fee's LIST (through 7/6)

WEDNESDAY
* "Seat-of-the-Pants" @ Museum 52 / 4 E 2nd St at Bowery. Many of my "new" favorite artists are showing here, feat. Amy Yao (also at "Greater New York", MoMA PS1), Siobhan Liddell (just ended a fierce solo show at CRG Gallery), Daphne Fitzpatrick (from Bellwether), plus Judy Linn and frequent Yao collaborator Jacob Robichaux. HOT.

* Carol Bove + Sterling Ruby + Dana Schutz @ Andrea Rosen Gallery / 525 W 24th St. Last exhibition, the gallery pulled off an interesting pairing b/w young darlings Karla Black and Nate Lowman. They take it one step further now w/ the atmosphere-sucking installation behemoth Ruby, pairing him w/ Schutz's aggressively de-figured paintings and Bove's referentiality. Fingers crossed this trio works.

* Jakub Jilian Ziolkowski "Timothy Galoty & The Dead Brains" @ Hauser & Wirth / 32 E 69th St. One of the few truly gripping painters from the New Museum's "Younger Than Jesus" show, Ziolkowski's new series pairs portraiture w/ a fantastical, folkloric landscape.

* "Swell: Art 1950-2010" @ Metro Pictures / 519 W 24th St + Friedrich Petzel Gallery / 537 W 22nd St + NYEHAUS / 358 W 20th St. Surf-related art, feat. like a thousand artists spread over three galleries (Larry Bell, Ashley Bickerton, Catherine Opie, Ed Ruscha, Peter Dayton, Ed Kienholz, Fred Tomaselli, etc etc) — some of it is quite abstract (check the trove of California Minimalists) but the majority should be totally summer-appropriate, even for us urbanites.

* "ITEM" @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash / 534 W 26th St. Collection (Carol Bove, Rashid Johnson), arrangement (Giorgio Morandi, Mel Bochner), patterns (Wayne Gonzales, Allen Ruppersberg) + more. Nice going w/ the creative focus.

THURSDAY
* "Irrelevant: Local Emerging Asian Artists Who Don't Make Work About Being Asian" @ Arario NY / 521 W 25th St, 2nd Fl. Joann Kim and Lesley Sheng curated this huge show, w/ performances and special events happening throughout its duration (check back for LIST updates). Unlabelable performance artist Mai Ueda leads the fray opening night w/ her own sort of curatorial walkthrough, plus interactive workshop by Takashi Horisaki, A/V performance by Jane Hsu and a "Blender Project" food exchange by Hidemi Takagi. You will want to check this show multiple times and you definitely don't want to miss the opening.

* "The Pencil Show" @ Foxy Production / 623 W 27th St. A huge show of artists using that lowly medium, graphite, in some surprising ways. w/ Robert Gober, Sterling Ruby, Kon Trubovich, Romoo Gokita, D-L Alvarez, Louise Despont + more (so expect the unexpected).

* Yuan Yuan "A World of Yesterday and Tomorrow" @ Chambers Fine Art / 522 W 19th St. BIG Yuan Yuan fan here. The young Beijing artist's foggy, mesmerizing paintings — often in diptychs — capture hauntingly beautiful scenes straight from your deepest nostalgia.

* Jeronimo Elespe @ John Connelly Presents / 625 W 27th St. Small-scale, "classical"-style oil portraiture and landscapes on aluminum panels, terribly beguiling.

* Jeff Kessel + Michelle Segre @ Derek Eller Gallery / 615 W 27th St. I think my first brush w/ Kessel's troweled abstracts was a three-artist show "Parallel" at Bortolami Gallery last Spring (a good one, too). Segre's googly-eyed, acid-toned sculpture I've seen before in Eller Gallery, so I'm intrigued by their potential interplay.

* "Year One" @ Ana Cristea Gallery / 521 W 26th St. Nice! Four great painting-based artists who should get way more coverage stateside (but thanks to the gallery, they are), all w/ disquieting and/or apocalyptic undertones whilst remaining extremely realist: Zsolt Bodoni, Josef Bolf, Daniel Pitin and Alexander Tinei (of VOLTA NY).

* "Shred", curated by Carlo McCormick @ Perry Rubenstein Gallery / 527 W 23rd St. Collage as fine art, which sounds dope enough to me. W/ Bruce Conner (I'm sure these will be disquieting), Dash Snow, Gee Vaucher etc, a veritable cornucopia of punk.

* Martin Schoeller "Female Bodybuilders" @ Hasted Hunt Kraeutler / 537 W 24th St. JUST WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE.

* "Forced Exposure", organized by Miriam Katzeff @ Team Gallery / 83 Grand St. You know when you walk into something and immediately the room becomes quiet or you feel slightly self-conscious? That's the plan here: Bjarne Melgaard's porn-mag-modified works, Ross Knight's crude assemblages, Tom Burr's sculpture and Lutz Bacher's self-referential video.

* Christian Marclay "Festival" @ Whitney Museum / 945 Madison Ave (6 to 77th St). I am entirely intrigued by the Whitney's continued sonic directions, w/ their pretty rockin' Whitney Live summer series (see FRI) and this exhibition devoted to artist/composer Marclay. Though his prints, installations and the lot are all here, the power is coming from daily performances/interpretations of his many scores by the hottest, most avant-garde musicians. it's like a gift that keeps on giving, daily, throughout the exhibition's duration. I'll try to keep you attuned (no pun) to the dopest performances, but check here for the running schedule.
+ Christian Marclay "Graffiti Composition", performed by Min Xiao-Fen + Elliot Sharp, 1p. The lead-off show, based off Marclay's 150-print unbound portfolio, should enable endless variations from pipa-player/composer Min and "chaos" composer Sharp, sort of like listening to Gescom's MD on shuffle mode, only w/ a pipa.
+ Christian Marclay "Screen Play", performed by Maria Chavez, Marina Rosenfeld and Tristan Shepherd, 4p. This could be very incredible, w/ the musicians (anchored by Chavez' fractured turntablism) taking visual cues from Marclay's b&w film interlain w/ computerized dots and lines.

* Beach Fossils + Woven Bones (Austin) + The Beets @ Bruar Falls / 245 Grand St, Williamsburg (l to Bedford), 8p/$8. An incredible lineup, perfect for this summer heat, but I can't make it b/c of NYAFF screenings! Go in my place, you won't regret it.

* Nobunny + Apache @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$10. Insanity, breaking things, noise, good vibes. The one-man arsenal Nobunny + San Fran's Apache. Brace yourselves.

FRIDAY
* Darina Karpov "Wayward" @ Pierogi / 177 N 9th St, Williamsburg. Wonderfully technical (yet lovingly smeared) abstract paintings on canvas and panel — think the sunburst clouds of a Renaissance painting, devoid of figures.

* "Pink Power Strikes Back" (dir. Yutaka Ikejima, 2004 + Naoyuki Tomomatsu, 2007), midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St), part of NYAFF. What better way to spend your Friday before the 4th in a midnight back-to-back screening of Japanese "pink eiga" (i.e. softcore porn, two 60-minute doses of sugared deviance)? How about I give you their titles: "Japanese Wife Next Door Part 2" and "Groper Train: School Uniform Hunter", the former of which is clearly a sequel, and the latter's mastermind co-directed "Vampire Girl v. Frankenstein Girl" w/ Yoshihiro Nishimura. PLUS: Asami, star of "School Uniform Hunter" will attend the film! She left the AV industry to focus on action films (like Nishimura's co-direction in "Mutant Girls Squad", plus Noboru Iguchi's "Machine Girl" and "RoboGeisha") and YES I want to meet her. And so can you!

* The Beets + Alex Bleeker & the Freaks @ Monster Island / 128 River St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, G to Metropolitan, JM to Marcy), 8p/$8. Group Tightener is throwing a major party here, and I am tremendously bummed I am missing The Beets twice in a row. The inclusion of folksy Bleeker's band + the garage stomp of duo Coasting is wicked cool.

