Yearly Archives: 2012

PARAMOUNT IN THE 1970s: THE CONVERSATION

Gene Hackman traps himself in a corner in THE CONVERSATION

THE CONVERSATION (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, June 23, 7:00, and Sunday, June 24, 4:00
Free with museum admission
Series runs through July 1
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

While changing the face of Hollywood cinema with The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, American auteur Francis Ford Coppola snuck in yet another 1970s masterpiece, the dark psychological thriller The Conversation. Gene Hackman gives a riveting performance as Harry Caul, an audio surveillance expert who has been hired to record a meeting between two people (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest) in Union Square in San Francisco. Thinking that he might have stumbled onto a murder plot, Caul soon finds himself in the middle of a dangerous conspiracy that threatens the lives of all those involved. The Conversation is a gripping, taut examination of obsession, paranoia, and loneliness as well as an exploration of language and communication. Caul might spend most of his time listening in on the intimate conversations of others, but he is an intensely private individual who is extremely uncomfortable in his own skin. A deeply religious man who also plays the saxophone, Caul has trouble relating to other people; Hackman is particularly outstanding in a party scene where Caul is forced to talk shop with fellow surveillance expert Bernie Moran (Allen Garfield), who wants to know Caul’s secrets, but the always nervous Caul isn’t about to share everything. The supporting cast, which also features Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, Teri Garr, and John Cazale, is exceptional, but this is Hackman’s show all the way, leading to one of the great endings in the history of cinema. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, The Conversation is screening June 23 & 24 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “Paramount in the 1970s,” a month of films from the studio that changed the shape of American popular cinema during the decade that began with the Vietnam War and ended with the Reagan revolution. The series, which celebrates Paramount’s centennial, also includes such films as Peter Yates’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle, John Badham’s Saturday Night Fever, Robert Altman’s Nashville, and Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven.

THE INVISIBLE WAR

Kori Cioca shares her shocking story in THE INVISIBLE WAR

THE INVISIBLE WAR (Kirby Dick, 2011)
AMC Loews Village 7
66 Third Ave. at 11th St.
Opens Friday, June 22
212-982-2116
www.amctheatres.com
invisiblewarmovie.com

Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War is one of the bravest, most explosive investigative documentaries you’re ever likely to see. Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated) busts open the military’s dirty little secret, revealing that episodes of horrific sexual abuse such as the Tailhook scandal are not an aberration but a prime example of a rape epidemic that seems to an accepted part of military culture. Dick speaks with many women and one man who share their incredible stories, describing in often graphic detail the sexual abuse they suffered, then faced further abuse when they reported what had happened. Their superiors, some of whom were the rapists themselves, either looked the other way, laughed off their allegations as no big deal, or threatened the victims’ careers. Dick includes remarkable Defense Department statistics — the government admits that approximately one out of every five female soldiers suffers sexual abuse and that there were nineteen thousand violent sex crimes in 2010 alone — even as such military officials as Dr. Kaye Whitley, Rear Admiral Anthony Kurta, and Brigadier General Mary Kay Hertog make absurd claims that they are satisfied with the way they are handling the alarming trend. The central figure in the film is Kori Cioca, a former member of the Coast Guard whose face was broken when she was raped by a superior and now keeps getting denied necessary medical services from the VA. Such courageous women as USAF Airman 1st Class Jessica Hinves, former Marine Officer Ariana Klay, USN veteran Trina McDonald, USMC Lieutenant Elle Helmer, USN Lieutenant Paula Coughlin, and even Special Agent Myla Haider of the Army Criminal Investigation Command also open up about the physical and psychological damage the abuse has left on their lives and careers. Inspired by Helen Benedict’s 2007 Salon.com article “The Private War of Women Soldiers,” Dick and producer Amy Ziering (The Memory Thief) have presented a searing indictment of an endemic military culture that has to come to an end, and fast. The Invisible War, which earned Dick and Ziering this year’s Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival at Lincoln Center, opens June 22 at AMC Loews Village VII after

DUAL VIDEO OF THE DAY — FREEZEPOP: “DOPPELGANGER”

Doppelgängers tend to be ghostly doubles of living people, but in the case of electronica popsters Freezepop, it’s a case of audio duality as well. On their new EP, Doppelgänger (Archenemy, June 22), the Boston-based quartet has revisited one song from their 2011 album, Secret Companion, and three tracks from their 2010 release, Imaginary Friends, including four remixes of “Doppelgänger,” on which Liz Enthusiasm repeatedly points out, “She looks like me, she looks just like me / Why don’t you see it / She dances like me, dances just like me / Why don’t you see it.”

