JULY 2013! John Cassavetes, Big Screen Epics and More Movies Under The Stars!

Ah, July. Mother Nature's Abel to January's Cain. Baseball, bike rides and movies movies movies. Those of us who enjoy multiple weekly screenings and even hopping between cinemas twice and sometimes 3 times a day find themselves that much more fleet of foot at this point on the calendar, due not merely to the shedding of Winter wardrobe for a spell but the sometimes desperate flight toward the next air-conditioned venue. This month our esteemed rep screens give us plenty of reason to attend their classic programming beyond the desire for cooler climes. Let's start with this month's big dawg.

The July series that looms large this summer is the Brooklyn Academy of Music's month-long trib to John Cassavetes, character actor par excellence and godfather of the American indie movement. So cool he once portrayed a jazz musician/private eye named Johnny Staccato, JC enjoyed a prolific and influential career before and behind the cameras, and is repped at BAM with every one of his notable screen perfs and his entire directorial CV. As actor only the trib starts with an early co-starring lead in Martin Ritt's directorial debut EDGE OF THE CITY, and includes later efforts such as Roman Polanski's willies-inducing ROSEMARY'S BABY, Robert Aldrich's testosterone-lousy THE DIRTY DOZEN, and Elaine May's sorta besting of the boys at their own game MIKEY AND NICKY. JC got the directing bug after he started his own experimental acting school in the 50's as an alternative to the Actor's Studio, though both focused heavily on improv. Several acting exercises led to his first feature film SHADOWS, following the low budget/low tech example set by Morris Engel's THE LITTLE FUGITIVE and sharing that earlier film's debt to 40's Italian Neorealism. Cassavetes' debut caused a stir, and so began a lifelong pattern of accepting commercial acting gigs to raise cash that would fund his auteur CV. Among the films he directed, all screening as part of the retrospective, are FACES, OPENING NIGHT, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, HUSBANDS, and THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE. You may find these films unattractive at best and unwatchable at worst, but their quest for honesty in every frame of celluloid is undeniable. Cassavetes is unquestionably one of the most important voices the medium, at least its American iteration, had in the postwar era and his daring and invention are still relevant today. This is another series I'm simply paying a month's rent for.

Also at BAM this month their newly renovated and open for biz Harvey Theater, a bona fide old school movie palace, just basically shows off this month with a series of screens epics that take full advantage of their new state of the art facilities. Starting with the Sci Fi odyssey that's still the one to beat, Stanley Kubrick's 2001, the series inlcudes David Lean's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO and Francis Ford Coppola's THE GODFATHER PARTS I AND II. The latter actually are paired up as a double bill for one weekend, but how do I sneak 7 hours worth of pasta and gravy into the theater? I hope the staff at BAM didn't read that just now...

Speaking of epics screened large Astoria's Museum of the Moving Image resumes their See It Big! series for the month of July with a special focus on The American Epic. Early masterworks like Erich Von Stroheim's GREED, F. W. Murnau's SUNRISE, Orson Welles' CITIZEN KANE and John Ford's THE GRAPES OF WRATH share series space with later 80's gems like Gregory Nava's EL NORTE, Warren Beatty's REDS and Philip Kaufman's THE RIGHT STUFF. The museum's renovation is just over two years old at this point and if you haven't experienced the new screening space you're truly missing out. Check the full list of screenings in this series here.

Back on the civilized side of the East River MoMA's exhaustive trib to a true film pioneer, Allan Dwan and the Rise and Fall of the Hollywood Studios, slooowly winds down with a full week's worth of the director's work. A trio of John Payne efforts, the John Wayne war actioner SANDS OF IWO JIMA, and the atomic-age thriller MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE are amongst the last films booked to honor this man whose career both pre-dated and outlived the studio system. Not too shabby.

Also at MoMA their ongoing series An Auteurist History of Film brings us this month Jean-Luc Godard's seminal work of the Nouvelle Vague BREATHLESS, Satyajit Ray's TWO DAUGHTERS, Blake Edwards' BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, Francois Truffaut's New Wave noir SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, and finally Godard's sophomore release A WOMAN IS A WOMAN. Nicely bookended, methinks.

Film Forum, West Houston's classic film Mecca, favors quality over quantity this month, as they offer a week each of the aforementioned ROSEMARY'S BABY, Sidney Lumet's debut 12 ANGRY MEN and Jospeh Losey's THE SERVANT, while boasting TWO-count-'em-TWO weeks of a brand spankin' new 35mm resto of Michelangelo Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA. You also get one night of Antonioni's LE AMICHE, so yoo'a practice yoo Italian wiseaguy!

The Mid-Manhattan Library may not project celluloid or DCP, but they do offer interesting programming. This Summer's 1970's: NYC on Film brings this month Barry Shears' ACROSS 110TH STREET, Sidney Lumet's SERPICO, Martin Scorsese's MEAN STREETS and Sydney Pollack's THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. Good stuff, just make sure you're dues are up to date. Library cops, man...

