June’s midnite LIVE SOUND CINEMA is a must-see giallo by Dario Argento Four Flies on Grey Velvet with a live score by Daniel Collás performed by Yello Magi.
Giallo and live music! Creepy puppet masks, whispers in the dark, and a murder mystery…Four Flies on Grey Velvet is indeed a Dario Argento film! In fact, it’s the third in the director’s “Animal Trilogy” that began with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and The Cat o’Nine Tails. The killings begin when rock drummer Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon) accidently offs the man who has been stalking him. Of course it doesn’t end there. Enter a homicidal maniac who starts murdering all of Roberto’s friends in revenge. But as it is with every good Argento giallo, nothing is as it appears to be!
Daniel Collás is the producer, songwriter, and main mind behind the Phenomenal Handclap Band, whose 2009 hit “15-20” caught the ear of Paul McCartney and started them on a path playing worldwide tours alongside the likes of Bryan Ferry, Franz Ferdinand, and Chairlift, to name a few.
The second film in Nitehawk’s Vamps and Virgins silent film series is based on the most famous martyr in history, Joan of Arc. This LIVE SOUND CINEMA event features a live score by Guizot.
A landmark of cinema featuring one of the best performances in film history by Renée Jeanne Falconetti, The Passion of Joan of Arc is based on the actual trial record of the infamous Joan of Arc (1412-1431). It depicts her trial, imprisonment, torture, and execution by the English after refusing to recant her belief that’s she is on a mission from God to drive England out of France. Some believe she’s a saint while others, well, you know. Hailed as a masterpiece even immediately after its release, it’s just an impressive today and is one to certainly see on the big screen with a live band.
From the Vamps and Virgins series text…The Passion of Joan of Arc has Maria Falconetti acting without makeup or artifice; as “Joan” she is a defiant fortress of will. Such a terrible and tearful portrait of uncompromising virgin purity driven into martyrdom is a subject rarely experienced in contemporary cinema.
The Passion of Joan of Arc is part of Nitehawk Cinema’s Vamps and Virgins series that explores the two sides of the leading lady spectrum in silent film.
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Toni Collette, Christian Bale, Eddie Izzard, Emily Woof
Todd Hayne’s Velvet Goldmine centers around the over-the-top career and faux-murder-fall of 1970s glam rock star Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Myers) as told through the 1984 journalist investigation by Arthur (Christian Bale). Post-Beatles, pre-punk, and loosely based on Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Slade is the bisexual icon of London glam rock responsible for the shocking behavior and style of glam masses…and he’s had enough of himself. After faking his own death on stage, Slade slides into obscurity only to be rediscovered when Arthur revisits his influence. The film interweaves the characters past-and-present in a non-linear style, reflecting various aspects of Slade’s career and personal life. It goes without saying that Velvet Goldmine is highly stylised with a killer soundtrack.
Possessed with sex! Bad Girls Go to Hell is the quintessential 1960s naughty by the queen of sexploitation films and John Waters’ favorite, Doris Wishman.
Are you a bad girl? Do you like bad girls? Do you know they go to hell?! Doris Wishman paved the way, along with contemporaries like Russ Meyer (Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!), to show very dirty and very violent things up on the big screen – and always with a woman in charge! In Bad Girls Go to Hell we see the rise and fall of Ellen who, after killing the man who rapes her (her building’s janitor no less), goes out on the road to escape her past…only to find herself in more sexed up situations in which she is taken advance of and manipulated. Her body may be up for grabs but will her new identity be compromised? An empowering feminist flick of the sexiest and campy sort, Bad Girls Go to Hell is amongst the cannon of sexploitation films and it’s our June NITEHAWK NAUGHTY!
Nitehawk’s July Country Brunchin’ presents the The Long Riders with a live pre-show serenade by The Newton Gang!
Frank and Jesse James are wanted men! Like many Westerns, The Long Riders blurs the line between the “good’ and “bad” guys as director Walter Hill (The Warriors) violently depicts the exploits of hero Jesse James and his gang. Set in the years after the Civil War, the infamous outlaw Jesse James and his band of brothers terrorize the American Midwest by robbing banks, murdering, and causing general chaos wherever they go. But with a detective hot on their trail and a heist-gone-wrong, revenge reaches its gory end. It’s a film about brothers, starring brothers (Carradine brothers, Quaid brothers, and Keach brothers). Beautifully imagined and including one of the best shootouts in the western genre, The Long Riders is Country Brunchin’ classic!
