XX directors picked the film with the one place you don’t want to be buried…PET SEMATARY.

When a doctor uproots his family from Chicago to a small town in Maine, the bucolic piece of property they buy has a couple of a hiccups. First: there’s that mean-stretch of highway where semi-trucks rocket past in the middle of the night; then, there’s the pet cemetery, and well, it’s best not to go to the pet cemetery. Local legend has it that anything that gets buried in that cursed earth won’t stay dead for long, and when a truck runs down the good doctor’s youngest son, he soon finds out that what goes into the ground isn’t the same when it comes out.

Part of Nitehawk’s XX Selects midnite series featuring film selected by XX directors.

Starring: Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shinpachi Tsuji, Masaake Okura

A head-spinning thriller colored with shades of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch, Perfect Blue chronicles the downfall of a popular singer, Mima Kirigoe, whose carefully controlled life and image unravels after she abandons her singing career to take on a small role in a sleazy crime drama. As she tries to cope with a disappointed fanbase, Mima begins receiving threatening messages and discovers a popular blog written in her name that chronicles every detail of her life. Shaken by her stalker and objectified by sleazeball industry types, Mima starts hallucinating and loses track of reality, which proves problematic when her co-workers start turning up dead.|

A film festival favorite on its release, Perfect Blue kicked off Kon’s influential career as a director, who went on to helm several reality bending features like Paprika and Tokyo Godfathers before dying of cancer in 2010. Perfect Blue in particular proved to be a such an influence on Darren Aronofsky’s work that the director bought the rights to the film and lifted scenes wholesale for both Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan.

Starring: Koichi Yamadera, Unshō Ishizuka, Megumi Hayashibara, Aoi Tada

When a shady terror cell sets off a dirty bomb in the middle of a crowded highway, the Martian government offers up the largest bounty of all time to catch the perps. All that cash sets up the ears of the crew of The Bebop, a jazzy group of interstellar bounty hunters led by a kung-fu fighting, fast talking hipster named Spike Spiegel.

Based on the landmark television series, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie takes full advantage of its feature length budget, introducing a live-action feel to a medium known more for static set-ups than dynamic camera movement. The music by composer Yoko Kanno plays an equal role in the film’s easy coolness, blending elements of jazz, country-western, opera and Arabic music.

This August THE DEUCE turns up the dog-days-of-Summer heat when we take you to the The Harris Theatre for the high-tension thrill-ride – the acme of NYC actioners: NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER! Co-Presented by DEUCE-buddy and Times Square-centric archivist – Chris Poggiali from TEMPLE OF SCHLOCK!

Plus: Prizes and surprises, Bronx Brewery Pale Ale at the after-party, and music by DJ BONES! Hosted and presented by THE DEUCE JOCKEYS: Jeff, Andy, and Joe!

Ex-cop James Brolin goes ballistic and blows his top when a bonkers bozo from the bombed-out Bronx boondocks brazenly (and mistakenly) kidnaps his daughter… on her birthday! His blood a-boil – he’ll bust up every borough to get her back… Floozies and Fro-Yo… ex wives and ex cons… furious cab drivers and demented detectives… joggers and… jugglers?? He’ll tear it all apart! Just look at that poster – he’s tearing it apart!!!

Aka ‘New York Killer’ aka ‘Countdown In Manhattan’ aka ‘New York Connection’ aka ‘Pursued’ – NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER by any name is a bounty of bombastic fun – and a telling take on the politics of the City in its strapped-for-cash troubled times…

Part of Nitehawk’s THE DEUCE Signature Series.

The cat’s out of the bag! This September, THE DEUCE adds salt to the end-of-Summer wound with Sam Peckinpah’s searingly pessimistic 1974 epic of down-Mexico-way madness: BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA! Still playing at the Times Square Theatre circa 1980!

Plus: Prizes and surprises, Bronx Brewery Pale Ale at the after-party, and music by DJ BONES! Hosted and presented by THE DEUCE JOCKEYS: Jeff, Andy, and Joe!

Warren Oates’ acme acting achievement as ex-pat bar rat, Bennie, in his one last go-for-broke grab at the Golden Goose: by nabbing the much sought-after and fought-over million dollar worth titular prize! Both a road trip to redemption and a Shakespearean dead-end spiral to damnation – boozy, bleary-eyed, beautiful and morally blurry… with bikers, banditos, bad attitude G-Men…and more fun than a barrelfull of bullets! Dirty, dusty and lusty, a ballad of desperation and the depraved depths to which man will sink just to get ahead… or Aaaaaa head! Tienes muchas moscas!

Part of Nitehawk’s THE DEUCE Signature Series.

A killer’s on the loose at Nitehawk Cinema and he’s serving up a multi-course dinner of fresh meat from The Meat Hook for a special Film Feast presentation of 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.

