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

REEL ROCKERS: COME GET CRAZY IN THE EAST VILLAGE

Malcolm McDowell gets plenty crazy as rock god Reggie Wanker in Allan Arkush’s GET CRAZY

GET CRAZY (Allan Arkush, 1983)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Saturday, December 1, $45-$70, 2:00
Series continues through August 9
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
www.gvshp.org

One of the most underrated, little-seen rock-and-roll movies ever made, Get Crazy should be a cult classic. Directed by Allan (Rock ‘n’ Roll High School) Arkush, Get Crazy evokes the closing of the Fillmore East as Neil Allen (Daniel Stern) and Willy Loman (Gail Edwards) help put together a New Year’s Eve farewell concert for the beloved Saturn Theater, which the conniving Colin Beverly (Ed Begley Jr.) is trying to steal out from under Max Wolfe (Allen Garfield). Among the special guests at the show are Bill Henderson as the Muddy Waters clone King Blues, Captain Cloud (Howard Kaylan of the Turtles) and the Rainbow Telegraph, and Nada (Kid Creole Coconut Lori Eastside) with Piggy (Lee Ving of Fear), but the movie is stolen by Malcolm McDowell as the Mick Jagger ripoff Reggie Wanker, who literally lets his member do the talking, and Lou Reed as the Dylan/Donovan homage Auden, a folksinger desperate to write a song before the show, so he spends most of the film riding around in a cab, rambling on about whatever is right in front of him. And be sure to keep an eye out for John Densmore, Fabian, Bobby Sherman, Clint Howard, Linnea Quigley, and Paul Bartel. In addition to the live numbers, the soundtrack includes songs by Sparks, Marshall Crenshaw, the Ramones, and Reed, whose awesome “Little Sister” plays over the closing credits. Extremely silly but still loads of fun Get Crazy is screening December 1 at 2:00 at Anthology Film Archives as a fundraiser for the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and will be followed by a panel discussion about the history of the East Village cultural scene with members of the cast and crew and Joshua White of the Joshua Light Show, moderated by Jesse Kornbluth. The festivities will then continue at the after-party at Veselka Bowery, with a two-hour open bar and appetizers.

THE CONTENDERS 2012: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

The Bat Man might have met his match in the villainous Bane in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Christopher Nolan, 2012)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Friday, November 30, 7:00
Series continues through January 12
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.thedarkknightrises.com

Christopher Nolan’s dazzling Dark Knight Trilogy comes to a rousing conclusion with The Dark Knight Rises. It’s been eight years since the death of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), and things have been relatively quiet in Gotham City under a new prison initiative enacted by Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman). The Bat Man has disappeared, believed to have gone into hiding after being accused of murdering Dent in cold blood, with the real story kept buried by Gordon. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become a Howard Hughes-like recluse, limping around stately Wayne Manor with a cane and refusing to see anyone as his grand fortune wastes away. But the sudden appearance of a new master criminal, the Darth Vader-esque Bane (Tom Hardy), a crafty cat burglar named Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), and a potential hostile takeover of Wayne Industries brings the Bat Man back to try to save the city against seemingly impossible odds. The Dark Knight Rises is the darkest Batman movie yet, as Wayne searches even deeper into his soul to find his reason for being and to determine his future — and that of his beloved city. He is joined by financial wizard Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), Wayne Industries technical mastermind Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), and determined cop John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in a race against time, something they have precious little of. Various plot elements and imagery evoke such previous movie series as Star Wars, Star Trek, and Mad Max while, to the film’s detriment, also calling up the 9/11 terrorist attacks and even the Occupy Wall Street movement. But the film gets past those faults as it rises up to an absolutely breathtaking, sensational finale. Nolan wraps things up brilliantly, even bringing back Ra’s Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) and giving a cool cameo to Cillian Murphy (a veteran now of all three movies), but it’s Bale’s complex performance as a man in search of his identity that is the driving force behind what has been a magnificent trilogy. The Dark Knight Rises is being shown November 30 at 7:00 as part of MoMA’s annual series “The Contenders,” consisting of exemplary films they believe will stand the test of time, with Nolan on hand to participate in a postscreening discussion; upcoming entries include Peter Ramsey’s Rise of the Guardians, Ben Lewin’s The Sessions, David France’s How to Survive a Plague, and Behn Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild.

