this week in film and television

3-D AUTEURS: GRAVITY

Space debris from a Russian satellite threatens an American shuttle crew in GRAVITY

GRAVITY (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Saturday, November 12, 9:20, Monday, November 14, 5:30,
Thursday, November 17, 12:30, Friday, November 25, 2:30
Series runs November 11-29
212-727-8110
filmforum.org
gravitymovie.warnerbros.com

Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity is a breathtaking thriller that instantly enters the pantheon of such classic space fare as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, and The Right Stuff. And if you haven’t seen it in 3-D, how it’s being shown in the Film Forum series “3-D Auteurs” this month, well, you haven’t really seen it. While medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is fixing a computer glitch outside the shuttle Explorer, veteran astronaut and wisecracker Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), on his final mission before retirement, is playing around with a new jetpack and Shariff (voiced by Paul Sharma) is having fun going on a brief spacewalk. But disaster strikes when debris from a destroyed Russian satellite suddenly comes their way, killing Shariff and the rest of the crew and crippling the shuttle, leaving Stone and Kowalski on their own in deep space, their communication with Mission Control in Houston (voiced by Ed Harris, in a nod to his participation in Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff) gone as well. Kowalski is cool and calm, listening to country music as he tries to come up with a plan that will get them to the International Space Station, but the inexperienced Stone is running out of oxygen fast as she tumbles through the emptiness, Earth in the background, so close yet so far. Written by Cuarón (Y Tu Mamá También, Children of Men) with his son Jonás, Gravity is spectacularly photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki, the master behind numerous works by Cuarón and Terrence Malick (The New World, The Tree of Life), among others. Lubezki and his team even created a new LED light box to increase the film’s realism, which is nothing less than awe-inspiring and mind-bending as it takes place in real time. Despite the vastness of space, Gravity often feels claustrophobic, particularly as Stone struggles to get a breath or attempts to operate a foreign module.

Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) try to remain together in Alfonso Cuarón’s masterful space epic

Close-ups of Stone and Kowalski reveal reflections of the shuttle and Earth, emphasizing the astronauts’ dire situation as they engage in a very different kind of pas de deux. Gravity also succeeds where directors like James Cameron often fail, as a solid, relatively unsentimental and unpredictable script accompanies the remarkable visuals, which evoke both harrowing underwater adventures as well as dangerous mountain-climbing journeys. (Cuarón also manages to bring it all in in a terrifically paced ninety minutes.) Cuarón and Lubezki favor long takes, including an opening shot lasting more than thirteen minutes, immersing the viewer in the film, further enhanced by being projected in 3-D and IMAX 3-D, which is not used as merely a gimmick here. Stephen Price’s score increases the tension as well until getting melodramatic near the end. Clooney is ever dapper and charming and Bullock is appropriately nervous and fearful in their first screen pairing, even though they only make contact with each other through bulky spacesuits, their connection primarily via speaking. Cuarón, who also edited Gravity with Mark Sanger, has made an endlessly exciting film for the ages, a technological marvel that should continue to have a tremendous impact on the future of the industry. Winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Visual Effects, Gravity is screening November 12, 14, 17, and 25 in “3-D Auteurs,” which runs November 11-29 at Film Forum and consists of approximately three dozen 3-D feature films and shorts, including Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language, Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Takashi Miike’s Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai, Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, Jack Arnold’s Creature from the Black Lagoon, Three Stooges and Méliès shorts, and the wacky double feature of Johnnie To’s Office and George Sidney’s Kiss Me Kate.

DOC NYC: OFF THE RAILS

Transit junkie Darius McCollum is profiled in new documentary OFF THE RAILS which has NYC premiere at DOC NYC fest on November 12 before opening at Metrograph on November 18

OFF THE RAILS (Adam Irving, 2016)
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Saturday, November 12, $16-$18, 9:30
Opens November 18 at Metrograph
www.docnyc.net
www.offtherailsmovie.com

