December 2016! Going' Steadicam, Le Grandi Donne, and It's a Wonderful Rep Film Circuit! Attaboy, Stockahz!

What Ho, Stockahz! Can you believe it?!? Here we are at the dawn of yet another December, and not just the usual December NY'ers carry around in their souls all year! I'm talkin' the ACTUAL month! How can this be? How can this freakin' BE??? Seems like only yesterday we were locked in battle between those who loved SPECTRE and its detractors, waiting with giddy anticipation for J. J. Abrams' boost or crush in the form of Episode VII, and us rep circuit-minded diggin' into the Douglas Sirk trib at the Film Society and the Lonely Places: Film Noir series at
Museum of the Moving Image. In between that time and the present we've enjoyed a myriad of remarkable series and events, like
the director tribs to Sam Peckinpah, Theo Angelopoulous, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Brian De Palma, and Otto Preminger; the overview of postwar Japanese Musicals and reappraisal of Universal Studios' period under Carl Laemmle Jr's tenure; and most wonderfully the openings of two new rep houses in our movie-mad metropolis, Bushwick's Syndicated and the LES' Metrograph! It's proven quite the year for 2017 to try and top. It's also been a hard slog if you're a film fanatic, as we've lost some of the brightest lights in the entertainment biz this past solar cycle. I won't attempt a listing, I'll only plead with the coming year to be just a little kinder to us. This medium that we love is already made of stardust, it is so easily blown away. Let us hang onto it a little longer, okay '17? Ok. Now to our regualrly scheduled sked!

Those of you familiar with this here web-thingy I like to electronically scribble within know that each month I like to confer what I like to call Big Dawg status to that series or screening I deem that 31 days' most unmissable. Last month that esteemed esteem went to MoMA and their always fascinating, often mind-blowing series To Save and Project, their 14th annual celebration of cinema spared time's ravage. It gave us restorations of classics and curios like Anthony Mann's HE WALKED BY NIGHT, Robert Aldrich's EMPEROR OF THE NORTH and King Hu's LEGEND OF THE MOUNTAIN, as well as several reprieves from the "lost film" list like John Ford's THE BRAT and Felix Feist's DELUGE. Best of all was what the Museum termed the "world premiere" of Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, which unsurprisingly never looked or sounded better. Great fest as always, and can't wait for its 15th iteration!

This month's Daily Growl goes back uptown to October's mutt, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and their celebration of a technical innovation that changed the way cinema is made and viewed! Going Steadi: 40 Years of Steadicam fetes the invention of cinematographer Garrett Brown, who himself will be on hand to discuss his breakthrough device. Slated to screen in trib are such classics as John Schlesinger's MARATHON MAN, Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING, Martin Scorsese's AFTER HOURS and GOODFELLAS, Tony Scott's THE HUNGER, and the film that first availed itself of the cam steadi, Hal Ashby's dustbowl biopic BOUND FOR GLORY. The series also boasts of a new 4K resto of John G. Avildsen's underdog-synonymous ROCKY, but it's to be noted that this is one of the only DCP's on the sked; the bulk of the fest offers 35mm prints of these beauts, and the Film Society screens only the best. Some titles in the series were released after the 25-year cutoff mark I employ when crafting the calendar, so be sure to check the site at FilmLinc.org for the full skinny. The series runs from December 16th to the 3rd of next month.

Also at the Film Society this month is a retrospective of the work of Raúl Ruiz, a director I'm only marginally aware of but look forward to getting to know. Life is a Dream: The Films of Raúl Ruiz (Part One) offers up such imaginatevly-titled enticements like THE HYPOTHESIS OF THE STOLEN PAINTING, THE SUSPENDED VOCATION, and DIALOGUE OF THE EXILES, all tied together seemingly by the filmmaker's infatuation with dreamlike experience. Accompanying the series are two works by directors who inspired Ruiz: Ousmane Sembene's BLACK GIRL and Edgar G. Ulmer's THE BLACK CAT. Like I said, I ain't gonna lie, I'm not familair with the man's work, but the treat of running a site like mine and the privilege of living in this great city is the oppoe=rtunity to discover names heretofore unknown and the work even unknowner. As it were. So I'm looking forward to attending at least a couple of these films during the series' run, today through the 22nd of the month.

