NYC Vigilantes.

"[F]rom Minutemen to lynch mobs to Castle Doctrines to United 93, vigilantism retains a privileged place in the anarchic American imagination," writes Nick Pinkerton. "The Anthology Film Archives series NYC Vigilantes is blessed by ample specimens of a now-endangered screen species: the Great Northeastern City Dude, a battered, had-it-up-to-here guy whose natural musk of stale bodega coffee marks his biological difference from the stubbly prettyboy with tie askance."

For the New York Press, JR Taylor talks with William Lustig, whose Maniac Cop, Maniac Cop 2 and Vigilante will be screened in the series: "I always thought that when Vigilante and Death Wish played in Times Square, they were viewed differently than in suburbia. The audience had a different relationship to the people on the screen. These movies are Westerns, first and foremost. Back then, there was definitely a siege mentality for people living in urban environments. These were the gunslingers - Bronson, Robert Forster, Robert Ginty."

Updated through 8/25.

Tonight through Sunday; Cinema Strikes Back posts the program.

Update, 8/22: "Picking up a Magnum is as sacred a duty in these pictures as taking up the cross," writes Robert Cashill. "Dirty Harry had set the tone for urban Westerns; in Death Wish, the gun gifted to architect Bronson by good ol' boy Tucson client Stuart Margolin is a talisman of the Old West, passed religiously into the Wild East for the benediction of the vigilante-to-be. Abel Ferrara's creepy Ms 45 (1981)... has the deaf-mute heroine Thana (for Thanatos, the Greek god of death) never at ease in society ('she was abused and violated... it will never happen again!'), putting on a nun's habit to consecrate her vengeance at a costume party. These movie avengers ride with the angels."

Update, 8/25: Ms 45 "has an early Ed Koch era verisimilitude that is fascinating for New Yorkers and is built for maximum tonal dissonance - it puts movies like Neil Jordan's absurd, overly polished The Brave One to shame," writes Brandon Harris. "The iconoclastic director didn't disappoint when he finally surfaced after having skipped the intro Anthology expected him to do, delivering a nearly hour long Q&A following the 9:00 pm screening, during which, a grand total of three questions were asked - Mr Ferrara is his own material."

Posted by dwhudson at August 21, 2008 3:23 AM