August 14th 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.
What I'm grateful for, movie edition;
Increasingly VOD arthouse fare is still readily available at a 'plex near me.
30 years of smuggling candy into the movies hasn't caused the industry to summarily crash. Well, yet.
Anarchic, individualist tendencies can still poke through the cracks of increasingly stale mass-produced blockbusters.
Torches that have been snuffed out in the real world continue to glow brighter still in cinema's posterity.
And finally that the Twizzlers vs. Vines debate rages still. And I remain an impartial observer screw that TWIZZLERS ALL THE WAY SUCKAHZ!!! BRING IT!!!
Ongoing series today include An Auteurist History of Film, The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy and A Fuller Life at MoMA, and the final day of BAM's comprehensive trib to master humanist/provocateur Luis Buñuel. The hooliganism looks thus;
Film Forum
DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) Dir; Billy Wilder
BOY MEETS GIRL (1984) Dir; Leos Carax
MoMA
APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX (1979/2001) Dir; Francis Ford Coppola
SEVENTH HEAVEN (1927) Dir; Frank Borzage
HOUSE OF BAMBOO (1955) Dir; Sam Fuller
TELL ENGLAND (1931) Dir; Anthony Asquith
HATS OFF (1936) Dir; Boris Petroff
BAM Cinématek
THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL/SIMON OF THE DESERT (1962/1965) Dir; Luis Buñuel
Today's Pick? I cannot let the Buñuel series pass without exalting it one final time, especially as it screens as a two-fer tonight. The former effort a sort of Beckettesque view of propriety's torture, the latter a musing on the paucity of reward for pious devotion. BELLE DE JOUR, THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE and THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY still lay in the auteur's future, but he was decidedly past his Mexican period, spiritually if not geographically. Whether you've attended every screening in the series or missed them all, this is essential viewing tonight. Be sure to sneak in a bag of Red Hots, the filmmaker would appreciate the larceny. However mild. At this stage ya take what you can get.
Luis Buñuel's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL and SIMON OF THE DESERT close out BAM Cinématek's massive, exhaustive retrospective of the works of the great director. Film lovers, filmmakers, film students, hell, humanists worldwide should eke some small glee out of the fact that his work still warrants a screening or series anywhere in the world at anytime. The folks at BAM have just granted us our latest opportunity. And we thank them.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in August '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've fully entered 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.
