration for a character played by New Wave director François Truffaut in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As always, George Kuchar offers viewers a close encounter of an entirely different kind. George Kuchar writes, “The secret enclave of Dr. Jacques Vallee, a much respected member of the ‘invisible college,’ is openly explored as the good doctor shares his memorabilia and interests in the UFO mystery with a terrestrial visitor of plebian dimensions.”
Described by George Kuchar as “a family picture with timeless values,” Orphans of the Cosmos isn’t a “family picture” in the usual sense of the term. Starring students from the San Francisco Art Institute, where Kuchar is an associate professor of film, Orphans is a coming-of-age story set on the planet Mars. Raging hormones and unchecked alien libidos ensue. Kuchar writes, “Although this trip is short on funding but big in concept, it’s really quite a ride and looks like a million bucks for the vision impaired.”