Finally this month the Film Society celebrates the 25th anniversary of its majestic Walter Reade theater with free screeenings of Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly's ON THE TOWN and John Cassavetes' SHADOWS, two films featured at the venue's very beginning! Seats are gonna fill up quick for this one night-only happening, Thursday December 8th, so arrive early and take advantage of the throwback pricing on the popcorn! The Film Society is located at the Walter Reade Theater at 165 W 65th street, and the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center at 144 W 65th street, on Mahattan's Upper West.

Skedaddlin' down to Manhattan's Lower West we arrive at that holiest of cinematic temples. West Houston street's Film Forum! The good folks in charge of the rep sked usually jam the venue with too much to take in in a month, and December '16 is no exception! At the moment the Forum is brandishing its new 4K resto of what I consider not merely Altman's masterpiece, but one of only two of his films that I can stand, let alone enjoy. Try me. McCABE & MRS. MILLER manages to take what I deem would become the fauxter's worst excesses and somehow contain them, use them as narrative strengths, whittling a quieted, bespoke token of Americana that manages to critique Hollywood's myth of the west without resorting to ugliness. The brilliant DP Vilmos Zsigmond would in some ways recreate his northwestern tableaux for Michael Cimino in HEAVEN'S GATE, another fave of mine, but his earthy color palette promises to look as rich and rough as it did 45 years ago. Screens til the 6th.

Philip Kaufamn's THE WANDERERS is often overlooked by his fans, some who gravitate towrds his later, larger efforts like THE RIGHT STUFF and THE UNBEARABLE IGHTNESS OF BEING, or those who champion his earlier remake of Don Seigel's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. But in some ways it might be his most perfect film, buoyed no doubt by great source material provided by Richard Price's novel of the same name, and memorable perfs from then-unknown Karen Allen and Ken Wahl. The Forum offers three screenigns of the 1979 gem this month, all accompanied by priciple participants: Allen on the 4th, Price on the 5th, and Kaufman himself on the 19th! I'm gonna do my damndest to attend all three!

The splendid series on display at the Forum this month is a trib to the man synonymous with Golden Age musical excess. Busby Berkeley kicks off on the 7th with a twin bill of ROMAN SCANDALS and STRIKE UP THE BAND, and proceeds to prance through such spectacles as 1933's 42ND STREET, arguably his signature film; that same year's FOOTLIGHT PARADE, which saw young Jimmy Cagney reprise Warner Baxter's 42ND impresario somewhat; and the director's first Technicolor feature, 1943's THE GANG'S ALL HERE, which may well be more memorable for the fact that it not only trusted Carmen Miranda with dialogue but also bottom-of-the-ashtray-voiced Eugene Palette with a song. I promise you that, just like Kubrick's stargate sequence, no matter how many times you've seen any of these films, you haven't really seen them unless it's on the big screen. The series runs from the 7th til the 15th.

Following the Busby brouhaha the Forum gifts us with a new 4K resto of Anthony Harvey's brilliant adap of James Goldman's play, THE LION IN WINTER. O'Toole remains the only actor to be nominated for portraying the same charcter in two films completely unrelated, save for their shared historical sources. And while I win no film pals by admitting a little Hepburn goes a long way with me and always has, there are a handful of perfs that I consider not merely exemplars of her best, but among the best all-time period. Her Eleanor of Aquitaine is up there with Swanson in SUNSET BOULEVARD and Leigh in GONE WITH THE WIND. Rarefied air. Toss in the screen debut of a husky young Anthony Hopkins and a pre-pre-pre-007 Timothy Dalton, stir with some double- and triple-crossing castle intrigue, and hilarity ensues! It's absolutely flawless, and you get from the 16th til the 27th to indulge.

The Forum closes out the month with a weeklong run of Michael Curtiz's flat-out masterpiece CASABLANCA, a film that's become shorthand for brilliant filmmaking and Hollywood magic. It screens in glorious 35mm from the 27th til January 3rd, and the 7pm amd 9:10pm screenings on December 31st come with a complimentrary champagne toast, per tradition. Lastly the ongoing hook-'em-while-they're-young Film Forum Jr. says goodbye to 2016 with screenings of Spielberg's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor's HOT WATER, and a Christams Day digital unspooling of Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen's SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. Film Forum is located at 209 W Houston st. in Manhattan.

