this week in film and television

DON’T THINK TWICE

A close-knit improv group dreams of bigger things in Mike Birbiglia’s DON’T THINK TWICE

DON’T THINK TWICE (Mike Birbiglia, 2016)
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves.
Opens Thursday, July 21
212-330-8182
www.landmarktheatres.com
dontthinktwicemovie.com

Massachusetts-born, Brooklyn-based actor, comedian, writer, and director Mike Birbiglia turns to the improv scene in the bittersweet and very funny Don’t Think Twice. The follow-up to his 2012 indie hit Sleepwalk with Me, which was adapted from his one-man show of the same name, Don’t Think Twice focuses on a close-knit group of friends who have been performing together as the Commune for eleven years, always holding on to the dream that they will be discovered and asked to join the cast of Weekend Live, a Saturday Night Live-style network sketch comedy program. Miles (Birbiglia), who still sleeps in a bunk bed like he’s a college student, is the ersatz leader of the troupe, which also includes Sam (Gillian Jacobs) and Jack (Keegan-Michael Key), who are in love; Allison (Kate Micucci), who also wants to be a graphic novelist; Bill (Chris Gethard), who lives in the shadow of his tough-as-nails father (Seth Barrish); and Lindsay (Tami Sagher), the only one for whom money is not a problem, supported by her wealthy family. Just as the Commune finds out that it is losing its lease and will have to find a new home, talent scouts from Weekend Live watch a performance and ask two of the six members to audition for the show, creating friction within the group, which only gets worse when one actually gets the gig. Jealousy, ego, and envy threaten to end long-held friendships while the six comics reevaluate their lives and careers, trying to figure out what they really want and whether there’s a real chance to achieve those goals.

Improv group struts its stuff in Mike Birbiglia’s sophomore film

Inspired by real-life events (but not a true story), Don’t Think Twice is an honest and poignant look at the fragility of love and friendship. Birbiglia transfers the playful feeling of the hysterical onstage improv comedy scenes — which were filmed at the Lynn Redgrave Theater, where his latest one-man show, Thank God for Jokes, recently completed a successful run — to the offstage drama as the remaining members of the aptly named Commune consider their future as individuals and as a unit. Jacobs (Community, Love), the only one of the protagonists who did not have previous improv experience (the others were part of either Second City or the Upright Citizens Brigade), takes to the comedic form with an intoxicating glee, fitting in exceptionally well with the veterans and particularly with Key (Key and Peele); they share a tender chemistry that propels the film. Birbiglia, who has toured with Gethard (The Chris Gethard Show), plays the schlumpy Miles with a natural ease that keeps it all real. Cinematographer Joe Anderson (Simon Killer, The Benefactor) weaves in and around the comedians as they perform (the improv scenes were filmed twice, once scripted, once not), putting viewers onstage instead of in the audience, resulting in a more cathartic experience. The film features several cameos, from Richard Masur and Richard Kline to — well, we wouldn’t want to spoil the surprises. Don’t think twice about seeing Don’t Think Twice, which is opening July 21 at the Landmark Sunshine, with Birbiglia and producer Ira Glass — Birbiglia is a regular contributor to Glass’s NPR show, This American Life — participating in Q&As after multiple screenings July 21-24, but they’re selling out quick.

JAPAN CUTS 2016: BURST CITY

Japanese punk culture explodes in Sogo Ishii’s mind-blowing BURST CITY

FESTIVAL OF NEW JAPANESE FILM: BURST CITY (BAKURETSU TOSHI) (爆裂都市) (Sogo Ishii, aka Gakuryū Ishii, 1982)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, July 23, 10:00
Series runs July 14-24
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

