NYC Screens: "The Hateful Eight" & "Plane" Double Feature
I’ve been working in film exhibition since 2000. I’ve slung popcorn, torn tickets, run projectors, booked screens, and curated countless film programs. So while I like writing about movies, I also like writing about the places I visit to see those movies. This is NYC Screens.
Last Sunday, I had myself a nice double feature in downtown Manhattan, with a raucous, wild Giants’ play-off game wedged right in the middle. Plus, some drunk Taco Bell.
Total legend, Samuel L. Jackson turns in one of his finest performances as Major Marquis Warren in The Hateful Eight
SCREENING 1: THE HATEFUL EIGHT — Metrograph — 1:00pm — 35mm
I started the day at Metrograph to catch a matinee of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. It was running on 35mm as part of “Live by the Sword, Die by the Gun,” a series of chambara (samurai) and Western films they kicked off a few weeks back. QT’s ode to the snowy, (sometimes Italian) Old West was right at home in the lineup.
It was only the second time I’ve ever seen the film. I may have gone by it on Hotel TV over the years, or maybe it was on at a bar somewhere once. I know I hadn’t seen it front-to-back since the trade screening at the Tribeca screening room. The last film I saw there was The Beach Bum, and it’s the cozy private auditorium above the Tribeca Grill where Harvey used to have all their trades. Other folks rent it too, it wasn’t that pig’s private room or anything.
Anyway, both times now I’ve watched the longer version, which I’m fine with because I really do like sitting and staring in at the snow-covered vision Tarantino creates. Robert Richardson shot the shit out of the movie, my word. My only regret was that it wasn’t snowing, or even cold out when I saw it. Ah, yes, it was a perfectly normal, fifty-degree, mid-January day in New York…
This was just my second time at Metrograph—the first being a 35mm screening of Inherent Vice, which I meant to write about months ago—and I gotta say, I’m still feeling the place out.
I arrived early so I could grab a bite upstairs and maybe a drink or two. I didn’t realize the commissary didn’t open until around five, so I was SOL. So much for an afternoon cocktail!
The box office staff was friendly this time, but wowza, I definitely got caught behind a Chatty Charlie filmgoer, talking up this young woman at the desk. He’s jawing at her about some program the theater just announced and running over titles that are and are not in the series—but should be! So he thinks, anyway. Everyone’s a god damn film programmer. When he finally stopped talking long enough for her to take a look at my ticket, I high-tailed it into the theater, leaving the poor attendant to chat with Mr. Cinemania on her own.
The presentation of the film was great, and god bless ‘em, they respected the intermission. Print looked real nice too. Only beef I had during the screening was the absolute C.H.U.D. down the row from me on his phone for minutes on-end. At one point it looked like he was playing a racing game or something. He also came in 10 minutes late, which I wish they hadn’t allowed, but, whatever. We also had some fellas near the front applaud and woo-hoo when Tarantino’s name came up at the start, which, come on, guys. That’s embarrassing. QT wasn’t sitting in the balcony. Gauche.
All told, a solid screening of a tough, but incredibly well-done movie that I realized I liked more than I remembered. Only downsides were the aforementioned Cinemaniac, the C.H.U.D. on the phone, and one total and complete FERAL ANIMAL who destroyed the bathroom toilet and then didn’t flush. I swear, I thought we were living in a society!
My double feature intermission was watching the Giants-Vikings play-off game at a bar in the East Village with the host of The VHS Trailer Game, my dear chum, Stephen Sajdak. We had a great time: lotsa pints of Zombie Dust, a jam-packed outside food order of Taco Bell eaten in the bar, and the Giants won… so hey, let’s celebrate by drunkenly going to a movie!
Gerard Butler and Mike Colter team up to break some necks in Plane
SCREENING 2: PLANE — AMC Village 7 — 8:00pm — DCP
Oh, yeah! Here we go. The perfect way to end a weekend: the latest Breakin’ Knecks with Gerard Butler movie, the popular sub-genre of action film where Gerry B. plays some sort of ex-military Chuck Steak so-and-so running around icing dudes.
I was bummed that Plane took a little bit to get off the ground (sorry), but overall Butler brought the goods. Colter’s good too. It’s nice to be able to see a little movie like this in a theater and to have a decent amount of people see it with you. We need the box office ecosystem to heal itself, and one of the best ways to kickstart that is to give adults options like this movie, Ticket to Paradise, Confess, Fletch, et cetera: mid-level action films, comedies, and rom-coms with recognizable faces that we can see on a night out and then maybe forget in a week or less.
Anyway, many apologies to the audience of this screening as Steve passed out for a bit and between the two of us, the amount of times the expression, “ACK!” was yelled in our horrible Gerard Butler impression… yeah, apologies. But, the Giants won! And the bar had Zombie Dust on tap! It wasn’t our fault!
I like going to the Village 7. It’s a serviceable commercial option if you’re in the East Village and what you want to see isn’t playing at the Village East—as was the case with Plane. They use the place a lot for festival screenings with orgs like Tribeca and DOC NYC, and they generally wind up getting all the commercial titles you’re looking for on a given weekend. The film played fine on DCP, no complaints here.
Plus, the audience is pretty chill, even when two drunk podcasters are sitting in the back shouting at the screen the whole time. Well, not the whole time. Like I said, Steve fell asleep for a bit.
ACK!