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Movies
We Choose Flight
New Mexico Film Office head Amber Dodson announced last week the Dolph Lundgren/Michael Jai White film Fight or Flight recently wrapped up filming in Ruidoso. If you know those actors’ names, it’s likely because you, too, saw both Universal Soldier and Spawn at some point in the ‘90s. Fight or Flight is about an assassin who falls for a target and goes on the lam for love. For the record, if we were trying to hide from the world, we’d probably go to Ruidoso as well.
Chaco-licious
In broad strokes, Chaco Culture National Historical Park represents a swath of the American Southwest where Pueblo people lived for a couple thousand years, and to this day continues to offer mysteries for researchers, artists and visitors. If you’d like to know more, simply pop by the Center for Contemporary Arts (1050 Old Pecos Trail, (505) 982-1338) at 5 pm on Wednesday, June 12 or 5 and 6:30 pm on Thursday, June 14 for a $10-$13 screening of Written on the Landscape: Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon. The new doc (and third in the Chaco Canyon trilogy of films) focuses on the architecture of the area and, if you attend Thursday’s screening, producer Anna Sofaer will participate in a post-show Q&A. The screening is part of the CCA’s Mysteries of Chaco Canyon series, produced in conjunction with the consortium of archaeologists, archaeoastronomers, geodesists and remote sensing experts from the Solstice Project.
Rip and Tear
Hey, horror fans—if you’ve not been listening to the horror film-centric Splice and Splatter podcast from George “Royally Regal” Martin’s Highgarden Entertainment, you’re missing out. Full disclosure, co-host Siena Sofia Bergt is a former SFR employee, but they’re also a filmmaker and film lover with insights about the horror genre who co-hosts with Al LaFleur. Check out the recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre episode to see what’s what. It’s worth it.
It’s Dangerous to Go Alone! Take This!
Speaking of GRRM, his Beastly Books bookshop next door to Jean Cocteau Cinema hosts a series of events dedicated to The Legend of Zelda this week at which folks can swing by the bookshop during normal hours to play the legendary (pun very much intended) game via literal NES consoles. This precedes the 7 pm, Saturday, June 15 screening at the Jean Cocteau Cinema (418 Monteuma Ave., (505) 466-5528) of the documentary Break the Game from filmmaker Jane M. Wagner ‚about gamer/streamer Narcissa Wright’s love affair with all things Zelda and the challenge in coming out as trans. The theater also hosts a live speedrun of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild following the screening, and if those words don’t mean anything to you, that’s fine—they’re not for you, then.
Speaking of Speed...
Meanwhile, across the Railyard at Violet Crown Cinema, find two more screenings of the much-ballyhooed 1998 film Run Lola Run from director Tom Twyker (1:30 and 8:45 pm Thursday, June 13. $14-$16. 1606 Alcaldesa St., (505) 216-5678). It’s a complicated movie to be sure, but might best be described as a thought experiment positing that even the slightest derivation in time (and we’re talking literal seconds sometimes) might change everything in the course of a day or life. Fun fact? Star Franke Potente would go on to star in 2002 film The Bourne Identity, a franchise famously ruined later by Jeremy Renner and Julia Stiles.
