August 22nd 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.
World War One! The Blacklist! Russian Science Fiction! Does NYC's repertory film circuit know how to end August with a smile or what I asks ye?
New and continuing series today includes An Auteurist History of Film and The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy at MoMA, Strange Lands: International Sci-Fi and Freaky Fridays at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, See It Big!: Hollywood Melodrama at Museum of the Moving IMage, Screenwriters and the Blacklist: Before, During and After at Anthology Film Archives, and the subtly monickered vampire series Bite This! at the Nitehawk Cinema. The repertory recidivism be thus;
Film Forum
THAT MAN FROM RIO (1964) Dir; Phillipe de Broca
ACCIDENT (1967) Dir; Joseph Losey
THE SERVANT (1963) Dir; Joseph Losey
MoMA
RAGING BULL (1980) Dir; Martin Scorsese
The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy
THE HEART OF HUMANITY (1919) Dir; Allen Holubar
THE LOST PATROL (1934) Dir; John Ford
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Strange Lands: International Sci-Fi
KIN-DZA-DZA! (1986) Dir; Georgiy Daneliya
DAYS OF ECLIPSE (1988) Dir; Aleksander Sokurov
THE BROOD (1979) Dir; David Cronenberg
MOONSTRUCK (1987) Dir; Norman Jewsion
Museum of the Moving Image
See It Big!: Hollywood Melodrama
REBECCA (1940) Dir; Alfred Hitchcock
Anthology Film Archives
Screenwriters and the Blacklist: Before, During and After
FORCE OF EVIL (1948) Dir; Abraham Polonsky
FIVE CAME BACK (1939) Dir; John Farrow
Pier 46, Hudson River Park
THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) Dir; Victor Fleming
Central Park
REAR WINDOW (1954) Dir; Alfred Hitchcock
IFC Center
BLUE VELVET (1986) Dir; David Lynch
Nitehawk Cinema
THE HUNGER (1982) Dir; Tony Scott
Today's Pick? Always nice to see dueling Hitches on the scene, tonight's matchup pitting Astoria against Central Park's Sheep's Meadow, indoor versus outdoor, Manderlay against Miss Lonelyhearts. But Big Al screens often in our burg, and there's some real rarities to be enjoyed tonight.
The two creepiest Davids to ever come out of the 80's, Cronenberg and Lynch, also duke it out on the late night circuit, the latter's BROOD facing off with Dennis Hopper's nitrous oxide cannister. Again, love 'em, but we get visits from these kids fairly often.
It's really down to three great series unspooling today; MoMA's excellent and just nearly half-completed The Great War, the Film Society's Strange Lands, and Anthology Film Archives' Screenwriters and the Blacklist. I've already favored MoMA's celebration of WWI-themed cinema, plus I still have weeks left to do so again. Not the case regarding the remaining choices, screening for a week and a fortnight, respectively. While I'm tempted to shine my Kliegs on the Sci-Fi think pieces from other worlds, albeit all from our shared planet, I'm putting it off for a day, in order to celebrate a most impressive relay; the passing of the Film Society's Hollywood witch-hunt series all the way downtown and east to Casa de Mekas. In what promises to be a most inspiring undertaking AFA launches the first in a three part program, each segment examining the duress experienced by the Holywood scribe at the various stages of scrutiny and scandal. Such now-celebrated writers, both for the strength of their convictions as well as their undeniable ability, as Albert Maltz, Ring Lardner Jr. and Dalton Trumbo are covered in the opening salvo, as well as the work of their transcribers, directors like Delmer Daves, Raoul Walsh and George Stevens. This promises to be a rich and rewarding revisiting of cinematic greatness, surely provoking much conversation even beyond the proposed theme. Should we stay within the lines, however, we can still sadly find much to discuss about that shameful era when a pious and power hungry zealot ruined the careers, and the lives, of some of our greatest filmmakers. If only in the hopes that we won't get fooled again.
Abraham Polonsky's FORCE OF EVIL and John Farrow's FIVE CAME BACK screen tonight as part of Screenwriters and the Blacklist: Before, During and After at Anthology Film Archives. On the advice of my counsel, I'm pleading nolo contendre.
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, yes, I knew Shia le Beouf before he became famous. Did he ever talk about smacking Alan Cummings' tuchus during a stage production of CABARET one day? You mean explicitly? May we approach, your honor?
-Joe Walsh
