April 12th 2014. Pick of the Day.
New York City's premiere resource for classic film screenings in the metropolitan area. Offering reviews, recommendations, venues and a host of links keeping classic film and the silver screens alive.
Continuing series today include American Hustlers at IFC Center, Tout Truffaut at Film Forum, The Aesthetics of Shadow Part 2: Europe and America and Vienna Unveiled at MoMA, and the Silent Clowns' celebration of the Little Tramp Centennial at the Library for the Performing Arts. The whole megillah as follows;
IFC Center
PAPER MOON (1973) Dir; Peter Bogdanovich
CAT PEOPLE (1982) Dir; Paul Schrader
MS. 45 (1980) Dir; Abel Ferrara
Nitehawk Cinema
FIELD OF DREAMS (1989) Dir; Phil Alden Robinson
Film Forum
THE STORY OF ADELE H. (1975) Dir; Francois Truffaut
MoMA
THE WALTZ DREAM (1925) Dir; Ludwig Berger
THE ROARING TWENTIES (1939) Dir; Raoul Walsh
THE MARRIAGE CIRCLE (1924) Dir; Ernst Lubitsch
HIGH SIERRA (1941) Dir; Raoul Walsh
THE SMILING LIEUTENANT (1931) Dir; Ernst Lubitsch
REBECCA (1940) Dir; Alfred Hitchcock
BAM Cinematek
THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (1968) Dir; Jacques Demy
Mid-Manhattan Library
RANCHO NOTORIOUS (1952) Dir; Fritz Lang
Library for the Performing Arts
CHAPLIN AT MUTUAL (1916-17) Dir; Charles Chaplin
BowTie Chelsea Cinemas
GREASE 2 (1982) Dir; Patricia Birch
Today's Pick? I'm sending you back to MoMA for a trip-bill easily accessed if you're a member, slightly less so if you aren't, so this doubles as a scolding for you Cinegeeks living in NYC still bereft of your little Van Gogh card. The museum's currently unspooling Aesthetics of Shadow series, examining the influence Japanese silent cinema's assimilation of German Expressionism and Hollywood blockbuster returned upon its forebears, offers up today the three-fer of Raoul Walsh's THE ROARING TWENTIES and HIGH SIERRA, and Hitchcock's 1940 Best Pic champ REBECCA.
It might seem somewhat perverse, after all my bitchery over Winter's foul, cruel hold over our fair metropolis lo these last few months, to advise you to spend this entire, absolutely gorgeous afternoon and early evening slumped into one of MoMA's comfy chairs, tanning not by natural sunlight but by projector's bulb, which by all accounts scientific is an immeasurably slower process. Yet this trio of classics, genre-defining masterpieces all, beckons like Melville's whale to the truly film-obsessed. Snag your order from Taco Bell's breakfast menu, buy a very big bottle of Gatorade, bury them deep in your NYPL totebag under the early edition of the Sunday Times, and nestle in for a day of pure magnificence from the peak of the studio era. April's gonna be around for another 18 days. She'll understand.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in April '14 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. For the monthly overview listen in to the inaugural podcast! And be sure to follow me on both Facebook, where I provide further info and esoterica on the rep film circuit and star birthdays, and Twitter, where I provide a daily feed for the day's screenings and other blathery. Back tomorrow with a brand new Pick, til then stay safe and sound and make sure the next knucklehead is too. Excelsior!
P. S. Should you be feeling charitable during this harsh weather period please remember to check in with the good folks over at Occupy Sandy. Some of our NY neighbors are still feeling the effects of the 2012 hurricane. Be a mensch.
