October 16th 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.
Kansas City Royals, meet San Francisco Giants. World Series '14. Bring it awn.
Ongoing series today include CAPRA! at Film Forum, Acteurism: The Emergence of Ann Sheridan, 1937-43 at MoMA, By Marguerite Duras at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Matías Piñeiro Selects: Bridges Over Argentinian Cinema at Anthology Film Archives, and Chelsea Classics at the Bowtie Chelsea Cinemas. The celluloid hugger mugger be thus;
Film Forum
BROADWAY BILL (1934) Dir; Frank Capra
LADY FOR A DAY (1933) Dir; Frank Capra
MoMA
Acteurism: The Emergence of Ann Sheridan, 1937-43
JUKE GIRL (1941) Dir; Curtis Bernhardt
Film Society of Lincoln Center
MADEMOISELLE (1966) Dir; Tony Richardson
MODERATO CANTABILE (1960) Dir; Peter Brook
THE TRUCK (1977) Dir; Marguerite Duras
Anthology Film Archives
Matías Piñeiro Selects: Bridges Over Argentinian Cinema
THE PLAYERS VS. ANGELOS CAIDOS (1969) Dir; Alberto Fischerman
THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (1962) Dir; Joseph Green
BowTie Chelsea Cinemas
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) Dir; Wes Craven
Nitehawk Cinema
THE KING OF COMEDY (1982) Dir; Martin Scorsese
Today's Pick? Foreign film remains a huge blind spot for me; thus do the Matías Piñeiro and Marguerite Duras series, exposing our fair metropolis to Argentinian and French cinema at Anthology Film Archives and Lincoln Center respectively, tempt. Film Forum also offers up a double-bill in their Capra retrospective that remain unseen by these blinkers. And Ann Sheridan remains a dream girl. A prominent one. But tonight belongs to a social commentary from the era when they really knew how to make 'em, an observation of one medium by another, not unlike Sidney Lumet's NETWORK, if perhaps even more unhinged, and just as thrillingly and depressingly prescient about the format's future, i. e. where we are now.
Fear of anonymity, like Hollywood and TV, seems to me a construct particular to 20th century America. Whether that be true or no, it has become a 21st century pandemic, and nowhere as in evidence as our modern equivalents of the boob tube; tablets, smart phones and flatscreens. What we now call our "devices", ever present, populaced by the desperate, the bewildered, the mocked, committing themsleves to activities once regarded as shameful but now exalted by a culture without shame. The rot from within never found better representation than one Howard Beale. The assault from without came fully formed as one Rupert Pupkin.
Martin Scorsese's THE KING OF COMEDY unspools tonight at the Nitehawk Cinema as part of their One Nite Only series. Better you be audience member for tonight than schmuck for a lifetime.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in October '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!
