SNF Parkway Theatre presents HARD CANDY CHRISTMAS

The Parkway gleefully offers four stories of Christmas chaos to add to your holiday celebration. Spanning different styles and genres, from magical realism to creature feature, these movies showcase what happens when the most wonderful time of the year is horrible. Bring your loved ones to gather around the warm glow of our historic Theatre 1 screen and enjoy one of these holiday classics.

Hard Candy Christmas: BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974, Bob Clark, Canada, 98 mins)
One part frosty Christmas atmosphere, one part stalk ‘n’ slash magnificence, and all parts awesome, Black Christmas is a timeless, terrifying, and demented holiday tradition. When sorority sisters Olivia Hussey (Romeo & Juliet), Margot Kidder (Superman) and Andrea Martin (SCTV) are under attack from a vicious potty-mouthed killer, it’s up to police chief John Saxon to even the odds. But what about Keir Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey), the brooding art-school pianist? Could he have something to do with the Christmas rampage? Years before he crafted the ultimate comedic yuletime experience A Christmas Story, genre pioneer Bob Clark gave us one of the most influential Hitchcockian slashers of all time. Black Christmas gets everything right.

GREMLINS (1984, Joe Dante, USA, 106 mins)

Joe Dante, truly one of the movies’ great genre obsessives, made a career out of translating 1950’s B-movie and comic book aesthetics into black comedy/horror during America’s peak mall movie theatre era. In his mid-career hit Gremlins, small town teenager, Billy receives a strange pet called a mogwai for Christmas. The creature is small and adorable but comes with some very specific rules for its care that Billy precedes to inadvertently break, unleashing a horde of malicious gremlins that destroy everything in their wake. Gremlins is not only an epic feat of physical effects but also a rapid-fire onsaught of historic Hollywood references. A close watch provides a drinking game’s worth of easter eggs including throwbacks to the Wizard of Oz and The Forbidden Planet, set-decoration spoofs, and celebrity cameos.  Mischevious and maximalist, frightening and funny, Gremlins on the big screen is an experience not to be missed.

Hard Candy Christmas: TOKOYO GODFATHERS (2003, Satoshi Kon, Japan, 93 mins)
The Parkway is proud to present the recent restoration of Tokyo Godfathers, the acclaimed holiday classic from master director Satoshi Kon (Paprika, Perfect Blue). A chosen family of three who live on the streets of Tokoyo are forever changed when they discover a baby girl at a garbage dump on Christmas Eve. As the New Year fast approaches, these three forgotten members of society band together to solve the mystery of the abandoned child and the fate of her parents. Along the way, encounters with seemingly unrelated events and people force them to confront their own haunted pasts, as they learn to face their future, together. The laughs are plentiful, the action is fast-paced, and the story is embued with a sense of magical realism befitting the holday season. Co-written by Keiko Nobumoto (Cowboy Bebop) and featuring a whimsical score by Keiichi Suzuki, Tokyo Godfathers is a masterpiece by turns heartfelt, hilarious and highly original, a tale of hope and redemption in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Hard Candy Christmas: TANGERINE (2015, Sean Baker, USA, 87 mins)
It’s Christmas Eve in Tinseltown and Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is back on the block. Upon hearing that her boyfriend hasn’t been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, she and her best friend, Alexandra (Mya Taylor), embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity. Informed by the lived experiences of Taylor and Rodriguez who consulted with writer/director Sean Baker from story to screen, Tangerine offers a portrait of Los Angeles that is decidedly street-level. Shot in a hand-held style using an iphone with an anamorphic adaptor to achieve the widescreen of scope, the camera follows Sin-Dee and Alexandra as they chaoticly traverse West Hollywood on foot. Tagerine is a queer Christmas love story that celebrates those bedrock relationships that transcend romantic love. Grab your best girl and run your heels all the way to the theatre for this soon-to-be holiday classic.