twi-ny recommended events

SOUNDWALK 9:09

The Met Breuer photograph by Ed Lederman; The Met Plaza © MMA

Free app will provide site-specific soundscape for trip between the Met Breuer (photo by Ed Lederman) and the main Met (photo © MMA)

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
The Met Breuer
945 Madison Ave. at 75th St.
Free app available March 1
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org
johnlutheradams.net

In 2011, it was announced that the Metropolitan Museum of Art would take over the landmark Breuer building that served as the Whitney Museum of American Art’s third home, from 1966 to 2014. With the Whitney now firmly entrenched on Gansevoort St. at the south end of the High Line, the Met is ready to move into 945 Madison Ave., where it will focus on the art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The modernist building, which was designed by Bauhaus-trained architect Marcel Breuer with Hamilton Smith, will open to Met members March 8-13 and to the general public March 18-20, but on March 1 the institution will start offering a unique way for people to familiarize themselves with the short trip between the Met’s main museum on Fifth Ave. and Eighty-Second St. and the Breuer. MetLiveArts has commissioned Mississippi-born American composer John Luther Adams, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for Become Ocean, to create his first New York City work, “Soundwalk 9:09,” two new pieces that last nine minutes and nine seconds, the amount of time it is estimated it takes to go from the Met to the Met Breuer. “Soundwalk 9:09,” which includes sounds Adams recorded between the two buildings in addition to crowd-sourced material, will be available for free through the Met and WQXR.

MYSTERIOUS SPLENDORS — THE FILMS OF APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL: TROPICAL MALADY

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s TROPICAL MALADY was both booed and celebrated at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival

TROPICAL MALADY (SUD PRALAD) (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Monday, February 29, 4:35, and Wednesday, March 2, 12 noon & 7:00
Series runs February 29 – March 10
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.kickthemachine.com

Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the Jury Prize at Cannes for Tropical Malady, a beautiful, mystical work that will thoroughly engage you — if you allow it to. Part tender love story between a country boy (Banlop Lomnoi) and a soldier (Dakda Kaewbuadee), part folktale set in the deep forests of Thailand, Tropical Malady is a like a visual poem in which details are not as important as the overall effect, which is intoxicating. The unorthodox film features ghosts, a shape-shifter, unusual characters, and a playful sense of humor that come together to form a subtle meditation on life and love. Weerasethakul once again displays the gentle, captivating narrative technique that lies at the heart of his oeuvre, which also includes such works as Blissfully Yours, Syndromes and a Century, and 2010 Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Own Lives. Some people at Cannes walked out on Tropical Malady and others stuck around to boo it; Quentin Tarantino headed the group that awarded it the Jury Prize regardless. You can decide to cheer or boo, or merely just experience, it when it screens on February 29 and March 2 as part of the IFC Center series “Mysterious Splendors: The Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul,” which runs February 29 through March 10 and consists of Weerasethakul’s previously mentioned works as well as his 2000 debut, Mysterious Object at Noon, and his newest films, Mekong Hotel and Cemetery of Splendor.

HIROSHI SUGIMOTO: SEA OF BUDDHA

Hiroshi Sugimoto’s three-channel video, “Accelerated Buddha,” explores the nature of time and space, life and death, art and spirituality (photo courtesy the artist’s studio and Pace Gallery)

Pace Gallery
510 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through March 5, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-255-4044
www.pacegallery.com
www.sugimotohiroshi.com

Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto explores the nature of impermanence and the relationship between art and spirituality in his multimedia installation “Sea of Buddha,” on view through March 5 at Pace on West Twenty-Fifth St. In 1995, after a seven-year effort, Sugimoto was given permission to photograph the one thousand gilded wooden Buddha statues at Sanjῡsangen-dō (Hall of Thirty-Three Bays) in Kyoto, at a specific time in the morning when the general public is not allowed in and the summer sun casts a particularly special glow on the objects. Perhaps “given” is the wrong word, as he had to pay the temple handsomely for the privilege (and still has to hand over an additional fee every time he displays the photographs). Sugimoto, who lives and works in Tokyo and New York and has previously re-created reality in such series as “Portraits,” “Dioramas,” and “Theaters,” took forty-eight black-and-white pictures of the very similar but not identical statues. Only thirty-six were able to fit in his installation at Pace, where they are arranged at eye level on two sides of an oval room that serves as a kind of shrine. Numbers are critical to the project; Sugimoto, who was inspired by Walter De Maria’s “The Broken Kilometer,” has stated that the total number of photos relate to the forty-eight stages of death; thirty-three (the number of bays at Sanjῡsangen-dō) is a popular numeral in the Bible, associated with Noah, Jesus, King David, Jacob, and others; and some Buddhist teachings state that one thousand enlightened Buddhas will bring wisdom to the world. At first glance, the photos look the same, taken from the same angle, but each Buddha is as different as each human on the planet. An enveloping serenity can be felt as you make your way through the space, more spiritual than religious. In a small adjoining area, Sugimoto’s “Accelerated Buddha” plays on a loop, a mesmerizing five-minute immersive video, projected corner-to-corner onto three sides of the room, in which Sugimoto cuts between the forty-eight photos at an ever-faster pace, starting off very slowly and ending up in a furious blur, echoing the subjective human experience of time from birth to death while also evoking Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms. The exhibition also features five of Sugimoto’s “Seascapes,” gelatin silver prints of horizon lines on the ocean, quiet, entrancing shots of water and air. “Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home,” Sugimoto has said of the series. “I embark on a voyage of seeing.” Sugimoto’s latest show at Pace is yet another voyage well worth seeing.

