Nitehawk’s November Country Brunchin’ presents Navajo Joe featuring a live pre-show serenade by Lil’ Mo and the Monicats.

It’s becoming obvious that we love a little Burt Reynolds with our Country Brunchin. Mr. Reynolds has danced with prostitutes and had a nightmare of a vacation, but it’s his turn as a vengeful Navajo Indian in Sergio Corbucci’s spaghetti western, Navajo Joe, that really gets our ponies racing. After an outlaw heads up a bloody massacre of an Indian village, the sole survivor (Navajo Joe) steals a train full of money, makes bargains for killing, and has a shootout in an Indian cemetery to get revenge on his wife’s death. It’s beautiful, it’s violent, it’s the perfect Country Brunchin. Also, the soundtrack may sound familiar to those familiar with Tarantino’s Kill Bill, another find-them-and-kill-them revenge adventure.

Lil’ Mo and the Monicats: There may be bands like Monica Passin’s long-thriving rockabilly outfit in a lot of cities, but hers, popular in NYC in various configurations for about two decades, has the benefit of her fetching, time-warp creating vocals—good for lilting jive, Buddy Holly-like original ‘billy ballads, and blues, too—This latest [album, Whole Lotta Lovin’] features that typical Li’l Mo mix, and reminds us that when there was still a lot of straight country boogie in rock ‘n’ roll, the vocal demands and results were often considerable.  And they still are, here.  – Barry Mazor, Engine 145.

OPENING FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. A 20-something supervising staff member of a foster care facility navigates the troubled waters of that world alongside her co-worker and longtime boyfriend.

The story is told through the eyes of Grace, a twenty- something supervisor at a foster-care facility for at-risk teenagers. Passionate and tough, Grace is a formidable caretaker of the kids in her charge – and in love with her long-term boyfriend and co-worker, Mason. But Grace’s own difficultpast – and the surprising future that suddenly presents itself – throw her into unforeseen confusion, made all the sharper with the arrival of a new intake at the facility – Jayden, a gifted but troubled teenage girl with whom Grace has a charged connection. She and Mason also struggle to help Marcus – an intense, quiet kid who is about to turn 18 – manage through the difficulty of having to leave the facility. Grace comes to find – in both her work and the new teenager in her care – surprising sources of redemption. And while the subject matter is complex and often dark, this lovingly realized film finds truth – and humor – in unexpected places.

A story about greed, politics and the land grab of the century, ZIPPER chronicles the battle over an American cultural icon. Q&A with Director Amy Nicholson and guest receive one complimentary Coney Island beer!

Small-time ride operator Eddie Miranda proudly operates a carnival contraption called the Zipper in the heart of Coney Island’s gritty amusement district. When his rented lot is snatched up by a real estate mogul, Eddie and his ride become casualties of a power struggle between the developer and the City of New York over the future of the world-famous destination. Be it an affront to history or simply the path of progress, the spirit of Coney Island is at stake. In an increasingly corporate landscape, where authenticity is often sacrificed for economic growth, the Zipper may be just the beginning of what is lost.

Nitehawk’s ART SEEN series presents a special one-night screening of the acclaimed documentary Cutie and the Boxer with director Zachary Heinzerling in person for a Q&A.

A reflection on love, sacrifice, and the creative spirit, Cutie and the Boxer is a candid New York tale that explores the chaotic forty year marriage of famed boxing painter Ushio Shinohara and artist Noriko Shinohara. 

Once a rising star in the ‘70s New York art scene, 80-year-old “boxing” painter Ushio Shinohara hopes to reinvigorate his career as he preps for his latest show. His wife, and de facto assistant, Noriko, seeks her own recognition through her “Cutie” illustrations, which depict their chaotic, yet sustained, 40-year marriage. Heinzerling’s camera captures the Brooklyn-based couple at home and at work, combining candid vérité scenes, archival footage and charming animated sequences of Noriko’s drawings. Cutie and the Boxer captures two lives united by a dedication to art-making for a touching meditation on the eternal themes of love and sacrifice.

