January 16th 2013. Pick Of the Day.

Just as the sound of a snail's journey is all but imperceptable to ears not belonging to Ingmar Bergman, the third week of 2013's first month continues its slog unnoticed, our memories still locked in late December and our fascinations projected forward to upcoming cheer such as the Super Bowl and the Oscars. Man, that's a low bar for upcoming cheer. Having said that there are classic film offerings to brighten the spirits of the Cinegeek in our fair Metropolis this day, which is actually not quite so fair and pretty hail and rain plagued as the Gods of screwing with our waking hours bicker over the best way to achieve that end. Knee high puddles, cold the mild then cold winds, and umbrellas and Kleenex that fail once employed in respective services intended. There is simply no Hell like a winter in NYC. Which brings me back to Ingmar Bergman.

Everyone's fave Scandinavian Scamp is given a three day trib as part of MOMA's ongoing Auteurist History of Film series. One of his finest efforts concerns the examination of old age and the life that preceded it. Who'm I kiddin'? MOST of his films were about that. WILD STRAWBERRIES starred one of his filmmaking heroes, Victor Sjöström, director of Svensk Filmindustri classics like THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE and iconic Hollywood silents like THE WIND. Bergman had to all but beg the 79- year old to accept the role, that of a renowned and retired physician making a long journey to accept a honorary award from his alma mater university, and the ensuing invocation of magic realism in the life's re-evaluation he undergoes.

And this was Bergman's idea of a HAPPY flick.

I'm just sayin', if he's wound up in the Hell he so devoutly believed in is he directing the 3,000,000th sequel to THE SMURFS?

Alright, I'll lighten up on the guy. Bergman's masterpiece WILD STRAWBERRIES screens at MOMA today at 1:30pm. Not my Pick.

Over at the Film Forum their New Yawk New Wave retrospective continues apace with two offerings from the city's experimental indie film scene of the 60's. Both are literally set in NYC's underground and employ that most beloved and despised tech marvel of the commuter age, and one of our grander stages for theater both planned and otherwise. Ladies and Gents the Film Forum brings you into the subway today with two slices of daring and neurotic Manahattan from a different decade. DUTCHMAN features two blistering perfs from ace acting vets Shirley Knight and Al Freeman Jr., as the former slowly turns up the heat on the latter's frog-in-a-pot. Tensions racial and sexual eventually boil over, and somehow the subway car itself remains the most insidious element of the unfolding breakdown. Wow, what a shock sez a lifetime city dweller.

Second on the bill is a uniquely nutty offering that seems Hell bent on spelling out some great truth about the broken postwar city and its attendant urban sprawl, white flight and class warfare. What it actually does is offer a young Tony Musante as a hood holding a dozen or so subway riders captive at knifepoint. Along with his sidekick young Martin Sheen. While young Beau Bridges stews as a marine on sick leave with his arm in a cast. Oh, and not-so-young Ed McMahon wets his pants as a cowardly upper middle class father who's newborn is threatened by the goons. Seriously, except for the awesome stark cinematography from Gerald Hirschfeld and a great cathartic denoument all I remembered about this flick for years was Ed McMahon. Acting. I mean for real. If you wanna see Ed McMahon do something other than laugh at a bad Karnak joke, introduce a blooper reel or surprise somebody with a trillion dollar check printed on an unhinged door, this is your film!

For reelz tho, this is a very cool double bill, offered as a two-fer today, which I implore you to attend. Especially if you've never seen or heard of these flicks. Since I can only choose one I go with Musante making McMahon cry.

THE INCIDENT screens all day today at the Film Forum. If you can't make the screenings just hop on the J train. Something'll happen.

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Support Occupy Sandy! Be safe and sound and make sure the next guy is too! To quote Duvall, "someday this January's gonna end!" Nod.

-Joe Walsh