We’re howling with enthusiasm to announce the next installments in our Midnight Movie series, an ongoing exercise in revisionist film history where wooden dialogue, demonic serial killers, wolf-men, armless mothers bent on revenge, and giant alien bugs are all par for the course.
This fall we kick off with Paul Verhoeven’s beloved, ridiculously earnest sci-fi extravaganza Starship Troopers, followed by David Lynch’s return to the strange, cherry-pie-filled small-town world of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Then we head to the big city, to catch four British rock gods at the height of their powers in The Song Remains the Same. Next is Santa Sangre, an unclassifiable and horrific triumph from the man credited with the invention of the Midnight Movie: one-of-a-kind filmmaker/graphic novelist/mystic/shaman Alejandro Jodorowsky. Finally, we close with Michael Wadleigh’s deliriously goofy werewolf thriller Wolfen.
We’ve included a brief guide to the selections, but we could use your input! Submit your own superlatives in the comments section by Friday, August 31 at midnight (of course) for a chance to win two free tickets to the Midnight Movie screening of your choice! Be sure to include your name and the film you'd like to attend. (NYFF Midnight Movies not included.)
Defining Line: “Shoot a nuke down a bug hole, you got a lot of dead bugs.”
Alternate, Appropriately High-Testosterone Soundtrack Choice: “Generation” by Liturgy (play over this for maximum effect)
Most Lynchian NYC Afternoon Outing: La Monte Young’s Dream House (closed for the summer, re-opens September 22, just over a week after our screening)
Ideal Post-Screening Beverage: David Lynch Signature Cup coffee
Post-Screening Viewing Most Likely To Keep You Up All Night: The commercial for said coffee
Alternate Soundtrack Choice: Nothing can replace that Baldamenti theme, but this comes close…
Cameo to Watch: British folk legend Roy Harper as a greedy millionaire in one of the fantasy sequences
Mid-Film Activity: Keeping track of how many expletives manager Peter Cook uses in any given scene
Alternate Soundtrack Choice: “The Carny” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Most Painful Jodorowski-related Wishful Thinking: Imagining how monumental his planned Dune adaptation would’ve been: design by H.R. Giger (of Alien fame); cast including David Carradine, Charlotte Rampling, Mick Jagger, Gloria Swanson, Orson Welles, Alain Delon, and Salvador Dali (!); soundtrack by Pink Floyd…
Best Consolation: Lynch’s own magnificently wacky Dune
Choice Trailer Line: “A force so deadly, it will tear the scream from your throat!”
Runner-Up: “Somethin' out there might be eatin' people!”
