MUSIC DRIVEN presents THE NEW BREED COMPILATION documentary.
Wednesday, March 30: Q&A with Djinji Brown, Freddy Alva, Orlando Arce, & John Woods. Moderated by Tony Rettman.
Saturday, April 2: Q&A with Chaka Malik, Freddy Alva, Orlando Arce, & John Woods. Moderated by Tony Rettman.
Saturday, April 3: Q&A with Freddy Alva, John Woods, Orlando Arce & Joe Songco (Outburst). Moderated by author Anthony Pappalardo
The New Breed Documentary chronicles a cassette compilation put out by Freddy Alva and Chaka Malik in 1989. New York Hardcore was undergoing a transition at the end of the 80s and this generational shift was exemplified by the bands that were featured on the compilation. The story of the tape is at heart the story of NYC and kids that grew up in its five boroughs as well as related outposts in Long Island/Yonkers. A unique set of social/economic circumstances during the 70s and 80s forged the individuals that went on to make up the New York Hardcore scene. This full length documentary profiles band members/fanzine editors/record label heads and fans that made up this vibrant scene with narration by NYHC book author Tony Rettman. It’s unheard of for a feature film to focus on an outdated analog format like a cassette compilation but it is through the eyes of these individuals that a spotlight is shined onto those tumultuous times and what is ultimately a tribute to a bygone era.
Nitehawk’s LIVE SOUND CINEMA and ART SEEN time travel with Jean Cocteau’s TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS and a live original score by PARLOR WALLS.
In his last film, legendary writer/artist/filmmaker Jean Cocteau portrays an 18th-century poet who travels through time on a quest for divine wisdom. In a mysterious wasteland, he meets several symbolic phantoms that bring about his death and resurrection. With an eclectic cast that includes Pablo Picasso, Jean-Pierre Leáud, Jean Marais and Yul Brynner, Testament of Orpheus (Le Testament de Orphée) brings full circle the journey Cocteau began in The Blood of a Poet, an exploration of the torturous relationship between the artist and his creations. – Criterion
Parlor Walls is an experimental group featuring Alyse Lamb (guitar/sounds), Chris Mulligan (drums/keys), Kate Mohanty (sax), and Jason Shelton (clarinet).
Nitehawk’s BOOZE & BOOKS presents a 35mm screening of GRAND HOTEL in celebration New York Review Books’ revised translation of Vicki Baum’s novel. Introduction by Noah Isenberg.
Booze: THE BERLIN (Bourbon, Barenjäger, Underberg Bitters) – $10
Books: Copies of GRAND HOTEL will be for sale days before release!
In the great 1932 screen drama, Grand Hotel, based on the novel by Vicki Baum, the glitz and glitter of Berlin’s opulent Grand Hotel comes alive with the personal stories of its guests and employees. Set in a single day in Berlin’s Grand Hotel, jewel thief Baron Felix von Geigern (John Barrymore) covets both prima ballerina Grusinskaya’s (Greta Garbo) jewels and the beautiful Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford), who is the mistress of the Preysing (Wallace Beery), boss to the terminally ill Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore). In just 24 hours, the lives of these people will change forever in this Hollywood classic and winner of the “Best Picture” Academy Award.
Featuring an introduction by Noah Isenberg, the New York Review Books’ revised translation of Vicki Baum’s Grand Hotel is officially released on June 7. Isenberg is director of screen studies at the New School and the author, most recently, of Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins (California, 2014). His new book, We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie, is due out from W.W. Norton in 2017.
This June – a rarity un-earthed! A prize catch worth the fight to finally land! THE DEUCE Boys turn up the temperature when it gets to be 92 IN THE SHADE, at that rat-trap known as the ANCO Theatre – where it screened – un-advertised – for one week only in 1976!! Perfect for the sweat-sticky seats of Summer – keep your cool if you can – this one is 100% HOT! Don’t let it slip through your fingers!
Plus: Prizes and surprises, a Fernet-Branca sponsored after-party, and music by Maestro Jeff! Hosted and presented by THE DEUCE JOCKEYS: Jeff, Andy, and Joe!
THE DEUCE heats it up with the rarely – pretty much NEVER – screened Florida fishing face-off fun of 92 IN THE SHADE! Delicious dark comedy set amongst the kooks of sun-bleached Key West … Flip-floppin’ blue-blood bum Peter Fonda bungles his way into treacherous territory when he decides to take up the charter trophy fishing guide biz against bonkers boat captains Warren Oates and Harry Dean Stanton … Tenuous friendships and tensions in the Tropical heat! A temptress in a tutu! Rich in ribald dialogue and raucous raconteuring … With a cast that can’t be beat! The sole directorial effort of cult hero/author Thomas McGuane – adapted from his own 1973 National Book Award winning novel – mining the minutiae of Eastern Seaboard eccentricities and mannerisms with maniacal precision and pointed poeticism … Languid, laid-back, and looney as they come – 92 IN THE SHADE was “dumped” in Times Square’s most decrepit depot – the Anco – by a studio too stumped to know what to do with it – and it’s a trip you won’t want to miss! Did you look at that cast list?!? What else would you need?!?
