this week in film and television

LATE-NIGHT FAVORITES: EL TOPO

Alejandro Jodorowsky takes viewers on quite an acid trip in surreal Western EL TOPO

WAVERLY MIDNIGHTS: EL TOPO (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Friday, August 1, and Saturday, August 2, 12 midnight
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

Chilean-born Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo is a psychedelic head trip, an acid Western that will blow your mind. Jodorowsky stars as the title character, a gunslinger traveling through a deserted landscape accompanied by his naked young son, who already knows his way around a firearm. After coming upon a town that has been decimated by a nasty group of marauders working for the Colonel, El Topo seeks violent revenge, eventually taking off with a woman and leaving his boy behind as he meets four masters on his path to proving he is the best there is. But soon El Topo is praying for redemption with a community of inbred cripples trapped in a cave. El Topo is a wild and bizarre journey through religious imagery, romance, and vengeance, a surreal spaghetti Western strained through the mad mind of Jodorowsky, widely hailed as the creator of the midnight movie. The film melds Bergman with Leone, Tod Browning’s Freaks with Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai Trilogy, filtered through Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima’s Lone Wolf and Cub. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before and, despite your better instincts, will lure you into the cult of Jodorowsky, which expanded this year with the release of his wonderfully surreal autobiographical work The Dance of Reality. El Topo is screening August 1 & 2 at midnight in a high-definition digital restoration as part of the IFC Center series “Waverly Midnights: Late-Night Favorites.”

SOUND + VISION 2014

David Byrne will be at Lincoln Center for thirtieth anniversary screening of STOP MAKING SENSE as part of Sound + Vision festival

Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
July 31 – August 9, film screenings $13, live performances $8-$15
212-875-5600
www.filmlinc.com

The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s second Sound + Vision festival is a lively combination of music documentaries and performances covering a wide range of genres from around the world. Eric Green’s Beautiful Noise, which revisits such seminal 1980s bands as the Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, and the Jesus and Mary Chain, opens the festival on July 31, with a Q&A and reception with Green and producer Sarah Ogletree. The closing night selection, Florian Habicht’s Pulp, follows Jarvis Cocker’s reunited band as they play what could be their final concert in Sheffield, their hometown; Habicht will be on hand for a Q&A after the August 6 screening. There will be a free showing of The 78 Project Movie, in which Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright travel the country recording on 78s contemporary musicians playing early American songs; after the film, Steyermark and Wright will host a live recording session. Among the other dozen and a half or so films are Alejandro Franco’s For Those About to Rock: The Story of Rodrigo y Gabriela; Kiley Kraskouskas’s The Last Song Before the War, about the 2011 Festival in the Desert in Timbuktu; Dominique Mollee and Vinny Sisson’s My Way, which tracks Rebekah Starr as she reaches for fame; Beth Harrington’s The Winding Stream, a free screening of a film that traces the development of the Carter Family; and thirtieth anniversary celebrations of Jonathan Demme’s game-changing Stop Making Sense (followed by a Q&A with David Byrne) and Daniel Schmid’s Tosca’s Kiss. There will be separate live performances by Amkoullel, Dragons of Zynth, and Glass Ghost (incorporating LYFE technology), while Bubblyfish and Binärpilot will play after Javier Polo’s Europe in 8 Bits, didgeridoo master GOMA will take the stage after Tetsuaki Matsue’s Flashback Memories in 3D, and Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band will get the joint jumping in conjunction with Meerkat Media Collective’s Brasslands.

BUÑUEL: BELLE DE JOUR

Catherine Deneuve can’t believe what she sees at first in BELLE DE JOUR

BELLE DE JOUR (Luis Buñuel, 1967)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
August 1-3, $14
Series runs through August 14
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Luis Buñuel’s alluringly psychosexual masterpiece Belle de Jour caused a sensation when it was released in 1967 because of its heavy dose of sadomasochism mixed with tender love, and with good reason. The film stars the always elegant Catherine Deneuve as Séverine Serizy, a bored housewife who deeply loves her husband, Dr. Pierre Serizy (Jean Sorel), despite their nearly nonexistent sex life; they even sleep in separate beds in the same room. The twenty-three-year-old blonde beauty has intense daydreams of being tortured and raped, the lasting effects of perhaps having been abused as a child, so when she learns of a high-class Paris brothel, she decides to investigate, tantalized by the exciting possibilities. Soon she is known as Belle de jour, “lady of the afternoon,” as men come to lie down with her in the middle of the day, leaving her enough time to get home for her workaholic husband. At first Séverine is terrified of the job, but she is calmed down by Madame Anaïs (Geneviève Page) and eventually finds herself enjoying these secret trysts, so much so that the money doesn’t even matter, only the sensual pleasure she experiences. But when one of her clients, the unpredictable and dangerous thief Marcel (Pierre Clémenti), starts falling for her, her life turns more complicated than she’s ever imagined in all her dark yet playful fantasies.