* The Specific Heats @ Bruar Falls / 245 Grand St, Williamsburg (l to Bedford), 8p/$6. Same deal as my THU Bruar Falls comment. I loved catching The Specific Heats....it must have been over six months ago. Now they're playing again and I can't make it, due to films. Go in my place. w/ Overlord + Boston cuties Girlfriends (their 7" release).

* Whitney Live: High Places + Toro Y Moi @ Whitney Museum / 945 Madison Ave (6 to 77th St), 7p. Just try to stand still for this one, NY. If High Place's multilayered grooves don't get you going, Chaz Bundick's (aka Toro Y Moi) particular blend of vocal "glo-fi" will 1st stun you, then get you shaking that thing.

SATURDAY
* Warm Up 2010 (opening party) @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E to 23rd St/Ely Ave, G to Court Square), 2-9p. Summer is very much here. And you need to be losing your mind in PS1's gravel courtyard, dancing about SO-IL's installation "Pole Dance" w/ the sun in your face and Delorean's shimmering grooves washing all over you. I haven't been this enthused about Warm Up since...2007? w/ a live set from Glasser to further sweeten the deal. Check out "Greater New York" (dig it) while you're there.

* MINKS @ Bruar Falls / 245 Grand St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 9p. New Captured Tracks labelmates MINKS are appropriately glamorous and moody, drenched in black w/ a tinge of something sparkly. They fill the stage around Peggy Wang's (of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart) DJ set.

* Christian Marclay "Screen Play", performed by Maria Chavez, Min Xiao-Fen and Elliot Sharp @ Whitney Museum / 945 Madison Ave (6 to 77th St) , 2p. Another take on Marclay's colored dot-interspersed b&w short film, w/ Chavez' turntablism against Min and Sharp's avant-composing.

SUNDAY
* "The Ancient Dogoo Girl: Special Movie Edition" (dirs. Noboru Iguchi + Yoshihiro Nishimura, 2010) screening @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 6p. You go have your fireworks. I will be sharing the excitement w/ Iguchi-san on his TV-created "monster hunter", aka Erika Yazawa (w/ magical, crime-fighting breasts), specially edited (w/ assistance from gore-SFX alchemist Nishimura) to create a film. I don't know if that makes any sense, but Cay Izumi (in attendance!) plays a vampire pole dancer in said film, so it is tailor-made for me. Bonkers directors, hot actresses, monsters, psychedelic undercurrent: these are my fireworks.

* "Death Kappa" (dir. Tomoo Haraguchi, 2010, Japan) midnight encore screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE, BDFM to W 4th St), part of NYAFF. Or if you want to REALLY end America's Independence Day w/ a "bang", get drunk at some fireworks party and haul yourself to the encore showing of this contemporary, super low-budget monster movie! Laugh as cutie Misako Hirata dances w/ her kappa friend. Cringe as she is captured and nearly turned into an aquawoman by some right-wing militants. Shout as Godzilla-esque monster wreaks havoc on cardboard-miniature Tokyo set, fighting off radio-controlled model airplanes and tanks. Cheer as mega-sized kappa comes to the rescue, bodyslamming the monster and playing an impromptu volleyball game w/ refinery tanks. You owe it to yourself and to America.

* "The Last Mistress" (dir. Catherine Breillat, 2007) screening @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 5p. Before seeing Breillat's enveloping take on "Bluebeard", I knew her for this film, an opulent b&w period soap, requisite dramatic pauses, intertitles and balletic sensuality included.

* Summerjam II @ Shea Stadium / 20 Meadow St, Williamsburg (L to Grand, G to Metropolitan), 4p/$10. If you absolutely must get your fireworks fix this July 4, do it at Shea Stadium, celebrating their 1yr anniversary w/ a huge roster of bands, incl. jammers Guardian Alien + CSC Funk, punk (by way of Osaka) Hard Nips, and the raw energy of Future Islands.

MONDAY
* The Met is open on a Monday (my title) @ Metropolitan Museum of Art / 1000 Fifth Ave (456 to 86th St), 9:30-5:30p. Do something cultural on the day after America's Independence Day, along w/ thousands of tourists. But seriously, the special exhibitions are wonderful: Picasso (of course), plus Italian drawings spanning Correggio to Tiepolo from the Tobey Collection, Leon Levinstein's NY photographs (subtitle: "Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players"), a gorgeous Chinese celebration series in the Decorative Arts Galleries, and naturally the Doug + Mike Starn "Big Bambu" rooftop installation (which is only open until 4:30, so get up there early. You don't have an issue with drinking on a Monday afternoon, do you??)

TUESDAY
* Jo Baer & John Wesley "Shared Space" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 522 W 22nd St. Baer's son, Josh, curated this fantastic pairing of the artists' works from their time together in NYC during the '60s. Though Baer's are totally minimalist and Wesley's very Pop and figurative, everything in the show is from the same studio, done at the same time, and w/ the paint used and the respective scales there may well be many captivating affinities revealed.

CURRENT SHOWS
* Rivane Neuenschwander "A Day Like Any Other" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave). This is bliss. Those words, written (not uttered) by Tadanobu Asano in a pivotal moment in Pen-ek Ratanaruang's "Last Life in the Universe", carried me through this joyous survey of the Brazilian artist's oeuvre. I was turned onto Neuenschwander years ago, thanks to Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, to my understanding the only gallery (or museum) in NY showing her work — and I don't know where else stateside you can find it. She receives much love in Europe for her interdisciplinary conceptualist interventions, so it was with great pleasure and anticipation that I attended this overdue exhibition. One caveat: this is not an all-inclusive, exhaustive look at her ENTIRE career this far. One of my favorite works, the video "Quarta-Fiera de Cinzas/Epilogue (Ash Wednesday/Epilogue)", a joyous Carnivale-esque parade of ants carrying glittering bits of confetti to an O Grivo soundtrack, which I caught at Bonakdar Gallery TKyears ago, is absent. As is "Pangaea's Diaries", another film from Bonakdar Gallery of a shifting reddish map of the world on an ovoid white backdrop — actually a stop-motion animation of ants moving beef carpaccio around a plate. That said, EVERYTHING in this show, besides the namesake blank clocks, positioned in all sorts of funny places about the museum (check the one in the café) is new to me, a mix of intrinsic earlier works and some brand-new ones. The whole 'bliss' thing I felt most strongly on the 4th Fl, the quieter of the two, that embodies a wonderfully discreet motley of visual and aural elements. First, the buckets, "Rain Rains" (2002), aka "Chove Chuva", one of my favorite Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 covers, an array leaking buckets suspended from the ceiling (w/ their mates positioned carefully beneath on the floor). Then these soap-bubble shapes on the floor, everywhere, near the buckets and not, that have a slight tactile quality. These are "Walking in Circles" (2000 but always site-specific), circles of invisible glue that pick up your footprints, slowly exposing the shapes over the course of the exhibition. You may begin to hear a rhythm at this point: the drip-drops from "Rain Rains" are incredibly hypnotic, gamelan-esque, like treated bell tones from Autechre. I stood amidst the buckets for...let's say extended periods of time, I lost track (this is keeping in the show-title and the work "A Day Like Any Other", of course). Can I go so far as to call to the melodiousness of "Rain Rains" like 'groovy'? I'll take it there. The gorgeous crumbled and painted maps, "After the Storm" (2010), lining two walls, are the result of exposing maps of NY counties to Belo Horizante, Brazil's rainy season, then drying and painting them afterward. They pick up the wetness of "Rain Rains" quite nicely, like a before-and-after. Finally, "The Fall" (2009), an absolutely stunning film of an egg-race through the woods, from the spoon's perspective. It is nice to look at but the real golden moment is the audio: you MUST pick up the headphones and listen (and fingers crossed the New Museum adds a few more sets). What you will hear: wind through the branches, birds, an insect's buzzing, crunching footsteps on grass, forest sounds magnified and intensified. Then: like the audio goes in your head, respiration, the egg clattering on the metal spoon's bowl. Like "Rain Rains", "The Fall" works on two levels, visual and sonic, and both must be experienced (slow down and listen) to fully get the beauty of the piece. The 3rd Floor (containing another transfixing new film "The Tenant" and site-specific installation "The Conversation") is busier overall but works in dialogue w/ the more discreet upper floor. It's a fascinating, warming experience overall. You really do lose track of time, lingering over Neuenschwander's works. I think that's the best thing.

