twi-ny recommended events

SUMMER SOUNDS: STEVE SHAIMAN AND SWINGTIME BIG BAND

Steve Shaiman and Swingtime Big Band return for their annual summer gig in Carl Schurz Park on July 20

Who: Steve Shaiman and Swingtime Big Band
What: Summer Sounds Series at Carl Schurz Park
Where: John Finley Walk, East River Promenade, top of the 86th Street Grand Staircase
When: Wednesday, July 20, free, 7:00
Why: New York-based Swingtime Big Band, purveyors of “Authentic Swing in Living Color,” will be performing a free outdoor concert on July 20 at John Finley Walk in the shadow of Gracie Mansion as part of the Summer Sounds Series in Carl Schurz Park. Led by artistic director, saxophonist, and clarinetist Steve Shaiman, Swingtime’s seventh annual Summer Sounds show will feature the new program “By George,” big band arrangements of George Gershwin tunes from the Great American Songbook. The twenty-member Swingtime Big Band, which consists of reeds, trombones, trumpets, two vocalists, and bass, guitar, drums, and piano, has a busy couple of weeks ahead, with upcoming performances in West Hempstead, Greenport, Rocky Point, Westhampton, and Holbrook on Long Island.

PANORAMA NYC VIDEO OF THE DAY: “GOOD TO LOVE” BY FKA TWIGS

Who: FKA Twigs
What: Panorama Music Art Technology festival
Where: Randall’s Island Park, the Pavilion
When: Friday, July 22, $125, 6:55
Why: British artist FKA Twigs, formerly known as Tahliah Debrett Barnett, self-released her first four-song EP just four years ago, and she hasn’t been off the music cognoscenti’s radar since. Her last two works, LP1 and M3LL155X (pronounced “Melissa”), landed on Pitchfork’s Best New Album list two years in a row. FKA Twigs has been busy on the festival circuit this summer, in July alone playing Pemberton and WayHome in Canada, Pitchfork in Chicago, Flow in Helsinki, and, on July 22, Panorama on Randall’s Island. The singer and dancer, born in Gloucestershire in 1988, is known for her spectacular choreography and deep artistic mystique; a typical Q&A features her and world-renowned curator and art critic Hans-Ulrich Obrist discussing various dimensions of her work, often described as performance theater. Although the celebrity gossip mill is churning because of her rumored possible breakup with fiancée Robert Pattinson over Kristen Stewart, what’s far more important is that she recently unveiled a new show, called “Radiant Me²,” featuring new songs, creative dancing, and her trademark dazzling visuals. The former “Video Girl,” who danced with Kylie Minogue, Ed Sheeran, and Jessie J before beginning her solo career, has also released two other EPs, EP1 and EP2, and keeps gaining momentum with such singles as “Two Weeks,” “Pendulum,” and “Good to Love.” In the past couple of years, she has been described as fearless and a loner while not limiting herself to genres or boundaries; you can watch her continue to spread her wings this weekend when she plays the Pavilion at the Panorama art, music, food, and technology festival on Friday, with such other performers as Broken Social Scene, Silversun Pickups, Alabama Shakes, Here We Go Magic, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and Arcade Fire. You can find the full schedule and set times here.

JAPAN CUTS 2016: THE PROJECTS

Hinako (Naomi Fujiyama) and Seiji Yamashita’s (Ittoku Kishibe) lives change once again with the return of Shinjo (Takumi Saitoh) in THE PROJECTS

FESTIVAL OF NEW JAPANESE FILM: THE PROJECTS (DANCHI) (団地) (Junji Sakamoto, 2016)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Tuesday, July 19, 7:30
Series runs July 14-24
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
danchi-movie.com

