this week in film and television

BOB DYLAN STEPS INTO THE UNKNOWN

“Stepping into the Unknown” features rare and previously unreleased footage and special live performances

STEPPING INTO THE UNKNOWN: FILMS FROM THE BOB DYLAN CENTER
Paris Theater
4 West Fifty-Eighth St. at Fifth Ave.
Wednesday, September 2, $15-$17, 7:00
paristheaternyc.com
bobdylancenter.com

My first Bob Dylan show was in September 1978 at the Nassau Coliseum. At one point relatively early on, I could see that my best friend was looking uncomfortable. “I don’t know any of these songs,” he said. “When is he going to play ‘Tangled Up in Blue’?” I hesitated before telling him, “Um, he just played that.”

I’ve since seen Dylan — with whom I share a birthday — about twenty times, with the Grateful Dead and Tom Petty, at Forest Hills, the Beacon, and the Jones Beach Theater, with such opening acts as Mavis Staples, Patti Smith, and Lucinda Williams. I camped outside overnight to get tickets to the 1992 Bobfest at the Garden. I was at the 2012 Prospect Park concert where he shared a brief memory about having once lived nearby in Brooklyn. “He knows where he is!” I called out.

During the pandemic, I watched Shadow Kingdom: The Early Songs of Bob Dylan, his mysterious concert film that had a wild live chat, questioning just about everything we were seeing and hearing. I devoured his 2005 memoir, Chronicles: Volume 1, glorying in the vastly entertaining fictionalization of stories from his life (while understanding that just because he called it Volume 1 didn’t mean there would be a Volume 2). I was impressed by Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown and tried not to let all the factual inaccuracies get in the way of a good movie. I can’t hear “A Hard Rain’s a‐Gonna Fall” without remembering the excitement I felt watching the 1976 Hard Rain film on NBC documenting the Rolling Thunder Revue. Heck, I once let the nails of my thumbs grow ridiculously long because Bob’s were like that on the cover of the 1978 tour book.

And then there are the shows on Dylan’s Never Ending Tour, in which he constantly reinvents songs, sometimes making them all but unrecognizable. He stands back from the stage, wearing a hat or a hoodie, in low lighting so his face is hard to see. He doesn’t allow any video or photography and he rarely speaks to the audience except for announcing his band, which lately has been changing without explanation. At every concert, a handful of the uninitiated leave when they realize he’s not going to play many of his most famous songs, and when he does they sound very different. But we faithful love every twist and turn, following the master’s superb vocal phrasings and precise enunciations emanating from his raspier and raspier voice.

Which brings us to the Bob Dylan Center (BDC), his archive that opened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in May 2022. Why Tulsa? One answer is because it’s Dylan, so why ask. But Dylan himself said, “There’s more vibrations on the coasts, for sure. But I’m from Minnesota and I like the casual hum of the heartland.”

On September 2, the Bob Dylan Archive comes to the Paris Theater for the special program “Stepping into the Unknown: Films from the Bob Dylan Center.” The event, presented by BDC director Steven Jenkins, will feature rare and previously unreleased material and will be followed by a Q&A and a live solo-electric performance by jazz guitarist extraordinaire Bill Frisell, who has recorded several Dylan songs and recently celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday by playing a show at BDC that included tunes by Dylan and Woody Guthrie.

“Stepping into the Unknown” is part of the Paris Theater’s annual “Big & Loud” series, consisting of 70mm screenings and 4K restorations of more than forty classics, from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Elevator to the Gallows to Fight Club and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, with such special guests as Sofia Coppola and Isabella Rossellini.

