twi-ny recommended events

DESTRY

Destry will highlight tunes from its enchanting new album this weekend at Bar Matchless and Maxwell’s

Saturday, May 14, Bar Matchless, 557 Manhattan Ave. at Driggs Ave., Williamsburg, $8, 718-383-5333, 8:00
Sunday, May 15, Maxwell’s, 1039 Washington St., Hoboken, $8-$10, 201-653-1703, 6:00
www.myspace.com/destrymusic

Born and raised in Nassau County, Michelle DaRosa of Straylight Run teamed up with Tyler Odom of the Alabama band Cassino to form Destry, releasing its debut, It Goes On, in 2009. The duo is now back with its enchanting follow-up, Waiting on an Island, an album filled with dreamy retro pop. “Oh, I can tell that it’s gonna be sunny from now sunny from now on / and don’t you forget it / If it tries to rain on me / just don’t let it,” DaRosa sings on “Gone.” Recorded at Tyler’s home studio in Dallas, the album also includes such delightfully ’50s- and ’60s-tinged tracks as “This Island,” “Don’t Break My Heart,” and “Leave the Light On” (but skip over the back-to-back acoustic folk pablum of “Into the Rain” and “Alabama”). DaRosa’s voice seems to be floating on a cloud on the beautiful ballad “It All Got Worse.” And you will indeed smile all the way through “Smile,” with its bright, airy chorus, “They say to smile though your heart aches / They say to smile though your heart breaks.” The former Michelle Nolan, who is married to Dropkick Murphys multi-instrumentalist Jeff DaRosa and is based in Boston, and Odom, who is based in Nashville, will be at Bar Matchless on May 14 with These Animals, Communipaw, and Foreverinmotion and at Maxwell’s on May 15 with Communipaw, Kaia, and Jennifer O’Connor.

LATE-NIGHT FAVORITES: HOUSE (HAUSU)

Japanese cult horror comedy finally gets a theatrical release

Japanese cult horror comedy is back for a pair of midnight screenings

HOUSE (HAUSU) (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Friday, May 13, and Saturday, May 14, $13, 12:10 am
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.janusfilms.com/house

One of the craziest movies ever made, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 cult classic, House (Hausu), is finally getting its first-ever U.S. theatrical release, in a new 35mm print at the IFC Center. Truly one of those things that has to be seen to be believed, House is a psychedelic black horror comedy musical about Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) and six of her high school friends who choose to spend part of their summer vacation at Gorgeous’s aunt’s (Yoko Minamida) very strange house. Gorgeous, whose mother died when she was little and whose father (Saho Sasazawa) is about to get married to Ryoko (Haruko Wanibuchi), brings along her playful friends Melody (Eriko Ikegami), Fantasy (Kumiko Oba), Prof (Ai Matsubara), Sweet (Masayo Miyako), Kung Fu (Miki Jinbo), and Mac (Mieko Sato), who quickly start disappearing like ten little Indians. House is a ceaselessly entertaining head trip of a movie, a tongue-in-chic celebration of genre with spectacular set designs by Kazuo Satsuya, beautiful cinematography by Yoshitaka Sakamoto, and a fab score by Asei Kobayashi and Mickie Yoshino. The original story actually came from the mind of Obayashi’s eleven-year-old daughter, Chigumi, who clearly has one heck of an imagination. Oh, and we can’t forget about the evil cat, a demonic feline to end all demonic felines. The film was released last year prior to its appearance on DVD from Janus, the same company that puts out such classic fare as Federico Fellini’s Amarcord, Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Jacques Tati’s M. Hulot’s Holiday, François Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player, Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, and Jean-Luc Godard’s Vivre sa Vie, so House has joined some very prestigious company. And who are we to say it doesn’t deserve it?

TERRENCE MALICK: THE NEW WORLD

Colin Farrell and Q’orianka Kilcher nearly ignite the screen in THE NEW WORLD

THE NEW WORLD (Terrence Malick, 2005)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, May 15, free with museum admission of $10, 5:00
Series runs May 13-15
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

