Don’t miss the second week of the Con Film Festival at Film Forum that runs through May 21st. Although a few gems have already passed there are still a handful of thrilling bad guy (and bad girl) flicks left to catch.
This Wednesday is a 2 For 1 ticket deal to see Sidney Potier and Tony Curtis escape from a prison van in The Defiant Ones and the classic Cool Hand Luke. Or catch a double-feature on Thursday with Fritz Lang’s You Only Live Once and Marion Gering’s Pick Up.
Check out the full line-up HERE.
March 26 - Dreyer’s GERTRUD at BAM and Cinemachat with Elliott Stein
Screening for one day only as part of BAM’s Carl Theodor Dreyer retrospective, Dreyer’s opus and final film Gertrud (1964) is playing Thursday. Show times are at 4:30, 6:50, and 9:30pm, with a special Cinemachat with film historian Elliott Stein following the 6:50 show which is not to be missed.
“There is no other movie like Gertrud. It exists in its own bright, one-entry category, idiosyncratic, serenely stubborn, and sublime.” –Phillip Lopate
Showing Thursday, March 26 at 4:30, 6:50, and 9:30pm at BAM.
Jan. 15 - DO THE RIGHT THING at Maysles Cinema
Tonight, Maysles Cinema’s Rent Control: NYC Documented and Imagined continues with Spike Lee’s classic Do the Right Thing (1989). His portrait of cultural and racial conflicts that converge around Sal’s Pizza on the hottest day of the summer is certainly among the most evocative and insightful New York stories ever put to film. The stellar ensemble cast, featuring Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, John Tuturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez, Samuel L. Jackson, and Spike Lee himself, is able to be at once highly provocative and undeniably sympathetic.
Here’s the original theatrical trailer for the film, courtesy of YouTube.
Jan. 14 - THE EDUCATION OF SONNY CARSON at Maysles Cinema
The epic, six-month long series Rent Control: NYC Documented and Imagined continues this week at the Maysles Cinema. This month, Brooklyn is in focus, and tonight’s film is Michael Campus’ The Education of Sonny Carson (1974). Shot on-location and based on a true story, this story of 1950’s street gangs was described as having a “primal energy that imbues it with terrifying eloquence” by The New York Times when it first premiered.
A taste of tonight’s treat, courtesy of YouTube.
Showing Wednesday, January 14th at 7:30PM at Maysles Cinema.
ALEX RIVERA at Flaherty NYC/Anthology Film Archives
This Monday, Flaherty NYC presents the short films of Alex Rivera, the acclaimed director of the geo-political immigration sci-fi thriller, Sleep Dealer (2008), which has been all around the world at film festivals in the past year (including Sundance, Berlin, Hamptons, Helsinki, and Rio de Janeiro). A rare cinematic treat, this showcase gives viewers the unique opportunity to watch the early works of this up-and-coming auteur including Papapapá (1995), Borders (2002), The Sixth Section (2003), and Why Cybraceros? (1997), about migrant workers who tele-commute to the USA via the Internet, which was later expanded into Sleep Dealer.
Showing Monday, January 12 at 7:30PM at Anthology Film Archives.
WALL STREET at Project Film School/DCTV
Feeling nostalgic for American economy of the past? Take a trip down memory lane with Project Film School’s presentation of Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987), and get a look at the behind-the-scenes corruption stock market with Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, and Martin Sheen. The post-screening discussion with Marcus Hempt, former Senior VP Capital Markets division of Lehman Brothers, will be refreshingly (and maybe depressingly) insightful.
Jacques Tati’s PLAYTIME at WALTER READE
For one day only, Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade theater is projecting a 70mm (!!!) print of Jacques Tati’s masterpiece Playtime (1967). A modernist ballet of people, buildings, space, and technology, Tati’s structural humor has never been more precise, reticent, or hilarious. With his characteristic lanky grace, Tati’s Monsieur Hulot passes passes through crowds, crosses streets, and yet even when he is alone in a glass-walled room, he seems to be lost. Hulot’s alienation is among the most insightful commentary on life in the modern age. We may still be in the first week of the new year, but this is surely to be among the most memorable film events of the year.
Monday, January 5 at 1pm, 3:30pm, 6pm & 8:30pm at Walter Reade.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART 1 at Symphony Space
Symphony Space is doubling their dose of Mel Brooks. Showing alternately with Young Frankenstein is History of the World Part 1 (1981) which, depending on your views, might actually be more accurate than your high school textbook. With Mel Brooks in five roles, and the indelible Madeline Kahn as Empress Nympho, it’s hard to find a reason NOT to go see this again. If you need more enticement, then just watch the trailer.
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN at SYMPHONY SPACE
Forget Broadway and see the original Young Frankenstein (1974) on the big screen. Among the most pitch-perfect as well as reverent of genre satires. Mel Brooks’ film is a cinematic love letter to the Universal horror series of the 1930s, filled with inimitable performances by Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman, and Teri Garr. Thirty-five years later, we’re laughing harder than ever at this classic. Who is going to say this about Scary Movie (or any of its brethren) that many years from now?
And when were trailers this good? Featuring Brooks’ own bombastic narration.
PEDRO COSTA at MONKEYTOWN
Among the most insistent voices in contemporary cinema, Pedro Costa is exhibited far too rarely in American theaters. Whether a volcanic landscape or a dilapidated slum, Costa creates a sacred cinematic space on-screen - he presents “nothing” but receives everything. Costa’s is a cinema of reticence, built upon near-still compositions in which the movement of light and shadow are as meaningful as exchanges of dialogue and human gestures. We come into the characters’ lives knowing nothing, and we leave with the experience of having shared time and space with them, once of the most intimate of cinematic encounters. And between now and January 6, you can relish this experience on the big screen at Brooklyn’s MonkeyTown as they screen his second feature, Casa de Lava (1994), in which a nurse’s trip to Cape Verde with a patient becomes a surreal cross-cultural odyssey, and Colossal Youth (2006), his most recent film about slum dwellers in Lisbon.
