May 18th 2013. Pick Of the Day.

Jerry Schatzberg's SCARECROW, the only onscreen pairing of New Holywood icons Al Pacino and Gene Hackman, recieves a much deserved DCP restoration and a week-long booking at the Film Forum. This tale of two drifters whose dream of owning a car wash in Pittsburgh is frequently disrupted by inconvenient reality recieved little love whence released, but has come to be regarded as the gem all involved set out to make it. Another cinematic legend is paid trib this day, so I gotta take a pass. I got time to make this my Pick.

Martin Scorsese's seminal exploration of Vietnam-era decay in American culture, specifically in a blighted 70's NYC, decorated by DP Michael Chapman with Hell's paintbrush, gets a fairly routine but always welcome screening today. TAXI DRIVER is among the most influential films from that exceptionally fecund decade where the anti-hero was most prized by filmmaker and audience alike. Screens as part of BAM's very cool Booed at Cannes series, however a different cowboy dominates the rep scene this exquisite May afternoon, so I Pick Travis another day...

Our Beloved Marty is also repped over in Astoria as THE LAST WALTZ unspools at Museum of the Moving Image as part of their continuing Play This Movie Loud! series. Somewhere between a standard concert movie and what Michael Powell described as a "composed" film, WALTZ is a thrilling experience for lovers of both The Band's songbook and Scorsese's way with the camera. Great, but not today's Pick.

Midnight movies in the 5 boroughs include Gary Goddard's MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, at the Landmark Sunshine, and Tha Mahstah's final work FAMILY PLOT, at the Nitehawk Cinema in B-Burg. As I said yesterday, this amounts to The Battle of the Tater Tots, and I know which side of the war I'm taking. No telling. Fried minced spuds aside, I have really only one clear choice today. A very mighty spud indeed celebrates his centennial today, and deserves better than to be called a mighty spud by yours truly. Sorry, I'm scrambling for links here. Let's just discuss the spud in question and cast no more aspersions on my asparagus, shall we?

Burt Lancaster may have dropped out of New York University, on an athletic scholarship no less, to form the acrobatic team Lang and Cravat, and subsequently perform in local theatre productions and the Kay Brothers' Circus, but anyone who took that as sign of a substandard intellect would soon be proven as wrong as Bernie Madoff's clients. Lancaster joined the Army during WW2, travelling Europe with the USO, and once discharged postwar he warily auditioned for a gig in the "straight" theater. He won the part but the play closed not long after opening. Harold Hecht, a Hollywood agent who would later become Lancaster's business partner, dug what he saw in the sturdy neophyte thesp and passed his name along to producer Hal Wallis. Wallis took a gamble and cast Lancaster as the lead in his feature debut, Robert Siodmak's THE KILLERS. The film was big box office, and a legend was in the making. Lancaster built his movie career playing doomed noir heroes and robust fighting men from military actioners and sword-wielding adventures. Then that intellect that may have only been glimpsed thus far decided to take over. And the REAL career began.

Lancaster made many a classic when knowingly trading on his looks and physical prowess for directors like Siodmak and Jacques Tourneur and Jules Dassin in the early part of his career. Then he took on the role of 1st Sgt. Milton Warden for Fred Zinnemann in the Oscar-minting adap of James Jones' FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, and recieved a Best Actor nom for his effort. Henceforth audiences would not merely gaze at his eyes, but into them. The keen wheels that turned beneath that stare would go on to assist the star as he now sought out and tackled more complex characters to portray, an endeavor he was now aided in by the man who discovered him. Hecht-Hill-Lancaster became a successful and powerful production company in the 50's, the decade that saw the beginning of the old studio system's end. In addition to securing plum roles in great films like columnist J. J. Hunsecker in SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS and offering Lancaster the opportunity to direct with THE KENTUCKIAN, HHL produced quality films for other great talent, most notably MARTY, for which a deserving Ernest Brgnine won the little gold guy.

HHL would dissolve in the early 60's but the standard had been set. Burt Lancaster had proven a master of the medium, brash yet careful, reverent yet rule-breaking, all the while the wheels continually turning. He could play ELMER GANTRY and THE BIRMAN OF ALCATRAZ with equal sincerity. He could icily plot the overthrow of the U.S. government in SEVEN DAYS IN MAY or shift into patriotic action mode for THE TRAIN. As he got older he only got more interesting. He made the first true anti-Vietnam flick with GO TELL THE SPARTANS. He defended his 40's noir roots in ATLANTIC CITY. He reminded audiences everywhere about what's best in the sport of baseball in FIELD OF DREAMS. He made around 80 feature films in a 46-year career, and most of them are pretty to very damn good. He would've been 100 this year, and there were plenty of folks who would'a bet back before he left us that he'd personally celebrate this mark. Instead, we his devoted fans have to fete his effigy. It's quite the effigy, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Lads and Lasses welcome to this website's inaugural Quadruple-Feature Pick Of The Day! I couldn't have wished for a more appropraite movie star to dedicate it to. Robert Aldrich's APACHE, VERA CRUZ and TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING wrap-around Lucino Visconti's THE LEOPARD as part of the Film Society's 13-film tribute Man of Steel:Burt Lancaster at 100. Discounted ticketing is available for multiple screenings, so the only excuse you got is none. I'll see ya theh.

Follow me on Twitter @NitrateStock!

Like the page at Facebook.com/NitrateStock!

Check with the folks at Occupy Sandy to see if you might be able to volunteer/donate still.

Enjoy your May weekend, Stockahz, and follow the Tweets and Facebook posts to keep up with my Picks. And lastly, C'MONMAHGODDAMKNICKS!!!!!!!!!!

-Joe Walsh