twi-ny recommended events

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION — DOCUMENTARY OSCAR HOPEFULS: PUSSY RIOT — A PUNK PRAYER

Feminist art collective Pussy Riot states its case and faces the consequences in documentary that has made the Oscar short-list

PUSSY RIOT: A PUNK PRAYER (Mike Lerner & Maxim Pozdorovkin, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
Friday, December 20, 2:40, and Saturday, December 21, 9:15
Series runs December 20-26
www.hbo.com
www.filmlinc.com

The slogan “Free Pussy Riot!” is being shouted around the world — and was even seen on Madonna’s back — ever since the Russian government arrested three members of punk collective Pussy Riot after they staged an anarchic performance of less than one minute of “Mother Mary, Banish Putin!” at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow on February 21, 2012. British documentary producer Mike Lerner and Russian filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin follow the sensationalistic trial of Pussy Riot leaders Maria “Masha” Alyokhina, Nadezhda “Nadia” Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina “Katia” Samutsevich as they each face years in prison for social misconduct and antireligious behavior for what some consider a sacrilegious crime and others view as freedom of speech. The three women do a lot of eye rolling and smiling in court as they are enclosed in a glass booth, proud and unashamed of what they did, continuing to make their points about the separation between church and state, feminism, freedom, and the seemingly unlimited power of Vladimir Putin. Lerner and Pozdorovkin speak with Masha’s mother and Nadia’s and Katia’s fathers, all of whom fully support their daughters’ beliefs and discuss what their children were like growing up. Meanwhile, other members of Pussy Riot and men and women across the globe take to the streets and airwaves to try to help free the incarcerated trio, who are responsible for such songs as “Kill the Sexist,” “Death to Prison, Freedom to Protests,” and “Putin Lights Up the Fires.” Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer is screening December 20-21 as part the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “For Your Consideration: Documentary Oscar Hopefuls,” which runs December 20-26 and consists of all fifteen nonfiction features that have made the Academy Awards short-list, including Cutie and the Boxer, Dirty Wars, Stories We Tell, Blackfish, and 20 Feet from Stardom. The festival will be followed December 27 – January 2 by “For Your Consideration: Foreign Oscar Hopefuls,” comprising such international fare as Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster, Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds, and Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda.

SEE IT BIG! GREAT CINEMATOGRAPHERS: CHILDREN OF MEN

CHILDREN OF MEN predicts a bleak future for humankind

CHILDREN OF MEN (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Friday, December 20, $12, 7:00
Series runs through December 29
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.childrenofmen.net

It’s 2027, and there hasn’t been a baby born in the world in eighteen years. For some unknown reason, women have become infertile, leading to chaos around the globe. Only England perseveres, but it is on the brink of destruction as warring factions prepare for doomsday. Onetime revolutionary Theo (an as-even-keeled-as-ever Clive Owen) has settled down into a mundane life, but he’s thrust back into the middle of things when he is kidnapped by a radical organization run by his ex-wife, Julian (Julianne Moore), and her right-hand man, the hard-edged Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Theo is forced to escort Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), a young fugee (refugee), through the danger zone and to the Human Project, a supposed safe haven that might not actually exist. Also staring extinction in the face are Theo’s brother, Nigel (Danny Huston); Theo’s hippie friend, Jasper (a longhaired Michael Caine); and homeland security officer Syd (Peter Mullan). Inspired by the novel by P. D. James, the chilling Children of Men is a violent, prescient, nonstop thrill ride, moviemaking of the highest order, cowritten and directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mamá También, Gravity) and photographed in vibrant filth and muddiness by Emmanuel Lubezki (Sleepy Hollow, The Tree of Life). Nominated for three Academy Awards, Children of Men is one of the best of the dystopian science fiction films of the twenty-first century, predicting a future that is not as impossible as one might think. Stay through the credits for a tiny but critical coda. Children of Men is screening December 20 at 7:00 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “See It Big! Great Cinematographers,” which continues through December 29 with such other beautifully shot films as How Green Was My Valley, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and Doctor Zhivago.

THE BREEDERS LAST SPLASH 20th ANNIVERSARY TOUR / SPEEDY ORTIZ

Breeders are back for twentieth anniversary of LAST SPLASH

Webster Hall
125 East 11th St. between Second & Third Aves.
Thursday, December 19, and Friday, December 20, $30, 8:00
www.websterhall.com
www.breedersdigest.net
www.speedyortiz.bandcamp.com

