twi-ny recommended events

CMJ 2013: DAY FIVE

One of our favorite breakout bands of 2013 is Heliotropes, the Brooklyn foursome whose debut record, A Constant Sea, (Manimal, June 18), is one of the best of the year. Bassist Nya Abudu, drummer Cici Harrison, vocalist and tambourine player Amber Myers, and lead singer and guitarist Jessica Numsuwankijkul put on a fab show at this summer’s 4 Knots Music Festival at the South Street Seaport, and now they’ll be playing a pair of gigs on the last day of the 2013 CMJ Music Marathon, October 19, at Spike Hill at 12 noon and later on at 9:00 at Grand Victory for the BreakThru Radio showcase (on a great bill with Eternal Summers, EULA, and the Meaning of Life).

Wild Honey Pie: Deirdre & the Dark, 1:20; How Sad, 2:00; Highs, 2:50; Wilsen, 3:40; Belle Mare, 4:30; TV Girl, 5:20; Little Daylight, 6:10; Hockey, 7:00; Empress Of, 7:50: French Horn Rebellion, 8:50; Caveman, 9:50; Joywave, 11:10, Cameo Gallery, 93 North Sixth St.

Green Room Music Source: Benjamin Cartel, 3:00; Blue Eyed Son, 4:00; Pete Donnelly, 5:00; Freedy Johnston, 6:00, the Living Room, 154 Ludlow St.,

BreakThru Radio: the Meaning of Life, 7:00; EULA, 7:40; Heliotropes, 9:00; Eternal Summers, 10:00, Grand Victory, 245 Grand St., Brooklyn

Happy Fangs, 7:00; the Last Kiss AKA Fuka Lata, 8:00; the Novocaines, 9:00; Highly Suspect, 10:00; Bad Cop, 11:00; the Demos, 12:00, Trash Bar, 256 Grand St., Brooklyn

L Rock Entertainment Presents: Peter Chance & Chapter 3, 7:00; Loren Benjamin, 8:00; Midnight Spin, 9:00; Mike Scala, 10:00; Animal Years, 11:00; the Young Things, 12 midnight; Shake the Baron, 1:00; BELT, 2:00, the Bitter End, 147 Bleecker St.

MezzoForte Productions + Brixton Agency Present: the Attic Ends, 7:00; Marmalakes, 8:00; Gemini Club, 9:00; Wild Adriatic, 10:00; Black Taxi, 11:00; Hockey, 12:00; Misun, 1:00; No Way Josie, 2:00, Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston St.

Heart Bleeds Radio Showcase: Duke Evers, 7:30; the Brooklyn What, 8:30; Slothrust, 9:30; Radical Dads, 10:30; the Planes, 11:30; My Teenage Stride, 12:15, Matchless, 557 Manhattan Ave.

International Rescue Artist Development + Drunken Piano Dub Pies Present: Eternal Summers, 7:00; Dream Shake, 7:45; Oscar Key Sung, 8:30; the Suzan, 9:15; Weird Womb, 10:00; the Shackeltons, 10:45; Ghost Wave, 11:30, Pianos, 158 Ludlow St.

Father John Misty “Solo,” Kate Berlant, 9:00, Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 North Sixth St.

SUNSHINE AT MIDNIGHT: POLTERGEIST

Life is about to get a whole lot creepier for the Freeling family in POLTERGEIST

POLTERGEIST (Tobe Hooper, 1982)
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves.
Friday, October 18, and Saturday, October 19, $10, 12 midnight
212-330-8182
www.landmarktheatres.com

When psychic Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein) says “Don’t go into the light,” she means it in more ways than one, so be sure to take heed when Tobe Hooper’s classic modern ghost story screens at Landmark Sunshine Cinema this Friday and Saturday at midnight. Inspired by the 1962 Twilight Zone episode “Little Girl Lost,” Poltergeist, which also features the significant involvement of cowriter and producer Steven Spielberg, has all the elements in all the right places to just plain scare the hell out of you. Shortly after Steven (Craig T. Nelson) and Diane (JoBeth Williams) Freeling move into their new home in the planned California community of Cuesta Verde, things start getting very creepy, especially when youngest daughter Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) announces, “They’re here,” then disappears into the television. Meanwhile, older sister Dana (Dominique Dunne) freaks out, and brother Robbie (Oliver Robins) has a bit of a problem with a clown doll and a tree branch. Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Lifeforce) lets the tension build slowly until it eventually explodes in a no-holds-barred ending that will have you digging into the cuticles of whoever is sitting next to you. And yes, those skeletons are real human bones, not replicas. The success of Poltergeist led to two sequels, a television series, and, unfortunately, a possible remake, but there’s nothing quite like the original, a deviously delicious frightfest that continues to send shivers down the spine no matter how often one sees it. And yes, Steven’s boss is indeed played by the Pathmark man (James Karen). Sadly — some say the result of a curse — O’Rourke died in 1988 at the age of twelve, and Dunne, the daughter of writer Dominick Dunne, was murdered by a former boyfriend in 1982 when she was just twenty-two. Consider yourself warned.

