Icons of the Desert: Early Aboriginal Paintings from Papunya

My published Flavorpill post:

Thanks be to the senior Aboriginal Australian painters who gave their blessing for this superlative, uber-rare exhibition spotlighting the early work of the Western Desert art movement. The back story is such: in 1971 at a government relief camp called Papunya in the central Australian desert, a group of indigenous elders (read: men) began to record sacred designs on boards as opposed to the more ephemeral media of sand and flesh. Based on Tjukurrpa (the Dreaming) — the belief that creator-ancestors are responsible for the world as is — these layered, symbol-laden beauties are incredible for their contorted forms and their ornamental details, particularly Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula's exquisite mosaic, Water Dreaming at Kalipinypa.

Rooftop Films presents Bronx Princess and Nora

My published Flavorpill post:

Rooftop Films goes all-out for its inaugural Bronx screening. The beautifully observed documentaries on queue for tonight are short in length, but global in scope. Yoni Brook's on-the-road bildungsroman, Bronx Princess, tracks 17-year-old Rocky as she leaves metropolis and mother to return to her roots and father in Ghana. Nora, on the other hand, pairs performance and dance to capture the many trials and triumphs of Zimbabwe-born dancer Nora Chipaumire, her odyssey accompanied by the famed Chimurenga music of Thomas Mapfumo. Preceding these transatlantic journeys is Blitz the Ambassador, an Afro-hop rapper who spent his early years in Accra City, Ghana.

American Casino

My published Flavorpill post:

American Casino is nothing new under the Wall Street sun: those Captains of Intemperance lent like there was no tomorrow, resulting in the subprime mortgage fiasco and bailout. But Leslie and Andrew Cockburn's censorious documentary fleshes out how a million-plus Americans — many minorities, many industrious — lost their homes and savings to inflated numbers and legal fine print, while Janus-faced culprits ensured that their loopholes and bottom lines were extra round. One victim bemoans the reality of "seeing your life on paper," and via intertitles, footage of at-fault notables (i.e. Greenspan), and interviews with insiders, pundits, and the duped, this film emphatically captures the gleam and boarded-up rot of a system out of hand.

Abraaj Capital Art Prize

My published Flavorpill post:

In her intricate tapestry, Rhyme and Reason, Tehran-based artist Nazgol Ansarinia arranges a coil of burka-clad figures into an arresting example of Islamic symmetry and her "amplification of the mundane." She and Tate Britain's Leyla Fakhr are one of three artist-curator tandems in the inaugural class of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize, which offers an international platform for up-and-coming talent from the MENASA region (Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia). Zoulikha Bouabdellah, of Algeria, partnered with Carol Solomon to dream up the aptly named illusion/installation Walk on the Sky. Pisces; while the Turkish artist Kutlug Ataman teamed with Cristiana Perrella for Strange Space, a recorded performance piece that addresses the clash of East and West in his modernizing homeland.

Gelf Magazine Presents the Non-Motivational Speaker Series: New York Stories

My published Flavorpill post:

This monthly series furnishes the soapbox for those with rare experiences to share. Tonight's provocative trio of orators focuses on community and the American Dream. Don Quint and Salvatore "Buddy" Scotto reach it through polar trades: the former traffics ice cream and sui generis toppings (i.e. ginger cookies, curried coconut) from his Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, while the latter operates the Scotto Funeral Home and doubles as the "unofficial mayor" of Carroll Gardens. Harvey Wang, who lensed the eye-opening photojournal Flophouse: Life on the Bowery, relates tales from downtown's last skid row, where nearly 100,000 took refuge from the late 19th- to the mid 20th- century — alien, drug-abusing, and luckless fellows who woke from the dream to find themselves unsung and destitute.

Last Days of Disco

My published Flavorpill post:

For those who prefer the box office to the letterbox format, this latest Criterion addition screens for a four-to-the-floor night out. The most belletristic of American directors, Whit Stillman humorously chronicles the "tremendous importance of group social life" and the malaise of encroaching adulthood for young, privileged New Yorkers in 1981 — a year that also marks the last ebb of that famous '70s musical movement. Alongside the catchy, upbeat bass lines of the O'Jays and Diana Ross that boom in the feral nightclub scenes, Stillman's highbrow dialogue becomes a cipher for his hyper-articulate and "doomed bourgeois in love," including publishing assistants Chloe Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale. Each uttered word — whether on love, feminism, or yuppies — is freighted with their age-appropriate hopes and social hang-ups.

