Yearly Archives: 2012

CELEBRATE ISRAEL PARADE: ISRAEL BRANCHES OUT

Israel will celebrate its sixty-fourth birthday on Fifth Ave. on June 3 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

57th to 74th St. up Fifth Ave.
Sunday, June 3, free, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
www.salutetoisrael.com

Sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council, the annual Celebrate Israel Parade, previously known as the Salute to Israel Parade, takes place on Sunday, June 3, on Fifth Ave. from Fifty-seventh to Seventy-fourth Sts. This year’s theme is “Israel Branches Out,” focusing on the sixty-four-year-old Mideast country “being fruitful, growing flowers and other crops, and finding its roots, seeds, etc.” The parade, which features more than thirty thousand marchers and hundreds of thousands of viewers, will be led by Grand Marshal Harvey Kaylie, a CCNY graduate, philanthropist, and founder of the Brooklyn-based design, manufacture, and distribution company Mini-Circuits. The 2012 parade lineup includes the NYC Transit Pipes & Drums, the Shabazz High School Marching Band, the Amir and Ron Orchestra, the Brooklyn Jumbies, the Youth Arts Marching Cobras, the Israeli Dance Institute, Sisters in Motion, the Approaching Storm Marching Band, Areyvut Mitzvah Clowns, the DSNY Pipes and Drums of the Emerald Society, and the Frederick Douglass Academy Harlem Samba. Among the special guests are Dr. Ruth Westheimer, anchorman Harry Martin, reporter Robert Moses, sports commentator Becky Griffith, and such bands as SOULFARM, Blue Fringe, Musical Minds, J Viewz, the Moshe Hecht Band, and 613.

THE MANY FACES OF CHOI MIN-SHIK: CHIHWASEON

Choi Min-shik is exceptional as always in Im Kwon-taek’s historical drama CHIHWASEON

KOREAN CINEMA SHOWCASE: CHIHWASEON (PAINTED FIRE) (Im Kwon-taek, 2002)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, June 3, free with museum admission of $10, 3:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.kino.com/chihwaseon

Korean filmmaker Im Kwon-taek’s exploration of the life and work of nineteenth-century painter Jang seung-up (Choi Min-shik) is beautiful to look at but overly long and drawn out. We get it: The iconoclastic artist struggles with his identity, drinks too much, battles with his mentor (Ahn Sung-ki) over selling out, gets caught amid a political revolution, and has a complicated love life. However, it is always a thrill to watch Choi; Chihwaseon is screening on June 3 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “The Many Faces of Choi Min-shik,” which began May 20 with Song Hae-sung’s Failan and concludes July 1 with the Park Chan-wook classic Oldboy. This summer’s New York Asian Film Festival will also pay tribute to the great Korean actor in the sidebar “Choi Min-sik: Mr. Vengeance,” featuring Yun Jong-bin’s 2012 Nameless Gangster and Ryoo Seung-wan’s 2005 Crying Fist as well as Oldboy and Failan. (And yes, each series spells Choi’s name differently.)

BUSHWICK OPEN STUDIOS 2012

Bushwick Open Studios will include such interactive installations as Michelle Jaffe’s “Wappen Field”

Throughout Bushwick
June 2-3, free
artsinbushwick.org

The sixth annual Bushwick Open Studios is under way throughout the Brooklyn neighborhood, with hundreds of local artists opening their doors to visitors and participating in special projects all weekend. This year’s multimedia indoor/outdoor festival will include a Street Art Pop-Up Store hosted by Robin Grearson, record release parties, live art battles, concerts at Lone Wolf, XPO, and Pine Box Rock Shop, site-specific installation performances by jill sigman/thinkdance, Valentina Loseva, and Sophia Cleary, bike tours and safety programming, the “Spread Art Outdoors” Parade of Art, such group shows as “Surreal Estate,” “Figure Fragments,” “Usual Suspects,” “Conceptual Death,” and “True Nature,” panel discussions, interactive participatory exhibits by MG Stillwaggon, Running Rebel Studios, Bushwick Dimensions, Michelle Jaffe, Salon des Fous, Will Bates, the Desert Forest, Jack Aldrich, Roarke Menzies, and Pass Kontrol, and plenty of live music, dance, performance art, and general weirdness.