* "Shape Language", organized by Natalie Campbell @ Nicole Klagsbrun / 526 W 26th St #213. An incredible group show amid a veritable sea of summer group shows, centered on the ostensibly simple thesis of color and form. We're rewarded with a very savory exhibition, anchored by Blinky Palermo's ovoidish gray form and peer Imi Knoebel's jagged, colorful collage. From these '70s-era springboards, the rest of the show is a voyage through the creatively minimal and patterned (Ned Vena, Zak Prekop, Joe Bradley) to the luxuriantly colorful (Amy Sillman, Patrick Brennan, Wendy White's particularly entrancing multicanvas work). Yes, it's all artists/styles I easily get into, but I think you will too. Trust me on this one: Klagsbrun's show carries my highest recommendations.

* "The Evryali Score", curated by Olivia Shao @ David Zwirner Gallery / 525-533 W 19th St. A richly layered, conceptual show based of the title of avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis' early-'70s solo piano piece. And it draws from Shao's "the baghdad batteries" show that concluded at "Greater New York" a few weeks ago. Now, that's a lot to digest (esp. if you are either familiar w/ Xenakis or saw Shao' previous show, or both), and I've not begun discussing the art yet. Suffice to say, this is a challenging grouping, requiring time for contemplation and worthy of repeat visits. I suggest you pay particular attention to Stanley Brouwn's piece — he's based in Amsterdam and basically never shows, and if he shows his works are not reproduced in media (he did have a part at MoMA's fantastic "In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art" last year). His wooden structure, like an inverted box, covers the corner of two of the gallery walls and a small expanse of floor. What Brouwn's piece does so well is calling our attention to the room itself, to the idiosyncrasies of that wall (is it leaning a bit?) and how the room is playing off the art. The 525 space is most like Shao's "the baghdad batteries", w/ Marcel Broodthaers gold artifact in a vitrine taking over for Walter de Maria's stunning "Power Bar" (from MoMA PS1), plus the inclusion of Fred Sandback (schematics) and Willem de Rooij (a surfboard-sized ostensibly plain linen canvas, interwoven w/ metallic fibers to change color based on your orientation w/ it) — though everything here, incl. Mary Ellen Carroll's multipart installation (print of work, filming of actual work burning, ash "paintings" made from original work's detritus), Robert Breer's audience-pleasing moving aluminum sheet and Dave Miko's discreet planar objects, have much more room to breathe. Miko's tie the two rooms rooms together, showing up in the 533 area alongside a super-rare, 1960 wooden Claes Oldenburg relief, plus another eerie Breer, a great video suite from Bernadette Corporation mixing Fendi perfume with art (trust me), and two unnerving Plexiglas-mounted prints from Craig Kalpakjian, ostensibly minimal yet terribly geometric. Yes, I am rather into this show.

* Christian Marclay "Fourth of July" @ Paula Cooper Gallery / 521 W 21st St. Ahead of his major musuem show "Festival" at the Whitney (opens THU), Marclay presented a fragmented series of print blowups from an Independence Day parade in Hyde Park NY. Seeing these torn glimpses of a uniformed marching band and sweating spectators is like viewing the actual parade through a tube: he draws you toward all these interesting peripheral actions that, in the actual festival, would have been lost in all the noise. Like a dude lounging in a folding chair.

* Ragnar Kjartansson "The End" @ Luhring Augustine / 531 W 24th St. The young Icelandic artist's contribution to the 2009 Venice Biennale — daily portrait paintings of his lugubrious model/friend — may have raised some eyebrows on paper. But the end result, 144 colorful "snapshots" hung salon-style to cover the gallery's main room, is pretty magnificent, and consists almost entirely of off-moment gems rather than formal posing. Plus, in the back gallery: Kjartansson's new film "The Man" w/ blues pianist patriarch Pinetop Perkins, shot in such a way that it feels like the back wall is missing and Perkins is there, tickling the ivories in a sunset-drenched field before our very eyes.

* Jack Pierson "Go there now and take this with you" @ Bortolami / 510 W 25th St. I learned something at this show: Pierson, he of the found-signage composites, studied photography for years. This series of folded blowups doesn't hold the weight of, say, Wolfgang Tillmans, but I dug this other facet to his work.

* "Touched" @ Lehmann Maupin / 540 W 26th St. I'm taking back much of my overall reticence toward summer group shows. There are many fine ones on now, incl this very physical one at the Chelsea gallery. Love impasto? Allison Schulnik's are like cake-frosted portraiture and Angel Otero's (particularly that yellow one) will burn your eyes out in a good way. Like impossible-to-categorize mixed media sculpture? My fav was Brett Lund's, which look like a cross b/w Huma Bhabha and Anselm Reyle.

* "The Mass Ornament", curated by John Rasmussen @ Gladstone Gallery / 515 W 24th St. A fantastic group exhibition w/ a fierce undercurrent of dread running through much of the art. The game here is marginalized subjects and discreet interventions, but that's a bit broad so let me break it down for you. Nick Mauss (showing at "Greater New York" at MoMA PS1) has these slightly off double-chairs placed about the gallery. They link a frightening Gedi Sibony installation, which looks like a cloaked piano-sized apparition suspended high up on a wall, bodily prints by Alina Szapoczikow (way under-appreciated, check her at MoMA's "Mind and Matter: Alternative Abstractions" show), Ned Vena's disquieting rubber-on-linen Op-abstracts and Patricia Esquivias' ("Younger than Jesus") captivating four-part "Reads Like the Paper Group" film, w/ her hypnotic monotone overhead.

* Tim Hawkinson "One Man Band" @ The Pace Gallery / 545 W 22nd St. Though who needs a stinkin' group show when you have Hawkinson's uber-creative junk-sculpture assemblages to fill the gallery. Especially if said assemblages make noise! Slide-whistle tree branches, steak-knife music boxes, and other such "Star Wars" cantina-esque mayhem.

* Andy Warhol "Rain Machine (Daisy Waterfall)" @ Nicholas Robinson Gallery / 535 W 20th St. For all the trouble in constructing this installation of eye-popping daisy panels behind a double-layer of running water (its summary destruction in Osaka in '69 and again in LACMA in '71), it's a calming, satisfying experience to see in person, finally fully-functioning and protected. Also: it's a cooling installation, what w/ the faint spray of water, depending on your proximity to it, and it's so bloody hot out as is...

* "The Tell-Tale Heart (part 2)" @ James Cohan Gallery / 533 W 26th St. Obsession and its unraveling. Props to the gallery for a unique spin on the conventional summer show, and double-props for the result. Lots of gun-imagery here (I suppose that's not surprising), from Koto Ezawa's simple-vector "soap opera" animation (echoed by Keren Cytter's stage-dialogue melodrama) to Shirin Neshat's disquieting b&w print (rune-inscribed bare feet around the barrel of a rifle). Dash Snow's print, the glistening just-expelled semen on the nude back of an anonymous figure, I've seen before but fits the tunnel-vision focus underlying the non-gun works (see also: Felix Gonzalez-Torres' lonely chairs/TV installation).

* "Le Tableau", curated by Joe Fyfe @ Cheim & Read / 547 W 25th St. This beauty of a group show focuses on the surface of the canvas (or whatever medium) and the artists' creative lengths in the realm of 2D abstraction. What we receive is a dexterous abstraction show, always a strength of this gallery, incl. Louise Fishman's sumptuous, trowelled "Violets For My Furs" (w/ a crimson bloom in the upper left corner), Merlin James' "CAT", which is just that, an almost stenciled violet cat walking amidst a fuzzy spectrum of festive soap bubbles, the curator's own "After Corot", a deft 'color-block' abstract composed entirely of pink felt, orange-crush cotton, and jute, and a classic Joan Mitchell diptych as an aquatic field. There are nearly two dozen others that I didn't name, and much of it works.