CMJ 2013: DAY FOUR

You’d be wrong wrong wrong not to catch Eleanor Friedberger at this year’s CMJ festival, as she continues her Fiery Furnaces hiatus with her second solo album, the wonderful Personal Record (Merge, June 2013). Friedberger will be at Judson Church on Thursday at 12 noon as part of the KEXP Live Broadcast (free and open to the public, no CMJ badge required), followed by an 11:00 show at Bowery Ballroom. Below are more recommendations for a wide-open Friday night, including some of our other local favorites, Heliotropes and Tall Tall Trees.

HMG PR & Ear Candy Present: Arms, 12 noon; Jacob Snider, 12:45; Charlene Kaye, 1:30; Lapland, 2:15; the Donnies the Amys, 3:00; the Spring Standard, 3:45; Pearl and the Beard, 4:45, Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2, 196 Allen St.

Monarch Artists: Mainland, 12 noon; the Adversary, 12:50; Dynasty Electric, 1:40; Maya Vik, 2:35; My Midnight Heart, 3:25; White Prism, 4:20; Bright Light Bright Light, 5:15, Bowery Electric, 327 Bowery

Planetary and the Great Escape Present: Wildlife, 1:20; Tigertown, 2:00; Hermitude, 2:40; Tops, 3:20; Blind Boys of Alabama, 4:00; the Preatures, 4:45; Sheppard, 5:25, Pianos, 158 Ludlow St.

Fuck Buttons with Mystery Skulls and Lichens, 6:00, (le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St.

Distiller Promo: DJ Neal Sugarman, 6:00; Sunwolf, 7:00; Cub Sport, 7:40; Diane Coffee, 8:30; Heliotropes, 9:20; Bad Cop, 10:00; the Can’t Tells, 10:50, Union Pool, 484 Union Ave.

Big Picture Media: NGHBRS, 7:00; Sol Cat, 7:45; Maria Taylor, 8:30; Sheppard, 9:15; Quiet Company, 10:00, Sullivan Hall, 214 Sullivan St.

Baeblemusic Presents the Launch Pad: Flagship, 7:00; Duologue, 8:00; the Darcys, 9:00; Misun, 10:00; Claire, 11:00; the Ceremonies, 12 midnight, Spike Hill, 186 Bedford Ave.

Champion: Promised Land Sound, 7:30; Okta Logue, 8:00; Kan Wakan, 9:00; Reuben and the Dark, 10:00; Eleanor Friedberger, 11:00; the Long Winters, 12 midnight, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St

Craft Services: Weaves, 8:00; Victory, 8:50; HSY, 9:40; Rey Pila, 10:30; Odonis Odonis, 11:20; Saul Williams & the Dragons of Zynth, 12:15, Santos Party House, 96 Lafayette St.

Tall Tall Trees, 11:00 pm, Rockwood Music Hall Stage 1, 196 Allen St.

ENZO AVITABLE MUSIC LIFE

Enzo Avitable and Jonathan Demme team up for charming music documentary set in Naples

ENZO AVITABILE MUSIC LIFE (Jonathan Demme, 2012)
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
Angelika Film Center, 18 West Houston St. at Mercer St., 212-995-2570
Opens Friday, October 18
www.enzoavitabilemusiclife.com

About six years ago, Jonathan Demme was driving in his car toward the George Washington Bridge when he heard a song on the radio that changed his life. It was by a Neapolitan musician he had never heard of before, Enzo Avitable. A few years later, producer Davide Azzolini invited Demme to be a special guest at the Naples Film Festival, and Demme agreed to attend, as long as he got to meet Avitable. Not only did Azzolini arrange the meeting, but they all decided to work together as well. The result is the charming documentary Enzo Avitable Music Life, in which Demme captures the always smiling and positive Avitable playing in a beautiful Baroque church with a stellar group of musicians from around the world, showing off his cluttered apartment (along with photos of him with James Brown, Tina Turner, and other superstars he has performed with), and visiting his childhood town of Marianella. As with such previous Demme documentaries as Stop Making Sense, Storefront Hitchcock, and Neil Young Trunk Show, the focus is on the music, as Avitable discusses his classical training and composing methods, pontificates on his love of jazz, and participates in wonderful jam sessions with various combinations that include Cuba’s Eliades Ochoa, Iraq’s Naseer Shamma, Spain’s Gerardo Núñez, Pakistan’s Ashraf Sharif Khan Poonchwala, India’s Trilok Gurtu, Sardinia’s Luigi Lai, Italy’s Zi’ Giannino Del Sorbo and Bruno Canino, Iran’s Hossein Alizadeh, Mauritania’s Daby Touré, and Palestinian singer Amal Murkus. Avitable is seen playing saxophone and unusual stringed instruments and singing lyrics that range from traditional folktales to abstract poetry to overheated sociopolitical commentary, believing in the power of music to make a difference. The scenes in the church have a kind of magic that is reminiscent of Davis Guggenheim’s It Might Get Loud, which documented a historic jam session between Jimmy Page, the Edge, and Jack White. And things get sweetly personal when the ebullient, curly haired Avitable returns to Marianella and meets up with some old friends — and their parents, who remember him well from when he was just a kid. The film is not merely a celebration of Avitable and his music but a tribute to his beloved Napoli as well.

