Super 8 Duper

Back in the 1990s, local Super 8 auteur Danny Plotnick toured the indie-rock circuit, screening impudent no-budget films such as Dumbass from Dundas and Death Sled II: Steel Belted Romeos at nightclubs and alternative art spaces. Often shown locally at venues such as Artists' Television Access, his films had a certain transgressive cartoonishness, wrapped in the lo-fi aesthetic inherent to the medium. They were also weirdly hilarious. While available on VHS for years, only now have Plotnick's works from 1986 to 2001 been compiled on DVD as Warts & All: The Films of Danny Plotnick, on local imprint Microcinema International. In addition to the aforementioned titles, Warts features eight others, including I, Socky, which documents a sock puppet's misadventure-filled San Francisco bender; the circa-1960 traveling-salesman eroticism of Swingers' Serenade; and a tale of pint-sized bullies on Guerrero Street entitled PIPSQUEAK PfOLLIES. Due in part to these singular movies, Plotnick just received the Grand Prize at the Underground Filmmaker Festival, and his new film Out of Print will be screening at the San Francisco International Film Festival. You can congratulate him personally at the Warts & All DVD Release Party, which also features live music by Chuck Prophet.
Sat., March 29, 6 p.m., 2008