twi-ny recommended events

STRANGER THAN FICTION: AMERICAN SPLENDOR

Paul Giamatti and others will pay tribute to Harvey Pekar at special screening and discussion at the IFC Center

AMERICAN SPLENDOR (Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini, 2003)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
Tuesday, October 5, $16, 7:30
www.stfdocs.com/films/american_splendor
www.americansplendormovie.com

AMERICAN SPLENDOR is a vastly creative and entertaining love story should have been nominated for more than just a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. Paul Giamatti stars as Cleveland comic-book writer and all-around schlub Harvey Pekar, with Hope Davis as his neurotic girlfriend, Joyce. The marvelous script and unique visuals, which mimic comic-book panels, are joined by appearances by the real characters discussing how they are portrayed in the film and what their life is really like. You’ll think that Judah Friedlander is overplaying ultimate nerd Toby Radloff until you meet the real thing. The interweaving of fiction and reality is masterful. The film is screening as part of IFC’s Tuesday night series Stranger Than Fiction, hosted by Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen, and will be followed by a Q&A with star Giamatti, producer Ted Hope, artist-collaborator Dean Haspiel, and directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini; the discussion is sure to take on added meaning since Pekar’s death this past July at the age of seventy.

HOTEL SAVOY

At the Hotel Savoy, visitors check in, but they don’t necessarily check out (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Goethe-Institut
1014 Fifth Ave. between 82nd & 83rd Sts.
Wednesdays through Sundays through October 31, $15-$25, 5:30-9:45
212-352-3101
www.ps122.org
www.goethe.de

It’s getting tougher and tougher to get a reservation at the Hotel Savoy, so if you want to book a room, you better act fast. When commissioned by the Goethe-Institut to create a site-specific production in its historic building, Swiss theater architect Dominic Huber turned to Joseph Roth’s 1924 novel, HOTEL SAVOY, for inspiration. In collaboration with PS122, Huber transformed several floors of 1014 Fifth Ave., then hired nonprofessional actors to play employees of the creepy, mysterious hotel. Visitors are brought in one at a time and led on a strange fifty-minute journey where they’ll meet an elevator operator, a concierge, a cleaning woman, a bartender, and other hotel guests as they traverse narrow halls, a winding staircase, and dark passages. (To increase the feeling of reality, Huber found the elevator operator working across the street as an elevator operator at the Met, the bartender from Barbados is in fact a bartender from Barbados whose story is true, and the celebrity hairstylist is indeed a celebrity hairstylist.) Newspaper clippings, old photographs, sounds from adjoining rooms, and postcards give hints toward the hotel’s past, so visitors should keep a sharp eye out and take advantage of all they see. And the more that guests engage the people they come into contact with and take in their surroundings, the more they’ll learn. And perhaps above all, be patient. Over the last year, New York City has had a number of interactive productions that relied significantly on individual audience member’s interaction and involvement, from Tino Sehgal’s “This Progress” at the Guggenheim to art.party’s “Starbox” in Bryant Park to Christine Jones’s “Theatre for One”; HOTEL SAVOY is like a mix of all of those, filtered through THE SHINING. It’s about communication, loneliness, trust, and ghosts, walking that fine line between dream and reality, a different kind of haunted house for this Halloween season. The show runs Wednesday through Sunday nights from 5:30 to 9:45, with guests entering every seven and a half minutes; tickets are extremely limited, so don’t hesitate if you want to be part of a unique and engaging experience.

MAD. SQ. MARK’T: FOOD SQUARE

There’s a plethora of good eats to make anybody happy at Mad. Sq. Mark’t (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Madison Square Park
Intersection of Broadway & Fifth Ave. between 24th & 25th Sts.
Open daily 11:00 am – 8:00 pm through October 23
Admission: free
www.urbanspacenyc.com
www.madisonsquarepark.org

For the next three weeks, there’s no need to wait on those crazy long lines at Shack Shack if you want to get some fine food in Madison Square Park. The Food Square at Mad. Sq. Mark’t is back for its second year, featuring good eatin’ from more than a dozen specialty booths. You can get a bacon-scallion or truffle-cheddar pretzel from Sigmund, a chorizo taco or Fatty heritage pork and XO sausage dog from Cabrito / Fatty Crab / Fatty ’Cue, a zaatar cheese markook and fried cauliflower from Ilili, an egg and truffle sandwich from Piccolo Café, freshly fired pizza from Roberta’s, a thick-sliced pastrami sandwich on an onion roll from Almond, a chicken biscuit from Pies ‘n’ Thighs, or a gourmet sweet or savory crepe with crispy frites from Bar Suzette. Follow that up with Italian pastry from Stuffed Artisan Cannolis, a chocolate and nutella waffle from Wafels & Dinges, a ginger molasses cookie from Pies ‘n’ Thighs, a chocolate-chip, peanut butter, and pretzel-chunk cookie from Sigmund, apple cider donuts from Breezy Hill Orchard, or other delectable delights. The market, which also includes more than a dozen shops, is open daily from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm on the pedestrian median at the intersection of Fifth Ave. & Broadway at 25th St.

