Suck it, winter. Via Flickr's Karl Hassel.

Some science bros in Britain have declared this week to contain the single most depressing day of the year, what with the return to work, that rapidly drying fire hazard of a Christmas tree and these lousy caucuses making all of us pay heed to the opinions of 1 percent of Iowans. It’s easy to spend the few daylight hours feeling sorry for yourself and watching Arrested Development over and over again. Nay! Rage rage against the dying of the light! Winter is the perfect time to take advantage of things you’ve missed all year.
1. Spend a free weekday at Brooklyn Botanic Garden: Nature and sunlight are keys to beating back the January/February sads. If you don’t mind the brisk weather, you can have the whole garden practically to yourself: a beautiful tree-lined oasis in the middle of a busy borough.

2. Warm your tuchus by a fireplace coffee: Might we recommend the adorable and cozy House of Small Wonder in Williamsburg? It doesn’t have its liquor license (yet), but this blink-and-you-missed-it coffee shop is a hidden gem in the occasionally overbearing ‘burg.

3. Compete in the Punderdome: Described by Eileen Reynolds of the New Yorker as a “potent cure for the weekday blues,” we’d add that it is also a soothing salve for the winter dumps. It’s a monthly event, and several hours in a warm bar spent trafficking in witty repartee and concentrated silliness will help burn through these sad days. Also, you might be competing against Team Brokelyn members Faye Penn, Conal Darcy (reigning second place) and Tim Donnelly (former champion). Winter is punning.

4. Try the pay what you like restaurant in Williamsburg: and reward these people for a beautiful idea that says loads about what New Yorkers are willing to do for each other.

5. Patronize the hell out of your local bookstore: A warm bookstore on a cold winter’s night is one of the best places in the universe, next to a bouncy castle on the moon. All your local stores have loads of free readings, author appearances, book clubs and lots of other things to keep you warm (often with free wine!). And books! Read them! They’re good for your brain! You know you won’t want to read anything with more than 50 pages once that brutal summer sun returns.

6. Cook lots of things! Did you know it’s cheaper to make bread, yogurt and pasta sauce at home? This winter is your time to find out. Bonus: Your oven is a better way to add heat to your apartment than that trash can fire you started.

7. Hole up in a cozy theater and become a cinephile: Brooklyn is amid a renaissance of indie theaters. Why not spend your money there this winter? OK, it’s not quite free, but some of the theaters have cool free events. You can go back to the 50-screen megaplex when the superheroes return to the screen in the summer. You can also see free movies at lots of bars and other venues.

8. Donate blood, feel warm inside: You’ve been scared to do it before but this winter is the time. Not only do you help save a life, you get free swag (movie tickets, cookies, etc). If you’re scared of needles, it’s no more painful than a flu shot. If you can get a flu shot and not donate blood, that means you are more concerned with avoiding a mild illness for yourself over saving the life of a stranger. Harsh, brah.

9. Stay in shape, indoors: You’ve got a ton of free online workouts. Don’t let that “it’s too cold to go to the gym” excuse turn into a reason to eat 45 packages of Joe Joes all season.

10. Plan your escape from New York: Flight prices drop dramatically in the winter. If you don’t know, now you know.

Add your ideas to the comments!

Mad as hell; gonna watch some movies.

When looking for movies that speak to the 99 percent you’ve got the obvious Oliver Stone’s Wall Street. But that film’s a bit blunt force (also it’s …meh). Or there’s Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A True Love Story, which is specific to our current sociopolitical plight. But for films to really get your proletariat blood boiling, I’ve compiled a list of more conventional entertainment for the masses that contain a Trojan horse of social consciousness, like how you wrap your dogs’ pills in cheese so they’ll take them. If you want to feel like you’re being politically active while remaining in the comfort of your own home, hit up your friend in the 1 percent with a digital projector and pick from the list. After that, you’ll understand why you might not be surprised to see Rowdy Roddy Piper or George Bailey at Zuccotti Park.

This is not based on real life. At all.

WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
On luxury starship The Axiom, humans lucky (wealthy?) enough to escape Earth have atrophied over generations, melting into happy, passive morbidly obese blobs that are too pleasured and entertained to ever question who’s piloting the ship.

Proletariat Protagonist: Wall-E, a sentient and emotive robot saddled with cleaning the mess made by a civilization he was never a part of as humanity has turned its fat-rolled back on the whole Earth mess.

Bougie Villain: The schlubby captain of the Axiom, a symbol for supposed governmental authority, nominally in charge, but ultimately helpless and asleep at the wheel (in this case literally). The wheel itself, Auto, is really in control. It knows if people return to the Earth, start walking and doing things on their own, he and his titanic glittering shopping mall will become obsolete.

