Yearly Archives: 2012

4KNOTS MUSIC FESTIVAL

The Black Lips will lead what should be a crazy after-party to this year’s expanded 4Knots Music Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

South Street Seaport, Pier 17
Saturday, July 14, free, 1:00 – 8:00
www.villagevoice.com/4knots

After a decade of the Siren Festival in Coney Island, the Village Voice moved its annual summer concert last year to the South Street Seaport and rechristened it the 4Knots Music Festival, which included great performances by, among others, Brooklyn’s Eleanor Friedberger and Oberhofer, San Juan’s Davila 666, and New Jersey’s Titus Andronicus on one main stage. This year 4Knots is expanding to two stages, better resembling its Coney Island beginnings, where sweaty music fans would dart between Stillwell Ave. and West Tenth St. to catch the band of their choice. Taking place on July 14, this year’s 4Knots kicks off with brief sets by the Smiling Lies at 12:15 and Fast Years at 12:30, after which decisions will have to be made between shows on the Main Stage and the Skippers Stage. There should be time to see some of every band, but that valuable spot will be snatched up the second you leave one area for the other. The Skippers Stage will feature Doldrums at 1:00, Devin at 2:00, Team Spirit at 3:00, and Delicate Steve at 4:00, while the Main Stage will be home to Nick Waterhouse at 1:30, Bleached at 2:30, Hospitality at 3:30, Crocodiles at 4:30, the Drums at 5:30, and headliners Archers of Loaf closing things out at 6:30. The after-party should be even crazier, with Black Lips, Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds, DJ April March go-go dancer Anna Copa Cabanna, and host DJ Jonathan Toubin holding court at the Beekman Beer Garden Beach Club at 89 South St. Tickets are $15 and worth every penny, especially if you’ve never seen Atlanta’s Black Lips, a crazed group of dudes who play legendary shows where just about anything can and will happen.

GRACE KELLY — THE COOL BLONDE: REAR WINDOW

Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly might have just stumbled into the middle of a murder mystery in Hitchcock classic

REAR WINDOW (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
July 13-18
Series runs July 13-26
212-415-5500
www.bam.org

One of Alfred Hitchcock’s best films is an unforgettable voyeuristic thriller starring James Stewart as temporarily wheelchair-bound photojournalist L. B. Jeffries and Grace Kelly as his society-girl friend (and extremely well dressed) Lisa Carol Fremont. Bored out of his mind, Jeffries grabs a pair of binoculars and starts spying on the apartments across the courtyard from him, each one its own television show, including a musical comedy, a lonely romance, an exercise program, and, most ominously, perhaps a murder mystery. Ever the reporter, Jeffries decides to go after the possible killer, Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), and he’ll risk his life — and Lisa’s — to find out the truth. Sensational from start to finish, Rear Window works on so many levels, you’ll discover something new every time you watch it. Rear Window is screening July 13-18 at BAM Rose Cinemas, kicking off BAMcinématek’s “Grace Kelly: The Cool Blonde” series, honoring the career of the gorgeous, talented actress who made eleven films between 1951 and 1956 before being swept off her feet by Prince Rainier, starting a family, and building an international reputation that has continued even after she died in a car accident in 1982 at the age of fifty-two. The series also includes such other Kelly classics as High Society, High Noon, To Catch a Thief, and The Country Girl as well as her lesser-known debut, Fourteen Hours.

UNIVERSAL 100: TOUCH OF EVIL

Orson Welles noir masterpiece TOUCH OF EVIL is part of Universal Pictures centennial celebration at Film Forum

TOUCH OF EVIL (Orson Welles, 1958)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Saturday, July 14, 1:30, 3:30, 7:30, 9:30
Series runs July 13 – August 9
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

They don’t come much bigger than Orson Welles in his dark potboiler Touch of Evil, as he nearly bursts through the frame as spectacularly dastardly police captain Hank Quinlan. A deliciously devious corrupt lawman, Quinlan is an enormous drunk who has no trouble breaking the rules to get his man. Charlton Heston took a lot of criticism playing Mike Vargas, a Mexican drug enforcement agent newly married to beautiful blonde Susan (Janet Leigh), who soon finds herself menaced by a dangerous gang as a weak-kneed, pre-McCloud Dennis Weaver looks the other way. The film famously opens with a remarkable crane shot that goes on for more than three minutes, setting the stage like no other establishing shot in the history of cinema. And the final scene with Marlene Dietrich as sultry hooker Tana is a lulu as well, highlighted by one of the great all-time movie lines. What goes on in between is a lurid tale of murder and revenge filled with unexpected twists and turns, featuring appearances by such Welles regulars as Joseph Cotten, Akim Tamiroff, Joseph Calleia, and Ray Collins. There was a lot of hype surrounding the film a few years ago when it was restored to match Welles’s original desires, but the final product lives up to its billing. A deeply affecting noir masterpiece, Touch of Evil is screening July 14 as part of Film Forum’s “Universal 100” festival, paying tribute to the major studio’s centennial with four weeks of double features and special presentations, opening on Friday the thirteenth with the original Frankenstein and Dracula and continuing with such other fine dual bills as Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt and Saboteur, John Stahl’s Imitation of Life and Magnificent Obsession, Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life and All That Heaven Allows, and Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop and Steven Spielberg’s Duel, in addition to the July 29-30 triple shot of The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, and The Mummy.

