this week in film and television

A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST

Anna (Charlize Theron) struts her stuff in Seth MacFarlane’s low-down, dirty Western farce, A MILLION WAYS TO DIE

A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST (Seth MacFarlane, 2014)
Opens Friday, May 30
www.amillionways.com

Seth MacFarlane stars as an anachronistic twenty-first-century wimp in 1882 Arizona in the raunchy, rowdy, lewd, and crude spoof A Million Ways to Die in the West. MacFarlane, who wrote the script — which never met a fart joke it didn’t like — with Family Guy writers and producers Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, stars as Albert Stark, a meek, clueless sheep farmer who gets dumped by his girlfriend, Louise (Amanda Seyfried), after he chickens out of a duel in their bare bones town of Old Stump. Determined to win her back, especially after she takes up with mustachioed mustache maven Foy (a villainous Neil Patrick Harris), Albert, who hates just about everything about the West and is constantly complaining about it, is befriended by Anna (Charlize Theron), a stranger who decides to help him win back Louise. But little does Albert know that Anna is actually the wife of vicious killer Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson), who is on his way to Old Stump, violent jealousy at the ready. Meanwhile, Albert’s virgin bestie, the even meeker and milder milquetoast Edward (Giovanni Ribisi), is planning on marrying his girlfriend, Ruth (Sarah Silverman), a Christian prostitute who does dirty deeds with just about every other guy around. MacFarlane, who did such an outstanding job with his feature directorial debut, Ted, bites off way more than he can chew in A Million Ways to Die in the West, but his innate charm and genuine goodwill manage to shine through, even as the poop jokes turn grosser and grosser. (There’s a whole lotta “Oh, no he won’t,” followed by “Oh, yes he did.”) He and Theron have a warm chemistry that not even sheep piss can wash away. The movie is plenty stupid, with tons of overheated, repetitive jokes (mostly about farts), one-offs that go nowhere, and various scenes that are about as flat as Neeson’s ass, which does indeed make a flowery appearance. The film is also chock-full of cameos from celebrities both big and small, some that work great, and others that are just plain head-scratchingly weird, but at least MacFarlane saves the best for last (the very last, at the end of the credits). Now, A Million Ways to Die in the West is certainly no Blazing Saddles (everybody, bow silently, then release) — much of it is more like an extended, expanded version of the beans scene — but at its very center, it has a great big heart, allowing you to forgive MacFarlane his myriad overindulgences and just have a rootin’, tootin’, dirty good time.

ELENA

Petra Costa goes searching for her older sister in intimate, mesmerizing documentary

ELENA (Pera Costa, 2013)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, May 30
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.elenafilme.com

Brazilian actress and filmmaker Petra Costa searches for her older sister, as well as herself, in the beautifully poetic, hypnotic and intimate Elena. “Today I walked through the city, listening to your voice, and I identify so much with your words that I start losing myself in you,” Petra says over footage of her walking through modern-day New York. In the 1980s, Elena, seven years older than Elena, moved to New York to study to become an actress. Things didn’t go quite as planned as she became overwhelmed by severe depression. Using home movies, video footage, and audiotapes, Petra follows in her sister’s footsteps, both figuratively and literally, as she tries to understand what Elena was going through. Carrying a pair of cameras — a Super 8 and a Canon 5D — Petra travels to New York City with her mother, visiting the apartment building where they briefly lived and meeting with some of Elena’s old acquaintances. Petra adds captivating dreamlike imagery that equates her sister with Shakespeare’s Ophelia, along with a wide-ranging soundtrack of Brazilian music in addition to Maggie Hastings Clifford’s mesmerizing “I Turn to Water” (cowritten by Petra) and “Sister of the Sea” and the Mamas and the Papas’ “Dedicated to the One I Love.” Reminiscent of C. Scott Willis’s 2010 documentary The Woodmans, about artist Francesca Woodman and her artist parents, Elena is a haunting exploration of family, mental illness, creative expression, and dealing with tragedy. The film, which was executive produced by Tim Robbins and Fernando Meirelles and has won awards at festivals around the world, opens May 30 at the IFC Center; the opening night screening will be followed by a Q&A on “Boundaries on the Self” with Jonathan Caouette, Alan Berliner, and Petra Costa, moderated by Sarah Salovaara.