“These streets have calmed down quite a bit, sir,” a man tells his yakuza boss at the beginning of Sogo Ishii’s crazy, nonstop thrill ride, Burst City, which is screening July 23 at 10:00 in Japan Society’s tenth annual Japan Cuts Festival. Conceived as a platform to showcase several early 1980s Japanese punk bands, including the Battle Rockers, the Roosters, the Stalin, and Inu, the film is a fast-paced, psychotic journey through a postapocalyptic nightmare world where disenchanted youth gather for hard-driving music and car races while they protest the construction of a nuclear facility on the outskirts of what’s left of Tokyo. It’s a crazy conflagration of Mad Max, The Warriors, A Clockwork Orange, Quadrophenia, Koyaanisqatsi, Streets of Fire, Rebel without a Cause, Star Wars, and Rude Boy, with lots of screaming, violence, and singing and very little dialogue or plot. It’s essentially a two-hour free-for-all, an explosive release of urban angst where there are no rules, no winners, and no losers (save for one unfortunate couple). And the music, produced by Roosters leader Shozo Kashiwagi, kicks some serious ass.

The large, spectacularly costumed cast features such longtime character actors as Takanori Jinnai and Shigeru Muroi, but aside from a minor subplot about an unwilling prostitute, the film is not driven by narrative or Method acting. Art director Shigeru Izumiya, who also appears in the film, creates sinister sets that promise the coming destruction, photographed by Norimichi Kasamatsu (Face, Villain) in an ever-changing cycle of lurid color and grainy black-and-white and lunatic editing that makes MTV videos of the time look like home movies of boring families. The art/decoration is credited to Katsuro Ogami and Junji Sakamoto; Sakamoto went on to become a successful director in his own right, making such films as My House, Someday, Face, and Danchi; the latter two are being shown at the 2016 Japan Cuts festival as well. Sogo Ishii, who recently changed his name to Gakuryū Ishii, has also directed such works as Panic in High School, Electric Dragon 80.000V, and Isn’t Anyone Alive? Bursting with a high-powered energy that never lets up, Burst City is screening in the “Flash-Back / Flash-Forward” section of Japan Cuts, along with Ishii’s latest film, Bitter Honey, in which a young woman (Fumi Nikaido) embodies a human-size goldfish.

FOUR MORE YEARS — AN ELECTION SPECIAL: THE CANDIDATE

Political newcomer Bill McKay (Robert Redford) runs for the Senate in THE CANDIDATE

THE CANDIDATE (Michael Ritchie, 1972)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Saturday, July 23, 2:00, 7:00, 9:30
Series runs July 15 – August 3
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Four years before playing real-life Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward, who along with Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) blew the lid off the Watergate cover-up, in the Oscar-nominated All the President’s Men, Robert Redford found himself portraying the other side of the political spectrum, starring as a progressive legal aid lawyer who is chosen to run for the Senate in Michael Ritchie’s savvy, documentary-style film The Candidate. The Democratic Party needs someone to run against incumbent Republican Senator Crocker Jarmon (Gidget’s Don Porter), so political operative Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle) approaches McKay, an attractive, well-respected, and popular community activist whose father, John J. McKay (Melvyn Douglas), was California governor. At first the younger McKay has no interest in running for office, but when Lucas tells him he can say whatever he wants to get his message out — because he’ll have no chance to win — McKay signs on. He hits the streets shaking hands and spreading his philosophy, closely followed by media man Howard Klein (Allen Garfield), who is amassing footage for television advertisements promoting “the better way” with Bill McKay. (McKay’s ads are narrated by Barry Sullivan, who appeared with Redford in Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, Jarmon’s commercials by Broderick Crawford, who won an Oscar for playing the Huey Long–like Louisiana governor Willie Stark in All the King’s Men in 1949.) It’s clear from the start that McKay is a political newbie while Jarmon is a seasoned pro who knows all the right things to say and do, but McKay’s grass-roots approach soon begins taking hold, and as the race heats up, the challenger is suddenly faced with tough decisions about taking power, compromising his principles, and falling in line with the party machine instead of fighting the good fight as he has done all his life.