FAMILY PORTRAIT IN BLACK AND WHITE

Director Julia Ivanova examines a very different kind of family in fascinating documentary

FAMILY PORTRAIT IN BLACK AND WHITE (Julia Ivanova, 2011)
AMC Empire 25
234 West 42nd St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Opens Friday, July 13
212-398-2597
www.familyportraitthefilm.com
www.amctheatres.com

“What difference does it make — black, white, yellow? They are just kids,” says Olga Nenya in the intriguing documentary Family Portrait in Black and White. Evoking the classic nursery rhyme about an old woman who lives in a shoe, Nenya runs a foster home in the Ukraine suburb of Sumy, where she takes care of as many as twenty-seven children (including four of her own), most of whom are mixed-race boys and girls abandoned by their parents, primarily local women and African men who were studying in Eastern Europe. Because of their heritage, the children are despised by neighbors, the growing, violent neo-Nazi movement, and the government, which gives Nenya very little money but then sends inspectors who decry the living conditions in her house. Canadian filmmaker Julia Ivanova, who wrote, directed, and edited the eighty-five-minute documentary in addition to serving as cinematographer, follows the kids as they do their daily chores, go to school, spend the summer with families in Italy, and look forward to the day when they are old enough to go out on their own, either to be legally adopted or to attend university. For as much as most of them love and respect Nenya, she can be a tough, dominating taskmaster with old-fashioned values who selfishly holds on to her flock even when better opportunities are out there for some of her children. A product of Stalinism, Nenya can be dictatorial, yet she clearly loves and cares deeply about her children; as Ivanova focuses in on Kiril, Roman, Anya, and Andrey, each of whom has serious issues about the way they are being raised, the individual relationships become more and more tense. A multiple-award-winning international festival favorite, Family Portrait in Black and White is a compelling look at racism, value systems, and just what family means in today’s ever-changing society.

UNION SQUARE

Tammy Blanchard and Mira Sorvino play estranged sisters in UNION SQUARE

UNION SQUARE (Nancy Savoca, 2011)
Angelika Film Center
18 West Houston St. at Mercer St.
Opens Friday, July 13
www.theunionsquaremovie.com
www.angelikafilmcenter.com

Nancy Savoca’s Union Square arrives like an unwanted relative suddenly showing up on the doorstep carrying a heavy suitcase. But, as in real life, family often wins out as long-standing issues rise to the surface and are dealt with in both painful and humorous ways. As the film opens, the wild and wacky Lucy (Mira Sorvino) emerges from the Union Square subway station, ready for some shopping and a tryst with Jay, who angers and frustrates her by not wanting to see her. In a rage, an out-of-control Lucy visits her estranged sister, the tightly wound Jenny (Tammy Blanchard), insinuating herself into her life, deciding that she and her dog, Murray, just have to stay there for a little while until she gets herself together. Jenny is disgusted, embarrassed, and annoyed by her freewheeling, overemotional sister, who drinks, smokes, and says what’s on her mind, whereas Jenny has carved out a carefully constructed existence for herself, pretending she is a good girl from Maine instead of a woman with a past from the Bronx, as she prepares to marry the preppy, organic, and health-obsessed Bill (Mike Doyle). Things come to a head on Thanksgiving, when secrets are revealed and everyone has to face some hard truths. Although inconsistent and, like Lucy, extremely annoying at first, Union Square, featuring a bumpy script by Savoca (Dogfight, Household Saints) and Mary Tobler and cameos by Daphne Rubin-Vega, Michael Rispoli, and Patti LuPone, eventually settles down as the two sisters slowly reconnect. The eighty-minute film was made on a shoestring budget with a skeleton crew and shot by Lisa Leone in HD using the small, handheld Canon 5D, with much of it set in producer Neda Armian’s real loft overlooking Union Square. Stick around for Madeleine Peyroux’s lovely rendition of Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me in Your Heart for a While,” which plays over the closing credits. Savoca will be on hand opening night at the Angelika for a Q&A following the 7:00 screening.

LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL: THE CLOCK BY CHRISTIAN MARCLAY

Christian Marclay’s twenty-four-hour masterpiece unfolds in real time at Lincoln Center

David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center
61 West 62nd St. at Broadway
Tuesday – Thursday, 8:00 am – 10:00 pm
Friday at 8:00 am through Sunday at 10:00 pm
July 13 – August 1 (closed Mondays), free
212-255-1105
lincolncenterfestival.org

Two years ago, the Whitney presented “Festival,” a thrilling interactive retrospective of the work of Christian Marclay, featuring multiple site-specific installations and live performances. The New York-based multidisciplinary artist followed that up in winter 2011 with a supreme work of utter brilliance, the captivating twenty-four-hour video The Clock, at the Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea. Having traveled around the world, The Clock is back in the city for a special engagement at the David Rubenstein Atrium as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. Screened in a large, dark gallery with roomy, comfortable seats, the film unfolds in real time, composed of thousands of clips from movies and television that feature all kinds of clocks and watches showing the minutes ticking away. Masterfully edited so that it creates its own fluid narrative, The Clock seamlessly cuts from romantic comedies with birds emerging from cuckoo clocks to action films in which protagonists synchronize their watches, from thrillers with characters battling it out in clock towers to dramas with convicted murderers facing execution and sci-fi programs with mad masterminds attempting to freeze time. Marclay mixes in iconic images with excerpts from little-known foreign works, so audiences are kept on the edge of their seats, wondering what will come next, laughing knowingly at recognizable scenes and gawking at strange, unfamiliar bits. Part of the beauty of The Clock is that while time is often central to many of the clips, it is merely incidental in others, someone casually checking their watch or a clock visible in the background, emphasizing how pervasive time is — both on-screen and in real life. Americans spend an enormous amount of time watching movies and television, so The Clock is also a wry though loving commentary on what we choose to do with our leisure time as well. The Clock will be shown 8:00 am to 10:00 pm Tuesdays through Thursdays and continuously from 8:00 in the morning on Fridays through 10:00 at night on Sunday. Admission is free and first-come, first-served, with a maximum of ninety-six people, so be prepared for some very long lines, especially during prime time. Since the film corresponds to the actual time, midnight should offer some fascinating moments, although you might be surprised how exciting even three o’clock in the morning can be.

FILMS ON THE GREEN: PERSEPOLIS

Animated PERSEPOLIS is part of free “Films on the Green” series, screening July 13 in Riverside Park

PERSEPOLIS (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud, 2007)
Riverside Park
Pier 1 at 70th St.
Friday, July 13, free, 8:30
www.fiaf.org
www.sonypictures.com

France’s official selection for the 2007 Academy Awards, Persepolis brings to animated life Marjane Satrapi’s stunning graphic novels. Codirected by Satrapi and comic-book artist Vincent Paronnaud, Persepolis tells Satrapi’s harrowing life story as she comes of age during the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Raised in a well-off activist family, she fights against many of the country’s crippling mores and laws, particularly those that treat women as second-class citizens, trapping them in their veils, denying them any kind of individual freedom. But the progressive Satrapi (voiced first by Gabrielle Lopes, then Chiara Mastroianni) continually gets into trouble as she speaks her mind, experiments with sex, and refuses to play by her country’s repressive rules. Satrapi and Paronnaud do an outstanding job of adapting the books’ black-and-white panels for the big screen, maintaining her unique style and emotional breadth. The first part of the film is excellent as the precocious teenager who talks to God learns about life in some very harsh ways. Unfortunately, the second half gets bogged down in Satrapi’s failures as an adult, focusing too much on her myriad personal problems and taking away the bigger picture that made the first part so entertaining as well as educational. Still, it’s a story worth telling, and well worth seeing. (Interestingly, since the film, which is in French, is subtitled in English, the audience ends up reading it similarly to the way they read the graphic novel.) The closing-night selection of the 2007 New York Film Festival, Persepolis also features the voices of Catherine Deneuve as Marjane’s mother, Danielle Darrieux as her grandmother, Simon Akbarian as her father, and François Jerosme as her radical uncle Anouche. Persepolis is screening in Riverside Park on July 13 as part of the Films on the Green series, which concludes September 6 with François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim on the Low Library Steps at Columbia University.