twi-ny recommended events

MAGGIE CHEUNG: CENTER STAGE

Maggie Cheung retrospective Center Stage

The magnificent Maggie Cheung takes center stage in retrospective at Metrograph

Center Stage (Stanley Kwan, 1991)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Thursday, December 8, 1:30, 4:15, 7:00
Tuesday, December 20, 7:00
Series runs December 8-31
212-660-0312
metrograph.com

“Isn’t she a replica of myself?” Maggie Cheung says of Chinese actress Ruan Ling-yu in 1991’s Center Stage, in which Cheung plays Ruan as well as herself. “Maggie, may I ask if you wish to be remembered half a century later?” a man asks, to which Cheung responds, “That’s not so important to me. If future people do remember me, it won’t be the same as Ruan Ling-yu, as she halted her career at the age of twenty-five, when she was at her most glorious. Now she is a legend.” The Hong Kong–born Cheung is now a legend herself, having made more than ninety films since her career began in 1984, when she was nineteen; current and future people are sure to remember the glamorous superstar who continues to help spread Chinese cinema around the world. Cheung, a former model and beauty queen, is being celebrated in the Metrograph series “Maggie Cheung: Center Stage,” running December 8 to 31 and consisting of twenty of her best films, all shown in 35mm, made with such directors as Wong Kar-wai, Olivier Assayas, Jackie Chan, Johnnie To, Tsui Hark, and Stanley Tong. In Center Stage, which kicks off the series, Cheung is radiant as both herself and Ruan as director Stanley Kwan goes back and forth between the present, as Cheung is making the film, and the past, as she portrays Ruan rising from an extra to a star in the late 1920s and early 1930s, at the same time Japan is mounting attacks against China. Cheung, who was named Best Actress at prestigious film festivals in Berlin, Chicago, Taiwan, and Hong Kong for the role, is joined by a stellar cast, including Chen Yen-yen, Lily Li, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Carina Lau, and Chin Han; the real Ruan is seen in archival footage. Made twenty-five years ago, Center Stage, also known simply as Actress, is an excellent start to this wide-ranging series, which features — in addition to the below works — such other films as the Police Story trilogy, The Iceman Cometh, Paper Marriage with Sammo Hung, and In the Mood for Love, one of the most lush and gorgeous romances ever made.

Wong Kar-wai prefers closeups of Maggie Cheung in DAYS OF BEING WILD

Wong Kar-wai favors close-ups of Maggie Cheung in DAYS OF BEING WILD

DAYS OF BEING WILD (A FEI JING JUEN) (Wong Kar-wai, 1990)
Saturday, December 10, 7:45, 10:00
metrograph.com

Wong Kar-wai’s second film, Days of Being Wild — following the surprising success of his debut feature, As Tears Go By — was a popular failure, as Hong Kong audiences were not yet ready for his introspective, character-driven, nonlinear style. (However, it did win five Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor.) Days is Wong’s first film with master cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who shot all of Wong’s work through 2004, including Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, and In the Mood for Love. The late Leslie Cheung, who jumped out a hotel window in 2003, stars as Yuddy, a disaffected, beautiful youth who lures in women and then, after they fall in love with him, verbally mistreats them and cheats on them. Among his conquests are the gorgeous Su-Lizhen (Maggie Cheung), often shot in magnificent close-up, and the trampy Mimi (Carina Lau), who is jealous of Su, who takes comfort in telling her tale of woe to local police officer Tide (Andy Lau). Meanwhile, Yuddy, who was raised by a former prostitute, is obsessed with finding his birth mother. Set in 1960, the film’s leitmotif involves time and memory, with clocks ticking loudly and lots of long, lingering looks. The story goes a bit haywire in the latter sections, although the ending is a gem. (Look for Tony Leung there.)

