December 27th 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's new and continuing series include Film Forum's slowly winding down Barbara Stanwyck trib, the Film Society's not-as-slowly winding down George Cukor retrospective, IFC Center's The Way He Was: Early Redford, MoMA's Films Albatros and Our Town: Baltimore, Museum of the Moving Image's excellent See It Big!: Great Cinematographers, and the Rubin Museum's Cabaret Cinema. The shenanigans look a little somethin' like so;
IFC Center
THE WAY WE WERE (1973) Dir; Sydney Pollack
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
ALIEN (1979) Dir; Ridley Scott
Film Forum
REMEMBER THE NIGHT (1940) Dir; Mitchell Leisen
DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) Dir; Billy Wilder
Film Society of Lincoln Center
WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD? (1932) Dir; George Cukor
A STAR IS BORN (1954) Dir; George Cukor
MoMA
THE ITALIAN STRAW HAT (1927) Dir; Rene Clair
DOUBLE LOVE (1925) Dir; Jean Epstein
PINK FLAMINGOS (1972) Dir; John Waters
Museum of the Moving Image
THE GODFATHER (1972) Dir; Francis Ford Coppola
Rubin Museum
AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973) Dir; George Lucas
Landmark Sunshine Cinemas
DIE HARD (1988) Dir; John McTiernan
Today's Pick? It seems more than appropriate, as our year ends and we cross from one phase of the calendar to the next, that I choose a film whose sole purpose is to recreate a particular point in our lives when we left the familiarity of adolescence and entered an unsure adulthood. It is by definiton a period piece, a work of nostalgia, but while it might well be set during any era and place in the 20th century its maker, a little experimental film scholar named George Lucas, chose his own transitional years; Modesto, California in the early 60's. To reconstruct this world in an immersive form he got the studio, Universal, to agree to one of the largest budgets ever set aside up to that point to license the genuine top 40 hits of Lucas' teen years, instead of paying studio musicians for cover versions. Legendary DP Haskell Wexler, officialy credited as "visual consultant", helped turn 70's Petaluna into the Modesto of ten years prior, the dark gloss of the drive-in and jukebox culture masterfully, magically captured. The studio's initial response to the first cut was to radically edit it, or even shelve it as unreleasable. When the film's exec producer, mentor and tormentor Francis Ford Coppola, angrily defended his friend Lucas' vision, even offering to personally buy the film from the studio so his American Zoetrope could distribute it, the brass at the studio balked and meekly agreed to a token release.
An enthusiastic reception from the critics, combined with positive word of mouth, saw the film eventually return a $55 million payday on a $1.5 million budget. A career was firmly established, and while Lucas would forever abandon his experimental roots and instead delve even further into his past, to his pre-teen years, for his future Empire building, he'd never get a movie this right again, never meet the demands of both art and commerce this successfully, especially in the insanely demanding New Hollywood years. His sophmore effort (appropriately enough), found his talents never more insightful, never more honest, never more endearing. STAR WARS and all the peripheral achievements made possible by its success might be his lasting legacy to filmdom, but the tale of Steve and Laurie's complicated love, of Curt's pursuit of The Blonde, of John's desperate attempts to ditch Hot-Rod stowaway Carol, of their collective attempts to cling for one last night to the magic of their youth, this is his finest two hours.
George Lucas' AMERICAN GRAFFITI screens tonight as part of the Rubin Museum's Cabaret Cinema series. As usual the price of a drink at the museum's bar snags you a tik to the screening lounge, and as usual get there early as seats tend to fill up fairy quickly.
For more info on these and all NYC's remaining classic screenings before 2013 goes poof! click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the screen. And be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter! Back tomorrow with a brand new Pick, til then dress snug, flood yerself with Vitamin C and be sure the other tykes are doing likewise!
-Joe Walsh
