this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

TASTE TALKS BROOKLYN: FOOD AND DRINK

Multiple locations in Brooklyn
September 12-14, free – $90
www.taste-talks.com

The Brooklyn culinary explosion continues with Taste Talks, three days of special meals, panel discussions, book signings, the Future Food Expo, and other food-related events featuring more than one hundred chefs and speakers, presented by Mario Batali and curated by Daniel Bowien of Mission Chinese. Below are only some of the highlights of this foodie feeding frenzy.

Friday, September 12
Mother of Pearl Dinner, with Island Creek oysters, wine-pairing cocktail hour, bread from Tartine, cheese from Cypress Grove Chevre, fluke with spicy coconut, pork sung, and cashews from Jamie Bissonnette of Toro and Coppa, fire-roasted tomato soup with sourdough and basil from Sean Rembold of Reynard, maltagliati with clams, butter beans, almonds, and sorrel from Camille Becerra of Navy, stuffed peppers with mussels, pancetta, and eggplant with Prosecco aioli and trout roe vinaigrette from Zahra Tangorra of Brucie, and tapioca pie with Concord grapes from Sarah Sanneh of Pies ‘n’ Thighs, Villain LLC, 50 North Third St., $90, 7:00

Saturday, September 13
Chicken and Waffles, brunch with specialty cocktail, Colossal Media, 85 Wythe Ave., $20, 10:00 am

Do Restaurant Reviews Matter? with Ruggy Joesten of Yelp, Sam Sifton of the New York Times, Sonia Kapadia of Taste Savant, Jocelyn Mangan of Open Table, and Carlo Mirarchi of Roberta’s, moderated by Adam Sachs, Kinfolk Studios, 90 Wythe Ave., $10, 10:30 am

Demo Lab: Tosi and Bowien Create Delicious from Dollar Store Ingredients, with Christina Tosi of Momofuku’s Milk Bar and Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese, Wythe Hotel Private Dining Room, $10, 3:00

Dinner Lab at Taste Talks Brooklyn, five-course menu by chef Eric Bolyard, with charred figs & smoked yellow tomato, ajo blanco & white anchovy, skate wing & charred corn, beef cheek & gilda, and ricotta & stone fruit, secret location, $90, 7:00

Saturday, September 13, and Sunday, September 14
Future Food Expo, with approximately twenty-four booths, including Legally Addictive, Ohneka Farms, SideChef, Sud de France, Poached, Little Boo Boo Bakery, Raaka Virgin Chocolate, and Farm to People, and Greenlight Bookstore signings by Gabrielle Hamilton, Jamie Bissonnette, Ivan Orkin, Sara Moulton, Sarah Zorn, and Dan Pashman on Saturday and Eli and Max Sussman on Sunday, Colossal Media, 85 Wythe Ave., free with advance RSVP, 12 noon – 6:00 pm

Sunday, September 14
All-Star BBQ, with porchetta “PRA Prow” tigelle from Action Bronson and Michael White of Osteria Morini, grilled blue whale oyster from Matt Rudofker of Ssam Bar, boar collar meat from Andy Ricker of Pok Pok, veggie burgers from Brooks Headley of Del Posto, grilled duck hearts from Ivan Orkin of Ivan Ramen, grilled chicken kebab from Max Sussman of the Cleveland and Eli Sussman of Mile End, pig head salad from David Santos of Louro and Jonathan Wu of Fung Tu, barbecue duck from Rob Newton of Wilma Jean and Oliver Strand, smoked char sui Long Island eel from Will Horowitz of Ducks Eatery, and Texas hot gut sausage from Daniel Delaney of Delaney BBQ, cash bar, East River State Park, $40, tasting periods from 1:00 to 4:00 and 5:00 to 8:00

NICK CAVE AT TOWN HALL: 20,000 DAYS ON EARTH

20,000 DAYS ON EARTH (Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard, 2013)
The Town Hall
123 West 43rd St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Presale September 5 at 12 noon, tickets on sale to general public September 6, 12 noon
Event takes place Saturday, September 20
www.thetownhall.org
www.nickcave.com

