Multimedia artist One9’s documentary NAS: TIME IS ILLMATIC follows the trajectory of Nas’ 1994 landmark debut album, Illmatic, one of the most important and revolutionary albums in hip hop.
Even 20 years after its release, Illmatic is widely recognized as a hip-hop benchmark that captured the sociopolitical outlook, enduring spirit and collective angst of a generation of young artists searching for their voice in America.
Tracing Nas’s influences from the music of his jazz musician father, Olu Dara, to the burgeoning hip-hop scene in his native Queensbridge, Nas: Time is Illmatic describes the almost insurmountable obstacles he faced in creating his opus, providing an authentic and passionate account of Nas’s personal journey from a young street poet to a visionary MC. -Cara Cusumano
A two-hour feast of zombie film footage and pop culture commentary.
Comedian Kevin Maher and filmmaker Matt Glasson present an obsessive look at zombies, from White Zombie to World War Z. The hosts explore pre-Romero voodoo zombies, Night of the Living Dead rip-offs, the recurring theme of Nazi Zombies in film, and the recent run of zombies overtaking pop culture. The two-hour show features dozens of clips including zombie film highlights from Italian, Asian, British and Mexican filmmakers.
With special guest presentations by Heather Buckley (Fangoria, Dread Central), Brian Solomon (The Vault of Horror), Daan Van Versendaal (The Netherlands Institute of Neuroscience), Doug Sakmann (Special FX Artist) and Captain Cruella (Village Invasion Zombie Crawl). Plus trivia prizes and zombie snack foods!
Kevin and Matt are excited to bring their humorous, terrifying, quite unforgettable video variety show to Nitehawk Cinema. From casual filmgoers to die-hard zombie fanatics, it’s an evening of guaranteed zombie fun for everyone!
Two-time Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner leads an all-star cast in KILL THE MESSENGER, a dramatic thriller based on the remarkable true story of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb.
In Kill the Messenger, Gary Webb (Renner) stumbles onto a story which leads to the shady origins of the men who started the crack epidemic on the nation’s street and further alleges that the CIA was aware of major dealers who were smuggling cocaine into the U.S., and using the profits to arm rebels fighting in Nicaragua.
Despite warnings from drug kingpins and CIA operatives to stop his investigation, Webb keeps digging to uncover a conspiracy with explosive implications. His journey takes him from the prisons of California to the villages of Nicaragua to the highest corridors of power in Washington, D.C. – and draws the kind of attention that threatens not just his career, but his family and his life.
Nitehawk and Noisey present two special midnite screenings of KILL YOUR IDOLS with post screening Q&A with director Scott Crary. Also expected to attend: members of Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Liars, Foetus, SWANS, Black Dice, Flux Information Sciences and other surprise guests
Scott Crary’s documentary Kill Your Idols is a sweeping look at New York’s No wave and art punk movements, and starts in the 1970s with acts like Suicide and DNA and goes all the way up to the early 2000’s with young acts like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars and Black Dice. Through clever editing, Crary tells the story of this difficult (for some!) style with clarity and wit, and features interviews from members of Sonic Youth, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Swans, Gogol Bordello and more. No Wave bands have the best names, don’t they?
Music Driven is presented in partnership with Noisey. Featuring Absolut Vodka cocktails.
Nitehawk plunges into the deep end of horror with a screening of a new restoration of water-logged zombie flick SHOCK WAVES. Director Ken Wiederhorn will be here for a Q&A after the film moderated by Fangoria’s Sam Zimmerman.
Remember that episode of Gilligan’s Island where the crew of the Minnow met up with an old SS scientist who was once in charge of a squad of unstoppable, underwater Nazi zombies? No? Well, that’s because that’s plot for Shock Waves, director Ken Wiederhorn’s oddball horror film about a group of yachters who have a nasty run-in with a band of zombies so well versed at killing that even Hitler didn’t want anything to do with them. Shock Waves stars horror icons John Carradine, Peter Cushing and Peter Cushing’s great, big fake scar, and is certain to leave you breathless. (Get it?)
Complimentary drinks at the after-party courtesy of Bronx Brewery.
SecretFormula presents…
Spoons, Toons & Booze Christmas Special
We love watching the holiday cartoons on TV the weeks leading up to Christmas, but they don’t show the awesome holiday specials we watched when we were kids anymore. We’ve solved this problem by hosting our own Christmas Special filled with holiday episodes of all the cartoons you loved as a kid! Hosted by SecretFormula’s Michael Austin and Nell Casey, come watch all of your favorite cartoon characters from the 1930’s through 1990’s learn the real meaning of Christmas with…
– Over 80 cartoon series to choose from and YOU get to choose what we watch!
– Special menu of Christmas themed episodes including the rare “He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special”, only aired once in the 80?s and then banished to VHS obscurity!
– Special appearance by Santa Claus himself! Have your picture taken on Santa’s lap and send it to your parents.
