PREVIEW; OCTOBER 2012 WEEK ONE

In recognition of the needs of our film obsessed followers Nitrate Stock is pleased to inaugurate a new feature today. Starting this month I'll be providing a preview of the coming month's first week before we officially post the new calendar on that month's 1st day. So if ya normally check the calendar late in the day, or ya want a few day's advance notice to plan a screening, we'll provide the prior notice in the hopes of making you the most informed Cinegeeks in the city. October's looking very promising, so read on Stockahz...

The Film Forum continues its Harold Lloyd smoochery with Monday October 1st's screening of his absolutely essential silent stunt classic SAFETY LAST. Paired with the newly discovered Lloyd short NEXT AISLE OVER, both films screen with live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner. Want to witness a big chunk of film history? Well?

Also running at the Forum through October's first week is Elio Petri's noose-tightening INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION. Fans of the gloriously unhinged Gian Maria Volonte will not be disappointed as his usual lunacy serves as seasoning to Petri's claustrophobic maze of paranoia. A gem.

MOMA's awesome Auteurist History Of Film series devotes itself to the western these next few weeks for its excellent RIDE, BOLDLY RIDE series. The great Leo McCarey's RUGGLES OF RED GAP uniquely combines the traditional Hollywood western with the immigrant experience, and remains one of the ultimate love letters to the American experience. Indeed the Gettysburg Address recital by Charles Laughton stands with Jimmy Stewart's filibuster and Gary Cooper's Gehrig farewell as most awesome of American film speeches from that era. Dunno. Get on my case if ya wanna. RUGGLES gets the spotlight Wednesday 10/3, Thursday 10/4, and Friday 10/5 at MOMA. All showtimes 1:30pm.

The Clearview Chelsea Cinemas present an American response to the Giallo genre recently revered by the hallowed Anthology Film Archives. Richard Donner's gloriously stylish and over-the-top THE OMEN gets a deserved big screen showing Thursday 10/4 at 7pm and 9:30pm. If ya won't see it for the A-list slumming of Peck and Remick, or the increasingly baroque methods of character dispatch, or Donner's continued assurance behind the cameras, then see it for that smile. You know the smile I'm talking about. That Dick Cheney smile.

The highlight of the week, and I'm picking this over RUGGLES and Harold Lloyd, has to be he 50th (50th already?) anniversary screening, and I'm sure it won't be the last, of one of the greatest and most important films ever made. David Lean's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is on the big screen Thursday 10/4. This film has seen painstaking restoration after painstaking restoration, but from what I hear this new presentation will absolutely not just provide the closest approximation of the 1962 first night audience experience, but will actually make you feel the sand between your toes. I'm not sure how much more might be said about this flick, except to remind that it's a game-changer, perhaps the first anti-epic epic, and that it introduced the world to Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif. How to empirically discuss this film's importance? Within it's own genre it was never topped maintains me. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA can be seen Thursday 10/4 at the Regal Union Square Stadium, the AMC Loews Village 7, and the AMC Empire 25, but I recommend for reasons of experience personal the Loews Kips Bay. All showtimes 1pm and 7pm.

Hope the head's up helps and see you with the full calendar on the 1st! Excelsior, Knuckz!

-Joe Walsh
aka
Guiseppe Du Cinematek