The Wizard of Oz (courtesy of Warner Bros.); NOPE (courtesy of Universal); King Kong (courtesy of Warner Bros.); and Buck and the Preacher (courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment)


New York, NY (December 22, 2022) – Film at Lincoln Center announces The Lost Rider: A Chronicle of Hollywood Sacrifice, from January 5–14.

Widely hailed as one of this century’s great directorial debuts, Jordan Peele’s era-defining Get Out injected new life into horror with its witty subversion of racial politics and elitist social mores. Two years later, his wildly entertaining Us plumbed everything from isolationist fears and late-capitalist power structures to the rich lineage of the doppelgänger motif and home-invasion thrillers. NOPE, his celebrated latest from 2022, might be his most stylistically adventurous yet: a big and kinetic, yet tightly controlled, Western-inflected UFO movie probing America’s legacy of exploitation and the spectacle of cinema itself. Indeed, few filmmakers working today are as skilled as Peele at leveling real-time social critiques within the look and textures of high-concept genre cinema, mixing the uncanny with the personal, and turning even the most bizarre into essential truths about living in the United States today. Join Film at Lincoln Center in the new year as we celebrate NOPE, featuring 70mm screenings with Peele and more: Peele has also handpicked an assortment of films that serve as a guide to understanding NOPE’s thematic interests—from Blaxploitation and America’s mythologized West to the moral implications of image-taking and child stardom.

In addition to the 70mm presentation of NOPE, Peele’s head spinning and iconic selections include  35mm presentations of: Victor Fleming’s groundbreaking The Wizard of Oz; Sidney Lumet’s glitzed-out The Wiz; Rob Reiner’s coming-of-age masterpiece Stand by Me; Elem Klimov’s shocking and affecting Come and See, preceded by a special, to be announced short; Marc Rocco’s Dream a Little Dream, one of the strangest body-swap films of the 1980s; the U.S. theatrical premiere of Eugenio Mira’s The Birthday, a weirdo-horror of the highest order; and Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion Plate 626, shown from a specially-made 35mm print created by Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions followed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s King Kong, a prehistoric fever dream of humanity’s desire to exploit nature.

The series will also include a 4K restoration of Sidney Poitier’s directorial debut Buck and the Preacher; and Joseph Zito’s Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, one of the franchise’s most beloved installments.

Organized by Florence Almozini, Tyler Wilson, and Jordan Peele.

Acknowledgements:

Universal Pictures; Ian Cooper and David Torres, Monkey Paw Productions; Katherine Rowe and Lindsay Stevens, Rowe PR; Eugenio Mira; Corey Feldman; Kino Lorber

Tickets are on sale now and are $15 for the general public; $12 for students, seniors, and persons with disabilities; and $10 for FLC Members, with discounted Memberships now on sale for a limited time. NOPE in 70mm is $20 for the general public; $17 for students, seniors, and persons with disabilities; and $15 for FLC Members. See more and save with a 3+ Film Package (discount automatically applied in cart) or $79 All-Access Pass, limited quantities available.

Please note: Face masks and full vaccination are strongly recommended, but not required at FLC. Visit filmlinc.org/safety for more information.

FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS
All films will screen at the Walter Reade Theater (165 W 65th St)
A full schedule can be found below or here.

NOPE
Jordan Peele, 2022, USA, 70mm, 130m
Jordan Peele’s latest, most assured sci-fi-horror outing transposes the alien-invasion thriller to America’s wide-open west. NOPE concerns the family of Haywood Hollywood Horses, a California horse farm whose owner (Keith David) dies mysteriously and bequeaths the family business to his two children: the devoted but taciturn O. J. (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer), an aspiring filmmaker-actor far less interested than her brother in horse wrangling. Not long after the siblings bear witness to an uncanny discovery above their childhood home, they hatch a plan to obtain video evidence of it, while their neighbor Jupe (Steven Yeun)—a former child star and owner of a nearby Western theme park—takes a different approach to capturing the phenomenon. A big and kinetic existential nightmare about what it means to be human, NOPE probes everything from America’s mythologized West and legacy of exploitation to the moral consequences of cinematic spectacle and image-taking, especially of those treated as outsiders. A Universal Pictures release.
Thursday, January 5 at 6:00pm (Q&A with Jordan Peele and crew) & 9:00pm (Introduction with Jordan Peele)
Saturday, January 14 at 2:00pm


