twi-ny recommended events

SEE IT IN 70MM! IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD

Comedic giants come together for quite a wild ride in Stanley Kramer’s IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (Stanley Kramer, 1963)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Saturday, December 22, 2:00, and Friday, December 28, 6:00
Series runs December 21 – January 1
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

They don’t come much crazier than the madcap 1963 comedy It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Producer-director Stanley Kramer takes a sharp turn with the wacky film, clearly needing a laugh following his rather serious string of issue pictures: The Defiant Ones, On the Beach, Inherit the Wind, and Judgment at Nuremberg. As he lays dying after a car crash, master thief Smiler Grogan (Jimmy Durante) tells a group of onlookers that there is $350,000 buried under a “big W” in Santa Rosita State Park. And off they go in search of the prize, willing to do just about anything and everything in order to get their greedy hands on the money. Hot on their trail is police captain T. G. Culpeper (Spencer Tracy), trying to solve one last case before he retires. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World lives up to its title, a mad, mad, mad, mad epic featuring the greatest all-star comedic cast ever assembled, including Sid Caesar, Edie Adams, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, an absolutely lunatic Jonathan Winters, Terry-Thomas, Phil Silvers, Dick Shawn, Peter Falk, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, and Ethel Merman in addition to cameos by Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny, Joe E. Brown, Howard Da Silva, Andy Devine, Norman Fell, Selma Diamond, Leo Gorcey, Jim Backus, Marvin Kaplan, Stan Freberg, Arnold Stang, Jesse White, Carl Reiner, Don Knotts, Buster Keaton, and the Three Stooges. Basically, you can’t blink during the film’s 161 minutes or you’ll miss someone or some incredibly silly slapstick moment. And the ending is a laugh riot — literally. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is screening December 22 and December 28 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “See It in 70MM!,” comprising fifteen films being shown in their original 70mm glory, beginning December 21 with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and continuing through January 1 with such other works as Ron Fricke’s Baraka, John Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn, Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, Basil Dearden’s Khartoum, Richard Brooks’s Lord Jim, and Jacques Tati’s Playtime.

BARBARA

Andre (Ronald Zehrfeld) and Barbara (Nina Hoss) try to retain their humanity under difficult conditions in 1980 East Germany

BARBARA (Christian Petzold, 2012)
Angelika Film Center, 18 West Houston St. at Mercer St., 212-995-2570
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway between 62nd & 63rd Sts., 212-757-2280
www.adoptfilms.net

Christian Petzold’s Barbara is a gripping, eerily slow-paced psychological thriller that explores fear, paranoia, and responsibility. Nina Hoss, in her fifth film with writer-director Petzold, gives a subtly powerful performance as Barbara Wolff, an East German doctor who has been shipped off by the government to a country hospital run by Andre (Ronald Zehrfeld). It is 1980, and Barbara has done something to get on the GDR watch list, causing her to be under near-constant surveillance. She carefully looks around everywhere she goes, wondering if the woman on the bus, the man out for a smoke, or the person on the pay phone is working for the Stasi. She is most suspicious of Andre as he attempts to get close to her, asking her personal questions and trying to spend more and more time with her. Meanwhile, Barbara has secret meetings with various people, including her West German lover, Jörg (Mark Waschke), who wants to get her out of the east. But as much as Barbara wants to live a free and open life, she is also a dedicated doctor who has become attached to two patients: Stella (Jasna Fritzi Bauer), a pregnant woman who does not want to be sent back to a labor camp, and Mario (Jannik Schümann), who has suffered a potentially fatal head injury following a suicide attempt. Petzold (Something to Remind Me, Wolfsburg, Yella), inspired by the likes of Claude Chabrol, To Have and Have Not, and The French Connection, drapes Barbara in a compulsive feeling of paranoia and dread, creating a blanketing atmosphere of mystery and imminent danger in which one wrong move can result in capture, imprisonment, or worse. Wrapped in a cloak of suspicion, Barbara evokes for the viewer what living in 1980 East Germany might have been like. The complex relationship between Barbara and Andre is handled with great skill by Petzold, balancing their individual needs with their responsibilities to their profession and the state. Germany’s official submission for the 2012 Best Foreign Language Film, Barbara is a tense tale that examines the cold war in unique and fascinating ways.