CUT TO BLACK

Writer, producer, director, and star Dan Eberle plays the big, silent type in neo-noir CUT TO BLACK

CUT TO BLACK (Dan Eberle, 2013)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, October 18
212-924-3363
insurgentpictures.com
www.cinemavillage.com

Winner of the Audience Award at the 2013 Brooklyn Film Festival, Cut to Black is a dark, gritty slice of neo-noir from writer, director, producer, and star Dan Eberle. Part brooding Mickey Rourke, part humorless Vin Diesel, Eberle (The Local, Prayer to a Vengeful God) plays brooding, humorless disgraced ex-cop Bill Ivers, a big, hulking man who doesn’t say much as he goes through his lonely daily existence. Running out of money to pay the landlord — whose wife (Alexandra Mingione) he is sleeping with — Ivers is surprised by a visit from an old police friend, Gunther (Beau Allulli), who takes him to meet with his former boss, John Lord (James Alba), who wants Ivers to track down a man who is stalking his biological daughter, Jessica (Jillaine Gill). Ivers at first is hesitant, not wanting to get involved in anything having to do with Lord, a possible gubernatorial candidate, but he can’t say no to 200 G’s. It turns out that Jessica is working as a stripper, and her longtime boyfriend, a sleazeball named Duane (Joe Stipek), owes a fat wad of cash to local gangster Yates (Paul Bowen). Ivers can’t help himself from doing what he thinks is right, so he’s soon in the middle of it all, with all kinds of people wanting him out of the picture. Eberle regular cinematographer James Parsons shoots Cut to Black in sharp black-and-white, offering a unique view of modern-day Brooklyn (as well as Manhattan, Queens, and upstate New York). Eberle might not have a lot of range as an actor, but he dominates the screen with a firm presence, especially when Parsons zooms in on his beaten and battered face. The pacing is relatively slow until the twists start piling up one after another, some predictable, some not, others just plain strange, as Ivers is determined to see things through to the potentially violent end. As low-budget crime thrillers go, Cut to Black packs quite a stylish little punch. The film opens October 18 at Cinema Village, with Eberle and other members of the cast and crew on hand for a Q&A following the 7:15 screening.

JEAN-LUC GODARD — THE SPIRIT OF THE FORMS: MASCULIN FÉMININ

Jean-Pierre Léaud plays a rather peculiar young man in Jean-Luc Godard’s MASCULIN FÉMININ

MASCULIN FÉMININ (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Francesca Beale Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Saturday, October 19, 9:10
Series continues through October 31
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

In a 1966 interview with Pierre Daix about Masculin féminin, director Jean-Luc Godard said, “When I made this film, I didn’t have the least idea of what I wanted.” Initially to be based on the Guy de Maupassant short stories “The Signal” and “Paul’s Mistress,” the film ended up being a revolutionary examination of the emerging youth culture in France, which Godard identifies as “the children of Marx and Coca-Cola.” Godard threw away the script and worked on the fly to make the film, which stars Jean-Pierre Léaud as Paul, a peculiar young man who quickly becomes obsessed with budding pop star Madeleine, played by real-life Yé-yé singer Chantal Goya. (Godard discovered her on a television variety show.) Paul chases Madeleine, getting a job at the same company, going to the movies and nightclubs with her and her friends, and meeting her in cafés, where he wants to talk about the troubles of contemporary society and she just wants to have a good time. “Man’s conscience doesn’t determine his existence. His social being determines his conscience,” Paul proclaims. He continually argues that there is nothing going on even as strange events occur around him to which he is completely oblivious, including a lover’s spat in which a woman guns down a man in broad daylight. (Sounds of rapid-fire bullets can be heard over the intertitles for each of the film’s fifteen faits précis, evoking a sense of impending doom.) Paul has bizarre conversations with his best friend, Robert (Michel Debord), a radical who asks him to help put up anarchist posters. Posing as a journalist, Paul brutally interviews Miss 19 (Elsa Leroy), a young model with a very different view of society and politics. Godard has also included a playful battle of the sexes in the center of it all: Paul wants Madeleine, much to the consternation of Madeleine’s roommate, Elisabeth (Marlène Jobert), who also has designs on her; meanwhile, Robert goes out with another of Madeleine’s friends, the more grounded Catherine (Catherine-Isabelle Duport), who is interested in Paul.