* Summer show @ Robert Miller Gallery / 524 W 26th St. You would think a summer group show (esp. one like this, bearing mostly artists from its roster and w/o a funny title) would be a really unfocused grab-bag. But that's not the case here: there is a great flow from room to room, in small groupings of each artists' work, and the only shrill note is that of Dustin Yellin (only sculpture in the show). The rest, Lee Krasner's lyrical, greenish abstract, early works on paper from Yayoi Kusama and Joan Mitchell, powdery Joseph La Piana facing amorphous Barthelemy Toguo and a chromatic day/night landscape diptych by Glen Rubsamen (straight out of Wong Kar-wai, only this is acrylic paint), are smooth sailing.

* "Heat Wave" @ Lombard-Freid Projects / 531 W 26th St 2nd Fl. Lombard-Freid is moving! One of my favorite, international-cast galleries is moving down to 19th St this fall. I think this is quite a nice way for them to conclude their 26th St, 2nd Fl space, a group show of young(ish) artists from the Middle East (and Indonesia). The photography is strong here, Bani Abidi's "Karachi" series of domestic tasks shown outdoors at dusk, after the ritual fast, and Mounira al Solh's "Elvis" series. Eko Nugroho's stunning, shimmering textile and works on paper are cartoon-tinged politics and NY-based Maya Schindler's raw media installation and text-based works strip her language to its barest forms.

* Jeff Soto "Lifecycle" @ Jonathan LeVine Gallery / 529 W 20th St 9th Fl. A delicious step further from the Cali-based artist, in a new series of acrylic paintings and works on paper. He still has that environmental/industrial vibe underlying everything, but the whip-appendaged orbs and fuzzy fantastic creatures now exist in this "Heavy Metal"-like fantasy realm. The details are exquisite. His last solo show, "Storm Clouds" back in 2007, carried an Elements series. This one features the seasons and manages to tie in the cycle of life.
+ Dave Cooper "Mangle". Cooper's fleshy portraiture has become even...wetter, I think that's the word for it, incredibly textured, Impressionist, even, but the figures themselves are nearly abstract, translucent forms. The titular triptych reminds me of the opening shot from Teruo Ishii's disquieting "Screwed" (starring Tadanobu Asano in one of his more non-mainstream roles). If anybody gets that reference, you are insanely cool.

* "The Fifth Genre: Considering the Contemporary Still Life" @ Galerie Lelong / 528 W 26th St. I dug the challenge behind this group exhibition: hopefully ejecting a bit of cool factor (or at least relevance) into that old art-history chestnut, the still life. And while there are some beauties here, it's not enough. It begins very strong, w/ a postage stamp-sized b&w print from Louise Lawler of a bouquet on a table, across from etchings/aquatints of dried flowers by Kiki Smith and a predictably sumptuous flower "portrait" from Robert Mapplethorpe. Then...I didn't get the inclusion of many other artists. Angelo Filomeno's chromed skull/axe explosion will grab your attention, but that's it. Same deal w/ Jaume Plensa and Petah Coyne. Some strong, moody instances from Alfredo Jaar (appropriately political), Miranda Lichtenstein (appropriately lo-fi and enigmatic) and Marti Cormand (a bit alien landscape-y, but cool) in an overall very uneven show.

LAST CHANCE
* Thomas Eggerer "The Rules of the Fence" @ Friedrich Petzel Gallery / 535 W 22nd St. I see doomsday in Eggerer's new acrylic and oil paintings, reproducing the same collage-y figures against wrong-color backdrops recalling nuclear fallout as filtered through "The Simpsons" (or Radiohead's "Kid A" album art).

* Sungmi Lee "Behind My Door" @ Gana NY / 568 W 25th St. Lee's 1st exhibition at the gallery is a meditation on her father's death, spanning sculpture and paintings created w/ resin and — shall we say — more tenuous mediums. The effect of "Crying For You", a life-size, mushroom-shaped (or I guess frozen fountain-shaped) whitish resin form, lengthened by dripping stalactites that formed the adjacent 'painting' "Painting By Sculpture" (which is fitted on plywood and looks like a tactile whirlpool), is major. Then she starts incorporating crushed automobile glass and blown incense smoke into dangerous pillow-shapes and Plexiglas boxes. She's got my attention.
+ Sun-Tai Yoo. Metaphysical still-lifes, feat. tiny cyclists and Di Chirico-esque distended shadows and shapes against crowded, complimentary objects.

* Kyung Jeon "Belle Rascal" @ Tina Kim Gallery / 545 W 25th St 3rd Fl. Jeon combines her effortless mural-sized, wildly detailed renderings of kids in various shenanigans — like a combo Korean folklore and Bosch — with a suite of intimate small-scale drawings of solitary figures on everything from handmade paper to matchbooks and incised cardboard.

* Haeri Yoo "Body Hoarding" @ Thomas Erben Gallery / 526 W 26th St 4th Fl. A fantastic physicality exists w/in the realm of Yoo's kinetic mixed media paintings. While she may be moving away from total representation, you still get beautiful glimpses of that, most directly in the really tiny canvases in this fine show, like the sensual "Kiss" and "Back Rub". The blurred "Family Unit" could be a reimagined Arshile Gorky, while the absolutely fantastic, bluish "Honeymoon Island" looks to me like animated gestures and poses, brimming with life beneath the paint.

* Romain Bernini "Despite Walls and Landscapes" @ Priska C. Juschka Fine Art / 547 W 27th St 2nd Fl. The setting of Bernini's new suite of large oil paintings is an anonymous, barren landscape w/ a poisonous wrong-colored sky, sparsely populated by anonymous figures trudging along and attempting to surmount a fortress-like wall. Dig it? Cues on immigration, Arizona's current laws, border patrol, and the broader world (Israel/Palestine, Russia/Georgia) — this couldn't be more timely.

* Burt Barr + Valérie Belin @ Sikkema Jenkins & Co / 530 W 22nd St. Nice duality here: Barr's films focus on either a barely moving or rapidly-repeating subject (a moored ship, a lawn sprinkler), so they look like static b&w prints. The deliquescing bubbles at the bottom of a sink is a charmer, though. Belin's lush C-prints of mostly floral arrangements and objet are pulled out of context and abstracted.

* Richard Hughes @ Anton Kern Gallery / 532 W 20th St. Talk about disturbing. The centerpiece of Hughes' sculptural installation (made of convincingly realistic casts of objects, in glass, cloth and artificial materials) is the floor of like a gutted house, insulation and brick dust powdering the ground. This plays off "Dead Flies", cast-resin shoes slung over 'power lines' shoefiti-style and the Robert Gober-esque particleboard-looking slabs (a mix of paint, fiberglass, and resin) — to equal a very unsettling vibe.

* "Process/Abstraction" @ Paul Kasmin Gallery / 293 10th Ave. Let's get this out of the way: this is a dude-only show of process-driven abstraction, so in that sense it's predictable. In another sense: it's a satisfying show, in places. Hell, anytime Christopher Wool is included (here on of his telltale photocopy-ish enamel on linens) I'm game. His outdoes Nathan Hylden's acrylic on aluminum, as Morris Louis' chromatic eruption blasts Ian Davenport's admittedly laborious acrylic outta there. Double props to the perception-screwing Kenneth Noland and the refreshingly reductive Zak Prekop (of "Greater New York").

* Allison Katz "Le Tit." @ Rachel Uffner Gallery / 47 Orchard St. These glistening oil paintings, in a range of sizes and on canvas, linen and panel, bounce between soft-edged Fauvism and harder abstraction, but Katz has a strong command of lines and figures throughout. I look forward to seeing more from her.

