David Byrne will be at Lincoln Center for thirtieth anniversary screening of STOP MAKING SENSE as part of Sound + Vision festival
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
July 31 – August 9, film screenings $13, live performances $8-$15
212-875-5600
www.filmlinc.com
The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s second Sound + Vision festival is a lively combination of music documentaries and performances covering a wide range of genres from around the world. Eric Green’s Beautiful Noise, which revisits such seminal 1980s bands as the Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, and the Jesus and Mary Chain, opens the festival on July 31, with a Q&A and reception with Green and producer Sarah Ogletree. The closing night selection, Florian Habicht’s Pulp, follows Jarvis Cocker’s reunited band as they play what could be their final concert in Sheffield, their hometown; Habicht will be on hand for a Q&A after the August 6 screening. There will be a free showing of The 78 Project Movie, in which Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright travel the country recording on 78s contemporary musicians playing early American songs; after the film, Steyermark and Wright will host a live recording session. Among the other dozen and a half or so films are Alejandro Franco’s For Those About to Rock: The Story of Rodrigo y Gabriela; Kiley Kraskouskas’s The Last Song Before the War, about the 2011 Festival in the Desert in Timbuktu; Dominique Mollee and Vinny Sisson’s My Way, which tracks Rebekah Starr as she reaches for fame; Beth Harrington’s The Winding Stream, a free screening of a film that traces the development of the Carter Family; and thirtieth anniversary celebrations of Jonathan Demme’s game-changing Stop Making Sense (followed by a Q&A with David Byrne) and Daniel Schmid’s Tosca’s Kiss. There will be separate live performances by Amkoullel, Dragons of Zynth, and Glass Ghost (incorporating LYFE technology), while Bubblyfish and Binärpilot will play after Javier Polo’s Europe in 8 Bits, didgeridoo master GOMA will take the stage after Tetsuaki Matsue’s Flashback Memories in 3D, and Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band will get the joint jumping in conjunction with Meerkat Media Collective’s Brasslands.
Taiwanese writer-director Chung Mong-Hong’s third feature film, following 2008’s Parking and 2010’s The Fourth Portrait, is an intense, meditatively paced thriller about family and identity. In Soul, wuxia legend Jimmy Wang (aka Jimmy Wong Yu) stars as Wang, a simple, understated old man living in a reclusive house in the mountains. After his chef son, Ah-Chuan (Joseph Chang Hsiao-Chuan), suddenly collapses in the city and is brought back to his childhood home, strange things start occurring, as Ah-Chuan seems different and dead bodies begin to pile up. It turns out that Ah-Chuan’s soul has temporarily left his body, replaced by another, not-quite-so-gentle being, leading to yet more trouble, especially because Wang’s goofy policeman nephew, Little Wu (Vincent Liang), continues to hang around, sensing that something suspicious might be going on. The Taiwanese entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2014 Oscars, Soul is a gripping, surreal tale that unfolds with a cool calm that can explode at any moment, and then does. Shaw Brothers veteran Wang, who wrote, directed, and starred in such martial arts classics as The Chinese Boxer and Master of the Flying Guillotine, is sensational as Uncle Wang, playing the role with an assured, self-possessed composure despite the hell the old man finds himself in.
Jim Jarmusch’s entertaining, offbeat, and often frustrating Coffee & Cigarettes consists of eleven vignettes, filmed over the course of more than fifteen years, that pair actors at bars, diners, and the like, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and talking about drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Although the actors use their real names, they are put in fictional situations. While Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni are a hoot, Alex Descas and Isaach de Bankolé are annoying. Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan make the best team, while Iggy Pop and Tom Waits should have been better. So should GZA, RZA, and Bill Murray. Jack White and Meg White, despite a liking for Tesla, show they can’t act. Cate Blanchett with Cate Blanchett is okay but not as good as the riotous team of Joe Rigano and Vinny Vella. The film is a must-see for Jarmusch fans and those who need a nicotine/java jolt. All others beware. Coffee & Cigarettes is screening February 10 with The Garage Tapes, three shorts starring Waits, as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Permanent Vacation: The Films of Jim Jarmusch,” a tribute to the eclectic writer-director upon the occasion of the release of his latest work, Only Lovers Left Alive. The festival continues through April 10 with all of his feature films, which include such gems as Dead Man, Down by Law, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Stranger than Paradise, Mystery Train, and Night on Earth.
