Bryant Park Summer Movies 2014

The annual FREE Bryant Park Summer Movie Festival on Monday evenings begins June 16th, so consider this a “save the date” card to your personal list of must see movies on your NYC summer calendar. Screenings are at sunset on the lawn.

Bring a blanket and a picnic dinner.  Here’s the schedule:

June 16: Saturday Night Fever 

• John Travolta became a pop culture icon as Tony Manero on the dance floor in white polyester, trying to get off the mean streets of Brooklyn.  John Badham directs and the Bee Gees’ best-selling soundtrack is packed with Disco hits. (1977) 119 min. R Rated (Paramount)

June 23: The Mark Of Zorro 

• This big budget blockbuster from 1940 stars Tyrone Power as the ultimate Zorro, the masked avenger who uses his ingenuity and sword to fight the injustices of the ruling Spaniards and their nasty captain, Basil Rathbone, to rescue the old California townspeople. (1940) 93 min. (Fox)

June 30: A Soldier’s Story 

• Oscar nominee for Best Picture and Best Screenplay, Norman Jewison’s tense murder mystery is set on a Louisiana military base in the 1940s.  Starring Howard Rollins Jr. and Denzel Washington, it’s based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play. (1984) 101 min. (Sony/Columbia) PG Rated

July 7: Blazing Saddles

• Mel Brooks directed and wrote (with Richard Pryor) this uproarious, sometimes crude, but always funny tale featuring some of the most outrageous characters in movies, led by Cleavon Little as the first black sheriff in the Old West and Gene Wilder as the Waco Kid. The campfire scene involving baked beans is one of the most hysterical bits ever filmed.  No wonder this classic is #6 on AFI’s list of the 100 Funniest Movies. (1974) 93 min. Panavision (Warner Bros.) R Rated

July 14: Suddenly Last Summer 

• Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, and Montgomery Clift star in Tennessee Williams’ lurid and disturbing psychodrama (with a Gore Vidal screenplay) directed by Joseph Mankiewicz.  What really transpired during that European trip and is a lobotomy the only cure? (1959) 114 min. (Sony/Columbia)

July 21: National Lampoon’s Vacation 

• The Griswolds, Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo, set out cross-country with kids to a theme park and everything goes wrong.  Co-starring Randy Quaid, John Candy, Anthony Michael Hall, and Eugene Levy, directed by New Yorker Harold Ramis, and written by John Hughes. (1983) 98 min. (Warner Bros.) R Rated

July 28: Key Largo

• Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in the remarkable John Huston film noir about a WWII vet forced to confront a ruthless, murderous Edward G. Robinson who is as abusive to girlfriend Claire Trevor as he is to the rest of his gang. It all plays out at a seedy Florida hotel during hurricane season. (1948) 101 min. (Warner Bros.)

August 4: The Karate Kid

• Ralph Macchio stars as a Jersey kid who is ostracized when he transfers to a high school in Southern California.  Taught discipline and self-defense by Mr. Miyagi (Oscar nominated Pat Morita), he goes up against his bully in the finale. (1984) 126 min.  (Sony/Columbia)

August 11: Lover Come Back 

• Doris Day and Rock Hudson plus Tony Randall team up for a frothy romantic comedy about competing Madison Avenue ad executives, willing to stoop as low as need be to score clients. Oscar nominated for story/screenplay. (1961) 107 min. (Universal)

August 18: The Shining

• Director Stanley Kubrick builds an unbearable tension until the end. Jack Nicholson is at his scary best as an unstable writer who takes a job in the off-season at an isolated resort, which may be haunted by guests who never checked out. Shelley Duvall is his wife and Danny Lloyd their young son who sees horrific premonitions. (1980) 142 min. (Warner Bros.) R Rated