Yearly Archives: 2012

CBGB FESTIVAL — EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE

Angelo Moore and Norwood Fisher are the heart and soul of Fishbone (photo by Erin Flynn)

EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE (Lev Anderson & Chris Metzler, 2010)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Friday, July 6, $10, 5:45
212-260-7289
www.cbgb.com
www.fishbonedocumentary.com

When they were junior high school students in South Central Los Angeles in 1979, Angelo Moore and Norwood Fisher formed the core of Fishbone, what would soon become one of the most exciting live bands on the planet. Chris Metzler and Lev Anderson document the band’s rise and fall — and rise and fall, and rise and fall, etc. — in the stirring Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone. Using archival footage, old and new interviews, and playful animation, Metzler and Anderson follow the group — Moore and Fisher along with fellow founding members Chris Dowd, Walter “Dirty Walt” Kibby II, and Kendall Jones — through its many personal and financial struggles as it tries to deal with such socioeconomic issues as racism, violence, and the anti-liberal bias taking hold of the nation in Ronald Reagan’s 1980s. Fishbone held nothing back on such albums as In Your Face (1986), Truth and Soul (1988), The Reality of My Surroundings (1991), Give a Monkey a Brain and He’ll Swear He’s the Center of the Universe (1993), and Chim Chim’s Badass Revenge (1996), mixing in pop, punk, funk, ska, reggae, R&B, soul, jazz, and hardcore, prancing about the stage without shirts, diving into the crowd, and always speaking their mind, and they hold nothing back in Everyday Sunshine as well. Narrated by Laurence Fishburne, the film really picks up speed when it delves into the Rodney King beating and the mysterious circumstances involving Jones’s religious transformation and the band’s attempt at an intervention. The decidedly unusual tale also features an impressive lineup of talking heads offering their views on the history of Fishbone, including Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction, fIREHOSE’s Mike Watt, No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal, the Roots’ ?uestlove, Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz, Parliament-Funkadelic’s George Clinton, Primus’s Les Clayool, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, Circle Jerk Keith Morris, Ice-T, and, perhaps most informatively, Columbia Records executive David Kahne, who lends fascinating insight into what made Fishbone great — and what kept them from greater success. While you definitely don’t have to know a thing about Fishbone to enjoy this very intimate documentary, longtime fans should eat it up. Everyday Sunshine is screening July 6 at 5:45 at Anthology Film Archives as part of the inaugural CBGB Festival and will be followed by a Q&A with Metzler. The festival runs July 5-8 at venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn and includes a bevy of concerts, film screenings, panel discussions, and other special events being held in honor of the classic Bowery club that hosted cutting-edge, alternative, punk, and indie bands from 1973 to 2006. Among the other films being shown are Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People, Keirda Bahruth’s Bob and the Monster, Sara Sugarman’s Vinyl, and Gorman Bechard’s Color Me Obsessed.

CBGB FESTIVAL: PUNK’S NOT DEAD

Documentary shows that punk is far from dead

PUNK’S NOT DEAD (Susan Dynner, 2007)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Friday, July 6, $10, 10:45
212-260-7289
www.cbgb.com
www.punksnotdeadthemovie.com