Paul (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and Robert (Michel Debord) discuss radicalism in Godard New Wave classic

It all makes for great fun, taking place in a surreal black-and-white world dominated by rampant consumerism. In addition, Godard comments on the state of cinema itself. As they watch a Bergman-esque Swedish erotic film (directed by Godard and starring Eva-Britt Strandberg and Birger Malmsten), Paul dashes off to the projectionist, arguing that the aspect ratio is wrong. And in a café scene, French starlet Brigitte Bardot and theater director Antoine Bourseiller sit in a booth, playing themselves as they go over a script, bringing together the real and the imaginary. “I no longer have any idea where I am from the point of view of cinema,” Godard told Daix. “I am in search of cinema. It seems to me that I have lost it.” Well, he apparently found it again with the seminal Masculin feminin, which is screening October 19 at 9:10 at the Francesca Beale Theater as part of the expansive Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Jean-Luc Godard — The Spirit of the Forms,” which continues through October 31 with such other Godard works as Nouvelle Vague, Le Petit soldat, Two or Three Things I Know About Her, Vivre sa vie, and many more.

CMJ 2013: DAY THREE

Australia’s City Riots continues its nine-shows-in-ten-days New York assault at the CMJ Bulldog Gin Party at the Raven on October 17 and the CMJ Aussie BBQ on October 19 at the Delancey. Featuring songs from their debut album, Sea of Bright Lights, which can be streamed here, Ricky Kradolfer, Matthew Edge, Dan Kradolfer, and Matthew Stadler will also be hosting a record listening party at Klimat Lounge on October 18, then play Rockwood Music Hall on October 21, Pianos on October 22, and Bowery Electric on October 23. Below are more of our CMJ recommendations for Thursday.

Flux Studios Presents: Bridge City Hustle, 12 noon; Julian Peterson, 1:00; Banda Magda, 2:00; Cyrille Aimee, 3:00; Jeff Campbell & Megan Stankard, 5:00; Mark Wilkinson, 6:00; Landshapes, 7:00; Badboxes, 8:00; Lily & The Parlour Tricks, 9:00; Aaron Lee Tasjan, 10:00; Aabaraki, 11:00; Mandolin Orange, 12 midnight, Rockwood Music Hall Stage 1, 196 Allen St.

Menomena, the Helio Sequence, Pattern Is Movement, 6:30, Webster Hall, 125 East Eleventh St.

The Texas Takeover Party: Wild Child, the Tontons, Ishi, Emily Bell, Megafauna, the Migrant, 7:00, Tammany Hall, 152 Orchard St.

Mideau, 7:00; Fan-Tan, 7:45; Magic Bronson, 8:30; Trumpeter Swan, 9:15; Tan Vampires, 10:00; Steel Phantoms, 10:45; Top Less Gay Tekno Party, 11:30; holychild, 12:15, Leftfield, 87 Ludlow St.

L Rock Entertainment Presents: Bobby McGrath, 7:30; I’ll Be John Brown, 8:30; 2/3 Goat, 9:30; the Morningsiders, 10:30; Danielia Cotton, 11:30, the Bitter End, 147 Bleecker St.

The Deli: Heeney, 8:00; Dead Stars, 8:30; Slonk Donkerson, 9:00; People’s Champ, 9:40; Sway Machinery, 10:40; EMEFE, 11:35; Mammal Dap, 12:30, Spike Hill, 186 Bedford Ave.

Panache: Big Ups, 8:00; Homeshake, 8:50; Calvin Love, 9:40; Ex-Cult, 10:30; Hunters, 11:30; Speedy Ortiz, 12:30, 285 Kent, 285 Kent Ave.

PledgeMusic: holychild, 8:00; Firehorse, 9:00; 10:00pm Here We Go Magic, 10:00; DJ set by Nicole Atkins, 11:00, the Heath at the McKittrick Hotel, 542 West 27th St.

New West Records: Ruby the Rabbitfoot, 9:00; New Madrid, 9:50; Wild Moccasins, 10:50; Yip Deceiver, 12 midnight; White Wiolet, 1:10, the Living Room, 154 Ludlow St.