Two Weeks Out: Dress Up and Stay Home

It's so difficult to create an American movie hero for mass consumption! The marvelous Pauline Kael, generally a sturdy populist when it came to American movies, wrote in 1964: "we don't want to see the image of ourselves in those cheats and cuckolds and cowards. We want heroes, and Hollywood produces them by simple fiat… A drama about a man's defeat would seem somehow antisocial, unamerican, 'arty,' and even decadent." But, surely, our tastes have evolved since? But then, maybe Kael's assessment still holds true. Even if men like Clooney and Pitt are allowed to flirt with darkness, ultimately, the hero must be a force for good and it helps when he is Will Smith. Okay, so here are great things that are happening that don't involve Will Smith.

Monday, October 19th
*A Streetcar Named Desire is playing at Film Forum. Oh, it's still so modern, it's all sex and violence, but the smart kind. I just wish Mark Ruffalo was a better actor because I think he could take on the Brando mantle.

Tuesday, October 20th
*Gore Vidal at the 92nd Street Y. Slides will be shown! And if you're going to sit through a slide show shouldn't it be Gore Vidal's? He just narrowly escaped the Summer of Death, this could be your last chance before the Autumn of Doom claims the greatest American essayist.

*Remember Napster? If I had Napster i'd download these new albums:

Flight of the Concords: I Told You I Was Freaky
Julian Casablancas: Phrazes for the Young [Update: This one got pushed back to 11/3.]
Kings of Convenience: Declaration of Dependence
The Pixies: Minotaur (The massive box set.)
Sufjan Stevens: The BQE

*Wednesday, October 21st
*Zombie Prom at the Hope Lounge. There will be a photobooth, booze and zombie-related games See, your thirst for organized adult whimsy can be sated without Dave Eggers!

*For those who like their political commentary in Def form, Saul Williams is doing a reading/performance thing at the Gramercy Theater at 8pm.

Thursday, October 22nd
*Elia Kazan week continues at Film Forum with Robert De Niro in The Last Tycoon. You know, I love De Niro when he plays a reticent Jew!

Friday, October 23th
*Cartoon legend R. Crumb talks about his new book with Francoise Mouly..

*Mark Doty, patron saint of poetry-loving gentle homosexuals, is reading with student pals at KGB.

*Antichrist, the new Lars Von Triers flick that features some genital mutilation and a talking fox, comes out today. This a necessary event to experience in order to engage in heated discussions about current 'cinema.' Also? Willem Dafoe is still pretty hot.

Saturday, October 24th
*Au Revoir Simone is playing at the Bell House! I love these ladies! They're like lo-fi nymphets with honey-hewed voices and keyboards.

*Still Life was described by the New Yorker as "uniformly expert" and has been compared to the clever play Proof. It's about a love affair between a burnt-out photographer and a taste-making ad-man. Tickets here.

Sunday, October 25th
*Cutters: An Exhibition of International Collage is not about self-mutilation.

*Want to meet young women? Want them to scream and crawl all over you? Then you could go to the vampire-themed haunted house, the creation of Timothy Haskell.

Monday October 26th
*Oh it's back. The Year of Magical Thinking, adapted from the Joan Didion memoir, will be performed once again by Vanessa Redgrave.

Tuesday October 27th
*Intelligence Squared is an Oxford-style debate series. This edition? Good Riddance to Mainstream Media. It features Awl nightmare Michael Wolff on the pro side and Awl hero David Carr on the con side. NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART.

*John Irving reads at Barnes and Noble.

Wednesday October 28th
*'This Is It is the hastily-compiled footage from Michael Jackson's last concert rehearsal. Now you should probably read the (Awl columnist and overall music savant) Seth Colter Walls essay on the 'complicated' legacy of Jackson.

*New music this week includes:

Devendra Banhart: What Will We Be
Fela Kuti: The Best of the Black President
Gift of Gab: Escape 2 Mars
Pink Martini: Splendor in the Grass [Heinz]
Sean Lennon: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern
Tegan and Sara: Sainthood (Ha, we KNOW.)

Thursday, October 29th
*Francine Spiegel, a glammy/gory painter has an exhibit that Dietch that looks titillating: her series of portraits are of "soupy, sloppy women" such as Rapper's girlfriends, socialites, and pin-up girls whom are all thrown into the stew of "mylar, goo, glitter, and chewing gum." Mylar sounds sticky!

Friday, October 30th
*Pillar of the Upright Citizen's Brigade, Matt Walsh, presents his comedic blood bath KILLGORE: The Resurrection. There's bloody fetus tossing in the preview.

*Creepy goat masks, deranged puppets and a screening of Nosferatu await you at the Halloween Extravaganza and Procession of Ghouls at… St. John the Divine?

* You know what's better than people watching in New York? PETS IN COSTUMES-WATCHING! Who among you has the balls to dress your pug up like Tupac (ie, Pug Life!)?

Halloween! October 31st
*Are you making the pre-trick-or-treating art gallery rounds? You should see the Michael Williams show at Canada. Just because there is a painting of a cooked lobster and a crab furtively Googling.

*So you could go out with the twentysomethings dressed like the Hipster Grifter or to the The Black Cat Masquerade. It's a 1920s flapper-themed fete with live jazz, flutes of booze, and girls gabbing about Dorothy Parker. It's also a launch for a new culture glossy: Vintage Nouveau magazine. Now there's a business plan.

*Want to stay in and hand out candy to kids dressed like the chubby Asian kid from Up? Okay, here are all the great movies you can watch on NetFlix on demand. Dog Day Afternoon, Frozen River, Taxi Driver, Labyrinth, MST3K, The Edge, Miler's Crossing, 5th Element, My Cousin Vinny, Leonard Cohen's I'm your Man, Deliver Us From Evil, World's Best Prom, Rivers and Tides, Persepolis, The Visitor and, of course: On the Waterfront!