this week in (live)streaming

LOVE ROCKS NYC

Who: The Black Keys, Hozier, Nile Rodgers, Tom Morello, Don Felder, Bettye Lavette, Joss Stone, Allison Russell, Emily King, Marcus King, Lucius, Dave Grohl, Larkin Poe, Trombone Shorty, Luke Spiller, Quinn Sullivan, Bernie Williams, Conan O’Brien, Jim Gaffigan, Tracy Morgan, Martin Short, Ivan Neville, Jimmy Vivino
What: Benefit concert for God’s Love We Deliver
Where: Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway at 75th St.
When: Thursday, March 7, in person $284 – $1,252, livestream $19.99, 8:00
Why: A batch of new tickets has been released for the eighth annual Love Rocks NYC, an all-star benefit concert raising money for the New York City nonprofit, nonsectarian organization God’s Love We Deliver, which, since 1985, has dedicated itself “to improve the health and well-being of men, women, and children living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses by alleviating hunger and malnutrition.” Presented by fashion designer John Varvatos, real estate executive Greg Williamson, and events producer Nicole Rechter at the Beacon Theatre on March 7, the evening will feature performances by the Black Keys, Hozier, Nile Rodgers, Tom Morello, Don Felder, Bettye Lavette, Joss Stone, Lucius, Dave Grohl, Trombone Shorty, Bernie Williams, and more, with the house band consisting of music director and bandleader Will Lee, Michael Bearden, Steve Gadd, Shawn Pelton, Eric Krasno, Larry Campbell, Pedrito Martinez, and Jeff Babko. (A complete list can be found above.) This year’s hosts are Conan O’Brien, Tracy Morgan, and Jim Gaffigan, and there will be guest appearances by Martin Short, Ivan Neville, and Jimmy Vivino. The event will also be livestreamed over VEEPS for $19.99.

FIRE OVER WATER — FILMS OF TRANSCENDENCE: ONLOOKERS

Kimi Takesue’s Onlookers is a uniquely visual film that looks at tourists and locals in Laos

ONLOOKERS (Kimi Takesue, 2023)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Opens Friday, February 16
212-660-0312
metrograph.com
www.onlookersfilm.com

“Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak,” John Berger writes in the seminal text Ways of Seeing. “But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.”

In documentary filmmaker Kimi Takesue’s Onlookers, which opens theatrically February 16 at Metrograph as part of the series “Fire Over Water: Films of Transcendence,” there are no words, no dialogue — just seventy-two minutes of stunning visuals exploring what we see and what we know, what we are present for and what we are absent for.

The film takes place in various parts of Laos as director, producer, cinematographer, sound recordist, and editor Takesue sets up her camera and leaves it there as scenes unfold in real time and with natural sound, from a breathtaking fourteen-second sunset to five and a half minutes of six women sitting by the side of the road, preparing to fill begging bowls for a long line of Buddhist monks. Animals graze in a temple courtyard as bells chime. Women sell goods at an open-air market. Rivers flow, wind rustles trees, roosters crow, birds chirp, a cat rests on a step, a man relaxes in a hammock, all taking their time, no one in a hurry.

Then the tourists arrive; a few run up to take pictures of a monk beating a drum, then walk away, not actually stopping to watch and listen. A woman snaps a photo of three fellow sightseers standing atop a small, raging waterfall as a man fishes below. A local worker waits as a woman checks her cell phone, as if he isn’t there, standing next to her. A group of backpackers gets a prime view at a boat racing festival while locals observe from the shore. On a mountain, six tourists search for the best angle to take selfies. Visitors at a guest house sit in an outdoor lounge and watch Friends.

