this week in film and television

MASTER CLASS: STEVE JAMES — AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR

AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR is part of Steve James retrospective at the Maysles Institute

AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR (Steve James & Peter Gilbert, 2008)
Maysles Institute
343 Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
Thursday, August 4, $10, 7:30
212-582-6050
www.mayslesinstitute.org

For more than fifteen years, Pastor Carroll Pickett served as death-row chaplain for nearly one hundred inmates at the Walls prison in Huntsville, Texas. The soft-spoken man of God would spend the last eighteen hours of each condemned man’s life with him, offering prayer, confession, and, in some cases, a hand to hold. Documentarians Steve James and Peter Gilbert, who teamed up on the Oscar-nominated Hoop Dreams in 1994, follow Pickett as he tells his compelling story with deep emotion and remarkable insight. We see Pickett as he listens to old cassettes he recorded after each execution, talking about his own complicated feelings about his job — something he never shared with his family or parish. He discusses how his personal thoughts about capital punishment changed after the 1989 execution of Carlos De Luna, a young man who claimed he was innocent — and Pickett believed him but never spoke out about it. The film often switches to investigative reporters Steve Mills and Maury Possley of the Chicago Tribune as they research a story about De Luna’s innocence, speaking primarily with one of his sisters, Rose Rhoton, who is ashamed that she didn’t do more to save her brother’s life. But what is clear is that such miscarriages of justice are not any one person’s fault but the result of a severely broken system. James and Gilbert stay out of the way of the story; they do not hit viewers over the head with facts and numbers, they include no third-person narration or random talking heads, and they avoid the expected confrontations over this extremely controversial issue. Even Leo Sidran’s score is even-handed and sensitive. At the Death House Door is a fascinating examination of the death penalty, seen through the eyes of someone who has experienced it in a very personal, powerful way. The film is screening August 4 at the Maysles Institute as part of the Master Class: Steve James series curated by Sylvia Savadjian, which concludes August 5-11 with James’s latest, The Interrupters, which follows an organized group of former gang members trying to stop the violence in Chicago.

TICKET GIVEAWAY — ROOFTOP FILMS: DANGEROUS DOCS AND WHISKER WARS

SATAN SINCE 2003 is on the bill at Rooftop Films' night of dangerous documentaries

Crown Vic backyard
60 South Second St. at Wythe Ave.
Thursday, August 4, $10, 8:00
www.rooftopfilms.com

All summer long, Rooftop Films presents unusual, genre-bending independent shorts and features in wickedly cool outdoor locations, turning each event into a party. On Thursday, August 4, in the Crown Vic backyard in Williamsburg, they are hosting one of their craziest, “Dangerous Docs and Whisker Wars,” consisting of a half dozen documentaries that examine some pretty strange, offbeat characters, including former women’s professional wrestling champion Irma Gonzalez (Charles Fairbanks’s Irma), a group of dudes competing in the National Beard and Mustache Championship (Thom Beers’s Whisker Wars), the Hell’s Satans of Richmond, Virginia (Carlos Puga’s Satan Since 2003), the Guess Who’s Burton Cummings (Matthew Rankin’s Negativipeg), Polish mountain climber Piotr “Mad” Korczak (Marcin Koszałka’s Declaration of Immortality), and, well, the title says it all: the Zellner Bros.’ Sasquatch Birth Journal 2. The evening begins with live music from bicoastal acoustic folk rocker Elle King at 8:30 and is followed by an after-party at the Crown Vic.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: This Week in New York has three pairs of tickets to to give away for free for what should be a wild and crazy night. To be eligible to win, just send your name and daytime phone number to contest@twi-ny.com by Wednesday, August 3, at 12 noon. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.

BODIES, BORDERS, CROSSINGS: PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO ART FROM FINLAND

Governors Island
Building 110, lower level
Free ferry from Battery Maritime Building
Sunday, July 31, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.govisland.com
www.ficultureny.org
governors island slideshow

Today is the last day to see the excellent exhibit “Bodies, Borders, Crossings: Photography and Video Art from Finland” on Governors Island before it goes on the road to other countries. Organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York and curated by Leena-Maija Rossi, professor of gender studies at the University of Helsinki, and artist and photographer Kari Soinio, the multimedia show is located in the dark, mysterious lower level of Room 110, with the videos and photographs glowing in Jesse Auersalo’s installation design. Featuring the work of eleven artists, the exhibition examines personal and cultural identity amid geographic, psychological, and physical boundaries. The centerpiece is Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts’s Eight Rooms, a circular eight-panel video in which an older lady goes from room to room, making the beds, throwing out the trash, and looking out the window, dreaming of a better life than the one in which she cleans up after men who have had their way with poor women who have become sex slaves through human trafficking. Riikka Kuoppala’s mesmerizing short film Visitor in My Body follows a young girl as she goes into the attic of the filmmaker’s memory, exploring a critical moment in her past. Childhood identity is also the subject of Marja Pirilä’s photographic series “I am” and Raakel Kuukka’s video triptych Childhood Rooms – Dreams and photograph “Rebekka at Muhniemi.” Minna Suoniemi’s Miss Kong consists of extreme close-ups of a woman’s body as she jumps rope, but since her figure is not quite what society generally considers beautiful and slender, it takes on added meaning. The exhibition also includes Jaakko Heikkilä’s photographs of minority communities, Elena Näsänen’s feminist ecological film Wasteland, Hannele Rantala’s “Blue Scarf” photo series of the same woman at various locations around the world, and Catarina Ryöppy’s “Being Misplaced” photos of two very different children.

