The Museum of the Moving Image will celebrate its grand reopening this weekend with a full slate of multidisciplinary events (vuwstudio.com / Museum of the Moving Image)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Admission: $10 (free Fridays 4:00 – 8:00), film screenings $15
Free Family Day: Monday, January 17, 10:30 am – 5:00 pm
718-777-6888
www.movingimage.us
Following a $67 million expansion overseen by architect Thomas Leeser that has doubled its size to nearly 100,000 square feet, the Museum of the Moving Image will celebrate its grand reopening this weekend with three days of film screenings, interactive exhibitions, a multimedia dance party, and much more. The Astoria institution, which is dedicated to the past, present, and future of international cinema, will get things under way with a family matinee of DUCK SOUP (Leo McCarey, 1933) on Saturday at 12:30, the inaugural Signal to Noise party Saturday night at 8:00 (with performances by Nick Yulman, Martha Colburn, Bit Shifter, Nullsleep, Project Jenny, Scott Draves and the Electric Sheep, and others), the Indian Cinema Showcase feature MUMBAI DIARIES (DHOBI GHAT) (Kiran Rao, 2010) Sunday at 7:00, and a full slate of activities on Monday: a digital 3-D screening of CORALINE (Henry Selick, 2009) at 1:00, a screening of the 1970 documentary KING: A FILM RECORD… MONTGOMERY TO MEMPHIS introduced by associate producer Richard Kaplan at 3:00, and a special presentation of THE KING’S SPEECH (Tom Hooper, 2010) at 7:00, followed by a discussion with stars Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Claire Bloom, and Helena Bonham Carter.
“Chiho Aoshima: City Glow” will help light up revamped museum (courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles. © 2005 Chiho Aoshima/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd.)
The museum has a history of putting on splendid exhibitions, and the initial ones in the newly revamped space include Colburn’s film installation “Dolls vs. Dictators” through April 10; “Real Virtuality” through June 12, with works by Thomas Soetens, Paul Kaiser, Pablo Valbuena, Bill Viola, Cao Fei, and Marco Brambilla; the large-scale video “Chiho Aoshima: City Glow” through July 17; and the reinstalled “Behind the Screen” from the permanent collection, which is always a thrill. There will also be several film series kicking off in the next week, starting with “Rediscovered Treasures: Great Films from World Archives,” which runs January 15 through February 20 and begins this weekend with a a restored 70mm print of PLAY TIME (Jacques Tati, 1967), the world premiere of a restored print of THE HUSTLER (Robert Rossen, 1961), 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), and the live event screening “Magic, Music and Early Movies: Georges Méliès and Sxip Shirey.” “Avant-Garde Masters” runs January 15 through February 19, beginning Saturday and Sunday with “8MM Films by George and Mike Kuchar.” And from January 19 through February 6 the museum will honor David O. Russell with screenings of THE FIGHTER (2010), SPANKING THE MONKEY (1994), FLIRTING WITH DISASTER (1996), THREE KINGS (1999), and the underrated I HEART HUCKABEE (2004). The Museum of the Moving Image is one of those New York City treasures that you should be going back to over and over again. We know we will be. (And as added encouragement, admission is free all day Monday, January 17.)
After making METHADONIA, which was selected for the 2005 New York Film Festival, Emmy Award-winning documentarian Michel Negroponte (JUPITER’S WIFE) did not want to make another movie about drug addiction. But when he was introduced to the intriguing story of Dimitri Mugianis, ibogaine, and West African shamanism, he couldn’t help himself. Leader of the hardcore band Leisure Class, Mugianis had gotten off heroin by using ibogaine, an experimental, natural hallucinogen that is illegal in the United States. Mugianis was so impressed with the treatment that he immediately became part of the underground network that dispenses the drug, helping others detox much the same way he did. Negroponte follows Mugianis as he treats patients in Mexico and Canada, even taking the hallucinogen himself so he can experience its mind-altering effects (and add a groovy dream sequence to the film). And when one treatment goes terribly wrong, Mugianis starts questioning his mission and heads to Gabon to meet with Bwiti shamans and learn more about ibogaine and its unique properties. Mugianis is a compelling subject: open, honest, and strong, he dominates the screen, holding nothing back as he wonders whether he has merely replaced one addiction with another. Negroponte’s droll, often humorous narration counterbalances Mugianis’s determined, aggressive manner. The director avoids talking-head experts, instead letting the compelling story play out on its own, taking him and the audience on a very different journey than he first imagined. I’M DANGEROUS WITH LOVE, named after a Leisure Class song, is a passionate look at addiction, rehabilitation, and one man’s intense dedication to help others. The film opens January 12 at the IFC Center, with Negroponte on hand for the 8:20 screenings tonight and tomorrow.
South Korea’s submission for the 2010 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, A BAREFOOT DREAM is an alternately heartbreaking and heartwarming tale of hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Inspired by the true story of Korean soccer player Kim Shin-hwan, Kim Tae-kyun’s (CROSSING, HIGANJIMA) film follows the broke and broken Kim Won-kwang (Park Hee-soon) as he heads to East Timor in Indonesia to try to make something of his failing life. Urged to immediately return to Korea by Ambassador Park (Go Chang-seok) because of the many dangers and lack of opportunity in the first independent nation of the twenty-first century, he instead opens up a sports store after seeing a group of kids playing soccer in their bare feet. He talks them into leasing counterfeit Nike cleats from him for a dollar a day, not understanding how truly poor they are, but soon finds himself coaching them against a rival team, building their confidence as they dream of playing in an international competition in Japan, their only ray of light in an existence mired in poverty and civil war. Firmly rooted in the tradition of such sports movies as RUDY (David Anspaugh, 1993), BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM (Gurinder Chadha, 2002), HOOSIERS (David Anspaugh, 1986), and THE BAD NEWS BEARS (Michael Ritchie, 1976), A BAREFOOT DREAM is a charming picture despite its many clichés and predictability, lifted by Park Hee-soon’s sweetly innocent lead performance and some fine turns by the kids (particularly Francisco Varela as Ramos and Junior da Costa as Tua), some of whom were actual members of Kim Shin-hwan’s team. The film is being screened on January 11 as part of Korean Movie Night’s free Sports Films! series, presented at Tribeca Cinemas by the Korean Cultural Service and Subway Cinema, with director Kim Tae-kyun on hand to discuss it. The series continues January 25 with TAKE OFF (Muju, 2009), February 8 with LIFTING KING KONG (Park Geon-yong, 2009), and February 22 with FOREVER THE MOMENT (Lim Soon-rye, 2008).
Born in Parma in 1919, Angiolino Giuseppe Pascal Ventura began his unexpected film career after suffering an injury as a Greco-Roman wrestler, becoming a close friend of Jean Gabin’s and quickly establishing himself as one of the great character actors in French gangster pictures, appearing in more than seventy-five movies before his death in 1987. Over his career, he worked with such stars as Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Annie Girardot, Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Danielle Darrieux and for such directors as Jacques Becker, Julien Duvivier, William Dieterle, Vittorio de Sica, Claude Lelouch, and Terence Young. FIAF will be paying tribute to the cool-as-a-cucumber actor with a two-brief three-week, six-film festival that begins January 11 with ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS (Louis Malle, 1957) and ARMY OF SHADOWS (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969) and continues January 18 with THE BIG RISK (Claude Sautet, 1960) and SECOND BREATH (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1966) and January 25 with MONSIEUR GANGSTER (Georges Lautner, 1963) and THE GRILLING (Claude Miller, 1981).
