OCTOBER 2012! DRINKIN' AT THE MOVIES, 50 YEARS OF 007 & MOMA SAVES THE DAY!

Well we got the calendar up on time, 12:01 am October 1st, and it's complete and working like a charm. Now I'm late with the monthly overview blog. Whatevz. Hopefully by next month the entire game plan will run smoother than a brand new Porsche off the factory floor. 'Cause when you think of this site you think of the executive class of automotive engineering. I know.

Happily for us film geeks October hasn't slowed down a jot from the previous month, a healthy sign that more and more rep screenings are proving very successful at local screens both Mom and Pop and IMAX equipped. The latter provides classic movie love starting with tonight's big screen unveiling of one of the greatest films ever made, probably the finest Epic that Hollywood ever produced, and a flick that has ever resided in my top ten all time. David Lean got his first shot to direct from Noel Coward, co-helming the Brit propaganda IN WHICH WE SERVE. He went on to adapt two more acclaimed flicks from Coward sources, BLITHE SPIRIT and BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Two Dickens adaptations, and then sojourns with Charles Laughton and Katherine Hepburn separately, served to cement his status as one of the medium's finest practitioners of costume and character drama. And then a little Pierre Boulle novel passed through his hands. And the second and most indelible phase of his career began. BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI was an anomaly for its time; a thinking person's action epic, Lean's first grand scale 70mm effort. HUGELY successful at the box office and winner of 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor (Alec Guinness' indelible turn as the cracked Colonel Nicholson) and a little gold guy for Lean himself, he was, to say the least, encouraged to trod forth in this new artistic avenue. So he disappeared into the desert for four years. He would emerge with his crowning achievement.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA was a monumental success upon release and has lost of its ability to romance the moviegoer over its long life, which finds this year its 50th anniversary. When the term Movie Magic is employed this flick is what the employer of said term is invoking. It's a stunning adventure set among exotic sands for the youthful viewer and an intriguing puzzle about the motives of men who find wars romantic for the adult. It is big bold and bracing for viewers of any age. Found to be in a badly deteriorating state in the 80's it was brilliantly restored by a team headed up by the saints of classic film preservation Robert A. Harris and Jim Painten by the end of that decade, and has now been further cleaned and restored and rescanned in the industry's current standard 8K process, which is the format it finds itself screening in tonight at various AMC and Regal venues in our fair metropolis, and which I've been told is more stunning than any previously seen 70mm print. Check the interactive calendar for the exacts. I'll be at Kips Bay for the 7pm. If you haven't ever seen this on the biggest screen possible, what else can I say? GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Oh, and it's my Pick Of The Day. You knew?

Later this month AMC will also be hosting a double bill of FRANKENSTEIN & BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN just in time for Halloween. And John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN will also be returning for a week at local multiplexes. As info arrives I'll report. But really, how fucking cool, huh?

So lemme get to the monthly goods. Film Forum's arguably owned the last four months with their Spaghetti Western fest, the Universal Pictures retrospective, and the French Old Wave series. For which we lovingly hug all involved. This month however, belongs to MOMA.

Rockefeller's indulgence carries not one, not two, but THREE really awesome series this month; one escapist, one academic, one somewheres in between. Escapist; how's 50 Years Of James Bond for escapist? The museum presents all 22 entries in the 007 saga for it's semicentennial celebration, and also as primer to the series' 23rd and eagerly anticipated entry, SKYFALL. Every film is presented in 35mm, every Bond is on disply, from perfect Connery and Craig and for one film anyway Brosnan, to lesser lights Dalton and Lazenby, to Moore. I don't want to talk about him. You want the definitve post war jet age action hero and all the motifs that made him still a desirable commodity when other serial adventures have struggled and expired? MOMA's got him. Oh frabjous day!

Academic; well not solely and dryly academic, but intended for higher film study purposes. Which I'm too dopey for. So I'll focus on the cool stuff. MOMA's annual To Save And Project celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. A co-endeavor between the museum's Department of Film and various studios and film foundations domestic and foreign, the festival is dedicated to the preservation of the wildly popular and the fascinatingly obscure. This year's sked as usual doesn't disappoint. Among the highlights are three of Anouk Aimee's most iconic perfs from a wild 60's film milieu; Jacques Demy's LOLA, Claude Lelouch's A MAN AND A WOMAN, and George Cukor's JUSTINE. The Grande Dame herself will be present to introduce all three films. Show some respect.

