It’s been nearly a year since New York City first went into lockdown, and the last movie I went out to see was Dolittle, so you could say I’ve been eagerly waiting for the moment to step into a theater. More →
Neruda
Now through Thursday January 5 at IFC Center: $14
For all you literary nerds out there, here’s your once-in-a-great-while chance to see a film about a poet– which, strangely, is something the movie bizz must be really feeling right now because whatddya know, Jarmusch’s new one, Paterson, also puts a poet front and center. What makes Neruda an even rarer opportunity is that Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet in question, is hardly some rugged, hard-boiled Anglo-centric beardo. Rather, Neruda is best know for his simple, yet heart-crushing love poems (especially the ones contained in Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair.)
If you’re still mourning the loss of Leonard Cohen last month, this may help: Film Forum is screening Tony Palmer’s classic documentary Leonard Cohen: Bird on a Wire for two weeks starting January 18. A lovely antidote to all those “Hallelujah” covers, the doc follows Cohen on a month-long tour of Europe in the spring of 1972, after his salad days in New York City. While it starts off with the obligatory footage of the band boarding planes and signing autographs (Cohen was already a big deal at the time, having released his first three albums), it soon takes a far more pensive turn.
(Photo via Michael Levine)
Next week during passover some Lower East Siders may feel something missing from their annual celebration– for the first time in ninety years, Streit’s Matzo at 150 Rivington Street is closed. Adding insult to injury, its old building with the famous red “Streit’s” sign above it is slated for demolition that same week, to make way for a seven-story luxury condo building.
Unholy RollersÂ
Saturday February 27, 7 pm at Anthology Film Archives: $10Â
This trailer might be en Español, but if we’re going by Trump definitions of “American” this 1972 film is about as American as it gets, for better and for worse. Presented at Anthology in all its grainy 35mm glory, Unholy Rollers is not only 100 percent English-language cinema, but it also features battling broads, busty babes, and roller derby dames behaving badly, satisfying our inalienable right as taxpaying Americans to see hot girls beat each other up.
Troublemakers: The Story of Land ArtÂ
Friday January 8 through Thursday January 14 at IFC Center: $14
Save for a few grainy photos in art history books and the factory settings on our Macs, few of us have had much contact with land art, a movement started by a group of New York City-based artists in the ’60s. Now, land art (also called environmental art and earthworks)– stone mosaics, tree branch sculptures floating in a misty lake, flattened grass forming massive patterns that can only be really appreciated from the sky– is the stuff of screen savers, but Troublemakers makes the case for a fascinating foundation.
Still from Laurie Anderson’s “Heart of a Dog.” (Courtesy of Abramorama/HBO Documentary Films)
I walked into Film Forum in something of a haze, trying to gather my wits before squeezing into a packed theater for the screening of Laurie Anderson’s new film, Heart of a Dog. As soon as I grabbed my ticket and walked into the atrium I saw her, standing there casually, arms folded, her ever-present spiked hair a perfect pewter grey. A wry, all-knowing smile pulled her small face into dignified, criss-crossing lines, completely vulnerable to my open-mouthed gaze. Did she smile at me? Give me an all-knowing nod? Impossible. Well, I remember at least that she looked sad. But how could I remember that? She wasn’t looking directly at me, right?
Oh hi, it’s October, arguably the best month of the year. It’s still hurricane season (LOL look outside) and, uh, Halloween, which means it’s a horror movie marathon from here on out BBs. OK, so not all the films we’re excited to see this week are spooky, exactly, but all of them are guaranteed to shake you up in some way.
Yes, there are better things playing right now than Mission Impossible number… whatever. Ethan Hunt is the hero to end them all, perhaps, but why make yourself feel any dumber this week than you need to? There’s plenty of time for Tom Cruisin’ (that movie’s got at least a billion more dollars to make back before Scientology’s satisfied), so get tootin’ on some of these other films instead.
You could ask your date what she thought about the movie or you could ask the directors. Some of our favorites will be at your service.
Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach talk Mistress America
Gerwig appears Friday, Aug. 14 at 7:15 p.m., Baumbach appears Saturday, Aug. 15 at 7:15 p.m., at Sunshine Cinema, tickets $13.50
Lovebirds Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach will peel themselves away from each other for separate Q&As about their new movie Mistress America. You may be asking yourself, “Wait a minute? Didn’t the Squid and the Whale guy just do a Q&A for a new movie?” Well, yes, but While We’re Young was all the way back in March and he’s trying to beat Onur Tukel as Brooklyn’s most prolific filmmaker.Â