From the popular, boy-cut clothing line to Quentin Tarantino's production company, Band of Outsiders has been a favorite reference for hep cats and cinephiles since '64. Its appeal is simple: there's Anna Karina, the must-mimic steps of the Madison, and an irresistible collision of pulp, pop culture, and Gallic nods (to Apollinaire et al.). With a score composed of jukebox hits and blue-note jazz, Band is arguably Godard's most beloved film and, through its lost-soul ménage à trois and planned robbery, captures the timeless lure of Paris from Metro to Louvre in record time.
28 February 2010
The Sixties
The Sixties exists as a montage for those of us who came a decade or two too late. Cue the sex and politics, the pop music and its hysteria, the here-there-everywhere impulse for revolution. Tonight's program goes deeper, transporting attendees to the Decade of Tumult through its inimitable literature. The words of still-hep talents like James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, and confessional poet Robert Lowell come to life through the performances of host Isaiah Sheffer and friends. The hum-along music of the time and an excerpt from Joan Didion's phenomenal essay "The White Album" complete the throwback.
25 February 2010
HuffPost Happy Hour
Our local HuffPo branch delivers more than the latest headline tonight, hosting a get-together for everyone from readers to writers to the ready-to-party. The night also coincides with the opening reception for the gallery's latest exhibition, an eye-opening photographic history of the neighborhood titled Sampling and Revisions: The L.E.S. deframed. Who knows, this might even turn into a forum where commenters have that rare chance to engage in a face-to-face chat.
21 February 2010
Copyright Criminals
Copyright Criminals looks at the creative and monetary debates over musical sampling, mashing up music videos, studio visits, history, and talking heads including George Clinton and De La Soul.
The documentary on beat mining rounds up more issues than a town hall meeting, poring over everything from the best props for a sampled artist, to the basic merits and methods of the omnivorous art. The tone leans toward pro, with persuasive soundbites that liken sampling to archeology (the listener digs through the aural layers) and the democratic fact that “all these legendary musicians are in my band.” As Picasso once said: good artists borrow, great artists steal.
Visit the documentary’s website, brush up with a sampling glossary and timeline, read an interview with the filmmakers, and purchase the DVD
On Second Thought: 5 Hollywood Remakes
Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Or it may never have been at all. The “it,” of course, refers to Lars von Trier’s rumored remake of Taxi Driver, which had the media abuzz for nearly a spin around the sun. Often, the very mention of the word “remake” with a beloved title leads to a feisty chorus of “ohs” and “whys,” from The Seven Samurai to the more recent Let the Right One In. But with von Trier’s brilliant but checkered past (hit-miss-hit) and Martin Scorsese’s notorious “hero,” there was definitely promise for a must-see redo.
In that what-if spirit, here’s a list of other American classics and the directors we think could make them their own. Leave your own scenarios in the comments.
Just think of all the actors who could line up in this Sam Peckinpah update. Let’s just use his last, oh, five movies to fill in the blanks: Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp, Christian Bale. Plus, Mann remains a superlative handler of gunfights and boxed-in men (Heat anyone?), and The Wild Bunch remains the best of that sort of fallen machismo.
It’s a Wonderful Life: Judd Apatow
Back in his day, Frank Capra was America’s leading director for feel-good comedies, his aw-shucks heroes toeing, but not quite falling into, the mawkish. Apatow introduced the raunch into the formula of the good-guy misfit and reigns as today’s comedy supremo. For all its cheer, It’s a Wonderful Life retains a particularly dark undercurrent — quitting this life when down-and-out — and Apatow has been mining the uneasy (mid-life virginity, unplanned pregnancy, even cancer) for laughs and pathos his entire career.
Mike Nichols’ classic might not have pioneered the use of an artist-scored pop soundtrack, but it’s one of those seminal cases. Many of Wes Anderson’s characters, from Max Fischer to the Tenenbaums, have ties to Dustin Hoffman’s college grad without a compass (whether moral or directional). The swimming pool reveries of The Graduate couldn’t be more primed for the Anderson touch.
Altman is a saint for Paul Thomas Anderson, one of those in-the-time-of-need inspirations. But the ensemble roulettes for which Altman was rightly lauded, like Nashville and Short Cuts, are much too close to Anderson’s current M.O. 3 Women would be a welcome departure and a fascinating, small-scale foray into the world of femmes and the surreal after a mostly epic, male-focused oeuvre.
