twi-ny recommended events

NEW FILMS FROM JAPAN: BLUE

Ogawa Kazuki (Higashide Masahiro) is on a difficult path in Keisuke Yoshida’s Blue

BLUE (Keisuke Yoshida, 2021)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, March 11
www.ifccenter.com
www.ifccenter.com

Several decades ago, when my now-wife and I were visiting her paternal grandfather in Florida, he challenged us while watching the Friday night fights. Grandpa Joe said, “We’re betting a nickel a match, and I’m taking the red corner. The red corner always wins.” He opened up a drawer to reveal dozens and dozens of nickels. He looked at his granddaughter and said, “I won these off your father and brothers. Now it’s your turn.”

In Keisuke Yoshida’s poignant boxing film, Blue, the title refers not only to the corner of the ring — the favored team of fighters gets the red side — but to the emotional and physical state of the competitors and their loved ones. This is not a Japanese Rocky story but a powerful gut punch, one the sport can deliver on and off the canvas.

Tired of being bullied, nerdy Narazaki Tsuyoshi (Emoto Tokio) goes to a boxing gym, telling trainer Urita Nobuto (Matsuyama Kenichi), “I’m not aiming to be a boxer. I just want to be perceived as one.” Narazaki, who is the sole caregiver for his elderly grandmother, also wants to impress the fellow pachinko parlor employee (Ayuri Yoshinaga) he has a crush on. Some of the other boxers make fun of him when he displays his flicker jab, which he learned from the boxing manga Hajime no Ippo. He is then challenged by the punk-haired Doguchi (Shinichirô Matsuura), who shows him no respect.

Urita, a kindhearted soul who has a terrible fight record, getting battered and beaten match after match, takes Narazaki under his wing, and soon Narazaki starts showing signs of promise. Meanwhile, the student at the gym with the best chance of becoming Japanese champion, Ogawa Kazuki (Higashide Masahiro), is having brain issues, forgetting what he’s doing, occasionally feeling lost in the world. Ignoring doctor’s orders — and the wishes of his fiancée, Chika (Fumino Kimura) — Ogawa keeps on training and fighting as things get worse. As the tournament approaches, everyone has unique obstacles to face as they look to futures that are far from certain.

Last winter, as part of the ACA Cinema Project, Japan Society and Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs teamed up for “21st Century Japan: Films from 2001-2020,” a three-week virtual festival of Japanese films from the last twenty years, followed in December by “Flash Forward: Debut Works and Recent Films by Notable Japanese Directors,” a three-week hybrid series pairing directors’ most recent works with their debuts. Now the ACA Cinema Project is presenting the US theatrical premiere of Blue, which opens March 11 at IFC Center, along with Yujiro Harumoto’s award-winning A Balance.

Blue reunites Matsuyama, Higashide, and Kimura from Yoshitaka Mori’s award-winning 2016 drama, Satoshi: A Move for Tomorrow, about professional shogi player Satoshi Murayama. Blue is set in a very different sport, inspired by writer-director Yoshida’s three decades of boxing experience. First and foremost, he gets the boxing right; the scenes in the ring are terrifically photographed with handheld cameras, putting the viewer in the midst of the action. Yoshida (Raw Summer, Café Isobe) also avoids the stereotypes of the genre with well-developed characters and unexpected plot twists that feel realistic and believable.

The young cast is a winning team with instant chemistry, led by Kimura’s charm and Kenichi’s stellar portrayal of the complex Urita. As good as the boxing scenes are, Blue is about so much more. “Don’t you feel frustrated?” Narazaki asks Urita after the latter loses again. “Yes, I’m frustrated,” the Zen-like Urita responds thoughtfully. “I’m frustrated, but if you could transform frustration into strength. . . .”

It’s a feeling we each know all too well, and not just when we lose yet more nickels to Grandpa Joe.

I’VE HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING

Polly Vandersma (Sheila McCarthy) shares her unique view of the world in I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing

I’VE HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING (Patricia Rozema, 1987)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Opens Friday, March 11, At Home and In Theater
212-660-0312
nyc.metrograph.com
www.kinolorber.com

“Gosh. You know, sometimes I think my head is like a gas tank. You have to be really careful what you put into it because it might just affect the whole system,” Polly Vandersma (Sheila McCarthy) says in I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing. “I mean, isn’t life the strangest thing you’ve ever seen?”

