Results tagged “documentary”

Oh you Bushwickians and your tent cities. The latest in neighborhood tent news comes by way of a Craigslist posting, written by some younger folk who possibly have Where the Wild Things Are fort envy:

So, this guy is running around town with nothing but a well-placed fanny pack. Little is known about the mysterious ("world's fastest") nudist, but FreeWilliamsburg points out that he is making a documentary (that will hopefully never hit the big screen). He also updates daily on his Twitter and website the Daily Nude, so you can appropriately avoid or stalk him.

Eco-thriller documentary The Cove follows Louie Psihoyos, leader of the Ocean Preservation Society, and Richard O'Barry, a dolphin trainer and activist best known for his work on the 1960's TV show Flipper, as they infiltrate a small seaside Japanese village where tens of thousands of dolphins are secretly slaughtered every year. The critical reaction has been stellar, and we can assure you that the film is not some tedious Earth First diatribe—it's a suspenseful tour-de-force about the Japanese government's effort to cover up something quite revolting, and one small group's mission to expose it, using everything from high-tech hidden cameras to breath-holding free divers. And yet, The Cove has struggled to connect with mainstream American audiences, much to Psihoyos's dismay. Check out the trailer below, and go see it while it's still screening at Angelika... or Psihoyos will personally hunt you down like a dolphin.

TJ Jagodowski and David Pasquesi first came into town from Chicago in 2003 to perform "TJ and Dave" at a couple of the local improv theaters, blowing away improv regulars and longtime performers alike with their two man show, the closest thing most people had seen to a legitimate, improvised one act play. For the last three and a half years, they've had a run at the Barrow Street Theater, where they've been able to draw theater crowds beyond the usual improv comedy variety. Their show has been described by a Chicago weekly as "an hour of subtle character development, verbal facility, and pantomimic agility that anticipates and plays off the audience's reactions" and by our own John Del Signore when he reviewed it as "a boldly imaginative high-wire act." This weekend they'll be performing it at the Barrow Friday through Sunday.

Last night the famous technology pioneer, best-selling author, and controversial prophet Ray Kurzweil participated in a lively discussion with Robert Krulwich (cohost of WNYC's Radiolab) after a screening of the documentary Transcendent Man at the Tribeca Film Festival. The thought-provoking film is both a fascinating character study of Kurzweil, who is obviously a genius, and an entertaining look at the heated debate over where biotechnology and artificial intelligence is taking us.

In 2005 filmmaker Marshall Curry was nominated for an Academy Award for his documentary Street Fight. He recalls his moment of television glory on the big night being when he was "almost hit in the head with a stuffed penguin as the March of the Penguins guys squeezed by on their way to the stage." Now he's back for another round with his new documentary Racing Dreams, currently screening at Tribeca Film Festival. Delving into the world of 11 to 13 year old World Karting Association auto racers (the prequel to NASCAR), the subject matter couldn't be further from downtown New York. Recently the Brooklynite told us about the film, the Oscars, and having his hands on some works-in-progress by The National.

A small piece of architectural history will float down the East River this Friday the 13th. Robert Venturi's 1969 Lieb House was nearly demolished until a plan to relocate it from New Jersey to Long Island came through. Now the move to Glen Cove is being celebrated with drawings, photographs, movies, and interviews, as well as a celebratory sail past the Seaport. The Storefront for Art and Architecture says "to gather at South Street Seaport to watch Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's Lieb House carried via barge under the Brooklyn Bridge and on into Long Island Sound. The passage of the house and the assembled onlookers will be filmed by 13 cameras, including a heli-cam, to become part of Jim Venturi's documentary Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown." In the early 70s Mrs. Lieb told the NY Times, "It's a real dumb house, just a box, but it's gorgeous." [via Brooklyn Heights Blog]

As the Hotel Chelsea keeps going through some corporate changes, it's nice to look back at the glory days of the legendary hotel. In 1981 the BBC folk released a documentary about the place, capturing some of the quirky residents, employees, and of course general manager (at the time) Stanley Bard behind his desk. Luckily some of the footage just popped up online.

Hey enterprising young Etsy seller, yeah you with the knitting needles, ever wonder who lived in your precious Williamsburgville before you? Brooklyn director Marcin Ramocki takes a look at the 'Burg before your time in his new documentary Brooklyn DIY, which also covers the gentrification and condoization of what has now become a hautebed of hipsters.

