FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BIG-SCREEN MOVIES—INCLUDING 35MM AND 70MM SHOWS—RETURN TO MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE’S REDSTONE THEATER
Opening weekend features 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove, The Muppet Movie, and the silent masterpiece Sunrise
The spacious Sumner M. Redstone Theater has been prepared with a thorough deep-cleaning, with new systems in place to ensure the safety of visitors and staff
Opening April 30, 2021 with screenings on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Tickets on sale starting Friday, April 23, 1:00 p.m.
Astoria, New York, April 22, 2021 — Museum of the Moving Image’s stunning Sumner M. Redstone Theater reopens on Friday, April 30, with a 70mm presentation of Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. Following this grand return, the Museum will present a program of classic big-screen films as part of the signature series See It Big, appropriately subtitled “The Return!,” co-presented with the Museum’s magazine of film and media criticism Reverse Shot, and the retrospective Complete Kubrick. The schedule also includes family-friendly matinees and programs presented as part of the ongoing series Jim Henson’s World, which accompanies the Museum’s popular Jim Henson Exhibition.
“After more than 13 months of exile, we’re grateful and excited to be back in the Redstone Theater to project and watch films again,” said Eric Hynes, Curator of Film. “While private viewings and small screens have gotten us through this dark year, nothing beats gathering to view movies on the big screen, and few screens are as glorious as the Redstone’s. With that in mind, our ongoing See It Big series feels even more essential, as does prioritizing 35mm, 16mm, and 70mm whenever possible. We’re also eager to finally unleash our long-planned Complete Kubrick retrospective, which will run alongside the Envisioning 2001 gallery exhibition over the next five months.”
The reopening of the theater accompanies the same-day reopening of the Museum’s galleries and public spaces after a year-long closure—a period during which the Museum developed and presented a diverse array of online programming, and co-founded the Queens Drive-In in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The special exhibition Envisioning 2001: Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey, an in-depth exploration of the groundbreaking 1968 science-fiction film, is the impetus for an extended film retrospective of Stanley Kubrick, whose body of work was last highlighted in a Museum film series more than 15 years ago. As part of Complete Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey will be shown in a 4K digital restoration as a weekly Sunday matinee, with special 70mm presentations every other Friday evening beginning April 30.
Other highlights include a restored 35mm print of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Walt Disney’s Fantasia, as part of the series See It Big: The Return!, co-programmed by curators Eric Hynes and Edo Choi and Reverse Shot co-editors Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert; a “very Kubrick” Mother’s Day pairing of Lolita and A.I. Artificial Intelligence; and a special presentation of 9 to 5 and The Fabulous Baker Boys (in 35mm) on May 22, a pairing inspired by the new book Films of Endearment, by Reverse Shot editor Michael Koresky, which dovetails an inquiry into mainstream Hollywood filmmaking of the 1980s with the story of his relationship with his mother, who first introduced him to these films and sparked a lifelong love of movies.
See below for schedule and descriptions. Additional programs will be announced as they are confirmed.
Screenings are scheduled on the days when the building will be open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Advance tickets will be on sale online; and a contactless check-in process will be in place, with assigned seating. Theater capacity will be limited to 25%, for now. To learn more about the Museum’s new safety procedures, visit this page.
Tickets for Redstone programs will go on sale April 23 (members will have an exclusive one-day advance window) at movingimage.us.
In addition to screenings in the Redstone Theater, film programs will continue online, in Virtual Cinema, and at the Queens Drive-In, a big-screen outdoor experience created in partnership with Rooftop Films and New York Hall of Science. Upcoming schedules for all three venues are included below.
MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE FILM PROGRAM SCHEDULE
Venues are noted below and include the Sumner M. Redstone Theater (RED), in Virtual Cinema (VC), and at the Queens Drive-In (QDI). All programs are listed online at movingimage.us.
REDSTONE THEATER PROGRAMS (RED)
Unless otherwise noted, tickets are $15 adults / $11 seniors and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / $7 Museum members. Gallery admission can be added for $5.
2001: A Space Odyssey (RED)
Sundays, May 2, 9, 16, 23, 30; June 6, 13, 20, 27 at 12:30 p.m.
70mm shows: Fridays, April 30; May 14, 28; June 11, 25 at 6:30 p.m.