The moral: Comfort and decadence will enslave you, get off your fat ass and get back to the soil. Also being a cute robot helps.
Available on DVD and instant watch.

Who's got bubble gum?

THEY LIVE (John Carpenter, 1988)
John Carpenter was interviewed by a reporter who asked him “Come on, are you really trying to claim Reagan and his supporters were really evil aliens trying to enslave humanity?” to which he simply replied “Yes.” He later remarked “They Live was my ‘fuck you’ to Ronald Reagan and everyone in the ‘80s loving that old wrinkled piece of shit. He fucked up everything.”

Proletariat Protagonist: Nada, a hard-luck vagrant finds a pair of shades that allow him to peer through the veil of everyday life and see that the billboards, TV ads and nearly every printed material is in fact a subliminal message that simply reads in bold black letters “OBEY,” “CONSUME” and “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Upon discovering the clandestine coup, Nada delivers the classic line “I’m here to kick ass and chew bubblegum … and I’m all out of bubblegum.”

Bougie Villain: The wealthy elite, who are revealed to be ghoulish aliens disguised as humans, covertly controlling humanity. Their skeletal faces jut out from coiffed haircuts and fancy powersuits. Rolex watches serve as communicators and teleport devices.

The Moral: Advertising, religion, money and media are designed to keep regular human folks complacent and unaware of their oppressors. The minute you become wise to the trick, everything changes. Now it’s time to put on your magic sunglasses, spit out your bubblegum and put up your dukes.
Available on DVD and instant watch.

He is the Robotariat.

ROBOCOP (Paul Verehoven, 1987)
Set against a smoldering backdrop of dystopian Detroit, Robocop is a grizzly cautionary tale about privatizing public services. Released in 1987, Robocop projected the economic implosion and descent into poverty and desperation in formerly industrial cities (see Roger & Me, 1989.)

Proletariat Protagonist: An honest, hardworking cop who was brutally mutilated by a savage gang, only to be revived and rebuilt in cybernetic form. He becomes legal property of the corporation that built him and struggles to recover his humanity.

Bougie Villain: Omni Consumer Products, a monolithic corporate empire with plans to level Detroit entirely and build “Delta City,” a private utopia completely owned by the company. Coke-snorting CEOs and execs backstab their way to the top.

The Moral: Authoritarianism, autocracy, police brutality, violence and martial law can come about at the hands of the unregulated, unchecked private sector just as easily as it can come from totalitarian governments.
Available on DVD and instant watch.

This is what democracy tastes like.

SOCIETY (Brian Yunza, 1987)
Three of the films mentioned here were made at the height of the Regan era, a time when most popular horror films were extremely conservative, equating premarital sex and drug use with a ghastly death while the survivors tended to be the pure and good-looking. This obscure gem makes no bones about its allegory where the hoity-toity wealthy are literally feeding off the lower class.

Proletariat Protagonist: High school student Bill Whitney, a good-looking guy with a rich family living in blissful Beverly Hills. Bill feels out of place, he soon begins to unravel a conspiracy as it tries to unravel him and it all leads to a grotesque and unforgettable climax involving some of the best pre-CGI effects ever made.

Bougie Villain: Society. His parents and sister, his classmates, all the adults in his life, every one of them a tuxedoed elite. Bill learns, too late, that everything and everyone he’s ever known in his gated community is part of a sinister plot against him and regular Joes everywhere. “Don’t ya know, Billy boy?  The rich have always sucked off low class shit like you!”

The Moral: The rich will eat you. Literally. Even if you think you’re one of them.
Sadly, this film is out of print. You can watch it piecemeal on Youtube, or buy a region 1 DVD off Amazon UK. I’d of course never condone just looking for a torrent. Cough.

Occupy braaaaaains.

DAWN OF THE DEAD (George Romero, 1978)
As cheerful Muzak plays overhead, mindless zombies wander the halls and shops of the mall, not much less conscious than a drove of living mall shoppers, and every bit as bent on gobbling up everything in front of them.

Proletariat Protagonists: A rag tag group of survivors locked in a mall. With no law and no one to stop them, they raid the shops, reaping endless material bounty. They are happy, nestled in security and plenty, until they realize their cornucopia of pleasure has become a prison, they’re trapped in a giant zombie lunchbox and it is only a matter of time before the doors give and the undead flood in.

Bougie Villain: Zombies (as stand ins for consumerism, at least)

The Moral: The palaces of conspicuous consumption will fall and take you down with them.
Available on DVD and instant watch.