Director Susan Dynner examines the past, present, and future of punk rock in the fast-paced documentary Punk’s Not Dead. Punk rock broke wide open in the mid-to-late 1970s, as pierced and tattooed fans packed small, sweaty clubs to have the Sex Pistols spit on them and other bands scream about anarchy and chaos, railing against the establishment that had brought them Vietnam, suburban sprawl, bloated arena rock, and an uninspired mainstream society. Bands such as Bad Religion, the Damned, Social Distortion, Minor Threat, and UK Subs used shrieking guitars, killer drums, and a nonstop verbal barrage that, as Dynner points out, never went away; thirty years down the road, many of these bands are still together or have re-formed, appearing in underground clubs and on indie records. Punk influence saw a revival in the 1990s, with Nirvana, Green Day, and Rancid all hitting the charts, but the film argues that the current wave, which includes such groups as Good Charlotte, My Chemical Romance, and Sum 41 and stores such as Hot Topic, is more market-friendly pop punk than the real deal. Among those sharing their opinions on what qualifies as punk are Black Flag’s Henry Rollins and Greg Ginn, X’s John Doe, Circle Jerks’ Keith Morris, Rancid’s Tim Armstrong (who also coproduced the film), Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, the Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra, the Subhumans’ Dick Lucas, Social D’s Mike Ness, and members of dozens of bands both old and new. The biggest revelation is the Adicts, a British band that has been doing it their own way, with the original lineup, for more than thirty years now, still bucking the system and attracting a whole new generation of fans. Punk’s Not Dead also includes snippets of hundreds of songs that will send you poring through your record collection to find those old gems you haven’t listened to since you were in college. Sham 69’s “If the Kids Are United” fabulously sums things up over the closing credits. Punk’s Not Dead is screening July 6 at 10:45 at Anthology Film Archives as part of the inaugural CBGB Festival. The festival runs July 5-8 at venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn and includes a bevy of concerts, film screenings, panel discussions, and other special events being held in honor of the classic Bowery club that hosted cutting-edge, alternative, punk, and indie bands from 1973 to 2006. Among the groups participating in the festival are Sick of It All, Redd Kross, Reggie Watts, Quincy Mumford & the Reason Why, JD Samson & Men, PS I Love You, DJ Jonathan Toubin, Lissy Trullie, the Van Allen Belt, LA Guns, Sic F*cks, the Virgins, and Michael Cerveris & Loose Cattle, and that’s just on Friday.

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL: INFERNAL AFFAIRS 1 & 2

The first two Infernal Affairs movies are part of a tenth anniversary special presentation at the New York Asian Film Festival

INFERNAL AFFAIRS (MOU GAAN DOU) (Andrew Lau & Alan Mak, 2002)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Friday, July 6, 6:00
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.infernalaffairs.com

In 2002-2003, directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak crafted a marvelous gangster trilogy that is nothing short of the Hong Kong version of The Godfather. The first two parts are being presented at a special tenth anniversary screening July 6 as part of the New York Asian Film Festival at Lincoln Center, with actor Will Yun Lee on hand to participate in a panel about the film and the video game Sleeping Dogs. In the first film, Yan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Ming (Andy Lau) are both cops with deadly secrets, one a mole in the police department, the other deep undercover in a powerful gang. We learn a little bit about their past, but most of the film takes place in the present, as both the good guys and the bad guys try to find out who’s on which side. Eric Tsang is awesome as Sam, Wo Fat with a different sense of humor. Much of the film is played out marvelously on cell phones, which is actually more exciting than it sounds. The ending is a gem. The only drawback is that the subtitles move past in a flash and are very small, problems that are corrected in the two sequels. The film was a huge hit, earning numerous Golden Horse and Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Tony Leung); Martin Scorsese scored a huge hit with his outstanding remake, The Departed, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson.

INFERNAL AFFAIRS 2 is a brilliant prequel about friendship and loyalty in a changing Hong Kong

INFERNAL AFFAIRS 2 (MOU GAAN DOU 2) (Andrew Lau & Alan Mak, 2003)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Friday, July 6, 8:40
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.infernalaffairs.com

Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s second Infernal Affairs film is reminiscent of The Godfather Part II, as the story moves back and forth through several pasts as we learn more about Ming (Edison Chen), Yan (Shawn Yue), Wong (Anthony Wong), and Sam (Eric Tsang). Some roles are played by the same actors as in the first film, and some are not, so pay close attention. As Hong Kong approaches the hand-over to Chinese rule, the Triad war is threatening to explode, with Ming and Yan caught in the middle. Infernal Affairs 2 is an unforgettable film, gorgeously shot by Lau (who cut his teeth as cinematographer on such films as Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express and Ringo Lam’s City on Fire) and Ng Man Ching (Once Upon a Time in China). Much like the second Godfather film, even though you know what becomes of many of these characters, finding out about what got them there is absolutely thrilling. We love every glorious second of this movie. Don’t miss it.

