The screen is already up for this year’s Bryant Park Film Festival, and we’re very excited to indulge our nostalgia and catch some classics this year.

Bryant Park - photo courtesy of Flickr Commons

As part of a tradition since the early 90s, HBO, starting May 18, is set to deliver quality oldies on The Great Lawn every summer Monday at 5 PM. The festival, a staple of Midtown, draws huge crowds all summer long, providing films for the most casual watcher and also for the most discerning cinephile. The festival runs for ten weeks throughout the summer, and there are plenty of great films to catch –evidently, HBO knows its movie stuff.

It’d be great to have the time, but given that it might be tough to open up your schedule every Monday, we at New York Press have compiled a list of the best Bryant Park Film Festival movies to make time for this summer:

Psycho- May 18 – Alfred Hitchcock, 1960

Arguably Hitchcock’s most influential and scariest film, the seminal fright-fest has had viewers scared to shower for over 50 years (or is it just me?). Norman Bates, the movie’s villain has become a cultural icon –Patrick Bateman in American Psycho isn’t just coincidence– and Hitchcock’s incessantly-studied shower scene is simply awesome. Bring a friend for the walk home after this one.

Wizard of Oz – July 2 – Judy Garland, Toto, 1939

If only because it’s summer, and you might dance into the sunset like Dorothy, you should definitely get around to the park during the festival’s third week. Flying monkeys can be somewhat scary, but the music and imagination, as you’ve probably witnessed before, is perfect to see during the summer.

On the Waterfront – July 9 – Marlon Brando, 1954

This starts off a bit slow, maybe too slow, but picks up to become one of the best crime dramas in cinema. Brando is great, plain and simple. In the year of its release, Elia Kazan and his crew won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director. Bear through the beginning and the muffled dialogue, and you won’t be disappointed.

Raiders of the Lost Ark – August 20 – Harrison Ford, George Lucas – 1981

My personal favorite. Whenever I flip the channels and this is on TNT (it happens very often) I never flip again until it’s done. Non-stop action and a bunch of super-loud punches and whip cracks always make for greatness.

According to Bryant Park’s site, there are no chairs, tables, or dogs allowed. The lawn opens up at 4 PM, so bring your blanket and enjoy a fun night every Monday this summer.

–Nick Gallinelli

Photo courtesy Ken Howard

There’s nothing definitive about the new Desire revival

It’s hard to breathe new life into a classic work. With performers ranging from the iconic Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh to Alec Baldwin, Cate Blanchett, Jessica Lange, Frances McDormand, and Treat Williams breathing life and resuscitating it into the immortal roles of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski, is there any insight that hasn’t been gained when putting Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece A Streetcar Named Desire under a microscope?

Emily Mann’s current version, adorning the Broadhurst Theatre, tries a new tact by adopting a cosmetic approach, featuring a non-white cast in the principal roles. This decision on its own doesn’t really dilute the work (aside from stripping away Stanley’s working-class Polish heritage), and yet the end result, despite a disciplined performance by Nicole Ari Parker as Blanche, remains a distinctly neutered affair.

One of the key elements to Streetcar is passion. It’s what drives Stella (Daphne Rubin-Vega) back to Stanley (Blair Underwood) every time his abusive temper causes her to run; it’s what has caused a great many of Blanche’s ruinous past indiscretions; and it’s what ignites what is at first an emotional and then eventually a physical battle royale between Stella’s older sister and her husband. The stakes should be huge in this battle of old school gentility and new school animal instinct; everybody, somehow, loses in the end. This Streetcar faithfully follows the battle but never engages us in the war.

I can’t fault the soldiers, at least not completely. Underwood’s good looks have always been this actor’s stock-in-trade, and his physicality makes him a magnetic Stanley (as evidenced by the distracting whooping going on in the audience), but not a brutish one. This cuts down on the contrast with Blanche. Stanley may be an animal, but you know what you’re going to get with him. On the other hand, Blanche, fading into a world of mental instability, is all images and mendacity. From the moment she steps off the titular trolley and crashes her sister and brother-in-law’s squalid apartment (realistically designed By Eugene Lee, although lit a bit too brightly by Edward Pierce), nothing she puts forward is steeped in truth or reliability. Her delicate act belies a selfish cruelty that should threaten to detonate everything in her path.

But Mann’s production hits the notes without sounding any tune. The scenes don’t escalate to the point where the audience must worry that this powder keg is going to explode. Parker, onstage throughout almost the entirety of this nearly three-hour show, plays Blanche as smart but a loose cannon, haunted by shame, wrecked by guilt and willing to use her wiles to get whatever. This works until the second act, starting with a climactic scene opposite Wood Harris’s Mitch. Suddenly, characters’ reactions in this heretofore naturalistic production seem inorganic. We’re improperly prepared for the unassertive Mitch to lambast Blanche, and Blanche’s ultimate submission to Stanley’s victimization is jarring but only in a sensational way. Furthermore, Rubin-Vega’s Stella lacks some of the carnal conviction required to ensure loyalty to her husband over her sister. (Amelia Campbell makes the most of a small role as upstairs neighbor Eunice).

Mann’s Streetcar isn’t ablaze, but it isn’t a total wash either. How could it be? Williams’ work is too potent to completely lack effect. Like a streetcar trip itself, sometimes a slow, rocky journey can still be justified by the destination.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St. www.Telecharge.com. Through July 22.