The Newton Gang: Outlaw country, tried and true. From their humble beginnings as part of the Honky Tonk Happy Hour to their current role as Brooklyn’s most prolific outlaw country band, The Newton Gang has come into their own.
Starring: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Chris Thomas King
Set in the depression-era deep south and loosely based on Homer’s The Odyssey, O’Brother Where Art Thou? (written, directed, and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen!) is an intelligent comedy about one man’s journey to becoming “bona fide”. Starring George Clooney as the cunning Ulysses Everett McGill and his two convict cohorts Peter (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson), the three escape the chain gang to locate the 1.2 million dollars Everett knows is waiting for him. Along the way they encounter the soothsayer, the sirens, and the devil as well as a cyclops, George “Baby Face” Nelson, and the KKK. The trio even cuts a hit record as the “Soggy Bottom Boys” on their way to the treasure they seek…and the treasure they find.
Starring: Bruce Campbell, Embeth Davidtz, Marcus Gilbert, Ian Abercrombie
Part of our recipe book series NITEHAWK CINEMA PRESENTS. Show your ticket at the bar after the movie to buy a copy of the book for only $20!
At the end of Evil Dead 2 we saw our beloved Ash (sans hand but still alive) get sucked into a swirling time-travel vortex that landed him and his Oldsmobile all the way back in 1300 AD. Army of Darkness picks up from this point as Ash becomes a slave-then-hero to the medieval masses as he and his “boomstick” have to, once again, battle the dead. The Necronomicon is back too as the tome that has the power to send Ash back home but it also continues to do what it does best: unearth those pesky dead.
Hilarious, gory, and full of comic book-style special effects and brilliant one-liners, Army of Darkness is one of the true delights in horror. Hail to the King!
The daring new movie from the director of Blue Valentine, THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES is a sweeping emotional drama powerfully exploring the unbreakable bond between fathers and sons.
Luke (Ryan Gosling) is a high-wire motorcycle stunt performer who travels with the carnival from town to town. While passing through Schenectady in upstate New York, he tries to reconnect with a former lover, Romina (Eva Mendes), only to learn that she has given birth to their son Jason in his absence. Luke decides to give up life on the road to try and provide for his newfound family by taking a job as a car mechanic. Noticing Luke’s ambition and talents, his employer Robin (Ben Mendelsohn) proposes to partner with Luke in a string of spectacular bank robberies – which will place Luke on the radar of ambitious rookie cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper).
Avery, who has to navigate a local police department ruled by the menacing and corrupt detective Deluca (Ray Liotta), is also struggling to balance his professional life with his family life, which includes his wife Jennifer (Rose Byrne) and their infant son AJ. The consequences of Avery’s confrontation with Luke will reverberate into the next generation.
Peter Jackson’s second feature film brings all the disgusting gooey gore effects from his debut Bad Taste into this tale of a New Zealand community dealing with, what else, zombies!
A budding love affair between a nerdy momma’s boy, Lionel Cosgrove, and sweet Paquita gets complicated in this gory Dead Alive tale. As if dealing with Lionel’s meddling mother on their first date at the local zoo wasn’t enough, they really have to deal with her after her bite from a “Sumatran Rat Monkey” turns her into a vile flesh-eating walking dead! Cue many scenes of blood, ooze, projectile spewing, lawnmover-chopping, zombie babies, and fighting priest (who kicks ass for the lord) and Dead Alive delivers on Jackson’s promise to truly gross us out…and entertain us. Don’t miss this midnite grossfest to find out if Lionel saves his lady and his town!
Room 237 is a subjective documentary that explores the numerous theories about the hidden meanings within Stanley Kubrick’s film The Shining (1980).
If Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) taught us one thing, it was not to go into Room 237. But yet, here we are, entering into a portal of conspiracy theories, intense scrutinization, and the supposed hidden meanings embedded within the horror masterpiece through the eyes of uber fans. Consider IFC’s Room 237 as a code to unlocking all the mysteries you considered along with all the things you never even noticed in The Shining and other Kubrick films. Through voice overs, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments, five obsessive film fans take us on an elaborate journey through the Outlook Hotel where we discover there is, indeed, no way out.