NOT FADE AWAY

The British Invasion changes the life of a suburban New Jersey high school kid in David Chase’s NOT FADE AWAY

NOT FADE AWAY (David Chase, 2012)
Opens Friday, December 21
www.notfadeawaymovie.com

Inspired by his brief stint as a suburban New Jersey garage-band drummer with rock-and-roll dreams, Sopranos creator David Chase makes his feature-film debt with the musical coming-of-age drama Not Fade Away. Written and directed by Chase, the film focuses on Douglas (John Magaro), a suburban New Jersey high school kid obsessed with music and The Twilight Zone. It’s the early 1960s, and Douglas soon becomes transformed when he first hears the Beatles and the Stones — while also noticing how girls go for musicians, particularly Grace (Bella Heathcote), whom he has an intense crush on but who only seems to date guys in bands. When his friends Eugene (Jack Huston) and Wells (Will Brill) ask him to join their group, Douglas jumps at the chance, but it’s not until he gets the opportunity to sing lead one night that he really begins to think that music — and Grace — could be his life. Not Fade Away has all the trappings of being just another clichéd sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll movie, but Chase and musical supervisor (and executive producer) Steven “Silvio” Van Zandt circumvent genre expectations and limitations by, first and foremost, nailing the music. Van Zandt spent three months teaching the main actors how to sing, play their instruments, and, essentially, be a band, making the film feel real as the unnamed group goes from British Invasion covers to writing their own song. Even Douglas’s fights with his conservative middle-class father (James Gandolfini) and his battle with Eugene over the direction of the band are handled with an intelligence and sensitivity not usually seen in these kinds of films. Not Fade Away does make a few wrong turns along the way, but it always gets right back on track, leading to an open-ended conclusion that celebrates the power, the glory, and, ultimately, the mystery of rock and roll.

CHRISTINA MAZZALUPO — PROGNOSIS: DOOM

Christina Mazzalupo plans for the end of the world in apocalyptic exhibit in Chelsea (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Mixed Greens
531 West 26th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through January 5, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-331-8888
www.mixedgreens.com
www.christinamazzalupo.com

If you’re reading this, then most likely the world did not come to an end on December 21, 2012, as supposedly predicted by the end of the ancient Mayan calendar. That would merely be the latest in what has been a long line of individuals and organizations wrongly proclaiming that the end is here. New York–based artist Christina Mazzalupo has compiled an extensive collection of these prophets of the apocalypse throughout history in her latest solo exhibition at Mixed Greens, “Prognosis: Doom.” The rather obsessive Mazzalupo has created wall boxes filled with toe tags detailing in tiny lettering and pictures such purveyors of doom as Cotton Mather, Helena Blavatsky, Edgar Cayce, the Amazing Criswell, Jim Jones, and John Wesley, along with such potential methods of destruction as asteroids, famine, plague, alien invasion, bioterrorism, and global warming. In one corner she has drawn the site-specific mural “And the Sea Was No More: Dependent and Independent Variables,” listing several things that might help one survive the apocalypse, from glowsticks, burn cream, and duct tape to fiskars, armor, and bio-transport modules. She also examines news reports that exaggerate and sensationalize events and includes a pair of videos, one in which she visits a Brooklyn mother who has turned her basement into an extremely well stocked fall-out shelter, while the other blasts a dizzying array of apocalyptic words at the viewer while Harry Partch’s “Delusion of the Fury” plays on the soundtrack. It’s all very funny as well as fascinating, although those with a deep-seated fear of death might not agree. “Presently, the belief that humanity itself is playing a role in its own demise is being taken more seriously,” Mazzalupo writes in an artist statement. “The question arises of whether this shift in mentality is in fact the ‘apocalypse’ we are presently facing. Can a greater awareness and awakening be in store?” Mazzalupo’s show is certain to entertain, educate, and, perhaps, make you go out and buy some supplies just in case one of these myriad predictions ends up having even the tiniest kernel of truth in it.

HAPPINESS IS . . . AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

Lise (Leslie Caron) and Jerry (Gene Kelly) fall in love in the City of Lights in Vincente Minnelli’s AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

CABARET CINEMA: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (Vincente Minnelli, 1954)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, December 21, free with $7 bar minimum, 9:30
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org

To borrow a phrase from the Gershwins, Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris “’s wonderful, ’s marvelous.” In the 1951 MGM musical, which won six Academy Awards — including Best Picture, Best Color Cinematography, and Best Musical Score — it’s love at first sight for ex-pat artist Jerry Mulligan (a delightful Gene Kelly) upon seeing squirrely parfumerie girl Lise Bouvier (ballerina Leslie Caron, making her film debut after having been discovered by Kelly dancing with Les Ballets de Paris de Roland Petit). While Mulligan pursues Lise, he is pursued by wealthy socialite Milo Roberts (Nina Foch), who lures him in by buying one of his paintings and promising him a show. Complicating matters is French singer Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary), who has taken Lise under his wing. An American in Paris is a charmer from start to finish, with Kelly leading the way singing in the streets, tapping atop a piano, and romancing Caron on cheesy Hollywood sets doubling for the City of Lights.