Ever since he was a child, Darius McCollum has been obsessed with mass transit. But McCollum, who was born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens, is not just another train buff. He has spent the last thirty-five years in and out of jail, imprisoned for operating trains and buses in the metropolitan area. His surprising story is told in Adam Irving’s debut feature documentary, Off the Rails. “Over the years, I have operated trains in the New York City subway system, Metro-North, the Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit, and yet, I have never ever been an employee of any of these agencies,” McCollum says at the beginning of the film while putting on an MTA uniform like it was official military dress. “I feel like I’m proud, I feel I’m worthy of something, I feel like I’m a part of something,” he said about being decked out in MTA garb. McCollum doesn’t simply take the trains and buses on joyrides but follows all MTA rules and procedures, which he knows inside out. “For Darius, it was for the joy of driving the train safely. All of his crimes were victimless, there were no crashes, he would safely make all of the stops, make the announcements,” says Jude Domski, who wrote the play Boy Steals Train about McCollum. Through first-person accounts, family photos, home movies, archival footage, reenactments, and animation, McCollum is revealed to be a sweet-natured mama’s boy who has Asperger’s syndrome. “I’m really good with trains, but I can’t seem to figure out people,” he says. “And it’s hard for me to tell what someone is thinking or feeling. I get confused in social situations. I have trouble making friends.” A large but gentle man, McCollum understands the consequences of his actions but is unable to prevent himself from hopping on board and taking over when the opportunity arises. Comparing himself to Superman, McCollum explains, “His weakness is Kryptonite; my weakness is the third rail.”

Transit junkie Darius McCollum contemplates his future in Adam Irving’s OFF THE RAILS

Among those pointing out that McCollum has never been properly treated for his mental illness are Michael John Carley of the GRASP Asperger’s organization, psychoanalyst Michael Garfinkle, PhD, therapist Howard Irving, PhD, forensic social worker Rey Cusicanqui, and autism employment specialist Marcia Scheiner. While former assistant DA Michael Dougherty defends the city’s continued prosecution of McCollum, his new attorney, Sally Butler — who took over after McCollum’s longtime lawyer, Stephen Jackson, was indicted for fraud — has become a champion for McCollum, determined to see that justice is done and trying to get him the treatment he so obviously needs. Named Best Documentary at five film festivals, Off the Rails is a warm, intimate documentary, lovingly directed by Irving, who photographed the film, produced it with Glen Zipper, and wrote and edited it with Tchavdar Georgiev. Domski describes McCollum as “charming, affable, friendly, extremely gregarious,” and the same can be said for the film. One of the most touching parts comes when McCollum and his mother, Liz, read letters they have written to each other over the years, during long periods when they were unable to see each other in person. McCollum might be known in the press as the Public Transit Bandit, Train in the Neck, Transit Kook, and Train Thief, but Irving shows a different side of him, and maybe a different side of us in the process. Copresented by Rooftop Films, Off the Rails is screening November 12 at 9:30 at the SVA Theatre as part of the DOC NYC festival, with Irving on hand to discuss the film. It will then play November 18-24 at Metrograph, with journalist Sarah Wallace, who has interviewed McCollum, moderating a Q&A with Irving after the 7:30 show opening night. DOC NYC runs November 10-17 at IFC Center, the SVA Theatre, and Cinépolis Chelsea, consisting of more than two hundred films, workshops, panel discussions, and other events, the largest nonfiction festival in the world.

MONO X: CINEMA 16

Charles and Ray Eames’s POWERS OF TEN is part of Cinema 16 presentation at Mono X Festival, featuring live score by members of Blonde Redhead

99 Scott Studios
Saturday, November 12, free with advance RSVP, 7:00
cinemasixteen.com
mononoawarefilm.com

After a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, Molly Surno and Cinema 16 are back, taking part in the Mono X Festival, Mono No Aware’s tenth annual Cinema Arts Festival. Continuing the tradition of staging happenings built around experimental films, started by Amos and Marcia Vogel in 1947, Surno pairs avant-garde works with live music. On November 12, C16 will inaugurate the new 99 Scott space in Brooklyn with twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace of Blonde Redhead playing a commissioned score to Norman McLaren’s 1952 A Phantasy of Color, Jordan Belson’s 1972 Chakra, Malcom Le Grice’s 1970 Berlin Horse, Sarah Petty’s 1981 Furies, Charles and Ray Eames’s 1977 Powers of Ten, Naomi Uman’s 1999 Removed, Adam Beckett’s 1974 Flesh Flows, and Scott Bartlett’s 1968 OffOn. Started in November 2007, Mono No Aware “is a cinema-arts nonprofit organization working to promote connectivity through the cinematic experience and preserve the technologies of traditional motion picture filmmaking, [seeking] to build the first nonprofit motion picture lab in the United States.” The Mono X Festival continues through December 3 with such other programs as “Expanded Cinema from the UK” at the Firehouse, “A New York 8mm Minute: Reduce to Cognition” at Spectacle, “Never – Still” at the CAVE home of LEIMAY, and “Mono Made, 2009-2016” at BRIC.

