Shadowy city nightscapes, crooked cops, dangerous dames,
tough-talking private dicks, cynical betrayals amid swirling
whirlpools of evil underscored by brooding Bernard 
Herrmannesque music: of course, this must be vintage film
noi... - hey, wait a minute! There's color! Widescreen! And
they're not smoking (much)...or wearing hats! Welcome to
the wonderful world of neo-noir,
the only genre that boasts a prefix, as filmmakers have increasingly
transposed those atmospheric elements that typified one of
the cinema's favorite genres from their original genesis
in post-war angst to the stressed-out present day, so successfully
as to banish any sense of the hybrid. This first-ever extensive
festival of neo-noir spans the decades from 1959's Odds
Against Tomorrow to 1998's A Simple
Plan, proving that despite political correctness,
gender wars, and nicotine awareness, moviegoers still can't
get enough blackmail, cynicism, betrayal and murder. As Foster
Hirsch writes in his new book, Detours
and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir (Limelight Editions),
"Like any genre with a long run, noir has had to reinvent
itself...and post-modern life has cooperated by continuing
to fuel numerous anxieties - dread, uncertainty, paranoia
- that won't go away."
PROGRAMMED BY BRUCE
GOLDSTEIN AND MICHAEL SAYERS. Special thanks to Foster
Hirsch, Michael Schlesinger & Susanne Holzman (Columbia
Repertory), Linda Evans-Smith & Marilee Womack (Warner
Bros. Classics), John Kirk, Latanya Tucker & Irene Ramos
(MGM Distribution),
Peter Langs (IPMA), Michael Silberman (USA Films), Suzanne
Fedak (Winstar),
Steve Rothenberg & Mark Boxer (Artisan Entertainment),
Doug Lemza (Criterion), Paul Pearlman (Fine
Line Features), Gary Palmucci (Kino
International), Dennis Doros (Milestone),
Steve Bachner (New Line Cinema), Cynthia Swartz, Carla
Ornelas & Kathy Vlesmas (Miramax),
Susan Wrubel (New Yorker
Films), Jack DeCrescente & Jodi Gwydir (Paramount),
Rick Norris (Roxie Releasing),
and Mike Thomas.
(Limelight Editions) by Foster Hirsch
available from Amazon.com.
FEB
18/19/20 FRI/SAT/SUN
NEW 35mm RESTORATION!
(1962, Blake Edwards) Drop-dead gorgeous bank teller
Lee Remick, menaced by a deranged asthmatic extortionist,
turns to straight-arrow FBI man Glenn Ford for help. Edwards's
unique and utterly successful foray into the crime genre
boasts inky-black b&w photography and a sinister Henry
Mancini score. "Elemental, skeletal post-noir noir...an
hommage to the iconography of the recently 'deceased' classic
noir style." - Hirsch.
1:00, 5:15, 9:30
(1962, J. Lee Thompson) Stiffly upright lawyer
Gregory Peck's got it all - including model family -
but cigar-chomping, straw-fedoraed psycho Robert Mitchum,
back after Peck sent him up, has other plans. A tour de force
for Mitchum, as he drives Peck to audience-alienating, extra-legal
lengths, culminating in a chilling watery bayou climax. Music
by Bernard Herrmann. "A supremely nasty thriller" - David
Thomson.
3:15, 7:30
RETURN TO TOP
FEB 21/22 MON/TUES
(1962, John Frankenheimer) A Commie brain-washer orders Laurence
Harvey to go jump in the Central Park Reservoir, then to
stalk a politico at a Madison Square Garden convention, but
fellow ex-vet Frank Sinatra reshuffles those cards. "Grafts
a fable of Cold War paranoia onto the noir
paradigm of a vulnerable male undermined by female treachery."
- Hirsch.
1:20, 5:30, 9:40
(1974, Alan J. Pakula) Reporter Warren Beatty digs into the
cover-up of a political assassination at Seattle's Space
Needle and finds a super-secret right wing organization at
the source, in Pakula's ominous descent into post-Watergate
paranoia.
3:35, 7:45
RETURN TO TOP
FEB 23 WED
 |
| MICKEY ONE |
(1975, Arthur Penn) Shockingly underrated, sun-drenched noir,
as L.A. private eye Gene Hackman puts aside his own marital
woes while chasing topless nymphet Melanie Griffith (age
17) to the Florida Keys. "Truly enigmatic thriller and key
film of the 70s, brilliantly scripted...essential viewing."
