SEPTEMBER 2013! Cinematic Knights of Yore, Marlene Goes West, and the Complete Howard Hawks!
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MISSING: One (1) summer, circa 2013. If found please return to me care of this website.
Well, the final national cookout of any consequence has scorched its last 'mallow, the kids are headed back to school and the home stretch of baseball's wild card races are upon us. Pretty soon it'll be Trick Or Treatin', turkey 'n cranberry sammiches and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. I know, I'm just as upset about this turn of events as you are, believe me. But lets for the moment be thankful movies lovers and focus instead on the great series that programmers like Film Forum's Bruce Goldstein and MoMA's Charles Silver have brought us these last few months. Great tribs to filmmakers like Allan Dwan, Yasujiro Ozu and John Cassavettes have sat proudly alongside series feteing BTS talents like the immortal Ray Harryhausen, raiding the wealth of 20th Century Fox's vaults, or inaugurating BAM's newly restored and tricked-out Harvey Theater movie palace. It's been a good ride thus far and this upcoming month shows no signs of slowing the pace. So let's get to it, shall we?
Top Prize among the rep houses this September goes to Chief Curator David Schwartz and the Museum of the Moving Image for presenting the series of my dreams, the 2-plus month-long Complete Howard Hawks, which features everything from the auteur's earliest surviving silent film, 1926's FIG LEAVES, to his final opus, 1971's RIO LOBO. Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about the venerable Mr. Hawks. Hell, they're sick of hearing me talk about him! And I could easily fill another 50 pages with gush over one of my fave filmmakers all-time, so I'll cut this short; never seen THE DAWN PATROL, SCARFACE, BRINGING UP BABY, HIS GIRL FRIDAY, SERGEANT YORK, TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, THE BIG SLEEP, RED RIVER, GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES or RIO BRAVO on the big screen? Shame on ya. Get that sorted out over the next 60 or so days.
Also at MOMI this month their See It Big! series returns, and features such excellent picks as Alfred Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW, Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen's SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, and Michelangelo Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA. Good stuff.
Anthology Film Archives have stepped up their rep screening activities considerably these last few months, and September finds them slowing down not a jot. Two excellent series unspool within their grindhouse confines this month. The first, John Zorn Selects, offers the avant-garde musician the chance to curate a collection of films formative to his own career, including Francis Ford Coppola's THE CONVERSATION (soundtrack by Carmine Coppola), Hitchcock's VERTIGO (Bernard Herrmann), Orson Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL (Henry Mancini) and Roman Polanski's CHINATOWN (Jerry Goldsmith).
Also at AFA their obsession with all things medieval rears its head once more with their Middle Ages on Film: Knights of the Round Table series. Screenings run the gamut from Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI to John Boorman's EXCALIBUR to Lech Majewski's THE KNIGHT to Terry Jones' and Terry Gilliam's MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. Chivalry endures at Casa de Mekas, methinks.
Over at Film Forum their excellent Son of Summer SciFi, Fantasy and Horror series winds finally down with screenings of Robert Wise's THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, Jacques Tourneur's CAT PEOPLE and CURSE OF THE DEMON, and the Ray Harryhausen classics 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH and IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA! Isn't that scaaaaary boys and girls?
Also this month at the Church of West Houston individual screenings include Jean-Luc Godard's CONTEMPT, Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING, and Jacques Becker's ANTOINE ET ANTOINETTE. Their Sunday morning series Film Forum Jr. returns as well, and rewards kiddies of all ages with screenings of Jack Sher's THE THREE WORLDS OF GULLIVER (featuring the FX work of Ray Harryhausen), Henry Levin's JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH and Harold Lloyd's SPEEDY.
Across the pond at the BAM Cinematek their Marlene Goes West series features a quartet of the Teutonic siren's horse operas, including George Marshall's DESTRY RIDES AGAIN, Ray Enright's THE SPOLIERS, Fritz Lang's RANCHO NOTORIOUS and Orson Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL. Also this month BAM offers a two night tribute to screenwriter Albert Hayes with screenings of Roberto Rossellini's PAISAN and Fritz Lang's HUMAN DESIRE. Damn do they know how to party in Brooklyn!
Back on civilzed terrain MoMA provides a welcome second opportunity for film lovers who ain't exactly unemployed and/or coherent at 1:30pm during the weekdays to catch some of the superb screenings in their Auteurist History of Film series. An Auteurist History of Film Reprise offers up this month such choice works as Federico Fellini's I VITELLONI, Yasujiro Ozu's TOKYO STORY, Satyajit Ray's PATHER PANCHALI, John Ford's THE SEARCHERS and Jean Renoir's FRENCH CAN-CAN. Screenings planned for the actual Auteurist series include Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO, Tony Richardson's A TASTE OF HONEY, and Ermanno Olmi's IL POSTO. Plus they make really pretty membership cards. Well, you tell me, MoMA membership or Metrocard? I thought so.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center offers up a double bill of director John Guillermin's works with 1969's THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN and 1968's HOUSE OF CARDS. Knowing nothing of either film I will offer the following; they got good popcorn up there.
The wonderful Nitehawk Cinema in follicle festooned Williamsburg provides their usual tonic for the rabid film fanatic. Brunchtime screenings this month include Terry Gilliam's TIME BANDITS, Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS and Robert Zemeckis' BACK TO THE FUTURE, while midnight fare boasts the likes of Franklin J. Schaffner's PLANET OF THE APES, Jack Hill's FOXY BROWN, and David Cronenberg's THE DEAD ZONE. Later in the month their ongoing VICE series, showcasing choice 35mm prints provided by the Film Foundation, offers up Stanley Kubrick's PATHS OF GLORY. The price of a subway ride and a ten-minute walk gets you to the theater, my new favorite. So you can't make it out there why?
The IFC Center transports the casual New Yorker to the classic Hollywood west, with screenings of Douglas Sirk's WRITTEN ON THE WIND, James L. Brooks TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, Martin Ritt's HUD, and the aforementioned Howard Hawks' RED RIVER . Joel and Ethan Coen's BLOOD SIMPLE and John Flynn's ROLLING THUNDER unspool as midnight offerings at the 6th ave arthouse.
The Rubin Museum of Art's wonderful Cabaret Cinema series brings to the rep screening fold Robert Hamer's KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, Frank Capra's LOST HORIZON, and Elia Kazan's PANIC IN THE STREETS. As usual the price of a cocktail serves as admission to their excellent screening space. Very worth your while. I hear there's an actual museum attached to the joint as well.
The Landmark Sunshine Cinema screens Michael Curtiz's CASABLANCA, Jonathan Lynn's CLUE, and Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL at midnight this month.
Chelsea classics at the newly christened Bowtie Cinema include Michael Curtiz's CASABLANCA (deja vu), Arthur Hiller's THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS, Clint Eastwood's PLAY MISTY FOR ME, and Adrian Lyne's FATAL ATTRACTION.
So far, that seems to be the bulk of the important rep unspoolings this month has to offer. Skeds change constantly, however, so keep one eye peeled all month on this space for the current info. In the meantime enjoy all the rep-film love this magnificent movie-mad town has to offer, and on a seeminly increasing basis, adds this optimist!
For info on all the month's classic screenings click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page! And be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Back tomorrow with a brand new Pick! Excelsior, Knuckleheads!
-Joe Walsh
