ARCADE FIRE
Arcade Fire headline two sold-out Garden shows this week, one of which you can watch for free on YouTube
Madison Square Garden
31st to 33rd Sts. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Wednesday, August 4, and Thursday, August 5, $49.50, 8:00
www.myspace.com/arcadefireofficial
www.thegarden.com
The average music fan often wonders how you can officially say when a band has reached the big time. For Arcade Fire, on Wednesday and Thursday their “big time” is two sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. But it seems like Arcade Fire has always been inching to become an MSG band. After their first full-length album, FUNERAL (2005), received massive critical acclaim, with such stellar songs as “Neighborhood #2 (Laika),” the beautiful, melodic “Haiti,” and the tear-jerking, fist-pumping, spine-tingling super-single “Wake Up,” their music seemed to scream arena worthy. Following FUNERAL, the group released the highly regarded NEON BIBLE (2007), a subtle, strong, sound-expanding sophomore album containing wonderfully bombastic lyrics like “The lions and the lambs ain’t sleepin’ yet” and “There’s a great black wave in the middle of the sea.” Now, with their third release due on Tuesday, THE SUBURBS (Merge, August 3, 2010), Win Butler & co. have plenty of new music to play (including “Ready to Start,” “Empty Room,” and “Wasted Hours”) as they begin their triumphant two-day run at the grandest arena in North America. Although there are no tickets available as of right now (blocks are often released a day or two before the show date, so keep checking), you can catch a live broadcast of the August 5 concert, directed by the great Terry Gilliam, on YouTube at 10:00. Spoon (a large band in their own right) and Owen Pallet open things up.
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
Things are not necessarily quite as happy as they might seem for this very different kind of dysfunctional family
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Lisa Cholodenko, 2010)
www.filminfocus.com
When half-siblings Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson) decide to track down their anonymous sperm-donor father, their two moms, Jules (Julianne Moore) and Nic (Annette Bening), are justifiably concerned with how that might affect their close-knit family. And when the donor ends up being a motorcycle-riding, free-spirited hottie (Mark Ruffalo) who would like to become part of the kids' lives, it doesn't take long for some major dysfunction to set in. The third feature-length narrative written or cowritten and directed by Lisa Cholodenko, following 1998's HIGH ART and 2002's LAUREL CANYON (she directed 2004's CAVEDWELLER but did not write it), THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT is another intimate drama that explores deeply personal relationships with grace and intelligence — along with a little lesbianism. Bening is strong as the man of the house, overly determined to control and protect her family; Moore is beguiling as the other mother, wanting to develop her own business as a landscape architect; and Wasikowka, who was so outstanding in the HBO series IN TREATMENT, impresses again as the prodigal daughter preparing to go to college. Ruffalo, however, is too flat, and the film takes several missteps, including a final scene that is sadly predictable, detracting from an otherwise fresh and original story.
THE BLACK KEYS
Tuesday, July 27, and Wednesday, July 28, SummerStage, Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, $35, 6:30
Wednesday, July 28, Terminal 5, 610 West 56th St., $35, 10:00
There’s Dan, and he plays guitar. There’s Patrick, and he plays drums. And they’re the Black Keys, the super-hot back-to-basics blues rock band out of Akron, Ohio. After shuffling through many releases in which their sound was deemed too-close-for-comfort to the White Stripes, they put out RUBBER FACTORY (Fat Possum, September 2004), a powerful, garage-stomping record full of tight blues songs. Whether it was Dan Auerbach’s desperate wail on “Grown So Ugly” (“I got up this morning/put on my shoes/tied my shoes/ went to the mirror/but I combed my hair”) or Patrick Carney’s militaristic drumming on the hit single “10 A.M. Automatic,” the duo revealed a knack for writing damn good songs. Following RUBBER FACTORY, they released the Danger Mouse-produced ATTACK & RELEASE (Nonesuch, 2008), further exploring their R&B impulses, and now their latest disc, BROTHERS (Nonesuch, May 2010), which effectively combines the qualities of the past two albums. It will be interesting to see which sound is more prominent as they play a pair of SummerStage benefit shows at Central Park this Tuesday and Wednesday with the Morning Benders, followed by a late-night show Wednesday at Terminal 5 with Lee Fields & the Expressions and the Whigs. Even though all three concerts are sold out, fans can still gather round Rumsey Playfield to hear the SummerStage shows; be sure to get there early to check out San Fran quartet the Morning Benders, who are on the road in support of BIG ECHO (Rough Trade, March 2010) and won’t be back in the city until November 18 for a date at Webster Hall.
