March 11 - March 18
Welcome to the weekly Subway Cinema News - a guide to Asian entertainment in New York.
First a reminder:
MARCH 28 - 2:00PM
TAOISM DRUNKARD (1983, Hong Kong, 91 minutes)
Yuen Wo-ping (CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON; THE MATRIX; IRON MONKEY) has a family and they make the weirdest kung fu movies you've ever seen. This one features the butt-munching Watermelon Monster! Lord Ruthless and his flying balls! And the Little Mouse Car! Freak out!
Read our review: http://www.subwaycinema.com/frames/archives/os2001/taoism.htm
THIS WEEK!
Things get dirty with the Jon Moritsugu retrospective at the Anthology Film Archives, and the Museum of Sex Chinese porno exhibition opening on March 18th. Still no Asian films in general release, except for Greg Pak's ROBOT STORIES which is still going strong and has now opened at Two Boots Pioneer Theater as well as at Cinema Village.
Hang in there for the April 9 release of Japan's entry for Best Foreign Film in this year's Oscars, TWILIGHT SAMURAI. Even though it lost, its clip was the best ten seconds of the ceremony.
Anthology Film Archives
THE FILMS OF JON MORITSUGU
March 17-23, 2004
Scum rock alterna-filmmaker, Moritsugu, does not want to be discovered by Hollywood - he wants to destroy it. This retrospective of his John Waters meets Douglas Sirk with a DIY punk aesthetic is a don’t-miss-it event. Especially thrilling is the screening of Moritsugu's biggest masterpiece, and biggest failure, TERMINAL USA. Funded by the Independent Television Service to make a TV movie about an "American family" Moritsugu turned in this Asian-American soap opera about incest, crime, sex and general nastiness. Asian-Americans protested, TV stations refused to run it, and although it was later picked up for an inflight movie on Northwest Airlines, that plan was quickly killed by a higher up who actually saw the movie. Moritsugu worked out his experience with the project in his next film, MOD FUCK EXPLOSION.
Truly unhinged.
Full Schedule at:
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/index2.html
article about Moritsugu at:
http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/ozissue2/moritsugu.html
Asia Society
TE RUA (1990, New Zealand, 96 minutes)
Friday, March 12 @ 7PM
part of "Contemporary New Zealand Film Series"
Barry Barclay's thriller about Maori tribe members recovering stolen ancestral carvings from a Berlin Museum.
Ancient grievances spawn distinctly modern attempts at redress in this unusual thriller by Maori/New Zealand filmmaker Barry Barclay, when Maori tribe members attempt to recover ancestral carvings stolen from their homeland a century before and now stored in the vaults of a Berlin Museum.
$5 students; $7 members; $10 nonmembers
more info:
http://www.asiasociety.org/events/calendar.pl?rm=detail&eventid=14418
scroll down for a review at:
http://www.newint.org/issue227/reviews.htm
Brooklyn Academy of Music
WHEN ANIME ATTACKS!
March 10-14 , 2004
A program of animated films from Japan. Not part of the previously-mentioned Kids' Festival, but a third, fascinating film series at BAM. They're outdoing themselves this month and hey, that's a great title! Didn't some yahoos named Subway Cinema do a festival back in 2001 called WHEN KOREAN CINEMA ATTACKS? Oh, well. The movies in this line-up are still pretty good.
SPACE FIREBIRD 2772 (1980, Japan, 116 minuts)
Wednesday, March 10 @ 7:15PM & 9:30PM
Not for kids! Osamu Tezuka, Japan's best-loved and most influential animator and manga artist, turns in a dystopian future tale about a space pilot, sterile childhoods, a female robot, and lots of political allegory. Fondly remembered, this movie has a dated, retro look and is rarely screened.
Read a review: http://www.animejump.com/index.php?module=prodreviews&func=showcontent&id=157
JIN ROH: THE WOLF BRIGADE (1998, Japan, 102 minutes)
Thursday, March 11 @ 4:30PM, 6:50PM, & 9:10PM
Strikingly visual, dark retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood" set in an alternate future where Japan lost WWII to the Nazis and is patrolled by a fascistic Department of Homeland Security. Dark and twisted. Ashcroftian in fact.
