Yearly Archives: 2012

IT’S A FINE ROMANCE: CYRANO AGENCY

Things get a little too personal for Byung-hun (Uhm Tae-woong) in Korean rom-com CYRANO AGENCY

KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: CYRANO AGENCY (SHIRANO) (Kim Hyeon-seok, 2010)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, March 13, free, 7:00
Series runs every other Tuesday through February 28
212-759-9550
www.tribecacinemas.com
www.koreanculture.org

Desperate to raise cash so they can renovate an old theater and put on productions again, a small theater company resorts to matchmaking, writing real-life scripts and acting out parts in order to light a spark between their client and the object of his or her desire. Using the latest technological gadgetry, including a microphone in a pair of glasses, the secret company, known as the Cyrano Agency — named after the 1897 play by Edmond Rostand in which the ugly Cyrano de Bergerac writes love letters to help Christian capture the heart of the beautiful Roxane, the woman they both love — creates elaborately choreographed scenarios that slowly bring the man and woman together, led by director Byung-hun (Uhm Tae-woong) along with his associates, Min-young (Park Shin-hye), Jae Pil (Jun A-min), and Chul-bin (Park Cheol-min). The Cyrano Agency boasts a success rate of one hundred percent, but that record is suddenly in jeopardy when Byung-hun discovers that their latest client, fund manager Sang-yong (Daniel Choi), has fallen hard for Hee-joong (Rhee Min-jung), the director’s former girlfriend. A huge hit in its native Korea, Cyrano Agency is a silly but fun romantic comedy that riffs on Korean soap operas and the familiar Cyrano tale. The multilayered narrative works well through most of the movie, especially as Min-young starts to suspect something is up with Byung-hun, who seems to be sabotaging their current project. Writer-director Kim Hyeon-seok (When Romance Meets Destiny, YMCA Baseball Team) pours on the melodrama for the sappy finale, but Cyrano Agency is still a light and fanciful story of love and heartache. Cyrano Agency is screening for free Tuesday at Tribeca Cinemas, kicking off the next Korean Movie Night series, “It’s a Fine Romance,” which continues March 27 with the New York premiere of My Girlfriend Is an Agent and April 10 with the U.S. premiere of Petty Romance.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: JACCO OLIVIER

Dutch artist Jacco Olivier has made his New York City public art debut by installing six short videos on monitors located throughout Madison Square Park. The display is best seen in the evening, when the colorful animations shine brightly, bringing life to the dark park (and making them easier to find, as they blend more into their surroundings during the day). Consisting of three new works and three older ones, the show highlights Olivier’s playful stop-animation style, in which he creates a painting that he photographs as he continually changes it, resulting in child-friendly narratives of a bug trying to turn over off its back, a deer resting in the woods, and a rabbit hopping through the grass. Stumble, Hide, Rabbit Hole, Bird, Deer, and Home will remain on view through March 12, but you can also catch Olivier’s Revolution at City Center as part of the New Museum’s new video series there.

HURT VILLAGE

HURT VILLAGE tells the story of the end of a tight-knit Memphis community (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Extended through March 25, $25 through March 18, $75 after
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