CBGB FESTIVAL: EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP

Banksy reveals only so much of himself in new documentary

Banksy reveals only so much of himself in controversial documentary

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (Banksy, 2010)
Magno Screening Room
729 Seventh Ave.
Friday, July 6, $10, 7:30
www.cbgb.com
www.banksyfilm.com

In 1999, L.A.-based French shopkeeper and amateur videographer Thierry Guetta discovered that he was related to street artist Invader and began filming his cousin putting up his tile works. Guetta, who did not know much about art, soon found himself immersed in the underground graffiti scene. On adventures with such famed street artists as Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Ron English, and Borf, Guetta took thousands of hours of much-sought-after video. The amateur videographer was determined to meet Banksy, the anarchic satirist who has been confounding authorities around the world with his striking, politically sensitive works perpetrated right under their noses, from England to New Orleans to the West Bank. Guetta finally gets his wish and begins filming the seemingly unfilmable as Banksy, whose identity has been a source of controversy for more than a decade, allows Guetta to follow him on the streets and invites him into his studio. But as he states at the beginning of his brilliant documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Banksy—who hides his face from the camera in new interviews and blurs it in older footage—turns the tables on Guetta, making him the subject of this wildly entertaining film.

Guetta is a hysterical character, a hairy man with a thick accent who plays the jester in Banksy’s insightful comedy of errors. Billed as “the world’s first Street Art disaster movie,” Exit, which is narrated by Welsh actor Rhys Ifans (Danny Deckchair) and features a soundtrack by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow sandwiched in between Richard Hawley’s declaratory “Tonight the Streets Are Ours,” is all the more exciting and intriguing because the audience doesn’t know what is actually true and what might be staged; although the film could be one hundred percent real and utterly authentic, significant parts of it could also be completely made up. Who’s to say that’s even Banksy underneath the black hood, talking about Guetta, who absurdly rechristens himself Mr. Brainwash? It could very well be Banksy’s F for Fake from start to finish. No matter. Exit Through the Gift Shop is riotously funny, regardless of how you feel about street art, Banksy, and especially the art market itself (as the title so wryly implies). Exit Through the Gift Shop is screening July 6 at 7:30 at Magno Screening Room as part of the inaugural CBGB Festival, which runs July 5-8 at venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn and includes a bevy of concerts, film screenings, panel discussions, and other special events being held in honor of the classic Bowery club that hosted cutting-edge, alternative, punk, and indie bands from 1973 to 2006. Among the other films being shown are Lev Anderson & Chris Metzler’s Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone, Keirda Bahruth’s Bob and the Monster, Sara Sugarman’s Vinyl, and Gorman Bechard’s Color Me Obsessed.

MoMA NIGHTS

Ulrich Ziegler will make their live debut at MoMA on August 16

Museum of Modern Art
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Thursday nights, July 5 – August 30, free with museum admission, 5:30 – 8:00
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

Every summer, the Museum of Modern Art’s lovely Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden becomes one of the city’s most beautiful spots to enjoy outdoor music, as various genres from around the world are featured prominently among works by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Aristide Maillol, and other great artists. Free with regular admission, MoMA Nights, curated with Olivier Conan of Barbès, begins on July 5 at 6:30 (doors open at 5:30, with limited seating) with a performance by the Brooklyn-based ten-piece fusion band People’s Champs. The series continues July 12 with Rio de Janeiro singer-songwriter Mauricio Pessoa, held in conjunction with MoMA’s Premiere Brazil! film program. On July 19, Diblo Dibala and the Soukous Show from the Republic of Congo takes center stage, followed July 26 by Brazilian multi-instrumentalist and internet phenom Mallu Magalhães. In August, the eight-piece Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto will bring their percussion-based Colombian sound to the garden on August 2, with Chicago-based Third Coast Percussion presenting Revolution: The Cage Century on August 9. On August 16, Ulrich Ziegler, the new collaboration between downtowners Stephen Ulrich and Itamar Ziegler, will make its live debut, while Shara Worden will lead My Brightest Diamond on August 23. The eclectic summer festival concludes August 30 with a performance by Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang, joining the Sierra Leone vocalist with the Brooklyn-based band.