You can also catch “Stepping into the Unknown” on September 1 at the Nitehawk in Williamsburg, followed by a Q&A with Jenkins and a performance by Steve Wynn from the Dream Syndicate and the Baseball Project, and on September 3 at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville with a Jenkins Q&A and a performance by Traveling Medicine Man with Luke Havranek.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN? NEW MUSEUM FORGES INTO THE FUTURE

The expanded New Museum’s inaugural exhibition “New Humans: Memories of the Future” is closing over the next few weeks, floor by floor (photo by Dario Lasagni / courtesy New Museum)

NEW HUMANS: MEMORIES OF THE FUTURE
New Museum
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Tuesday – Sunday through August 9, 23, 30, $19-$25 (eighteen and under free)
www.newmuseum.org

Following a two-year renovation, the New Museum reopened in March with an exciting look at what’s next for the interaction between people and art; this is the last weekend to catch all of “New Humans: Memories of the Future,” three floors of works by more than two hundred international artists and scientists that explore technological shifts impacting life on this planet. The fourth floor closes August 9, followed by the third on August 23 and the second on August 30.

Pieces by such older figures as James Tilly Matthews (1770–1815), Albert Robida (1848–1926), Frank Gilbreth (1868–1924), Valentine de Saint-Point (1875–1953), Henrique Alvim Corrêa (1876–1910), Constantin Brâncuși (1876–1957), Max Ernst (1891–1976), Benedetta (1897–1977), Erwin Blumenfeld (1897–1969), Hans Bellmer (1902–75), and Francis Bacon (1909–82) to such living artists as Barbara Chase-Riboud, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Lee Bul, Wangechi Mutu, Philippe Parreno, Mika Rottenberg, Hito Steyerl, Alice Wang, WangShui, and the youngest in the show, Pol Taburet, who was born in 1997. The wide range of years emphasizes the ever-growing celebration and worries that comes with major steps forward, especially today as AI and robotics are dominating conversations. Among the other familiar names represented are Salvador Dalí, Agnes Denes, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, H. R. Giger, Eva Hesse, Fernand Léger, Nam June Paik, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Jean Tinguely.

Be careful where you walk; a snake might reach for your ankle, or that person you say “Excuse me” to may not actually be a person. Be sure to scour everywhere; there are treats on the floors, walls, ceilings, and nooks. Be on the lookout for Andro Wekua’s untitled installation of a woman slightly levitating, her chin balancing on a sheet of glass; Anicka Yi’s In Love with the World, balloonlike spacecraft that float over your head; Pierre Huyghe’s creepy Human Mask film; LuYang’s digital videos DOKU Heaven — God Mode and DOKU Hell — God Mode in an elevator; Precious Okoyomon’s singing stairway surprise When the Lambs Rise Up Against the Bird of Prey; Catalina Ouyang’s disturbing fairy tale gone wrong otherwise, spite: 1. whores at the end of the world / 2. from every drop of his blood another demon arose (1829–1840); glowing creatures in Christopher Kulendran Thomas’s The Finesse; Jordan Wolfson’s dangling puppet Red Sculpture; and Tishan Hsu’s wall mural ears-screen-skin: New York.

On Saturday and Sunday visitors can use Rirkrit Tiravanija’s silk-screened ping pong table untitled (mañana es la cuestión) and Caoi Fei’s full-length film Nova will be screened; in addition, there will be a collage workshop on Saturday afternoon.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THE DAYS BETWEEN: MEETING UP AT THE MOVIES WITH THE GRATEFUL DEAD

The Days Between include special meet-up screenings of the Grateful Dead’s 6/17/91 Giants stadium show

MEET-UP AT THE MOVIES: GRATEFUL DEAD GIANTS STADIUM 6/17/91
Multiple venues
August 8 & 10
www.meetupatthemovies.com

August 1 marked what would have been Grateful Dead cofounder Jerry Garcia’s eighty-fourth birthday; this Sunday, August 9, marks what will be the thirty-first anniversary of Garcia’s death in his home state of California at the age of fifty-three. This period is known as the Days Between.

To mark the occasion, Trafalgar Releasing and Rhino Entertainment are presenting the latest “Meet-Up at the Movies,” showing the Grateful Dead’s June 17, 1991, concert at Giants Stadium in theaters across the country, including here in New York City on August 8 and 10 at such locations as the Alamo Drafthouse in Staten Island, the IPIC at Fulton Market, and the AMC Kips Bay, AMC 34th Street, and AMC Empire 25.