Born in Colorado and raised in Hawai’i and Massachusetts, Takesue has previously made Where Are You Taking Me? in Uganda, Heaven’s Crossroad in Vietnam, and 95 and 6 to Go in Hawai’i, about reconnecting with her grandfather. In Onlookers, she is not necessarily criticizing the tourists or celebrating the Laotian locals; she’s merely showing how people witness and experience the world, particularly when it comes to travelers and residents. (95 and 6 to Go and Where Are You Taking Me? will both be available to stream on Metrograph at Home beginning February 16.)

Takesue beautifully captures this relationship in a short but captivating scene that begins with a static shot of an old religious shrine that looks like it hasn’t been in operation for years. A young woman enters the frame, sits down, poses for a selfie, stands up, snaps a photo of the shrine, then saunters off, never once stopping to just look at the shrine itself. The camera lingers on the building for several seconds, with nobody around, just the decaying structure set against a blue sky and between lush greenery.

We see what we want to see, when we want to see it, not always recognizing what is right in front of us, whether we’re at home or on vacation. It reminded me of people who go to a museum and take pictures of classic artworks but only see them through the lens of their phone rather than experiencing them with their own eyes. In fact, each frame of Onlookers is composed like a painting that slowly comes to life.

“The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe,” Berger writes in his book. “Yet this seeing which comes before words, and can never be quite covered by them, is not a question of mechanically reacting to stimuli. (It can only be thought of in this way if one isolates the small part of the process which concerns the eye’s retina.) We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice. As a result of this act, what we see is brought within our reach — though not necessarily within arm’s reach. To touch something is to situate oneself in relation to it. . . . We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves. Our vision is continually active, continually moving, continually holding things in a circle around itself, constituting what is present to us as we are. Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen.”

In all films, the audience might not have a choice of what they’re looking at, but they can decide for themselves what they’re seeing. And in the case of Onlookers, what they’re seeing is a gorgeous portrait of ourselves that no selfie can catch.

Kimi Takesue’s Where Are You Taking Me? will stream on Metrograph at Home

Takesue will be at Metrograph for introductions and Q&As before and after four screenings: February 16 with Inney Prakesh, February 17 with Dessane Lopez Cassell, February 18 with Lynne Sachs, and February 21 with Ari-Duong Nguyen.

“Fire Over Water” also features Michaël Dudok de Wit’s The Red Turtle, Phạm Thiên Ân’s Caméra d’Or winner Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendour.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THE FEST FOR BEATLES FANS

THE FEST FOR BEATLES FANS
TWA Hotel at JFK Airport
One Idlewild Dr., Queens
February 9-11, $49.50-$325 for various packages for children and adults, $24 virtual
www.thefest.com
www.twahotel.com

On February 7, 1964, a Pan Am plane carrying John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr landed at JFK Airport in Queens, and Beatlemania was unleashed on America. So it makes sense that the fiftieth anniversary edition of the Fest for Beatles Fans is taking place this weekend at the TWA Hotel at JFK. Even after all that time, the lads from Liverpool are as popular as ever, recently releasing the new song “Now and Then,” winning a Grammy for Best Music Video for the lushly animated “I’m Only Sleeping,” and being the subject of the eight-hour Peter Jackson documentary Get Back.

Running February 9-11, the fest features live performances by Liverpool, the Weeklings, Black Ties, Blac Rabbit, Cellophane Flowers, the Meetles, James Gray, Jeff Slate’s Weekend Wilburys, and others, signing sessions, panel discussions, and more, including the Giant Beatles Marketplace, the Annual Friday Night Dance Party (with ’60s Dress-Up Night and best outfits and lookalike contests), a You Sing the Beatles contest, the Beatles Museum (and art contest), the interactive FABoratory, an indoor pool, the Beatles Ashram, trivia games, participatory lobby jams, an auction, yoga, karaoke, and activities for kids.

