this week in film and television

APOLLO AND THE ODYSSEY: THE SHARED ORBIT OF NASA’S LUNAR MISSION AND STANLEY KUBRICK’S 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

Online MoMI talk will explore relationship between the Apollo 11 lunar landing and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

Who: Todd Douglas Miller, Barry Miller, Bert Ulrich, Eric Hynes, Sonia Epstein
What: Illustrated online discussion
Where: Museum of the Moving Image online
When: Thursday, July 23, free with RSVP (suggested donation $10), 7:00
Why: In Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel The Shining, young Danny is seen riding his Big Wheel through the hallways of the Overlook Hotel wearing an Apollo 11 sweater. According to Rodney Ascher’s terrific documentary Room 237, that is only one piece of evidence confirming the conspiracy theory that Kubrick was involved in faking the footage of the moon landing. Look for that to come up in the Museum of the Moving Image program “Apollo and the Odyssey: The Shared Orbit of NASA’s Lunar Mission and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey,” which airs live online on July 23 at 7:00. Held in conjunction with the exhibition “Envisioning 2001: Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey,” which has been closed during the pandemic lockdown, the talk features Apollo 11 director Todd Douglas Miller, NASA chief historian Barry Miller, NASA multimedia liaison Bert Ulrich, MoMI curator Eric Hynes, and associate curator Sonia Epstein. Written by Kubrick and sci-fi legend Arthur C. Clarke, the mindbending 1968 film was a game changer; the discussion will include rare archival footage as it explores elements of the U.S. space program, which has added relevance as President Trump gets Space Force under way.

A CONVERSATION WITH DARA BIRNBAUM: SCREENING AND LIVE Q&A

Kiss the Girls: Make Them Cry (still), 1979. Dara Birnbaum (American, born 1946). Color video, sound; 6:50 min. Courtesy of the artist and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.

Dara Birnbaum, Kiss the Girls: Make Them Cry, still, color video, sound, 1979 (courtesy of the artist and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York)

Who: Dara Birnbaum, Alex Kitnick, Asad Raza, Marianna Simnett
What: Special streaming and live conversation with Q&A
Where: Marian Goodman Gallery Zoom
When: Thursday, July 23, free with registration, 2:00
Why: New York native Dara Birnbaum has been making video and installation art since the 1970s, at the cutting edge of the emerging discipline. On July 23, Marian Goodman Gallery will host a screening of the pioneer’s breakthrough five-minute 1978-79 video, Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman, which welcomed visitors to the contemporary galleries at the new MoMA prior to the pandemic lockdown (it was initially displayed in a SoHo storefront), and Kiss the Girls: Make Them Cry, a seven-minute video from 1979 in which Birnbaum uses clips from the popular Hollywood Squares game show to explore coded gestures, pop culture imagery, and gender representation. (The setup for the show is like a modern-day Zoom meeting come to life in three dimensions.) The screening will be followed by a live conversation and audience Q&A with Birnbaum, art historian Alex Kitnick, and artists Asad Raza and Marianna Simnett.

JODY SPERLING / TIME LAPSE DANCE: SINGLE USE

Jody Sperling dances on the Upper West Side in plastic bags in Single Use

Who: Jody Sperling, Jennifer Congdon
What: World premiere livestream from Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance
Where: Time Lapse Dance YouTube channel and Zoom
When: Wednesday, July 22, free with RSVP for Zoom talkback, 7:00
Why: Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance has been celebrating its twentieth anniversary season over twenty weeks during the pandemic, with online repertory works and new dances that you can view on its YouTube channel, including Turbulence, Book of Clouds, Wind Rose, and the quarantine dance Plastic Virus. Sperling continues the environmental theme with Single Use, which premieres on July 22 at 7:00. The nine-minute film is choreographed, performed, and edited by Sperling, with cinematography by Angela Hunter, costume by Lauren Gaston, and music by Matthew Burtner. As Single Use begins, Sperling, wearing a mask and gloves, is standing outside the Urban Outfitters store at Broadway and One Hundredth St.; signs in the window announce that March 20 was its last day in business. Sperling then drapes herself in plastic bags from numerous retail stores and dances around the neighborhood, embracing poles and hopping atop barriers, the swishing of the plastic bags in the wind accompanying her, along with the natural sounds of a nearly empty city. She looks like a homeless person or some lost plastic creature, seeking solace somewhere while taking risks and lamenting what we’ve done to the world.

