Nitehawk’s LOCAL COLOR and Tribeca Film Festival present a screening of CHRISTMAS, AGAIN. Q&A with director Charles Poekel!

Christmas, Again screens at Nitehawk leading up to the 2016 Film Independent Spirit Awards for which director Charles Poekel is nominated for the prestigious John Cassavetes Award.

For a fifth consecutive December, a heartbroken Noel returns to New York City to work the night shift at a sidewalk Christmas tree lot. Devoid of any holiday spirit, he struggles to stay awake during the long, chilly nights in his trailer, while the daytime traffic keeps him from getting any real rest. As he slowly spirals into despair, he comes to the aid of a mysterious young woman in the park. Her warming presence, matched with some colorful customers, help rescue him from self-destruction.

Local Color is in partnership with Tribeca Film Festival.

ART SEEN presents brunch screenings of TROUBLEMAKERS, the documentary that unearths the history of land art in the tumultuous late 1960s and early 1970s. 

Troublemakers features a cadre of renegade New York artists that sought to transcend the limitations of painting and sculpture by producing earthworks on a monumental scale in the desolate desert spaces of the American southwest. Today these works remain impressive not only for the sheer audacity of their makers but also for their out-sized ambitions to break free from traditional norms. The film casts these artists in a heroic light, which is exactly how they saw themselves. Iconoclasts who changed the landscape of art forever, these revolutionary, antagonistic creatives risked their careers on radical artistic change and experimentation, and took on the establishment to produce art on their own terms. The film includes rare footage and interviews which unveil the enigmatic lives and careers of storied artists Robert Smithson (Spiral Jetty), Walter De Maria (The Lightning Field) and Michael Heizer (Double Negative); a headstrong troika that established the genre. As the film makes clear, in making works that can never be possessed as an object in a gallery, these troublemakers stand in marked contrast to the hyper-speculative contemporary art world of today.

Using original footage produced with helicopters and rare re-mastered vintage footage from the period, Crump’s cinematic journey takes viewers on a thrill ride through the most significant land art sites in California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah, an immersive and physically transportive experience that movie goers will not forget.

Nitehawk’s LOCAL COLOR presents a one nite screening of the doc about basketball player, Lloyd Daniels (aka Swee Pea). Q&A with director Benjamin May.

Nicknamed for the son of the legendary cartoon character Popeye, Lloyd Daniels was one of the top college basketball recruits of the late 1980s, playing at five high schools and Mt. San Antonio Junior College before the University of Nevada Las Vegas won a massive recruiting battle to have him join the Runin Rebels and legendary coach Jerry Tarkanian. Before he was able to play a single game at UNLV, he was arrested for cocaine possession, ending his time at UNLV before it began. Later shot three times in the chest at age 21 over an argument about an $8 dollar bag of cocaine, the man christened as the best  high school player to come out of New York since Kareem Abdul Jabbar as well as the heir apparent to Magic Johnson was thought by many to have had a career end before it started, when in reality his story was just beginning.

Nitehawk’s ART SEEN presents a special Live Sound Cinema event: AN EVENING OF EXPANDED CINEMA WITH DRIPPY EYE PROJECTIONS, THE JOSHUA LIGHT SHOW, and music by Worthless.

Stemming from the unique history of the Joshua Light Show that began in the 1970s, this interactive live psychedelic light show features a mix of analog and digital projections (a “psychedelic  slipstream”) along with a live musical performance. The visuals and audio operate in an evolving conversation throughout and each performance is a unique experience suited to the space in which its acted out.

Drippy Eye Projections: Drippy Eye Projections is the psychedelic brainchild of Curtis Godino and Chaz Lord, who have been working together since 2010. With their interactive light shows focusing on live, analog projection, the duo have quickly garnered a reputation for innovation, working with Austin Psych Fest, The New Museum, and a collaborative installation at Kickstarter with Joshua Light Show (with whom Godino moonlights with). All projections and light shows are modulated live, meaning no two shows are exactly alike. Each show evolves with the space, as Drippy Eye works closely with developing individualized shows everywhere from music venues to art exhibits. By adding their own touch of color, Drippy Eye shines a light on the beauty already in nature, and are pushing forward the abstract medium in a hands-on way.

The Joshua Light Show: Today, the structure of the Joshua Light Show differs little from the original of almost 45 years ago. At the time, it was Janis Joplin, The Who, Jimi Hendrix and The Grateful Dead for example, whose jams were driven by the psychedelic slipstream of so-called “liquid lights” – projections of permutating colored oils that conjured magical morphing shapes. White’s appointment as light show resident at concerts in New York’s legendary Fillmore East was followed by engagements in Woodstock, Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center. In early 2000, the renaissance of the legendary light show finally began, launched this time in the art world. White has worked on exhibitions for the Tate Liverpool, the Centre Pompidou, the Whitney Museum, MOCA and other venues. He also began to team up with other artists, to add more complexity to the show and further develop the basic analog ideas using digital techniques.

