twi-ny recommended events

MUSEUM MILE FESTIVAL 2014

Uptown institutions stay open late and open their doors for free for Museum Mile Festival

Multiple locations on Fifth Ave. between 82nd & 105th Sts.
Tuesday, June 10, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Admission: free
www.museummilefestival.org

There’s really only one main problem with the annual Museum Mile Festival: It’s too short. On Tuesday, June 10, from 6:00 to 9:00, nine uptown art and cultural institutions will open their doors for free and fill Fifth Ave. between 82nd & 104th Sts. with family-friendly activities for the thirty-fifth year. There will be live outdoor performances by the Asphalt Orchestra, Sammie & Trudie’s Imagination Playhouse, Silly Billy the Very Funny Clown, Avenida B, Josh the Juggler, Bill Ferguson, and Magic Brian, in addition to face painting, art workshops, chalk drawing, the Museum of Motherhood, and more. The participating museums (with at least one of their current shows listed here) are El Museo del Barrio (“Presencia: Works from El Museo’s Permanent Collection”), the Museum of the City of New York (“Palaces for the People: Guastavino and the Art of Structural Tile,” “In a World of Their Own: Coney Island Photographs by Aaron Rose”), the Jewish Museum (“Other Primary Structures,” “Mel Bochner: Strong Language”), the National Academy (“The Annual 2014: Redefining Tradition”), the Guggenheim (“Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe”), the Neue Galerie (“Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937”), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (“Charles James: Beyond Fashion,” “Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy”), along with the Africa Center / Museum (which is building a new home) and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (which is undergoing a major renovation). Don’t try to do too much, because it can get rather crowded; just pick one or two exhibitions in one or two museums and enjoy.

TICKET ALERT: U.S. OPEN 2014

The U.S. Open serves up quite a New York experience every summer in Queens (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
August 25 – September 8
www.usopen.org
u.s. open 2013 slideshow

Tickets for one of New York City’s most grand events, the U.S. Open, go on sale to the general public at 9:00 am on June 9, so get ready to act fast to see 2013 champions Rafael Nadal, who captured his second U.S. Open title last year, and Serena Williams, a five-time winner looking for a hat trick, defend their titles against a parade of international competitors. First held in Rhode Island in 1881, the U.S. Open has been a New York City institution since 1968, when the tennis championship became the fourth leg of the grand slam, following the Australian and French Opens and Wimbledon. Initially taking place in Forest Hills, in 1978 the U.S. Open moved to the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, where it begins August 25 and runs through September 8. Things actually get started on August 23 with Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day, featuring family-friendly clinics and workshops and games and activities, with appearances by tennis professionals and live music from pop stars. If you’ve never been to the Open, you must experience this rousing New York City institution, even if you’re not a big tennis fan. You can check out exciting matches up close and personal on the smaller courts, overpay at the Food Village, and marvel at the beautiful expanse from the top of Arthur Ashe Stadium. Be sure to read the very specific rules about what you can and can’t bring in through the security line, as well as what happens if your session is rained out. And as always, if you buy a day ticket, you can stick around for night matches as well, except for those in Arthur Ashe Stadium.

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

Homer (Harold Russell), Fred (Dana Andrews), and Al (Fredric March) wonder what awaits them back home in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (William Wyler, 1946)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
June 6-12
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

It is more than fitting that a new restoration of William Wyler’s American classic, The Best Years of Our Lives, opened on the seventieth anniversary of D-Day, just as serious questions about the Veterans Administration’s care of military personnel have been dominating the news. The 1946 film, which won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, tells the story of three men returning to their suburban homes in the close-knit town of Boone City. The well-off Sergeant First Class Al Stephenson (Best Actor winner Fredric March) is welcomed with open arms by his wife, Milly (Myrna Loy), his adult daughter, Peggy (Teresa Wright), and his boss at the bank, Mr. Milton (Ray Collins). Hero bombardier Captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) has trouble finding a decent job as well as locating his good-time-girl wife, Marie (Virginia Mayo), while developing an interest in young Peggy. And Petty Officer Second Class Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) can’t believe that his longtime sweetheart, Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell), will still want him now that he has two hooks for hands. The three very different men all find that getting back to a normal, civilian life is much more painful than they imagined in a changing midcentury America.

