SECRET MASTERPIECES: SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE on 35mm (1999)

Friday, December 2 & Thursday, December 8, 2022

SECRET MASTERPIECES: SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE (1999)
Presented by Olympia Bed Store & Rush in Dumplings
Programmed by Jesse Knight
Special Recorded Introduction by Screenwriter Judith Roberts
$11 GA / $8 OFS
After her mother’s death, mediocre chef Amanda Shelton (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is having trouble attracting customers to her family’s restaurant. While shopping for ingredients, she is given a magical crab by mysterious Gene O’Reilly (Christopher Durang). Afterward, Amanda’s dishes suddenly become excellent, inducing strong emotional reactions in everyone who eats them.
Dir: Mark Tarlov / 1999 / US / 98 min

“The most Dalí-esque of all romantic comedies, this diamond artifact buried deep in the fertile late-’90s cinematic soil stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as Amanda, a genuinely terrible chef struggling to keep the doors of her late mom’s puzzlingly indefinable restaurant open. Not only are Amanda’s dishes inedible, she seems to be disgusted by food on sight (the way she casually says “ugh” when serving up, of all things, chicken). But after fate arrives in the form of a magical peekytoe crab, Amanda’s compost fodder mysteriously transforms into works of art that both taste divine and are capable of psychedelically bewitching all who partake of them (including an especially oily Sean Patrick Flannery as Amanda’s paper-airplane-flying commitment-phobic love utensil) in increasingly Lynchian stupors.

Featuring Vincente Minnelli-inspired dance numbers, Patricia Clarkson at her horniest, and Amanda Peet proving once again she was the second most elastic physical comedian of the period (where was her Ace Ventura-style franchise?), this passion project from one-and-done married filmmakers Judith Roberts and Mark Tarlov (who sadly passed away in 2021) cannibalizes and regurgitates all your favorite and least favorite rom-, sit- and screwball-com tropes into a postmodern fable that so brazenly defies logic it makes you redefine your own understanding of wonder.” – Jesse Knight

ABOUT GUEST PROGRAMMER JESSE KNIGHT:
Jesse is a Los Angeles-based film festival programmer, writer, copy editor and rollerskater. His festival and film society contributions include Palm Springs ShortFest, AFI Fest, San Francisco International, Sundance Institute, Palm Springs International, Frameline, and many others. His rollerskating contributions include anywhere, so look out.

SCREENING: FRI 12/2 7PM; THU 12/8 4PM
Tickets available at the box office 1/2 hour before showtimes.

Patrons, performers, staff, and volunteers are no longer required to wear masks or show proof of vaccination. The threat of covid, seasonal flu, and respiratory viruses are still out there. OFS will continue to provide masks (while supplies last – we have tons), surface and hand sanitizer, and regular air filtration system maintenance. We encourage mask-wearing at concerts and indoor gatherings and keep snacking and drinking in seating areas only.

If you test positive for COVID-19, stay home for at least 5 days and isolate from others in your home to avoid spreading COVID-19 to others. If you are not feeling well, we ask that you call out for your volunteer, stay at home, and come back when you feel better to minimize the spread and to help keep others at the theater healthy and keep our operations going. 

Updated: November 7, 2022

For more information, please see our operations announcement.