2009 U.S. Open

My published Flavorpill post:

Barring a colossal upset, count on Roger Federer to be on court come week two—after all, the recent father of twins has collected the last five trophies and boasts a streak of 21 straight Grand Slam semifinals. While we have our fingers crossed for the first Nadal-Federer final in Flushing, aces like last year's runner-up Andy Murray and sling-armed homeboy Andy Roddick are welcome substitutes. On the women's side, several look to supplant Serena Williams, defending champ and world-beater at two of the year's major tourneys. Sister Venus and a rank of Russians — led by Dinara Safina — represent the credentialed threats on the DecoTurf's fast surfaces.

How to Make Music with Police Cars and Get Away With It

My published Flavorpill post:

To most ears, the police siren is simply a cacophonous necessity. But Mexico-born musician Lázaro Valiente — better described as a purveyor of funky, found sounds — appropriates that wail and other cop-car noises for an amusing, chaotic, and unusual experiment in composition. For example, in Police Car Quartet — the first of nine public happenings with similarly pithy titles like muchos Mexican barrel organs and visual concerts at red lights — Valiente turns variously pitched slides and blips from four cars into a symphonic siren-ade. Of course, the question remains: how did he sweet-talk the authorities? Tonight, the artist speaks, performs, and doles out some artworks.

Triskelion Arts presents Collaborations in Dance

My published Flavorpill post:

Abby Bender and Andrew Dickerson — the directors at nonprofit dance space Triskelion Arts — curate this expansive, four-day festival in which modern dance criss-crosses with other artistic fields, such as theatre, film, and visual arts. While this sort of creative synthesizing might seem customary nowadays, Bender's past is marked by a penchant for the spectacular; thrilling free-form should ensue, with performances that range from the accessible to the conceptual, each night full of spontaneous bursts of movement and moments of expressive restraint. The program includes Jessica Gaynor Dance, Bryon Carr Dance and Mixed Media, and the ever-inspired Ten Directions.

Edward Scissorhands

My published Flavorpill post:

In this preferred fairy tale, Tim Burton — the oddball next door during his Burbank childhood — pictures the suburbs as a Land of Blah, full of clean, pastel-colored residences and a day-to-day routine that includes a door-to-door Avon rep. Then, Johnny Depp descends from his Gothic citadel to become one of cinema's most popular, simpatico, and photogenic characters — even if his story ends unhappily ever after. The parochial locals initially flock to his honed touch with topiary and Sassoon-style coiffures, but, due to a series of petty exploitations, soon see him as a threat and pariah. Throughout, Depp's deadpan pantomime is both hilarious and heartbreaking, with his darling Winona Ryder just outside his gentle reach.

The End of the Line

My published Flavorpill post:

O bluefin tuna, where art thou? Well, according to this catalytic documentary about the depletion of the oceans' fish supply, the red-handed are numerous: the limit-flouting fisherman, the politician who pays no heed to the dooms-date of 2048 (the designated start of an international diet without fish), and even the consumer who—in trust—purchases the endangered foodstuffs. Whether it's Alaska or a Tokyo market, our man on the scene is Charles Clover, an investigative reporter who's able to pull telltale soundbytes from scientists, fisheries enforcement officials, and restauranteurs alike. With New York Harbor as tonight's emblematic backdrop, the film aims to incite a sea change through facts and figures that unsettle the stomach (e.g. half of the world's fish intake is farm-raised) and an outline for a do-or-die-off course of action.

The Future of Green

My published Flavorpill post:

Community is paramount when discussing that topic du jour in design: sustainability. Tonight, check out Career Camp's latest installment, "The Future of Green," an affordable forum for those who declare "onward" when faced with the daunting unknown. Arrive ready to learn, to trade dialogue and digits, and to listen to the know-how of a few already adept in the field. We're particularly excited to hear from Amanda McDonald Crowley, Executive Director of EyeBeam; Rick Thompson, COO of GreenTech Media; and Chris Garvin, whose Terrapin Bright Green helps existing companies lower their carbon footprints, even achieving LEED certification. Head of SVA's Interaction Design MFA program, Liz Danzico presides over an evening that commences with spirits (a two-for-one happy hour) and (for reasons yet unknown to us) free haircuts by Galapagos' onsite stylist.

