Thursday, September 25 - Sid & Nancy (1986)
Friday, September 26 - The Searchers 2.0 (2007)
Saturday, September 27 - Walker (1987)
Sunday, September 28 - Straight to Hell (1987)

Writer-director Alex Cox made his auspicious debut with 1984's Repo Man, an influential, punk-spirited science-fiction comedy about speed-addled repo men and alien conspiracies that has become a justly revered cult classic. Cox's next film, 1986's Sid & Nancy, was another punk masterpiece, a biopic of doomed Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and lover Nancy Spungen that seethed with dark energy. Sid & Nancy made Cox a commodity, but his next two films--the Buñuel-inspired spaghetti western spoof Straight To Hell and Walker, a stridently political attack on U.S. policies in Central America--ensured that he would remain a perpetual outsider, an iconoclast pursuing his own anarchic vision.

Alex Cox will premiere Searchers 2.0 Friday, September 26 at Bijou Arts Cinemas

Sid and Nancy, originally titled Love Kills, emerged during a period of renewed fascination in the life of the Sex Pistols member Sid Vicious. It stars Gary Oldman as Vicious and Chloe Webb as his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. The movie is largely based on their mutually destructive, drug-and-sex filled relationship.

Searchers 2.0 is a insightful political satire and an homage to the unforgettable Westerns of Leone and Ford. Two actors who spent their careers in American westerns discover that legendary screenwriter Fritz Frobisher is appearing at a special screening in Utah’s Monument Valley, they decide to take a road trip from L.A. to the legendary site of John Ford’s westerns. Their purpose is to seek revenge on the screenwriter for mistreating them as children on the film set of Buffalo Bill vs. Doc Holliday. Ultimately, the fate of everyone depends on their knowledge of the maestro, Sergio Leone.

Walker is an acid western based on the life story of William Walker (Ed Harris), the American adventurer who invaded Mexico in the 1850s and made himself President of Nicaragua shortly thereafter. It was written by Rudy Wurlitzer and scored by Joe Strummer, who also plays a small role as a member of Walker's army. The film, released in 1987 and which by the end is intentionally full of anachronisms such as helicopters, Zippo lighters, automatic rifles, and a car passing a horse carriage, was made in Nicaragua during the American-sponsored Contra War.

Straight to Hell is a action-comedy film, featuring Sy Richardson, Joe Strummer, Courtney Love, Dick Rude, Dennis Hopper, Elvis Costello, Xander Berkeley, Jim Jarmusch, Edward Tudor-Pole, Jennifer Balgobin, and members of The Pogues, Amazulu and The Circle Jerks. Its tagline is: "A story of blood, money, guns, coffee, and sexual tension." Often viewed as a parody of Spaghetti Westerns, it is really more of an homage.

In addition, Alex Cox will be releasing a 304 page book, X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker. The book examines his craft and influences, as well as providing his insights into many of his favorite films. In addition to being a captivating look into Cox's process, this book also encourages and instructs would-be independent filmmakers, guiding the next generation of film pioneers through the arduous journey of creation. Cox weaves his own "confessions" with his notes to the new guard, including thoughts on new forms of digital distribution and his radical views on intellectual property — the result is a readable, startling treatise on both the film innovations of today and the thrilling potential of future filmmaking. The book will be available for signing Friday night prior to the feature.

Fall Term Events are in the Works. Here are some dates to save to your calendar!

Friday, September 26
Annual Intermingle Event
EMU - Free
A night of music, dance, food, comedy, mechanical games, karaoke, and more! Events held outside and inside of the EMU until 1 am. 

Friday, October 3 at 8 pm
KAL: Gypsy Sound and Fury
EMU Ballroom: $6, $12

Kal, a young Romani (Gypsy) band whose self-titled album topped the European world music charts in April 2006, will be making its second tour of the United States in September/October 2008. Playing music from Bosnia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and their home base in Serbia, the 7-piece band features a “dynamic blend of traditional instruments, rock-n-roll in attitude, fuelled on dance beats and rooted in the Balkan blues. 

Saturday, October 4 at 7 pm
Fall Kick-Off Concert with Rogue Wave
Memorial Quad Lawn - Free

Join us and kick off the fall term with Rogue Wave, Greenlander, and The Daveys.

