Starring: Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, Patrick Renna, Chauncey Leopardi, Marty York, Brandon Quintin Adams
The Sandlot is a touching film about a young boy who moves to a new neighborhood with his mom and stepdad which of course means new friends, new obstacles, and a new outlook on life. The story is told from the perspective of main character Scotty Smalls as he recounts his first Los Angeles summer in 1962 when he befriended a group of boys who played impromptu baseball in a little spot known as the sandlot. Scotty learns lots of things during the summer, most importantly being how to deal with The Beast, the dog beyond the sandlot who devours home-run baseballs. As many baseball stories imbue, The Sandlot teaches the value and long-lasting value of friendship and teamwork in the formative years. Play Ball!
Starring: Walter Matthau, Tatum O’Neal, Vic Morrow
Walter Matthau is Morris Buttermaker, an alcoholic and former minor league baseball playing tasked with coaching the worst little league team in all of Southern California, The Bears. Comprised of such talents as a near-sighted pitcher, an overweight catcher, and a foul-mouthed shortstop, The Bears need a little help and it comes in the form of Amanda Whurlizer (gasp, a girl!) played by Tatum O’Neal. With a sharp tongue and top-notch pitching skills, she helps the unlikely bunch get into the playoffs. All wrapped up in the politics and community of baseball, the kids in The Bad News Bears act like adults while the adults act like kids and all have a lot of growing up to do. Play Ball!
Starring: Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell, John Lovitz
Who says girls can’t play baseball? Penny Marshall’s A League of Their Own takes a comedic look at the sexes through the development of America’s first professional baseball league during World War II.
A League of Their Own is a fictionalized (and funny) version of the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during WWII. In the film, candy manufacturer Walter Harvey (Gary Marshall) realizes that while the men are overseas fighting, baseball needs to remain America’s favorite pastime. So he starts the Rockford Peaches team getting sisters Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) and Kit Keller (Lori Petty), “All the Way” Mae Mordabito (Madonna) and her best friend, Doris Murphy (Rosie O’Donnell), along with other talented ladies. Tom Hanks plays the washed-up baseball star Jimmy Dugan who coaches the team and, along with rising star Dottie, makes the team beloved to fans.
Starring: Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, James Franco, Gucci Mane
Spring Break forever, bitches!
Four sexy college girls plan to fund their spring break getaway by burglarizing a fast food shack. But that’s only the beginning… During a night of partying, the girls hit a roadblock when they are arrested on drug charges.
Hungover and clad only in bikinis, the girls appear before a judge but are bailed out unexpectedly by Alien, an infamous local thug who takes them under his wing and leads them on the wildest Spring Break trip in history. Rough on the outside but with a soft spot inside, Alien wins over the hearts of the young Spring Breakers, and leads them on a Spring Break they never could have imagined.
TALL COUNTY performs a live serenade before April’s Country Brunchin’ film, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The friendship between two legendary outlaws is tested when one becomes sheriff whose sole purpose is to kill his old pal Billy the Kid.
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is set at the tail-end of the 1880s in New Mexico where greed over cattle and land territory not only cause a riff between two old friends but also has repercussions involving the New West. Pat Garrett (played by the ever cool James Coburn) catches Billy the Kid (singer Kris Kristopherson) over an old murder and sentences him to hang. Of course Billy escapes by blowing up the jail and the manhunt ensues. Rife with production problems, the film alone has a whopping six editors attached, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is ultimately about male bonding during a time of a nation’s development. Full of shoot-outs and sexual-encounters, it’s a downright good time.
Tall County is a Brooklyn-based trio writing and playing stripped-down songs on strung-up instruments that don’t require electricity to be heard. They recorded their debut EP, Shine, singing and picking around a couple mics in a souped-up family barn in the Hudson Valley. A wood-burning stove helped with the heat.
Starring: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova
Spurred on by MGM following the success of James Whale’s Frankenstein and Tod Browning’s Dracula, Freaks would wind up being the controversial film of the century that pushed the boundaries of horror and the avant-garde. The jarring imagery of severely disabled actors seeking revenge upon a beautiful trapeze artist whose intentions of marrying the leader of the side-show performers are horribly cruel caused Freaks to be banned for decades, only seeing a release in the 1960s. Harsh yet beautiful, the film’s social commentary on how deformities on the inside can be far more grotesque than any physical defect is still potent today.
