February 22nd 2014. 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.
I'm guessing the majority of ya wouldn't consider any indoor activity to be the optimum expenditure of your time on this day, one that teases notes of springtime like the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue teases an informative article on improving your fly fishing technique. The other, more cinematically obssessed among you, will no doubt read further, deeming both the paleness of your skin and your popcorn intake insufficient. I salute the former and merrily join the latter.
Today's continuing series include IFC Center's American Hustlers, Film Forum's exhaustive The Complete Hitchcock, Museum of the Moving Image's slap-happy See it Big! Musicals, and Anthology Film Archives' appropriately smutty Russ Meyer & Roger Ebert. The flick'ring follies as follows;
IFC Center
THE STING (1973) Dir; George Roy Hill
Nitehawk Cinema
THE KARATE KID (1984) Dir; John G. Avildsen
AKIRA (1988) Dir; Katsuhiro Otomo
Film Forum
NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) Dir; Alfred Hitchcock
THE LODGER (1929) Dir; Alfred Hitchcock
Museum of the Moving Image
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) Dir; Vincente Minnelli
THE PAJAMA GAME (1957) Dir; George Abbott & Stanley Donen
Anthology Film Archives
UP! (1976) Dir; Russ Meyer
BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970) Dir; Russ Meyer
BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRA-VIXENS (1979) Dir; Russ Meyer
Today's Pick? If AFA did discount ticket combos I'd easily make the Meyer/Ebert trib my triple bill today, but I understand they gotta eat over at Casa de Mekas. Still, it slides that program down a peg against Moving Image's musical duo today, Donen and Abbott's THE PAJAMA GAME and the superb, Oscar-minting classic AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, directed by Vincente Minnelli. Both screen as part of their excellent See It Big! Musicals series, which caters not only to devotees of the cinematic song and dance genre but affords precious opportunity to yokels like me, who, until recently, eschewed the movie musical for the most part. In AMERICAN and GAME we have twin exemplars; the arguable pinnacle of MGM's legendary Freed unit in the former and the last gasps of the era's golden age in the latter. Sure it might seem trey Pahree in the city when the weather breaks this warm after Polar Vortex I, II & III, but you'll quickly discover, as usual, that it's really just an excuse for every jackass and their mom to run wild in the streets and ruin your good mood. Minnelli's mellifluous, Technicolor Paris sounds like a pretty appealing alternative all of a sudden, don't it? Plus there's a pretty smart museum attached to the screening space. Ten bucks buys it all. Mic drop.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in February '14 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. And be sure to follow me on both Facebook, where I provide further info and esoterica on the rep film circuit and star birthdays, and Twitter, where I provide a daily feed for the day's screenings and other blathery. Back tomorrow with a brand new Pick, til then; SPACESHIP!!!
-Joe Walsh
P. S. Should you be feeling charitable during this harsh weather period please remember to check in with the good folks over at Occupy Sandy. Some of our NY neighbors are still feeling the effects of last year's hurricane. Be a mensch.
