Clearview Cinemas Chelsea
260 West 23rd St. at Eighth Ave.
Thursday, September 8, $7.50, 7:00 & 9:30
212-691-5519
www.clearviewcinemas.com
www.greasemovie.com
Each of us at one time or another has suddenly found ourselves belting out a song from Grease for no apparent reason. Well, you can do that and more at Thursday night’s Grease Sing-a-long at Clearview Cinemas Chelsea, where fans will be showing up in costume to join in on such unforgettable classics as “Summer Nights,” “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” “Greased Lightning,” and “You’re the One That I Want.” Based on the 1971 Broadway musical, Grease stars John Travolta as tough-guy Danny Zuko, who falls for the prim and proper Sandy Olsson, played by Australian superstar Olivia Newton-John. The cast also includes the late Jeff Conaway as Kenickie, Stockard Channing as Rizzo, Didi Conn as Frenchy, Dinah Manoff as Marty Maraschino, Kelly Ward as Putzie, Michael Tucci as Sonny, and Barry Pearl as, yes, Doody. Director Randal Kleiser also throws in some great cameos by such legendary 1950s icons as Eve Arden, Frankie Avalon, Sid Caesar, Dody Goodman, Joan Blondell, and Edd “Cookie” Byrnes, with Sha-Na-Na as prom band Johnny Casino and the Gamblers. Believe it or not, the film is not quite as white bread as you might think, with plenty of clever and dirty double entendres. It’s been said that you can learn a lot about yourself based on which character you choose to dress up as for the costume contest; we wouldn’t dream of telling you who we’re going as.
On the verge of being forced out of the company he has dedicated his life to, National Shoes executive Kingo Gondo’s (Toshirō Mifune) life is thrown into further disarray when kidnappers claim to have taken his son, Jun (Toshio Egi), and are demanding a huge ransom for his safe return. But when Gondo discovers that they have mistakenly grabbed Shinichi (Masahiko Shimazu), the son of his chauffeur, Aoki (Yutaka Sada), he at first refuses to pay. But at the insistence of his wife (Kyogo Kagawa), the begging of Aoki, and the advice of police inspector Taguchi (Kenjiro Ishiyama), he reconsiders his decision, setting in motion a riveting police procedural that is filled with tense emotion. Loosely based on Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novel King’s Ransom, High and Low is divided into two primary sections: the first half takes place in Gondo’s luxury home, orchestrated like a stage play as the characters are developed and the plan takes hold. The second part of the film follows the police, under the leadership of Chief Detective Tokura (Tatsuya Nakadai), as they hit the streets of the seedier side of Yokohama in search of the kidnappers. Known in Japan as Tengoku to Jigoku, which translates as Heaven and Hell, High and Low is an expert noir, a subtle masterpiece that tackles numerous socioeconomic and cultural issues as Gondo weighs the fate of his business against the fate of a small child; it all manages to feel as fresh and relevant today as it probably did back in the ’60s.
When a pair of disaffected Parisians, Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and Franz (Sami Frey), meet an adorable young woman, Odile (Anna Karina), in English class, they decide to team up and steal a ton of money from a man living in Odile’s aunt’s house. As they meander through the streets of cinematographer Raoul Coutard’s black-and-white Paris, they talk about English and wealth, dance in a cafe while director Jean-Luc Godard breaks in with voice-over narration about their character, run through the Louvre in record time, and pause for a near-moment of pure silence. Godard throws in plenty of commentary on politics, the cinema, and the bourgeoisie in the midst of some genuinely funny scenes. Band of Outsiders is no ordinary heist movie; based on Dolores Hitchens’s novel Fool’s Gold, it is the story of three offbeat individuals who just happen to decide to attempt a robbery while living their strange existence, as if they were outside from the rest of the world. The trio of ne’er-do-wells might remind Jim Jarmusch fans of the main threesome from Stranger Than Paradise (1984), except Godard’s characters are more aggressively persistent. One of Godard’s most accessible films, Band of Outsiders will be playing a one-week engagement at Film Forum September 7-13, with no screenings on September 11.
