Sexts, lies, and Carlos Danger: WEINER shows the wildest political meltdown in recent history as it unfolds.

It’s 2013 and Anthony Weiner—still reeling from the sex scandal that ended his political career two years earlier—is back in the spotlight as he mounts an audacious comeback campaign for New York City mayor. But it’s not long before history repeats itself and new sexting allegations leave Weiner and his aides scrambling to contain the damage. Granted unfettered access to the candidate and his campaign, filmmakers Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg capture a jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes look at the political machine as it breaks down. Winner of the 2015 Sundance Grand Jury Prize.

Falling in love poses a real challenge to a commitment-phobic career woman in TRAINWRECK.

[Female comics are| Just as good as the male comics: We put on our pants one leg at a time, just like them. And then we bleed in those pants. – Amy Schumer 

Written by Amy Schumer and directed by comedy film game-changer Judd Apatow, Trainwreck is a hilariously fresh and modern romantic comedy. From an early age, Amy followed her lovable scoundrel of a father’s advice to avoid monogamy at all costs and took it to the next level. Her messy lifestyle in commitment phobia catches up with her after a work assignment introduces her to a compassionate young doctor name Aaron. Here’s the rom-com twist: he’s the normal, level-headed one looking for love while Amy is the total boozy mess looking for the next hookup. One disaster after another proves to her that easing up on the self-centered train and giving in to love might make life more worth living.

Part of Nitehawk’s summer program COMEDIANS IN FILM (Women in Comedy).

Nitehawk’s BOOZE & BOOKS celebrates COMEDIANS IN FILM with a 35mm screening of Robin Williams in THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP.

Books: Book giveaways courtesy of THE STRAND
Booze: Flying Dog’s Head Harbor special

Based on the John Irving novel from 1978, The World According to Garp stars Robin Williams in one of his best dramatic roles as TS Garp. Chronicling his life with his mother Jenny Fields, both son and mother are writers, the film reveals him to be a wistful writer wrestling with our screwloose modern age. As a grown up Garp has some success writing fiction, but not nearly so much as his mother has with feminist-themed nonfiction. Rich and famous, she starts a center for troubled women, and while Garp marries and has children, he remains a constant, if somewhat critical, observer of the strange community that forms around Jenny.

Part of Nitehawk’s summer program COMEDIANS IN FILM (The Serious Comedian).

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams, Amanda Plummer, David Hyde Pierce, Mercedes Ruehl, Kathy Najimy, Harry Shearer

For me, comedy starts as a spew, a kind of explosion, and then you sculpt it from there, if at all. It comes out of a deeper, darker side. Maybe it comes from anger, because I’m outraged by cruel absurdities, the hypocrisy that exists everywhere, even within yourself, where it’s hardest to see. – Robin Williams

Parry is a homeless history professor who lives in a fantasy world full of castles, Red Knights and damsels in distress. Jack is New York’s #1 shock deejay, whose off-hand arrogance triggers a tragedy which ruins his career. Penniless and without prospects, Jack finds himself plucked from disaster by the most improbable of saviors…Parry. And so the amazing story of the Fisher King unfolds a modern quest for redemption and the Holy Grail, filled with humor, heartbreak and ravishing romance.

Dice channels Philip Marlow by way of Jersey in the goofball private eye comedy THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE. Presented in 35mm!

I’ve been getting in trouble my whole life and I really don’t care what anybody thinks of what I do on stage as a comic. – Andrew Dice Clay

The rock-and-roll comedian takes a small step into the role of a rock-and-roll private dick in this crass LA noir-comedy. Dice plays Ford Fairlane, a detective who specializes in sleazy music biz cases. When an apparent accident at a heavy metal concert leaves a rock star dead, a shock jock hires Fairlane to track down a missing groupie who might have a lead on the singer’s death. A parade of LA bimbos, sleazeball record execs and a koala bear follow leading Fairlane on the ride of his life with barely enough bullets for all of the people he’d like to kill.

Part of Nitehawk’s summer program COMEDIANS IN FILM (Stand Up/Stand Up Companion).

The clown community is as perverse as you always thought in Bobcat Goldthwait’s SHAKES THE CLOWN. Presented in 35mm!