Ritchie (Smile, The Bad News Bears) and Redford, who previously collaborated on the director’s first film, Downhill Racer, shoot The Candidate in a cinéma vérité style, blending fiction and reality with cameos by television newsmen Howard K. Smith and Rollin Post, reporter Mike Barnicle, actress Natalie Wood (who starred with Redford in This Property Is Condemned), and such politicians as Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Alan Cranston, and John Tunney, whom McKay is loosely based on (along with Jerry Brown). Ritchie had worked on Tunney’s 1970 Senate campaign, which was run by Candidate associate producer Nelson Rising. In addition, screenwriter Jeremy Larner, who won an Oscar for his script, had been the principal speechwriter for Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 presidential bid. (And as a bonus, Douglas’s wife, Helen Gahagan, was the first California Democratic woman to be elected to Congress and ran against Richard M. Nixon for Senate in 1950, losing while coining the nickname “Tricky Dick.”) The excellent cast also features Michael Lerner, Quinn Redeker, Morgan Upton, Kenneth Tobey as a union man, and Karen Carlson as McKay’s wife, Nancy. Photographed by Victor J. Kemper (Husbands, Dog Day Afternoon) and with a score by actor-musician John Rubinstein (son of concert pianist Artur Rubinstein), the film gets right to the heart of the faults of the two-party political system and the manipulation of the media, feeling as relevant as ever despite all the major changes in technology, the 24/7 news cycle, and the advent of social media over the ensuing forty-plus years. There have been many McKay-like candidates over the years, from Dan Quayle to John Edwards to even Barack Obama, with varying degrees of success. But especially with the 2016 Republican National Convention under way, The Candidate seems as fresh and alive, as believable and engaging as ever. “He’s got the name, the looks, and the power,” Nancy McKay says in the film, which concludes with one of the great lines in cinema history. The Candidate is screening July 23 in the BAMcinématek series “Four More Years: An Election Special,” which continues through August 3 with such other politically tinged works as Robert Altman’s Nashville, Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog, D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus’s The War Room, and Mike Nichols’s Primary Colors.

JAPAN CUTS 2016: THE PROJECTS

Hinako (Naomi Fujiyama) and Seiji Yamashita’s (Ittoku Kishibe) lives change once again with the return of Shinjo (Takumi Saitoh) in THE PROJECTS

FESTIVAL OF NEW JAPANESE FILM: THE PROJECTS (DANCHI) (団地) (Junji Sakamoto, 2016)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Tuesday, July 19, 7:30
Series runs July 14-24
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
danchi-movie.com

“Nothing is impossible in a housing project,” several people say in Junji Sakamoto’s delightfully absurdist and downright weird black comedy The Projects, making its North American debut on July 19 at Japan Society’s tenth annual Japan Cuts Festival. Elderly couple Hinako (Naomi Fujiyama) and Seiji Yamashita (Ittoku Kishibe) have moved to an inexpensive suburban Osaka housing project, known as a danchi, after closing their popular herbal remedies shop following the tragic death of their son, Naoya. The couple lives quietly, unable to process their grief or move forward, but they’re back in business when one of their strangest customers, the well-dressed, oddly speaking Shinjo (Takumi Saitoh), tracks them down and essentially demands, in his calm, direct manner, that they begin making his special remedy again. Meanwhile, Seiji, who would rather be left alone, is dragged into the race for head of the tenant association, running against Gyotoku (Renji Ishibashi), who is having an affair with a younger resident and is married to Kimiko (Michiyo Okusu), who is obsessed with properly separating the danchi’s garbage, and young upstart Yoshizumi (Takayuki Takuma), who is not afraid to discipline his son, Kitaro (Hiroaki Ogasawara), in full view of his neighbors. After Seiji loses, he decides to hide from everyone, retreating under the floorboards whenever someone stops by, which leads a gossiping group of ladies (Hikaru Horiguchi, Yukari Taki, Mayu Harada, Mari Hamada, and Miyako Takeuchi) to believe that Hinako has actually killed her husband and chopped up the body. As the media and police get involved, things get crazier and crazier as the totally bizarre conclusion approaches.