Out of town transgender comes to the big city to make a name for herself—sound familiar? The NY Times looks at the girl who started it all, Candy Darling (previously known as James Lawrence Slattery), whose reinvented self came all the way from the suburbs on Long Island in the 60s to hang out with the likes of Andy Warhol and David Bowie. Though dead by 29, she has been preserved in songs like "Candy Says" by the Velvet Underground, and another old friend Jeremiah Newton of the Tisch School of the Arts has been archiving items associated with the muse. The paper reports that his collection includes everything from diaries to her cremated remains, and its now all being housed at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh (the last delivery was allegedly just made).

There are plenty of theories about why Joaquin Phoenix was so out of it on Letterman Wednesday night, but the most plausible is that he was just acting. Sure, he may be drugged up, too, but then wouldn't his pal Casey Affleck put down the camera and send the guy to rehab? Affleck has been following Phoenix around filming a documentary (mockumentary?) about him, and the Daily News reports that following his Letterman appearance Phoenix and his crew went to a screening of his movie Two Lovers (where at the very least Gwyneth Paltrow would have attempted to save him with GOOP-isms).

So the Improv Everywhere folks shot their No Pants Ride in HD...but then uploaded it to YouTube (insert sad trumpet noise here). You know the drill: 1200+ pantless people ride four separate subway lines, shocking (and not shocking) New Yorkers and tourists alike.

The folks over at Thirteen/WNET have produced three short web documentaries about the decline of manufacturing in NYC. The manufacturers profiled in the pieces are all currently in Brooklyn, and struggling to keep their businesses going. There's Angel's Bakery in Greenpoint (inventor of the muffin top!) trying to find affordable rent now that the area has been gentrified, metal fabricators Milgo/Bufkin (here's a map of their metal work around the city), and beach umbrella makers Embee Sunshade (watch below).

Some anonymous filmmakers have created Save Coney Island: The Movie. From their YouTube page, where they posted a trailer this week, they describe it as follows: "When Thor Equities, an infamous real-estate company, threatens to build condominiums on Coney Island's core amusements, Amos Wengler, the troubadour, must keep the spirit of Coney Island alive with a song before all the memories fade forever. The life, spirit and essence of Coney Island explode on the screen as the film explores the inter-dynamics of Coney Island's social life."

    

The pigeon keepers of New York have been in the spotlight recently, and now a new JL Aronson documentary, Up on the Roof, looks at the gentrification of Williamsburg through their experiences.

Up on the Roof follows several devoted pigeon breeders in one predominantly Latino section of Brooklyn through the rigors and rewards of a quintessential New York tradition. All along the waterfront, and throughout blue collar Brooklyn, pigeon fancying has been an active pastime for centuries, handed down from one group of residents to the next, and Williamsburg has long been the center of the action. But as with so many once blighted and now hip districts throughout the world, Brooklyn and Williamsburg in particular is being scrubbed of its old world character to make way for a new urbanism. This colorful, urban-wildlife doc considers what we lose in the process of urban renewal and treats the audience like an insider in an unseen and in many ways vanishing world.

              

Richard Sandler, a New York documentarian, has sent along some photographs from his decade-spanning collection. Sandler will also be screening two of his documentaries about the city later this month. The first, Brave New York (watch online), "is a free form documentary that loosely chronicles the last 12 years of intense change in the East Village. From the reopening of a newly curfewed Tompkins Square Park to the destruction of the cherished Loisaida Community Gardens, to the first yuppie invasions of the dot com years, to the present." The second film, called Sway, goes underground--it's another free-form video in which 14 years of camcorder-recorded subway rides have been edited together.

   

In August of 1974, a 24-year-old Frenchman named Philippe Petit snuck into the World Trade Center, reached the top, and walked across a wire cable that was strung between the Twin Towers. New York watched captivated below. Some fun facts: it took 6 years to plan the stunt, the gap between the towers was 140 feet, and even though it was illegal, charges were dropped and Petit was merely sentenced to entertaining kids in Central Park (where he walked over Belvedere Lake).

Tonight Billy Joel performs at Shea Stadium, as part of his "Last Play at Shea" shows (the other is on Friday). Details recently talked to the Piano Man about the stadium, and he told them: "I think it’s kind of strange that in my lifetime I’ve seen a stadium come and go. I remember when Shea was built—it was state-of-the-art, like a big Roman edifice. Now they’re taking it down because it’s out of date. I find that a little odd." Meanwhile, Variety reports that the singer will film the experience for Last Play at Shea, a documentary surrounding the experience of playing the last shows before the stadium is torn down later this year. It's expected to have a Ken Burns feel, and "track the intersecting paths of a blue-collar Long Island musician and the Queens ballpark that hosted its first concert in 1965."

The hearing held to Save Coney Island on June 24th was well attended, but lacked some of the area's supportive characters. Rosie Perez, Murray Hill, Dreena De Niro and others were all showing their support in a different way at the (poorly scheduled) premiere of a Lola Starr's short documentary. Starr is currently trying to make her Dreamland Roller Rink a permanent fixture on the island. Below is a video of testimonials by those who attended the screening instead of the hearing.

