March 15th 2013. Pick Of The Day.
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Things start to simmer on the rep film circuit today as competing retrospectives of two of the screen's classic sirens duke it out with a certain whistling killer with some chalk on his back. The day kicks off with one of the former, Isabelle Adjan's whackjob horror (?) cult classic POSSESSION, as part of BAM's ongoing trib to the actress. Wanna know what this flick's about? Yeah so do I. Not my Pick.
Andrzej Wajda's neo-realist classic ASHES AND DIAMONDS unspools its last as part of MOMA's ongoing Auteurist History of Film series. Great flick, but it already feels too much like Poland in the city today, so I'm passing this up.
Guiseppe Tornatore's beloved CINEMA PARADISO screens as part of the Rubin Museum's Cabaret Cinema series, which means you're FORCED to purchase an alcoholic beverage as ticket to the screening. What sophisticated savages! One of my fave classic film venues but I made the mistake of catching this flick for the first time in its 30% longer Director's Cut, which I found to be a murky mess. I know, I'm a terrible person. Anyway something much more magical is takes my Pick tonight, so a reappraisal of this "magical" film will have to wait.
Midnight classics screening in our metropolis include THE OTHER and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN at IFC Center, SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM up at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center, and BODY DOUBLE at the Nitehawk Cinema. In order; a pisser, bugfuck, Pam Grier rocks my world and De Palma sucks. None are my Pick. Sorta. Read on.
Now it gets difficult.
Fritz Lang's first talkie, and perhaps last masterpiece, M features Peter Lorre in the role that made him a star, a whistling child killer whose murder spree terrorizes Berlin until an unnatural alliance between cops and crooks closes in around him. True to his acerbic worldview the ultimate object of Lang's scrutiny isn't even the killer himself, which makes the grim proceedings even creepier. Jeezus. Mah boy Fritz was one of the most important, influential and entertaining filmmakers who ever lived, who helped inform the language of the medium in its earliest days, and this whimsical slice of happy is two hours of evidence to that effect. This is EXTREMELY tempting to me today, but the wise and all-knowing Film Forum has booked it for a two week engagement. So I've got plenty of time to catch this masterpiece, but I've only got one night to spend with a very special lady indeed.
Pam Grier. Hubba. When discussing the sexiest women in film history this bodacious bombshell is never far from the top of the list. She had an army brat childhood that moved her around quite a bit, and that coudn't help but inform the worldliness displayed by the charaters she would make famous. The teen beauty pageant contestant moved to Hollywood in the late 60's hoping to land some screen work. A receptionist gig at Roger Corman's American-International pictures brought her into contact with the man who discovered her, exploitation maestro Jack Hill, who cast her in the first of his Women In Prison flicks, 1971's THE BIG DOLL HOUSE. She played a supporting character named Grear. No kiddin'. It was not only immediately apparent that the camera loved her, it was also undeniable that she walked off with the picture. So they did it again with WOMEN IN CAGES. Hill returned to Grier and the subgenre with 1972's THE BIG BIRD CAGE, which finally found her name first in the credits. Her star was rapidly rising and her screen persona, the capable and charismatic heroine battling various unjust forces about her, with her fists if need be, was nearly complete. The following year's collaboration with Hill, the blaxploitation classic COFFY, cemented her status as action queen and made her a full fledged star. It's kind of hard to even imagine the modern action heroine without the pioneering work she did in the 70's. It also didn't hurt that along with that tremendous screen presence the lady could act, which she would later prove in non-action roles as Richard Pryor's girl in GREASED LIGHTNING and a streetwise hooker (is there any other kind?) in FORT APACHE, THE BRONX, and later when Quentin Tarantino famously cast her in his ode to 70's exploitation cinema JACKIE BROWN. But like Tarantino it's the work she did in the Me decade that still defines her for film fans worldwide, and for three days the Film Society of Lincoln Center is screening a generous helping of her output from that era. I'd love to make my Pick the entire day's sked, beginning with prison break melodrama BLACK MAMA WHITE MAMA and continuing through the aforementioned BIRD CAGE and BLACULA, but there's one flick in particular that defines Ms. Grier to her legions of fans, and I'd be remiss if I didn't highlight this flick above the rest.
The Film Society presents Pam Grier in Jack Hill's blaxploitation masterwork FOXY BROWN today at 4pm. Don't mess with her. This is the unmissable choice but you could do worse than kill a whole day with a big screen marathon dedicated to this great star, who will be in attendance for tonight's screening of BIRD CAGE and JACKIE BROWN to show you what sexy looks like, sugar.
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Be safe, be sound, and make sure the next guy is too! Back tomorrow to close out the week! Excelsior, knuckleheads!
-Joe Waslh