THE WATERMELON WOMAN

Cheryl Dunye wrote, directed, edited, and stars in THE WATERMELON WOMAN

THE WATERMELON WOMAN (Cheryl Dunye, 1996)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Opens Thursday, November 10
212-660-0312
metrograph.com

“The idea came from the real lack of information about the lesbian and film history of African American women. Since it wasn’t happening, I invented it,” Cheryl Dunye says about her 1996 debut, The Watermelon Woman, which has undergone a twentieth-anniversary 2K HD restoration that opens at Metrograph on November 10. In the film, the first feature by a black lesbian, Dunye plays herself, a twenty-five-year-old black lesbian working at a video store with her goofy best friend, Tamara (Valerie Walker). Searching for a topic to make a movie on, Cheryl becomes obsessed with an actress who played a mammy in Plantation Memories and other 1930s films. The actress was listed in the credits as the Watermelon Woman; Cheryl decides to find out more about her, going on a journey in and around her hometown of Philadelphia, discovering more and more about the actress, also known as Fae Richards, and the battle black lesbians had to fight in the early-to-mid-twentieth century. In the meantime, Cheryl begins a relationship with Diana (Guinevere Turner), a privileged white woman who has just moved into the area, mimicking what Cheryl has found out about Richards, who had an affair with white director Martha Page.

Diana (Guinevere Turner) and Cheryl Dunye (as herself) stars a relationship in THE WATERMELON WOMAN

The Watermelon Woman suffers from amateurish filmmaking techniques (Michelle Crenshaw was the cinematographer, while Dunye served as editor in addition to writer, director, and star), but its central issue is a compelling one, and Dunye is engaging as her onscreen alter ego. Richards (Lisa Marie Bronson) and Page (producer Alexandra Juhasz) are seen only in photographs and archival footage shot by white lesbian artist Zoe Leonard (her photography assistant was Kimberly Peirce, who went on to make Boys Don’t Cry), while Doug McKeown (The Deadly Spawn) directed the scenes from fake movies Plantation Memories and Soul of Deceit. (The photographs became an art project of its own, touring museums around the world.) The film features numerous cameos by writers, musicians, and activists, including Camille Paglia as herself, V. S. Brodie as a karaoke singer, Sarah Schulman as the CLIT archivist, David Rakoff as a librarian, and Toshi Reagon as a street singer. The Watermelon Woman is a heartfelt tribute to black lesbians by a black lesbian who is restoring one woman’s true identity as a microcosm for all black women who have had theirs taken away. The film also became part of an attempt by certain congressmen to defund the National Endowment for the Arts, which supplied a $31,500 grant to Dunye; Michigan Republican Peter Hoekstra, head of the House Education and Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, singled the film out as offensive. The Watermelon Woman is also a reminder of what research was like pre-Google, a mere twenty years ago. Dunye has gone on to make such films as Stranger Inside, Black Is Blue, Mommy Is Coming, and My Baby’s Daddy, continuing her exploration of multiracial, gay, and trans culture. The Watermelon Woman opens November 10 at Metrograph; the 7:00 show that night will be introduced by Dunye, who will also take part in a postscreening Q&A. Juhasz will moderate a discussion on 1990s music and fashion with author and activist Jeffrey Marsh and DJ Bill Coleman following the 9:00 show on November 11, and Juhasz will be back for an introduction and Q&A at the 5:15 show on November 15.