Cutie and the Boxer is a part of Nitehawk’s ART SEEN and LOCAL COLOR signature series.

NITEHAWK CINEMA presents…A NITE TO DISMEMBER!
A celebration of Halloween with an overnight horror film fest!

A Nite to Dismember is Nitehawk’s first overnight screening event celebrating a genre near-and-dear to our hearts…HORROR! Join us and our hosts SAM ZIMMERMAN from Fangoria and Nitehawk’s own KRIS KING on Halloween night (10pm until 8am) as we show five horror cinema classics that each touch upon well-loved themes: the werewolf, the witch, the vampire, the slasher, and the zombie.

Between each movie will be creepy montages, costume contests and horror movie trivia (with prizes by such awesome people as Shout Factory), the short film Jack Attack by Bryan Norton and Antonio Padoran, along with other grindhouse throwbacks.

Plus, our bar will be open really late and will feature cocktails like THERE WILL BE BLOOD and GORILLA CARNAGE. AND you get free popcorn, coffee, and self-serve breakfast (scrambled eggs and bacon) in the morning!

Forget trick-or-treating, spend the nite with us!

FILMS (in order of screening)…
American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981). DCP.
A backpacking trip through England gets hairy when one friend gets killed by a werewolf while the other turns into one. With amazing special effects and slight comedic undertones, this is John Landis’ at his horror best. Beware the moors!

Burn Witch Burn (Sidney Hayers, 1962). 35mm.
A college professor’s wife dabblings into magic and witchcraft are enacted to protect him from his intellectual colleagues. He doesn’t believe it at first but then the devil becomes all too real in this underrated 1960s horror film.

Fright Night (Tom Holland, 1985). DCP.
A vampire moves into a suburban neighborhood and the only people who notice are the kids next door (and those he’s killing). Fright Night is a late-night movie adventure that has heart…and Chris Sarandon’s dad sweater.

The Burning (Tony Maylam, 1981). 35mm.
Ah, the camp slasher movie is always a delight. Featuring “Cropsy” and a bunch of “before they were star actors” like Helen Hunt, Jason Alexander, and Fisher Stevens (with a script written by Harvey Weinstein), The Burning has all the boobs and blood you could want.

Dawn of the Dead (George Romero, 1978). Digital.
The quintessential horror film on capitalism and patriarchy (our own zombie existence). Four people flee the ongoing zombie outbreak into a shopping mall center where things are fine at first but, as Romero always give us, people are the ones who should be feared the most.

Thanks to our sponsor, Gorilla Coffee…

Life is a journey you never have to take alone especially when undergoing a 12-step treatment for sex addiction.

On the surface Adam (Mark Ruffalo), an over-achieving environmental consultant, Mike (Tim Robbins), a long-married small-business owner, and Neil (Josh Gad), a wisecracking emergency-room doctor, have little in common. But all are in different stages of dealing with addiction. Confident and successful in his career, Adam is afraid to allow love back into his life, even if that means losing a chance to start over with smart, beautiful and accomplished Phoebe (Gwyneth Paltrow); Mike’s efforts to control his wife, Katie (Joely Richardson), and son, Danny (Patrick Fugit), as tightly as he does his impulses are tearing the family apart; and Neil is still deeply in denial when befriended by Dede (Alecia Moore), who has just begun to take her own small steps back to health. As they navigate the rocky shores of recovery, Adam, Mike and Neil become a family that encourages, infuriates and applauds each other on the journey toward a new life.