“Nothing is impossible in a housing project,” several people say in Junji Sakamoto’s delightfully absurdist and downright weird black comedy The Projects, making its North American debut on July 19 at Japan Society’s tenth annual Japan Cuts Festival. Elderly couple Hinako (Naomi Fujiyama) and Seiji Yamashita (Ittoku Kishibe) have moved to an inexpensive suburban Osaka housing project, known as a danchi, after closing their popular herbal remedies shop following the tragic death of their son, Naoya. The couple lives quietly, unable to process their grief or move forward, but they’re back in business when one of their strangest customers, the well-dressed, oddly speaking Shinjo (Takumi Saitoh), tracks them down and essentially demands, in his calm, direct manner, that they begin making his special remedy again. Meanwhile, Seiji, who would rather be left alone, is dragged into the race for head of the tenant association, running against Gyotoku (Renji Ishibashi), who is having an affair with a younger resident and is married to Kimiko (Michiyo Okusu), who is obsessed with properly separating the danchi’s garbage, and young upstart Yoshizumi (Takayuki Takuma), who is not afraid to discipline his son, Kitaro (Hiroaki Ogasawara), in full view of his neighbors. After Seiji loses, he decides to hide from everyone, retreating under the floorboards whenever someone stops by, which leads a gossiping group of ladies (Hikaru Horiguchi, Yukari Taki, Mayu Harada, Mari Hamada, and Miyako Takeuchi) to believe that Hinako has actually killed her husband and chopped up the body. As the media and police get involved, things get crazier and crazier as the totally bizarre conclusion approaches.

Fujiyama and Kishibe are absolutely charming as the Yamashitas, moving and talking with a sweetly warm, slow demeanor, asking little from a life that has let them down. Sakamoto wrote The Projects specifically for comedian and stage actress Fujiyama; the two last worked together on the award-winning 2000 film Face, Fujiyama’s first film, and the pairing is another marvel. Fujiyama is wonderful in the role, imbuing Hinako with a wry, very funny sense of humor that is splendidly complemented by Kishibe’s more serious Seiji. Lovingly shot by Ryo Ohtsuka and featuring a playful score by Gorô Yasukawa, The Projects is pure fun all the way through, with many laugh-out-loud moments even as it deals with some heavy subjects, right up to its out-of-this-world finale. Don’t let the title fool you; “projects” in Japan were much-desired apartment complexes originally built in the 1950s to supply suburban public housing for the growing post-WWII Japanese population. Although they are not as popular today, they are not the kind of projects associated with drugs and crime in America. The Projects is being shown on July 19 at 6:30, followed by Face as part of the “Flash-Back / Flash-Forward” section of Japan Cuts, which continues through July 24.

HUDSON RIVER FLICKS — BIG HIT WEDNESDAYS: TRAINWRECK

Amy Schumer tries to find some peace in TRAINWRECK

TRAINWRECK (Judd Apatow, 2015)
Pier 63 Lawn, Hudson River Park
Cross at West 22nd or 24th St.
Wednesday, July 20, free, 8:30
www.hudsonriverpark.org
www.trainwreckmovie.com

Amy Schumer’s meteoric rise continued last summer with Trainwreck, and this semiautobiographical, raunchy romantic comedy did nothing to derail this New York native’s ascent. Schumer, who first broke through to national attention on Comedy Central’s roast of Charlie Sheen, then won a prestigious Peabody Award for her extremely clever and insightful cable series, Inside Amy Schumer, wrote and stars in Trainwreck, playing Amy, a magazine writer who prefers drinking and quick sex to cuddling and sleepovers. Once the deed is done, either she or the dude is gone, and she continues on with her supposedly happy life, which includes her sister, Kim (Brie Larson), who has had the gall to go all suburban mom and housewife on her; her philandering father, Gordon (Colin Quinn), a Mets fanatic who is suffering from MS; and her boss at S’Nuff, Dianna (an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton), a sassy Brit with no time for melodrama. Fortunately, through most of the film, director Judd Apatow eschews the melodrama as well, until he lets it all cave in with closing scenes that undo nearly everything that has been built up before. Thankfully, however, most of what happens before is as smart and funny as it is outrageous and perceptive. Amy is assigned a story on Dr. Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), a sports specialist whose best friend is LeBron James, who is a blast playing himself as a deeply sensitive, extremely cost-conscious man. Amy has to reevaluate her world view when she starts falling for Aaron, going against everything she believes in by dating a nice guy who just might really care about her.

