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

BICARBONATE OF BUKOWSKI TRIBUTE READING

Bukowski fans can welcome the new year at annual memorial tribute reading at Cornelia Street Cafe

Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia St. between West Fourth & Bleecker Sts.
Friday, January 3, $8 (includes free drink), 6:00 – 8:00
212-989-9319
www.corneliastreetcafe.com

We’re not sure we’ve ever felt like Charles Bukowski probably felt after a New Year’s Eve bender, but we can’t think of a much better way to prepare for the next twelve months than at the fifth annual Charles Bukowski Memorial Reading at the Cornelia Street Cafe. On January 3, a diverse group of fans will descend on the West Village institution and read works by, about, and inspired by the author of such books as Factotum, Barfly, Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window, Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts, and Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit. Hosted by Kat Georges of Three Rooms Press, the evening includes poetry readings and performances by Mike Daisey, Peter Carlaftes, Angelo Verga, Richard Vetere, Michael Puzzo, Puma Perl, and Georges, videos of Bukowski, prizes, book and CD giveaways, and, appropriately, one free drink with admission. Also appropriately, a post on the bukowski.net forum noted in the past that this is “an event that would have made Bukowski wretch.” And if you want to read your own favorite piece by Bukowski or inspired by him, you can sign up to participate as well, but you need to get there before six.

THE 40th ANNUAL NEW YEAR’S DAY MARATHON BENEFIT READING

The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church
131 East 10th St. at Second Ave.
Wednesday, January 1, $20, 2:00 pm – 12 midnight
www.poetryproject.org

Every January 1, New Yorkers flock to the Poetry Project at St. Marks Church for the annual poetry marathon, consisting of readings by the famous and not-so-famous, poets and performance artists, journalists and musicians, welcoming in the new year while also raising funds for the nonprofit literary organization. This year’s marathon will include a raffle, a three-hour prime-time spot emceed by Sean Cole, and a trio of special-edition tote bags, as well as readings by nearly one hundred and fifty regulars and newcomers from multiple disciplines, among them Anselm Berrigan, Anne Waldman, Bob Holman, Bob Rosenthal, CA Conrad, Carolee Scheemann, Dynasty Handbag, Edmund Berrigan, Edwin Torres, Eileen Myles, Elinor Nauen, Elliott Sharp, JD Samson & Emily Roysdon, Jennifer Bartlett, Jennifer Monson & Chris Cochrane, John Giorno, John S. Hall, Jonas Mekas, Justin Vivian Bond, Legs McNeil, Lenny Kaye, Lynne Tillman, Maggie Dubris, Nick Hallett, Patti Smith, Penny Arcade, Philip Glass, Rachel Trachtenburg, Steve Earle, Tammy Faye Starlite w/ Steve Earle, Thurston Moore, Yoshiko Chuma, Yvonne Meier, and Yvonne Rainer.

NEW YORK BOAT SHOW 2014

The New York Boat Show will dock at the Javits Center January 1-5 (photo courtesy NMMA)

Jacob Javits Convention Center
35th St. & 11th Ave.
January 1-5, adults $15, children fifteen and younger free with paid adult admission
212-984-7000
www.javitscenter.com
www.nyboatshow.com

