(Photo: Nicole Disser)
As of this morning, the beloved Pavilion is officially no more. Even visiting the Park Slope movie theater’s website early this morning turned up a ghostly message in washed-out grey: “http://www.paviliontheater.com/ has been disabled.”
It’s only appropriate, given that Nitehawk cinemas–the proud new owners of the ratty old Art Deco theater that’s been in decline for several years now– threw a proper New Orleans-style jazz funeral for the place.
By now you’ve heard that the folks at Williamsburg’s beloved Nitehawk Cinema are giving a $10 million makeover to Park Slope’s ratty Pavilion theater. Which is good news to anyone who has ever gone to Smorgasburg in Prospect Park and thought, “Oh, I’d like to see Snowden but I forgot my bed bug detector.” Still, there are likely some nostalgics who will miss the Pavilion and bitch about the hipsters taking it over and ruining everything with Werner Herzog-themed cocktails like the Even Dewar’s Started Small. (Hey, at least tickets won’t cost $32, like they do for VIP seats at South Street Seaport’s new dine-in theater.)
Silent Night, Deadly Night
Friday Dec. 18 and Saturday Dec. 19, midnight at Nitehawk: $11
Everyone knows the only sufferable holiday films are Xmas-themed horror movies. This 1984 genre classic Silent Night, Deadly Night tells the story of a young boy who witnesses the murder of his parents at the hands of a psychopath dressed as Santa. Traumatized by his exposure to such unspeakable violence, the boy grows into a truly screwed-up young man whose thirst for blood knows no bounds. Oh, and of course he feels the need to don a Santa outfit during his mayhem sprees.
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Still from Michel Auder film (via Light Industry / Facebook)
Michel Auder + Rebekah Rutkoff: Sunsets and Other Stars
Tuesday, Dec. 15, 7:30 pm at Light Industry: $8 at the door
French artist, photographer, and filmmaker Michel Auder left France in the ’70s for New York City, where he’s resided ever since. He’s maybe best known as Cindy Sherman’s ex-husband (JK, but for real — how do you compete with Cindy Sherman?). Much of his video work (though apparently Auder “did not consider it fine art”) consists of ethnographic snapshots and sceney vignettes, the stuff of Auder’s cool Downtown life amongst artists like Annie Sprinkle, Larry Rivers, Hannah Wilke, among others.
But another good chunk of his focus was deadly personal. Take My Last Bag of Heroin (For Real), a 1993 piece which shows the filmmaker, who battled with heroin addiction for many years, breaking apart a glassine baggie of heroin onto a piece of aluminum foil and smoking the stuff. The video demonstrates the banality of drug use, often depicted as an explosively orgasmic experience, particularly in film.
If the thought of CMJ renders you an anxious, nail-biting, hair-pulling mess we’ve got some sweet alternatives for you, in places where you can hide away in a dark room without having to talk to people and avoid being regarded as a social misfit at the same time. “I’m just more into movies,” you can practice telling them. And hey, even if you’re not going to a music show per se, you can still join in the very trendy #notCMJ, which is currently trending on trendy website Twitter. Gobble up our film picks lurking just below this line.
Get ready this week for films that are at once fantastical and grounded in sometimes harsh reality. Our top picks include an art-house sci-fi film that says more about immigration than extra-terrestrials, one werewolf flick that proves the Scandinavians are masters of mixing the banality of small town life and horror, and more. Peep on.
Have we got an interesting crew for you this week! Our lineup is a regular emotional rollercoaster, from feel-horrible humanitarian films about sex slaves and child soldiers all the way to feel-sick, total-garbage cult Martial Arts-action films. Don’t try to swallow them all at once is our only advice.
Hi, are you feeling patriotic yet? Usually I’m not either, but that whole Obama singing “Amazing Grace” thing still hasn’t quite worn off. I’d call you a liar if you said you didn’t cry at least a little bit. Like, that was some realness. Or maybe just a speech writer’s brilliant means of getting us to forget about… what are those thingamabobs called again? Those silent death dealing demons of the sky? Oh right, drones. Well, at least I had a brief moment of nationalist, er, I mean patriotic pride this Birthday Season.
This week, we’re thinking a lot about the past — either our own not-too-far-gone experiences of high school or, like, deep historical stuff. But the films this week invoke a strange sort of nostalgia because none of these experiences are exactly our own, they’re either twisted, seriously intense versions of teenage-hood, fantastically horny imaginings of centuries past, or some vision of a lost young adulthood spent with Vincent Gallo. (Unfortunately, it’s true that we’ve never hung out). But who knows, maybe these films will strike a chord in you somewhere. You might not have been stuck in a school for the deaf in small-town post-industrial Ukraine and forced to help run a prostitution ring involving your fellow students, but maybe you had a similarly cray experience with young love. No? Well, whatever — Â that’s what movies are for.
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Winter demons be gone, will you not?! How many of our yearly allotment of BBQs and rooftop hang outs have we lost already to this arctic blast that cares for no one and forgives nothing? How many more will we lose before we’re spared this suffering? Try not to think about it. Or rather, distract yourself with this friendly assortment of film things.
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