Twenty years ago, indie supergroup the Breeders exploded onto the scene with their second full-length album, The Last Splash, which featured the monster hit “Cannonball,” reaching platinum heights propelled by an ultracool video directed by the impossibly hip team of Spike Jonze and Kim Gordon. Consisting of bassist Josephine Wiggs from the Perfect Disaster, drummer Jim Macpherson, and twin-sister guitarists Kim and Kelley Deal from the Pixies (Kelley replaced original Breeder Tanya Donelly of the Throwing Muses, who went on to form Belly), the band created a punchy, infectious sound that influenced such other groups as Nirvana, whom the Breeders opened for on a European stint. The Breeders are celebrating the twentieth anniversary of The Last Splash, which also includes such gems as “Invisible Man,” “Flipside,” “No Aloha,” and “Drivin’ on 9,” with the release of the deluxe box set LSXX (4ad, May 2013) and a tour in which they are playing the record in full. They’ll be doing so at Webster Hall on December 19 & 20, adding all of 1990’s Pod as well. But be sure to get there early, because you won’t want to miss Northampton’s Speedy Ortiz, a band whose music evokes the heyday of the Breeders.

Speedy Ortiz will open Breeders shows at Webster Hall (photo by Noe Richards)

Named after a street-gang punk in Jaime Hernandez’s Love and Rockets comics, Speedy Ortiz is currently on the road in support of its debut album, Major Arcana (Carpark, July 2013), a ten-song treat in which the band is constantly changing tempos and volume, offering tantalizing surprises every step of the way. Guitarist and lead singer Sadie Dupuis writes the music first, then adds lyrics that fit into her shifting melodies. “Was it the teeth or my tongue that said / ‘Go shut your lips, let us take a rest’? / Oh, my mouth is a factory / for every toxic part of speech I spew,” she begins on “Tiger Tank,” adding, “Oh, my face is a label / to convey how very awfully I’m doing.” In its short three-year history, Speedy Ortiz hasn’t been doing awfully at all, releasing the cult hit “Taylor Swift” (“Blood-shaking, clot-making viper that feeds on a mouse / Poaching the eggs of the snakes that I slayed in the South), an EP called Sports that includes songs about basketball, indoor soccer, and curling, and the speaker-rattling Major Arcana and have the EP Real Hair, featuring “Everything’s Bigger,” scheduled for early 2014, reteaming them with Pixies producer Paul Q. Kolderie, who worked on the “Taylor Swift” / “Swim Fan” single. Dupuis, shredding guitarist Matt Robidoux, Christmas-born bassist Darl Ferm, and drummer Mike Falcone will be opening for the Breeders at the Webster Hall shows before going off on their first European tour.

THE COMMONS OF PENSACOLA

A family faces some hard, cold truths in THE COMMONS OF PENSACOLA (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club
New York City Center Stage 1
Extended through February 9, $105
212-581-1212
www.thecommonsofpensacola.com
www.nycitycenter.org

Earlier this year, Steven Levenson’s The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin at the Roundabout examined the Bernie Madoff scandal through the eyes of a man returning from prison. Now Manhattan Theatre Club looks at the crisis from a very different point of view in Amanda Peet’s engaging and involving The Commons of Pensacola. Blythe Danner stars as Judith, a grandmother banished to live in shame in a low-rent Florida retirement community after her husband gets nailed by the Feds. With Thanksgiving approaching, Judith is visited by her forty-three-year-old daughter, Becca (Sarah Jessica Parker), and Becca’s twenty-nine-year-old boyfriend, Gabe (Michael Stahl-David). A fading actress, Becca wants to team up with Gabe, a photojournalist, to make a documentary series about Judith, focusing on her former extravagant lifestyle and what her days are like now, without any money or the luxury she grew to be so familiar and comfortable with. They are soon joined by Becca’s sixteen-year-old niece, Lizzy (Zoe Levin), who has snuck away to see her grandmother against her mother’s wishes. But soon Lizzy’s mom, Becca’s sister, Ali (Ali Marsh), who had sworn never to see their mother again, is there as well, and some damaging secrets and lies that have been bubbling just below the surface threaten to explode.

Lizzy (Zoe Levin) has a little too much in common with her aunt Becca (Sarah Jessica Parker) in Amanda Peets debut play (photo by Joan Marcus)

Lizzy (Zoe Levin) has a little too much in common with her aunt Becca (Sarah Jessica Parker) in Amanda Peet’s playwriting debut (photo by Joan Marcus)

Peet, who has appeared in such films as The Whole Nine Yards and Please Give and such television series as Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and The Good Wife, makes a more than admirable debut as a playwright with The Commons of Pensacola. Despite a few questionable plot twists, the dialogue is sharp and the characters wholly believable, propelled by MTC artistic director Lynne Meadow’s noninvasive direction and Santo Loquasto’s clean and tidy set, which features a glass door to the outside that is jammed shut. Danner and Parker make a natural mother and daughter team, playing off each other with a friendly ease; they previously teamed up in A. R. Gurney’s Sylvia, a 1995 MTC production in which Danner played a married woman and Parker played the stray dog her husband (Charles Kimbrough) just picked up in the park. Levin, who was in The Way, Way Back with Peet, fits right in as the niece who emulates her rather kooky aunt. Nihala Sun (No Child…) does what she can with the relatively predictable role of the black maid, Marsh is somewhat annoying as the annoying Ali, and Stahl-David (Cloverfield) is fine as Gabe, who becomes much more than just an innocent observer of this newly destitute clan. Continuing through February 9 at City Center, The Commons of Pensacola, which clocks in at a smooth, uninterrupted eighty minutes, might not be particularly deep, but it does offer a good balance of comedy and drama while depicting another side of the Madoff madness.