The Searchers: Quentin Tarantino
With his gift for quotable gab, QT refreshing the bonhomie of Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo would be an excellent choice (it’s one of his favorites after all). But better than that would be the famed cinephile’s take on John Ford’s masterpiece The Searchers. You can see its influence (as well as Leone’s) in the intro sequence for Inglourious Basterds, when Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) gets all shadowy in the doorway a la John Wayne. And it’ll murk up those cameos in such neo-Westerns as Sukiyaki Western Django and From Dusk to Dawn.
Harlem Meer Social Hour: Winter Tracking and Survival
For this installment of Central Park's engaging get-together for adults, wildlife authority Shane Hobel leads a workshop about the park's many winter-hardy critters, explaining how they cope so well with the low Fahrenheit. Plants also receive the spotlight this evening in what should be a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the most bewildering species of all: fellow New Yorkers.
Housebroken
Flux Factory celebrates/breaks in its new digs by adorning the entire space with installation after installation — over 100 at that. Curated by in-house folks (Georgia Muenster and co-founder Jean Barberis), this is a showcase for both the space and a heap of artists given a rare opportunity: to be the very first. Must-see projects include the Deterritorialized Church's vestibule aviary with twelve Chinese owls. Besides dazzling art, count on DJs, performances, and a Campari-sponsored open bar.
Impossible Geometries
Lis Rhodes' double-projection opus Light Music makes a rare US appearance at this fundraiser for three favorite outfits (Triple Canopy, the Public School, and Light Industry) and their massive new space. The British artist's 1975 classic is an experimental work that capitalizes on the possibilities of 16mm optical sound — in other words, the projector translates the abstract visual into audio. The screening follows a reading by Believer editor Ed Park and author Lynne Tillman, and precedes Ambergris' self-described "Anti-Matter Cabaret." The interdisciplinary evening keeps it going well into Sunday, with sets by pop ensemble Skeletons and several DJs.
Ontheboards.tv
OntheBoards.tv rescues innovative live performances from the ether with front-row video recordings that fans can purchase, rent, or stream with a low-cost subscription.
Started by the same-named artist-founded center in Seattle, this “performance on demand” service offers a slate of international creators at the vanguard of dance, theatre, and music. Already available are seven memorable productions from 2009, including Transition, a collaboration between director Tommy Smith and do-it-all Reggie Watts; The Shipment, Young Jean Lee’s trenchant play on race and culture; and Orgy of Tolerance, a consumerist pageant from name-brand Belgian Jan Fabre.
Start watching the full-length performances, sign up for updates, and visit the On the Boards blog for news and interviews.
Malevich in Focus: 1912-1922
It's been eight-plus decades since the six arresting paintings in this exhibition have been shown together. Their emphatic use of color and geometric bent are hallmarks of Kazimir Malevich, the Russian avant-gardist who pioneered the form-centered Suprematist style as Europe was hurling itself into the absurdity of the first World War. Cubism and aerial photography — the designs and patterns of life writ large yet intricate — had a particularly deep imprint on Malevich's technique, and this exhibition zeroes in on his 1912-1922 timeline, when his oeuvre fades further from reality and into the eye-catching realms of the abstract.
From Ecstasy to Rapture: 50 Years of the Other Spanish Cinema
This ode to Spain's avant-garde cinema since the late '50s says adios to Dalí and Buñuel and introduces a whole directory of lesser-known names from the Iberian peninsula. This catholic series is sectioned into six programs with an eye toward theme and method — for instance, the 70 minutes of Animated Experiments: Rhythm, Light, and Color are chock-full of sand-on-glass and stop-motion wonders. Three other programs are gem-rich compilations, while two filmmakers receive special screenings. One is José Antonio Sistiaga, and his masterpiece from the late '60s, ...ere erera baleibu izik subua aruaren..., in which the artist went abstract by painting directly on celluloid. The late Ivan Zulueta's cult favorite Arrebato, meanwhile, closes out this ecstatic survey with style.