– Free all you can eat cereal bar filled with all the sugary, marshmallowy, fruity, chocolaty cereal you crave! Soy and regular milk available.
– Cereal themed cocktails like “The Sonny”, a White Russian topped with Cocoa Puffs and the Cinnamon Toast Crunch infused rum based “Complete Breakfast.”
– Hot winter drinks like Bourbon Apple Cider to warm you up and put you in the holiday spirit.
– Cereal Shots! Drop a shot of Baileys or Kahlua in to booze up your cereal bowl.
– Compete in contests to choose which cartoons we watch and win sweet prizes from Nitehawk Cinema.
A thriller centered on a con artist, his wife, and a stranger who flee Athens after one of them is caught up in the death of a private detective.
Screenwriter Hossein Amini (The Wings of the Dove, Drive) makes a stylish directing debut with this sleek thriller set in Greece and Istanbul, 1962, and adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novel. Intrigue begins at the Parthenon when wealthy American tourists Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) and his young wife Collete (Kirsten Dunst) meet American expat Rydal (Oscar Isaac), a scammer working as a tour guide. Instead of becoming his latest marks, the two befriend him, but a murder at the couple’s hotel puts all three on the run together and creates a precarious bond between them as the trio’s allegiance is put to the test.
SecretFormula presents…
Spoons, Toons & Booze Thanksgiving Special
Your Favorite Saturday Morning Cartoons + Booze & Free Cereal + a Special Menu of Thanksgiving Themed Episodes!
Do you miss your childhood Saturday mornings of waking up early to gorge on cereal and cartoons? If so, SecretFormula has the ultimate brunch for the kid in you…Spoons, Toons & Booze! We’ve got all your favoriteSaturday morning cartoons, delicious cocktails and a free all you can eat sugar cereal bar, not to mention Nitehawk Cinema’s excellent brunch menu.
We’re thankful for a lot of things this year but more than anything we’re thankful for Thanksgiving themed episodes of some of our favorite cartoons series! Come and learn what Turkey Day is really all about from the cartoon characters of your childhood with…
– A special menu of Thanksgiving themed episodes filled with Turkeys, Pilgrims & Native Americans, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades, football and overeating!
– Over 80 cartoon series from the 1930?s through the 90?s and YOU get to choose what we watch
– A free all you can eat cereal bar filled with all the sugary, marshmallowy, fruity, chocolaty cereal you crave! Soy and regular milk available.
– A White Russian menu including “The Sonny”, a White Russian topped with Cocoa Puffs.
– Cereal Shots! Drop a shot of Baileys or Kahlua in to booze up your cereal bowl!
– Compete in contests to choose which cartoons we watch and win prizes from Nitehawk Cinema.
Nitehawk’s Country Brunchin’ celebrates the 50th anniversary of the film that launched the Spaghetti Western, Sergio Leone’s A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS. Includes a live pre-show musical serenade by The TarantinosNYC!
The beginning of the “Dollars Trilogy” (along with A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly), not to mention the start of the Spaghetti Western legacy, A Fistful of Dollars stars the brooding Clint Eastwood as “the man with no name” who arrives in the small Mexican border town of San Miguel. The town is torn apart by the warring of the Baxter and Rojo families. A cunning man who also happens to be quick with a gun, he plays the two sides off of each other and aims to get rich in the process. All this Leone magic is set to Ennio Morricone’s sweeping score.
The TarantinosNYC specialize in 60’s-70’s Surf, Soul, Spy and Spaghetti Western instrumentals, featuring the great soundtrack material in Quentin Tarantino movies and also originals in the style of classic movie and TV themes.
Part of the 2014 Nitehawk Shorts Festival, Nitehawk’s ART SEEN presents a special one-night screening of works by artist Aldo Tambellini. Includes a live performance by Alyse Lamb.
Black is the beginning. It is birth, the oneness of all, the expansion of consciousness in all directions – Aldo Tambellini
Iconoclastic and experimental artist Aldo Tambellini was among the first artists in the early 1960s to explore new technologies as an art medium. Tambellini combined slide projections, film, performance, and music into sensorial experiences that he aptly called “Electromedia.” Such work informed Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable and Woody and Steina Vasulka’s The Kitchen. With the rediscovery of this material, Tambellini’s work has become the subject of great interest for early new media. Nitehawk is thrilled to screen a selection of his works (1965-2005) and introduce his films to new audiences.
Alyse Lamb (EULA and Parlor Walls) will perform a live original score to Aldo Tambellini’s new work NO NAME FILM 1.
ALDO TAMBELLINI PROGRAM
SoundBlack (1968) – U.S. Premiere
Black Is (1965)
Blackout (1966)
Listen (2005)
Black Plus (1966)
Black Trip Two (1967)
No Name Film 1 (1960s)
Special thank you to Joe Ketner, Anna Salamone, and Aldo Tambellini.
