August 29th 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 feel like Robert De Niro in MIDNIGHT RUN, and the month of August was Charles Grodin giving me the slip. Except I seem to remember enjoying that flick and even being on Grodin's side in that film. Now I'm grumpy De Niro chain smoking and pissed off and divorced with a daughter who hates me okay maybe I'm making too much of this anxiety over Autumn's inevitable approach. But I can't be the only one who remembers the Polar Vortex. Brr.
New and continuing series today include 1939: Hollywood's Golden Year at IFC Center, An Auteurist History of Film and The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy at MoMA, James Brown: The Hardest Working Man In Show Business and Freaky Fridays at the Film Society, See It Big!: Hollywood Melodrama at Museum of the Moving Image, the eternally swank Cabaret Cinema at the Rubin Museum, and the creatively-titled vampire program Bite This! at the Nitehawk Cinema. To the darkened auditoriums!
IFC Center
STAGECOACH (1939) Dir; John Ford
Film Forum
THE CONFORMIST (1971) Dir; Bernardo Bertolucci
MoMA
MANHATTAN (1979) Dir; Woody Allen
The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy
THE LITTLE AMERICAN (1917) Dir; Cecil B. DeMille
THE PATENT LEATHER KID (1927) Dir; Alfred Santell
Film Society of Lincoln Center
James Brown: The Hardest Working Man In Show Business
SKI PARTY (1965) Dir; Alan Rafkin
BLACK CAESAR (1973) Dir; Larry Cohen
NEAR DARK (1987) Dir; Katherine Bigelow
Museum of the Moving Image
See It Big!: Hollywood Melodrama
WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956) Dir; Douglas Sirk
Rubin Museum of Art
CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989) Dir; Woody Allen
Nitehawk Cinema
NOSFERATU (1979) Dir; Werner Herzog
Today's Pick? As we're saying goodbye to summer '14, unfortunately a summer defined by the word goodbye for many of us, it seems only appropriate to devote today's selection to one of the many finalities represented on the sked. I directed the Kliegs yesterday to the concluding segment of MoMA's Auteurist History of Film program, a crucial resource the NYC cinephile has enjoyed for almost six years, closing today with a most pertinent booking; Woody Allen's valentine to our most photogenic metropolis, 1979's MANHATTAN.
Another series retires tonight, if only for a short recess; the Rubin Museum's cooly casual Cabaret Cinema, an oasis of cocktails, candlelight, and legroom in an otherwise uncivilized Mos Eisely-esque moviegoing experience. These are worthy observances to be sure, but there is a much more immediate and noteworthy unspooling tonight, a widescreen Technicolor opportunity to visit with greatness, to bask in the light of a star now gone but whose light remains. Back in July a screening of THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, booked months in advance, served as impromptu gathering for Eli Wallach's fans just days after his unfortunate passing. It was an opportunity to show some love for a film icon we'd come to regard as family, and had quietly tricked ourselves into thinking would live forever, on both sides of the screen. The silver iteration, at least, and to our eternal gratitude, remains. Today we the cinematically bereaved find ourselves with another such allowance, bemoaning the loss, grateful for the opportunity to say a proper goodbye. It takes the top slot if only because the lady in question never took second place in her life. Why would it be different now?
Lauren Bacall, one of the last great dames all-time, stars in Douglas Sirk's WRITTEN ON THE WIND, screening tonight at Museum of the Moving Image as part of their See It Big! Hollywood Melodrama series. Farewell Slim. And thanks.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in August '14 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. For the monthly overview and other audio tomfoolery check out the podcast, and follow me on SoundCloud! For reviews of contemporary cinema and my streaming habits (keep it clean!) check out my Letterboxd 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 safe, sound, make sure the next knucklehead is too. And don't forget how to whistle.
-Joe Walsh
