One filmmakers quest to uncover the secrets behind the Philippines’ 2 ft. 9 James Bond, Weng Weng. Director Andrew Leavold will be in attendance for a Q&A!
Some of the most bizarre filmmaking from the 1970’s and 80’s came out of the Philippines. Under the thumb of an oppressive regime, the country became an unexpected hotspot for exploitation film makers out to make blood-and-guts skin flicks for dirt cheap prices. Though the scene often featured B-movie heavies like Pam Grier or Dick Miller, the boom’s breakout star was mysterious pint-sized action star named Weng Weng. The 2 ft. 9 James Bond died in 1993, but his legacy became emblematic of the country’s post-colonial struggle with censorship and strife, which lead an American video store owner on a crazed quest to uncover the secrts of Weng Weng’s life.
Get Thanksgiving-ready at Nitehawk with these turkeys!
It’s a few days before Thanksgiving and Windy City ad-man Neal Page (Steve Martin) is stuck in New York for the world’s most pointless marketing meeting. With a holiday flight to catch, Neal looks forward to spending time with his family in just a few short hours. It was supposed to be easy. He wasn’t counting on a blizzard sending his flight to Kansas, and he definitely wasn’t counting on meeting chatty shower curtain ring salesman Del Griffith (John Candy), his new partner in navigating the holiday hell of PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES.
There were a lot of reasons they called him DIRTY HARRY, and he kept inventing new ones.
When the Scorpio killer unleashes hell on San Francisco, the local PD sic their baddest dog on his trail: trigger happy inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood). Notorious for dead perps and injured partners, Callahan plows through SF’s underworld to get to Scorpio before the deranged gunman can follow through on his promise to kill a person every day that his ransoms aren’t met. With his superiors breathing down his neck to play it by the book, can Harry collar a murderer who makes his own rules?
Part of Nitehawk’s January I’LL KICK YOUR ASS! midnite series.
Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Jared Leto, Meat Loaf
It takes some people longer to realize it than others, but eventually we all come to the same conclusion: Life’s kind of a drag, huh? A rigged game controlled by credit card companies and marketing firms with a goal of keep us all docile and dumb and in debt. It’s enough to leave you numb; which, fortunately, has an easy cure: a good, solid punch to the face.
In David Fincher’s Fight Club, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) works like a preacher in the church of ass-kicking, winning converts from all walks of life into his underground fight ring, including the film’s nameless narrator (Edward Norton). Re-invigorated by conflict, Durden’s band sets its sights on much larger targets with an elaborate plan that could tear down the entire global economy.
Starring: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, Frank Vincent
4K restoration
In the ring, Jake LaMotta was a fearless middleweight champion, a fighter whose animal strength made him unstoppable; but the traits of a champion aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be. Quick to anger, sexually frustrated, brutally masochistic, all traits of a punishing fighter; but a husband? A brother? In Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese side-steps the typical sports biopic that lionizes its subjects in favor of a violent, unflinching portrait of a man controlled by his animal lusts.
Starring: Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Stephen Graham, Vinnie Jones, Ade, Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Farina, Alan Ford
It all starts with Franky “Four Fingers,” a gambler who manages to swipe an 84-carat diamond that’s worth a fortune on the black market. The theft sends shockwaves through the British underground, as everyone from shady boxing promoters to ex-KGB arms dealers get sucked into a knot of botched jobs and dead bodies. Loaded with comic toughs (Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones), salty wise guys (Dennis Farina, Alan Ford) and good old fashioned weirdos (Benicio Del Toro, Brad Pitt), Guy Ritchie’s Snatch plays out like a an illegal game of Mouse Trap.
Woody Allen’s classic comic thriller on life’s CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS. A 35mm presentation.
Judah Rosenthal and Cliff Stern have problems.
Judah’s a respected doctor with a great deal of dirty laundry. His mistress has grown impatient with promises to leave his wife, and threatens to go public with their affair, a revelation that would unravel the good doctor’s professional and social standing. Judah struggles with what to do; does he face the consequences of his actions, or does this desperate situation allow for a more permanent – and unspeakable – solution? Who’s to say what’s unspeakable, anyway?
Cliff’s a documentary filmmaker whose rocky marriage and dodgy finances force him to take on a puff-piece project about his blowhard brother-in-law. While filming, Cliff falls in love with a production assistant and he agonizes over his infatuation with her, while also struggling to glamorize his oafish brother-in-law.
Part of Nitehawk’s January THE PERFECT CRIME brunch series.
On the run from Johnny Law… ain’t no trip to Cleveland.
Anthony (Luke Wilson) doesn’t have much going for himself after his self-imposed stay at the psyche ward, that is until his ambitious mess of a friend Dignan (Owen Wilson) convinces him to take on the romantic life of the career criminal. Dignan’s got it all figured it out, a 75-year road map of their life in crime. They’ve got guns, they’ve got masks, they’ve even got a car and a guy to drive it — none of them have ever robbed a place before, but that part can’t be that hard to figure out, can it?
The debut feature for brothers Luke and Owen Wilson as well as writer/director Wes Anderson, BOTTLE ROCKET may not have the same distinct look as Anderson’s later films, but it certainly shows off his skill with jokey dialogue and absurd characters, as well as his soft-spot for well-meaning screw-ups.
Part of Nitehawk’s January THE PERFECT CRIME brunch series.
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING is the story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.
Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time. Together, they defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science, and achieving more than they could ever have dreamed. The film is based on the memoir “Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen,” by Jane Hawking.
An intense and haunting portrayal of a brilliant, complicated man, THE IMITATION GAME follows a genius under nail-biting pressure to help put an end to World War II.
During the winter of 1952, British authorities entered the home of mathematician, cryptanalyst and war hero Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) to investigate a reported burglary. They instead ended up arresting Turing himself on charges of ‘gross indecency’, an accusation that would lead to his devastating conviction for the criminal offense of homosexuality – little did officials know, they were actually incriminating the pioneer of modern-day computing.
Famously leading a motley group of scholars, linguists, chess champions and intelligence officers, he was credited with cracking the so-called unbreakable codes of Germany’s WWII Enigma machine.
