We’ll host something at Vox Pop Cafe in beautiful Ditmas Park the third Wednesday of every month.

Description: Persepolis (2007, 95min), Vincent Parronaud’s and Marjane Satrapi’s screen adaptation of Satrapi’s funny and stirring autobiographical graphic novel, translated to the screen with amazing hand-drawn black and white clarity. Funny, moving, timely, and beautifully animated. One of the best of the decade just passed, and perfect for this neighborhood restaurant.

Details: Thursday Sept. 9, 8pm. 622 Washington Ave btw Dean and Pacific. A/C to Clinton-Washington. Free w/ one drink minimum.

Description: Filmmaker Jason Tallon introduces his short films TrapDevil and All Dogs Go To Hell

Followed by a film of the director’s choosing: Performance (1970, 105min), Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammel’s dark, strange and perverse London gangster art house epic, featuring the film debut of Mick Jagger in dual creepy roles. Roeg’s hallucinatory cult debut mines subjects as diverse as sexual identity, public performance, and swinging London’s masked sadism. Shot in ‘68 and critically bashed upon its premiere in ‘70, this softcore-gangster-musical nod to the avant garde is now respected as a hugely influential late sixties art film.

Details: Tomorrow, Wednesday 9/8, 8pm in the backyard at 25 Kingsland Ave, Apt 1L, Brooklyn 11211. BYOB/snacks/blankets etc.

Description: September is animation month at Ortine. New animated greats from around the world, starting with Pixar’s amazing Ratatouille (Brad Bird & Jan Pinkava, 2007, 111min).

Details: Thursday September 2nd, 8pm or sunset. Ortine Cafe, 622 Washington Ave. btw Dean/Pacific. A/C to Clinton-Washington. Free, one drink minimum.

Description: Sidney Lumet’s misguided-yet-intriguing retelling of a classic, The Wiz (1978, 134min), with psychedelic Harlem in place of the Heartland, and Diana Ross as Dorothy, a 24-year old schoolteacher, in place of Judy Garland. With support from late greats MJ as Scarecrow, Lena Horne as Glinda the Good, and Richard Pryor saving the film as the seemingly powerless Wizard. A disco-era misfire with great beats and giant garish sets.

Details: Thursday August 26, 8PM SHARP (note earlier start) backyard at Ortine Cafe, 622 Washington Ave btw Dean/Pacific. A/C to Clinton-Wash

Description: Presenting a pair of films about influential NYC artists of the East Village.
Director Thomas W. Campbell will join us to introduce his documentary BIRTH OF THE SUN (2009, 27min) about Grady Alexis, a forgotten Haitian artist who settled in the city’s burgeoning early ’80s art scene, inspired many, struggled to develop a unique vision, and finally died in a street scuffle with an off-duty policeman in 1991.

Followed by the long-buried trippy travelogue “documentary”-cum-urban fairytale DOWNTOWN 81 (aka NEW YORK BEAT MOVIE, 1981, 72min) featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat on a whirlwind tour through the vibrant lower Manhattan art scene. Featuring Blondie, The Plastics, DNA, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Fab Five Freddy, Vincent Gallo, graf legend Lee Quinones and on and on. The soundtrack, mostly live club performances, survives, but the original dialogue was lost; poet-musician Saul Williams dubbed the late Basquiat’s lines for the resurrected film’s release in 2000.
Essential New York cinema, a great lead-in to the new Basquiat doc THE RADIANT CHILD (now at Film Forum), and “an extraordinary real-life snapshot of hip, arty, clubland Manhattan in the post-punk era.” [Variety]

Details: Wednesday August 25th, doors at 8pm, films at 8:30, discussion with director Thomas Campbell precedes Downtown 81.

At LaunchPad, 721 Franklin Ave. 2/3/4/5 to Franklin Ave. In the backyard, whether permitting; indoors in the gallery if raining. Popcorn will be served. BYOB.

Description: KCCS presents a special, site-specific screening of singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens’ quasi-doc portrait of the incidental roadway, The BQE (2009, 45min), inspired by the city, Robert Moses, and hula hoopers. Preceded by Chelsea Herman’s video installation “Cellular Sweep,” introduced by the artist, and DA Pennebaker’s celebrated experimental piece on the 3rd Ave El, “Daybreak Express”

Details: reply to kingscountycinemasociety [at] gmail [dot] com for directions and details for this special screening!

Description: Musicals Month at Ortine Continues with Top Hat (1935, 100min) the great screwball comedy with Fred Astaire as an American dancer in London, chasing Ginger Rogers all over beautifully constructed escapist sets. Mark Sandrich directs the funniest and most successful of the Astaire/Rogers on-screen partnerships, and Irving Berlin penned the songs.

Details: Thursday August 19, 8:15 or sunset, backyard at Ortine (ortine.com). 622 Washington Ave btw Dean/Pacific. A/C to Clinton-Washington

Description: screening of Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1968/1996, 65min), the Stones’ infamous failed television special originally filmed in December of ‘68. The concert/variety show, staged in the middle of a replica seedy Big Top circus stage, features The Stones, The Who, Taj Mahal, Jethro Tull, and an uber-rare performance from short-lived supergroup The Dirty Mac (John Lennon & Yoko, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell). Mick and co. withheld the special’s release supposedly due to their sub-par performance (they claimed to be exhausted) though most rock fanatics and historians say the actual reason is that the band was clearly upstaged by Pete Townshend and The Who’s epic and ripping performance of “A Quick One While He’s Away.”

Details: Wednesday August 18th, 8:30 pm. Vox Pop Cafe, 1022 Cortelyou Rd. @ Stratford Rd. Q to Cortelyou. Followed by Hump Day Dance Party.

Thursday August 12, sundown: Musicals Month continues at Ortine Cafe: Otto Preminger’s memorable reworking of Bizet’s Carmen, Carmen Jones (1954, 100min) with Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte.

622 Washington Ave btw Dean/Pacific St. A/C to Clinton-Washington