Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Metrograph
“Queer ’90s” continues with the likes of Basic Instinct, The Crying Game, and Priscilla.
Films from George Cukor and Azazel Jacobs can be seen on Friday.
The Disney documentary Oceans plays this Saturday; Allan Dwan’s The Inside Story screens this Sunday.
Anthology Film Archives
A series on voyeurism and surveillance brings Citizenfour, Haroun Farocki’s Prison Images,...
Metrograph
“Queer ’90s” continues with the likes of Basic Instinct, The Crying Game, and Priscilla.
Films from George Cukor and Azazel Jacobs can be seen on Friday.
The Disney documentary Oceans plays this Saturday; Allan Dwan’s The Inside Story screens this Sunday.
Anthology Film Archives
A series on voyeurism and surveillance brings Citizenfour, Haroun Farocki’s Prison Images,...
- 10/14/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
I’ve spoken to many accomplished artists, but there are perhaps none who bear the same extent of experience as Kirsten Johnson. Don’t worry if the name doesn’t ring any bells: she’s built her repertoire as a documentary cinematographer by working with and for the likes of Michael Moore, Laura Poitras, and Jacques Derrida, and the things she’s seen have been funneled into Cameraperson, a travelogue-of-sorts through Johnson’s subconscious.
Her time as an interviewer, or at least a companion to interviews, came through when we sat down together at Criterion’s offices in New York last month. Never have I been more directly forced to think about my work than when she turned the tables on me — all of which started with some complementary danishes left for us in the room. It’s a level of engagement that befits one of this year’s greatest films,...
Her time as an interviewer, or at least a companion to interviews, came through when we sat down together at Criterion’s offices in New York last month. Never have I been more directly forced to think about my work than when she turned the tables on me — all of which started with some complementary danishes left for us in the room. It’s a level of engagement that befits one of this year’s greatest films,...
- 9/8/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
"'I am not a filmmaker, I am a filmer,' said legendary Lithuanian-American filmmaker Jonas Mekas during his address to the audience at L’atra Sala, one of the smaller, more alternative venues of the 69th Festival del Film Locarno," writes Ela Bittencourt in a dispatch to frieze. "Mekas was introducing Walden/tag> (1969), an intimate portrait in 16mm of his beloved New York, and his friends’ comings and goings. Mekas, who is also the subject of I Had Nowhere To Go/tag> (2016), a meandering retelling of wartime experience and emigration by artist Douglas Gordon, which premiered this year in Locarno’s Signs of Life section, challenged the audience to envision cinema as willfully amorphous: fresh, intimate, visually incestuous." We're collecting reviews. » - David Hudson...
- 8/12/2016
- Keyframe
"'I am not a filmmaker, I am a filmer,' said legendary Lithuanian-American filmmaker Jonas Mekas during his address to the audience at L’atra Sala, one of the smaller, more alternative venues of the 69th Festival del Film Locarno," writes Ela Bittencourt in a dispatch to frieze. "Mekas was introducing Walden/tag> (1969), an intimate portrait in 16mm of his beloved New York, and his friends’ comings and goings. Mekas, who is also the subject of I Had Nowhere To Go/tag> (2016), a meandering retelling of wartime experience and emigration by artist Douglas Gordon, which premiered this year in Locarno’s Signs of Life section, challenged the audience to envision cinema as willfully amorphous: fresh, intimate, visually incestuous." We're collecting reviews. » - David Hudson...
- 8/12/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
In the 98 minutes of “I Had Nowhere to Go: Portrait of a Displaced Person,” there are about 10 minutes of visuals. The rest of the experience takes place on a black screen as accompanying audio tracks doing the legwork. It’s a bold gamble by director and veteran artist Douglas Gordon that doesn’t always pay off, but a big part of the experience stems from the ever-engaging storytelling at its center. Narrated by legendary avant-garde film diarist Jonas Mekas, now 93 and livelier than ever as he recollects his wartime experiences, “I Had Nowhere to Go” attempts to capture the journeys of a man known for capturing images through their absence. Though not always the sum of its compelling ingredients, “I Had Nowhere to Go” applies an appropriate degree of cinematic innovation to one of the medium’s greatest advocates.
See MoreAvant-Garde Legend Jonas Mekas Offers Filmmaking Advice in New Book...