Considered one of the best films to ever come out of Canada, I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing is plenty strange itself. The 1987 comedy is a unique exploration of queer culture and belongs with such 1980s underground fare as Smithereens, Liquid Sky, and Repo Man as well as James McBride’s 1967 David Holzman’s Diary. In her second film, McCarthy stars as the birdlike Polly, a quirky, self-described “unsuccessful career woman” and “gal on the go,” a not-very-good girl Friday who is content being a temporary secretary, the antithesis of the ’80s archetype embodied by Tess McGill, the ambitious thirty-year-old portrayed by Melanie Griffith in Mike Nichols’s 1988 Working Girl.

The story is told in flashback as Polly makes a video about her simple existence, kind of like a precursor to the confessions in MTV’s The Real World but without the self-aggrandizement. Polly lives alone in Toronto, with no friends; now thirty-one, she lost both her parents ten years before. She’s not exactly smart or well rounded and not much of a conversationalist. When gallery curator Gabrielle (Paule Baillargeon) offers her a full-time position, Polly jumps at the chance, ready to immerse herself in the contemporary art world, which she knows nothing about, and Gabrielle’s personal life, which includes the sudden, unexpected return of her old girlfriend, Mary (Ann-Marie MacDonald).

Polly is an aspiring photographer who snaps pictures of people on the street hanging out, playing sports, and falling in love, all activities that seem to evade her. She develops the film in her bathroom, which she has converted into a makeshift darkroom. Meanwhile, she has endearing fantasies of climbing buildings, flying, and walking on water. Her photos and fantasies are in black-and-white, countering the pastel colors of her daily life. When she finds out that Gabrielle is a painter — her canvases literally glow, as if descended from heaven (while evoking the mysterious object in the trunk of the Chevy Malibu in Repo Man) — she becomes obsessed with her mentor’s works as both of them decide to pursue their artistic talents further.

Filmed in Toronto in one month for $275,000, I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, winner of the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, underwent a 4K restoration in 2017 as part of Canada 150, a celebration of the country’s 150th anniversary of its confederation. The title was taken from a line in T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”: “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. / I do not think that they will sing to me.”

McCarthy won the first of two Genie Awards for Best Actress, the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars, for Mermaids; she would nab the honor again six years later for Diane Kingswood’s The Lotus Eaters. She is mesmerizing as the endlessly eccentric, spikey-red-haired Polly, who is as peculiar and unpredictable as she is charming and endearing; it’s like she’s arrived from another planet, intent on learning what life can be about. Pay close attention to the scene in which Gabrielle and art critic Clive (Richard Monette) discuss a new painting by a gallery artist while Polly eavesdrops; they are actually talking about her potential transformation, even if she doesn’t realize it.

Rozema (Mansfield Park, When Night Is Falling) wrote, directed, edited, and coproduced the film, which features playful cinematography by Douglas Koch and a fab ’80s score by Mark Korven, alongside Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.

The restored version opens at Metrograph on March 11, with Rozema participating in a Q&A with multidisciplinary artist Laurie Anderson following the 6:30 screening on opening night. “I wanted to make a warm-spirited anti-authority film,” Rozema says in her director’s statement. “But most of all I wanted to make a film with Polly in it, one where she and I get to hear the mermaids singing.” We should consider ourselves fortunate to be able to do the same.

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF A WOMAN IN NEED

Naima Mora portrays different versions of herself in The Amazing Adventures of a Woman in Need (photos by Harris Davey)

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF A WOMAN IN NEED
Triad Theater
158 West 72nd St. between Amsterdam & Columbus Aves.
Saturday, March 12, April 9, May 14, June 18, $30, 7:00
www.theamazingadventuresofawomaninneed.com
triadnyc.com

In the prologue to her debut solo show, The Amazing Adventures of a Woman in Need — which streamed during the pandemic and now returns to the Triad for an encore run monthly Saturdays beginning March 12 — Naima Mora, wearing jeans and a tight white tank top, holding a pink rose, describes the day in Harlem in 2002 when she realized she needed to turn her unhappy, unsatisfying life around. “I sit alone in my room, on my bed, wondering how I got here, wondering why I’m in this hell of a city, wondering why I’m killing myself to be here, wondering why my hair is falling out, wondering why I partied all night shoveling drugs up my nose, wondering why I’m sabotaging myself,” she says. “And then, I have to cradle myself, be gentle with myself, fall in love with myself, breathe and try to forget the last eight hours, and then forgive myself: forgive myself for being a drunk, for wanting insatiable fun to fill a void and forget the disappointment that I have with myself. And to myself, in my room, on my bed, guilt having settled in, and a little bit of a panic attack, just a little bit, I think to myself, I forgive you. I forgive you for being a fucking mess.”