Iconoclastic American auteur Terrence Malick has directed a mere four films in his forty-year career, each a gem in its own way — 1973’s Badlands, 1978’s Days of Heaven, 1998’s The Thin Red Line, and 2005’s The New World. With the imminent release of his latest, The Tree of Life, expected later this year — as with The New World, it’s gone through a number of casting, editing, and distribution dilemmas — the Museum of the Moving Image is showing all four of Malick’s feature-length works May 13-15, with many of the screenings introduced by film critic Matt Zoller Seitz. The necessarily brief series, simply titled “Terrence Malick,” is anchored by The New World, scheduled for Sunday at five o’clock. Spectacularly photographed by cinematographer Emanuel Luzbeki, The New World reimagines the story of Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher) as an epic tale of unrequited desire, a fiercely passionate, if not completely accurate, love story for the ages. In 1607 , a crew led by Captain Christopher Newport (Christopher Plummer) has landed in what will come to be known as Jamestown. The disgraced Smith, who was nearly hanged for mutiny, is ordered to meet with “the naturals” in order to develop a favorable relationship. But Smith falls deeply for Chief Powhatan’s (August Schellenberg) beautiful young daughter (Q’orianka Kilcher), who shares his feelings, leading to a dangerous love that threatens to leave death and destruction in its wake. Large stretches of the film feature no dialogue, instead consisting of gorgeously framed shots with gentle, poetic narration from Smith, Pocahontas, and, later, John Rolfe (Christian Bale). The scenes between Farrell and Kilcher nearly ignite the screen, their eyes burning into each other. Malick and Luzbeki focus on lush, rolling fields and rushing rivers that are more than just beautiful scenery; the gorgeous landscape of this new world is filled with promise, with hope, even though we know what eventually, tragically happens. The film bogs down considerably when Smith’s place in the newly named Rebecca’s life is taken over by Rolfe, but it all builds to a heart-wrenching conclusion.

KING LEAR

Derek Jacobi is finally ready to play the lead role in KING LEAR, now at BAM (photo by Johan Persson)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.
Through June 5, $25-$95 (limited availability)
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Some of the best theater to be found in New York City in 2011 has been happening in Brooklyn, where BAM’s spring season has included the Abbey Theatre’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman and Geoffrey Rush in the Belvoir St Theatre presentation of Nikolai Gogol’s Diary of a Madman. The magic continues with the Donmar Warehouse’s take on one of William Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, King Lear, which runs through June 5 at the Harvey Theater. In September 2007, BAM presented the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Lear, starring Ian McKellen and directed by Trevor Nunn; this time around, Sir Derek Jacobi plays the aging, enfeebled king, directed by Michael Grandage. This more stripped-down interpretation focuses on the powerful emotions experienced by the two fathers, Lear and the Earl of Gloucester (Paul Jesson). After being lavished with empty praise from daughters Goneril (Gina McKee) and Regan (Justine Mitchell), Lear is furious that his youngest and favorite child, Cordelia (Pippa Bennett-Warner), does not similarly overstate her affections. Jacobi’s whole head flushes red as if on fire as Lear disowns Cordelia, then banishes the loyal Earl of Kent (Michael Hadley) for defending her. Meanwhile, Gloucester is being deceived by one son, Edmund (Alec Newman), into thinking that the other, Edgar (Gwilym Lee), is plotting against them. Thus, brother conspires against brother, sister conspires against sister, and children conspire against parents as two once-noble families disintegrate into treachery that leads to acts of severe violence. Jacobi — who has been waiting ten years to appear in the part and finally felt he was of the proper age (seventy-two) and experience to portray Lear — is a controlled ball of rage as the deeply flawed king, explosive in one scene, tortured and meek the next. The rest of the cast is solid, particularly Jesson as the doomed Gloucester and Lee as his wrongly accused eldest son, who disguises himself later as the forest madman Poor Tom. (Newman, however, chews too much scenery as Edmund.) Christopher Oram’s costume and set design nearly steal the show; virtually all of the characters are dressed in black, presenting a stark contrast to the stage, composed of long, fading whitewashed boards that emphasize the physical and psychological destruction to come and is especially effective in a smoke-laden lightning storm (courtesy of Neil Austin and Adam Cork) that sends shock waves through the Harvey. Grandage does threaten to go a bit avant-garde and over the top after intermission, but he brings it back around to a more traditional narrative for the heartbreaking finale to yet another memorable Lear, with another memorable lead performance. (There will be an Artist Talk with members of the cast following the May 12 show, and Shakespearean scholar and author Stephen Greenblatt will give a talk on Lear on May 15 at BAmcafé. Interestingly, Jacobi — who chooses to leave his clothes on in one critical scene, as opposed to McKellen, who bared all back in 2007 — has been outspoken in his belief that the Bard did not actually write any of the plays he is credited with.)

LUIS CAMNITZER

Luis Camnitzer, “Landscape as an attitude,” laminated black-and-white photograph, 1979 (Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zurich)

El Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Ave. at 104th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 29, $9
212-831-7272
www.elmuseo.org

