• The UCB kids take to the Great Outdoors with a free spazzfest at Central Park Summerstage. Don't knock it 'til you've paid for it. [Upcoming]
• Bravo Silva plays with a band that has a guy from Broken Social Scene. Next week: six degrees of Neutral Milk Hotel. [Paper]
• Strange Powers features art inspired by the eerie, other-worldly side. You know, like your roommate's closet. [flavorpill]
• "China's most progressive multimedia artists" try to make that title more than just a relative term with S[CR]EE[N]ING CHINA. [flavorpill]
• Nothing says 30th Birthday Party like a roller disco. P.S.1 kicks off a year of rocking birthday parties tonight at the Roxy. [Paper]
• Talib Kweli makes the line at the Apple Store that much longer. [WUNYC]
BoingBoing directs us to a previously unseen 1999 video commissioned by Al Gore's presidential campaign and directed by none other than Being John Malkovich and Adaptation director Spike Jonze. (It was first made available in the debut issue of Wholphin DVD magazine.) Dispensing with his typical, whimsical visual style, Jonze created a fairly straightforward, day-in-the-life diary, painting a nuanced portrait of a very animated and non-robotic candidate. The World's Fair blog goes so far as to wonder if its release would have netted him the "precious few votes needed to win that election," though the scene in the third act in which Gore gets high on orchid dust and trips out to his own feet on a hotel room bed may have ultimately rendered the candidate just a little too "human" for his image-makers' tastes.
• For once, watching cartoons is not limited to stoners. BAM hosts a festival of animation from around the world, starting tonight. [flavorpill]
• "Scribblers on the Roof" features Jewish writers hanging out on the top floor of a synagogue. Is that cool enough for you, Salon? [Paper]
• You could see a free outdoor movie and die, or you could spend 11 bucks for some much-needed AC. We recommend the latter. [TONY]
• If you enjoy Moby, marine resources, and/or gift bags, buy a ticket for tonight's waterfront benefit honoring the "Stewards of the Estuary." Did we mention the gift bags? [CMRC]
• Yo La Tengo drums up an indie soundtrack for the "eight magical short films by surrealist aquanaut Jean Painleve." There's a metaphor in there somewhere about fishbowls and free concerts in Prospect Park. [flavorpill]
• Free with an anti-establishment twist: Easy Rider, featuring Dennis Hopper before he really lost his shit, screens courtesy of Movie With a View. [WUNYC]
Historians and scientists have exhumed the remains of legendary castrato Farinelli in Italy to study the anatomical effects of castration carried out on young boys to turn them into high-pitched stars of the opera.
We at Defamer realize that once Hollywood-obsessed visitors on the loose in our fine city are done gaping at the celebrated names lining the Walk of Fame, measuring their appendages against those of the stars immortalized in the concrete in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre (note to male tourists: avoid laying your genitals in Bruce Willis' infamous penis-imprint—you'll thank us later), and have escaped the Tickle Me Elmo who won't stop shoving them until they hand over five dollars for a Polaroid, they may be at a loss for further activities to fill the rest of their time here. Accordingly, we are happy to share an exciting opportunity offered by a pair of Craigslist-enabled entrepreneurs promising a one-of-a-kind experience for the adventure-hungry traveler:
• All the carnage of The Godfather with none of the carby cannolis: Excellent Cadavers, a documentary about Sicilian mafia antics in the 60s and 70s, plays at Film Forum. [flavorpill]
• The good people from "I Want To Dance Better at Parties" host a gathering at which there is free beer. They want you to dance better at the party, too. Level V, 675 Hudson St, 9:30 PM. Free beer in the Meatpacking District, that's right.
• The band Nakatomi Plaza does indeed take its name from Die Hard. If you're the kind of person who wants to pay money for such musical irony, head down to Sin-e tonight. [Prefix]
Kate Bosworth and Keira Knightley both became stars playing the leads in films about healthy, headstrong female athletes, which only heightens the irony of what they've become: flesh-covered sticks swimming in size zero designerwear, with barely enough energy to raise their now giant-seeming heads to answer the endless barrage of press junket questions launched at them. As they currently star in the two biggest youth-oriented event movies of the summer, parents of America's impressionable young ladies have taken concerned notice of the trend, fearing that their (mostly obese) children may soon want to start mimicking their skeletal heroines. And as with any media-concocted social panic story, we even get a catchy, new* word by which to identify the phenomenon: "Thinspiration."