For our October Film Feast, Nitehawk is teaming up with some folks with blood on their hands, the butchers at The Meat Hook, for a five course meal that’s been stabbed, sliced, and seared like a misbehaving camp counselor.

MENU

“Frank’s Delicatessen Pork Roll Sandwich”
blood pork roll sandwich
Drink pairing: Milk and Honey On The Other Side – milk washed rye whiskey and fresh lemon, orange blossom honey syrup

“Snake Three Ways”
The Meat Hook’s The Cougar, Long Dong Bud, and Lamb Gyro sausages
Drink pairing: Snake Bite and Black – Braven Black Pale Ale, dry English cider, Creme de Mure

“Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”
bacon wrapped Thai shrimp, Devils on horseback, bacon rillette on crostini, The Meat Hook lamb bacon, tomato & bacon lettuce wrap, bacon jam on brioche
Drink pairing: Bloody Bacon – bacon infused Absolut Vodka, smoked house bloody mary mix

“Blackout”
butcher’s cut, roasted mushrooms, potato puree
Drink pairing: Blackout Punch – Bulldog Gin, basil and plum shrub, oleo saccharum, soda water

“Crystal Lake Granita”
coconut water and lime granita
Drink pairing: Water of Death – Death’s Door White Whiskey, Pear Eau de Vie, Lemon Juice, Blanc de Blanc

Click here for more information on The Meat Hook’s new sandwich shop in Brooklyn!

Menu items subject to change, no substitutions.

Nitehawk Cinema’s LOCAL COLOR and Tribeca Film Festival’s series on New York filmmakers continues with a special screening of APPLESAUCE. Q&A after the screening with writer/director Onur Tukel!

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

Every Tuesday night, radio talk show host Stevie Bricks invites his listeners to call in and share their stories.  And tonight, Ron Welz (writer/director Onur Tukel) is ready to share his.  But soon after he confesses on the air, Ron finds a severed foot in his laundry… then a cut off finger in his mail… then worse.  His life begins to unravel and his marriage begins to fall apart.  Someone is tormenting him.  Is it his insolent high school student?  Is it his best friend?  His wife?  In a city like New York, there are eight million suspects and each one could have a bone to pick with someone like Ron. 

Take dark comedy, mix it with noir, add a dash of horror and stir in some melodrama, and you have the recipe for one of the most original and unusual movies of the year.

Part of Nitehawk’s LOCAL COLOR monthly series with the Tribeca Film Festival that features independent New York filmmakers.

As part of Nitehawk’s September series SHE MADE IT, ART SEEN presents brunch screenings of Miranda July’s directorial debut, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW.

Christine Jesperson is a lonely artist and “Eldercab” driver who uses her fantastical artistic visions to draw her aspirations and objects of desire closer to her. Richard Swersey (John Hawkes), a newly single shoe salesman and father of two boys, is prepared for amazing things to happen. But when he meets the captivating Christine, he panics. Life is not so oblique for Richard’s seven-year-old Robby, who is having a risqué internet romance with a stranger, and his fourteen- year-old brother Peter who becomes the guinea pig for neighborhood girls— practicing for their future of romance and marriage.

In July’s modern world, the mundane is transcendent and everyday people become radiant characters who speak their innermost thoughts, act on secret impulses, and experience truthful human moments that at times approach the surreal. They seek together-ness through tortured routes and find redemption in small moments that connect them to someone else on earth.  

Part of Nitehawk’s September SHE MADE IT brunch, midnite, and special event series.

ART SEEN is in partnership with frieze.

Nitehawk’s COUNTRY BRUNCHIN’ presents GAS FOOD LODGING as part of our special “SHE MADE IT” series. A 35mm presentation with a live pre-show serenade by LI’L MO!

Allison Anders’s Gas Food Lodging picks up in a dusty New Mexico town populated by a few waitresses, gravediggers and bored teenagers. Sisters Shade and Trudi cope with the boredom in different ways: Trudi rebels against just about everything, while Shade escapes into fantasies at the movies – but both of them share a desire to get out of dodge. But even in a single stoplight town, both young women are able to find love and heartbreak by the barrel load.

Part of Nitehawk’s September SHE MADE IT brunch, midnite, and special event series.

CHEECH AND CHONG’S NEXT MOVIE: just what we all need… a really good hit. A 35mm presentation.

Jobless and penniless is the standard state of being for fully-baked L.A. duo Cheech and Chong. In Next Movie, they try their best to get back on a payroll of some kind: they write a couple of songs, they steal some gas, they even apply for unemployment; but when all that goes up in smoke, the two of them go back to doing what they do best: hustle suckers, chase skirt, and smoke grass. Who needs work anyway? Responsibility is a heavy responsibility, man.

Bigger and weirder than their first feature, Next Movie sets the dank dyad up with a host of L.A. oddballs, including Cheech’s identical cousin Red, a couple of toked out space aliens and Pee-Wee Herman himself.

Part of Nitehawk’s August WAKE AND BAKE brunch series.