Inspired by the real-life demolition of a public housing project in Memphis, Tennessee, ten years ago, Katori Hall’s Hurt Village is a bittersweet tale of family, community, and changing economic times. With the imminent demise of their neighborhood, which will be turned into homes they will not be able to afford, the people of Hurt Village are being relocated via Hope Grants, bringing an end to the tight-knit neighborhood. An aspiring rapper, thirteen-year-old Cookie (Joaquina Kalukango) is a young girl with hopes and dreams despite her difficult surroundings. She lives in a ramshackle apartment with her mother, Crank (Marsha Stephanie Blake), a recovering crack addict, and great-grandmother, Big Mama (Tonya Pinkins), who trudges off to work every day to bring home what little money they have. The unexpected arrival of Cookie’s long-absent father, Buggy (Corey Hawkins), who has suddenly returned from the Iraq War, reenergizes the downtrodden, shrinking community, which also includes the smooth-talking Ebony (Charlie Hudson III) and the stuttering Skillet (Lloyd Watts), a pair of ne’er-do-wells who go after each other in a very funny “Yo Mama” battle, and the straight-shooting Cornbread (Nicholas Christopher) and his voracious, jealous wife, Toyia (Saycon Sengbloh). Meanwhile, well-dressed drug dealer Tony C. (Ron Cephas Jones) keeps pulling up in his fancy car, playing Elvis Presley’s “In the Ghetto,” trying to lure in more users as well as hire Buggy to work for him. Hurt Village is a fast-paced, gripping drama with an engaging cast of characters led by Cookie, who serves as the heart and soul of the show. Set designer David Gallo and director Patricia McGregor have placed the stage in the middle of the small theater, with the audience seated in rising rows on opposite sides, adding a feeling of warmth and involvement. Memphis native Hall (The Mountaintop), who won the 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for Hurt Village, captures the rhythm and spirit of this dying community, balancing the ups and downs, the dedication and desperation, with candor and grace. The first of three shows Hall will write as part of the Signature Theatre’s Residency Five program, Hurt Village’s run as the inaugural production in the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre has been deservedly extended through March 25.

IN CONVERSATION: FYVUSH FINKEL AND HIS SON IAN FINKEL

Fyvush Finkel will participate in a special conversation with his son Ian as part of the Eldridge Street Synagogue’s 125th anniversary programming

Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge St. between Canal & Division Sts.
Sunday, March 11, $25, 3:00
212-219-0302
www.eldridgestreet.org

The Eldridge Street Synagogue opened its historic doors in 1887, and it is in the midst of celebrating its 125th anniversary with a series of events all year long. On March 11, the “In Conversation at Eldridge Street” series continues with Yiddish legend Fyvush Finkel talking about his life and career, interviewed by his son Ian, a musical arranger. Fyvush Finkel, an Obie and Emmy winner who will turn ninety in October, is most well known for his roles in such David E. Kelley television shows as Picket FencesBoston Public, such Broadway productions as Fiddler on the Roof, and such off-Broadway shows as Little Shop of Horrors. He started performing at the age of nine, spending nearly four decades as a leading figure in Yiddish theater on the Lower East Side. A big, burly teddy bear of a man, Finkel is a wide-eyed, engaging character who will share stories both old and new in this special program. Upcoming conversations at Eldridge Street pair Kenneth Turan and Henry Bean on March 29 and Rabbi Eliot Dorff and Dr. Regina Stein on May 30.

MOVING IMAGE CONTEMPORARY VIDEO ART FAIR

Daniel Phillips’s three-channel installation RIVER STREET is one of the highlights of Moving Image fair (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Waterfront New York Tunnel
269 11th Ave. between 27th & 28th Sts.
Through March 11, free
212-643-3152
www.moving-image.info

The second annual Moving Image Contemporary Video Art Fair is back in the long, narrow Waterfront New York Tunnel in Chelsea, featuring more than thirty videos and installations from around the world. Upon entering the space from the Eleventh Ave. side, you will find yourself immersed in Janet Biggs’s Predator and Prey, where you can take a seat in the middle of two large screens that follow a polar bear, a horse, and an eagle. For the three-channel River Street, Daniel Phillips documented his rehabilitation of the dilapidated area around his studio and projects the videos on three blocks made from objects and materials he gathered from the construction site. The always playful and innovative Kate Gilmore is represented by Built to Burst, which captures the artist from above as she smashes pots of paint on a series of platforms to create something wholly new. Alex Prager’s Despair, which was recently shown at MoMA, employs colorful, fantasy-like imagery to tell the story of a possible suicide. Martha Wilson uses makeup and camera angles “to deform myself in the way that I fear the most” in the large-screen I have become my own worst fear / Deformation. In Marina Zurkow’s charming black-and-white animation Mesocosm (Northumberland UK), a naked man sits on a tree stump as the seasons pass by around him. There are also creative videos by Sama Alshaibi, Josh Azzarella, Eelco Brand, Susanne Hofer, Jesse McLean, Jenny Perlin, and Yael Kanarek, among others. And be sure not to miss Jesse Fleming’s agonizing The Snail and the Razor, in which a snail ominously attempts to climb over a sharp razor blade. Since you could easily spend much of the day at Moving Image, you can narrow down which videos you want to see by checking out excerpts of every one included in the fair in advance here. On Saturday at noon, Bridgette Howard will moderate the panel discussion “Moving Image Technology of Tomorrow” with Jacob Gaboury, Steven Sacks, and Anne Spalter, followed at 2:00 with Rebecca Cleman moderating the spotlight panel “What Do You Get When You Buy Video Art?” with Lisa Dorin, Jefferson Godard, and Fabienne Stephan.

