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

TICKET GIVEAWAY: “IT’S A DISASTER” Q&As WITH DAVID CROSS & AMERICA FERRERA

Brunch might very well turn into a group of friends’ last meal in Todd Berger’s black comedy, IT’S A DISASTER

IT’S A DISASTER (Todd Berger, 2012)
Village East Cinemas
181-189 Second Ave. at 12th St.
Opens Friday, April 12
212-529-6799
www.itsadisastermovie.com
www.villageeastcinema.com

When a group of friends show up for one of their regular couples brunches, the disaster was supposed to be news that one of the pairs was splitting up, but that revelation is somewhat overwhelmed by the possibility that dirty bombs have been detonated nearby and they all might be facing a grim, extremely short future in the very funny black comedy It’s a Disaster. Emma (Erinn Hayes) and Pete (Blaise Miller) have invited over four other couples to partake in wine and quiche before announcing their impending divorce, but that all changes when next-door-neighbor Hal (writer-director Todd Berger) knocks on the door wearing a hazmat suit and tells them that lethal toxins might very well be on their way to their perfect little suburban community. Potentially facing the end, the friends all react in different ways, revealing secrets, panicking, or simply welcoming the end. Wacky Lexi (Rachel Boston) and her husband, the none-too-bright Buck (producer Kevin M. Brennan), want to go out having plenty of sex; chemistry teacher Hedy (America Ferrera) sees no hope while her fiancée, Shane (producer Jeff Grace), wants to battle the unknown enemy like it’s a video game; the steady Tracy (Julia Stiles) can’t believe that she might finally have found the right guy, calm history teacher Glen (David Cross); and Jenny (Laura Adkin) and Gordon (Rob McKillivray), well, they’re late as usual. Berger (The Scenesters, Don’t Eat the Baby: Adventures at Post-Katrina Mardi Gras) does a fine job establishing the characters early and letting them develop at their own pace as they all take turns considering the impact Armageddon will have on them. Cross is a riot as Glen, murmuring hysterical deadpan asides under his breath, while Ferrera holds nothing back as she concocts a grand finale. It all makes for an intimate gathering (Berger, Brennan, Miller, and Grace make up the Vacationeers comedy team, ramping up the actors’ familiarity level) that warmly welcomes the audience into the eventual madness.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: It’s a Disaster is currently available on VOD and opens April 12 at Village East Cinemas and Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn. On Friday night, Cross (Mr. Show, Arrested Development) will be on hand for a Q&A following the primetime screening, and Cross and Ferrera (Ugly Betty, Real Women Have Curves) will both be at Village East after the Saturday night show for a Q&A, and twi-ny has a free pair of tickets to give away for each special event. Just send your name, daytime phone number, show preference (Friday or Saturday night), and all-time-favorite end-of-the-world movie to contest@twi-ny.com by Thursday, April 11, at 3:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; two winners will be selected at random.

RAYYA ELIAS IN CONVERSATION WITH ELIZABETH GILBERT

HARLEY LOCO: A MEMOIR OF HARD LIVING, HAIR, AND POST-PUNK FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TO THE LOWER EAST SIDE by Rayya Elias (Viking, April 4, 2013, $27.95)
Barnes & Noble
97 Warren St.
Tuesday, April 9, free, 6:00
212-587-5389
www.barnesandnoble.com
www.rayyaelias.com

“Another eviction — this time, unavoidable. Kim and I had known it was coming, but we still weren’t ready to be thrown out of our home, no matter how much we deserved it. We were pathetic. Tired, sick, numb, strung out. It was 1987 and we were living on Second Street between avenues A and B.” So begins Rayya Elias’s poignant and brutally honest Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk from the Middle East to the Lower East Side. Born in Syria in 1960, Elias and her family escaped to Detroit when she was seven. She later moved to New York City and became a punk musician and hair stylist, indulging in sex, drugs, and rock and roll and spending time homeless and in jail before cleaning herself up and getting her life back on track. Elias, who has also created a soundtrack of original songs (“Star,” “Myself Without You,” “Miss You,” “Loaded Gun,” and “Fever”) to accompany the book, will be celebrating the release of Harley Loco at the Tribeca Barnes & Noble on April 10 at 6:00 with a reading, signing, audience Q&A, and conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and the National Book Award finalist The Last American Man. In the introduction to Harley Loco, Gilbert, who met Elias in 2000 in the East Village, writes, “Rayya, meanwhile, was a rough diamond — a black-clothed, raspy-voiced, tattooed dropout of a soul, and she owned a motorcycle, and she kept pit bulls, and she was gay, and she was of Middle Eastern descent, and she’d grown up in Detroit, and she fucking loved the NFL, and she’d been to prison, and she called everyone ‘dude’ or ‘baby,’ and she was trying to clean up her life after years of heroin addiction and decades of an absolutely Byronic free fall into rock-and-roll abandon. . . . It is my honor to introduce these pages — so gravelly, so straggly, so hopeful, bright, and true. Just like the dude herself.” We can vouch for all of that as well — and we’ve even gone to an NFL game with her, even if it was the Jets.

