Magnet Audio Visual Society
Various respected members of our community host historical presentations of the filmic or televised sort, for your cultural edification and comic and artistic inspiration.

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Sunday, November 20 at 9:30 (after AMPERS&ND)

8 1/2 (1963)

by Federico Fellini

Presented by Shannon Manning

As a boy of 12, Fellini ran off to join the circus and worked as a clown. He tried to go home again and live a normal life, but he was bit. At 17 he ran off with a vaudeville troupe, writing comedy sketches, and later wrote for humor magazines and radio, was a cartoonist and street caricaturist, and even spent time bootlegging American comics which had been outlawed by Mussolini. Don't be intimidated by his genius, he was one of us!

8 1/2 is an autobiographical film is about a director riding high off of his last success (for Fellini, La Dolce Vita) but with a creative block and beseiged by pressures from those around him to find the story for the film that has already started production, this film, his "8th and a half" film. Generally cited as revolutionary in its presentation of the psychology of the individual from a subjective point of view, this film has been the inspiration for (and quoted in) everything from The Newsroom to most of Woody Allen and I bet even The Family Guy.

I love so many Fellini films for so many different reasons, but I picked this one for the way the themes and his techniques relate to improv. For starters, how we use our experiences, our memories, our dreams in the creative process, and our struggle to find meaning, to find something worth saying. How we can take all the creative baggage of our lives and use it, all of it, to create something from nothing, mostly just by faking it, faking to discover truth. We've all done shows that we've said we're Felliniesque, but that means more than surreal clown dreamscapes. But don't worry, there are clowns, too! There are always clowns. And the music!

Fellini had a sign taped to the camera during filming that said, "Remember, this is a comedy." It's also a serious and beautiful exploration of creativity, love, and truth.

FREE

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Sunday, November 13 at 9:30 (after AMPERS&ND)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

from IMDB.com:

Showing events from the point of view of two minor characters from Hamlet, men who have no control over their destiny, this film examines fate and asks if we can ever really know what's going on? Are answers as important as the questions? Will Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (or Guildenstern and Rosencrantz) manage to discover the source of Hamlet's malaise as requested by the new king? Will the mysterious players who are strolling around the castle reveal the secrets they evidently know? And whose serve is it?

Written and Directed by Tom Stoppard
Introduced with a dumbshow* by Alex Marino
Come see the film based on the play that made me want to write.
And see Tim Roth and Gary Oldman in a hilarious, brilliant movie with Richard Dreyfus.
And don't pay any money, because it's FREE
We want you to see it that badly.

*"makes the action that follows more or less comprehensible."

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Sunday, October 30 at 9:30 (after AMPERS&ND)

SHAUN OF THE DEAD

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Sunday, October 23rd at 9:30 (after AMPERS&ND)

WITHNAIL & I

London: 1969. Two down-on-their-luck actors (Withnail and Marwood) find solace in drink and other substances. Seeking respite from their uneventful lives they escape up north to Penrith to Withnail's uncle's stone cottage.Director Bruce Robinson says: This film is evidence that you don't need a good plot to have a good film.

Host Alex Marino says: This film exemplefies all of the things we strive for in improv:
-Comedy derived from characters' relationships with eachother and with their environments.
-A story that develops moment to moment to moment as opposed to plots forced out of machinations.
-and so forth
I'll refrain from saying much more for now.
As always, the show is FREE, so you lose nothing... but gain much from having attended.

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Sunday, October 9th at 9:30 (after AMPERS&ND)

FUNNY BONES

Funny Bones, directed by Peter Chelsom (Hear My Song), is a weird but intriguing comedy with a particularly dark edge. Oliver Platt plays a would-be comedian, the son of a major comedy star (Jerry Lewis); Dad's reputation even overshadows his son's Las Vegas debut. After that flop the son tries to go back to his roots and heads for his father's launch pad in Blackpool, England.

Presented by Jed Resnik, who has this to say:

although he has no authority to make that claim.

"Funny Bones" will be shown at 9:30 this Sunday the 9th (after Ampers&nd).
Admission is Free!

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Sunday September 25th at 9:30 (after AMPERS&ND)

Fishing with John

Originally produced for the Independent Film Channel in the early 1990's, John Lurie's idiosyncratic take on the classical fishing program places the genre in entirely alien terrain. A famous actor and musician, John Lurie appeared in Stranger Than Paradise and The Last Temptation of Christ and played lead saxophone for the No Wave jazz group the Lounge Lizards. For six short episodes, however, he became a fisherman, leading his famous friends on fishing adventures around the world.

We're going to be showing three episodes:
Willem Dafoe – Ice Fishing in Maine
Jim Jarmusch – Shark Fishing off Montauk
and, either of:
Tom Waits – Jamaican Fishing Excursion OR Dennis Hopper – Hunt for the Giant Squid
With introduction by Zach Tabacco

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Sunday September 18th at 9:30 (after AMPERS&ND)

Freaks and Geeks

With introduction by Alex Marino

Three essential episodes from a very important series.

The 1999-2000 academic year saw the premier and brutal cancellation of one of the most celebrated series introduced in the last decade. The show was pulled, shuffled and relaunched into three different time slots over the course of its one season barely on television—despite unanimously and overwhelmingly positive reviews, “Freaks and Geeks” only aired on a total of 12 dates for the whole 26-week season and was summarily canned. Nevertheless, a strikingly avid following of deeply devoted fans organized. They petitioned NBC, wrote to the show’s sponsors, bought full-page ads in Variety urging other networks to pick it up, and eventually took up the effort to see the show's otherwise unlikely release on DVD. It is because of them that the Magnet Audio Visual Society is able to share with you three episodes of a show that inspired our views of comedy and of television.

What's the improv connection? Why there are many, but specifically, SCTV's Joe Flaherty as Mr. Weir.

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Sunday September 11th at 9:30

The President's Analyst

The President's Analyst by Compass Player Theodore Flicker. Shannon Manning helps you discover or rediscover the film Del Close would never shut up about, and the comic genius that was Severn Darden.