This is the current production equipment for The Underground Multiplex
by Legendary Lew
The Underground Multiplex is currently running a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for future programming.
We have a major need for a new laptop/PC; a 4T external hard drive (for achiving our videos and podcasts); and professional grade headphones for “Mediatrocities” podcasts.
All totaled, we came up with the modest sum of $820.00, an amount we hope to be able to receive by December 1st. The sooner we reach the goal, the sooner we can buy the equipment needed to continue our programming smoothly.
The picture you see above is my production equipment for The Underground Multiplex. No joke. I’ve been using a tablet with a broken interface for over a year now.
Any posts, podcasts, memes, etc. from The Underground Multiplex have come from this. In case you’re wondering, yes, I do use a magnifying glass to read my writing.
Over the last 6 years, we’ve been able to accomplish a great deal and to get some much needed attention for vital independent artists and venues. Here’s just a short list:
We first reported the crisis for The Portage Theater with our post, “Save the Portage Theater,” which was shared by Roger Ebert on Twitter.
Plus, we’ve recorded numerous episodes of “Mediatrocities,” our own podcast covering directors and other prominent figures in the independent movie scene.
We’ve had award-winning short films and features, such as Scumbabies and Sci Fi Sol shown in multiple cities and festivals such as CIMMFest.
We believe we have great ideas for indie programming in the future, plus I have every intention of continuing “Mediatrocities,” as I am committed to having indie film artists share their works and get a voice heard. In the ocean of the Hollywood’s publicity efforts, our indie voices are vitally important.
AS A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO DONATE, TUGM WILL PRODUCE A SPECIAL EDITION OF “VITAL MEDIA” AFTER THE CAMPAIGN, AVAILABLE IN PASSWORD-PROTECTED FORM . ONLY THOSE CONTRIBUTING TO THE CAMPAIGN WILL BE ABLE TO VIEW THIS SPECIAL THANK YOU EPISODE.
Thank you for your support! And keep tuning in!
GoFundMe link: click here.
Ben Hicks, co-founder of Fandependent Films, joins me in the latest podcast to talk about his site, the state of independent films and whether it’s possible to have cottage industries of film.
Check out Fandependent Films, where you can watch a brand new movie every day and become a fan of your favorite ones. Becoming a fan supports the site and the filmmakers.
Listen to the podcast:
Ben Hicks (l) of Fandenpendent Films with Legendary Lew
Joseph R. Lewis’ award-winning feature, Scumbabies, is on Fandependent Films to view for free. If you have not yet seen this film, I daresay do so.
Oh, okay I’ll admit it. In the interests of disclosure, Scumbabies is a production of The Underground Multiplex.
However, the website hosting the feature currently (Fandependent Films) is run by Ben Hicks and Jerry Tran, two filmmakers who respect the hard work and artistry of other filmmakers who struggle with tiny budgets and few venues to display their works properly.
Their current Winter 2016 Film Festival is on with Scumbabies competing against a number of other films to vie for permanent collection status at Fandependent. Please head on over and become a fan of Scumbabies. Help us win an Audience Award. There are only 20 days from this writing to do so!
Exactly a year ago, I programmed the summertime Facets Night School midnight lecture and movie series at Facets Multimedia. At the time, Facets had gained some stiff competition from local theaters wanting to expand their viewership into the midnight hours.
Although, a number of the other theaters provided some good fare, I think we were ahead of the curve. I wanted to show movies not shown elsewhere, taking the advice of an old high school tennis coach, “hit the ball where they ain’t.” Insisting that the proposed movies and lectures “either question the sanity of the filmmaker or the viewer,” The Underground Multiplex and Facets were lucky to have this great schedule hosted by very talented and knowledgeable film geeks.
My many thanks go out to The Chicago Reader and those who helped gain this award: Chris Damen, Bruce Neal, Dominick Mayer, Katie Rife, Jef Burnham, Michael Smith, Tyler Pistorius, Ron Degrauwe, Brian Elza, Jason Coffman, Peter Damm, Drew Francisco, Nate Wells, Dee Materis, Lauren Whalen. Special thanks to Facets and especially Phil Morehart and Susan Doll for the inspiration of Night School. And, of course, the fantastic Joseph R. Lewis for his awesome brilliance.
Director Mike Gibisser presented his quietly disquieting movie FINALLY, LILLIAN & DAN in person at our Brain Kitchen Theatre last Friday night.
A gourmet BBQ was catered for us by Grillmaster MXMI, who also shared his tales of dangerous battles with mythic sea creatures. Laura Zinger (Director, ‘Proceed and Be Bold!‘) impressed all in attendance when she summoned a cloud of moths from a spigot. Once bellies were full and potions had been drank, We, the Mighty Beings of the Kingdom of Nawizopaati, ascended to the Brain Kitchen Theatre and partook in a screening/ancient sweatbox ritual meant to induce illumination.
