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.
Nitehawk Cinema’s series on New York filmmakers LOCAL COLOR and Tribeca Film Festival present a special preview screening of MA. Q&A with director CELIA ROWLSON HALL.
In this modern-day vision of Mother Mary’s pilgrimage, a woman crosses the scorched landscape of the American Southwest. Reinvented and told entirely through movement, the film playfully deconstructs the role of this woman, who encounters a world full of bold characters that are alternately terrifying and sublime. MA is a journey into the visceral and the surreal, interweaving ritual, performance, and the body as sculpture. The absence of dialogue stirs the senses, and leads us to imagine a new ending to this familiar journey. The virgin mother gives birth to our savior, but is also challenged to save herself.
Celia Rowlson Hall is a New York based Director, Choreographer and Bessie award winning performer. Celia has choreographed for film and television, working with directors such as Gaspar Noe and Lena Dunham as well as VMA award winning music videos for bands such as MGMT, Chromeo, and Sleigh Bells and for fashion publications Vogue, Vanity Fair and Glamour. She has written and directed over fifty short films and videos that have garnered several awards including an Emmy nomination and have been screened at festivals such as SXSW, SFIFF, MFF, Rooftop Films, Glasgow, Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center, and art fairs such as the Armory Show, Performa, and the New Museum. She was named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine, 2015. MA is her debut feature.
A video variety show that will leave you sore in the morning. (From laughing.)
Comedian Kevin Maher welcomes his wife and co-host (romance novelist Rebecca Rogers Maher) for a two-hour video variety show looking at pop culture’s most memorable sex scenes. From teen sex comedies to serious art-house films, they’ll watch all kinds of encounters: the good, the bad, the vulnerable, the gratuitous, and more! The one-night-only event includes G-rated innuendos and X-rated surprises.
With special guests:
Tanya Smith (co-host “Read It and Weep” podcast)
R. Sikoryak (cartoonist, Masterpiece Comics and iTunes Terms & Conditions: The Graphic Novel)
Doug Sakmann (AVN-award-winning director of The XXXorcist, Evil Head, Re-Penetrator)
Kristen Korvette (Editrix, Slutist.com)
Professor Geoff Klock (author, The Future of Comics, the Future of Men)
Steve Flack (Editor, Trivia Champion)
Spend the opening weekend of COMEDIANS IN FILM with Sarah Silverman and a host of other comics in SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IN MAGIC.
My sister was with two men in one night. She could hardly walk after that. Can you imagine? Two dinners! – Sarah Silverman
Comedian Sarah Silverman brings her patent, no-holds-barred humor to the stage in this performance film. Based almost entirely on Silverman’s successful show of the same name which appeared on Broadway and generated considerable buzz, the movie blends stand-up with prerecorded sketches and even some musical performances. For Silverman, seemingly no topic is off-limits, as she squeezes jokes out of subjects including rape, Sept. 11 and the Holocaust.
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).
Starring: Meryl Streep, Roseanne Barr, Ed Begley Jr., Linda Hunt, Sylvia Miles
B-Sides, Meryl Streep: Although her dramatic roles may get the most attention, Meryl Streep’s comedic performances truly show off her powers. As Mary Fisher in She-Devil she lets loose as a privileged narcissist, with absolutely wild physical comedy.
Roseanne Barr takes her messy wife routine to the next level when she stars as a frumpy housewife and mother named Ruth Patchett in She-Devil. Unkept and a total mess, she’s the exact opposite of beautiful and wealthy romance novelist Mary Fisher (Meryl Streep). Though different in every way, the do have one thing in common: Ruth’s account husband Bob. Although Bob always thought his wife was a total disaster, once he decides to leave her for someone more put together, all bets are off for Ruth. Bent on revenge, she pulls out all the stops in her mission to become the ultimate domestic demon!
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).