Mora then admits, “Now, I’ve lived many lives: a supermodel, a crazy woman, and a gold digger, but I still haven’t really lived. So why not tell my story. I need to tell my story. I need to get this shit out of my body and out of my head. I need to rid myself of this self-inflicted destruction.” For the next seventy-five minutes, Mora portrays each of those characters, Penelope the supermodel, who can’t get a runway job anymore; the quirky Joanne, who suffers miscarriages and spends time in a psychiatric hospital; and Marisol Yanette Arnelis Rodriguez Lopes, a ritualistic woman facing too much solitude, offering such life lessons as “Get Your Hands Off My Peach Fuzz” and “Checkmate the Seduction: Train the Eggplant.” The set features a chair, a table, and a couch, a few props, and a screen on which photographs are projected.

An America’s Next Top Model winner, actress, author, and inspirational speaker, Mora who was born in Detroit in 1984, is barely recognizable in the roles, immersing herself fully into them, each with very different costumes, accents, hair, and movement. Directed and cowritten by Brooklyn native Marishka S. Phillips, The Amazing Adventures of a Woman in Need is a deeply intimate tale that also provides a roadmap for personal introspection; watching Mora deal with her issues so openly is likely to encourage audiences to do the same.

The virtual show I saw was recorded live with an audience at the Triad on October 16, 2021; it will be back at the Upper West Side theater for four performances, March 12, April 9, May 14, and June 18. Mora bravely puts herself out there as she battles her demons in public; she also traced the development of the play on social media. In a Twitter post last fall, she wrote, “My director is pushing me to my limits this week. Asking me to expand and literally stretch my artistic muscle for our show coming up in just 2 days!!! This has truly been a transformative experience.” It should be even more transformative now that it’s back in person.

JOHN EARLY SELECTS: MAPS TO THE STARS

Jerome Fontana (Robert Pattinson) and Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska) look to the Hollywood hills in Maps to the Stars

MAPS TO THE STARS (David Cronenberg, 2014)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Wednesday, March 9, 4:45 and 7:15
Metrograph at Home, March 12-14
www.focusfeatures.com
nyc.metrograph.com

Actor and comedian John Early’s latest selection for Metrograph is an underrated gem. Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg and American novelist and screenwriter Bruce Wagner, a match made in Hollywood Babylon, paint a savage portrait of celebrity culture in the absolutely incendiary and off-the-charts satire Maps to the Stars. The darkly funny comic drama centers on Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska), a young woman who returns to Hollywood after having been put away for a long time for a dangerous deed, her face and body marked by burns. Befriending limo driver Jerome Fontana (Robert Pattinson), who is an aspiring actor and writer, Agatha gets a job working for disgruntled actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore), who is desperate to star in the remake of Stolen Moments, playing the role that made her mother, Clarice Taggart (Sarah Gadon), famous, but Havana fears that according to Hollywood she is much too old. Havana undergoes regular intense physical and psychological therapy to deal with her mommy issues with television healer Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), Agatha’s father, who has banished his daughter from ever contacting the family again. Meanwhile, Agatha’s younger brother, thirteen-year-old child star Benjie Weiss (Evan Bird), is a Bieberesque character fresh out of rehab who is negotiating the sequel to his massive hit, Bad Babysitter, with his very serious stage mom, Cristina (Olivia Williams). Slowly but surely, everyone’s lives intersect in a riot of fame and misfortune, drugs and guns, ghosts and incest.

Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) screams for success in dazzling collaboration between David Cronenberg and Bruce Wagner

Cronenberg, who has made such cult favorites as Scanners, The Fly, Naked Lunch, and A History of Violence, and the L.A.-based Wagner, author of such stinging novels as I’ll Let You Go, Still Holding, The Empty Chair, and I’m Losing You, which he also turned into a film, leave nothing and no one unscathed in this thoroughly brutal depiction of Hollywood as a haunted La La Land of dreams and nightmares, both literally and figuratively. Rising star Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, In Treatment, Jane Eyre) is superb as Agatha, her inner and outer scars revealing more and more of themselves as she reinserts herself into the life of her crazy family, with Cusack channeling a bit of Nicolas Cage as the overprotective patriarch, a self-help guru who could use a little help himself. Moore was named Best Actress at Cannes for her harrowing portrayal of an actress teetering on the edge of reality.

