Grand Central Terminal, Vanderbilt Hall
89 East 42nd St.
Friday, February 21, $75 in advance only, 7:00 – 10:00
New York City Beer Week runs February 21 – March 2
www.newyorkcitybrewersguild.com
www.grandcentralterminal.com
It is highly unlikely that Plato ever said, “He was a wise man who invented beer,” no matter what the internet says, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have, because indeed, it was a very wise man who invented beer. The sixth annual New York City Beer Week, a celebration of all things suds (but not Plato), gets under way February 21 with an opening-night party in Grand Central’s historic Vanderbilt Hall. A $75 ticket, which must be purchased in advance, gets you a tasting glass and access to potent potables from more than three dozen breweries, including 508 Gastrobrewery, Brooklyn Brewery, Chelsea Brewing, City Island, Eataly Birreria, Gun Hill Brewing, Harlem Brewing, Sixpoint, Allagash, Dogfish, Finback, Ommegang, Shelton Brothers, Shmaltz, Smuttynose, and Wandering Star, along with snacks from Parmacotto, Murray’s Cheese, GUS, and Whole Foods and live entertainment from Music Under New York. Among the more than eighty restaurants hosting Beer Week specials between February 21 and March 2 are Atlantic Chip Shop, Barcade, Dinosaur BBQ, the Gate, the Kent Ale House, Spuyten Duyvil, Superfine, and Waterfront Ale House in Brooklyn, Amsterdam Ale House, Barcade, Blue Ribbon Bakery Kitchen, Blue Smoke Flatiron, Gramercy Tavern, Hospoda, Luke’s Lobster, Shorty’s, Swift Hibernian Lounge, Jimmy’s No. 43, and Waterfront Ale House in Manhattan, Austin’s Ale House, Alewife NYC, the Courtyard Ale House, Forest Hills Station House, Oliver’s Astoria, Rocky McBride’s, and Woodbines in Queens, and Bronx Alehouse and the Bronx Beer Hall in the Bronx.
In addition, the NYC Craft Beer Festival takes place February 28 and March 1 with three sessions at the Lexington Armory ($55-$125, food extra) in which attendees can get unlimited two-ounce tastings of approximately 150 American craft beers. New York City Beer Week concludes March 2 with a beer brunch at Houston Hall. New York City Beer Week is organized by the New York City Brewers Guild, whose mission, which we heartily endorse, “is to advocate for and promote awareness of its local brewing members; to increase the visibility of local beers through programs, events, and consumer education; and to foster a healthy, ethical, and growth-focused craft beer industry throughout the city.” Plato might not have commented on the invention of beer way back when, but he did claim, “No human thing is of serious importance,” and we strongly disagree with that statement, starting with the invention of beer, of course, which could not be any more significant in the annals of history.
Based on a true story documented in Georges Devereux’s 1951 book, Reality and Dream: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, which features an introduction by Margaret Mead, Palme d’Or nominee Jimmy P. details the fascinating relationship between French-Hungarian ethnologist, anthropologist, and psychoanalyst Devereux (Mathieu Amalric) and Native American Blackfoot James Picard (Benicio del Toro). A WWII veteran living in Montana in 1948, Picard is taken to Topeka Winter Hospital after suffering from debilitating headaches and temporary blindness. When doctors Menninger (Larry Pine), Holt (Joseph Cross), Braatoy (Ricky Wayne), and Jokl (Elya Baskin) can’t find anything physically wrong with Picard — and wonder whether their unfamiliarity with Indians is limiting their understanding of his problems — Menninger calls in his colleague Devereux, a Freudian who is having difficulty getting a full-time position because of some of the unusual methods he employs. An excited Devereux immerses himself in Picard’s case, getting the direct, not-very-talkative Blackfoot to soon start opening up about his personal life, share his dreams, and discuss his military experiences. While the other doctors disagree with one another on what Devereux is doing, he and Jimmy develop a unique friendship, two very different men trying to find their place in life. Director Arnaud Desplechin wrote the screenplay (with Julie Peyr and Kent Jones) specifically for Amalric and del Toro, and it’s a terrific pairing, the former, who has previously starred in Desplechin’s
The IFC Center is offering a wonderful way to celebrate Valentine’s Day with four screenings of that endlessly romantic noir classic, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity. Three years after a brunette Barbara Stanwyck tried to swindle Henry Fonda in Preston Sturges’s The Lady Eve, a blonde Stanwyck is looking for a way out of her loveless marriage when opportunity knocks in the form of acerbic insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray). Stanwyck plays alluring, tough-talking femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson, who falls for Neff and soon convinces him that they should do away with her husband (Tom Powers). They’re both in it “straight down the line,” as she repeats throughout the film, but insurance fraud investigator Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) isn’t so sure that Mr. Dietrichson’s death was an accident. John F. Seitz’s inventive black-and-white cinematography — watch for those Venetian blind shadows — set the standard for the genre. MacMurray, who had to be convinced by Wilder to take the part because he thought he’d be awful in the role, is sensational as Neff, oh-so-cool as he recites his cynical dialogue and lights matches with one hand. He might think he’s tough, but he’s no match for Stanwyck, who rules the roost. Both Stanwyck and MacMurray would go on to successful careers in television in the 1960s, he in My Three Sons, she in The Big Valley. Directed by Wilder from a script he wrote with Raymond Chandler based on a pulp novel by James Cain, with music by Miklós Rózsa — how’s that for a pedigree? — Double Indemnity, which was nominated for seven Oscars and won none, is screening February 14-17 at 11:00 am at the IFC Center, kicking off the “American Hustlers: Grifters, Swindlers, Scammers & Cheats” series, which continues through May 4 with such other tricky fare as George Roy Hill’s The Sting, David Mamet’s House of Games, Charles Crichton’s A Fish Called Wanda, and Peter Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon.