Wangechi Mutu, still from “The End of eating Everything,” animated video, color, sound, 8 min., 2013 (courtesy of the artist / © Wangechi Mutu)
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, December 7, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org
The December edition of the Brooklyn Museum’s free First Saturdays program takes a look at Brooklyn-based Kenyan visual artist Wangechi Mutu in conjunction with the midcareer survey “Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey.” The evening will include a curator talk by Saisha Grayson on the Mutu show, an arts workshop demonstrating how to make Mutu-inspired collages, pop-up gallery talks, an artist talk by Nigerian-born Njideka Akunyili, a screening of Arthur Jafa and Kahlil Joseph’s 2013 documentary Dreams Are Colder Than Death about being black in America, live music by Pegasus Warning and Rebellum, a spoken-word performance by Saul Williams, and book club readings by Kiini Ibura Salaam and Bridgett M. Davis, followed by a discussion examining their work in the context of Mutu’s art, moderated by Tayari Jones and presented by Bold as Love magazine. In addition, the galleries will be open late, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to check out “War / Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath,” “Twice Militant: Lorraine Hansberry’s Letters to ‘The Ladder,’” “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt,” “Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas,” “Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn,” “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk,” and other exhibits.
Robert Altman’s self-described “anti-Western” starts off gently enough, as John McCabe (Warren Beatty) rides slowly into a dark, dank northwestern town in 1902, Leonard Cohen’s “The Stranger Song” playing over the opening credits. But Altman (M*A*S*H, Nashville) is merely setting the stage for what is to come, the electric combination of Julie Christie and Beatty as two businesspeople building a new town in the Old West. Beatty plays gentleman gambler John McCabe, who is soon joined by madam Constance Miller (Christie) in running the local brothel, and pretty much the town itself, which catches the eye of a mining company that decides it wants in on the action, something McCabe and Mrs. Miller are not about to let happen, at least not without one helluva fight. Filmed mostly in sequential order, McCabe & Mrs. Miller unfolds like an epic poem, thanks to Altman and cowriter Brian McKay’s imaginative and unpredictable script, based on Edmund Naughton’s 1959 novel, McCabe, and Vilmos Zsigmond’s gorgeous cinematography. The film is visually spectacular, as Altman cuts from the dreamlike red velvet interiors of Mrs. Miller’s brothel to the expansive land outside, bathed in the beautiful yet ominous falling snow. The Oscar-nominated Christie and Beatty do the love-hate thing to perfection, something they would duplicate in 1975 when they teamed up in Hal Ashby’s Shampoo and again in 1978 in Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait. A clear influence on such Clint Eastwood gems as High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider, McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a marvelous picture that ranks right up there with the best Westerns — “anti-“ or otherwise — ever made. The stellar cast also includes Rene Auberjonois, Michael Murphy, Bert Remsen, Shelley Duvall, Keith Carradine, William Devane, and John Schuck, with Cohen contributing several more songs to the soundtrack. And the ending — well, it’s one of cinema’s most unforgettable finales. McCabe & Mrs. Miller is screening December 7 & 8 at 11:30 am as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s “Country Brunchin’” series and will be preceded by a live performance by Brooklyn’s own 
A cofounder of the riot grrrl movement, Kathleen Hanna was an outspoken feminist as she toured the world with Bikini Kill and then 
