First Saturday program at Brooklyn Museum includes screening of The Revival: Women and the Word and live performance by cast member t’ai freedom ford
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, June 2, free (“David Bowie is” requires advance tickets, $25), 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org
Gay pride and diversity are the themes of the Brooklyn Museum’s free First Saturday program on June 2. There will be a live performance by the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus; a community talk on zines with Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz and Elvis Bakaitis, moderated by Maya Harder-Montoya; a hands-on art workshop in which participants can make a pride notebook inspired by David Bowie and “Radical Women”’s Virginia Errázuriz; a drink-and-draw event with live models styled by the Phluid Project and Jag & Co. and tunes spun by DJ Illexxandra; a screening of The Revival: Women and the Word (Sekiya Dorsett, 2016), with performances by t’ai freedom ford and Be Steadwell and an introduction by director Dorsett, hosted by SafeWordSociety; a screening of the latest episode of Viceland’s My House, followed by a talkback with cast members Tati 007, Jelani Mizrahi, and Alex Mugler, executive producer Elegance Bratton, showrunner Sean David Johnson, and producers Giselle Bailey and Nneka Onuoraha; Joy, a celebration of queer and trans people of color with music, games, dance-offs, and guest DJs Nappy Nina and Rimarkable, hosted by bklyn boihood; pop-up poetry with Wo Chan and Charles Theonia; pop-up gallery talks on “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985” by teen apprentices; and the community talk “NYC Trans Oral History Project” with Jeanne Vaccaro, activist Bianey Garcia-D la O, poet El Roy Red, and podcast producer Cassie Wagler. In addition, the galleries will be open late so you can check out “William Trost Richards: Experiments in Watercolor,” “David Levine: Some of the People, All of the Time,” “Infinite Blue,” “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985,” “Cecilia Vicuña: Disappeared Quipu,” “Ahmed Mater: Mecca Journeys,” “A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt,” and more. However, please note that advance tickets are required to see “David Bowie is,” at the regular admission price.
The “Academy at Metrograph” series, a yearlong residency for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Lower East Side cinema house, concludes June 1 at 7:00 with Sideways, eclectic director Alexander Payne’s fourth film, following the underseen Citizen Ruth, the excellent Election, and the overrated About Schmidt. Sideways is fabulously entertaining from start to finish, a smart, inventive, very funny dark comedy about friendship and love set in California wine country. Paul Giamatti stars as Miles, a schlumpy wine connoisseur who is having trouble getting over his divorce and the failure of his massive novel to get published. His best friend, Jack (Thomas Haden Church), is getting married, so the two head off on a road trip, with Miles looking forward to sampling fine wine, and Jack anticipating sampling fine women. While Jack finds what he is looking for in Stephanie (Sandra Oh, who was married to Payne at the time), Miles seems hell-bent on not allowing himself to enjoy life, even as a beautiful woman with a deep appreciation of the grape (the excellent Virginia Madsen in what should have been a career-redefining performance) shows an interest in him. You definitely do not have to be a wine drinker to fall in love with this marvelous movie, one of the best of 2004; it was nominated for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Madsen), and Best Supporting Actor (Haden Church), and screenwriters Jim Taylor and Payne won for Best Adapted Screenplay. Taylor will be at Metrograph to talk about the movie, which will be preceded by a screening of Jeff Fowler’s 2004 Oscar-winning short, Gopher Broke, and followed by a wine tasting with vintages provided by Francis Ford Coppola Winery.
Perhaps the best part of the Quad series “Hammer’s House of Horror, Part I: The Classic Years (1956–1967)” can be found in its very name: Part I, which means there will be even more to come. The first part begins May 30, consisting of thirty-two favorites from the London-based production company, which specialized in resurrecting monsters and presenting them for the first time in color, including the Mummy. Knighted British actor Christopher Lee might be best known to the younger generations as the evil wizard Saruman in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, but over the course of more than two hundred movies Lee, who passed away last June at the age of ninety-three, also portrayed Fu Manchu, Georges Seurat, Sherlock Holmes, Rasputin, Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and the Mummy. Lee is the immortal wrapped character in Terence Fisher’s 1959 Hammer favorite, The Mummy, a remake of Karl Freund’s 1932 original starring Boris Karloff. On an archaeological excavation in Egypt, John Banning (Peter Cushing), his father, Stephen Banning (Felix Aylmer), and his uncle, Joseph Whemple (Raymond Huntley), discover the vast tomb of Princess Ananka (Yvonne Furneaux). Warned by an Egyptian zealot, Mehemet Bey (George Pastell), to leave the tomb undisturbed, the older Banning instead reads from the Scroll of Life, unleashing the murderous mummy Kharis (Lee), who had dutifully protected his princess centuries before. Three years later, Bey arrives in England with Kharis, determined to have the mummy wreak vengeance on the three men who dared disrespect Princess Ananka and the god they both served, Karnak.
