NO CROSSOVER: THE TRIAL OF ALLEN IVERSON kicks off Master Class series with Steve James at the Maysles Institute
Maysles Institute
343 Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
July 28 – August 4, suggested donation $10, 7:30
212-582-6050
www.mayslesinstitute.org
Award-winning director, producer, and editor Steve James has made some of the most fascinating, entertaining, and important documentaries of the past twenty years, delving into the American psyche through sports, death row, and inner-city violence. The Maysles Institute will be celebrating the release of his latest film, The Interrupters, a powerful examination of gang violence in Chicago, with Master Class, a series curated by Sylvia Savadjian that begins Thursday night with a screening of James’s No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, a look back at a major event in the basketball superstar’s youth that took place in James’s own hometown of Hampton, Virginia. The film screens at 7:30 and will be followed by a Q&A and reception with James. On Friday night, the instant classic Hoop Dreams will be shown, a seminal work that follows the dreams of two high school athletes, William Gates and Arthur Agee, seeking to make it big in the NBA. The series continues August 4 with James and Peter Gilbert’s At the Death House Door and August 5-11 with The Interrupters; look for our rave reviews of both coming soon.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s tribute to the late Sidney Lumet continues tonight with two of the Philadelphia-born New Yorker’s greatest works, a pair of tense, powerful fact-based dramas starring Bronx native Al Pacino that helped define the 1970s, both onscreen and off. First up, at 6:30, is one of the most bizarre bank robberies gone wrong you’ll ever see, Dog Day Afternoon. Pacino stars as Sonny, a confused young man desperate to get money to pay for his boyfriend’s (Chris Sarandon) sex-change operation. But things don’t go quite as planned, and soon Sonny is leading the gathered crowd in chants of “Attica! Attica!” while his partner, Sal (John Cazale), wants a plane to take them to Wyoming and Det. Moretti (Charles Durning) is trying to get them to surrender without hurting anyone, primarily themselves. Dog Day Afternoon is a blistering, funny, biting commentary on mid-’70s New York as well as a fascinating character study of a deeply conflicted man. Following at 9:00 is another gritty, realistic drama, Serpico, with Pacino giving an unforgettable performance as an undercover cop single-handedly trying to end the rampant corruption that has spread like a disease throughout the NYPD. When his fellow officers and supposed friends turn their back on him, he is left on his own, vulnerable but still committed, risking both his career and his life to do what he thinks is right. Pacino is explosive in both films, playing two very different protagonists on different sides of the law yet similar in so many ways. “Prince of the City: Remembering Sidney Lumet” features three other Lumet films today, 1978’s The Wiz (10:30 am), 1968’s The Sea Gull (1:15), and 1988’s Running on Empty (4:00), while tomorrow’s schedule includes 1962’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (12:30), 1990’s Q&A (4:00), and 1981’s Prince of the City (7:15), the latter two followed by Q&As with cast members and real characters depicted in the films.