The 109th edition of the world’s first boat show will set anchor at the Javits Center January 1-5, featuring all things nautical. Hundreds of exhibitors will be displaying their wares, including plenty of brand-new products and cutting-edge technology, and there will be special appearances by such seaworthy celebs as Captain Dave Carraro of NatGeo’s Wicked Tuna, Michael Karas and Jen Slaw of Perfect Catch, gator swampmaster Jeff Quattrocchi, and Blackbear the Pirate author Steve Buckley. The five-day festival also offers lots of workshops (seamanship, fishing, motor maintenance), children’s activities (toy boat building, paddle boating in a mini lake), seminars at Fred’s Shed Interactive Learning Center (“Go One-on-One with a Service Technician,” “All Charged Up: Installing and Maintaining a Marine Battery System,” “Don’t Be Fuelish: Propping Your Boat for Performance and Fuel Economy”), demonstrations (“Line Handling & Throwing,” “Danger Bearings,” “Getting Your Captain’s License”), and contests and giveaways. And of course, there will also be boats galore, from luxury yachts, catamarans, bass boats, inboard cruisers, pontoons, trawlers, and houseboats to daysailers, racing sailboats, dinghies, Personal Water Crafts, inflatables, kayaks, and many more. Be prepared to navigate through crowds, as boating is once again on the upswing. “The housing market has improved, consumer confidence has steadily increased the last two years, and consumer spending is on the rise—all factors that are helping to fuel stable growth for the U.S. recreational boating industry and further sales in 2013,” National Marine Manufacturers Association president Thom Dammrich said late last week. “In addition, we’re seeing more and more Americans take to the water, as our participation numbers are at an all-time high—88 million Americans went boating in 2012. This indicates that with experience on the water comes an interest in life on the water and the subsequent purchase of a boat.”

CINEMATIC SITES: NEIGHBORING SOUNDS

Brazilian Oscar hopeful NEIGHBORING SOUNDS examines changing community in changing times

NEIGHBORING SOUNDS (O SOM AO REDOR) (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2011)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Friday, December 27, free with museum admission of $22, 3:00
212-423-3587
www.cinemaguild.com
www.guggenheim.org

Inspired by actual events that took place in his hometown of Recife, Brazil, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds is an engaging slice-of-life examination of class differences and a community in the midst of social and economic change. When Clodoaldo (Irandhir Santos) and Fernando (Nivaldo Nascimento) go door-to-door offering their services as overnight security guards protecting the street, only Francisco (W. J. Solha), an aging, wealthy sugar baron who owns much of the surrounding property, and his grandson João (Gustavo Jahn) refuse to participate in the shady proposal, but Francisco insists that they keep their hands off another of his grandsons, Dinho (Yuri Holanda), who is responsible for a spate of car-stereo robberies. This suburban neighborhood, ever more in the architectural shadow of bigger high rises going up all around them, is filled with little secrets and minor resentments. A mechanic keys an expensive car when the owner is rude to him. Clodoaldo and a maid (Clébia Souza) make use of a fancy gated house he is taking care of while the owners are away. Sisters fight over the size of a flat-screen television. And a co-op board wants to fire their longtime night watchman without a severance package because he has taken to napping on the job. Meanwhile, João, who has two children by the daughter of the family’s maid, has started a relationship with the more acceptable Sofia (Irma Brown), but the privileged João still lives in the past; when he shows an apartment in one of Francisco’s condos, he points out what would be the maid’s room, assuming everyone can afford domestic help. And Bia (Meve Jinkings) finds a different kind of domestic help, buying large quantities of pot from the water guy, finding unique ways to deal with her neighbor’s howling dog, and using household appliances to pleasure herself. A film critic who has previously made documentaries, Filho, who wrote, directed, and coedited (with João Maria) Neighboring Sounds, has populated his debut full-length feature with believable characters caught up in realistic situations, along with just the right dose of black comedy. The film was shot with natural sound at a relaxed pace, inviting viewers into this intriguing fictional tale filled with real-world implications, involving a decaying past and modern issues of safety and surveillance. While João might be the moral conscious of the story, it is Jinkings’s Bia who steals this small gem of a film, her unique methods of daily survival a joy to behold. Neighboring Sounds is screening December 27 at 3:00 as part of the Guggenheim Museum program “Cinematic Sites” and will be introduced at 2:45 by series organizer Paul Dallas; the screening is being held in conjunction with the exhibition “Participatory City: 100 Urban Trends from the BMW Guggenheim Lab,” which continues through January 5, when Wu Tsang’s Wildness will be shown. You can also catch the film on December 31 at 5:15 and January 1 at 8:30 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “For Your Consideration: Foreign Oscar Hopefuls.”

