New York Comedian Perry Strong introduces a special COMEDIANS IN FILM screening of HARLEM NIGHTS.

Screening before the film is the short film, STICK, by Perry Strong, John Orphan, Greg Wayne.

Richard said, “The next time the motherfucker call, tell him I said, “Suck *my* dick.” I don’t give a fuck. Whatever the fuck make the people laugh, say that shit. Do the people laugh when you say what you say?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Do you get paid?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, tell Bill I said have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up. Jello pudding-eating motherfucker.” – Eddie Murphy

Harlem Nights is a dark comedy one-two punch with the greats, Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. In the waning days of Prohibition, Sugar Ray and his adopted son, Quick, run the speakeasy Sugar Ray’s Harlem nightclub in late-1930s Harlem, New York. Things are great: the drinks are strong, the women are beautiful and the money is a-flowing but a gangster is about to get in the way. When gangster Bugsy Calhoune learns that Sugar Ray’s place is pulling in more money than his own establishment, the Pitty Pat Club, he pays a corrupt cop to close Club Sugar Ray down. Quick doesn’t exactly help the situation when he falls for Calhoune’s gun moll, Miss Dominique La Rue. Eddie Murphy wrote, executive produced, and directed Harlem Nights. It’s also Red Foxx’s last film.

Don’t mind the cameras, they’re filming a movie up in here and Eddie Murphy’s the only one gonna get paid in EDDIE MURPHY: RAW. Presented in 35mm!

Now I can’t have no “curse” show, I mean I gotta throw in a few jokes in between the curses. – Eddie Murphy

Recorded at Madison Square Garden’s Felt Forum, Eddie Murphy: Raw blew up the box office, inspired a generation of comedians, and made the MPAA’s head spin with its carpet-bomb use of the f-word (223 times!). Directed by fellow comedian Robert Townsend and produced by Keenan Ivory Wayans, Raw is Murphy’s stand-up swan-song, where the comic covers his poor upbringing in Bushwick, the paranoid effect that wealth has on romance (HALF!), and the public backlash he received for telling sexist and homophobic gags.

No cheating! No gambling! No booze! No smoking! No pizza! No nothin’, just EASY MONEY.

I tell you, with my doctor, I don’t get no respect. I told him, “I’ve swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills.” He told me to have a few drinks and get some rest. – Rodney Dangerfield

An early Dangerfield gem that gets no respect at all, Easy Money was the first film to cast the comic in a leading role, this time as a wisecracking Staten Island baby photographer with a gambling problem and a taste for the ganj. Not much of a stretch. But the film allows Rodney to be Rodney, putting his comic persona to the test with a dead mother-in-law whose $10 million inheritance comes with the caveat that he must cut weight, lose the booze and act like a respectable human being for a whole year. Easy money, right?

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

Part of COMEDIANS IN FILM, New York comedian, writer, director Negin Farsad introduces a special 35mm screening of COMEDIAN.

I think it’s funny to be delicate with subjects that are explosive. – Jerry Seinfeld

This 2002 documentary takes a look at the work of two stand-up comics, Jerry Seinfeld and a lesser-known newcomer, Orny Adams, detailing the effort and frustration behind putting together a successful act and career while living a life on the road. It proves that success doesn’t make the path as a comedian any less difficult to pave. In Comedian, both comics are in crisis, to some degree. Seinfeld wants to relaunch his standup career, and Adams wants regular gigs on the late-night TV circuit and eventually a sitcom.

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

Double-dating proves to be more than just sex in BOOTY CALL.

Also, I think having that comic gene kind of makes you look at things in a different way. If you take yourself so seriously, eventually you end up one of those people having a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on their lives. – Jamie Foxx

He’s now an Academy Award Winner but between Ray and In Living Color, Jamie Foxx starred in the outrageous 1990s comedy about the sexes, Booty Call! More of a date night from hell than a traditional booty call, the film centers around two newish lovebirds Rushton and Nikki. After weeks of dating, the two are starting to fall in love and on the one night Rushton is preparing to seal the deal, she insists on a double date. Sexually frustrated, he invites his rude, sex-obsessed boy Bunz to tag along to keep her friend Lysty busy. It ends up being a hilarious disaster of a date complete with a madcap search for condoms.

