New York City Repertory Cinema

[hearthesilence]

Rare Jerry Lewis prints screening on 3/16 at The Roxy.

Advertised as a mint print of The Errand Boy and an IB Tech Alternative Preview Print of The Disorderly Orderly.

Both presented by Owen Kline, with Bob Furmanek as well.

Does an alternative preview print mean a different cut?

[yoloswegmaster]

FLC Spring Programming Features Paul Schrader, Enys Men, Jean Eustache, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Marco Ferreri & More

[hearthesilence]

A rare chance to see Rob Tregenza's work outside of his Vimeo page. He shot his stuff on 35mm with Dolby sound, and they'll be screening at MoMA.

Also this Rialto anniversary program at MoMA is pretty amazing.

[Drucker]

Great lineup. Mostly recent restorations, but they appear to be playing Ran in 35 on May 6.

[hearthesilence]

Also the Dardennes are making an appearance at IFC Center:

"In celebration of their new film TORI AND LOKITA, IFC Center revisits the Dardennes’ extraordinary tales of ordinary people struggling with work, money and love. The program includes a sneak preview of their latest film, along with the US premieres of new 4K restorations of their breakthrough LA PROMESSE, their first Cannes Palme d'Or winner, ROSETTA; and the Cannes award-winning THE SON; 35mm prints of L’ENFANT, LORNA’S SILENCE and THE KID WITH A BIKE; and more."

They'll be appearing at four screenings:
Q&A with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne on Wed Mar 22 at the 7:30pm show
Extended intro with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne on Wed Mar 22 at the 9:45pm show
Extended intro with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne on Thu Mar 23 at the 9:30pm show
Q&A with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne on Thu Mar 23 at the 7:15pm show

[hearthesilence]

Some more upcoming Q&A's of interest coming up in NYC:

Q&A with T.S. Monk tomorrow (3/10) at 7pm at BAM for a screening of Rewind and Play, a great new documentary about his father, Thelonious Monk.

Christophe Honoré and Beth B are appearing at a bunch of screenings at Metrograph starting tomorrow. (Not together, they're there for unrelated programs.)

Q&A with director François Girard for a Metrograph screening of The Red Violin at 8pm, Friday, March 17

Q&A's for What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears with Blood, Sweat & Tears‘ Bobby Colomby and the documentary's director John Scheinfeld at Quad Cinema for three separate screenings between March 24 and 26.

Q&A with playwright John Guare for a screening of Atlantic City (which Guare wrote) at Quad Cinema on March 27.

[FrauBlucher]

Film Forum April/May calendar.... Some highlights, Harold Lloyd 100 year Anniversary of Safety Last (and other Lloyd films screened) and This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture (over 60 films)

[hearthesilence]

Interesting read on the state of New York repertory exhibition.

[Drucker]

Great read. Now I feel bad for not schlepping out to MOMI on the weekends.

[Tom Amolad]

Indeed - thanks for posting it.

[Black Hat]

Man, the second I read that lede signaling his dork status I knew I was in for a doozy...

Guys, come on, and look, I don't want to jump all over someone I'm sure I know tangentially but, that was horrendously overwritten. Hilariously, the writer shouted out to his editor on Twitter. I mean, lordy, lordy, lordy.

Masquerading as an ad for MoMI, which I get, it's on their site but, for fuck sake, don't sacrifice reality.

If you're going to title your blog post "Checking the Pulse on New York Repertory Culture" you can't place the most irrelevant venue we have in New York at its center.

I feel bad for any young cinephile outside of New York reading that who thinks the piece accurately represents what the rep scene here is like.

There is a really great, colorful piece available to be written about New York's rep scene. Hopefully, next time, the person who writes it won't be as insulated to one small corner of that world and be a whole lot cooler.

Shout out to Bruce for remaining the only programmer here who really knows what he's doing. The true King of New York.

[FrauBlucher]

I agree about Bruce Goldstein. There's a reason he's been a programmer for a third of a century with the same theater.

I'm not sure what the author was trying to convey. Are Rep houses doing well or are they in trouble? Mixed messaging for sure. I do find it comforting that young folks are showing interest in what came before and way before.

[Drucker]

Man, the second I read that lede signaling his dork status I knew I was in for a doozy...

Guys, come on, and look, I don't want to jump all over someone I'm sure I know tangentially but, that was horrendously overwritten. Hilariously, the writer shouted out to his editor on Twitter. I mean, lordy, lordy, lordy.

Masquerading as an ad for MoMI, which I get, it's on their site but, for fuck sake, don't sacrifice reality.