Part of Complete Kubrick
Dir. Stanley Kubrick. 1968, 149 mins. (plus intermission). With Keir Dullea. As brilliantly engineered as the space program itself, Stanley Kubrick’s mysterious and profound epic—“the ultimate trip”—is about nothing less than the beauty and the banality of civilization, blending cool satire, an elaborate vision of the future, and passages of avant-garde cinematic inventiveness. The Museum’s weekly screenings are presented in conjunction with the exhibition Envisioning 2001: Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey, on view through September 2021. Weekly Sunday matinees will be presented in DCP (high-definition digital format); while a special 70mm screening will be presented every other Friday evening (Tickets for 70mm shows are $20 / $15 Museum members).
The Muppet Movie (RED)
Friday, April 30, 3:00 p.m. (members-only screening)
Saturday, May 1, 1:00 p.m.
Friday, May 7, 3:00 p.m.
Part of Jim Henson’s World
Dir. James Frawley. 1979, 95 mins. DCP. With Jim Henson, Frank Oz. Kermit makes his way from humble origins in a swamp to fabled Hollywood, assembling his team as he goes, including Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, and Gonzo. The first theatrical feature starring the Muppets, this enchanting and witty road movie includes Kermit’s heart tugging rendition of “The Rainbow Connection.”
Sunrise (RED)
Saturday, May 1, 4:00 p.m.
Sunday, May 8, 1:00 p.m.
Part of See It Big: The Return!
Dir. F. W. Murnau. 1927, 94 mins. 35mm. With Janet Gaynor, George O’Brien. After establishing himself as one of the most important German expressionist filmmakers (Nosferatu, The Last Laugh), Murnau came to America and used the best of Hollywood’s resources to create Sunrise, possibly his greatest achievement and certainly one of the high points in silent cinema. This exquisite story of love, marriage, temptation, and the lure of the big city is so bursting with glorious visual poetry that one can easily see why it won Best Unique and Artistic Production at the first ever Academy Awards ceremony. Preceded by the Lumière Cinématographe actuality L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat (1896) and Flicker Alley’s restoration of George Méliès’s Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902).
Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (RED)
Sunday, May 2, 4:00 p.m.
Friday, May 7, 6:30 p.m.
Part of Complete Kubrick
Dir. Stanley Kubrick. 1964, 95 mins. DCP. With Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens, Keenan Wynn. Kubrick reinvents the nuclear suspense thriller, then in vogue, as an absurdist black comedy in this brilliant evocation of cold war paranoia. Dr. Strangelove, co-written by Kubrick and Terry Southern, strikes just the right manic, irreverent, sexually charged tone, creating a satirical masterpiece that is one of the seminal counterculture works of the 1960s.
Lolita (RED)
Saturday, May 8, 4:00 p.m.
Sunday, May 16, 4:00 p.m.
Part of Complete Kubrick
Dir. Stanley Kubrick. 1962, 152 mins. 35mm. With James Mason, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers, Sue Lyon. Outwitting the censors, Kubrick turned Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel about a professor’s obsession with a young “nymphet” into a dark social comedy. A monstrously proper Mason is unforgettable as Humbert Humbert, whose twisted heart leads him to destroy his own life and soul for the love of the teenage daughter (Lyon) of his crass and lovelorn landlady (Winters). As the mysterious oddball playwright Clare Quilty, Sellers lends Kubrick’s tragic satire a coherent sense of eccentricity and outlandish humor.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (RED)
Sunday, May 9, 4:00 p.m.
Saturday, May 15, 1:00 p.m.
Part of See It Big: The Return! and Complete Kubrick
Dir. Steven Spielberg. 2001, 146 mins. 35mm. With Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O’Connor, Brendan Gleeson, William Hurt. Spielberg’s monumental production of Stanley Kubrick’s unrealized science-fiction dream project is a bold, humanistic vision that pays tribute to Kubrick’s aesthetic while also remaining a quintessential Spielberg film. This high-tech Pinocchio story—about a robot child (a brilliant Haley Joel Osment) on a quest to become a real boy after being abandoned by his adopted parents—is one of Spielberg’s most challenging and visually astonishing films.
Vertigo (RED)
Saturday, May 15, 4:30 p.m.
Sunday, May 23, 4:00 p.m.
Sunday, May 30, 4:00 p.m.
Part of See It Big: The Return!
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. 1958, 128 mins. 35mm. With James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes. Voted the greatest film of all time in the most recent Sight & Sound international critics poll, Hitchcock’s peerless psychological thriller follows a San Francisco private detective who comes out of retirement to trail an old schoolmate’s beautiful wife, who appears to be haunted by a figure from her ancestral past. Both an ingeniously plotted mystery and a profoundly disturbing tale of romantic obsession, Vertigo is an emotional experience like no other—an astonishment on the level of image, sound, and storytelling.