-- Time Out.
1:00, 4:30, 8:00
(1965, Arthur Penn) Facing bad mob debts, seedy comic Warren
Beatty hightails it to Chicago, taking his alias from a pilfered
social security card. Penn's squalid urban mise en scène,
trippy editing, and a wildly improvised Stan Getz score combine
to create a combustible, jittery vision of 60s America in
the grip of full-blown paranoia.
2:45, 6:15, 9:45
RETURN TO TOP
FEB 24 THURS
 |
| PICKPOCKET |
(1960, François Truffaut)
Burnt-out pianist Charles Aznavour, tuned out after an
aborted concert career and a failed marriage, finds involvement
again in love with a barmaid and in rescuing his brothers
from goofball gangsters. Based on David Goodis' pulp classic
Down There.
2:30, 5:45, 9:00
RETURNING Friday, October
7- Thursday, October 13, 2005 for Once Week
(1959, Robert Bresson) ...or Fifty Ways to Lift a Wallet.
Handsome, gloomy loner Martin LaSalle masters the art of
petty theft and its philosophical justifications. "One of
the few postwar European films that is both cerebral...and
resolutely sensual." - Time Out.
2:00, 3:40, 5:20, 7:00, 8:40
RETURN TO TOP
FEB 25 FRI
"THE PROPHETIC MASTERPIECE OF THE 1970s. Rhapsodically
Beautiful. De Niro's Finest Performance. TAXI DRIVER will
last forever!" - Janet Maslin, NY Times
 |
| TAXI DRIVER |
STARRING Robert de Niro, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel,
Jodie Foster
(1976, Martin Scorsese) "Some day
a real rain will come and wipe the scum off the streets."
De Niro's Travis Bickle - the insomniac hack who transforms
himself into a mohawked, armed-to-the-teeth avenging angel
- meets his judgment day in the form of child hooker Jodie
Foster and her pimp Harvey Keitel. Screenplay by Paul Schrader.
1:30, 5:30, 9:40
A Columbia pictures re-release
(1992, Paul Schrader) Journal-keeping ex-addict/drug courier
Willem Dafoe seeks new vocation when maternal employer/dealer
Susan Sarandon opts out of the trade. But in Schrader's New
York, transformation requires a blast of redemptive violence.
3:35, 7:40
RETURN TO TOP
FEB 26 SAT
(1986, David
Lynch) "Heineken?! F**k that s**t!
Pabst Blue Ribbon!"
A Buñuelish, ant-infested, severed ear opens a world
of trouble for college boy Kyle MacLachlan and new sweetheart
Laura Dern, whose amateur sleuthing reveals a small town's
propensity for sexual violence, kidnapping, murder, and karaoke,
as dazed-and-confused Isabella Rossellini puts up with Dennis
Hopper's Oedipal Frank, most memorable of his raging psychopaths.
1:00, 3:20, 5:40, 8:00, 10:20
Blue
Velvet Fan Site
RETURN TO TOP
FEB 27 SUN
(1997, David
Lynch) "I had a dream...there you
were, lying in bed. It wasn't you. It looked like you, but
it wasn't."
Two-timed by somnabulent spouse Patricia Arquette, impotent
sax man Bill Pullman, behind bars for a crime even HE doesn't
know if he committed, gets a second chance at life in a newer,
younger body - but again falls prey to a scheming siren,
this time a porn queen-cum-gangster's moll (Arquette again).
"Dismantles noir's historical dependence on internal logic
and consistency." - Hirsch.
2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30
RETURN TO TOP
FEB 28/29 MON/TUES
(1973, Terrence Malick) "I can't allow
that," states polite, soft-spoken James Dean-influenced
garbageman Martin Sheen, just prior to cold-blooded murder.
Malick's debut is a classic outlaw-couple-on-the-run story,
with Sheen taking teenage baton twirler Sissy Spacek on a
killing spree across the prairies, the mayhem accompanied
by surrealistically opaque dialogue.