If only Fox News were around.

NETWORK (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
In the politically volatile 1970s, when American cinema was at its peak of creative freedom and social awareness, Lumet turned a sharp satirical scalpel to events that were specific to the time, but resonate today stronger than ever.

Proletariat protagonist: Max Shumaker, division president of the fictional UBS network emerges as the voice of reason, though he doesn’t quite qualify as proletariat. He’s the only one who sees the raving Howard Beale as a human and tries to no avail to stop the network from exploiting his old friend.

Bougie Villain: When Howard Beale, TV network veteran loses it, (because he’s being laid off, of course,) rather than do the responsible thing and seek help for the man, the ruthless network executives decide to give him his own show, seeking high ratings and profits. The network allows the deranged, desperate, cornered man to spout out directionless rage to the impressionable masses, indifferent to whatever his message is so long as they can make money off it. Sound familiar?

The Moral: Reality TV is a PT Barnum freak show on a national scale, exploiting human frailty for profit and it works because we allow it, or worse, crave it.
Available on DVD and instant watch.

THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (Luis Buñel, 1972)
The film follows a group of rich socialites as they try to arrange a dinner and are continuously interrupted by a series of bizarre and ludicrous events including a drug bust, a military skirmish, and a restaurant whose owner is dead and embalmed in the dining room. This is probably the most directly anti-bourgeoisie film on the list, but is also the most obtuse, and least accessible, being that Buñel is notoriously baffling and surreal.

Proletariat Protagonist: The director.

Bougie Villain: Nearly every single character is bourgeoise.

The Moral: While the world falls apart the rich will continue to sip champagne and chit chat about nothing. Their mansions and gated communities insulate them from the chaos.
Available on DVD and instant watch. 

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (Frank Capra, 1946)
By most accounts this is a saccharine Christian movie about angels and Christmas and about how awesome white families are. In fact, Jimmy Stewart and Frank Capra were both fairly conservative. Capra commented that It’s a Wonderful Life was made to combat atheism. It goes to show how far to the right things have gone, when a squeaky clean Hallmark greeting card kinda movie like this suddenly seems leftist.

Proletariat Protagonist: George Bailey, the self-sacrificial everyman, a Rockwellian portrait of a perfect American: polite, good-looking and conservative. Yes I just used the C-word.

Bougie Villain: Mr. Potter, the sneering and loathsome Dick Cheney lookalike who aims to own the entire town of Bedford Falls, crushing anyone in his path, referring to the residents of the town as a “discontented lazy rabble.”

The Moral: Is it a coincidence that the Move Your Money Project has co-opted the story of It’s A Wonderful Life?  Their viral video directly uses the message of the film to make its point. Even George Bailey is the 99 percent. Just try calling Jimmy Stewart a hippie.
Available on DVD.

Look at these farming hipsters

THE GRAPES OF WRATH (John Ford, 1940)
As per John Steinbeck’s classic novel, a group of Okies, lives wrecked by the dust bowl grudgingly move out to California, upon hearing the flimsy and dubious rumor of plentiful work. They instead find a bewildering road to nowhere and are trapped with countless other destitute, Depression-forsaken souls.

Proletariat Protagonist: Tom Joad, an Oakie with a troubled past and a fighting spirit, leads his family in search of not a better life, but sheer survival. He repeatedly refuses to take crap from his bosses, the police or anyone. His feisty attitude causes him trouble as he’s constantly asked to relinquish his dignity.

Bougie Villain: There isn’t so much a singular villain, just a hostile environment, or rather an indifferent one. This is mainly a Man Vs. Nature type of conflict wherein nature is a world that has completely turned its back on the poor, and desperate folks are left to fight over the scraps.

The Moral: Taking government aid out of the picture and leaving poor folks to make it on their own leads to a whole lot of people fighting each other with no one to protect them.
Available on DVD and instant watch.

hey, at least you guys have jobs.

METROPOLIS (Fritz Lang 1927)
This film is straight up Marxist. It engages the plight of the working class pinned down by wealthy capitalists in a shiny, angular future utopia. Unseen by the privileged occupants above, the workers all remain underground, in toiling in stifling, dreary caves and work in dangerous conditions. The message of the film is ultimately a plea for understanding and cooperation between the haves and the have-nots.

Proletariat Protagonist: Maria, a working-class prophet seeks to unite the workers with the ruling class, bringing peace and balance to all. There is also Freder, the main character who is born into a life of luxury in the ruling class. He is horrified by the working conditions of the lower class and desires to improve their lives.