TWI-NY TICKET GIVEAWAY: SPAGHETTI & MATZO BALLS — FUHGEDDABOUDIT
Sarah and Tony experience some familial complications in new Brooklyn-set romantic comedy (photo by Benjamin Chambers)
SPAGHETTI & MATZO BALLS — FUHGEDDABOUDIT
Baruch Performing Arts Center
25th St. between Lexington & Third Aves.
Select dates from June 18 to July 23, $34.50 - $43.50
212-352-3101
www.spaghettionstage.com
The world premiere of SPAGHETTI & MATZO BALLS — FUHGEDDABOUDIT takes place tonight at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, hosted by KTU DJ Goumba Johnny. Produced by the same team behind the popular PLATANOS & COLLARD GREENS, this Brooklyn-set romantic comedy reveals “what happens when a nice Italian boy falls in love with a sweet Jewish girl.” Written by David Lamb and directed by Renée Lynette Ferrara, the show features Bryan R. Craine, Michelle Cammarata, Mindy Cassle, Jennifer Leigh Cohen, Paul D. Failla, Jessica Goldstein, Peter Marinaro, and others and is scheduled for only four more performances after tonight: June 26 at 8:00, July 9 at 8:00, July 18 at 2:00, and July 23 at 8:00.
This Week in New York has three pairs of tickets to give away to this love story between Tony and Sarah and all the problems that ensue when both families get wind of their relationship. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and preferred performance date to contest@twi-ny.com by Monday, June 21, at 3:00 pm. Winners will be selected at random and must be at least twenty-one years of age to enter. Good luck!
THE KILLER INSIDE ME
Things are about to get mighty violent between Casey Affleck and Jessica Alba
THE KILLER INSIDE ME (Michael Winterbottom, 2010)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, June 18
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.killerinsideme.com
In a small Texas town, Deputy Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) has been charged with kicking out local prostitute Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba), but something happens to him when he meets her, leading to a violent sexual affair. The soft-spoken, easygoing cop suddenly goes bad, jeopardizing his relationship with girlfriend Amy Stanton (Kate Hudson), his job, and just about everything and everyone he comes into contact with. Based on Jim Thompson’s 1952 pulp noir classic that Stanley Kubrick called “probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered” (Thompson worked with Kubrick on the scripts for THE KILLING and PATHS OF GLORY), Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of THE KILLER INSIDE is cold and heartless, a lurid, exploitative film that captures little of what made the book so special. Despite staying close to Thompson’s narrative and including voice-overs taken straight from the book, Winterbottom (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, WELCOME TO SARAJEVO) concentrates too much on making the characters realistic and believable, inserting his impressive documentary skills and taking the book far too literally. It’s one thing to have Ford describe a brutal beating in the novel; it’s quite another to show him pulverizing a woman’s face into a bloody pulp. Also, whereas in the book Ford talks about “the sickness” inside him developed from childhood abuse, the film tries to hide that, burying it in a handful of brief flashbacks that add nothing but confusion. This new version of THE KILLER INSIDE ME, which was previously filmed in 1976 by Burt Kennedy with Stacy Keach, Susan Tyrrell, Tisha Sterling, and Keenan Wynn, is a major disappointment.
TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: TRIBECA TALKS
Good luck trying to get into many of the Tribeca Film Festival’s special events, including James Franco’s postscreening discussion with SNL cast members about his new documentary, SATURDAY NIGHT, since AmEx cardholders and downtown residents have already scarfed up most, if not all, of the tickets
SVA Theater, 323 West 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Barnes & Noble, 33 East 17th St. at Union Square
Apple Store SoHo, 103 Prince St.
www.tribecafilm.com
Individual tickets for the Tribeca Film Festival go on sale to the general public Monday morning, April 19, at 11:00 am, and we were going to recommend that you focus your attention on this year’s Tribeca Talks: After the Movie panel discussions, ten special screenings followed by conversations with such actors, directors, producers, and politicians as Guy Pearce, Joan Rivers, James Franco, Joel Klein, Jonathan Nolan, André Leon Talley, Ronit Avni, Alex Gibney, and Morgan Spurlock, but it appears that the festival has already sold just about every ticket in its presale to American Express cardholders and downtown residents, which doesn’t exactly seem fair to us. There might be rush tickets available sixty minutes before each screening (Christopher Nolan’s MEMENTO, Deborah Scranton’s EARTH MADE OF GLASS, Madeleine Sackler’s THE LOTTERY, Franco’s SATURDAY NIGHT), but you’ll have to battle long lines, we’re guessing.
Fortunately, there will be two sets of Tribeca Talks that are free and open to the public, first come, first served. The Industry section, held at the SVA Theater, features such panel discussions as “Is the Sky Really Falling? A Closer Look at the Future of Film Distribution” with Eamonn Bowles, Ted Hope, and others (April 23); “Checking Up on Docs: A Conversation with Sheila Nevins,” with the longtime head of HBO documentary programming (April 25); and “Talking with Pictures,” with Lee Isaac Chung and other filmmakers and cinematographers (April 29). The Pen to Paper series, taking place at the Union Square B&N, includes three noontime events centering on the written word: “Illustrating History,” hosted by Caryn James (April 24); “New York Stories,” with Dana Adam Shapiro, Joey Arias, and others, moderated by Budd Mishkin (April 25); and “Authors at the Helm,” with Edward Burns, Carmel Winters, and Omar Rodriguez Lopez, moderated by Susan Orlean (April 26).
Patricia Clarkson will be at the Apple Store SoHo on April 24 for a free discussion about her TFF film, CAIRO TIME, with director Ruba Nadda
Finally, the Apple Store in SoHo will be holding free Meet the Filmmaker workshops and talks throughout the festival, including such can’t-miss groupings as Ruba Nadda with Patricia Clarkson (April 24), Rodrigo Garcia with Kerry Washington and Naomi Watts (April 25), Mat Whitecross with Andy Serkis (April 25), Nicole Holofcener with Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt (April 26), Thomas Ikimi with Idris Elba (April 28), Neil Jordan (April 29), and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (April 30), all discussing their films that are part of the festival.
NEW YORK CITY ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE
St. Patrick’s Day Parade will be last one that is not cut short by Mayor Bloomberg (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Fifth Ave. from 44th to 86th Sts.
Wednesday, March 17, free, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
www.saintpatricksdayparade.com
While there should be all sorts of pomp and circumstance for next year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which will be celebrating its 250th anniversary, don’t sell this year’s party short. Hundreds of marching bands, pipers, step dancers, and police and fire departments from all over the city and the country will be descending on Midtown Manhattan for this annual rite of passage, so loathed by many New Yorkers for the drunken craziness and green puke that often comes with it. Well, with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly as this year’s grand marshal, the NYPD has promised to clamp down on public drinking, so hide those forties well. The parade will also be the last major one to be able to run all afternoon, through about 5:00, as Mayor Bloomberg’s shortening of parades begins next month.
Of course, New York City will be bustling with special St. Patrick’s Day events in addition to fife and drum bands making their way through Irish pubs across the city. The official After Parade Pub Crawl will begin at the Yard, Black 47 will be at B. B. King’s, the Chieftains are playing Town Hall, Rory Sullivan is at Googie’s Lounge, an 1855 St. Patrick’s Day Celebration will take place at the Merchant’s House Museum, and Sean Donnelly will host “Irish Eyes Are Laughing” at Comix with Patrice Oneal, Andrew Maxwell, and other comedians, among other green partying.
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