Theater: Playing with Grownups

‘Playing With Grown Ups’ by Hannah Patterson at 59E59, May 2014

Reviewed in the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/theater/playing-with-grown-ups-by-hannah-patterson-at-59e59.html?_r=0

What happens when a career-minded married woman approaching age 40 has a child even though she's still not ready?  Joanna is suffering in her personal way, but it raises the question whether any successful career-oriented person can adapt well or easily to the waning of their career as they make the shift to having children.

Beautifully written and acted.

Theater: The Heir Apparent

(from the web site: http://www.classicstage.org/season/productions/heirapparent/)
By DAVID IVES
Adapted from the play by JEAN-FRANÇOIS REGNARD
Directed by JOHN RANDO
Actors: Paxton Whitehead, Claire Karpen, Carson Elrod, Dave Quay, and Amelia Pedlow

From the ever-antic pen of David Ives (VENUS IN FUR and THE SCHOOL FOR LIES) comes his latest laugh fest based on Jean-François Regnard‘s comic masterpiece. Meet young Eraste. He has it all: good looks, a beautiful fiancée, and a huge inheritance from an ancient uncle. There’s just one little problem: the uncle won’t die and he’s bequeathed his entire fortune to a distant relative. Oh, and did we mention the uncle also intends to marry Eraste’s fiancée? What’s a fine 18th-century fellow to do? What else but enlist the aid of his resourceful servant, Crispin, who could “out-Figaro” Figaro.

Reviewed by the NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/10/theater/the-heir-apparent-by-way-of-david-ives.html?_r=0)

Film: The Lunchbox

The Lunchbox (Dabba)

Trailer - Photos - IMDb

‎1hr 44min‎‎ - Rated PG‎‎ - Romance/Drama‎
Director: Ritesh Batra - Cast: Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Denzil Smith, Bharati Achrekar,Nawazuddin Siddiqui

A mistaken delivery in Mumbai's famously efficient lunchbox delivery system connects a young housewife to an old man in the dusk of his life as they build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox. In the big city of Mumbai, that crushes dreams and recycles them every day, both characters find a dream to hold on to. Ila begins a fantastical affair with a mystery suitor, pouring her heart into cooking meals for him. Saajan looks forward to lunch box deliveries from a mystery woman every day. As the lunchbox goes back and forth, this fantasy becomes so elaborate that it threatens to overwhelm their reality. The film is the story of the life we dream of versus the life we live in, and of the courage it takes to turn our fantasies into reality.

Film: Ida

(From the Film Forum web site: http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/ida)

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski

In the early ‘60s, before taking her vows at the convent, a young novice travels to Warsaw to visit her aunt, her only living relative. Revelations about Ida’s past throw her future into turmoil. Both witty and serious, IDA is as moving as it is entertaining in its layered take on human nature.

Presented with generous support from the Joan S. Constantiner Fund for Jewish and Holocaust Film.

In Polish with English subtitles • Music Box Films

Director:

 Pawel Pawlikowski

Writers:

 Pawel Pawlikowski, Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Stars:

 Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska, Dawid Ogrodnik 

Film: CUFF screens "All That Glitters"

All That Glitters

The den mother of a male drag queen must fend off a violent intruder to protect herself and the ones she loves.

Director: Saro Varjabedian
Writer: Demond Robertson 
Producer: Demond Robertson

Director of Photography: Andres Karu
Editor: Lashawn McGhee
Cast: Nikkole Salea, Terren Wooten Clarke, Joshua Warr, Phillip Theodore PaschalTotal Running: 16 Min
Capture Format: HD/ Sony F3

(from the web site: http://cufilmfest.com/?p=818)

Film: CUFF (Columbia University Film Festival) screens "Smut"

From the web site: http://cufilmfest.com/?p=858

Smut

On a class field trip to the landfill, two boys make a startling discovery that draws them toward adulthood.

Director: Tom Sveen
Writer: Tom Sveen
Producers: John Wakayama Carey, Sarah Dorman
 
Executive Producers: Constance Hofland, Craig Johnson
Director of Photography: John Wakayama Carey
Editor: Matt Strickland, Tom Sveen
Production Design: Taisa Rodrigues
Cast: Case Prime, Jack Hatzimemos, Leslie Lynn Meeker

Total Running: 10 Min
Capture Format: Super 16mm

Theater: Harry Melling in "Peddling" at 59E59, May 2014

(photo credit: HighTide Theatre on Twitter)

For the review in the NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/03/theater/peddling-in-brits-off-broadway-plumbs-a-youths-soul.html

Film: Bicycling with Molière

This description is from the Film Forum web site (http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/bicycling_with_moliere):

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY PHILIPPE LE GUAY

 A warm, funny, literate comedy in which two French actors portray two French actors, friends at odds with one another in every possible way, except their love of Molière’s The Misanthrope.

Lambert Wilson (OF GODS AND MEN) plays Gauthier, tall, handsome, and the beneficiary of a leading role in a ridiculous soap opera as a beloved cosmetic surgeon who “saves lives.” Fabrice Luchini (who previously worked with Le Guay in WOMEN ON THE 6TH FLOOR) as Serge has met with much less success, becoming a middle-aged curmudgeon who has renounced the stage to live on the glorious île de Ré, off France’s Atlantic coast. Gauthier arrives on Serge’s turf to try to convince his pal (Luchini, in real life, a Molière expert) to return to Paris to play opposite him in a new production. When not arguing or rehearsing scenes while biking, they consider their options as personified by a local porn actress and an attractive Italian divorcée, as well as the lure of island real estate.

FRANCE • 2013 • 104 MINS. • IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES • STRAND RELEASING

Music: Room Full of Teeth at Brooklyn's Galapagos

It was a joy for us to hear our son Elliot Cole's "hanuman" performed by Room Full of Teeth on Sunday May 4th, 2014. Here is the solo demo version: https://soundcloud.com/elliot-cooper-cole/sets/hanumans-leap-solo-demo