Fevers, vomiting, impatience, and eventually, Nirvana ensued.
As a prelude to our feature, we were proud to screen Episode One of the Four Eyed Monsters Podcast, by Arin Crumley and Susan Buice. For those unfamiliar with Four-Eyed Monsters and it’s historic significance in the albeit abbreviated history of independent online film distribution, do investigate further.
Tom Cruise (on top of the world’s largest phallic structure located in Dubai) is one of the topics of Pod People #12
Joe Lewis and I made a visit to HeaveMedia‘s Pod People Podcast starring Dominick Mayer and Nico Lang. Click here to listen to us discuss the Scientology darling, how Hollywood underestimates women (again) and our “Sh!thouse Cinema Cirkus” currently playing summer 2012 at Facets Multimedia.
The long, hot summer is about to get hotter: karate-choppin’ babes in the Philippines, warped fetishistic twisted minds, sexy trans starlets, rubbery communist Godzilla ripoffs, futuristic warriors in loincloths, hypnotized frigid wives, wigged out anti-drug films and freaky Halloween parties! They’re all coming to Facets Multimedia for its famed Night School Series produced by The Underground Multiplex, Chicago’s own premiere promoters of live post-modern roadshow entertainment.
This exciting series, which The Underground Multiplex dubs “Sh!thouse CineCircus,” will be chock full of live music acts, comedy films, live radio show presentations, hypno-craziness and more! Each will be presented by witty and knowledgeable lecturers, who will school you in all manners of such topics as Filipino action film craziness, roadshow hucksterism, communist movie thievery, re-evaluating trash movies and much more!
June 23, 2012
Wonder Women and One-Armed Executioners: Filipino Action Exploitation Films of the 1970’s
Lew Ojeda presents Wonder Women Directed by Robert Vincent O’Neill, 1973
“Dr. Tsu is a hundred years ahead of her time and it is characteristic of human beings to resist progress.” – Sid Haig, Wonder Women
Get ready for an explosive ride into the “Wild East” with this action-packed, karate-chopping pseudo-feminist blaster presented on a RARE 35MM PRINT! It’s grind house mania galore as Nancy Kwan (“Flower Drum Song”) plays Dr. Tsu, an evil genius intent on stealing organs from healthy athletic male bods and transplanting them into old, rich shriveling ones. Ross Hagen is the heat-packin’, hard-punchin’ ladies man out to stop her fiendish plans. Lew Ojeda hacks through the jungle of jaw-dropping cinema exported from The Philippines in the 1970’s and tells how filmmakers, actors and crew members literally risked life, limb and arrest for their art. PLUS–as an added bonus, Ojeda’s lecture will be presented as part of a live podcast taping of “Cinematrocities” recorded in radio show format before the audience!
Lew Ojeda is the co-founder of The Underground Multiplex, host of “Cinematrocities” and a personal video consultant, copy writer and lecturer at Facets Multimedia. His film reviews and interviews have appeared in Shock Cinema, The Onion, The Empty Closet and Chicago Tribune. He’s jumped out of cakes, portrayed Mother Terminator and wielded an AK-47 during lectures for Eat the Rich, Lady Terminator, Fuego, The Boneyard and Sisters of No Mercy 3D among others.
June 30, 2012
Normal Love from Hell: The Innocence of Bettie Page and Alucarda
Bruce Neal presents a live musical mash-up of Normal Love and Bettie Page shorts and screens the full-length feature Alucarda aka Innocents from Hell.
Directed by Juan Lopez Moctezuma, 1977; Jack Smith, 1963; and Irving Klaw, 1955
Remix by Bruce Neal and Joseph R. Lewis
“I was never the girl next door.” – Bettie Page
Ever wonder what exploding nuns, Jack Smith and Bettie Page had in common? Find out with Bruce Neal and company as they take you on a head-tripping, mind-bending tour of visions from Normal Love (Jack Smith, 1963) and Bettie Page exploitation shorts (Irving Klaw, 1955). Bruce Neal will touch on the importance of these films to your subconscious and psyche. Then, take the trip through the recesses of your mind with the insane nunsploitation film Alucarda (Juan Lopez Moctezuma, 1977). Can you make it through to the other side? Free Alucarda, Jack Smith and Bettie Page trading cards for all attendees!