1:30, 5:30, 9:30
(1993, Tony Scott) In hopes of a "happily ever after," Elvis
and Sonny Chiba-obsessed hipster Christian Slater and supercool
neophyte call girl Patricia Arquette have to take on her
wacko Rasta pimp Gary Oldman, deal out a suitcase full of
coke, and dodge beefy supercops Tom Sizemore and Chris Penn.
Tarantino-scripted epic features duelling weirdos Christopher
Walken and Dennis Hopper and the ultimate Mexican stand-off.
3:15, 7:20
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 1/2 WED/THURS
(1973, Robert Altman) Raymond Chandler Altman style, as Elliott
Gould's Marlowe - in 70s L.A., but still driving a
'48 Lincoln - encounters Sterling Hayden's boozy novelist,
mysterious Nina Van Pallandt and director Mark Rydell's Coke-bottle-wielding
hood, while searching for pal (ex-Yankee) Jim Bouton. "Heady,
whirlwind sideshow of a movie." - Pauline Kael.
1:00, 5:15, 9:30
HARPER
Will Not Be Showing As Originally Scheduled Due to a Damaged
Print . We will be showing BLUE VELVET instead.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
(1986, David
Lynch) "Heineken?! F**k that s**t!
Pabst Blue Ribbon!"
A Buñuelish, ant-infested, severed ear opens a world
of trouble for college boy Kyle MacLachlan and new sweetheart
Laura Dern, whose amateur sleuthing reveals a small town's
propensity for sexual violence, kidnapping, murder, and karaoke,
as dazed-and-confused Isabella Rossellini puts up with Dennis
Hopper's Oedipal Frank, most memorable of his raging psychopaths.
3:05, 7:20
Blue
Velvet Fan Site
RETURN TO TOP
 |
| COFFY |
MARCH 3/4 FRI/SAT
(1973, Jack Hill) "She'll cream you!"
Pam
Grier as "the baddest One-Chick Hit-Squad that ever hit
town," a Florence Nightingale of the ghetto out to avenge
the pushers who smacked out her kid sister, in the mega-hit
that catapulted Grier to Blaxploitation stardom. "She inhabits
a world... where torturing victims to death seems to be an
admired art." - New York Times.
3:10, 6:45, 10:20 
(1972, Gordon Parks, Jr.) "8-track stereo,
color TV in every room and you can snort half a piece of
dope ever'day. That's the American Dream..."
Coke-blowing pusher Ron O'Neal has a plan to stick it to
The Man.
1:20, 4:55, 8:30
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 5 SUN
(1994, Quentin Tarantino) The most influential and widely
imitated film of the 90s. Seemingly separate, subtly interlocking
stories, and a cast of characters from hipster heaven: Samuel
L. Jackson's Bible-spouting hitman, John Travolta's junk-loving
hoofer, Bruce Willis' boxer-on-the-run, Uma Thurman's dance-crazed
moll, and the ubiquitous Christopher Walken as a military
man with a story about a watch. Not to mention Harvey Keitel,
Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette, Ving Rhames, Tim Roth, Amanda
Plummer, et al. "A crime movie bonanza." - Hirsch.
1:00, 3:45, 6:30, 9:15
RETURN TO TOP
MAR 6 MON
(1981, Michael Mann) In order to settle down in the burbs
with ex-whore Tuesday Weld, fiercely independent master thief
James Caan freelances with the mob for just a few more big
scores, but crime kingpin Robert Prosky hates to lose good
help. "Enshrines the thief's job as a work of art." - Hirsch.
2:00, 5:55, 9:50
(1978, Walter Hill) Edgy cop Bruce Dern rewrites the law
to apprehend getaway expert Ryan O'Neal, with Isabelle (Adèle
H.) Adjani as deadpan, but beautiful, obfuscator and
Ronee (Nashville) Blakley as a mannishly attired criminal
mastermind. "Adopts elements of European arthouse crime dramas...carries
genre motifs to the edge of abstraction." - Hirsch.
4:15, 8:10
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 7 TUES
(1986, James Foley) Alienated father and son, method maestros
Christopher Walken and Sean Penn, unite for a crime spree
Pennsylvania style, but innocent beauty Mary Stuart Masterson
disrupts their uneasy new alliance, triggering off a deadly
family feud. "Foley, a true neo-noir master, rewrites the
many Oedipal texts of classic noir." - Hirsch.