Read reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/jinroh/
METROPOLIS (2001, Japan, 107 minutes)
Friday, March 12 @ 2PM, 4:30PM, 6:50PM & 9:10PM
Stunning anime based on Osamu Tezuka's manga, METROPOLIS. Beautiful and heartfelt. It enjoyed rave reviews on its theatrical release in 2001.
Read reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/metropolis/
SPIRITED AWAY (2002, Japan, 125 minutes)
Saturday, March 13 @ 3PM, 6PM & 9PM
Hayao Miyazaki's blockbuster is one of the most endlessly re-watchable animes ever made. Deep focus mise en scene, inventive character design, and a dead-on story make this a high water mark for animation.
Read reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/spiritedaway/
KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE (1989, Japan, 103 minutes)
Sunday, March 14 @ 2PM, 4:30PM, 6:50PM & 9:10PM
Hayao Miyazaki's beautiful story of adolescence. Kiki is a witch who has to move away from home and get a job. A castle of a story built on a foundation of small details and everyday life, it lives in the same territory as artsy "coming of age" films, but is more beautiful, engaging and powerful than any of them. Anyone who wants to make a movie should have to view Hayao Miyazaki's films first. Most of them will go home, realizing that there's nothing left to say.
Read reviews: http://www.tvguide.com/movies/database/ShowMovie.asp?MI=40129
Cinema Village
ROBOT STORIES (2003, USA, 85 minutes)
Daily @ 1PM, 5:25PM & 9:50PM
General Release
Greg Pak's self-distributed arthouse, sci-fi anthology film keeps on trucking - it's now in its fourth week. It’s all about robots: androids who need love, mechanical babies, toy robot collections, and digital consciousness. Robots are cool, critics like it, and it's won a slew of film festival awards. Plus, it's the only Asian film in general release.
Read more at: http://www.robotstories.net/
Colden Center for the Performing Arts (6530 Kissena Blvd, Flushing, NY)
THE NEW SHANGHAI CIRCUS
March 14 @ 2PM
Okay, the contortionists are kind of gross, but they've got acrobats, jugglers and "comic knife thrower" (what? he misses?). Two hours of Chinese circus fun out in Flushing, where fun is at a premium.
all tickets $12
more info: http://www.coldencenter.org/shanghi.htm
Japan Society
DREAMY FIFTEEN (1980, Japan, 120 min)
Part of "From Manga to Eiga: Japanese comic books live on screen"
Friday, March 12 @ 6:30PM
The Japan Society's Spring series "From Manga to Eiga: Japanese Comic Books Live on Screen" continues with a screening of an adaptation of Kimio Yanagisawa's popular manga. The directorial debut of Shinji Somai, this flick is about a kid who comes to Tokyo to attend a top-rank school and a realtor's mistake that forces him to room with - oo, ick - a girl! The film features teenage pop star Hiroko Yakushimaru.
more info:
http://www.japansociety.org/events/event_detail.cfm?id_event=824380461&id_performance=1408070381
Museum of Sex (233 Fifth Avenue @ 27th Street)
SEX AMONG THE LOTUS: 2500 YEARS OF CHINESE EROTIC OBSESSION
Opens March 18, 2004
I don't know if I'd call it obsession (that's a little pejorative) but there's a long tradition of Chinese erotica and this exhibition has got it all on smutty display: from dirty Bronze Age tomb tiles, to the last skin mags. Better yet, it's sponsored by Tiger Beer, which is kind of cool. Do you see Anheuser-Busch sponsoring displays of American pornography? Uh, I mean, erotica? It's especially heartening to see this exhibit open on the heels of Hong Kong Penthouse magazine closing up in March 2004.
Tickets are $14.50 (plus tax) and $13.50 (plus tax) for students and seniors.
info: (212) 689-6337
Tix: (866) 667-3984
more info (Internet Explorer only):
http://museumofsex.com/exhibitions/lotus/index.html
Two Boots Pioneer Theater
ROBOT STORIES (2003, USA, 85 minutes)
Friday @ 7PM; Saturday @ 8PM & 10PM; Sunday @ 7PM & 9PM; Tuesday @ 10PM; Wednesday @ 7PM; Friday @ 7PM
Greg Pak's humanist sci-fi film starts showing at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater as well as Cinema Village. The Pioneer screenings are also part of an ongoing art project called "Confusing Showtimes" developed by the founder of Moviefone. Will an audience understand that the movie does not start at the same time every night?
more info:
http://www.twoboots.com/pioneer/
Welcome to the weekly Subway Cinema News - a guide to Asian entertainment in New York.