BROOKLYN FILM FESTIVAL: MOVEMENT AND LOCATION

Bodine Boling wrote, produced, edited, and stars in Brooklyn-set MOVEMENT + LOCATION

MOVEMENT + LOCATION (Alexis Boling, 2013)
Brooklyn Film Festival
Saturday, May 31, Windmill Studios, 289 Kent Ave., $12, 7:30
Sunday, June 8, IndieScreen, 287 Kent Ave., $12, 8:00
Festival runs May 30 – June 8
www.brooklynfilmfestival.org
www.movementandlocation.com

The husband and wife team of Alexis and Bodine Boling have collaborated on the tender, touching drama Movement + Location, which is appropriately having its world premiere at the Brooklyn Film Festival this week. Director, producer, and cinematographer Alexis and writer, producer, editor, and star Bodine were married in 2009 at BAMcafé and made the film in their home borough of Brooklyn. Bodine plays Kim Getty, a young woman who works for City Hope, an organization that helps feed and house the homeless. Meanwhile, Kim herself is trying to make a home for herself, having returned to Brooklyn from four hundred years in the future. Already hiding the truth from her roommate, Amber (Anna Margaret Hollyman), and work colleague Marcel (Haile Owusu), Kim becomes even more secretive when a pair of cops ask her and Marcel to help runaway teen Rachel (Catherine Missal), who, Kim quickly learns, is also from the future but having trouble adapting to her new surroundings. Kim brings Rachel home with her, and trouble slowly escalates as she considers having a relationship with one of the cops, Rob Sullivan (Clybourne Park’s Brendan Griffin), and Rachel starts hanging out with a haggard homeless man named Paul (David Andrew MacDonald). “There are things that I don’t want to talk about, and there are things I am never going to tell you,” Kim explains to Rob. “And if you try to make me….”

Catherine Missal plays a runaway teen from the future in MOVEMENT + LOCATION

Despite its sci-fi plot, Movement + Location is a gently paced, well-acted, and honest depiction of relationships and responsibility in modern-day Brooklyn. New York City can be a lonely place, and the film explores the hesitancy people often feel while considering making a connection in a new environment (while providing fodder for those who believe in past lives and that we can perhaps orchestrate meetings in different times). The film can get frustrating — there are many moments when you just want to shake Kim and yell at her to just tell the truth already — but it’s also sympathetic and compassionate. All the while, Dan Tepfer’s creepy 1970s synth score lurks over the proceedings. On her blog, Bodine recently wrote about the Brooklyn Film Festival, “They program impressive, gorgeous films and I am so honored and also very f&*king psyched to be included in company like this.” Movement + Location is screening May 31 at Windmill Studios and June 8 at IndieScreen, with both showings followed by Q&As with members of the cast and crew. The festival runs May 30 – June 8, consisting of more than one hundred narrative features, documentaries, shorts, animated works, and experimental films from around the world.

N.Y. PORTUGUESE SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Friday, May 30, and Saturday, May 31, $15 (two-day pass $25), 7:30
www.nypsff.arteinstitute.org