Animal Locomotion Plate 626 + King Kong

Animal Locomotion Plate 626
Eadweard Muybridge, 1887, USA, 35mm, 15m
Originally a landscape and architectural photographer, Eadweard Muybridge is primarily known today for his pioneering work in photographic studies in motion. One of his primary working methods involved rigging large cameras in a line to shoot images automatically as his subjects passed. When viewed through his zoopraxiscope machine (a predecessor to the film projector), these photos transformed into moving images. A key reference point in NOPE, Animal Locomotion Plate 626 depicts an uncredited jockey on a galloping horse—originally published in Animal Locomotion, a portfolio of 781 separate series that Muybridge produced with the University of Pennsylvania. These 16 photographic plates were filmed and animated on IMAX for Peele’s feature and, for the occasion of this series, this animated loop has been transferred to a 35mm film print to be screened before King Kong.

“The first film.

A four second loop comprises 16 sequential photographs. The horse is named Annie, but the identity of the jockey—the star of the film—is unknown.” —Jordan Peele

Followed by:

King Kong
Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933, USA, 35mm, 100m
Ninety years ago, former aviator and journalist Merian C. Cooper and his co-director, Ernest B. Schoedsack, forever changed the art of cinema with this prehistoric fever dream of humanity’s desire to exploit nature. In many ways the first true blockbuster and progenitor of the giant monster movie, King Kong revealed to audiences in 1933 visual ideas they had never seen before—from the godlike Kong’s brawl with a T-rex on Skull Island to the iconic image of the “Eighth Wonder of the World” atop the Empire State Building. Credit is due in large part to the trailblazing stop-motion effects by Willis O’Brien, who designed Kong as an alternately rampaging force and tragic figure eerily resembling the human form, consequently transforming a mute creation into a powerful symbol of the times. Indeed, King Kong captured the 20th-century imperialist worldview within an atmospheric horror-fantasy packed with pyrotechnics.

“One of the great films about filmmaking. A primal kaiju horror about the need to capture, sell, and sacrifice the exotic masculine spectacle. A pinnacle of craft and exploitation in filmmaking.” —Jordan Peele
Friday, January 6 at 6:00pm & 9:15pm

The Wizard of Oz
Victor Fleming, 1939, USA, 35mm, 101m
From its groundbreaking Technicolor camerawork and eye-popping set design, costuming, and choreography to its catchy music and enduring lyrics, The Wizard of Oz remains one of the crowning achievements of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The premise adapted from L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel: A Kansas girl travels with a scarecrow, a tinman, a lion (and her dog, Toto, too) through a magical land of Munchkins, witches, and the wonderful wizard. Perhaps less is known of its troubled production, which ran through a carousel of directors (Richard Thorpe, George Cukor, Victor Fleming, who held the reins for most of the film, and finally King Vidor), and the mistreatment of its young star, a then 16-year-old Judy Garland, by Fleming and MGM studio executives. A joyful celebration of imagination as well as an unsettling tale of childhood insecurities, the film remains every bit as resonant as it was upon its premiere.