Maggie Cheung is electrifying in ex-hubby Olivier Assayas’s CLEAN

CLEAN (Olivier Assayas, 2004)
Friday, December 16, 4:30, 9:30
metrograph.com

With their divorce pending, writer-director Olivier Assayas and Hong Kong superstar Maggie Cheung wish each other a fond farewell in the moving drama Clean. Named Best Actress at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for her extraordinary performance, Cheung stars as Emily Wang, a junkie trying to resuscitate the fading music career of her heroin-addicted lover, Lee (British musician James Johnston). Their life together is so screwed up that they rarely see their son, Jay (James Dennis), who lives in Vancouver with Lee’s parents (Nick Nolte and Martha Henry). On the road, Emily scores some drugs, fights with Lee, goes out for a ride, then returns to find him dead from an overdose and the cops waiting to arrest her. After six months in prison, she gets out to find that her life has changed more than she could ever have imagined. Cheung is effervescent every step of the way, lighting up the screen despite playing a very hard-to-like character; her tender scenes with the soft-spoken, grizzled Nolte are particularly gentle and touching. Unfortunately the subplot set in the music world is clichéd, annoying, and mostly unnecessary, everything that the rest of the film is not. The stunt casting is particularly irritating: Tricky, the band Metric, and Mazzy Star’s David Roback all play themselves. The otherwise fine cast also includes Béatrice Dalle, Jeanne Balibar, Don McKellar, and Laetitia Spigarelli, with a soundtrack dominated by ethereal songs by Brian Eno.

Maggie Cheung is wasted in Olivier Assayas’s Truffaut tribute, IRMA VEP

IRMA VEP (Olivier Assayas, 1996)
Friday, December 16, 2:15, 7:00
metrograph.com

Olivier Assayas pays homage to François Truffaut’s Day for Night in this piece of pseudoartistic fluff about a film crew’s attempts at remaking Louis Feuillade’s 1915 classic Les Vampires. The great Maggie Cheung, who later married and divorced Assayas, is wasted as the star of the remake, and Truffaut regular Jean-Pierre Léaud, playing the director, is frustratingly unintelligible when he speaks in English, which unfortunately is a lot in this high-falutin’ mess.

ASHES OF TIME REDUX is another strikingly beautiful work from director Wong Kar-wai and cinematographer Chistopher Doyle

ASHES OF TIME REDUX is another strikingly beautiful work from director Wong Kar-wai, cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and actress Maggie Cheung

ASHES OF TIME REDUX (Wong Kar-wai, 2008)
Saturday, December 17, 7:00
Monday, December 19, 5:00, 9:15
metrograph.com

Back in 1993, writer-director Wong Kar-wai’s Ashes of Time was released, a thinking man’s martial arts epic inspired by Jin Yong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes novels. With numerous versions in circulation and the original negatives in disrepair, Wong (Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love) decided to painstakingly reedit and restore the film fifteen years later, renaming it Ashes of Time Redux. The plot – which is still as confusing as ever — revolves around Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung), a loner who lives in the desert, where people come to him when they need someone taken care of. Every year he is visited by Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Ka-fai), who keeps him informed of the world outside jianghu — especially about his lost love (Maggie Cheung). Meanwhile, Murong Yang (Brigitte Lin) has demanded that Ouyang kill Huang for having jilted his sister, Murong Yin (also played by Lin), who in turn hires Ouyang to kill Yang. There’s also a blind swordsman (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), a peasant girl with a basket of eggs (Charlie Young), a poor, rogue swordsman (Jacky Cheung), and a bottle of magic wine that can erase memories. Or something like that. But what’s most impressive about Ashes of Time Redux is Christopher Doyle’s thrilling, swirling cinematography, which sweeps the audience into the film, and Wu Tong’s rearranged score, based on the original music by Frankie Chan and Roel A. Garcia and featuring soaring cello solos by Yo-Yo Ma.

NATASHA, PIERRE, AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812

Josh Groban makes his Broadway debut as a cuckolded Russian aristocrat in NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 (photo by Chad Batka)

Imperial Theatre
249 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 3, $59-$189
greatcometbroadway.com

