twi-ny recommended events

PSYCHO

Fans will be screaming about PSYCHO’s fiftieth anniversary screenings at Film Forum (courtesy Photofest)

PSYCHO (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
October 29 – November 4
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org/films/psycho.html

Yes, it’s now been fifty years since Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO first started scaring people silly, especially those considering taking a shower. (Rumors that Americans smelled pretty foul in the early 1960s have never been substantiated.) The master of suspense turned to horror in 1960, transporting Robert Bloch’s novel, inspired by the case of serial killer Ed Gein, onto celluloid for all time. Anthony Perkins is at his creepy best as Norman Bates, the owner of a motel in the middle of nowhere who has a thing for stuffed birds and his mother. He gets somewhat titillated when Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) shows up one night; she is on the run with a wad of cash that isn’t hers. Marion’s sister (Vera Miles), boyfriend (John Gavin), and a private detective (Martin Balsam) are trying to find her, but they’re not gonna have much luck. PSYCHO became the blueprint for psychological terror, a thriller that doesn’t stab you in the back with red herrings and gore and violence. Instead, it gets deep inside your head — where it will stay the rest of your life. Film Forum is celebrating the film’s silver anniversary by showing it wrapped around Halloween weekend, just to make things extra frightening. Film critic David Thomson will introduce the 7:45 screening on October 29 and sign copies of THE MOMENT OF PSYCHO and THE NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF FILM afterward.

STEAMPUNK HAUNTED HOUSE

Abrons Arts Center is home to a very different kind of haunted house

Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Through October 31, $10-$25
212-352-3101
www.abronsartscenter.org
www.steampunkhauntedhouse.com

Zach Morris and Third Rail Projects bring visitors back to neo-Victorian times with their elegant three-floor Steampunk Haunted House, at the Abrons Arts Center through October 31. People experience the immersive environment individually, increasing the scare factor as they wander among “mechanical apparitions, wraithlike sleepwalkers, and gear-powered beasts.” But this haunted house has no bloody depictions of gore and violence, instead relying on other types of thrills and chills.

THE FORTUNE TELLER: PHANTOM LIMB

Marionettes arrive HERE just in time for Halloween (photo by Oliver Dalzell)

HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave.
October 28 – December 4, $25-$50
212-352-3101
www.here.org

Halloween is a great time to face your fears, especially if you have a problem with puppets, clowns, dolls, and the like. The HERE Arts Center has just the right remedy: Part of its Dream Music Puppetry Program, THE FORTUNE TELLER gathers seven strangers together as a dead billionaire’s vast holdings are divided among them through the readings of a fortune teller. The very creepy proceedings were created and directed by Erik Sanko and Jessica Grindstaff, with an original score by former Oingo Boingo leader and longtime Tim Burton collaborator Danny Elfman (with Sanko). The production, which features some very weird marionette creatures (including an accordion-playing clown), is narrated by Gavin Friday.

HALLOWEEN HOORAH

World’s heaviest pumpkin will be carved this weekend at the New York Botanical Garden

New York Botanical Garden
Bronx River Pkwy at Fordham Rd.
October 29-31, free – $6
www.nybg.org

This weekend, expert carver Scott Cully will take his knife to the world’s heaviest pumpkin at the New York Botanical Garden. Grown in Wisconsin by Chris Stevens, the gynormous gourd weighs in at 1,810 1/2 pounds. The garden is also currently home to Michigan grower Ken Sweet’s 1,725 pounder and Massachusetts farmer Steve Connolly’s 1,674 1/2 monster. Stevens’s and Sweet’s pumpkins are actually siblings, grown from seeds from the same parent. Also this weekend, the NYBG wraps up its three-week Halloween Hoorah with a slate of activities in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, including ghostly leaf rubbing, creepy crawly critter exploration, apple cider pressing, sensational seed sorting, the pumpkin playhouse, and Halloween parades.

TWI-NY TICKET GIVEAWAY: NEON INDIAN / PRINCE RAMA / APACHE BEAT

Brooklyn Bowl
61 Wythe Ave.
Friday, October 29, $15, 9:00
718-963-3369
www.brooklynbowl.com

If you missed CMJ this month, you can get a great taste of what it was like by checking out three of the festival’s most-talked-about bands, who will be teaming up for a hot triple bill at Brooklyn Bowl on Friday night. Taking the stage first is the local group Apache Beat, who played a cool set at the Siren Festival this summer and are highlighting songs from their inaugural full-length, LAST CHANTS (Beverly Martel, October 2010). Next up are sisters Taraka and Nimai Larson and Michael Collins, who met on a Gainesville Hare Krishna commune and later formed Prince Rama of Ayodhya, now known as just Prince Rama. The trippy trio are touring behind their fourth record, SHADOW TEMPLE, which was just released on Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label. The headliners, Neon Indian, formed by Alan Palomo in Denton, Texas, last year, have been making a name for themselves all over the indie map, scoring big with the psychedelic electronic tape music featured on their well-received debut disc, PSYCHIC CHASMS. The night will also include a Halloween costume contest.

Tickets are $15 each, but twi-ny has a pair to give away to one lucky reader. To enter the contest, send your name and daytime phone number to contest@twi-ny.com no later than Friday, October 29, at 12 noon. All entrants must be at least twenty-one years of age. One winner will be chosen at random. Good luck!

TWI-NY TICKET GIVEAWAY: THE 39 STEPS

Richard Hannay is on the run in Tony-winning play THE 39 STEPS

New World Stages
340 West 50th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tickets: $69.50-$149.50 – or free through twi-ny!
www.39stepsny.com

Patrick Barlow’s Tony- and Drama Desk-winning play, directed by Maria Aitken, opened in June 2005 in England, moved to Broadway in January 2008, and has settled in for an extended run at New World Stages. Based on John Buchan’s 1915 novel and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 classic film, the production currently stars John Behlmann as Richard Hannay, with Kate MacCluggage as Annabella Schmidt, Pamela, and Margaret, and Cameron Folmar and Jamie Jackson handling the other roles, some 140 all told. What are the 39 steps? The only way to find out is to see the play, and This Week in New York has four pairs of tickets to give away for free as part of a special Halloween promotion. To enter to win a pair good for select performances through December 17, send your name and daytime phone number to contest@twi-ny.com no later than Monday, November 1, at 12 noon. All entrants must be at least twenty-one years of age. Four winners will be chosen at random. Good luck!

McKIM BUILDING RESTORATION

New-Trad Octet will help welcome in restored McKim Building at the Morgan (photo by Schector Lee)

Morgan Library
225 Madison Ave. at 36th St.
Saturday, October 30, free with museum admission of $8-$12, 4:00
212-685-0008
www.themorgan.org
www.new-trad.com

After a nearly five-month restoration, the Morgan Library’s 1906 McKim Building will reopen to the public on Saturday with a full day of celebratory activities. From 12 noon to 3:00, musicians from Mannes College will perform. At 1:00, Morgan director William M. Griswold will give a lecture about the restoration of the landmark structure and the museum’s collections. And at 4:00, Jeff Newell’s New-Trad Octet will give a concert featuring their unique brand of early American music, with a focus on the splendid exhibit “Mark Twain: A Skeptic’s Progress.” Newell notes on the band’s website, “We’ll be playing our ‘restored’ arrangements of historic music from the Gilded Age, including some of Twain’s favorites.” Tickets for the events are free with museum admission on Saturday. Also on view at the Morgan are “Roy Lichtenstein: The Black-and-White Drawings, 1961-1968,” “Degas: Drawings and Sketchbooks,” and “Anne Morgan’s War: Rebuilding Devastated France, 1917-1924.”