December 16th-22nd: Lois Weber Resurrected, Santas Both Naughty & Nice, and Nazis: Not Just Movie Bad Guys Anymore! Read on, True Believers!
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Dead center middle of the month. It's not quite feeling like Xmas yet, but also not exactly Yule-averse either. Dead center middle, defined. To be fair snow has yet to fall, the bulk of the really in-your-face Xmas film screenings is just around the corner, and I haven't begun my own shopping yet. The festives have yet to fully take hold of me, but they have yet to fail me lo these 40blahblabbityblah years. I'm confident the holiday cheer will invest in me as fully as Legion did Regan in Friedkin's holiday masterpiece. I await the occupation, benevolent sprites! Hey, how many steps are on that staircase?
New and ongoing series this week include Kurosawa & Mifune at IFC Center, Modern Matinees: Le Grandi Donne and Dino Risi at MoMA, Life is a Dream: The Films of Raúl Ruiz and Goin' Steadi: 40 Years of Steadicam at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Pop! Goes Cinema: Kadokawa Films & 80's Japan at the Japan Society, Maggie Cheung: Center Stage at Metrograph, and the eternally swank Cabaret Cinema at the Rubin Museum. The flickering flamboyance be thus;
Friday December 16th
IFC Center
HIGH AND LOW (1963) Dir; Akira Kurosawa
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) Dir; Frank Capra
Film Forum
THE LION IN WINTER (1968) Dir; Anthony Harvey
MoMA
Modern Matinees: Le Grandi Donne
THE FACTS OF MURDER (1959) Dir; Pietro Germi
THE SIGN OF VENUS (1955) Dir; Dino Risi
OH! SABELLA (1957) Dir; Dino Risi
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Life is a Dream: The Films of Raúl Ruiz
TREASURE ISLAND (1985) Dir; Raúl Ruiz
Goin' Steadi: 40 Years of Steadicam
BOUND FOR GLORY (1976) Dir; Hal Ashby
MARATHON MAN (1976) Dir; John Schlesinger
Anthology Film Archives
THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI (1916) Dir; Lois Weber
Rubin Museum
NOSTALGHIA (1983) Dir; Andrei Tarkovsky
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1946) Dir; George Seaton
Nitehawk Cinema
TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972) Dir; Freddie Francis
Today's Pick? The Film Society's non-double feature of Ashby's BOUND FOR GLORY and Schlesinger's MARATHON MAN, connected not merely by a theme, namely Goin' Steadi: 40 Years of Steadicam, but both intro'd by the camera innovation's inventor, one Garrett Brown, who from all reliable sources is not simply the marvel's creator but a master racontuer as well. Plus, because the venue is offering throwback pricing from its earliest days it means you can basically consider this a two-fer! And lastly, oppose fascists. While enjoying the Walter Reade's ace concession stand. Win-win sez me.
Saturday December 17th
IFC Center
HIGH AND LOW (1963) Dir; Akira Kurosawa
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) Dir; Frank Capra
Film Forum
THE LION IN WINTER (1968) Dir; Anthony Harvey
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Life is a Dream: The Films of Raúl Ruiz
DIALOGUES OF THE EXILES (1975) Dir; Raúl Ruiz
Goin' Steadi: 40 Years of Steadicam
ROCKY (1976) Dir; John G. Avildsen
THE SHINING (1980) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
Syndicated
HOME ALONE (1990) Dir; Chris Columbus
DIE HARD (1988) Dir; John McTiernan
MoMA
POOR BUT HANDSOME (1957) Dir; Dino Risi
Japan Society
Pop! Goes Cinema: Kadokawa Films & 80's Japan
W'S TRAGEDY (1984) Dir; Shinichiro Sawai
Anthology Film Archives
THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI (1916) Dir; Lois Weber
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1946) Dir; George Seaton
Nitehawk Cinema
TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972) Dir; Freddie Francis
Today's Pick? A toss-up betwixt two wonderful midnight screenings of vastly differing intent; Seaton's holiday classic, what remains my fave Xmas film all-time MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, a venue I feel doesn't get enough love nowadays, amd Freddie Francis' wonderfully warped TALES FROM THE CRYPT, a holiday classic in its own disturbed right, at a venue I also feel deserves more love each and every day, my beloved Nitehawk Cinema in follically festooned BillyBoihg! Too bad this wasn't a double bill somewheres, the back-to-backer of Santas munificent and malevolent would be quite the spiked punch for the Yuletide. In stead of such a twin-bill, flip a coin. Or down the nog and choose. Look, I can't hold your hand through everything, can I? Sometimes liquor and your impaired judgment have to guide the day. Trust the nog.
Sunday December 18th
IFC Center
HIGH AND LOW (1963) Dir; Akira Kurosawa
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) Dir; Frank Capra
Film Forum
THE LION IN WINTER (1968) Dir; Anthony Harvey
MoMA
A DIFFICULT LIFE (1958) Dir; Dino Risi
IL SORPASSO (1962) Dir; Dino Risi
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Life is a Dream: The Films of Raúl Ruiz
THREE SAD TIGERS (1968) Dir; Raúl Ruiz
United Palace of Cultural Arts
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) Dir; Frank Capra
Syndicated
DIE HARD (1988) Dir; John McTiernan
HOME ALONE (1990) Dir; Chris Columbus
Anthology Film Archives
THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI (1916) Dir; Lois Weber
Metrograph
PAPER MARRIAGE (1988) Dir; Alfred Cheung
Today's Pick? The Library of Congress' painstaking restoration of Lois Weber's THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI! Weber was Universal Studios' top moneymaker in the teens. LAST century's teens. Before the glass ceiling became a thing, which I've always strongly suspected was tied to the ratification of the 19th Amendment, and female filmakers became a rarified category, save for Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino and Elaine May. PORTICI is unseen by these peepers, but it promises cinematic splendor along the lines of early Dwan and Walsh, a silent spectacle with a female lead to boot, none other than Prima Ballerina Anna Pavlova! My expectations are gargantuan, and my confidence that those expectations will be met is high! I am always alert when entering AFA, to such things as my doppelganger or the SHINING twins, but I do love it dearly. It's our own fave haunted movie house.
Other screenings of interest this week include Film Forum's presentation of 1979's throwback streetgang classic THE WANDERERS, complete with a Skype Q&A with director/screenwriter Philip Kaufman, this Monday the 19th; The 35mm unspooling of Slesinger's MARATHON MAN at the newly restored, revived, reinvigorated Walter Reade Theater, included as trib to Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown and intro'd by he himself Tuesday night the 20th; Anthony Harvey's adap of THE LION IN WINTER,now the recipient of a fully bully 4K resto, streaming at Film Forum for a fortnight; and the back-to-backers of Ozu's THERE WAS A FATHER and I WAS BORN, BUT... at Anthology Film Archives, Thursday the 22nd. Maybe not the most Christmasy of fare, unless you think dental torture and spousal civil war particularly merry, but then again we got another few days before the Yule burns cool. So my Xmas Picks sit in readiness, yet to appear, like the tree-foot gifts they be.
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 it is just that: something.
