this week in film and television

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.

MIZOGUCHI: OSAKA ELEGY

Isuzu Yamada stars as a modern woman trapped by traditional values in OSAKA ELEGY

OSAKA ELEGY (NANIWA EREJII) (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1936)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, May 24, 7:00, and Saturday, May 31, 3:00, free with museum admission of $12
Series runs May 2 – June 8
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

If Osaka Elegy had been made by Ernst Lubitsch, George Cukor, or Billy Wilder, perhaps it would have been a screwball farce or a bittersweet romantic comedy. Instead, in the hands of Japanese auteur Kenji Mizoguchi, it is a searing, hard-hitting drama that began his poignant quartet of Fallen Women films. A companion piece to Sisters of the Gion — both films were made in 1936 with a similar cast and crew and both examine the changing roles of women in 1930s Japan, as tradition battles modernity — the black-and-white Osaka Elegy starts out with a bright, cheery, jazzy opening and beckoning neon lights that are not seen again till reflected in a river in the memorable finale, the music now very different. Isuzu Yamada (Throne of Blood, Tokyo Twilight) stars as Ayako Murai, a telephone operator at a pharmaceutical company who, because of the Japanese concept of giri, is responsible for repaying three hundred yen her drunkard father (Seiichii Takekawa) embezzled from his job. Desperate to keep him out of jail, she accepts an offer to become the mistress of her boss, Mr. Asai (Benkei Shiganoya), jeopardizing her potential relationship with coworker Nishimura (Kensaku Hara) and making an enemy out of her boss’s wife, Sumiko (Yoko Umemura). But when her brother, Hiroshi (Shinpachiro Asaka), needs another two hundred yen to complete his schooling, she considers an offer from another big shot at work, Mr. Fujino (Eitarō Shindō), continuing her downfall.

Darkness hovers throughout Kenji Mizoguchis OSAKA ELEGY

A shadowy darkness hovers over Kenji Mizoguchi’s OSAKA ELEGY

Written by Yoshikata Yoda (based on a story by Mizoguchi) and photographed by Minoru Miki, Osaka Elegy captures a pre-WWII Japan that is caught between traditional values and the promise of freedom of the modern world, particularly as it applies to women. Ayako wears contemporary clothing and wants to make decisions for herself but cannot escape the old ways. She is judged by nearly everyone she meets except for Dr. Yoko (Kunio Tamura), a modern-thinking man who ultimately cannot save her. While Ayako believes one can erase the past and follow true love, she is surrounded by loveless marriages, overpowering misogyny, and people afraid to break out of their expected roles. Mizoguchi, whose family sold his older sister into prostitution when he was a boy, went on to make such other powerful, female-centric, and tragic tales as Street of Shame and Women of the Night, commenting on the social conditions in twentieth-century Japan. The government actually banned the film in 1940, citing it as “decadent.” Osaka Elegy is screening May 24 at 7:00 and May 31 at 3:00 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image’s five-week tribute to the master auteur — who made more than eighty films, less than half of which still exist — which continues through June 8 with such other works as The 47 Ronin, Miss Oyu, The Crucified Lovers, and A Woman of Rumor.

A PEOPLE UNCOUNTED: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE ROMA

Poignant documentary relates the harrowing story of the Roma, focusing on their genocide during the Holocaust

A PEOPLE UNCOUNTED: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE ROMA (Aaron Yeger, 2012)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
May 16-23
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.apeopleuncounted.com

“Of course, when we talk about the suffering of the Roma at this place, this is not to blame anybody, or to tell that some nations are bad or others are better,” journalist Marcus Pape says as he walks through a forest at the beginning of A People Uncounted: The Untold Story of the Roma. “The point is that we want to tell a story that might tell us something about ourselves.” And what Aaron Yeger’s surprising and harrowing documentary tells us is not very pleasant. In his feature-length debut, Yeger travels to Slovakia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, America, and other countries, documenting the continuing plight of the Roma, more popularly known by the offensive term “Gypsies,” Europe’s largest minority. Interviewing activists, government officials, and Roma Holocaust survivors, Yeger reveals the intense prejudice against the Roma, who came from Northern India, and the Sinti, Romani people from in and around Germany, going back centuries, through the genocide of the Holocaust to today. He shows how misunderstood their culture is, as depicted in Hollywood movies and songs by Cher (“Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves”) and Shakira (“Gypsy”), and how Roma men, women, and children are still discriminated against, pointing out that the previous mayor of Milan led a movement in 2010 to rid his city of all Roma. Incorporating archival footage with staggering facts and Robi Botos’s mournful score, A People Uncounted: The Untold Story of the Roma is a poignant and painful examination of man’s seemingly unending inhumanity to man. The film, which has won numerous awards at festivals around the world, is playing May 16-22 at the Quad, with Yeger participating in Q&As following the 9:00 show on Friday and the 4:45 and 9:00 shows on Saturday.

