“We never can just settle on formula — that would make me insane,” Liars frontman Angus Andrew said about his band’s most recent album, last summer’s palindromic WIXIW. “We have to take risks and just fuck things up anew every time. It’s ingrained.” Since the new millennium, Liars has consistently been taking risks and fucking things up anew, on such records as 2001’s They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, 2004’s They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, and 2010’s Sisterworld, experimenting in multiple genres, from postpunk to dance to electronica, but always with unique twists. Singer-guitarist Andrew, guitarist and synth player Aaron Hemphill, and drummer Julian Gross should provide plenty of twists this weekend, when they play the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday night, followed by a show Sunday night at (le) poisson rouge with Doldrums as part of the Wordless Music series; the concert was initially supposed to take place in the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, near the band’s sometime home base. As a bonus gift to their fans, Liars has just released a video of a new song, “I Saw You from the Lifeboat,” which contains a link to a free download of that tune as well as the new “Perfume Tear”; after the two New York shows, the group will head across the pond for concerts in Spain, Italy, France, England, Switzerland, and Israel.
twi-ny recommended events
DANCE PARADE: UNITY THROUGH DANCE
Myriad forms of dance are celebrated at annual parade (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Parade: Broadway & 21st St. to Tompkins Square Park, 1:00
DanceFest: Tompkins Square Park, 3:00 – 7:00
Saturday, May 18, free
www.danceparade.org
dance parade 2011 slideshow
The seventh annual New York Dance Parade, a celebration of all kinds of movement, will groove through the city on May 18, beginning at 1:00 at 21st St. & Broadway and making its way southeast until it reaches Tompkins Square Park, where DanceFest takes place from 3:00 to 7:00 with live performances, workshops, demonstrations, information booths, special presentations, and other activities. Leading the parade of ten thousand dancers from two hundred groups representing eighty different styles will be a trio of grand marshals: DJ Louie Vega, masterful DanceAfrica founder Baba Chuck Davis, and choreographer Jacqulyn Buglisi. The parade started as a response to New York’s antiquated Cabaret Law, which in 1926 held that dance was not a form of artistic expression and was not protected by the Second Amendment. The event’s mission is “to promote dance as an expressive and unifying art form by showcasing all forms of dance, educating the general public about the opportunities to experience dance, and celebrating diversity of dance in New York City.” Dance Parade is always a hot, sweaty, sexy, and fun event, whether you’re participating or just checking out the scene, which brings everyone together in the spirit of this year’s theme, “Unity Through Dance.”
BE SWEET OUT THERE
Special one-day High Line installation uses Sweet Leaf bottle caps to make life sweeter for everyone (photo by twi-ny/ees)
The High Line, Chelsea Market Passage
West 16th St. at Tenth Ave.
Friday, May 17, free, 10:00 am – 8:00 pm
212-381-9349
www.thehighline.org
www.sweetleaftea.com
The High Line, the elevated freight rail line on Manhattan’s West Side that has become possibly the city’s most spectacular public park, was once utterly abandoned, a postindustrial wasteland filled with broken glass, tin cans, bottle caps, rusted metal, and nature run wild. On Friday, it will be home to a bunch of bottle caps again, this time as part of a promotion for Sweet Leaf Tea designed to encourage the kindness of strangers. Between 10:00 am and 8:00 pm, park visitors can pick up one of three thousand bottle caps from Sweet Leaf, each of which bears an instruction to do nice things, such as “Hail a cab for a stranger,” “Buy your co-worker coffee,” “Pay attention to your pet,” and “Give someone a compliment today.” In a statement, Friends of the High Line cofounder Joshua David explained, “This installation shows how public-private partnerships can present engaging opportunities for High Line visitors while also supporting the ongoing maintenance and operations of the park, which is funded entirely by the generosity of private donors.” When all the bottle caps are gone, a hidden Sweet Leaf mural will be revealed — and New York may be an even sweeter place to spend a sunny spring Friday.