Worthless: There are perhaps few bands in existence with a moniker that carries as much of a misnomer as does Worthless, a band whose every release chips away at the validity of their name. Worthless is a constantly evolving musical project that explores as much as they possibly can.

This May, THE DEUCE visits the Lyric Theatre yet again, for a screening of B-picture DERANGED: THE CONFESSIONS OF A NECROPHILE…which played with ‘RAPE SQUAD’ on February 21, 1975!!

Plus: Prizes and surprises at the after-party with music by Maestro Jeff! Hosted and presented by THE DEUCE JOCKEYS: Jeff, Andy, and Joe!

Demented, disturbing, downright weird delineation of the dastardly deeds of one “Ezra Cobb” – a thinly veiled and more faithful-to-the-facts version of the notoriously nasty Ed Gein corpse-robbing case (basis for the more well known variations on the theme, PSYCHO and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) – DERANGED does it decidedly different … Jeff Gillen and Alan Ormsby’s take is the oddball-out: original and unnerving, a darkly humorous character study of the horrors barely hidden by a doting Mama’s Boy derailed by dementia … full of subtly screwy details and a strangeness hard to shake… With a committed, commanding, and somehow sympathetic lead performance from veteran character actor Roberts Blossom, as the befuddled and obviously totally bonkers “pervert” with a pointedly disturbing fashion sense … “The wages of sin is gonorrhea, syphilis and death!” You’ll find them all when you get DERANGED on THE DEUCE!

All DEUCE screenings are 35mm presentations.
Follow THE DEUCE on Facebook!
Deuce Jockeys: Jeff, Joe, Andy, Max, Andrew
Featuring drink specials courtesy of Fernet Branca

Nitehawk’s LOCAL COLOR and Tribeca Film Festival present a special ART SEEN screening of PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT. Q&A with director Lisa Immordino Vreeland!

DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND: TWO ADDITIONAL BRUNCH SCREENINGS (JANUARY 23 & JANUARY 24)!

Lisa Immordino Vreeland follows up her acclaimed debut Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel with Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict. A colorful character who was not only ahead of her time but helped define it, Peggy Guggenheim was an heiress to her family fortune who became a central figure in the modern art movement. As she moved through the cultural upheaval of the 20th Century, she collected not only art, but artists. Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp as well as countless others. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo.

Local Color is in partnership with Tribeca Film Festival. Art Seen is in partnership with frieze.

This Valentine’s Day, Nitehawk’s BOOZE & BOOKS presents the infamous tale of LOLITA (a 35mm presentation).

The screening will have prize giveaways of Lolita shirts & gift certificates courtesy of our partner Out of Print along with an inspired cocktail and some heart-shaped goodies!

Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic vision of Vladimir Nabokov’s book Lolita (who also wrote the screenplay) may be an unconventional love story for Valentine’s Day but the film’s palpable depiction of obsession is eternally alluring…and scandalizing! After taking a room to let with a single mother, Prof. Humbert Humbert falls inappropriately in love and lust with her young teenage daughter Lolita. Lolita teases and takes advantage of his affections with cruelty as their dysfunctional relationship continues throughout the years. Love is never simple.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Booze & Books!

Comedian Kevin Maher visits the far-reaches of the galaxy, where life is cheap and the special effects are cheaper. This 2-hour cosmic adventure features multi-media presentations celebrating the sub-genre. With co-hosts Alex Robinson & Pete the Retailer (from the STAR WARS MINUTE podcast.) Expect lots of laser blasts, obnoxious robots, galactic melodrama and STAR WARS rip-offs. 

Plus Special Guests:
Stuart Wellington (The Flophouse podcast) 
Jenn Northington (Riot New Media) 
Crystal Beth (MTV, StarWarsMinute)  
M. Sweeney Lawless (Euphobia comedy troupe) 
Chris Radtke (Geek.com)

Nitehawk’s LOCAL COLOR series presents a special one nite screening of DIXIELAND, featuring a Q&A after the screening with director Hank Bedford, moderated by Bennett Miller.

Dixieland is an intoxicating portrait of life and love on the margins. Fresh out of prison, Kermit (Zylka), a mostly good kid mixed up with local drug dealers, returns home to his rural Mississippi trailer park. As he struggles to keep his nose clean, he falls for Rachel (Keough), his sultry neighbor who’s turned to dancing in a club to support her sick mother. Determined to overcome their inauspicious circumstances, the star-crossed lovers make a desperate, last-ditch effort to escape their dead-end town—but soon find themselves ensnared in a cycle of crime.