PRINCE POPPYCOCK

After an adventurous weekend that involved attending a wedding at a beach resort during a tropical storm, the Siren is back in warm, safe, almost-dried-out Brooklyn and ready to announce the Next Big Thing. No, no, not the New York Film Festival--the New York City of the Mind edition of Wednesday Night at the Movies at Newcritics.

Many thanks to the Derelict, whose splendid New York City in the Movies blogathon gave rise to the Siren's post about movies that inhabit our vision of New York, whether shot here or not. Tom Watson and Lance Mannion got together and decided that the Siren needed to use this for the next five-segment installment of the Newcritics Wednesday Night at the Movies. The Siren at first tried to say no. Have you tried to say no to Mannion? It's beyond difficult. I'm reading Little Dorrit because of him, for goodness sakes. And loving it, but that isn't the point.

No, the point is that this series begins Wednesday, Sept. 10, and given that these are movies that are pretty much Cinephilia 101, we've all seen them and I want everybody to stop by Newcritics and chat about them. The setup is exactly the same as my original post, with movies added by theme and just one addition, as you will see.

September 10: People-watching - Rear Window.
September 17: Ambition -- Sweet Smell of Success.
September 24: Drudgery (loneliness) - The Apartment
October 1: Romance - Desperately Seeking Susan
October 8: Resilience Double Feature - Serpico and The 25th Hour

Lance will be hosting the discussion for The Apartment and last I checked was still offering a free baseball cap to those who could guess his title for the introductory post. The others will be hosted by me.

The idea is to focus on the films' relationship to their New York settings, but that certainly doesn't begin to cover all the thematic ground and the conversations will probably range a great deal further than that. So please, stop by my place the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 10 to see my thoughts on Rear Window, and jog over to Newcritics at 9 pm to talk Hitchcock, New York, voyeurism, rear-window ethics and other things pertaining thereto.

(About the lobby card above: The tagline from an apparent re-release is great, but why on earth did they make Grace Kelly's celebrated Edith Head suit pink? Did Kelly even wear pink?)