FIRST SATURDAY — “WORKT BY HAND”: HIDDEN LABOR AND HISTORICAL QUILTS

Elizabeth Welsh, “Medallion Quilt,” cotton, circa 1830 (Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Roebling Society)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, April 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum celebrates the recent opening of “‘Workt by Hand’: Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts,” which examines the craft and culture behind approximately three dozen masterpieces from the collection, at the April free First Saturday program. There will be live performances by Jessy Carolina & the Hot Mess, Adia Whitaker and Ase Dance Theater Collective, Jesse Elliott (These United States) and friends, and Brooklyn Ballet, which will present Quilt with violinist Gil Morgenstern. Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art curator Catherine Morris will give a talk on “‘Workt by Hand,’” Robyn Love will share her knitting project “SpinCycle,” there will be a screening of Barbara Hammer and Gina Carducci’s Generations, followed by a Q&A with Carducci, a felt collage workshop, a book club discussion with Bernice McFadden about her latest novel, Gathering of Waters, and a zine-making cookbook workshop with Brooklyn Zine Fest and Malaka Gharib and Claire O’Neil of The Runcible Spoon. In addition, the galleries will remain open late so visitors can check out “LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital,” “Käthe Kollwitz: Prints from the ‘War’ and ‘Death’ Portfolios,” “Fine Lines: American Drawings from the Brooklyn Museum,” “Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui,” “Raw/Cooked: Marela Zacarias,” “Aesthetic Ambitions: Edward Lycett and Brooklyn’s Faience Manufacturing Company,” and more.

LORCA IN NEW YORK: A CELEBRATION

Multiple locations
April 5 – July 21, free – $25
www.lorcanyc.com

In 1929-30, Spanish poet and playwright Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (1898-1936) lived in New York City, where he studied at Columbia, writing the surrealist play The Public (El público) and the seminal book Poet in New York, which includes “Nocturne of the Brooklyn Bridge”: “No one sleeps in the sky. No one. / No one sleeps. / The creatures of the moon sniff and circle their cabins. / Live iguanas will come to bite the men who don’t dream / and he who flees with broken heart will find on the corners / the still, incredible crocodile under the tender protest of the stars.” In the preface to Pablo Medina and Mark Statman’s translation of the book, Edward Hirsch concludes, “The testament he left behind is a fierce indictment of the modern world incarnated in city life, but it is also a wildly imaginative and joyously alienated declaration of residence.” The great writer’s time in Gotham is being honored with “Lorca in NY: A Celebration,” more than three months of some two dozen special literary events being held in the city that was, for a brief time, Lorca’s home. The festival kicks off April 5 with the opening of “Back Tomorrow: Federico García Lorca / Poet in New York” in the New York Public Library’s Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery; running through July 20, the free exhibit features original manuscripts, letters, photos, drawings, and more. On April 7 at 7:00 ($10), La Bruja, Simply Rob, Los Gitanos Juveniles, Anthony Carrillo, Raphael Cuascut, Angel Rodriguez Sr., Julio Rodriguez, Mario Rodriguez, and Alex La Salle will gather together for “Lorca Extravaganza” at Bowery Poetry Club for an evening of musical and spoken-word interpretations of Lorca’s writings and his personal favorite songs. On April 8 at 6:00, Gonzalo Sobejano will deliver the free lecture “Memoria de Lorca, A través de mis años en la Universidad de Columbia (Memory of Lorca, Through My Years at Columbia University)” at Columbia, followed by a cocktail reception.

The legacy of Federico García Lorca and his book POET IN NEW YORK will be celebrated in wide-ranging multidisciplinary festival

