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Webster, Schlafly brewery team up for Strange Brew series
(by Daphne Drohobyczer - June 25, 2008)
Beer and men go together like macaroni and cheese, and this summer at Schlafly Bottleworks all four come together during the Strange Brew Film Series.
“This summer we ended up with four films with the word ‘man’ in them, and people expect sort of these fun, weird films,” said Mike Steinberg, the director of the film series at Webster University, which produces the cult film series. These man-suffixed films include: Repo Man, Cave Man, The Incredible Shrinking Man and Watermelon Man.
These movies, unheard of by many, also feature some surprising casting. For instance, Ringo Starr and Shelley Long star in Cave Man, a 1981 spoof that Steinberg described as “so bad, it’s good.” This is a festival that screens films that appeal to differing crowds; consider last year’s macho-themed festival that included Zardoz and Robo Cop.
Steinberg said that this approach makes it difficult to come up with a long list of movies for each showing. For this reason, the Strange Brew series shows only on the first Wednesday of each month at 8 p.m. “I think it’s enough. If we did it once a week, we’d run dry of films,” said Steinberg.
Steinberg said his favorite cult film is Over the Edge, Matt Dillon’s first film, which he said was a “really important movie in my life — it was a crazy 70s, druggie, kid film.” Steinberg holds quarterly meetings with the rest of the Webster Film Series staff to decide which films to show at Strange Brew.
“Strange Brew” lives up to its name, according to Steinberg, because it is a display of films that are weird cult films, and because these films are being shown at a brewery. Steinberg said he seeks out kooky films because he thinks they will appeal to cult-film fans who patronize the Webster Film Series.
But the film series’ title and its location at a brewery are merely coincidental; the series’ name comes from a 1983 film about two Canadian beer inspectors, starring Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis.
The yearlong series originally screened at the City Museum before moving to the Bottleworks in Maplewood until 2004. “There’s a great atmosphere at Bottleworks. They serve excellent beer, and the place itself has a great local feel …” Steinberg said, adding that the restaurant was chosen as a venue because of its relative close proximity to Webster University.
He also credited the brewery and restaurant’s “funky” atmosphere as essential to maintaining the ambiance first established at the City Museum, which despite having a more eclectic setting, didn’t attract as large an audience.
“We get a nice group of people that come in, a wide age group and every kind of person,” including Webster University students, said Mike Brokov, Bottleworks’ bar manager. “[Bartender] Dan Arnold has adopted this certain event, and he tries to provide a good atmosphere for people to enjoy.”
Brokov has seen a number of films in the series and said his favorite was Zardoz. “It is a great, great film — it comes from an era where there was a lot of experimentation; [it’s] a British film from the ’70s,” Brokov said.
One film neither Brokov nor any of the other Bottleworks cult-film fans has seen is the series’ namesake movie. Strange Brew has yet to be screened at the series, and according to Steinberg, it isn’t on the agenda any time soon.
“Eventually we may show the film, or we never will,” Steinberg said.
Though the movie Strange Brew may never be a part of Strange Brew, the series continues to draw cult film fans for their own kooky version of dinner and a movie.
The “Strange Brew” screening of The Incredible Shrinking Man is scheduled for 8 p.m. July 2 at Schlafly Bottleworks, 7260 Southwest Ave.
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