Here Are the Outdoor Movies Coming to Tompkins Square Park This Summer

Maybe you thought the summer’s outdoor film fests had already announced their lineups (and hopefully you snagged tickies to next Saturday’s sold-out screening of the Death by Audio documentary at Rooftop Films, followed by a set from A Place to Bury Strangers). If so, you were mistaken. In Rockaway, the annual Beach Flix series is still getting its act together, and in the East Village the folks at Howl! Arts have taken their sweet time letting us know what’s coming to Tompkins Square Park this summer. But good things come to cinefiles who wait.
The Free Films in Tompkins series just unveiled the slate of films that will play every Thursday from July 7 to August 11, and there are some fun ones in the mix. The opener will be Rocky Horror Picture Show, so if you missed the Drag March you’ve got another excuse to sport fishnets in Tompkins Square Park (not that you ever needed one). Another fun pick, on July 14, is Next Stop, Greenwich Village, a 1970s movie about an aspiring actor trying to make it in the capital of bohemia in the 1950s. Look for appearances by a young Jeff Goldblum and and a young Christopher Walken. Then there’s the obligatory Spike Lee joint, Do the Right Thing (July 14); another urban classic, Wild Style, on July 28; and the Tarantino-penned True Romance on August 8.
All of the above are BYOB (as in, Bring Your Own, um, picnic Basket), but the August 11 screening of Romeo & Juliet (starring Leo and downtown’s own Claire Danes) will be preceded, at 5 p.m., by a food fair featuring local restaurants Huertas, GG’s, and Boulton & Watt.
As always, local music acts will be performing before the movies start at sundown. Here’s the flyer showing who’s paired with what.