Comic mastermind Louis C.K. will be at the Beacon for this year’s New York Comedy Festival
November 9-13
Multiple venues, $30-$100
www.nycomedyfestival.com
Tickets for the New York Comedy Festival are now on sale, but they’re going fast, as it seems that Gothamites are in deep need of some relatively expensive laughs these days. Although some of the events are already sold out, keep checking, because good seats are often released closer to the show date. Wanda Sykes will play the Town Hall (11/10, $61.85-$74.30), Louis C.K. will be at the Beacon (11/10, 7:30 & 10:15, $47.25-$70.80), Russell Peters’s “Back on the Grind” is at Carolines on Broadway (11/10-13, sold out), Bill Burr’s “That’s What You Get” reveals how to get to Carnegie Hall (11/11, $30.50-$45.50), John Pinette’s “Still Hungry” will feed fans at the Town Hall (11/11, $46-$58.70), Tracy Morgan will offer folks “The Experience” at the Beacon (11/11, $52.35-$81.05), “An Evening with Bill Maher” takes place at the Beacon (11/12, $63.15-$103.05), Sarah Silverman & Friends will gather at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House (11/12, $36-$46), Kathy Griffin’s “Tired Hooker” will be soliciting at Carnegie Hall (11/12, $44-$80), the great and powerful Norm MacDonald brings his live show to the Town Hall (11/12, $44.95-$57.50), “A Conversation with Ricky Gervais” occurs at the 92nd St. Y (11/13, sold out), and Jo Koy’s Lights Out Tour brightens the Town Hall (11/13, $42.85-$49.10). Tickets might be more than you’re used to paying to see stand-up comedy, but at least there won’t be two-drink minimums at most of these shows.
Winner of the 1972 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is a sharp, cynical skewering of the European power structure, taking on the high-falutin’ hypocrisy of the government, the military, religion, and, primarily, the wealthy class in hysterical vignettes that center around a group of rich friends trying to sit down and enjoy a meal. But every time they get close, they are ultimately thwarted by miscommunication, a corpse, army maneuvers, terrorists, and, perhaps most bizarrely, fake stage chicken. Buñuel regular Fernando Rey is a hoot as Rafael Acosta, the cocaine-dealing ambassador of Miranda who doesn’t take insults well. Stéphane Audran and Jean-Pierre Cassel play the Sénéchals, a lustful couple desperate to finish a romantic rendezvous even as their guests wait, Julien Bertheau is the local bishop who moonlights as a gardener, Claude Piéplu is an erudite colonel not afraid to share his opinion at a haughty cocktail party, and Maria Gabriella Maione is a sexy stranger who might or might not be a revolutionary after Acosta. Meanwhile, Acosta doesn’t mind making a play for Simone Thévenot (Delphine Seyrig) right under her husband’s (Paul Frankeur) nose. And Ines (Milena Vukotic), one of the Sénéchals’ maids, watches it all with a wonderfully subtle disdain. As if the first half of the film were not surreal enough, the second half includes a series of riotous dream sequences involving ghostly apparitions and a bit of the old ultra-violence, either outwardly related by characters or as cinematic surprises dished out by the masterful Buñuel.
Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling police procedural, Stray Dog, is one of the all-time-great film noirs. When newbie detective Murakami (Toshirō Mifune) gets his Colt lifted on a bus, he thinks he will be fired if he does not get it back. But as he searches for it, he discovers that it is being used in a series of robberies and murders that he feels responsible for. Teamed with seasoned veteran Sato (Takashi Shimura), Murakami risks his career — and his life — as he tries desperately to track down his gun before it is used again. Kurosawa makes audiences sweat as postwar Japan is in the midst of a heat wave, with Murakami, Sato, prostitute Harumi Namiki (Keiko Awaji), and others constantly mopping their brows, dripping wet. Inspired by the novels of Georges Simenon, Stray Dog is a dark, intense drama shot in creepy black and white by Asakazu Nakai and featuring a jazzy soundtrack by Fumio Hayasaka that unfortunately grows melodramatic in a few key moments — and oh, if only that final scene had been left on the cutting-room floor. Stray Dog will be screening on August 27 at Symphony Space as part of the “Kurosawa” series, consisting of special presentations of the master’s films shown on the big screen in HD for the first time ever; the series concludes August 28 with Rashomon.