Born in Germany, raised in Uruguay, and living and working in New York City since 1964, Luis Camnitzer has been pushing the boundaries of Conceptual art for five decades. Through drawing, sculpture, painting, installation, photography, and other disciplines, he comments on socioeconomic culture by examining the very text, objects, and images he creates, calling into question art as commodity and the very nature of value and what constitutes reality. El Museo del Barrio is currently presenting an engaging retrospective of Camnitzer’s career, displaying nearly seventy works that, as Deborah Cullen, the museum’s director of curatorial programs, writes in the exhibition catalog, “implicate the viewer in the construction and deconstruction of meaning. His art demands that we question our perceptions, our assumptions, and at times our consciences.” To Camnitzer, etching his name on paper is a self-portrait. In “Self-Service,” he invites visitors to rubber-stamp his signature on sheets of paper that feature such quotes as “Adquisición es cultura” (“Acquisition is culture”) and “Una firma es acción, dos firmas son transacción” (“One signature is action, two signatures are transaction”), which can be taken home. The titles of his works often indicate exactly what they are, leaving it up to the viewer to decide their meanings while enjoying their inherent humor; for example, “Project for the miraculous appearance of a dot,” “This is a mirror. You are a written sentence,” “Span of the hand as a unit of lineal measure converted to one inch,” and “Image constructed with words arranged in a sequence to form a sentence. (Sentence forming an image that looks like a sentence).” Other titles play off images in other ways; “Windows” turns out to be a hole in the gallery wall filled with books and concrete, and “The Journey” reduces the ultimate commercialism, Christmas, to a trio of phallic-shaped objects each made with an engraved knife and two ornaments slyly labeled “Nina,” “Pinta,” and “Santa Maria.” Instead of being constructed of actual things, “Living Room” consists of text labels in their place. Much of Camnitzer’s oeuvre can be seen as an expansion of Henri Magritte’s “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”), some pieces more obvious than others but most demanding, and deserving of, lengthy investigation. This is an exhibit that should not be rushed through but instead savored, allowing plenty of time for it to percolate in one’s mind.

Luis Camnitzer, “This is a mirror. You are a written sentence,” vacuum formed polystyrene mounted on synthetic board, 1966-68 (photo by Peter Schälchli, Zürich)

El Museo del Barrio will be hosting a number of special events this month, some in conjunction with “Luis Camnitzer,” which continues through May 29. Tonight the free WEPA Wednesdays includes “INSIDE/OUTSIDE: Street Level with El Museo” for students, artist Adam Pendleton leading a tour of the Camnitzer show, “Action Actual” with performance artists (Arthur Aviles, Migdalia Barens, Nao Bustamante, Susana Cook, and others) moving through the museum’s usually restricted areas, music from DJ Pampa, and extended hours to see “Luis Camnitzer” and “Voces y Visiones: Signs, Systems, and the City in El Museo del Barrio’s Permanent Collection.” (Some events require advance RSVP.) On May 14, American escape artist Thomas Solomon will perform magic in El Teatro ($50, 8:00). On May 18, chef Daisy Martinez will share recipes and stories as part of the “In Our Lingo” series. And on May 21, the free all-day Super Sabado program goes “Mad About Libros” with a book fair, a life-size pop-up book, an African journal workshop, spoken-word performances, musical storytelling and dance, Caridad de la Luz “La Bruja” leading a spoken-word workshop for children eleven to eighteen, and more. (In addition, Camnitzer will be delivering a lecture on May 15 at 5:00 as part of the International Studio & Curatorial Program’s Spring Open Studios four-day group exhibition at 1040 Metropolitan Ave. in Brooklyn.)

MEET THE STARS OF INDY — PAST AND PRESENT!

Racing legend Mario Andretti will join champion driver Helio Castroneves at Macy’s Herald Square on Wednesday

Macy’s Herald Square, Men’s Department
151 West 34th St. at Broadway
Wednesday, May 11, free, 6:00
212-494-4495
www.macys.com
www.indycar.com

The IZOD IndyCar Series might not have any races scheduled in the tristate area, but you’ll still get a chance to meet two of its legends on Wednesday night at Macy’s. One of the greatest champions in all of sport, Mario Andretti, winner of an Indy 500, Daytona 500, and Formula One World Championship, will be on hand, along with three-time Indy 500 champion Helio Castroneves, to sign autographs and give away special prizes in conjunction with the upcoming Indianapolis 500, which takes place on May 29. There will also be Indy cars filling Macy’s Broadway windows, just itching to pull out and speed through midtown Manhattan.

GRAND GOURMET: THE FLAVOR OF MIDTOWN

Grand Central Terminal, Vanderbilt Hall
42nd St. between Lexington & Vanderbilt Aves.
Thursday, May 12, $100, 7:00 (VIP 6:15 admission $350)
www.grandcentralpartnership.org

Nearly three dozen local restaurants will be participating in the annual Grand Gourmet tasting event at Grand Central Terminal, benefiting the Grand Central Neighborhood Social Services Corp., which is dedicated to helping the area’s homeless population. This year’s festivities are chaired by Rick Passarelli of Bobby Van’s Steakhouse, with that restaurant’s chef, Christopher Miller, serving as captain. Among the dining establishments preparing signature dishes and other special plates are Asia de Cuba, Charlie Palmer’s Métrazur, the Grand Central Oyster Bar, La Fonda del Sol, Magnolia Baking Company, Murray’s Cheese, the Palm Too, Ruby Foo’s, Aretsky’s Patroon, the Campbell Apartment, Pershing Square, Ammos Estiatorio, Cibo, Bice, and the Capital Grille.