January 4th 2013. Pick Of The Day.

First thing's first; fuck it's cold out there.

And we seem to be looking at no respite from conditions Canadian anytime soon. So what better day than this for me to goad you into leaving the warmth of your quilt and the 50" flatscreen mere feet away to join in the communal film experience? It's almost perverse methinks!

James Dean tries desperately to escape the sins of his parents for one last day as MOMA screens Elia Kazan's EAST OF EDEN, a film perhaps unfairly compared to GIANT and REBEL because of the tragic star's sudden end. The CinemaScope DP work by the legendary Ted McCord is worth your attendance alone.

MOMA also offers two works from poet and provocateur Pier Paolo Pasolini as their comprehensive retrospective of the artist's film career reaches its penultimate day. THE DECAMERON and THE CANTERBURY TALES represent the first two entries in his Trilogy of Life, and I'm just guessing mind ya but something tells me Terry Gilliam's a huge fan.

Roberto Rossellini pretty much wrote the bible on Italian Neorealism with his hugely influential ROME OPEN CITY, a brutal condemnation of Nazi-occupied Italy, produced with the participation of both professionals and amatuers, largely utilizing existing light, the performers own wardrobes and makeup, and whatever actual locations were available. The result shook the world of cinema irrevocably for the better. Screening at the Rubin Museum, the price of admission is the purchase of a drink at their swank cocktail lounge, and trust me you'll need one before and after this flick. The movie that gave Anna Magnani to the world. Essential.

The Landmark Sunshine Cinema sez fire is our friend, and on this 30 degree day who can argue with them? YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN screens at midnight in this excellent antidote to the Angelica Film Center. And yes, they'll make espresso...

The Mods put a beat down on the Rockers in the proto-punk/Angry Young Man throwback QUADROPHENIA, also screening at midnight tonight in my fave new theater in NYC, Nitehawk Cinema in B-Burg. I know, I know, the place is teeming with facial hair. Give it a shot, trust me.

Pissers all, but none my Pick. No, a very special film is being afforded a week-long run at one of the most hallowed film temples in our Metropolis. It will screen in a new DCP restoration, which causes doubt in some, but it was overseen by the director's widow, one Thelma Schoonmaker, who knows a thing or two about how a film should look, so I'm assuming we're gonna be dazzled by the result.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The Archers. My perpetual affection and devotion to the body of work cinematic created by these eccentric and groundbreaking filmmakers is a source of agony to my friends who have had to endure my zealous babble. Mitigating factor? I am usually the reciepient of same said babble by my fellow Cinegeeks. My only reciprocal irritation is the wait to speak my turn.

From 1939 to 1957 they shared the unique joint credit of writers-producers-directors, though the bulk of any one responsibility seems easily divided from a fan's standpoint, just as we pretty much know who's responsible for what on a Coen Brothers flick. It made no matter. Each man recognized the need for the other's input and inspiration, and together they churned out popular propaganda flicks like CONTRABAND, ONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT IS MISSING and THE 49TH PARALLEL, daring and eccentric wartime morality plays like A CANTERBURY TALE and I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING, and unequivocal masterpieces of the British Cinema like the profoundly revered THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP and THE RED SHOES.

Admit it, that's some fucking CV.

Immediately postwar they were encouraged to spend their cinematic capital on a worthy endeavor, a story that might help cement the newly cordial Anglo-American relations into a solid alliance, a romance even. To that end they they concoted A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, wherein David Niven's aritistocratic RAF pilot falls for Kim Hunter's aw shucks New England WAC, and defeats no less an instituion than heaven itself to win the right to love her. Needless to say my second fave film all time was a resounding success on both sides of the pond, and now postwar Hollywood beckoned with all its money and craftsmen and backlots and appetites bigger than stomach the whole place encouraged. So of course these artists at the height of their commercial and critical success did the unobvious thing, which shouldn't have been such a shock; they'd built a career on decisions like that.

No, The Archers eschewed Hollywood and its attendant excesses and remained in England, making a deal with what would become the J. Arthur Rank Organization to film a story about missionary nuns transforming a former brothel into a school in the Himalayas. Y'know, the stuff of big box office. Oh yeah, and not a single frame would be shot on location. Powell would finally fully put to test his theory of the "composed film", where every element filmed was under the complete artistic control of the filmmaker and his crew. Even more unique he chose to turn part of the process on its head, commissioning the score to the climactic scene before he'd cut it, using the composer's interpretation of the sequence as blueprint to the editing instead of the traditional method, the exact opposite. And it worked. It all worked. The matte and model work seems as alive and sumptuous as the actual locations, the music and art direction take control of the narrative in ways mesmeric, and the nuns are hot. I mean, it's okay to say nuns are hot, right? Especially when they're played by stiff Brit honey Deborah Kerr, in perhaps her career best, and Kathleen Byron, who's slowly unravelling Sister Ruth threatens to steal the film. They're in love with the same man and not each other. Not at all. Isn't that obvious?

Lastly the great DP Jack Cardiff brought the "pearly" whites he'd established in LIFE AND DEATH's desaturated heaven to provide the poetic warmth to the desolate snowy mountain setting. Even the nun's habits are lush. Alright, before you think I have a nun fetsih lemme sum up!

The Archer's enduring masterpiece BLACK NARCISSUS screens for a week at the Film Forum. You owe it to yourself to catch this on the big screen. I don't have a thing for nuns.

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Stay safe and warm and make sure the next guy does too. Occupy Sandy still taking donations! Maybe I have a thing for nuns! Excelsior!

-Joe Walsh