Brooklyn foursome Black Taxi has followed up its January sophomore full-length, We Don’t Know Any Better, with the four-track Live in Portland, which includes “Shoeshine,” “Vultures,” “Friend,” and “Hand,” revealing their sonic diversity. (You can stream the album here.) The socially conscious band, which consists of lead singer, keyboardist, and trumpeter Ezra Huleatt, guitarist Bill Mayo, bassist Krisana Soponpong, and drummer Jason Holmes, is celebrating the release of the EP at the CMJ Music Marathon, playing the MezzoForte showcase on October 20 at Mercury Lounge on a bill with Sphynx, the Frontier Brothers, Quiet Company, Deadbeat Darling, the Modern Electric, Wild Adriatic, and Black Wing Halo.
twi-ny recommended events
CMJ MUSIC MARATHON 2012: DAY FIVE
ENTOURAGE star Adrian Grenier and the Honey Brothers will be at Fontana’s for a CMJ showcase gig on October 20
Multiple venues
October 16-20
www.cmj.com/marathon
The CMJ Music Marathon comes to a close on Saturday with another slew of shows, featuring some old CMJ favorites as well as plenty of newbies along with a star actor. The 2012 edition might not be going out with a bang, but it’s not a whimper either.
Saturday, October 20
Delicate Steve, Cake Shop, 12 noon
Tijuana Gift Shop showcase: At Sea (1:00), the Oats (1:50), Old Time Machine (2:40), Bend Sinister (3:30), Slam Dunk (4:20), Tomorrow Tomorrow (5:10), the Blakes (6:00), the Rock Shop
Country Mice, Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2, 7:00
The So So Glos, Knitting Factory, 8:00
Wild Nothing, Bowery Ballroom, 11:00
The Honey Brothers with Adrian Grenier, Fontana’s, 11:00
Hank & Cupcakes, Fontana’s, 11:45
HAPPINESS IS . . . 8½
Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) is in a bit of a personal and professional crisis in Fellini masterpiece “8½”
CABARET CINEMA: 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, October 19, free with $7 bar minimum, 9:30
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org
“Your eminence, I am not happy,” Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) tells the cardinal (Tito Masini) halfway through Federico Fellini’s self-reflexive masterpiece 8½. “Why should you be happy?” the cardinal responds. “That is not your task in life. Who said we were put on this earth to be happy?” Well, film makes people happy, and it’s because of works such as 8½, which will be screening October 19 as part of the Rubin Museum Cabaret Cinema series “Happiness is . . .” and will be introduced by Mexican-born, New York-based cartoonist Felipe Galindo. Fellini’s Oscar-winning eighth-and-a-half movie is a sensational self-examination of film and fame, a hysterically funny, surreal story of a famous Italian auteur who finds his life and career in need of a major overhaul. Mastroianni is magnificent as Guido Anselmi, a man in a personal and professional crisis who has gone to a healing spa for some much-needed relaxation, but he doesn’t get any as he is continually harassed by producers, screenwriters, would-be actresses, and various other oddball hangers-on. He also has to deal both with his mistress, Carla (Sandra Milo), who is quite a handful, as well as his wife, Luisa (Anouk Aimée), who is losing patience with his lies. Trapped in a strange world of his own creation, Guido has dreams where he flies over claustrophobic traffic and makes out with his dead mother, and his next film involves a spaceship; it doesn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out the many inner demons that are haunting him. Marvelously shot by Gianni Di Venanzo in black-and-white, scored with a vast sense of humor by Nino Rota, and featuring some of the most amazing hats ever seen on film — costume designer Piero Gherardi won an Oscar for all the great dresses and chapeaux — 8½ is an endlessly fascinating and wildly entertaining exploration of the creative process and the bizarre world of filmmaking itself. And after seeing 8½, you’ll appreciate Woody Allen’s 1980 homage, Stardust Memories, a whole lot more. “Happiness is . . .” continues through December 28 with such other Allen favorites as Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers, Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, and George Cukor’s Camille, held in conjunction with the larger Rubin Museum program “Happy Talk.”
CMJ VIDEO OF THE DAY: LILY AND THE PARLOUR TRICKS
At last year’s CMJ Music Marathon, Lily and the Parlour Tricks were touring behind their just-released, self-titled debut EP, a splendid collection of a half dozen enticing songs that harken back to the past while also being placed firmly in the present. On such tracks as “Poison Song,” “Little Angel,” and “Murder Song,” lead singer Lily Claire, drummer Terry Moore, bassist Brian Kesley, guitarist Angelo Spagnolo, and background vocalists Morgane Moulherat and Darah Golub take listeners on a harmonic musical journey filled with delights that only get better when the songs are performed live. Lily and the Parlour Tricks will be doing CMJ double duty on October 19, playing the Big Picture Media showcase at Sullivan Hall at 10:00 and the Press House / Imagem Music showcase at Rockwood Music Hall at 12:30 am. If you miss them this week, you can catch them October 25 at the Knitting Factory with Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles and He’s My Brother, She’s My Sister.