For more than forty years, Australian singer, songwriter, novelist, film composer, screenwriter, musician, lecturer, honorary doctor of laws, actor, and father Nick Cave has been a beguiling and intriguing figure in the entertainment world, leading such bands as the Birthday Party, the Bad Seeds, and Grinderman while imparting his outrageous views of contemporary society. “I am Nick Cave and there is no going back to what I was,” the tall, lanky Cave said at the BIGSOUND 2013 conference in Brisbane last year. “And on some level, I see that as being successful in my job and on the other hand sometimes it’s fucking exhausting.” Cave looks back at his life and career (he turns fiftyin the new film 20,000 Days on Earth, a mix of fiction and nonfiction, fantasy and reality from first-time directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, who specialize in cultural reenactments. Winner of the World Cinema Documentary editing and directing awards at Sundance, 20,000 Days on Earth opens at Film Forum on September 17, but there will be a very special screening at Town Hall on September 20, with Cave, who will turn fifty-seven two days later, participating in a Q&A with Forsyth and Pollard in which fans can send in questions in advance via Twitter (@drafthousefilms, #20000Days); the directors will also be making appearances at Film Forum opening weekend. In addition, Cave will be giving a very rare solo performance at the event. Tickets go on sale to Cave’s mailing list and website on September 5 at noon and to the general public September 6 at noon. It should be an amazing night with one of the world’s greatest, and strangest, entertainers.

ROCKS IN MY POCKETS

Signe Baumane examines her family history of suicide and depression in ROCKS IN MY POCKETS

ROCKS IN MY POCKETS: A CRAZY QUEST FOR SANITY (Signe Baumane, 2014)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Wednesday, September 3
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.rocksinmypocketsmovie.com

The recent suicide of Robin Williams shook the nation, once again pointing out that depression is no laughing matter. But Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based writer-director-producer-animator Signe Baumane takes a unique approach to depression and suicide in the darkly twisted animated film Rocks in My Pockets: A Crazy Quest for Sanity. Influenced by such animation giants as Jan Švankmajer and Bill Plympton in addition to Lithuanian-Polish illustrator Stasys Eidrigevicius and Russian animator Yuri Norstein, Baumane, a self-described “Master of Self Pity,” incorporates hand-drawn animation, papier-mâché constructions, and stop-motion animation in telling the story of her family’s long history of mental illness and suicide. Inspired by her own thoughts of ending it all, Baumane (Teat Beat of Sex), in her feature-length debut, divides the film into segments about her suicidal relatives. She narrates the tales of Indulis, an entrepreneur and failed counterfeiter with an “idea-generating brain”; Anna, a university graduate and secretary who falls in love with Indulis, her married boss; Miranda, who looks at the world as if everything were a work of art; Linda, a medical student with big dreams; Irbe, a lonely music teacher who hears voices in her head; and herself as they all experience various aspects of severe depression while facing the trials and tribulations of everyday life in a changing sociopolitical climate in Eastern Europe.

ROCKS IN MY POCKETS uses twisted humor to explore some very serious subjects

Despite the serious topics and events — and the regular appearance of nooses tempting the protagonists — Rocks in My Pockets is filled with clever jokes, imaginative visual puns, beautiful imagery, and a playful score by Kristian Sensini; Baumane refers to it as “a funny film about depression,” and that’s just what it is. The animated characters make their way through lush forests, across a real chess board, and past other colorful backgrounds as reality strikes them hard. The personal nature of the film is enhanced by Baumane’s own narration, in her thick Latvian accent. (Her mother attempted to talk her out of doing the narration, thinking it was a bad idea.) “I want to survive, but I don’t want to live,” Baumane says halfway through the film. “When my brain is idle, it starts eating itself.” Fearing that depression and suicide are part of her DNA, she’s unsure how she can get away from it — and prevent it from affecting future generations of her family. Winner of the International Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize at the 2014 Karlovy Vary Film Festival and financed in part by a Kickstarter campaign (where you can learn more about the making-of process), Rocks in My Pockets opens September 3 at the IFC Center, with Baumane taking part in Q&As following the 6:30 and 8:30 shows on Wednesday and Thursday, with more to be announced; in addition, original drawings from the film will be given away at select screenings.

SECOND OPINION: LAETRILE AT SLOAN-KETTERING

Science writer Dr. Ralph W. Moss tells the fascinating story of the battle over Laetrile in the 1970s in SECOND OPINION

SECOND OPINION (Eric Merola, 2014)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, August 29
212-529-6799
www.secondopinionfilm.com
www.cinemavillage.com

