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Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Metrograph

It’s a French New Wave take on America’s worst era — what else could you want? The great Far from Vietnam plays as part of “Welcome to Metrograph: A-z” on Saturday, along with Varda‘s Lion’s Love and Tsai‘s The Hole.

“Summer In the City” brings Dog Day Afternoon and Spike Lee...

Ken Jacobs. Photo by María Meseguer.This past June in A Coruña, Spain (S8) 6th Mostra de Cinema Periferico hosted a retrospective of Ken Jacobs. A legend of experimental filmmaking, this New Yorker gave a master-class about the influence of abstract paintings on his work, presented a broad selection of films in his filmography to the audience, and premiered New Paintings by Ken Jacobs (2015), a new film performance using his famous Nervous Magic Lantern, consisting of a series of abstract slides that he projects with a special device of his own creation. The program focused on Jacobs’ first films, close to a kind of Brakhage-like documentary style, the long series he made along with Jack Smith as an actor/performer, and his experiments with 3D, both in film and digital formats. After all these screenings, we had a coffee or two with him and talked about the films in the program.

Seeking the Monkey KingIt is all too fitting that a film series focusing on “3D in the 21st Century” should feature the work of Ken Jacobs. More than any other single avant-garde filmmaker, Jacobs has explored the pulsating, tremulous frontier where images hit the eyes, and a great deal of his exploration over the last 30+ years—beginning with his experiments with the Pulfrich filter and his development of the dual projection “Nervous System”—has involved three-dimensional illusionism, that ambiguous perceptual space where flatness and depth wrestle in the optical mind. Historically, aesthetically, and technologically, it would make no sense to consider cinema in three dimensions without including Jacobs’ contributions.But there’s more at stake in Jacobs’ presence in the Bam’s 3D series. No mere formalist, Jacobs has been a tireless artistic whistleblower, documenting and cataloging the ugliest aspects of American culture. From blackface and animal torture in Star Spangled to Death,...

Adieu au langageWhen I stumbled out of the theatre after my first viewing of Jean-Luc Godard’s newest film, Adieu au langage—which will be released on home video by Kino Lorber on April 14—I felt that nagging feeling that only a few films can give. That feeling isn’t necessarily limited to great or even good films, but belongs instead to a certain special, disparate troupe. I left feeling that Godard had made a film that wanted to think about film in some way, aligning itself with the films that made their ways into books of philosophy by film theorists Noël Carroll and Stanley Cavell.Admittedly, there’s a danger in these feelings. Adieu au langage, as well as the whole lot of these “thinking” films, could simply be playfully “meta,” purposefully toying with the conversations that critics and academics love. Maybe I’ve just taken the filmmaker’s bait here,...

Good Bye

Like Jafar Panahi, Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof is awaiting "execution of the verdict," a sentence of one year in jail delivered in December 2010. Unlike Panahi, whose sentence is six years, Rasoulof is free to travel in the meantime, a luxury — or, as many would see it, a right — denied Panahi for, foreseeably, 20 years. Rasoulof is currently a jury member at the Fribourg International Film Festival, running through Saturday, which has given Regula Fuchs an opportunity to interview him for the Swiss Tages-Anzeiger (thanks to Film-Zeit for the tip).

Fuchs first asks about the potential impact of the Oscar for Asghar Farhadi's A Separation on the Iranian film scene. Rasoulof: "The authorities see this Oscar as a confirmation of their policies toward filmmakers: By exercising their influence on Iranian cinema, they've made this foreign award possible."

On how one goes about making a film in Iran these days:...

March 30 — April 1

Various Times

Museum of the Moving Image

35 Avenue at 37 Street

Astoria, NY 11106

Hosted by: Museum of the Moving Image

Ken Jacobs is one of the few filmmakers from the ’60s underground film movement who has actively and enthusiastically embraced filmmaking in the modern digital age. Over the last several years, he has been extremely prolific in using digital technology to rework and manipulate films and photographs from the early 20th century, as well as create entirely original work. In addition, he has also worked extensively using pre-cinematic projection technology to create live performances.

The Museum of the Moving Image is hosting a retrospective of many of Jacobs’ recent works. The filmmaker will be present at all screenings to discuss his work and to perform one of his Nervous Magic Lantern projection pieces.

Some of the highlights of this event include Return to the Scene of the Crime, a...

Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon Melancholia, A Separation Screenplay, Runner-Up Jeannie Berlin: National Society of Film Critics' Surprises Two interesting omissions from the Nsfc roster: critics' fave Michelle Williams (for portraying Marilyn Monroe in Simon Curtis' My Week with Marilyn) and George Clooney (for his stressed out father in Alexander Payne's The Descendants) weren't among the critics' top three actresses/actors. Dunst and Yun were followed by New York Film Critics winner Meryl Streep for her Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady; Brad Pitt was followed by Gary Oldman in Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Jean Dujardin in Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist. Dujardin, in fact, was The Artist's sole representative in the Nsfc 2011 roster. For the record the other runners-up were Christopher Plummer (Mike Mills' Beginners) and Patton Oswalt (Jason Reitman's Young Adult...

Barring any late additions or surprises, the full lineup for the 2012 edition of the Sundance Film Festival (January 19 through 29) is now complete. We've seen the the Competition and Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, Next <=> and New Frontier lineups, the Premieres and the Documentary Premieres. Today's the festival's unveiled its Short Film program. Once again, straight from the release:

U.S. Short Films

This year's 32 U.S. short films were selected from 4,083 submissions.

U.S. Narrative Short Films

’92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card (Director: Todd Sklar, Screenwriters: Todd Sklar, Alex Rennie) — Jim and Dave are brothers who haven't spoken in years and don't like each other very much, but are forced to come together for a week when their dad dies in Kansas City. A limited edition 1992 Skybox Series Alonzo Mourning rookie card is a point of contention.

The Arm (Directors and screenwriters: Brie Larson, Sarah Ramos, Jessie Ennis) — In an...

Ken Jacobs — the legendary experimental filmmaker who has made classics such as Little Stabs at Happiness and Star Spangled to Death; and who currently pushes the boundaries of film projection with his Nervous Magic Lantern live performances — is 78 today.

An interview with the filmmaker from 2001:

Read More:Outrageous! Flaming Creatures2010 Festival du Nouveau Cinema Fnc Lab: Official LineupUnderground Film History: AFI’s Maya Deren AwardREDCAT: Ken Jacobs – Into The Depths...

Was it all that wine? Drunk on something, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association toasted Sideways with five awards, including Best Film and Best Director. In addition to those honors, the indie comedy swept the supporting acting awards (for Thomas Haden Church, who picks up his second award this season, and Virginia Madsen) and gave its screenplay award to director Alexander Payne and his longtime co-writer Jim Taylor. The critics group went all serious, however, for its lead acting honors, citing Liam Neeson (Kinsey), who bested Sideways' Paul Giamatti, and Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) for Best Actor and Actress. Other winners included House of Flying Daggers (Foreign Language Film), Born Into Brothels (Documentary/Nonfiction Film), and The Incredibles (Animated Film and Score). Here's the entire list of winners:

Best Film: Sideways

Best Actor: Liam Neeson, Kinsey

Best Actress: Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake

Best Supporting Actor: Thomas Haden Church, Sideways

Best Supporting Actress: Virginia Madsen, Sideways

Best Director: Alexander Payne, Sideways

Best Screenplay: Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor, Sideways

Best Foreign-Language Film: House of Flying Daggers

Best Documentary/Nonfiction Film: Born into Brothels

Best Production Design: Dante Ferretti, The Aviator

Best Animation: Brad Bird, The Incredibles

Best Cinematography: Dion Beebe and Paul Cameron, Collateral

Career Achievement: Jerry Lewis

New Generation Award: Joshua Marston, writer and director of Maria Full of Grace

Douglas Edwards Experimental/Independent Film/Video: Star-Spangled to Death, Ken Jacobs

Special Citation: Brian Jamieson of Warner Brothers and Richard Schickel for the reconstruction of Samuel Fuller's 1980 The Big Red One...

OTTAWA -- Looking to promote rising independent film talent, the Montreal Festival of New Media and New Cinema on Tuesday unveiled a lineup filled with movies by women filmmakers and first- and second-time directors. The festival, which will unspool 208 films from 42 countries, opens Oct. 14 with a screening of Olivier Assayas' Clean, a France/United States/Canada co-production that bowed at Cannes. Closing out the festival Oct. 24 will be Memoires Affectives, from Canadian filmmaker Francis Leclerc. U.S. films booked into the Montreal festival include Niels Mueller's The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Annie Sprinkle and Sheila Malone's Annie Sprinkle's Amazing World of Orgasm, Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin, Spike Lee's She Hate Me and Ken Jacobs' Star Spangled to Death.