The band, which also features Sean Drinkwater on keyboards and guitar, Christmas Disco-Marie Sagan on keyboards, vocoder, and theremin, and Bananas Foster on keyboards and drums, even continues the doubling theme with two interchangeable videos for the endlessly bouncy “Doppelgänger,” which you can flip between here. Freezepop will be holding a synth-heavy EP release party June 22 at the Knitting Factory, on a bill with Lifestyle and Kitten Berry Crunch, followed by a gig at Water Street in Rochester on June 24 with Lifestyle and Silent Auction.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL: COLOR OF THE OCEAN

Zola (Hubert Koundé) fights for freedom for him and his son in COLOR OF THE OCEAN

COLOR OF THE OCEAN (DIE FARBE DES OZEANS) (Maggie Peren, 2011)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Saturday, June 23, 8:30, and Sunday, June 24, 4:00
Series runs through June 28
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
ff.hrw.org

Inspired by the real-life dilemma of Senegalese refugees illegally arriving on the shores of the Canary Islands seeking a new life, only to be put into internment camps and sent back — if they even survive the harrowing journey at all — Maggie Peren’s Color of the Ocean is a searing examination of poverty and the lengths people will go to achieve freedom. As a boat filled with more dead than living refugees pulls onto a beach, German tourist Nathalie (Sabine Timoteo) tries to help Zola (Hubert Koundé) and his son, Mamadou (Dami Adeeri), but is ordered to leave by cynical border policeman José (Alex González). The jaded José, who is facing his own personal problems involving his twin sister’s (Alba Alonso) drug addiction, is brutally straightforward about his lack of compassion for the Senegalese men, women, and children seeking asylum in Spain, much to the consternation of his more sympathetic partner, Carla (Nathalie Poza). After escaping from the camp, Zola and Mamadou turn to Nathalie for help, but her husband, Paul (Friedrich Mücke), insists she stay out of the potentially dangerous situation. The various stories soon come together in powerful ways as the characters reach deep inside themselves and discover that there are severe consequences to their actions — or inaction. Although it pulls at the heartstrings too much and too often takes the easy way out, Color of the Ocean is a compelling film that tells an important story that’s even more relevant given the current battle over immigration rights and deportation here in America. Writer-director Peren’s (Special Escort) focus on Nathalie lies at the heart of the film, with the character serving as a kind of representative for the audience, making viewers wonder what they would do if suddenly faced with similar life-altering — and life-threatening — decisions. Color of the Ocean is screening June 23 and 24 at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which runs through June 28 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, highlighting seventeen works divided into five categories: “Health, Development, and the Environment,” “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) and Migrants’ Rights,” “Personal Testimony and Witnessing,” “Reporting in Crises,” and “Women’s Rights,” with this year’s theme centering on how one individual or a small group of individuals can help make a difference.

MAKE MUSIC NEW YORK

Amateur and professional musicians will gather all over the city for annual Make Music New York festival (photo courtesy NYC Guitar School)