Beeswax

My published Flavorwire post:
Thus far in his lauded career, Andrew Bujalski has exhibited a pointillist touch, spending ample runtime on the miniature — bits of scenic color, echt conversations, chores of random import — that all eventually coalesce into a portrait of those in the throes of post-collegiate/young-professional angst. The quibble is often this: what’s the larger point of the casual words, words, words that come from the mealy-mouthed within? Like a Bujalski character, a viewer waits for the whatsit that may or may not come and it becomes crucial that one can stand the onscreen company.

Bujalski’s latest lo-fi mumbler Beeswax will either bore the syntax out of you (”well…I… thought…well”) or, more likely, offer a strangely winsome glance at twin, Austin-based sisters Jeannie and Lauren (Tilly and Maggie Hatcher). The headstrong, wheelchair-bound Jeannie co-owns a modest vintage clothing store in a particularly “politically-conscious” district of Austin (one of the funnier, stumbling, true-to-life scenes has Jeannie promoting her business with the ballyhoo of a realtor). Lauren, meanwhile, proves to be her unemployed foil: tomboyish, flighty, and often flashing a mischievous smile, even after breaking up with her boyfriend. Throughout, they’re an inviting study in contrast.

Jeannie proves to be the character best suited to shouldering the expectations of acting-your-age, and there’s a peculiar grace to the way she contorts her features when searching for the words to skirt conflict with a clueless staff member or, say, her sister. Yet, she’s unable to get a read on her rarely-seen business partner/friend Amanda (Anne Dodge), whose opposing agenda for the store leads to an e-mail that, more or less, threatens a cure-all lawsuit (fine print: enlist trained professionals to speak on her behalf).

Jeannie decides to contact her old flame Merrill (Alex Karpovsky), who, as it happens, is studying for the bar exam. As the legal impasse sits ominously in the background, Jeannie, Merrill and Lauren search for an unseen panacea while other life-altering problems arise for each, namely that Jeannie and Merrill can’t find a relational medium between “radio silence” and “hot sex” and that Lauren might accept a position to teach English in Nairobi.

Bujalski’s talent lies in his restraint and his ear for the recognizable: he doesn’t gild his dialogue and thus his down-to-earth characters “errrmm” and “ummm” believably, like vehicles stuck in natural. When they do press on, they only do so ever-so-carefully, if not sometimes embarrassingly. This problem of communication and one’s fluctuating role among friends, partners, and family supply the subtle but sure-handed dramatic pull. Bujalski’s aims remain handheld and small-scale and he hits his bulls-eye here with a film that exudes humor, formal craft, and a steadfast commitment to utterly relatable characters—even if there remain maddening, dangling enigmas come the credits.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

My published Flavorpill post:

It's been 40 years since the easygoing, hyper-charismatic tandem of Paul Newman and Robert Redford played the lovable outlaws stuck with each other — and life in blithe flight — till "fuego!" did them apart. The legendary chums came to a more agreeable end in their other George Roy Hill-directed pairing, The Sting (1973), but that effort doesn't offer the frontier-sized leeway of BC&SK, which adds a dash of Bacharach-scored whimsy to the ordeal of getting out of Dodge. Miss Robinson of The Graduate (1967), Katherine Ross, figures in a more innocuous late-'60s threesome by accompanying the gentlemanly robbers to the safe haven of Bolivia — where their mysterious, white-hatted pursuer appears in the distance one day like a tolling alarm.

One-Eyed Auteurs

My published Flavorpill post:

Mid-century Hollywood had enough eye-patched directors roaming its lots to form a themed doo-wop group: John Ford, Fritz Lang, Nicholas Ray, André de Toth, and Raoul Walsh. Anthology handpicks two films from each auteur's oeuvre for this more-than-welcome series. Ford's heartfelt salute to servicemen in the Pacific Theater, They Were Expendable (1945), can be viewed as cinematic kin with Flying Leathernecks (1951), Ray's aerial ode also starring that cinematic synonym for machismo, John Wayne. De Toth turns ennui in LA into a penetrating noir for Pitfall (1948), while Walsh delivers tidy, love-will-prevail adventure with Gregory Peck in The World in His Arms (1952). And for his serio-comic You and Me (1938), Lang collaborated with none other than Kurt Weill.

