Atlanta has become a city where film lovers can leave their homes and check out a different classic, indie, camp or international film nearly every night of the week. Like the best streaming platform curated by a legion of devoted locavore film fans, the combination of film festivals, independent theaters and micro cinemas may make this fall the best time ever to be a cineast in the city.
WussyVision. The kitsch film lovers at Wussy magazine have created their own film series at the Plaza Theatre just in time for the witching season. They present a series of campy horror films, many with female leads, that are the cinematic equivalent of a sugary treat, including “Scary Movie” and “Hocus Pocus.” Also on the lineup: the 2009 horror comedy “Jennifer’s Body” directed by Sundance Film Festival award winner Karyn Kusama and written by Diablo Cody. Megan Fox plays a high school student whose demon possession inspires a killing spree in this campy number featuring a stellar cast including J.K. Simmons and comic legend Amy Sedaris. WussyVision gilds the lily with drag queens, costume contests and drink specials.
Sept. 10-Oct. 31 Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce de Leon Ave. NE, Atlanta. 470-410-1939, plazaatlanta.com
“The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Goth director Tim Burton’s mad mashup of Christmas and Halloween, “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” screens as part of the Off the Wall series, a free outdoor screening series that projects films onto the 725 Ponce de Leon Ave. building billed as the largest screen in the Southeast. The stop-motion animated musical concerns the King of Halloween Town’s hostile takeover of Christmas Town. Paul Reubens and Catherine O’Hara are among the voice talent in this charming fable. In addition, Burton’s 1990 classic “Edward Scissorhands,” featuring a baby-faced Johnny Depp, shows at the Plaza Theatre Dec. 7.
Oct 29. Off the Wall, 725 Ponce de Leon Ave. NE, on the Beltline’s Eastside Trail, Atlanta. offthewall725.com
Credit: Off the Wall
Credit: Off the Wall
Revenge triple feature. The Atlanta Film Freak Society presents a dish best served cold with a trio of lowbrow revenge films. They include “Death Wish V: The Face of Death” (1994), “Mr. No Legs” (1978), about a wheelchair-riding mob enforcer, and “Vigilante” (1982), a classic revenge movie knockoff, taking its lead (and plot) from “Death Wish” in what Slant magazine called a “rambunctious mess of a film.” After his wife and son are attacked by a street gang and the justice system fails him, a New York City regular guy (Robert Forster) enlists a dream team of working-class buddies to take matters into their own hands and dispatch the baddies tout de suite.
Sept. 6, Limelight Theater, Pencil Factory Flats, 349 Decatur St. SE, Suite L, Atlanta. @atl_film_freak_society on Instagram.
Hong Kong classics. When a new generation of Hong Kong films — far different from the kung-fu action films of the 1970s — began to arrive on American shores in the 1980s, film fans lost their minds. These charming, audacious, fisticuffs-packed movies brought a fresh attitude to the action film. This fall Plaza Theatre and the Tara team up with Videodrome for a comprehensive series of some of the best Hong Kong New Wave films including “City on Fire” (newly restored), “Hard Boiled” (also restored), “A Chinese Ghost Story,” “A Chinese Ghost Story 2,” “The Killer,” “A Better Tomorrow,” “A Better Tomorrow 2,” “Bullet in the Head” and “Peking Opera Blues.”
Sept. 12-Oct. 17. Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce de Leon Ave. NE, Atlanta, 470-410-1939, plazaatlanta.com. The Tara, 2345 Cheshire Bridge Road NE, Atlanta. 470-567-1968, taraatlanta.com
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