1:00, 5:20, 9:40
(1997, Oliver Stone) On the run from finger-clipping loan
sharks, cat-kicking city boy Sean Penn gets car trouble in
a desert town-gone-haywire, mixing him up with deadly duo
Nick Nolte and Jennifer Lopez, bitter grease monkey Billy
Bob Thornton, and unidentifiably accented town drunk Jon
Voight. Sensory overload hyper-noir from its roadkill-and-vulture
opening sequence through an Ennio Morricone-scored valley
of death climax.
3:05, 7:25
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 8 WED
(1989, John
Woo) Woo's ultimate statement on romanticism and the
underworld, male bonding and death by a thousand bullets,
imbuing charismatic gangster Chow Yun-Fat with near-mystical
powers. "Woo's high-octane mixture suggests Magnificent
Obsession remade by Sam Peckinpah." - J. Hoberman, Village
Voice.
2:00, 5:50, 9:40
(1997, Wong
Kar-Wai) Hitman Leon Lai has a terrific boss in Michele
Reis: she not only gives him his license to kill, but cleans
his apartment in a garter belt, too. Exhilarating compendium
of music, montage and imagery set in the McDonalds, noodle
shops, and tenements of modern-day Hong Kong, just before
its lease expired.
4:00, 7:50
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 9 THURS
(1974, John Flynn) In-between Godfather gigs, hard-as-nails
Robert Duvall goes head to head with the vicious crime syndicate
that wants him dead, while girlfriend and partner-in-crime
Karen Black yearns for middle-class comfort. Brooding, violent,
essential 70s noir, with a retro-noir cast including Robert
Ryan, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook Jr., jazz great Anita O'Day,
et al.
2:10, 6:00, 10:00
(1992, Carl Franklin) Local lawman Bill Paxton's out of his
league when a murderous band of big city criminals led by
psychopath Billy Bob Thornton (co-scripter) mosey into town
to download some stolen blow. Within a traditional noir framework,
Franklin's debut feature manages to understate issues of
race, class and gender. "A superb modern thriller in the
ultra-hardboiled Jim Thompson
mold...one of the finest American movies in recent years."
- Time Out.
4:05, 8:00
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 10/11 FRI/SAT
(1964, Sam Fuller) Constance Towers' prostitute-turned-pediatric
nurse (her paralyzed charges returning in her dreams in nutso
wish-fulfillment choreography wherein they run around ecstatically
exclaiming "I got legs!") learns the true price of going
straight. With an opening sequence - a bald-headed woman
beating up her pimp - to end all opening sequences.
1:45, 5:10, 8:35
(1965, Joseph Cates) The apex of 60s exploitation pix, with
Sal Mineo as a proto-Travis Bickle: a pornophilic, body-building
Times Square (filmed in its seedy heyday!) habitué fixated
on disco dancer Juliet Prowse. A smorgasbord of Hollywood
taboos, including masturbation, incest, child abuse, transvestism,
and lesbianism. With Elaine Stritch.
3:30, 6:55, 10:20
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 12/13 SUN/MON
(1992, Quentin Tarantino) "Why do I have
to be Mr. Pink?'
After a disastrous heist-turned-bloodbath, color-coded criminals
convene at a deserted warehouse to re-write strategy and
ferret out the snitch. Tarantino's hyper-violent debut revitalized
the genre and rocketed a fully-clothed Harvey Keitel and
edgy Steve Buscemi to indie superstar status. "Pulp poetry."
- Hirsch.
2:50, 6:30, 10:15
(1994, Roger Avery) After arriving in Paris and spending
the evening with hooker/student Julie Delpy (Murnau's Nosferatu
playing in the background), indie icon Eric Stoltz hooks
up with international gang of unwashed junkie terrorists
and embarks on a savagely misguided nightmare bank job. From
the co-scripter of Pulp Fiction.
1:00, 4:40, 8:25
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 14/15 TUES/WED
(1971, Alan J. Pakula) Low, low, low key smalltown detective
Donald Sutherland, journeying to NYC to seek a friend's murderer,
finds both were clients of high-priced callgirl Jane Fonda
- and then things get ominous. Ruthlessly stylized photography
by the great Gordon Willis, and a partly-improvised performance
by Jane highlight Pakula's glossily-noir
thriller. "Challenges the historically male preserve of the
private eye story." - Hirsch.