The livestream will be followed by a Zoom talkback with Sperling and Jennifer Congdon, the development director of Beyond Plastics, a Bennington College-based organization whose “mission is to end plastic pollution by being a catalyst for change at every level of our society. We use our deep policy and advocacy expertise to build a well-informed, effective movement seeking to achieve the institutional, economic, and societal changes needed to save our planet, and ourselves, from the plastic pollution crisis.” Single Use will have you thinking not only about recycling but about how we can rejuvenate and revitalize New York City and the country in these challenging times. Time Lapse Dance’s twentieth anniversary continues July 29 with the online release of another new short film, along with a live chat, July 30 with an ecokinetics workshop, and August 6 with the online premiere of Ice Cycle, followed by a conversation with Sperling and Burtner.

CARMEN ARGOTE’S LAST LIGHT SCREENING AND Q&A

Carmen Argote goes for a haunting walk in new short film Last Light

Who: Carmen Argote, Erin Christovale
What: Livestream premiere and live Q&A
Where: The Hammer Museum at UCLA
When: Tuesday, July 21, free with RSVP, 9:00 EDT
Why: Mexican-born, LA-based multidisciplinary artist Carmen Argote was scheduled to open her latest exhibition, “Hand Dog Glove,” at Clockshop in Los Angeles, but the Covid-19 pandemic has put that on hold. In the interim, Argote, the gallery, and the Hammer Museum at UCLA have teamed up to present the livestream premiere of Argote’s haunting twelve-minute film, Last Light, which she started making just before the lockdown and continued during the crisis. “Is this fear so paralyzing?” she asks as she walks through the emptying streets of her city, considering ideas of loneliness, childhood, and demolition. “I feel like I’m not made to last; I’m not the one who’s gonna make it.” Argote, who was hospitalized early in the crisis for a non-cornonavirus-related illness, takes walks as part of her discipline. In her artist statement she explains, “I explore notions of home and place. I respond to architecture and site to reflect on personal histories and on my own immigrant experience. My practice uses the act of inhabiting as a starting point, working within a space and its cultural, economic, and personal context as a material. I work at a human scale and in relationship to how my body inhabits space.” The premiere will be livestreamed on July 21 at 9:00, followed by a Q&A with Argote and Hammer associate curator Erin Christovale. (Click on the above photo to watch the trailer.)

KAYE BALLARD — THE SHOW GOES ON!

kaye ballard

Who: Special guests
What: Livestream film premiere of Kaye Ballard — The Show Goes On! with bonuses before and after screening
Where: Facebook Live
When: Tuesday, July 14, free, 8:00
Why: In January 2019, the one and only Kaye Ballard passed away at the age of ninety-three. If you don’t know anything about her, you need to, and you can do so on July 14 when the documentary Kaye Ballard — The Show Goes On! makes its virtual premiere for free on Facebook Live. Ballard was a beloved singer, actress, and comedian perhaps best known for her many guest appearances on talk shows, game shows, and variety programs, from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (and Jack Paar) and The Mike Douglas Show to Hollywood Squares and The Perry Como Show; she also appeared on such sitcoms as The Mothers-in-Law, The Doris Day Show, and What a Dummy in addition to a bunch of films, burlesque and vaudeville, and more than two dozen stage shows, going back to 1946.

In Kaye Ballard — The Show Goes On!, director Dan Wingate speaks with Ann-Margret, Jerry Stiller, Carol Burnett, Harold Prince, Carol Channing, Michael Feinstein, Rex Reed, Joy Behar, Peter Marshall, and Ballard herself, who is seen in new interviews, classic archival footage, and clips from her 2017 one-woman show about her life. “I don’t know where I got it, I don’t know why it happened, but I think I’m lucky because I always knew what I wanted to do,” she says in the film. And now you can consider yourself lucky to discover the great Kaye Ballard either for the first time or all over again; the advance screening (the virtual release is set for July 17) will be preceded by a special introduction and followed by a surprise bonus.

