The Museum of the Moving Image will celebrate its grand reopening this weekend with a full slate of multidisciplinary events (vuwstudio.com / Museum of the Moving Image)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Admission: $10 (free Fridays 4:00 – 8:00), film screenings $15
Free Family Day: Monday, January 17, 10:30 am – 5:00 pm
718-777-6888
www.movingimage.us
Following a $67 million expansion overseen by architect Thomas Leeser that has doubled its size to nearly 100,000 square feet, the Museum of the Moving Image will celebrate its grand reopening this weekend with three days of film screenings, interactive exhibitions, a multimedia dance party, and much more. The Astoria institution, which is dedicated to the past, present, and future of international cinema, will get things under way with a family matinee of DUCK SOUP (Leo McCarey, 1933) on Saturday at 12:30, the inaugural Signal to Noise party Saturday night at 8:00 (with performances by Nick Yulman, Martha Colburn, Bit Shifter, Nullsleep, Project Jenny, Scott Draves and the Electric Sheep, and others), the Indian Cinema Showcase feature MUMBAI DIARIES (DHOBI GHAT) (Kiran Rao, 2010) Sunday at 7:00, and a full slate of activities on Monday: a digital 3-D screening of CORALINE (Henry Selick, 2009) at 1:00, a screening of the 1970 documentary KING: A FILM RECORD… MONTGOMERY TO MEMPHIS introduced by associate producer Richard Kaplan at 3:00, and a special presentation of THE KING’S SPEECH (Tom Hooper, 2010) at 7:00, followed by a discussion with stars Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Claire Bloom, and Helena Bonham Carter.
“Chiho Aoshima: City Glow” will help light up revamped museum (courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles. © 2005 Chiho Aoshima/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd.)
The museum has a history of putting on splendid exhibitions, and the initial ones in the newly revamped space include Colburn’s film installation “Dolls vs. Dictators” through April 10; “Real Virtuality” through June 12, with works by Thomas Soetens, Paul Kaiser, Pablo Valbuena, Bill Viola, Cao Fei, and Marco Brambilla; the large-scale video “Chiho Aoshima: City Glow” through July 17; and the reinstalled “Behind the Screen” from the permanent collection, which is always a thrill. There will also be several film series kicking off in the next week, starting with “Rediscovered Treasures: Great Films from World Archives,” which runs January 15 through February 20 and begins this weekend with a a restored 70mm print of PLAY TIME (Jacques Tati, 1967), the world premiere of a restored print of THE HUSTLER (Robert Rossen, 1961), 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), and the live event screening “Magic, Music and Early Movies: Georges Méliès and Sxip Shirey.” “Avant-Garde Masters” runs January 15 through February 19, beginning Saturday and Sunday with “8MM Films by George and Mike Kuchar.” And from January 19 through February 6 the museum will honor David O. Russell with screenings of THE FIGHTER (2010), SPANKING THE MONKEY (1994), FLIRTING WITH DISASTER (1996), THREE KINGS (1999), and the underrated I HEART HUCKABEE (2004). The Museum of the Moving Image is one of those New York City treasures that you should be going back to over and over again. We know we will be. (And as added encouragement, admission is free all day Monday, January 17.)