Among the special guests are Micky Dolenz from the Monkees, Wings guitarist Laurence Juber, Wings drummer Steve Holley, Billy J. Kramer from the Dakotas, Chris O’Dell from Apple Records, original Beatles Fan Club president Freda Kelly, roadie Mal Evans’s son Gary Evans, former NEMS and Apple employee Tony Bramwell, Pattie Boyd’s sister Jenny Boyd, Paul’s stepmother and stepsister Angie and Ruth McCartney, and Gregg Bissonette and Mark Rivera from Ringo’s All-Starr Band. Deejay Ken Dashow serves as emcee, assisted by Tom Frangione.

Below are four fab highlights for each day:

Friday, February 9
Beatle World Biographies: Brian Epstein & Yoko Ono, with Vivek Tiwary and Madeline Bocaro, Paperback Writer Discussion Room, 7:15

Good Ol’ Freda, Q&A with Freda Kelly, Mop Top Room, 8:00

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds: A Dreamhouse Party for Brian Epstein, with DJ sets by Justin Cudmore and Danny Clobber, runway show by PVR x Tillium, drag show by Thee Suburbia with live music by Plastic Tizzy Band, and a ’60s salon by Sean Bennett, 1964 Room, 10:00 pm – 2:00 am

The First Origin Story, with Beatles Fest founder Mark Lapidos, Main Stage, 11:15

Saturday, February 10
The Beatles on Film, with Steve Matteo and Darren DeVivo, Paperback Writer Discussion Room, 12:15

Micky Dolenz: Special Guest Interview with Ken Dashow, Main Stage, 4:00

Historians Panel — Free as a Bird, Real Love, and Now and Then: The End of Beatles History?, with Susan Ryan, Jim Ryan, Janet Davis, Kit O’Toole, Andy Nicholes, and Caitlin Larkin, Paperback Writer Discussion Room, 4:30

Live Beatles Concert by Liverpool, featuring Micky Dolenz, Billy J. Kramer, Mark Rivera, Gregg Bissonette, Gary Burr, Laurence Juber, and Steve Holley, with a Wings tribute to Denny Laine, Main Stage, 9:00

Sunday, February 11
Live Broadcast: Breakfast with the Beatles, with Ken Dashow and guests, 8:00

The Beatles Are Coming! Beatles Parade, meet in the Twister Room, 2:00

Super Peace Bowl: Bed-In for Peace, 1964 Room, 5:00

Live Beatles Concert by Liverpool, featuring Micky Dolenz, Billy J. Kramer, Laurence Juber, and Steve Holley, plus grand jam finale, Main Stage, 9:00

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

SHABBAT SERVICES: AMERICAN VALUES, JEWISH VALUES, AND UKRAINE WITH SPECIAL GUEST LIEV SCHREIBER

Liev Schreiber will speak about Ukraine at Shabbat services at Temple Emanu-El

Who: Liev Schreiber, Michael Goldfarb
What: Shabbat services with special discussion
Where: Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center, One East 65th St. at Fifth Ave., and online
When: Friday, January 19, free with advance RSVP (in-person and virtual), 6:00
Why: In the 2005 film Everything Is Illuminated, which marked the directorial and screenwriting debut of actor and activist Liev Schreiber, Elijah Wood stars as Jonathan Safran Foer (the author of the novel the film is based on), who travels to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather’s life during the Holocaust. In March 2022, a month after Russia invaded Ukraine, Schreiber, whose maternal grandfather was a Jewish Ukrainian immigrant, cofounded BlueCheck Ukraine, “a collective of humanitarian crisis response experts, entrepreneurs, and filmmakers with decades of experience addressing the needs of conflict-affected populations and documenting solidarity movements countering oppression.” Schreiber has traveled to Ukraine several times and has been outspoken in his support of the nation.