* Darren Almond "Sometimes Still" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 523 W 24th St. Almond's new six-screen film, tracing the path of a Tendai monk engaging in a rigorous process toward Buddhahood near Kyoto, is a thrillingly immersive video experience. Though your arrival during this 25-min film will vary person to person, hopefully it'll go somewhat like mine: you feel your way into the pitch-dark room, to the echoing chants of a Buddhist monk. Suddenly five of the screens light up w/ flashes of the forest, tree trunks at night spanning all cardinal directions as, in the center screen, the camera tracks a solitary nascent monk ascending a stone staircase.

* Martin Creed @ Gavin Brown's Enterprise / 620 Greenwich St. The Scottish conceptualist created a very tactile, very IDably beautiful installation this time, blanketing the floor of the gallery w/ marble planks in varying colors. That's essentially "it", but the work stretches beyond the perimeters of the public space, into the offices and further back, organically.
+ Jonathan Horowitz. The artist restages his notorious "Go Vegan!" installation at La Frieda Meats, at 601 Washington and just around the corner from Creed's show. His work, a combo of screenprinted cute animals, portraits of vegan celeb, and video of cows being bled in a slaughterhouse work brilliantly off the steel walls, hooks, and rubbery doors of the empty meat-market. I wonder, though, if it were like in a white-box space if it would have the same propulsion. Here, though, it's excellent (though I'm still carnivorous).

NYAFF 2010: "Sophie's Revenge"

* Sophie's Revenge (dir. Eva Jin, 2009, China). Zhang Ziyi, the lead Sophie, also produced this slick, sugary Hollwood-esque rom-com. But you know what? It's cute! And that's OK! A little slice of escapism w/ a gorgeous cast (also starring So Ji-Sub as Sophie's ex Jeff, Fan Bingbing as Jeff's new starlet squeeze Joanna and Peter Ho as the rough-and-tumble photographer Gorden...oh and Ruby Lin — HELLO! — as Sophie's agent Lucy) never hurt anyone. The Hollywood-esque quip earlier was intentional: this could easily be set in fantasy Manhattan, where everyone owns a spacious brownstone and dresses exceptionally well, unless they feel like lounging about in their PJs, then they are fine to do that. And if they're not a doctor (Jeff), they're in a "creative" industry (Sophie's an artist, Gorden a photographer etc). Zhang plays a lovelorn klutz, desperately seeking to retake Jeff's affections, after he dumped her a month before their wedding, then kick him to the curb, whilst throwing fluttery eyelash, sweetly smiled affectations at her girls or Gorden, the boy-next-door-type who 1st takes pity on her then falls for her. Sophie concocts these elaborate "scientific" means for winning Jeff back, from befriending Joanna at the gym (there are numerous instances of Sophie's creative, runaway mind at work throughout the film, like placing shards of a lightbulb outside Joanna's shower, when in reality she's just messing w/ her feathery slippers) to getting a makeover and pretending to be "with" Gorden. Lots of cartoon-rendered interventions as well, animations courtesy of Sophie's vivid storytelling that add a bit of quirkiness to the dialogue. This is a different Zhang for me, w/o the poisonous grace of her Bai Ling character in Wong Kar-Wai's 2046. Sophie is nonathletic, weepy, flirty (in a different sense from Ling), prone to excessive drinking, clumsy — in short, the protagonist in a Hollywood-esque rom-com. It's not very serious, but you may find yourself teared up by the conclusion (girls, I"m not just talking to you here).
Next screening: Sat, July 3, 9:45p (Walter Reade Theatre)

NYAFF 2010: "Chaw"

* Chaw (dir. Shin Jung-won, 2009, Korea). I dug Chaw, plain and simple. I'd heard wildly divergent reviews going into it — how trippy it is, how confusing, how it would help to be stoned whilst watching it (true for many, but not all, films), how it just wasn't that good. I'm setting the record straight: it's dope. For those who disagree, you need to see it again. You must have missed something. The core plot is simple: excessive poaching and razing of land (for golf courses, organic farming for city slickers, etc) has driven a few mountain-dwelling wild boars to take extreme tactics, exhuming graves and thereby developing an affinity for human flesh. Seoul-based officer Kim (Uhm Tae-Woong, getting all sorts of shit thrown at him from all sides but ceaselessly trying to act professional throughout) and family are relocated to sleepy countryside village, Sameri, where the king boar and his clan have begun attacking people (seen from the boar's perspective, this glassy, red-eyed convex world). Kim is quickly thrust into assisting the keystone-capersesque local law enforcement (aided by a kleptomaniacal, perennially sunglassed detective) in tracking the beastie whilst keeping everything on the DL, so as not to scare the city-slicker organic farmers away. Tack on two "star" hunters, one a grizzled old man and the other a ponytailed hotshot w/ serious women issues and the passionate, kooky biologist Su-ryeon (Jeong Yu-Mi) and that's the plot, in a nutshell. But from minute like 5, when the aforementioned cops go tumbling ad nauseam down a hillside, to the rather stoned mayor, to the bizarre back-and-forth banter and Seoul rappers and Kim sucking it all up and carrying on, you might forget there is a man-eating, van-sized boar on the loose. If this were an American film, mark my words, the "star" hunters and crew would have found the beastie, probably one or both of them would have died trying to shoot at it, there would have been egos thrown around and it would have quickly dovetailed into a gory, boring mess. The most disturbing, overtly violent moments (in my opinion) occur less than 30 minutes in, before we even get a clear shot of the beastie. There are loads other jump-scenes that follow, but once the majority of the bloodshed is out of the way, director Shin focuses more on ethics, from both the old hunter (a guilt for aiding in the slaughter of native animals) and the young biologist (she finds the boar's brood in a cave and takes one of the piglets, unable to kill it). There is a moment too, late in the film, where Kim and Yu-Mi lead the boar away from the village, using its piglet as bait (preceded by an absolutely ridiculous, video game-ish ride on a minecart — OK so there are MANY doped-up moments like this), and we get a quick glimpse from the piglet's POV, staring at its massive, snuffling parent, sharing a moment. It was precisely here that I got it: there is more going on here, beyond all the wacked-out incidents and black humor. The natural order of life was interrupted, and the consequences were inevitable. I won't give away the denouement but I don't feel too terrible for the majority of the humans. And I'd totally watch Chaw again.
Next screening: Thu, July 1, 1:15p (Walter Reade Theatre)

NYAFF 2010: "L.A. Streetfighters" + "The Storm Warriors"

* L.A. Streetfighters (dir. "Richard" Park Woo-sang, 1985, Korea). This one-in-a-lifetime tarnished gem of an exploitation action film is available on Netflix. THAT, my friends, is the most bonkers feature of a basically endless daisy-chain of bonkers "moments", from the 40-year-old actors (Philip Rhee as Tony, Jun Chong as Young) squeezed into high-school desks and joining an inner-city gang, which leads to the usual high-school drama (gang fights, your girlfriend licking ice cream off your face, impromptu birthday parties, stealing from the mob, picking up prostitutes...). I don't know what is weirder, Tony in his perennial diamond-patterned sweater out w/ the girl (Rosanna King) then returning to his parents' grocery past midnight where Mom and Dad are ostensibly counting bananas, or Young, whining petulantly about his older (hot) mother's antics then purchasing a $3 six-pack w/ a $100 bill and getting into a fight w/ a guy playing a didgeridoo-sized flute in same liquor store. Or same Young, stealing a briefcase of cash from the mob by "concealing" it beneath his jacket whilst the rest of the gang pretend to be doormen, and the gang sets two hitmen on them, one (Ken Nagayama) is dressed as a samurai and the other (Bill "Superfoot" Wallace) drops dialogue like "I'm gonna break your balls!" Or rival gangs, like The Spikes ("Spike them! Kill!" repeat ad infinitum) whose leader has a blond bowl-cut and wears a belly-shirt, and the Blades (something like "Chino, chino, chino, chino...") whose shirtless bruiser urinates on Young's car and whose leader resembles Panama Jack. And the one-song soundtrack, and the ridiculous dubbing, the alternate film title (Ninja Turf??), I could go on. Being anywhere between gently buzzed to swayingly drunk helps. And yeah, you can totally Netflix this. What is the world coming to??