Since Garcia’s death, various remaining GD members have toured as the Other Ones, the Dead, Furthur, Dead & Company, and Phil & Friends. But everything changed on January 10 when cofounder Bob Weir said farewell at the age of seventy-eight, joining Garcia, Donna Jean Godchaux (1947–2025), Phil Lesh (1940–2024), Vince Welnick (1951–2006), Brent Mydland (1952–90), Keith Godchaux (1948–80), and Ron McKernan (1945–73). The only remaining longtime members are drummers Mickey Hart and cofounder Bill Kreutzmann, who are not expected to put together a touring band affiliated in some way with the Grateful Dead.

We’re nowhere near ready for a summer without the band, so the only chance you have is to catch one of these special screenings of a show that opened with “Eyes of the World,” included such faves as “Brown Eyed Women,” “Cassidy,” and “Uncle John’s Band,” and concluded with “The Weight.” Also on the bill are a sneak preview of “Shakedown Street” from Merriweather 6/30/85 and an intro from Grateful Dead legacy manager and archivist David Lemieux.

“The summer tour of 1991 was widely considered one of the best of the 1990s, and the June 17, 1991, show at Giants Stadium was nearly universally acclaimed as the best of the tour. From the ‘Eyes of the World’ opener to the sixpack of ‘Dark Star’ teases woven throughout the night, the one show from 1991 whose reputation grew as time went on was this concert,” Lemieux said in a statement. “Because it’s one of only two shows captured on forty-eight-track analog tape, the audio quality is spectacular. Hearing this mix in a theater with fellow fans is going to be transportive, and we’re thrilled to sweeten the pot with an exclusive look at ‘Shakedown Street’ from the upcoming ’85 Merriweather release.”

As lyricist Robert Hunter wrote in his and Garcia’s 1990s song “Days Between”:

“There were days, and there were days / And there were days between / Summer flies and August dies / The world grows dark and mean / Comes the shimmer of the moon / On black infested trees / The singing man is at his song / The holy on their knees / The reckless are out wrecking / The timid plead their pleas / No one knows much more of this / Than anyone can see / Anyone can see.”

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

STANLEY KWAN TAKES CENTER STAGE AT FILM FORUM IN MAGGIE CHEUNG 4K RESTORATION

The magnificent Maggie Cheung takes center stage for 4K restoration at Film Forum

Center Stage (Stanley Kwan, 1991)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
August 7-13
filmforum.org
metrograph.com

“Isn’t she a replica of myself?” Maggie Cheung says of Chinese actress Ruan Ling-yu in 1991’s Center Stage, in which Cheung plays Ruan as well as herself. “Maggie, may I ask if you wish to be remembered half a century later?” a man asks, to which Cheung responds, “That’s not so important to me. If future people do remember me, it won’t be the same as Ruan Ling-yu, as she halted her career at the age of twenty-five, when she was at her most glorious. Now she is a legend.” The Hong Kong–born Cheung, a former model and beauty queen, has long been a legend herself, having made more than ninety films since her career began in 1984, when she was nineteen; current and future people are sure to remember the glamorous superstar who continues to help spread Chinese cinema around the world even though she retired from acting in 2010.

In Center Stage, Cheung is radiant as both herself and Ruan as director Stanley Kwan goes back and forth between the present, as Cheung is making the film, and the past, as she portrays Ruan rising from an extra to a star in the late 1920s and early 1930s, at the same time Japan is mounting attacks against China. Cheung, who was named Best Actress at prestigious film festivals in Berlin, Chicago, Taiwan, and Hong Kong for the role, is joined by a stellar cast, including Chen Yen-yen, Lily Li, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Carina Lau, and Chin Han; the real Ruan is seen in archival footage.

