May 22nd 2013. Pick Of The Day.

Yeah, I kinda thought we left Bergman weather behind a while ago myself, but apparently MOMA feels differently. The Man With No Tan's THE VIRGIN SPRING screens for three days as part of the museum's ongoing Auteurist History of Film series. Let's take a break from the Berg Man for a season, shall we?

Francois Truffaut's soundly rejected THE SOFT SKIN screens as part of BAM's clever Booed at Cannes series. Of course the esteem with which this effort is regarded has reversed over time and is now appraised a worthy follow-up to the filmmaker's classic JULES AND JIM. However, another initially under-appreciated gem screens this day, so I must pass up this fave Frogteur for his New World counterpart. Desolee.

Pier Paolo Pasolini's cracked take on THE DECAMERON unspools as part of Anthology Film Archives' series dedicated to The Middle Ages on Film. PPP's entire CV is like OMG. Still, MOMA's complete retrospective of the filmmaker is mere months old, and my Pick has only a couple of days left on the big, well sorta big, screen. So I pass the master of neo-and magic realism for one who was surely as influenced by his work as that of Capra or Sturges. Read on.

Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 gets a lovely BluRay projection at the Mid-Manhattan Library as part of their Three Auteurs of World Cinema series. So it's not 35mm. Like this flick DOESN'T screen routinely on NYC's rep circuit? Plus, the library's programmers have put the effort into assembling this sked, and I like supporting effort. Not my Pick but happy to beat the drum for it.

And penultimately; you want Lancaster? Ya got bags o' Lancaster today, not only uptown on the Walter Reade's screen as part of the Film Society's trib to the great man's centennial, but downtown at the 92YTribeca as part of their Overdue series. The 92YT screens Richard Brooks' THE PROFESSIONALS, teaming Burt with Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan and Woody Strode as they plan to rescue Claudia Cardinalle from Jack Palance. That's the full synopsis. The Walter Reade boasts second chance viewings of Robert Aldrich's ULZANA'S RAID and Robert Siodmak's THE KILLERS and CRISS-CROSS. I chose this massive icon of Holywood cinema over two nearly as titanic emblems of New Hollywood cinema last week, so it's only fair that I level the playing field and choose them today. It's like Little League. Everyone gets their shot.

As much as most folks like to think Al Pacino sprang fully grown from the head of Francis Ford Coppola he actually debuted in a low budget New York arthouse flick that owed more to Neorealism than pulp Puzo by way of Visconti. Photographer Jerry Schatzberg's sophmore feature was the first to showcase Lee Strasberg's fave pupil, and it was here the young Pacino first proved he could do more with a quiet stare than with all the Hoo Hah the world eventually demanded. Gene Hackman first grabbed some screentime in Robert Rossen's LILITH, sharing the 1.85:1 with a little guy named Warren Beatty. The Beatty kid did okay for himself. Hackman delivered workman-like perfs in several films before cinematic immortality presented itself in the form of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle. William Friedkin's THE FRENCH CONNECTION won Oscars for its director, its producer, and for the suddenly hot Hackman, who proceeded to waltz forward with one of the more storied film careers the biz has seen. Pacino's success, THE GODFATHER, came the following year, but the little gold guy would elude him for another 20 years, and come at the cost of those Hoo Hahs. What do these two lovable kids and their success stories have to do with each other?

Thankfully, occasionally, the powers that be provide a Venn diagram of onscreen cinematic talent that puts to bed the question "wouldn't they make a great team?" For every Fred and Ginger who get to hone the celluloid relationship until it fullly blossoms into an undeniably legendary team, for every wonderful accident that sees Hope and Crosby co-star and then go on to establish a franchise, for every real-life camaraderie that spills over to the screen like Lancaster and Kirk Douglas or Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, there exists ample evidence of failed chemistry. Who'da bet against Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando? Or Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty? Or Jack Nicholson and ...okay I don't wanna impress a common denominator in this argument. What I'm celebrating, conversely, is a cinematic pairing that only happened once, like Sean Connery and Micheal Caine in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, or Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea in RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, and like those two efforts the film met with indifference whence released, but has come to be regarded as an overlooked gem if not a masterwork of its time. I know this much; I haven't seen it yet, so I'm partially making this my Pick today based on that criteria, but do I need a better reason?

Al Pacino and Gene Hackman co-star in Jerry Schatzberg's existential odyssey SCARECROW at the Film Forum. Screens in a brand spankin' new DCP resto. Ya got two more days, kiddos, make 'em count.

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Keep safe and sound and make sure the next knucklehead is too, Stockahz! Back tomorrow with a new Pick! Excelsior!

-Joe Walsh