June 21st 2013. Pick Of The Day.

Billy Wilder's Oscar-minting THE APARTMENT, the director's wry and sometimes scathing dissection of post-WWII American corporate ladder-climbing, is evicted after today's 1:30pm screening as part of MoMA's ongoing Auteurist History of Film series. I never get sick of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine's ill-begun romance, but it was my choice on Wednesday, so I must pass it up as today's Pick. I hate my boss.

Also at Abby Rockefeller's indulgence this day 1940's TRAIL OF THE VIGILANTES and 1928's THE IRON MASK unspool as part of their epic retrospective to one of film's great pioneers, Allan Dwan and the Rise and Decline of the Hollywood Studios. The former offers a sweet-natured sending up of traditional Western genre tropes, while the latter was the director's last collaboration with swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks, and served as a fitting farewell to the silent era for both men. Both incredibly entertaining, but on this Summer solistice in the midle of Popcorn Flick season I'm reserving my Pick for a somber tale of children neglecting their elderly parents. Damn you Bruce Goldstein.

Over at the swank Rubin Museum Charlie Chaplin's box office pariah MONSIEUR VERDOUX, which would later be regarded by some critics as his finest two hours, is presented as part of their excellent Cabaret Cinema series. Even in this tale of a Bluebeard-ish murderer of elderly dowagers Charlie managed to sneak in a message regarding the hope for the human soul and its future. Tre Chaplin. Normally I wouldn't ever take sides against the cinematic titan but I'll use the excuse for today that the museum's screening lounge is ONLY capable of BluRay projection, and that a gorgeous 35mm print of one of the medium's greatest efforts unspools at another venerable venue.

Midnight offers two different styles of frightfest this eve; IFC Center presents James Cameron's mixing of the war and horror genres with his awesome sequel ALIENS, while the Nitehawk Cinemas offers Williamsburg. Kiddin', my new fave theater screens Dario Argento's bizarro Giallo FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET. And I might've mentioned they gots killer draft root beer and tater tots. Killer. I pass up all of this fun today in favor of an exceptional sorrow, a somber meditation on institutionalized obsolesence, one of the flat-out masterpieces in the history of world cinema. All my weighty jibber jabbber has now possibly turned you off to a potentially monstrously heavy film experience. Trust me it's not. Rather it's a very human experience, told by a true poet who designed for himself a personal cinematic language to dramatize the everyday, and often realized the common man's struggles as accurately as is possible 24fps. It's all here, joy and sorrow, harmony and rejection, fulfillment and the void, in a simple tale of two parents visiting their children in the eponymous setting, and the realization that neither their progeny, nor the very era itself, may possibly have any further use for them. Heartbreaking and mending all in the same two plus hours. Yeah it's mid-June, yeah Superman and zombies and Captain Kirk are more appropriate to the season, but should you eschew what you can still catch a month from now at the multiplex for what rarely screens in our film-mad burg you will, I'd gamble, walk away with a new cherished fave.

Yasujiro Ozu's TOKYO STORY screens all weekend as part of the Film Forum's exhaustive 3-week tribute to the filmmaker. This may be the first time I sneak sake into a movie theater. You didn't read that just now, Film Forum staff.

Follow me on Twitter @NitrateStock!

Like the page at Facebook.com/NitrateStock!

Check with the folks at Occupy Sandy to see if you might still be able to donate/volunteer. Some NY'ers still need a hand.

Be safe and sound and make sure the next guy/gal is too! Back tomorrow with the last Pick of the week. Am I the only one shocked that it's already the Solistice? SLOW DOWN, time!!!

-Joe Walsh

joew@nitratestock