Rocky Balboa goes to Russia to avenge the death of his friend and make America proud in ROCKY IV. A 35mm presentation!
Rocky IV is an American versus Soviet showdown in the boxing ring! After winning his championship, everyone’s favorite boxer Rocky Balboa is all set to retire and enjoy life with his wife. But after his friend Apollo Creed is killed in the ring by the new Russian boxing sensation Ivan Drago, those plans drastically change. Rocky trains hard once again (in one of the franchise’s best training sequences) and heads to the USSR to avenge the death of his friend in one long, arduous match with Drago. Made while Cold War tensions were high, ROCKY IV shamelessly waves the U.S. flag, but when James Brown sings “Living in America,” you’ll feel like doing the same.
Part of Nitehawk’s INDEPENDENCE DAY celebration!
The Cold War era gets the theatrical spoof treatment in TOP SECRET! A 35mm presentation!
Shhh…The Airplane! crew of Zucker–Abraham-Zucker targets World War II spy and Elvis films (along with nearly every other film genre) in their second spoof feature, Top Secret!. In his debut feature, Val Kilmer stars as the American rock-and-roll idol Nick Rivers who, while on performing in East Germany on a goodwill tour behind the Iron Curtain, falls in love with the daughter of an imprisoned scientist. This leads to his unexpected involvement in an espionage scheme with the French Resistance with Omar Sharif to rescue her father from the German! Cue the gags!
Part of Nitehawk’s May COLD WAR brunch series.
Starring: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, James Earl Jones
Only Kubrick could make a strange, weird, and brilliant black comedy centering around nuclear weapons in the Cold War era that would still resonate more than fifty years after its initial release. Dr. Strangelove tells the story of an unhinged Air Force general Jack Ripper supercede presidential approval to launch a nuclear bomb over the Soviet Union and the room full of politicians and generals trying to stop a nuclear apocalypse. The thing that makes it great is that it’s a comedy, a jet black comedy. And, as with any Kubrick film, it’s best to just see it on the big screen.
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum
Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of two incredible remakes starring Mr. Goldblum. As with its predecessor, the film retains the sense of paranoia as we are shown the horrifying site of the human race being slowly transformed into extinction. Here we have an alien life form from deep space arriving in San Francisco after fleeing their dying planet and, as they begin mutating into other life forms on earth, people begin to wonder what is happening to their friends and family who are now devoid of any familiar characteristics. It seems to be up to Elizabeth Driscoll from the SF health department and her psychiatrist colleague Dr. David Kibner to save the city, or at least themselves and two friends, but you know how bleak these invasion tales go.
Jeff Goldblum forgets his mantra in Woody Allen’s quintessential New York love story ANNIE HALL. A 35mm presentation!
New York neurotic tendencies run rampant in Annie Hall where Woody Allen shows us the beginning, evolvement, and ultimate ending to one couple’s relationship. It’s a deep film with a range of humor (the scenes of Singer’s childhood in Coney Island with his family are particularly funny) that has become a portrait of a 1970s couple who, despite loving each other, can’t make it work. This story, full of laughter and tears, is relatable to any generation and like Allen says, we stick with relationships because, well, we need the eggs.
Jeff Goldblum’s appearance as a Los Angeles cliche at a Hollywood party may be small but it sure is memorable.
Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS: JEFF GOLDBLUM (BARELY GOLDBLUM & FULL GOLDBLUM) brunches and midnites throughout May and June!
Jeff Goldblum has a small but pivotal role as the attacker that changes Charles Bronson’s life in the find ‘em and kill ‘em classic DEATH WISH.
When his wife and daughter are assaulted in their own home by a bunch of thugs (including a jughead hat wearing Jeff Goldblum), architect Paul Kersey goes on a revenge fueled killing spree that extends way beyond a personal vendetta…he wants to clean up the streets of New York! Kersey’s transformation from a mild mannered citizen to an inconsolable vigilante may be far fetched but, and this is due to Charles Bronson, this glorification of justifiable violence is a satisfying ride. Armed with a borrowed pistol, his efforts to punish the city’s criminals is appreciated by the community but we’re left to sympathize with the fact that this task has no end in sight.
