JUNE 2013! Ozu,The Hitchcock 9 and Movies Under the Stars!

There was a point at year's beginning, after shaking off the damage incurred from one too many New Year's bash attended, when we surveyed our then-present circumstances and took stock of the blight that was January 2013. It was an unforgiving time, ravaged by weather inclement and dispositions cantankerous, and some among us felt it would never end. A few of us, anyway, felt that it would never really end. Okay I amongst us felt it would never really ever friggin' end. I recall struggling MEMENTO-style to remember if summer was an actual season and not just something Joey Pantoliano lied to me about. An absence of tattoos and Polaroids left me despondent. Would my estimation of circumstances however Bergmanesque they be prove interim? Would the dreaded month ever end, leading to a 28 day visit from January's equally bitter younger sister February? Would March ever arrive to rescue us, delivering us via St. Pat's and March Madness into April's warm embrace? Was it thinkable from that point that the advent of baseball and a new Terrence Malick flick would ferry us safely through to May and its IRON MAN 3 and STAR TREK 2.0.2? In the bitter, empty winds of January our fair Metropolis routninely is subject to, was it a thinkable prospect to complete the journey from Frost Giant territory to Amity Island?

The answer is a big fat glorious YES! Welcome lads and lasses and Stockahz of all stripes to June 2013! JUNE 2013!!! 'Pon my word it's good to see you upright and out of the cave and properly over your sun blindness! I hope the year's treated you well so far. I also hope the site's been a handy resource to you for its duration, which reaches the 1-year mark this month! There's been some great programming over these last winter and spring months, most notably Film Forum's retrospective dedicated to the year in Hollywod 1933, the Film Society's tribs to Pam Grier and Burt Lancaster, and MoMA's month-long examination of the Wiemar Era's influence on Hollywood. Good stuff and hard to top, but the real season is now upon us, as the dreams and schemes of programmers in and about our classic film-mad city, cooked up over the fallow months, now find a hot bulb to project them. I don't care how that sounded. It's true. So let's get to it.

A pair of massive retrospectives dedicated to two of the most significant directorial careers the medium's ever seen unspool this month, and it's hard to judge which merits first mention. So I'm just gonna go ahead and say it's Ozu. Yasujiro Ozu goes first.

To honor not only the legendary director but recently passed film scholar Donald Richie as well, Film Forum has scheduled a 35-film tribute to the master filmmaker and the writer who did more than anybody to bring his name, indeed the Japanese film industry itself, to the world's attention. Pretty much every surviving film in the prestigious director's CV is on display, from early silent classics I WAS BORN, BUT..., PASSING FANCY and A STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS to wartime sound efforts THE ONLY SON, WHAT DID THE LADY FORGET? and THERE WAS A FATHER, all the way up to the postwar examinations of family and culture that more often than not bore seasonally themed monickers; LATE SPRING, EARLY SUMMER, EARLY SPRING, LATE AUTUMN, THE END OF SUMMER and AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON. The filmmaker's preoccupation with time also bore itself out in the titles TOKYO TWILIGHT and GOOD MORNING. Of course the tribute wouldn't dare show its face in public without a screening of Ozu's acknowledged career masterpiece TOKYO STORY, which is offered up for four days at the Forum, and must not be missed. Ashamed as I am to admit it, TOKYO STORY is the ONLY Ozu flick I've ever seen. I know, I'm a terrible human being. The upside is I get to catch as many of the master's works in their best and proper venue, so I figure I can negotiate with the management and just pay rent this month instead of buying tickets. See ya there, Stockahz. I'll be the guy in the bathrobe.

A special day of tribute to Richie is also in the planning. Check back here or stay tuned to the Forum's website for the exacts to be announced.

The Forum also serves up a week of Roman Polanski's ROSEMARY'S BABY in its new DCP resto once Yasujiro moves out. Shouldn't we take a little break from screening this flick, as much as I love it? I get the suspicion Polanski may have directed a few other films, is all.

Oh, and Joseph L. Mankewicz's CLEOPATRA screens for a single evening at the Forum on Tuesday June 11th. But wait a coupl'a weeks and you'll get an even better opportunity to catch the debacle that saved a studio. Read on.

The second exhaustive trib dedicated to a storied but relatively uncelebrated career unspools at MOMA as they present Allan Dwan and the Rise and Decline of the Hollywood Studios. Dwan began his career in film before the moguls properly got their start, working as a lighting man for Essanay Studios in 1909. The business of projecting celluloid stock onto a screen was only about 13 years old at that point. Think about that. Moving to California in 1911 he ran the very popukar Flying "A" Studios in La Mesa, churning out around 200 one- and two- reel westerns. In 1913 he joined Carl Laemmle at Universal studios. Then in 1914 he signed up with Adolph Zukor at what would become Paramount studios. Then he met Douglas Fairbanks, and slowly but surely crafted with him a screen persona that would eventually transform the star's status from romantic comic to swashbuckler supreme. In the 20's he frequently collaborated with Gloria Swanson, and it's their STAGE STRUCK that's referenced in Billy Wilder's SUNSET BLVD. He signed with Fox in 1926 and remained there until 1941, then moved to RKO until 1945 when he signed with what would be his last studio, Herbert J. Yates' Republic Pictures. He officially retired in 1961, after 50 plus years in which he witnessed the development of his chosen vocation not only technologically but as a new artistic language as well, one he helped create.

