August 16th 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.
So...Saturday. Saturday, Saturday, Saturday. Named after Saturn, the Phillippian god of rings. Who once challenged Hercules to a Whippet contest for the soul of Loni Anderson, and won. Who invented the skateboard on a dare from Gait, the god of escalators. Who favored the winner in the bloody Format Wars of both the 80's (VHS > Betamax) and 00's (BluRay > HD), but invested heavily in DiVX. Who declard the question mark redundant. Whose demeanor served as inspiration for Bruce Wayne, Jason Robards Jr., Droopy Dog. Whose okay enough I've pumped the header with enough hot air. It's Saturday. To the repertory tomfoolery!
Ongoing series today include Art Seen and Bite This! at the Nitehawk Cinema, Red Hollywood and the Blacklist at the Film Society, and The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy and A Fuller Life at MoMA. The matters of import are as follows;
Nitehawk Cinema
THE HORSE'S MOUTH (1956) Dir; Ronald Neame
NEAR DARK (1988) Dir; Katherine Bigelow
Film Forum
GUN CRAZY (1949) Dir; Joseph H. Lewis
THE KILLING (1956) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Red Hollywood and the Blacklist
HEAVEN WITH A BARBED WIRE FENCE (1939) Dir; Ricardo Cortez
ROAD GANG (1936) Dir; Louis King
I STOLE A MILLION (1939) Dir; Frank Tuttle
MoMA
The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy
NO MAN'S LAND/HELL ON EARTH (1931) Dir; Victor Trivas
WESTFRONT 1918 (1930) Dir; G. W Pabst
THE HEART OF HUMANITY (1919) Dir; Allen Holubar
I SHOT JESSE JAMES (1949) Dir; Sam Fuller
THE BARON OF ARIZONA (1950) Dir; Sam Fuller
THE STEEL HELMET (1951) Dir; Sam Fuller
Mid-Manhattan Library
THE OUTSIDERS (1983) Dir; Francis Ford Coppola
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989) Dir; Steven Spielberg
IFC Center
THE SHINING (1980) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
Today's Pick? My heart never strays far from that of Gulley Jimson's, the anarchic artist both scripted and portrayed by the magnificent Alec Guinness in THE HORSE'S MOUTH, one of the great examinations/celebrations of the creative id run amok. I'm also quite partial to Coppola's 1st S. E. Hinton adap THE OUTSIDERS, a mashup of GONE WITH THE WIND and REBEL WITOUT A CAUSE. But today's real fruit are its multiple bills, the Forum's two-fer of GUN CRAZY and THE KILLING, and the potential trip-bill (if you're a museum member) of MoMA's day with Sam Fuller. The latter tempts most mightily, but I've given the nod to this series twice in the last week alone. So I'm going with a most worthy expenditure of your waking hours this day, a specially-priced trifecta celebrating the works of various cinematic talents curtailed by an age of paranoia. Some, like scribes Dalton Trumbo and Carl Foreman, simply outlasted the circus. Some, like directors Jules Dassin and Joseph Losey, found even greater fame and fortune in foreign cinema. Some, too many, found themselves exemplars of the successful efforts of such a nefarious enterprise, and never returned, to the industry in some cases, to the world itself in a tragic number of others. Today the Film Society grants the opportunity to witness the potenial and kinetic greatness of some of these filmmakers, an opportunity to shine some light on creative voices a certain authoritarian set thought it in your best interests to ignore at one point. The defensive outcry might be 60 years too late, but the championing of unique craftsmanship never gets old.
Ricardo Cortez's HEAVEN WITH A BARBED WIRE FENCE, Louis King's ROAD GANG, and Frank Tuttle's I STOLE A MILLION unspool as a discount three-fer today at the Francesca Beale Theater, as part of the Film Society's series Red Hollywood and the Blacklist. Miss this and be shunned by your peers...uh, I mean you'll be ostracized by your fellow film...waitaminnit...hey, miss this and there'll be no consequnces whatsoever. Hold on! That can't be right! Dammit I hate when the niggling nuances of practical existence interfere with my hyperbole! I curse you actuality! I curse your children!
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.