Al looks on as Homer (Harold Russell) and Butch (Hoagy Carmichael) duet in American classic

Wyler (Dodsworth, Ben-Hur), himself a WWII veteran, directs the film with a realistic feel, building slowly on such emotions as fear, love, compassion, and understanding. Andrews’s familiar stiffness adds an inner strength to Derry while March again shows off his superb skills as a banker with a new take on the meaning of success. And Russell, who lost his hands while making a military training film, is subtly powerful as Homer, representing all men and women who return home from war incomplete, both physically and psychologically. (Russell won two Oscars for the role, one as Best Supporting Actor, the other an honorary award “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans.”) The Best Years of Our Lives also features splendid deep-focus photography by master cinematographer Gregg Toland, a wonderfully taut script by Oscar winner Robert E. Sherwood based on war correspondent MacKinlay Kantor’s Samuel Goldwyn-commissioned novella Glory for Me, and an aching score by Oscar winner Hugo Friedhofer. Despite its age, The Best Years of Our Lives still feels relevant and prescient, tackling a number of difficult topics with grace and elegance as three families reconsider just what the American dream means.

EGG ROLLS AND EGG CREAMS FESTIVAL 2014

Annual Egg Rolls & Egg Creams fest flies into the Lower East Side on June 8 (photo by Kate Milford)

Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge St. between Canal & Division Sts.
Sunday, June 8, free, 12 noon – 4:00 pm
212-219-0302
www.eldridgestreet.org

The fourteenth annual Egg Rolls & Egg Creams block party once again will bring together the Jewish and Chinese communities of the Lower East Side on June 8 for what is always a fun day of food and drink, live music and dance, history, culture, and lots more. Among the highlights of the festival are the kosher egg creams and egg rolls, yarmulke and challah workshops, tea ceremonies, a genealogy clinic, Yiddish and Chinese lessons, Hebrew and Chinese calligraphy classes, mah jongg, cantorial songs, Jewish paper cutting and Chinese paper folding, face painting, and free tours (in English and Chinese) of the wonderfully renovated Eldridge St. Synagogue, which boasts the East Window designed by Kiki Smith and Deborah Gans. In past years, the festival has included performances by the Chinatown Senior Center Folk Orchestra, Qi Shu Fang’s Peking Opera, the Shashmaqam Bukharan Jewish Cultural Group, Ray Muziker Klezmer Ensemble, and Cantor Eric Freeman, some of whom will be back again for this year’s multicultural celebration.

FIRST SATURDAYS: BROOKLYN LGBTQ PRIDE

Judy Chicago, “Birth Hood,” sprayed automotive lacquer on car hood, 1965/2011 (Courtesy of the artist. © Judy Chicago. Photo © Donald Woodman)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, June 7, free, 5:00 – 11:00 ($10 discounted admission to “Ai Weiwei: According to What?”)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum is currently home to four temporary exhibitions that deal with different types of activism, which together fit in extremely well with its June free First Saturdays program, a tribute to “Brooklyn LGBTQ Pride.” Now on view are “Ai Weiwei: According to What?,” a stirring retrospective that examines social, historical, and political elements of art and freedom in China ($10 discounted admission on Saturday after 5:00); the expansive “Swoon: Submerged Motherlands,” which incorporates feminist ideals into such environmental issues as climate change and waste; the gripping “Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties,” which looks at the depiction of the civil rights movement in painting, sculpture, and photography; and the colorful “Chicago in L.A.: Judy Chicago’s Early Works, 1963–74,” which follows Judy Chicago before she became a feminist icon. On June 7, there will be live performances by the Shondes, Rivers of Honey, and AVAN LAVA, a movement workshop led by Benny Ninja Training Academy in memory of voguing master Willi Ninja, an excerpt from The Firebird, a Ballez by Katy Pyle and the Ballez, the drag-oriented BUSHWIG festival hosted by Horrorchata and Macy Rodman, a talk by multidisciplinary artist and activist Alexander Kargaltsev on being a gay Russian artist, a hands-on art workshop in which participants will create a dancing figure in clay, a discussion with members of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and pop-up gallery talks. (Some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center.)

FILM FORUM JR.: THE RED SHOES

Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) contemplate their future in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s THE RED SHOES

CLASSICS FOR KIDS AND THEIR FAMILIES: THE RED SHOES (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1948)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Sunday, June 8, $7.50, 11:00 am
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.com