Ethan Hawke lights up the screen as jazz legend Chet Baker in BORN TO BE BLUE.
In Born to Be Blue, the tumultuous life is thrillingly reimagined with wit, verve, and style to burn. In the 1950s, Baker was one of the most famous trumpeters in the world, renowned as both a pioneer of the West Coast jazz scene and an icon of cool. By the 1960s, he was all but washed up, his career and personal life in shambles due to years of heroin addiction. In his innovative anti-biopic, director Robert Budreau zeroes in on Baker’s life at a key moment in the 1960s, just as the musician attempts to stage a hard-fought comeback, spurred in part by a passionate romance with a new flame (Carmen Ejogo). Creatively blending fact with fiction and driven by Hawke’s virtuoso performance, Born to Be Blue unfolds with all the stylistic brio and improvisatory genius of great jazz.
Nitehawk’s BOOZE & BOOKS presents a screening of THE BEST OF EVERYTHING in celebration of Matt Zoller Seitz’s book, MAD MEN CAROUSEL, published by Abrams Books.
A panel discussion with leading television critics Matt Zoller Seitz (author of Mad Men Carousel), Alan Sepinwall (author of The Revolution was Televised), and Emily Nussbaum (TV Critic at The New Yorker) will follow the film. We’ll also have copies of Mad Men Carousel for sale and an inspired Mad Men cocktail!
Before Sex in the City or Mad Men, there was Rona Jaffe’s book, The Best of Everything. Unsurprisingly, Jaffe’s story of three ambitious career girls who share a small apartment and a secretarial jobs at a publishing house on Madison Avenue quickly made its way onto the big screen. Gregg (the actress), April (single and pregnant), and Caroline (a budding editor) all contend with the conflict of professional goals versus marriage/children expectations. In what can be seen as a comparison to Mad Men’s Peggy, Caroline works her way up to be an editor even though she has to deal with boss Amanda Farrow (played to perfection by Joan Crawford). And just like Mad Men, there’s a lot of booze, sex, and ambition. Scandalous!
The Best of Everything was featured in the Mad Men episode What Do Women Want (Season 1/Episode 6).
Nitehawk’s MUSIC DRIVEN presents a screening of ADAM GREEN’S ALADDIN feating a Q&A with director and composer, Adam Green!
In this retelling of the classic tale, Aladdin is an out of work indie-rock singer living in a video-game-world ruled by a perverted technology-obsessed Sultan. With the help of a magical genie named Mustafa and his 3D printer lamp, Aladdin gets lost and found again in a story about spiritual redemption in the internet age.
Nitehawk’s ART SEEN and frieze magazine present a special New York preview screening of the documentary on British artist David Hockney, HOCKNEY. Program includes screening new frieze videos and an introduction by Evan Moffitt, Assistant Editor at frieze.
Hockney weaves together a portrait of the multifaceted artist from frank interviews with close friends and never before seen footage from his own personal archive. This film is the definitive exploration of one of the most significant artists of his generation. For the first time, David Hockney has given access to his personal archive of photographs and film, resulting in an unparalleled visual diary of his life. The film chronicles Hockney’s vast career, from his early life in working-class Bradford, where his love for pictures was developed through his admiration for cinema, to his relocation to Hollywood where his lifelong struggle to escape labels (‘queer’, ‘working class’, ‘figurative artist’) was fully realized. The documentary traces the artist’s journey to live the American and Californian dream, yet paradoxically reveals that he never broke ties with the childhood that formed him.
Acclaimed filmmaker Randall Wright offers a unique view of this unconventional artist who is now reaching new peaks of popularity worldwide, and, at 78, is as charismatic as ever, working in the studio seven days a week.
Just in time for the latest blockbuster, Kevin and friends attempt to answer, once and for all, Batman or Superman? Arguments are presented with supporting comics, TV clips and film footage.
With co-host Nick Nadel (IFC.com and MOVIES MY FRIENDS HAVE NEVER SEEN podcast)
Plus, special guests:
Chris Cummins (Den of Geek, Sci Fi Explosion, Uproxx)
Lindsay Ellis (The Mary Sue, Tor.com, Loose Canon)
Bill Scurry (Filmmaker)
Jay Stern (Writer/Director/Producer “The Adventures of Paul & Marian”)
Alexander Zalben (Host of the Nerdist podcast Comic Book Club – Live!)
The Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT, opens Oscar weekend at Nitehawk!
At once blistering and poetic, the ravages of colonialism cast a dark shadow over the South American landscape in EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT, the third feature by Ciro Guerra. Filmed in stunning black-and-white, SERPENT centers on Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and the last survivor of his people, and the two scientists who, over the course of 40 years, build a friendship with him. The film was inspired by the real-life journals of two explorers (Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes) who traveled through the Colombian Amazon during the last century in search of the sacred and difficult-to-find psychedelic Yakruna plant.