The Killing (RED)
Friday, May 21, 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, May 29, 4:00 p.m.
Part of Complete Kubrick
Dir. Stanley Kubrick. 1956. 85 mins. 35mm. With Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor. Kubrick and pulp-fiction legend Jim Thompson co-wrote this darkly comic thriller about a racetrack heist gone awry. With its thick layers of irony and stopwatch-precise playing with time, Kubrick’s crime story (whose existential overtones and intricate structure inspired Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs) is his true narrative breakthrough, laying the groundwork for a filmography of flawed, failed masculinity and fatalistic humor.
9 to 5 (RED)
Saturday, May 22, 1:00 p.m.
Friday, May 28, 3:00 p.m.
Part of What a Way to Make a Living: Women in ’80s Hollywood
Dir. Colin Higgins. USA, 1980, 109 mins. DCP. With Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, Dabney Coleman. This galvanizing workplace comedy kicked off the eighties with an unapologetically feminist bang. Today it still feels wildly progressive. When mousy Judy Bernly (a cast-against-type Fonda) lands a secretarial job after a divorce, she is thrust into an office environment typified by grotesque misogyny. She and two mistreated coworkers, Violet (Tomlin) and Doralee (Parton, delightful in her first film), team up to exact vengeance on their venal, sexist boss, Frank (an oily Coleman). From a story and script by Patricia Resnick that originated in personal research Fonda did on the grassroots 9to5 women’s movement of the seventies, this classic is as riotous as ever, coasting on the charms of its brilliant trio of stars.
The Fabulous Baker Boys (RED)
Saturday, May 22, 4:00 p.m.
Part of What a Way to Make a Living: Women in ’80s Hollywood
Dir. Steve Kloves. USA, 1989, 114 mins. 35mm. With Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Bridges, Beau Bridges. In one of the most charismatic star performances in all contemporary cinema, a sultry and snappy Pfeiffer steals the screen as Susie Diamond, a small-time lounge singer hired by the piano-playing Jack and Frank Baker (real-life Bridges brothers Jeff and Beau) to inject some pizzazz into their act. The Oscar-nominated cinematography by Michael Ballhaus and score by Dave Grusin contribute to the masterfully maintained mood of slightly scuzzy glamour, but it’s all about the chemistry: between Pfeiffer and Bridges, as well as the Bridges boys.
Fantasia (RED) Saturday, May 29, 1:00 p.m. Sunday, June 6, 4:00 p.m. Part of See It Big: The Return! and World of Animation (Eleven uncredited directors) 1940, 124 mins. Walt Disney put it all on the line for this passion project combining his love of cartoons and classical music. Though the result baffled many in its day, Fantasia went on to be one of the most beloved, influential films of all time. Set to works by Bach, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and more, the wordless, exquisitely hand-drawn segments that make up this ambitious masterpiece constitute a high point in animation. P
Paths of Glory (RED) Friday, June 4, 6:30 p.m. Saturday, June 12, 4:00 p.m. Part of Complete Kubrick Dir. Stanley Kubrick. 1957, 88 mins. 35mm. With Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready, Wayne Morris, Richard Anderson. One of the bleakest anti-war films ever made, this World War I drama about the abuse of military hierarchy drives home its message in every aspect of its construction, from its mechanized tracking shots through trenches to its disturbingly protracted climax. Paths of Glory represents the first full expression of Kubrick’s style, but it also is the last of his films to center around a wholly virtuous hero (Douglas) and the last to view the human individual as a bulwark of decency in an inhuman world.
QUEENS DRIVE-IN PROGRAMS (QDI) Tickets start at $35, with discounts for members of the presenting organizations. Some screenings are free. The Queens Drive-In is located on the grounds of the New York Hall of Science, 47-01 111 Street, Corona, NY 11368. For more information and for tickets, visit QueensDriveIn.com.
Classic films at the Queens Drive-In THROUGH JUNE 2021 In partnership with Rooftop Films and the New York Hall of Science, Museum of the Moving Image is presenting outdoor, big-screen movies at the Queens Drive-In.
Upcoming highlights include: double features of Thelma and Louise + Desperately Seeking Susan (April 24), Godzilla + King Kong (May 8), Fist of Fury + Lady Snowblood (May 14); popular favorites Groundhog Day (May 2), Mamma Mia! (May 9—Mother’s Day), Batman (TIm Burton, 1989) (May 16), Blade Runner: The Final Cut (May 23), Carrie (May 28), Jaws (May 30), and more.
For schedule and tickets, visit QueensDriveIn.com.