4:00, 8:00
(1980, William Friedkin) Increasingly ambivalent undercover
cop Al Pacino dons leather drag to hunt a gay-bashing
serial killer through an assortment of West Village S&M
bars, in the most controversial movie of the 80s.
2:05, 6:05, 10:05
Showing again at Film Forum
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 16 THURS
(1997, Paul
Thomas Anderson) Overlooked debut feature gem from the
writer/director of Boogie Nights, with performance
of a lifetime from Philip Baker Hall as Sydney, a gentleman
gambler who mentors down-on-his-luck, not-too-bright John
C. Reilly* and going-nowhere-fast waitress/hooker Gwyneth
Paltrow (accentless). With Samuel L. Jackson as a flashy,
foul-mouthed Reno hood.
2:00, 5:45, 9:30
(1987, David Mamet) Though her best-seller Driven seems to
indicate an understanding of subconscious needs, successful
pop shrink Lindsay Crouse (then Mrs. Mamet) has unexplored
territory of her own - drawing her deep into Joe Mantegna's
underworld of big cons, big money and murder. "An amoral,
ironic hymn to noir." - Hirsch.
3:50, 7:35
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 17/18 FRI/SAT
(1994, John Dahl) "Anyone checked you
for a heartbeat recently?"
Sexy succubus Linda Fiorentino is the baddest, boldest femme
fatale since Barbara Stanwyck, as she goes on the lam after
making off with hubby Bill Pullman's drug money, plans a
murder, uses bar pick-up/hockey hick Peter Berg as a sex
object - and stubs out her Camel in his Mom's home-baked
apple pie. 
2:00, 5:50, 9:40
(1993, John Dahl) Mistaken for a gunman, hapless gimp Nicolas
Cage gets caught in crossfire between murderous marrieds
J.T. Walsh and Lara Flynn Boyle. Chaos and violence escalate
when the real killer shows up: Dennis Hopper's "Lyle from
Dallas."
4:00, 7:50
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 19 SUN
JACKIE BROWN
(1997, Quentin Tarantino) In the comeback of the decade,
Pam
Grier makes her A-picture lead debut in the title role,
a courier/ stewardess forced to play both sides against the
middle to avoid prosecution by the Feds and/or execution
by nouveau arms dealer Samuel L. Jackson, as her masterfully
low-key bail bondsman Robert Forster tries to outmaneuver
disheveled hothead ex-con Robert De Niro and bratty blonde
Bridget Fonda. "Fresh, delicious crime caper...confirms Tarantino's
position as the premier director of pulp in the 1990s." -
Hirsch.
1:00, 3:50, 6:40, 9:20
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 20 MON
(1972, Don Siegel) "You've got to ask
yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?"
Blithely ignoring orders from police brass, the D.A. and
the Mayor, San Fran rogue cop Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan
deals out his own brand of justice to bring down psycho sniper
Andy Robinson. "Trim, brutal and exciting...a kind of hard-hat
The Fountainhead." - Pauline Kael.
1:00, 4:40, 8:20
NOTE: DEATH WISH will NOT be showing as originally
scheduled.
(1997, Paul
Thomas Anderson) Overlooked debut feature gem from
the writer/director of Boogie Nights, with performance
of a lifetime from Philip Baker Hall as Sydney, a gentleman
gambler who mentors down-on-his-luck, not-too-bright John
C. Reilly* and going-nowhere-fast waitress/hooker Gwyneth
Paltrow (accentless). With Samuel L. Jackson as a flashy,
foul-mouthed Reno hood.
2:55, 6:35, 10:20
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 21 TUES
(1990, Dennis Hopper) Blackmailing bombshell boss's wife
Virginia Madsen lures luckless drifter Don Johnson into a
whole mess of small town trouble. Faithful, vibrant adaptation
of Charles Williams's Hell Hath No Fury, helmed by
neo-noir top dog Hopper.
1:00, 5:10, 9:20
(1994, Steven Soderbergh) Reckless gambler Peter Gallagher
wants to go straight, but can't keep his eyes off that last
big score. Soderbergh's Criss Cross remake is a color-saturated,
intricately layered web of flashbacks, with an added twist
on the original's ending. "Evokes the visual textures of
classic noir...the color often achieves
an expressionistic intensity." - Hirsch.