Portugal’s most famous filmmaker might be Manoel de Oliveira, who is still making movies at the age of 105, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a slew of significantly younger directors on the rise in the European nation. The N.Y. Portuguese Short Film Festival, which was started in 2011 by the Arte Institute as part of its mission to “serve as a platform for intercultural inspiration and as a catalyst for an innovative artistic dialogue between the many communities in New York and Portuguese artists,” will showcase many of those up-and-coming auteurs this weekend in New York, Lisbon, and Cascais. Tribeca Cinemas will screen nine short works each night, beginning Friday with José Trigueiros’s God by the Neck (Dios Por El Cuello), Josemaria RRA’s Ptolmus, Luís Costa’s Fontelonga, 1997 Moscow International Film Festival Best Young Actor winner Afonso Pimentel’s To Dust (Pó), Luís Soares’s Any Other Man (Outro Homem Qualquer), André Miranda and Diogo Leitão’s Schizophonia (Esquizophonia) (with popular star João Reis), Rui Falcão’s Balance (Balança), André Braz’s Soul (Alma), and Vasco Mendes’s No Mistakes; Saturday’s lineup consists of Ricardo Martins’s What Love Means to Me (O Que Eu Entendo Por Amor), David Bonneville’s Gypsy (Cigano), Ana Cardoso, Filipe Fonseca, Liliana Sobreiro, and Luís Catalo’s Alda, Filipe Coutinho’s Homecoming, Cláudia Alves’s The Postman (El Cartero), Filipa Ruiz’s As the Days Went By, Nuno Serrão’s The Third Attempt, and Sam Andrês’s Chaos Et Equilibrium. The opening night program will be followed by an after-party ($15, free with festival ticket) featuring Brick City Riot, the musical duo of DJ Mavric and drummer Carlos Ferreira. The five-person jury that selected the films will also choose one work to take home the $1,000 prize.

WORLD SCIENCE FESTIVAL 2014

Alan Alda pays tribute to Albert Einstein with star-studded cast at 2014 World Science Festival

Multiple locations
May 28 – June 1
Free – $30
www.worldsciencefestival.com

Science is under ever-more fire from those who believe it is just a collection of opinions and unproven theories, not fact-based analysis and understanding; the World Science Festival seeks to do something about that, “cultivating a general public informed by science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future.” The seventh annual multidisciplinary festival takes place May 28 through June 1, with readings, lectures, performances, panel discussions, interactive displays, and much more, featuring such WSF stalwarts as cofounder Brian Greene and regular presenter Alan Alda. Among the topics being examined are family trees, ales and chocolate, quantum physics, time, poison, the human brain, the Higgs boson, DNA, and the Big Bang. Although some of the programs are already sold out, there might be tickets available at the door; in addition, there are plenty of free events that require no advance registration. Below are only some of the highlights.

Wednesday, May 28
“Dear Albert,” staged reading by Alan Alda with Paul Rudd, Cynthia Nixon, and Francesca Faridany, directed by Mark Brokaw, followed by a discussion with Alda and Brian Greene, NYU Skirball Center, 8:00

Wednesday, May 28
through
Saturday, May 31
“Eye of the Storm” The Science of Weather,” with Hilary Peddicord, Xichen Li, David Holland, and Denise Holland, Gould Plaza, NYU, free, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm

Wednesday, May 28
through
Sunday, June 1
“A Comet ‘Lands’ in Brooklyn,” with Artur B. Chmielewski and NASA Jet Propulsion Lab scientists, educators, and designers discussing the Rosetta Mission, Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park, free, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm (12 noon – 4:00 on June 1)

Thursday, May 29
“Science and Story: The Write Angle,” with Sean Carroll, E. L. Doctorow, Jo Marchant, Joyce Carol Oates, and Steven Pinker, moderated by John Hockenberry, Great Hall of the Cooper Union, $15-$30, 5:30

“Gravity: Watch It with Astronauts under the Space Shuttle,” first-ever screening in the Space Shuttle Pavilion of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, followed by a discussion with Bobak Ferdowsi, Sandra Magnus, and John M. Grunsfeld, moderated by Lynn Sherr, $15-$30, 8:00

Friday, May 30
“Downloading the Brain,” with John Donoghue, Michel M. Maharbiz, George Church, and Bijan Pesaran, moderated by Gary Marcus, Grand Hall, NYU Global Center, $15-$25, 1:30