On January 19, the three-time Emmy nominee and Tony winner will attend Shabbat services at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center, joined by fellow BlueCheck cofounder and board member Michael Goldfarb, who previously worked with Doctors without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières in such countries as Afghanistan, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Niger, South Sudan, Uganda, and Yemen. Schreiber and Goldfarb will discuss American and Jewish values, particularly as they relate to the war in Ukraine. Admission is free both in-person and virtually online with advance RSVP.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

DOC NYC 2023 CENTERPIECE: UNCROPPED

Photojournalist James Hamilton is the subject of fascinating documentary (photo by Jody Caravaglia)

UNCROPPED (D. W. Young, 2023)
Available online through November 26
Festival runs November 8-26 at IFC Center, SVA Theatre, Village East by Angelika, and Bar Veloce, $13-$30
www.docnyc.net
www.uncroppedfilm.com

Once upon a time, documentaries were primarily the purview of public television and a handful of small, independent theaters in big cities. But with the explosion of streaming services and technological improvements in camera phones, we now have the ability to see more nonfiction films than ever, taking us places we’ve never been before while introducing us to a wide range of sociopolitical issues and extraordinary, and nefarious, individuals. The fourteenth annual DOC NYC festival got underway November 8, kicking off nearly three weeks of more than two hundred films and special events, including thirty world premieres and twenty-six US debuts. It’s been exciting watching the growth of the festival itself, from its relatively humble beginnings in 2010.

The opening-night selection was Clair Titley’s The Contestant, about aspiring Japanese comedian Tomoaki Hamatsu, who, unbeknownst to him, becomes a reality-show star; Sam Pollard and Llewellyn Smith’s South to Black Power is the closing-night film, a look at controversial New York Times columnist Charles Blow, with Pollard, Smith, and Blow participating in a Q&A.

The centerpiece is the world premiere of D. W. Young’s warm and lovely Uncropped, which is as gentle and unassuming as its subject, photographer James Hamilton, who should be a household name. But fame and fortune are clearly not the point for Hamilton, who grew up in Westport, Connecticut, and didn’t own his own camera until he was twenty. He’s lived in the same cramped Greenwich Village apartment since 1966 and has little online presence, especially when compared to several other photographers named James Hamilton.

“James’s work is refreshingly devoid of ego,” Sonic Youth cofounder Thurston Moore says in the film, letting out a laugh. “Let’s put it that way.”

The soft-spoken, easygoing Hamilton notes, “My whole career was all about having fun.”

And what fun it’s been.

Patti Smith and Tom Verlaine are among the many famous and not-so-famous people photographed by James Hamilton (photo by James Hamilton)

Hamilton got his start by forging a press pass to gain entry to the Texas International Pop Festival in 1969 and used the shots to get a staff job at Crawdaddy magazine. He later took pictures for the Herald, Harper’s Bazaar, the Village Voice, New York magazine, the London Times, and the New York Observer. He photographed rock stars and fashion icons; joined with print journalists to cover local, national, and international news events, including wars; shot unique behind-the-scene footage on such film sets as Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums, Bill Paxton’s Frailty, and George A. Romero’s Knightriders; and captured life on the streets of New York City and elsewhere.

Among the people Young talks to are journalists Joe Conason, Alexandra Jacobs, Michael Daly, Thulani Davis, Richard Goldstein, Mark Jacobson, and Kathy Dobie, editors Eva Prinz and Susan Vermazen, and photographers David Lee and Sylvia Plachy. Young, who also edited the film and produced it with Judith Mizrachy, cuts in hundreds of Hamilton’s photos, which run the gamut from celebrities, politicians, and musicians to business leaders, kids playing, and brutal war scenes, accompanied by a jazzy score by David Ullmann, performed by Ullmann, Vincent Sperrazza, and others.

Hamilton, who has never been a fan of being interviewed, sits down and chats with Plachy, who shares fabulous stories of their time at the Voice; journalist and close friend Jacobson, who Hamilton took pictures for on numerous adventures; Conason, who discusses their transition from the Voice to the Observer; Dobie, who gets personal; and Prinz and Moore together. “We never crop James Hamilton’s photographs,” Prinz points out, raving about his remarkable eye for composition.

