twi-ny recommended events

ON THE BOWERY / THE PERFECT TEAM

Ray Salyer and Gorman Hendricks are two of the forgotten men in Lionel Rogosin’s unforgettable ON THE BOWERY, back for a return engagement at Film Forum

ON THE BOWERY (Lionel Rogosin, 1956)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
November 19-25
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.ontheboweryfilm.com

If you missed one of the greatest documentaries ever made about New York this past September, you’ll be given another chance to see the stunning 35mm restoration of ON THE BOWERY, which is returning to Film Forum by popular demand for a one-week run November 19-25. The restoration offers a new look at this underground classic, which caused a stir upon its release in 1956, winning prizes at the Venice Film Festival while earning criticism at home for daring to portray the grim reality of America’s dark underbelly. After spending six months living with the poor, destitute alcoholics on Skid Row as research, idealistic young filmmaker Lionel Rogosin spent the next four months making ON THE BOWERY, a remarkable examination of the forgotten men of New York, ne’er-do-wells who can’t find jobs, sleep on the street, and will do just about anything for another drink. Rogosin centers the film around the true story of Ray Salyer, a journeyman railroad drifter stopping off in New York City seeking temporary employment. Salyer is quickly befriended by Gorman Hendricks, who not only shows Salyer the ropes but also manages to slyly take advantage of him. Although the film follows a general structure scripted by Mark Sufrin, much of it is improvised and shot on the sly, in glorious black and white by Richard Bagley. The sections in which Bagley turns his camera on the streets, showing the decrepit neighborhood under the El, set to Charles Mills’s subtle, jazzy score and marvelously edited by Carl Lerner, are pure poetry, yet another reason why ON THE BOWERY is an American treasure. The film is screening with THE PERFECT TEAM, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of ON THE BOWERY directed by Rogosin’s son, Michael, which includes a terrific 1999 interview with Lionel in which he talks about his attempt to get James Agee on board, his firing of Helen Levitt as editor, the relationships he developed with the cast and crew, and his intense desire to get at the truth. Suzanne Wasserman, director of the Gotham Center for New York City History at CUNY, will introduce the 7:40 show on November 19, while Rob Hollander of the Lower East Side History Project will introduce the 7:40 show on November 20.

THE CANNON FILMS CANON

Menahem Golan's own THE APPLE is part of Cannon Films festival at Lincoln Center

Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
November 19-24, $12, three-film pass $27
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus gained a reputation as schlockmeisters as their Cannon Films company released such turkeys as EXTERMINATOR 2, THE DELTA FORCE, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, ROBOTECH: THE MOVIE, numerous DEATH WISH sequels, and the Golan-directed sic-fi disco mosh-up THE APPLE. However, it is less well known that Golan and Globus also produced some of the most interesting works of the 1980s, by such auteurs as John Cassavetes, Nicolas Roeg, and Jean-Luc Godard. The Film Society of Lincoln Center will be honoring Golan and Globus with a thirteen-film salute November 19-24, featuring such films as Andrei Konchalovsky’s RUNAWAY TRAIN and SHY PEOPLE, Raul Ruiz’s TREASURE ISLAND, Jerry Schatzberg’s STREET SMART (with Schatzberg in person), Norman Mailer’s TOUGH GUYS DON’T DANCE, John Frankenheimer’s 52 PICK-UP, Cassavetes’s LOVE STREAMS, Godard’s KING LEAR, and Roeg’s CASTAWAY. The eighty-one-year-old Golan, winner of the 1999 Israel Prize, and the sixty-nine-year-old Globus will join director Barbet Schroeder for a Q&A following the November 19 screening of BARFLY, while G&G will also participate in a conversation after the November 20 screening of RUNAWAY TRAIN. The series also includes THE APPLE (complete with prescreening disco reception, raffles, and a special surprise guest) as well as Golan’s OPERATION THUNDERBOLT, with Golan on hand for both.

DELFT BLUES: ARTS AND LIVE JAZZ

Heleen Schuttevaêr will lead free jazz shows at the Holland Tunnel Gallery as part of 5 Dutch Days celebration of art and music

Holland Tunnel Gallery / Stairmasters
61 and 59 South Third St., Brooklyn
Friday, November 19, 5:00 – 8:00
Saturday, November 20, and Sunday, November 21, 3:00 – 7:00
718-384-5738
www.5dutchdaysnyc.org

