Nitehawk’s MUSIC DRIVEN presents a 35mm screening of AC/DC’s last tour with Bon Scott: AC/DC: LET THERE BE ROCK.
Afterparty in Lo-Res featuring DJ Blurry Murray spinning big, bad, 70s rock on vinyl.
AC/DC live in Paris at what was arguably the height of their powers in December 1979. Following a format similar to Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same – concert footage with some interview material and fantasy/filmed sequences interspersed – this amazing movie record of AC/DC’s last tour with Bon Scott is simple, no holds barred, balls to the wall rock and roll. The group can literally do no wrong as they plow through the following set list:
Live Wire
Shot Down in Flames
Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be
Sin City
Walk All Over You
Bad Boy Boogie
The Jack
Highway to Hell
Girls Got Rhythm
High Voltage
Whole Lotta Rosie
Rocker
Let There Be Rock
Along the way, we hear about the songwriting process, playing live, and living the rock star dream. It’s all so very drunken and delightful.
Join curator Willy Hartland for a wild romp of an evening, in this eclectic program of cartoons set in an urban setting. Featuring a Q&A with many of the participating filmmakers.
1. George Griffin, “Candy Machine” (1972)
The man just wants a piece of candy. The candy machine just wants a piece of the man.
2. Nate Theis, “Driving” (2015)
The daily car commute with gag atop gag in rapid succession.
3. Michaela Pavlátová, “Tram” (2012)
The daily routine of a buxom streetcar operator turns into an erotic fantasy.
4. Signe Baumane, “Tarzan” (2014)
A man meets a woman on the subway and flirts with her until it hurts.
5. Willy Hartland, “New York City Sketchbook” (2016)
Sketchbook drawings come to life in this dreamlike vision of New York City.
6. Debra Solomon, “My Kingdom” (2014)
A short film about personal space and finding comfort in crowded areas of a busy city.
7. Bill Plympton & Kanye West’s “Heard ‘em Say” (2005)
Animated depiction of Kanye West as a taxicab driver working in a bleak, fictional city.
8. Dave Fleischer, “Riding The Rails” starring Betty Boop (1938)
Betty Boop’s dog Pudgy insists on following her underground into the subway.
9. Andy & Carolyn London, “The Lost Tribes of New York City” (2009)
Urban anthropologists Andy & Carolyn London interview some of New York City’s overlooked citizens.
10. Mimi Gross & Red Grooms “Fat Feet” (1966)
A pixelated and animated city symphony, with live action cartoony NewYorkers and found sound.
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Mark Boone Junior, Chloë Sevigny, Michael Buscemi, Anthony LaPaglia, Elizabeth Bracco
Trees Lounge is the writing and directing debut of actor Steve Buscemi and is a story about a man going through a life crisis that he just can’t put his finger on. He’s lost his job and girlfriend and has a life that revolves around Trees Lounge, a neighborhood bar over which he lives, full of the colorful eccentrics one finds in such place. He drunkenly wanders through his life, still in love with his ex, desperate for some sort of meaning of his life. His relationship with Sevigny’s seventeen year old character, Debbie, further complicates things.
Chloë Sevigny is the demure book editor partying in the early 1980s Manhattan scene in Whit Stillman’s THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO.
In her first film with director Whit Stillman, Chloë Sevigny is Alice, the ambitious, smart and somewhat shy young woman amongst rather boisterously verbose friends. From Criterion: “The Last Days of Disco, from director Whit Stillman, is a cleverly comic look at the early 1980s Manhattan party scene from the vantage point of the late nineties. At the center of the film’s roundelay of revelers are the icy Charlotte and the demure Alice, by day toiling as publishing house assistants and by night looking for romance and entertainment at a Studio 54–like club. Brimming with Stillman’s trademark dry humor, The Last Days of Disco is an affectionate yet unsentimental look at the end of an era.”
Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS: CHLOË SEVIGNY.
Chloë Sevigny is infamous New York “Club Kid” Gitsie in the real life party tragedy, PARTY MONSTER
A 35mm presentation.
