twi-ny recommended events

NICKY’S FAMILY

Emotional documentary tells the story of an unassuming hero who helped save hundreds of children from the Nazis

NICKY’S FAMILY (Matej Minác, 2011)
Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th St., 212-255-2243
JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at West 76th St., 646-505-5708
Opens Friday, July 19
www.menemshafilms.com

“There are some stories which we are not only an audience to, but may become their participants,” Canadian journalist Joe Schlesinger says at the beginning of Matej Mináč and Patrik Pašš’s poignant, powerful documentary Nicky’s Family. Schlesinger is one of hundreds of Czech and Slovak men and women who, as children, were saved from the Nazis by unassuming Englishman Nicholas Winton on the eve of World War II. Winton’s story remained virtually unknown for sixty years, until his wife found a suitcase in the attic filled with documentation detailing her husband’s quiet heroism. Over the last fifteen years, the “British Schindler” has been celebrated around the world, being knighted by the queen, meeting many of the people he helped save, and inspiring children who are not directly part of “Nicky’s Family” to help others in what is called the “Winton virus of good.” It’s an unforgettable story centered around a man who didn’t set out to be a hero and still appears to be somewhat uncomfortable with all the accolades, which include being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The film interviews such members of Nicky’s Family as Alice Masters, Ben Abeles, Liesl Silverstone, Dr. Lenata Laxova, Tom Berman, and Tom Schrecker, who have made significant contributions to society that might have never happened had they not been rescued as children by Winton. Director-producer-cowriter Mináč and producer-cowriter-editor Pašš include unnecessary staged re-creations of some of the events of 1938 that actually detract from the central narrative, and the documentary overplays the emotional card in its final scenes, but it tells a story that needs to be told, of a remarkable man who, even at age 104, continues to be an inspiration and proves that one person can indeed make a difference.

BROKEN

Father (Tim Roth) and daughter (Eloise Laurence) think of happier times in BROKEN

BROKEN (Rufus Norris, 2012)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St.
Opens Friday, July 19
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.wildbunch.biz

Theater director Rufus Norris makes quite a statement with his feature debut, Broken. Named Best British Independent Film at the 2012 British Independent Film Awards, Broken was adapted from Daniel Clay’s 2008 novel, itself directly inspired by Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. On a small cul-de-sac in North London, eleven-year-old Skunk (newcomer Eloise Laurence) is horrified as she watches one of her neighbors, the recently widowed Mr. Oswald (Rory Kinnear), beat her friend, Rick (Robert Emms), to a bloody pulp. It turns out that one of Oswald’s troublesome daughters falsely accused Rick, who is developmentally disabled, of rape, setting in motion a series of events that turn Skunk’s world inside out. Skunk’s mother ran off with another man several years earlier, so she lives with her father, Archie, who is a mild-mannered, caring lawyer, her older brother, Jed (Bill Milner), and their au pair, Kasia (Zana Marjanović), who is in a relationship with Mike (Cillian Murphy), one of Skunk’s teachers. Soon Skunk and tough kid Dillon (George Sargeant) are hanging out at a car dump and considering their first kiss, but things get more complicated when Mike saves Skunk from a beating by Sunrise Oswald (Martha Bryant), who then tells her father that the teacher raped her. With things spinning out of control, Skunk desperately tries to find a balance in her life as she approaches adolescence, perhaps a little too quickly. Written by Irish screenwriter and playwright Mark O’Rowe (Terminus, Boy A), Broken is an involving, sensitively told drama about growing up, the transition from childhood to adulthood, and family responsibility, featuring strong performances and complex, believable situations. In her film debut, Laurence is captivating, even providing the vocals to Damon Albarn/Electric Wave Bureau’s beautiful “Colours” over the closing credits. The intentional parallels to To Kill a Mockingbird, both in plot and the characters’ names — Skunk/Scout, Jed/Jem, Archie/Attacus — do not get in the way, instead offering a modern-day perspective on parenting, personal responsibility, and community.

THE ACT OF KILLING

Proud mass murderers envision themselves as movie stars in Joshua Oppenheimer’s THE ACT OF KILLING

THE ACT OF KILLING (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves.
Opens Friday, July 19
212-330-8182
www.theactofkilling.com
www.landmarktheatres.com

Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing is one of the most disturbing, and unusual, films ever made about genocide. In 1965-66, as many as a million supposed communists and enemies of the state were killed in the aftermath of a military coup in Indonesia. Nearly fifty years later, many of the murderers are still living in the very neighborhoods where they committed the atrocities, openly boasting about what they did, being celebrated on television talk shows, and even being asked to run for public office. While making The Globalization Tapes in Indonesia in 2004, the Texas-born Oppenheimer met some of these self-described gangsters and, struck by their brash, bold attitudes, decided to create a different kind of documentary. In addition to following them around as they go bowling, play golf, sing, and dance, proudly showing off how happy their lives are, Oppenheimer offered them the opportunity to tell their story as if it were a Hollywood movie. The men, whose love of American noir and Westerns heavily influenced the stylized killings they perpetrated, loved the idea and began to restage torture and murder scenes in great detail for the camera, getting in period costumes, putting on makeup, going over script details, reviewing the dailies, and playing both the violent criminals and their victims. The leader is master executioner Anwar Congo, who is perhaps the only one haunted by his deeds; although on the surface he is proud of what he did, he is tormented by constant nightmares. Such is not the case for the others, who laugh as they go over the gory details, especially paramilitary leader Herman Koto, Congo’s protégé and a man seemingly without a conscience. Meanwhile, fellow executioner Adi Zulkadry wonders whether telling the truth will actually negatively impact their legendary status. “Human rights! All this talk about ‘human rights’ pisses me off,” Congo says in one scene. “Back then there was no human rights.” Oppenheimer also depicts how frighteningly powerful the three-million-strong, government-connected Pancasila Youth is, ready to fight for the very same things that led to the genocide in the first place. It’s hard to comprehend how these men continue to walk free, and one can argue whether Oppenheimer should indeed be giving them the platform that he does. Watching these gangsters — or “free men,” as they like to call themselves, since the Indonesian word for gangster is “preman,” derived from the Dutch “vrijman” — artistically re-create scenes of horrific violence is both illuminating and infuriating on multiple levels that will leave viewers angry and incredulous. After playing at last month’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival, The Act of Killing opens July 19 at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, with Oppenheimer on hand to discuss the film at the 7:30 and 10:30 screenings on July 19 and the 4:50, 7:30, and 10:30 shows on July 20.

Academy Award Nomination: Best Documentary Feature

THE CONJURING

Carolyn Perron (Lili Taylor) desperately tries to protect her family in THE CONJURING

THE CONJURING (James Wan, 2013)
Opens Thursday, July 18
www.theconjuring.warnerbros.com

James Wan’s truly scary ghost story The Conjuring follows in the grand tradition of such classic horror fare as The Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Haunting, and Burnt Offerings, as a house serves as the setting for a journey straight into hell. Written by twin brothers Chad and Carey Hayes (The Reaping, Whiteout), the film is based on a real case in which noted demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) were called in to help the Perron family when mysterious things start happening after the Perrons move into an isolated Rhode Island house. It’s 1970, and truck driver Roger (Ron Livingston) and his wife, Carolyn (Lili Taylor), are trying to make a go of it with their five daughters in a new town, but when doors start opening and closing on their own, all the clocks stop at 3:07 a.m., Carolyn wakes up every morning with horrible bruises, and one of the girls makes friends with a boy who only appears in a mirror in a music box, they decide to enlist the Warrens to cleanse the house and save their souls. But the Warrens have issues of their own, including a recent exorcism that nearly destroyed Lorraine, a clairvoyant, and their overly curious daughter, especially when it comes to Ed’s collection of paraphernalia from previous cases, highlighted by a devilishly evil haunted doll named Annabelle. Wan, who directed the similarly creepy Insidious and the best of the Saw movies, treats the genre with decency and respect, refusing to go overboard with red herrings and gore, instead favoring the more psychological kind of terror that will scare audiences right of their skin and down to their shaking bones. The story does lapse into overly religious rhetoric — the Warrens were God-fearing Catholics who were authorized by the Vatican to perform exorcisms — and it relies heavily on the controversial trope of so many of these types of tales, involving danger between mothers and daughters. And a flash reference to the Salem Witch Trials being just and deserved really should have been cut. Otherwise, The Conjuring is an expert haunted house flick, filled with unique, genuine frights that won’t make it easy for anyone who sees it to sleep peacefully.

A VIEW FROM THE VAULTS — WARNER BROS. TODAY: GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.

George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr., and David Strathairn stars as real-life newsmen in poignant drama based on fact

RECENT ACQUISITIONS: GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK. (George Clooney, 2005)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, July 20, 5:00
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.warnerbros.com

Shot in sharp black-and-white that makes the characters virtually jump off the screen, George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck., which opened the 2005 New York Film Festival, is a thrilling behind-the-scenes look at the early days of television journalism at CBS News. David Strathairn is outstanding as Edward R. Murrow, a dedicated reporter who took on Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt in the mid-1950s. As the junior senator continued bringing innocent people down, Murrow challenged him on live TV, walking a fine line between fact and opinion, between staying neutral and injecting personal beliefs into the story. Mixing in plenty of original footage, Clooney captures the mood of the era which was primarily fear while also questioning the importance of television as a form of serious journalism, both things that are extremely relevant in today’s mass-media-driven political culture. Clooney, who cowrote and directed the film, plays legendary CBS producer Fred Friendly in a cast that also features Robert Downey Jr. (Joe Wershba), Patricia Clarkson (Shirley Wershba), Ray Wise (Don Hollenbeck), Frank Langella (William Paley), Jeff Daniels (Sig Mickelson), cowriter Grant Heslov (Don Hewitt), and Dianne Reeves as a jazz singer who often links scenes. Sports fans, take note: Among the executive producers of this low-budget triumph is Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Nominated for six Oscars and winner of none, Good Night, and Good Luck. is screening July 20 at 5:00 as part of the MoMA series “A View from the Vaults: Warner Bros. Today,” consisting of thirty-one films from the last twenty years of movies coming out of the famed studio, including the Harry Potter series as well as such wide-ranging fare as Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are, Ted Braun’s Darfur Now, Peter Weir’s Fearless, Gregory Hoblit’s Fracture, and Zack Snyder’s Watchmen.