THE FLAT
Director Arnon Goldfinger discovers a lot more than he bargained for in intensely personal documentary THE FLAT
THE FLAT (HA-DIRA) (Arnon Goldfinger, 2011)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, October 19
212-924-7771
www.sundanceselects.com
www.ifccenter.com
After his grandmother’s death at the age of ninety-eight, filmmaker Arnon Goldfinger (The Komediant) brought a camera to her Tel Aviv apartment to document going through the things she left behind and delve into Gerda Tuchler’s long life, which included growing up in Germany prior to WWII and escaping to Palestine in the 1930s. While opening drawers and closets, Goldfinger discovers a stack of Nazi propaganda magazines, soon learning a secret about Gerda and her parents that shocks him and his family. And in investigating further, he finds out yet more about this fascinating yet troubling relationship that has direct links to the highest levels of the S.S., coming upon intriguing details that he must decide whether to reveal or keep buried, well aware how they could affect other people’s lives and memories. The Flat is a compelling research procedural that Goldfinger spent five years putting together, with no intention of stopping, despite the potential hurt it could bring to his friends and family, particularly his mother. But it is not cruelty or revenge so much as a thirst for knowledge and the truth that drives him, no matter the cost, as he explores his Jewish grandparents’ questionable ties to their German roots. Goldfinger was named Best Director of a Documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival for The Flat, with the jury noting, “This is a beautifully composed film about uncomfortable truths and the challenge of confronting them. Mr. Goldfinger undertakes expert research and leads us through his findings in a way that is not only gentle and sensitive, but also compelling and creative.” The Flat, which was shown at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival and opens theatrically on October 19, is indeed all of those things and more. Goldfinger will be at the IFC Center to discuss the film at the 7:30 and 9:45 screenings on Friday and Saturday night.
CMJ MUSIC MARATHON 2012: DAY FOUR
Brian Suarez, better known as Allies for Everyone, will be at Ella Lounge on Friday night for a CMJ showcase gig
Multiple venues
October 16-20
www.cmj.com/marathon
Friday is by far the biggest day of this year’s CMJ Music Marathon, with a host of great shows starting in the afternoon and continuing well past midnight. We’ve been limiting our highlights to five bands a day, but we couldn’t stop for Friday, listing eleven must-see groups and one showcase, featuring a bunch of bands that have been featured in twi-ny over the last few years. So we’ll be running all around the Lower East Side and Brooklyn to catch as many of these as we can, and so should you.
Friday, October 19
The Press House and Imagem Music Showcase: Gareth Dunlop (11:30 am), Anna Krantz (12 noon), Shel (1:00), Jilette Johnson (2:00), Zulu Pearls (3:00), Wakey! Wakey! (4:00), French Horn Rebellion (5:00), Rockwood Music Hall
Eternal Summers, Cameo Gallery, 3:30
Turbo Fruits, Piano’s, 4:00
Allies for Everyone, Ella Lounge, 7:00
The Front Bottoms, Santos Party House Basement, 8:00
Anni Rossi, Fontana’s, 8:15
JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound, Marlin Room at Webster Hall, 9:00
Free Energy, Brooklyn Bowl, 10:00
Takka Takka, Grand Victory, 10:00
Turbo Fruits, Public Assembly, 11:10
Zerobridge, Trash, 12 midnight
The Death Set, the Paper Box, 1:00
SUNSHINE AT MIDNIGHT: THE SHINING
All work and no play makes Jack Nicholson far from a dull boy in THE SHINING
THE SHINING (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves.
Friday, October 19, and Saturday, October 20, 12 midnight
212-330-8182
www.landmarktheatres.com
All work and no play makes Jack a not-so-quite dull boy in Stanley Kubrick’s classic horror story, based on the Stephen King novel. One of the all-time-great frightfests, The Shining is a truly scary movie about a writer named Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson at his overacting best) who has agreed to become the caretaker of the old Overlook Hotel in Colorado during the snowy winter when the enormous mountain resort closes down for the season. He is joined by his perpetually nervous wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their young son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), who seems to have brought along his invisible friend, Tony, who speaks through Danny’s finger. Between taking care of the Overlook and working on his novel, Jack finds a whole bunch of other folks to hang out with, people who have populated the place during the ritzy establishment’s golden age, including a strange woman in room 237. Kubrick plays with horror conventions as he seeks to scare the crap out of the audience, something he accomplishes time and time again as Jack grows more disturbed, Wendy’s shrieks become more and more ear piercing and annoying, and Danny’s visions get more and more bloody. No matter how many times you’ve seen it, it still gets you, even when you know exactly what’s lurking around that corner. Only those who went to the film during its opening weekend, as we did, got to see the two-minute finale that Kubrick cut out immediately thereafter, which involved the iconoclastic director riding his bicycle to various theaters, armed with a pair of scissors. The Shining is screening on Friday and Saturday at midnight as part of Landmark Sunshine Cinema’s Sunshine at Midnight series, which continues October 26-27 with Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn and November 2-3 with the underground cult classic The Miami Connection.