Screen Gems

So many things are happening in the film world ’round here, and I’ve been so busy I haven’t been able to get the word out on a lot of them. First of all, the new year has brought about changes to the theater scene in Little Rock. Sadly, Riverdale closed its doors months ago - a loss of a 10-screen venue close to downtown. Luckily a new theater has sprung up in the downtown River Market District, the Ron Robinson Theater, which operates under the auspices of the Central Arkansas Library System. The venue will be used for a variety of performance arts, in addition to film screenings. One such event happening lately is the Gathr Preview Series, a pre-theatrical screening series of independent films, with a post-screening discussion handled by this newspaper’s movie critic, Philip Martin.

These series kicked off with the bold and authentic documentary, 12 O’Clock Boys, which screened at the 2013 Little Rock Film Festival to rave reviews. That film was followed by Adult World, starring Emma Roberts and John Cusack (who recently had an interesting AMA Ask Me Anything on reddit.com), and by Next Goal Wins, a heartwarming documentary about the supposed “worst football (read soccer) team” on earth - American Samoa - looking for its first ever competitive win. On Wednesday, they’re showing Andrew Mudge’s The Forgotten Kingdom, an award-winning narrative feature set in rural South Afirca. The screening starts at 7 p.m. followed by the Q and A. Tickets are $10 at the door, but you can save by signing up for a monthly subscription service at gathr.us/series/little-rock-previews.

Another event happening at the Ron Robinson Theater is an encore screening of Jug Face, one of the favorites from last year’s Little Rock Horror Picture Show. It will be held today at 6 p.m. Jug Face won Best Picture at the LRHPS last year and stars the always great Sean Bridgers of Deadwood fame. The film, inspired by a trip to a folk pottery museum in Georgia, is about a pregnant teen trying to escape a backwoods community before - she fears - being sacrificed to a pit creature. The screening is free and the director, Chad Crawford Kinkle, will answer questions. There will also be an art auction before the screening, with proceeds funding the horror festival. Tickets for the third annual Little Rock Horror Picture Show (March 20-23) are on sale at tinyurl.com/kozej85.

Levi Agee is a filmmaker and a programmer for the Little Rock Film Festival.Write him at [email protected].

MovieStyle, Pages 36 on 02/21/2014

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