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Entries tagged with 'BAM'
Posted Feb. 1, 2008,
Joanna Newsom Does BAM -- and Does It Well
By Alexis Swerdloff
So, I saw Joanna Newsom at BAM last night, and oh my goodness, it was a near transcendent experience! Joined by the Brooklyn Philharmonic (the hippest philharmonic on the block these days) and her touring band, Newsom sang the entirety of her 2006 album Ys, took a break and then sang some old chestnuts and newbies. My favorite of her newest, which she claimed wasn’t even finished yet, had the working title of “Barbara.” An added bonus of the evening was seeing her new boo Andy Samberg in the audience alongside his Lonely Island chums, Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler! They were sort of seated in the middle of the theater, and when the show ended, they kept sitting, so as we all exited the theater, everyone was kind of staring at them as if they were dioramas at the Natural History Museum!
Also, being that it’s Fashion Week, I must mention the incredible hot pink number Newsom donned for the second half of her show. It reminded me of the Chrysler Building -- if the Chrylser Building were hot pink!
Seeing last night’s show inspired me to go back to my notes from my 2006 interview with Newsom. I asked her, “On some of the songs on Ys, particularly Sawdust & Diamonds, you're singing much more forcefully than on The Milk-Eyed Mender. It feels more emotionally charged -- was this a conscious shift?”
Posted Nov. 6, 2007,
Sufjan Stevens Takes The BQE to BAM
By Derek Loosvelt
Last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Howard Gilman Opera House, 32-year-old singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens premiered The BQE, his mind-blowing audiovisual homage to Robert Moses's 11.7-mile concrete thoroughfare that snakes through Brooklyn and connects it to Queens. As part of the 25th anniversary of its “Next Wave Festival,” BAM aptly commissioned Stevens -- an ambitious chronicler of place through chamber-pop folk music with plans to write a record about each of the fifty states -- to compose new music about the borough he now calls home.
At first (and fourth) glance, the BQE seems like an unlikely slice of Brooklyn about which to compose a piece of orchestral music; any mention of the expressway to someone who's lived in one of the outer boroughs east of Manhattan for a few years will immediately conjure up images of ubiquitous orange cones, pot holes, traffic jams, construction signs, torn tires, chicken bones, shreds of upholstery, boarded-up warehouses, crumbling tenements, and dilapidated billboards. But this is exactly why it was chosen by Stevens, who's previously written beautiful music about other not-so-pretty, man-made structures that often interfere with Mother Nature's designs, including those in Detroit, Flint, and Romulus -- cities in Stevens' (and my) home state of Michigan on his 2003 gem of an album Greetings from Michigan. As he's done with those subjects, Stevens didn't tackle his latest head-on, but instead came at the BQE from various angles and with numerous pieces of modern machinery, including 38 musical instruments, 16-millimeter and Super 8 cameras, and five adept hula-hoopers. (Stevens played the piano during the show but didn't sing; "The BQE" is a seven-movement instrumental piece.)
Posted Aug. 20, 2007,
NY Korean Film Fest Starts Tomorrow
By Carol Lee
Here I'm treading on Cinemaniac's territory (sorry, Dennis!) but I'm going there anyway. The New York Korean Film Festival 2007, which celebrates its seventh year, kicks off tomorrow (August 21) and it will run through September 2. And you know what, I'm going! This year's fest features a hodgepodge of K-flicks from sappy love stories to crazy horrors and a retrospective of Kwon-Taek Im who directed Chunhyang. The screenings will be at Cinema Village, IFC Center and BAM.
If you're a Korean movie novice, King and the Clown is a good place to start. This period dramedy is called Korea's Brokeback Mountain and was a monster blockbuster when it first came out. (Side note: I rented this one for Mr. Mickey from K-town. He hasn't watched it yet but you can borrow it when he's done.) The one I really want to see is Whispering Corridors, which according to Dennis Dermody, is totally retarded and scary. Others worth checking out are Between, Red Shoes, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and A Tale of Two Sisters. See you at the movies!!
Posted Jun. 1, 2007,
Son of Rambow at BAM
By PAPERMAG Editors
Here's a report from our special correspondent Gary Pini...
The Sundance Film Festival is showcasing another "best of" edition of their Utah event. This New York version includes selected films, theater and music and runs thru June 10th at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Last night's kick-off and party was hosted by Robert Redford and featured Son of Rambow directed by Garth Jennings and produced by Nick Goldsmith aka Hammer & Tongs. The two Brits started in the biz making music videos (Blur, Supergrass etc.) and hit it big in 2005 with their Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Rambow is their take on "let's make a movie" as executed by two boys with vivid imaginations and features brilliant use of animation and a great 80's soundtrack. It was picked up by Paramount Pictures for general release in July. (Full disclosure: Your's truly hired the budding filmmakers in 1995 to produce the attached music video for a song called "Mr. Kirk" by 4 Hero.)
Posted May. 14, 2007,
Querelle at BAM!
By Dennis Dermody
Check out the tribute to Jean Genet, a festival at BAM (from May 14-22), which celebrates the films inspired by the notorious French writer, renegade, criminal and homosexual. Genet's own homoerotic 1950 prison film Un Chant D'Amour will screen, plus Todd Haynes's amazing 1999 award-winner Poison and Tony Richardson's 1966 Mademoiselle. And on Tuesday, May 15th, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's ultra-stylized, misunderstood, brilliant, final film Querelle (1982), starring Brad Davis as a gay French sailor and co-starring Jeanne Moreau, who in this clip from the film sings: "Each man kills the thing he loves..."
Posted Apr. 25, 2007,
Hail Barbara Stanwyck!
By Dennis Dermody
A festival honoring Barbara Stanwyck starts Wednesday at BAM. Brooklyn’s own Ruby Stevens was born July 16, 1907 and rose the ranks in films from snappy pr-Code comedies like Baby Face and Frank Capra movies like Meet John Doe to stunning performances in Ball Of Fire, The Lady Eve, Double Indemnity and Sorry Wrong Number. She never gave a bad performance. Read Anthony Lane’s terrific piece on her, “Lady Be Good,” in this week’s New Yorker. What pleases me about the festival is that they’re including her last theatrical film on May 6th -- William Castle’s 1964 The Night Walker, co-starring her husband Robert Taylor, about a woman’s repeated nightmares which seem all too real. It’s campy and wonderful. Watch this trailer for it and see if you don’t agree. Hail Stanwyck!