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

Three Detroit auto-workers push back against a corrupt union in the fiery BLUE COLLAR.

Richard Pryor has a role that makes use of the wit and fury that distinguish his straight comedy routines.”- Vincent Canby, N.Y. Times

Caught between management mistreatment and union exploitation, a trio of Detroit auto-workers run out of hope that their hard work will reap any sort of reward. Disillusioned and buried in debt, the three concoct a robbery plot that yields a light amount of cash but a wealth of dirt on their union. Under pressure from corrupt union toughs, their co-workers and federal investigators their friendship begins ripping at the seams. While it’s an uncharacteristically dramatic role for Pryor, his performance captures the darker moments of his act that express the frustration and gravity that comes from working through the struggle.

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

Starring: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Lisa Eilbacher, Bronson Pinchot, Paul Reiser

When two California toughs kill his childhood friend, Detroit detective Axel Foley ducks out of town on “vacation” to Beverly Hills to sniff out the conspiracy behind his buddy’s death. His unauthorized investigation leaves local PD heated, and puts him on the radar of a shady art dealer who doesn’t appreciate Foley snooping around. Originally intended for Sylvester Stallone of all people – producers gave Murphy the roll after Stallone’s blood-guts-and-explosions spin on the material racked up too large a bill. Good thing beacuse Beverly Hills Cop made Murphy a crossover sensation, and is the perfect vehicle for the comic’s quick wit, fast delivery and cocksure swagger.

Join Nitehawk and The Workers Unite Film Festival for a special screening of the Academy Award nominated documentary feature, CARTEL LAND.

Featuring a Q&A with film editor and co-producer Bradley Ross, Assistant Editor on location Andre Arias, Rolling Stone writer Damon Tabor (author of the article “Border of Madness”), and Antonio Tizapa (father of Jorge Antonio Tizapa, one of the 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico). In partnership with the Workers Unite Film Festival. 

Cartel Land is a riveting, on-the-ground look at the journeys of two modern-day vigilante groups and their shared enemy – the murderous Mexican drug cartels. In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as “El Doctor,” leads the Autodefensas, a citizen uprising against the violent Knights Templar drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona’s Altar Valley – a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley – Tim “Nailer” Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to stop Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border. The cartels each vie to bring their own brand of justice to a society where institutions have failed. Cartel Land is a chilling, visceral meditation on the breakdown of order and the blurry line between good and evil.

The Workers Unite Film Festival is a celebration of Global Labor Solidarity every May in NYC. Now in its fifth year, the Festival aims to showcase student and professional films from the United States and around the world which publicize and highlight the struggles, successes and daily lives of all workers in their efforts to unite and organize for better living conditions and social justice.

Starring: Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Daniel Roebuck, Dennis Hopper

The nude, strangled body of a teenaged girl lies on the edge of the river. Her murderer is her boyfriend, Daniel Roebuck. All the kids in Roebuck’s dismal, dead-end town know who committed the murder. Trouble is, no one bothers to turn Roebuck in; some of the teens don’t know how to react to the crime, while others, strung out on drugs and booze, just don’t give a damn. A study of contemporary alienation, River’s Edge was based on a real-life incident that occurred in Milpitas, California, in 1981. That same year, Neal Jimenez wrote his screenplay for River’s Edge, but was not able to finance the project until 1987. Except for Dennis Hopper, cast as a holdover from the sixties who hobbles about on one leg and makes love to a blow-up doll, the cast was largely comprised of unknowns, many of whom would definitely be heard from in the future.

Spend Mother’s Day camping with Vorhees family in Sean Cunningham’s FRIDAY THE 13TH.

Things don’t go so well for the reopening of Camp Crystal Lake as the new counsellors are stalked and slashed…but by whom? As the site for a young boy’s drowning many years earlier, someone or something is none-too-pleased that a new batch of sexually crazed young adults who will be the caretakers of young children. Stemming from tropes established in Italian giallo films like anonymous killer-point-of-view stabs and punishment for sexual activities, Friday the 13th produces one of the most iconic “Final Girls” in horror (Alice Hardy) and has enduringly made teenage activities a frightening cautionary tale. No real spoilers from us so you’ll have to wait until the end to discover why its maternal instincts are series worthy.