Bruce Neal is a projectionist at Facets and has worked in film, music, underground theater, performance art and stand-up comedy. He was creative and story consultant on Dream Havana, which won Best Documentary at the Chicago, Orlando and Lyon Latino Film Festivals. His previous Night School classes covered such films as Street Trash and God Told Me To. Bruce also co-created original soundtracks to A Page of Madness,Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages and The Fall of the House of Usher as a member of The Cursed Bird Ensemble (among many other aliases). Currently, he’s performing in the Death-Folk band Crippled Masters with fellow soundtrack alum Matt Silcock.
July 21, 2012
Myra Breckenridge and the Delirious, Gender-Bending Sexual Revolution of 1970 (Well, Kind Of)
Dominick Mayer presents Myra Breckinridge Directed by Michael Sarne, 1970
“My purpose in coming to Hollywood is the destruction of the American male in all its particulars.” – Raquel Welch, Myra Breckinridge
By the late ’60s, 20th Century Fox was verging on bankruptcy and flinging anything they could at the wall just to see what’d stick. Some of these films, whether classic (M*A*S*H) or classic for the wrong reasons (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls), live on in the cinematic lexicon as genuine legends. Forgotten, however, except in the most appreciative camp circles, is Myra Breckinridge, Michael Sarne’s 1970 disasterpiece about a trans woman (Raquel Welch) who’s followed around at all times by her invisible former male self (Rex Reed) as she invades a Hollywood acting school to spread the sexual revolution to its students. From the utter lunacy of the script to its infamous use of classic cinematic moments as trashy punchlines, and right through Mae West’s inexplicable, ghastly turn as a past-her-prime sexpot, Myra Breckinridge is camp of the dirtiest, most delicious kind. Facets Night School regular Dominick Mayer will talk about the sordid history of the film, and exactly how Gore Vidal’s beloved novel could yield a film so colossally misguided, and yet wildly hilarious and right in its shambling failures.
Dominick Mayer is a graduate student in Cinema Studies at DePaul University, the features editor and head film critic for HEAVEmedia and a contributing writer at In Our Words: A Salon for Queers & Co. He has previously lectured on The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Black Dynamite and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls for Facets Night School. He thinks Myra Breckinridge is quite spectacular, and says that with a mixture of well-warranted irony and genuine sincerity.
July 28, 2012
Of Lasers and Loincloths: Genre Hybridization in Yor, The Hunter from the Future
Jef Burnham presents Yor, The Hunter from the Future Directed by Antonio Margheriti, 1983
“We will need a lot more hemp before we’re through.” – Luciano Pigozzi, Yor, The Hunter from the Future
In 1983, Antonio Margheriti, maestro of the Italian genre film and Andy Warhol collaborator, wrote and directed the Italian-Turkish co-production, Yor, The Hunter from the Future. Yor stands as one of the single most bizarre and ambitious exercises in genre-blending in the history of cinema, a curious mash-up of science fiction and peplum sprinkled throughout with dinosaurs, mummies, and robots. The film stars cult action icon Reb Brown (of Space Mutiny and the 1979 Captain America TV movies) as the titular barbarian, a beefy, blonde, cave-ladies’ man prone to gleefully commit genocide at the drop of a hat. Follow Jef Burnham on a journey through the prehistoric future world of Yor as he explores the sole collaboration of cult legends Margheriti and Brown, and attempts to unravel the film’s myriad generic strands.
Jef Burnham is the Editor-in-Chief of FilmMonthly.com. He recently joined the part-time faculty of Columbia College Chicago’s Film & Video Department, and he currently studies media and cinema at DePaul University. His current media obsessions include Blaxploitation cinema and that rarest of televisual delicacies, the made-for-TV comic book movie.
August 11, 2012
It’s Exploitable!: The Ron Ormond Experience
Katie Rife presents Please Don’t Touch Me! Directed by Ron Ormond, 1963
“Due to the unusual subject of this motion picture, words cannot describe the contents.” “Who would be her mate…MAN OR BEAST?” – ad lines from Please Don’t Touch Me!
Though he’s not as famous as his contemporaries Herschell Gordon Lewis and Russ Meyer, Nashville B-movie king Ron Ormond belongs beside them in the pantheon of exploitation greats, and he’s finally getting his due at Facets Night School. Ormond, along with his brother Tim and wife June, ruled the Southern roadshow circuit in the late 1950s, peddling films like Untamed Mistress (1957) and Please Don’t Touch Me! (1959) to ragtag crowds at local carnivals and drive-ins. Katie Rife presents an appreciation of this sleaze icon, whose life and career reflect a surreal and uniquely Southern blend of Saturday night and Sunday morning.
Every Ormond picture has a hook, and Night School will screen the feverish, forgotten Ormond classic Please Don’t Touch Me!, a “Freudian study in sexual repression,” in its original roadshow format. Anti-frigidity expert and super speedy hypnotist Dr. E. Wrekshen will address the audience with a nurse on standby for those with weak constitutions.