On April 9 at 7:00 ($15), Instituto Cervantes will host “Lorca’s Universe,” a concert with guitarist José María Gallardo del Rey and violinist Anabel Garcia del Castillo. On April 16 (and continuing through May 30), “Lorca in Vermont” opens at the CUNY Graduate Center, examining Lorca’s time spent in Vermont with Philip Cummings; in conjunction with the opening, Joan Jonas, Caridad Svich, Christopher Maurer, Ben Sidran, Mónica de la Torre, and Eliot Weinberger will come together on April 16 at 6:00 (free) for the panel discussion “Interpreting Lorca” in CUNY’s Martin E. Segal Theatre. On April 19 at 7:00 (free), Jose García Velasco will deliver the lecture “Lorca, Dalí, Buñuel & Eternal Youth: Life in the Residencia de Estudiantes” at Instituto Cervantes. On May 1 from 2:00 to 9:00 (free), “After Lorca: A Day of Poetry and Performance” at CUNY features LaTasha Diggs, Rob Fitterman, Eileen Myles, Judah Rubin, Sara Jane Stoner, Aynsley Vandenbroucke, and the Aynsley Vandenbroucke Movement Group offering their own responses to Lorca’s legacy. On June 4 at 7:00 ($25), Live from the NYPL director Paul Holdengräber hosts “Celebrating Federico García Lorca.” Overnight on June 4-5 (free), David Bestué will make his way through the streets of the city, creating “an echo to Lorca’s poems” in honor of the 115th anniversary of the poet’s birth. On June 5 ($25), “Words and Music: Patti Smith and Friends” will present “A Birthday Concert for Lorca” at Bowery Ballroom. On June 10 at 8:00 ($8), an all-star group of writers will gather at the Poetry Project for “Poet in New York: Reading Lorca”; among the participants reading from the book will be Paul Auster, Aracelis Girmay, John Giorno, Wayne Koestenbaum, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Mónica de la Torre, and Frederic Tuten. On July 9 at 1:15 at the NYPL (free), Sharonah Fredrick will discuss “Lorca, Jews, and African-American: From Romance to Racism or Simple Misunderstanding?” And if that weren’t enough, there are other events as well, including a walking tour, a film series, and more, all organized by the Fundación Federico García Lorca, which is run by Lorca’s family, and Acción Cultural Española.

THE WORKS — KAREN BLACK: EASY RIDER

Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson play a trio who get their motor running and head out on the highway in EASY RIDER

EASY RIDER (Dennis Hopper, 1968)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
April 5-6, 12:10 am
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com

No mere relic of the late 1960s counterculture movement, Easy Rider still holds up as one of the truly great road movies, inviting audiences to climb on board as two peace-loving souls search for freedom on the highways and byways of the good ol’ U.S. of A. Named after a pair of famous western gunslingers, Wyatt (producer and cowriter Peter Fonda), as in Earp, and Billy (director and cowriter Dennis Hopper), as in “the Kid,” make some fast cash by selling coke to a fancy connection (Phil Spector!), then take off on their souped-up bikes, determined to make it to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras. Along the way, they break bread with a rancher (Warren Finnerty) and his family, hang out in a hippie commune, pick up small-town alcoholic lawyer George Hanson (an Oscar-nominated Jack Nicholson), don’t get served in a diner, and eventually hook up with friendly prostitutes Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil) in the Big Easy. “You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it,” George says to Billy as they start discussing the concept and reality of freedom. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s what it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it, that’s two different things. I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free, ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.” The always calm Wyatt, who is also known as Captain America, and the nervous and jumpy Billy make one of cinema’s coolest duos ever as they personally experience the radical changes going on in the country, leading to a tragic conclusion. The Academy Award–nominated script, written with Terry Southern, remains fresh and relevant as it examines American capitalism and democracy in a way that is still debated today. And the soundtrack — well, it virtually defined the era, featuring such songs as Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher” and “Born to Be Wild,” Jimi Hendrix’s “If 6 Was 9,” the Electric Prunes’ “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),” the Chambers Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today,” Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air,” and Roger McGuinn’s “Ballad of Easy Rider.”

Nitehawk Cinema kicks off Karen Black festival with EASY RIDER

Easy Rider, which also was named Best First Work at Cannes in 1969, is screening just past midnight on April 5 & 6 as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s “The Works” series focusing on otherworldly actress and goddess Karen Black, the sexy, cross-eyed star of such films as Nashville, The Great Gatsby, Invaders from Mars, and the unforgettable Trilogy of Terror. Sean Young, who starred with Black in 1998’s Men, will introduce the Friday-night show, and both screenings will include a pretaped Q&A with Black about Easy Rider. The Nitehawk mini-retrospective continues with Dan Curtis’s Burnt Offerings (April 12-13; beware the chauffeur), Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces (May 3-4), Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot (May 17-18), Jack Smight’s Airport 1975 (May 31 – June 1), and John Schlesinger’s The Day of the Locust (June 14-15).

