FILMS IN THE GARDEN

​OUR 2018 FILMS IN THE GARDEN SEASON HAS ENDED. JOIN OUR MAILING LIST TO HEAR ABOUT NEXT SEASON'S SCREENINGS! 

Your $5 Donation supports the preservation of the House and Garden. Set up your blanket or lawn chair in Edward Hopper's back yard and enjoy a "Hopper-esque" movie night in the fresh air. ​

​THANKS TO ROCKLAND TOURISM AND RIVERTOWN FILMS ​FOR THEIR SUPPORT OF FILMS IN THE GARDEN!

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PAST FILMS IN THE GARDEN

Friday, August 31, 2018 - 8 p.m.

LIVE TRAILER - Amy Bezunartea 

Kiam Records/Main Street Beat's own Amy Bezunartea will play a set of her original songs prior to the film. 

FEATURE PRESENTATION - "HAROLD AND MAUDE" 

Harold, the 20-year-old son of a wealthy, neglectful woman, tries to gain attention for himself with various hilariously staged "suicides." Obsessed with death, Harold meets a like-minded 79-year-old woman named Maude. Harold and Maude become inseparable friends, both helping each other out of various personal travails. - Rotten Tomatoes

Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude, about the love between a suicidal young man of about twenty and an almost eighty-year-old widow, is timeless in part because it never quite belonged to its own time. Conceived in the late 1960s, at the height of the counterculture, it was released in 1971, when the political narrative of peaceful rebels versus the jackbooted establishment had lost what little mainstream appeal it had briefly enjoyed. In the popular imagination, the March on Washington and the Summer of Love had been displaced by Woodstock, Altamont, Kent State, and a string of assassinations and riots. Richard Nixon had ridden into office in 1968 on a wave of law-and-order sentiment and was about to cakewalk into a second term (and unprecedented shame). The counterculture was in retreat. {...} But the movement’s ideals lived on, in a disguised and ultimately more daring form, in Harold and Maude, which took values that had been expressed by youthful rebels and dropouts in the late 1960s—peace, love, understanding, distrust of authority, a determination to march to the beat of a different drummer—and put them in the mouth of an old woman embroiled in one of the oddest and most original love stories ever filmed. {...} It’s a romance, a tragedy, a satire, a paean to eccentricity, a philosophical statement, and a “trip” film whose music montages seem to roll in like waves. Its mix of elements felt strange and new at the time, and still does, even though the film’s characters, tone, and soundtrack have been referenced and plundered by many modern directors, including Wes Anderson, who used two Stevens songs in Rushmore; P. T. Anderson, whose first four features are filled with Ashby-like innocents stumbling through cruel worlds; and David Fincher, whose Fight Club features a misfit couple flirting at self-help groups that they don’t even belong to, as Harold and Maude do at strangers’ funerals.

​- Mat Zoller Seitz, "Harold and Maude: Life and How to Live It". ON FILM/ESSAYS, June 12, 2012, The Criterion Collection <https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2337-harold-and-maude-life-and-how-to-live-it>

GOODIE RAFFLE

We are thrilled to have Olde York Farm's Distillery in the House tonight, who will raffle off a bottle of their delicious liquor to one lucky movie-goer; as well as Hilton Pearl River, who will offer an accommodating overnight stay!

Friday, August 24, 2018 - 8 p.m.

LIVE TRAILER - "Hopper's Hold on Bill Batson" 

Creator of Nyack Sketch Log
BILL BATSON 

Bill’s artwork was recently featured at Edward Hopper House (February 2018). He was also the director of theNyack Record Shop Project, an oral history project reflecting the African American community in Nyack and inspired by Carrie Mae Weems' recent "Beacon" exhibition at Edward Hopper House (November 2017 - February 2018). Bill's writing has appeared in Essence Magazine, New York’s Amsterdam News, and The Argus in Cape Town, South Africa. While in South Africa, Bill received the Bertram’s Young Writer Award and won first place in the Sidelines Journal Student Essay competition. One of his essays, “In Africa Men Hold Hands” is included in a college text book written by Susan Ankara and published in 2003 by Bedford St. Martin’s. Bill’s work as an artist has been profiled in New York Newsday (6/27/99), Daily Heights (6/16/05), Brooklyn Rail,(12/04/06), and The Journal News (2/26/05) and Nyack News and Views (1/4/18).

