this week in film and television

WAVERLY MIDNIGHTS — LONE STAR CINEMA: TEXAS ON SCREEN — THE WILD BUNCH

Ben Johnson, Warren Oates, William Holden, and Ernest Borgnine play friends to the bloody end in THE WILD BUNCH

THE WILD BUNCH (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
August 9-29
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

Sam Peckinpah cemented his reputation for graphic violence and eclectic storytelling with the genre-redefining 1969 Western The Wild Bunch. When a robbery goes seriously wrong, Pike Bishop (William Holden), Dutch Engstrom (Ernest Borgnine), Freddie Sykes (Edmond O’Brien), Angel (Jaime Sánchez), and brothers Lyle (Warren Oates) and Tector Gorth (Ben Johnson) set out to get even, planning an even bigger score by going after a U.S. Army weapons shipment on a railroad protected by detective Pat Harrigan (Albert Dekker) and his hired gun, Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), who is given nothing but “egg-suckin’, chicken-stealing gutter trash” to work with, including the hapless Coffer (Strother Martin) and T.C. (L. Q. Jones). The aging Pike, who sees this as his last score, is worried about being in cahoots with the unpredictable General Mapache (Emilio Fernández), a local warlord battling Pancho Villa’s freedom forces. But at the center of the film is the cat-and-mouse game between Pike and Thornton, the latter determined to capture his former partner, who left him to rot in jail years earlier. It all comes to a head in Agua Verde, which might translate to “Green Water” but will soon be bathed in red blood in one of the most violent shoot-outs ever depicted on celluloid. Peckinpah fills the film with plenty of drinking and whoring, and even torture, while exploring friendship and loyalty, embodied by Dutch’s selfless dedication to Pike. The Wild Bunch might be famous for its intense violence, much of it shot in slow motion, but it also has a lot more going for it, from its Oscar-nominated score by Jerry Fielding to its terrific cast and suspenseful twists and turns. (Western fans might get a kick out of knowing that Mapache’s right-hand man, Lt. Herrera, is portrayed by Mexican actor and director Alfonso Arau, who later played El Guapo in John Landis’s comic Western The Three Amigos.) The Wild Bunch is screening August 30-31 and September 1 as part of the IFC Center Waverly Midnights series “Lone Star Cinema: Texas On Screen,” which continues through October 26 with such other Texas-set movies as Reality Bites, Blood Simple, The Getaway, Bottle Rocket, and the original and still champion Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I HEART NEW YORK HORROR: FRANKENHOOKER

Things go slightly awry in Frank Henenlotter’s cult classic FRANKENHOOKER

FRANKENHOOKER (Frank Henenlotter, 1990)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
August 30-31, 12:20 am
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com
www.synapse-films.com

The Bride of Frankenstein meets Scanners, Weird Science, and Re-Animator in Frank Henenlotter’s over-the-top horror comedy Frankenhooker. When Elizabeth Shelley (August 1986 Penthouse Pet Patty Mullen) is done in by a runaway lawn mower during a family gathering, her geeky engineer fiancé, Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz channeling 1980s star Andrew McCarthy, who is now one of the directors of the Netflix hit Orange Is the New Black), decides that he has to put her back together again. But since much of her body has been torn to shreds, Jeffrey has to go out looking for compatible parts — and just might find them at a prostitution party with some rather explosive crack on hand. As Jeffrey works tirelessly trying to rebuild and perfect his fiancée, Zorro the Pimp (Joseph Gonzalez) is hot on his trail, wanting to know what has become of his ladies of the evening. Shot in New York by native citizen Henenlotter (Basket Case, Brain Damage), Frankenhooker is silly fun, even when it gets overly ridiculous, as it regularly does. But those bodies blowing up are a hoot, and the film features some rather strange cameos, including Shirley Stoler (Seven Beauties, The Honeymoon Killers) as Spike the bartender, Louise Lasser as Jeffrey’s mother, and Zacherle as the creepy weatherman. Ted Hope, who went on to form the production company Good Machine with James Schamus, presenting films by Ang Lee, Todd Solondz, Nicole Holofcener, Hal Hartley, and others, served as first assistant director, while the script was cowritten with former Fangoria editor Robert Martin. One of those films you hate yourself for watching but you just can’t look away from, Frankenhooker is screening August 30 & 31 at 12:20 am as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s midnight series “I Heart New York Horror.”

