Get rid of all that old electronic equipment just taking up space in your apartment at this month’s special recycling days (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Saturday, May 7, Stanton St. between Bowery & Chrystie St.
Saturday, May 14, West 26th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Sunday, May 22, Stuyvesant Town, 14th St. Loop, 14th St. & Ave. A
Admission: free, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
212-477-4022
www.lesecologycenter.org
The Lower East Side Ecology Center’s Spring into E-Waste Recycling program got under way April 16 as people bombarded Tekserve on West 23rd St. with outdated computers, monitors, PDAs, printers, scanners, keyboards, mice, phones, cell phones, DVD players, cables, televisions, and other audio/visual equipment. 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; to get people to finally recycle those old things gathering dust, Tekserve is offering a $25 discount on the purchase of a Mac, iPod, or LaCie hard drive, good through the end of May, to anyone who recycles some kind of equipment, so yes, you’ll get a little green by going green.
Clearly, the Museum of the Moving Image has a wicked sense of humor. This Mother’s Day, the Astoria institution will be screening all five and a half hours of Todd Haynes’s splendid new version of Mildred Pierce, which recently premiered on HBO. This new Mildred Pierce is less a remake of Michael Curtiz’s 1945 noir original, which earned Joan Crawford a Best Actress Oscar for the title role, than a more faithful retelling of James M. Cain’s 1941 novel about a dedicated mother who cannot see through the deception of her awful, terrible, miserable, horrible, conniving daughter. Kate Winslet is stoic as Mildred, who, after her husband, Bert (Brian F. O’Byrne), leaves her for another woman, takes a job as a waitress to help take care of her two children, especially her piano-prodigy daughter, Veda (first played by Morgan Turner, then Evan Rachel Wood when she’s older). Soon after Mildred’s pies become extremely popular, she opens up her own restaurant, with the help of Bert’s former business partner, Wally Burgan (James LeGros), who doesn’t mind getting a little something extra from Mildred. Mildred starts living a more exciting life, gallivanting around with would-be playboy Monty Beragon (Guy Pearce), but her happiness is continually thwarted by her undying, undeserving love for her daughter, who does not return the feeling but is more than content to take her mother’s money. Haynes and cowriter Jon Raymond focus on the characters instead of the camp, coming up with a compelling and involving depression-era tale that will break your heart over and over again.
Asia Argento wrote, directed, and stars in this inspired adaptation based on the supposedly autobiographical novel by the recently exposed JT Leroy (a mysterious writer who turned out to be an elaborate creation of a former sex-phone operator). Argento, whose long resume includes a trio of films directed by her cult-fave father, Italian horrormeister Dario Argento, plays Sarah, a drug-addled loser who reclaims her seven-year-old son, Jeremiah (the frightfully good Jimmy Bennett), from his loving and well-off foster parents. Sarah, one of the worst mothers to ever grace the silver screen, mistreats the boy horribly again and again, even allowing her stream of dangerous and weird boyfriends (which include Michael Pitt, Marilyn Manson, and Jeremy Sisto) to do the same — and worse. At one point Jeremiah winds up living with his grandparents (Peter Fonda and Ornella Muti), religious nutcakes who harbor their own secrets. With pulsating original music by Marco Castoldi and Sonic Youth, brutal, fast-paced action, and leather-and-chains sadomasochism, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things is reminiscent of Alex Cox’s Sid & Nancy (1986), with a little bit of Mommie Dearest (Frank Perry, 1981) thrown in. Argento’s compelling vision, which will grow on you if you let it, is not for everyone; at times it’s lurid, graphic, and hard to watch, but it’s also got its share of breathtaking moments. Just try your best to forget about the literary hoax that gave birth to this sordid story in the first place.