As part of the 5 Dutch Days celebration continuing across all five boroughs through Sunday, honoring the rich Dutch cultural heritage in New York, the Holland Tunnel Gallery / Stairmasters in Brooklyn will be hosting a series of free live jazz concerts along with the exhibit “50 Artists Reinventing Delft Blue Pottery.” In conjunction with the four hundredth anniversary of trading between the Netherlands and Japan, the three-story space will be displaying ceramic works by more than one hundred artists, including Marjolijn van den Assem, Ka-Kyung Cho, Maartje Folkeringa, Hans van Uden, Nathalie Trovato, Joe Barnes, and Mireille Brouwer, curated by painter Paulien Lethen, whose paintings will also be on view, along with works by Jan Mulder. In addition, Dutch jazz vocalist and pianist Heleen Schuttevaêr (who is Lethen’s sister and Mulder’s partner) will be hosting free live music performances all weekend, featuring guitarist Ron Jackson, bassist Joris Teepe, drummer Jean-Clair-de Ruwe, and singer Jula Aimée on Friday, bassist Debbie Kennedy, de Ruwe, pianist Jarrett Cherner, singer Maria Christina, and trumpeter Diederik Rijpstra on Saturday, and Jackson, de Ruwe, Teepe, and singer Jerry Sheldon on Sunday, with many special guests scheduled as well. The 5 Dutch Days festival also includes a look at the restoration of the stained-glass window “Arrival of the Half-Moon,” an open house at the Holland Society of America, a Noonday Prayer tulip planting at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, the Peter Stuyvesant Ball at Pier 60, a scavenger hunt, visits to the Dyckman and Wyckoff Farmhouse Museums and the Lefferts Historic House, workshops, an illustrated lecture, a garden tour, a concert by Sylvan Winds, and other events.

A TRIBUTE TO JIM CARROLL

Barnes & Noble Union Square
33 East 17th St.
Thursday, November 18, free, 7:00
212-253-0810
www.barnesandnoble.com

On September 11, 2009, poet, musician, and famed heroin addict Jim Carroll died at the age of sixty. In celebration of the publication of his posthumous novel THE PETTING ZOO (Viking, November 2010, $25.95), a group of his friends, led by 2010 National Book Award winner Patti Smith and guitarist Lenny Kaye, will gather together tonight at the Union Square Barnes & Noble to pay tribute to the BASKETBALL DIARIES author, who also released such fine albums as CATHOLIC BOY and DRY DREAMS.

BARN OWL

Barn Owl will be at the ISSUE Project Room on November 18

ISSUE Project Room
The Old American Can Factory
232 Third St., third floor, Brooklyn
Thursday, November 18, $10, 8:00
718-330-0313
www.myspace.com/barnowlband
www.issueprojectroom.org

On Barn Owl’s brand-new album, ANCESTRAL STAR (Thrill Jockey, November 2010), San Francisco duo Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras take listeners on a sonic journey through inner space and outer consciousness (or is that outer space and inner consciousness?), creating gorgeous dronescapes that feel as if they are about to explode at any moment. But instead, they remain floating within an ambient darkness that gently rumbles just beneath the soul. Both Caminiti and Porras play guitar, with Porras adding drums and harmonium; other contributors include Marielle V. Jakobsons on violin on two songs, the Norman Conquest (who produced the record) on modular synth on the title track, and one of Caminiti and Porras’s other groups, Portraits, lending Eastern percussion to “Incantation.” Several tracks, including the Western-like “Visions in Dust,” feature background vocals by Caminiti and Porras as well as the Norman Conquest. The names of the songs give you an idea of what you’re in for — “Cavern Hymn,” “Twilight,” “Awakening,” the aforementioned “Ancestral Star” and “Incantation” — as Barn Owl winds them through improvisational experimentation that result in brief, beautiful excursions as well as longer, drifting head trips. It’s not all doom and gloom, but it’s also not high-spirited electronica. Barn Owl will be at the Issue Project Room on November 18 with High Aura’d, Tom Carter, and Loren Connors.

THE NIB & PICK SOCIETY: FISTICUFFS!

92YTribeca
200 Hudson St. at Canal St.
Thursday, November 18, $15, 9:00
212-415-5500
www.92y.org

Everyone seems to want to get into the ring these days, as chefs, architects, filmmakers, artists, musicians, comedians, and others battle it out for professional supremacy, so why not a bunch of cartoonists? On Thursday night, seven cartoonists will compete in a draw-off at 92YTribeca, with the audience supplying the topics, creating an improv-type environment. The diverse group of contestants include David Sipress, Michael Kupperman, Emily Flake, Paul Noth, Matthew Diffee, Zach Kanin, and Drew Dernavich. Unleash the pencils!

TICKET GIVEAWAY: THE NUTCRACKER IN 3D

Manhattan theater to be announced to winners
Monday, November 22, free, 4:00
www.nutcrackerin3d.com

It might not be beginning to look a lot like Christmas quite yet, but you’ll be able to see the holiday like you never have before in Andrei Konchalovsky’s live-action THE NUTCRACKER IN 3D. Based on E. T. A. Hoffman’s classic 1816 tale “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” in which a Christmas toy comes to life, the film stars Elle Fanning as Mary, Nathan Lane as Uncle Albert, John Turturro as the Rat King, Frances de la Tour as the Rat Queen, and Shirley Henderson as the voice of the Nutcracker.

The film opens Wednesday, November 24, but twi-ny has four sets of tickets to give away to a special advance screening being held Monday, November 22, at 4:00 at a Manhattan theater, three good for two people and one for four so you can bring the whole family. Just send your name and daytime phone number to contest@twi-ny.com by Friday, November 19, at 12 noon to be eligible. Please note in the e-mail whether you’re interested in tickets for two or four people. Good luck!