Dwan worked in every genre, and may have assisted in the invention of one or two to boot. Among the celebrated talent he directed, including the aforementioned silent legends, include these names; Mary Pickford, George O'Brien, Victor McLaglen, Claire Trevor, Shirley Temple, Tyrone Power, Loretta Young, Don Ameche, The Ritz Brothers, Bela Lugosi, Randolph Scott, Lucille Ball, John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland, Anthony Qunn and Anne Bancroft. He directed the 1922 ROBIN HOOD and the 1939 musical THE THREE MUSKETEERS. He joined Douglas Fairbanks Jr. on the front lines of WW I in CHANCES and marched John Wayne up THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA. He began with nitrocellulose and ended with with DeLuxe and CinemaScope. He may not be what Andrew Sarris would consider a "pantheon" director, but for a month you can head to MOMA and decide for yourself. It's not too often we get the chance to examine this fully the career of a "contract" director whose CV spanned the existence of that terminology. An $85 membership gets you into every screening at the museum. So maybe I move in here for a month instead of the Forum. Lemme check with the accountants.

MOMA also continues their excellent ongoing Auteurist History of Film series, this month offering Francois Truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS, Jacques Rivette's PARIS BELONGS TO US, Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT, and Robert Bresson's PICKPOCKET. No extra charge for the museum's killer AC. I mean it, their air conditioning has killed people.

Two other great, if not completist, retrospectives screen this month, one devoted to yet another hugely important director and another to one of the medium's greatest ONscreen talents. BAM proudly hosts the U.S. premiere of The Hitchcock 9, the BFI's painstaking and crazy expensive restoration of all 9 of Tha Mahstah's surviving slient efforts. THE RING, BLACKMAIL, THE MANXMAN and THE LODGER screen in the Brooklyn Academy of Music's own restoration, The Harvey Theater, an honest-to-god movie palace fully upgraded to accomodate the most state of the art digital projection and sound. Seating's reserved so get your tix now, Stockahz! The remaining five films screen in BAM's reliably splendid Peter Jay Sharp building, but those tix will go pretty quick too. Just get your damn tickets now is the take-away here.

Back on the civilized side of the East River Lincoln Center's Film Society fetes a worldwide cinematic superstar with The Jackie Chan Experience. 13 choice cuts from the action/comedy legend's CV are on display, including breakout hits SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW and THE YOUNG MASTER, pandemonium classics PROJECT A and POLICE STORY, along with their sequels, and more refined action fare like 1988's ARMOUR OF GOD. I haven't listed every screening in the series as, thankfully, Jackie's career long outlived Nitrate Stock's cut-off point, so be sure to check the full sked here.

Sadly the film world in general and lovers of classic special effects work in particular lost Ray Harryhausen last month, the fantasy film pioneer without whom George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and the rest of the Hollywood brats may never have conquered the town and changed the biz forever. A proper weeklong trib is in the works somewhere mehopes, but in the meantime we couldn't dream of doing much better than enjoying a sampling of the master's work in a venue that surely screened it when it was first-run fare. The Landmark Jersey Loews pairs Harryhausen's 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH with perhaps his finest achievement, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, for one night only Saturday June 8th. A short ride on the PATH gets you there in under 30, and the popcorn's a buck a box. Missing this one MIGHTILY damages any Cinegeek cred you currently tote.

Two outlets of the NYPL present a couple of interesting series. The Library for the Performing Arts continues its trib to director Robert Altman, offering up a trio of stage adaps with David Rabe's STREAMERS, Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone's SECRET HONOR, and Sam Shepard's FOOL FOR LOVE. The Mid-Manhattan Library offers a three-month celebration of our burg's beloved past squalor with its series 1970's: NYC on Film. June brings us Gordon Parks' SHAFT, Alan J. Pakula's KLUTE, Gordon Parks Jr.'s SUPER FLY, and Francis Ford Coppola's THE GODFATHER. That last one seems sorta outta place but I'm never gonna complain about an appearance from Don Vito. Ya think I'm nuts or somethin'?

Summer means but one thing to the classic film geek; outdoor flicks! No screen is bigger and better in that regard than the great Bryant Park Film Fest, now celebrating its 21st year. Things start slowly at mid-month before the fest rolls out properly in July, but the June scheduling of Sydney Pollack's TOOTSIE and Don Seigel's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is a nice way to begin. Let's hope the lawn hipsters can keep their mouths shut for one goddam night.

The Rubin Museum's excellent Cabaret Cinema series winds down its current exhibition, The Flip Side, with presentations of Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, Orson Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL, Charlie Chaplin's MONSIEUR VERDOUX, and Jonathan Lynn's CLUE. One of these things is not like the other. TOUCH OF EVIL will be intro'd by the director's daughter Chris Welles Feder. As always the purchase of a beer or a cocktail serves as your ticket to the museum's screening space. It's a great way to kill a couple of hours, and brain cells, on a Friday night.