FEATURE PRESENTATION - "Blood Simple" 

A rich but jealous man hires a private investigator to kill his cheating wife and her new man. But, when blood is involved, nothing is simple. - IMDB

GOODIE RAFFLE

We are thrilled to have Olde York Farm's Distillery in the House again tonight, who will be presenting a tasting of their delicious bourbon. We will also be raffling off an overnight stay at the Hilton Pearl River!

Friday, JULY 13, 2018 - 8 p.m.

LIVE TRAILER - A Short by A Local FilmMaker

CHARLES CASTER-DUDZICK

Charles Caster-Dudzick is always working. Whether on his new experimental series "Synapse Enforcer," an animation, a piece of music, a script, or a new watercolor, oil, or digital painting, as much time as possible is spent creating.

FEATURE PRESENTATION - "POINT BLANK" 

A rich but jealous man hires a private investigator to kill his cheating wife and her new man. But, when blood is involved, nothing is simple. - IMDB

GOODIE RAFFLE

We are thrilled to have Olde York Farm's Distillery in the House tonight, who will be raffling off a bottle of their delicious liquor to one lucky movie-goer. 

Saturday, September 16, 2017 - 8 p.m.

FEATURE PRESENTATION - "BLADE RUNNER" 

Director Ridley Scott cites Hopper as a great influence in the set design of his futuristic neo-noir piece Blade Runner, particularly the painting Nighthawks (1942) and adds that “I was constantly waving a reproduction of this painting under the noses of the production team to illustrate the look and mood I was after.” His effort was well compensated since when watching Blade Runner (a film about a man who pursues four fugitives who aim to return to Earth in a stolen ship), one can discriminate the painter’s influence once Rick cruises the futuristic city full of light contrasts and places where it becomes notorious that estrangement and alienation are dominating feelings within this modern society. - Truman Hopper

SPECIAL THANKS

Thank you to Business Partner KUKA BEER for their sponsorship of our "Blade Runner" screening. 

Saturday, AUgust 19, 2017 - 8 p.m.

FEATURE PRESENTATION - "PENNIES FROM HEAVEN" 

Director Herbert Ross and writer Dennis Potter’s depression-era Pennies from Heaven has a mood so similar to Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, it made perfect sense to see Potter’s characters momentarily become the painting. 
- Stephen Altobello 

The great British production designer Ken Adam scrupulously reproduced Hopper's Nighthawks and New York Movie when transposing Dennis Potter's Pennies From Heaven (1981) from prewar Britain to the American Midwest during the Depression. - Philip French, THE GUARDIAN

SPECIAL THANKS

Thank you to Kris Burns for making a seasonal cocktail with flavors from the Nyack Farmers Market: 

PENNY FROM HEAVEN
bourbon, Cynar, nectarines & basil, lemon simple syrup

Saturday, AUgust 18, 2016 - 8 p.m.

FEATURE PRESENTATION - "THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH" 

Rivertown Film joins the Edward Hopper House Art Center, Kiam Records and Festoon to present a screening of The Man Who Fell to Earth, in tribute to the late David Bowie. 
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​In The Man Who Fell to Earth, Bowie plays an alien who comes to earth and to get water for his dying planet. First, he has to make enough money to finance his trip home. UK, 1976, 130 minutes, rated R for nudity.
Presented by Edward Hopper House Art Center, Festoon, Kiam Records and Rivertown Film. ​Sunday, July 10, 2016 : $12 General Admission, #8 for members of Rivertown Film and Edward Hopper House