A bored housewife (Catherine Deneuve) dreams of a very different sex life in BELLE DE JOUR

Based on the 1928 novel by Joseph Kessel, whose L’armée des ombres was turned into Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 French Resistance drama Army of Shadows, Belle de Jour features a sizzling yet subdued performance by Deneuve, who would go on to star in Buñuel’s Tristana, which echoes this film in many ways (as does Roman Polanski’s Repulsion). Deneuve, wonderfully clad in Yves Saint Laurent, goes from hot to cold in an instant, her eyes regularly lost in faraway thought, distant and forlorn. Buñuel comments on class and society not only through Séverine and Pierre’s relationship but through several bordello customers with very specific fetishes, including Michel Piccoli as supposed ladies’ man Henri Husson, a role he reprised in Manoel de Oliveira’s ill-advised 2006 sequel, Belle Toujours. Buñuel won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his erotically charged story that features a shocking surprise ending that offers new insights upon repeat viewings. Belle de Jour is screening August 1-3 as part of BAMcinématek’s five-week tribute to the master filmmaker, who passed away in 1983 at the age of eighty-three. The series continues through August 14 with such other Buñuel works as Diary of a Chambermaid, Mexican Bus Ride, The Great Madcap, That Obscure Object of Desire, The River and Death, and the superb twin pairing of The Exterminating Angel and Simon of the Desert.

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Malcolm (Jason Clarke) is not quite sure what he’s gotten himself into in Planet of the Apes 3-D sequel

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (Matt Reeves, 2014)
In theaters now
www.dawnofapes.com

The second film in the Planet of the Apes twenty-first-century reboot manages to do what few sequels have ever achieved: surpass the high quality of its immensely popular predecessor. In 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a scientific experiment gone wrong leads to a killer virus that begins wiping out humanity and increasing the intelligence of apes. It’s now ten years later, and the apes are living peacefully in Muir Woods outside of San Francisco while a band of humans struggles to eke out a day-to-day existence in the city ruins, running on what’s left of their food and gasoline and desperate to contact any other survivors via radio. In dire need of power, a group from the city — Carver (Kirk Acevedo), Malcolm (Jason Clarke), his girlfriend, Ellie (Keri Russell), and Malcolm’s son, Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee) — venture into Muir Woods seeking to get a broken-down hydroelectric plant working. When human meets ape for the first time in a decade, violence inevitably erupts. The brilliant ape leader, Caesar (Andy Serkis) — who was raised in the first film by Dr. Will Rodman (James Franco), giving him an inherent faith in humans — confronts dissension in his ranks as his battle-hungry second-in-command, Koba (Toby Kebbell), calls for all-out war, while human leader Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) is ready to take the dam by force.

Caesar (Andy Serkis) is back with a vengeance in DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Incorporating elements from several of the original five Planet of the Apes films (made between 1968 and 1973), writers Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver and director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In) focus on family in Dawn even as violence threatens. Malcolm, who lost his wife to the virus, is trying to rebuild his life with his son and Ellie, who has gone through personal tragedy as well. Meanwhile, Caesar is dealing with his pregnant wife, Cornelia (Judy Greer), and their growing son, Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston), who is seeking his own identity in the large shadow of his father. Both sides, ape and human, are facing a decision all too prevalent in today’s world, a choice between war and diplomacy. The battle lines are clearly drawn, evoking such critical Planet of the Apes themes as fear, racism, the thirst for knowledge, and the search for a kind of humanity in all beings. Serkis is exceptional as Caesar, delivering a powerful, emotional performance despite all of the extraordinary special effects. His interaction with his wife and children are particularly touching. Kebbell makes Koba a viciously devilish villain, while the ageless Russell excels as Ellie, a nurse who is the fragile link between the apes and the humans. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which can be seen traditionally as well as in 3-D, is a superb action thriller with a whole lot of heart, a breathtakingly exciting parable about the future of humanity in a world that is quickly getting away from us. And thankfully, there’s more to come, with Reeves and Bomback working on the third film, currently set for release in July 2016.