Lourdes
Nestled in the foothills of the Pyrenees, Lourdes is a place that induces cross-the-heart piety. Each year since 1858, when one Bernadette glimpsed the Virgin Mary, millions trek there praying for a miracle healing — a sort of spiritual lotto. In Jessica Hausner's latest wonder, wheelchair-bound Christine (the lovely, ever-versatile Sylvie Testud) is one of the those pilgrims and the location-shot narrative mines the suspense, mystery, and unsought humor from such a supposition. Hausner's lens angles toward the gorgeous and agnostic, methodically capturing this mecca's sites, rituals, and its thorny promise of a second chance.
19 February 2010
Charlotte Gainsbourg
The fille of you-know-who, Charlotte Gainsbourg has made quite a charming impression of her own. FIAF gifts this eight-film look at her francophone career, one that features Gondry's fanciful Science of Sleep, the Serge-directed Charlotte for Ever, two refined comedies with beau Yvan Attal (My Wife is an Actress and Happily Ever After), plus the city premiere of her latest, Persécution. Gainsbourg can also be seen in Agnès Varda's Kung-Fu Master, in which maman Jane Birkin (who wrote the story) falls for a boy Charlotte's age, and La Bûche, a Chekhovian, Christmas-set tale about three sisters (and their dysfunction) reunited at last.
18 February 2010
Film Comment Selects
For the past decade, Film Comment has handpicked art-house, festival, and repertory musts for NYC cinephiles. This trend continues with a series that features remembrances for late greats Edward Yang (A Brighter Summer Day) and Eric Rohmer (The Aviator's Wife); Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Dirty Harry-inspired double shot The Revenge; a triple bill for the inimitable Philippe Grandrieux; and a 90-minute program of Godard rarities. There's also a roll call of international crackerjacks like Hirokazu Kore-eda, Hong Sang-Soo, and Cristian Mungiu (here with the Ceausescu-lambasting omnibus film, Tales from the Golden Age). American titles bookend, with Jonathan Kaplan's anarchic 1979 classic Over the Edge up first and Paul Greengrass' upcoming Green Zone with Matt "Bourne-Ready" Damon to finish.
Cannibal Holocaust
Boulders, Burgers, and Brews
The alliterative title captures the playful tone of tonight's after-work gathering, which goes above and beyond the usual happy-hour routine. Urban Escapes keeps it local and indoors for this rock climbing event, kicking it off with an hour-long lesson on the sport's basics — belaying, knot tying, and the like. Instructors then offer pointers for the next hour before everyone has a chance to secure next-morning bragging rights by scaling the manmade wall. The evening concludes at a nearby bar where burgers and drinks are served to famished adventurers.
Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum
A show like this only cements Frank Lloyd Wright's rep as an epochal visionary. After all, the world is still trying to fill the "void" he left a half-century later. This exhibition of awesome, would-be interventions for his Guggenheim rotunda touches upon that childlike urge to climb the building and includes countless permutations of light, space, and sound. Look out for 2D contributions by designers Fernando and Humberto Campana, conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner, sculptor Alice Aycock, architects Snøhetta and Toyo Ito & Associates, and so many more.
Right to the City Alliance
If affordable housing and better public spaces in the five boroughs hit the eardrum like phrases off a utopian checklist, the Right to the City Alliance is here to imbue them with life. After gathering proposals from a league of community groups across Brooklyn to the Bronx, the organization rolls out its for-the-people platform tonight and pairs it with a short, yet illuminating documentary about the folks involve in the good fight. Professors David Harvey (CUNY) and Peter Marcuse (Columbia) also participate in this rally put on by the great alt-news outlet Paper Tiger TV.
Naomi Uman: The Ukrainian Time Machine
Once a fixture in the kitchens of Calvin Klein and Gloria Vanderbilt, Naomi Uman has spent the last two decades becoming the doyenne of hand-crafted 16mm filmmaking. Tonight's selections transport you to Legedzine, an out-of-the-way Ukrainian hamlet where Uman has soaked in culture and routine for the past four years in an attempt to grasp the past— her great-grandparents arrived in 1906 USA from the far-flung region. The four portraits describe everything from learning Ukrainian to working at the brick factory, which continues to use the same local clay as back in the B.C. After the screening, Uman partakes in a back-and-forth with Nellie Killian.