At the beginning of Eric Merola’s Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering, a 1970s news reporter says, “Dr. Robert Good, president of the Sloan Kettering Institute, one of the world’s biggest and richest cancer research centers, said Laetrile does not prevent cancer, nor cure cancer, nor stop cancer from spreading.” For the next seventy-five minutes, Ralph W. Moss, PhD, the public affairs science writer for the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center from 1974 to 1977, talks about what lay behind that statement and the furor that followed. He tells the captivating story of what went on behind the scenes as Laetrile, a form of amygdalin used in tumor treatment, was coveted by cancer patients but demonized by the medical establishment. The controversy over the drug, which was eventually banned in America, forced patients to go to Mexico in search of the palliative care medicine while the FDA, the National Cancer Institute, and several high-profile MSK doctors considered it to be quackery. MSK’s own top researcher, Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura, had exciting success treating mice with the drug, hopeful that the positive effects would be proven in humans as well. But when Dr. Good, MSK vice presidents Dr. Lloyd J. Old and Dr. Chester Stock, and MSKCC president Dr. Lewis Thomas decided that Laetrile was not the future of cancer treatment, despite what some of them had previously stated in public, Moss was confused and distressed. Others were as well; the documentary reveals that the political dimension of the debate eventually brought even the ultra-right-wing John Birch Society into the fray. Moss eventually became a whistleblower, writing numerous books on the subject, including The Cancer Industry, Cancer Therapy: The Independent Consumer’s Guide to Non-Toxic Treatment & Prevention, and the brand-new Doctored Results: The Suppression of Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, which spurred the documentary.

Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura’s research on Laetrile was eventually rejected by Sloan Kettering leadership

Writer, director, producer, and coeditor Merola (Burzynski) lets Moss share his tale while sitting in a chair in the middle of a room at the Aldrich House in Providence, an odd if somewhat comforting choice, supplemented by archival footage and brief comments from Moss’s wife, Martha, son, Ben, and daughter, Melissa, in addition to Dr. Alex Pruchnicki, the only medical professional to come out in support of Moss without being anonymous. Merola also often cuts between two cameras, one a disorienting shot that shows the subject from the side, as if he had to try something different since the film is mostly talking heads. It’s quite an amazing story, and one that continues today, as labs around the world test and question the effectiveness of Laetrile. But watching Second Opinion, it’s hard not to wonder just what might have happened had MSKCC allowed Dr. Sugiura’s research to go on and the government given the drug more of a chance. The film is playing at Cinema Village, with Merola and Dr. Moss participating in Q&As following several screenings over the weekend, concluding with the 3:10 showing on August 31.

THROUGH A LENS DARKLY: BLACK PHOTOGRAPHERS AND THE EMERGENCE OF A PEOPLE

Brothers Lyle Ashton Harris and Thomas Allen Harris collaborate on a photo of their cousin Peggy in THROUGH A LENS DARKLY

THROUGH A LENS DARKLY: BLACK PHOTOGRAPHERS AND THE EMERGENCE OF A PEOPLE (Thomas Allen Harris, 2014)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
August 27 – September 9
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.throughalensdarkly.wordpress.com

Thomas Allen Harris exposes the conflicting relationship between the public and private visual depiction of African Americans in the powerful, if overly idealistic and methodical, Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People. Inspired by Deborah Willis’s 2000 book, Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present, the documentary examines how black men, women, and children have been portrayed in advertising and the media and on postcards since the development of the camera and daguerreotypes, depicting them in negative, stereotyped ways as animals, criminals, and, most horrifically, victims of lynchings. Over the course of seven years, the Bronx-born Harris interviewed such photographers and scholars as Carrie Mae Weems, Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, Dawoud Bey, Coco Fusco, Chuck Stewart, and Lyle Ashton Harris (Harris’s brother), as well as Willis (one of the film’s producers) and her son, artist Hank Willis Thomas, exploring how blacks countered these distortions through family photos, where they not only controlled the image but the gaze itself. “How was, is, the photograph used in the battle between two legacies, self-affirmation and negation?” Harris (Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela, É Minha Cara/That’s My Face), the founder and president of Chimpanzee Productions, asks early in the film. “Our salvation as a people, as a culture, depends on salving the wounds of this war, a war of images within the American family album.” Harris and his many talking heads look at the importance of such black photographers as J. P. Ball, James Van Der Zee, Roy DeCarava, Vera Jackson, and Gordon Parks as well as such trailblazers as Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and W. E. B. Du Bois, who used the camera to their advantage when presenting themselves and their views to the public.