Born in Munich in 1942, Werner Herzog grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria, where he never saw any films, television, or telephones until he was 17. The effects of this isolated childhood can be seen in many of his films, which often focus on the struggles of independent dreamers who deliberately square off against impossible circumstances. Herzog has directed more than 40 films over the course of his career, and although the subject matter varies wildly, one always senses Herzog's uncompromising persona embedded in each one like a watermark. His latest documentary, the transporting Encounters at the End of the World, is no exception. Shot at various locations throughout Antarctica, the film finds Herzog very much in his element: the extreme, inhospitable and almost otherworldly sun-drenched South Pole.

D.W. Young's A Hole in a Fence, the documentary which focuses on Red Hook, has been floating around for a while and is coming back to town this week -- just before the new IKEA opens its doors in the 'nabe. In 46 minutes Young explores the hurdles the neighborhood is facing and "the complicated issues of development, class and identity facing the city's most populous borough." Young urban farmers and graffiti writers are followed as they watch their landscape disappear alongside their elder counterparts.

Last year, after Stanley Bard was ousted by the board as manager of the Hotel Chelsea and replaced with BD Hotels -- who just got ousted themselves, filmmaker Abel Ferrara moved back in to his old digs. The NY Post reports that the move was to help in the making his documentary, Chelsea on the Rocks

"I lived on the floor with the ghosts," Ferrara tells Page Six. "I didn't come in with a point to it, so I just lived there and began filming. The result was the hotel from soup to nuts. It's about the people that lived there, the ghosts, and the people that live there now. These artists need help and support."

Coan Nichols (aka "Buddy") and Rick Charnoski have been making movies together on 8mm film since the late 90s; their main focus being skateboarding. At some point they abandoned their New York City stomping grounds for the warmer weather of the West Coast, but the city is still the inspiration for their latest release. Deathbowl to Downtown chronicles the origin of skating in NYC and is "the first to explore skateboarding’s urban history in-depth." (View trailer here.)

Deathbowl to Downtown – The Evolution of Skateboarding in New York City will be seeping into theaters starting this summer (with a national release this fall); the film is the first to explore skateboarding’s urban history in Manhattan. Tracing "skating's epochal shift from the parks and pools of the 70's, to ramp skating in the 80's, to the street ascendancy of the 1990's as seen from a New York-centric perspective," it includes footage and interviews with pioneers from the past and those still grinding today.

In 2006, Lou Reed revived his album Berlin by performing it in its entirety with a small orchestra for five sold-out shows at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. The 1973 album, which riffs on themes of drugs, love and suicide, was a commercial failure when it came out; Lester Bangs described it as “the bastard progeny of a drunken flaccid tumble between Tennessee Williams and Hubert (Last Exit From Brooklyn) Selby, Jr.”

Using a Leica M2 with a 90mm lens, Cuban photographer Alberto “Korda” Díaz snapped the iconic photograph of Ernesto “Che” Guevara during a mass funeral for the victims of a mysterious series of explosions in Havana harbor that killed at least 75 people 1960. The service was held the day after the tragedy, and Korda, who was Castro’s official photographer at the time, managed two photos of Guevara as he briefly stepped onstage to look out at the mourners. Korda later said that Che’s countenance was one of “absolute implacability, anger, and pain.”

Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris was on hand last night for a Tribeca Film Festival screening of his new documentary Standard Operating Procedure, a nuanced exploration of the detainee abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Those familiar with Morris’s innovative oeuvre won’t be surprised to hear that, far from a tendentious indictment of the perpetrators, his film is a circumspect consideration of some of the factors that contributed to those infamous photographs of humiliation. [Today, the NY Times' movie critic Manohla Dargis calls it a "blockbuster of a documentary."]

Wetlands Preserve, the beloved neo-hippy jam band club down by the Holland Tunnel, has been given a funny film tribute by Dean Budnick, senior editor of Relix magazine. His film Wetlands Preserved features ample archival footage and interviews with artist ranging from Bob Weir to Dave Matthews. The documentary was actually completed two years ago, but it took Budnick forever to find his keys and get out of the apartment.

For two weeks in the winter of 2005, Central Park was filled with 7,500 saffron-paneled gates. The project was a gift from the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who had been trying for four decades to launch the project. Their struggle - and success - comes to the the small screen with tonight's premiere of The Gates on HBO.

Director of the legendary hip-hop documentary Style Wars, Tony Silver, died last weekend after battling an irreversible brain condition for several years.