Also featured are a few Pre-Code slices of batty; Clara Bow's first talkie CALL HER SAVAGE, Raoul Walsh's WILD GIRL, and the FDR conquers the world and makes it a fascist planet GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE. I'm dying to see that last one!

The cream of the fest I argue is the further restored but still apparently not fully restored (who knew there was footage still out there to restore?) ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, Sergio Leone's final film and the exclamation point to a virtually perfect career. An initail butchering produced an 139 minute version of the film which was pilloried by critics and ignored by moviegoers was justly shelved in favor of the director's longer 229 minute version, which now sits at #10 on the BFI list of critic's faves all time. NOW we get a 245 minute version. And I'm salivating. I know a grown man shouldn't salivate over celluloid, but I'm not normal. I probably won't get into this screening, but one can dream, can't one?

The in between of MOMA's October slate is the currently running Ride, Boldly Ride, a sub-series of their ongoing Auteurist History Of Film, which carries over form last month and celebrates former chief curator at the museum Mary Lea Bandy, and her new book on the western film genre for which the series is named. focusing on the non-traditional screen depiction of the settling of untamed future America, the series provides such choice gems as this week's RUGGLES OF RED GAP, featuring one of Charles Laughton's finest perfs as an English manservant lost to new American masters in a bar bet, and lovingly examining the very virtues that make the American experience the unique human experience it is. Spencer Tracy drags Robert Young into battle against marauding Injuns in NORTHWEST PASSAGE. It was 1940. Forgive a little. The classic portion of the series conlcudes with perhaps the final word on the Hollywood western, perhaps the finest ever made, and one of the signature works of art from the massively influential John Ford. Much has been said about THE SEARCHERS, and rightly so. Few films have changed their genre as irrevocably as this, few have changed the dialogue cinematic so permanently. In a career filled with game changers The Mighty Ford painted a masterpiece last in the game and amongst his most indelible. Again, if you've never see this writ large, what exactly the Hell is topping you? Go, and don't talk to me until you've seen this!

Museum Of The Moving Image gives with two cool series this month. The I-Never-Heard-Of-Him Kenji Misumi gets some love over the next couple of weeks as part of the museum's KENJI MISUMI series. What were the odds? The first man to commit the legend of blind swordsman ZATOICHI to film is afforded a closer look with several features action-oriented and meditative, presented in glorious 35mm TohoScope. Dubbed Little Misoguchi by his peers, the man deserves some attention. Plus, swords!

MOMI also resumes its awesome See It Big! series starting next week with the I-Won't-Attempt-To-Pronounce-His-Name Andrzej Wajda's crisp thiller ASHES AND DIAMONDS. A time capsule of Poland in the waning days of WW II filmed during the Cold War 60's, it's a tight paranoid assassination potboiler that has lost none of its edge. Later this month MOMI's in full Halloween mode. The museum presents THE BIRDS, THE THING, PSYCHO, POLTERGEIST and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. And you don't love what about this place, exactly?

BAM's got a very cool Apocalypse Weekend arriving in 24 hours, beginning with NIGHT OF THE COMET and ending with THE BIRDS (yep, Big Al is ever ubiquitous). Smack in the middle though resides Saturday's screening of a little flick called MAD MAX, which had a little bit of an impact on world cinema and produced a sequel even more influential. But let's stay on the first flick. Some of the best car stunts ever filmed, the introduction of a once balanced Mel Gibson, and one of the few successful dystopian apocalypse futures produced in 70's cinema. Plus, the moment Max's car reveals, after several vehicles marked Pursuit are wrecked, the call letters Interceptor, the hairs on the back of my neck still stand. It's that good.

Film Forum offers some choices cult and classy this month. Mondays with Harold Lloyd continue throughout October complete with main feature, accompanying short feature and live piano courtesy of Steve Sterner. For the list check'a da calendah. Do some work, lazies!

The week-long reps begin with the notorious WAKE IN FRIGHT, which Nick Cave termed the most disturbing film about the Australian outback ever filmed. I repeat; Nick Cave said that. I've never seen it but the trailer indicates much drinking, gambling, and kangaroo punching. I'm in.

