Los Vigilantes will activate Radamés “Juni” Figueroa’s “La Deliciosa Show” on the High Line with a free concert on July 12 (photo by Timothy Schenck)
Who: Los Vigilantes
What: Free live performance presented by High Line Art
Where: On the High Line at Thirtieth St.
When: Wednesday, July 12, free (advance RSVP recommended), 6:00
Why: For the current High Line Art group exhibition “Mutations,” which continues through next March, Puerto Rican artist Radamés “Juni” Figueroa contributed “La Deliciosa Show,” a funky open-air nightclub in a construction shed on the High Line at Thirtieth St. On July 12 at 6:00, San Juan garage band Los Vigilantes will take the stage there, playing a free set in conjunction with the exhibition, which focuses on the relationship between humanity and nature. Since 2012, Los Vigilantes — consisting of Javier Garrote, Pepe Carballido, Jota Mundo, and Rafael Díaz — have released such albums and EPs as Al Fin, the eponymous Los Vigilantes, and Viento, sereno y el mar, featuring such songs as “Un Dia Nada Mas,” “Un Tono Mas Siniestro” (“Paint It Black”), “Me Siento Azul,” and “Mi Mami Dijo.” Figueroa, who had a solo show at Taymour Grahne on Hudson St. in 2015, has invited Puerto Rican punksters Reanimadores to play the space on September 27.
The tenth anniversary of Films on the Green continues with a bonus Wednesday screening July 12 in J. Hood Wright Park of eclectic auteur Michel Gondry’s feature-length debut as both writer and director. The Science of Sleep is a complex, confusing, kaleidoscopic stew that is as charming as it is frustrating. Gael García Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries, Mozart in the Jungle) stars as the juvenile but endearing Stéphane, a young man in a silly hat who has trouble differentiating dreams from reality. The childlike Stéphane becomes friends with his new neighbor, Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin), who still has plenty of the child left inside her as well. Stéphane has a job his mother (Miou-Miou) got him, toiling for a small company that makes calendars, alongside the hysterical Guy (Alain Chabat), who can’t help constantly poking fun at coworkers Serge (Sacha Bourdo) and Martine (Aurélia Petit).
On October 29, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford refused to grant a federal bailout of New York, resulting in one of the all-time-great headlines in the Daily News: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” Film Forum is looking back at that rather unique decade in Big Apple history in the fab series “Ford to City: Drop Dead — New York in the 70s.” Running through July 27, the festival features more than three dozen Gotham classics, beginning with Midnight Cowboy and Taking Off and continuing with such favorites as Mean Streets (shown with Film Forum master programmer Bruce Goldstein’s Les Rues de Mean Streets), Serpico, Saturday Night Fever, Network, Klute, and Marathon Man. With all the recent problems with the subway system, it’s definitely time to revisit Joseph Sargent’s underground thriller, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Loosely adapted from the book by John Godey, the film wonderfully captures the cynicism of New York City in the 1970s. Four heavily armed and mustached men — Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw), Mr. Green (Martin Balsam), Mr. Gray (Hector Elizondo), and Mr. Brown (Earl Hindman), colorful pseudonyms that influenced Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs — hijack an uptown 4 train, demanding one million dollars in one hour from a nearly bankrupt city or else they will kill all eighteen passengers, one at a time, minute by minute. The hapless mayor (Lee Wallace) is in bed with the flu, so Deputy Mayor Warren LaSalle (Tony Roberts) takes charge on the political end while transit detective Lt. Zachary Garber (a great Walter Matthau) and Inspector Daniels (Julius Harris) of the NYPD team up to try to figure out just how in the world the criminals expect to get away with the seemingly impossible heist. Sargent (Sybil) offers a nostalgic look back at a bygone era, before technology radically changed the way trains are run and police work is handled.