SCOTLAND WEEK 2013

David Eustace’s captivating “Highland Heart” exhibit will be on view at Hudson Studios April 5-7 (© David Eustace)

SCOTLAND WEEK / TARTAN WEEK
Multiple venues
Through April 21
www.scotland.org
www.scotlandshop.com

The sixth annual Scotland Week, also known as Tartan Week, kicks into high gear this weekend, celebrating Scottish art and culture with a diverse group of events taking place all over the city. On Friday, former minesweeper and prison guard David Eustace will unveil a new collection of photographs, “Highland Heart,” stunning black-and-white images of the Western Islands, at Hudson Studios in Chelsea. On Saturday morning at 8:00, some ten thousand people are expected to take part in the 10K Scotland Run in Central Park, followed by the Kirkin o’ the Tartan and Pre-Parade Brunch at the Church of Our Saviour and the Tartan Day Parade, which will make its way up Sixth Ave. from Forty-Fifth to Fifty-Fifth Sts. with bagpipers, Scottish clans, music groups, Scottish terriers, and more. On Saturday night, the Caledonia Collective at Webster Hall will consist of Stanley Odd, Rachel Sermanni with Louis Abbott of Admiral Fallow, and Breabach. Stanley Odd will also share a bill with the View Saturday night at the Knitting Factory and Sunday night at Bowery Ballroom. On April 7, Alan Cumming begins a three-month Broadway run starring as the title character in the one-man National Theatre of Scotland production of Macbeth, set in a mental ward. On April 8, Scottish fashion will be on display at “From Scotland with Love: The Scottish Lion Meets the Asian Dragon,” a cocktail party and fashion show at Stage 48. On April 9, Ian Gow, curator of the National Trust for Scotland, will receive the Great Scot Award at the black-tie “Celebration of Scotland’s Treasures” dinner at the Metropolitan Club. On April 12, Ken Loach’s Cannes Jury Prize winner The Angels’ Share opens at Lincoln Plaza and the Landmark Sunshine. And on April 14, the Scottish Ensemble, a string orchestra highlighted by trumpeter Alison Balsom, will perform at Town Hall with a program that includes the U.S. premiere of James MacMillan’s “Seraph.” A h-uile la sona dhuibh ’s gun la idir dona dhuibh!

THE LIFE OF FILM — CELEBRATING A DECADE OF REVERSE SHOT: THE HEADLESS WOMAN

María Onetto is lost deep in thought through most of Lucrecia Martel’s Argentine drama

THE HEADLESS WOMAN (LA MUJER SIN CABEZA) (Lucrecia Martel, 2008)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, April 6, free with museum admission, 6:00
Series runs April 4-7
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.strandreleasing.com

Inspired by nightmares she has in which she commits murder, Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman details a woman’s emotional and psychological reaction after having possibly killed someone. María Onetto gives a mesmerizingly cool, distant performance as Veronica, a middle-aged, upper-class wife and mother whose biggest worry appears to be the turtles that have infested the new pool built behind a veterinary office. But one afternoon, while out driving carelessly in her Mercedes along a twisting, barren road, she hits something. Not sure if it was a child, an adult, or an animal, she decides to continue on, telling no one what she has done. But when a poor, local boy goes missing, she begins to suspect that she might have killed him. An intriguing mix of Buñuel’s class-consciousness and Poe’s flair for suspense, The Headless Woman is an unusual kind of murder mystery. In Veronica, Argentine writer-director Martel (La Cienaga, The Holy Girl) has created a compelling protagonist/villain, played with expert calm and faraway eyes by Onetto.

The Headless Woman is screening April 6 at 6:00 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “The Life of Film: Celebrating a Decade of Reverse Shot,” featuring four days of screenings, Q&As, and a panel discussion paying tribute to the tenth anniversary of the quarterly online film magazine founded by editors Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert (who curated this series) and writers Erik Syngle and Neal Block. In issue thirty-two, Eric Hynes reviewed The Headless Woman, writing, “In the films of Lucrecia Martel you’re challenged to pay attention well before you’re ready, to play catch-up, figuring out who’s related to whom and what is relevant. But as with the protagonist’s subsequent disorientation, your heightened yet bewildered state isn’t a set-up or effect — it’s the point. Martel sharpens your senses — and celebrates and rewards them — while compelling you to distrust them.” The screening will be introduced by Chris Wisniewski, Reverse Shot contributor and Moving Image deputy director for education and visitor experience. The series runs April 4-7, also presenting Shane Carruth’s Primer (with the director present), a preview screening of Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder, Miguel Gomes’s The Face You Deserve, Douglas Gordon and Phillippe Parreno’s Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (introduced by Hynes and followed by a roundtable discussion), and “Deborah Stratman and Dani Leventhal: Avant-Garde Voices,” featuring Stratman’s O’er the Land and Leventhal’s Draft 9 and Shayne’s Rectangle (introduced by Genevieve Yue).