twi-ny recommended events

GRAND CENTRAL HOLIDAY TRAIN SHOW AND HOLIDAY FAIR

Grand Central Holiday Train Show has some new tricks up its sleeve this year (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

GRAND CENTRAL HOLIDAY TRAIN SHOW
New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex
Shuttle Passage next to the Station Masters’ Office
Open daily through February 10, free, 8:00/10:00 am – 6:00/7:00/8:00 pm
www.mta.info
holiday train show slideshow
GRAND CENTRAL HOLIDAY FAIR
Vanderbilt Hall
Open daily through December 24, free
718-694-1600
www.grandcentralterminal.com

Grand Central Terminal has begun its upcoming centennial celebration early with its eleventh annual Holiday Train Show, cruising around the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex through February 10. A collaboration between Lionel and TW Design, the layout has changed this year, combining old favorites with some new touches. As you walk inside the gallery, you are met by a model of Grand Central itself, in front of the MetLife building. You’ll also find such city monuments as the Empire State Building (complete with King Kong) and Philip Johnson’s AT&T/Sony building, along with such smaller stops as a sporting goods store, a pho restaurant, a barber shop, Irene’s diner, a toy store, an old Esso station, a pharmacy, and Willard’s Hobbies, which features its own mini-train set. There are also old New York Central Railroad posters and several vintage model trains from that line, including the 20th Century Limited, the Commodore Vanderbilt, the Mercury, and the Empire State Express.

Grand Central Terminal Holiday Fair will be selling unique items through Christmas Eve (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Holiday Fair is back as well, in Vanderbilt Hall, where you’ll find all kinds of gift ideas from seventy-six vendors, focusing on handmade items from local sellers. This year’s fair features jewelry, ornaments, clothing, art and photography, leather goods, hats, scarves, gloves, bath and body, home décor, presents for pets, and more. Among the vendors are Intaglio Antique Prints & Maps, Soap & Paper, Paradis Found, Umsteigen, Dream Pillows, Zen Garage, Campo Marzio, Song of Silk, Bijoutique, Fine Arf, Margo Pettiti, Glass Haus, and many others.

VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE

Three siblings (Kristine Nielsen, David Hyde Pierce, and Sigourney Weaver) examine their lives and don’t necessarily like what they see in Christopher Durang’s delightful Chekhovian satire (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through January 13, $85
212-362-7600
www.lct.org

When he was at Yale in the 1970s, Christopher Durang teamed with Albert Innaurato and Jack Feldman on The Idiots Karamazov, a musical about a Russian translator that begins with a song titled “O, We Gotta Get to Moscow,” as she confuses Dostoevsky with Chekhov and other writers. That line shows up again in Durang’s delightful new satire, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, running through January 13 at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse theater. Durang sets his latest play in a Bucks County farmhouse by a lake where a blue heron stops by daily, based on the Bucks County farmhouse by a lake with a blue heron where Durang and his partner reside. Living in the fictional house are Vanya (David Hyde Pierce) and Sonia (Kristine Nielsen), a pair of fiftysomething step-siblings who have essentially sacrificed what lives they might have had by taking care of their ill, elderly parents while their sister, Masha (Sigourney Weaver), became a famous movie star gallivanting around the world with five husbands. Clearly, their parents had a thing for Chekhov; Masha is named after characters from The Seagull and Three Sisters, Vanya and the adopted Sonia from Uncle Vanya. Invited to a neighbor’s costume party, Masha arrives at the house in grand diva fashion, overemoting and unable to keep her hands off her hot new boy toy, Spike (Billy Magnussen), who enjoys taking off most of his clothes at a moment’s notice and striking muscular poses. Masha quickly grows jealous when Spike meets young, pretty ingénue Nina (Genevieve Angelson), a wannabe actress named after the young, innocent actress in The Seagull. Meanwhile, the cleaning lady, Cassandra (Shalita Grant), makes dire predictions that keep coming true, just like her namesake, the Greek mythological figure with second sight. As Vanya, Sonia, Masha, Spike, and Nina prepare for the party — Masha insists they all go as characters from Snow White, with Masha as the beautiful protagonist, slyly referencing Weaver’s portrayal of the evil stepmother in the 1997 television movie Snow White: A Tale of Terror — jealousy, fear, deception, childhood resentment, and more bubble to the surface and threaten to erupt, albeit in primarily wacky, hysterical ways, until Vanya lets loose in a tirade to end all tirades.

