By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Screening Gotham: Sept. 15-17, 2006
A few of this weekend’s worthwhile cinematic happenings around New York:
—MoMA’s Huston family fête continues this weekend with a pair of decade-spanning double features. First up on Saturday is The African Queen, screening in vintage, restored Technicolor and preceded by the mind-blowing WWII combat short The Battle of San Pietro. Morally ambiguous and violent enough to be banned by the US Army, the film was later enthusiastically received for its realism and earned director John Huston a bump in rank up to major (left). (Bonus: Walter Huston’s stirring narration.) Next, it’s a John/Angelica/Danny trifecta on Sunday, when John’s last film, The Dead, screens with its making-of documentary, John Huston and The Dubliners.
–Learn something this weekend with Skip Elsheimer, who storms Anthology Film Archives Sunday night with selections from his 18,000-title collection of educational films lost and found. The program promises a dated introduction to percussion instruments, an industrial safety video loaded with fake gore and a “proto-Claymation dental hygiene film [that] goes awry with talking teeth, a tooth decay demon and a food-group hoedown.” That’s it–I am skipping late Mass.
–Also on Sunday, the show-offs at the Film Society of Lincoln Center kick off their Next Generation of Film series with an appearance by legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman. No specific film is scheduled to screen; rather, Wiseman will discuss a set of clips from films such as Titicut Follies and The Garden with you and yours. And before you get too deceived by the “Next Generation” tag, expect, in fact, future programs including Monte Hellman (Oct. 14), Paul Schrader (Oct. 22) and Martin Scorsese (November date to be determined). Not that you will hear me complain.