The fanciful film features a classic collection of songs by George and Ira Gershwin, including “Embraceable You,” “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” “I Got Rhythm,” “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” and “’S Wonderful,” all choreographed by Kelly, who won an honorary Oscar in 1952 for “his versatility as an actor, singer, director, and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.” Adding to the fun is Oscar Levant as Jerry’s irritable neighbor Adam Cook, a cynical concert pianist who gets a terrific dream sequence in which he plays an entire orchestra by himself. The film culminates in the dazzling sixteen-minute “An American in Paris Ballet,” a glorious Technicolor production number shot by cinematographer John Alton. An American in Paris is screening December 21 as part of the Rubin Museum Cabaret Cinema series “Happiness is . . .,” held in conjunction with the larger Rubin Museum program “Happy Talk.” “I’m glad somebody around here’s happy,” Jerry says to Henri at one point. There should be some very happy people indeed at the Rubin on December 21.

LAST CHANCE: GUNTHER UECKER

Günther Uecker explores the state of the world in black-and-white at Haunch of Venison (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Haunch of Venison
550 West 21st St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Extended through January 12, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
646-715-4593
www.haunchofvenison.com

For more than fifty years — before, during, and after his time with the Zero group, which sought to reset German art for the post-WWII generation — Günther Uecker has been creating multidisciplinary works that explore religion, politics, the military, violence, and human nature by, among other things, hammering nails into canvases. “Art cannot salvage humanity, but with the means of art a dialogue can be enabled, calling out for the preservation of humanity,” he explains in the press release for his first New York City solo exhibition of new work since 1966. The Düsseldorf-based artist and teacher has filled Chelsea’s Haunch of Venison with primarily black-and-white pieces that are hung on the walls and drop from the ceiling. Many feature nails hammered into them, creating shadows that appear to make them move with the light as visitors walk past. Several of the canvases also contain quotations from the Old Testament, while a corner mural includes the same words translated into Farsi. Though produced with violent actions, there is a peaceful quality to the works, as if Uecker, whose 1965 kinetic sculpture “New York Dancer IV” was a highlight of the recent “Ghosts in the Machine” exhibition at the New Museum, is hopeful that the world, especially the Middle East, will come to its senses and find common ground. Yet the eighty-two-year-old artist furthers his abstract examination of various dichotomies by employing such titles as “Scream,” “Injuries Connections,” “Black Rain,” and “White Phantom.” The show, which continues through December 21, offers a fascinating look into the mind of an artist who still takes great pleasure in challenging both the viewer and himself in a world rife with bitter conflict.

THE CONTENDERS 2012: MOONRISE KINGDOM

Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) and Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) are on the run in Wes Anderson’s delightful MOONRISE KINGDOM

MOONRISE KINGDOM (Wes Anderson, 2012)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, December 22, 8:00
Series continues through January 12
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.orgwww.moonrisekingdom.com

In such unique films as Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Darjeeling Limited, black-comedy master Wes Anderson has created a bizarre collection of characters who seem to live in their own alternate realities. In his latest, Moonrise Kingdom, Anderson has once again assembled an oddball assortment of men, women, and children in a terrifically clever and entertaining fairy tale all its own. Tired of being abused by his fellow Khaki Scouts and dismissed by his foster parents, twelve-year-old orphan Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) runs away from Camp Ivanhoe on the island of New Penzance, much to the chagrin of dedicated scout master Randy Ward (Edward Norton). Meanwhile, twelve-year-old loner Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) is fed up with her life as well, which she mostly spends listening to Benjamin Britten, reading fairy tales (fictitious stories made up by Anderson), watching the world through a pair of ever-present binoculars, and despising her parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand). Afraid of what might have happened to the children, the local police officer, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), gets involved, as does a stern woman from social services (Tilda Swinton) and, eventually, a very different kind of scout, Cousin Ben (Jason Schwartzman). The proceedings are overseen by a narrator (Bob Balaban) who ends up being more than just an omniscient presence. Moonrise Kingdom is an absolute gem of a film, an exciting, original tale about growing up told in a fabulously funny deadpan manner that combines slapstick humor with wildly ironic elements, filled with the endless wonders of childhood, although it is most definitely not for children. Newcomers Gilman and Hayward appear wise beyond their years in the lead roles, with outstanding support from an all-star cast, most prominently Norton as the by-the-book scout master on a mission. Written by Anderson with Roman Coppola and featuring a lovely score by Alexandre Desplat, Moonrise Kingdom is one of the best films of the year, by a director whose imagination never ceases to amaze. Moonrise Kingdom is screening December 22 at 8:00 as part of MoMA’s annual series “The Contenders,” consisting of exemplary films they believe will stand the test of time; upcoming entries include Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables, Sally Potter’s Ginger and Rosa, and Raoul Ruiz’s Night Across the Street.