PIETA
Lee Kang-do’s (Lee Jung-jin) lonely life takes quite a turn in Kim Ki-duk’s Golden Lion–winning PIETÀ
PIETA (Kim Ki-duk, 2013)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, May 17
212-924-3363
www.cinemavillage.com
www.drafthousefilms.com
South Korean auteur Kim Ki-duk’s eighteenth film, Pietà, is not exactly the biblical story of Jesus and Mary. Instead, it’s a challenging, difficult psychological thriller that delves into the relationships between mothers and sons, including the Madonna-whore aspects. Lee Jung-jin stars as Lee Kang-do, a lonely young man who works for a usurer in the slums of Cheonggyecheon who charges local businessmen one-thousand-percent interest on three-thousand-dollar loans. The borrowers are forced to take out insurance policies understanding that if they default on the payments, Lee will maim them, with the resultant claim covering what they owe. In the first half of the movie, Lee makes his way through a series of men who have failed to meet their financial obligations, so he hurts them badly, often in front of their wives or mothers, doing so without guilt or any sign of compassion. A strange woman (Cho Min-soo) starts following him around, ultimately identifying herself as the mother who gave him up for adoption when he was born. Initially, Lee just wants her to go away, but after making her do something unconscionable — and very hard for viewers to watch — in order to prove who she is, they start developing an unusual parent-child relationship, and he begins to reconsider his soulless existence. But this being a Kim Ki-duk film, things don’t necessarily end well for all concerned. Written, directed, and edited by Kim (Bad Guy; Time; Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring), Pietà, winner of the Golden Lion at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, is an intense cinematic experience that examines truth, justice, family, responsibility, redemption, and revenge as only Kim can.
BIDDER 70
Tim DeChristopher fights the power in inspiring new documentary, BIDDER 70
BIDDER 70 (Beth Gage & George Gage, 2013)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St.
Opens Friday, May 17
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.bidder70film.com
Can one person really make a difference? In Bidder 70, directors Beth and George Gage tell the inspiring story of Tim DeChristopher, who has followed in the footsteps of such peaceful, nonviolent protestors as Rosa Parks, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi, although the humble West Virginia native wouldn’t dare put himself in such lofty company. In December 2008, DeChristopher attended a Utah Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease auction without a real plan, knowing only that he had to do something to keep the pristine wilderness land out of the hands of corporate drillers; he ended up winning bids on more than twenty-two thousand acres for $1.7 million without any intention of actually paying, so he was arrested and charged with two felonies that could put him in prison for a long time. But he just couldn’t sit back and let the sale take place, and he’s willing to face the consequences. “It’s really hard for me to not think about climate change with anything that we’re doing,” the West Virginia native says in the film while relaxing in a vast, rocky landscape. “It’s this big weight that our generation is bearing on our shoulders, and it’s like something chasing us, that’s getting closer all the time. We’ve always been told that things are just beyond our control and that corporations have all the power, and we don’t often get to be reminded that we’re citizens of what was once the greatest democracy on the planet and that we’re human beings with the power to inspire others through our actions.” The Gages (American Outrage, Fire on the Mountain) follow the modest DeChristopher as he becomes a leader in the civil disobedience movement, cofounding Peaceful Uprising and preparing for a trial that continually gets postponed, perhaps for political reasons. Among the talking heads discussing and/or helping DeChristopher in his defense — he could end up being sentenced to twenty years in prison even though the government later declared the auction he attended to be illegal — are environmental activists Robert Redford and Bill McKibben, writer and conservationist Terry Tempest Williams, Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Terry Root, attorneys Ron Yengich and Patrick Shea, and NASA GISS director Dr. James Hansen. Can one person really make a difference? Bidder 70 provides the answer. The documentary opens May 17 at the Quad, with DeChristopher and Beth and George Gage participating in Q&As after the 7:10 screenings on Friday and Saturday and the Gages back for another Q&A on Monday night.
