June 4th 2014. Pick of the Day.

I feel like this week on the rep film circit is like that tortoise form the Bugs Bunny cartoon; yeah, he seems a little slow in the gait at first, but there's a DC-10 engine just below that shell. Things're gonna get frantic in just a few days, so perhaps we should be glad the choices today, while scant, are all top-notch fare.

Today's lone ongoing series is An Auteurist History of Film at MoMA. Let's get to it;

Film Forum

SORCERER (1973) Dir; William Friedkin

MoMA

DIRTY HARRY (1971) Dir; Don Siegel

AMC Loews Kips Bay 15, AMC Empire 25

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) Dir; Steven Spielberg

Today's Pick? It is indeed a painful thing to see those most magical of Hollywood efforts, the ones that reduce us to the tyke iterations that first veiwed them, heartlessly reduced not by the critical establishment, not by the ravages of time, but by the town and the industry itself, in some cases the original talent, all conspiring to soak the last nickel from a beloved work of cinema. How awful the news of Kevin Costner's ROBIN HOOD, and how much worse the announcment of Ridley Scott's take two decades later. Because, respectively, frosted tips and ironic demythification were what fans of the legend had wanted all along. The box office sure seemed to suggest just that, and yet, whenever Sherwood's favorite denizen is mentioned in a film conversation, there is nary a doubt as to which version is being referenced; Michael Curtiz and William Keighly's 1938 THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. Because they didn't get it right, they got it perfect. Much the same fate has befallen the Last Son of Krypton, as Richard Donner's still majestic SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, another instance of take quintessential, has only seen diminishing return on its initial investment (don't get me started on MAN OF STEEL). Donner lamented on the 2001 SE commentary track that had only he and script consultant Tom Mankiewicz been allowed to finish what they started on the sequel and for the remainder of the series, it would've been a much different, much more rewarding result for the filmmakers and the audience. We can only wonder.

Well, we can also kinda cite evidence. One particular creative duo, among the most celebrated of celluloid imagineers, not only gifted the world with one of its most prized and iconic characters of adventure fiction, they also maintained legal ownership. They weren't going to be bureaucratically shoved aside by corporate Hollywood after they'd poured such toil and passion into their creation, one who seemed to instantaneously become a long-treasured figure of Americana. No, they were going to make sure that the series maintained the same quality as the fledgling effort, perhaps even besting it. That combination of creative control and sheer whiz-bang talent resulted in the following; TEMPLE OF DOOM, THE LAST CRUSADE, and THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. So maybe fate did Donner and Mankiewicz a service by yanking them off the mound before the game went utterly pear-shaped. At least they'll be forever beloved by the fans. Spielberg and Lucas, however, will always be a more complicated evaluation.

So let's celebrate that first perfect initial effort, and damn all its resulting desecrations, and what better way to do both than a big screen viewing that will, hopefully, remove the memory of USA network's last CRYSTAL SKULL airing? Steven Spielberg's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK screens today at 2pm and 7pm at both the AMC Loews Kips Bay 15 and the AMC Empire 25 as part of the AMC Classics Series. You no getta tha 35mm at these screenings but the DCP conversions are pretty impressive, and when was the last time you felt like that boulder was really gonna crush ya?

For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in June '14 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. For the monthly overview and other audio tomfoolery check out the podcast, and follow me on SoundCloud! For reviews of contemporary cinema and my streaming habits (keep it clean!) check out my Letterboxd page. 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 I'll be busy with my Rosetta Stone Hovitos course! Fuck Belloq.

-Joe Walsh

JoeW@NitrateStock.net

P. S. Even though we're coming into the summer months and therefore not often as mindful of the displaced, some of our fellow NY'ers are yet to be made whole since Hurricane Sandy hit nearly two years ago. Check in with the good folks at Occupy Sandy to see if you can't still volunteer/donate to our neighbors in need. Be a mensch.