this week in film and television

SUNSHINE AT MIDNIGHT: RESERVOIR DOGS

Ragtag group of gangsters aren’t sure who to trust in Quentin Tarantino’s violent debut, RESERVOIR DOGS

RESERVOIR DOGS (Quentin Tarantino, 1992)
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves.
Friday, April 12, and Saturday, April 13, 12 midnight
212-330-8182
www.landmarktheatres.com

Why does Steve Buscemi have to be Mr. Pink? Because Quentin Tarantino said so. Tarantino burst onto the indie film scene with the ultraviolent genre picture Reservoir Dogs, about a diamond heist gone horribly wrong. You know there’s a problem if Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) has to be called in to clean up the mess made by Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), Mr. Brown (Tarantino), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), and, of course, Mr. Pink. The robbery was organized by Joe (Lawrence Tierney) and his son, Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn), who has issues of his own. Double crosses, Madonna discussions, and a torture scene set to the Stealers Wheel song “Stuck in the Middle with You” make things go from funny to frightening in hysterical blasts of bloody irony as tensions mount and the criminals debate whether they were set up. Reservoir Dogs served as quite a debut for writer-director Tarantino, instantly making him an indie-film hero and sending him on his way, to be followed by his great script for True Romance (1993) and his Palme d’Or winner Pulp Fiction (1994), pulling off quite a triple play in three awesome years.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: “IT’S A DISASTER” Q&As WITH DAVID CROSS & AMERICA FERRERA

Brunch might very well turn into a group of friends’ last meal in Todd Berger’s black comedy, IT’S A DISASTER

IT’S A DISASTER (Todd Berger, 2012)
Village East Cinemas
181-189 Second Ave. at 12th St.
Opens Friday, April 12
212-529-6799
www.itsadisastermovie.com
www.villageeastcinema.com

When a group of friends show up for one of their regular couples brunches, the disaster was supposed to be news that one of the pairs was splitting up, but that revelation is somewhat overwhelmed by the possibility that dirty bombs have been detonated nearby and they all might be facing a grim, extremely short future in the very funny black comedy It’s a Disaster. Emma (Erinn Hayes) and Pete (Blaise Miller) have invited over four other couples to partake in wine and quiche before announcing their impending divorce, but that all changes when next-door-neighbor Hal (writer-director Todd Berger) knocks on the door wearing a hazmat suit and tells them that lethal toxins might very well be on their way to their perfect little suburban community. Potentially facing the end, the friends all react in different ways, revealing secrets, panicking, or simply welcoming the end. Wacky Lexi (Rachel Boston) and her husband, the none-too-bright Buck (producer Kevin M. Brennan), want to go out having plenty of sex; chemistry teacher Hedy (America Ferrera) sees no hope while her fiancée, Shane (producer Jeff Grace), wants to battle the unknown enemy like it’s a video game; the steady Tracy (Julia Stiles) can’t believe that she might finally have found the right guy, calm history teacher Glen (David Cross); and Jenny (Laura Adkin) and Gordon (Rob McKillivray), well, they’re late as usual. Berger (The Scenesters, Don’t Eat the Baby: Adventures at Post-Katrina Mardi Gras) does a fine job establishing the characters early and letting them develop at their own pace as they all take turns considering the impact Armageddon will have on them. Cross is a riot as Glen, murmuring hysterical deadpan asides under his breath, while Ferrera holds nothing back as she concocts a grand finale. It all makes for an intimate gathering (Berger, Brennan, Miller, and Grace make up the Vacationeers comedy team, ramping up the actors’ familiarity level) that warmly welcomes the audience into the eventual madness.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: It’s a Disaster is currently available on VOD and opens April 12 at Village East Cinemas and Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn. On Friday night, Cross (Mr. Show, Arrested Development) will be on hand for a Q&A following the primetime screening, and Cross and Ferrera (Ugly Betty, Real Women Have Curves) will both be at Village East after the Saturday night show for a Q&A, and twi-ny has a free pair of tickets to give away for each special event. Just send your name, daytime phone number, show preference (Friday or Saturday night), and all-time-favorite end-of-the-world movie to contest@twi-ny.com by Thursday, April 11, at 3:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; two winners will be selected at random.

CARTE BLANCHE — SCOTT MACAULAY AND TWENTY YEARS OF FILMMAKER MAGAZINE: LAWS OF GRAVITY

Jon (Adam Trese) and Denise (Edie Falco) talk over tough times in Nick Gomez’s LAWS OF GRAVITY

LAWS OF GRAVITY (Nick Gomez, 1992)
MoMA Film
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Sunday, April 7, 2:00
Series runs through April 15
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