Bougie Villain: The ruling class, which wants no part of Maria’s ideas of balance and equality. They replace her with an evil robotic doppelgänger in order to quell the working-class revolution.

The Moral: “The mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart!”
Available on DVD.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin 1936)
Phantom of Liberty (Luis Buñel 1974)
Brazil (Terry Gilliam 1985)
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (Terry Gilliam/Terry Jones 1983)
Blue Collar (Paul Schrader 1978)
District 9 (Neill Blomkamp 2009)
Alien (Ridley Scott 1979)
Blade Runner (Ridley Scott 1982)
The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir 1939)
Weekend (Jean-Luc Goddard 1967)

Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray 1956)

Follow Brad: @B_Rad_Pearson.

Photo via Flickr's William Self

Dear Cobble Hill Cinemas: We could go on and on about how we’d much rather hand over our $10 to your smiling, independently owned faces instead of shelling out $13 and some dignity at the bigger UA bully down the street; or how your concessions are priced lower so we don’t feel like we’re shopping at the last snack bar on the international space station; or how your crowds are pleasant and respectful and actually bought up all the tickets to Bridesmaids one Saturday night three weeks after its release while the newly released, far dumber Hangover 2 still had plenty of seats available. But there’s something bigger that cements our crush: it’s that old-generation, Saturday-morning-movie-with-Dad kind of charm the theater captures so well. You are located in one of the most Brooklyn stretches of Brooklyn down Court Street, with enough cozy bars, tasty food and enticing chocolatiers to justify missing the first showing. Climbing the winding staircase past movie scenes painted on the wall, it’s easy to imagine being there when all the movies were black and white and everyone wore fedoras. But mostly, we love that that the one time a bag of Trader Joe’s chocolate covered pretzels fell out of our bag as you were taking our ticket, you just smiled, laughed, and waved us through.

So, dear reader, you should buy this $15 Groupon for two tickets, popcorns and sodas today and go see for yourself. And even if you miss the Groupon, love up on some of their bargain nights: $7 seats all day Tuesdays and Thursdays and up to 5pm from Monday-Friday.

Photos by Faye Penn

“This is so much more fun than selling DVDs on Amazon,” said Josh Mueller, movie buff, Brokelyn reader and blissful attendee of Brokelyn’s NOTflix DVD Swap last night. As Mueller (proud new owner of The Notebook, Nashville and Hellboy) can attest, last night’s flickfest was an orgy of movie love and a feast of “swapcorn.” So much fun, we’re going to do it again; join our Facebook group so you’ll never have to go without your own copy of Nacho Libre. Here’s what you missed last night at Mission Dolores, quite possibly the perfect summer bar:

Name: Adan Johnson, Crown Heights
He brought: Hellboy Extended Cut, The Bone Collector, The Illusioniust, Secret Diar of a Call Girl Season 1, Blade 2, Nacho Libre, Apocalypse Now, Sound & Sorrow
He got: Kingdom of Heaven, Mallrats, Ripley’s Game
He says: “I’m excited to watch Kingdom of Heaven. Ridley Scott makes good movies and this one has a lot of director’s cuts and special features.”

Jennifer Tang, Forest Hills, Queens
She brought: Reservoir Dogs, Accepted, Shrek in 3D, Salvador, the Die Hard Trilogy, Ripley’s Game, City by the Sea, Norbit
She got: Spiderman 3, Jack Goes Boating, Hostage, Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke, Family Guy
She says: “I still love Family Guy. My husband’s kind of turned off to it. I don’t know why — I still love it.”

Ricky Camilleri and Andrea Rosen, Park Slope
They brought: Nashville, Hannah and Her Sisters, Stand By Me, Bad Education (the R-rated version), Coachella
They got: Jackass The Move, Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage/The Lodger, How I Met Your Mother (two seasons), Coachella
He says: “We brought Coachella to give away but took it back. I’ve had it forever and never watched it. But I looked at the back and saw The Stooges and Oasis — now I have to watch it.

Rob Blatt and Amber Marlow Blatt, Park Slope
They brought: The Office, How I Met Your Mother, Babewatch 16, Rservoir Dogs, The Phone Booth, Nacho Libre
They got: I Robot, The Education of Charlie Banks, Brokeback Mountain, Bladerunner
She said: “I’m most excited to watch the education of Charlie Banks.”

Homage by Rommel Alama.

Are you mad as hell about the Netflix 60 percent price increase?

