Williamsburg is Dead

Tonight ... Braaaaaaains

Tonight at SummerScreen at McCarren Park Pool, check out the zombie flick 28 Days Later. Then stage your own performance like these Filipino inmates.
 

Tonight: Mean Streets at McCarren Park

Mean Streets (1973), the first collaboration between Scorsese and De Niro, screens tonight at McCarren Park Pool. Sure, ol' Marty might have lost his edge recently (cough, cough The Aviator), but this movie should be required viewing for anyone living in New York. A glimpse back to before Little Italy was Nolita, Mean Streets features De Niro in one of his most memorable roles ever--the volatile young Johnny Boy. This movie is Scorsese at his most personal, a low-budget labor of love before anyone knew who he was. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you show up tonight.

Doors at 7pm, pre-movie music by Second Dan, movie at dusk

Tragic-Comic, Old-World, Intrusive Weekend Guide

There's so much to do in Williamsburg this weekend! Put on your skinniest jeans, down a Sparks and prepare your most disaffected pose--it's time for our groin grabbingly good to-do list.

Tonight you can watch movies under the stars instead of inside a theater like an asshole. Rooftop Films presents the Animation Block Party, an animated orgy of 80 different shorts. Beforehand, the sweet, electro-pop songs of Plushgun will make you feel like you just ate a happiness sandwich. Afterwards, the open bar afterparty at Matchless (557 Manhattan Ave) will make you forget everything you just witnessed. At 50 N. Bedford Ave, doors at 8pm, $9.

Tomorrow, the unfortunately named Head Cheese Cabaret previews at Don Pedro (90 Manhattan Ave). What can you expect? How about "a motley crew of rising cabaret upstarts including tragic-comic monologists, old world musicians, intrusive mimes, dueling opera divas, Biblical burlesque acts, sword swallowing and various other performers." Intrusive mimes? I don't even like regular mimes. But hey, I don't judge, except for always. Saturday, July 26, 10pm, $8 at the door.

Just in case you live alone in a cave inside of another cave, MGMT is headlining this Sunday's free McCarren Park Pool Party, with nice old British ladies the Tings Tings opening.

Be Proud of Who You Are: Wet Hot American Summer Screening Tonight

Perhaps the greatest film ever made in the history of the universe is playing tonight at the McCarren Park Pool. "Wet Hot American Summer" will be introduced by one of the film's stars and writers Michael Showalter. The film starts at dusk, but starting at 4pm four different bands will be playing as local vendors like Marlow & Sons, Fette Sau, Miranda, Radegast, Brooklyn Brewery and many more offer a taste of their delicious wares. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go fondle my sweaters ...

Rooftop Films

Tonight O'Death kicks off the Rooftop Films' presentation of "Making the Mission," a program of eight short films including "Glory at Sea!", which they describe as:

"... a film about a group of people in post-Katrina New Orleans who build an elaborate make-shift raft that will sink at sea so they can join their lost loved ones. Working on a shoe-string budget, director Benh Zeitlin knew that in order to make this movie, he’d have to actually build an elaborate make-shift raft and sink it at sea. Zeitlin and Court 13 Pictures banded together a cast and crew willing to risk their very lives not simply for this film, but for what this film represented—that spirit of camaraderie and community in which the journey itself provides an irrational and necessary hope."

Afterwards, get tanked at the open-bar afterparty at Matchless. Huzzah for booze/music/film!

O'Death at 8:30pm, films at 9pm on the lawn of the Automotive High School at 50 Bedford Ave, afterparty from 11:30pm-1am at Matchless at 557 Manhattan Ave

Sex and Shoyu Ramen

Holy crap, how come I didn't know about this movie (from Monkeytown's website): Tampopo, Japan's tantalizing classic about lust and ramen. I love both lusting after things and eating delicious ramen! Anyway, the movie is showing tonight after the opening party for new food pub Spooning Magazine.

Party starts at 6pm, movie at 8pm at Monkeytown, 58 N 3rd St.    

Hooked

In honor of the new Indiana Jones movie, we bring you a Steven Spielberg-inspired sketch from our very good friends over at Good Neighbor. Sometimes you just gotta believe ...

Broadway Actors, Lame Double Entendres, and Nightcrawler Join Forces In Film About Williamsburg

In a surprise twist of fate, a group of slickly dressed, slightly trendy, and well bankrolled youngish people will descend upon Williamsburg . . . to save it from gentrification. By making a movie about it. Director Chuck Griffith and talent like that guy who was Nightcrawler in X-Men 2 have joined forces to make "Shifting the Canvas", a film about: (from imdb)

A group of artists living in Brooklyn struggle to maintain a rather dysfunctional family of friends in a post-9/11 world that is challenged with gentrification, deception, and sterilization.

Maybe all those condo foundations are all just set pieces! And let's get this straight--it's a bunch of already successful 'artists' (and straight from soap opera-looking actors) from Manhattan coming into Brooklyn to make 'art', likely because all the movies are filmed on the island these days. Now, somebody should make a movie about that. If only because judging by the poster and the title, this one is going to suck.

I Saved Latin. What Did You Ever Do?

He's One Of The Worst Students We've Got from Imran Ali on Vimeo.

Summer Screen, the free summer film series at McCarren Pool, is starting off with one of my favorite movies ever, "Rushmore." Some other highlights: the Stella crew's absurdly hilarious "Wet Hot American Summer," Scorsese and De Niro's 1972 classic "Mean Streets" and Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides."

July 8 - Rushmore
July 15 - The Virgin Suicides
July 22 - Wet Hot American Summer
July 29 - Desperately Seeking Susan August
August 5 - Mean Streets
August 12 - 28 Days Later
August 19- Velvet Goldmine
August 26- Blue Velvet

Sangre de mi Sangre: The Burg Becomes a Mexican Film Star

Okay, the trailer isn't in English, but the movie is set in Williamsburg and it will be playing with subtitles at IFC as of May 16th. I'm pretty psyched to see the film and to see Williamsburg portrayed from a point of view other than the Real World or the Hipster Olympics. Read a detailed review from the Village Voice here.