• Jolie Holland hopes her first name will trick you into showing up at the Canal Room, where she will be singing folksy songs. [flavorpill]
• Because Beethoven really does make babies smarter, the New York Philharmonic troops to Prospect Park for the fertile-wombed Grups. [NY Phil]
• This week's important wartime allgeory is brought to you by French buttons. Seriously. [Paper]
• Bullitt features a car-chasing Steve McQueen trolling the streets of San Francisco. Even better, it's free. Enjoy the stifling heat in Bryant Park. [flavorpill]
• Nothing says "folksinger" like two middle initials: Robert A. A. Lowe performs at Brooklyn Fireproof tonight. [Paper]
• With all the rich people in the Hamptons, Cynthia Rowley readjusts her prices for the common man. The plebs shall triumph! [WUNYC]
When a screenplay calls for, say, Reese Witherspoon's character to prop herself naked on all fours, arch her back, and screech like a cat in heat, it usually falls to Hollywood's immodest footsoldiers, the body double, to make the scene come alive. And while they have yet to form their own guild, they are paid for their services with SAG membership. In China, however, body double benefits are sorely lagging, but one outspoken skin twin is courageously standing up for her T&A-subbing rights:
Friday:
• With a name like the Cosmos, we're shocked to learn that New York's professional soccer team during the 70's didn't last. Watch the documentary Once in a Lifetime and see how a place like Studio 54 can make an excellent clubhouse. [flavorpill]
• Shearwater brings the xylophone (also, some other instruments) to an ecstatic audience at the Mercury Lounge. [Prefix]
Feeling that their popular backlot tour was in dire need of some freshening up—visitors, it seemed, just hadn't been responding as enthusiastically to the "Six Million Dollar Man Bigfoot Attack Spectacular" as they had in recent decades—Universal Studios set about reconfiguring their world famous tourist draw for savvier, 21st century audiences. The LAT spent the $99.95 for "front-of-the-line" passes, a no-waiting tram ticket to canned narration by Whoopi Goldberg, updated movie sets, and a thoroughly underwhelming automated stunt show:
• Before there was PhotoBooth, there was Andy Warhol. The Whitney exhibits a collection of his screen-tests-turned-portraits ,curated by Callie Angel. [flavorpill]
• If your interest in soccer actually extends beyond David Beckham's abs, BAM screens Goal Dreams, a documentary following the Palestinian national team as they try to qualify for the World Cup. [Paper]
䄲 Broken Social Scene in Prospect Park? No, that won't be an insufferably hip crowd. Not at all. [Prefix]
• Terry Dame and her Electric Junkyard Gamelan cater to your whims tonight at The Stone, playing such time-honored instruments as truck springs. Bring an old shovel and join in the fun. [flavorpill]
• Continuing with the music-made-with-random-objects theme, The Rakes play at Bowery Ballroom. [Upcoming]
• Tina Turner tribute show River Deep features an all female-cast and lots of private dancing. Also, maybe Oprah, cause y'all, Oprah just loooves Tina Turner. [Paper]
• Before it was a TV show or a game you played in elementary school, M*A*S*H was a movie. Catch a free screening tonight at Bryant Park. [flavorpill]
• Swedish singer-songwriter Jose Gonzales confuses your understanding of ethnic indicators tonight at Bowery Ballroom. [Prefix]
• Find a barbecue, jackass.
Yesterday, we threw a question open to you, our far wiser and more cultured readership, as to what the hell was going on with an altered Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest billboard we'd passed several times on Sunset. Someone had stuck an image of a face we've seen wheatpasted around town many times before (whom we always assumed was Jakob Dylan, for some reason), though the heights and scale of this particular stunt finally got us to wonder what it all meant. Many of you pointed us to the answer—it's the work of a street artist named Seizer-One, and the face is his own. Thanks, guys—we'll sleep much better knowing Bob Iger now has the correct information on where to send his stormtroopers in order to deliver some Mickey Mouse-brand street justice to the guy vandalizing their promotional real estate.
Friday:
• It's not a holiday weekend for everyone, and the UCB Theatre is there to help: head over to "The Concert for LaVert," a "fundraiser" for an "ailing youth" featuring a "unique blend of music, people skills and biblical know-how." Uh huh. [God's Pottery]
• Sweet Jesus, Joseph, and Anna: The Devil Wears Prada is finally here. [TONY]