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION — DOCUMENTARY OSCAR HOPEFULS: THE SQUARE

Ahmed Hassan fights for a better future for Egypt in THE SQUARE

THE SQUARE (AL MIDAN) (Jehane Noujaim, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
Sunday, December 22, 4:00, and Monday, December 23, 8:15
Series runs December 20-26
212-875-5601
www.thesquarefilm.com
www.filmlinc.com

“During the early days, we agreed to stay united no matter what,” Ahmed Hassan tells those around him in Jehane Noujaim’s powerful and important documentary The Square. “When we were united, we brought down the dictator. How do we succeed now? We succeed by uniting once again.” But Ahmed, one of several Egyptian revolutionaries who Noujaim follows for two years in the film, finds that it is not that easy to bring everyone together, as the government leaders continue to change and factions develop that favor the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. Putting her own life in danger, Noujaim (The Control Room, Startup.com) is right in the middle of it all as she shares the stories of Ahmed, a young man who is determined to see the revolution through until peace and justice prevail; Magdy Ashour, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who must choose between his own personal beliefs and that of his power-hungry organization; and Khalid Abdalla, the British-Egyptian star of The Kite Runner and United 93 who becomes an activist like his father, serving as the revolution’s main link to the international community through the media and by posting videos. In The Square, a 2013 New York Film Festival selection, Noujaim also introduces viewers to human rights lawyer Ragia Omran, protest singer Ramy Essam, and filmmaker Aida El Kashef, none of whom is willing to give in even as the violence increases.

Massive crowds of Egyptians occupy Tahrir Square to demand freedom and democracy in THE SQUARE

Documentary offers an inside look at the occupation of Tahrir Square by Egyptians demanding freedom and democracy

In the documentary, Noujaim includes footage of televised political speeches and interviews that contradict what is actually happening in Tahrir Square as elections near. Reminiscent of Stefano Savona’s Tahrir: Liberation Square, which played at the 2011 New York Film Festival, The Square makes the audience feel like it’s in Tahrir Square, rooting for the revolutionaries to gain the freedom and democracy they so covet. The film also features several stunning shots of the massive crowds, most memorably as thousands of men kneel down in unison to pray to Mecca. Among its many strengths, The Square personalizes the revolution in such a way as to reveal that a small group of people can indeed make a difference, although sometimes they just have to keep on fighting and fighting and fighting. The Square is screening December 22 at 4:00 and December 23 at 8:15, both followed by Q&As with Noujaim, as part the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “For Your Consideration: Documentary Oscar Hopefuls,” which runs December 20-26 and consists of all fifteen nonfiction features that have made the Academy Awards short-list, including Cutie and the Boxer, Dirty Wars, Stories We Tell, Blackfish, and 20 Feet from Stardom. The festival will be followed December 27 – January 2 by “For Your Consideration: Foreign Oscar Hopefuls,” comprising such international fare as Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster, Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds, and Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION — DOCUMENTARY OSCAR HOPEFULS: CUTIE AND THE BOXER

Documentary tells the engaging story of a pair of Japanese artists and the life they have made for themselves in Brooklyn

CUTIE AND THE BOXER (Zachary Heinzerling, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
Sunday, December 22, 2:00, and Tuesday, December 24, 7:00
Series runs December 20-26
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.facebook.com/cutieandtheboxer

Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer is a beautifully told story of love and art and the many sacrifices one must make to try to succeed in both. In 1969, controversial Japanese Neo Dada action painter and sculptor Ushio Shinohara came to New York City, looking to expand his career. According to the catalog for the recent MoMA show “Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde,” which featured four works by Ushio, “American art had seemed to him to be ‘marching toward the glorious prairie of the rainbow and oasis of the future, carrying all the world’s expectations of modern painting.’” Four years later, he met nineteen-year-old Noriko, who had left Japan to become an artist in New York as well. The two fell in love and have been together ever since, immersed in a fascinating relationship that Heinzerling explores over a five-year period in his splendid feature-length theatrical debut. Ushio and Noriko live in a cramped apartment and studio in DUMBO, where he puts on boxing gloves, dips them in paint, and pounds away at large, rectangular canvases and builds oversized motorcycle sculptures out of found materials. Meanwhile, Noriko, who has spent most of the last forty years taking care of her often childlike husband and staying with him through some rowdy times and battles with the bottle, is finally creating her own work, an R. Crumb-like series of drawings detailing the life of her alter ego, Cutie, and her often cruel husband, Bullie. (“Ushi” means “bull” in Japanese.) While Ushio is more forthcoming verbally in the film, mugging for the camera and speaking his mind, the pig-tailed Noriko is far more tentative, so director and cinematographer Heinzerling brings her tale to life by animating her work, her characters jumping off the page to show Cutie’s constant frustration with Bullie.