Hamilton, watch out; there’s a new historical musical in town, dueling it out for the designation of best show on Broadway. In his epic 1869 novel War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy wrote of his protagonist, Count Pierre Bezukhov, “At the entrance to the Arbat Square an immense expanse of dark starry sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the Prechistenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant comet of 1812 — the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and the end of the world.” And there are all kinds of woes indeed in Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, Dave Malloy’s smashing electro-pop opera adapted from a 70-page section of Tolstoy’s classic tale, which has been magnificently transported to Broadway’s reconfigured Imperial Theatre. The little show that could began life in 2012 at 87-seat Ars Nova, where it ran for 39 performances. The next year it moved to the 199-seat tented Kazino cabaret in the Meatpacking District, and now it’s on Broadway, appropriately enough at the 1,200-seat Imperial, which set designer Mimi Lien (John, An Octoroon) has turned into an immersive wonderland, with ramps snaking from the stage throughout the theater and the audience seated in conventional chairs in the balcony and tavern-like chairs on the stage as well as in slightly sunken pits. The large cast of more than 40 actors and musicians emerge from every nook and cranny, every corner, even occasionally taking a seat right next to you and clinking glasses for a toast. You will be served a potato pierogi early on, and later a percussive egg to shake during some merriment. You might even get a page of War and Peace dropped in your lap. During intermission, you can roam anywhere, getting up close and personal with hundreds of paintings (many of Napoleon) that line the walls.

Countess Hélène Bezukhova (Amber Gray) has some dastardly plans for Countess Natalya Ilyinichna Rostova in immersive Broadway musical (photo by Chad Batka)

Set during the Napoleonic Wars, Natasha is a delightfully soapy story of love and betrayal in 1812 Moscow. The fabulous prologue introduces the major characters: brave Prince Andrey Bolkonsky (Nicholas Belton), who is away at war; “bewildered and awkward” Pierre Bezukhov (Josh Groban), a drunken cuckold who has given up on life; “young” Countess Natalya Ilyinichna Rostova, Andrey’s beautiful fiancée, called Natasha (Denée Benton); “hot” Anatole Kuragin (Lucas Steele), an immoral ladies’ man; “slut” Countess Hélène Bezukhova (Amber Gray), Anatole’s devious sister, who is married to Pierre; “good” Sofia Alexandrovna Rostova, Natasha’s trusted cousin, who goes by Sonya (Brittain Ashford); “crazy” Old Prince Bolkonsky (Belton), Andrey’s doddering father; “plain” Princess Mary Bolkonskaya (Gelsey Bell), Andrey’s sister; “old school” Marya Dmitryevna Akhrosimova (Grace McLean), Natasha’s godmother; “fierce” Fedya Dolokhov (Nick Choksi), a good friend of Anatole’s; and “fun” Balaga (Paul Pinto), a carefree troika driver. Don’t worry if it all doesn’t soak in immediately; there is a family tree in the program, which the cast suggests you refer to when necessary. After the prologue, a chorus declares, “Oh Pierre! Our merry feasting crank / Our most dear, most kind, most smart and eccentric / A warm-hearted Russian of the old school / His purse is always empty / Cuz it’s open to all / Oh Pierre / Just one of a hundred sad old men / Living out their final days in Moscow.” The downtrodden Pierre readily admits, “I never thought that I’d end up like this / I used to be better.” Attending an opera, Natasha sees Anatole and is instantly smitten with him, so the swaggering Anatole swoops down on her, soon proclaiming his undying love. Scandal ensues as there’s a duel, a costume ball, and various deceptions, leading to a deeply intimate and emotional conclusion.

“We are speaking of most ordinary things,” Anatole says at one point, but there is nothing ordinary about Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812. Director Rachel Chavkin (The Royale, Small Mouth Sounds), who has been with the show from the start, finds endlessly inventive ways to bring this epic to life, as characters weave in and among the audience, the ensemble is always on the move, and the pace never lags for even a second. As Bradley King’s lights go down after one number, anticipation builds as to where the next song will begin. Choreographer Sam Pinkleton (Machinal, Significant Other) makes full use of the space, further involving the audience in the cast’s movements. The gorgeous costumes, by Paloma Young (Peter and the Starcatcher), range from elegant and fashionable to sexy and steam-punk. The ensemble is uniformly outstanding, from the wandering accordion players to the opera dancers (Reed Luplau and Ani Taj) to the larger roles, many of which are performed by the original Ars Nova actors, including Steele, Gray, Ashford (her “Sonya Alone” solo is stunning), Bell, Choksi, and Pinto. In her Broadway debut, Benton is both alluring and delicate as the torn Natasha, but the biggest surprise was Scott Stangland, who was subbing for an ill Josh Groban the night I went.