Fujiyama and Kishibe are absolutely charming as the Yamashitas, moving and talking with a sweetly warm, slow demeanor, asking little from a life that has let them down. Sakamoto wrote The Projects specifically for comedian and stage actress Fujiyama; the two last worked together on the award-winning 2000 film Face, Fujiyama’s first film, and the pairing is another marvel. Fujiyama is wonderful in the role, imbuing Hinako with a wry, very funny sense of humor that is splendidly complemented by Kishibe’s more serious Seiji. Lovingly shot by Ryo Ohtsuka and featuring a playful score by Gorô Yasukawa, The Projects is pure fun all the way through, with many laugh-out-loud moments even as it deals with some heavy subjects, right up to its out-of-this-world finale. Don’t let the title fool you; “projects” in Japan were much-desired apartment complexes originally built in the 1950s to supply suburban public housing for the growing post-WWII Japanese population. Although they are not as popular today, they are not the kind of projects associated with drugs and crime in America. The Projects is being shown on July 19 at 6:30, followed by Face as part of the “Flash-Back / Flash-Forward” section of Japan Cuts, which continues through July 24.

HUDSON RIVER FLICKS — BIG HIT WEDNESDAYS: TRAINWRECK

Amy Schumer tries to find some peace in TRAINWRECK

TRAINWRECK (Judd Apatow, 2015)
Pier 63 Lawn, Hudson River Park
Cross at West 22nd or 24th St.
Wednesday, July 20, free, 8:30
www.hudsonriverpark.org
www.trainwreckmovie.com

Amy Schumer’s meteoric rise continued last summer with Trainwreck, and this semiautobiographical, raunchy romantic comedy did nothing to derail this New York native’s ascent. Schumer, who first broke through to national attention on Comedy Central’s roast of Charlie Sheen, then won a prestigious Peabody Award for her extremely clever and insightful cable series, Inside Amy Schumer, wrote and stars in Trainwreck, playing Amy, a magazine writer who prefers drinking and quick sex to cuddling and sleepovers. Once the deed is done, either she or the dude is gone, and she continues on with her supposedly happy life, which includes her sister, Kim (Brie Larson), who has had the gall to go all suburban mom and housewife on her; her philandering father, Gordon (Colin Quinn), a Mets fanatic who is suffering from MS; and her boss at S’Nuff, Dianna (an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton), a sassy Brit with no time for melodrama. Fortunately, through most of the film, director Judd Apatow eschews the melodrama as well, until he lets it all cave in with closing scenes that undo nearly everything that has been built up before. Thankfully, however, most of what happens before is as smart and funny as it is outrageous and perceptive. Amy is assigned a story on Dr. Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), a sports specialist whose best friend is LeBron James, who is a blast playing himself as a deeply sensitive, extremely cost-conscious man. Amy has to reevaluate her world view when she starts falling for Aaron, going against everything she believes in by dating a nice guy who just might really care about her.

Director Judd Apatow and costars Amy Schumer and Bill Hader laugh it up on the set of TRAINWRECK