Subway-surfin' back up to midtown none other than that pristine edifice whose walls house some of the most-desired unspoolings in all the 5 boroughs, a building whose design predicted Kubrick or Jobs or both well before those men imposed their vision of computers and architecture upon the larger world. This month MoMA boasts several choice series and its hard to single out any one as the best. Already begun is the museum's complete retrospective of the films of Pedro Almodóvar, the man who pretty much single-handedly dragged Sopanish cinema onto the modern world stage. All of his feature films are for the viewing, including ear;y formative works like 1980's PEPI LUCI, BOM, 1983's DARK HABITS and 1984's WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?, to later breakthrough works like 1986's MATADOR, 1988's smash WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, and 1990's controversial TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN. Sadly, as with the Film Society's Ruiz series, anything produced after 1993 won't appear on my calendar, and the man made a LOT of films after that date, so be sure to check the full schedule at MoMA's website. Runs til the 17th.

Two other month-long series at MoMA focus on Italian cinema. The first, part of their ongoing Modern Matinees series, zeroes in on that country's iconic actresses in the postwar era, entitled Le Grandi Donne, loosely translated as The Great Women. Legendary works like Fellini's LA STRADA, Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA, Pasolini's MAMMA ROMA and De Sica's TWO WOMEN, boast arguably the most memorable turns from the great Giulietta Masina, Monica Vitti, Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren, the latter bagging an Oscar for her efforts. Series runs through January 27th.

The 2nd ode to Da Boot focuses on a particluar director, one who also found fortune in the postwar boom. Dino Risi features an extensive overview of the filmmaker's CV, including the well-known works like IL SORPASSO, screening in its new 4K resto, THE GAUCHO, and the unfortunately remade SCENT OF A WOMAN, with lesser-screened stuff like POOR BUT HANDSOME, LOVE AND LARCENY, and MARCH ON ROME. Runs from the 14th til January 6th.

Finally the museum presents Donna Deitch's breakthrough work of sapphic cinema DESERT HEARTS, unspooling in its native 35mm format and intro'd by the filmmaker at screenings on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th. The film runs til the 8th. MoMA is located at 11 W 53rd street in Manhattan.

Sloooowly stepping into the dark creaking shadows of the NYC film fanatic's fave haunted house, we gingerly enter Anthology Film Archives. First weird noise and we're Pesci storming the cabin porch in MY COUSIN VINNY. Nah, I'm kiddin' cause I love. You hear that, poltergeists? I'm kiddin'! AFA kicks off the Yuletide with the series Dark Hopper, surprising no one. Celebrating the mad genius of the notorious Hollywood artist/lunatic, the series offers his directing duties on the cult films OUT OF THE BLUE, BACKTRACK, and his EASY RIDER followup THE LAST MOVIE, as well as some of his most indelible work in front of the camera in Roland Klick's WHITE STAR, Philippe Mora's MAD DOG MORGAN, and his celluloid burn as Frank Booth in David Lynch's BLUE VELVET. AFA also presents the restoration of Lois Weber's THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI, the most complete assemblage and spitshine since it premiered 100 years ago. Weber was among the most successful directors of the 9-teens, Universal's biggest moneymaker, and before the emergence of Hollywood's glass ceiling was every bit the narrative pioneer in cinema that her male counterparts were. It's with much anticipation that I await these screenings. Anthology Film Archives is located at 32 2nd avenue in Manhattan.

Running for our very lives we eventually land at the facade of Manhattan's newest rep film venue, the Lower East Side's Metrograph. Amongst the baubles it dangles before a cinema-starved mob are Michael Barker's Western Triple Feature, which includes Jacques Tourneur's CANYON PASSAGE, Budd Boetticher's THE TALL T, and Anthony Mann's MAN OF THE WEST; Joe Carducci: Requiem for the Living Picture, which features two by my hero John Ford, 1952's THE QUIET MAN and 1962's THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE; and the venue's brilliant, ongoing Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z, which this month brngs us screenings of Jacques Rivette's PONT DU NORD, Katherine Bigelow's POINT BREAK, and Wim Wenders' masterpiece PARIS,TEXAS. Metrograph is located at No. 7 Ludlow St. in Manhattan's LES.