There’s much more to see and do on Governors Island this summer. “Mark di Suvero at Governors Island” features several of the New York sculptor’s large-scale sculptures scattered around the area; you can immerse yourself in Victoria Vesna and James Gimzewski’s “Blue Morph” interactive multimedia butterfly installation, part of the New York Electronic Art Festival; Mary Mattingly’s “The Investigation, Constitution, and Formation of Flock House” details the construction of a unique urban environment; you can play fourteen holes of miniature golf as part of the annual Figment art presentation, which also includes a bunch of cool environmentally conscious works; “Intersections” consists of works by the Sculptors Guild; “Collage Logic” highlights mixed media pieces; you can fly through the air with the greatest of ease at the Big Apple Circus’s Trapeze School; the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council is sponsoring open artist studios and building tours; galleryELL is presenting “Transient Landscape”: the Children’s Museum of Manhattan is hosting art workshops; Isabelle Garbani’s “Knit for Trees” creative reuse of plastic shopping bags; Cause Collective and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art have teamed up for “The Truth is I am you”; as well as upcoming live concerts, a Civil War weekend, a VW Traffic Jam, bocce, park ranger programs, and much, much more.

COWBOYS & ALIENS

Indiana Jones / Han Solo goes toe-to-toe with James Bond in COWBOYS & ALIENS

COWBOYS & ALIENS (Jon Favreau, 2011)
Opens Friday, July 29
www.cowboysandaliensmovie.com

Liberally adapted from Scott Mitchell Rosenberg’s 2006 graphic novel, Cowboys & Aliens is a summer popcorn slice-and-dice mash-up of just about every Western and sci-fi flick you’ve ever seen. Boasting the producing talents of Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Steven Spielberg, Jon Favreau (who also directed), and others, the film pays tribute to its match-made-in-heaven dueling genres with references to such classic tales as The Searchers, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Unforgiven, Aliens, Blazing Saddles, War of the Worlds, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Stagecoach, Star Trek, The Magnificent Seven, Avatar, High Plains Drifter, Blade Runner, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Predator, True Grit, The Poseidon Adventure, and many more. Heck, they even throw in some zombies for good measure. In the dry, hot desert shortly after the Civil War, a stranger (Daniel Craig) with amnesia arrives in the small town of Absolution, sporting a six-shooter and a weird bracelet manacled to his left arm. Soon identified as wanted outlaw Jake Lonergan, he gets himself into trouble with Percy (Paul Dano), the bully son of wealthy cattle baron Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). But before Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine) can turn over Jake and Percy to the federal marshals, a massive attack comes down from the sky as flying machines start blowing everything up and stealing many of the town’s residents, including María (Ana de la Reguera), wife of the weak-willed Doc (Sam Rockwell), and Percy. So sworn enemies are forced to band together, along with the mysterious Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde), to figure out just how they can get their loved ones back. Sure, the meandering plot gets unhinged time and time again — it’s never a good sign when half a dozen writers are attached to the story and screenplay — and the film lacks any James Bond–like, Han Solo/Indiana Jones–esque catchphrases, but Favreau (Elf, Iron Man) manages to hold it all together just enough to make Cowboys & Aliens a fun, out-of-this-world oater, even if it should have been better.

THE INTERRUPTERS

Former gang members try to stop the violence on the streets of Chicago in THE INTERRUPTERS

THE INTERRUPTERS (Steve James, 2011)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, July 29
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.interrupters.kartemquin.com

For The Interrupters, director, producer, and editor Steve James (Hoop Dreams, At the Death House Door) teamed up with journalist Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here) to hit the dangerous inner-city streets of Chicago with the men and women of CeaseFire, a grass-roots organization of former gang members who are now trying to stop the violence. Inspired by Kotlowitz’s New York Times Magazine article, the two men concentrate on three primary stories. Ameena Matthews, the Muslim daughter of notorious gang leader Jeff Fort, is working with a deeply troubled young woman who’d rather fight than flee, even if it means being sent back to prison. Cobe Williams has his hands full with the angry, recently released Flamo, who thinks the whole world is against him. And Eddie Bocanegra is attempting to come to grips with a cold-blooded revenge murder he committed when he was a teenager by visiting schools and talking about turning his life around. One of the most poignant moments of the film occurs when Williams brings Lil Mikey back to the barbershop he and several of his cohorts robbed at gunpoint as he again faces some of his victims. Matthews, Williams, and Bocanegra are paid employees of CeaseFire, which was founded by Dr. Gary Slutkin, an epidemiologist who believes that violence is a disease that can be treated in similar ways, and is run by Tio Hardman, who handles his extremely tough task with intelligence and dignity as he deals with what he calls “the madness.” But in a society in which “words’ll get you killed,” as Matthews says early on, these tireless violence interrupters put their own lives on the line every day, battling a sickness that seems to have no end in sight. The award-winning film, a hit at numerous film festivals, felt a bit long at its original 144 minutes, but James has since edited it down to a more streamlined 124 minutes for its theatrical release, which begins July 29 at the IFC Center. James, Kotlowitz, Williams, and coproducer Zak Piper will be on hand for several opening-weekend screenings to talk about the film and CeaseFire. In conjunction with the release of The Interrupters, the Maysles Institute is hosting “Master Class: Steve James,” curated by Sylvia Savadjian, which continues with screenings of Hoop Dreams on July 29, At the Death House Door on August 4, and then The Interrupters August 5-11.