DOC NYC: THY FATHER’S CHAIR

A cleaning crew has its work cut out for it in Alex Lora and Antonio Tibaldi’s THY FATHER’S CHAIR

THY FATHER’S CHAIR (Alex Lora & Antonio Tibaldi, 2015)
Cinépolis Chelsea
260 West Twenty-Third St. at Eighth Ave.
Sunday, November 13, $16-$18, 5:15
212-691-5519
www.docnyc.net

Directors Antonio Tibaldi and Alex Lora put the viewer right in the middle of twin brothers Abraham and Schrag’s desperately crowded and traumatic situation in the compulsively watchable observational documentary Thy Father’s Chair. After their parents died, the slovenly, unmarried Jewish scholars just plain stopped cleaning up after themselves, allowing newspapers, magazines, food, garbage, kitty litter, and myriad other items to pile up around them. They were not collectors hoarding valuable possessions or personal mementos; they were simply unable to organize anything or throw stuff away in their Brooklyn apartment. Only when their upstairs tenant stopped paying rent in protest, demanding they clean their place — the tenants had to deal not only with bad odors from the brothers’ apartment but with vermin as well — do they seek out assistance, hiring an Israeli man named Hanan of Home Clean Home to come and make their apartment safe and livable again. But it’s no easy task, as Abraham watches Hanan and his hazmat-suited team very carefully, continually trying to talk them out of tossing away certain items HCH insists must go; meanwhile, Schrag just moans on and on as he downs bottles of wine. (One of the only ways to tell the identical twins apart is by the wine stains on Schrag’s white shirt.) “What the hell! Nobody’s helping me,” Abraham cries out. “We are here to help you!” Hanan says. “You’re not going to help me. You’re going to tell me what to do,” Abraham replies. Later, Abraham tells Hanan, “What is it, a punishment?” Hanan responds, “It’s not punishment. I’m trying to help you; you’re not working with me.” Abraham just can’t bear to get rid of what is clearly mostly junk and garbage, including vastly outdated electronic equipment and canned food. The only item that the brothers search for that is indeed worth keeping is their megillah scroll, but that is the exception. Abraham also agonizes over his father’s favorite chair, not wanting Hanan to take it yet debating whether he is even worthy enough to sit in it. “The Torah wants everything to be clean, but unfortunately we veered from it,” he concedes. The brothers actually do understand what is going on, that their hoarding is patently absurd and dangerous, but they are powerless to stop it.

Documentary focuses on Brooklyn twin brothers who have serious hoarding problem

Director and cinematographer Tibaldi and director and editor Lora cast no judgment on the two men; the filmmakers work, much like the Maysles brothers did, like flies on the wall, recording the crazy things going on in this railroad apartment in Midwood for eight days. Complicating matters, Tibaldi couldn’t always get the kinds of shots he wanted, as he was physically limited as to where he could stand because of the mounds of filth. There’s no back story; we find out almost nothing about who Abraham and Schrag are and what they have done with their lives, what their hopes and dreams might have been, other than what little they reveal of themselves onscreen, which is dominated by an overwhelming fear of things being taken away from them. There are also no talking heads offering expert opinions or psychological evaluations about the brothers and their situation. Both melancholic and absurdly funny, the twins’ predicament is sort of what would happen if the Beale women of Grey Gardens had mated with Homer Lusk Collyer and Langley Wakeman Collyer, the famous hoarding brothers who died less than two weeks apart in their Harlem brownstone, no longer able to survive their suffocating surroundings. Bjarke Kolerus and Simon Don Eriksen’s gentle music also doesn’t comment on the ridiculousness of it all, instead treating it with understanding. “I feel sorry and sad to see you sad,” Hannan tells Abraham, who replies, “I feel bad about the stuff that’s being thrown out, but it has to be done,” trying to convince himself that it’s all going to be okay. The Father’s Chair, which is dedicated to Chantal Akerman, is screening November 13 at 5:15 at Cinépolis Chelsea, with Lora and Tibaldi participating in a Q&A afterward. DOC NYC runs November 10-17 at IFC Center, the SVA Theatre, and Cinépolis Chelsea, consisting of more than two hundred films, workshops, panel discussions, and other events, the largest nonfiction festival in the world.

