World War One! The Blacklist! Russian Science Fiction! Does NYC's repertory film circuit know how to end August with a smile or what I asks ye?

New and continuing series today includes An Auteurist History of Film and The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy at MoMA, Strange Lands: International Sci-Fi and Freaky Fridays at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, See It Big!: Hollywood Melodrama at Museum of the Moving IMage, Screenwriters and the Blacklist: Before, During and After at Anthology Film Archives, and the subtly monickered vampire series Bite This! at the Nitehawk Cinema. The repertory recidivism be thus;

The month's hardly over but a slight lull has visited the repertory film circuit. A final August afterburn kicks in tomorrow, but for tonight let's prize what treasure there is to be had; criminal lovers on the run, heists gone wrong, winged nature run amok, and dogs and cats living together. In other words, mass hysteria.

Ongoing series today include An Auteurist History of Film at MoMA, and Red Hollywood and the Blacklist at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The tomfoolery be thus;

Header pending. On to the body. I'm talking about the article, wiseacre, keep it clean.

New and continuing series today include Red Hollywood and the Blacklist at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and An Auteurist History of Film and The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy at MoMA. The megillah in whole as follows;

To be honest with you cats, I needed this last weekend just to decompress after the back-to-back bad news regarding Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall, plus the processing of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last lead perf in the excellent A MOST WANTED MAN. Yeah there are far worse and more tragic circumstances happening in the world, but we expect these grim cracks in the facade of what we otherwise believe to be a more-often-than-not adequately functioning planet. It's the irony of the whole megillah that the seemingly superfluous stuff, the suicide of a mutli-millionaire, the passing of a fully-lifed woman in her early 90's, and the perhaps accidental death of an otherwise well-priveleged fixture, may tear such a devastating wound in our hulls. The reason is simple enough; our icons are supposed to alleviate suffering, not cause it. Ultimately, obviously, their true sorrow belonged to themselves first, to their immediate loved ones second. But we the devoted are a close and very exposed third. I thank them for their contributions to my happiness. And bid farewell.

Continuing series today include Red Hollywood and the Blacklist at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy at MoMA, and Classics in HD at Symphony Space. The cinematic dilly dally looks thus;

So...Saturday. Saturday, Saturday, Saturday. Named after Saturn, the Phillippian god of rings. Who once challenged Hercules to a Whippet contest for the soul of Loni Anderson, and won. Who invented the skateboard on a dare from Gait, the god of escalators. Who favored the winner in the bloody Format Wars of both the 80's (VHS > Betamax) and 00's (BluRay > HD), but invested heavily in DiVX. Who declard the question mark redundant. Whose demeanor served as inspiration for Bruce Wayne, Jason Robards Jr., Droopy Dog. Whose okay enough I've pumped the header with enough hot air. It's Saturday. To the repertory tomfoolery!

Ongoing series today include Art Seen and Bite This! at the Nitehawk Cinema, Red Hollywood and the Blacklist at the Film Society, and The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy and A Fuller Life at MoMA. The matters of import are as follows;

I wanna lead off with a quick note about my recent birthday gift to me, my first-ever Kindle edition of David Thompson's essential, addictive Biographical Dictionary of Film. This is my fourth (and FINAL GODDAMMIT I MEAN IT this time!) purchase of the film critic/essayist/historian's incisive, somewhat eccentric at times, guide to the men and women who made and make the great miracle/mirage of our lives. It's always been a joy to have around, whether employed as a research tool or casually leafed through as a source of informative entertainment for hours. Hours. I mean hours!

Pre-IMDB and the interwebbery in general there were certain tomes we Cinegeeks relied upon for our collective fix, continuously updated works like Ephraim Katz's Encyclopedia of Film and Halliwell's Film Guide. Thompson's Biographical Dictionary may well be the only of these compendiums that remains a required purchase. Be warned: anyone who thinks they can take a cursory glance at the pages within offered by Amazon as sugar to potential flies, thinking they can peek but not purchase, also thinks he can peek at a litter of kittens with his girlfriend and not wind up with a fourth cat. I'm going by hearsay on that conflation. From what I understand it's fairly accurate oh hell okay I lived with 4 cats at one point okay! Just buy the Thompson book. Don't judge me.

Ongoing series today include An Auteurist History of Film, The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy, and MoMA Presents: A Fuller Life at MoMA, Red Hollywood & the Blacklist and Freaky Fridays at the Film Society, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: The Cinema of Patrick Lung Kong at Museum of the Moving Image, Cabaret Cinema at the Rubin Museum, and the inventively titled midnight vampire series Bite This! at the Nitehawk Cinema. Let's go to the 35mm!

What I'm grateful for, movie edition;

Increasingly VOD arthouse fare is still readily available at a 'plex near me.

30 years of smuggling candy into the movies hasn't caused the industry to summarily crash. Well, yet.

Anarchic, individualist tendencies can still poke through the cracks of increasingly stale mass-produced blockbusters.

Torches that have been snuffed out in the real world continue to glow brighter still in cinema's posterity.

And finally that the Twizzlers vs. Vines debate rages still. And I remain an impartial observer screw that TWIZZLERS ALL THE WAY SUCKAHZ!!! BRING IT!!!

Ongoing series today include An Auteurist History of Film, The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy and A Fuller Life at MoMA, and the final day of BAM's comprehensive trib to master humanist/provocateur Luis Buñuel. The hooliganism looks thus;

It's becoming an increasingly bad year for us movie fans who cling to their heroes, the last two days alone claiming innovative funnyman Robin Williams and legendary Hollywood Grande Dame Lauren Bacall. And just last night I watched Philip Seymour Hoffman in his final role, in Anton Corbijn's A MAN MOST WANTED. Time is a thief, we're well aware. The worst of them all. All the more important then that we cling even tighter to the people who actually share our lives and enhance it, remind them that they have value, and that our circumstances would be very different had they not been around to influence them. I can think of no better way to honor our departed screen heroes than to keep this in mind, as the best of their work was surely focused toward the same purpose. Film, like any art, is not an end, but a means. The end is always the loved ones we get to share it with.

That's my preach.

Ongoing series today include The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy, A Fuller Life, and An Auteurist History of Film at MoMA, and the waning days of BAM Cinématek's comprehensive Luis Buñuel retrospective. The kneeslapping is as follows;

Sunday. August. 80 degrees. That's about all I gotta say. You tell me if I've left anything out.

Ongoing series today includes the latter 1/2 of BAM's comprehensive trib to Luis Buñuel, The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy and A Fuller Life at MoMA, and If You Meet Klaus Kinski, Pray For Your Death at Anthology Film Archives. Once more into the spool;

Oh, it's Saturday. What more do you need to know going in to this article? Just read, willya?

Ongoing series on this most august of August days include The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy and A Fuller Life at MoMA, the latter 1/2 of BAM's exhaustive trib to humanist auteur Luis Buñuel, and If You Meet Klaus Kinski, Pray For Your Death at Anthology Film Archives. This way to the front;