MYSTERIOUS SPLENDORS — THE FILMS OF APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL: UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Palme d’Or winner is a subtly beautiful meditation on death and rebirth, memory and transformation

UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES (LUNG BOONMEE RALUEK CHAT) (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Monday, February 29, 9:35, and Wednesday, March 2, 12 noon & 7:00
Series runs February 29 – March 10
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

The IFC Center is celebrating the March 4 theatrical premiere of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Mekong Hotel and the U.S. opening of his Cemetery of Splendor with a four-day retrospective of the Thai writer-director’s deeply affecting works. “Mysterious Splendors: The Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul” runs February 29 through March 3, comprising five older films, followed by the two new ones March 4-10. On February 29 at 9:35 and March 2 at 12 noon and 7:00, you can catch the exquisite 2010 Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, an elegiac, personal meditation on memory, transformation, death, and rebirth, a fascinating integration of the human, animal, and spirit worlds. Uncle Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar) is dying of kidney failure, being tended to by his Laotian helper, Jaai (Samud Kugasang). Boonmee is joined by his dead wife’s sister, Jen (Jenjira Pongpas), in his house in the middle of the jungle. Boonmee and Jen have nearly impossibly slow conversations that seem to go nowhere, just a couple of very simple people not expecting much excitement out of what’s left of their lives. Even when Boonmee’s long-dead wife, Huay (Natthakarn Aphaiwonk), and his long-missing son, Boonsong (Geerasak Kulhong), now a hairy ghost monkey covered in black fur and with two laserlike red eyes, suddenly show up, Boonmee and Jen pretty much just go with the flow. Weerasethakul maintains the beautifully evocative pace whether Jaai is draining Boonmee’s kidney, the characters discuss Communism, Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee) questions his monkhood, a princess (Wallapa Mongkolprasert) has sex with a catfish, or they all journey to a cave in search of another of Boonmee’s past lives, framing each section in the context of a different cinematic genre, a lament for the ways movies used to be made and viewed. The film, which was shot in 16mm (but is being shown in 35mm at IFC) and was inspired by a 1983 book called A Man Who Can Recall His Past Lives (as well as some of Weerasethakul’s own family experiences), is part of the Primitive Project, Weerasethakul’s multimedia installation that also includes the short films A Letter to Uncle Boonmee and Phantoms of Nabua and which was displayed at the New Museum in 2011. Weerasethakul, who gained a growing international reputation with such previous works as Blissfully Yours (2002), Tropical Malady (2004), and Syndromes and a Century (2006) and has a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Khon Kaen University and an MFA in filmmaking from the Art Institute of Chicago, is a master storyteller who continues to challenge viewers with his unique visual language and subtly effective narrative techniques. “Mysterious Splendors” also includes those three films and his 2000 debut, Mysterious Object at Noon, offering an excellent opportunity to delve further into this auteur’s splendiferous mysteries.

SPLIT SINGLE OF THE WEEK: “NO FUTURE” BY TITUS ANDRONICUS AND CRAIG FINN

Craig Finn and Titus Andronicus kick off tour February 29 at Webster Hall

Who Titus Andronicus and Craig Finn
What: “No Faith / No Future / No Problem” tour
Where: Webster Hall, 125 East Eleventh St. between Second Ave. & Bowery, 212-353-1600
When: Monday, February 29, $23, 8:00
Why: Last July, Brooklyn-based indie punks Titus Andronicus teamed up with Greenpoint-based Hold Steady leader Craig Finn on a raucous version of the Replacements’ “Bastards of Young” at Shea Stadium in Bushwick, even if Finn, who was raised in Minneapolis just like the ’Mats, forgot some of the words. They had so much fun — the set also included Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right,” with more garbled lyrics — now they’re going out on the road together, kicking off their “No Faith / No Future / No Problem” tour February 29 at Webster Hall. Titus Andronicus is supporting its latest release, last year’s The Most Lamentable Tragedy, while Finn is highlighting his second solo record, last September’s Faith in the Future. The future is what this tour is all about, as they just released a split single in which Finn, with the help of Patrick Stickles and Adam Reich, covers TA’s “No Future,” which has appeared in four parts on three of the band’s albums, while TA (Stickles and Reich), with the help of Finn, covers Finn’s “No Future,” from his first solo disc, Clear Heart Full Eyes. You can check out both songs here. We have a feeling they’ll all make sure to remember the words this time around.

