An abused waifish woman finds solace in the arms of an immigrant to tragic consequences in Broken Blossoms; part of our Live Sound Cinema Vamps and Virgins series featuring a live score by Gersh/Reed.

Before the Jazz Age, it was the dark ages for women. In D. W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms Lillian Gish plays a girl living in poverty with a violent and abusive father. Seemingly her only escape is the questionable freedom of a life of prostitution or the squalor and slavery is in the form of a loveless marriage. She discovers a middle path through a chance meeting with an outsider: Cheng, a Chinese immigrant shopkeeper. But she is a white, virginal and underage. Their relationship is impossible in the time and place they live. There love is an illicit and tragic but because of this it is also transcendent and beautiful.

Broken Blossoms is part of Nitehawk Cinema’s Vamps and Virgins series that explores the two sides of the leading lady spectrum in silent film. 

Bradford Reed & Geoff Gersh have been collaborating together for almost 20 years. During that time, there have been many performances together with various bands as well as working together on projects for dance and film. They have been accompanying silent films at Nitehawk Cinema on a regular basis since July 2012.

An alcoholic ex-pilot has to help land the plane in this legendary “Airport” series spoof!

This off-the-wall comedy takes the already insane plot from the straight film Airport 1975 to a whole new level. Basically, the entire flight crew takes ill and the only person who can fly the plane is a former pilot/alcoholic (Leslie Nielsen) who is deathly afraid to fly and hates to be called “Shirley”. With deadpan deliveries and cultural spoofing, Airplane! launched a whole new phase of Nielsen’s career and we’re all thankful for that. Singing nuns, sick children, and aging movie stars are on the craziest flight you’ll ever witness on the big screen.

Starring: Fred Willard, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Jennifer Coolidge, Parker Posey, Michael McKean, John Michael Higgins, Christopher Guest

Mostly improvised, Best in Show is full of quotables by the links of Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy and Jennifer Coolidge (“we can talk or not talk for hours”) as the dirty politics of the dog show circuit comically play out. Whether a rich trophy wife, a country fisherman, a yuppie couple, a gay couple, and your average couple, these people are obsessed with the relationships with their best friends… and winning. To quote Fred Willard, “To think in some countries these dogs are eaten.”

Starring: Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, Milla Jovovich, Chris Tucker, Luke Perry

Luc Besson’s Fifth Element is an over-the-top space adventure that straddles comedy and action. It’s the twenty-third century and Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) is a cabbie in a colorfully futuristic New York who, as fate would have it, has the lovely orange-haired Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) land on his car one afternoon. But Leeloo has some troubles, she was escaping from a laboratory who was trying to insert DNA from the recently deceased Fifth Element who, you know, comes to Earth every five thousand years to protect humans. So you can imagine what happens next: space travel, singing aliens, martial arts and two lovers saving the world.

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Mel Johnson Jr.

Total Recall asks – how would you know if someone stole your mind? Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) is haunted by recurring memories of Mars so he goes buys a holiday at Rekal Inc. (mind transplanters) but something goes wrong and he remembers being a secret agent fighting against the evil Mars administrator Cohaagen. This kicks off a series of events both he and the audience could never have imagined! Giving an existential crisis new meaning, Quaid wonders whether he exists and, if he does, who the hell is he? One thing’s for sure, he’s tough, smart and his journey is a fantastically explosive ride!

Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

Structured around four movements, 2001: A Space Odyssey shows discoveries of black monoliths throughout different time periods and the quest to either destroy or discover what they mean. It also deals with the struggle of a growing reliance on technology in a very frightful imagining that computers should never be wrong but that they can also become human. Most importantly, despite its convoluted narrative, 2001 is a symphony of sound and stunning visuals that include the most realistic vision of space for the time of its production.

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Bill Paxton, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser

Fact: Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is our favorite space hero and Aliens is one of the best sequels ever made. The film picks up after Ripley returns home after 57 years, the lone survivor of her crew who won the fight with the deadly Alien. Traumatized, she’s lost her flight license and no one truly believes her tale until she’s sent back to the alien planet after the inhabitants of a newly terra-formed community have gone missing. Suffice to say, she’s proven right and a war begins. Ripley becomes the ultimate sexy badass woman in film history once again.

A coming of age film as two young Arkansas boys find themselves mixed up in the mysterious life of a man named MUD. 

“Mud” is an adventure about two boys, Ellis and his friend Neckbone, who find a man named Mud hiding out on an island in the Mississippi. Mud describes fantastic scenarios—he killed a man in Texas and vengeful bounty hunters are coming to get him. He says he is planning to meet and escape with the love of his life, Juniper, who is waiting for him in town. Skeptical but intrigued, Ellis and Neckbone agree to help him. It isn’t long until Mud’s visions come true and their small town is besieged by a beautiful girl with a line of bounty hunters in tow.

Taking the audience through the culturally rich and beguiling worlds of New York, Lahore and Istanbul, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a story about conflicting ideologies where perception and suspicion have the power to determine life or death.

Beginning in 2011 in Lahore at an outdoor café, a Pakistani man named Changez (Riz Ahmed) tells American journalist Bobby (Liev Schreiber) about his experiences in the United States. Roll back ten years to a younger Changez fresh from Princeton, seeking fortune and glory on Wall Street. The American Dream seems well within his grasp, complete with a smart and gorgeous artist girlfriend, Erica (Kate Hudson). But when the Twin Towers are attacked, a cultural divide slowly begins to crack open between Changez and Erica. Changez’s dream soon begins to slip into nightmare: profiled, wrongfully arrested, strip-searched and interrogated, he is transformed from a well-educated, upwardly mobile businessman to a scapegoat and perceived enemy. With time, he begins to hear the call of his own homeland. 

Nitehawk’s got a panic on their hands on the Fourth of July – our annual Fourth of July weekend screening of JAWS is back! Don’t miss our Saturday and Sunday matinees along with an additional screening on Independence Day (2pm)!

Steven Spielberg’s glorious Jaws is the film that defined the blockbuster and has made generations of movie-goers terrified of going into the water. When a giant great white sharks swims into the town of Amityville during the fourth of july holiday and begins munching on vacationers, it sets off a battle on both land and in the sea. The first half of Jaws is the struggle of New Yorker sheriff Brody is get the mayor on board with the idea that a man-eating shark is cause enough to close the beach. The second half is an adventurous boat trip with Brody,marine biologist “city hands” Hopper, and salty fisherman “chalkboard” Quint as they battle the shark on its own surf. In between, you get a lot of intensely scary moments. Trust us, you’ll never forget the first time you see that shark pop out of the water on the big screen!

FOURTH OF JULY FOOD & BEVERAGE SPECIALS
LOBSTER ROLL
Poached lobster, lemon aioli, Old Bay, celery, red onion, house cut fries or salad

LIBERTY DOG 
The Brooklyn Hot Dog Company beef and pork dog wrapped in bacon, beef chili, queso, Martin’s potato roll, house cut fries or salad 

NARRAGANSETT
16 oz Draught 

LIBERTY BELL LEMONADE
Rittenhouse Rye, SNAP Ginger Liqueur, housemade mint lemonade 

BLOOD IN THE WATER
Avua Cachaça, Flor de Caña Silver Rum, lime, pineapple, coconut, falernum, cinnamon syrup, crème de violette, Peychaud’s Bitters 

Part of Nitehawk’s INDEPENDENCE DAY celebration!