May 25th 2013. Pick Of The Day.

Jean Gabin and Bourvil transport a butchered and slowly rotting PIG ACROSS PARIS in Claude Autant-Lara's comedy of desperation concerning the eponymous city's thriving Black Market during the Occupation. Screens for a week at Film Forum, so I pass it up today. It'll keep.

Anthology Film Archives' retrospective dedicated to The Middle Ages on Film today offers Erich Rohmer's CATHERINE DE HEILBRONN, as well as Kaneto Shindo's twin classics of moody Japanese horror ONIBABA and KURONEKO. Much as I dig K-Shin's particular brand of boogah-boogah, I pass these gems up in favor of a more haunting presence on the rep circuit this day.

Perry Henzell's enormously influential THE HARDER THEY COME unspools as part of Museum of the Moving Image's slowly winding down Play This Movie Loud! series. Those familiar only with the soundtrack, which almost single-handedly broke Reggae music on the American scene, are implored to view the film from whence it came, a lean, low budget look at Third World poverty and corruption, and the chance for a better life the music industry dangles before the nearly hopeless. Jimmy Cliff made his film debut as Ivanhoe Martin, and torched the screen with all the rage and recklessness his man-with-no-future has to offer. Tempts as today's Pick, but a more iconic perf is on display today I argue. Next time, Rastaman.

The soon-to-be-no-more 92YTribeca continues for the moment its Rip-Off Cinema: Italian Edition series, tonight screening Umberto Lenzi's MAN FROM DEEP RIVER, a swipe of Elliot Silverstein's A MAN CALLED HORSE, wherein Richard Harris' 19th century Brit aristo is captured by Native Americans and subjected to brutal initiation rituals. Those who thought Silverstein's film contained too much story and not enough torture gladly turned DEEP RIVER into a grindhouse hit, and the Italian Cannibal genre of the 70's was born, most famously culminating with Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. See where all that Green Inferno whimsy began.

Midnight fare about our Cinegeek burg includes Walter Hill's THE WARRIORS at the Landmark Sunshine Cinemas, Steven Speilberg's JAWS and Terry Gilliam's TIME BANDITS at IFC Center, and Tobe Hooper's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2 at the Nitehawk Cinema in beardy B-Burg. My Pick today, however, screens at the direct opposite end of the clock. Which means I'll probably not be in the waking world when it screens, but when have I ever let a thing like conciousness stop me from making my selection. Hell, I never let a thing like intelligence stop me either, which explains the imminenet 1-year anniversary of this here website. I digress. Let's talk about Lulu.

Among the movie star legacies Howard Hawks kickstarted we may count one Louise Brooks. He may not have directed her in any of her most notable perfs but it was his casting of the starlet in his 1928 silent feature A GIRL IN EVERY PORT that first caught the eye of noted Weimar filmmaker G. W. Pabst, who was in the midst of searching for the leading lady for his next feature. Pabst had specialized in depicting the plight of women in modern society, in works like THE JOYLESS STREET with Greta Garbo and THE LOVES OF JEANNE NEY with Brigitte Helm. In 1929 he was planning a remake of Arzen von Cserepy's 1921 adap of Frank Wedekind's stage plays ERDGEIST and DIE BUSCHE DER PANDORA. A "fallen woman's" tale from the woman's POV. After Paramount Studios, Brooks' employer, rejected Pabst's request for the actress' loan-out, the director nearly cast an eager Marlene Dietrich, who he deemed too old and worldly for the role. Upon hearing that Brooks had landed in Europe as the result of a contract dispute he seized the opportunty to snag the woman he deemed his perfect lead. The rest is history. Louise Brooks may not have had a great film career, but she lived a helluva life, and not many people can say they influenced an entire medium with perhaps a single film. That film unspools this afternoon, and if your predilection for women in film tends toward either saints or whores watch Louise Brooks bravely break down the definitions of both terms. Forever Lulu, indeed.

G.W. Pabst's masterpiece of Weimar cinema PANDORA'S BOX screens for brunch at the Nitehawk Cinema. Breakfast tacos. Trust me.

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Back next week with the last of May 2013's Picks! Stay informed in the meantime by following the Twitter feed or Facebook page! Be safe and sound and make sure the next knucklehead is too, Stockahz! Scripp's National Spelling Bee in 5 days!!! Huzzah!!!

-Joe Walsh