May 24th 2013. Pick Of The Day.

The great Jean Gabin and Bourvil transport A PIG ACROSS PARIS in Claude Autant-Lara's seriocomic postwar classic. Occupied France's black market is repped by the titlular porcine parcel, butchered and slowly spoiling, which plants obstacles of both the human and clock-watching variety in our protagonists' way. Screens for a week at Film Forum in its new DCP resto, so it'll take my Pick one of these days, just not this one.

Ingmar Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING comes to the end of its three-day run as part of MOMA's ongoing Auteurist History of Film series. As the genuine season of spring is upon us I implore programmers who may be otherwise tempted to leave the Berg Man's catalog be until winter and football and death revisit our fair lands.

Anthology Film Archives' intriguing series dedicated to The Middle Ages on Film continues apropos of this this day in Medieval weather with Richard Lester's elegiac ROBIN & MARIAN and Grigori Kozintsev's take on DON QUIXOTE. Normaly I'd recommend this double feature but a greater, more imaginative take on the Middle Ages screens tonight. Actually it depicts several historical eras, and with an honesty so-called "legit" cinema couldn't come close to replicating. Keep going.

Tony Scott's TOP GUN screens, weather permitting, on the deck of the Intrepid as part of the museums's summer film fest. My guess is a rain check will be issued. I'm okay with that.

Walter Hill's ultimate take on cartoon violence THE WARRIORS gets one of its fairly routine screenings midnight at the Landamrk Sunshine Cinemas, and does so for the entirety of the Memorial Day weekend. Tobe Hooper's take on cartoon horror THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2, his own sequel to his 1973 masterpiece debut feature, gets some love from the Nitehawk Cinema's midnight screens. Thus another War of the Tater Tots is waged twixt these excellent venues. However my Pick today concerns cartoon history, the best kind, as practiced by one of our greatest cartoonists, master animators, a professional fantasist and occasional adherent to acknowledged tenet. In other words, here is a man to whom the phrase "history is a lie agreed upon" consists of one word, and it isn't history.

Terry Gilliam is one of those great found-in-the-wild feel-good stories. I honestly believe the Feral Kid from THE ROAD WARRIOR is based on him. Belonging fully to his anything-goes era of the 60's he embraced every opportunity that came his way, so enthusiastic and determined was this child of Ritalin. Okay I have no proof of that last statement but if Gilliam can have his way with the facts so can I. An avid fan of MAD magazine he eventually found work under editor Harvey Kurtzmann's tutelage at sister publication HELP! During his short tenure at the mag he worked on a fumetti, a photo-comic, with a young John Cleese. Whence HELP! ceased publication he moved to England, and found work creating animated segues for kiddie show DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET, which featured Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones. See a connective tissue forming?

As casual as his initial involvement with what would become perhaps the world's most cherished comedy team would be his cavalier acknowledgement of his membership within these ranks. Cleese's partner Graham Chapman came on board and the group sold the BBC2 on their sketch comedy show. MONTY PYTHON was born, and the world laughed a little harder and continues to do so as a result. As easy as it might've been to simply rest on these laurels, Gilliam, true to the spirit of Groucho Marx, embraced his hero's mantra; "Any club that would have me is not worth joining". This is not to say he rejected his membership in the coolest club short of The Beatles, but he wanted to stand fully on his own merit. When a Python movie was proffered Gilliam jumped at the chance to direct. As did Terry Jones. And a masterpiece of modern comedy emerged, but Gilliam still wanted to fly solo. The story goes that Jones kept a brisk pace in compliance with the meager budget, but Gilliam kept pushing for better takes and more engaging visuals. Famously halting the proceedings one day until the smoke was just right for a take, John Cleese inquired, "Is smoke funny?" Bottom line; Gilliam needed to make a Terry Gilliam film, what we now regard as a category unto itself. However, the auteur had to begin somewhere. Somewhere started with George Harrison.

The Quiet Beatle had stepped up to complete the financing for the Python's sophmore effort LIFE OF BRIAN, for no better reason than the desire to see the finished movie. The success of that cult hit, and the manoeuvering of tax liabilty, led to the pop star's creation of a very important indie film company ideed. I added the indeed in MONA LISA star Michael Caine's honor. Handmade Films would prove to be an essential bridge across a decade that saw the Brit film industry, indeed the industry as a whole, focus on the mega-hit or falter entirely. Gilliam was desperate to capture his vision full-born on celluloid, and so approached Harrison strategically with a children's film, to be made on the cheap, a myth-twisting time travel saga with a movie star or two participating in a day shoot, and with fellow Python Michael Palin involved as box office insurance. The resulting film shook Hollywood to its core. Sorta. Well it did make them greedy for the money Gilliam's fantasy flick was taking in, and reminded them of the kind of craft they once held the trademark on, and were now desperate to buy back. Gilliam would be offered many a project, most famously ENEMY MINE, in the wake of his box office bonanza. However he famously held out for another dream project. Something he vaguely reffered to as BRAZIL. Thankfully the Feral Kids get their way sometimes. Tonight we get to celebrate where one amongst their number properly got their start.

Terry Gilliam's TIME BANDITS screens at midnight tonight at the IFC Center. Yeah, we're all perennially at the age where this is a good thing.

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Be safe and sound and make sure the next guy/gal is too! Check with the cats at Occupy Sandy and the Red Cross for ways to volunteer/donate to emergencies still unfolding!

Back tomorrow with Saturday's Pick! Ketchyathen, Suckahz!

-Joe Walsh