Category Archives: Screening Report

Update: KING OF JAZZ (1930) Restoration Debuts to Cheers and Tears

Posted on May 15, 2016 by willmckinley

Updated 8/24/16 – New info in italics. “You will be the second audience to have seen this film in a close approximation to its original form since 1930,” film curator Dave Kehr told a capacity crowd at the Museum of Modern … Continue reading →

Posted in Museum of Modern Art, Pre-Code Film, Screening Report, Uncategorized | Tagged | 10 Comments

Honoring a Forgotten Chapter in Film History w/ “Pioneers of African-American Cinema”

Posted on February 14, 2016 by willmckinley

I spent Valentine’s Day with the devil on a train to Hell. That’s not a euphemism for a relationship gone sour, it’s the plot of HELL-BOUND TRAIN (1930), a newly restored silent rarity that screened on Sunday at Film Forum … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Forum, Screening Report | Tagged | 1 Comment

Girl, Reconstructed: Clara Bow in GET YOUR MAN (1927)

Posted on November 16, 2015 by willmckinley

“Everything you’re going to see today has never been screened before,” film historian David Stenn said on Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art. These are words most film fans only dream of hearing. But when they’re spoken by the biographer of Silent … Continue reading →

Posted in Screening Report, Silent Film | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Classic Film Icons Tarnish in TRUMBO (2015)

Posted on November 6, 2015 by willmckinley

John Wayne rarely played the bad guy in his nearly half-century film career, but he finally gets the chance in TRUMBO, Jay Roach’s uneven biopic of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Wayne (David James Elliott) and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen … Continue reading →

Posted in Contemporary Film, Screening Report | Tagged | 14 Comments

Classic Horror Movies Haunt NYC Theaters for Halloween 2015

Posted on October 27, 2015 by willmckinley

Halloween is the best time of the year to be a classic film fan. And it’s even better if you live (or are un-dead) in New York City, where more than sixty screenings of horror and suspense films released before 2001 … Continue reading →

Posted in Classic Film, Film Society of Lincoln Society, IFC Center, Museum of Modern Art, Museum of the Moving Image, Nitehawk Cinema, Screening Report, Silent Film | 2 Comments

Rare Ernst Lubitsch Film Screens at New York Jewish Film Fest

Posted on January 20, 2015 by willmckinley

“What would Lubitsch do?” a sign in Billy Wilder’s office famously read. It was both a testament to Wilder’s respect for the German-born director (for whom he co-wrote two films) and a tribute to Ernst Lubitsch’s ability to balance light … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Society of Lincoln Society, Screening Report, Silent Film | Leave a comment

Orson Welles’ EVIL – Still Touching Third Rails, 57 Years Later

Posted on January 15, 2015 by willmckinley

TOUCH OF EVIL was supposed to be Orson Welles’ triumphant return to Hollywood after a decade in overseas exile. Sadly, that’s not how it turned out. “Universal loved the rushes,” Joseph McBride, author of three books on Welles, said last … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Forum, Screening Report | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Ben and Frank Mankiewicz Talk CITIZEN KANE, Bobby Kennedy, and Living up to a Famous Name

Posted on June 2, 2014 by willmckinley

As a host of Turner Classic Movies, Ben Mankiewicz is accustomed to interviewing living legends. Yesterday in New York City, he turned the mic on a legend he knows better than any other: his dad, Frank Mankiewicz. “There aren’t many fathers who … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Forum, Screening Report, TCM | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Ellen Burstyn on Women in Film: “What Women in Film?!”

Posted on May 5, 2014 by willmckinley

Despite winning an Academy Award for ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE in 1975, star Ellen Burstyn wasn’t offered the lead in Alice, the CBS-TV spin-off that debuted the following year and aired for nine seasons. “I didn’t have anything to … Continue reading →

Posted in Screening Report | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

The Good, the Bad and the Stretched

Posted on February 23, 2014 by willmckinley

This is a story about good news and bad news. It’s also a tale of one man’s obsession with film and television aspect ratios, and why you should be too (if not obsessed at least aware). We’ll start with the Bad … Continue reading →

Posted in Screening Report, TCM | Tagged , , , , , | 28 Comments