See MoreAvant-Garde Legend Jonas Mekas Offers Filmmaking Advice in New Book...
- 8/5/2016
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
For the fifth year, IndieWire is co-hosting the Locarno Critics Academy, giving a group of talented up-and-coming critics a chance to help their role in the current climate for film criticism and journalism at the Locarno International Film Festival. With assistance from Penske Media, the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, participants will engage in a series of activities and then get to work. They will spend the first half of the festival which begins today, in roundtable discussions with working critics and industry figures; beginning next week, they’ll write about films at this year’s festival, as well as topics ranging from television to digital media.
Before then, take a minute to get to know them, and find out what they’re looking forward to checking out. Keep up with their dispatches from this year’s festival here and follow them on Twitter.
Before then, take a minute to get to know them, and find out what they’re looking forward to checking out. Keep up with their dispatches from this year’s festival here and follow them on Twitter.
- 8/3/2016
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
If you're weary of the onslaught of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," and need something a bit more nourishing for your cinematic brain, today we have a special treat for readers, just in time for the holiday season. Earlier this month, Kino Lorber issued "Walden/Lost Lost Lost" on Blu-ray, pulling together two films from director Jonas Mekas, from 1969 and 1976 respectively, that each run nearly three hours long, and provide early examples of the filmmaker's marriage of diary, document, and narrative. It's crucial viewing for anyone interested in his work, and now that it's arrived in pristine high-def, it can't be missed. Here's the synopsis for the set. Read More: 5 Reasons To Check Out The Criterion Collection's 'Maidstone And Other Films By Norman Mailer' Walden (1969), Mekas' first completed diary film, is an epic portrait of the New York avant-garde arts scene of the 1960s, featuring many of Mekas'friends of that period,...
- 12/21/2015
- by Edward Davis
- The Playlist
Just before the start of reel 5 of Lost Lost Lost, Jonas Mekas‘ memoiric rumination on the memorial tolls of immigrant exile, he explains in simple terms his artistic propulsion – “It’s my nature now to record. To try to keep everything I’m passing. To keep, at least, bits of it. I have lost too much. So now, I have these bits that I have passed through.” Having escaped the clutches of the world war encroaching upon his mother country of Lithuania in 1944 only to have been stopped midway through Germany and imprisoned in a labor camp with his brother, Adolfas, until their eventual escape months later, one can only image how deeply ingrained this sentiment truly is for the filmmaker. Having endured so much in this brief period before he and his brother emigrated to America in 1949, it is a wonder that his art, and particularly the avant-garde diary...
- 12/1/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Get your beret and warm up the espresso! Some of the most famous deep-dish art film is here -- in HD -- starting with attempts to translate various art 'isms' to the screen, to graphics-oriented abstractions, to 'city symphonies' to the dream visions of Maya Deren and beyond. The careful remasters reproduce proper projection speeds and original music. Masterworks of American Avant-Garde Experimental Film 1920-1970 Blu-ray + DVD Flicker Alley 1920-1970 / B&W and Color / 1:33 full frame / 418 min. / Street Date October 6, 2015 / 59.95 With films by James Agee, Kenneth Anger, Bruce Baillie, Stan Brakhage, James Broughton, Rudolph Burckhardt, Mary Ellen Bute, Joseph Cornell, Jim Davis, Maya Deren, Marcel Duchamp, Emien Etting, Oksar Fischinger, Robert Florey, Amy Greenfield, A. Hackenschmied, Alexander Hammid, Hillary Harris, Hy Hirsh, Ian Hugo, Lawrence Janiac, Lawrence Jordan, Owen Land, Francis Lee, Fernand Léger, Helen Levitt, Jan Leyda, Janice Loeb, Jonas Mekas, Marie Menken, Dudley Murphy, Ted Nemeth, Bernard O'Brien,...
- 10/6/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Paul Harrill’s Something, Anything, which co-premiered recently at the Wisconsin Film Festival and the Sarasota Film Festival, is a portrait of a young woman in crisis. Peggy [Ashley Shelton] has already achieved her “stereotypically Southern” (as she’s described in the press kit) ambitions: a successful career in realty, a husband, a house in the suburbs, and a baby on the way. In the opening moments of the film, however, she’s forced to confront her dissatisfaction with it all. A family tragedy sends Peggy on a sojourn that leads her to the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky and, eventually, to a simpler life in a small apartment overlooking the Tennessee River.