Based on the book Disco Bloodbath by James St. James, Party Monster is a cult favorite (low budget and charmingly campy) that traces the rise and tragic fall of Michael Alig and the New York club scenes in the 1990s. Fame-hungry Aig arrives on a Greyhound bus in New York City desperate to leave his boring Midwestern past behind. After meeting downtown club kid James St. James and influential nightclub owner Peter Gatien, he decides to throw the most controversial and over-the-top parties in the city but in just a few years Alig’s drug addiction and erratic behavior destroys his empire and ends in murder.
Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS: CHLOË SEVIGNY.
Chloë Sevigny is a wealthy New Yorker reevaluating the meaning of her life in Woody Allen’s MELINDA AND MELINDA.
A 35mm presentation.
Traversing his classic theme, Woody Allen intertwines two alternating stories of comedy and tragedy in Melinda and Melinda. The parallel stories are introduced in the film’s opening scene in which four sophisticated New Yorkers enjoy a dinner out on a rainy night. An anecdote provokes a discussion between writers Max and Sy about the dual nature of human drama, symbolized by the comedy/tragedy mask of theater. Ultimately a comic tale unfolds, pitted against a more dramatic version of itself-both centered around a somewhat enigmatic woman named Melinda. Chloe Sevigny’s character is part of the tragic storyline where a neurotic Melinda comes to stay with her and makes her reevaluate her own life.
Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS: CHLOË SEVIGNY.
Chloë Sevigny makes her feature film debut in the controversial day-in-the-life of New York teens, KIDS.
A 35mm presentation. Print courtesy of the Gus Van Sant Collection at the Academy Film Archive.
Written by Harmony Korine and directed by Larry Clark, Kids is the definitive controversial film of the 1990s about a subculture of misdirected youth with a visual language so evocative it still resonates. Amoral teen Telly has made it his goal to sleep with as many virgin girls as possible — but he doesn’t tell them that he’s HIV positive. While on the hunt for his latest conquest, Telly and his best friend, Casper , smoke pot and steal from shops around New York. Meanwhile, Jenny (Chloë Sevigny), one of Telly’s early victims, makes it her mission to save other girls from him. But before she has a chance to confront him at a party, everything goes horribly wrong.
Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS: CHLOË SEVIGNY.
Chloë Sevigny is the protective assistant to one of Bill Murray’s former lovers in Jim Jarmusch’s beautifully original comedy, BROKEN FLOWERS.
A 35mm presentation.
Bill Murray stars in the comedic story of an aging Don Juan who hits the road on a revealing and humorous cross-country journey. When a mysterious pink letter informs him that he may have a 19-year-old son, he visits four former lovers, where he comes face to face with the errors of his past and the possibilities of the future. One of these women is Carmen, an “animal communicator” played by Jessica Lange, who has a protective ambiguous assistant played by Sevigny.
Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS: CHLOË SEVIGNY.
Nitehawk kicks off its retrospective series on Chloë Sevigny with her Academy Award nominated performance in the powerful and relevant film, BOYS DON’T CRY. Directed by Kimberly Peirce, the film is based on the real-life story of Brandon Teena, an American transgender man who attempts to find love in Nebraska but falls victim to a brutal crime perpetrated by two male acquaintances. Sevigny plays Lana, friend and eventual girlfriend to Brandon Teena, who continues her romance with him when she discovers Brandon was born female.
Starring: Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Samantha Mathis, Chloë Sevigny, Reese Witherspoon
In 1991, Bret Easton Ellis’ book American Psycho took the literary world by storm with its shocking depiction of the excesses of the 1980s as told through the devious actions of serial killer Patrick Bateman. Nearly a decade later, Mary Harron’s filmic adaptation of Patrick Bateman’s self-love, self-loathing, and precisely calculated murders took the narrative to the next level. The sterile performances of greedy capitalist nature of young Manhattan investment bankers, ambivalence mixed with serial killing, makes American Psycho makes 80s insanity a thrill to watch in any decade.