Spike (Billy Magnussen) and Masha (Sigourney Weaver) flaunt their sexual desire in thoroughly enjoyable Durang comedy (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

You don’t need to know anything about Chekhov and his searing dramas about seriously dysfunctional families to get a huge kick out of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which has a unique family feel itself — Weaver has been working with Durang since the Yale days, Hyde Pierce starred in the Broadway production of the playwright’s Beyond Therapy (as well as Peter Brook’s The Cherry Orchard), and Nielsen is Durang’s acknowledged muse, having appeared in many of his shows, in parts specifically written for her. Director Nicholas Martin, who previously helmed Durang’s Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them at the Public, keeps things relatively natural and grounded even with Weaver, Magnussen, and Grant playing things deliciously way over the top, as the story’s tender heart is wonderfully captured by Nielsen and Hyde Pierce, who agonize over their loneliness and advancing age, the importance of family, and, perhaps most Chekhovian, a world that seems to be passing them by. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a thoroughly enjoyable, if often goofy, mashup from one of America’s most engaging satirists at the top of his game. (On November 30 at 6:00, there will be a Platform Series talk between Durang and Martin in the lobby of the Vivian Beaumont Theater, free and open to the public. And be sure to pick up a copy of the fall 2012 Lincoln Center Review, which includes Durang’s “My Life with Chekhov,” an essay detailing seven encounters he had with the Russian playwright, dating back to when he was fourteen.) [ed note: As of March 1, the production can now be seen on Broadway at the Golden Theatre, where it is running through the end of June.]

WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) offers the experience of a lifetime to young Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) in classic family film

WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (Mel Stuart, 1971)
Nitehawk Cinema
144 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
November 24-25, 11:45 am
212-875-5601
www.nitehawkcinema.com

Based on a 1964 Roald Dahl novel, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a fanciful frolic through a children’s wonderland, filled with fear, trepidation, love, and lots of candy, both sweet and sour. Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum, in his only film appearance) lives with his dirt-poor family in a ramshackle room, where Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson) can’t even get out of bed. But when goodhearted Charlie finds one of the golden tickets that will allow him to join a once-in-a-lifetime tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, Grandpa Joe is suddenly up and about, singing and dancing, and so will you be. Among the other kids with the golden tickets are the spoiled Veruca Salt (Julie Dawn Cole), the selfish Violet Beauregarde (Denise Nickerson), the tube-loving Mike Teevee (Paris Themmen), and the rather sloppy Augustus Gloop (Michael Bollner). As they are led through this dreamland by the unpredictable Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder), they encounter chocolate rivers, bubble machines that make people float, and small Oompa Loompas who are quick to clean up any messes. The soundtrack of this thoroughly entertaining, charming family film includes “The Candy Man Can,” “(I’ve Got a) Golden Ticket,” “Pure Imagination,” and, of course, “Oompa Loompa, Doompa-Dee-Do.” Directed by Mel Stuart, who passed away in August after a career that also included Wattstax, Four Days in November, and If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, the film was remade by Tim Burton in 2005 starring Johnny Depp as Wonka with mixed results, but you can catch the original at the Nitehawk Cinema this weekend, with special family screenings at 11:45 am Saturday and Sunday.

