By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
The Return of Screening Gotham: Sept. 1-4, 2006
A few of this Labor Day weekend’s worthwhile cinematic happenings around New York:
–The Walter Reade Theater is hosting the epochal Bollywood extravaganza Sholay (left) today through Sept. 5. Starring Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra as convicts recruited to capture a nasty bandit (Amjad Singh) in the mountains surrounding a terrorized village, the film scored lukewarm reviews in its original 1975 release before becoming the biggest hit in Bollywood history and running for five years straight in Mumbai and New Delhi. The print obtained by the Film Society of Lincoln Center is evidently director Ramesh Sippy’s rare, original 200-minute cut, from which Indian censors hacked 15 minutes (and insisted on a new ending) and which lost more than a half-hour of footage upon its American release. As an added bonus, your pals at Asian CineVision have greased the skids to get you two-for-one tickets when you say “ACV” at the box office. Sheesh–now you kind of have to go.
–So earlier this summer, viewers were given a choice: “Among Manhattan, The Way We Were and Wall Street, which film would you prefer close out the 2006 Central Park Film Festival?” Fuck if this vote was not rigged: The Way We Were eked out a victory and will screen Saturday night at 8 at the Rumsey Playfield near East 72nd Street. Take a date and pack dinner, wine, Kleenex, razor blades, whatever.
–The Museum of the Moving Image hosts a Brazilian Independence Day party tonight in Astoria, featuring food, live music and two screenings of Marcel Camus’s Black Orpheus. I don’t have a joke for this that doesn’t involve Greeks, Brazilians and birth control, so I had better just call it a week. See you Tuesday with the latest installment of the Site Meter survey “Joys of Discovering The Reeler” and a dispatch from the Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series screening of Michael Tully’s Cocaine Angel (which you should also check out, by the way). Have a good weekend!