November 18th-20th: Daughters, Sisters, and Pandora's Grand & Terrible Legacy. Crack the Lid.
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Surprised I got nothing to say? After the week we just had? You don't know me. You NEVER knew me! I'm going to SCREA- yeah just kiddin' Week sucked. Things suck. Let's focus on what don't suck so much, meaning our wonderful rep film circuit, which this week includes 3D Auteurs at Film Forum, Modern Matinees: The Body Politic and To Save and Project: The 14th International Festival of Film Preservation at MoMA, That's Entertainment: MGM Musicals Part II at BAM Cinématek, Memorable Fantasies: Jorge Luis Borges & Adolfo Bioy Casares on Film at Anthology Film Archives, Total Verhoeven at the Film Society, See It Big! Holiday Films at Museum of the Moving Image, and the eternaly swank Cabaret Cinema at the Rubin Museum of Art. The crimes be thus;
Friday November 18th
Film Forum
HOUSE OF WAX (1953) Dir; André de Toth
INFERNO (1953) Dir; Roy Ward Baker
THE STRANGER WORE A GUN (1953) Dir; André de Toth
THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954) Dir; Jack Arnold
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1990) Dir; Julie Dash
MoMA
Modern Matinees: The Body Politic
THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST (1967) Dir; Theodore J. Flicker
To Save and Project: The 14th International Festival of Film Preservation
COMRADESHIP (1931) Dir; G.W. Pabst
WESTFRONT 1918 (1930) Dir; G.W. Pabst
BAM Cinématek
That's Entertainment: MGM Musicals Part II
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1950) Dir; Vincente Minnelli
New York Historical Society
INHERIT THE WIND (1960) Dir; Stanley Kramer
Anthology Film Archives
Memorable Fantasies: Jorge Luis Borges & Adolfo Bioy Casares on Film
PRACTIE MAKES PERFECT (1979) Dir; Philippe de Broca
Rubin Museum
THE PARTY (1968) Dir; Blake Edwards
Nitehawk Cinema
AKIRA (1989) Dir; Matsuhiro Otomo
Today's Pick? I wanted to find some connective tissue that'd work day-to-day over the course of the weekend, y'know like Gene Kelly's being in both AMERICAN and INHERIT. Alack, no luck. However, I can find a theme that covers the weekend and perhaps the week forward on the whole, and that is films featuring strong female leads, celebrations of sisterhood even! So today belongs to pioneering fimmaker Julie Dash and her auspicious and audacious debut feature DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST, screening for a week only (don't bet on it!) at Film Forum. I'm gonna be honest here, I've never seen the film, although it's rep has hung heavy in my Bucket List. The setting and setup intrigues, a family of African-Americans residing in the South and between upheavals; the end of the Civil War and their liberation, and the uncertain, even frightening future of freedom in the north. Sadly, these stories never get less timely. Fortunately these stories remain to walk us through these gravelly roads. The filmmaker herself will be in attendance for the 7:25pm show tonight. Unmissable stuff.
Saturday November 19th
Nitehawk Cinema
PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES (1988) Dir; John Hughes
AKIRA (1989) Dir; Matsuhiro Otomo
BAM Cinématek
That's Entertainment: MGM Musicals Part II
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1950) Dir; Vincente Minnelli
ROYAL WEDDING (1951) Dir; Stanley Donen
Film Society of Lincoln Center
TOTAL RECALL (1990) Dir; Paul Verhoeven
Film Forum
SECOND CHANCE (1953) Dir; Rudolph Maté
THE GLASS WEB (1953) Dir; Jack Arnold
INFERNO (1953) Dir; Roy Ward Baker
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1990) Dir; Julie Dash
Anthology Film Archives
Memorable Fantasies: Jorge Luis Borges & Adolfo Bioy Casares on Film
LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1960) Dir; Alain Resnais
THE OTHERS (1974) Dir; Hugo Santiago
INVASION (1969) Dir; Hugo Santiago
Museum of the Moving Image
AVALON (1990) Dir; Barry Levinson
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986) Dir; Woody Allen
Library for the Performing Arts
AMADEUS (1986) Dir; Milos Forman
Today's Pick? In keeping with the sisterhood theme I go with the Woodman's ode to the sororal, his 1986 masterpiece HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, unspooling in glorious 35mm at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of their See It Big! Holiday Films series. Any film that keeps a dampened, distracted soul from committing suicide due to the mere proximity of the Marx Brothers? You've always got my vote, kiddo! Now pick a card.
