Deacon's Monday kicks off the new series Cinema Lounge at Basic Urban Kitchen+Bar (Flagpop)
Sushi Performance and Visual Art kicks off its new Cinema Lounge series. According to their press release, The Cinema Lounge series "screens unique and challenging films for local audiences in an informal atmosphere that provokes thought, dialogue, and inspiration. Cinema Lounge is more than movie-going. It is film, emerging directors, local music, visual art, food, and fun." Sushi will be partnering with Citizen Video and the UCSD Media Center to present the series on the last Tuesday of the following months: January 29, February 26, and March 25 at 7pm. The Cinema Lounge series takes place at Basic Urban Kitchen & Bar , 410 Tenth Avenue at J Street downtown. The series begins by highlighting a pair of very talented local filmmakers, Lowell Frank and Destin Daniel Cretton. Their short film Deacon's Monday will screen January 29.
I have been fans of Lowell and Destin since I showed their short film Longbranch at my 2002 Film School Confidential: A Showcase of San Diego and Tijuana Filmmakers . Even back then, as SDSU student filmmakers, they displayed a fine sense of craft. So Frank and Cretton are filmmakers that I have had the pleasure of watching grow and mature over the years. Their films reveal a meticulous sense of detail and production design, and their films surprise us with their ability to create images that seem to far exceed their limited budgets. In Deacon's Monday , the titular Deacon lives in a fantastical world of snowing feathers, hailing golf balls and incredible guilt. Through an unlikely friendship with an elderly woman, he comes face to face with his own humanness and learns that he is not alone. Deacon's Mondays combines a literary quality in its voice over narrative combined with a striking visual sensibility. The film also features an original score by San Diego singer/songwriter Greg Laswell. It was shot on Super 16mm.
I also highly recommend checking out Drakmar: A Vassal's Journey , their feature documentary that aired last year on HBO Family. This portrait of an appealingly obsessed teen who's into medieval re-enactments starts out as one thing and slyly and gracefully twists and turns into something much richer and deeper than you expected. Drakmar just came out on DVD with bonus features that include deleted scenes, a video update of Colin (the young vassal), an extended war documentary, and Q&A with Colin after the first screening of teh film at Point Loma Nazarene University. According to Cretton, "$5 of every purchase is going toward Colin Taylor's college fund. Right now he's interested in becoming a teacher."
You can also check out the filmmakers' website, Flagpop .
So support young filmmakers and some experimental local programming by checking out the Cinema Lounge Series.