08 February 2010
Banned Broken Sky
First, a proviso: what you are going to see in this series is categorically loco. With five rarities slated, this Anthology series celebrates three of Italy's most influential independent filmmakers of the '60s and '70s. Friends who often collaborated, Carmelo Bene, Franco Brocani, and Mario Schifano dreamt up films that were fiercely original in style and omnivorous in scope. Take Bene's dazzling pop art Salomè (after Wilde's text), which sears itself into consciousness after a man nails himself onto a blinking neon cross. Other titles include Brocani's ragtag Necropolis and Schifano's experimental pièce de résistance Umano Non Umano, which features Bene, Brocani, novelist Alberto Moravia, and, yes, Mick Jagger.
Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk has a voice that simply embeds itself in the consciousness. Tonight, the ever-experimental composer/singer goes psychoanalytic to interpret a folio from Jung's notorious Red Book. Analyst Morgan Stebbins lends his Jungian expertise to a back-and-forth conversation that's likely to touch upon her creative process, the pull of myths, and the unconscious. With Monk in the room, this looks to be an unpredictable and proper adieu to the Rubin's inspired Red Book Dialogues.
It Happened One Night
At first, newspaperman Clark Gable doesn't give a damn about affluent runaway Claudette Colbert, going as far as to erect a "Wall of Jericho" between their beds during their cross-country meet cute. But since this is Frank Capra and his brand of all's-well-that-ends-well comedy, that macho dam can't hold back the amour for long. Indeed, this screwball caper is thoroughly pleasant and charming in its depiction of a classic opposites-attract romance. Valentines can do the film before dinner, after dinner, or sans dinner, though tonight's menu advises otherwise, with first courses like lobster risotto, duck confit crepes, and a melted leek and gruyere tart.
Think Global, Cut Local: Chinese Paper Cutting for the New Year
In the nonstop hustle of Columbus Circle, MAD offers a place of calm, hosting a paper-cutting workshop as part of its dedicated series to the international craft. Traditional Chinese techniques are on the lesson plan this afternoon and there's an open door policy in effect: everyone is welcome, from the artistic or curious to the superstitious. Although most creations will be of the 2D breed, those more learned can unfold a decorative 3D lantern or perhaps even a tiger in honor of its yearlong run on calendars from here to Hong Kong.
03 February 2010
Red Riding: Special Roadshow Edition
"Dickens on bad acid" is a description that captures the unsparing, paranoiac nature of the Red Riding Quartet, David Peace's cult novels about the far-reaching tentacles of the corrupt West Yorkshire police force in the '70s and '80s. Recently, Tony Grisoni adapted three into feature-length telefilms for Channel 4 and, in brief, British TV giveth again: this inky triptych nears Bacon-like nightmarishness and ravishment even though each is helmed by a different talent shooting in a different format. Julian Jarrold (gritty 16mm), James Marsh (elegant 35mm), and Anand Tucker (digital widescreen) magnificently exhume a past mired in dark and grit, one where the cutthroat police toast "to the North, where we do what we want."
Winter Jam NYC
If you feel like you've been hemmed inside city limits this season, this winter sports festival provides a convenient, Metro-friendly adventure. Just loop by Central Park this afternoon to revel in a week's build-up of snow (courtesy of ORDA) or a trip on the snowboard rail. There's plenty to get pepped for besides the cross country skiing; for one, local producers serve free samples and sell their garden-fresh products as part of the Pride of New York Winter Market.
Miroslav Tichý
"If you want to be famous, you have to do whatever you're doing worse than anyone else in the whole world." That's a Hippocratic-like oath according to Czech recluse Miroslav Tichý, whose art brut photographs come to light for this museum exhibition— the very first on these shores. The weathered, low-grade images date back to the communist '50s and are focused, obsessively so, on women; at that, many were shot clandestinely using pieced-together cardboard cameras (a tattered handful are featured in this showcase). Precisely for this highly personal quality, each composition retains an undeniable if peculiar allure.
Daily Dose Pick: Paris, Texas
Harry Dean Stanton and the blue-skied expanses of the Southwest can be seen in all their splendor in Criterion’s restoration of Wim Wenders’ open-hearted look at ’80s America.
