November 21st 2013. Pick Of The Day.
New York City's premiere resource for classic film screenings in the metropolitan area. Offering reviews, recommendations, venues and a host of links keeping classic film and the silver screens alive.
Today we got a battle between eco-warriors, culture warriors and warrior warriors, the latter of which actually carry big pointy swords. Take that, tree-hugging fashion mavens! Continuing series today include MoMA's ongoing Auteurist History of Film, BAM's trib to one of our greatest character actors (Hot Dern!), and Anthology Film Archives' Middle Ages on Film: Shakespeare. Here be the whole megillah;
MoMA
AMERICA, AMERICA (1963) Dir; Elia Kazan
BAM Cinematek
SILENT RUNNING (1972) Dir; Douglas Trumbull
Anthology Film Archives
MACBETH (1948) Dir; Orson Welles
THRONE OF BLOOD (1957) Dir; Akira Kurosawa
BowTie Chelsea Cinemas
AUNTIE MAME (1958) Dir; Morton DaCosta
Today's Pick? Tempted as I always am whenever a Kurosawa screens to automatically choose the grand master, I'll have a few more opportunites to do so during AFA's Middle Ages/Shakespeare fest. I've got just today to make Douglas Trumbull's SILENT RUNNING my Pick, screening as part of BAM's Hot Dern! series. Bruce Dern assumes the burden of what is essentially a one-man show, at least once the rest of the human participants are shooed off to clear a path for the master thesp's antics. From that early point forward he shares the screen with director/FX ace Doug Trumbull's awesome-on-the-cheap replications of his prior efforts on Kubrick's 2001, as well as three equally entertaining precursors to R2-D2, colorfully monickered Huey, Dewey and Louie after Donald Duck's nephews. Crafted and released in the era of comic book dystopian SciFi laden with adult themes (SOYLENT GREEN, LOGAN'S RUN), Trumbull's environmentally-minded meditation also explored paranoia, isolation and existentialism. All the better then that he cast such a wonderful wild card for his lead. Dern, who normally navigates a full landscape of emotions in limited screentimes, takes full advantage of the lead role for a change and invests every second of the part with gravity and humor and confusion. He sells the film, making the ambitious yet austere FX and fantastic premise work because he is so strong a center for the proceedings. There are surely more prestige entries in this retrospective, and samples of the actor's abilities varying in size and quality. But, should you want to catch the pure, unadulterated Bruce Dern experience, then this screening may have no equal. See you at the outer rings of Saturn. As it were.
For more info regarding these and all NYC's classic screenings in November '13 click the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. And be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter! Back tomorrow with a new heaping helping of tha goodz, til then don't look a gift horse in the mouth and make sure the other kids are so forewarned. Excelsior, Knucks!
-Joe Walsh