Other series and screenings get a might slim after this. The highlights as follows;

My beloved Nitehawk Cinema continues its tradition of Midnight and Brunch madness, and series like Booze n' Books and The Deuce. Midnights bring Freddie Francis' TALES FROM THE CRYPT and John Carpenter's THE THING, while brunch brings Michael Curtiz's WHITE CHRISTMAS and Frank Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Howard Hawks' original 1951 THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD unspools as part of their Booze n' Books series, while this month's The Deuce brings the 70's holiday porn classic PASSIONS OF CAROL, which brings entire new meaning to the surname Dickens. Hey, they were asking for it. As it were. The Nitehawk is located a mere stumble from the Bedford avenue L train stop, at 136 Metropolitan Avenue, in Bustlin' Billyburg, Brooklyn.

BAM Cinématek continues its ebullient trib to the Freed unit with That's Entertianment: MGM Musicals Part II. Screenings still to come in the series include Vincente Minnelli's THE BAND WAGON, Herbert Ross' PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, and Blake Edwards' VICTOR/VICTORIA. The whole song and dance wraps up on the 8th. BAM Cinématek is located at the Peter Jay Sharp building, 30 Lafayette Avenue, in Brooklyn.

Museum of the Moving Image continues its See it Big! Holiday Movies with screenings of Ernst Lubitsch's THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, Vincente Minnelli's MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, and Frank Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, of which we will see no end til l'enfant dix-sept arrivée. Moving Image is located at 36-01 35th Avenue in Astoria, Queens.

The Rubin Museum's ongoing Cabaret Cinema brings us this month Alejandro Jodorowsky's THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, Kaneto Shindô's ONIBABA, and Andrei Tarkovsky's NOSTALGHIA, and James Whale's SHOWBOAT. All of which rather reminds me of Tibetan philosophy. The Rubin is located at 150 W 17th street in Manhattan.

The United Palace of Cultural Arts, which I've heretofore chosen not to cover because of their great resources and pitiful regard to recreating the movie palace experience, has now installed what I understand to be a state-of-the-art DCP system, so it is in this faith that I include them going forward, and recommend not just the screening of THE WIZARD OF OZ on the 11th, co-hosted by film critic/historian Lou Lumenick and TCM host Tiffany Vazquez, but also the extremely rare screening of Frank Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE on the 18th. The UPCA is located at 4140 Broadway, aaaaaaaaaaall the way in Upper Manhattan.

And finally, the IFC Center, which provides yours truly with all the holiday cheer he needs with the slowly winding-down Kurosawa & Mifune series, with the yet to screen SANJURO, HIGH AND LOW and THE BAD SLEEP WELL in the chamber. But I also understand the world, the NYC film community in particular, needs something perhaps a bit more in keeping with the holiday season. So it is that I close this article with the venue's grand Xmas tradition, its two week screening of Frank Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, the one perfect viewing of this film on the screen large at this time of year seems to me. Starts on the 9th and goes full well through the holiday it exalts. Many of these screenings are accompanied by Donna Reed's daughter, Mary Owen. If you've yet to participate in this newest and most heartwarming of Xmas film traditions in NYC, I beseech thee, surround yourself with your best Bedford Falls friends, and feel like the richest person in town. IFC Center is located at 323 6th Avenue in Manhattan.

So there it is, your rundown of the month in repertory cinema. Schedules are subject to change, and they do, so be sure to check back with this site to keep fully updated. And be sure to like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, observe me on Instagram, stalk me on Tumblr, and OH YEAH: check in with me via my brand-spankin'-new YouTube channel, NitrateStock TV! Face it, we're just stuck with each other. So until next time, be safe and sound, Stockahz, and make sure the next knucklehead is too. And have yorself a Merry lil' Xmas now. Excelsior!

-Joe Walsh

JoeW@NitrateStock.net

P.S. My charitable push expands, because the forces for ill are making their grandest surge I've yet seen in my lifetime against he forces of the-other-guy/gal-counts-too: please continue to support the boots on the ground and hammer in hand eforts of Occupy Sandy, as they still work to restore families affected by Hurricane Sandy to their safe havens, but let's also support the victims of the Syrian crisis, the refugees who've come under attack by fearmongers worldwide and, most shamefully, here at home. Please either donate to agencies like DoctorsWithoutBorders, RedCross, and/or UnicefUSA, or post these addresses to your feed to involve your friends and followers in a noble cause. What are we if not a compassionate people? JFK once said, amd I'm paraphrasing, that America was great because it was good. Once the latter ceased to be the case, the former would evaporate like so much hot steam. Really, though, at the end of the day, wouldn't it feel great to know you helped improve someone's circumstance. particularly the desperate ones? Here's hoping you pitch in. Cheers, Stockahz.