MARGARET MEAD FILM FESTIVAL: WHOSE STORY IS IT?

BAY OF ALL SAINTS examines the water slums of Bahia, Brazil, known as the palafitas

American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th St.
November 29 – December 2, $12-$45
212-769-5200
www.amnh.org

The thirty-sixth annual Margaret Mead Film Festival, held at the American Museum of Natural History in honor of the revolutionary work done by the master cultural anthropologist, focuses this year on the narrative itself. “The stories build bridges, dissolve ownership,” North American ethnology curator Peter M. Whiteley explains in the festival brochure. “Whose story is it? It is mine, yours, now via film, all the world’s. The local is made global, the unfamiliar familiar, and the universe of human understanding is expanded.” From November 29 through December 2, viewers will be taken to contemporary Pakistan in Saida Shepard and Samina Quraeshi’s The Other Half of Tomorrow, India and Burma in Patrick Morell’s Nagaland: The Last of the Headhunters, the slums of Bahia, Brazil, in Annie Eastman, Diane Markrow, and Davis Coombe’s Bay of All Saints, a “shack side” district of South Africa in Benjamin Kahlmeyer’s Meanwhile in Mamelodi, and Tajikistan for a look at an unusual sport in Najeeb Mirza’s Buzkashi! Two food-themed films, Valérie Berteau and Philippe Witjes’s Himself He Cooks, which goes inside the Sikh tradition of langar in the Golden Temple of Amritsar, and Rob and Lisa Fruchtman’s Sweet Dreams, about a group of Rwandan women opening the country’s first ice-cream shop, are being presented in conjunction with the museum’s new exhibit, “Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture.” There will also be a tribute to legendary filmmaker George Stoney, featuring screenings of Man of Aran and How the Myth Was Made, a Bhangra Dance Party with DJ Rekha, an African drumming performance in the Hall of Birds of the World, a Mead Arcade with online games, and several Mead Dialogues, including “Re-Seeing the Century: The Expedition on Film,” “Through Navajo Eyes,” and “Sun Kissed.” The Mead is one of the city’s most important film festivals, offering penetrating, educational, joyful, and frightening looks at a world outside our own — and sometimes a lot closer to home that we could ever imagine.

BEWARE OF MR. BAKER

Crotchety old drummer Ginger Baker has quite a story to tell in BEWARE OF MR. BAKER

BEWARE OF MR. BAKER (Jay Bulger, 2012)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
November 28 – December 11
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.bewareofmrbaker.com

“A great virtuoso madman,” “scary,” “a motherfucker,” “a lovable rogue,” “a dope addict,” “the hammer of the gods,” “a force of nature,” “horrible,” “the world’s greatest drummer” — these are just some of the terms of affection heaped on legendary drummer Ginger Baker by his friends, relatives, and musical colleagues at the beginning of Jay Bulger’s propulsive documentary, Beware of Mr. Baker. In 2009, after spending three months with Baker and his family in South Africa, Bulger published the in-depth article “The Devil and Ginger Baker” in Rolling Stone. Two years later, Bulger went back to expand the story into a feature-length film, but Baker was not about to make it easy for him, continually insulting his questions, calling him names, and even cracking him in the nose with his cane. “He influenced me as a drummer but not as a person,” Bad Company and Free drummer Simon Kirke says of Baker, an opinion shared by many in this revealing film. Baker might be crotchety, but he also opens up to Bulger, particularly in describing when, as a child during WWII, he would hear the bombings outside, sounds that would have an impact on his playing. Bulger speaks with such other percussionists as the Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts, Rush’s Neal Peart, the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, the Police’s Stewart Copeland, Vanilla Fudge’s Carmine Appice, and Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason, as well as such former Baker bandmates as Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Steve Winwood, who all rave about Baker’s remarkable abilities behind the kit while also delving into his self-destructive behavior, which led him through a parade of groups, home countries, and spouses. “I don’t know if it’s his ability to move on or it’s his inability to stay,” points out Baker’s third wife, Karen Loucks Rinedollar, a statement that applies to both Baker’s personal and professional lives.