HARLEM WEEK: A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM

U.S. Grant National Memorial Park
West 122nd St. at Riverside Dr.
Sunday, July 27, free, 12 noon – 8:30 pm
Harlem Week continues in multiple locations through August 24
877-427-5364
www.harlemweek.com

On Sunday, July 27, “A Great Day in Harlem” kicks off the annual Harlem Week festivities, a month of free events including live music, film screenings, community fairs, a college expo, and more. This year’s theme is “Forever Harlem: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow,” honoring the past, present, and future of this historic part of Manhattan. The event, inspired by Art Kane’s legendary 1958 photo of fifty-seven jazz musicians, takes place in U.S. Grant National Memorial Park, featuring a cultural showcase with music and dance at 1:00, a gospel caravan with Bishop Hezekiah Walker and others at 3:00, and a fashion fusion showcase at 4:30, followed by “A Concert under the Stars,” which this year salutes Motown and the Philly sound, with appearances by members of the cast of Motown: The Musical, Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes, and special guests. Harlem Week continues through August 24 with such other events as the Dance Theatre of Harlem Street Festival on August 9; the Tri-State Jr. Tennis Classic August 14-17; “Summer in the City” on August 16 with the NYC Children’s Festival, Harlem Honey & Bears, the Historic Black College Fair & Expo, Dancing in the Street, the Fashion Flava Show, the Uptown Saturday Nite party, and ImageNation’s Outdoor Film Festival; “Harlem Day” on August 17 with the Upper Manhattan Auto Show, the NY City Health Village, the Upper Manhattan Small Business Expo & Fair, day two of the NYC Children’s Festival, and three stages of music, dance, spoken word, fashion, and more; the Percy Sutton Harlem 5K Run/NYC Health Walk-a-Thon for Peace in Our Communities on August 23; Golden Hoops in Rucker Park on August 23; and the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival on August 23-24.

TICKET ALERT: WERNER HERZOG IN CONVERSATION

Werner Herzog will discuss his life and work in BAM conversation on September 4 (photo by Robin Holland)

Werner Herzog will discuss his life and work in BAM conversation with Paul Holdengräber on September 4 (photo by Robin Holland)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave.
Thursday, September 4, $20-$50, 8:00
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.wernerherzog.com

For more than fifty years, iconoclastic German auteur Werner Herzog has traveled to the far corners of the Earth and beyond to make some of the most fascinating fiction and nonfiction films the medium has ever seen. On September 4, the eve of his seventy-second birthday, the Munich-born director will venture into the borough of Brooklyn for what promises to be an intimate and entertaining conversation with the New York Public Library’s Paul Holdengräber. Herzog’s vast credits range from Aguirre, the Wrath of God and The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser: Every Man for Himself and God against All to Nosferatu and Woyzeck, from Fitzcarraldo and Grizzly Man to The Wild Blue Yonder and Cave of Forgotten Dreams. And at the center of it all is Herzog’s voice — not just his artistic voice but often his actual voice, the hypnotic spoken words that come out of his mouth as narrator of many of his documentaries, his thickly accented speech that has even made its way onto such animated series as The Simpsons, Metalocalypse, and The Boondocks. “Perhaps I seek certain utopian things, space for human honor and respect, landscapes not yet offended, planets that do not exist yet, dreamed landscapes,” Herzog has said. “Very few people seek these images today.” Herzog has a unique view of cinema and the world itself, things that are sure to be explored in this highly recommended BAM discussion.

LUCY

Scarlett Johansson stars as a woman on a mission in Luc Besson’s sexy sci-fi thriller LUCY

LUCY (Luc Besson, 2014)
Opens Friday, July 25
www.lucymovie.com

First there was Anne Parillaud in La Femme Nikita, followed by Milla Jovovich in The Fifth Element and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc and Rie Rasmussen in Angel-A, and now there’s Scarlett Johansson playing the latest different kind of female superhero in a visually striking film by French writer-director Luc Besson. Johansson stars as the title character in Lucy, a student in Taipei who gets suckered into a drug deal that goes very wrong. She is turned into a mule carrying a bag of a new synthetic drug, CPH4, for evil kingpin Mr. Jang (Oldboy’s Choi Min-sik in his first international film) that has been surgically implanted into her intestines. But the bag opens inside her and releases the substance into her system, with neurons firing everywhere as she quickly realizes that her brainpower is reaching unheard-of levels. While seeking advice from Professor Samuel Norman (Morgan Freeman) at the Sorbonne, she also enlists French police captain Pierre Del Rio (Syriana’s Amr Waked) to help her track down three other bags of CPH4, primarily to feed her brain, which is using 20, 30, then 40% and more of its capacity. Her physical and mental abilities continue to increase at an alarming rate, giving her superhuman strength and confidence but also costing her a piece of her humanity as she transforms into a robotlike woman on a mission. Also increasing is the size of various plot holes and the overall level of absurdity, but Johansson is so mesmerizing that it’s easy to forgive Besson for getting way too excited about the myriad possibilities green screens and advanced computer technology gave him. As with the somewhat similar but ultimately disappointing Transcendence, Lucy directly and indirectly references a slew of sci-fi flicks, from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Demon Seed to Altered States and The Terminator as well as the noir classic DOA. It’s also a natural extension of Johansson’s alluring performance as the voice of Samantha the operating system in Spike Jonze’s wonderful her. Yes, for a movie about a crazy-smart woman, Lucy can get pretty stupid, but Johansson overcomes that drawback with her superb acting chops and, well, graceful intelligence.