April 5th 2013. Pick Of The Day.

John Frankenhiemer's debut feature THE YOUNG STRANGER screens for the last of its three-day run as part of MOMA's Auteurist History of Film series. A decidedly 50's melodrama concerning a young prince of Hollywood privelege and the violent temper he tragically cannot control, it remains an interesting first chapter in the career of one of American cinema's strongest postwar voices. Chose it Wednesday, so not my Pick. Dem's da breaks.

BAM's excellent and comprehensive tribute to animator Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli kicks off proper today with the maestro's first proper effort for his now legendary company, the lyrical airborne fantasia CASTLE IN THE SKY. If it weren't for my planning to attend tomorrow's Miyazaki screenings, and the presence today of a sailor who comes second only to Popeye in terms of fists at the ready and language foul, this would handily win my Pick today. Pass.

MOMA's new retrospective covering films directly influenced by German expressionist filmmaking of the 20's, The Weimar Touch, offers two nifty treats this gradually warming April day. EINMAL EINE GROSSE DAME SCHEIN and VIKTOR UND VIKTORIA, loosely translated as ONCE A GREAT LADY TO BE and VIKTOR UND VIKTORIA, reside comfortably alongside each other as today's double feature. V&V was yesterday's Pick and I ain't never seen the other shpiel, so I pass them up as today's Pick.

The Rubin Museum's ongoing Cabaret Cinema series continues to explore its current theme, Illusions Revealed, with a screening of John Huston's iconic masterpiece KEY LARGO. A drink buys your admission to the Rubin's screening lounge, and there are days when I nominate this experience as best film gathering to be had in the five boroughs. But as the Rubin never screens 35mm prints, and the aforementioned sailor has docked in our town for a week's shore leave, I pass one of my fave spots up again. Mea culpa, Lama.

And midnight fare offered in our bustling metropolis includes Nobuhiko Obayashi's utterly batshit work of art HAUSU, at IFC Center, and Dennis Hopper's seminal EASY RIDER, screening at the Nitehawk Cinema. The latter film's success transformed the industry for a least a decade, and mostly for the better, and its director actually wound up with a better than average record behind the camera over the course of his career. However, if we're talking New Hollywood and directorial record, we need to focus on a singluar talent and his sure and steady output over that ten year span.

It wasn't until I read Peter Biskind's excellent EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS, the definitive study on the New Hollywood of the 70's, that I had it pointed out to me that one Hal Ashby had the perfect batting average of any of the directors working in that era. Scorsese made MEAN STREETS and TAXI DRIVER, but he also made NEW YORK, NEW YORK. William Friedkin made THE FRENCH CONNECTION and THE EXORCIST but he also made CRUISING. Peter Bogdonavich, I'll go easy on him, okay? And even Francis Ford Coppola, who directed both GODFATHER films as well as THE CONVERSATION and APOCALYPSE NOW, didn't produce the sheer volume of classics from beginning of decade to end. Plus two of Coppola's flicks were a sequel and a remake. So nyeh.

Here is the decade's output from one Hal Ashby, former go-to editor for the great Norman Jewsion; THE LANDLORD, HAROLD AND MAUDE, SHAMPOO, BOUND FOR GLORY, COMING HOME, BEING THERE. I've left out today's Pick, and it's STILL pretty damn impressive, no? No director enjoyed the prodigious commercial and critical success the former cutter and copious inhaler of weed basked in during this ten year span, and perhaps as price paid to piper none experienced quite the same ostracization in the next decade. From infallible in one era to gamble in the very next, Ashby continued for a few years cranking out middling efforts in hopes of conjuring the old magic, but the spark was all but gone. He left us for good in 1988 as a result of a rapidly spreading cancer, but his CV remains to remind film lovers everywhere of every age what a friggin' FILM looks like. Some hippies are worth more than others is all I can say.

Hal Ashby's THE LAST DETAIL, scripted by Robert Towne and starring Jack Nicholson, two other recipients of the spoils the New Hollywood afforded its young turks, screens all day today through next Thursday at Film Forum. And if ya don't like that you can go @*%?!#$!@?%%$!@&** yourself. Bud.

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Be safe and sound and make sure the next guy is too, Knuckleheads! Back tomorrow wth the last Pick for April's 1st week. Yanks are 1-2! I sense a streak coming!

-Joe Walsh