Saturday, October 11
UO Homecoming
Various Events and Locations

A weekend of homecoming events are being planned – check in for updates at http://www.uoalumni.com/events/

Thursday, October 16 at 7:30 pm
KRONOS Quartet
EMU Ballroom: $15-$30

For more than 30 years, the Kronos Quartet—David Harrington, John Sherba (violins), Hank Dutt (viola) and Jeffrey Zeigler (cello)—has pursued a singular artistic vision, combining a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to expanding the range and context of the string quartet. In the process, Kronos has become one of the most celebrated and influential groups of our time, performing thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 40 recordings of extraordinary breadth and creativity, collaborating with many of the world's most eclectic composers and performers, and commissioning hundreds of works and arrangements for string quartet. Kronos' work has also garnered numerous awards, including a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance (2004) and "Musicians of the Year" (2003) from Musical America.

Saturday, November 1 – Wednesday, November 5
Repertory Dance Theater
A week of modern dance performance and residency

"The REPERTORY DANCE THEATRE, which is based in Salt Lake City, is one of the liveliest and most imaginative modern dance troupes in the world." Clive Barnes, New York Post. RDT is the oldest and most successful company of its kind, a living museum representing one hundred years of dance history, preserving the largest and most significant collection of American dance in the world. RDT acquires classic works by significant twentieth century choreographers. From the legendary Isadora Duncan and Doris Humphrey to the revolutionary Merce Cunningham and Laura Dean, RDT is a contemporary gallery representing the scope and diversity of modern dance past and present. They will bring the best in American Choreography to campus and Eugene.
More information coming soon!

Saturday, November 22 – Sunday, November 23
The fourth annual emuLAN
EMU Ballroom: 24 hours, 200 players

We are working with OSU to create a civil war tournament. Stay posted and join the forum at http://emulan.uoregon.edu/

Friday, December 5 at 8 pm
Condom Fashion Show
EMU Ballroom

For World AIDS Day 2007, we had our first condom fashion show with fabulous wearable fashion made from condoms. We are doing it again for 2008 – so start designing. More information and condom pick up in the fall.

MORE EVENTS WILL BE ADDED! 

Drop by the EMU for an evening of pool ping pong, snacks ice cream, tie-dye, henna tattoos, dance exhibitions, comedy, karaoke, local bands, DJs, prizes, food and more at this year's welcome-back-to-school event.

Don Hertzfeldt is one of few independent filmmakers who could be considered a true auteur. It is not unusual for him to single-handedly write, direct, produce, animate, photograph, edit, record and mix sound, and/or compose music for one of his films, at times requiring years to complete a single short. The animation alone for one of his films may often require tens of thousands of drawings.

Hertzfeldt's films often feature hand-drawn stick figures acting out combinations of slapstick, absurd, and black humor along with heavier existential themes. Hertzfeldt creates his films with traditional pen and paper animation without the aid of computers. He uses 16mm or 35mm film cameras to photograph his artwork and often employs old-fashioned special effect techniques such as multiple exposures, in-camera mattes, and experimental photography. This lends an organic, handcrafted feel to his work that permeates everything with an atmosphere familiar to classic silent and experimental films. While some of these techniques are as traditional as an occasional stop-motion animation sequence or a universe of moving stars created by back-lit pin holes, other effects are new innovations on classical methods, as seen with the rippling paper and pencils becoming a part of the visuals, or the screen itself dividing and erupting into separately moving windows of action.

Since 1999, Hertzfeldt has photographed all his films on an antique 35mm Richardson animation camera stand, believed to be the same camera that photographed many of the early Peanuts cartoons in the 1960s and 70's. It is reportedly one of the last remaining functioning cameras of its kind left in America (if not the world), and Hertzfeldt finds it to be a crucial element in the creation of his films and their unique visuals.

In 1998, at the age of 21, Hertzfeldt was nominated for the Short Film Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Billy's Balloon, where he was the youngest director in competition.

In 2000, at the age of 23, Hertzfeldt was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film for his fifth major film, Rejected.

Hertzfeldt's most recently completed film, Everything Will Be OK won the Jury Award for Short Filmmaking at the Sundance Film Festival, the Lawrence Kasdan Award for Best Narrative Film at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Grand Prize at the London Animation Festival, and 34 other awards. Also, Hertzfeldt accepted an invitation from the George Eastman House's motion picture archives to indefinitely store and preserve the historically important original film elements and camera negatives to his collected work from 1995-2005.

Collectively, Hertzfeldt's work has received over one hundred and thirty film festival awards. A list of individual awards for each film can be viewed on his website.

www.bitterfilms.com

I am so proud of you, the second chapter of Everything Will Be OK, is due to premiere at Bijou Arts Cinemas on October 3, 2008, with a third and presumably final chapter of the trilogy to follow.

Kick off the fall term with a FREE outdoor concert on the Memorial Quad with Rogue Wave, Greenlander and The Daveys.
 

ROGUE WAVE VIDEO