OLYMPIA ONLINE PREMIERE AND Q&A

Olympia Dukakis looks back at her life and career in award-winning documentary

Who: Olympia Dukakis, Apollo Dukakis, Carey Perloff, Harry Mavromichalis, Sid Ganis, Anthoula Katsimatides
What: Livestream free premiere of Olympia (Harry Mavromichalis, 2019) followed by panel discussion
Where: Olympia Facebook page
When: Thursday, July 9, free with RSVP, 8:00 (opens virtually July 10)
Why: “Some people don’t know who the fuck I am,” San Francisco Pride parade celebrity grand marshal Olympia Dukakis says as she rides in a convertible in 2011, waving to the loud, large crowd lining the street. You’ll know just who the Oscar-winning actor is after watching Olympia, Harry Mavromichalis’s Maysles-esque documentary that has its online premiere July 9 at 8:00, followed by a Q&A with Dukakis, her brother Apollo Dukakis, writer-producer-director Mavromichalis, American Conservatory Theater artistic director emerita Carey Perloff, and executive producers Harry Sid Ganis and Anthoula Katsimatides. The film, which was shot mostly during the Obama administration and opens virtually July 10, reveals Dukakis, the star of such beloved hits as Moonstruck and Steel Magnolias and the breakthrough television series Tales of The City, to be a dynamic and imposing figure who holds nothing back as she discusses the movie business in Hollywood and the theater community in New York, shares intimate details about her sexual desires, suicidal thoughts, and drug addiction, and travels to her ancestral home in Lesbos, Greece, to reconnect with her past.

Former modern dancer Mavromichalis balances wonderful home movies and family pictures with clips from throughout Dukakis’s career, photos from her stage work, primarily with her Montclair, New Jersey–based Whole Theatre company, and words of praise from Whoopi Goldberg, Laura Linney, Diane Ladd, Rocco Sisto, Lynn Cohen, Lainie Kazan, Austin Pendleton, Ed Asner, Armistead Maupin, and her cousin, former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. She and her husband of more than fifty years, actor Louis Zorich, speak extremely openly and honestly about their marriage, she explores her relationship with her mother, and she spends time with her children and grandchildren. Dukakis, who turned eighty-nine last month, is direct and forthright, displaying a rebellious and independent spirit along with a touching vulnerability, an intense social conscience, and a resolute sense of female empowerment that still drives her even as she tackles modern technology, specifically Siri, which presents a few challenges. She’s one tough character who has never been afraid to say what she thinks; she’s also a supremely talented actor who shines on stage and screen, including in this lively and affectionate documentary.

NETFLIX’S UNORTHODOX: ANNA WINGER, SHIRA HAAS, AND AMIT RAHAV IN CONVERSATION WITH DAVID CANFIELD

Breakout Unorthodox star Shira Haas will participate in 92Y Q&A on July 7

Who: Anna Winger, Shira Haas, Amit Rahav, David Canfield
What: Live Q&A with cocreator and costars of Unorthodox series
Where: 92Y online
When: Tuesday, July 7, free, 5:00
Why: One of the runaway television hits of the pandemic has been Netflix’s Unorthodox, about a young married Orthodox woman in Brooklyn who runs away to Berlin to escape the suffocating life she is trapped in. The four-part series has led to the breakout success of Israeli actress Shira Haas, who has a smaller but critically significant role in the earlier Israeli series Shtisel, which also involves Orthodox marriage. On July 7 at 5:00, Haas, who stars as Esty Shapiro in Unorthodox, will be joined by Amit Rahav, who plays her husband, Yanky, and showrunner Anna Winger for a free live online discussion with Entertainment Weekly’s David Canfield as part of the online partnership between EW and the 92nd Street Y.