Fritz Lang's futuristic classic is part of special Queens series
MOVING IMAGE MASTERPIECES: METROPOLIS (Fritz Lang, 1927)
Queens Theatre in the Park
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, New York State Pavilion
Thursday, October 8, 7:00
Tickets: $10
718-760-0064
http://www.queenstheatre.org
Fritz Lang’s staggering achievement is frightfully more relevant than ever these days, with America suffering an economic meltdown and capitalism on the run. In a brilliantly realized futuristic society, Lang pits workers against owners, man against machine, and father against son amid towering stage sets and dazzling special effects. Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel) wants his son, Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), to follow him and run the city, but after meeting Maria (Brigitte Helm), Freder soon understands the plight of the lower classes, setting in motion a battle for control and a fight for freedom. In 1984, Giorgio Moroder famously added a modern soundtrack to a shortened version of the film; here, pianist Ben Model will play live accompaniment to the longer, restored version of METROPOLIS. If you’ve never seen this majestic work, this is a great opportunity.
In 2003, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno revealed their unique form of anti-corporate performance art with THE YES MEN, a documentary in which they go to elaborate lengths to pose as spokespersons for major international companies, making ridiculous announcements that are often taken for fact at conventions and press conferences around the world. Bichlbaum and Bonanno are back fighting corporate crime in THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD, employing what they refer to as identity correction to bring to light wrongs perpetrated on the public by Exxon, HUD, Halliburton, and Dow. They often start by creating fake Web sites that ultimately get them invited to speak at conferences and on business-related television shows, where they make statements and announce new products and programs that are both absurd and revelatory, especially when they apologize for companies that care more about profits than people. The Yes Men have elements of Sascha Baron Cohen’s Borat character, only better dressed and with less bathroom humor, making important points about the state of the world. THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD was the closing-night selection of this year’s Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and will be followed by a reception.
We love this flick. Takashi Miike incorporates claymation and musicals into this terrific tale of the Katakuris, a family that moves to the middle of nowhere to run a country inn. The only problem is that when guests finally arrive, they all end up dead — in bizarre, ridiculous ways — and the father decides to bury them instead of reporting the incidents, in order to protect the inn. Miike (ICHI THE KILLER, AUDITION, THE GREAT YOKAI WAR) masterfully mixes comedy, romance, music, murder, and mayhem in this enormously entertaining and highly original movie that is filled with a never-ending bag of surprises. Don’t miss it. These screenings are part of the 92Y Tribeca’s Takashi Miike series, which includes AUDITION on October 16 and ICHI THE KILLER on October 23 and 29. 
Expanded from his six-minute short, ALIVE IN JOBURG, Neill Blomkamp’s heavily hyped DISTRICT 9 is a sci-fi tale that incorporates elements from numerous genre classics (and clunkers) to create a tense, entertaining thriller that is not quite the cinematic breakthrough many are claiming it is. Sharlto Copley stars as Wikus van der Merwe, an awkward government bureaucrat in charge of moving a ghetto of nearly two million aliens out of one fenced-in area and into another. But the task is far more difficult and dangerous than he anticipated, and after discovering a makeshift lab under alien Christopher Johnson’s (Jason Cope) shack, Wikus is accidentally sprayed with a chemical that starts changing him. Soon he is on the run from the government, which wants to experiment on him, and the crazed leader of a Blackwater-like private military organization headed by the villainous Koobus (David James). Meanwhile, the aliens’ spaceship hovers ominously over Johannesburg. A parable that evokes apartheid in South Africa (the film was shot in and around Soweto) as well as the violence along the Mexico-America border and other xenophobic hotspots, D-9 has plot holes you can launch a rocket through, and the final scenes spiral way out of control, but it’s still a strong debut by an up-and-coming filmmaker being mentored by Peter Jackson.