BAMcinématek FAVORITES: STALKER

Andrei Tarkovsky’s STALKER takes place in the fantastical land known as the Zone

STALKER (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Wednesday, December 18, 4:30 & 8:00, and Thursday, December 19, 4:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Set in a seemingly postapocalyptic world that is never explained, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker is an existential work of immense beauty, a deeply philosophical, continually frustrating, and endlessly rewarding journey into nothing less than the heart and soul of the world. Alexander Kaidanovsky stars as Stalker, a careful, precise man who has been hired to lead Writer and Professor (Tarkovsky regulars Anatoli Solonitsyn and Nikolai Grinko, respectively) into the forbidden Zone, a place of mystery that houses a room where it is said that people can achieve their most inner desires. While Stalker’s home and the bar where the men meet are dark, gray, and foreboding, the Zone is filled with lush green fields, trees, and aromatic flowers — as well as abandoned vehicles, strange passageways, and inexplicable sounds. The Zone — which heavily influenced J. J. Abrams’s creation of the island on Lost — has a life all its own as past, present, and future merge in an expansive land where every forward movement is fraught with danger but there is no turning back. An obsessive tyrant of a filmmaker, Tarkovsky (Andrei Rublev, Solaris) imbues every shot with a supreme majesty, taking viewers on an unusual and unforgettable cinematic adventure. (For our 2012 twi-ny talk with Geoff Dyer, the author of Zona: A Book about a Film about a Journey to a Room, which offers quite a unique take on Stalker, go here.)

ISAAC JULIEN: TEN THOUSAND WAVES / PLAYTIME

Isaac Julien’s striking TEN THOUSAND WAVES floats across MoMA’s atrium (photo by Jonathan Muzikar)

TEN THOUSAND WAVES
Museum of Modern Art, the Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Through February 17
Museum admission: $25 ($12 can be applied to the purchase of a film ticket within thirty days)
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.isaacjulien.com

Comfy Ottomans are arranged throughout MoMA’s Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium, but visitors aren’t meant to grab a seat and settle in while watching Isaac Julien’s dazzling nine-screen immersive installation, Ten Thousand Waves. To get the full effect, wander around the space, and even check out the upper levels for a view from above. That would fit with some of Julien’s central themes, involving motion, migration, and technological change. The London-born Julien has previously installed the piece on Cuckatoo Island, for the Sydney Biennale; at the Kunsthalle Helsinki; and in Shanghai during the Shanghai Expo, but it is being shown at MoMA in a unique configuration, with the nine screens hanging from the atrium ceiling at different angles and heights, making it feel like a more arduous journey. The inspiration for Ten Thousand Waves came from the 2004 Morecambe Bay tragedy, when nearly two dozen migrant Chinese cockle pickers from Fujian Province drowned in a terrible accident. Julien retells that story with actual footage of the recovery attempt while incorporating elements of the folk legend “The Tale of Yishan Island,” about sixteenth-century fishermen facing disaster on the sea. He also re-creates scenes from Wu Yonggang’s 1934 silent film, The Goddess, with Zhao Tao (wife and muse of Sixth Generation director Jia Zhangke) playing a desperate prostitute (as well as Goddess actress Ruan Ling-yu, who came to a fateful end herself) making her way through the colorful streets of old and new Shanghai (and the Shanghai Film Studios). Overseeing it all is Mazu (Chinese superstar Maggie Cheung), the Goddess of the Sea, who floats through the air in a flowing white costume. The multiple abstract narratives, visual style, sets, and soundtrack (by Jah Wobble and the Chinese Dub Orchestra and composer Maria de Alvear) combine with Gong Fagen’s calligraphy and Wang Ping’s specially commissioned poem, “Small Boats” (other collaborators include multimedia artist Yang Fudong and cinematographer Zhao Xiaoshi), to examine the interplay of commerce and capital in both ancient and modern-day China. Like much of Julien’s oeuvre (Fantôme Afrique, True North), the fifty-minute Ten Thousand Waves is a visually stunning meditative work that offers up no easy answers while warranting multiple visits. In conjunction with the exhibit, MoMA has published a deluxe intellectual biography of Julien, Riot, which features illuminating text by Paul Gilroy, bell hooks, Mark Nash, Laura Mulvey, Christine Van Assche, Julien, and others, including several chapters on Ten Thousand Waves and Playtime, which can currently be seen at Metro Pictures.