Uncropped, which will be available online through November 26, also serves as an insightful document of more than fifty years of New York City journalism, tracing the beginnings of underground coverage to today’s online culture where professional, highly qualified, experienced writers and photographers are having trouble getting published and paid. But through it all, Hamilton has persevered.

in his previous film, The Booksellers, Young focused on bibliophiles who treasure physical books as works of art even as the internet changes people’s relationships with books and how they read and purchase them. One of the experts Young meets with is Nancy Bass Wyden, owner of the Strand, an independent bookstore founded in 1927 and still hanging on against Amazon, B&N, and other chains and conglomerates.

Near the end of Uncropped, Young shows Hamilton and Dobie perusing the outdoor stacks of cheap books at the Strand, dinosaurs still relishing the perhaps-soon-to-be-gone days of print but always in search of more fun.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

NOSFERATU, A 3D SYMPHONY OF HORROR

Theater in Quarantine’s Nosferatu is livestreamed right to your phone in 3D

NOSFERATU, A 3D SYMPHONY OF HORROR
NYU Skirball online
October 27-31, 7:00 & 9:00, $20
nyuskirball.org
www.youtube.com

My 3D glasses didn’t arrive in time but I still got chills from Joshua William Gelb’s livestreamed Nosferatu, a 3D Symphony of Horror, which is being presented by NYU Skirball through Halloween night.

During the pandemic, Gelb converted a 2′ x 4′ x 8′ closet in his East Village apartment into Theater in Quarantine, where he staged virtual dance and drama in the claustrophobic white space. He has now returned with a thirty-five-minute Halloween special inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula, and F. W. Murnau’s 1922 silent masterpiece, Nosferatu.

The show is meant to be viewed on your cellphone, your own private, portable miniature closet, and listened to on headphones that make it seem like the characters are moving inside your head. An early title card, in a creepy, old-fashioned font, explains, “Nosferatu: Does this word not sound like the deathbird calling your name at midnight? Beware you never say it — for then the pictures of life will fade to shadows, haunting dreams will climb forth from your heart and feed on your blood.”

Gelb portrays the eerie Count Orlock, Nick Lehane is the real estate agent who has no idea what he’s in for, and Rosa Wolff is the agent’s true love, who knows something dastardly is afoot. The scenography is by Normandy Sherwood, with scary sound by Alex Hawthorn and video by Gelb. The closet turns from bright white to deep black as such props as a cross-laden door, bed, window, and miniature ship spur the action. Be sure to stick around for the time-lapse behind-the-scenes montage after the story concludes.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

JUDY CHICAGO IN CONVERSATION

Judy Chicago and Massimiliano Gioni will discuss artist’s career survey at New Museum on October 12 (photos by Donald Woodman; Christine Rivera)

Who: Judy Chicago, Massimiliano Gioni
What: Livestreamed talk
Where: New Museum YouTube page
When: Thursday, October 12, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Why: “Art history is a patriarchal paradigm, and my work challenges that entire paradigm,” Judy Chicago proclaims in a promotional video for her latest show, “Judy Chicago: Herstory.” On view October 12 through January 14 at the New Museum, this first career museum survey of the artist born Judith Sylvia Cohen in Chicago on July 20, 1939, features painting, sculpture, installation, drawing, textiles, photography, stained glass, needlework, and printmaking spread across three floors, one of which is dedicated to materials from more than eighty women artists (“City of Ladies”). To kick off the show, Chicago will be in conversation with New Museum artistic director Massimiliano Gioni on October 12 at 6:30; the in-person event is at capacity, but the talk will be livestreamed for free on YouTube.

“Working with Massimiliano Gioni has been both a challenge and an absolute joy!” Chicago recently declared on Instagram. “He is one of the best curators I have ever worked with and I am looking forward to the first exhibition of my work that will provide an appropriate context, one that challenges the idea that art history is universal because it leaves out or marginalizes all the women artists upon whose shoulders we stand.”

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]