Over at The Villager, Scoopy reports that there will be free music-movie nights in Tompkins Square Park on Thursday evenings again this summer. As Scoopy reports: "Movies start at sundown, and the music starts an hour before. There’ll also be poetry and live art."
And the list of movies:
June 28 — Taxi Driver
July 5 — Exit Through the Gift Shop
July 12 — Fantastic Mr. Fox
July 19 — Summer of Sam
July 26 — Donnie Darko
Aug. 2 — The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Aug. 9 — The Big Lebowksi
Aug. 16 — Poltergeist
Any thoughts on the movie lineup?
You can read Scoopy's column for all the details and sponsors...
25 comments:
Thoughts: Nothing I would want to see outdoors in the summer.
Gotta say I'm kinda disappointed in this line-up. Last year's screening of Coming to America was sooooo fun! Everybody saying the lines together and singing 'Queen to be"... I think I even teared up at one point I love that movie so much. Not to mention the Warriors and Raging Bull with a Don King intro! This just seems sad- Exit Through the Gift Shop?? What kind of outdoor experience can that yield? Taxi Driver is mad played out, Summer of Sam is too creepy to show outside at night. The only one I'm excited about is Poltergeist and even that is pretty tired. Lame-sauce.
Thoughts?
I approve of this list. I have still never been to one of these, always such a zoo, but maybe this year... Maybe this year...
it's tough to please everyone. i'm with rachel on seeing something funny like coming to america. i like all those movies like stripes and caddyshack. not high-brow at all i know.
Not sure what the 'outdoor experience' is that previous commenters are talking about. Taxi Driver and Summer of Sam evoke the season and the environment, in the same way Dog Day Afternoon does. And they're both great because they're creepy. Taxi Driver is timeless and can never be "played out" whatever that means. Seeing any of these films with an audience in 2012 is a real treat.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show should be fun. Hope it'll be like the midnight showings(esp. back then at Waverly Theatre but still show at Landmark Sunshine, City Cinemas Village East during Halloween)and the audience would dress-up in costumes, bring props, stand-up, join the dialogue, yell and throw popcorn at the screen, and dance and sing-along to "Time Warp".
Good times. Good times.
And as I'd mentioned before, hope no one such as them would show up.
I'm intrigued, but my fear of being carried off by rats overcomes my curiosity!
Last time I checked JOSH- played out means shown A LOT. Over played. Over talked about. Over it. I mean Taxi Driver? It's a great film but jeez- how Cliché. And by "outdoor experience" I menat the kind of experience you get when watching a movie outside, for free, with a big random group... not the same as the theater. you can dance you can shout you can participate. why not?! Your in a park in the summer! Cult movies, comedies, action movies... even classics that aren't too heady or shown on tv every 5 minutes. These are what should be shown. Not Exit through the Gift Shop! Blerg. I rest my case.
I actually haven't seen Taxi Driver in ages. Seems like a great one to see in that environment. Summer of Sam is a good idea too, though it might be scary to walk home after that.
I think people will get up for Lebowski and Rocky Horror. Taxi Driver has been shown a lot, and maybe is a little much for a light summer beach read, but it is still an epic movie. Poltergeist is fun also. I like FMrF, but I cant say its right for this.
Coming to America is always a good choice, I cant disagree with that.
I think this is a pretty good line up. Rock Horror will bring out all the kooks and fruits so that'll be fun!
Last summer, I went to see The Warriors, Raging Bull and Rosemary's Baby (I think...)
The music beforehand is fine. Kinda wish they'd just start the movie then. I recall before The Warriors, they showed a short film, then the MC brought up the filmmakers who thanked people. Then the MC was like, Are you ready for The Warriors!
Yes! Woo!
We're going to start it, but first here's some Yo-Yo champion to yo-yo for us. Then! There was a yo-yo giveaway and kids all got to run up front.
Anyway, I had to pee.
What Rachel said... a lot of these movies are PLAYED OUT.
However "Summer of Sam" is my joint. Love that film. John Leguizamo spent time on the LES, so we gotta little representation there!
When I lived up in gramercy, I would see John Lequizamo like 3 times a week, his kids almost killed me on scooters whipping around a corner once. He was a cool normal guy it seemed. I forgot that he was in that, Im not sure I have ever seen summer of sam all the way through, maybe I will this summer...
