twi-ny recommended events

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.

TICKET ALERT: THE FREEDOM SEDER

freedom seder

Who: David Broza, Peter Yarrow, Michael Dorf, and more than a dozen other special guests
What: Sixteenth annual Downtown Seder
Where: City Winery, 155 Varick St. between Spring & Vandam Sts., 212-608-0555
When: Wednesday, April 13, $75-$135 ($25 surcharge for glatt kosher)
Why: A limited number of tickets will go on sale to the general public on Thursday, February 25, at 3:00 for the sixteenth annual Downtown Seder, aka the Freedom Seder, hosted by City Winery owner Michael Dorf. Among those performing at the interactive event, which is being held on April 13, nine days before the actual beginning of Passover, will be beloved Israeli musician David Broza and legendary American singer-songwriter-activist Peter Yarrow. Past participants have included Al Franken, Harvey Fierstein, Lewis Black, Dr. Ruth, Judy Gold, Lou Reed, Neil Sedaka, and many others. Tickets for VinoFile members go on sale two days earlier, at 3:00 today (February 23), so you’ll have to act quickly if you want to partake in the ritual about the Exodus from Egypt in one of New York’s best music venues. How can you go wrong with a setlist likely to include “Dayenu,” “Chad Gadya,” “Mah Nishtnanah,” and “The Ten Plagues”?

THE BIG OSCARS QUIZ THING

biq quiz oscars thing

(le) poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Sunday, February 28, $10 in advance, $15 at the door, 5:30
212-505-4474
www.bigquizthing.com
www.lepoissonrouge.com

Just how good is your knowledge of Oscar history? How do you do every year in your Oscar pool? You can test your skill on Sunday night, when the Big Quiz Thing hosts its fourth annual Academy Award–themed multimedia team trivia competition. The Big Oscars Quiz Thing will take place at (le) poisson rouge in Greenwich Village, leading right into the actual Oscars telecast, which will be broadcast live at the club on large screens, starting with the red carpet; Quizmaster EdP will keep the trivia questions coming during the Oscars show. Among the giveaways you’ll be trying to win are passes to On Location Tours, an Intro to Improv class at the PIT, Insomnia cookies to make sure you stay awake for what is always a rather long ceremony, a membership to (le) poisson rouge, screening passes to Videology, passes to the Broadway Comedy Club, and tickets to Scott’s Pizza Tours. Here’s one question to get you going, and remember, no cheating: Who was the youngest actor to ever win an Oscar?

WOMEN ON THE RISE: SLEEP

Haruki Murakami fans can get a sneak peek at the work-in-progress version of SLEEP this weekend at Japan Society

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
February 26-28, $20
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

“This is my seventeenth straight day without sleep. I’m not talking about insomnia.” So begins Haruki Murakami’s short story “Sleep,” which can be found in his 1993 collection of short stories, The Elephant Vanishes. The tale of a Japanese housewife who is “both a body on the verge of sleep and a mind determined to stay awake” is being adapted into a stage production by Obie-winning troupes Ripe Time (The World Is Round, And Suddenly a Kiss . . .) and the Play Company (Abyss, The Wildness); a work-in-progress will be shown February 26-28 at Japan Society. Although only two of his novels (Hear the Wind Sing and Norwegian Wood) and one of his short stories (Tony Takitani) have been turned into feature films, two of his books (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore) and many of his short stories have been adapted for the stage, including three tales from The Elephant Vanishes that were combined in Simon McBurney’s production for the 2004 Lincoln Center Festival. An investigation into roles and boundaries, Sleep is part of Japan Society’s “Women on the Rise” initiative, highlighting works by women who are making a difference in their field. Sleep is directed and devised by Ripe Time founder Rachel Dickstein, adapted by Naomi Iizuka (Language of Angels, 17 Reasons [Why]), and performed by Akiko Aizawa, Brad Culver, Takemi Kitamura, Paula McGonagle, Jiehae Park, and Saori Tsukada. The original score is composed and played live by Katie Down and NewBorn Trio (Down and Miguel Frasconi on glass objects and Jeffrey Lependorf on shakuhachi), with set design by Mimi Lien, projections by Hannah Wasileski, lighting by Jiyoun Chang, and costumes by Ilona Somogyi. Although the three-show run is sold out, keep checking the box office should tickets become available on February 24; otherwise, you’ll have to wait until 2017 when the final version comes to New York City. The February 26 performance will be followed by a reception with the artists.