Drummer Ginger Baker and director Jay Bulger developed a rather unique relationship during the making of fascinating documentary

Through photographs, old and new interviews, playful animation, and superb archival footage of live performances, Bulger traces Baker’s career path from the Graham Bond Organisation, Cream, Blind Faith, Ginger Baker’s Air Force, the Baker Gurvitz Army, and Masters of Reality to his little-known collaboration with Fela Kuti and his drum battles with three of his four major influences: Phil Seamen, Elvin Jones, and Art Blakey. (The fourth is Max Roach; Baker gets emotional discussing how all four men eventually became friends of his.) In ninety-two freewheeling minutes, Bulger crafts a fascinating portrait of a wild anomaly, an immensely talented musician whose difficult, unpredictable personality and selfish refusal to ever compromise continues to result in controversy and separation everywhere he goes. Yet through it all, everyone still speaks fondly of Baker; Bruce might talk about how much they hated each other and couldn’t stand playing together — Baker once punched Bruce onstage in the face for stepping on his drum solo — but in the end Bruce can’t help but profess his love for the enigmatic, eclectic Baker. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 SXSW festival, Beware of Mr. Baker begins a two-week run at Film Forum on November 28, with Bulger in attendance at the 8:20 show on opening night to talk about the film.

MICKALENE THOMAS: ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE / HOW TO ORGANIZE A ROOM AROUND A STRIKING PIECE OF ART

Mickalene Thomas exhibit at Brooklyn Museum includes colorful interiors, portraits, and even decorated benches (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Wednesday – Sunday through January 20, suggested contribution $10
718-638-5000
www.brooklynmuseum.org

Lehmann Maupin
540 West 26th St. / 201 Chrystie St.
Tuesday – Saturday through January 5, free
212-255-2924/212-254-0054
www.lehmannmaupin.com

Prepare to be bedazzled. It’s been quite a fall for Camden-born, Brooklyn-based artist Mickalene Thomas, who is in the midst of a quartet of exhibitions in New York City. First and foremost is “Origin of the Universe,” her first solo museum show. Continuing at the Brooklyn Museum through January 20, it consists of one hundred works, focusing on her familiar, brightly colored large-scale portraits of African American women in enamel, acrylic, and glittering rhinestones, in addition to her newer interiors and landscapes. Thomas examines both art history and the image and perception of the black woman in her work, directly referencing such paintings as Gustave Courbet’s “Le Sommeil (Sleep)” and “L’Origine du monde (The Origin of the World)” and Edouard Manet’s “Dejeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass),” replacing the original figures with big, bold black women often wearing afros and 1970s-style clothing (when wearing anything at all). Influenced by Carrie Mae Weems, several photographs of her models depict her subjects naked, staring directly at the viewer. Thomas creates stunning backdrops for her paintings, made up of couches, chairs, pillows, and other items influenced by the 1970-72 multivolume series The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement. The Brooklyn show also includes four heavily detailed interiors filled with photos, tables, lamps, books and records by black writers and musicians, and other personal elements. Thomas’s central muse, her mother, Sandra, or Mama Bush, is seen in a number of pieces, most revealingly in “Ain’t I a Woman, Sandra,” a 2009 painting paired with a short video of the photo shoot that led to the final work.

Mickalene Thomas, “Ain’t I a Woman, Sandra,” DVD and framed monitor, rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel on wood panel, 2009 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Thomas’s mother is the focus of the Chelsea half of the two-part “How to Organize a Room Around a Striking Piece of Art,” running at both Lehmann Maupin galleries through January 5. The West 26th St. display is anchored by the twenty-three-minute documentary Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman, which visitors can watch while sitting in a chair or on a couch in one of Thomas’s re-created rooms. The film looks back at the fascinating life of Sandra Bush, who can be seen in the front room in photographs and paintings. What was meant to be a loving, living tribute to her mother has now become more of a memorial, as Bush, who was battling kidney disease, passed away on November 7 at the age of sixty-one. In fact, it is hard to recognize the woman in the film, gaunt yet still elegant, as the same woman who served as her daughter’s longtime muse. The film plays continuously; it will also have a special screening November 29 at 7:00 at the Brooklyn Museum in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, preceded at 6:00 by a guided tour of “Origin of the Universe.” (The film can also be seen regularly at the museum in a smaller room.)

