On Friday, June 22 we drank bourbon and moonshine from this episode’s whiskey donor, the legendary Kings County Distillery. We talked about the history of NY, politics, and the geography of lower Manhattan.

Plus, an on-premises interview with Colin Spoelman, owner of Kings County Distillery. The movie is Gangs of New York, a part of IFC Center‘s Waverly Midnights: Scorsese series.

Fittingly(?) we nearly got into a fight.

More content! (in the form of links):

Five Minute History: The Real Gangs of New York
Forgotten New York: Reconstructing Collect Pond

 

This episode contains the post-show discussion from our Dazed and Confused outing.

Then, on Saturday, April 28 we returned to Nitehawk Cinema for the runner-up in their Marijuana Madness Tournament, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome.

But things took an unexpected turn when the tall, leather-jacket clad, confidence-exuding director of the neighboring midnight movie appeared in the lobby, granted us an interview, and inspired a last-minute ditch of stylish body horror in favor of bloody, relentless cruelty.

The name of the movie and director are withheld here to avoid hurt feelings via Google alerts. Listen to the episode for the full poop!

On April 21 (the day after 4/20, but whatever, man) we took Whiskey Flicks to Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg for the first time to cover Richard Linklater’s 1993 coming-of-age classic Dazed and Confused, the winner of their Marijuana Madness Tournament.

This episode consists entirely of our pre-show, greenery-fueled discussion. The next episode will cover our post-show chat, as well as our return trip to Nitehawk the following week for Videodrome, the runner up in the MJ Madness Tournament – an excursion that took a surprising turn.

And, as promised somewhere in the middle of our discussion, some links to statistics on marijuana-related arrests and convictions:

ACLA – Marijuana Arrests By the Numbers
DrugPolicy.org – Drug War Statistics
Washington Post -More people were arrested last year over pot than for murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery — combined
New York Times – Marijuana Arrests Outnumber Those for Violent Crimes, Study Finds

On Friday, March 23, we returned to the IFC Center for a midnight screening of Soylent Green, the 1972 dystopia thriller directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson in his final film.

We recorded our pre-show discussion at the now-shuttered El Quijote, a 90 year old Spanish restaurant in the ground floor of the Chelsea Hotel. Over dinner we talk with a couple at a neighboring table about all things (or at least some things) Jewish in NYC, and with staff of the restaurant about the closing of this mainstay 23rd Street restaurant.

 

This is the first edition of “Whiskey Sips,” our happy hour edition of Whiskey Flicks, where we pod about a “before bedtime” screening we just couldn’t resist.

On March 16, with a flask of Hudson Whiskey, we braved Friday evening in Times Square to ascend about thirty escalators at AMC Empire on 42nd Street for the hugest international cinematic success story you’ve probably never heard of: Detective Chinatown 2. As the icing on the pan-global cake, were accompanied by Rachel McPhee, who acted in the film.

Referenced in the pod: the first part of the epic Wang Baoqiang/Donnie Yen fight scene in Kung-Fu Jungle. You definitely want to watch this. How did they film these stunts AND match all the shots with the cars going by???

Friday March 2nd found Mike, Phlip and me at Videology in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for the 1995 camp classic Showgirls. While Jack was off skiing or something, we were lucky to be joined by special guest Hadley Todoran.

Videology provided us with our featured whiskies for the night, in form of beer and shot combos. I went with Old Overholt. Some of the others may have gone with Jim Beam. I really don’t remember.

 

Needless to say, the drinking game emptied our cans and glasses faster than you can say “Versace.”

January 28, well past midnight, we gathered outside IFC Center with guest pal Eric Rice to discuss Eraserhead, David Lynch’s 1977 debut feature, in which pretty much every trope he would employ over the next 40 years was already in some way on display.

Our featured whiskey was Smuggler’s Notch Distillery’s Straight Bourbon Whiskey.

Also, here are links to the David Lynch Foundation for those of you interested in Transcendental Meditation, and to Cagey Films for an excellent article by Kenneth George Godwin on the making of Eraserhead.

On Friday, January 5, we braved (or at least less-wussed) the single-digit temperatures of the “bomb cyclone” to make our last visit to the Landmark Sunshine Cinema (which closed last weekend as of this writing) for Walter Hill’s 1979 NYC gangs-in-costumes classic The Warriors.

In this episode we talk about the movie, the novel by Sol Yurick, and the ancient Greek text that started it all, Xenophon’s Anabasis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the movie we met two eager Warriors fans visiting NYC from Argentina and we enjoyed our featured spirit, Hudson Manhattan Rye Whiskey.

The following weekend we traveled to Coney Island in search of the spot where the Warriors finally saw home, only to find it as changed as the rest of the city, pausing for a nosh at Nathan’s Hot Dogs for further unpacking of the movie and its sources.

 

And here are a couple fun extras:

Actor Thomas G. Waites on getting fired from The Warriors.

Nick Carr breaks down the NYC filming locations for The Warriors on ScoutingNY.com. 

 

 

 

 

In early October we returned to the Landmark Sunshine for Tommy Wiseau’s modern classic romantic psychological drama The Room. There we encountered passionate fans, airborne spoons, and Tommy himself, whose intro Q&A we captured in its entirety.

For the movie, I drank Spirits of Old Bennington Kilted Wheat Whiskey, a bottle of which I purchased in September during a trip to Vermont. I don’t know what the hell the others were drinking that night. But for our discussion a few days later we drank Jamison, apparently.

Happy holidays, and join us for our next outing, when we head back again to the Sunshine (gotta cram as many movies as we can before it closes) for The Warriors, Friday, January 5 at midnight!