Director Judd Apatow and costars Amy Schumer and Bill Hader laugh it up on the set of TRAINWRECK

The film starts unraveling once Aaron begins treating Amar’e Stoudemire, who is a Knick in the film but since has gone on to play for Dallas and then sign with Miami, and ends with a cringe-worthy scene in Madison Square Garden. However, by then Schumer has already won you over with her ribald appeal over the course of numerous hysterical vignettes that are not quite as surreal as those on her Comedy Central show but are just as perceptive and tongue-in-cheek, skewering everything in her path, from love and romance to sexism and misogyny, doing the kinds of things men usually do in such movies, including those written, directed, and/or produced by Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, This Is 40). Professional wrestling champ John Cena nearly steals the show as Amy’s boyfriend who gets into an unforgettable argument with a guy (comic Keith Robinson) in a movie theater, an improvised scene that might make you choke on your popcorn. And King James rules with surprising chops when dishing lovelorn advice to Aaron. Many of the smaller roles are played by yet more comics; be on the lookout for Dave Attell, Vanessa Bayer, Jon Glaser, Tim Meadows, Jim Norton, and Bridget Everett, among others. Yes, that’s Method Man as Amy’s father’s caretaker, while ninety-nine-year-old Norman Lloyd, a veteran of Hitchcock, Welles, and St. Elsewhere, is her dad’s hospice pal, and the two people in the mock dogwalker movie are indeed Daniel Radcliffe and Marisa Tomei. But the stunt casting eventually gets burdensome, especially when Chris Evert, Matthew Broderick, and Marv Albert show up, as well as the Knicks City Dancers. It’s as if Schumer and Apatow didn’t have enough faith in their central story and had to fill it up with lots of silly fluff, which is a shame, because Schumer and Hader have a winning, infectious chemistry, and the film’s unfortunate plot turns ultimately undo much of what Schumer had accomplished as a woman in a man’s world, as writer and actor. But that shouldn’t slow down this express train of a talent. Trainwreck is screening July 20 on the Pier 63 lawn in Hudson River Park in the Hudson RiverFlicks: Big Hit Wednesdays series, which continues July 27 with The Big Short and August 3 with Creed.

CASSAVETES / ROWLANDS: THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE

Ben Gazzara gives one of his best performances in John Cassavetess THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE

THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (John Cassavetes, 1976)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Wednesday, July 20, 1:30 & 9:15, and Sunday, July 24, 3:30
Series runs July 15-24
212-660-0312
metrograph.com

John Cassavetes’s 1976 gangster picture, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, is no mere neonoir shoot-’em-up but a deep and involving character study of a low-level jiggle-joint owner who fancies himself a classy, big-time player. Cassavetes regular and close friend Ben Gazzara gives one of his best, most nuanced performances as Cosmo Vitelli, a Korean War veteran who runs the Crazy Horse West gentleman’s club on the outskirts of the Sunset Strip. Instead of just having his female employees take their clothes off to music, he writes, directs, and choreographs ridiculous fantasy scenarios with songs, costumes, and dialogue, hosted by the shlumpy Mr. Sophistication (screen and television writer Meade Roberts) and poorly acted by his devoted harem, Sherry (Alice Friedland), Margo (Donna Marie Gordon), Haji (Haji), Carol (Carol Warren), and his lover, Rachel (Azizi Johari). After gambling impresario Mort Weil (Seymour Cassel) enjoys a night at the Crazy Horse, he invites Cosmo to his club, Ship Ahoy. Cosmo turns the outing into a pseudo prom, taking a limo to three of his girls’ houses, giving them corsages, drinking Dom Perignon, and bringing them with him to the secret gambling club, where he proceeds to embarrass himself and lose twenty-three thousand dollars. Because Cosmo is unable to pay the debt, Mort has a proposition for him, one that weighs heavily on the club owner’s conscience, but he’ll do just about anything to keep his beloved club.

