Tag Archives: Daniel Stern

GET CRAZY

Malcolm McDowell gets plenty crazy as rock god Reggie Wanker in Allan Arkush’s Get Crazy

GET CRAZY (Allan Arkush, 1983)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Friday, October 22, 3:30
Series runs through October 24
212-660-0312
nyc.metrograph.com

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 tune 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 October 22 at 3:30 at Metrograph in the well-titled party series “Get Crazy,” which continues through October 24 with Olivier Assayas’s Cold Water, Nima Nourizadeh’s Project X, and Doug Liman’s Go.

THE OTHER PLACE

(photo by Joan Marcus)

Real-life mother and daughter Laurie Metcalf and Zoe Perry star in Sharr White’s fascinating THE OTHER PLACE (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 3, $67-$120
www.theotherplacebroadway.com

Three-time Emmy winner Laurie Metcalf won both an Obie and a Lucille Lortel Award for her 2011 off-Broadway portrayal of neurologist Juliana Smithson in Sharr White’s The Other Place, and now she has a strong shot at a Tony as the play moves to Broadway in the gripping MTC production at the Samuel J. Friedman. Metcalf stars as Juliana, a pharmaceutical pitch-woman who suffers an “episode” while on the road touting a new wonder drug. Long estranged from her daughter (Zoe Perry, Metcalf’s real-life daughter, in her Broadway debut) and accusing her doctor-husband, Ian (Daniel Stern), of having an affair with her much-younger doctor (Perry again), Juliana is trying to hold herself together even as she believes she has brain cancer. But as the complex, highly cinematic play continues, it becomes evident that she is suffering from something very different, and in many ways far more frightening. White and Tony-winning director Joe Mantello (Other Desert Cities, Wicked, Love! Valour! Compassion!) tell Juliana’s harrowing story by going back and forth between the past and the present, as Justin Townsend’s lighting signals the time shifts. The action takes place within set designers Eugene Lee and Edward Pierce’s semicircular web of bleak gray frames (hiding lights and speakers) that serve as doors, windows, and mirrors while also evoking the misfiring synapses of Juliana’s brain. Metcalf (Rosanne, November) gives a dazzling performance as Juliana, an intelligent, scientific woman who doesn’t understand — and is unwilling to accept — what is happening to her. As the audience filters into the theater, she is already onstage, sitting in a chair, fiddling with her cell phone, helping the incoming crowd instantly identify with her. But soon it’s Ian, strongly portrayed by Stern, who is standing in for the audience as the truth is slowly revealed. Despite a few missteps — primarily a somewhat baffling finale that takes things much too far — The Other Place is an involving eighty minutes of fascinating theater, expertly told and brilliantly acted.

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.

HOLLYWOOD MUSICALS OF THE 1970s & 80s, PART 2: THE 1980s — GET CRAZY

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, August 6, 7:00
Series continues through August 9
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.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 August 6 at Anthology Film Archives as part of the series Hollywood Musicals of the 1970s & 80s, Part 2, which continues through August 9 with such classics and not-so-classics as Walter Hill’s Streets of Fire, John Landis’s The Blues Brothers, Robert Altman’s Popeye, John Waters’s Cry-Baby, and David Byrne’s True Stories.