Every June 21, Make Music New York celebrates the longest day of the year with a full slate of free concerts in limitless genres throughout the five boroughs, in parks, libraries, restaurants, stores, plazas, and out on the street and aboard party buses. Not only can you check out some great shows but you can also participate; Mass Appeal once again features nearly two dozen performances in which everyone is invited to bring their own instrument and join in, with accordions in Sheridan Triangle, bagpipes in Herald Square, cellos in Flatiron Building Plaza, clarinets in Washington Square Park, double reeds in Bleecker Playground, flutes on Central Park’s Great Hill, guitars in Union Square and at the 92nd St. Y, harps in Urban Plaza, mandolins in Theodore Roosevelt Park, ouds in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, ukuleles in McCarren Park, and violins on Cornelia St., among other gatherings. And you don’t need an instrument at all to take part in humming in the DUMBO ConEd Farragut Substation and singing in Times Square. Some of the more unusual shows include Alvin Curran’s “Maritime Rites” played by eighty musicians on rowboats on the lake in Central Park at 5:00, a gospel parade with the Lafayette Inspirational Ensemble in Park Slope at 6:30, improvisational jazz on the High Line at 6:30, and Erik Satie’s eighteen-hour “Vexations” continuing through midnight on the corner of Broad & Wall Sts.

VIDEO OF THE DAY — THE VAN ALLEN BELT: “OUT TO LUNCH”

On albums such as 2007’s Meal Ticket to Purgatory and 2010’s Superpowerfragilis: Or How I Learned to Stop Caring and Love the Drug, Pittsburgh four-piece the Van Allen Belt has created engaging psychedelic pop rooted in 1960s melodies and harmonies, albeit with an edge reminiscent of the Fiery Furnaces. Led by singer Tamar Kamin’s dreamy vocals and multi-instrumentalist B. K. Ferris, the band continually offers up surprising diversions, throwing in a touch of Las Vegas lounge here, some progressive rock there, with even a little military march for good measure. The band has a very simple reason for being: “We stand for the advancement of human civilization. You can try to stop us, but you will fail.” The Van Allen Belt is coming to New York this summer for a series of shows beginning June 21 at Goodbye Blue Monday and June 22 at Lit Lounge, then will be back July 8 at Pianos and July 9 at Cameo Gallery. “I know it’s been a while / Since I showed my mug around these parts,” Kamin sings on “Lovely in Akron,” continuing, “I think I’m gonna smile / And that’s like a good start / So tragic is this city / But I wouldn’t know / When I’m in it with you.” You can be in it with them in this none-too-tragic city on a tour that should highlight songs from their upcoming album, Heaven on a Branch, along with original animations and paintings by Peter Luckner.

PARTY AT THE MOON TOWER: DAZED AND CONFUSED

You can party like it’s 1976 at DAZED AND CONFUSED celebration this weekend

BBQ Films
Windmill Studios NYC
287 Kent Ave.
June 22-23, $22 (includes film screening, one pint of Sixpoint craft ale, and munchies), 8:00
bbqfilms.com/events

“You guys know anything about a party?” It’s graduation time, and there’s only one place to be this weekend to celebrate. The calendar might say June 22-23, 2012, in New York City, but it’ll actually be May 28, 1976, in Austin for the Party at the Moon Tower. BBQ Films will be presenting Richard Linklater’s 1993 indie classic, Dazed and Confused, at Windmill Studios in Williamsburg, where you can mingle with people dressed as their favorite characters from the film while downing pints of Sixpoint craft ale served from the trunks of movie-inspired cars and filling that high with popcorn and other munchies. Like Cynthia (Marissa Ribisi) says, “If we are all gonna die anyway, shouldn’t we be enjoying ourselves now? You know, I’d like to quit thinking of the present, like, right now, as some minor insignificant preamble to something else.” Of course, Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London) intones, “All I’m saying is that if I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself.” There’ll be no need to do that as you watch Linklater’s splendid look at high school, which deals with hazing, burgeoning sexuality, sports, drug use, friendship, cliques, and a kick-ass party to end one chapter and begin another, for everyone except the older Wooderson (a career-making performance by Matthew McConaughey), who famously proclaims, “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” The cast also includes Adam Goldberg, Milla Jovovich, Cole Hauser, Joey Lauren Adams, Rory Cochrane, Parker Posey, Ben Affleck, and Austin native Wiley Wiggins as Mitch, with an epic soundtrack featuring all the right songs by Foghat, Alice Cooper, Nazareth, Rick Derringer, Sweet, War, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kiss, and Peter Frampton. So for a “good ol’ worthwhile visceral experience,” head on out to Williamsburg and relive all those glorious moments of your misspent youth.