Harrill first gained recognition in 2001 when his short film, Gina, An Actress, Age 29, won the top prize at Sundance and enjoyed an impressive run of screenings at international festivals. Starring Amy Hubbard and Frankie Faison (Burrell from The Wire...
Harrill first gained recognition in 2001 when his short film, Gina, An Actress, Age 29, won the top prize at Sundance and enjoyed an impressive run of screenings at international festivals. Starring Amy Hubbard and Frankie Faison (Burrell from The Wire...
- 4/14/2014
- by Darren Hughes
- MUBI
Jonas Mekas, 'the godfather of avant-garde cinema', talks to Sean O'Hagan about working with Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali and Jackie Kennedy
Jonas Mekas, who will be 90 on Christmas Eve, has an intense memory of sitting on his father's bed, aged six, singing a strange little song about daily life in the village in which he grew up in Lithuania.
"It was late in the evening and suddenly I was recounting everything I had seen on the farm that day. It was a very simple, very realistic recitation of small, everyday events. Nothing was invented. I remember the reception from my mother and father, which was very good. But I also remember the feeling of intensity I experienced just from describing the actual details of what my father did every day. I have been trying to find that intensity in my work ever since."
We are sitting at a table in...
Jonas Mekas, who will be 90 on Christmas Eve, has an intense memory of sitting on his father's bed, aged six, singing a strange little song about daily life in the village in which he grew up in Lithuania.
"It was late in the evening and suddenly I was recounting everything I had seen on the farm that day. It was a very simple, very realistic recitation of small, everyday events. Nothing was invented. I remember the reception from my mother and father, which was very good. But I also remember the feeling of intensity I experienced just from describing the actual details of what my father did every day. I have been trying to find that intensity in my work ever since."
We are sitting at a table in...
- 12/2/2012
- by Sean O'Hagan
- The Guardian - Film News
Following rampant Internet speculation, Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film has received official confirmation and lots more detailed information regarding the films of Jonas Mekas that will be released on DVD in 2012.
Mekas’ films will indeed be released by a trio of Paris-based organizations — fashion icon agnes b., DVD distributor Potemkine and avant-garde film distributor Re:Voir — and are scheduled to come out in November. A box set collection, pictured above, will only contain a selection of Mekas films: Lost, Lost, Lost; The Brig; Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania; Walden; As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty; and a DVD of Mekas’ shorter films.
However, the DVDs will also be sold separately and several other films will also be made available through Re:Voir, including Guns of the Trees, Mekas’ first film.
Most exciting, though, is that all the DVDs will be released as Region...
Mekas’ films will indeed be released by a trio of Paris-based organizations — fashion icon agnes b., DVD distributor Potemkine and avant-garde film distributor Re:Voir — and are scheduled to come out in November. A box set collection, pictured above, will only contain a selection of Mekas films: Lost, Lost, Lost; The Brig; Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania; Walden; As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty; and a DVD of Mekas’ shorter films.
However, the DVDs will also be sold separately and several other films will also be made available through Re:Voir, including Guns of the Trees, Mekas’ first film.
Most exciting, though, is that all the DVDs will be released as Region...
- 7/17/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
It was only through an enigmatic public Facebook post that it was revealed that a nearly comprehensive DVD box set of the films of Jonas Mekas was in the works. The post only showed the above image with the words “Coming Soon!” But, coming soon from whom and for where?
On Facebook, there was also a link to a DVD page on Mekas’ official website that offered a bit more clues. The release appears to be a collaboration between the French fashion designer agnes b., the French independent DVD label Potemkine and the French distributor Re:Voir, which has released Mekas’ work on VHS for years.
The Potemkine website lists Mekas’ films as individual upcoming DVD releases with no set dates. There appears to be no listing for the box set image that was posted to Facebook.
Most disappointingly, though, is that the Potemkine product pages indicate that the DVDs will be Zone 2, i.
On Facebook, there was also a link to a DVD page on Mekas’ official website that offered a bit more clues. The release appears to be a collaboration between the French fashion designer agnes b., the French independent DVD label Potemkine and the French distributor Re:Voir, which has released Mekas’ work on VHS for years.
