March 12th 2016. Pick of the Day.
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Continuing series this day includes MoMA's celebration of Jerry Lewis' 90th birthday, IT Girls: Flappers, Jazz Babies & Vamps! at Film Forum, the rarities unspooling at A Lot of Roach: Medium Rare at the Library for the Performing Arts, Anthology Film Archives' third down of their trib to American International Pictures, and the newly-baptized Metrograph's first-ever director trib to post-Nouvelle Vague auteur Jean Eustache. The emulsified ebullience be thus;
Nitehawk Cinema
TEEN WOLF (1985) Dir; Rod Daniel
MoMA
Happy Birthday Mr. Lewis: The Kid Turns 90
THREE RING CIRCUS (1955) Dir; Joseph Pevney
THAT'S MY BOY! (1951) Dir; Hal Walker
ROCK-A-BYE BABY (1958) Dir; Frank Tashlin
Film Forum
IT Girls: Flappers, Jazz Babies & Vamps!
TROUBLE IN PARADISE (1932) Dir; Ernst Lubitsch
GIRLS ABOUT TOWN (1931) Dir; George Cukor
SO THIS IS PARIS (1926) Dir; Ernst Lubitsch
CALL HER SAVAGE (1932) Dir; John Francis Dillon
Library for the Performing Arts
UNCENSORED MOVIES (1923)
IT'S A JOY (1923)
SURE, MIKE (1925)
EVE'S LOVE LETTERS (1927)
A PAIR OF TIGHTS (1929)
Anthology Film Archives
American International Pictures, Part Three
BLACK MAMA WHITE MAMA (1973) Dir; Eddie Romero
COFFY (1973) Dir; Jack Hill
FOXY BROWN (1974) Dir; Jack Hill
Landmark Jersey Loews
STAND BY ME (1986) Dir; Rob Reiner
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) Dir; Robert Mulligan
Metrograph
THE PIG (1970) Dir; Jean Eustache
MASCULIN FEMININ (1966) Dir; Jean-Luc Godard
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
ENTER THE DRAGON (1973) Dir; Robert Clouse
IFC Center
EL TOPO (1970) Dir; Alejandro Jodorowsky
GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1989) Dir; Joe Dante
Today's Pick? Where do I begin? This March 12th menu is just that good. The IT girls series at Film Forum offers up four bonafide musts today, and two of them come as a two-fer as well. MoMA's Jerry Lewis birthday hoo-haw presents three fine offerings from the period before he turned auteur poisen. The Silent Clowns bring their usual quality fare with a bill of Hal Roach two-reelers, all shown in 35mm, and free to first-comers. That's the series that REALLY tempts this day. However, seeing as March is Women's Month, how in holy f@#% can I take sides against Pam Grier, the single greatest argument in modern history for a matriarchal society standing on two feet and wielding a shotgun? She has always been, and remains, my choice. Regardless of what the question is.
Pam stars in three of her most iconic roles this day; Lee in Eddie Romero's BLACK MAMA WHITE MAMA, Coffy in Jack Hill's COFFY, and her perhaps career-defining perf as Foxy Brown in Hill's FOXY BROWN, all unspooling today as part of Anthology Film Archive's excellent series paying tribute toAIP, or American International Pictures, surely the most influential independent studio of the postwar era. She defined Blaxploitation, then outgrew it. She found differing levels of career success in the 80's, but stuck around and continued to impress. She beat cancer. She eventually got to work with the man who considered her a muse, Quentin Tarantino, on 1997's JACKIE BROWN, one of her best showcases. She still brings her enorous talent, her inimitable charisma, and her defiant two planted feet weilding a shotgun, visible or no, to every project she works on. I shudder to consider a history of film, hell any history, that she never partook of. Thank you Ms. Grier. Looking forward to your next.
For more info on these and all NYC's rep film screenings in March '16 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. 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 soon with new Picks 'n perks, til then safe, sound, make sure the next knucklehead is too!
P. S. Winter's icy grip seems to have loosened on our fair metropolis, but milder weather aside 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!