* The Storm Warriors (dirs. The Pang Brothers, 2009, Hong Kong). Quite possibly the most CGI-ed film to come out of Hong Kong. It's like watching a video game — my first thought was 300 but that quickly shifted to Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and I mean this in a good way. The fight scenes breathe SFX (wind that turns into swords, and amazingly the reverse, fire-fists, slo-mo water splashing as two dudes duke it out, lots of swirling black mists) and the calm moments are so bizarre and wrought w/ tension (lots of shall we say reticence) that luckily the fight scenes take up about 85% of the film. Plotwise....it''s a live-action adaptation of Fung Wan, screenwriter Ma Wing-Shing's comic book. Cloud (Hong Kong pop star Aaron Kwok, doing a FFVII impression) and Wind (Ekin Cheng, in properly Goth hair-extension mode) — plus other creatively named characters (Nameless, Second Dream etc) v. Lord Godless (aka Simon Yam in a Super Shredder outfit, and I only realized after the screening that he's supposed to play a Japanese warload) for the safety of China, and the world!!! Balletic, abstract-art choreographed fights, conjured flames and swirling blade cyclones. Besides this I got little from the characters (Cloud is a hard-ass w/ a cutie, Tang Yan, pining after him; Wind seems selfless but wasn't as rockstar cool as Cloud etc), but this thing is so doped on CGI action that you've got to understand what you're getting yourself into. Way entertaining and gorgeous to look at, and that's OK.
Next screening: Thu, July 1, 9p (WRT)

NYAFF 2010: "Ip Man 2" + "Death Kappa"

* Ip Man 2 (dir. Wilson Yip, 2010, Hong Kong). This sequel to last year's stunner on Ip Man, Wing Chun master and Bruce Lee's teacher, shattered box office records in Hong Kong. And while this one is somewhat less biographical than the original, it most definitely kicks ass, w/ all the rousing virtuous messages that coincide in that. Our hero (Donnie Yen, virtually unflappable) has set up shop in Hong Kong now, forced at the end of part one to relocate there, fleeing Japanese occupation in Foshan in '49. All he wants to do is settle in w/ his stunning wife (Lynn Hung, goodness gracious...) and kid and introduce Wing Chun to Hong Kong. Only he can't do that b/c the martial arts trade is corrupt, ruled by Master Hung (Sammo Hung, unmatchable, the action choreographer of this and Ip Man) who then has to pay the British colonists for permission to even have martial arts schools in the first place. Ip Man finds students anyway, he faces off w/ Master Hung and they earn mutual respect, lots of ass-kicking. But the clincher are the Brits here, headed by a preening, shrill Army officer and this blustering man-mountain boxer named "Twister". There's a Western-style boxing match in town and Master Hung is wrapped up in that, hoping to introduce the Brits to classical Chinese martial arts. Ip Man agrees to participate to get the Wing Chun message out. But Twister is a right bastard, poison-spewing, w/ the body and stature of a Greek god and the face and mouth of a mongoose, and starts picking fights in the ring with the students, Hung steps in to take him on and, blow-to-blow, gets trounced. Then Ip Man challenges Twister. And here's the thing you've got to remember, esp. if you missed Ip Man and/or know nothing about the guy: Ip Man doesn't want to fight you. He will happily pace around, critiquing his students and sipping his tea, then go back home to his stunning wife and kid. You challenge him, he'll smile at you then kick your ass. So Twister, when Ip Man challenges YOU to a fight, brother you know it's going to be a brawl.
Next screening: Sun, Jun 27, 8:45p (Walter Reade Theatre)

* Death Kappa (dir. Tomoo Haraguchi, 2010, Japan). One of the wackiest films I've ever seen at the NYAFF, and that's saying something b/c I saw the circa-70s one w/ the possessed Himalayan cat and the Technicolor workout (Hausu) and the one w/ the perpetual bikini-clad sword-wielding girl who has like 10 lines in the script and only fights in the dark, basically (One-Chanbara). I was tipped off immediately by our sort-of narrator, a nattily dressed white guy speaking scholarly Japanese. Then cut to a train en route to Shirikodama, aka the seashore, and the uber-cute Misato Hirata, aka failed Jpop starlet (and eventual kappa-guardian), which swiftly segues into like three different films at the same time. Shot of the kappa shrine sinking into the ocean — oh wait, that's a fish tank, like a freshwater aquarium tank you'd find in a dentist's office. Shot of Hirata-chan dancing w/ the kappa and some human guys. Then I don't know, a nuclear-type device that summons a Godzilla-esque kaiji to stomp a cardboard Tokyo w/ its thunder-thighs. The military is useless against it! The tank fire and grenade launchers (so what if they're obvs radio-controlled?) are all firecrackers anyway. Though the creature barely attacks, until like 20 minutes after it first appears it seems to realize it can blow fireballs. And just as suddenly: the kappa, now supersized, returns! It bodyslams the monster! The monster clotheslines the kappa! The kappa starts picking up refinery tanks and batting them to the monster like it's a super-sized volleyball. The monster breathes fire again and the super-kappa PUSHES THE FIRE BACK and the monster explodes. Then the kappa, now Death Kappa (like the film title), goes bonkers, and it's only the reappearance of its kind keeper Hirata-chan (who was missing onscreen for like the past 45 minutes) to calm it, and it heads out into the sea to a chorus of children's happy goodbyes. I am making none of this up.
Next screening: Sun, Jul 4, midnite (IFC Center)

fee's LIST (through 6/29)

WEDNESDAY
* Rivane Neuenschwander "A Day Like Any Other" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave). Major, major, major. The midcareer survey of the internationally renowned Brazilian artist, who has received little love stateside beyond a strong showing at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. I've followed Neuenschwander since back in the day: her mixed media installations, based on the environment and organic relationships, defy convenient mnemonic ordering. That's OK with me, I'll visit this show repeatedly.

* SUSU + The Naked Hearts @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$6. A night of delicious contrasts: the suffocating heaviness (yet disarmingly melodious) of SUSU v. Naked Hearts' raw, pop-laden duo. w/ Arc in Round

* Noveller + UnFact @ Goodbye Blue Monday / 1087 Broadway, Bushwick (J to Kosciusko, JM to Myrtle), 9p. Noveller (aka solo guitar alchemist Sarah Lipstate) celebrates new album 'Desert Fires'. UnFact (aka solo bass impresario David Wm Sims) and other equally soundscapey artists (Miracles, Brian Olin) join her.

THURSDAY
* Charles Burchfield "Heat Waves in a Swamp" @ Whitney Museum / 945 Madison Ave (6 to 75th St). Confession: I'm not familiar w/ this modern American landscape artist, whose charcoal-imbued watercolors deal less w/ his vicinity to Niagara Falls than his encyclopedic investigations of the mundane (times of day, melting snow, atmospheric pressure, barren forests). But Robert Gober curated this expansive show and, personally considering my newfound love for David Hockney's plein-air scenes, I think I've got to check this one out.

* Christian Marclay "Fourth of July" @ Paula Cooper Gallery / 521 W 21st St. Ahead of his major museum show at the Whitney next week, the gallery features Marclay's printmaking, fragmented photo composites from an Independence Day parade in Hyde Park NY.

* "The Summer Bazaar" @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery / 521 W 21st St. Nathalie Karg and her Cumulus Studios fill the gallery w/ their particular type of "functional objects in contemporary art" (think Ririkrit Tiravanija, Rob Pruitt, Mark Dion, Charles Long).

* Briona Nuda Rosch @ DCKT Contemporary / 195 Bowery. Rosch explores methodology in his practice via Arte Povera means: drywall, found book pages, recycled house paint.