PASSION PLAYS FOR TWO MIDNITES AT NITEHAWK! A young businesswoman plots a murderous revenge after her boss and mentor steals her idea. Brian De Palma returns to the sleek, sly, seductive territory of Dressed To Kill with an erotic corporate thriller fueled by sex, ambition, image, envy and the dark, murderous side of PASSION.  The film stars Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapaceas two rising female executives in a multinational corporation whose fierce competition to rise up the ranks is about to turn literally cut-throat. As the maze-like story begins, Christine (McAdams) – a gorgeous, powerful executive at an international ad agency in Berlin — is searching for a killer idea to impress her bosses, helped by her clever but naïve protégé Isabelle (Rapace).  Isabelle admires Christine’s polish and devotion to her work and Christine feeds on Isabelle’s admiration. But when Isabelle comes up with a brilliant viral marketing idea that wows the client, it is Christine who gleefully takes the credit. Thus begins what starts out as typical office back-stabbing – or “just business,” as Christine explains it — yet soon turns into something ferocious and primal. 

An unprecedented look inside the private world of J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye.

SALINGER features interviews with 150 subjects including Salinger’s friends and colleagues who have never spoken on the record before as well as film footage, photographs and other material that has never been seen. Additionally, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton, John Cusack, Danny DeVito, John Guare, Martin Sheen, David Milch, Robert Towne, Tom Wolfe, E.L. Doctorow, Gore Vidal and Pulitzer Prize winners A. Scott Berg and Elizabeth Frank talk about Salinger’s influence on their lives, their work and the broader culture. The film is the first work to get beyond the Catcher in the Rye author’s meticulously built up wall: his childhood, painstaking work methods, marriages, private world and the secrets he left behind after his death in 2010.

For more than fifty years, the ever elusive author of The Catcher in the Rye has been the subject of a relentless stream of newspaper and magazine articles as well as several biographies. Yet all of these attempts have been hampered by a fundamental lack of access and by the persistent recycling of inaccurate information. Salinger remains, astonishingly, an enigma. The complex and contradictory human being behind the myth has never been revealed.

Join Director Bill Cody and Black Lips band members (Jared Swilley, Ian Saint Pé, Joe Bradley, Cole Alexander,Ben Eberbaugh, Jack Hines, Richie Hayes) for a special screening of Kids Like You and Me: A Middle East Tour Film at Nitehawk!

In 2009, The Black Lips started investigating the possibility of a bridge building tour of the Middle East with stops throughout the region. After two years of planning, several uprisings, a civil war the tour finally came to fruition in the fall of 2012. It wasn’t easy either. Promoters in Jordan and Alexandria, Egypt backed out at the last minute because the band had played shows in Israel and a show in Erbil, Iraq had to be changed when an explicit video of the band was viewed by a government official. It all worked out in the end though and the shows in Alexandria and Erbil turned out to be highlights of the tour.

Kids Like You and Me: A Middle East Tour Film documents this journey through one of the most exciting regions in the world including three groundbreaking stops in Egypt. (The last known American rock band to play Egypt being The Grateful Dead in 1978!) Get on the bus with The Black Lips and their good friends, Lebanese indie rockers, Lazzy Lung. See the people of the Middle East the way they really are. Shopkeepers and restaurant owners. Skaters, graffiti artists and musicians. Revolutionaries and dreamers. Kids like you and me. You’ll never look at the Middle East the same way after seeing this film.

Starring: Edward Furlong, Christina Ricci, Mary Kay Place, Martha Plimpton. Brendan Sexton III

A young Baltimore teen’s hometown photography become the temporary toast of the New York art world!

Pecker is a young man who’s artistically driven to photograph his very strange family (his sister Crissy who compulsively eats sugar, his nutty grandmother with the talking Madonna), his buxom girlfriend, and local colorful Baltimore community. All act as willing muses but when he’s discovered by an art dealer and receives adulation from the upper-echelon of the New York art scene, he’s torn between achieving success as a photographer and exploiting those closest to him. In typical John Waters’ style, Pecker is over-the-top, raunchy, hilarious and full of colorful characters but nothing just shock value, there’s legitimate commentary at play about the fickleness and ridiculousness of the art world. Oh, and Pecker is named after the way he eats…why, what were you thinking?