Scott Stangland gave an award-winning performance as Pierre of ART production of musical now on Broadway (photo © Gretjen Helene)

Scott Stangland gives award-winning performance as Pierre in ART production of musical now on Broadway (photo © Gretjen Helene)

In an 1858 letter to the editor comparing the comets of 1811 and 1858, British admiral and astronomer William Henry Smyth wrote, “In re the magnificent comet [of 1858], I have been closely attending to its fine figure; and am asked on various sides, as I had the advantage of having closely watched both, which I thought the most splendid in appearance, this, or that of 1811? Now, to my memory, which is very distinct, the palm must be given to the latter. As a mere sight-object, the branched tail was of greater interest, the nucleus with its ‘head-veil’ was more distinct, and its circumpolarity was a fortunate incident for gazers.” I feel very fortunate to have experienced the splendidly fine figure of Stangland, who played Pierre in the pre-Broadway American Repertory Theater production at Harvard in December 2015/January 2016 and who is absolutely magnificent at the Imperial, embodying Pierre as if he were born for the part. With his stout frame and bushy facial hair, he commands the audience’s attention whether taking center stage or playing the accordion or the piano in a pit. I was floored by the original presentation at Ars Nova, in which show creator Malloy, who wrote the music, lyrics, and book and did the orchestrations, played Pierre with an innate charm, and now I’ve been blown away by Stangland, who gives a profound performance that will break your heart — and left me playfully thinking, “Josh and Lin-Manuel who?”

SELECTED SHORTS: PAUL GIAMATTI CURATES STORIES FROM THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

Paul Giamatti is hosting and curating an evening of fiction from the New York Review of Books at Symphony Space

Who: Paul Giamatti, Jane Kaczmarek, Billy Porter, Kathryn Erbe
What: Paul Giamatti Curates Stories from the New York Review of Books
Where: Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, 2537 Broadway at 95th St., 212-864-5400
When: Wednesday, December 7, $30 ($80 premium), 7:30
Why: For more than fifty years, the New York Review of Books has been exploring American culture, society, and politics, publishing articles by prominent writers from around the world. On December 7, Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning Brooklynite Paul Giamatti will be at Symphony Space for the latest edition of “Selected Shorts,” in which actors and other artists read specially chosen short stories. Giamatti will be curating the evening, choosing fiction from the collection of the prestigious New York Review of Books, a roster that includes W. H. Auden, Anton Chekhov, Saki, Daphne du Maurier, Elizabeth Hardwick, and so many others. “I go to the New York Review of Books for everything weird, wild, classic, and obscure,” the star of Sideways, John Adams, and American Splendor explains. “They’ve got one of the greatest collections of authors, past and present, on the planet.” Taking the stage to perform the works will be seven-time Emmy nominee Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle, Apollo 11), Tony winner Billy Porter (Kinky Boots, Shuffle Along), and Tony nominee Kathryn Erbe (Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Speed of Darkness). The program is being held in cooperation with the NYRB Classics, a series “dedicated to publishing an eclectic mix of fiction and nonfiction from different eras and times and of various sorts.”

FALSETTOS

Marvin (Christian Borle) and Whizzer (Andrew Rannells) fall in love and become part of an unusual extended family in FALSETTOS (photo by Joan Marcus)

Walter Kerr Theatre
219 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 8, $42-$149
www.lct.org

I saw Falsettos, James Lapine’s new revival of his and William Finn’s beloved musical, during the Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS curtain-call appeal season, when cast members across the Great White Way ask audiences to donate to the nonprofit organization that has been helping those with HIV/AIDS for nearly thirty years. Andrew Rannells made the heartfelt announcement, and people gave money as they left the Walter Kerr Theatre. Although it’s always a poignant moment, it was especially powerful after this show, which came together in the 1980s and 1990s, featuring a heartbreaking plot in which Rannells’s character, Whizzer, contracts a mysterious, deadly disease in 1981. The first act, March of the Falsettos, debuted in 1981 and takes place two years earlier, when the “gay plague” was just beginning; the second act, Falsettoland, premiered in 1990 and is set in 1981. The acts merged into Falsettos in 1992, earning seven Tony nominations and winning two awards, for Best Book and Best Original Score. (There was also an earlier one-act musical about some of the same characters, Trousers, that ran in 1979 and then was revamped in 1985.) So this Lincoln Center revival of Falsettos arrived on Broadway with quite a history; you could feel the excitement before the show started, as the theater was abuzz with friends hugging and chatting so much that the ushers had a hard time convincing everyone to take their seat. At last it got under way, with Marvin (Christian Borle), Whizzer, Jason (Anthony Rosenthal), Mendel (Brandon Uranowitz), and Trina (Stephanie J. Block) singing “Four Jews in a Room Bitching.” And from that moment on, the legend of Falsettos escaped me.