Maybe you’ve up and canceled your subscription — or maybe you think that 15.99 a month is still actually a good deal for unlimited movie streaming and DVDs (one at a time). Here’s what’s not a good deal: hanging onto old DVDs that you own but will never watch again. This Wednesday night (July 20), from 7 to 9, haul those pre-loved DVDs to our first-ever Notflix DVD swap at Mission Dolores.

Ground rules: real movies and TV shows only. Nothing bootlegged. Not your film class senior project, not your wedding video, not your old AOL startup discs and no VCR tapes. Desirable indies, blockbusters, romcoms, scifi, foreign, other good stuff all welcome. Bring up to 10 discs; walk away with as many as you bring, and stay for a drink or two — Mission Dolores is extending happy hour prices for the event. The popcorn is on us.

Kent Theater, 1170 Coney Island Ave. at Ave. H, 718-338-3371
Matinee: $5 for the first show of the day. Regular admission is $7.75 for adults and $5 for seniors (62 and up) and kids (2 -10).

Bay Ridge Alpine Cinemas, 6817 Fifth Ave. between Bay Ridge Ave. and 68th St., 718-748-4200
Matinee: $7 Monday through Friday before 5 p.m. and the first show on Saturday and Sunday. Seniors and kids are $5.50 all the time.

Cobble Hill Cinemas, 265 Court Street at Butler St., 718-596-9113
Matinee: $7 will get you in until 5 p.m., Monday through Friday; all day and night Tuesday and Thursday, and for the first showing, until 2 p.m., on Saturday and Sunday. $12 for 3D all the time.

Pavilion Theater, 188 Prospect Park West between 14th and 15th Sts., 718-369-0838
Matinee: $8.50 (before 4 p.m., except Sun.); $8 tickets for kids and seniors all day on Wednesday. But, keep this in mind.

UA Court Street, 108 Court St. between State and Schermerhorn Sts., 718-246-8170
Matinee: $9 (before 3 p.m. Monday-Thursday; first show on Saturday. & Sunday). Seniors and kids: $9 all the time.

BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Ave., between Ashland Pl. and St. Felix St., 718-623-2770
No matinee deals here, but students, kids and seniors get a break Monday through Thursday with $9 admission. BAM also offers discounts at $8 for members of the Cinema Club, plus perks for varying levels of membership ranging from “Movie Buff” to “Movie Mogul II.”

For theater locations and movie times, check out the Brooklyn section at Movie Clock.

She's donating.

Dying to see Inception at a big theater in Brooklyn, but you can’t dream upon dream of dropping $12.50 for the ticket? (And that’s not even counting the sustenance you’ll need for the 2.5 hour extravaganza). Well then, plant this idea somewhere deep in the ice fortress of your subconscious: You get a free movie ticket every time you donate blood at the bloodmobile on Court Street. And you can do it today.

Stop by the bloodmobile in front of the UA Court Street theater in Downtown Brooklyn from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. today, Jul. 23, to donate. It takes about 40 minutes on average, and when you’re done, they send you an unlimited movie pass in the mail a short while later. What does unlimited mean? It means we got to see Avatar in threedee a few months ago without padding James Cameron’s pockets one bit.

Not that you really needed the extra incentive to donate blood, of course, seeing as it’s all the discomfort of your average flu shot, except with cookies and juice at the end. But the New York Blood Center also has a rewards program, sort of like a much much healthier version of Marlboro Miles. You can earn points towards tons of things, like Mets tickets, gift cards, iPods, Lego sets, DVDs, etc. And, you know, you’re saving lives and all. The donate bus appears regularly in front of the theater — the next appearance will be Aug. 6 — and elsewhere, but watch NY Blood Center for more info.

UA Court Street, 106 Court St. between Schermerhorn and State Sts.

David Hemmings and Veruschka von Lehndorff in Blow-Up

London in the ’60s was one of those places and brief moments in time that we think almost compares to modern-day Brooklyn when it comes to ‘cool’. It was a swingin’, mod-wearing time—an era so many of us would have loved to live through. And this Wednesday, we might get a pretty good taste. Future Cinema, the British event company behind feats of live, immersive, multimedia cinema, has crossed the pond for the first time (straight to Brooklyn) with one of its extravagant creations: Antonioni’s iconic 1966 classic Blow-Up, tomorrow night, Jun. 30, at Shangri-La Studio in Greenpoint.

What’s in store at this thing? Only a re-created English pub, screaming girls, fashion shoots, live music and, of course, the film.The 8 p.m. screening is free, but register on EventBrite. And remember to dress in your 60s-best and practice your accent for the after-film 60s-fashion scene-inspired-party.

Shangri-La Studio, 100 Sutton St. between Nassau and Norman Aves., Greenpoint.