(12.23) Santa lives in a Moorish powder-room that may or may not be heaven (so, he’s . . . dead?) where third world moppets manufacture toys of dubious value. But there is a snake in the garden, Pitch, a demon who swans about annoying anxious, hollow-eyed children.
Head downtown Sunday night for a screening of the 1959 classic “Santa Claus” directed by René Cardona and starring Jose Luis Aguirre as El Diablo. Poorly received when first released, this cinematic tour de force is finding a new audience among disaffected Millennials who find the Manichean themes of good and evil resonating in their own lives. Film historians now regard it as a masterpiece of thwarted blocking and sallow lighting.
11:45pm, Sunday, December 23, 95 Empire Box, 95 Empire Street