The film starts unraveling once Aaron begins treating Amar’e Stoudemire, who is a Knick in the film but since has gone on to play for Dallas and then sign with Miami, and ends with a cringe-worthy scene in Madison Square Garden. However, by then Schumer has already won you over with her ribald appeal over the course of numerous hysterical vignettes that are not quite as surreal as those on her Comedy Central show but are just as perceptive and tongue-in-cheek, skewering everything in her path, from love and romance to sexism and misogyny, doing the kinds of things men usually do in such movies, including those written, directed, and/or produced by Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, This Is 40). Professional wrestling champ John Cena nearly steals the show as Amy’s boyfriend who gets into an unforgettable argument with a guy (comic Keith Robinson) in a movie theater, an improvised scene that might make you choke on your popcorn. And King James rules with surprising chops when dishing lovelorn advice to Aaron. Many of the smaller roles are played by yet more comics; be on the lookout for Dave Attell, Vanessa Bayer, Jon Glaser, Tim Meadows, Jim Norton, and Bridget Everett, among others. Yes, that’s Method Man as Amy’s father’s caretaker, while ninety-nine-year-old Norman Lloyd, a veteran of Hitchcock, Welles, and St. Elsewhere, is her dad’s hospice pal, and the two people in the mock dogwalker movie are indeed Daniel Radcliffe and Marisa Tomei. But the stunt casting eventually gets burdensome, especially when Chris Evert, Matthew Broderick, and Marv Albert show up, as well as the Knicks City Dancers. It’s as if Schumer and Apatow didn’t have enough faith in their central story and had to fill it up with lots of silly fluff, which is a shame, because Schumer and Hader have a winning, infectious chemistry, and the film’s unfortunate plot turns ultimately undo much of what Schumer had accomplished as a woman in a man’s world, as writer and actor. But that shouldn’t slow down this express train of a talent. Trainwreck is screening July 20 on the Pier 63 lawn in Hudson River Park in the Hudson RiverFlicks: Big Hit Wednesdays series, which continues July 27 with The Big Short and August 3 with Creed.

CASSAVETES / ROWLANDS: THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE

Ben Gazzara gives one of his best performances in John Cassavetess THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE

THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (John Cassavetes, 1976)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Wednesday, July 20, 1:30 & 9:15, and Sunday, July 24, 3:30
Series runs July 15-24
212-660-0312
metrograph.com

John Cassavetes’s 1976 gangster picture, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, is no mere neonoir shoot-’em-up but a deep and involving character study of a low-level jiggle-joint owner who fancies himself a classy, big-time player. Cassavetes regular and close friend Ben Gazzara gives one of his best, most nuanced performances as Cosmo Vitelli, a Korean War veteran who runs the Crazy Horse West gentleman’s club on the outskirts of the Sunset Strip. Instead of just having his female employees take their clothes off to music, he writes, directs, and choreographs ridiculous fantasy scenarios with songs, costumes, and dialogue, hosted by the shlumpy Mr. Sophistication (screen and television writer Meade Roberts) and poorly acted by his devoted harem, Sherry (Alice Friedland), Margo (Donna Marie Gordon), Haji (Haji), Carol (Carol Warren), and his lover, Rachel (Azizi Johari). After gambling impresario Mort Weil (Seymour Cassel) enjoys a night at the Crazy Horse, he invites Cosmo to his club, Ship Ahoy. Cosmo turns the outing into a pseudo prom, taking a limo to three of his girls’ houses, giving them corsages, drinking Dom Perignon, and bringing them with him to the secret gambling club, where he proceeds to embarrass himself and lose twenty-three thousand dollars. Because Cosmo is unable to pay the debt, Mort has a proposition for him, one that weighs heavily on the club owner’s conscience, but he’ll do just about anything to keep his beloved club.

Gazzara, who previously appeared in Cassavetes’s Husbands and would later star with Cassavetes’s wife, Gena Rowlands, in Opening Night, is extraordinary as Cosmo, a schlemiel who thinks he’s a smooth operator ready for the major leagues, although he has glimpses of the truth about himself. “You learn to be happy, you learn to play the fool, you learn to be what everybody wants you to be,” he says at one point. He cares so much about his productions (which evoke a Fellini-esque Cabaret in very strange ways) that even with his life in danger, he finds a pay phone to call in and see how the performances are going at the club. Cassavetes fills out the cast of sleazy mobsters and others with such distinctive-looking character actors as Timothy Carey, Robert Phillips, Val Avery, John Finnegan, and producer Al Ruban. Cassavetes and cinematographers Ruban and Mitch Breit keep the handheld cameras on the move, weaving their way through the lurid club and the dark streets, with natural light and sound adding to the often cinéma vérité, improvisatory feel. (One of the camera operators was Frederick Elmes, who went on to become DP on such films as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Night on Earth, and Olive Kitteridge.) The original 135-minute cut is way too long; in 1978, Cassavetes released a 108-minute version with substantial changes, including deleting a lot of the performances at the club, which was a very good idea. But the main reason to see The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is to watch Gazzara strut his stuff, his shirt unbuttoned to show off his chest hair, his sly smile nearly ever-present, knowing that he is killing it. The longer version of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is screening July 20 and 24 at Metrograph in the series “Cassavetes/Rowlands,” celebrating the king and queen of independent cinema by showing all twelve of Cassavetes’s films. Cassavetes died in 1989 at the age of fifty-nine, leaving behind quite a legacy. The series continues through July 24 with such other works as Love Streams, Shadows, and Faces, with Rowlands participating in several sold-out postscreening Q&As.

