Get rid of all that old electronic equipment just taking up space in your apartment at this month’s special recycling day (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Tekserve
119 West 23rd St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Saturday, July 16, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
212-477-4022
www.lesecologycenter.org
In May, the Lower East Side Ecology Center sponsored several Spring into E-Waste Recycling days, during which people could bring their broken, out-of-date computers, monitors, PDAs, printers, scanners, keyboards, mice, phones, cell phones, DVD players, cables, televisions, and other audio/visual equipment to several locations in conjunction with Tekserve, which offered special coupons in exchange. On July 16, they’re teaming up again for Summer E-Waste Recycling Day, being held at Tekserve on West 23rd St. The LESEC, in conjunction with New York State’s 2010 Electronic Equipment Recycling and Reuse Act, is seeking to collect five hundred tons of electronic equipment this year; visit the above website to see exactly what they will accept and, perhaps more important, what they won’t. For example, such home appliances as microwaves, refrigerators, and air conditioners are a no.
Award-winning documentarian Errol Morris’s ninth feature-length film is a lighthearted look at self-delusion, tabloid journalism, and just how far someone might go for love. In 1977, a story broke in England about Joyce McKinney, a young woman accused of kidnapping a Mormon missionary, chaining him to a bed, and forcing him to have sex with her for three days. But the former beauty queen claimed that it was completely consensual, that she and Kirk Anderson were in love but that he was being brainwashed by his religious leaders. Morris speaks at length with the vivacious and engaging McKinney, who clearly loves talking about herself and her sex life. Morris also interviews two of the British journalists who originally covered the sordid story, the Mirror’s Kent Gavin and the Daily Express’s Peter Tory; while one bought McKinney’s tale hook, line, and sinker, the other discovered that there was a lot more to this crazy character. Much of the charm of Tabloid, which Morris calls a return to the “sick, sad, and funny” genre he explored in such earlier works as 1978’s Gates of Heaven and 1981’s Vernon, Florida, involves the many twists and turns the tale takes; just wait until cloning enters the picture. Along the way, Morris eschews the re-creations he often uses in his films in favor of unrelated clips that heighten the tone and mood but often feel like unnecessary overkill. In the end, it doesn’t really matter who’s telling the truth; as with so much tabloid journalism, it’s all in the salacious details. While the misnamed Tabloid — the film is really about McKinney herself much more than British journalism in general — doesn’t hit the serious notes of such Morris gems as The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War, and Standard Operating Procedure, it’s still a hell of a lot of fun.
In the stunning Dersu Uzala, director-cowriter Akira Kurosawa has fashioned one of cinema’s greatest characters, a worldly-wise, deceptively simple charming man who understands life, nature, responsibility, and helping others. Tuvan actor Maksim Munzuk gives a marvelously understated performance as the title character, a hunter who is suddenly taken out of his quiet life of solitude when Russian army troops come to Siberia. Based on the 1923 memoir of Russian explorer Vladimir Klavdiyevich Arsenyev, the dazzling achievement focuses on the friendship between Uzala and Arsenyev (Yuri Solomin) as they battle the elements from Siberia to the city of Khabarovsk. Winner of the 1975 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Dersu Uzala will be screening at 11:00 am on July 14, 15, and 16 as part of the IFC Center’s Weekend Classics — Kurosawa series, which continues with Ran (July 22-24), Dreams (July 29-31), and Rhapsody in August (August 5-7); ticket sales benefit 