January 11th 2013. Pick Of The Day.

Now this month begins to get interesting. I mean more interesting. Look it's January, let's not pretend to be choosers.

The Film Forum kicks off its centerpiece fest of 2013's first month, the NEW YAWK NEW WAVE retrospective, with two flicks from the fringe of NYC's filmmaking past. Lionel Rogosin's quasi-doc ON THE BOWERY is paired with avant garde director Shirley Clarke's feature debut THE CONNECTION. The former mixes actual footage of the poverty row boulevard at its worst depths and the forgotten men who call it home with a contrived narrative. The resulting film not only does not utilize painful reality to enhance the fictional drama but vice versa, providing context for the severe conditions every day life held for flophouse residents and curch step squatters in the mid-50's.

The latter was a dire adap of a notorious Off-Off-Off-Broadway play from the early 60's whose severe portrayal of jazz junkiedom in the beat era earned the enmity of NY state's Censorship watchdogs, who in turn earned Clarke's dogged determination to overturn the indecency ruling against her film. The fight would last a decade and ultimately the decision against Clarke's film was upheld. Today so much worse is gotten away with during the course of an average episode of an FX series. No matter. THE CONNECTION screens today so that you may exercise your freedoms and spend two hours in a dank basement with a pair of sax playing hopheads. Or you could just hang out at the New School. Was that bad?

MOMA offers one last day for THE BROTHERS RICO to exonerate themselves. Ace B-Noir auteur Phil Karlson helms a sturdy script by then blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, in which Richard Conte's ex-gangster with a conscience gets dragged back into the life by his two still-gangster brothers. Richard Conte just never had it easy, y'know?

Videology, a Brooklyn video store attempting to provide a cozy movie viewing experience, makes up for the lack of celluloid projection with intriguing, dig-through-the-crates programming. And good popcorn. Yo, that last part's important. This month they highlight edgy 70's animation from, of all places, the U.S. Yes, we've proven we can close the disturbing cartoon gap between us and the Czechs. Tonight the fondly remembered offering to our collective burgeoning adolesence from the end of the ME decade is back on a sorta big screen, that most revered mash up of European comic book mentality and American Rock! Lord knows Ivan Reitman's done some good (STRIPES, GHOSTBUSTERS, Jason) and some bad (pretty much the rest of his CV), but producing the cult classic HEAVY METAL may just be the tipping point that gains him entrance to gates pearly. Iconic, influential, archetypal, it's summed up by those two most important words; cartoon boobies. Just nearly misses as my Pick today.

And the Nitehawk Cinema, for god knows whatever reason, has devoted a generous amount of its midnight screentime to the unfailingly awful Brian De Palma, starting tonight with his vastly overrated and lazy exercise in Giallo imitation of Hitchcock, the circuituous path of theft remaining the most original thing this flick has to offer perhaps. Nonetheless I love the Nitehawk, and want to see its screening rooms packed to the brim. I also understand there are some folks out there who actually dig Brian De Palma. Some cats dug Pol Pot. The world's a funny joint. Enough, DRESSED TO KILL screens tonight and tomorrow at midnight. Take advantage of the liquor wait service should you attend is my advice. That is all.

All interesting, all worthy of attendance, except mebbe BDP, but none my Pick. Today I go with a flick I have yet to see, as is my wont periodically, about a chance meeting betwen ex-lovers. Or maybe not. Maybe they never met. Maybe they aren't real. Maybe the film doesn't even exist. Welcome to the French New Wave.

Alain Resnais was a respected editor and director of short documentaries before his harsh recounting of the Nazi concentration camps, NIGHT AND FOG, launched him onto the world stage. Benefitting greatly from the cinematic bulwark bashing of the Cahiers Du Cinema gang, he followed Francios Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Claude Chabrol through the gates toppled and into the very heart of the Nouvelle Vague. HIROSHMA MON AMOUR saw the director's fascination with memory and its relationship to absolute truth fully emerge as his main cinematic theme. His followup would not only offer the subject of human memory as handicap to absolute truth, but handicap to the very film viewing experience. Or so I'm told. Like I sed, ain't seen it, gonna correct that tonight, will post to Twitter and Facebook whence I've crossed this off my Cinematic Bucket List. Wish me luck, Stockahz, I'm missing HEAVY METAL for this...

LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD screens tonight at the Rubin Museum at 9:30pm. The price of a cocktail gains you admittance to the screening room. Something tells me I'll need it. The Rubin only offers BluRay projection, but the overall experience of their Cabaret Cinema series is so cool I overlook this shortcoming eternally. So come chillax with the nutty Tibetians and Resnais' meditation on the fragile nature of human identity! Woo Fekkin' Hoo! When is January over???

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Be safe and sound and make sure the next guy is too, Suckahz! See ya at the Rubin! Oy Gestalt!

-Joe Walsh