FRANK CAPRA FOURTH: MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON

Jimmy Stewart takes filibustering to a whole new level in MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON

MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (Frank Capra, 1939)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Tuesday, July 3, 6:50 & 9:30
212-415-5500
www.bam.org

We love Jimmy Stewart; we really do. Who doesn’t? But last week we had the audacity to claim that Jim Parsons’s performance as Elwood P. Dowd in the current Broadway revival of Harvey outshined that of Stewart in the treacly 1950 film, and now we’re here to tell you that another of his iconic films is nowhere near as great as you might remember. Nominated for eleven Academy Awards, Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington caused quite a scandal in America’s capital when it was released in 1939, depicting a corrupt democracy that just might be saved by a filibustering junior senator from a small state whose most relevant experience is being head of the Boy Rangers. (The Boy Scouts would not allow their name to be used in the film.) Stewart plays the aptly named Jefferson Smith, a dreamer who believes in truth, justice, and the American way. “I wouldn’t give you two cents for all your fancy rules,” Smith says of the Senate, “if, behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella, too.” He’s shocked — shocked! — to discover that his mentor, the immensely respected Sen. Joseph Harrison Paine (played by Claude Rains, who was similarly shocked that there was gambling at Rick’s in Casablanca), is not nearly as squeaky clean as he thought, involved in high-level corruption, manipulation, and pay-offs that nearly drains Smith of his dreams. As it nears its seventy-fifth anniversary, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is still, unfortunately, rather relevant, as things haven’t changed all that much, but Capra’s dependence on over-the-top melodrama has worn thin. It’s still a good film, but it’s not a great one. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is screening July 3 at 6:50 and 9:30 as part of BAMcinématek’s “Frank Capra Fourth,” which continues on July 4 with four showings of Capra’s 1938 Oscar-winning You Can’t Take It with You, starring Stewart, Jean Arthur, and Lionel Barrymore in an engaging adaptation of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

British actor Andrew Garfield spins a mixed web in new Spider-Man movie

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Marc Webb, 2012)
Opens Tuesday, July 3
www.theamazingspiderman.com

Originally announced to be the fourth Spider-Man movie in the franchise restarted in 2002 by Sam Raimi that featured Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker and Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson, The Amazing Spider-Man instead goes back to the beginning, telling a different origin story that mixes elements of various issues of the immensely popular comic book hero. The first third of the new film works extremely well, as Peter (Tony-nominated British actor Andrew Garfield) falls for beautiful blonde Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), is bitten by a radioactive spider developed by the one-armed Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), and learns how to use his new strength to battle high school bully Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka) while having difficulty explaining himself to Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field), who raised him after his parents’ disappearance. It’s even directed by a man named Webb, as if it was all meant to be. But soon Marc Webb, a longtime video director whose breakthrough was 2009’s (500) Days of Summer, lets things get way out of hand as the film devolves faster than you can say “With great power comes great responsibility” (which nobody actually says in this film), with gaping plot holes so big you can drive a New York City crane through them — and when the cranes do in fact show up, they elicit well-deserved groans from the audience. The Amazing Spider-Man works best when Garfield and Stone are on-screen together, their blossoming romance building slowly but elegantly, perhaps representative of real life, as they became one of Hollywood’s hottest couples while making the film. But as Connors transforms into the Lizard, The Amazing Spider-Man loses its focus, turning into yet another CGI-crazed monster movie with silly plot twists, annoying red herrings, and ridiculous segments. (Just what’s up with that antidote, and why do villains always build self-destruct machines that have to count down really loudly?) Even the 3D that worked so well in the beginning seems to have been forgotten in the second half. This reboot deserves a swift boot in the you-know-what, especially given the promise of its opening scenes.