MADCAP PRESENTS THOUGHT-PROVOKING DOCS & HALLOWEEN CLASSICS ON THE BIG SCREEN

Phoenix AZ—September 8, 2010

MADCAP PRESENTS THOUGHT-PROVOKING DOCS & HALLOWEEN CLASSICS ON THE BIG SCREEN

Ghost Bird - September Saturday 18 (4, 6, 8pm) & Sunday 19 (2, 4, 6pm), $8

Ghost Bird (2009) Set in a murky swamp overrun with birders, scientists, and reporters, Ghost Bird explores the limits of certainty, the seductive power of hope, and how one phantom woodpecker changed a sleepy Southern town forever. In 2005, scientists announced that the Ivory-billed woodpecker, a species thought to be extinct for 60 years, had been found in the swamps of Eastern Arkansas. Other creatures have wrongly been presumed extinct, but the reappearance of the Ivory-bill was celebrated around the world as the rediscovery of a lifetime, prompting the largest recovery effort ever undertaken for a lost species. Millions of dollars poured in from the government while ornithologists and birders flooded the swamps to find the rare bird.

Wah Do Dem – September Friday 24 & Saturday 25 (8 & 10pm), $8

In Wah Do Dem (2009), young Brooklyn musician Max (Sean Bones) decides to go on a Caribbean cruise alone when his girlfriend Willow (Norah Jones) dumps him cold two days before the trip. Once in Jamaica, Max quickly escapes the tourist zone for more "authentic" surroundings and in the process is robbed of his possessions and is stranded, and literally misses the boat. As Max sets out for the American Embassy in Kingston on foot, Jamaica is waiting to meet him with unexpected and extraordinary encounters, including a full-moon celebration with the legendary reggae group The Congos, and a dreamy stay with a Rasta prophet (Carl Bradshaw, The Harder They Come).

Movie Mashterpiece Theatre: Turkish Star Wars – September Thursday 30 (7pm), $9

The Phoenix National Comedy Theatre tackles another obscure B-Movie, this time the Turkish remake of Star Wars…it’s Turkish Star Wars (1982) a la Mystery Science Theater 3000 in a mix of improvisation, comedy and a really bad movie. This reimagining features loads of illegal bootlegged scenes from the real “Star Wars”, and music excerpts of the Indiana Jones main theme, "Moonraker", "Flash Gordon", "Battlestar Galactica", "Planet of the Apes" and Disney's "The Black Hole". Like “The Return of Superman”, the Turkish version of Superman, this probably can’t get any trashier! It stars Cuneyt Arkin (Turkey’s Harrison Ford) and the laughs galore will ensue as the National Comedy Theatre troupe performs a live accompaniment to this b-movie schlock.

Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo – September Tuesday 28 (7pm) with Dir. Bradley Beesley Press & Phoenix Film Society Screening, Friday October 1 & Saturday October 2 (8 & 10pm), $8

Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo (2009) goes behind prison walls to follow convict cowgirls on their journey to the 2007 Oklahoma State Penitentiary Rodeo. In 2006, female inmates were allowed to participate for the first time. In a state with the highest female incarceration rate in the country, these women share common experiences such as broken homes, drug abuse and alienation from their children. Since 1940, the Oklahoma State Penitentiary has held an annual ‘Prison Rodeo’. Part Wild West show and part coliseum-esque spectacle; it’s one of the last of its kind - a relic of the American penal system. Prisoners compete on wild-broncs and bucking bulls, risking life-long injuries. For inmates like Danny Liles, a 14-year veteran of the rodeo, the chance to battle livestock offers a brief respite from prison life. Within this strange arena the prisoners become the heroes while the public and guards applaud. Director Bradley Beesley will be at the Tuesday screening.

The Room (8pm) & Birdemic: Shock & Terror (10pm) – October Friday 1 & Saturday 2, $7 each or $10 Double Feature

The Room (2003) back by popular demand! The unintentionally hilarious steaming pile of relationship drama that been hailed as Floor Plan 9 from Outer Space and without a doubt, the worst film ever made, including movies made on Betamax cameras in special education high school classes. Gag me with a plastic spoon! This will be followed by Birdemic: Shock & Terror (2008). Perhaps the most discussed and anticipated avian-based disaster film since The Birds, Birdemic is equal parts both epochal tale and cinematic warning shot. It tells the story of a couple unexpectedly and unforgettably caught in the eye of a feather-based storm an apocalyptic attack winging down from the skies in a twisted morass of feathers, talons and blood-soaked claws. Officially Rejected from Sundance 2009, it has to be seen to be believed!

Halloween (8pm) & Night of the Living Dead (10pm) – October Friday 8 & Saturday 9, $8 Double Feature

Halloween (1978) In the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois, a teenage baby sitter tries to survive a Halloween night of relentless terror, during which a knife-wielding maniac goes after the town's hormonally charged youths. Director John Carpenter takes this simple situation and orchestrates a superbly mounted symphony of horrors. It's a movie much scarier for its dark spaces and ominous camera movements than for its explicit bloodletting (which is actually minimal). Night of the Living Dead (1968). There's never been anything quite like George Romero’s original Zombie tour de force. The story is simple: Radiation from a fallen satellite has caused the dead to walk, and hunger for human flesh. Once bitten, you become one of them. And the only way to kill one is by a shot or blow to the head. We follow a group holed up in a small farmhouse who are trying to fend off the inevitable onslaught of the dead. Both films are presented in 35mm.

Cash Crop (8 & 10pm) – October Friday 8 & Saturday 9, $8

Cash Crop (2010) Undercover for a year and a half, musician and award-winning filmmaker Adam Ross, explores America’s #1 cash crop: marijuana. California is the world’s 6th largest economy. Marijuana is its largest cash crop: #1 in 12 states, in the top three in 30 states; an estimated $35 billion a year business. Cash Crop is filmed in high definition with an original soundtrack by the director. Take a West Coast adventure following the historic Spanish Camino Real up the coast, past the last mission outpost, to the heart of the American Dream: The famed Emerald Triangle. Beyond the pale of the church, vintners, brewers and growers, wrestle with the issues of freedom, self-government, entrepreneurship, greed and sustainability in the Golden State gone green. The feel good movie of the year.