HOWL! FESTIVAL 2012

Street artists will surround Tompkins Square Park with colorful murals during the Howl! Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Tompkins Square Park
Ave. A to Ave. B between Seventh & Tenth Sts.
June 2-3, free
www.howlfestival.com

The Howl! Festival returned last night to Tompkins Square Park, where it continues this weekend with a flurry of music, poetry, dance, theater, art, and “madness.” Today, as 140 artists create murals on canvases that surround the park, such groups as the Disco Monkeys and the Bowery Tones will play on the south stag. On the north stage, Honeybee House, the TriBattery Pops, Tap City, and Lydon will perform for children. Also for little ones, the Great Howl! Out Loud Kids’ Carnival will feature carnival games, arts and crafts, storytelling, and other activities. At the basketball court area, Bandera Fever! celebrates Puerto Rican heritage with Dao Y El Grupo Cemi, BombaYo, Elani Rodriguez, John Acevedo AKA Chance, J. F. Seary, Dinamicas, Senior Bomba & Plena Dancers from Grand Street Settlement, and a domino tournament. Super DJ Johnny Dynell will lead the Hot Howl! Disco Tea Dance near the General Slocum Memorial from 2:00 to 5:00, the Vangeline Theatre will perform The Raft of the Medusa, and Derrick Pendavis Xtravaganza will lead the unpredictable “Men in Skirts” dance presentation at 5:30. On Sunday, Hip Hop Howl, the Deans of Discipline, the Sic Fucks, and Bear 54, will be on the main stage, Rosie’s Theater Kids, Danny Hartig, Honeybee House, and Jack Skuller will be on the kids’ north stage, Bandera Fever! will continue with a Cultural Rumba Jam, and the festival will conclude with “Low Life 6: East Village Others,” paying tribute to the Fugs song “Nova Slum Goddess (from the Lower East Side),” Jack Smith, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the Fillmore East, Allen Ginsberg, and other old standards from the East Village circa 1966-72.

SUNSHINE AT MIDNIGHT: LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT

Wes Craven horror flick is not quite the classic you’ve been led to believe

LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (Wes Craven, 1972)
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves.
Friday, June 1, and Saturday, June 2, 12 midnight
212-330-8182
www.landmarktheatres.com

Written and directed by Wes Craven, who went on to create the Nightmare on Elm Street films as well as The Hills Have Eyes and Swamp Thing, and produced by Sean S. Cunningham, who went on to create the Friday the 13th movie series, Last House on the Left is an insipid piece of vile trash, an embarrassingly exploitative hour and a half of sheer, repulsive filth. Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassel) and Phyllis Stone (Lucy Grantham) are on their way to see the band Bloodlust for Mari’s seventeenth birthday when they stop to pick up some pot, but they really picked the wrong place to do that. They are abducted by Krug Stillo (David Hess), Krug’s son, Junior (Marc Sheffler), Fred “Weasel” Podowski (Fred J. Lincoln), and (Jeramie Rain), who do horrible things to them while Mari’s parents (Richard Towers and Cynthia Carr) worry about their daughter, getting no help from the ridiculous local cops (Marshall Anker and Martin Kove) who are supposed to serve as comic relief. Dennis Iliadis’s 2009 remake, starring Monica Potter, Sara Paxton, Tony Goldwyn, and Garret Dillahunt, produced by Craven and Cunningham along with Marianne Maddalena, is actually much better.