NEXT YEAR JERUSALEM

A group of octogenarians and nonagenarians travels to the Holy Land in NEXT YEAR JERUSALEM

NEXT YEAR JERUSALEM (David Gaynes, 2014)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Friday, May 16
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.nextyearjerusalemmovie.com

During Yom Kippur and the Passover seder, Jews around the world proclaim that “next year, may we be in Jerusalem.” In David Gaynes’s charming documentary, Next Year Jerusalem, this dream comes true for eight men and women at the Jewish Home for the Elderly in Fairfield, Connecticut. In 2011, JHE president and CEO Andrew Banoff and Rabbi Stephen Shulman arranged for eight of their residents to make a once-in-a-lifetime ten-day trip to Israel; what made this journey different, and very special, is that the group had an average age of ninety-one, ranging from Sandy Levin, eighty-two, to Bill Wein, ninety-seven. With all their infirmities and medications, canes and wheelchairs, they prepare for a great adventure, with Gaynes behind the camera himself as they share stories about their lives, contemplate their deaths, and express their sheer joy as their anticipation grows. Shortly before they leave, Rabbi Shulman has to explain that they have to be ready not only for someone to not be able to make it to Israel but, more critical, one of them not being able to come home, given their ages and health situations. But that isn’t going to stop any of them, especially not ninety-three-year-old Selma Rosenblatt, who isn’t about to let her twisted body get in the way. Meanwhile, eighty-seven-year-old Regine Arouette, who isn’t Jewish, looks forward to visiting several Christian landmarks. (The others on the trip are Helen Downs, ninety-one; Leslie Novis, ninety; Harry Shell, ninety-two; and Bill’s wife, Juna Wein, eighty-nine.) When they all head off to Israel, accompanied by such lovingly involved caretakers as Donnette Banton, thirty-six-year-old Gaynes (Saving Hubble, Keeper of the Kohn) keeps his camera focused on the senior citizens as they visit historic sites, placing their fabulous experience front and center. Next Year Jerusalem is a charming and delightful celebration of life at the end of life, a spirit-lifting film that shows that you’re never too old to say no. “Where are the Israels for which we personally have yet to travel?” Gaynes, who also served as editor and producer, asks in his director’s statement. Next Year Jerusalem opens May 16 at the Quad, with all weekend screenings followed by a Q&A with Gaynes.

FROM MAE WEST TO PUNK — THE BOWERY ON FILM: ON THE BOWERY

Ray Salyer and Gorman Hendricks are two of the forgotten men in Lionel Rogosin’s unforgettable ON THE BOWERY

ON THE BOWERY (Lionel Rogosin, 1956)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Saturday, May 17, 7:30, and Monday, May 19, 7:00
Series runs May 16-19
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
www.ontheboweryfilm.com

One of the greatest cinematic documents ever made about New York, Lionel Rogosin’s On the Bowery is playing at Anthology Film Archives on May 17 and 19 as part of “From Mae West to Punk: The Bowery on Film,” a three-day series that includes feature-length works and shorts that take place in and around one of the most famous thoroughfares in the world. The recent, stunning 35mm restoration of On the Bowery offers a new look at this underground classic, which caused a stir upon its release in 1956, winning prizes at the Venice Film Festival while earning criticism at home for daring to portray the grim reality of America’s dark underbelly. After spending six months living with the poor, destitute alcoholics on Skid Row as research, idealistic young filmmaker Rogosin spent the next four months making On the Bowery, a remarkable examination of the forgotten men of New York, ne’er-do-wells who can’t find jobs, sleep on the street, and will do just about anything for another drink. Rogosin centers the film around the true story of Ray Salyer, a journeyman railroad drifter stopping off in New York City seeking temporary employment. Salyer is quickly befriended by Gorman Hendricks, who not only shows Salyer the ropes but also manages to slyly take advantage of him. Although the film follows a general structure scripted by Mark Sufrin, much of it is improvised and shot on the sly, in glorious black-and-white by Richard Bagley. The sections in which Bagley turns his camera on the streets, showing the decrepit neighborhood under the El, set to Charles Mills’s subtle, jazzy score and marvelously edited by Carl Lerner, are pure poetry, yet another reason why On the Bowery is an American treasure. The film is screening with the 1964 short How Do You Like the Bowery?, in which Alan Raymond and Dan Halas pose the title question to Bowery denizens.

Raoul Walsh’s 1915 Bowery-set gangster picture, REGENERATION, kicks off series at Anthology Film Archives

The Anthology festival runs May 16-19 and also includes Raoul Walsh’s 1915 Regeneration and 1933 The Bowery, Lowell Sherman’s 1933 She Done Him Wrong starring Mae West and Cary Grant, Mandy Stein’s 2009 doc Burning Down the House: The Story of CBGB, Jen Senko and Fiore DeRosa’s 2009 The Vanishing City, and Scott Elliott’s Slumming It: Myth and Culture on the Bowery, with all showings accompanied by shorts about the iconic, historic area.