The Potemkine website lists Mekas’ films as individual upcoming DVD releases with no set dates. There appears to be no listing for the box set image that was posted to Facebook.
Most disappointingly, though, is that the Potemkine product pages indicate that the DVDs will be Zone 2, i.
- 7/13/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
On your TV this Monday: Michael Myers at his very best, a prehistoric murder, Freddy Krueger visits Hawaii, much Horror and more. As but a supplement to TVLine’s original feature stories, here are 12 programs to keep on your radar.
7 pm Ghost Hunters Halloween Live (Syfy) | In this live, six-hour special, host Josh Gates is joined by Ghost Hunters International team members and others as they snoop around the old Pennhurst State School and Hospital, an abandoned asylum in Spring City, Pa.
8 pm Halloween (AMC) | Well it is Oct. 31, so know that one option for tonight is John Carpenter’s...
7 pm Ghost Hunters Halloween Live (Syfy) | In this live, six-hour special, host Josh Gates is joined by Ghost Hunters International team members and others as they snoop around the old Pennhurst State School and Hospital, an abandoned asylum in Spring City, Pa.
8 pm Halloween (AMC) | Well it is Oct. 31, so know that one option for tonight is John Carpenter’s...
- 10/31/2011
- by Matt Webb Mitovich
- TVLine.com
If it’s Christmas Eve, then it must be another birthday for the godfather of underground film, Jonas Mekas! He turns 88 today, having been born in the town of Semeniškiai, Lithuania on Dec. 24, 1922. To celebrate, please watch the above embedded excerpt from his classic film Walden, aka Diaries, Notes and Sketches, which comes courtesy of the distributor Re:Voir. They also sell the full version of the film.
This feels like an especially apropos film to embed today given the blustery, cold opening. However, about halfway through this excerpt, the wind and the chill eventually gives way to, like life, springtime and pretty girls.
Walden was Mekas’ first major compilation of his film diaries and covers the period of his life from 1964 to ’68. Previously, he directed the fictional narrative Guns of the Trees and a film documenting a performance of the Living Theater’s controversial play The Brig; as well as releasing short diary-like pieces,...
This feels like an especially apropos film to embed today given the blustery, cold opening. However, about halfway through this excerpt, the wind and the chill eventually gives way to, like life, springtime and pretty girls.
Walden was Mekas’ first major compilation of his film diaries and covers the period of his life from 1964 to ’68. Previously, he directed the fictional narrative Guns of the Trees and a film documenting a performance of the Living Theater’s controversial play The Brig; as well as releasing short diary-like pieces,...
- 12/24/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Underground film history is a living, breathing creature. That’s why I keep hard pimping my Underground Film Timeline project. While the actual Timeline right now is a somewhat dry recitation of facts and film titles, if one delves into the history deeper, it’s really clear to see how the medium has evolved from the 1920s to the 2010s.
Actually, to give an example of what I mean, I’m going to show a reverse chain of inspirations from a modern day film all the way back to the ’20s.
The modern film I picked is one I write about all the time and recently came out on DVD: Joshua von Brown’s Altamont Now, a raucous film about a pseudo-punk rock star with delusions of grandeur who threatens to start a nuclear Rockalypse. The film was a huge hit on the ’09 festival circuit and was just released by Factory 25. (Rent or Buy.
Actually, to give an example of what I mean, I’m going to show a reverse chain of inspirations from a modern day film all the way back to the ’20s.
The modern film I picked is one I write about all the time and recently came out on DVD: Joshua von Brown’s Altamont Now, a raucous film about a pseudo-punk rock star with delusions of grandeur who threatens to start a nuclear Rockalypse. The film was a huge hit on the ’09 festival circuit and was just released by Factory 25. (Rent or Buy.
- 8/13/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Since I declared 2010 to be Year of the Underground Film Loop, I’ve decided to try to start doing link round-up posts of interesting stuff found on other underground film websites — and related content on other sites that might prove interesting to an underground film audience. Hopefully, I can keep this up as a series, but for now here’s some nice links for you that I’ve encountered the past few weeks:
Matthew Flanagan has put up a very beautiful series of stills captured from Jonas Mekas’ Walden DVD. (Which I sadly still have to get.) You can scan through the series here. In a somewhat different vein, filmmaker Bob Moricz is threatening to re-watch every Friday the 13th film ever made and post up his thoughts. I’m a fan of that franchise — as lame as most of the films are — so Moricz’s series is interesting to me.