Film Forum continues the "Love DCP" campiagn with a week long run of the aforementioned David Lean's classic heart-breaker BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Lean's steadily surer hand guides the Noel Coward penned proceedings concerning decidedly British repression accompanying the larger sense of Empire in decline. Trevor Howrad and Celia Johnson, as passing strangers either sensing or concocting deep resonance between themselves, were rarely better. Unmissable.

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON IN 3-D also screens at Film Forum this month. You got a problem with that?

Finally and appropriately, the last day of the month, October 31st, kicks off a week-long run of Roman Polanski's seminal mental breakdown horror REPULSION. Catherine Deneuve brings the fractured as a reclusive shut in desperately blocking in gruesome methods the outside world, only to find that world utilizing even more nightmarish means to get in. One of the director's leanest and most perfect efforts, a fitting Halloween flick. Bring your shrink.

Let's talk about drinkin' and viewin', two of my fave topics. Two of my fave venues offer such activities, and one not only provides but DEMANDS such fealty of its attendees!

Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn is a new-ish movie house whose mission is to provide the Alamo Drafthouse experience in NYC. You can dine in the ground floor restaurant, you can bullshit with fellow film nuts at the lobby bar which shows classic flicks on the flatscreens, or you can chill out in their screening spaces and order a cold beer while checking out the cinematic bill of fare, whether it's a chick prison flick starring Pam Grier or psychedelic Czech cinema of the 60's. The bottom line is this; booze is part of the experience. The October slate from these movie maniacs includes midnight screenings of HOUSE, FRIGHT NIGHT, EVIL DEAD and my all time fave PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE. Noon weekend screenings include gems like the original KING KONG, Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and the glorious bugfuck nightmare ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, featuring what may be Charles Laughton's finest 80 minutes. Show this joint some love.

The other venue of booze import is the Rubin Museum, whose Cabaret Cinema series screens every Friday at 9:30pm with rare exceptions. Here the price of a drink gets you free admission to their screening space, which is relaxed and intimate. While the venue only allows for DVD/BluRay projection, the communal film experience more than makes up for the loss of celluloid charm. Did I mention they won't let you in without a drink? How cool? Screening at the Rubin this month are Frank Capra's unequivocal masterpiece IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, Nicholson's star-making turn in FIVE EASY PIECES, Fellini's definitive film-about-film 8 1/2, and Truffaut's heartbreaking first shot fired in the Nouvelle Vague THE 400 BLOWS.

Rounding out the activities this month, the 92YTribeca also gives with the future cursed Earth with screenings of the seminal, brilliant THE TERMINATOR, the meditative THE QUIET EARTH, and the gloriously batshit ZARDOZ, which I'm amazed didn't drive Connery back to EON productions to sign up for twenty more Bond films. for the uninitiated, a true and rare traet. Leave yer thinkin' caps in the lobby. Bring bacon jerky.

Symphony Space surprisingly seems to be getting its film rep act together, offering a "Film Class" series that focuses on one working aspect of the art in each class that then screens its cinematic summation of that chore. Sunday the 7th offers a dissertation on directing, and screens a doozy for an example, Orson Welles' CITIZEN KANE. Later this month the same film class offers BICYCLE THIEVES in a class on foreign film. Meager offerings, yes, but it's Symphony Space. It's a start.

My worst fear was that things would start slowing down once Summer ended, and fewer screenings of classic cinema would be scheduled over the next few months in our wondrous Gotham. So far that hasn't been the case. My dream and my instinct when I thought this thing up two years ago was that the average movie lover in the five boroughs, having invested in the best home theater system the naughts made possible, found themselves itching for the communal film experience again, and that rep programmers would respond in kind. Not only have the last couple of years seen some of the most creative, though-provoking and outright fun programmings I've experienced in the rep houses but the Cinegeekery has thrived in the winter months as well, and the venues have increased. So I think this website may have a reason to exist after all, and I hope we do the job right and bring you the most comprehensive coverage of these screenings. NYC is the original film mecca of these great United States. And I maintain it remains the greatest in which to view the choicest cuts the medium has ever provided. Long live film, knucklehedz! Talk soon!