April 19th 2013. Pick Of the Day.

Otto Preminger's EXODUS takes that exact course today as its run winds down as part of MOMA's Auteurist History of Film series. Preminger's epic adap of Leon Uris' controversial dramatization of the foundng of the nation of Israel is gripping stuff still. Plus Paul Newman plays a soldier named Ari Ben Canaan. Oh Otto you nutty kook you. Sorrowfully this missed as my Pick all week, so here's hoping it's afforded another screening sometime soon so I can champion it fully.

Jean Pierre Melville's UN FLIC features world weary detective Alain Delon as he ferrrets about in the French underworld for the ringleader of a pro heist outfit, who may just be nightclub owner and best friend Richard Crenna. Oh, and Catherine Denueve is the broad they're sharing. What could go wrong? Screens for a week in a brand spankin' new 35mm print at the Film Forum, so I got time to make it my Pick. Not today.

MOMA's trib to the immediate influence of 20's German expressionism on Hollywood continues merrily apace. Today the museum's The Weimar Touch offers an encore screening of Anatole Litvak's CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY, as well as the first screening in this series of Ludwig Berger's SOMEWHERE IN THE NETHERLANDS. The former was the first shot Hollywood's soon-to-be massive propaganda machine would fire at Hilter and his gang, the latter an observation of those same gangsters from within a country bullied. Both essential, but I chose one yesterday and I have to pass over the other for another German emigree who fled Hitler and made his mark with the Allied powers. Keep readin'.

Anthology Film Archives quits all this fucking about and programs an Old School Kung Fu Fest this weekend. Tonight you may kick back in the decidely Times Square grindhouse atmosphere the theater affords and watch the trio of Sammo Hung's THE ODD COUPLE, Gordon Lui's SHAOLIN AND WU-TANG, and Law Kei's THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN. REALLY tempts as my Pick today, especially when you see I've chosen something so white bread in its place, but I stand by my choice, and readily await your noogies cyber or otherwise.

Over at the awesome Rubin Museum the Cabaret Cinema series tonight presents Sam Peckinpah's absolute fucking guy-flick war classic CROSS OF IRON. James Coburn, James Mason and Maximillian Schell fight it out for screen time in this view of WWII that focuses solely on the German-Russian side of the conflict. Brutal, uncomprmising, pessimistic, it's the film about the Great War you'd expect from Sam. Again, agonizingly close for my Pick today, but I relent. If not for the reason that the Rubin, much as I love it, never screens prints, than simply to chose a work by an ex-pat cinematic master who'd come to the states seeking sanctuary from that Great War, and the gangsters who'd taken his country. And something even closer.

Detlef Sierk's son was killed fighting on the Eastern front in 1942. The younger Sirk had been indoctrinated against his father not merely as a result of a bad divorce, but because, in the midst of the Aryan makeover of his homeland, his father had dared marry a Jewish actress. Detlef's ex-wife forbade any contact with his son and soon after Father and new wife fled for the states, lucky to get out as late as 1937. In essence this man lost his son twice, and Nazi or no Nazi, (which is the title of Brazil's most popular game show, incidentally), losing a son leaves a wound that never truly heals.

Detlef Sierk assimilated as Douglas Sirk, and cranked out a respectable CV throughout the war-torn 40's, begininng with the subtly titled HITLER'S MADMAN. From there, believe it or not, his melodrama would only grow more lavish and dire. And gorgeous, let's be honest. Come the postwar American 50's boom producer Ross Hunter teamed up with Sirk to go full Technicolor soap opera with a series of films that were innocuous big box office in their time but have come to be regarded as some of the most caustic commentary and subversive cinema of the period. Most auteurs find a singluar presence to represent them in front of the camera. Enter Rock Hudson.

Hudson was at the time routinely employed as a sturdy block of wood to prop up the background action in any film he'd appeared in, one of which, HAS ANYBODY SEEN MY GAL?, was directed by Herr Sierk. Sensing limited talent but incredible work ethic, and a desire to be accepted that was perhaps understood or not by this master of purple scenario, he committed to work with the fledgling star, perhaps sensing a bond with a son he'd lost long ago, one who'd been an actor before he'd died a soldier. Sirk fought with his studio and producer to cast the heretofore untested Hudson in their next feature, one that would afford him equal screen time with actual star-type-star Jane Wyman. The result, the story of a playboy millionaire who accidentally blinds a woman and then commits himself to the study of brain surgery in order to restore her sight, filmed once before by Lloyd C. Douglas under the same title, made a star of Hudson, and resulted in six more collaborations between director and star, which have come to be regarded as some of the finest craftsmanship of the era, as well as the most subliminally stringent. It all began with tonight's feature, which kicks off a weekend with Sirk and Hudson. As it were.

MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION screens today at 2pm and 7pm, joined by Sirk and Hudson's THE TARNISHED ANGELS at 4:30pm and 9:30pm, as part of BAM's weekend trib to the duo. Couldn't happen to a nicer couple.

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Be safe and sound and make sure the next guy is too, Stockers! Back tomorrow with the last Pick of the wek. Work on the May calndar begins. It's gonna be a CRAZY month!

Oh, and GO KNICKS!!!

-Joe Walsh