Nick Gomez wrote and directed this gritty urban drama about Jimmy (Peter Greene) and Jon (Adam Trese), a couple of guys on the mean streets of Brooklyn who get more than they bargained for when a friend stores some guns in Jimmy’s apartment and Jon thinks he’s ready for the big time. The film features Edie Falco in one of her earliest major performances, as Jimmy’s tough-talking girlfriend, Denise. Powerful acting, dead-on dialogue, and expert location shooting drive this film, which was made for a mere thirty-eight grand. Gomez (Drowning Mona) has gone on to direct multiple episodes of some of the best television shows of the last twenty years, including Homicide, Oz, The Shield, and Dexter, among others. Laws of Gravity is screening at MoMA on April 7 at 2:00 as part of “Carte Blanche: Scott Macaulay and 20 Years of Filmmaker Magazine,” which celebrates the continuing success of the IFP publication that focuses on independent film from the filmmakers’ point of view. Curated by the magazine’s editor in chief, Scott Macaulay, the series continues through April 15 with such other films as Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone, Hal Hartley’s Amateur, Miguel Arteta’s Chuck and Buck, Barry Jenkins’s Medicine for Melancholy, and Todd Haynes’s Safe. In the Winter 1992/93 issue of Filmmaker, Peter Broderick went behind-the-scenes of Laws of Gravity, detailing the financing, casting process, rehearsals, and equipment and publishing the budget itself, which included $33 for prop blood, $48 for Polaroids, and $60 for phone calls. “The breathless, handheld 16mm camerawork by Jean de Segonzac, which always seems to be racing to catch up with the characters, made its mark on generations of subsequent filmmakers,” Macaulay writes on the MoMA website about the film.

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY: DEFIANCE

Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber star as brothers at odds in gripping Holocaust drama

DEFIANCE (Edward Zwick, 2008)
Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Monday April 8, $25, 7:30
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.defiancemovie.com

In December 2008, there was a spate of Holocaust-related dramas released in theaters, examining the Nazis and the persecution of the Jews from many different angles — with various degrees of success. Among the best of the films — and one that tells a seldom-told tale — is Edward Zwick’s Defiance. Zwick, whose Glory looked at the contribution of African Americans fighting for the North in the Civil War, now turns to WWII, following the Bielski clan as it fights back against the Germans and the local constabulary in Russia. Based on a true story detailed in the book of the same name by Nechama Tec, Defiance stars Daniel Craig as Tuvia, Liev Schreiber as Zus, and Jamie Bell as Asael, three brothers who have left their farm and take refuge in the vast forest they have been playing in since they were kids. As more and more Jews hear about the small community they are establishing hidden among the trees, they flock there. But while Tuvia feels he cannot send anyone away, Zus believes such foolish generosity will result in a lack of food and a greater chance that they will be found and killed. With Tuvia as the group’s reluctant leader, adamant that they should remain in the forest, Zus takes off to join the Russian resistance. “Each day of freedom is a victory,” Tuvia proclaims. “And if we die trying to live, at least we die like human beings.” But as the Germans get closer and the winter grows harsher, the chances of survival seem bleaker and bleaker. Although Defiance does lapse into soap-opera territory and pulls at the emotional heartstrings too often — Zwick and executive producer Marshall Herskovitz were, after all, the creators of Thirtysomething — it is a powerful drama that reveals a rarely shown side of the Holocaust as a group of working-class Jewish men and women refuse to give in or give up, taking up arms and fighting back against impossible odds. The underrated film is being screened April 8 at Symphony Space as part of a special Holocaust Remembrance Day program that benefits School News Nationwide, a Brooklyn-based organization that teaches children journalism skills and tolerance; SNN founder Bill Tingling will introduce the film, there will be a memorial candle lighting and poem, and the screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Holocaust survivor Sally Frishberg and Zvi Bielski, the son of Zus, moderated by Izzy Fridman, the son of a Bielski partisan.

FIRST SATURDAY — “WORKT BY HAND”: HIDDEN LABOR AND HISTORICAL QUILTS

Elizabeth Welsh, “Medallion Quilt,” cotton, circa 1830 (Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Roebling Society)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, April 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum celebrates the recent opening of “‘Workt by Hand’: Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts,” which examines the craft and culture behind approximately three dozen masterpieces from the collection, at the April free First Saturday program. There will be live performances by Jessy Carolina & the Hot Mess, Adia Whitaker and Ase Dance Theater Collective, Jesse Elliott (These United States) and friends, and Brooklyn Ballet, which will present Quilt with violinist Gil Morgenstern. Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art curator Catherine Morris will give a talk on “‘Workt by Hand,’” Robyn Love will share her knitting project “SpinCycle,” there will be a screening of Barbara Hammer and Gina Carducci’s Generations, followed by a Q&A with Carducci, a felt collage workshop, a book club discussion with Bernice McFadden about her latest novel, Gathering of Waters, and a zine-making cookbook workshop with Brooklyn Zine Fest and Malaka Gharib and Claire O’Neil of The Runcible Spoon. In addition, the galleries will remain open late so visitors can check out “LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital,” “Käthe Kollwitz: Prints from the ‘War’ and ‘Death’ Portfolios,” “Fine Lines: American Drawings from the Brooklyn Museum,” “Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui,” “Raw/Cooked: Marela Zacarias,” “Aesthetic Ambitions: Edward Lycett and Brooklyn’s Faience Manufacturing Company,” and more.