CHRISTOPHER LEE: THE MUMMY

Christopher Lee is about to get wrapped up in murderous trouble in THE MUMMY

WAVERLY MIDNIGHTS: THE MUMMY (Terence Fisher, 1959)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Friday, February 26, and Saturday, February 27, 12:20 AM
Series runs through March 19
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

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. The IFC Center’s eight-film Waverly Midnights tribute to Lee, who also hosted Saturday Night Live back in 1978 (you can watch him introduce Meat Loaf here), continues February 26-27 with Lee as the immortal 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 (Christopher Lee), who had dutifully protected his princess centuries before. Three years later, Bey arrives in England with Kharis, determined to have the mummy wreak revenge on the three men who dared disrespect Princess Ananka and the god they both served, Karnak.

The Mummy is a horror hoot, one of the scary-fun monster movies that were trademarks of Hammer productions. Writer Jimmy Sangster (Blood of the Vampire, The Horror of Frankenstein) and director Terence Fisher (The Phantom of the Opera, The Earth Dies Screaming) get right to the point, avoiding grand statements and instead gleefully satisfying pop culture’s fascination with ancient ritual and religion while being sure to embrace all the genre tropes, including a local drunk (Gerald Lawson), a disbelieving lawman (Eddie Byrne), and a beautiful woman (Furneaux) who might just hold the secret that will save everyone. Veteran Hammer cinematographer Jack Asher keeps the look of the film lovingly murky in the present and pastel-colored in the past, while Franz Reizenstein’s score ebbs and flows right on time. It’s always a treat to see Cushing and Lee side-by-side; they made twenty-two films together, from Hamlet and Moulin Rouge to The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Gorgon, and Night of the Big Heat, the last five all directed by Fisher, and The Mummy is one of their best. While the erudite Cushing struggles to make sure he limps with the same bad leg from scene to scene, the tall, magnetic Lee acts up a storm with just his piercing eyes, which shine a glow that goes much deeper than just a zombielike killer’s. Sure, it gets silly at some points and clichéd at others, but hey, it’s a Hammer horror film. The Mummy is screening at 12:20 am on February 26 & 27; the series continues March 11-12 with Joe Dante’s Gremlins 2: The New Batch (seriously; we’re not kidding) and concludes March 18-19 with Raul Garcia’s Extraordinary Tales, the 2013 Edgar Allan Poe omnibus that features the voices of Lee, Roger Corman, Bela Legosi, Julian Sands, and others.

MAKE HISTORY WITH “THE GOLDEN BRIDE”

The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene is bringing back THE GOLDEN BRIDE to the Museum of Jewish Heritage this summer, with your help (photo by Ben Moody)

Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl.
Sunday-Monday and Wednesday-Thursday, July 4 through August 28, $30-$50
866-811-4111
nytf.org
www.rockethub.com

This past December, the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene brought back the wonderful operetta The Golden Bride for a celebrated, though too-short, run at its new home at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. In the show, which had not been seen in seventy years and required extensive detective work to reassemble, the title character is suddenly left a small fortune when her long-absent father dies. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that any unexpected windfall is coming NYTF’s way, so the nonprofit organization, now in its 101st season, has taken to RocketHub to raise funds for the show’s return to MJH this summer, from July 4 to August 28. The company is seeking to raise thirty thousand dollars by March 16; it recently passed the twenty-percent mark with twenty-two days left. You can become a “supporting producer” with a donation of ten bucks; as your donation increases, so do your rewards, which range from your name printed in the program and an audio or video file of a song from the show ($18) to a print of original costume design sketches ($25) to one ticket to the show and a backstage tour ($100), from a feast with the creative team at the Second Ave. Deli ($100) to two tickets to the show and a one-hour private voice lesson with music director Zalmen Mlotek ($200) to two tickets and a walk-on part in the show ($1,000), among others. “Never before in my eighteen years as artistic director has NYTF had such a public outpouring of demand for one of its productions,” Mlotek said in a statement. “It’s truly humbling and exciting to be able to bring back the show.” The Golden Bride is a genuine treat, and with your help more people will get to partake in its splendiferousness.