November 30th 2012. Pick Of the Day.

Roman Polanski just won't learn his lesson. TESS screens for a week at the Film Forum. Not today's Pick.

The sound of your oil painting disturbs Max Von Sydow in HOUR OF THE WOLF, screening at BAM as part of their tribute to the Spruce Goose. No offense but definitely not my Pick today.

Don Seigel refuses to let anybody sleep again ever after watching his paranoia masterpiece INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, screening at Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria and duelling it out in the same time slot with Phil Kaufman's remake unspooling at Anthology Film Archives. Showtimes for both 7pm. Tres cool, but not my Pick.

Ilsa torments Rick in the monumental Michael Curtiz masterpiece CASABLANCA, screening at the Rubin Museum, which is a kinda sorta pretty cool stand-in for Bogart's Cafe Americain. But it's a BluRay projection, so it loses out Pick Of the Day status to a cooler screening.

Finally one of my geek-out faves from 1982, the last year of my youth, screens at the Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn at midnight, albeit with a new live score by experimental outfit Black Lodge. No matter, I'd watch it in any permutation. Some have made the argument that this flick is as important to the medium and the Sci Fi genre in particluar as Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS, and I wouldn't be wrong. Try me. Would take top honors today except that I know a 70mm screening awaits at month's end at the Walter Reade theater, so I'm gonna wait it out. For those who need their fix immediately and might even attend both screenings Steven Lisberger's cult classic TRON screens at midnight at the Nitehawk, and booze is not only present but pushed on ya! Huzzah!

So now to my Pick Of The Day. During my aforementioned youth, the existence of which is contested by some who know me, there were a handful of directors from vastly different eras whose names began to stick with me as I began to connect the dots between the films in their CV, developing my own 10-year old's version of the Autuer Theory. Bazin had nuthin' on me bwah. Chief amongst these was Sidney Lumet, Orson Welles, Martin Scorsese, John Ford, Sergio Leone, Howard Hawks, and maybe my fave of the bunch who ultimately I argue became heir to Hawks' throne. John Carpenter rode an unbroken streak of quality genre flicks, some of which are among the greatest of all time, from DARK STAR in 1974 to tonight's Pick Of the Day in 1986. In between he wrote, produced and directed a succesion of films that pretty much defined your level of cool in my nabe; if you were the lone kid who hadn't snuck into a screening of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK in the summer of '81 woebedtide ye lad. This was the age of the insidious noogie, after all.

So he remains a god to some of us, even though his output saw a ridiculously sharp decline immediately after the release of tonight's Pick, his last truly great movie, which not only foretold but informed the Grindhouse aesthetic of the 90's promulgated by Tarantino and Rodriguez and their peers. And I honestly can't think of another venue that could match the 80's Times Square movie theater experience than the beloved Anthology Film Archives on 2nd and 2nd. So here's where I'll be tonight.

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA screens tonight at 9:30pm at AFA. Tell 'em Jack Burton sent ya.

The usual drill; follow me on Twitter @NitrateStock! Like the page Facebook.com/NitrateStock! Join the Facebook group! Get out to the movies! December calendar coming tomorrow! Be safe and sound and make sure the next guy is too, Stockers! Excelsior!

-Joe Walsh