Shooting for the first time ever in the United States, Cronenberg captures the sights and smells of Los Angeles and its environs; most of the film was shot in Canada, however, but Cronenberg kept Wagner, a former Hollywood limo driver himself, close by, trying to attain as much authenticity as possible. Twilight hunk Pattinson, who spent all of Cronenberg’s previous movie, Cosmopolis, in the back of a limo, gets in the driver’s seat here, playing an alternate, reimagined version of Wagner. The severely screwed-up Weiss family serves as a microcosm for Hollywood’s own severely screwed-up dysfunction, as Cronenberg melds the ridiculous with the sublime, the tragic with the comic, the bizarre with the, well, more bizarre, creating a modern-day fairy-tale mashup of Shakespeare and Williams, Sunset Boulevard and Less than Zero, a caustic, cautionary tale of the price you pay for getting what you wish for. Maps to the Stars, with an introduction by Early (Search Party, The Afterparty), is screening March 9 at 4:45 and 7:15 at Metrograph, then will be streaming March 12-14 as part of Metrograph at Home.

A BENEFIT FOR UKRAINE

Who: Eugene Hütz, Gogol Bordello, Craig Finn & Franz Nicolay, Jesse Malin, Lady Lamb, Marc Roberge, Matisyahu, Patti Smith, Stephin Merritt, Suzanne Vega, more
What: Benefit concert for Ukraine and the Come Back Alive Foundation
Where: City Winery on Mandolin
When: Thursday, March 10, $20, 8:00
Why: City Winery’s all-star benefit for Ukraine sold out almost instantly, but you can still catch it from the comfort of your own home while donating to help a sovereign nation deeply in need of support, with nearly two million refugees seeking new places to live. City Winery will be livestreaming the show, raising funds for Ukraine and the Come Back Alive Foundation, an organization, founded in 2014, that declares: “Ukraine is the Shield of Europe. We believe that a threat to freedom anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere. We are here defending the values we share across Europe and the world. We are doing our best to make sure Putin’s values do not spread further, even beyond our borders. Our Army is strong and determined, but they are underequipped.”

For a mere twenty bucks, you can watch a parade of musicians take the stage at the Far West Side venue, hosted by Eugene Hütz and his band, Gogol Bordello; Hütz was born in Ukraine to a Russian father and a Ukrainian mother. “Ukraine belongs to Ukrainians! We are an ancient independent nation distinctly and forever different from this criminally insane neighbor,” Hütz said in a statement. “The proof you all see now in the fierce mind-blowing battle that the world is witnessing, a battle of Ukrainian people’s choice of freedom and democracy against a psychotic totalitarian regime next door. Please help us to win this battle, help us to end this catastrophe immediately and bring the intruder to justice. Please stand with Ukraine in the battle for its democracy and freedom. Please donate and fundraise with us. Ukraine needs all of you. All your support counts.”

The lineup, so far, includes Craig Finn and Franz Nicolay of the Hold Steady, Jesse Malin, Lady Lamb, Marc Roberge of O.A.R., Matisyahu, Patti Smith, Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields, and Suzanne Vega. You can also join the waitlist to see the concert live and in person. Хай живе, вільна Україна!

CELEBRATING MOLIÈRE’S 400th BIRTHDAY

Who: Lisa Gorlitsky, Margaret Ivey, Postell Pringle, Adam Gopnik, Erica Schmidt, Comédie-Française
What: Celebration of Molière’s quadricentennial
Where: FIAF, Florence Gould Hall and Skyroom, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
When: March 10-12, 24, 30, $20-$45 (three-event package $75)
Why: Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was born into a bourgeois family in early 1622 in Paris. Nicknamed “le Nez” because of his relatively large proboscis, he eventually became better known as poet, playwright, and actor Molière. In celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of his birth, the French Institute Alliance Française is hosting a trio of special events. Taking place March 10-12 at 7:30 ($45) at FIAF’s Florence Gould Hall, “Molière Turns 400: 17th Century Paris Meets 21st Century New York” consists of staged excerpts, complete with sets, costumes, and live music, from The Misanthrope, The School for Wives, and Tartuffe, with Lisa Gorlitsky, Margaret Ivey, and Postell Pringle and directed by Lucie Tiberghien, the founding artistic director of Molière in the Park, which performed livestreamed adaptations of all three works during the pandemic lockdown. The March 10 presentation will be followed by a reception.

Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of Molière’s uncensored Tartuffe screens at FIAF March 24

On March 24 at 7:00 ($25), New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik and director Erica Schmidt will be at the FIAF Skyroom for the talk “Modernizing Molière,” available in person and via livestream. Gopnik contributed the foreword to Molière: The Complete Richard Wilbur Translations, while Schmidt directed Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid at Bard SummerScape in 2012, starring her husband, Peter Dinklage. The fête concludes March 30 at 7:00 ($35) in Florence Gould Hall with a screening of Molière’s uncensored Tartuffe or the Hypocrite by Comédie-Française, directed by Ivo van Hove from the original script, which was censored by Louis XIV in 1664; the filmed version stars Christophe Montenez and features a score by Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat.