Five-channel video was made during Thomas’s residency at Giverny (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“How to Organize a Room Around a Striking Piece of Art” continues at Lehmann Maupin’s Lower East Side gallery on Chrystie St. with four of Thomas’s 2011-12 interiors and landscapes, including “Monet’s Blue Foyer,” in addition to a five-channel video she made during her 2010 residency at Giverny. (Her wall mural “Le Jardin d’Eau de Monet” greets visitors to the Brooklyn Museum exhibition.) Thomas’s interiors and landscapes might be devoid of people, but they are no less thrilling, incorporating cubist elements, van Gogh, and Hockney in their inviting collages. One painting sits on an easel on the floor instead of hanging on the wall, as if it is an in-process oil painting of an unseen world outside the studio. The final part of Thomas’s visual assault on New York City is a 120-foot vinyl mural that was commissioned for the new Barclays Center at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Aves., in which Thomas combines a brownstone, the Brooklyn Bridge, and other highlights of the borough. Overall, Thomas’s work reveals an extremely talented, multifaceted artist who is able to look backward while reaching forward, a bold woman with a strong sense of self, honoring history while forging an exciting future.

Mickalene Thomas, detail, “Qusuquzah, Une Trés Belle Négresse 2,” rhinestone, acrylic and oil on wood panel, 2011-12 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

TWI-NY TALK: ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER

Rehearsal director and guest artist Matthew Rushing and members of the AAADT company are ready for annual month-long season at City Center (photo by Andrew Eccles)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
November 28 – December 30, $25-$135
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has been captivating audiences for more than fifty years, amassing a repertoire of more than two hundred works from more than eighty choreographers since its founding by Alvin Ailey in 1958 at the 92nd St. Y. The inspirational company returns to City Center in Midtown for its annual season November 28 through December 30, comprising world premieres, new productions, company premieres, and Ailey Classics. Robert Battle is now in his second season as artistic director, having taken over in July 2011 from the legendary Judith Jamison, and he has put together another exciting series of shows. Last year’s all-new program contained Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16, Battle’s Takademe, Rennie Harris’s Home, and Alvin Ailey’s Streams, and they are all back again. The new works for 2012 are Garth Fagan’s From Before, Jiří Kylián’s Petite Mort, Kyle Abraham’s Another Night, Ronald K. Brown’s Grace, and Battle’s Strange Humors. The special programs include Revelations with live performance by Jessye Norman, Anika Noni Rose, and Brian Stokes Mitchell, Saturday afternoon family matinees followed by Q&A sessions, and a tribute to Renee Robinson, who is retiring after more than thirty years with the company. As AAADT prepared for opening night, we asked nine of the dancers which piece they were most looking forward to performing on the City Center stage. (Below photos by Andrew Eccles, Eduardo Patino, and Paul Kolnick; for a chance to win free tickets to the December 12 performance, go here.)

Marcus Jarrell Willis: I think I’m most excited to perform Grace by Ronald K. Brown this season. I’ve been watching the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater on videos since I was a child, but I never had the chance to see the company in a live performance until just before moving from Houston to study at the Ailey School twelve years ago. Grace was first on the program and I fell in love. So now having the opportunity to be a part of it almost takes me full circle, and I’m thrilled.

Aisha Mitchell: I am really looking forward to premiering Kyle Abraham’s work, Another Night. The choreography is electric and set to music by Dizzy Gillespie. Also it’s the sole world premiere in our repertoire this season, so I’m ready to get onstage and share with our audiences something they have never seen before.

Kirven James Boyd: Our home season is my favorite time of the year because we’re able to perform all of our current repertory as well as a number of returning favorites. This season there are so many works that I’m looking forward to performing, but one of the most important roles for me this season would have to be A Song for You from the Ailey Classics program. This solo is an excerpt of a ballet called Love Songs, which was choreographed by Mr. Ailey in 1972. For the men in the company, being cast to perform this ballet holds the same weight as a woman being cast to perform Cry. For me, this is by far one of the biggest highlights of my career and I’m looking forward to discovering new layers of my artistry through this work.