Lorna's Silence

My published Flavorpill post:

Lorna's Silence — the Dardenne brothers' latest piece of blue-collar verisimilitude — merits neither the "master" prefix nor the lambasting it's taken for being a notch below their gold-certified efforts. But as it tracks the gradual regret-to-redemption of Lorna (Arta Dobroshi with a mesmeric debut), this Liège-set flick proves to be a trenchant combo of realism and thriller. An Albanian with hopes of opening a snack bar with her beau, Lorna has procured Belgian citizenship through an arranged marriage with junkie Claudy (emaciated, sensational Jérémie Renier) — legwork for a larger, more lucrative marriage/visa arrangement with a Russian mobster. Claudy, who's trying to go clean, eventually becomes more than a stand-in, and his sudden divorce from the narrative leads to an astonishing flash-flood of emotion in the mystical finale.

Thirst

My published Flavorwire post:
Since the start of the Aughts, Park Chan-wook has been renowned as the auteur of the brutal, which he presents with such pictorial flair that a sense of grandeur suffuses even his most macabre blindsides. The standard-bearer of Korean cinema returns in style—if not substance—with Thirst, another outré morality tale doused in crimson that follows a priest as he becomes a vampire and partakes in the Seven Deadly Sins. As Park describes, Thirst is a "scandalous vampire melodrama" that also happens to be darkly funny, creepy, spasmodically poetic, and frequently—for better and for worse—outrageous.

Song Kang-ho (of The Host and Park's earlier knockouts) plays Sang-hyun, a pious clergyman whose compassion for others impels him to become a vaccine subject for a deadly virus that pusses up a victim's skin before they hurl blood and die. Selfless mission, to say the least. Except Sang-hyun—after a gushing Bach session on his recorder—doesn't exactly die; like Lazarus, he rises up again after a blood transfusion, muttering biblical verse to verify the operation-room miracle. Unfortunately for the Samaritan, the blood coursing through his veins happens to be o-positive vampire (it's never explained where said red comes from, but Sang-hyun calls his survival a "psychological effect") and, with blogospheric speed, a cult forms to beg the Bandaged Saint to heal them and their loved ones.

Soon, Spiderman's mantra ("With great power comes great responsibility") echoes in his head, especially as he discovers his newfound indestructibility and his insatiable urge for a refreshing pint of ichor. Thus, his do-unto-others ethic is mightily tested, but Sang-hyun proves to be a vampire who obviates bloodsucking in favor of siphoning blood from the comatose or slurping pouches of the stuff as if they were Capri Suns.

Then, Sang-hyun's flesh-and-blood temptation shuffles into the plot in the form of a childhood friend's repressed helpmeet, Tae-ju (Kim Ok-vin). She's that easy-come, easy-go girl whose home life with her "bloodsucking" mother-in-law and her sickly, irksome husband leads her to the smitten Sang-hyun. Thus begins a sensual courtship that features a night of rooftop leaping, followed by loud, awkward, and really slobbery sex scenes (no exaggeration here: the once-chaste priest licks armpit and toe with fetishistic relish), and finally the soap-operatic problem of her possibly abusive husband.

This can only end badly, as Tae-ju undergoes a transformation that plays out with more spray and liberated ferocity than the parting of the Red Sea. It's a XX-spin on the the evil, mad-as-hell vampire that sets up the late scenes of coexistence at odds, which all mischievously underscore the notion of 'til death do them part.

Park offsets the flat interludes in the film—such as the father-son exchanges—with bouts of sensory overload, particularly the brushstrokes of red against holy-white backgrounds. At that, the violent acts pale in comparison with the prolonged scenes of, well, the nasty. Park retains his editing bravura which combines jarring contrasts with lyrical match cuts, and his amped-up sound design immerses the viewer in the story's full-bore design.