* Ragnar Kjartansson "The End" @ Luhring Augustine / 531 W 24th St. Remember Kjartansson, the young Icelandic artist whose contribution to the 2009 Venice Biennale was daily sketchings of a boozing friend? That creation, those 144 paintings plus archival notes, is coming to NY! Seriously. Plus a new video work filmed near Austin TX called "The Man" and feat. blues pianist Pinetop Perkins.

* Jack Pierson "Go there now and take this with you" @ Bortolami / 510 W 25th St. I'm always up for learning something new about an artist I think I already know. Case in point: Pierson's folded, mounted photographs.

* "Touched" @ Lehmann Maupin / 540 W 26th St. A very physical group show, w/ impasto paintings by Allison Schulnik and Angel Otero, ghostly paper composites by Noriko Ambe, and visceral sculpture by Maria Nepomuceno and Brett Lund.

* Andy Warhol "Rain Machine (Daisy Waterfall)" @ Nicholas Robinson Gallery / 535 W 20th St. The long and arduous history behind Warhol's circa-'69 installation — difficult fabrications and setups in Osaka and LA, leading to its partial destruction — makes seeing this awesome piece all the more cooler.

* "The Fifth Genre: Considering the Contemporary Still Life" @ Galerie Lelong / 528 W 26th St. Are still lifes still relevant? Hell yes. This huge group show (Petah Coyne, Wolfgang Tillmans, Alfredo Jaar, Miranda Lichtenstein, Louise Lawler) should convince you.

* "The Tell-Tale Heart (part 2)" @ James Cohan Gallery / 533 W 26th St. Props to the gallery for a creative focus: obsession and its unraveling, via Edgar Allan Poe's famous short-story. Feat. Tracey Emin, Maya Deren, Keren Cytter, Nan Goldi, James Ensor, Dash Snow, Felix Gonzalez Torres and more.

* "Psychedelic Summer", curated by CMRTYZ @ Rare / 547 W 27th St #514. Mayjah awesomeness here: 1. artwork by Cassie Ramone (of Vivian Girls), Matthew Volz (artist for The Beets) + more, 2. vinyl!! Captured Tracks, Psychic Lunch, Vice, of course CMRTYZ + more. 3. opening nite performances by Babies (Ramone's a member) and The Beets (and you KNOW I love some Beets!).

* Rivane Neuenschwander in conversation w/ Richard Flood @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave), 7p/$8. Neuenschwander, whose midcareer retrospective just opened at the museum, discusses Brazilian conceptualism and her unique oeuvre w/ the museum's chief curator.

* Northside Music and Arts (and Film!) Festival / Williamsburg/Greenpoint (L to Bedford/Lorimer, JM to Marcy, G to Greenpoint/Nassau etc etc). Last year's inaugural Northside Fest (think the Wsburg/Greenpoint equivalent to SXSW only decidedly less corporate) was majorly dope. It was sticky-hot and I saw loads of bands (hundreds!) even w/o the convenient show badge ($50, buy it here). Beer was a-flowing, the galleries had all these super art exhibitions on, people were in the streets. It was massive. This year it coincides w/ NYAFF (read on under FRI), which is a big BUH-BUHHH for me, as I cannot attend a single Northside show this year past Thursday, due to film engagements. That said, however, there's much to do here, so read on for my picks, or check the site for the full schedule (I've picked only the dopest stuff but I have to be a bit democratic here).

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Wavves + Cloud Nothings @ Knitting Factory / 361 Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, G to Lorimer), 8p/$14. That lo-fi misfit Wavves has new surf-noise tunes out that are so great I forgive him the antics that unfortunately tend to precede him. And the aural mauling from Cloud Nothings is icing on the proverbial cake. My #1 THU pick.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Aa + YellowFever + Air Waves @ Union Pool / 484 Union Ave, Williamsburg (L/G to Lorimer), 7:30p/$10. Or let's say you want a sonically diverse affair, say the shoegaze-y Airwaves, Texas' funky indie YellowFever and the percussive rave-assault of our local boys Aa? Nice one, this.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: My Teenage Stride + German Measles @ The Charleston / 174 Bedford Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$5. But honestly you cannot go wrong here. This is primo local indie at it's very finest. Summertime party anthems from German Measles and My Teenage Stride is classic, lyrical indie rock. w/ I'm Turning Into + many more.

FRIDAY
* "Please Jump Around Here", curated by Jessica Duffett @ Storefront / 16 Wilson Ave, Bushwick (L to Morgan). An illuminating grouping of Brooklyn artists working w/in geometric abstraction, from the razor-sharp sparseness of Nathlie Provosty to the psychedelia of Marnie Tinkler and Rico Gatson to Tamara Gonzales' seductive figuration.

* Joshua Kirsch "Sympathetic Resonance" @ 3rd Ward / 195 Morgan Ave, Bushwick (L to Morgan). Kirsch's incredible audio installation — which looks sort of "Jetsons" — is, unlike Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's similarly cool vacuum-harmonica assault, totally demanding audience participation!

* "The Mass Ornament", curated by John Rasmussen @ Gladstone Gallery / 515 W 24th St. Marginalization and discreet interventions sounds like a difficult subject to wrap one's head around (don't get me started), but this ace lineup (Gedi Sibony, Nick Mauss, Patrick Hill, Alina Szapocznikow, Patricia Esquivias etc) embody quite a bit of emotive pull belying their "challenging" respective mediums.

* "Tom of Finland and then some" @ Feature Inc / 131 Allen St. Studly vintage Tom of Finland sketches paired w/ a suitable motley of other artists — Richard Prince, Sean Landers, Mie Yim, Kathy Opie, Judy Linn and more.

* "memories of the future" curated by Laurent Grasso @ Sean Kelly Gallery / 528 W 29th St. I like this very much: a mix of forward-thinking Modernists (Marcel Duchamp, Marine Hugonnier) and generation-skipping contemporaries (Markus Schinwald, David Maljkovic, Rita McBride).

* New York Asian Film Festival 2010 @ Walter Reade Theatre / Lincoln Center @ 65th St (1 to 66th St), through July 8. By now you should know that I live, breathe and bleed film festivals, specifically NYAFF. This year's is a winner if you're into Nouveau Hong Kong action (from Wilson Yip's "Ip Man 2", hot on the heels of its successful original last year, Alex Law's "Echoes of the Rainbow" and the Pang Bros' "The Storm Warriors", to name a few), and there's loads else, from lovey Korean ("Castaway on the Moon") to twisted Japanese ("Mutant Girls Squad"). I've hyped my picks already, and check the site for full schedule and ticket info (though I know you heeded my earlier alarm call and are already booking your tix, right? Right?). Also: there are 4-5 special midnight screenings this year, at NYAFF's old home IFC Center (read along for those specific nights). DIG IT!

* "Death Kappa" (dir. Tomoo Haraguchi, 2010) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDF to W 4th St). The NYAFF may have moved uptown, but their juiciest grindhouse-iest films lurk in the midnight hour back at the IFC, amid the tattoo parlors and sex boutiques, and you bet I'm happy about that. 1st up: in classic kaiju style, Tokyo is attacked by a giant monster. The citizens summon a kappa for protection that, by some WWII-related mixup, becomes a super-sized dancing behemoth. Is it friend or foe?

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Darlings + Grooms + Sisters @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$10. The Less Artists More Condos + Famous Class showcase is filled to the brim w/ dopeness. This could well be the loudest show of the night, w/ Darlings' poppy indie and the heavy Grooms. My #1 pick for FRI.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Woodsist Night @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$17. The Woodsist label don't mess around, as they say. Fresh off some great West Coast shows, we have Real Estate, Woods, Sic Alps + Moon Duo (Ripley Johnson from Wooden Shjips + Sanae Yamada).

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Family Portrait + Fluffy Lumbers @ Bar Matchless / 557 Manhattan Ave, Greenpoint (G to Nassau), 8:30p/$6. The grittier alternative to the Woodsist show, w/ the guys behind Underwater Peoples (Family Portrait, psychedelic) and the Fluffy Lumbers' fuzzy indie.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: The Beets + So So Glos @ Shea Stadium / 20 Meadow St, Williamsburg (L to Grand), 8:30p/$10. Lots of good vibes here, w/ The Beets' (Jackson Heights' finest garage rockers) stripped-down sing-along thump and the So So Glos' revolt/party-punk.