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes is a lush, gorgeous examination of the creative process and living — and dying — for one’s art. Sadler’s Wells dancer Moira Shearer stars as Victoria Page, a young socialite who dreams of becoming a successful ballerina. She is brought to the attention of ballet master Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and soon is a member of his famed company. Meanwhile, composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring), whose music was stolen by his professor and used in a Lermontov ballet, also joins the company, as chorus master. As Vicky and Julian’s roles grow, so does their affection for each other, with a jealous Lermontov seething in between. Inspired by Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, The Red Shoes is a masterful behind-the-scenes depiction of the world of dance, highlighted by the dazzlingly surreal title ballet, which mimics the narrative of the central plot. Based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, the fifteen-minute ballet takes viewers into a completely different fantasy realm, using such cinematic devices as jump cuts and superimposition as the drama unfolds well beyond the limits of the stage. To increase the believability of the story and make sure the dance scenes were effective, Powell and Pressburger enlisted players from the international dance community; the film’s cast includes Russian choreographer and dancer Léonide Massine as Lermontov choreographer Grischa Ljubov, French prima ballerina Ludmilla Tchérina as Lermontov star Irina Boronskaja, and Australian dancer Robert Helpmann as Ivan Boleslawsky; Helpmann also served as the film’s choreographer.

Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) gets immersed in a surreal ballet in classic dance drama THE RED SHOES

Brian Easdale won an Oscar for his score, which ranges from sweet and lovely to dark and ominous, with an Academy Award also going to Hein Heckroth’s stunning art direction and Arthur Lawson’s fabulous set design. The film was photographed in glorious Technicolor by Jack Cardiff. Upon meeting Vicky, Lermontov asks, “Why do you want to dance?” to which she instantly responds, “Why do you want to live?” No mere ballet film, The Red Shoes is about so much more. The Red Shoes is screening June 8 at 11:00 am as part of the Film Forum Jr. series for kids and families, which continues June 15 with To Kill a Mockingbird and June 22 with Oklahoma!

PING PONG SUMMER

Rad Miracle (Marcello Conte) learns about life and table tennis in Michael Tully’s PING PONG SUMMER

PING PONG SUMMER (Michael Tully, 2014)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, June 6
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.pingpongsummer.com

No mere homage to ’80s films, Michael Tully’s sweetly charming Ping Pong Summer was made as if it were a teen bully movie from the decade that gave us such Reagan-era flicks as The Karate Kid, Back to the Future, My Bodyguard, Revenge of the Nerds, and Three O’Clock High. Shot in Super 16mm by cinematographer Wyatt Garfield to give it an authentic period look, Ping Pong Summer is set in Ocean City, Maryland, in 1985, where the Miracle family spends its annual summer vacation. This year they are staying in a ramshackle house by the bay instead of the ocean to save money, but shy, awkward thirteen-year-old supernerd Radford “Rad” Miracle (Marcello Conte) doesn’t really care; all he wants to do is play table tennis and listen to hip-hop. Rad and fellow geek Teduardo “Teddy” Fryy (Myles Massey) hang out at Fun Hub, where kids play air hockey, arcade games like Pac-Man, and Ping-Pong, which, it turns out, Rad is not very good at, his skills about as adept as Teddy’s lame rapping. But after being bullied once too often by obnoxious rich kid and local Ping-Pong god Lyle Ace (Joseph McCaughtry) and his sycophantic right-hand man, Dale Lyons (Andy Riddle), Rad challenges Lyle to a match, which he immediately regrets. But with the help of local weirdo Randi Jammer (real-life Ping-Pong enthusiast Susan Sarandon, cofounder of the SPiN New York Ping-Pong social club), Rad decides it just might be time to finally stand up for himself.

Ping Pong Summer is an engaging, comic look at those clumsy and gawky teen years when nothing seems to go right. Writer-director Tully (Cocaine Angel, Silver Jew, Septien), whose family vacationed for one week a year in Ocean City for many summers when he was growing up in Maryland, gets the period drama just right, from the setting and dialogue to the clothing and soundtrack, which includes Whodini’s “Friends,” New Edition’s “Popcorn Love,” and John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band’s “Tough All Over” in addition to songs by Mr. Mister, the Fat Boys, and the Mary Jane Girls. (The great track over the closing credits, “Young Champion,” is actually a groovy new song by Of Montreal posing as a band called Hammer Throw.) First-timer Conte does a good job as Rad, embodying all the nervous energy that comes with being an adolescent, in this case dealing with a Goth sister (Helena Seabrook), a cheapskate state trooper father (John Hannah), an adoring mother (’80s star and Back to the Future mom Lea Thompson, who seemingly hasn’t aged), and the girl he likes, Stacy Summers (Emmi Shockley), who unfortunately is with Lyle. Sarandon clearly has a really good time as the oddball Randi, as do Amy Sedaris, Robert Longstreet, and Judah Friedlander in cameos. Reminiscent of another recent nostalgic trip back to the ’80s, The Way, Way Back, Ping Pong Summer, which won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Sarasota Film Festival, is another small, intimate gem from an adventurous and unpredictable filmmaker.