George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion meets high budget porn in the adult classic The Opening of Misty Beethoven directy by Radley Metzger. Screening in archival 35mm!
In his erotic retelling of George Bernard Shaw’s classic play Pygmalion, master director Radley Metzger transplants the action to 1970’s New York, Rome, and Paris. We follow noted sexologist Dr. Seymour Love (Jamie Gillis) as he sets for himself the challenge of transforming a lowly streetwalker named Misty Beethoven (Constance Money) into the world’s greatest lover. With the help of his beautiful friend Geraldine (Jacqueline Beudant), Love devises an erotic training program with the goal of seeing Misty crowned “Goldenrod Girl” at famed publisher Lawrence Layman’s next wild party.
The Opening of Misty Beethoven is presented by DISTRIBPIX and is part of our Nitehawk Naughties 2014 program in partnership with Vinegar Syndrome – intended for mature audiences.
Starring: James Woods, Deborah Harry, Peter Dvorsky, Sonja Smits
Hardcore pornography, sadomasochism, mind control and living televisions: the effect that technology has on our brains never been on such gross display as it is by the king of body horror, David Cronenberg, in Videodrome. Centering around the discovery of an underground program called “Videodrome” by television executive Max Renn (James Woods) for his sex-oriented network, the film chronicles his continuous obsession of finding the program’s origin. Hallucinatory and full of gore, Cronenberg viscerally displays what happens when our addictive relationship to technology shifts from online and into reality.
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, John Goodman, Trey Wilson
Raising Arizona is one of the Coen Brothers’ most beloved films and with good reason: it’s perfect combination of comedy and strangeness make it enduring unique. Here a young Nicolas Cage plays an ex-con who is hell bent on making his policewoman wife (Holly Hunter) happy but procuring her a baby when they’re unable to conceive. But baby-rearing sure isn’t easy when that baby is stolen from the wealthiest couple in the state and everyone they know, plus a maniacal bounty-hunter, aim to use little Nathan Junior for their own financial gain. Doesn’t get much better.
Starring: Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Newman, Charles Durning
Corruption! Snooping reporters! Hula Hoops! Comedy! The Coen Brother’s screwball comedy The Hudsucker Proxy has it all! In it, the loveable but naive mailworker Norville Barnes is placed at the head of Hudsucker Industries after its president commits suicide. And while the board members of Hudsucker Industries think they can control this moron by driving the company into the ground and scooping up its stocks for cheap, he turns the tables by conjuring up an invention that sweeps the nation and wins the hearts of America’s public. Plus, a tough cooke reporter is on the case to expose the impending scandal.
In the Coen Brothers’ debut feature film we learn than no matter how rich or how jealous a man is, killing his wife is never simple.
Blood Simple is a dark and suspenseful thriller that begins when Texas bar owner Marty (Dan Hedaya) hires a private investigator Vissar (M. Emmet Walsh) to spy on his young cheating wife Abby (Frances McDormand) and her lover Ray (John Getz). From this point, the film involves plot twists and turns, murders and mistaken deaths, misunderstanding and deceit as the characters play, and prey, upon each other. Shot in such a way that plays upon the audience’s voyeurism and assumptions, Blood Simple continues to remain fresh and innovative – a must see on the big screen.
Part of Nitehawk’s COEN BROTHERS BEFORE FARGO January series.
A highly stylized gangster genre film as can only be imagined by Joel and Ethan Coen.
Set in an urban city during the Prohibition-era 1930s in American, Miller’s Crossing centers around two rival gangs who are out to control the town’s lucrative illegal activities. As you can imagine, there’s a dame and the snitch, the laconic anti-hero and, despite numerous faults, the loveable mob leader. Miller’s Crossing is full of black humor and intense violence, producing some of the most visually stunning and entertaining film sequences in cinema. Watch as this paradoxical tale both warns and embraces the criminal underworld in such beautiful display.
Part of Nitehawk’s COEN BROTHERS BEFORE FARGO January series.
Part of our month long celebration of the Coen Brothers, Nitehawk’s January Country Brunchin’ presentation is No Country for Old Men featuring a live pre-show performance by Tatters & Rags.
Heralded as an instant classic upon release, Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men puts a very dark twist on the western genre’s “good guys versus bad guys” motif. Set in rural Texas, welder/hunter Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) finds two dead drug runners and absconds with their two million dollars. Cue psychopath serial killer Anton Chigurh (played brilliantly by Javier Bardem) who deadpan kills everyone in his path to get back his money. And while this story provides the violently tense backdrop, it’s the laconic and older sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) who, overwhelmed at the impossibility of rectifying these crimes in the new landscape around him, is the film title’s referent. Let’s just say no one wins the coin toss in this scenario.
Tatters & Rags have been playing since 2008, at times being a drone post-punk folk band, other times being a sweaty, whiskey-fueled electric honky-tonk band. Fans of the band state that their eclecticism is part of their charm, and it’s always accompanied by a frenetic energy that makes them one of the most exciting live bands in New York City.
Part of the VICE Presents: The Film Foundation Screening Series at Nitehawk Cinema. Introduction by writer/director Desiree Akhavan (Appropriate Behavior)!
Shirley Clarke’s controversial and influential film, The Connection, portrays a group of drug addicts and jazz musicians waiting in a New York loft apartment for their drug connection.
Considered one of the most vital and fascinating films of American independent cinema, The Connection was made by Shirley Clarke at a time when women directors were in very short supply. As her first feature, she adapted the controversial off-Broady play by Jack Gelber making a play within a play within a jazz concert (including a musical score by legendary pianist Freddie Redd). With all of the action contained on one-set, the kinetic movement of the film comes from Clarke’s mobile camera, one that plays off of the fluidity of jazz and embraces the Beat saturated dialogue.
Ultimately Clarke made film that shattered stereotypes and, rather than showing good guys gone bad, she graphically depicted the raw reality of drug addiction in America. Therefore, despite being acclaimed as a masterpiece at the Cannes International Film Festival and heralded as influential by fellow filmmakers, The Connection was promptly banned by government censor boards for indecent language and a struggle ensued to have theatrical release in the United States. The fallout from the battle to have a wide release caused it to remained unseen for many years. Now restored and newly re-released, audiences finally have the opportunity to see The Connection on the big screen.
*A portion of each ticket sale goes towards The Film Foundation. Tickets also include complimentary Larceny Bourbon drinks at an after-party in Nitehawk’s downstairs bar!
THE CONNECTION (SHIRLEY CLARKE, 1962)
Preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding provided by The Film Foundation.
Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
Wanda is part of the VICE Presents: The Film Foundation Screening Series at Nitehawk Cinema. A small town housewife abandons her family, frequents seedy bars and motels until going on the run with a small-time criminal.
Barbara Loden is the writer, director, and star in her first and only film, Wanda. Set in the anthracite coal region of eastern Pennsylvania, despondent housewife Wanda attempts to escape her abusive existence by abandoning her husband and children. Adrift, she drinks excessively in an attempt to drown out her problems and goes home with random men to have a roof over her head, when one day she encounters Norman Dennis in a bar…as he’s robbing it. Setting out on the road with Norman, Wanda doesn’t become a symbol for a new feminist woman but, rather, absorbs herself into a newly destructive life.
Critically loved but rarely seen, Wanda is an emotional road trip film with an improvisational and meditative style. In fact, it was nearly destroyed and lost forever so please join us in a very special presentation celebrating the restoration of important and nearly forgotten classic film.
WANDA (1970, dir. Barbara Loden)
Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive. Restoration funding provided by Gucci and The Film Foundation.
Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive and Marco Joachim.
