December 28th 2013. Pick of the Day.
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Continuing series today include the last days of the Film Forum's wonderful trib to Barbara Stanwyck, the Film Society's competing retrospective dedicated to director George Cukor, Museum of the Moving Image's See It Big!: Great Cinematographers, and IFC Center's The Way He Was: Early Redford. The cinematic grab bag as follows;
IFC Center
THE WAY WE WERE (1973) Dir; Sydney Pollack
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
ALIEN (1979) Dir; Ridley Scott
Film Forum
REMEMBER THE NIGHT (1940) Dir; Mitchell Leisen
DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) Dir; Billy Wilder
Film Society of Lincoln Center
THE BLUE BIRD (1976) Dir; George Cukor
A LIFE OF HER OWN (1950) Dir; George Cukor
THE ACTRESS (1953) Dir; George Cukor
THE PHILADEPLHIA STORY (1940) Dir; George Cukor
Museum of the Moving Image
MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER (1971) Dir; Robert Altman
FAT CITY (1972) Dir; John Huston
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
DIE HARD (1988) Dir; John McTiernan
Today's Pick? RARE is it the day that I will direct you toward the nearest Robert Altman screening, as those of you who know me are well versed in my disdain for the man and his work. However, as a wise Greek philosopher once mused, "even a garbage can gets a steak every now and then." That philosopher went on to be known as Plato. From the Beetle Bailey comics. But I digress, the point is made.
I actually ascribe much of the greatness of today's Pick's to its smart script, one reportedly cobbled together without credit by star Warren Beatty; an updated collection of well-worn movie western tropes that also serves as direct attack on the evils of the unfettered free-market. Welcome commentary indeed in the politically charged era of 70's New Hollywood. Also, Beatty came to this film flush not merely with the success of his insanely influential BONNIE AND CLYDE, but the newfound authority he would never again relinquish throughout the rest of his esteemed career (it's said he drove Altman mad on the set). So I've often questioned just how much Altman contributed to this film, a genuine masterpiece concerning the partnership between a Madam (a never more beautiful Julie Christie) and a master gambler (Beatty) who set up shop in a church-going mining town in the 1800's, bringing vitality and prosperity with them, until they much risk everything to protect what's rightfully theirs.
A HUGE influence, I believe, on Michael Cimino's HEAVEN'S GATE (another film I deem a masterpiece), and not merely because the legendary DP Vilmos Zsigmond created the gorgeous cinematography for both films. Each film is ultimately about the creeping, insidious power of the robber barons who were (are?) allowed to shred the U. S. Constitution in order to consolidate power. There is no doubt as to the authorship of GATE, but as I said I'm not entirely sure of today's Pick's status as an Altman film, and to be honest that reason alone, the absence of what I deem his worst, most self-indulgent trademarks, is what makes this one of the few efforts he should've been proudest of. Instead he shunned any project that denied him even a seeming auteurship, so he disdained this film, rather choosing to bask in the critical glow and bloated pretension of stuff like THE LONG GOODBYE and NASHVILLE. To you Altman fans out there I say to each his own. For me, the man made two great films; 1992's THE PLAYER, the atypical script he thankfully chose not to toss out on set or overly fuss with, and today's Pick.
Robert Altman's MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER screens today at Astoria's Museum of the Moving Image, as part of their See It Big!: Great Cinematographers series. The movie is exquisitely shot, and it promises to look stunning in the recently renovated screenings space at MoMI.
For more info on these and all NYC's remaining classic screenings in 2013 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right side of the page. And be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter! Back tomorrow with a brand new Pick, til then don't count yer chickens before they'z hatched and pass that advice on to the other kids! Excelsior, knuckleheads!
-Joe Walsh