THE CINEMA AND ITS DOUBLES: ALL ABOUT EVE

Margo Channing (Bette Davis) sees more than a little of herself in Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s ALL ABOUT EVE

ALL ABOUT EVE (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Friday, November 23, 7:00, and Sunday, November 25, 3:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

Nominated for fourteen Academy Awards and winner of six, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, All About Eve is one of Hollywood’s all-time greatest movies, a searing depiction of naked ambition set on the Great White Way. Based on Mary Orr’s 1946 short story “The Wisdom of Eve,” writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s flawless drama stars Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington, who is not exactly the mousey wallflower she at first appears to be. She quickly worms her way into an inner circle of Broadway vets populated by superstar Margo Channing (Bette Davis), her younger lover, Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill), playwright and director Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe), and Richards’s wife, Karen (Celeste Holm), who takes Eve under her wing. Joining in on all the fun is powerful theater critic Addison DeWitt (Oscar winner George Sanders), who marvels at all the manipulation and backstage drama, much of which he wickedly orchestrates himself. “There never was, and there never will be, another like you,” DeWitt tells Eve in one of the film’s most poignant moments. All About Eve is filled with classic quotes, including the iconic “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night,” boldly proclaimed by Davis. In a movie about acting and the theater, Mankiewicz never shows anyone onstage; instead, he focuses on the characters and the intrigue with a sly flair that is deliciously entertaining. All About Eve is screening November 23 & 25 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “The Cinema and Its Doubles,” consisting of films that involve physical, fantastical, or psychological doppelgängers; the festival continues through December 16 with such films as Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Robert Mulligan’s The Other, and David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers.

THE CONTENDERS 2012 — MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT

Performance artist Marina Abramović is present in more ways than one in intimate documentary

MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT (Matthew Akers, 2012)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, November 24, 7:30
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.org
www.marinafilm.com

For forty years, Belgrade-born performance artist Marina Abramović has been presenting cutting-edge, often controversial live works that redefine what art is. For her highly anticipated major career retrospective at MoMA in 2010, “Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present,” which was titled and curated by Klaus Biesenbach, the longtime New Yorker had something extraordinary planned: For the run of the show, from March 14 through May 31, she would spend the entire time the museum was open sitting across from strangers, gazing into each other’s eyes for as long as the visitor wanted. Documentary cinematographer Matthew Akers takes viewers behind the scenes of that remarkable show in his directorial feature debut, also called Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present. Given unlimited access to both Abramović and MoMA, Akers follows the sixty-three-year-old artist as she prepares for the exhibition; heads to a country retreat where she trains several dozen men and women who will “re-perform” some of her older works; and reconnects with former partner and lover Ulay, with whom she first performed many of the pieces in the show. Abramović is seen relaxing in a tub, chopping vegetables, and taking a rare turn behind the wheel of a car, performing relatively menial tasks compared to her art, in which she flagellates herself, carves a star into her stomach, runs into walls, gets slapped by and slaps Ulay, and allows visitors to do whatever they want to her using various objects. The film is at its best when Abramović and Ulay open up about their relationship, get emotional over seeing the old van they used to live in, and discuss their final performance, “The Great Wall Walk,” when they started at opposite ends of the Great Wall of China and walked toward each other over the course of three months, then broke up. While various art critics and curators, including Biesenbach and the Whitney’s Chrissie Iles, sing Abramović’s praises, the film never delves into the more serious meaning behind her art and avoids examining its controversial nature, save for one brief news report decrying its use of nudity. But the long scenes in which Abramović and visitors look into each other’s eyes are absolutely mesmerizing; the elegant Abramović is always steady and stalwart, her concentration intoxicating, inspiring, and more than a little frightening, the opening of her eyes a work of art in and of itself, while the person opposite her tears up, smiles, or pats their heart softly, thanking her for the intense, emotional connection occurring between them, which is essentially what all art is about. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present is screening November 24 back where it all took place as part of MoMA’s annual series “The Contenders,” consisting of exemplary films they believe will stand the test of time; upcoming entries include Amy Berg’s West of Memphis, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, David France’s How to Survive a Plague, and Behn Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS

Heathcliffe (Solomon Glave) and Cathy (Shannon Beer) explore forbidden love in new version of classic novel (photo by Agatha Nitecka)

WUTHERING HEIGHTS (Andrea Arnold, 2011)
IndieScreen
285 Kent Ave. at South Second St.
November 23-29
347-227-8030
www.indiescreen.us
www.oscilloscope.net