On the glorious Summer outdoor screening scene Bryant Park, the granddaddy of NYC's towel-sitting film experience, brings the lawn-lazing and film-gazing of our metropolis Mel Stuart's WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, Robert Aldrich's HUSH, HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE, John Huston's THE AFRICAN QUEEN and Billy Wilder's A FOREIGN AFFAIR. Get there early and shush a hipster.

Other outdoor movie goodness includes Riverside Park's screenings of GOLDDIGGERS OF 1933, Leo McCarey's DUCK SOUP, Roy Rowland's THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T and Norman Jewison's FIDDLER ON THE ROOF; Brooklyn Bridge Park's screenings of John Hughes' FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF, Robert Clouse's ENTER THE DRAGON and an encore of Bryant Park's WILLY WONKA: McCarren Park's screenings of Tim Burton's PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE and Richard Donner's THE GOONIES; Prospect Park's very cool pairing of Tod Browning's DRACULA with live accompaniment from the Philip Glass ensemble: and something called WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? at Pier 46. Lastly, though it isn't a park per se, the Intrepid Air and Space museum will host a screening of Robert Wise's STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE on its flight deck, where NASA's real-life Enterprise sits proudly on display. How cool, I ask?

Back indoors Anthology Film Archives has planned some prety cool stuff. This first weekend of the month sees a Jean Cocteau retrospective sit side by side with a surf movie series inventively titled Surfin' AFA. Get it? The former series offers the auteur's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST as well as his Oprhic Trilogy.The standout booking of the latter series is John Milius's epic ode to Malibu beach life BIG WEDNESDAY, which offers up the trio of William Katt, Jan-Michael Vincent and a then-still resident of Planet Earth Gary Busey. For those who only think guns and anti-psychotic meds whence Milius' name is injected into the conversation this love letter to the perfect wave offers a different side of the New Hollywood legend.

Also at AFA famous fashion designer Agnes B. curates a series of films she deems important to her own development as an artist. Classics like Lindsay Anderson's IF..., Francois Truffaut's FARENHEIT 451, Luchino Visconti's ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS and Bernardo Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST unspool as part of the 11-day series. Casa De Mekas always keeps it interesting.

The Rubin Museum of Art's ongoing Cabaret Cinema series enters month 2 of its current theme, Say a Little Prayer. July brings us John Huston's grand adventure yarn THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, Billy Wilder's expert exercise in cynicism ACE IN THE HOLE, Sergio Corbucci's genre-defining Spag Western DJANGO, and Paul Scofield's towering Oscar-winning perf in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. As always the price of a drink gains you admittance to the museum's screening lounge, but seating is limited and some of these movies sell out quick, so get there early kids.

Over in sunny Williamsburg the Nitehawk Cinema, my new fave theater in NYC, gets Summer 2013 started properly with a July 4th noon screening of Steven Spielberg's JAWS. I don't know why that's incredibly patriotic, it just is. Other brunchtime offerings include weekend unspoolings of Walter Hill's THE LONG RIDERS, Ivan Reitman's GHOSTBUSTERS and Walter Murch's glorious mess RETURN TO OZ. Midnight madness at the B-Burg venue includes more Walter Hill shenanigans with his 1979 urban blight action classic THE WARRIORS, as well as George Romero's seminal nightmare classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Also this month the Nitehawk's Vice Presents The Film Foundation Screening Series offers up a pristine 35mm print of Federico Fellini's luminous masterpiece LA DOLCE VITA. The Nitehawk also makes killer tater tots and root beer, amongst other fine fare, and they will actually bring these to you as you recline and watch the goddam movie! Is there anything better than this I ask?

They may not stuff yer face up at the Alliance Francais, or French Institute, but they do offer one of the nicer classic screening spaces Manhattan has to offer. This month's Cannes Fest-inspired series brings us Federico Fellini's AND THE SHIP SAILS ON, Luis Bunuel's VIRIDIANA, Robert Bresson's PICKPOCKET, and a very special screening of Milos Forman's Czech New Wave classic LOVES OF A BLONDE, featuring a discussion and Q&A with the director himself. The latter event is gonna sell out fast methinks, so get yer tix quick knuckleheads!

Rounding out the month IFC Center brings back Steven Spielberg's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK for a pair of midnight screenings, Videology in Brooklyn presents Katherine Bigelow's NEAR DARK and Bob Rafelson's HEAD, and the Silent Clowns Film Series ressurrects Douglas MacLean and Edward Everett Horton on separate Saturday afternoons at Lincoln Center's Library for the Performing Arts. My God there's TOO much going on. I'm heading off to be cloned.

There it is, your list of July classic film screenings in NYC. I'm really grateful to all the programers at the various venues who put in the time and work and imagination to provide a constant resource for old school cinema month in and month out in the venues they were meant to be seen in. I certainly couldn't do it, I have a hard enough time keeping up with them! I just like to remind myself every now and then that most of the great experiences I've had and discoveries I've made at the rep houses are due to their efforts. Keep it up, guys and gals! As for you, the loyal reader and fan of my efforts, who I lovingly refer to as my Stockahz, thanks for giving me a reason to keep doing this work, and I hope to see ya at the movies soon!

Joe Walsh

joew@nitratestock.net

P.S. And don't forget, dammit! HYDRATE!!!