September 21st 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.
Look, it's Sunday. I got nothin'. Lousy header demands.
Ongoing series today include 1939 - Hollywood's Golden Year at IFC Center, Film Forum Jr. at (where else?) Film Forum, The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy at MoMA, Nonesuch Records on Film at BAM Cinématek, and Also Like Life: The Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien at Museum of the Moving Image. The kino tomfoolery be thus;
IFC Center
1939 - Hollywood's Golden Year
WHEN TOMORROW COMES (1939) Dir; John M. Stahl
Film Forum
THE BANK DICK (1940) Dir; Edward F. Cline
ROME, OPEN CITY (1945) Dir; Roberto Rossellini
THE CONFORMIST (1970) Dir; Bernardo Bertolucci
MoMA
The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) Dir; David Lean
TWO ARABIAN NIGHTS (1927) Dir; Lewis Milestone
Mid-Manhattan Library
THE PETRIFIED FOREST (1935) Dir; Archie Mayo
AMC Loews Kips Bay 15, AMC Empire 25
DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
BAM Cinématek
SPARTACUS (1960) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
Museum of the Moving Image
Also Like Life: The Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien
THE BOYS FROM FENGKUEI (1983) Dir; Hou Hsiao-hsien
TAIPEI STORY (1985) Dir; Edward Yang
Today's Pick? I'm sorely tempted to single out what might be W. C. Fields' finest celluloid outing, as put-upon gumshoe (though more gum than shoe) Egbert Sousè. Though my natural body clock resists recommending back-to-back 11am screenings. I'd also love to endorse David Lean's miracle of the cinema, 1962's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, except that I caught it two years ago for its 50th anniversary, on a screen much bigger than MoMA may boast. No offense, but the real thing's just the real thing, y'know. The real brawl today is thus; Kubrick v. Kubrick, as two of his early masterworks battle it out for supremacy this day. The first, his collective venting of nuclear cold war tension, one DR. STRANGELOVE, goes virtually toe-to-toe with his earlier work-for-hire epic, an acknowledged masterpiece, that not only pretty much broke the blacklist, appropriate for a tale of slaves beating back the oppression of their so-called masters, but hand-delivered star Kirk Douglas his signature line, one made famous not by his utterance, but by its immortal repetition courtesy his onscreen comrades. Being as the latter screens far less often than the former, and that its host venue is reserving its largest screen, I'm guessing, for the occasion, I'm going with the Dalton Trumbo-scripted rebel's handbook. You may derive great pleasure from quoting this flick's most indelible line, but there is only one man who may lay claim to it.
Kirk Douglas IS SPARTACUS, starring in Stanley Kubrick's epic tale of insurrection and martyrdom, unspooling its digitized 1's and 0's at BAM Cinématek as part of their slowly winding down series Nonesuch Records on Film. If you are learned in the classics, and you dig both oysters and snails, this is the movie for you.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in September '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.
-Joe Walsh
P. S. We're swiftly returning to the winter climate, and believe it or not some of our fellow NY'ers have still yet to be made whole in the wake of the 2012 storm. Should you be feeling charitable please visit the folks at OccupySandy.net, follow their hammer-in-hand efforts to restore people's lives, and donate/volunteer if you have the inclination and availability. Be a collective mensch, Stockahz!