DOC NYC: CITY OF JOY

Madeleine Gavin’s CITY OF JOY reveals how a small group of dedicated activists help turn tragedy into empowerment in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

CITY OF JOY (Madeleine Gavin, 2016)
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Friday, November 11, $16-$18, 7:00
www.docnyc.net
www.impactpartnersfilm.com

Madeleine Gavin’s debut feature, City of Joy, is as heartbreaking as it is uplifting, as shocking as it is life affirming. Ever since the two Congo civil wars of the 1990s, rape has been used as a horrific military tactic in the country; hundreds of thousands of women and children have been and continue to be attacked repeatedly by members of militias who are attempting to gain access to the country’s rich mineral resources, including coltan, tin, tungsten, and gold, which are much sought after by global corporations. In 2007, gynecologist/obstetrician Dr. Denis Mukwege, activist Christine Schuler-Deschryver, and playwright Eve Ensler cofounded the City of Joy, a securely walled and guarded safe space in Bukavu in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where survivors of rape and sexual violence come to get their life back, learning to reclaim control of their bodies and their minds. “My sisters, you will change the suffering you’ve endured into power,” Schuler-Deschryver declared at the official opening in 2011. Elegantly photographed by Taylor Krauss and Lisa Rinzler, highlighting the spectacular beauty of the area and the bright, colorful outfits worn by the women, the film focuses on several of the survivors’ horrific tales and how they are overcoming their fears. Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and Necessary Targets, explains, “The magnitude of the stories were beyond anything I had ever heard in my life.” Indeed, the women’s accounts are extremely difficult to listen to, but that’s part of the healing process for everyone. “When all women are free, that’s when you stop talking,” Ensler tells them, encouraging them to say the word “vagina” and to become more familiar with a part of their anatomy they should not fear. “I went to bed with no worries. We were at peace. No reason to be afraid. But one day everything changed, and I ended up in a place I never thought I’d be,” Jane Mukunila says of her brutal torture. Her transition is a centerpiece of the film.

Survivors come together to turn tragedy into hope in CITY OF JOY

“City of Joy was established as a center for survivors of rape and gender violence in the DRC,” program manager Mama Bachu Bahati reads from the organization’s mission statement. “The goal is to transform these women into leaders.” Risking their own personal safety, Dr. Mukwege, Schuler-Deschryver, Mama Bachu Bahati, self-defense instructors Duncan Bomba and Winnie Anyango, and others seek to empower these women to build strong new communities as they graduate from the program and reenter the world. “I think this love, this desire to fight for others, even when things for you have been completely destroyed, I believe that is the story of the struggle of the Congolese woman,” says the doctor, who has treated more than forty thousand women at Panzi Hospital. Gavin also edited the film, which boasts an outstanding soundtrack, with a score by Tomandandy and songs by Lokua Kanza, Geoffrey Oryema, and Papa Wemba to more fully immerse viewers in Congolese culture. Exhilarating and terrifying, City of Joy is a brutally honest and intensely important film, one that demands that nations such as the United States take action and put an end to the use of rape as a military weapon. The film is having its world premiere at DOC NYC on November 11 at 7:00 at the SVA Theatre, with Gavin, Ensler, Dr. Mukwege, Mukunila, and Schuler-Deschryver participating in an extended conversation afterward. DOC NYC runs November 10-17 at IFC Center, the SVA Theatre, and Cinépolis Chelsea, consisting of more than two hundred films, workshops, panel discussions, and other events, the largest nonfiction festival in the world.

SHOUTING AT THE SCREEN

DJ Donwill and Wyatt Cenac will be yelling at blaxploitation films at Alamo Drafthouse on November 10 & 17

Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn
445 Albee Square West
Thursday, November 10 & 17, $15, 9:35
718-513-2547
drafthouse.com

In a 2007 episode of Scrubs, J.D. (Zach Braff) and Chris (Donald Faison) discuss the stereotype of black families yelling at movie screens. Many people don’t want talking of any kind in theaters, while others just go with the flow. Comedian Wyatt Cenac (The Daily Show, Night Train) and comedic MC Donwill have been enjoying the concept at their monthly “Shouting at the Screen” events, which are back in town, taking place at the new Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn. On November 10 and 17, Cenac and Donwill will “re-create the magic of Magic Johnson theaters” in a kind of alternative MST3K while watching blaxploitation and black cult films. There will also be trivia questions and drinking games. Be prepared to shout along with everyone else, conventional cinema etiquette be damned.