November 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.
Today, to honor the memory of a particularly brilliant talent, one recently and unfairly departed, who graciously shone his high beams on virtually every aspect of the artistic universe as we know it, I will sip a few Bourgons. He'll get it.
New and continuing series this day include Acteurism: The Emergence of Ann Sheridan, 1937-43 and To Save and Project: The 12th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation at MoMA, Fassbinder: Romantic Anarchist, Part Two at the Film Society, the Jean Grémillon retrospective at Museum of the Moving Image, Justice in Film at the New York Historical Society, and the eternally swank Cabaret Cinema at the Rubin Museum. The tomfoolery as follows;
Film Forum
LE JOUR SE LEVE (1939) Dir; Marcel Carné
MoMA
Acteurism: The Emergence of Ann Sheridan, 1937-43
WINTER CARNIVAL (1939) Dir; Charles F. Reisner
To Save and Project: The 12th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation
3-D FUNHOUSE (1948-53) Dirs; Various
THE FATE OF A MAN (1959) Dir; Sergey Bondarchuk
BAM Cinématek
THE SACRIFICE (1986) Dir; Andrei Tarkovsky
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Fassbinder: Romantic Anarchist, Part Two
THE WIZARD OF BABYLON (1982) Dir; Dieter Schidor
Museum of the Moving Image
LIGHT OF SUMMER () Dir; Jean Grémillion
New York Historical Society
Justice in Film
SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) Dir; Billy Wilder
Rubin Museum
THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1971) Dir; Alejandro Jodorowsky
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
PURPLE RAIN (1984) Dir; Albert Magnoli
Today's Pick? So many worthy choices, so few gold stars to hand out. Well, one, to be exact. Once more I'm benefitted greatly by the extended runs of both Carné's LE JOUR SE LEVE at Film Forum and Tarkovsky's THE SACRIFICE at BAM Cinématek, so I've got some leeway in selecting either. Wilder's SUNSET always tempts, but I feel like I've just made it my Pick mere weeks ago. Actually I constantly feel that. Moving Image's Grémillon series is just kicking off, and because of that I'm going to wait to highlight a truly unmissable screening in that excellent series. So it really comes down to two midnight screenings tonight, one film exploring and perhaps deconstructing the foundations of myth, the other forging one. Tonight, I'm going with the mythmaker, a celebration of lust, decadence, and, at once, 80's-era repression and indulgence. We Americans pride ourselves on the fact that royalty has no place in our more modern system of governance and class structure. We're also far from shy in worshipping our Prince.
Albert Magnoli's PURPLE RAIN, a film absolutely Lesterian in its power to both cement the status of its musical star and game-change cash-in rock cinema, screens 5 minutes shy of midnight at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema. Let's go crazy.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in November '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!
P. S. We're fully entwined in winter's embrace, 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!
RIP Mike Nichols