SLEEP FURIOUSLY

Nothing much happens in SLEEP FURIOUSLY except real life

SLEEP FURIOUSLY (Gideon Koppel, 2008)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, July 29
212-924-3363
www.cinemavillage.com
www.fandor.com

Gideon Koppel’s achingly beautiful, gorgeously photographed Sleep Furiously seems to take place in a land that time forgot. The Liverpool-raised Koppel and his small crew spent eight months in the rural farming community of Trefeurig in Wales, where his German-Jewish refugee parents lived for many years. Inspired by Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, which was set not far from Trefeurig, Koppel props up his camera and just lets things happen; there is no linear narrative, and he has adamantly claimed that the film is about nothing. Of course, that’s not quite true. It’s about real life, happening at its own pace. Children learn music in school. Tractors lift bales of hay. People bid at a sheep auction. A woman prepares the church for mass. Calves and piglets are born. A man reads poetry by the side of the road. Koppel’s mother brings her dog to the vet. And at the center of it all, John Jones drives his library van through town once a month, talking about literature and sharing books with the eager community. Koppel rarely moves the camera, letting the action direct itself, using natural light and sound and a glittering minimalist soundtrack by Aphex Twin as humans and animals saunter in and out of the frame. Filmed at the pace of real life, Sleep Furiously, which got its title from the Noam Chomsky quote “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously,” does not worship the past by condemning modernity and abhorring technological advances. It merely is (although its politics are inherent). It’s about nothing, and it’s about everything. But most of all, it’s about everyday existence and the truth. In conjunction with the theatrical release of Sleep Furiously, fandor is showing for free Koppel’s 2005 work A Sketchbook for the Library Van, a charming hour-long documentary that focuses on Jones and his traveling bookmobile and also features members of the community telling stories about their life in Trefeurig.

THE FUTURE

Sophie (Miranda July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) worry about what comes next in THE FUTURE

THE FUTURE (Miranda July, 2011)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, July 29
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.thefuturethefuture.com
eleven heavy things in union square park 2010

Multimedia performance artist and indie darling Miranda July scored a major breakthrough with her 2005 cinematic debut, the utterly charming romantic comedy Me and You and Everyone We Know. While her follow-up, The Future, lacks many of the endearing qualities that made her first film such a success, it is still a quirky, beguiling drama that offers a breath of fresh air from the usual summer movie doldrums — er, blockbusters. July stars as Sophie, a children’s dance teacher living with Jason (Hamish Linklater), a work-at-home IT dude. The slackers spend their time sitting on the couch, both on their laptops, having offbeat conversations and pretending they can stop time. But when they are told that the sick cat they want to adopt won’t be well enough to leave the veterinary hospital for another month, they decide that this will be their last thirty days of freedom, thinking that the arrival of the feline will confer upon them the responsibilities of adulthood they have been so good at avoiding up to now. Given this last bastion of hope, they quit their jobs to pursue their dreams: Jason starts going door-to-door selling trees, while Sophie sets out to perform a dance a day and post them on YouTube. No, this oddball, somewhat freakish couple doesn’t exactly dream big. And, of course, their idea of freedom doesn’t turn out to be exactly what they had hoped. The Future veers off in way too many directions, some good, some bad, but it is held together by July’s bright eyes and lanky, comedic body even as she explores the horrors of mainstream suburban living. As with much of her performance art, she challenges the audience to stay with her as she defies standard narrative and turns to the surreal, including a talking moon. The film is nearly stolen by Joe Putterlik, an elderly man whom Jason meets through a Pennysaver ad for a three-dollar used hair dryer; Putterlik, who also is the voice of the moon, was actually discovered by July through a Pennysaver ad, and much of his dialogue is improvised and set in his own apartment as he talks about his real life. Sadly, he died immediately after shooting was concluded. The film is narrated by the ill cat, Paw Paw (voiced by July in a creepy monotone), who dreams of her own freedom, wanting desperately to get out of her cage and be taken in by people who will love her. And after all, isn’t that what we all want? As an added treat, the California-based July, who installed the fun installation “Eleven Heavy Things” in Union Square Park last year and has also written the terrific short-story collection No one belongs here more than you, will be at the IFC Center for the 6:10 and 8:20 screenings on July 29 & 30.