Katie Rife is a Chicago-based writer and filmmaker who has written for outlets as diverse as the Palm Springs International Film Festival and MrSkin.com. She is a founding member of the found footage video collective Everything is Terrible! and has presented four midnight movies for Facets Night School. Her first book, the film guideIf You Like Quentin Tarantino…, is due in the winter of 2012/2013 from Backbeat Books.
August 18, 2012
Oh, No, There Goes North Korea: Go go, Pulgasari and North Korean Cinema
Chris Damen presents Pulgasari (AKA: Zombi 34, The Communist Bull Monster)
Directed by Sang-ok Shin, 1985
“Everyone, as long as Pulgasari is with us, our victory is assured!” – from Pulgasari
A special message delivered posthumously from Kim Jong Il:
Greetings, dear comrades in Bang Bang City! This is your supreme leader speaking to you from glorious gold-plated tomb. You are invited to my movie masterpiece Pulgasari and inspiring people’s lecture by my best friend Christopher Damen. Pulgasari is REAL Godzilla! Like Hollywood real. Japanese Godzilla not real! Japanese Godzilla is brainwashing lie from evil bank swine! Cabinet of Democracy has informed me that lies are spreading about me kidnapping capitalist pig director and forcing him to make movie. Lies! Your loving daddy leader will prove this with happy guards present during movie. You will watch and enjoy! You see! Other best friend, Minister of Foreign Entertainment, will beam smiling happy message to you, my friends in Bang Bang City. Magnificent film presented in royal mother tongue with little American words written on bottom. You read! You like!
Chris Damen is a struggling local stand-up comic who loves to travel. He’s been to 14 countries and plans a visit to other distant lands to do comedy. Besides stand-up, Chris is a huge film nerd, which comes in handy in Facets Rentals, where Chris is the comanager of the department. Chris has presented five times before at Night School, including presentations for the films Pusher, Barfly, Nekromantik and Team America: World Police.
August 25, 2012
Midnight Overdose: The Scumbabies File Release Party! A Special Presentation from Joseph R. Lewis and The Underground Multiplex
Joseph R. Lewis presents Scumbabies Directed by Joseph R. Lewis, 2010
WINNER– Best Film, Harrisburg Artsfest 2010
A Chicago Theatrical Premiere and Party!
“…it’s what would happen if John Waters and David Lynch dropped acid and ran away to join the circus together. It’s a vivid, beautiful nightmare, inhabiting a world of absolute freedom Lewis wants to live in and attempts to create every day with his work. “– Alex Baumgardner on Scumbabies
The Underground Multiplex presents a prescription of craziness, fun and follies. First, tickle your brain with an antique anti-drug propaganda mash-up and accompanying lecture by esteemed Dr. Henry Famous of ASU (Altered States University). Behold a gallery of rare magical movie artifacts that can be yours…for a price! Then, Facets Night School is proud to present the Chicago theatrical premiere of the award-winning, psychedelic horror movie musical Scumbabies! Tru Hollywood plans a Halloween party, but strange people and events lead to head-tripping scenarios in this mix of avant-garde and exploitation films. The happiest horror picture ever!
Joseph
PRE-SCREENING PARTY!
Join our SUPERHERO DANCE PARTY from 7pm-11pm at Star Labs, 1400 N Bosworth. $5 cover includes admission to the midnight movie at Facets.
Craft Beer selection curated by Six Pack Roulette. Pre-order tix now at sixpackroulette.com and get: a mystery 6-pack of assorted craft beer, entry to party, AND entry to midnite movie! There will be individual craft beers for cheap and the option to get a six pack if you don’t pre-order, but quantities are limited.
Featuring a rare live performance by Captain Famous and the Dead Celebz at 10pm.
R. Lewis is the co-founder of The Underground Multiplex, a Chicago-based arts collective producing live theatrical events, Internet films and upcoming podcasts. Lewis has completed several features, including the award-winning Scumbabies, Tyler B Nice, and Sci-Fi SOL. Previous Facets Night School presentations include Killer Klowns from Outer Space and the debut of Sisters of No Mercy 3D.
Please note: there are no midnight screenings for July 7, July 14, & Aug 4. Yes, that means you can still go enjoy Pitchfork and Lollapalooza and still come to Facets and join the fun!
TUGM is a community-arts organization dedicated to locally-produced transmedia.
What is transmedia? We like to think of it as:
VIDZ PIX TXT TRAX.
We advocate for independent artists and content creators. We produce live events to strengthen the local arts community. We also organize our own original transmedia productions.
Based in Chicago.
Shy, Ill 4EVA
by Legendary Lew
by Legendary Lew
The Underground Multiplex 