June 28th 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.
The July calendar's just about complete, and the podcast awaits recording. The month is absolutely jam-packed with classic screenings of both the indoor and outdoor stripe. Guest speakers, live musical accompaniment, and on the 4th of July alone you get 5-count-'em-5 screenings of JAWS spread out across 4 separate venues. Our repertory film Summer in NYC is about to truly and properly begin, but while there's still a scant few days left let's embrace June's bounty before it leaves us. Unless you're watching the World Cup still. Then you're lost to me. All my remaining children may read on.
Today's continuing series include Original Gangsters at IFC Center, Alec Guinness 100 at Film Forum, See It Big! Science Fiction (Part Two) at Museum of the Moving Image, and The Italian Connection: Poliziotteschi and Other Italo-Crime Films of the 60's and 70's at Anthology Film Archives. The flagrant frivolity as follows;
IFC Center
ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938) Dir; Michael Curtiz
ERASERHEAD (1977) Dir; David Lynch
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) Dir; Tobe Hooper
THE TERMINATOR (1984) Dir; James Cameron
Nitehawk Cinema
WILLOW (1988) Dir; Ron Howard
THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973) Dir; Alejandro Jodorowsky
THE THING (1982) Dir; John Carpenter
Film Forum
THE LADYKILLERS (1955) Dir; Alexander Mackendrick
Museum of the Moving Image
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951) Dir; Robert Wise
SILENT RUNNING (1974) Dir; Douglas Trumbull
Mid-Manhattan Library
THE RARE BREED (1966) Dir; Andrew McLaglen
Anthology Film Archives
RABID DOGS (1974) Dir; Mario Bava
CONFESSIONS OF A POLICE CAPTAIN (1971) Dir; Damiano Damiani
BLOOD IN THE STREETS (aka REVOLVER) (1973) Dir; Sergio Sollima
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
VACATION (1983) Dir; Harold Ramis
Today's Pick? As I scan over my month's worth of choices I find a glaring overlook, a series which has recived zero love from me, a guy who otherwise embraces the genre it celebrates with immense, and perhaps frightening, zest. So I'm taking this last opportunity afore July's arrival to shine a light on a fantastic, in the literal sense, two-fer, unspooling at what is perhaps our finest shrine to all things cinematic. Wanna toy with an original phenakistoscope? Or trace the evolution of the movie camera by strolling past a hallway lined with examples from every era? Or just take in a terrific old school flicker in a state of the art screening space? Then my friend, to paraphrase Anthony Quinn, there is only Astoria for you.
Robert Wise's THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and Douglass Trumbull's SILENT RUNNING screen today at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of their slowly winding down See It Big! Science Fiction series. The price of admission gains you access to the films as well as the entire exhibition space. Do yourself a favor and kill a whole day at this joint. Beleive me, you'll still require several return trips to wrap your head around the whole experience. Plus the cafe's muffins are ace. Trust me.
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 klaatu barada nikto. Which means I love you so. Wait, ain't that the Bobby Vinton song?
-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.