Over in Astoria at the Museum of the Moving Image their See it Big! series resumes, with screenings of Akira Kurosawa's RAN, Roberto Rossellini's JOURNEY TO ITALY, and Nicholas Ray's BIGGER THAN LIFE. RAN star Tatsuya Nakadai will be on hand for that screening to discuss Kurosawa's late career masterpiece in the museum's newly-renovated state of the art theater. Its worth a trip to Queens, believe me.

That benevolent boulevard of beards known as Billy Burg serves as home to many a hipster and their eccentricities, but don't let that sway you from an L train excursion to the excellent Nitehawk Cinema, a veritable oasis in a sea of sardonic. Classic screenings are reserved mostly for bruch and midnight fare, but they've recently partnered up with Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation and the film department at UCLA, so more 35mm looms in the theater's future. Noon in June brings screenings of Mel Brooks' YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and SPACEBALLS and the ZAZ team's AIRPLANE! June's witching hours brings screenings of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and James Cameron's ALIENS. Their Beer Dinner and a Movie series invites ya to stuffa you faccia to Richard Donner's THE GOONIES, and their new program VICE Presents The Film Foundation Screening Series brings the always welcome Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands in John Cassavetes' A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE. Plus root beer and tater tots. Trust me.

Anthology Film Archives wraps up, for the moment anyway, their Middle Ages on Film series with final screenings of Kaneto Shindo's ONIBABA and KURONEKO and Erich Rohmer's CATHERINE DE HEILBRONN. Yeah I'm ready for this to be over.

Midnights at IFC Center bring Terry Gilliam's JABBERWOCKY and THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, as well as Ridley Scott's ALIEN and it's sequel, James Cameron's ALIENS, and Alejandro Jodorowsky's THE HOLY MOUNTAIN. Why can't midnight come every day? Waitaminnit...

The Clearview Chelsea Cinemas continue their classic film Thursdays with Edmund Goulding's THE RAZOR'S EDGE and Joseph L. Mankewicz's CLEOPATRA (told ya), and the Alliance Francaise gets their tribute to the Cannes film fest underway with a screening of Wim Wenders' WINGS OF DESIRE. Finally the Intrepid Air and Space Museum screens Steven Spielberg's JAWS on its flight deck weather permitting.

And there, Stockahz, is your June 2013 Classic Film Sked, which was the heading of my very first column I posted exactly 1 year ago this month. Well the year was different. Do I have to explain every last detail?

I've enjoyed this work and hopefully you've enjoyed the info and format and the personal burnish I'm happy to provide to both. I must thank a person whose efforts have been CRUCIAL to the existence and continuation of this site, web guru Michael Davis, without whom my dreams and designs would have remained just that. He's been not just a great facillitator but an essential advisor, source of information, font of ideas and troubleshooter extraordinaire. He's also a good friend, which is without doubt the most invaluable service he provides.

Equally worthy of a hug and not just once a year are my dear pals Ingrid Montealegre and Adam Honen, whose earlier efforts helped bring this site to life. From a gentle kick universes are concocted, and whatever scale Nitrate Stock eventually assumes they'll have a huge share in credit.

Finally I want to thank you, the Cinegeek, the classic film lover, those who want the flicks that are long past first-run status but merit a big screen viewing to be afforded just that, for supporting this site. It's taken some time to find its bearings and STILL needs a lotta work, but you've hung in there with me, offered advice and constructive criticism and even a little praise when you deemed it proper, and spread the word about my efforts to the larger film-obsessed community in NYC and beyond. I do this partially out of my own compulsion to concoct a monthly calendar of classic screenings, something I did before the idea of this site ever occured to me, partially out of the desire to spread the word to the equally film maddened with access to these screenings, and partially as my personal film school, which I never got to attend formally. I've learned so much over the last year just by making this monthly calendar my mission, reinforcing information previously learned and gaining new data and insights from simple research from pages both online and traditional. But the best thing I've learned this year by far is that the film community in NYC, whether employed to be such or in attendance to support, is more knowledgeable, generous and downright friendly that I'd even previously been privy to. It's always a beautiful thing to discover that the peeps who share your affinity for a particular art form exhibit not merely sterling acumen, but sterling character as well. It's been great getting to know ya and I hope our community keeps growing.

I have to make particular note of a special new Cinegeek buddy I've made over the course of this site's existence; writer, producer and film scholar Will McKinley, who's consistently beaten the drum for Nitrate Stock and is an all-around helluva guy. One day I'll draw even with you on screenings caught, mon ami. One day...

Happy to still be here a year later, happy the rep film circuit in NYC seems to be expanding still, and happy to keep learning, and to still find I have something to say about one of the great loves of my life lo these 12 months later. I promise to keep up my efforts and that we'll only do better and I'll do everything I can to keep you informed of classic screenings in the 5 boroughs so that we may never see the end of such things. Film is the ultimate permutation of mankind's communal dream. Here's hoping it never goes away.

-Joe Walsh

joew@nitratestock.net