First a reminder:
MARCH 28 - 2:00PM
TAOISM DRUNKARD (1983, Hong Kong, 91 minutes)
Yuen Wo-ping (CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON; THE MATRIX; IRON MONKEY) has a family and they make the weirdest kung fu movies you've ever seen. This one features the butt-munching Watermelon Monster! Lord Ruthless and his flying balls! And the Little Mouse Car! Freak out!
Read our review: http://www.subwaycinema.com/frames/archives/os2001/taoism.htm
THIS WEEK!
Things get dirty with the Jon Moritsugu retrospective at the Anthology Film Archives, and the Museum of Sex Chinese porno exhibition opening on March 18th. Still no Asian films in general release, except for Greg Pak's ROBOT STORIES which is still going strong and has now opened at Two Boots Pioneer Theater as well as at Cinema Village.
Hang in there for the April 9 release of Japan's entry for Best Foreign Film in this year's Oscars, TWILIGHT SAMURAI. Even though it lost, its clip was the best ten seconds of the ceremony.
Anthology Film Archives
THE FILMS OF JON MORITSUGU
March 17-23, 2004
Scum rock alterna-filmmaker, Moritsugu, does not want to be discovered by Hollywood - he wants to destroy it. This retrospective of his John Waters meets Douglas Sirk with a DIY punk aesthetic is a don’t-miss-it event. Especially thrilling is the screening of Moritsugu's biggest masterpiece, and biggest failure, TERMINAL USA. Funded by the Independent Television Service to make a TV movie about an "American family" Moritsugu turned in this Asian-American soap opera about incest, crime, sex and general nastiness. Asian-Americans protested, TV stations refused to run it, and although it was later picked up for an inflight movie on Northwest Airlines, that plan was quickly killed by a higher up who actually saw the movie. Moritsugu worked out his experience with the project in his next film, MOD FUCK EXPLOSION.
Truly unhinged.
Full Schedule at:
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/index2.html
article about Moritsugu at:
http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/ozissue2/moritsugu.html
Asia Society
TE RUA (1990, New Zealand, 96 minutes)
Friday, March 12 @ 7PM
part of "Contemporary New Zealand Film Series"
Barry Barclay's thriller about Maori tribe members recovering stolen ancestral carvings from a Berlin Museum.
Ancient grievances spawn distinctly modern attempts at redress in this unusual thriller by Maori/New Zealand filmmaker Barry Barclay, when Maori tribe members attempt to recover ancestral carvings stolen from their homeland a century before and now stored in the vaults of a Berlin Museum.
$5 students; $7 members; $10 nonmembers
more info:
http://www.asiasociety.org/events/calendar.pl?rm=detail&eventid=14418
scroll down for a review at:
http://www.newint.org/issue227/reviews.htm
Brooklyn Academy of Music
WHEN ANIME ATTACKS!
March 10-14 , 2004
A program of animated films from Japan. Not part of the previously-mentioned Kids' Festival, but a third, fascinating film series at BAM. They're outdoing themselves this month and hey, that's a great title! Didn't some yahoos named Subway Cinema do a festival back in 2001 called WHEN KOREAN CINEMA ATTACKS? Oh, well. The movies in this line-up are still pretty good.
SPACE FIREBIRD 2772 (1980, Japan, 116 minuts)
Wednesday, March 10 @ 7:15PM & 9:30PM
Not for kids! Osamu Tezuka, Japan's best-loved and most influential animator and manga artist, turns in a dystopian future tale about a space pilot, sterile childhoods, a female robot, and lots of political allegory. Fondly remembered, this movie has a dated, retro look and is rarely screened.
Read a review: http://www.animejump.com/index.php?module=prodreviews&func=showcontent&id=157
JIN ROH: THE WOLF BRIGADE (1998, Japan, 102 minutes)
Thursday, March 11 @ 4:30PM, 6:50PM, & 9:10PM
Strikingly visual, dark retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood" set in an alternate future where Japan lost WWII to the Nazis and is patrolled by a fascistic Department of Homeland Security. Dark and twisted. Ashcroftian in fact.