Death Wish is the first of two Michael Winner films to barely feature Jeff Goldblum (as “Freak #1”); the other in our series is The Sentinel.
Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS: JEFF GOLDBLUM (BARELY GOLDBLUM & FULL GOLDBLUM) brunches and midnites throughout May and June!
Starring: Geena Davis, Jeff Goldblum, Julie Brown, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, Michael McKean
These dates are out of this world! 1980s SoCal gets spoofed in this aliens-meet-humans campy affair starring Jeff Goldblum. Bright and colorful, Earth Girls Are Easy plays on the shallowness of Los Angeles (I mean, like, the aliens land in the Valley of all places) as the three stranded furry extraterrestrials navigate this strange new land after landing in a backyard pool. Of course there’s also a love story that centers around Goldblum’s alien and engaged manicurist Valerie (played by Geena Davis) who, after shaving him discovers a real hunk. Duh.
Earth Girls Are Easy is a veritable “before they were stars” film: Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, Geena Davis, Julie Brown and, of course, Jeff Goldblum!
Starring: Cristina Raines, Ava Gardner, Chris Sarandon, Martin Balsam, John Carradine, José Ferrer, Burgess Meredith, Eli Wallach, Christopher Walken, Jerry Orbach, Sylvia Miles, Beverly D’Angelo, Jeff Goldblum
Are you one of the legion? New York is the backdrop to many a satanic story but none, save Rosemary’s Baby, are as creepy as The Sentinel. Alison Parker is a model who, deciding to spend some time alone before making a commitment to her sketchy boyfriend, discovers that the troubling issues of her past are coming to haunt her. Long story short (filled with demonic delusions), her suicidal past has made her the next perfect candidate to guard the gateway to hell. Based on the chilling novel by Jeffrey Konvitz, this film shows how transparent the boundaries between hell and the living is…in Brooklyn!
With its incredible cast featuring Burgess Meredith, Chris Sarandon, and even Ava Gardner, you may miss our dear Jeff Goldblum in The Sentinel but he’s there in the photo shoot gone wrong and party scenes!
Jeff Goldblum self-experimentation goes awry in David Cronenberg’s version of THE FLY! A 35mm presentation!
If there was ever a film re-make to tackle for David Cronenberg, The Fly would be it. The story of an eccentric scientist who, after successfully teleporting a living creature, decides to try the experiment on himself to devastating results is ripe for the old Cronenberg body horror treatment. Nearly thirty years after the original, the fear of overreaching one’s scientific reach is made even more terrifying. In this updated version we have a single Dr. Seth Brundle (Goldblum) luring a journalistic (Earth Girls Are Easy co-star Geena Davis) into the lab for a story of a lifetime but, as we know, that damn fly had to get in the way. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
The Fly is the film where we really start to know Goldblum for Goldblum or, as we like to say, when he started to go “Full Goldblum.” This screening also kicks off a small David Cronenberg midnites series in June!
Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS: JEFF GOLDBLUM (BARELY GOLDBLUM & FULL GOLDBLUM) brunches and midnites throughout May and June!
At the dawn of World War III, a group of teenagers called “The Wolverines” defend their town and country against the Soviets RED DAWN.
Right before the end of the Cold War, John Milius’ Red Dawn taps into the 1980s fear of the possibility of Soviet troops invading small town American. Of course, in good ol’ movie making magic, we see a true American ideal vision as a group of teenagers team together to fight against the common enemy. Through surviving only with hunting rifles, pistols, and bow-and-arrows in the winter and eluding the KGB who hunts them, these “Wolverines” wage a seriously group up guerilla warfare to save themselves, their town, and their country.
Part of Nitehawk’s May COLD WAR brunch series.