“Primates, twisters, and hot air balloons stalk the skies in this American fantasy masterpiece. The tone eternally inspires both deep wonder and instinctive dread. Odd legends from the notoriously harrowing production also haunt every viewing.” —Jordan Peele
Saturday, January 7 at 1:30pm & 6:30pm

Buck and the Preacher
Sidney Poitier, 1972, USA, 102m
Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte forged one of the greatest and most daring artistic collaborations of the 1970s with the former’s directorial debut—the first major Hollywood Western from a Black director—produced with Belafonte, and starring the duo as the titular characters. Poitier is the trail guide Buck, who comes across a grifting man of the cloth (played with lovable volatility by Belafonte). Together they develop an uneasy partnership helping freed slaves head out West while fending off ex-Confederate soldiers stalking their route. A gorgeously shot, whip-smart Western with a razor-sharp contemporary edge, featuring the brilliantly cast Ruby Dee and Cameron Mitchell in supporting roles, Buck and the Preacher entertains on many levels, audaciously blending humor with menacing thrills, and drawing undeniable parallels between the aftermaths of the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. Restored in 4k in March 2022 by Sony Pictures Entertainment using the original negative, in collaboration with Cineric, Inc. (4k scanning and digital image restoration), Roundabout Entertainment (color grading), and Deluxe Audio Services (audio restoration).

“Sidney Poitier and the triumphant reclamation of the lost iconography. The Black cowboy rare in the medium; spectacle by definition.” —Jordan Peele
Saturday, January 7 at 4:00pm & 9:00pm

The Wiz
Sidney Lumet, 1978, USA, 35mm, 133m
Set in 1970s New York, this glitzed-out spin on The Wizard of Oz—written by Joel Schumacher just after he penned Car Wash and Sparkle—stars Diana Ross as the timid Dorothy who gets swept away to the land of Oz for a journey of self-discovery and features an all-star cast (Michael Jackson in his cinematic debut, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, and Richard Pryor as the Wiz) and a score by the inimitable Quincy Jones. Filming partly at Astoria Studios in Queens on spectacular Art Deco-meets-disco sets, Lumet also turned in some of the decade’s most imaginative cinematic depictions of New York locales—from the decaying New York State Pavilion as Munchkinland and Coney Island as backdrop for the Tinman’s introduction to the World Trade Center as Emerald City. A critical and commercial failure upon its release, The Wiz has since become an all-ages cult film and remains an ambitious contrast to the 1939 MGM musical.

“A touchstone in representation. The reimagining of ‘Oz’ with an all-star, all-Black cast set in an Afro-Futurist New York City. Mainstream audiences initially rejected the film effectively marking the end of the Blaxploitation movement.” —Jordan Peele
Sunday, January 8 at 1:30pm

“Specially Selected Secret Short” + Come and See

Peele’s secret selection will be revealed during the screening’s introduction.

Come and See
Elem Klimov, 1985, Soviet Union, 35mm, 142m
Russian, Belarusian, and German with English subtitles
One of the most shocking and affecting cinematic depictions of manmade atrocity, Come and See follows a 14-year-old boy in Nazi-occupied Belarus after he joins the local partisans and experiences firsthand the horrors of the Eastern Front. Directed with a brutal, unswerving commitment to stimulating and displacing the senses, Elem Klimov’s final film is a coming-of-age story draped in a nightmarishly realistic horror-war epic and draws heavily on the filmmaker’s own memories of the Battle of Stalingrad. “As a young boy, I had been in hell,” Klimov said about his anti-war masterpiece. “Had I included everything I knew and shown the whole truth, even I could not have watched it.”

“The most harrowing horror film of all time is based on a true story. The film invites us to witness the atrocities of war as seen through the eyes of a child. The young star’s face changes dramatically over the course of the film.” —Jordan Peele
Sunday, January 8 at 5:00pm

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
Joseph Zito, 1984, USA, 91m
Paramount Pictures brought on The Prowler director Joseph Zito—and Tom Savini, makeup artist for the original Friday the 13th—to put a definitive end to its declining hockey-masked slasher franchise, and the result became one of its most beloved installments. After an opening montage recaps the first three films, The Final Chapter picks up in the immediate aftermath of Part III’s Crystal Lake massacres with Jason (now a hulking Ted White) waking up in a morgue and turning his attention to a new cast of prey, including Crispin Glover and 12-year-old Corey Feldman. Zito pulled out all the stops to make this a series worth saving: from mordant humor and glass-shattering kills to baffling psychosexual subtext to a gonzo finale—an insane nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