“Scientific Kitchen: Biophysics? More Like Pie-o-Physics!,” with Amy Rowat, Christina Tosi, and Bill Yosses, Momofuku Milk Bar Williamsburg, 6:30

Saturday, May 31
“The Search for Life: The 20 Year Horizon,” with Dimitar Sasselov, Sara Seager, and Jack W. Szostak, moderated by Mario Livio, Grand Hall, NYU Global Center, $15-$25, 4:00

“The Bionic Body: Going Wireless,” with Joseph J. Fins, John Donoghue, P. Hunter Peckham, and Jennifer French, moderated by Bill Blakemore, Grand Hall, NYU Global Center, $15-$25, 6:00

Saturday, May 31
and
Sunday, June 1
“Science Hack Day: Science in the City,” with Luke DuBois, Dana Karwas, Nancy Hechinger, Michael Flowers, Jin Montclare, and Julie Hecht, hosted by François Grey, MAGNET, NYU School of Engineering, free, 10:00 am

Sunday, June 1
The Ultimate Science Street Fair, with focuses on space, weather, and robots, Washington Square Park, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

“Cool Jobs,” with Chad Jenkins, Michael J. Massimino, Becca Peixotto, Hannah Morris, and Mark Siddall, moderated by “Science Bob” Pflugfelder, NYU Skirball Center, $15-$30, 1:00

Kids’ Science Storytime: Meet the Authors, with Steve Metzger, “Science Bob” Pflugfelder, and Deborah Heiligman, NYU Kimmel Center, second floor, free, 2:00 – 4:00

THE DANCE OF REALITY

Alejandro Jodorowsky visits his hometown and his childhood self (Jeremias Herskovits) in THE DANCE OF REALITY

THE DANCE OF REALITY (LA DANZA DE LA REALIDAD) (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 2013)
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves.
Opens Friday, May 23
212-330-8182
www.landmarktheatres.com
www.danceofrealitymovie.com

Cult legend Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first film in twenty-three years is a deeply intimate, visually stunning journey into his childhood, a surreal Amarcord as only he can make it. In the gorgeous The Dance of Reality, the man behind such midnight-movie classics as 1970’s El Topo and 1973’s The Holy Mountain travels back to his hometown, the small coastal village of Tocopilla, Chile, where he relives and reimagines seminal moments in his life. The eighty-four-year-old Jodorowsky is often on-screen, melding past, present, and future, as his younger self (Jeremias Herskovits), sporting a gloriously ridiculous mound of golden curls, wanders among circus performers, amputees, and other oddballs and disenfranchised souls that would make Fellini proud. It’s a dazzling family affair in more ways than one: Jodorowsky’s son Brontis plays his father, Jaime, a Stalinist with a rather strong dislike for Chilean leader Carlos Ibáñez (Bastian Bodenhöfer), while son Adan plays the town anarchist (and composed the score) and son Cristóbal is a mystical theosophist. Jodorowsky’s mother, Sara (Pamela Flores), always wanted to be a singer, so he has the buxom woman deliver all her lines as if she is in an opera. And his wife, painter Pascale Montandon-Jodorowsky, designed the fantabulous costumes. “You and I have only been memories, never reality,” Jodorowsky says in voice-over. “Something is dreaming us. Give yourself to the illusion. Live!” Indeed, The Dance of Reality is like a dream, bathed in spectacular color and boasting a triumphant spirit even as death beckons.

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first film in twenty-three years is a colorful melding of past, present, and future

Even the publicity for the film is handled with typical Jodorowskian flourish. “I see no difference between poetry and film. I see no difference between stripping the body and the soul naked. I am who I am,” he says in an online video introduction in which he sits completely naked, adding, “In full honesty, undressed boy, undressed soul, in pure poetry.” Jodorowsky (Santa Sangre, Fando y Lis) undresses himself for all to see in The Dance of Reality, a lovingly poetic and personal work of art beautifully shot by Jean-Marie Dreujou. It is Jodorowsky, so it’s also wild and unpredictable, flabbergasting and confusing, mesmerizing and charming. It also marks a new phase in the career of the comic-book writer, philosopher, playwright, and self-described “atheist mystic” who vows not to wait another two decades for his next film (and not just because he is in his mid-eighties) and is currently preparing a MoMA exhibition that might involve him reading tarot cards for museum visitors. “Films should have a purpose, to open our consciousness,” he says in that video introduction. The Dance of Reality is another fascinating stop on Jodorowsky’s continuing voyage of opening people’s consciousness and, perhaps, as he adds, to “begin to change the world.”

STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS

An autistic teen (Jesus Sanchez-Velez) goes on a subway adventure in STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS

STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS (Sam Fleischner, 2013)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, May 23
212-924-3363
www.standclearclosingdoors.com
www.cinemavillage.com

It’s a sight New Yorkers see all too often: flyers on the streets and in the subways seeking help in finding a missing man, woman, or child, who is often autistic. Sometimes they have happy endings, like when fourteen-year-old Eliceo Cortez returned to his mother’s arms in Brooklyn. But other times, the search ends in tragedy, as when the remains of fourteen-year-old Avonte Oquendo were discovered in the East River. In his solo narrative feature debut, director Sam Fleischner tells the compelling story of thirteen-year-old Ricky (Jesus Sanchez-Velez), a boy with Asperger syndrome who wanders away one day after school, riding the subways while his mother, Mariana (Andrea Suarez Paz), desperately but calmly tries to find him. Mariana’s husband, Ricardo Sr. (Tenoch Huerta Mejía), is an illegal immigrant working on a job upstate, so he can’t come down to help, and she is hesitant to deal with the police, for obvious reasons. Meanwhile, her relationship with her teenage daughter, Carla (Azul Zorrilla), is strained because it was Carla’s job to pick up Ricky from a school that believes he would be better off in a special program elsewhere. Fleischner combines elements of his codirecting feature debut, Wah Do Dem, a fish-out-of-water tale about a Brooklyn musician who finds a new life in Jamaica, with Below the Brain, his visually stirring documentary about Brooklyn’s West Indian American Day Carnival, in the lovingly rhythmic, poetically paced Stand Clear of the Closing Doors. Fleischner cuts between Mariana’s New York City, where she has to continue to work as a cleaning woman for wealthy families even as her boy is missing, and Ricky’s skewed yet beautiful view of a city, both inviting and frightening, that he is lost in.

A mother (Andrea Suarez Paz) searches for her missing autistic son in compelling film set in Rockaway Beach

Despite the subject matter — a dedicated and loving mother trying to locate her missing child — the film has a serene, tranquil quality. There are no histrionics, no screaming or crying. There are no heavy political statements about illegal immigration or the flawed school system. Instead, Fleischner keeps things subdued, letting the story play out in a more natural and believable way, even as Hurricane Sandy approaches. (The film was shot on Rockaway Beach, where Fleischner lives; he had to make significant adjustments to incorporate the storm, which he does with a subtle effectiveness.) It’s hard to take your eyes off Sanchez-Velez, who is on the autism spectrum himself, as he meanders underground, making contact with strangers and seeking out food while taking in the sights — and sounds, which are practically a character unto themselves — of New York City. Suarez Paz, who Fleischner found on a crosswalk outside Prospect Park, gives a heartfelt performance as Mariana, maintaining a steadfast composure throughout. Marsha Stephanie Blake (Hurt Village, Queens Boulevard) offers fine support as a caring sneaker-store clerk who befriends Mariana. Written by Rose Lichter-Marck and Micah Bloomberg and wonderfully photographed by Adam Jandrup and Ethan Palmer, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors is a small gem of a film, a kind of Little Fugitive for the twenty-first century. And you’ll never look at a missing-child flyer the same way again. Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors opens May 23 at Cinema Village, with Fleischner participating in Q&As following the 7:00 screenings on Friday and Saturday night.