Crowds keep getting bigger and bigger every year for New York Comic Con (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
NEW YORK COMIC CON / NEW YORK SUPER WEEK
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
655 West 34th St. (11th Ave. between 34th & 39th Sts.)
Thursday, October 9, $35, 12 noon – 7:00
Con continues through October 12; New York Super Week runs October 3-12
888-605-6059
www.newyorkcomiccon.com
www.newyorksuperweek.com
New York Comic Con continues to get more and more popular every year, with bigger and bigger guests and longer and longer lines. Tickets for the ninth annual event, running October 9-12 at the Javits Center, are already sold out for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and the organizers haven’t even announced the full slate of activities for any of the days. So your only chance for getting in will be to go on Thursday, when there will be appearances by such spotlight guests as Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad, Hollows series author Kim Harrison, and Kristian Nairn (Hodor) and Natalia Tena (Osha) of Game of Thrones and such featured guests as Jason David Frank of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Ben Templesmith, Bob McLeod, Dustin Nguyen, Jimmy Palmiotti, Peter David, Stuart Moore, and Terry Moore, and dozens of special guests as well. In conjunction with NYCC, New York Super Week runs October 3-12 at various locations throughout the city, consisting of related events, including a thirtieth anniversary screening of The Karate Kid at the 92nd St. Y with Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, and Martin Kove; metal monsters X Japan at Madison Square Garden; Neil Gaiman as the subject of host Ophira Eisenberg’s “Ask Me Another” live show at the Y; “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Sing-Along and Whedonverse Party” at Union Hall; “The First (and Probably Last) Annual New York Feline Film & Video Festival for Humans” at Galapagos Art Space; a “Dr. Who Trivia and Costume Contest” at the Way Station; “Cure You or Kill You: 19th Century Medical Science and Quackery” at the Museum of Morbid Anatomy; and “Rave of Thrones,” a DJ set by Nairn with special guests Zedd Stark and Trance Rayder at B. B. King’s.
In Kink, cinematographer and documentarian Christine Voros takes viewers behind the scenes of Kink.com, a hugely successful subscription website that specializes in fetish and BDSM (Bondage & Disclipline / Dominance & Submission / Sadism & Masochism) videos. Started in 1997 by bondage enthusiast Peter Acworth, the company, located in the two hundred thousand square foot, one-hundred-year-old San Francisco Armory, Kink.com attempts to offer a different kind of pornography for people with more discerning tastes, making videos that are as truthful and authentic as possible even when they appear to be what some would consider dangerous, depraved, and, most important, abusive to women. What makes Kink.com unique is that the stars of the videos — who are always referred to as models, not actors — can help guide the action, doing only those things that they want to do, with express instructions that all their reactions be real and to improvise as necessary. Whether pleasure or pain, there is no faking going on, and the shoot can be stopped at any time by anyone on the set if things appear to be getting out of hand, with aftercare being an important part of the process. And there are rarely ever silly plot lines and embarrassing dialogue; these videos go straight to what Kink.com’s customers — as well as the models and directors — want to see, and Voros shows it all, rather graphically. (Get ready for spanking, flogging, chaining, slapping, punching, tying up, choking, clamping, tweaking — and just wait till you get a load of the sex machines that are used on these more-than-willing and ultimately extremely satisfied subjects.)
