Film Comment Selects Announces Solid Genre Line-Up

OPENING NIGHT!
HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN
Jason Eisener, 2011, Canada/U.S.; 86m
Jason Eisener now appearing with the film!
The winner of the Rodriguez/Tarantino Grindhouse fake-trailer contest, Hobo with a Shotgun has now been expanded to a hilariously warped feature-length smut homage, presented in glorious Technicolor. A quiet hobo (the kick-ass Rutger Hauer) who dreams of starting a lawn-mowing business finds himself in a toilet of a city, infested with slimy critters and ruled by a sicko gang lord and his two obnoxious sons, who get off-sometimes literally-on inflicting, and receiving, pain. Before long, Mr. Hobo steps in, “delivering justice one shell at a time”! In addition to this super-awesome tagline, the film itself also delivers shocks and gore galore, ridiculously quotable dialogue, and all-around demented fun.
Friday, February 18 at 11:00PM

CLOSING NIGHT FILMS!
BURKE AND HARE
John Landis, 2010, UK; 91m
Followed by a Q&A with John Landis!
Thirty years after An American Werewolf in London, John Landis returns to the UK with a black comedy set in 19th-century Edinburgh. After discovering a booming market for medical cadavers, two bumbling Irish hucksters (Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis) turn to grave-robbing and, before long, murder. Grisly, farcical fun, featuring a who’s who of British comedians and appearances from Tim Curry and Christopher Lee.
Thursday, March 3 at 6:15PM

INSIDIOUS
James Wan, 2010, USA; 97m
Followed by a Q&A with James Wan!
“In this super-scary reinvention of the haunted-house genre, Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne play a couple who move into a new house; soon enough things go bump in the night, apparitions appear, and their son falls into a mysterious coma. Finally the family decamps-but it’s only once they move into their new home that things get really frightening. One of the rules Wan (director of the original Saw) and writer Leigh Whannell set for themselves was that there would be no false scares. They never break that rule, and if that’s music to your ears, this is a must-see.”-Gavin Smith, Film Comment
Thursday, March 3 at 8:45PM

SUBWAY CINEMA CO-PRESENTATIONS
Film Comment’s editors and the programmers of the New York Asian Film Festival (returning this July to the Walter Reade) team up for three thrill-packed, blood-soaked appetizers…

COLD FISH
Sion Sono, 2010, Japan; 144m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY)
Co-Presented by Subway Cinema
“Cold Fish is two-and-a-half hours of full throttle hysteria, splattered in eye-gougingly garish hues. Shamoto, the mild-mannered proprietor of a tropical fish store, finds himself and his family drawn into the orbit of a jovial fellow fish dealer named Murata, a serial killer who gleefully slaughters their business competitors and disposes of their remains…Beneath the film’s copious helping of blood, bones, and innards lies a post-economic bubble ero guro parable about the ordinary fascism of contemporary Japan’s middle class.”-Olaf Möller, Film Comment, November/December 2010
Thursday, February 24 at 8:00PM
Tuesday, March 1 at 8:45PM

I SAW THE DEVIL
Kim Ji-woon, 2010, South Korea; 141m
Co-Presented by Subway Cinema
Giving new meaning to catch-and-release, a secret agent searches for the serial wacko who murdered his fiancée and takes a very special form of vengeance. The twisty, gruesome new thriller by the director of The Good, the Bad, the Weird was initially banned in South Korea for its meticulous attention to bloody detail. Marked by Kim’s agile set pieces, and a sustained mood of encroaching darkness, it stars Lee Byung-hun (The Good, the Bad, the Weird) and Choi Min-sik (Oldboy). Also: don’t miss the six-film Kim Ji-woon retrospective at BAMcinematek, February 25 to March 2!
Sunday, February 20 at 1:00PM