Daniel Harder: The ballet I’m most looking forward to performing this season is Jiří Kylián’s Petite Mort. I think the ballet is going to present a great challenge for me because it provides the perfect blend of ballet and modern vocabulary and allows me to tap into a quieter sensuality and power. Also, Kylián is an iconic choreographer, so I’m excited to have the opportunity to perform his work this season.

Antonio Douthit: I am so excited that Mr. Battle brought Grace back into the company’s repertory. Grace is one of the ballets I saw when I first joined the company nine years ago and was just in awe of what Ron Brown did with the movement and how he used the dancers in the space. I am happy to be taking on this ballet and growing from it.

Samuel Lee Roberts: I am looking forward to performing Robert Battle’s Strange Humors the most. Having been a founding member of Battleworks Dance Company, I performed the role for many years in the past. Coming back to it will be like seeing an old friend! I also look forward to performing with Mr. Boyd (a force of nature). I am sure that the Ailey audience will fall in love with this ballet.

Yannick Lebrun: I am most looking forward to performing Grace by Ronald K. Brown this season. The first time I saw the ballet six years ago as a student in the Ailey School, I immediately fell in love with it. After joining the company four years ago, I always hoped and wished that it would return to the repertory, so now that I have an opportunity to perform it, it’s almost like a dream come true, because I’m able to interpret a ballet that inspired me so much long ago and that has a deep meaning. I hope the audience is moved by my performance of the work just as I was so many years ago.

Michael Francis McBride: It is really difficult to pick just one work that I am most excited about performing this season because the repertory has an expanding diversity and every piece is so different. If I had to pick three, I would say that I am really excited to perform Robert Battle’s Strange Humors, Jiří Kylián’s Petite Mort, and Ronald K. Brown’s Grace. These three made the list because they are new to this year’s repertory and they challenge me in new and exciting ways.

Sarah Daley: I’m most excited to perform Petite Mort. It’s an amazing ballet that captivated me the first time I saw it and I’m excited to bring it to our New York audience.

NEW VISIONS: NOT FADE AWAY

The British Invasion changes the life of a suburban New Jersey high school kid in David Chase’s NOT FADE AWAY

PREVIEW SCREENING AND LIVE EVENT: NOT FADE AWAY (David Chase, 2012)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Monday, November 19, $20, 7:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.notfadeawaymovie.com

Inspired by his brief stint as a suburban New Jersey garage-band drummer with rock-and-roll dreams, Sopranos creator David Chase makes his feature-film debt with the musical coming-of-age drama Not Fade Away. Written and directed by Chase, the film focuses on Douglas (John Magaro), a suburban New Jersey high school kid obsessed with music and The Twilight Zone. It’s the early 1960s, and Douglas soon becomes transformed when he first hears the Beatles and the Stones — while also noticing how girls go for musicians, particularly Grace (Bella Heathcote), whom he has an intense crush on but who only seems to date guys in bands. When his friends Eugene (Jack Huston) and Wells (Will Brill) ask him to join their group, Douglas jumps at the chance, but it’s not until he gets the opportunity to sing lead one night that he really begins to think that music — and Grace — could be his life. Not Fade Away has all the trappings of being just another clichéd sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll movie, but Chase and musical supervisor (and executive producer) Steven “Silvio” Van Zandt circumvent genre expectations and limitations by, first and foremost, nailing the music. Van Zandt spent three months teaching the main actors how to sing, play their instruments, and, essentially, be a band, making the film feel real as the unnamed group goes from British Invasion covers to writing their own song. Even Douglas’s fights with his conservative middle-class father (James Gandolfini) and his battle with Eugene over the direction of the band are handled with an intelligence and sensitivity not usually seen in these kinds of films. Not Fade Away does make a few wrong turns along the way, but it always gets right back on track, leading to an open-ended conclusion that celebrates the power, the glory, and, ultimately, the mystery of rock and roll. Not Fade Away, which was the centerpiece of the fiftieth New York Film Festival, is having a special preview at the Museum of the Moving Image on November 19 at 7:00 as part of the New Visions series, with Chase and Magaro participating in a postscreening Q&A.