OPENING FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7! Since 2006, the theatrical release of the Academy Award Nominated Short films has been met by enthusiastic audiences and Nitehawk is pleased to present OSCAR® Nominated Short Film Live Action and Animation for the third year in a row.
The OSCAR® Nominated Short Film Animation works are:
FERAL (Directors Daniel Sousa and Dan Golden)
A wild boy who has grown up in the woods is found by a hunter and returned to civilization.
GET A HORSE! (Directors: Lauren MacMullan and Dorothy McKim)
Mickey Mouse and his friends are enjoying a wagon ride until Peg-Leg Pete shows up with plans to ruin their day.
MR HUBLOT (Directors: Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares)
The eccentric, isolated Mr. Hublot finds his carefully ordered world disrupted by the arrival of Robot Pet.
POSSESSIONS (Director: Shuhei Morita)
A man seeking shelter from a storm in a dilapidated shrine encounters a series of household objects inhabited by goblin spirits.
ROOM ON THE BROOM (Directors: Max Lang and Jan Lachauer)
A genial witch and her cat are joined on their broom by several friends as they set off on an adventure.
Watch trailers and get more information by visiting the OSCAR SHORTS page.
OPENING FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7! Since 2006, the theatrical release of the Academy Award Nominated Short films has been met by enthusiastic audiences and Nitehawk is pleased to present OSCAR® Nominated Short Film Live Action and Animation for the third year in a row.
The OSCAR® Nominated Short Film Live Action works are:
AQUEL NO ERA YO (THAT WASN’T ME)
Director: Esteban Crespo
Paula, a Spanish aid worker, has an encounter with an African child soldier named Kaney.
AVANT QUE DE TOUT PERDRE (JUST BEFORE LOSING EVERYTHING)
Directors: Xavier Legrand and Alexandre Gavras
Miriam has left her abusive husband and taken refuge with her children in the local supermarket where she works.
HELIUM
Directors Anders Walter and Kim Magnusson
A dying boy finds comfort in the tales of a magical land called HELIUM, told to him by the hospital janitor.
PITAAKO MUN KAIKKI HOITAA? (DO I HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING?) Directors: Selma Vilhunen and Kirsikka Saari
Sini tries frantically to get her family ready to leave for a wedding, but her husband and two children are interfering with her efforts.
THE VOORMAN PROBLEM
Directors: Mark Gill and Baldwin Li
A psychiatrist is called to a prison to examine an inmate named Voorman, who is convinced he is a god.
Watch trailers and get more information by visiting the OSCAR SHORTS page.
You know the Chicago story best in musical form but this is the original narrative film about murderous vixon Roxie Hart…with a live musical score by GUIZOT!
For a long time, audiences were unable to see this 1927 classic comedy-drama silent film by Frank Urson (produced by legendary director Cecil B. DeMille) but thanks to the UCLA Film and Television Archive, whose recent print we’ll be screening, that has all changed. Chicago is drawn from material in a play by Maurine Dallas Watkis’ based on the true life story of Beulah Annan, fictionalized as Roxie Hart, and the high-profile murder of her boyfriend. With Hollywood in mind, the ending in Chicago is more cruel (criminals must pay!) but the journey there is full of misplaced celebrity, feminine wiles, jazz, booze, and retribution.
Guizot: Clifton Hyde (Guitars, Mandolin, & Composer), Chris Komer (French Horn), Grant Zubritsky (Bass), and Rich Stein (Percussion).
A Live Sound Cinema part of our Chicago: second city on film series
Starring: Franca Maï, Brigitte Lahaie, Jean-Marie Lemaire
The most “lucid” of the Rollin oeuvre, Fascination is blunt, beautiful, and blood-thirsty.
It’s pretty much impossible to try to write about a Jean Rollin film, they are much better suited to explain themselves. The king of erotic-horror (read: lesbian vampires), Rollin’s films are often bad, sometimes un-watchable, but always visually stunning. These art films recall the look of other European “horror” films of the era but remain, ques cu sa?, resoundingly French. With soft-core porn stars as actresses and plenty of nudity, Fascination is about two seductive women who are part of an aristocratic vampire cult. Without a doubt, Fascination is one of Rollin’s dreamy best.