Matthew Flanagan has put up a very beautiful series of stills captured from Jonas Mekas’ Walden DVD. (Which I sadly still have to get.) You can scan through the series here. In a somewhat different vein, filmmaker Bob Moricz is threatening to re-watch every Friday the 13th film ever made and post up his thoughts. I’m a fan of that franchise — as lame as most of the films are — so Moricz’s series is interesting to me.
- 4/4/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Bad Lit wishes Jonas Mekas, the godfather of underground film, a happy birthday today, his 87th. To celebrate the occasion, I’ve embedded the above, two-and-a-half minute excerpt from his five-hour epic diary film As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty.
For all I’ve written about Mekas on Bad Lit, I’ve sadly still yet to see one of his feature-length productions. I’ve only seen a couple of his brief short pieces that have been posted online. His films don’t screen in L.A. that I’ve ever seen or heard of, although I’ll have to get Microcinema’s Walden DVD sometime soon. In the above excerpt, he discusses the process of assembling the film via voiceover. He just randomly pulled selections from his collection of film and video to piece the final product together, which is kind of like the...
For all I’ve written about Mekas on Bad Lit, I’ve sadly still yet to see one of his feature-length productions. I’ve only seen a couple of his brief short pieces that have been posted online. His films don’t screen in L.A. that I’ve ever seen or heard of, although I’ll have to get Microcinema’s Walden DVD sometime soon. In the above excerpt, he discusses the process of assembling the film via voiceover. He just randomly pulled selections from his collection of film and video to piece the final product together, which is kind of like the...
- 12/24/2009
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The decades-old cliché goes, watching other people's home movies is hell frozen over. Strangely, this is true only if you know the people, and it's their vacation in Tahoe that you're forced to sit through after a few cocktails and a bellyful of spinach lasagna, as they narrate the landscapes and sigh at their own kids' antics and wistfully recall the best restaurant sea bass they've ever eaten. As Daffy Duck said, I demand that you shoot me now.
Removed from that cloying context, though, home movies are raw and beautiful cinema, mysterious, bewitching and filled with the melancholy for the passage of time, as anyone who has seen "Capturing the Friedmans" (I mean that heartbreaking 8mm footage of the roof-dancing girl, whose demise tipped the whole family into doom), or Ken Jacobs' "Urban Peasants" (family home movies, edited together without intervention) knows. In fact, the allure of old...
Removed from that cloying context, though, home movies are raw and beautiful cinema, mysterious, bewitching and filled with the melancholy for the passage of time, as anyone who has seen "Capturing the Friedmans" (I mean that heartbreaking 8mm footage of the roof-dancing girl, whose demise tipped the whole family into doom), or Ken Jacobs' "Urban Peasants" (family home movies, edited together without intervention) knows. In fact, the allure of old...
- 9/1/2009
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
James Cameron in Los Angeles with 70Mm prints of "Aliens" and "The Abyss"?!?! The Dardenne brothers in New York for a career retrospective?!?! The instant cult classic "The Room" with Tommy Wiseau live in Austin?!?! Be still my heart. There's something for all tastes this summer on the West Coast, the East Coast and as you'll notice, the Third Coast on our calendar of the must-see events on the repertory theater circuit in May, June and July. And don't miss our look at the indie films that are hitting theaters or headed to online, VOD or DVD premiere this summer.
Anthology Film Archives
With the New York Polish Film Festival (May 6-10) and first-runs of the docs "Ice People" (May 1-7) and "Audience of One" (May 8-14) and Ken Jacobs' reinvention of his 1969 work "Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son" with the 3D "Anaglyph Tom" (May 15-21) taking up the Anthology's screens,...
Anthology Film Archives
With the New York Polish Film Festival (May 6-10) and first-runs of the docs "Ice People" (May 1-7) and "Audience of One" (May 8-14) and Ken Jacobs' reinvention of his 1969 work "Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son" with the 3D "Anaglyph Tom" (May 15-21) taking up the Anthology's screens,...
- 5/5/2009
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
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