HOOLIGAN SPARROW

Hooligan Sparrow risks her freedom and her life for protesting for women’s rights in China

HOOLIGAN SPARROW (Nanfu Wang, 2016)
Made in NY Media Center by IFP
30 John St., Brooklyn
July 15-21
718-729-6677
nymediacenter.com
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
July 22-28
212-529-6799
www.cinemavillage.com
hooligansparrow.com

The 2016 Human Rights Watch Film Festival kicked off last month with Nanfu Wang’s alarming debut feature documentary, Hooligan Sparrow, for which she won the annual Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking, and now it’s returning to New York City for a pair of one-week runs, first in Brooklyn, then in Manhattan. The film is a brave, disquieting look at Chinese activist Ye Haiyan, better known as Hooligan Sparrow, an advocate for sex workers’ rights, as she leads protests against a school principal who sexually abused six elementary school girls. “If you film us, we’ll smash your camera,” a man tells Wang at the beginning. Later she’s told she will be beaten if she doesn’t hand over her equipment. But she’s determined to keep telling the story any way she can. Sparrow, who gained notoriety for a project in which she offered free sex to migrant workers, is joined by Shan Lihua, Tang Jitian, Jia Lingmin, Wang Yu, and lawyer Wang Jianfen as she battles law enforcement, the government, and brothel owners, her safety and freedom in constant jeopardy. “If I believe something is right and I’m obliged to do it, they can’t stop me by arresting me or even killing me,” she defiantly says. She and her daughter, Lan Yaxin, keep getting evicted from their homes and banned from numerous provinces, but that doesn’t prevent her from protesting with such signs as “All China’s Women’s Federation Is a Farce. China’s Women’s Rights Are Dead” and “You Can Kill Me, But You Can’t Kill the Truth.” Born and raised in a remote Chinese farming village and currently based in New York City, Wang, who directed, produced, photographed, and edited Hooligan Sparrow, never backs down even as she meets with Chinese officials and is followed everywhere she goes, forced to become suspicious of nearly everyone she encounters. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you,” Joseph Heller wrote in Catch-22. Wang clearly has reason to be paranoid.

The film is executive produced by Andy Cohen and Alison Klayman, who collaborated on the award-winning documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry; the Chinese artist and activist, who has been under long-term house arrest, took up Hooligan’s cause, and he included her belongings in an installation in his 2014 Brooklyn Museum retrospective, “According to What?” Wang, who has three master’s degrees, cowrote the film with Mark Monroe, who wrote the Oscar-nominated documentary The Cove and numerous Sundance winners. Hooligan Sparrow also features a subtly ominous score by Nathan Halpern and Chris Ruggiero that helps keep you on the edge of your seat as Hooligan and her group continue to fight the power, despite each of them being detained and imprisoned at one point or another — and some still are. Hooligan Sparrow is being shown July 15-21 at IFP’s Made in NY Media Center in the Screen Forward series, with director Wang and consulting editor Jean Tsien participating in a Q&A following the 7:00 show on July 15 and Halpern taking part in a Q&A after the 7:00 show on July 20. The film will then move across the river and into Cinema Village July 22-28.