Digging deep into Emily Brontё’s classic — and only — novel, writer-director Andrea Arnold creates a radically different Wuthering Heights from such previous versions starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon (1939), Keith Michell and Claire Bloom (1962), and Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche (1992). Setting the bar high following her exceptional first two films, Red Road and Fish Tank, Arnold’s Wuthering Heights is told from the point of view of a black Heathcliffe, played as a teenager by Solomon Glave and an adult by James Howson, both of whom make their acting debut in the film. Although Cathy (newcomer Shannon Beer, then Kaya Scodelario) takes a nearly instant liking to the poor Heathcliffe, who has been brought in off the streets by her father, Earnshaw (Paul Hilton), her brother, Hindley (Lee Shaw), treats Heathcliffe like a slave, continually beating him and shouting racial epithets at him. Heathcliffe and Cathy try to take advantage of their every stolen moment together by wandering across the Yorkshire moors, but when he learns that she is considering marrying Edgar (Jonathan Powell, then James Northcote), Heathcliffe disappears, only to return later a changed man with a new mission.

Working with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Olivia Hetreed (Girl with a Pearl Earring), Arnold streamlines Wuthering Heights down to its bare emotions, eschewing an epic costume drama in favor of a more intimate story that is often more faithful to the book. Shot by Robbie Ryan, who won the Best Cinematography award at the 2011 Venice Film Festival, Wuthering Heights has a look that is dark and captivating, focusing more on character than period dress and sweeping locations. Unfortunately, however, Heathcliffe is significantly lacking in character; his younger self, in particular, broods about, rarely speaking, letting things happen to him and not fighting back. He might be in a precarious situation, but his continued silence grows tired fast, detracting from the overall impact of the film, a shortcoming that is nearly overridden by Beer’s more energetic and interesting Cathy. This might not be a Wuthering Heights for the ages, but it most certainly is a fascinating version of a familiar, sometimes misunderstood classic romantic drama. Following its theatrical release last month at Film Forum, Wuthering Heights is moving to Brooklyn for a week-long run at IndieScreen.

SPANISH CINEMA NOW: THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGOISIE

A group of restless bourgeoisie is in search of a dinner party in surreal Luis Buñuel classic

THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (Luis Buñuel, 1972)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center: Francesca Beale Theater, 144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
November 23-29, $13
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

Winner of the 1972 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is a sharp, cynical skewering of the European power structure, taking on the high-falutin’ hypocrisy of the government, the military, religion, and, primarily, the wealthy class in hysterical vignettes that center around a group of rich friends trying to sit down and enjoy a meal. But every time they get close, they are ultimately thwarted by miscommunication, a corpse, army maneuvers, terrorists, and, perhaps most bizarrely, fake stage chicken. Buñuel regular Fernando Rey is a hoot as Rafael Acosta, the cocaine-dealing ambassador of Miranda who doesn’t take insults well. Stéphane Audran and Jean-Pierre Cassel play the Sénéchals, a lustful couple desperate to finish a romantic rendezvous even as their guests wait, Julien Bertheau is the local bishop who moonlights as a gardener, Claude Piéplu is an erudite colonel not afraid to share his opinion at a haughty cocktail party, and Maria Gabriella Maione is a sexy stranger who might or might not be a revolutionary after Acosta. Meanwhile, Acosta doesn’t mind making a play for Simone Thévenot (Delphine Seyrig) right under her husband’s (Paul Frankeur) nose. And Ines (Milena Vukotic), one of the Sénéchals’ maids, watches it all with a wonderfully subtle disdain. As if the first half of the film were not surreal enough, the second half includes a series of riotous dream sequences involving ghostly apparitions and a bit of the old ultra-violence, either outwardly related by characters or as cinematic surprises dished out by the masterful Buñuel. None too discreet about its myriad charms, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is having a week-long fortieth-anniversary engagement at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in advance of the annual Spanish Cinema Now series, which runs December 7-16 and includes a special sidebar of Buñuel’s Land Without Bread, Tristana, and Viridiana; when you buy a ticket to Discreet Charm, you can get tickets for any Spanish Cinema Now screening for nine dollars by selecting the “Affiliate” option online or showing your ticket stub at the box office.