November 29th 2012. Pick Of The Day.

I'm usually against repeat champs when I award my Pick Of The Day, but as November wanes I have no choice really but to break that rule. Read on.

Frank Tashlin invoked his animation background in the style of his live-action American pop-culture skewering classics of the 50's, two of which made a household name of one Jayne Mansfield. WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? takes on the postwar world of advertising, scandal sheets and the shallow soul of Hollywood itself. A lowly ad exec becomes a gossip column obsession when the actress he's pursuing for his agency's lipstick campaign decides to use him as bait to make her muscle man boyfriend jealous. Tony Randall plays it straight. Not my Pick.

MOMA offers up the quasi-doc ON THE BOWERY for a second day as part of the ongoing An Autuerist History of Film series. A gripping time capsule of an era when what has become some of the priciest real estate in Manhattan was once the flop ground of society's forgotten, and a fictional account of one man's descent into such that takes place among factual settings and people. American neo-realism. Not my Pick.

BAM's Max Von Sydow retrospective trods existentially into its third day with his Oscar nominated turn in PELLE THE CONQUERER, the story of a boy born into poverty in the slums of Brazil who ultimately becomes the soccer world's greatest champion! Controversially cast as said Third-World phenom Von Sydow nevertheless

Wait, what?

What?

It's not about that?

What's it about?

It's about what???

Well, it seems I have my facts crossed up. but it's sorta the same story. Except for the exotic locale. And the sports angle. And the melanin. But hey, the Spruce Goose never disappoints, and this flick definitely matches the emotional temperature outside. Not my Pick but apparently I need to see this at some point.

Two weeklong screenings come to a close today. Luis Bunuel's THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE unspools its last this day at the Film Society's new Francesca Beale Theater at Lincoln Center. Bunuel's eyeball opening antics gradually shifted from onscreen to audience, and this farce mocking the buffoonery of the genteel counts amongst his greatest achievements. This normally would trump all else, but today an even greater work of art screens its last in our fair metropolis, and I've never taken sides against Sergio Leone.

Leone read the pulp paperback THE HOODS while filming the similarly named and themed (and some say the 1st film in his SECOND trilogy) ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, and immediately wanted to make it his next feature. It would take him 15 years, one more Spaghetti Western and Robert De Niro to finally convince a studio to back him and bring that vision to the big screen, only to have that same studio take the film from him and hack it to pieces. Originally released as a two hour mess that flopped, it's longer three-hours plus cut was instantly championed by several important critics as a masterpiece and pressure was put on the studio to release this version to American theaters. In a rare instance of providence winning the hour, the studio caved, and Leone's original vision was released for movie lovers everywhere to gush over. Too late in the game to salvage it's box office fortunes, it nonetheless reinforced Leone's reputation as a genius filmmaker and has since become part of the heated debate over his CV's crowning achievement. I still prefer THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY as his best, because it's just his fucking best, but AMERICA is absolute brilliance, one of the finest films of all time, and one of the few all-out masterpieces an important director ever ended his career with.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, my Pick Of The Day waaaay back in October when its brand spankin' new 8K restoration premiered at MOMA, repeats today, screening at 1:20pm and 7pm at the Film Forum.

You know the drill; follow me on Twitter @NitrateStock.net! Like my page at Facebook.com/NitrateStock! Check with www.occupysandy.com to help the hurricane victims! December calendar's coming on Saturday! Be safe and sound Stockers!

-Joe Walsh