Jason (Anthony Rosenthal) swings for the fences in Lincoln Center revival of FALSETTOS on Broadway (photo by Joan Marcus)

Directed by Lapine (Act One, Finn’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), who wrote the book with composer and lyricist Finn, Falsettos is a groundbreaking show about a new kind of extended, dysfunctional family. Marvin has left his wife, Trina, and their eleven-year-old son, Jason, for his new love, Whizzer, but he still thinks everyone can be together. “I want a tight-knit family / I want a group that harmonizes / I want my wife and kid and friend / To pretend / Time will mend / Our pain,” Marvin sings. Trina has a session with Marvin’s psychiatrist, Mendel, who instantly falls in love with her. “It’s so upsetting when I found / That what’s rectangular is round / I mean, it stinks / I mean, he’s queer / And me, I’m just a freak,” Trina explains in “I’m Breaking Down,” a showstopping number by Block that brings down the house. Two years later, lesbian couple Charlotte (Tracie Thoms) and Cordelia (Betsy Wolfe) have moved in next door and Jason is preparing for his Bar Mitzvah, beset by adolescent worries about girls and more. “Would they come, though, / If they were invited, / And not laugh / At my Hebrew / And not laugh / At my father and his friends,” he opines while displaying poor baseball skills. But when Whizzer gets sick, the characters all take a new look at their lives. “Something bad is happening / Something very bad is happening / Something stinks, something immoral / Something so bad that words have lost their meaning,” Charlotte, a doctor, declares. “Rumors fly and tales abound / Stories echo underground! / Something bad / Is spreading, spreading, spreading / ’Round!”

For most of the show, David Rockwell’s set consists of a gray Rubik’s Cube-like square that the cast can take apart and put back together, creating all kinds of furniture and objects, a clever metaphor for the makeshift family they form. The music was revolutionary for its time, with unexpected starts and stops, rises and falls, and multiple pitch changes as various characters chime in and conversationally sing on top of one another (the complex orchestrations are by Michael Starobin); the lyrics, however, are now dated, and the subplot of Jason’s Bar Mitzvah is an awkward device leading to the teary conclusion. Tony nominee Block (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 9 to 5: The Musical) is sensational, giving a don’t-miss performance as a strong woman whose life is turned upside down and inside out. Tony nominee Rannells (The Book of Mormon, Girls) is superb as the beautifully sly and sweetly vain Whizzer; together Block and Rannells overwhelm two-time Tony winner Borle (Peter and the Starcatcher, Something Rotten!). Tony nominee Uranowitz (An American in Paris) and Rosenthal (Newsies, A Christmas Story) provide fine support. Falsettos is a uniquely situated coming-of-age story as characters try to find their place in a difficult life, and in an extended family that was unusual for its time. Even if it’s not quite as earth-shaking today, the show’s emotional landscape remains sadly relevant.

OPEN SPECTRUM: WHAT WILL BE DIFFERENT?

what-will-be-different

Who: Rana Abdelhamid, Susana Cook, Margo Jefferson, Elizabeth A. Sackler, Adrienne Truscott, Lenora M. Lapidus, Catharine R. Stimpson
What: A Discussion on Women’s Lives After the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
Where: New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th St., 212-924-0077
When: Monday, December 5, $5, 7:00
Why: Much has been made about statistics that show forty-two percent of women voted for Donald Trump for president, choosing an accused sexist, misogynist, and worse over Hillary Clinton, a woman who has fought for the rights of women and children for decades. On December 5 at New York Live Arts, a group of women will take part in “An Open Spectrum: Critical Dialogues Forum,” addressing the topic “What Will Be Different? A Discussion on Women’s Lives After the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.” Curated by Brian Tate and Janet Wong, the event will feature WISE founding president Rana Abdelhamid, performance artist Susana Cook, Pulitzer Prize–winning critc Margo Jefferson, arts activist Elizabeth A. Sackler, PhD, and multidisciplinary choreographer, writer, and performer Adrienne Truscott; feminist scholar Catharine R. Stimpson will serve as moderator, and ACLU Women’s Rights Project director Lenora M. Lapidus will deliver special remarks. Held in conjunction with MAPP International, the talk will focus on how women’s lives and gender equality might be affected during Trump’s presidency and what can be done about it; a wine reception will follow.