Ushio Shinohara creates one of his action paintings in CUTIE AND THE BOXER

During the course of the too-short eighty-two-minute film — it would have been great to spend even more time with these unique and compelling figures — the audience is introduced to the couple’s forty-year-old son, who has some issues of his own; Guggenheim senior curator of Asian Art Alexandra Munroe, who stops by the studio to consider purchasing one of Ushio’s boxing paintings for the museum; and Chelsea gallery owner Ethan Cohen, who represents Ushio. But things never quite take off for Ushio, who seems to always be right on the cusp of making it. Instead, the couple struggles to pay their rent. One of the funniest, yet somehow tragic, scenes in the film involves Ushio packing up some of his sculptures — forcing them into a suitcase like clothing — and heading back to Japan to try to sell some pieces. Cutie and the Boxer is a special documentary that gets to the heart of the creative process as it applies both to art and love, focusing on two disparate people who have made a strange yet thoroughly charming life for themselves. Cutie and the Boxer is screening December 22 at 2:00, followed by a Q&A with Heinzerling, and December 24 at 7:00 as part the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “For Your Consideration: Documentary Oscar Hopefuls,” which runs December 20-26 and consists of all fifteen nonfiction features that have made the Academy Awards short-list, including Blackfish, The Act of Killing, Life According to Sam, The Crash Reel, First Cousin Once Removed, and Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The festival will be followed December 27 – January 2 by “For Your Consideration: Foreign Oscar Hopefuls,” comprising such international fare as Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster, Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds, and Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda.

VICE PRESENTS THE FILM FOUNDATION SCREENING SERIES: THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

Robert Mitchum gets caught up in some dangerous dichotomies in THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

ONE NITE ONLY: THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Charles Laughton, 1955)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Tuesday, December 17, $16, 9:30
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com

Robert Mitchum stars in Charles Laughton’s lurid story of traveling preacher/con man/murderer Harry Powell, who has the word “love” tattooed on one set of knuckles and “hate” on the other. While in prison, Powell bunks with Ben Harper (Peter Graves), who got caught stealing $10,000 — but the only person who knows where the money is is Ben’s young son, John (Billy Chapin). When Preacher is released from jail, he shows up on the Harpers’ doorstep, ready to woo the widow Willa (Shelley Winters) — and get his hands on the money any way he can, including torturing John and his sister, Ruby (Gloria Castillo). Laughton’s only directorial effort is seriously flawed — the scenes in the beginning and end with Lillian Gish are wholly unnecessary and detract from the overall mood. Stanley Cortez’s cinematography is outstanding, featuring his unique use of shadows, the battle between light and dark (which plays off of several themes: old versus young, rich versus poor, good versus evil, and men versus women), and some marvelous silhouettes. Based on Davis Grubb’s 1953 novel, the film has made its way onto many best-of lists, from scariest and most thrilling to all-time great and most beautiful. The Night of the Hunter is screening December 17 at 9:30 as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s “One Nite Only” and “VICE Presents: The Film Foundation Screening Series” and will be introduced by fashion photographer and documentary filmmaker Bruce Weber. The screening will be followed by an after-party in the downstairs bar with complimentary Larceny Bourbon drinks. The VICE series continues on January 28 with Barbara Loden’s Wanda and February 25 with Shirley Clarke’s The Connection.