CMJ MUSIC MARATHON & FILM FESTIVAL

Drink Up Buttercup will be back for more groovy fun at CMJ (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple venues
October 19-23
Full Festival Badge: $495; CMJ Play Pass: $149; Film Festival Pass: $50
Individual tickets available
www.cmj2010.com

We’re happy to see many of our favorites among the more than 1,200 bands slated to perform at this year’s CMJ Music Marathon, running October 19-23 — in addition to hundreds of new bands we can’t wait to check out. (Well, we’re going to try to see as many as we can anyway.) There’s an interesting bunch of older dudes as well who will be playing with the younger kids. The festival also features film premieres, panel discussions, and other special events. Over the course of the next two weeks, twi-ny will keep firing early warning shout-outs to our first-out-of-the-gate contenders for don’t-miss status. Even if you can’t afford a festival badge, limited tickets are available to the general public for most shows, but they’re going to go fast, so you better hurry. Here is a sneak peak at twenty to watch out for, all of whom you’ve read about it previously on This Week in New York.

Asobi Seksu / Bear Hands / Das Racist / Dean & Britta / Drink Up Buttercup / the Fleshtones / Four Tet / the Golden Filter / Jean Grae / Heavy Cream / Howlies / Hypernova / Justin Townes Earle / Oberhofer / the Pains of Being Pure at Heart / Robbers on High Street / Savoir Adore / Screaming Females / Surfer Blood / We Are Country Mice

VOLLMOND (FULL MOON)

Pina Bausch’s VOLLMOND is a wet and wild experience (photo by Laurent Philippe)

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Through October 9, $25 – $85 (October 1 performance reviewed)
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.pina-bausch.de

Returning to BAM for the first time since the sudden death of their founder and artistic director, Pina Bausch, in June 2009, Tanztheater Wuppertal is dazzling audiences in Brooklyn with the U.S. premiere of the 2006 evening-length piece VOLLMOND (FULL MOON). A large rock sits alone on a sparse black stage above a shallow, barely visible river of water. The first half of the 150-minute show is an utter delight as the twelve-member company enacts vignettes of love, romance, and the playful battle between the sexes, the men dressed in dark pants and button-down shirts, the women in elegant evening gowns and high heels. They flirt, kiss, and tell jokes, occasionally giving way to sparkling solos by the diminutive Rainer Behr and Ditta Miranda Jasjfi and others. Water, the elixir of life, is at the center of it all, whether the men are pouring drinks for the women or they all go for a swim in the river, rain crashing down in a breathtaking display.

Women dominate the battle of the sexes in VOLLMOND (photo by Jan Szito)

But the second half takes a darker turn, as costumes dim and tend toward black, the kissing and jokes replaced by violence and pain, the high tides of the full moon now pulling more turbulent currents to the surface. The first three solos are performed by the troupe’s older members, new co-artistic director Dominique Mercy (who has been with the company since Bausch took it over in 1973), longtime comic relief Nazareth Panadero, and the lithe, rail-thin Julie Anne Stanzak, their movements sharper and less fluid than those of the younger dancers. Where wooden sticks were earlier used to create a cool thwooshing sound, now they are weapons. Instead of filling a wineglass with a drink, a man now shoots a plastic cup off a woman’s head using a water pistol. The music also borders on the morose, including Cat Power’s eerie “Werewolf.” But soon the sexes are back in each other’s arms for a wet and wild finale. Bausch’s unique melding of dance, theater, comedy, and music is in abundant evidence throughout VOLLMOND, another terrific crowd pleaser from one of the world’s most gifted talents. Athough no one takes the customary choreographer’s bow after the show, Bausch’s presence is felt all night long. At one point, Panadero brings out a chair and warns a man away from it, stating that even ghosts need to sit down; everyone in the theater instantly understands whom she is talking about. Discussion and speculation over the future of Tanztheater Wuppertal swirl around whether it can go on without Bausch; VOLLMOND is a must-see on its own merits, but even more so considering the possibility that it could be the company’s last stand in New York.