Four years after abandoning his family, a haunted, laconic Stanton mysteriously appears in the desert. Reconnecting with his precocious seven-year-old son, he sets out to find his long-gone wife in Texas. The film’s sublime effect lies in how Wenders lets the journey unfurl, unhurriedly and moodily, with his outsider’s camera taking in everything from California suburbia to middle-of-nowhere highways.
Ry Cooder’s bluesy slide guitar only adds to the melancholic and rarefied air of this 1984 masterpiece. The extras menu is also typically rich, with Super 8 home movies, one-on-one clips with Wenders, and excerpts from a 1990 documentary about the German auteur that features names as varied as Sam Fuller and Patricia Highsmith.
Oscar's Docs 1953–75: Nature and Humanityi
In terms of pure wonder, the Planet-Earth documentaries of yesteryear can definitely compete with today's HD beauties. See Cousteau's 1964 World Without Sun, the captain's rhapsodic follow-up to the famed Silent World. It's just one of the Oscar-lauded documentaries being lassoed into this adventurous series. To name but a few musts, there's Sentinels of Silence, an Orson Welles-narrated short about the Mayans; The Sky Above, The Mud Below, a write-home-about trip to New Guinea; and the self-explanatory Man Who Skied Down Everest. The phenomenal ecology of the Serengeti, redwoods, and monarch butterflies also receive arresting portraits.
Andy Warhol's Kiss and Blow Job
During its 35-minute runtime, Blow Job's camera loiters on the contorting expressions of a fellow receiving the titular act. Kiss is less salacious, training itself on various couples macking for three minutes — a nod to the old Hayes Code no-no of touching lips for more than three seconds. These Andy Warhol experiments in duration and observation receive live electronic scores tonight as part of the Unsound Festival's series dedicated to the pop icon. Detroit's Carl Craig synthesizes a new accompaniment for Blow Job while German duo nsi. redo Kiss.
SNØHETTA: architecture – landscape – interior
There's currently much ado about the innovative, eco-friendly architecture firm Snøhetta. Based in Oslo, the two-decade-old outfit counts the harmonious, ohh-inducing beauty of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet and the mega-slanted Bibliotheca Alexandrina as past accomplishments. Yet it's the up-next list that truly demands attention, leading off with the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion. This exhibition opens the Midas-touched doors of Snøhetta to publicize the many ins and outs of 11 important projects through computer visualizations, films, photographs, drawings, models, and an interactive table.
Valentine's Day 101: Why Humans Have Sex
My published Flavorpill post:
Some will let out a pshaw to a such-titled conversation — isn't the x, why, and z for it totally, palpably obvious? But tonight's discussion with evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss offers a deeper understanding of our primal impulse to get some. With pleasure and mating strategies among the talking points, this edition of the AMNH's new SciCafe series (and its lure of cocktails and an after-hour museum) should make for an enlightening listen.
Karen Cooper Carte Blanche: 40 Years of Documentary Premieres at Film Forum
Springing up in 1970 UWS as a weekends-only screening room, Film Forum is now the Houston Street mecca for tri-state cinephiles. Its sustained pull and prominence can be traced to Karen Cooper — the institution's director since 1972 — and her rarely erring eye for new essentials. As part of MoMA's hat-tip to the Forum's 40th, Cooper curates this 22-program run of nonfiction films that she helped premiere. With complementary short films like Herzog's Guadeloupe-set La Soufrière, the compelling slate features the well-known and the what's-that; among them are Terry Zwigoff's Crumb, Heddy Honigmann's profile of Parisian buskers The Underground Orchestra, and Bruce Weber's mesmeric look at the talented/tainted Chet Baker, Let's Get Lost.
Ajami
Ajami is a dicey, multi-culti district in Jaffa where Christians, Jews, and Muslims rub elbows and beliefs each day. In Yaron Shani (Israel) and Scandar Copti's (Palestine) excellent debut of the same name, the pair's opposite-fence POVs lend a credibility to this tale about the many strands in the area's continued tangle. The film scissors back and forth in time to lens the ethnic, full-time concerns of a select (but altogether telling) lot including a Jewish policeman on patrol for his vanished brother, a Palestinian refugee toiling for his mother's life, and brothers who fear reprisal after their uncle attacks a clan notable.
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