If you're going to title your blog post "Checking the Pulse on New York Repertory Culture" you can't place the most irrelevant venue we have in New York at its center.

I feel bad for any young cinephile outside of New York reading that who thinks the piece accurately represents what the rep scene here is like.

There is a really great, colorful piece available to be written about New York's rep scene. Hopefully, next time, the person who writes it won't be as insulated to one small corner of that world and be a whole lot cooler.

Shout out to Bruce for remaining the only programmer here who really knows what he's doing. The true King of New York.

Black Hat I am earnestly interested in your take. The article reads super nerdy but all of the cool kids these days seem far more insufferable, packing Roxy Cinema and Nitehawk with programming that can generally be described as 'will people on Twitter' find this cool?

[Tom Amolad]

Yeah, itwas overwritten, and I bracked some moments as probably peculiar to the author's own commitments.

But it's a take on things, by someone involved, written in some detail. Even if you don't take it as gospel, or love the writing (I didn't either), I thought it had a fair amount of value.

[hearthesilence]

But the Roxy IS genuinely a good repertory venue. They show rare films via good prints, and just last month, they premiered some amazing Velvet Underground related material with half of Sonic Youth and 2/3 of Yo La Tengo present.

The article is overwritten, but it seemed like there was plenty of good info in there. I really don't know how these theaters do financially, so it was interesting to read (and also pretty damn sad that John Ford and John Huston simply don't have much of an audience in New York anymore).

[FrauBlucher]

I’m not sure I agree with Ford and Huston not being an attraction anymore. Stick a Ford or Huston retrospective in the Film Forum or Lincoln Center and I think they do very well.

[Drucker]

But the Roxy IS genuinely a good repertory venue. They show rare films via good prints, and just last month, they premiered some amazing Velvet Underground related material with half of Sonic Youth and 2/3 of Yo La Tengo present.

The article is overwritten, but it seemed like there was plenty of good info in there. I really don't know how these theaters do financially, so it was interesting to read (and also pretty damn sad that John Ford and John Huston simply don't have much of an audience in New York anymore).

My beef with Roxy is mostly based on vibe. The first few times I went there (before the pandemic), the shows started significantly late (a 7:30 screening was going to be pushed back to at least 8 to accommodate some private party in the adjacent room). Before the programming got as good as it has recently, they were screening low-brow 90s movies on 35 to me, which is fine but not really my cup of tea and doesn't actually give me the sense that the theater is serious about showing movies (if I want to see Sister Act 2 on 35 I can go to Alamo...) Additionally, the venue had a habit for a while of re-sharing on instagram photos people took of the screen during the movies where Roxy was tagged.

Don't get me wrong, they play lots of stuff that appeals to me. But it feels more like its trying to be a cool kids club with a movie theater attached than a place I can reliably go to enjoy a movie.

[Black Hat]

I think being the last activity people can afford to do in Manhattan has a lot to do with the rep houses, even pre-pandemic, doing well with young people.

The problem with MoMI is its terrible location. Not sure, outside of NYU opening dorms there, or further gentrification, how that gets fixed. It's also a ghastly-looking building, a very depressing environment. Their best bet is to never show anything that gets screenings in the city and if they're going to show stuff people have seen gear it to the public, not Twitter or their social circle. What makes Bruce great is he understands programming is about a balance between giving people what they want and presenting new discoveries. Not a coincidence that Bruce isn't on Twitter and Film Forum is doing well.

I've never gone to a public screening at The Roxy but, what's being described sounds like Metrograph. Drucker, the only people who believe Twitter drives audiences are people on Twitter*. The Reverse Shot writer (I use the term loosely) only mentioning it passing alluding to "Dimes Square" showed how Twitter Brained he is. Dimes Square isn't actually a place, nor is it a scene. It was a joke coined by annoying New York Twitter people which another corner of even more annoying New York Media Twitter grew obsessed with and now people think it's a thing. It is not.

Metrograph, who aren't ever going to be awarded top prize for best business practices, have created an honest-to-goodness cinephile scene. If you're going to honestly write about the New York Rep scene, you have to cover what's going on there. Admittedly, at first, it was jarring to see the cool kids at screenings but, I'd much rather be in a room full of hot people than a room of people who look like they know where every neighborhood dive is. Hate me, I'm shallow.

John Ford and John Huston are directors with films everyone has seen. Their movies are constantly screened so, they shouldn't be used as a barometer. If anything, they're being screened as often as they are, because somebody's going.

*I was once one of these people.

[hearthesilence]

I’m not sure I agree with Ford and Huston not being an attraction anymore. Stick a Ford or Huston retrospective in the Film Forum or Lincoln Center and I think they do very well.