THE NATIONAL THEATRE OF SCOTLAND: THE STRANGE UNDOING OF PRUDENCIA HART

National Theatre of Scotland’s THE STRANGE UNDOING OF PRUDENCIA HART is now playing at the McKittrick Hotel

The McKittrick Hotel
542 West 27th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through January 29, $65-$125
www.strangeundoing.com
www.mckittrickhotel.com

For five years, Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More has been taking audiences all around the mysterious McKittrick Hotel, five floors of immersive theatrics inspired by Macbeth. Now the National Theatre of Scotland is coming to the Chelsea building, where it will present The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart in the Heath, the hotel’s bar and music venue, which has been transformed into a Scottish pub. Previews have started, with the opening set for December 13, but December tickets, which range from $65 to $125, are going fast; the show, which has elements of the supernatural amid academia, is scheduled to run through January 29. Strange Undoing was written by David Greig, who appropriately enough wrote Dunsinane, a sequel to Macbeth; he also penned the book for the musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which is due on Broadway next spring. The director is Wils Wilson (Wind Resistance, Praxis Makes Perfect), with set design by Georgia McGuinness (Midsummer, Arabian Nights) and music (inspired by Border Ballads) performed live by composer Alasdair Macrae and Annie Grace; the cast features Melody Grove, Peter Hannah, and Paul McCole.

NOAH BAUMBACH IN PERSON: THE SQUID AND THE WHALE

Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Lili (Anna Paquin) take measure of their lives in THE SQUID AND THE WHALE

THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (Noah Baumbach, 2005)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Monday, December 5, $15, 7:00
212-660-0312
metrograph.com

After an eight-year break from directing, Noah Baumbach returned with the exceptional, unexpected drama The Squid and the Whale. You’ll think you’ll know just where this semiautobiographical 2005 Sundance Film Festival award winner (for writing and directing) and New York Film Festival hit is going — yet another painfully realistic look into the dissolution of a New York City family — but lo and behold, The Squid and the Whale will surprise you over and over again. And even when it does head toward the cliché route, it adds just the right twist to keep things fresh. Bernard (Jeff Daniels) and Joan Berkman (Laura Linney) are reaching the end of their marriage, and their two sons, Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline), aren’t handling it very well; Walt is taking credit for having written Pink Floyd’s “Hey You,” and Frank has developed the curious habit of pleasuring himself and then – well, you’ll have to see it to believe it. And while Joan hits the dating scene and has begun writing, Bernard is becoming a woolly has-been author who just might be getting the hots for one of his sexy students (Anna Paquin). Set in 1986 Park Slope (there are scenes shot in Prospect Park, the Santa Fe Grill, and other familiar Brooklyn locations) and at the American Museum of Natural History, The Squid and the Whale features sharp dialogue, well-developed characters, and outstanding acting from a terrific ensemble that includes several rising stars. The soundtrack includes Lou Reed’s great “Street Hassle” and a score, composed by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (of Luna), that borrows liberally from Risky Business, of all things. The Squid and the Whale is screening December 5 at 7:00 at Metrograph, with Baumbach (Frances Ha, Greenberg) on hand for a Q&A. As a bonus, the first 150 ticket holders will receive a Criterion tote bag and a copy of the director-approved Criterion Blu-Ray 4K digital transfer of the film, a package that includes new interviews with Baumbach, Daniels, Eisenberg, Kline, Linney, Wareham, and Phillips, a behind-the-scenes documentary, audition footage, a booklet essay by Kent Jones, and Jonathan Lethem’s 2005 interview of Baumbach. (A 9:15, $15 screening has been added as well, without the Q&A or goodie bag.)