GEOFF DYER ON TARKOVSKY, CINEMA, AND LIFE: THE MIRROR

Geoff Dyer will discuss his obsession with Andrei Tarkovsky in a special program at the Museum of the Moving Image that includes a screening of the Russian master’s MIRROR

SEE IT BIG! THE MIRROR (ZERKALO) (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, March 11, free with museum admission, 3:00 & 6:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.geoffdyer.com

“Words can’t really express a person’s emotions. They’re too inert.” So says Andrei Tarkovsky’s dream-filled, surreal masterpiece The Mirror, which features long scenes with little or no dialogue. Tarkovsky turns the mirror on himself and his childhood to tell the fragmented and disjointed story of WWII-era Russia through his own personal experiences with his family. Tarkovsky was obsessed with film as art, and this nonlinear film is his poetic masterpiece; he even includes his father’s poems read over shots that are crafted as if paintings. Many of the actors play several roles; have fun trying to figure out who is who and what exactly is going on at any one moment. The Mirror is screening on March 11 at 6:00 at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of the special program “Geoff Dyer on Tarkovsky, Cinema, and Life” and the ongoing “See It Big!” series and will be introduced by award-winning author Dyer, whose latest nonfiction tome is Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room (Pantheon, February 21, $24), an obsessively detailed examination of Tarkovsky’s Stalker in which he makes it very clear that the Russian filmmaker’s work must be seen on the big screen. At 3:00, Dyer will participate in a conversation with the museum’s chief curator, David Schwartz. For more on Dyer and his other local appearances, check out our twi-ny talk with him, which you can find here.

NINA MENKES: THE BLOODY CHILD

Nina Menkes’s THE BLOODY CHILD uses a fractured narrative and ambiguous characters to tell the story of a brutal murder

THE BLOODY CHILD (Nina Menkes, 1996)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
March 9, 9:00; March 11, 7:00; March 15, 7:00
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
www.ninamenkes.com

Inspired by an actual event that took place during the first Gulf War, Nina Menkes’s The Bloody Child is a visually captivating abstract tale of murder. Shot in the 29 Palms area of the Mojave Desert, the film is essentially told backward in three distinct sections. In one, a group of Marine officers have discovered a dead woman in the back of a car. It’s a crystal-clear beautiful day as they come and go, discussing the situation in dialogue that is often hard to make out. In another, people are having a good time in a dark bar, the men shooting pool, the women being entertained by a male stripper. And in the third, an ash-covered angelic figure lies naked in a forest, carving a prayer in Hebrew on her arm as the witches’ chant from Macbeth is repeated on the soundtrack. Despite its abstract, fractured narrative and ambiguous, unidentified characters, The Bloody Child is an atmospheric, gripping tale. Menkes tells the story in long takes with little or no camera movement, almost as if action is secondary to mood. Casting actual Marines in the film — in addition to her sister, Tinka, who stars in most of her work and plays the Marine captain here — Menkes imbues the film with a reality that lends it a documentary feel, enhanced by gorgeous poetic moments that lift things to a higher plane. The Bloody Child is screening March 9, 11, and 15 as part of Anthology Film Archives’ weeklong Menkes retrospective that also includes such films as Dissolution (2010), The Great Sadness of Zohara (1983), Magdalena Viraga (1986), The Bloody Child (1996), and Phantom Love (2007).