Starring: John Lithgow, Lolita Davidovich, Steven Bauer, Frances Sternhagen, Gregg Henry, Tom Bower
Some consider Carter Nix (John Lithgow) “the perfect man” for his passionate investment in raising his daughter Amy. Presumed to be on hiatus from his child psychology practice, his devotion unsettles wife Jenny (Lolita Davidovich), who suspects Amy to be a professional project for Carter. Jenny, caught up in a reignited tryst with Jack (Steven Bauer), is having trouble distinguishing between dreams and reality just as mothers and children start to disappear from a neighborhood playground. Meanwhile Carter’s evil twin has emerged, putting on display the damage done by their father who specialized in child development.
A return to thriller form for Brian De Palma, who dips into his bag of tricks to confound and delight, Raising Cain revels in upending expectations, toying with the audience. Lithgow chows down on the multiple roles, effortlessly swinging from whiny man-child to slick maniac.
Starring: Emilio Estevez, Harry Dean Stanton, Tracey Walter, Olivia Barash, Sy Richardson
The uncertainty of the 1980s permeates Los Angeles as punk rocker, Otto (Emilio Estevez), finds out that nothing is quite what it seems. He quits his no-where job, gets dumped by his girlfriend, and finds out his parents spent his colleague funds on a televangelist. With nothing to lose he becomes a repo man…and this is when things start to get really strange. Director Alex Cox makes Los Angeles the place of cosmic possibility, a city where UFOs and lunatic scientists meet car and punk culture. Plus, the soundtrack captures a real moment in L.A.’s music history.
Starring: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott
One could expect that Groundhog Day would be an exercise in tedium. Fortunately, and we can all thank the comedic god that is Bill Murray for this, the film is a hilarious joy ride through the peaks and valleys of life. Even the greatest days are best left to live only once but feeling doomed in the repetitive cycle of the same is enough to drive anyone nuts. Trapped in time, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) eventually navigates his way through the Groundhog Day(s) and gets to the other side.
The glossy and stylish Femme Fatale is De Palma’s neo-noir cinema antidote to the “woman-as-victim” genre.
“A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations.”
Jewelry heists, identity theft, suicide, faux-kidnapping, and murder make up this Parisian tale that follows con-woman Laure (Rebecca Romjin) from her double-cross after stealing the diamond jewel “Eye of the Serpent” from a sexually adventurous model at the Cannes film festival to her attempts to straighten her life out. Though her power of seduction has helped her attain riches and has gotten her into the arms of a powerful politician, the beautiful and deadly Laure cannot escape her past. Often viewed as prioritizing form over content, Femme Fatale is a self-referential sexy thriller about cinema, desire and the complications involving the secrets we manifest.
Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS – BRIAN DE PALMA series.
Nitehawk Cinema and Mishka present a special screening of Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop from 1987.
In the not-so-distant future, a fatally wounded cop comes back to life as part-robot in a dystopian Detroit to fight crime and find his killers. As with any Paul Verhoeven film, RoboCop has a certain “quality” to it. At once campy yet serious, this film is a mix of science-fiction, crime thriller, action, and black comedy. In this very Nietschean tale of being “more human than human”, Robocop (Peter Weller) struggles with his new role as an indestructible being who still can’t escape the emotional past. I mean, what good is being part robot if your human side (with all the love and revenge involved) keeps getting in the way? The socio-political reach of RoboCop is wide too as it comments on everything from the media, capitalism, gentrification, and gender issues. Plus, it’s a blaaaaaast!
This special screening will include giveaways (some RoboCop themed!) during the film and more trivia giveaways afterwards in our downstairs bar. Courtesy of Mishka who will also be selling their merchandise following the film too!
SLP has had a good run here but Thursday is its last day at Nitehawk! Life has no rules but, even in the darkest of days, special friendships can form and make sense out of the madness.
Pat Solatano has lost everything – his house, his job, and his wife. He now finds himself living back with his mother and father after spending eight months in a state institution on a plea bargain. Pat is determined to rebuild his life, remain positive and reunite with his wife, despite the challenging circumstances of their separation. All Pat’s parents want is for him to get back on his feet – and to share their family’s obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles football team. When Pat meets Tiffany, a mysterious girl with problems of her own, things get complicated. Tiffany offers to help Pat reconnect with his wife, but only if he’ll do something very important for her in return. As their deal plays out, an unexpected bond begins to form between them, and silver linings appear in both of their lives.
A young boy befriends a lovable extraterrestrial (who loves Reeses Pieces, no less) in this science fiction adventure for kids!
Fear of the unknown mixed with intolerance of the unfamiliar are at the heart of Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi family film about a lone alien stranded in an everyday town. When Elliot, himself a lonely and alienated young kid, finds E.T. (a harmless botanist on a mission from another planet) in his background neither himself nor his neighborhood will ever be the same. This discovery will ultimately offer valuable life lessons on confidence, friendship, family, loyalty, and loss for the boy.
Phone home.
Docks Of New York is a LIVE SOUND CINEMA event featuring a live score by GUIZOT.
Light and shadows play with human nature on the docks of New York when a blue-collar worker saves a young woman from drowning.
New York is not only the backdrop of this classic silent film but an integral character, showing us the landscape of back-alleys and flop-houses of the New York waterfront working class in the 1920s. During a brief shore leave, “roughneck stoker” Bill Roberts (George Bancroft) dives in to save a young dance-hall girl named Mae (Betty Compson) from drowning. Sadly, the poor weary Mae, who’s probably seen and done too much, was actually trying to kill herself. Bill falls hard for her but, as in life and love, things get overly complicated.
Guizot: Clifton Hyde (Guitars, Mandolin, & Composer), Chris Komer (French Horn), Grant Zubritsky (Bass), and Rich Stein (Percussion).
Country Brunchin’ gets down to our Spaghetti Western roots with the original Django and Morricone Youth doing the live Pre-show performance.
Considered one of the most violent films of its time, Sergio Corbucci’s Django is all about revenge and being the ultimate bad-ass. Django, played by the striking Franco Nero, ominously carries a coffin behind his horse as he saves a woman named Maria from bandits, seeks revenge for his wife’s murder, and steals gold from a Mexican fort. The film is worth seeing alone for the cemetery gunfight scene involving Django using the cross of a deceased friend as a trigger substitute for his totally smashed hands.
Side note: check for Nero’s cameo in Django Unchained.
Morricone Youth is a New York City septet formed in 1999 dedicated to performing and recording old film and television soundtrack and library production music.
“Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney, perhaps not. There are many things under the sun.”
King of the B’s Edgar G. Ulmer directors horror legends Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in this modernist post-WW1 revenge story.
Although named after Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Black Cat,” Ulmer’s film essentially breaks away from that storyline (although Lugosi’s character has a morbid fear of cats) to dive into the heart of post-war trauma. After Newlyweds Peter and Joan Alison, along with stranger Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Bela Lugosi) survive a car crash in Eastern Europe, they wind up at the modernist masterpiece of Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff). This structure has been built upon the graves of soldiers and houses many ill deeds…it’s also the planned final destination of Werdegast. He has returned to the site of such horrors after decades of being a prisoner of war to seek revenge upon the treacherous Poelzig; who has done more evil than Werdegast can even imagine.
It’s hard to believe that with so many shocking points (incest, Satanism, necrophilia, and skinning someone alive) that The Black Cat is at a brilliantly slow pace, but it is. The surrounding architecture provides the perfect stark background in which the old and new worlds collide.
