March 23rd 2013. Pick Of The Day.

Brunch at the Nitehawk Cinema this fine brisk when-will-winter-fucking-end-already afternoon offers two vastly different examples of crime fiction; the original silent CHICAGO from 1927, and the one-and-only STREETS OF FIRE from the entirely fictional year of 1984. Paired with the Nitehawk's incomparable brunch menu this is always a tough opportunity to turn down, but as I'm usually never conscious when the hijinks unfold I pass this up as my Pick without guilt. That doesn't absolve YOU, however...

The IFC Center's retrospective of the complete Stanley Kubrick offers three seminal works from the storied filmmaker's oeuvre; 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, THE SHINING and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Hard to take sides against Stan the Man, but as these flicks routinely screen in our rep circuit, and thank God for that, I'll pass in order to choose something rarer today. Read on.

Astoria's Museum of the Moving Image throws its hat into the Amos Vogel tribute ring with a screening of Luis Bunuel's VIRIDIANA. Louie B is perhaps the cinema's greatest absurdist, one of the medium's foremost subversives, and I routinely offer his CV as evidence that you don't need to be Jean-Luc Godard to upend the conventions of the medium you call home. Can't choose him today, as an even more subversive hero of mine broods at 24 fps. Keep going.

Anthology Film Archives' trib to the late great Andrew Sarris proceeds into its second phase with three of the man's faves, from the classic to the cool to the obscure. The classic is Lowell Sherman's MORNING GLORY, which netted his star Katherine Hepburn the 1st of her four little gold men. I'm talking Oscars. I mean the Academy Award, ya gutter pervs! The obscure would be the John Derek western FURY AT SHOWDOWN. Most of us forget the fact that Derek actually acted inbetween marrying four hot wives. Here's a reminder of why we forget. As for the cool flick in this retrospective, read on...

Midnight screenings in our quaint metropolis include Jean Rollin's FASCINATION at the Nitehawk Cinema, Hitchcock's FRENZY at the IFC Center, and CITIZEN KANE, Orson Welles' Fuck You to VERTIGO, at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema. All worthy, as is the case with all the films on today's agenda, but there's a special one unspooling in my fave arthouse/grindhouse combo, as part of a previously mentioned retrospective. The cool flick.

This is really quite the no-brainer. The team behind the absolute masterpiece adap of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, director Robert Mulligan, producer Alan J. Pakula, composer Elmer Bernstein and screenwriter Horton Foote reunited to create magic a second time, which may or may not have happened depending on how you react to this flick. As an entry in the method-era genre that focused on bad boys confounded by maturity in particular and the modern age in general, and their long suffering women equally confused and aroused by this Peter Pan syndrome, it broke no ground. Yet the talent involved, including the pairing of iconic leads Steve McQueen and Lee Remick, couldn't help but elevate mediocre material to above average result. For presenting this mostly unknown, unheralded and rarely screened gem I award the AFA with my Pick today. Any rep house that would so honor Mr. Sarris is a house I can call home. Now let's talk new paint job.

BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL screens tonight at 5pm as part of the Anthology Film Archives' tribute to Andrew Sarris. Southern fried smoldering existentialism don't come much better than this, pardner. Order by the pound.

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Safe, sound, look out for the next so-and-so. Check the tweets and Facebook page for my picks the next three days! Someday March is gonna end, Stockahz!

-Joe Walsh