WAVERLY MIDNIGHTS — TERRY GILLIAM: THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS
People get to make a deal with the devil in Terry Gilliam’s THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS (Terry Gilliam, 2009)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18, 12:00 midnight
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.sonyclassics.com
Longtime Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam is perhaps the most frustrating filmmaker of the last thirty years. A remarkable talent whose works are often mired in controversy, from going way overbudget to having to deal with severe illness and even death on his sets, Gilliam has made such pure gems as Time Bandits (1981), Brazil (1985), and The Fisher King (1991) as well as such disasters as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Brothers Grimm (2005), and Tideland (2005). His last real success was Twelve Monkeys (1995), making it nearly fifteen years since he’s made a worthwhile movie. His 2009 adult fairy tale, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is reminiscent of his 1988 film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, a somewhat underrated though hit-or-miss effort that reached lofty heights while flirting with utter ridiculousness. Cowritten by Gilliam and Charles McKeown (who also collaborated on Brazil and Munchausen), Parnassus is built around a Faustian plot in which a monk, Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), who thinks his sect controls the story of the world, makes a deal with Mr. Nick, the devil (Tom Waits), involving Parnassus’s daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole). Valentina is part of the doctor’s traveling sideshow, along with the trusted, all-knowing Percy (Verne Troyer) and assistant Anton (Andrew Garfield), who is in love with Valentina but is unable to express his desire. The ramshackle show offers people the chance to walk through a mirror into their own private fantasy — during which they will eventually face a decision regarding their own potential deal with the devil. When the oddball troupe discovers a man hanging by his neck under a bridge, they welcome the charming, handsome, deeply mysterious stranger (Heath Ledger) into their outfit, but he is hiding a secret that could tear everything apart. Parnassus is an up-and-down affair in which a captivating, beautiful scene will be followed by a baffling segment that borders on the incompetent, as if the filmmakers forgot to edit it properly or couldn’t afford more takes to improve it. Fortunately, the last half hour is thrilling, especially how Gilliam and McKeown rework the script to deal with Ledger’s death when several key scenes still needed to be shot. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is screening in a DCP projection at midnight on May 17 & 18 as part of the IFC Center Waverly Midnights series “Terry Gilliam,” which continues through July 20 with such other fine Gilliam fare as Time Bandits, Jabberwocky, and Brazil.
AN EVENING WITH BLACK FRANCIS
Black Francis is on the road with Reid Paley, heading toward tour-ending show at Symphony Space on May 17 (Twitter photo courtesy Black Francis)
Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Friday, May 17, $15 – $45, 6:00
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.blackfrancis.net
For more than a quarter of a century, Boston-born singer, songwriter, and guitarist Charles Thompson IV has been at the forefront of the indie music scene, performing under a variety of guises and with a series of bands. Better known as Frank Black and Black Francis, Thompson formed the Pixies in 1986 with Kim Deal, Joey Santiago, and David Lovering, releasing a mere four albums (Surfer Rosa, Doolittle, Bossanova, and Trompe le Monde) that helped define alternative rock and influence countless musicians ever since. He is also the leader of Frank Black and the Catholics (Pistolero, Dog in the Sand), is part of a duo with Reid Paley (Paley & Francis), has teamed up with his wife, Violet Clark, in Grand Duchy (Petits Four, Let the People Speak), and has made solo albums as both Frank Black (Teenager of the Year) and Black Francis (Bluefinger, NonStopErotik). An iconoclast who likes to do things his own way — he also is a Stuckist painter, a group that rails against conceptual art and was cofounded by British artist Charles Thomson — Black Francis is currently on the road, playing solo shows featuring songs from throughout his storied career, driving from venue to venue with his opening act, Reid Paley. They’ve already appeared at such spots as the Mint in New Orleans, Underbelly’s in Jacksonville, and the Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach, and Francis recently tweeted that the May 15 concert at the Spaceland Ballroom in New Haven would be “an all nude show.” Paley and Francis conclude their brief tour on May 17 with a special show at Symphony Space, although we’ve heard nothing about whether it will be with clothes on or off.