The Fantastic Mr. Fox is my favorite Wes Anderson film but I can't imagine watching it in the park. It's a fairly intimate film with complicated dialogue. Also, yup, I'd rather see a list of films that doesn't look like, oh, a Saturday afternoon TNT lineup.
If we're staying mainstream:
June 28 — Taxi Driver
July 5 — Blank City
July 12 — Rushmore
July 19 — Summer of Sam
July 26 — Road House
Aug. 2 — The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Aug. 9 — Any Sean Connery James Bond except You Only Live Twice or Never Say Never Again
Aug. 16 — The Shining
Road Warrior
The Wanderers
Mean Streets
Once Upon A Time in America
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Ragtime
Creature from the Black Lagoon
The Blob
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Casablanca
White Heat
Mix it up, in both style and decade.
Not as good as last year. But "Taxi Driver" does have some local relevance.
Blank City would've been perfect, it's a really well done doc. If you haven't seen it yet, the Limelight documentary is definitely worth checking out. It's less about the club kids and more about Giuliani's crusade to wipe out New York City's nightlife.
Towards the end someone makes an excellent point about the loss of music, art, culture, and ideas that were born in the mixing pot of the nightclubs.
You can’t go wrong with anything with Cagney especially in White Heat (“If that radio’s dead, it will have company!”) and, especially in today’s Manhattan’s 1% world, “Dead End” would be very appropriate. “Forbidden Plant”*, saw it years ago at Bryant Park (before it was taken over by Yunnies), is a fun outdoor movie choice. “Do the Right Thing”, especially when the actors go into their racist name spree, that movie may be too strong for an outside EV viewing.
*Altaira Morbius: Where have you been? I've beamed and beamed. Robby: Sorry, miss. I was giving myself an oil-job.
TAXI DRIVER and SUMMER OF SAM are absolutely perfect for showing outdoors in the summer in NYC. I would have included THE PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE with Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft. Even though it's 90 minutes of shrill yelling and mediocre plot, I think people under 35 should watch it--along with an explanation of how the film perfectly captures the mood of New York in 1974-'75 (despair and anxiety), when the city was in a state of anarchy and many people wanted to get OUT (but couldn't).
The protagonists live in a 14th-floor apartment at 88th and 2nd that many of us would dream of having: big living room/dining room, terrace with a great view, big bedroom--but Lemmon and Bankcroft are absolutely miserable, bitter and angry about the apartment and New York in general. The film might show the young 'uns that have moved here recently that NYC was not always an aspirational & desirable place to live and they shouldn't take it for granted. (Although, nothing will probably stop them from acting like they own the place.)
For me, the film made me feel a bit bittersweet--glad that I live in a city that's come a long way since the lawless and garbage-strewn '70s (for better and for worse) but also nostalgic for a gloriously seedy and excitingly dangerous city that I only had a glimpse of, when I visited as a child in the mid and late'70s....back when most people had a New York accent and didn't sound like they just got dropped off from mommy and daddy's car via Michigan.
Speaking of Leguizamo, 'Mixed Blood' would be a fun TSP movie...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_Blood_(film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089607/
@ Gojira
I like your choices.
@anon 8:26 am
Road House? Heh.
@Glenn
The Prisoner of Second Avenue is one of my favorites... a good summer movie...
The nostalgia of these films is helpful for gentrifiers. Lets all go back and relive what it was while the city, developers and business owners cash in. don't kid yourselves it's a conspiracy and Robert DiNero and his real estate family have helped to destroy this city. We need new radical political and transgressive films that show the takeover of NYC. what a bunch of crap.
Hmm.......brought to you by the usual suspects!
"The films are being offered through a collaboration of Two Boots pizza, Ella bar on Avenue A, HOWL! and Tower Brokerage"
You have to understand that some of these people involved own a good portion of the neighborhoods real estate and a significant number of some of the worse lounges on the LES. The most recent upgrade is the purchase of Nice Guy Eddie's, formerly a dive bar which will turn into a more upscale restaurant/bar. Two of the new owners are Bob Perl and Darin Rubell. Do your own research. Darin rubell coined the name "LEV", lower east village.
The films in TSP are a means of making the people involved look charitable when all the while they are on a mission to completely take over the whole area.
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