June 25th 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.
Turns out they don't convict in this state for manufacturing and selling your own sizzurp. Thank god I'm not in Florida, and that my lawyer found a crooked judge.
Oh wait! This is my film site! Wrong blog! I was just joking folks! Why won't this damn HTML editor let me erase that intro?
Sigh. Ongoing series today include Alec Guinness 100 at Film Forum, An Auteurist History of Film at MoMA, and The Italian Connection: Poliziotteschi and Other Italo-Crime Films of the 60's and 70's at Anthology Film Archives. The hooliganism as follows;
Film Forum
FATHER BROWN (1954) Dir; Robert Hamer
THE CAPTAIN'S PARADISE (1953) Dir; Anthony Kimmins
MoMA
AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (1973) Dir; Werner Herzog
AMC Loews Kips Bay 15, AMC Empire 25
THE GODFATHER (1972) Dir; Francis Ford Coppola
Film Society of Lincoln Center
$ (DOLLARS) (1971)/BITE THE BULLET (1975) Dir; Richard Brooks
Anthology Film Archives
THE VIOLENT FOUR (1968) Dir; Carlo Lizzani
ALMOST HUMAN (1974) Dir; Umberto Lenzi
Today's Pick? Just chose the Poliziotteschi series yesterday, so that's out. And to be frank, because the AMC Classics website is so screwy, I can't say for sure which GODFATHER flick is screening today, and now that that three-bullet barrel contains the threequel's equivalent of a live cartridge, I can't fully attest to your safety should you attend. I could always recommend the brilliant Alec Guinness and the series at Film Forum feting his centennary, but I still have a little time before that excellent retro comes to a close. So I'm going with one of my fave filmmakers and all-around maniacs, which is probably a redundant description.
Long before Francis Ford Copppola thought it'd be a swingin' idea to plant a Hollywood production unit into the jungles of the Phillipines, Werner Herzog, one of the key figures of the 70's German New Wave, became enamored with the legend of a Spanish conquistador's treacherous trek down the Amazon in search of the fabled city of gold, El Dorado. Being thusly enamored he also thought it a masterstroke to shoot on location, with limited amenity from the forces of nature that engulfed his cast and crew, filming in sequence so the encroaching, increasing madness couldn't help but be caught by his cameras. He's a kook.
However, whereas Coppola had the fortune he'd made from the GODFATHER films and a hefty bank loan as his companion on his trek upriver (not that it staved off the myraid of catasrophe that visited his production), Herzog had about 400K to recreate the journey, nearly a dollar-to-year as old as the fabled odyssey itself. A third of that budget went to his leading man, one Klaus Kinski, a madman in his own right who was embarking on his first film with the man who would become his best and most frequent collaborator. It is film lore at this point, though somewhat denied by Herzog, that at one point tensions strained so greatly while the cameras rolled Herzog forced Kinski to act at gunpoint, although it would be equally believabe were the role of gunman reversed. Suffice to say this is a film that has and still invites equal parts hyperbole and sooth from surviving cast and crew, as well as its many fans from over the decades, if only because the resulting frenetic delirium captured by Herzog's celluloid is that most prized work of art; one that allows us to observe the breakdown of the rational mind without necessarily joining in. Not necessarily. Why're you lookin' at me like that?
Werner Herzog's AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD screens today at MoMA as part of their excellent Auteurist History of Film series.
For more info on these and all NYC's remaining 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 safe, sound, make sure the next knucklehead is too.
-Joe Walsh
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.