Julien’s PLAYTIME follows a series of characters dealing with the financial crisis in very different ways (photo courtesy Metro Pictures)

PLAYTIME
Metro Pictures
519 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through December 18, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-206-7100
www.metropicturesgallery.com

In Chelsea, Julien’s latest installation at Metro Pictures, Playtime, continues through December 18, exploring some of the same concepts as Ten Thousand Waves, albeit much more directly, as seen through the Collector, the Houseworker, the Artist, the Auctioneer, and the Reporter, each of whom is based on real people. The centerpiece of Playtime is a three-chapter film, projected onto a long, horizontal screen, that looks at the financial crisis in three cities. In London, a vibrant young man (James Franco) speaks adoringly about collecting art and leads viewers to an auction being led by Simon de Pury. In Dubai, where there appears to have never been a financial crisis, a Filipina woman (Mercedes Cabral) cleans a wealthy man’s multimillion-dollar apartment, gazing out at one of the wealthiest cities on the planet while wondering if she will make enough money to have her life back and reunite with the rest of her family. And in Reykjavik, where the financial crisis began in 2008, a photographer (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson) looks over a vast, barren landscape. The exhibit also includes Kapital, a two-channel video in which Julien and social theorist David Harvey, author of such books as Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development and The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism, discuss class, Marxist philosophy, social structure, and more with a specially invited group of men and women at London’s Hayward Gallery. And in another video, de Pury sits down for a craftily staged interview with a journalist (Cheung), claiming that the financial crisis actually ended up being a boon to the art market. Although some of the points Julien is making here are rather obvious and far from new, the work still fascinates with its visual acuity and infectious pacing. Perhaps Julien titled it Playtime in tribute to Jacques Tati and his Monsieur Hulot onscreen alter-ego, a charming, dapper man who seems to be living in a different era than everyone else, with few of their cares and worries.

Clips from Isaac Juliens PLAYTIME will screen throughout Times Square this month (photo by Ka-Man Tse for @TSqArts)

A three-minute clip from Isaac Julien’s PLAYTIME will screen throughout Times Square this month (photo by Ka-Man Tse for @TSqArts)

MIDNIGHT MOMENT: ISAAC JULIEN
Times Square
Nightly at 11:57 through December 30
www.timessquarenyc.org

In conjunction with the shows at MoMA and Metro Pictures, Times Square Arts and the Times Square Advertising Coalition is presenting a three-minute clip from Julien’s Playtime every night at 11:57 on seventeen electronic billboards in Times Square through December 30 as part of the ongoing “Midnight Moment” project, which has previously shown work by such artists as Ryan McGinley, Robert Wilson, Tracey Emin, Jack Goldstein, and Björk and Andrew Thomas Huang. It’s rather fitting, of course, that Playtime, which deals so much with art, commerce, and capitalism, can be seen in the heart of one of the planet’s most commercial locations. And it’s difficult to pass up the opportunity to see James Franco hovering over the Crossroads of the World. Julien will be back at MoMA on February 10 for the Modern Mondays presentation “An Evening with Isaac Julien,” sharing film clips and talking about his career.

OPEN MIC NIGHT SERIES AT GTR SHOWROOM

new GTR Store Showroom hosts open mic nights on Monday and Tuesday

new GTR Store Showroom hosts open mic nights on Monday (jazz) and Tuesday (acoustic)

GTR Store Showroom
141 West 28th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves., fourth floor
Monday & Tuesday nights, free, 5:00 to 7:00
646-460-8472
www.gtrstore.com

Forget about karaoke or Rock Band. If you want to be a star, you’ve got to get up in front of an audience, with a real instrument, and play and sing your heart out. You can do that every Monday and Tuesday at the brand-new deluxe showroom at the GTR Store on West Twenty-eighth St. Last month they started the Open Mic Night Series, featuring jazz on Mondays and acoustic music on Tuesdays, both from 5:00 to 7:00. Admission is free whether you’re just watching or playing. And don’t worry if you’re new to open mic nights; GRT professionals will take care of the sound and light, and you can even borrow a guitar or other instrument when you’re ready to strut your stuff. There’s also a bar made out of Marshall amp stacks, and the event is open to all ages. “Finally there is a home for artists, as well as band representatives, to present their talents and gear in the heart of New York City,” GTRstore.com president Steve Pisani said in a statement. So grab a guitar and a harmonica, or take a seat behind the drum kit, and blast away, singing your own songs or your favorite covers. And there’ll be no silly celebrities there to attack — er, we mean judge — your performance.