SON OF SUMMER SCI-FI, FANTASY & HORROR: DEMON SEED / ROSEMARY’S BABY

Julie Christie is trapped in a suburban nightmare in Donald Cammell’s DEMON SEED

DEMON SEED (Donald Cammell, 1977)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Friday, August 30, 1:00, 5:20, 9:40
Series runs through September 5
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Back at Film Forum for the first time in seventeen years, the “Son of Summer Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror” series continues on August 30 with an inspired double feature of movies dealing with alternative forms of motherhood. First up is Donald Cammell’s creepy, claustrophobic 1977 futuristic thriller Demon Seed. Based on the novel by Dean R. Koontz, the film stars a surprisingly game Julie Christie as Susan Harris, a frustrated housewife whose husband, Alex (Fritz Weaver), is the leader of a team that has built a master computer known as Proteus (voiced by Robert Vaughn). When Alex goes off for several months to further Proteus’s already impressive attributes, the supercomputer starts developing a mind of its own, locking Susan in the house and deciding she must give birth to its child. Cammell, who codirected Performance with Nicolas Roeg, fills Demon Seed with trippy, psychedelic visuals and cool technological flourishes, along with an electronic score by Ian Underwood and Lee Ritenour supplementing Jerry Fielding’s central musical themes. The film delves into suburban paranoia with Toffler-esque flare and an Orwellian fear of artificial intelligence. The film harkens back to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Joseph Sargent’s Colossus: The Forbin Project while also influencing such future films as John Badham’s WarGames, which also names its supercomputer “Joshua” and casts Weaver look-alike John Wood as computer creator Dr. Stephen Falken.

Mia Farrow is trapped in an urban nightmare in Roman Polanski’s ROSEMARY’S BABY

ROSEMARY’S BABY (Roman Polanski, 1968)
Friday, August 30, 2:50, 7:10
www.filmforum.org

Film Forum programmer Bruce Goldstein has paired Demon Seed with another gripping tale that offers a frightening look at mothering evil. Based on the novel by Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby is one of the greatest psychological horror films ever made. When Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) move into the fancy Upper West Side apartment complex the Bramford (the Dakota), ready to start a family, Rosemary slowly grows suspicious of Guy’s new friends, particularly the sweet old couple next door (Oscar winner Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer). The paranoid thriller is filled with truly scary scenes, both inside the apartment and on the streets of New York City. Like Demon Seed, it also includes a crazed conception scene and similar themes leading to their inevitable conclusions. While Rosemary’s Baby is by far the better film, with well-flushed-out characters and genuine scares that are not driven by technology but instead by inner (and outer) demons, it makes for a great double feature with Cammell’s truly whack Demon Seed. “Son of Summer Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror” continues through September 5 with such other double features as the 1958 and 1986 versions of The Fly, Quatermass and the Pit and Village of the Damned, It Came from Beneath the Sea and 20 Million Miles to Earth, and The Day the Earth Stood Still and War of the Worlds.

VICE PRESENTS THE FILM FOUNDATION SCREENING SERIES: THE RED SHOES

Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) contemplate their future in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s THE RED SHOES

THE RED SHOES (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1948)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave.
Tuesday, August 27, $16, 9:30
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes is a lush, gorgeous examination of the creative process and living — and dying — for one’s art. Sadler’s Wells dancer Moira Shearer stars as Victoria Page, a young socialite who dreams of becoming a successful ballerina. She is brought to the attention of ballet master Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and soon is a member of his famed company. Meanwhile, composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring), whose music was stolen by his professor and used in a Lermontov ballet, also joins the company, as chorus master. As Vicky and Julian’s roles grow, so does their affection for each other, with a jealous Lermontov seething in between. Inspired by Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, The Red Shoes is a masterful behind-the-scenes depiction of the world of dance, highlighted by the dazzlingly surreal title ballet, which mimics the narrative of the central plot. Based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, the fifteen-minute ballet takes viewers into a completely different fantasy realm, using such cinematic devices as jump cuts and superimposition as the drama unfolds well beyond the limits of the stage. To increase the believability of the story and make sure the dance scenes were effective, Powell and Pressburger enlisted players from the international dance community; the film’s cast includes Russian choreographer and dancer Léonide Massine as Lermontov choreographer Grischa Ljubov, French prima ballerina Ludmilla Tchérina as Lermontov star Irina Boronskaja, and Australian dancer Robert Helpmann as Ivan Boleslawsky; Helpmann also served as the film’s choreographer.

Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) gets immersed in a surreal ballet in classic dance drama THE RED SHOES

Brian Easdale won an Oscar for his score, which ranges from sweet and lovely to dark and ominous, with an Academy Award also going to Hein Heckroth’s stunning art direction and Arthur Lawson’s fabulous set design. The film was photographed in glorious Technicolor by Jack Cardiff. Upon meeting Vicky, Lermontov asks, “Why do you want to dance?” to which she instantly responds, “Why do you want to live?” No mere ballet film, The Red Shoes is about so much more. The Red Shoes is being shown August 27 at 9:30 as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s monthly Vice Presents: The Film Foundation Screening Series, which consists of works that have been restored and preserved by Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation; the series continues September 24 with Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, with all films including a prerecorded introduction by Scorsese and followed by an after-party with free Larceny Bourbon. In addition, a portion of the ticket sales goes to the Film Foundation.

THE ART OF THE SCORE: FILM WEEK AT THE PHILHARMONIC

There shouldn’t be much sleeping when the scores of films by Alfred Hitchcock (above, with composer Bernard Herrmann) and Stanley Kubrick take center stage at the Philharmonic

Avery Fisher Hall
10 Lincoln Square, Broadway at 64th St.
September 17-21, $45-$125
www.nyphil.org

Perhaps no two directors used music as effectively as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, the former employing original compositions to build unwavering suspense, the latter including famous classical pieces to immerse viewers in magical atmospheres. The New York Philharmonic will pay tribute to both men during “The Art of the Score: Film Week at the Philharmonic,” as the orchestra performs the scores while film clips are shown on the big screen at Avery Fisher Hall. Curated by artistic director Alec Baldwin, “The Art of the Score” begins September 17-18 with “Hitchcock!,” comprising music by Lyn Murray (To Catch a Thief), Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo, North by Northwest), Dimitri Tiomkin (Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder), and Charles Gounod (“Funeral March of a Marionette,” the theme from Alfred Hitchcock Presents), conducted by Constantine Kitsopoulos; the first night will be hosted by Baldwin, the second by Sam Waterston. The Philharmonic then focuses on Kubrick’s epic 2001: A Space Odyssey on September 20-21, consisting of works by György Ligeti (“Atmosphères,” “Lux aeterna,” “Aventures,” “Kyrie” from Requiem), Richard Strauss (“Also sprach Zarathustra”), and Johann Strauss II (“On the Beautiful Blue Danube”), conducted by Alan Gilbert and featuring the Musica Sacra Chorus, directed by Kent Tritle. The final event, “Mind, Music, and the Moving Image,” being held on September 21 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theatre, in which Baldwin speaks with filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, their regular composer, Carter Burwell, and neuroscientest Aniruddh D. Patel, has already sold out.

IGNORANCE

Susan Sarandon will discuss “The Path Itself” with the Gyalwang Drukpa as part of Rubin Museum series on “Ignorance”

Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
September 25 – December 27, $15 – $45 (Acoustic Cash $85, Cabaret Cinema free with $7 bar purchase)
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org

