Today is Friday and the weekend is upon us. Tonight there’s an interesting documentary at Zora Space and my man Roy Nathanson will be playing sax with The Alphabet Lounge Band on Saturday night also at Zora Space. No, this is not an ad for Zora Space. Also on Saturday: Mission of Burma at The Bell House. Click on read more for all the essential details.
Movies
Friday, January 28, at 8PM at Zora Space: Caught Between Two Worlds is documentary that depicts the diverse lives of Iranians in the US who make up a nation in exile. They live in Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C. and other US cities. Many of them left Iran after the 1979 revolution, the departure of the Shah and the start of the Islamic Republic. They are artists, political activists, journalists, academics, Moslem and Jewish, young and old. The film shows the complexities of the Iranian experience in the U.S. for those who have made it their home
This weekend at BAM: True Grit, Kaboom, Black Swan and the Fighter
This weekend at the Pavilion: No Strings Attached, True Grit, The Fighter, The King’s Speech, Tangled, Little Fockers, The Dilemma, Black Swan
This weekend at Cobble Hill Cinema: True Grit, The Fighter, The King’s Speech, Blue Valentine, Somewhere, Black Swan
Theater
This weekend at BAM: John Gabriel Borkman by Ibsen with Fiona Shaw, Alan Rickman, Abbey Theater said to have an amazing set and, of course, stellar acting. And hey, it’s Ibsen, one of the great greats.
This weekend at St. Ann’s: The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church by Daniel Kitson and it’s funny.
This weekend at Gallery Players: The Drowsy Chaperone: Take a spin on our narrator’s turntable and dive into the world of madcap musical mayhem and mischief as the cast album of his favorite Broadway show bursts to life in his living room. It’s the tale of a brazen follies starlet giving up the stage for love, and all the zany guests who’ve gathered for her wedding, including the gin-soaked chaperone assigned to keep a watchful eye, albeit at half-mast, on this motley crew.
Music
Saturday, January 29 at 8PM at Zoraspace: The Alphabet Lounge Band was co-founded in 1999 by Roy Nathanson and Deidre Rodman. It started out as a small group playing jazz at venerated downtown venue The Knitting Factory every Monday night, trying out new material weekly. Gradually friends started joining the ranks, and by 2001 the band had grown in size. It moved from The Knitting Factory to the Alphabet Lounge in the East Village, finally settling at Barbes a few years later.
Saturday, January 29 at Jewish Music Cafe, doors open at 8:30 PM: Merkava and Kol Dodi
Saturday, January 29 at The Bell House at 8PM: Mission Of Burma considered one of the most important American rock bands of the last 20 years. “Strong words, but over the course of their brief four-year career (1979-1983), the band delivered the goods in spades,” says the blurbage. They’re playing with Buke and Gass.
Sunday, January 30 at Barbes at 7PM: Hot Holy Mess is Brooklyn’s own dirty church band. Conceived in a dream that Skye Steele had the night after a near-fatal encounter with a mountain lion in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley last January, the Hot Holy Mess will draw an astral circle around the room within which performers and participants co-mingle in song singing, musical reflection, poetic interjection, and dancing.