BROOKLYN FILM FESTIVAL: DECOY

James Yaegashi’s LEFTY LOOSEY RIGHTY TIGHTY, which will be shown at the Brooklyn Film Festival, is set in Park Slope

indieScreen, 285 Kent Ave.
Brooklyn Heights Cinema, 70 Henry St.
June 1-10, individual tickets $12, 4-pack pass $30, full festival pass $150
www.brooklynfilmfestival.org

Despite its theme, “Decoy,” the 2012 Brooklyn Film Festival is the real thing, ten days of film screenings and special events taking place at the powerHouse Arena, IndieScreen, and the Brooklyn Heights Cinema. More than one hundred shorts, features, and documentaries from around the world will be shown, including Chel White’s Bucksville, about a young man who belongs to a secret militia group known as the Lodge; Lisa Duva’s Cat Scratch Fever, about two women who can look into a parallel universe; Pema Tseden’s Old Dog, in which a father tries to get back the family dog after his son sells it; Wojtek Smarzowski’s Rose, a Polish tale set just after the end of WWII; and Tolga Ornek’s Labyrinth, centered around a deadly terrorist attack in Istanbul. The opening-night party takes place June 1 at the powerHouse Arena, with a DJ set by SVN’s Nature; other special events include the KidsFilmFest on June 2, the BFF Exchange on June 9, and the awards ceremony on June 10. In addition, many of the filmmakers will be on hand to participate in Q&A sessions following screenings of their work.

PINK RIBBONS, INC.

Revealing documentary takes a hard, unflinching look at pink ribbon culture

PINK RIBBONS, INC. (Léa Pool, 2011)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
Opens Friday, June 1
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
firstrunfeatures.com/pinkribbonsinc

“What’s going on here? What is it with all these pink ribbons everywhere?” activist and writer Barbara Ehrenreich says at the beginning of Canadian director Léa Pool’s revelatory documentary, Pink Ribbons, Inc. “I think the effect of the whole pink ribbon culture was to drain and deflect the kind of militancy we had as women who were appalled to have a disease that is epidemic and yet that we don’t know the cause of.” Inspired by Samantha King’s 2006 book Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, Pool’s film explores the breast cancer culture that celebrates survivorship through feel-good cause-marketing events while tens of thousands of American women continue to die from the disease every year. Pool speaks with such experts as King, Judy Brady of Greenaction, Barbara A. Brenner of Breast Cancer Action, Dr. Marion Kavanaugh-Lynch of the California Breast Cancer Research Program, Dr. Susan Love of the National Breast Cancer Coalition and Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization, and Dr. Olufunmilayo L. Olopade of the University of Chicago Medical Center, who discuss how despite all the money raised by running, walking, jumping, and racing for the cure, breast cancer is still a deadly disease that should be taken a lot more seriously and dealt with more honestly. Pool also talks to Susan G. Komen for the Cure founder Nancy G. Brinker (who recently found herself immersed in a battle over Planned Parenthood funding), “the mother of cause marketing” Carol Cone of Edelman Purpose, Dr. Marc Hurlbert of the Avon Foundation for Women and the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, Breast Cancer Research Foundation founder Evelyn H. Lauder of the Estée Lauder Companies, Kim McInerney of Ford Motor Company, and others who sponsor products and events that raise money and awareness — even though some arguably participate in pink-washing, manufacturing and selling items that might be linked to causing cancer. Pool visits the Revlon Run/Walk for Women in New York, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Washington, DC, the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in San Francisco, and the Pharmaprix Weekend to End Women’s Cancers in Montreal, where pink-clad women (and men) are vibrant and happy, but it’s the IV League of Austin, a group of women with stage four metastatic breast cancer, that might provide the most truthful assessment of the disease, explaining that succumbing to breast cancer “is not a failure. You can die in a perfectly healed state.” Pink Ribbons, Inc. is not afraid to look at the pervading, popular breast cancer culture and tackle it head-on in ways that are illuminating, educational, and, surprisingly, life-affirming.