CinémaTuesdays: HOLLYWOOD LOVES FRENCH CINEMA

Richard Gere begs audiences to take another look at his 1983 remake, BREATHLESS

French Institute Alliance Française
Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
October 5-26, $10, separate admission for each screening
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org

Continually bereft of original ideas, Hollywood producers are constantly mining through foreign films they can remake in English for their next big hit. One of their favorite targets is France, which has led to such American movies as THREE MEN AND A BABY, COUSINS, TRUE LIES, THE BIRDCAGE, and DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS. All this month, the French Institute Alliance Française’s excellent CinémaTuesdays program is taking a look at this fruitful and fruitless relationship, screening four French classics alongside four American remakes. The series begins October 5 with screenings of the fiftieth anniversary restoration print of Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal 1960 Nouvelle Vague stunner À BOUT DE SOUFFLÉ and Jim McBride’s 1983 version of BREATHLESS; let’s just say that Richard Gere and Valérie Kaprisky are no Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. On October 12, Jean Renoir’s BOUDU SAUVÉ DES EAUX (BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING) can be directly compared to its Hollywood offspring, Paul Mazursky’s quirky 1986 comedy DOWN AND OUT IN BEVERLY HILLS. The most fascinating pairing is Henri-Georges Clouzot’s harrowing 1953 drama LE SALAIRE DE LA PEUR (THE WAGES OF FEAR) and William Friedkin’s surprisingly gripping 1977 remake, SORCERER, with Roy Scheider doing an outstanding job playing the torturous Yves Montand role as a driver who must go through hell to try to get a shipment of nitroglycerine to its intended destination. The series concludes with a couple of lesser-known films, Marcel Carné’s LE JOUR SE LÈVE (DAYBREAK, 1939), starring the elegant Jean Gabin, and Anatole Litvak’s 1947 remake, THE LONG NIGHT, with Henry Fonda in the lead role. Please note that separate admission is required for each screening; unfortunately, these are not double features.

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg star in Jean-Luc Godard’s anarchic, iconic BREATHLESS (courtesy Rialto Pictures/StudioCanal)

BREATHLESS (À BOUT DE SOUFFLE) (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
French Institute Alliance Française
Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, October 5, $10, 12:30 & 7:00
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org

The fiftieth-anniversary restoration of Jean-Luc Godard’s Nouvelle Vague classic, BREATHLESS, will leave audiences, well, breathless. Godard’s first feature-length film, buoyed by an original treatment by François Truffaut and with Claude Chabrol serving as technical adviser, is as much about the cinema itself as it is about would-be small-time gangster Michel Poiccard (an iconic Jean-Paul Belmondo), an ultra-cool dude wandering from girl to girl in Paris, looking for extra helpings of sex and money and having trouble getting either. Along the way he steals a car and shoots a cop as if shooing away a fly before teaming up with Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg) and heading out on the run. Godard references William Faulkner and Dashiell Hammett, Humphrey Bogart and Sam Fuller as Michel and Patricia make faces at each other, discuss death, and are chased by the police. Anarchy prevails, both in Belmondo’s character and the film as a whole, which can go off in any direction at any time. Godard himself shows up as the man who identifies Michel, and there are also cameos by New Wave directors Jean-Pierre Melville and Jacques Rivette. The beautiful restoration, supervised by the film’s director of photography, Raoul Coutard, also includes a brand-new translation and subtitles that breathe new life into one of cinema’s greatest treasures.

THE MUSIC OF FELA KUTI

The music of Fela Kuti will be performed at free concert at St. Ann’s Warehouse on October 4

St. Ann’s Warehouse
38 Water St.
Monday, October 4, 6:30 (doors open at 6:00)
Admission: free
www.brooklynbridgepark.org
www.felaonbroadway.com

FELA! has been a runaway Broadway hit, celebrating the life and career of influential Nigerian singer and activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti. On October 4, FELA! star Sahr Ngaujah will perform a free concert version in St. Ann’s Warehouse (moved from Brooklyn Bridge Park because of the weather), backed by the Broadway band, which includes members of Brooklyn’s Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra. The musical, which was nominated for eleven Tony awards, features such Kuti songs as “Sorrow, Tears and Blood,” “Zombie,” “Shuffering & Shmiling,” “I.T.T. (International Thief Thief),” and “Coffin for Head of State.” Doors open at 6:00 and the concert begins at 6:30, but you’re going to have to get there a lot earlier to guarantee yourself a decent seat.