Read reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/jinroh/
METROPOLIS (2001, Japan, 107 minutes)
Friday, March 12 @ 2PM, 4:30PM, 6:50PM & 9:10PM
Stunning anime based on Osamu Tezuka's manga, METROPOLIS. Beautiful and heartfelt. It enjoyed rave reviews on its theatrical release in 2001.
Read reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/metropolis/
SPIRITED AWAY (2002, Japan, 125 minutes)
Saturday, March 13 @ 3PM, 6PM & 9PM
Hayao Miyazaki's blockbuster is one of the most endlessly re-watchable animes ever made. Deep focus mise en scene, inventive character design, and a dead-on story make this a high water mark for animation.
Read reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/spiritedaway/
KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE (1989, Japan, 103 minutes)
Sunday, March 14 @ 2PM, 4:30PM, 6:50PM & 9:10PM
Hayao Miyazaki's beautiful story of adolescence. Kiki is a witch who has to move away from home and get a job. A castle of a story built on a foundation of small details and everyday life, it lives in the same territory as artsy "coming of age" films, but is more beautiful, engaging and powerful than any of them. Anyone who wants to make a movie should have to view Hayao Miyazaki's films first. Most of them will go home, realizing that there's nothing left to say.
Read reviews: http://www.tvguide.com/movies/database/ShowMovie.asp?MI=40129
Cinema Village
ROBOT STORIES (2003, USA, 85 minutes)
Daily @ 1PM, 5:25PM & 9:50PM
General Release
Greg Pak's self-distributed arthouse, sci-fi anthology film keeps on trucking - it's now in its fourth week. It’s all about robots: androids who need love, mechanical babies, toy robot collections, and digital consciousness. Robots are cool, critics like it, and it's won a slew of film festival awards. Plus, it's the only Asian film in general release.
Read more at: http://www.robotstories.net/
Colden Center for the Performing Arts (6530 Kissena Blvd, Flushing, NY)
THE NEW SHANGHAI CIRCUS
March 14 @ 2PM
Okay, the contortionists are kind of gross, but they've got acrobats, jugglers and "comic knife thrower" (what? he misses?). Two hours of Chinese circus fun out in Flushing, where fun is at a premium.
all tickets $12
more info: http://www.coldencenter.org/shanghi.htm
Japan Society
DREAMY FIFTEEN (1980, Japan, 120 min)
Part of "From Manga to Eiga: Japanese comic books live on screen"
Friday, March 12 @ 6:30PM
The Japan Society's Spring series "From Manga to Eiga: Japanese Comic Books Live on Screen" continues with a screening of an adaptation of Kimio Yanagisawa's popular manga. The directorial debut of Shinji Somai, this flick is about a kid who comes to Tokyo to attend a top-rank school and a realtor's mistake that forces him to room with - oo, ick - a girl! The film features teenage pop star Hiroko Yakushimaru.
more info:
http://www.japansociety.org/events/event_detail.cfm?id_event=824380461&id_performance=1408070381
Museum of Sex (233 Fifth Avenue @ 27th Street)
SEX AMONG THE LOTUS: 2500 YEARS OF CHINESE EROTIC OBSESSION
Opens March 18, 2004
I don't know if I'd call it obsession (that's a little pejorative) but there's a long tradition of Chinese erotica and this exhibition has got it all on smutty display: from dirty Bronze Age tomb tiles, to the last skin mags. Better yet, it's sponsored by Tiger Beer, which is kind of cool. Do you see Anheuser-Busch sponsoring displays of American pornography? Uh, I mean, erotica? It's especially heartening to see this exhibit open on the heels of Hong Kong Penthouse magazine closing up in March 2004.
Tickets are $14.50 (plus tax) and $13.50 (plus tax) for students and seniors.
info: (212) 689-6337
Tix: (866) 667-3984
more info (Internet Explorer only):
http://museumofsex.com/exhibitions/lotus/index.html
Two Boots Pioneer Theater
ROBOT STORIES (2003, USA, 85 minutes)
Friday @ 7PM; Saturday @ 8PM & 10PM; Sunday @ 7PM & 9PM; Tuesday @ 10PM; Wednesday @ 7PM; Friday @ 7PM
Greg Pak's humanist sci-fi film starts showing at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater as well as Cinema Village. The Pioneer screenings are also part of an ongoing art project called "Confusing Showtimes" developed by the founder of Moviefone. Will an audience understand that the movie does not start at the same time every night?
more info:
http://www.twoboots.com/pioneer/
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