In 1909, Prince Luigi Amedeo, the Duke of the Abruzzi, sought to climb to the summit of K2, the second highest mountain in the world after Everest, bringing with him writer Filippo de Filippi and photographer Vittorio Sella to document their journey. To celebrate the centennial of that seminal event, alpinist and mountain guide Fabrizio Zangrilli gathered a team of climbers to attempt to reach the top of K2 in 2009, bringing along first-time director Dave Ohlson to capture their daring adventure. Situated in the Karakoram mountain range along the Pakistan-China border, K2 — one of the fourteen legendary “eight-thousanders” (mountains of more than eight thousand meters) — stands 8,611 meters tall, challenging climbers with a death rate much higher than that of Everest. “The will to just try something big, something dangerous, something extraordinary — it’s part of who we are,” says one member of the team, which includes Zangrilli, Canadian mountain guide Chris Szymiec, Austrian alpinist Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, British mountaineer Jake Meyer, and German cameraman David Göttler. As they make their way across the treacherous Karakoram Highway and through Skardu, the Baltoro Glacier, and Concordia, Ohlson cuts between thrilling still photos and film footage from the 1909 trip and the 2009 attempt, delving into the history of the spectacularly beautiful area and emphasizing how difficult it is to reach K2’s summit. “Everest and K2 aren’t even the same sport,” Szymiec says. Joined by a group of porters, they find obstacles every step of the way — and it gets even more threatening the closer they get. The film reveals the depth of the human spirit and the fierce power of nature, especially when the team has to stop when a friend dies while skiing down the mountain. Watching the seventy-five-minute documentary, you just might consider taking on K2 yourself someday — and then you’ll quickly change your mind and settle back comfortably into your chair. K2: Siren of the Himalayas opens August 22 at the Quad, with Ohlson and Jason Reid, one of the producers and editors, participating in Q&As following the 4:30 and 8:05 shows on Friday and Saturday.
Adam Sandler and Emily Watson are outstanding in Paul Thomas Anderson’s stream-of-consciousness acid trip of a movie about a childlike man with an inner demon. Barry Egan is a marvelous character, filled with complexity and lots of surprises, and Sandler embodies the role with a surprising maturity and grace. Barry is an obsessive man who watches the world pass him by as he turns inward, collecting Healthy Choice pudding (for the airline miles) and wearing a bright blue suit. When he meets Lena Leonard (Watson), his life veers off its nowhere course. Anderson’s offbeat narrative style and his own obsession with Technicolor (especially bright blues and reds, all splendidly photographed by Robert Elswit) combine for a fresh, fabulously told story that will make you as uncomfortable as it makes you thrilled and fulfilled; the rather unique film earned Anderson (There Will Be Blood, The Master) the Best Director award at Cannes. The cast also features Mary Lynn Rajskub, the great Luis Guzmán, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a crazy supervisor. Punch-Drunk Love is screening August 23 & 24 at 12 noon as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s brunch series “A Reasonable Length,” a quartet of expertly made films that each clock in at ninety minutes or less (Punch-Drunk Love is exactly an hour and a half); the series concludes August 30-31 with Edgar G. Ulmer’s sixty-seven-minute gem, Detour.
In Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s wildly inventive romantic comedy, Audrey Tautou plays one of the most delightful, charming characters since, well, dare we say it? Audrey Hepburn, especially from Roman Holiday. Everybody in this film is nuts; Amélíe wanders — always with some strange, curious purpose — through offbeat and humorous situations filled with obsessive-compulsive oddballs doing bizarre things while sharing their crazy likes and dislikes with the audience. A difficult childhood left the grown-up Amélíe unable to interact “normally” with people, so when she discovers a boy’s treasure box hidden in her apartment, she decides to track down the owner, leading to a series of very complex and emotional good deeds she does for others while she cannot figure out her own life, which undergoes a major change when she meets Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz) — who collects ripped-up pictures people throw out after using public photo booths — and becomes friendly with the Glass Man (Serge Merlin), who cannot go outside because his bones are too brittle, so he remains in his apartment, copying the same Renoir painting year after year, unable to capture one girl’s face properly. Jeunet’s aural and visual style is reminiscent of such Coen brothers films as Raising Arizona, with fast-moving shots, sudden close-ups, and blasts of sound that enliven this masterful film. Amélíe is screening August 20 as part of the South Street Seaport “Front/Row Cinema: See/Change” series, which continues Wednesday and Saturday nights through August 31. For a day-by-day listing of free summer movie screenings throughout New York City, go