For years, lines have been drawn…and then colored in yellow.
To celebrate the one year anniversary of Nitehawk’s weekly Simpsons Club, we will be counting down the 17 best episodes of the series all March long and conclude in the theater with a screening of our pick of the #1 episode followed by The Simpsons Movie. Plus a Simpsons-inspired cocktail menu like the classic ‘skittlebrau’ and a raffle of Simpsons swag!
The brainchild of the show’s best writers, The Simpsons Movie was seventeen years in the making. The story of a man, his family and his town. The Simpsons Movie follows Homer to Alaska after he inadvertently tips Springfield’s pollution problem past the breaking point, forcing a power-mad EPA agent to seal the town under an indestructible dome.
Starring: Patricia Arquette, Christian Slater, Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, James Gandolfini, Gary Oldman, Michael Rapaport, Brad Pitt
The Quentin Tarantino penned True Romance certainly isn’t your run-of-the-mill love story, but the passion (borderline obsession) between Clarence and his reformed hooker wife Alabama sure is palpable. A modern day Bonnie and Clyde, they meet, fall in love, and then proceed to steal a whole lot of drugs from her pimp. As with most things in love and life, things are never easy (there’s murders and mobsters), but the one thing that remains true is their romance.
Two kids must save their secret agent parents from danger! SPY KIDS is film fun for the whole family courtesy of Robert Rodgriuez.
Nine years ago, top international spies Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez traded the excitement of espionage for the adventure of parenthood. But when they’re called out on a secret mission, the Cortezes are separated from their family and kidnapped by the evil Fegan Floop. Fortunately, there are two people who possess the skills and know-how to reunite the family: Carmen and Juni Cortez, their kids. And they’re just like real spies…only smaller!
THE DEUCE takes you to the Liberty Theatre circa 1986, for COMBAT SHOCK, Buddy Giovinazzo’s harrowing debut masterwork for shlockfactory production studio Troma.
Plus: Liberty Theatre lore, prizes and surprises, drink special at the after-party, and music by DJ BONES! Hosted and presented by Jeff, Andy, and Joe! Includes a Q & A by Special Makeup Effects Artist Ed Varuolo!
“Your not looking for a job, you’re waiting for the world to end…” says Veronica Stork’s Cathy Dunlan to Vietnam vet husband Frankie (played by Rick Giovinazzo) who’s PTSD makes Taxi Driver‘s Travis Bickle look like Mickey Mouse. Fifteen years after the war, broken Frankie lives in poverty with his wife and Agent Orange-mutated infant child (played by a $140 puppet), amongst junkies, criminals, and child prostitutes. He’s at his wit’s end to find work until his brutal, uncompromising final act of mercy.
Considered by studio head (and Executive Producer) Lloyd Kaufman to be one of Troma’s true masterpieces, Director Buddy Giovinazzo’s (brother of Rick) debut feature is a terrifying, heartbreaking depiction of Reagan-era urban blight and modern day shell-shocked misery. War is Hell, but so is Staten Island, in the movie about which Videohound said, “you won’t find a more depressing film outside an art-house cinema.”
FINAL WEEKS: playing at Nitehawk until March 27! The Best Foreign Language Film Academy winner, THE GREAT BEAUTY (LA BRANDE BELLEZZ) screens at Nitehawk.
Journalist Jep Gambardella has charmed and seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades. Since the legendary success of his one and only novel, he has been a permanent fixture in the city’s literary and social circles, but when his sixty-fifth birthday coincides with a shock from the past, Jep finds himself unexpectedly taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the extravagant nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome in all its glory: a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
A beautiful mix of visuals shot in 16mm, Super 8 and video melds with sync and non-sync soundtracks by the legendary Washington D.C. band Fugazi in the stunning documentary, Instrument. Wholly original, you wouldn’t expect Fugazi to do anything traditional and their documentary is no exception. Covering a ten year period, from 1987-1997, Instrument provides access to stage shows, rehearsals, recording sessions and interviews with fans (and some who aren’t). It extends beyond a portrait of a band and bleeds into a specific time period in music that is so close to many hearts. Named after one of the songs on their 1993 album In On the Kill Taker, the documentary also spawned one of the best soundtracks in history.
Starring: Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, Mabel King
Adapted from a 1975 musical of the same name, The Wiz is an urban retelling of Dorothy’s journey to the wonderful world of Oz. In this re-imagining, Dorothy Gale (Diana Ross) is a young schoolteacher in Harlem who find herself in Oz after becoming swept away in a magical snowstorm. Cue all the familiar characters but on a different bent: graffiti taggers, the Scarecrow played by Michael Jackson, the flying monkeys motorcycle gang. There’s also a lot of New York references here (New York Public Library, The World Trade Center, Harlem) and the songs, well, you’ll be clicking your heels…
Starring: Olivia Newton-John, Gene Kelly, Michael Beck, James Sloyan
A poem, a film, and Kublai Khan are all points of inspiration for the 1980 romantic musical fantasy film, Xanadu (you might also recognize the name as the mansion in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane). As a frustrated artist who paints large versions of album covers, Sonny Malone (Michael Beck) yearns for something more in life. In a fateful encounter he is kissed by one of nine muses (Olivia Newton-John) who are dancing in the street. From that moment on he is determined to open his much desired roller-skating rink (named Xandu) and to be with his love from another world. We’ll admit it, aside from the neon and roller-skating, it’s the ELO song “Xanadu” that fills our hearts with joy and inspired us to make it happen!
This incredible disco-rock musical will take you back to a futuristic 1994! Hosted by ‘NYC’s APPLE Super Fan’ (of course) with prizes and pre-screening disco courtesy of DJ BOOGALOW!
The future is music and music is the future! Low budget but high entertainment, The Apple tells the psychedelic tale of two young Canadians, Alphie (George Gilmour) and Bibi (Catherine Mary Stewart) who travel to America to participate in the 1994 Worldvision Song Festival. Although they lose the competition, they get signed to a major label and subsequently enter into the darker side of the music industry as it rules the world! Orwellian in its religious allegories, conformity versus rebellion, and glittery debauchery meet in this cult classic futuristic disco musical. Come on, take a bite!
Part of Nitehawk’s midnite THE DISCO MUSICAL program.
Starring: David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, Shelley Thompson, Toby Froud
Jim Henson’s slightly darker Muppets star in the one of the most magical adventure films of, well, ever made. Jennifer Connelly is Sarah, a fifteen year old who resents her little brother so much that she wishes him to just disappear which he actually does when evil goblins kidnap him. Feeling guilty, she sets out to rescue him from the Goblin King (David Bowie!) but first she must successfully navigate a fantastical labyrinth in the center of this other-world full of puzzles and strange creatures. Seeing Labyrinth is a right of passage for any young adult and ripe for a revisit.