Gazzara, who previously appeared in Cassavetes’s Husbands and would later star with Cassavetes’s wife, Gena Rowlands, in Opening Night, is extraordinary as Cosmo, a schlemiel who thinks he’s a smooth operator ready for the major leagues, although he has glimpses of the truth about himself. “You learn to be happy, you learn to play the fool, you learn to be what everybody wants you to be,” he says at one point. He cares so much about his productions (which evoke a Fellini-esque Cabaret in very strange ways) that even with his life in danger, he finds a pay phone to call in and see how the performances are going at the club. Cassavetes fills out the cast of sleazy mobsters and others with such distinctive-looking character actors as Timothy Carey, Robert Phillips, Val Avery, John Finnegan, and producer Al Ruban. Cassavetes and cinematographers Ruban and Mitch Breit keep the handheld cameras on the move, weaving their way through the lurid club and the dark streets, with natural light and sound adding to the often cinéma vérité, improvisatory feel. (One of the camera operators was Frederick Elmes, who went on to become DP on such films as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Night on Earth, and Olive Kitteridge.) The original 135-minute cut is way too long; in 1978, Cassavetes released a 108-minute version with substantial changes, including deleting a lot of the performances at the club, which was a very good idea. But the main reason to see The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is to watch Gazzara strut his stuff, his shirt unbuttoned to show off his chest hair, his sly smile nearly ever-present, knowing that he is killing it. The longer version of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is screening July 20 and 24 at Metrograph in the series “Cassavetes/Rowlands,” celebrating the king and queen of independent cinema by showing all twelve of Cassavetes’s films. Cassavetes died in 1989 at the age of fifty-nine, leaving behind quite a legacy. The series continues through July 24 with such other works as Love Streams, Shadows, and Faces, with Rowlands participating in several sold-out postscreening Q&As.

PANORAMA NYC VIDEO OF THE DAY: “ALL MY FRIENDS” BY LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

Who: LCD Soundsystem
What: Panorama headlining set
Where: Randall’s Island Park, Panorama Stage
When: Sunday, July 24, $125, 9:10
Why: On April 2, 2011, we were inside Madison Square Garden, wishing a fond farewell to dance-punk icons LCD Soundsystem as the innovative and influential band played its final show ever. “And to tell the truth / Oh, this could be the last time / So here we go / Like a sales force into the night,” lead singer James Murphy sang during one of the group’s biggest songs, “All My Friends.” In July 2012, a documentary of that grand finale was released, Shut Up and Play the Hits, with Murphy looking like he might already be regretting breaking up the band. But as he also declares in “All My Friends”: “Though when we’re running out of the drugs / And the conversation’s winding away / I wouldn’t trade one stupid decision / For another five years of life.” And yes, five years after that last stand at MSG, LCD Soundsystem returned, playing a couple of tiny shows at Webster Hall this past March, followed by summer festival gigs. On July 24, they’ll be back in their home city, headlining the third day of Panorama NYC, which takes place Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on Randall’s Island. (You can see the full schedule and set times below.) So what happened to bring Murphy, Pat Mahoney, Tyler Pope, Nancy Whang, Matthew Thornley, Al Doyle, Gavin R. Russom, David Scott Stone, Phil Mossman, J. D. Mark, and Phil Skarich back together? Murphy shared the details on the band’s website.

“i asked pat and nancy to come over to my apartment for coffee and told them: ‘i’m going to record some music. should i make up a band name, or make a “james murphy” record, or should it be lcd?’ we all thought a good amount about it. we have had lives for the past 5 years, which has been nice, and those guys have made amazing music with museum of love, the juan maclean, and all sorts of other things. i’d managed to do a bunch of fun, dumb stuff which mostly annoyed people who were into the band because, well, subway turnstiles and a coffee aren’t lcd, basically. at any rate, they both said ‘let’s make an lcd record.’”

So the band is doing its thing again, playing live shows and making new music, so we couldn’t be more excited to see them at Panorama on Sunday night. You might also find us on the Despacio dance floor, an immersive music environment created by Murphy, David and Stephen Dewaele of Soulwax, and recording engineer John Klett.

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YIDDISH THEATER’S LEGACY IN AMERICAN PERFORMANCE

Panelists will be at the Museum of the City of New York to discuss legacy of Yiddish theater in America

Who: Tovah Feldshuh, Adam Kantor, Michelle Slonim, Jackie Hoffman, David Chack
What: Panel discussion
Where: Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd St., 212-534-1672
When: Monday, July 18, $25, 6:30
Why: Yiddish theater is on the rise again, with the successful revival of The Golden Bride by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, which is back at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the Drama Desk-nominated Death of a Salesman by the New Yiddish Rep. On July 18, Adam Kantor (Motel in the current revival of Fiddler on the Roof), stand-up comedian Michelle Slonim (Date Me!), Tovah Feldshuh (Golda’s Balcony), Jackie Hoffman (Once upon a Mattress), and moderator David Chack (past president of the Association for Jewish Theatre) will gather at the Museum of the City of New York to discuss “Yiddish Theater’s Legacy in American Performance,” being held in conjunction with the exhibition “New York’s Yiddish Theater: From the Bowery to Broadway,” which continues through August 14.