El Topo is coming!!!

It's coming. If you haven't seen Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo, now is your chance. The Music Box Theatre is running it for two weekends, all midnight showings (February 16 & 17, 23 & 24), fitting since this was the movie that began the whole midnight movie culture.

To use words like "masterpiece" and "classic" to attempt to describe this film is to reveal the limitations of language. El Topo is not a film, El Topo is film. There is no way to consider this film in terms of inclusion or exclusion from lists, because there are no films it could be compared to. El Topo is your chance to be an exceptional person...don't blow it.

Even for those of you who have already seen it, I highly recommend you still attend. Yes, you've already seen it countless times, but you've also made love, dreamed and breathed more times than you can remember, but still cling to the hope of doing those things again. This is El Topo, for christsake! And it's El Topo on the big screen of the Music Box, not some pirated VHS or video projection like I've sat through. It's fucking El Topo!


But wait...it gets better. The week after El Topo leaves, it's Jodorowsky's follow up, Holy Mountain (March 2 & 3, 9 & 10), also as a midnight show. While not the life changing experience of El Topo, Holy Mountain is still a work of brilliance, only slightly dimmed in the shadow of its' predecessor. There are images contained within this movie, single passing moments, that are among the finest visual experiences cinema has to offer. As an added appeal this plays even less often in theaters than El Topo, once every half dozen years, tops.

Take to the streets, scream out your window, call everyone you've ever known. Cleanse yourself before you go. Don't speak to other people the day leading up to your viewing. Draw three interlocking circles on your livingroom floor. If you can't get a sitter, give your children to gypsies. Burn everything you own the color yellow. But be there.