Zwigoff Double Feature: Louie Bluie + Bad Santa

Terry Zwigoff IN PERSON: Q&A and Signing.

Terry Zwigoff returns to The Roxie with a double-feature that includes a film he and his neighborhood cinema have been heckling, cajoling, even daring one another for decades to get up on screen in the Mission District; his 1st cinematic effort, the 1985 Louie Bluie; a wry, ribald, & magical portrait of the country-blues string band player and irrepressible raconteur Howard Armstrong (a.k.a. Louie Bluie), paired with the ‘Director’s Cut” of a perennial cult favorite, the nasty as it wants to be, Bad Santa. Terry in person to talk us through why these two, and why now, while he’s signs & sells Criterion remasters of both.

LOUIE BLUIE (40th Anniversary!)
San Francisco filmmaker Terry Zwigoff’s first feature is a catchy, engaging sixty-minute documentary, a clattering stream of anecdotes, badinage, and jam sessions, captures an outsize personality in all his bawdy glory and aesthetic power, celebrating a remarkable, life-enhancing—no, life-catalyzing—force. At the same time, Zwigoff brings back a forgotten age of ecstatic grassroots music-making, marked by runaway creativity and exuberance, and traces some of its tangled roots in Tennessee and Chicago. He does this all so artfully that you never see his molding hand. But it’s there.

BAD SANTA – Director’s Cut
The Coen brothers conceived the basic idea and served as executive producers, but it’s director Terry Zwigoff (Crumb, Ghost World, Art School Confidential) who brings his unique affinity for losers and outcasts to the twisted tale of Willie T. Stokes (Billy Bob Thornton), a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, foul-mouthed sexaholic safe-cracker who targets a different department store every holiday season, playing Santa while he cases the joint with his dwarf elf-partner Marcus (Tony Cox). With comedic support from Bernie Mac, Lauren Graham, Cloris Leachman, and John Ritter in his final film, Thornton milks the lowbrow laughs with a slovenly lack of sentiment, warming Bad Santa’s pickled heart just enough to please a chubby misfit (Brett Kelly, hilariously deadpan) who may or may not be mentally challenged. As dry as an arid martini and blacker than morning-after coffee, Bad Santa is an instant cure for yuletide schmaltz, and if you think this appropriately R-rated comedy is suitable for kids, your parenting skills are no better than Willie’s. –Jeff Shannon

Watch Terry’s preferred Trailer