By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Screening Gotham–'Yay Independence!' Edition: July 3-4, 2006
A few of New York’s worthwhile cinematic happenings celebrating freedom, booze and sulfurous, sparkling conflagrations over the next 36 hours:
—Rooftop Films plans its annual Fourth of July extravaganza in Manhattan this year, with the Fun with the Founding Fathers program promising all the subversive yuks you can stand (along with a little more grave documentary short, Night Visions), live music by The Double and Woodpecker, and a view of East River fireworks at 9 p.m. Check Rooftop’s site for the relatively arcane attendance specifics (“All audience members must be at the venue by 5PM. The matter is out of our control, and if you are late, the NYPD will not let you past their barricade.”), and bring an umbrella–organizers pledge that no midsummer monsoon will derail this show. And with short classics like Washington (above) and Preacher with an Unknown God unspooling, you cannot blame them.
–The always-pleasing Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series follows up its puppet-film mini-festival tonight with a doc double feature: the NYC premiere of music biography Billy Childish is Dead and the East Coast premiere of the Hunter-Thompson’s-ashes-getting-blown-out-of-a-cannon chronicle When I Die. Does it get more American than that? Well… probably. But that is not the point.
–If suffocating heat and humidity is your thing, try tonight’s outdoor screening of Robert Altman’s Korean War laffer M*A*S*H in Bryant Park. Assuming you survive, catch me back here Wednesday with a preview of Thomas Allen Harris’s Paulding Avenue Trilogy engagement at BAM and (God willing) a surprise or two from the holiday party scene. Until then, be safe and have fun, preferably at the same time.