“The hockey mask is the Andy Warhol soup can of horror; the minimalist stalker. In the fourth installment, the introduction of a young hero draws a connection between monster and boy. It turns out to, in fact, not be the ‘final chapter.’ ” —Jordan Peele
Sunday, January 8 at 8:30pm

Stand by Me
Rob Reiner, 1986, USA, 35mm, 89m
Over a late-summer weekend in the 1950s, four boys set out to find a dead body rumored to be in the woods. Based on Stephen King’s novella “The Body,” Rob Reiner’s shrewdly cast third feature upends the classic coming-of-age film by compressing time and adding elements of the road-trip movie as the buddies (played by Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell) go from boys to men literally overnight. Taking its slightly anachronistic title from the 1961 Ben E. King song, which found a second chart-topping life with the film’s release, Stand by Me endures for the tender but unsentimental language it gives to the confusing adolescent feelings surrounding friendship, insecurities, and mortality.

“A Rob Reiner masterpiece. Four archetypal adventurers on a coming-of-age quest driven by the gravitational pull of the macabre. What begins as an invitation to gawk at a dead body ascends into a transcendental rumination on death.” —Jordan Peele
Tuesday, January 10 at 6:30pm

Dream a Little Dream
Marc Rocco, 1989, USA, 35mm, 114m
Far and away the strangest example to come out of the late 1980s cycle of body-swap comedies, Dream a Little Dream follows bratty teenager Bobby Keller (Corey Feldman) and the eccentric Coleman Ettinger (Jason Robards), a researcher so hopelessly in love with this wife (Piper Laurie) that he conducts an experiment to consciously enter a dream state with her forever—but instead wakes up in Bobby’s body, while his and his wife’s bodies, as well as Bobby’s mind, are trapped in an unconscious realm. The film was initially conceived as a four-hour-long meditation on spiritualism and a showcase for Feldman’s acting chops; Vestron Pictures (best known for Dirty Dancing) eventually winnowed it down to under two hours and turned it into another “two Coreys” film by casting Corey Haim as Bobby’s best friend. Nevertheless, it remains a pleasantly offbeat comedy for its time, with an unrelentingly 1980s soundtrack and an all-too-memorable dance sequence in which Feldman impersonates Michael Jackson.

“Corey Feldman is an icon, and this film exists in the pantheon of classic, feel-good teen beat fantasies. Michael Jackson Energy in its purest form continues to reverberate through the culture.” —Jordan Peele
Tuesday, January 10 at 8:30pm

The Birthday
Eugenio Mira, 2004, Spain, 35mm, 113m
U.S. Premiere
Part comedy of manners by way of Jerry Lewis, part phantasmagorical head trip, Eugenio Mira’s debut has garnered cult status in the years since its premiere at Sitges in 2004, in part for never getting an official home video release or U.S. theatrical premiere—that is, until this January at Film at Lincoln Center. Set in a ruby-red Art Deco hotel in 1987, The Birthday follows hapless protagonist Norman Forrester (Corey Feldman)—whose accent might suggest Brooklyn, New York, but is actually Brooklyn, Baltimore—as he navigates an inhospitable birthday celebration for his scolding girlfriend’s wealthy father (cult icon Jack Taylor) and struggles with the anxieties of his deteriorating romance. The atmosphere turns from tensely awkward to downright sinister as the party wears on, leading Norman to uncover an unimaginable conspiracy implicating the partygoers and staff. With its painstakingly fabricated set design, kinetic camerawork, and bonkers performances, The Birthday is weirdo-horror of the highest order and peers straight into a traumatized headspace of relationship neuroses.

“The lost film.

A cinematic marvel that demands captivation and will never relent to your expectations. A true ‘what-the-fuck-did-I-just-watch’ experience. Feldman at his best.” —Jordan Peele
Friday, January 13 at 6:30pm & 9:15pm

 

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