3:2O, 7:30
RETURN TO TOP
 |
| KING OF NEW YORK |
MARCH 22/23 WED/THURS
(1992, Abel
Ferrara) Thief/voyeur/compulsive gambler - not to mention
drug-dealer/crack-smoker/junkie - cop Harvey Keitel brings
police corruption to new depths, in Ferrara's unrelentingly
bleak vision of pre-Giuliani urban decay and human depravity.
2:50, 6:35, 10:20
Showing again at Film Forum
(1990, Abel
Ferrara) "I've heard a lot about you...
and it's all bad."
Upon release from prison, drug kingpin/philanthropist Christopher
Walken attempts to rebuild a shaken criminal empire with
ferocious opposition from testosterone-driven psycho-cops
Wesley Snipes and David Caruso.
1:00, 4:40, 8:25
RETURN TO TOP
March 24/25 Fri/Sat
(1998, Takeshi
Kitano) Deadpan ex-cop Kitano, overburdened with mob
debts, hospital bills, and a guilt complex, charts a new
course for justice, revenge and redemption - overturning
the law in the process. Kitano uses genre as a framework
for his exploration of violence, responsibility and salvation
through art. "The world's most original action auteur." -
J. Hoberman, Village Voice.
2:45, 6:25, 10:05
(1994, Takeshi Kitano) Settling a dispute between warring
crime families turns out to be more complicated than it looks
for weary stoic/gangster "Beat" Takeshi, but his mission
in Okinawa does allow him to perfect the art of goofing off
on the beach. Features an unbelievably cramped, expertly
choreographed gunplay-in-elevator sequence. "Challenging,
witty, adventurous and utterly singular." - Time Out.
1:00, 4:40, 8:20
RETURN TO TOP
 |
| BODY HEAT |
March 26 Sunday
(1981, Lawrence Kasdan) "You're not too
smart, are you? I like that in a man."
Earning her place in femme fatale history, white-clad Kathleen
Turner inveigles sweatily lustful lawyer William Hurt into
a definitely R-rated reworking of Double Indemnity.
"Proved that an old-fashioned noir
story...could entertain a new generation." - Hirsch.
3:05, 7:15
(1986, Jonathan Demme) Uptight goofball yuppie Jeff Daniels,
picked up by East Village femme (not so) fatale Melanie Griffith
(more a liberating angel in a Louise Brooks wig) learns the
joys of petty crime, DWI, and handcuffed sex - but muscle-bound,
ex-con psycho Ray Liotta wants to spoil the fun. Exuberant
screwball-noir, scored by John
Cale and Laurie Anderson, with cameos from John Waters and
John Sayles. "A delirious mixed breed of laughs, romance,
and violence." - Hirsch.
1:00, 5:10, 9:20
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 27 MON
(1995, David
Fincher) "Upstate, you know, it's
a completely different environment."
In the drizzliest of grey cities, veteran cop Morgan Freeman
does library research to stay ahead of a serial killer's
Seven Deadly Sins reenactment plans, while mentoring young
hotshot Brad Pitt, but a shift to a sunny countryside keys
a Dostoyevskian finish. With surprise package Gwyneth Paltrow.
3:00, 7:20
(1981, Brian De Palma) Unshaven soundman John Travolta needs
the perfect scream for his new co-ed slasher flick and gets
it the hard way with the help of sadistic assassin John Lithgow,
in De Palma's "homage" to Blowup and The Conversation.
"Probably the best of all American conspiracy movies." -
Pauline Kael.
1:00, 5:20, 9:40
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 28 TUES
Showing again at Film Forum
(1993, Peter Medak) "You know right
from wrong. You just don't care, and that's the most natural
thing in the world."
Graft-obsessed, sex-crazed Queens cop Gary Oldman gets
in WAY over his head when he accepts suave kingpin Roy
Scheider's contract on grinning fetishistic psycho uber-dame
Lena Olin - "a femme fatale who practically breaks the
mold" (Hirsch).
2:00, 5:45, 9:30
(1994, Danny Boyle) "But you're a doctor.
You kill people every day."