THE WORKS — KAREN BLACK: EASY RIDER

Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson play a trio who get their motor running and head out on the highway in EASY RIDER

EASY RIDER (Dennis Hopper, 1968)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
April 5-6, 12:10 am
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com

No mere relic of the late 1960s counterculture movement, Easy Rider still holds up as one of the truly great road movies, inviting audiences to climb on board as two peace-loving souls search for freedom on the highways and byways of the good ol’ U.S. of A. Named after a pair of famous western gunslingers, Wyatt (producer and cowriter Peter Fonda), as in Earp, and Billy (director and cowriter Dennis Hopper), as in “the Kid,” make some fast cash by selling coke to a fancy connection (Phil Spector!), then take off on their souped-up bikes, determined to make it to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras. Along the way, they break bread with a rancher (Warren Finnerty) and his family, hang out in a hippie commune, pick up small-town alcoholic lawyer George Hanson (an Oscar-nominated Jack Nicholson), don’t get served in a diner, and eventually hook up with friendly prostitutes Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil) in the Big Easy. “You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it,” George says to Billy as they start discussing the concept and reality of freedom. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s what it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it, that’s two different things. I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free, ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.” The always calm Wyatt, who is also known as Captain America, and the nervous and jumpy Billy make one of cinema’s coolest duos ever as they personally experience the radical changes going on in the country, leading to a tragic conclusion. The Academy Award–nominated script, written with Terry Southern, remains fresh and relevant as it examines American capitalism and democracy in a way that is still debated today. And the soundtrack — well, it virtually defined the era, featuring such songs as Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher” and “Born to Be Wild,” Jimi Hendrix’s “If 6 Was 9,” the Electric Prunes’ “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),” the Chambers Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today,” Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air,” and Roger McGuinn’s “Ballad of Easy Rider.”

Nitehawk Cinema kicks off Karen Black festival with EASY RIDER

Easy Rider, which also was named Best First Work at Cannes in 1969, is screening just past midnight on April 5 & 6 as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s “The Works” series focusing on otherworldly actress and goddess Karen Black, the sexy, cross-eyed star of such films as Nashville, The Great Gatsby, Invaders from Mars, and the unforgettable Trilogy of Terror. Sean Young, who starred with Black in 1998’s Men, will introduce the Friday-night show, and both screenings will include a pretaped Q&A with Black about Easy Rider. The Nitehawk mini-retrospective continues with Dan Curtis’s Burnt Offerings (April 12-13; beware the chauffeur), Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces (May 3-4), Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot (May 17-18), Jack Smight’s Airport 1975 (May 31 – June 1), and John Schlesinger’s The Day of the Locust (June 14-15).

CARTE BLANCHE — SCOTT MACAULAY AND TWENTY YEARS OF FILMMAKER MAGAZINE: ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW

Miranda July is charming and delightful in her quirky ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW

ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW (Miranda July, 2005)
MoMA Film
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Friday, April 5, 4:00, and Wednesday, April 10, 4:00
Series runs April 4-15
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.mirandajuly.com

Winner of a Special Jury Prize at Sundance “for originality of vision,” performance artist Miranda July’s feature-film directorial debut is a success from start to finish, an original, engaging, and utterly charming romantic comedy that is as unique as it is familiar. July, who also wrote the screenplay, stars as a quirky young performance artist who is looking for a relationship in her rather mundane life. She immediately falls for a shoe salesman (John Hawkes) who is separating from his wife and trying to understand his kids (Brandon Ratcliff and Miles Thompson), who are having a strange online dalliance with a mystery e-mailer. Meanwhile, two high school girls (Najarra Townsend and Natasha Slayton) are sexually tormenting a bizarre loner (Brad Henke) who is sexually tormenting them right back, both humorously and dangerously. It’s nearly impossible to take your eyes off of July, whose innovative audio and visual installations and short films have been shown at the Andy Warhol Museum, the Whitney Biennial, the Kitchen, Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, Union Square Park, and the Rotterdam International Film Festival, among many other prestigious places. Me and You and Everyone We Know is screening at MoMA on April 5 & 10 as part of “Carte Blanche: Scott Macaulay and 20 Years of Filmmaker Magazine,” which celebrates the continuing success of the IFP publication that focuses on independent film from the filmmakers’ point of view. Curated by the magazine’s editor in chief, Scott Macaulay, the series runs April 4-15 and also includes such gems as Darren Aronofsky’s Pi, Nick Gomez’s Laws of Gravity, Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, Laura Poitras’s The Oath, and Todd Haynes’s Safe. “Me and You and Everyone We Know is a tremendously winning collection of interlocking stories dealing with love, longing, and the ways children and adults connect in our modern age, and it adeptly imports the concerns of July’s visual art to the world of feature films,” Macaulay writes on the MoMA website. “July was selected by Filmmaker as one its 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2004, and the film was on the cover of the magazine’s Spring 2005 issue.”