In my first stand-up acts there wasn’t material even. You know, I’d go on stage and cry and read a Dear John letter or gut fish on stage. I could be odd – and it’s what interested me as a comedian. – Bobcat Goldthwait

Upon its release in 1991, Betsy Sherman’s famously referred to Shakes the Clown as “the Citizen Kane of Alcoholic Clown Movies” in her Boston Globe review. And it’s true, this outrageous comedy directed and starring comedian Bobcat Goldthwait is uniquely amazing and borderline genius. Dueling clowns are pitted against each other in the all-clown town of Palookaville. Shakes is a kid’s party clown who spends all of his spare time getting really drunk who gets framed for his boss’s murder. So what does he do to clean up the bad clown element taking over his town? He goes undercover as a mine. Gold.

Part of Nitehawk’s summer program COMEDIANS IN FILM (Late Nite).

Richard Pryor spits fire in his return to the spotlight, RICHARD PRYOR: LIVE ON THE SUNSET STRIP. Presented in 35mm!

“So Black people – we the first people who had thought, right? We was the first ones to say, ‘Where the fuck am I, and how do you get to Detroit?’” – Richard Pryor

Live on the Sunset Strip is an extraordinary feat even for a once-in-a-lifetime talent like Richard Pryor. His third stand-up film, Sunset Strip, captures Pryor as he makes his triumphant return to the stage after his whirlwind ride into stardom left him junked-out, burnt-up and broke. Cut together from two shows filmed at the Hollywood Palladium in 1981, Pryor starts off uncharacteristically shaky before settling into a remarkable performance that wrestles with the black experience in America, his formative years of poverty and grift, and his spiraling, hopeless addiction to drugs — and, somehow, it’s just about the funniest thing ever put to film.

Part of Nitehawk’s summer program COMEDIANS IN FILM (Stand Up/Stand Up Companion).

An unplanned pregnancy complicates things for a single and unemployed Brooklyn comedian in OBVIOUS CHILD.

I don’t think men have time to be funny because they have to make all of our rules about what we can do with our vaginas. – Jenny Slate

Anchored by a breakout performance from Jenny Slate, Obvious Child is a winning discovery, packed tight with raw, energetic comedy and moments of poignant human honesty. For aspiring comedian Donna Stern, everyday life as a female twenty-something provides ample material for her incredibly relatable brand of humor. On stage, Donna is unapologetically herself, joking about topics as intimate as her sex life and as crude as her day-old underwear. But when Donna gets dumped, loses her job, and finds herself pregnant just in time for Valentine’s Day, she has to navigate the murky waters of independent adulthood for the first time. As she grapples with an uncertain financial future, an unwanted pregnancy, and a surprising new suitor, Donna begins to discover that the most terrifying thing about adulthood isn’t facing it all on her own.

Part of Nitehawk’s summer program COMEDIANS IN FILM (Women in Comedy).

Jim Carrey portrays the legendary comedian Andy Kaufman in MAN ON THE MOON.

Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. – Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey delivers one of his best serious roles in Miloš Forman’s Man on the Moon by playing one of the most enigmatic figures in comedy, Andy Kaufman. Famous for his roles on Taxi and Saturday Night Live and his bizarre appearances on the David Letterman show, Kaufman was best known for playing elaborate tricks on his audiences. Who was the real Kaufman? This film explores this a little by showing his personal life (girlfriend and illness) and confusing public persona. Consider this the ultimate comedian on comedian in film.

Part of Nitehawk’s summer program COMEDIANS IN FILM (The Serious Comedian).

It’s tough to be a black hero but Jack Spade takes a crack at it anyway in I’M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA. Presented in 35mm!

To this day, my stand-up act pretty much is me. It’s my life, my experiences, my point of view — that’s what my act will always be. – Keenan Ivory Wayans

Keenan Ivory Wayans writes, directs and stars in this blaxploitation spoof. Wayans plays Jack Spade, an earnest soldier who comes back to the neighborhood (“Any Ghetto U.S.A.”) when he learns that his brother, Junebug, died from an overdose of gold chains. In order to get these deadly gold chains off the streets, Spade enlists the help of a troupe of 70s crime fighters to teach him what it takes to become a real black hero and to take down Mr. Big for good. Steeped in Wayans’s patented silliness, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka spoofs the genre with love and wit, and also shows off the comedian’s eye for spotting young talent (Chris Rock and most of the cast of In Living Color pop up in the film).

Part of Nitehawk’s summer program COMEDIANS IN FILM (Late Nite).