THE JOE FRANKLIN SHOW TRIBUTE

Bandleader Vince Giordano (left) and producer Steve Garrin (right) will celebrate the career of the legendary Joe Franklin at Metropolitan Room tribute

Bandleader Vince Giordano (left) and producer Steve Garrin (right) will help celebrate the career of the legendary Joe Franklin at Metropolitan Room tribute

LIVE AT METROPOLITAN ROOM
34 West 22nd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, July 20, $25 (plus two-drink minimum), $115 (VIP with open bar, private table, appetizer, signed book), 7:00
212-206-0440
www.metropolitanroom.com

For more than sixty years, iconic television and radio talk-show host Joe Franklin has been on the New York scene, interviewing up-and-coming performers and major stars in addition to “washed-up semi-celebrities on their way to obscurity.” The King of Nostalgia, who currently can be heard on Bloomberg Radio, will be celebrated when the man himself and special guests come together for Joe Franklin’s Memory Lane Party at the Metropolitan Room on July 20. Franklin, who has also had a restaurant and comedy club in Times Square, was approached by the jazz cabaret’s Bernie Furshpan to do the show, and he couldn’t be more excited. “It’s going to be a great night,” he said over the phone from his famously overcrowded office. Each attendee will receive a copy of Joe Franklin’s Great Entertainment Trivia book, with VIPs getting theirs personally autographed. The evening boasts such invited guests as Bill Cosby, Billy Crystal, Julia Roberts, Liza Minnelli, Woody Allen, Pat Cooper, and Michael Feinstein, and while it’s unlikely they all will actually be at the Metropolitan Room on Saturday night, the list displays the breadth of talent that has appeared on Franklin’s shows over the decades. Joe Franklin’s Memory Lane Party is nearly sold out, so you better act fast if you want to catch this New York legend, who always has a barrel of jokes and old-time tales at the ready.

CELEBRATE BROOKLYN! THE WATERBOYS / ALASDAIR ROBERTS

Mike Scott will lead the Waterboys in a special free show in Prospect Park on July 19

Prospect Park Bandshell
Prospect Park West & Ninth St.
Friday, July 19, free (suggested donation $3), 7:30
www.bricartsmedia.org
www.mikescottwaterboys.com

“As for me, I figured music wasn’t worth the air it occupied if it didn’t change both its makers and its listeners, but I was altered by my adventures to a degree beyond my comprehension,” writes Waterboys founder Mike Scott about recording the band’s classic 1988 album, Fisherman’s Blues, in his 2012 memoir, Adventures of a Waterboy. “I stood looking back over the three years, wondering what the hell had happened. Unable to articulate the contents of my mind I decided to give no interviews, and did the one sensible thing I could and took the Waterboys back on the road.” Twenty-five years later, the extremely articulate Scott is taking the Scottish group back out on the road again, on the longest U.S. tour of its thirty-year career. Combining a poetic grace and narrative storytelling with an epic Celtic-rock sound, the Waterboys have recorded such memorable tracks as “Fisherman’s Blues,” “Whole of the Moon,” “And a Bang on the Ear,” “This Is the Sea,” “The Big Music,” and the antiwar paean “Red Army Blues.” Scott has also shown a deep affinity for the work of William Butler Yeats; he included a version of the Irish writer’s “The Stolen Child” on Fisherman’s Blues, and in 2011 he released An Appointment with Mr Yeats, consisting of fourteen Yeats poems set to music, including “News for the Delphic Oracle,” “Sweet Dancer,” “Mad as the Mist and Snow,” and “The Faery’s Last Song.” This fall Scott will be leading two different Waterboys lineups, both featuring fiddler Steve Wickham, as the band embarks on “A Night of Musickal Fireworks and Improvisations” in America, followed by “Fisherman’s Blues Revisited” in Europe. We first saw the Waterboys opening up for U2 at the Tower Theater in Philly on December 1, 1984, and were instantly blown away by Scott’s powerful stage presence and wide-ranging scope, and we’ll be there on July 19 when the band plays a free Celebrate Brooklyn! show in Prospect Park, with Scottish folk musician Alasdair Roberts also on the bill. “I have heard / the big music / and I’ll never be the same / Something so pure / just called my name,” Scott sang on “The Big Music,” from 1984’s A Pagan Place, a feeling that many experience after seeing the Waterboys for the first time.