THIS BITTER EARTH

Jesse (Damian Jermaine Thompson) and Neil (Tom Holcomb) face several crises in This Bitter Earth (photo by Mike Marques)

THIS BITTER EARTH
TheaterWorks Hartford online (and in person)
March 7-20, $20 virtual, $25 – $65 in person
twhartford.org

“This bitter earth / Well, what a fruit it bears / What good is love / Mmh, that no one shares? / And if my life is like the dust / Ooh, that hides the glow of a rose / What good am I? / Heaven only knows,” Dinah Washington sings in her 1960 number one hit, “This Bitter Earth.” The song plays at the end of TheaterWorks Hartford’s production of Harrison David Rivers’s This Bitter Earth, being performed onstage and streamed on demand through March 20.

The tender and moving, if earnest, play stars Damian Jermaine Thompson and Tom Holcomb as a mixed-race thirtyish couple facing different kinds of trauma in New York City and St. Paul, Minnesota, between March 2012 and December 2015. The serious Jesse Howard (Thompson) is a Black playwright with a burgeoning career; the more outgoing Neil Finley-Darden (Tom Holcomb) is a white Black Lives Matter activist from a wealthy family. While Neil feels grounded in his life and confident in his purpose, Jesse is much more on edge; in fact, he has a troubled relationship with gravity.

“Sometimes — and scientists may refute this, but fuck them — sometimes I can feel the Earth move. And not like tremors or earthquakes, tornados or hurricanes. This is not a matter of wind or tectonic plates but rather a matter of chemistry. Body chemistry. My body chemistry,” Jesse says in one of numerous short monologues he delivers directly to the audience. “I find it strange that others can’t feel it — the rotation. Strange and a bit lonely.”

The play takes place in their spacious Harlem bedroom, with large windows that often show snow falling, a coldness hovering over everything. (The attractive set is by Riw Rakkulchon.) “It’s the way that history isn’t history at all. Or, at least, the way that it doesn’t stay in the past. The way that the past fucks the present,” Neil tells us. The narrative goes back and forth in time, from when Jesse and Neil first meet and fall for each other, to the current day, amid several tragedies. Each flashback adds a bit more to the story, further developing the characters and certain key aspects of the story, which revolve around the murders of innocent Black men at the hands of white police officers and other citizens, from Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown to Jamar Clark and the Charleston church shooting.

Tom Holcomb and Damian Jermaine Thompson star as lovers who look at the world differently in TheaterWorks Hartford production (photo by Mike Marques)

But Rivers offers a neat twist on expectations, as Neil seems more intent on doing something about it than Jesse does. “You know, you accuse me of my white guilt, but what about yr apathy?” Neil declares as he prepares to take a van to a protest in Ferguson, Missouri. Jesse explains that he can’t go because he has rehearsals. “You know, yr not the center of the universe, Jesse. No one has that kind of gravitational pull. Not even you,” Neil says before leaving.

Their fights, which are no different from those of straight couples of the same race, often end in loving embraces, with clothes coming off as they roll around on the bed; their passion is evident throughout, even with their distractions. (There’s plenty for fight and intimacy director Rocío Mendez to do, as well as costume designer Devario D. Simmons.) But a common theme keeps arising, that of Jesse’s desire to live life like a regular person, whatever that is these days. “Yr a fucking double minority, Jesse,” Neil says, to which Jesse responds, “What does that have to do with anything?” Be sure to bring tissues for the conclusion.

Affectionately directed by David Mendizábal (Tell Hector I Miss Him, On the Grounds of Belonging) with almost too much thoughtful understanding, This Bitter Earth is a sensitive story of love in difficult times. The stream is well shot with multiple cameras in front of an audience, feeling like a theatrical work and not a film. The show, which premiered in 2017 at San Francisco’s New Conservatory Theatre Center, is even more cogent today, with the murders of Elijah McClain, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and so many others occurring since the play’s debut. Rivers (Broadbend, Arkansas; When We Last Flew) has Jesse quote extensively from gay Black poet and activist Essex Hemphill, a hero of Jesse’s and, apparently, the playwright’s; the story works much better when Jesse speaks for himself.

Thompson (Fly, The Brother/Sister Plays) and Holcomb (London Assurance, Transport) have a sweet chemistry; you can’t help but root for Jesse and Neil through their hardships, trying to survive, as individuals and as a couple, in a world that needs to be seen as more than just black or white, straight or gay, male or female. As Washington sings, “Oh, this bitter earth / Yes, can it be so cold? / Today you’re young / Too soon you’re old / But while a voice / Within me cries / I’m sure someone / May answer my call / And this bitter earth, ooh / May not, oh, be so bitter after all.”