Nashville quartet Turbo Fruits will bust it out at Knitting Factory (photo by Bekah Cope)
The third day of the third annual Northside Festival boasts perhaps the widest range of acts of the fest, from such great duos as Dean & Britta, Exitmusic, and Asobi Seksu to such powerful female-led groups as WOJCIK, Danielia Cotton, and Lily and the Parlour Tricks. Dean & Britta, formerly of Luna, will be part of a free show in McCarren Park with Red Baraat, Mas Ysa, and Hume beginning at 3:15. But we’re most looking forward to the crazy Nashville quartet Turbo Fruits, who will be going wild just before midnight at the Knitting Factory. Below are our five hot picks for Saturday.
Red Baraat, Dean & Britta, Mas Ysa, Hume, McCarren Park, free, 3:15
Windish presents: Asobi Seksu, Exitmusic, Ape School, Field Mouse, Brooklyn Bowl, $10, 6:00
Lily and the Parlour Tricks, Sonnyboy, Danielia Cotton, the Sons of Brooklyn, Them Damn Ninjas, the Paper Box, 8:00
The Whatever Blog presents: Clouder, WOJCIK, Starlight Girls, Bootblacks, Freshkills, the Spare Room at the Gutter, $5, 8:30
Panache Booking presents: Grass Widow, Turbo Fruits, the Black Belles, Gary War, Gap Dream, Snack Machine, Knitting Factory, 8:45
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. 
A key film that helped lead 1960s cinema into the grittier 1970s, Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces is one of the most American of dramas, a tale of ennui and unrest among the rich and the poor, a road movie that travels from trailer parks to fashionable country estates. Caught in between is Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson), a former piano prodigy now working on an oil rig and living with a well-meaning but not very bright waitress, Rayette (Karen Black). When Bobby finds out that his father is ill, he reluctantly returns to the family home, the prodigal son who had left all that behind, escaping to a less-complicated though unsatisfying life putting his fingers in a bowling ball rather than tickling the keys of a grand piano. Back in his old house, he has to deal with his brother, Carl (Ralph Waite), a onetime violinist who can no longer play because of an injured neck and who serves as the film’s comic relief; Carl’s wife, Catherine (Susan Anspach), a snooty woman Bobby has always been attracted to; and Bobby’s sister, Partita (Lois Smith), a lonely, troubled soul who has the hots for Spicer (John Ryan), the live-in nurse who takes care of their wheelchair-bound father (William Challee). Rafelson had previously directed the psychedelic movie Head (he cocreated the Monkees band and TV show) and would go on to make such films as The King of Marvin Gardens, Stay Hungry, and Black Widow; written by Carole Eastman, Five Easy Pieces fits flawlessly in between them, a deeply philosophical work that captures the myriad changes the country was experiencing as the Woodstock Generation was forced to start growing up. The film suffers from some unsteady editing primarily in the earlier scenes, but it is still a gem, featuring at least two unforgettable scenes, one that takes place in a California highway traffic jam and the other in a diner, where Bobby places an order for the ages. And as good as Nicholson is, earning the first of seven Best Actor Oscar nominations, Helena Kallianiotes nearly steals the picture as a crazy woman railing against the ills of the world from the backseat of Bobby’s car. Five Easy Pieces will be screening June 16 and 24 as part of the Anthology Film Archives ongoing series From the Pen of . . ., paying tribute to such lesser-known but seminal screenwriters as Eastman, Jacob Brackman, Lewis John Carlino, Alan Sharp, and Norman Wexler and including such other films as The King of Marvin Gardens, Seconds, The Last Run, and Joe.