Coming Apart at the BAM in Brooklyn

When a film is shot entirely in one room It makes an entertaining plot. Some of these films are very good and have edge of your seat thrills almost all brought out with just a few actors and great Dialogue. Look at "12 angry men" about a jury's decision or Hitchcock's "Rear Window", and "Rope." Also there is the Film "Sleuth," starring Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier where the whole plot is based on words. One could call this a "Plot Device." Using this one room scenario even great comedy can be achieved like in Kevin Smith's "Clerks." This week BAM is screening a one room film called "Coming Apart." Based in New York and on a kind of a true story about moving into the same building as your ex and their new lover. This film in very lets say.. interesting. This is concerted an "60s independent classic" shot for around $60 thousand dollars. The infamous Rip Torn, plays Psychiatrist Joe Glazer, a man that has chosen to "Come Apart" and film it with a hidden camera and some well placed mirrors. This breakdown leaves some with a strange feeling of dislike and others saying they loved it. A film one has to see first before makeing a dissection on if it's just over the top or under the skin.

Tue, Aug 23 at 4:30, 6:50*, 9:30pm
*Intro by Milton Moses Ginsberg

Forbidden Planet Sci-Fi Event at Midnight!

Witness a NYC Sci-fi event this weekend at the Sunshine Cinemas. "Forbidden Planet" the 1956 Classic Science Fiction Film is on the big screen for two night's at midnight. Tonight Friday the 19Th and tomorrow Saturday the 20Th the men of Earth go into deep space for the first time. This film was the first Sci-Fi film to take men into the stars. Starring the young Leslie Nielsen, and Anne Francis, Forbidden Planet gives us everything a unearthly film should have. With space travel, strange worlds and of course robots. Well one robot. "Robby the Robot" was one of the first movie robots to have a personality and can do some pretty neat tricks. Come one and all so see what Sci-Fi is all about in the LES this weekend. What else do you have to do late night? To make this an extra special event the Sunshine Cinema has brought together the city's leaders in Cult and Collectibles. Kim's Video has teamed up with the Cinema with giveaways and coupons. And "Forbidden Planet" the Comic store has also stepped up with coupons for all who love Sci-fi. Its not everyday that one can go out into the nether regions of space and back in one night. So get downtown and out of Earth's atmosphere with "Forbidden Planet" this weekend!!

Mostly Mozart Festival At the Lincoln Center

It is that time of year again when the Lincoln Center has their Mostly Mozart Festival. This year they are putting focus on Mozart naturally, but also on Igor Stravinsky a modern composer known for his work in the 30's and 40's. Featuring a film of the 1966 CBS News Special on Stravinsky, along with a screening of Stravinsky himself conducting the Symphony of Psalms in Hungary. This year there are musical offerings with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and special guest Conductors, Pianist, Soprano's, and much more. One can enjoy an All-Mozart Program with Iván Fischer conducting and the lovely soprano Lucy Crowe, on Tue. the 9th and Wed. the 10th. Then there is a night of music where Mozart shares the stage with Haydn lead by the French conductor Jérémie Rhorer. The French pianist Bertrand Chamayou will also perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No.12 in A major, on Tue. the 23rd and Wed. the 24th. There will be more programs with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra on the weekends through August. Then come the Quartet's with nights filled with music from the Takács Quartet and Emerson String Quartet. There will also be dance and even an Opera. Don Giovanni, "Mozart’s most haunting opera" will be on stage several times this month. Along with these big events there will be smaller shows under the New York sky in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse. These start late at 10:30pm and will be intimate little gatherings. So get ready for some Mozart this August through the 27th at the Lincoln Center.

Essential Pre-Code at the FIlm Forum

Get back to the good old days when women were sexier, men were scoundrels and the movies were dirtier. When skin was shown and eyes left open wide. The days of good one liners and strange plot twists. Yes, the Film Forum is giving it to us with the Essential Pre-Code. Films, mostly from the thirties, selected to make ones temperature rise. With actress like Jean Harlow, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Mae West. Leading men such as Carry Grant, Warren William and James Cagney. Bad boys and naughty girls fill the screen down on West Houston for two and a half more weeks. So get out and get dirty in black and white.

Seedbombs for NYC

Here is a great idea on how to bring the green back into inner-city neighborhoods. This company makes "Seedbombs" that are dispensed by candy machines. This is a way to use change to make a real difference. This mixture of clay, compost, and seeds will take that vacant lot and bring it back to the green side of the spectrum. By anonymously throwing this green explosion one can make what was gray and empty, green again. This is as much about awareness as it is plants. If some of these derelict urban site's become randomly green it makes people think. Maybe "We" could be using this space better. If this does not help support public gardens and green space, what does? One can get a bag of Bombs from the Web. They also will send out a "SeedBoumb" Vending Machine anywhere. The best part is that they are all ready out there. One in Union Square Farmers Market and one at Marlow & Daughters on Broadway in Brooklyn. All one has to do is put in change and make a change in what surrounds us.
http://greenaid.co/

German Expressionism at the MOMA Two More Days!

German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse

There is only two more days to get up to the MOMA and check out their exhibition on German Expressionism. In Germany before the first world war artiest where going through an awakening. Using new printing techniques and experimenting with form and color these artiest came into their own in the 1920's. Painters like E. L. Kirchner and Max Beckmann, to Oskar Kokoschka and Vasily Kandinsky, Erich Heckel and Emil Nolde shared a feeling that they where on the edge and could see the a world full of change. Then the war came into play with all it's wreckage and plight. After the war was over some of the artiest used there art to show the poor and widowed population of Germany. Others look to the life of the rich in the nightclubs with their loose women and dancing. The MOMA has a broad display of this short movement that seem to say so much about those times in Eastern Europe. With prints, woodcuts, paintings, etching, sketching, and water color this show has two more days to tell New York that art might not change the world right away, but it can show how the world changes.

Marilyn Monroe Showcase at BAM

Head over to BAM in Brooklyn to make these hot July nights even hotter. The blond bombshell herself is steaming up the screen in a multi night showcase of comedy and Drama. What is there to say about Marilyn Monroe. She lived in the limelight and died as a legend. Tonight she plays a blind young New Yorker trying to catch a rich husband with her two friends in "How to Marry a Millionaire". Also catch her "Dumb Blond" routine in "Gentlemen Prefer Blonde's", "The Prince and the Showgirl" or in "Let's Make Love" in witch she sings the Cole Porter song "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." BAM has also got prints of Marilyn's more dramatic rolls. She expands her range in "Niagara", "River of no Return", and "The Misfits." In "Misfits" she stars along side Clark Gable. This would be both stars last film before they burned out. All these are going to be shown in restored 35MM prints. So go over to Brooklyn and see Marilyn in any of these classic films.

She was an absolute genius as a comedic actress, with an extraordinary sense for comedic dialogue. It was a God-given gift… Nobody else is in that orbit; everyone else is earthbound by comparison.”—Billy Wilder