Vice Minister Xi Yan (Jennifer Lim) and sign maker Daniel Cavanaugh (Gary Wilmes) talk business and more in CHINGLISH
Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
$31.50 – $126.50
www.chinglishbroadway.com
The current signage on Broadway is packed with some pretty major star power, with such names as Samuel L. Jackson, Kim Cattrall, Hugh Jackman, Stockard Channing, Alan Rickman, Marlo Thomas, Daniel Radcliffe, Angela Bassett, Harry Connick Jr., and others adorning various theater marquees. But don’t let that steer you away from a charming little show at the Longacre that might not feature big Hollywood names but still serves up quite a tasty treat. In Chinglish, Gary Wilmes stars as Daniel Cavanaugh, an American businessman who comes to the relatively small city of Guiyang, China — home to a mere four million people — to convince them that his Ohio company should make all the signs for their new state-of-the-art cultural center. With the help of British consultant Peter Timms (Stephen Pucci), Cavanaugh meets with the somewhat goofy Minister Cai (Larry Lei Zhang), who seems interested, but Vice Minister Xi Yan (Jennifer Lim) is far more dubious of hiring Ohio Signage. But soon the tables are turned, and Daniel finds himself joining forces with Xi — in more ways than one — as secrets are revealed about all four major characters and relationships are severely tested. Written by David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) and directed by Leigh Silverman (Well), Chinglish is a sweet romantic comedy about communication, in both the boardroom and the bedroom. Setting China’s economic boom against America’s continuing collapse, Hwang and Silverman focus on how language and meaning can bring people together or tear them apart. The play is filled with jokes about Chinese signs and bad translations, but at its heart it’s about honesty and being “a good man,” as Xi says to Daniel. David Korins’s scenic design keeps things moving wonderfully, as rotating sets circle in and out of one another, offering cute vignettes that make clever use of every moment. Chinglish, produced by the team behind August: Osage County, is more chef’s special than combination plate, a timely and funny look at how people communicate in the modern age.
On October 25, 2003, Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested for tax fraud and has been in prison ever since. The controversial story of the eight-billion-dollar man is told in German director Cyril Tuschi’s political-thriller documentary Khodorkovsky. Combining Michael Moore’s rugged determination to meet with GM CEO Roger Smith in Roger & Me with a police-procedural narrative, Tuschi (Slight Changes in Temperature and Mind) desperately tries to speak with the imprisoned Khodorkovsky, but for most of the film he only gets to communicate him through letters while instead talking with his first wife, his mother, his son, former business partners, spies, and various politicians, some of whom share illuminating details about the life and career of the seemingly equally loved and despised socialist-turned-capitalist and others who adamantly refuse to say anything about the onetime head of the Yukos oil company, perhaps out of fear of retribution. Khodorkovsky is alternately shown to be a philanthropic businessman who founded the Open Russia Foundation charitable project and a ruthless tyrant whose giant ego resulted in his publicly butting heads with former Russian president Vladimir Putin, the reason why many think he is in jail — and might never get out. Tuschi supplements the film with black-and-white constructivist animation of Khodorkovsky, placing him firmly in between socialism and capitalism as he seeks to lead Russia into a new age. Featuring music by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and narration by Jean-Marc Barr and Harvey Friedman, Khodorkovsky paints a fascinating portrait of contemporary Russia as well as of one of its most enigmatic and mysterious figures. Tuschi and Khodorkovsky’s son Pavel will be at Film Forum on November 30 to talk about the documentary and its subject following the 7:50 screening.
Raoul Walsh’s film noir classic White Heat might have been nominated for a mere single Oscar, losing for Best Motion Picture Story (losing to The Stratton Story), but it quickly came to be considered one of the greatest gangster pictures ever made. The 1949 film stars James Cagney as Cody Jarrett, a devout criminal married to the beautiful moll Verna (Viriginia Mayo) but still deeply (and unhealthily) attached to his mother (Margaret Wycherly). While doing time for a train robbery gone wrong, Jarrett finds out that his gang has been taken over by his former flunkie Big Ed Somers (Steve Cochran), who also seems to have taken over Verna as well. Jarrett decides he must break out of jail, setting the stage for an unforgettable climax. Walsh (High Sierra, They Died with Their Boots On) doesn’t concentrate just on the action, of which there is plenty, instead focusing on Jarrett’s troubled psyche as he blindly seeks revenge. White Heat will be screening November 30 – December 2 at 1:30 as part of MoMA’s continuing “An Auteurist History of Film” series, which also features such upcoming gems as Yasujiro Ozu’s Banshun (Late Spring), Carol Reed’s The Third Man, Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, and John Ford’s Wagon Master.