December 21st 2012. Pick Of The Doomsday.

Happy Mayan Apocalypse, Stockers! Hope this end of days finds you well and warm. Seems like those negative ancient pricks were correct about the weather so far, let's see how the rest of the day plays out. There are several productive activites and pertinent festivities deserving of your time this last day on Earth, not least of which is my very own Mayan Apocalypse Blowout at LUNASA, 126 1st Avenue between 7Th street and St. Marks kicking off at 8pm, where we're raffling off the new complete 007 BluRay box to raise funds for Occupy Sandy's hurricane relief efforts. Booze, Broads, Bond, and then the end of the world. Or so I'm told. What better way, I ask?

Should you be firmly committed to your cinegeek agenda rest assured, you have plenty of classic screenings with which to while away Armageddeon. So let's get started shall we?

Film Forum optimistically schedules a week's unspooling of the Doug Fairbanks classic THIEF OF BAGDAD, at the time the most expensive silent swashbuckler of his or any career. Featuring the efforts of the top special effects men of the time as well as the elaborate and exorbitant production design of the legendary William Cameron Menzies, THIEF remained a high watermark for the adventure fantasy genre at least until Alexander Korda attempted its remake in 1939. Even then it may not have been topped. Should the world stick it out past today you've got seven days to catch this masterpiece, but why chance putting it off?

MOMA flouts impending doom by scheduling a screening of David Lean's OLIVER TWIST as part of their excellent Dickens On Film series. Ollie's plea for more seems pretty selfish under our current doomsday circumstance, I daresay.

MOMA also brings the appropriate planetary annihilation yuks with two offerings from happy fun guy Pier Paolo Pasolini, as part of ther trib to the master of mirth. THEOREM posits that Terence Stamp is Jesus. We'll find out in a few hours. PIGSTY is titled PIGSTY. Provide your own conclusions. Secular humanism never got so icky. I'm guessing Cronenberg loved this dude like he loves Jesus. We'll find out in a few hours.

Museum of the Moving Image offers a terribly soapy Douglas Sirk flick as balm to our impending non-existence. The appropriately titled ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS screens today at 7pm. Jane Wyman experiences an entirely different end of the world.

The Rubin Museum, a repository devoted to Tibetan culture, and we all know how THEY feel about death, offers some alt programming with the incredibly lively AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, Gene Kelly and Vincente Minelli's trib to both Gershwin and the MGM Freed wing that pretty much defined the Technicolor musical from the 40's forward. The price of a drink grants admission to the museum's screening space, and you'll need plenty before the world goes ka-blooey. There are worse ways to go...

If we live long enough we'll get to watch the new Quentin Tarantino opus on Xmas Day, DJANGO UNCHAINED. Skeptics of our future beyond the next 18 or so hours may want to hedge their bets by checking out QT's original inspiration, screening tonight at Film Forum. Sergio Corbucci's Spaghetti Western classic DJANGO unspools for a week at the FF. Man is Bruce Goldstein a glass-half-full kinda guy...

Alejandro Jodorowsky pretty much predicted all this in THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, screening at the IFC Center at midnight. I'm not sure exactly how, but it's in there. Look for it. Robert Altman's M.A.S.H. shares the midnight bill at IFC and why exactly? We got an apocalypse on our hands here people! No two hours can be considered trivial time today! If yer gonna catch a movie before the entirety of human history is reuced to naught but ash then choose carefully! Which I have done. Hence, my Pick Of The Day.

I can't think of anything more I need to say than that Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is screening at the Walter Reade theater in 70mm. Yes, I said 70mm. What better valentine to the human race and hope for its continued evolution exists on celluloid, asks this guy? If you have a final film to watch before Andromeda collides with the Milky Way I suggest there may be no finer work of art to go out on.

Or then again this whole Mayan Apocalypse thing could be bullshit. If only science had an answer...

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY screens today at 6:30pm at the Walter Reade Theater. Whatever you do today, film-wise or other, I hope you enjoy the day. I advise taking an umbrella. Should the end of the world come it was nice knowing you folks, if it doesn't let's take special pleasure in being alive one more day. 'Casue it means we just might make a screening of THIEF OF BAGDAD at the Film Forum. I mean that's my focus anyway.

Follow me @NitrateStock!

Like the page at Facebook.com/NitrateStock!

Live long and prosper Stockers! A joyous Armageddeon to you all! And take an umbrella! I mean it!

-Joe Walsh