Nitehawk Cinema and Mishka present a special screening of Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop from 1987. 

In the not-so-distant future, a fatally wounded cop comes back to life as part-robot in a dystopian Detroit to fight crime and find his killers. As with any Paul Verhoeven film, RoboCop has a certain “quality” to it. At once campy yet serious, this film is a mix of science-fiction, crime thriller, action, and black comedy. In this very Nietschean tale of being “more human than human”, Robocop (Peter Weller) struggles with his new role as an indestructible being who still can’t escape the emotional past. I mean, what good is being part robot if your human side (with all the love and revenge involved) keeps getting in the way? The socio-political reach of RoboCop is wide too as it comments on everything from the media, capitalism, gentrification, and gender issues. Plus, it’s a blaaaaaast!

This special screening will include giveaways (some RoboCop themed!) during the film and more trivia giveaways afterwards in our downstairs bar. Courtesy of Mishka who will also be selling their merchandise following the film too!

SLP has had a good run here but Thursday is its last day at Nitehawk! Life has no rules but, even in the darkest of days, special friendships can form and make sense out of the madness.

Pat Solatano has lost everything – his house, his job, and his wife. He now finds himself living back with his mother and father after spending eight months in a state institution on a plea bargain. Pat is determined to rebuild his life, remain positive and reunite with his wife, despite the challenging circumstances of their separation. All Pat’s parents want is for him to get back on his feet – and to share their family’s obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles football team. When Pat meets Tiffany, a mysterious girl with problems of her own, things get complicated. Tiffany offers to help Pat reconnect with his wife, but only if he’ll do something very important for her in return. As their deal plays out, an unexpected bond begins to form between them, and silver linings appear in both of their lives.

Man has created a machine. Now the machine wants to create a man.

Based on a novel by Dean Koontz, Donald Cammell’s Demon Seed is a science-fiction thriller that places the future of horror back into the everyday space of the home.

After her estranged husband Fritz leaves for work, Susan (Julie Christie) becomes imprisoned and eventually impregnated by Proteus IV, an artificial intelligence system designed by her husband that contains organic materials and, get this, the power of thought. Proteus wants to be free so he escapes the lab finding the one available portal to him – Fritz’s house. The future of power over women is here. What’s probably most intriguing about Demon Seed is that addresses what it means to be human and become human.

Starring: Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn

In this Orwellian tale, an unstoppable cyborg called “The Terminator” (Arnold Schwarzenegger) time-travels from a post-apocalyptic 2029 Los Angeles to 1984 with a mission to eliminate Sarah Conner. You see, Sarah Conner needs to be assassinated before she gives birth to a son who will lead the 21st century human rebels to victory after the tyrannical machines! But it won’t be easy, not only are there multiple “Sarah Conners” in the phonebook (how quaint) and a member of the human resistance movement (Michael Biehn) also returns from the future to help save her. Sarah is also pretty bad ass herself and ultimately terminates the terminator…or does she? As Arnie famously declares, “I’ll be baaaack…”

Starring: Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, Charlton Heston, Jason Priestley

Tombstone is Hollywood’s historical depiction of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Crime, corruption, the law and the outlaw collide as former lawman Wyatt Earp, his two brothers, and Doc Holliday head on West for a new life in Tombstone, Arizona for a peaceful retirement. Unfortunately, the Canton Brothers have different plans so Earp and Co. have to the sort of band of outsiders they’d put away while working as “the man.”

Take a trip back to early 1980s with this compilation of twenty-six powerful live performances by the eras best Punk, New Wave, and Post-Punk bands.

Pre-party for Urgh! in Nitehawk’s street level bar at 10pm on both nights…Nitehawk teams up with Network Awesome for a very special screening of WOMEN IN PUNK at 10pm on Friday and Saturday. FREE entry and FREE Mike’s Hard Lemonade (until supplies last).

No narration and no text, just full-on performance. Urgh! A Music War features artists: The Police, Wall of Voodoo, Toyah Willcox, John Cooper Clarke, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Chelsea, Oingo Boingo, Echo & the Bunnymen, Jools Holland, XTC, Klaus Nomi, Athletico Spizz 80, The Go-Go’s, Dead Kennedys, Steel Pulse, Gary Numan, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Magazine, Surf Punks, The Members, Au Pairs, The Cramps, Invisible Sex, Pere Ubu, Devo, The Alley Cats, John Otway, Gang of Four, 999, The Fleshtones, X, Skafish, Splodgenessabounds, UB40, and Klaus Nomi.

Valhalla Rising is a LIVE SOUND CINEMA event featuring a live score by Black Lodge.

A 1000 A.D. enslaved Norse warrior named One-Eye finds redemption in vengeance.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising shows us a grey atmospheric landscape peppered with blood in which hell is a place on earth. Set in the Middle Ages, the films centers around the journey of an unbeatable Norse warrior named One-Eye (Mads Mikkelsen) from enslaved fighting to involvement with the Christian Crusades and, ultimately, to his poetic death. At once stylishly modern and hauntingly of the past, Valhalla Rising is a brutal (and beautiful) representation mankind’s vengeful appetite for war and religious domination.

Black Lodge, lead by guitarist/composer Geoff Gersh, is a collective of musicians who re-score films then perform live to the film. Performers for Valhalla Rising are: Eric Hubel (guitars), Josh Matthews (drums/percussion/metal), Bradford Reed (drums/percussion/metal) and Geoff Gersh (composer/guitars)

B-movie sound recordist Jack Terry (John Travolta) becomes an unsuspecting witness when he unwittingly finds himself involved in a murder mystery.

While out last one night recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film, Jack Terry becomes embroiled in a thriller of his own after saving a young woman’s life from what he believes to only be a car accident. Turns out that he has captured something incriminating on audio and starts to have feelings towards the woman…and that’s when things start to get weird. A movie-within-a-movie, Blow Out shares with the audience a sense of adventure and discovery as we realize who Jack can or cannot trust. As ever with De Palma, style is content and we see this through his usage of split screens, elaborate tracking shots, and Hitchcock influence. Blow Out is one of his best.

Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS – BRIAN DE PALMA series.

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins

Following the cinematic path laid down by Sergio Leone in the 1960s, Quentin Tarantino doesn’t just wade but fully dives into the Spaghetti Western tradition with his long awaited new film, Django Unchained.

Set in the American south two years before the Civil War, Django Unchained seethes of the cultural climate of the day. And it’s all here – power, slavery, violence, history, love, sacrifice, survival, freedom, and, most viscerally, revenge. Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave acquired by a German-born bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (the fabulous Christoph Waltz) to help catch “most wanted” criminals with the promise of being free. But Django sticks with him and only has one thing on his mind…finding his wife Broomhilda who was lost in the slave trade years ago.

Recent history plays out on-screen in Zero Dark Thirty following the September 11th attacks as the United States goes on one of the biggest manhunts in history to find Osama bin Laden.

As she did in The Hurt Locker, Academy Award Winner Kathryn Bigelow continues her usage of an obsessed fictional character to recount historical events in the post 9/11 landscape with Zero Dark Thirty. Here we have Maya (Jessica Chastain), a CIA operative who becomes an integral part in the hunt for Al Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden. Aside from the eventual death of bin Laden by the Navy SEAL Team Six, the film focuses on the questionable interrogation practices of prisoners and detainees through Maya’s own reluctance but ultimate belief that these tactics are beneficial. With emotions raw from a nation still dealing with the ramifications of the “War on Terror,” Zero Dark Thirty is guaranteed to hit the hearts of many.