The documentary does get repetitive, and Harris’s personal story occasionally stops the compelling general narrative as he attempts to relate his family history to the bigger picture. But the film is worth seeing just for the amazing archival footage, a marvelous collection of black-and-white and color photographs that show how a people can reclaim their image and validate their culture in the face of extreme prejudice. Winner of the Social Justice Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and Best Diaspora Documentary at the tenth Africa Movie Academy Awards, Through a Lens Darkly is playing August 27 to September 9 at Film Forum, with special events scheduled to follow one screening per day for the first eleven days, including a Q&A with Thomas Allen Harris and producers Deborah Willis, Don Perry, and Ann Bennett on August 27 (7:20), a Salute to Harlem Photographers with Renee Cox, C. Danny Dawson, and John Pinderhughes, moderated by Moikgantsi Kgama, on August 29 (7:20), a Salute to Women Photographers with Willis and Coreen Simpson, moderated by Michaela Angela Davis, on August 30 (2:50), a Q&A with composer Vernon Reid on September 1 (2:50), and a Salute to Brooklyn Photographers with Delphine Fawundu-Buford, Russell Frederick, and Radcliffe Roye, moderated by Dawson, on September 6.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: RED EYE OF LOVE

RED EYE OF LOVE
Amas Musical Theatre at the Dicapo Opera Theatre
184 East 76th St. at Lexington Ave.
Tickets: $35-$45 August 27 – September 3, $35-$55 September 4-28 ($10 discount codes available here)
www.amasmusical.org

Billed as “a Girl-Meats-Boy Love Story,” Red Eye of Love is a new musical comedy about Selma Chargesse (Alli Mauzey), a woman who is forced to choose between materialistic meat store baron O. O. Martinas (Kevin Pariseau) and young idealist Wilmer (Josh Grisetti) in a fantastical New York City. Filled with double entendres that are likely to infuriate PETA — watch out for the dancing cows — the show is directed by Tony winner Ted Sperling (The Other Josh Cohen, The Light in the Piazza), with book and lyrics by the late Arnold Weinstein and John Wulp, based on Weinstein’s 1961 play, which earned Wulp an Obie as Best Director; the music is by Sam Davis. The costumes are by Martha Bromelmeier, with choreography by Lainie Sakakura and Alex Sanchez; the sets are by American artist Robert Indiana, from a 1998 revival of the play. The Amas Musical Theatre production also features Dylan Boyd, Katie Chung, Daniel Lynn Evans, Tracie Franklin, Katie Hagen, Daniel May, and Sam Tanabe. There are several special postshow talk backs scheduled, including “Conversation and Collaboration from Play to Libretto” on September 7, “Conversation and Collaboration from Libretto to Musical” on September 11, and “Further Conversation with Author John Wulp” on September 21.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: Previews for Red Eye of Love begin August 27 at the Dicapo Opera Theatre, with the opening set for September 2, and twi-ny has three pairs of tickets to give away for free for performances through September 28. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and favorite, or least favorite, meat food product to contest@twi-ny.com by Friday, August 29, at 12 noon to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.

LAST CHANCE TICKET ALERT: NEW YORK COMIC CON

Crowds keep getting bigger and bigger every year for New York Comic Con (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

NEW YORK COMIC CON / NEW YORK SUPER WEEK
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
655 West 34th St. (11th Ave. between 34th & 39th Sts.)
Thursday, October 9, $35, 12 noon – 7:00
Con continues through October 12; New York Super Week runs October 3-12
888-605-6059
www.newyorkcomiccon.com
www.newyorksuperweek.com

New York Comic Con continues to get more and more popular every year, with bigger and bigger guests and longer and longer lines. Tickets for the ninth annual event, running October 9-12 at the Javits Center, are already sold out for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and the organizers haven’t even announced the full slate of activities for any of the days. So your only chance for getting in will be to go on Thursday, when there will be appearances by such spotlight guests as Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad, Hollows series author Kim Harrison, and Kristian Nairn (Hodor) and Natalia Tena (Osha) of Game of Thrones and such featured guests as Jason David Frank of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Ben Templesmith, Bob McLeod, Dustin Nguyen, Jimmy Palmiotti, Peter David, Stuart Moore, and Terry Moore, and dozens of special guests as well. In conjunction with NYCC, New York Super Week runs October 3-12 at various locations throughout the city, consisting of related events, including a thirtieth anniversary screening of The Karate Kid at the 92nd St. Y with Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, and Martin Kove; metal monsters X Japan at Madison Square Garden; Neil Gaiman as the subject of host Ophira Eisenberg’s “Ask Me Another” live show at the Y; “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Sing-Along and Whedonverse Party” at Union Hall; “The First (and Probably Last) Annual New York Feline Film & Video Festival for Humans” at Galapagos Art Space; a “Dr. Who Trivia and Costume Contest” at the Way Station; “Cure You or Kill You: 19th Century Medical Science and Quackery” at the Museum of Morbid Anatomy; and “Rave of Thrones,” a DJ set by Nairn with special guests Zedd Stark and Trance Rayder at B. B. King’s.