Last fall, the Rubin Museum examined the concept of happiness through specially introduced film screenings, live performances, and a series of talks pairing artists with scientific and philosophical experts. This fall the museum and its mad-genius programmer, Tim McHenry, tackle a different kind of bliss: ignorance. In 1742, British poet Thomas Gray concluded his “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” thusly: “Since sorrow never comes too late, / And happiness too swiftly flies. / Thought would destroy their paradise. / No more; where ignorance is bliss, / ’Tis folly to be wise.” More than two centuries earlier, Gautama Buddha explained in the Sutta Nipata that “it is ignorance that smothers, and it is carelessness that makes it invisible. The hunger of craving pollutes the world, and the pain of suffering causes the greatest fear.” The Rubin’s “Ignorance” series, which explores the idea that “what you don’t know could hurt you,” begins September 25 with artist Ernesto Pujol and cultural critic Carol Becker discussing “Ignorance and Ritual,” followed September 26 with lama the Gyalwang Drukpa and actress Susan Sarandon delving into “The Path Itself” and September 27 with psychologist Daniel Gilbert and cartoonist Tim Kreider investigating “Delusion.” Among the other highlights are writer Neil Gaiman and multimedia artist Laurie Anderson sitting down for “Fantasy and Fact,” director Mira Nair and anthropologist Christopher Pinney getting into “Allegory and Illusion,” and playwright Neil LaBute and actor Alec Baldwin rapping about “Ignorance in the Information Age.” Live music includes Holly Near on September 27, Rosanne Cash and Cory Chisel on October 18, and Toshi Reagon on November 8. The Friday-night film programs kicks off September 6 with drama critic John Heilpern introducing Kind Hearts and Coronets and continues with such other beauties as actor and photographer Joel Grey introducing Cabaret, comedian Rachel Dratch introducing Lord of the Flies, and multidisciplinary performance artist John Kelly introducing Shadow of a Doubt. Nineteenth-century British preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote, “The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is the knowledge of our own ignorance”; this Rubin series should throw that door wide open.

EXPO 1: NEW YORK

“ProBio” looks at the future with “dark optimism” at MoMA PS 1 (photo by Matthew Septimus)

MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46th Ave.
Thursday – Monday through September 2, suggested admission $10 (free with paid MoMA ticket within fourteen days), 12 noon – 6:00
718-784-2084
www.momaps1.org

The presentation of MoMA PS1’s summer exhibition, “Expo 1: New York,” smartly echoes how climate change, technology, and evolution have impacted the progression and devastation of the natural world in the twenty-first century. The show began in May with a series of modules in various locations, with some of those individual parts, including “Rain Room” at MoMA, Olafur Eliasson’s Icelandic glacier installation “Your waste of time” at PS1, Adrián Villar Rojas’s “La inocencia de los animales (The innocence of animals)” PS 1 lecture hall, and the VW Dome on Rockaway Beach, now having gone extinct, disappearing like the melting ice caps. But the show, which promotes Triple Canopy’s concept of a “dark optimism” for the future of humanity and the planet, still has several worthwhile displays at its primary hub at PS 1, examining its mission statement that “we live in a time that is marked by both the seeming end of the world and its beginning, being on the brink of apocalypse but also at the onset of unprecedented technological transformation.” Curators Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist reach back fifteen years for Meg Webster’s “Pool,” which PS 1 founder Alanna Heiss originally commissioned in 1998, a swampy water environment that could not exist without the coming together of natural materials and man-made electronic elements. Downstairs in the basement, the Cinema is offering up recent film, video games, and online content from the YouTube generation; the upcoming schedule includes the video games “Journey” and “Proteus,” Sterling Ruby’s Transient Trilogy, Althea Thauberger’s Northern, and Khavn de la Cruz’s Kalakala and Mondomanila or: How I Fixed My Hair After a Rather Long Journey, with the director on hand to discuss his work (and provide live piano accompaniment for the former). Organized by Josh Kline, “ProBio” takes a futuristic look at the intersection of technology and the human body, with intriguing cutting-edge works by such artists as Alisa Baremboym, Antoine Catala, Carissa Rodriguez, and Georgia Sagri; watch out for those Roomba-like robots scouring the floor. One offsite project still remains, Marie Lorenz’s “The Tide and Current Taxi,” which visitors can hail in New York harbor. As always at MoMA PS 1, the many rooms hold little surprises, so be sure to explore so you can also catch pieces by Charles Ray, Matthew Barney, Zoe Leonard, Steve McQueen, Mark Dion, Chris Burden, Pierre Huyghe, Agnes Denes, Ugo Rondinone, and others. And for the final week of “Expo 1,” a77’s communal courtyard installation “Colony” is taken over by Glenn O’Brien, who will be hosting “TV Party Goes to Camp.”