It's actually mentioned by Jake Perlin in that article - he programmed the Huston retrospective at Lincoln Center (which I think I attended), and he said it did very poorly.

FWIW, David Schwartz at MoMI is the one who said Ford was hard to program, but to be fair, he must've been the one who brought The Searchers to MoMI several years ago, and that was a very well-attended show (print looked amazing). It was also memorable because one parent brought his son, and the boy audibly expressed how much he loved the movie at the very end, much to everyone's delight. (I also remember one audience member who may have been an international student or a tourist from Europe, and he especially got a kick out of the boy's remarks.)

One of my favorite BAM screenings was 7 Women, possibly in 2009, presented by the late Elliott Stein who was still sharp and in good health. That was a pretty packed screening.

Based on those experiences, I'd like to think Ford would do well too, but there's definitely been more and more of a short-sighted backlash in the last few years, both among critics (none that really struck me as being very good critics, much less historians) and even filmmakers like Tarantino.

[FrauBlucher]

hearthesilence, as someone who attends all the different venues around the city, would you say the audiences differ from venue to venue? I would think they mostly reflect the neighborhoods they are in.

[hearthesilence]

I think the same core audience gets drawn to all of them - at least when they're definite cinephiles - but I think you probably do see some variations that reflect the neighborhood. Metrograph and Roxy are located in pretty trendy areas, so it's not surprising to see audience members who also look like the type of people I'd see at bars and restaurants in the immediate area. (Metrograph is interesting because it's actually in Chinatown, but you do have that pocket of trendiness to its right - I always wonder if this is a sign of encroaching gentrification.)

MoMA attracts an older crowd, but I think this is partly due to its programming - early weekday shows probably help build an older audience. Lincoln Center too - a lot of people I know who live in the UWS tend to be older or wealthier people.

I'm not sure about MoMI - like MoMA, having a museum probably has an impact because you get people who are visiting the museum too. It's also next door to the film studio, so it's possible people from the business will go in as well.

[hearthesilence]

I should add, I see some of the people interviewed in that article at pretty much every venue - Film Forum, MoMI, Anthology Film Archives, Metrograph, Lincoln Center, BAM, MoMA, etc. It probably goes without saying, but it just emphasizes how much films mean to them - it's not just a job, this is something they spend their free time indulging in. I always liked that about NY, especially when the first people I noticed were familiar film critics like Glenn Kenny, Gavin Smith, Scott Foundas, Stephanie Zacharek, etc. It just makes the city feel all the more like the center of film culture in the U.S. - not just Hollywood film culture but all of it.

[FrauBlucher]

The Film Forum is definitely not in the hip category. Many, especially the members that are older folks (maybe many years ago they were considered hip) that live in the Village or used to live in the village pretty much are the core viewer there. So, Huston and Ford will always perform well at the FF. I also see a decent number of NYU students attending, and they are no doubt film students.

[Drucker]

Agreed with HTS. Definitely think the theaters attached to larger cultural institutions (BAM, MOMA, Lincoln Center) attract people that wouldn't attend Metrograph, Roxy, and Anthology, and vice versa. Of course there's some overlap, especially with the hardcore folks (I attend them all pretty evenly), but that's my point of view. I think of Film Forum as a bit of a melting pot and the gold standard for the reasons Black Hat laid out. It was certainly the first one I became familiar with.

[Black Hat]

I really don't think it's a neighborhood thing so much, maybe a little in Lincoln Center's case. It's more the older places attract the old people and, of course, MoMA being free. Something about becoming a senior makes you devoted to cheapness.

I should add, I see some of the people interviewed in that article at pretty much every venue - Film Forum, MoMI, Anthology Film Archives, Metrograph, Lincoln Center, BAM, MoMA, etc. It probably goes without saying, but it just emphasizes how much films mean to them - it's not just a job, this is something they spend their free time indulging in. I always liked that about NY, especially when the first people I noticed were familiar film critics like Glenn Kenny, Gavin Smith, Scott Foundas, Stephanie Zacharek, etc. It just makes the city feel all the more like the center of film culture in the U.S. - not just Hollywood film culture but all of it.

Indeed. They're even bigger dorks in person. I would push back on how much films actually mean to them too. There is a lot of unwarranted self-regard, the kind that comes about when a group of people has been insulated from outsiders for a period of time.

One of the funniest things over the last few years has been watching the conflict, dorklandia turfwar, of the geriatric millennials/young gen x'ers vs young millennials/zoomers. A complete shambles but, NYU gonna NYU. Losers the whole lot.