Patti Smith will be among the hundreds of readers at the Poetry Project’s annual New Year’s Day marathon (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church
131 East 10th St. at Second Ave.
Saturday, January 1, $15-$20, 2:00
212-674-0910
www.poetryproject.org
The Poetry Project, which is dedicated to the past, present, and future of poetry, will hold its thirty-seventh annual New Year’s Day Marathon Reading on Saturday, featuring another outstanding lineup of participants from all over the entertainment spectrum. Among the hundreds of scheduled readers, who will begin at 2:00, are John Giorno, Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye, Philip Glass, Suzanne Vega, Taylor Mead, Eric Bogosian, Anne Waldman & Ambrose Bye, Vito Acconci, Anselm Berrigan, the Church of Betty, Jonas Mekas, Judith Malina, Citizen Reno, Bob Holman, Dael Orlandersmith, CAConrad, Elinor Nauen, Edwin Torres, Eileen Myles, Elliott Sharp, Maggie Dubris, Mike Doughty, Penny Arcade, Mónica de la Torre, Nick Hallett, and Wayne Koestenbaum. Admission is $20, and you can come and go as you please as long as there’s room.
Since their 1984 debut feature, BLOOD SIMPLE, Coen brothers Joel and Ethan have tackled numerous genres with dazzling originality, resulting in such fresh, unusual, and intelligent fare as BARTON FINK (1991), FARGO (1996), THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998), NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007), and A SERIOUS MAN (2009). They’ve had some hiccups along the way, but their only true dud was also their only remake, 2004’s THE LADYKILLERS, an unwatchable version of the 1955 Alec Guinness original. Now they’re revisiting the 1969 classic Western TRUE GRIT, which earned Johny Wayne his only Oscar and has held up poorly over the years. For the 2010 reboot, the Coens turned to Jeff Bridges to step into the Duke’s shoes as U.S. marshal Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn, an aging lawman with a thing for the bottle, as well as for killing. He’s hired by determined fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) to hunt down her father’s murderer, a man named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), who’s also being tracked by ever-faithful Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Matt Damon) for other crimes against humanity. Instead of merely remaking the previous film, which was directed by Henry Hathaway (KISS OF DEATH, AIRPORT) and also starred musician Glen Campbell as La Boeuf and Kim Darby as Mattie, the Coens went back to Charles Portis’s 1968 novel, with the most important difference being the change in point of view; the new TRUE GRIT is told from Mattie’s perspective, including voice-over narration from the adult Mattie (Elizabeth Marvel), which breathes new life into the tired old horse. While Wayne played Cogburn with his tongue firmly in cheek, adding bits of silly comic relief, Bridges imbues the marshal with more seriousness and less hulking bravado as he continually — and more and more drunkenly — tells stories from his past. By going back to the book, the Coens also get to add more violence, especially near the end, as well as a coda about Mattie’s future. While the original featured a bombastic, overreaching score by Don Black, longtime Coen brothers composer Carter Burwell ratchets things down significantly, using the old hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” as his central musical theme. As much as the Coens want the new film to be viewed in its own right, there are still too many similarities to avoid comparisons with the original, but their TRUE GRIT does turn out to be a better executed, less predictable, and more entertaining genre piece.
Brooklyn native Darren Aronofsky, writer-director of the brilliant PI (1998) and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000) and the muddled mess THE FOUNTAIN (2006), scores a major takedown with the marvelous comeback film THE WRESTLER. Former boxer Mickey Rourke, who made a name for himself in such 1980s films as DINER, RUMBLE FISH, THE POPE OF GREENWICH VILLAGE, 9 1/2 WEEKS, and BARFLY, stars as the Christ-like figure Randy “the Ram” Robinson, an aging professional wrestler who was the sport’s biggest name in the 1980s but is now a washed-up has-been living in a trailer park wrestling for embarrassingly small paydays at tiny local venues, still lured by the love of the sparse crowds and the respect of his opponents. After suffering a heart attack following one of his matches, the fifty-something Ram is suddenly faced with a life outside the ring. He tries to get back in his daughter’s (Evan Rachel Wood) life, attempts a relationship with stripper Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), and even gets a regular job in a supermarket, but the possibility of returning to the ring for the twentieth anniversary of his biggest match ever, his 1989 battle against the Ayatollah (Ernest Miller) in Madison Square Garden, weighs hard on his mind. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, THE WRESTLER, shot in an arresting grainy style, is a masterfully told tale with multiple layers, with the Ram’s potential comeback mimicking Rourke’s own return to his acting glory days. Rourke, who won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar for his effort, is such a natural in the role that it is hard to believe it was not written specifically for him; in fact, Nicolas Cage was first attached to the project. (Bruce Springsteen’s title song, which plays over the closing credits, took home the Golden Globe for Best Original Song but failed to garner an Oscar nod.) The film is set in the real-life world of Combat Zone Wrestling and the Ring of Honor, featuring such actual wrestlers as the Necro Butcher, who has a thing for barbed wire and staple guns. The heart-wrenching, beautiful, brutal film is screening at the Walter Reade Theater on January 5 at 6:15 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s two-day series, “Darren Aronofsky’s Dreams and Nightmares,” and will be followed by a conversation with the director. The brief festival, being held in conjunction with the release of Aronofsky’s latest, BLACK SWAN, begins on January 4 at 6:30 with the harrowing REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and continues at 9:00 with the ambitious flop THE FOUNTAIN. Aronofsky’s creepy mathematical debut, PI (π), concludes the festivities at 9:15 on January 5.