For its thirty-fifth anniversary, Center Stage, also known simply as Actress, is screening in a new 4K restoration at Film Forum from August 7 to 13; Kwan, who has also directed such films as Women, Full Moon in New York, and First Night Nerves, will be on hand for Q&As following the 6:30 shows on August 7 and 8, copresented by the New York Asian Film Festival. Alas, Cheung, who makes very rare public appearances and eschews interviews, will not be there.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

MOOMIN AND GROOVIN AT THE NYBG

“Summer of Moomin” continues at New York Botanical Garden through September 13 (photo by Marlon Co. / courtesy the New York Botanical Garden)

SUMMER OF MOOMIN
The New York Botanical Garden
Everett Children’s Adventure Garden
2900 Southern Blvd., Bronx
August 8-9, noon – 5:30, $17 children two to twelve, $35 students and seniors, $39 adults
Exhibit on view through September 13
www.nybg.org

The New York Botanical Garden’s “Summer of Moomin” has a special Moomin’s Day Weekend planned for August 8 and 9, two days of culinary adventures, cooking demonstrations, planting, maker stations, and more in the Edible Academy.

Begun in 1945 by Finnish painter, author, and illustrator Tove Jansson, the Moomin books, comic strips, stage productions, animated television series, and movies share the tales of such beloved characters as Moomintroll, Snufkin, Snorkmaiden, Hemulen, Moominpappa, Moominmamma, and Little My, all of whom you can find along a winding trail through Moominvalley in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden filled with quotes, toys, plants and flowers, a tent, book excerpts, crafts, a kitchen, interactive elements, a puppet theater, and other fun surprises. There is also a booklet with games and activities and details about the world of Moomin.

“The stories offer a very happy and peaceful way to deal with some very complex issues of life and living and being together in a way that we don’t even notice, but we’re learning,” Tove’s niece Sophia Jansson said at the opening of the exhibit. “But Tove had some very important core values that were all about tolerance, friendship, and respect for nature.”

While at the NYBG, don’t miss the colorful, wide-ranging “Flower Power” exhibition, celebrating peace and love in the 1960s with paintings, photographs, music, drum circles, craft workshops, ornately designed VW buses, psychedelic nature displays, archival news reports, sound baths, and film screenings.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THE CALL OF THE WILD: THE ODYSSEY OF FLACO THE OWL

New Penny Lane documentary details Flaco the owl’s unique New York City adventure

WILD INSIDE (Penny Lane, 2026)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, July 31
www.ifccenter.com

On February 2, 2023, an unexpected animal suddenly appeared on a Fifth Ave. sidewalk, becoming an instant sensation.

No, it wasn’t a groundhog looking for its shadow. It was a glorious Eurasian eagle-owl named Flaco, who had escaped from the Central Park Zoo after someone had cut a hole in his steel mesh cage. The thirteen-year-old bird captivated the city, the country, and the world for more than a year as he traversed Manhattan, adapting to his newfound freedom by learning how to survive on his own, unfazed by — or perhaps reveling in — the media attention and the dozens of owlers who tracked his every move with binoculars and high-powered cameras.

Documentarian Penny Lane shares the remarkable tale of Flaco in the gently warm and touching — and ravishingly dramatic — Wild Inside, making its world premiere at IFC Center on July 31. Incorporating crowd-sourced photos and videos, news reports, eyewitness accounts, cute animation, and expert opinions, Lane and editor Hannah Buck transform the adventure into a compelling narrative of love and loneliness, of obsession and desperation, an apt metaphor for who we are and what we want and need in the twenty-first century. Birder after birder projects their fears and desires onto Flaco and his journey, an odyssey that goes well beyond Free Willy territory.

“The first time I saw him, I felt protective of him,” Jacqueline Emery says.

“I felt his pain,” JP Borum, known as the Bunny Lady because she rescues rabbits in the park, explains.

“After little more than a week, people were relating to Flaco. They were identifying with him and seeing him as a hero,” David Barrett points out.