Sunday November 20th
Nitehawk Cinema
PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES (1988) Dir; John Hughes
MoMA
To Save and Project: The 14th International Festival of Film Preservation
CHILDREN MUST LAUGH (1936)/LIGHTS OUT IN EUROPE (1940) Dirs Alexander Ford/Herbert Kline
THE LAST CHANCE (1945) Dir; Leopold Lindtberg
BEHIND THE DOOR (1919) Dir; Irvin V. Willat
Film Forum
HOUSE OF WAX (1953) Dir; André de Toth
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1990) Dir; Julie Dash
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1959) Dir; Richard Brooks
BAM Cinématek
That's Entertainment: MGM Musicals Part II
BRIGADOON (1954) Dir; Vincente Minnelli
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1950) Dir; Vincente Minnelli
Mid-Manhattan Library
THE BIGAMIST (1953) Dir; Ida Lupino
Film Society of Lincoln Center
FLESH + BLOOD (1985) Dir; Paul Verhoeven
Anthology Film Archives
Memorable Fantasies: Jorge Luis Borges & Adolfo Bioy Casares on Film
PANDORA'S BOX (1929) Dir; G. W. Pabst
CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING (1974) Dir; Jacques Rivette
Today's Pick? It's inclusion might seem a stretch but I feel not. Louise Brooks' tour-de-force perf in the masterpiece PANDORA'S BOX stands to this day as a beacon for femme thesps, encompassing all the worst aspects of the accepted female stereotype in popular arts and culture, yet wholly subverting those very same expectations and perceptions in very, very subtle ways. Brooks embodied at once innocence and temptation, fresh-faced optimism and propriety's weight. She managed to rep so many seemingly invisible facets of womanhood, at a time when that merited little support, in the pursuit of filling out a written character and assisting a film narrative, that it'd almost seem par for the course to dismiss or diminish her contrib to the cinematic narrative overall. Louise Brooks looms large. Still. And if you have to ask why, then you'll always have to ask why. Hey, not my insecure dread of emasculation re: rising acceptance of female empowerment, not my problem. Screens at Anthology Film Achives as part of their ongoing series Memorable Fantasies: Jorge Luis Borges & Adolfo Bioy Casares on Film. Yer welcome.
Other notable screenings this week include Felix J. Feist's DELUGE, the proto-daddy to Irwin Allen's best/worst Apocalypse cinema tendencies, thought lost but now found, reassembled and restored to its initial brilliance, screening this Monday at MoMA as part their slowly winding-down To Save and Project series; Kinji Fukasaku's VIRUS, a relic of an earlier endemic cultural fear that seems slowly swirling back to the fore unfortunately, and not just because the 80's as a whole refuse to stop coming back, screening Tuesday at the Japan Society as part of their new series Pop Goes Cinema! Kadokawa Film & 80's Japan; Paul Verhoeven's SOLDIER OF ORANGE, arguably the film that not only made the filmmaker's rep on the worldwide stage, but shaved and smoothed the edges of the rough moon monickered Rutger Hauer, as well, unspooling Wednesday in glorious 35mm as part of the Film Society's trib Total Verhoeven; and Thursday's Thanksgiving. Fuck you for being so Un-American that you'd want a movie Pick on such an importnat day for all of us who hold dear those vaunted principles ok wait are they gone? think we're all clear. Right. My Thanksgiving Pick for all of us not possessed of a puritanical streak debilitating know that my Pick today is Jack Arnold's CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. Because what better way to celebrate the first communal meal okay I'm JOKING! Lighten up! My Pick today is that unassailable masterpiece SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, co-directed by Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen. It bombed on release yet rose since to become America's preferred bill-of-fare. What better to rep Turkey this day? Screens in splendiferous 35mm/Technicolor as part of BAM's brillaint and ongoing That's Entertainment: MGM Musicals Part II!
So there ya have it, my advice for your next 7 days' best time expenditure. We'll check in again a week from now for the purposes of once more rummaging through the reels and making the tough yet wonderful choices regarding our chosen love. Til then be sure to follow me on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, and be SURE to catch my new YouTube channel, Nitrate Stock TV, where I'll be checking in at screenings all over the city and giving my 2 cents on the film, the venue, the audience, any damn thing that comes to my mind. Which, as some of ya know, can be quite entertaining. Til next time Stockahz, remember: be safe, be sound, and make sure the next guy and gal are too. Excelsior!
- Joe Walsh
P. S. As you know I like to beat the drum for what I consider worthwhile causes. Lately the strain of xenophobia which, sadly has always been present in our countyr, mostly dormant, but at times very awoken and tangible. Sadly, the latter is the present case, and the subject of Syrain refugees has become a veritable powderkeg. To those of you who believe we can aid these people, our fellow human beings who are desperate for our help, I suggest the heroic efforts of the good men and women at DoctorsWithoutBorders. They're providing boots-on-the-ground relief, everything from surgery and medicine to clean water. It's a small something to be sure in this maelstrom of madness, but is is just that: something.
