Upcoming Events, Apr 2007

April was already a pretty full month, including at least two visits by friends or family, and maybe a second Buckeye national championship game for 2007, and then I read in the New Yorker about the FIAF Tati retrospective.

Two related sidenotes (well, related to each other, and at least one related to this list): GreenCine's blog just linked to Joseph Gordon-Levitt's website, Hit Record, where he has posted a self-shot video entitled, "Pictures of Assholes," in which he has a bizarre confrontation and conversation with two paparazzi.

Also, last night on my first visit to Anthology Film Archives--for On the Bowery--I was seated a couple rows behind Owen Kline, whose main notable film role thus far is that of the younger brother in The Squid and the Whale. This sighting was much less odd for the fact that I recognized his face than for the fact that he's fifteen years old! I sometimes feel awkwardly young at obscure repertory or revival film screenings, so he gets major kudos from me.

Now, on to the list:

• Opening March 30: The Lookout, starring the aforementioned Mr. Gordon-Levitt, After the Wedding, and Killer of Sheep.
• The Jacques Tati retrospective starts April 3, with Holiday and Traffic, and continues throughout the month with Playtime, Mon Oncle, Parade, and Mr. Hulot's Holiday.
• BAM is hosting a Best of 2006 mini-fest based on indieWIRE's 2006 Critics Poll for Best Undistributed Film, including 98 year-old Manoel de Oliveira's Belle toujours and partially including their Hong Sang-soo retrospective. Then they've got a tribute to Barbara Stanwyck, including Baby Face, Ball of Fire, and Double Indemnity.
• MoMA is again showing a ton of great stuff: a huge Fassbinder retrospective (featuring the fifteen-hour Berlin Alexanderplatz, which I will probably not sit through); Alain Resnais's Muriel (anticipating the opening at IFC of his most recent film, Private Fears in Public Places); The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, starring Slavoj Zizek, as well as five films discussed in The Pervert's Guide [Duck Soup, The Birds, David Lynch's Wild at Heart, and Dr. Strangelove, and Krystof Kieslowski's Blue.]
• Opening April 6: Grindhouse, and Penelope, starring Reese Witherspoon, Christina Ricci, Peter Dinklage, and Catherine O'Hara.
• MoMI is doing a mini-festival of new Thai films, and IFC is showing Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes and a Century.
• The Indians are in town for the only time this year April 17-19.
• I've had a problem rousting myself out of the apartment and getting out to shows and DJ nights thus far this year, partly because I don't always feel like getting home unbelievably late, and partly because it's a lot more work to travel to Studio B or anywhere in Manhattan than it was last year when I could walk to Neumo's, Chop Suey, and even the Showbox or the Crocodile Lounge. Also, things sell out more often in New York, and indeed the Friday night show already has, but I ought to try to buck up and buy a ticket for Hot Chip at Webster Hall on Thursday the 19th. John Tejada will be at The Bunker the following Friday.
• Film Forum is showing Johnnie To's Hong Kong gangster film, Triad Election, and Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, perhaps one of my all-time favorites.
• Zoo, about that incident involving a horse and an unlucky man in Enumclaw, Washington, opens at IFC on April 25.