But what comes through best are the unexpected, pitch-black bits of humor. For instance, after the two consummate their affair, Sang-hyun drops this après-sex stunner: I'm a vampire. Taeju, initially taken aback, responds that "vampires are cuter than I thought." In a movie with a plot twist in which an invalid can communicate using blinks and mahjong tiles, the cockeyed line is amusingly matter-of-fact and also contains a truth about this carnal, entertaining but uneven effort. In short, animalistic instinct clouds rational thought.

Flame & Citron

My published Flavorwire post:
After the last fretted and beautifully-stylized episode in Flame and Citron, Ole Christian Madsen's name appears beside the Danish word for director: Instruktor. Even untranslated, it makes an apt descriptor for Madsen, who turns the true-life story of Danish resistance fighters during WWII into a compelling, noirish lesson on survival, heroism, and their heart-and-soul toll on the two heroes (superbly played by Thure Lindhardt and Mads Mikkelsen).

Once an advocate of Dogme's au naturel manifesto, Madsen sumptuously recaptures 1944 Copenhagen as a gloomy, pastel-tinted capital that's rife with Nazis, collaborators, purgatorial carnage, misinformation, and curlicues of smoke that sit idly, if not seductively, in a tense atmosphere.

Like so many fact-based dramatizations, the narrative stage is set using archival footage of the Krauts goose-stepping into Copenhagen. Adding to the pall of enemy triumph is a voiceover that murmurs a requiem of sorts: "Where were you when they came?" The voice belongs to Bent Faurschou-Hviid, an ideal-driven lad whose nom de guerre—Flame—comes from his red hair rather than the cool, impassive mien that serves him well during the point-blank assassinations.

Jørgen Haagen Schmith, or Citron, is the tormented opposite, a man whose wife and daughter become a neutral party in slow retreat from his increasingly war-ravaged person. While one's a radical by choice and the other by circumstance, both are convinced that they are "doing the right thing": offing Occupiers and Co. one by one.

Flame and Citron report to a self-serving commander who casually offers pastries with their new high-profile targets. Madsen uses the don't-ask-don't-tell policy of the Resistance hierarchy—with command stationed over in unoccupied Stockholm and London—to ratchet up the unease and, alas, there aren't any fact-checkers to verify sources. Soon the gun-and-run missions upgrade from Danish informers to occupying Germans, causing the local Gestapo head Hoffmann (Christian Berkel) to place a hefty sum on their now-infamous heads.

Invariably, "who do you work for" becomes more than a conversational starter, with each order or look etched with possible deceit; soon enough, the double-crosses begin to pile up bodies. Jørgen Johansson's polished, restless, occasionally up-close camerawork emphasizes the internal back-and-forth of the twosome, whose righteousness suffers a hit when it's revealed that they've been duped—particularly Flame, whose new femme-fatale lady, Ketty (Stine Stengade), loves him to death but deals with more sides than a diplomat. Again, who works for who?

That unresolved question sustains the life-and-death tension and links the film to its influential precursor, Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows, which also sheathed fact in favor of washed-out colors, thrilling dramatics, and moral relativism to capture the numbered days of those in the French Resistance. Similarly, Flame and Citron may be the face of the Resistance, but they're also armed marionettes being tugged from afar by those who deliberate on top-secret tactics while fine-dining on lobster. Later, Madsen highlights the bureaucratic, big-picture nature of the war when the two patriots are present for a discussion about the public image of victory, the heroes and stories needed to sell Denmark def. Germany to history. But with the possibly innocent men and women they've killed—in addition to those who died in retribution for their "patriotic" actions—Madsen stresses the gray areas in such a pure-white crowning of "hero." In an exquisitely-shot confrontation, Hoffmann and Flame are divided by a wall in a dimly-lit corridor, their faces masked in shadow, the Gestapo chief's words ("we're the same") echoing off the cold-blooded acts on record.

Uncertain of who to trust, the two soon make their own agenda for the "mother country" and the committed basterds—not to spoil it too much—come to a glorious end. If anything, the movie is exceedingly handsome; throughout, the sartorial choices are well-shot and smart: tilted fedoras, windblown trench coats, and three-piece suits that have Melville's name all over them—a chic name to emulate.