Edgy Scots yuppies Ewan McGregor, Kerry Fox, and Chris Eccleston
prove quick-studies in greed and paranoia when their new
flatmate kicks off leaving behind a suitcase of cash. Features
a memorably grisly corpse disposal sequence and a video primer
on conspicuous consumption. From the director of Trainspotting.
4:00, 7:45
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 29/30 WED/THURS
(1996, Joel Coen) "Guess that was your
partner in the woodchipper."
Minnesota most noir (and blanc), as Frances McDormand's pregnant
police chief Marge Gunderson (an Oscar-winning role) must
solve a triple homicide while making sure she's getting enough
to eat. But it's the Coens' dead-on satire of the American
Midwest that makes it a true American original. You're darn
tootin'. With William H. Macy as nefarious car salesman Jerry
Lundegaard and Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare as pancake-and-sex-obsessed
thugs.
1:30, 5:30, 9:35
(1998, Sam Raimi) When brothers Bill Paxton and Billy Bob
Thornton stumble across a fortune in "lost" money, fraternal
bonds become strained to the breaking point - and loyal wife
Bridget Fonda has her own ideas about the loot. Raimi reins
in his usually hyperkinetic style for a snowbound fable of
greed, betrayal and murder.
3:20, 7:25
RETURN TO TOP
MARCH 31/ APRIL 1 FRI/SAT 2001
(1967, John Boorman) Like an angry, righteous machine, godfather
of cool Lee Marvin, in blue-grey business suit, systematically
hunts down his betrayers to reclaim his rightful share of
the take. "New Wave noir that introduces European art-film
syntax." - Hirsch.
2:55, 6:35, 10:15
(1967,
Jean-Pierre Melville) Alain Delon lies fully-clothed in his
monochromed apartment, then goes off to a day at the office:
stealing a car, whacking a mec in a nightclub, creating an
ironclad alibi, and outsmarting les flics. Two problems:
his anonymous employers don't trust him and he's left a witness
behind. Blacker than noir in its
silence, isolation, and stylization.
1:00, 4:40, 8:20
RETURN TO TOP
APRIL 2 SUN
(1974, ROMAN
POLANSKI) "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."
In drought-ridden 30s L.A., divorce-specializing private
dick Jack Nicholson gets his nose re-arranged - by director
Polanski in a memorable cameo - after sticking it into the
connivings of family-loving mogul John Huston and mysterious
daughter Faye Dunaway. Best Screenplay Oscar, despite (or
because of) Polanski's revision of the ending - over writer
Robert Towne's violent objections.
2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30
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APRIL 3/4 MON/TUES
(1970, Mike Hodges) Back in Newcastle to figure out who whacked
his brother, Chandler-toting gunman Michael Caine finds root
rot on the family tree. "So calculatedly cool and soulless
and nastily erotic that it seems to belong to a new genre
of virtuoso viciousness." - Pauline Kael.
2:00, 5:50, 9:40
(1988, Mike Figgis) In neon-lit, cool jazz Newcastle, in
the midst of Yankomania, violence erupts as bass-playing
club owner Sting fights a hostile take-over attempt by ugly
American Tommy Lee Jones, while waitress/escort Melanie Griffith
gets caught in the middle. From the director of Leaving
Las Vegas.
4:05, 7:55
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APRIL 5/6 WED/THURS
(1958, Orson Welles) Mexican narc
Charlton Heston, on a Yankee honeymoon with gringa
bride Janet Leigh, finds himself pressed into service by
bloated police chief Orson Welles when a car bomb vaporizes
both businessman and blonde. Welles' return (after a decade)
to American moviemaking isn't neo-noir at all, but the ne
plus ultra of the old school.
108-minute studio cut.
2:45, 6:30, 10:25
(1959, Robert Wise) The first post-classic
noir, as ex-cop Ed Begley masterminds a bank heist gone
fatally wrong when racial tensions flare up between embittered
vet Robert Ryan and strapped-for-cash jazzman Harry Belafonte.
With Shelley Winters as Ryan's ever-nagging wife and genre
icon Gloria Grahame in her noir swan song.
1:00, 4:45, 8:35
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Film Forum. Box Office: 212-727-8110. Repertory
screen is programmed by Bruce Goldstein. (Schedule subject
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The Moving Image, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be
reproduced without permission. Website Manager: Richard
J. Hutchins. This page was last updated on
June 13, 2005
