The twentieth annual Hot Chocolate Festival at the City Bakery offers steamy delights all February long
The City Bakery
3 West 18th St, between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
February 1-29, $3-$6
212-366-1414
www.thecitybakery.com
The City Bakery can’t be overjoyed that its twentieth Hot Chocolate Festival, which gets under way today and runs through the end of February, is beginning on a relatively balmy winter day, with temperatures expected to hit just above sixty. But that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying this annual chocolate extravaganza, which highlights a different flavor every day. Three-ounce shots for the straight-up hot chocolate are three bucks, with the ten-ouncer going for five dollars; the special of the day is slightly more. Starting things off is Sunken Treasure Hot Chocolate, followed by such other delicacies as Espresso, Ginger, Banana Peel, Lemon, Tropical, Vietnamese and Chinese Cinnamon, Milk Chocolate, Bourbon, Caramel, Darkest Dark, Honduran, Beer, On a Peanut Butter Bagel, Chili Pepper, and Earl Grey Tea. In addition, watch out for the mystery treats Super Bowl Hot Chocolate on Super Bowl Sunday, Happy Hot Chocolate on February 12, Love Potion on Valentine’s Day, Ode to the Polar Bear on February 22, What Would Faulkner Drink? on February 23, and Leap Year Hot Chocolate on February 29, a bonus day for all you chocoholics out there.
Avant-garde filmmaker Bill Morrison (Decasia), who uses found footage and often delves into the cinematic process itself in his fascinating work, collaborates with Icelandic musician and composer Jóhann Jóhannsson in the elegiac The Miners’ Hymns, a tribute to the now-gone collieries, or coal mines, of Northeast England. The fifty-two-minute documentary opens with new aerial shots of the locations where the Durham coal mines were, since replaced by luxury housing and megastores. The film shows the birth and death dates of several collieries going back to the nineteenth century, then seamlessly blends into archival black-and-white footage of the miners at work underground, the community coming together for a local fair, and a union rally during a strike that includes a confrontation with the police. There is no text and no narration in The Miners’ Hymn; instead, Morrison’s savvy editing of the found footage, consisting of both moving pictures and still photographs primarily acquired through the British Film Institute and the BBC, brings the old-fashioned town and its old-fashioned ways to vibrant life even though they roll across the screen in slow motion. Jóhannsson’s score punctuates the proceedings with an occasional brassy flare when not sounding more funereal. Despite the lack of text and narration, Morrison’s point of view is clear and all too obvious, paying homage to something that has been lost, and he is never quite able to make an emotional or personal connection with the viewer. However, The Miners’ Hymns contains remarkable footage that still manages to tell an important story, even if it is one-sided and lacking at least a little more historical context. Prior to its theatrical release on February 8 at Film Forum, The Miners’ Hymns is being shown on the big screen in the World Financial Center on January 31 as part of WNYC host John Schaefer’s annual free New Sounds Live Silent Film Series, featuring a live score performed by the Wordless Music Orchestra. The series continues February 1 with Morrison’s latest work, The Great Flood, followed on February 2 with Spark of Being and February 3 with the amazing Decasia, with Michael Gordon’s memorable score performed live by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble.