Grab a schmear and a seat and enjoy cutting-edge video at Russ & Daughters (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Russ & Daughters
179 East Houston St. between Allen & Orchard Sts.
Through Sunday, December 11, free
212-475-4880
www.russanddaughters.com
www.jamescohan.com
Since 1914, the Russ family has been selling high-quality appetizing on the Lower East Side, specializing in smoked and cured fish, herring, caviar, specialty spreads, and bagels and bialys. Now being run by fourth-generationers Joshua Russ Tupper and Niki Russ Federman, the New York City landmark, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001, is trying something a little different. No, don’t get worried that they’re messing with their many delicacies, which include the whitefish and baked salmon salad combination, mustard and dill herring, smoked salmon tartare, chocolate bagel pudding, and such sandwiches as the Meshugge (sturgeon, sable, and smoked salmon on a bagel or bialy with cream cheese), the Oy Vey Schmear (chopped liver and sliced pickles from the barrel on a bagel or bialy), and the Fancy Delancey (smoked tuna with horseradish dill cream cheese and wasabi flying fish roe on a bagel). Through December 11, the institution is presenting “Videobytes,” a series of avant-garde works by seven experimental film and video artists, curated by Russ & Daughters regular James Cohan, who runs his eponymous gallery in Chelsea. In a flat-screen monitor in the front window looking out on Houston St., you can catch Harry Smith’s “A Strange Dream,” Robert Breer’s “Blazes,” John Baldessari’s “Six Colorful Inside Jobs,” Gordon Matta-Clark’s “Tree Dance,” Kate Gilmore’s “Built to Burst,” Susana Mendes Silva’s “Ritual,” and Hiraki Sawa’s “did I?” totaling more than an hour of video dating from 1946 to 2011. If there’s a long line for food, we suggest taking your number and waiting outside while watching the wide-ranging shorts, or else you can check them out while enjoying your sandwich on the bench. The videos will run continuously twenty-four hours a day, so you can also stop by late at night while bar hopping or before or after a flick down the street at the Landmark Sunshine. To us, there’s not much better than a Meshugge sandwich and cutting-edge video, the Lower East Side answer to dinner and a movie (a bite and a byte?).
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.” 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 Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center for a mere six bucks on December 4 and 17 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Family Films” series, which also includes a pair of other Dahl tales, James and the Giant Peach (Henry Selick, 1996) and Matilda (Danny DeVito, 1996).
Director Rupert Wyatt and writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver reimagine Pierre Boulle’s original Planet of the Apes story in the exciting and inventive reboot Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Taking elements from the first five Apes films, especially the fourth flick, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, the new blockbuster is a more science-based thriller that delves into the evolutionary (and devolutionary) nature of humans and animals. James Franco stars as Will Rodman, a scientist working on the anti-Alzheimer’s drug ALZ-112 for Gen-Sys, a big pharmaceutical company run by Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo). After a demonstration for potential investors goes terribly wrong, Jacobs orders all of the ALZ-112 test subjects to be destroyed, but the baby of the primary subject survives and is brought home by Will, who raises Caesar (a motion-captured Andy Serkis) as if the chimpanzee were his own child, with the help of his scientist girlfriend, Caroline (Slumdog Millionaire’s Freida Pinto) and his father (John Lithgow), who was suffering from Alzheimer’s but is seeing remarkable improvement as Will secretly treats him with the controversial drug. As Caesar grows up, he gains insight into the state of the world, especially how apes are forced to literally live like caged animals, and soon he is ready to do something about it. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is no mere remake or summer popcorner capitalizing on the fame of the series (for that, see Tim Burton’s terrible 2001 disaster); instead, it is a moving, thoughtful study of the development of mammalian intelligence and the very basic need to be free. Wyatt (The Escapist) moves things along at a slow pace in the first half of the film, allowing Caesar’s character to blossom, leading to a believable revolution that culminates in an action-packed showdown on the Golden Gate Bridge. Serkis, who previously played such motion-capture characters as Gollum and King Kong, breathes remarkable life and emotion into Caesar, so much so that there is Oscar buzz around his performance. Rise earns its already respected place in the Apes pantheon, a worthy addition that honors the past while paving the way for a promising future.
