Kong and Behind the Bullseye Lead Vanguard Making Summer Season Relevant

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Long, long ago—all the way back in the '90s—theater took the summer off. Sure, Shakespeare in the Park and other plein-air classics vied for audience attention, and repertories and Off-Off spaces offered sporadic programming. Yet, for the most part, critics and audiences could blamele...

Dance of the Seven-Headed Mouse Misses Some Steps

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

If an individual is to be saved, a family must be destroyed. That, anyway, is the logic of Carole Gaunt's Dance of the Seven-Headed Mouse, currently up at the Beckett Theatre.

The fun begins when a happy Fifth Avenue family abruptly loses Molly, its eldest daughter, in a mysterious...

From the Archives...The Voice Reviews Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story and Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, 1960

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

“KRAPP’S LAST TAPE,” by Samuel Beckett, and “THE ZOO STORY,” by Edward Albee, both presented by H.B. Lutz, Richard Barr, and Harry Joe Brown, Jr., at the Provincetown Playhouse. The Beckett directed by Alan Schneider, the Albee by Milton Katselas.

Jucifer

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Fifteen or so years in and grunge-era reprobates Jucifer still have not really broken out beyond their alt-rock cult following; if anything, their PJ-Harvey-meets-the-Melvins clamor has attracted another equally underground clique in blog-savvy, sludge-hungry metalheads. Excess still impresses this...

'Siren Music Festival'

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Even "Shoot the Freak" is feeling the recession nowadays, but a few things at Coney Island are still blessedly free: Sandcastles, used syringes, and the Siren Festival, the Voice's annual shindig of terrific music and terrifying bacchanalia. Past performers include M.I.A. and Cursive; past hi...

Lovvers

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

The second band in a trend of "double V bands" (you’ll have to thank Wavves for that), Nottingham's Lovvers have the mangled guitars and poppy sensibilities of a more keyed-up Dinosaur Jr. They cemented Pitchfork fandom with a cover of the Buzzcocks' "What Do I Get" and SXSW—their bouncy t...

Romeo and Juliet

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

(Franco Zeffirelli, 1968). This adaptation of the Bard's most famous love story gets points for its sets, costumes, and visual flair. The first screen version of the play to cast actual teens in the leading roles of the juvenile lovers, it suffers from the inexperienced line readings of Olivia Husse...

Sleeping Beauty

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

(Erik Richter Strand, 2008). This second entry in the series of popular Varg Veum private eye yarns finds Strand ably taking over in the director's chair. In this one, Veum (terrific Trond Espen Seim) goes to Copenhagen to rescue a runaway teenage girl from a life of prostitution and bring her back ...

The Lion in Winter

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

(Anthony Harvey, 1968). This fierce drama based on James Goldman's play about treachery in the family of England's King Henry II is enjoyable mainly for its two lead performances—Peter O'Toole as the all-powerful monarch and Katharine Hepburn as the shrewd and scheming Eleanor of Aquitain. ...

The Woman in Blue

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

(Michel Deville, 1972). Deville's smartly made picture is a hard-to-categorize somewhat chauvinistic ironic drama about a double obsession. Michel Piccoli plays a noted Parisian musicologist obsessed with finding a mysterious woman he only saw once. He enlists his sometime lover (Lea Massari) who is...

Harold and Maude

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

(Hal Ashby, 1971). Lost in the shuffle when first released, this often moving oddball black comedy about the relationship between a depressed affluent young man (Bud Cort) and an elderly arty peace-loving swinger who poses nude (Ruth Gordon) has since become a cult favorite.
Mon., July...

Macbeth

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

(Roman Polanski, 1971). Polanski’s first movie after the Manson Family butchered his wife is understandably awash in blood, with often-offstage slaughter given extraordinary weight. Polanski envisioned the Macbeths as a hot young couple but, killer hippies aside, he has no gift for spectacle. T...

The Man with a Movie Camera

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

(Dziga Vertov, 1929). Dazzling as it is poetic, Vertov’s silent masterpiece is also the Soviet cinema’s greatest achievement—a self-reflexive documentary in the guise of a self-deconstructing city symphony, matching the rhythms of a day to the cycle of life and the mechanism of filmma...

In a Lonely Place

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

(Nicholas Ray, 1950). The grayest, most morally ambiguous of films noir—and arguably the most self-reflexive—was released a few months ahead of Sunset Boulevard. Nick Ray’s In a Lonely Place similarly represents the movie industry as a crime scene, with a troubled screen...

Lake Tahoe

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

(Fernando Eimbcke, 2008). Mexican director Fernando Eimbcke garnered a following for his drolly minimalist youth film Duck Season; his follow-up, about a diffident teen who wrecks his car in a small town, is even more understated in its comedy and powerful in its emotional undercurrent. ...

Village Voice | Complete Issue

Rachel Harrison at Bard--Plus, Francis Bacon's Strange Scraps

Downtown's Lady Boswells: Lydia Lunch's Will Work for Drugs; Reverend Jen's Live Nude Elf

The Alarming Record of the F.B.I.'s Informant in the Bronx Bomb Plot

Letters: July 8, 2009

Soul Power Follows the Artists Who Went with Ali to Zaire

Sacha Baron Cohen in Queerface for Brüno, Mumblecore Boys in Bed for Humpday

Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid at BAM

Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg Traces a Pre-Lucille Ball Woman's Comedy

Blood: The Last Vampire Will Have You Ready to Fall On Your Samurai Sword

The Vanished Empire Tries Coming of Age in 70's Moscow

Lingering Pauses of Lake Tahoe Must Be 10 Months Pregnant

I Love You, Beth Cooper As Funny as a Hit and Run

Breaking News From Pho Sure!

Celebrate Yoga With a Hanger Steak at Watty & Meg

The Massive Nights of Those Darlins

Live From a Somewhat Michael Jackson–Themed Amateur Night at the Apollo

Maxwell's Existentialist Hang Suite

The Slow Redemption of DJ Disco Wiz

Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson Cooked Some Great Burghers For Knickerbocker Holiday

Kong and Behind the Bullseye Lead Vanguard Making Summer Season Relevant

Dance of the Seven-Headed Mouse Misses Some Steps

From the Archives...The Voice Reviews Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story and Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, 1960

Jucifer

'Siren Music Festival'

Lovvers

Romeo and Juliet

Sleeping Beauty

The Lion in Winter

The Woman in Blue

Harold and Maude

Macbeth

The Man with a Movie Camera

In a Lonely Place

Lake Tahoe