As these birders celebrate Flaco’s reinvigorated life, one expresses his concern. “I think I came to this story with an understanding of really the dangers owls face being in Manhattan. . . . There were a lot of people there that night the zoo almost got him that were excited that he got free, and I was just like, ‘No, he’s going to die,’” D. Bruce Yolton admits, referring to the zoo’s attempt to capture Flaco and bring him back to his previous enclosure, efforts they abandoned after a week.

Lane, an avid birder who has made such previous well-regarded nonfiction features as Hail Satan?, Our Nixon, and “Nuts!,” was drawn into the proceedings from the very beginning, when a friend, the first person to see Flaco outside his cage, texted her photos of Flaco the night he was discovered on the street. “It’s rare that a story just falls into my lap and is so immediately capable of demanding my full attention,” she notes in her director’s statement. “Flaco was writing his own story and the rest of us were just watching. And yes, we were watching!”

We were watching, and Wild Inside gives us the chance to watch yet again, this time much more up close and intimately. It’s impossible not to form an emotional bond with Flaco as Lane takes us from the zoo to the park, from the Lower East Side to the Upper West, as Flaco explores his burgeoning independence and searches for a companion, roosting on rooftop edges of tall buildings and hooting out love calls like they’re the Bat signal.

A tight-knit community forms around Flaco, including a man and a woman who get married. When Flaco disappears for a few days, people grow despondent. Sarah Bramwell became so involved that her family was concerned for her mental health. “I had been so worried about him. I mean, so worried, like a mother would be worried, right?” she concedes.

Even though owls are predators who are not often friendly or affectionate with humans, Flaco seems to be making a direct connection to his dedicated fans, as shown in two stunning scenes in which — well, to reveal more would spoil some of the many surprises the film has in store for viewers.

Lane also raises a key issue and a source of much disagreement: Would Flaco be better off back in the zoo, where most of his needs were met on a daily basis, or flying free in the wilds of Manhattan, where danger awaits around every corner? It’s a question many of us ask ourselves when we consider our lives, both personal and professional, whether we can or should take certain risks to find out who we truly are. We cannot watch Wild Inside and not internalize Flaco’s story ourselves; when it comes down to it, we are Flaco, and Flaco is us. We need Flaco — but does Flaco need us?

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it,” J. M. Barrie wrote in Peter Pan.

Flaco gives us all hope that one day, maybe, we can fly as well.

[Several screenings from July 31 to August 4 will be followed by Q&As with Lane, DOC NYC artistic director Jaie Laplante, and Emery and Lei as well as Village birdwatching tours. Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

ART BLACK: WALKING THROUGH HARLEM WITH JOHN T. REDDICK

Walking tour of Harlem is part of special exhibition programming at Poster House

POSTER HOUSE WALKING TOUR WITH HISTORIAN JOHN T. REDDICK
Poster House
119 West Twenty-Third St. (tour starting point given upon ticket purchase)
Saturday, July 18, $25, 11:00 am to 1:00 pm
Exhibition runs through September 6
posterhouse.org

In September 2024, longtime Harlem resident, preservationist, and Yale University School of Architecture graduate John T. Reddick gave me a tour of the exhibit “Illustrating Tin Pan Alley: From Ragtime to Jazz” at the Society of Illustrators, consisting of his remarkable collection of sheet music art from the Tin Pan Alley era, focusing on Black composers, musicians, and performers. He told me that while doing his research, “It was just shocking; as I bought sheet music or got to see the names, I realized they all lived in Harlem during the same time period.”

Reddick is now collaborating with Poster House on a walking tour of Harlem in conjunction with the institution’s “Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen,” comprising promotional posters for musical revues, theatrical presentations, and movies featuring Black performers from the 1870s to the 1940s (including from Cabin in the Sky, Zouzou, and Imitation of Life). The one-hour tour will visit Strivers’ Row, the Schomburg Center, and Harlem Hospital’s WPA murals, among other locations that played a role in the Harlem Renaissance.

Reddick, who is a member of the Board of Directors of the Tin Pan Alley American Popular Music Project, is an engaging storyteller and a font of knowledge, so this should be a special adventure; tickets are $25, and the starting point will be given upon purchase.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]