* Hisham Bharoocha + Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe @ Monster Island Basement / 128 River St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$8. Or just totally, extensively chill out, w/ this Showpaper alternative to Northside, feat. Bharoocha (Soft Circle) and Lowe (Lichens).

SATURDAY
* Jeff Soto "Lifecycle" + Dave Cooper "Mangle" @ Jonathan LeVine Gallery / 529 W 20th St 9th Fl. Another successful match: the toxic environmental nostalgia (plus a site-specific mural) by Soto and the fleshy abstract oils by Cooper.

* Vlatka Horvat "This Here and That There" @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E to 23rd St/ELy, G to Courthouse Square), 12p (part of "Greater New York"). Horvat, whose ultra-minimalist office products installation in the exhibition continues to charm and bewilder me, performs a six-hour chair rearrangement in the museum's public spaces, reprising a performance she first did in the pond next to Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, in 2007.
+ Naamar Tsabar "Untitled (Speaker Wall)" rehearsals, 2p. Wondered what those black monolithic slabs on the 2nd floor signified? Tsabar, I'm guessing, teaches you how to "play" them.

* New Humans + more @ SculptureCenter / 44-19 Purves St, Long Island City (E to 23rd/Ely, G to Courthouse Square), 5p. A late-afternoon/early evening round of performances related to the current 'Knight's Move' exhibition, ranging from Anna Ostoya's violence/desire narrative + Mika Tajima's New Humans aural takedown.

* "L.A. Streetfighters" (dir. Park Woo-sang, 1985) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDF to W 4th St). Those Subway Cinema programmers aren't holding back: this "undiscovered classic" is in the league of last year's outstanding "Hausu". If you can take Technicolor-drenched, psychedelic schoolgirl horror, you're probably ready for '80s-kitsch action, denim vests and leaden dialogue included for free.

* French Avant-Garde of the 1920s (various dirs.) screening @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 5p. It's summertime and you will attend loads of backyard/garden/beachhouse soirees and say one of those suddenly delves heavily into classic abstract cinema. You need to hold your end of the conversation! Hence this lovely bijou from MoMA: a cornucopia of French Avant-Garde (Man Ray's "Le Retour a la raison", Fernand Léger's "Ballet Mécanique", Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali's "Un Chien Andalou, and more!).

* The Bastard Noise + Anal Cunt @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$10. I made it clear I was bummed No Fun Fest wasn't happening in NY this year. So any of you w/ eardrums aching for brutal torture, welcome to the party.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Frankie & the Outs + Coasting + Total Slacker @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$10. The Impose party, led by Miss Frankie Rose and her fab band, is my #1 pick for SAT.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: BrooklynVegan Showcase @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$15. BrooklynVegan is my main go-to on local music listings, so the show is typically hot and of-the-moment. feat. the overwhelmingly gorgeous bands Twin Sister, ZAZA, Memory Tapes + Dom.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Ducktails + Big Troubles + Dana Jewell @ Shea Stadium / 20 Meadow St, Williamsburg (L to Grand). Mellow out at this Chocolate Bobka show, w/ Matt Mondanile (Ducktails) and other Underwater Peoples-friendly bands who tread the line b/w psychedelic and folksy.

SUNDAY
* The Depreciation Guild + Dream Diary @ Mercury Lounge / 217 E Houston St (F to 2nd Ave), 7p/$10. The lovely Depreciation Guild are playing up their fuzzed-out shoegaze more and more, dropping the NES beats back under layers of feedback. These boys are incredibly, blissfully loud. Only caveat: early showtime so don't dally!

MONDAY
* The Bastard Noise + Child Abuse @ Death by Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p. In case you missed The Bastard Noise's furious performance at Cake Shop and just cannot sleep w/o experiencing them, again, you are SO in luck.

TUESDAY
* Rineke Dijkstra @ Marian Goodman Gallery / 24 W 57th St. Straight from the Paris gallery, Dijkstra's video-based show puts us, the viewers, into the role of active spectator (if that makes any sense). Uniformed schoolchildren sketch and regard Picasso, while five teenagers dance in a stark studio to their favorite tunes in "The Krazyhouse, Liverpool, UK (Megan, Simon, Nicky, Philip, Dee)", captured here as a four-wall video installation.

* Dream Diary @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F to 2nd Ave), 9p/$6. In case you missed Brooklyn's starry-eyed Dream Diary opening for The Depreciation Guild at Mercury Lounge due to the way-early set-time, they play a more reasonably timed show tonite, w/ Soft Spot.

LAST CHANCE
* Karla Black + Nate Lowman @ Andrea Rosen Gallery / 525 W 24th St. Throw these disparate young artists together might sound like mixing oil and water, but it works, Black's sugary-or-powdery color-field works (incl. an allergenic-looking installation) play well off Lowman's grungier alkyd-upped figurative paintings and sloganeering.
+ "She Awoke With a Jerk", curated by Nigel Cooke. The double entendre in the title is intentional, and I give it to Cooke for contributing the coolest cat (a Bozo-ish burnout) in this mini-show, which also includes a suitably vile Sean Landers, a chic George Grosz and (surprise) a Picasso.

* Anne Truitt "Sculpture 1962-2004" @ Matthew Marks / 522 W 22nd St. Dally about the 'forest' of Truitt totem sculptures — acrylic on wood all, except for the enameled earliest — and it's like being in your own constructed painting. The works (mixed unchronologically by date) do resemble human-sized oil pastels, but there's lots of little Easter eggs hidden in these seemingly minimalist pylons. Check the sharp white cap, like salty foam, atop "The Sea, The Sea" (2003) and the cool energy in "First Spring" (1981), which looks exactly THAT, like Truitt managed to capture the sky in sculpture. This is a beautiful retrospective and primer and a joy to visit.

* Darren Almond "Sometimes Still" @ Matthew Marks / 523 W 24th St. Almond's new six-screen film, tracing the path of a Tendai monk engaging in a rigorous process toward Buddhahood near Kyoto, is a thrillingly immersive video experience. Though your arrival during this 25-min film will vary person to person, hopefully it'll go somewhat like mine: you feel your way into the pitch-dark room, to the echoing chants of a Buddhist monk. Suddenly five of the screens light up w/ flashes of the forest, tree trunks at night spanning all cardinal directions as, in the center screen, the camera tracks a solitary nascent monk ascending a stone staircase.

* Tatiana Trouvé @ Gagosian / 980 Madison Ave. 1st thing that should tip you off to Trouvé's installation on the gallery's 5th fl is the exposed pipes in the entryway. Maybe that or the collection of shoes. Don't make the mistake of removing YOUR shoes too! Inside, she has created a sort of industrial portrait (slightly a la Mark Manders, w/ "Being John Malkovich" thrown in for good measure), mattresses and shoes lashed against pillars, oil-spattered glass sheets and little un-enterable cubbyholes.

* Claude Monet "Late Work" @ Gagosian / 522 W 21st St. The recurring discussions in art-writings on museum-quality exhibitions disguised as gallery shows has culminated w/ a big payoff: the elevating experience that is this fine collection of Monets. Gagosian has succeeded in converting the 21st St location into a serene, intimate space — akin to a special exhibitions wing of the Met — and filled it w/ 27 gorgeous canvases from the Expressionist master. Walk amid the alternately shimmering and soggy "Nymphéas" and fall into the autumnal light of the Japanese footbridges and the "L'Allée de Rosiers". Lose yourself for a bit and forget your in W. Chelsea, surrounded by several hundred bustling white-box galleries.

* Anna Gaskell "Turns Gravity @ Yvon Lambert / 550 W 21st St. Gaskell ups the haunting, cinematic factor in this vaguely religious set of large photographic prints shot in some snowy forest in Iowa, though it could be anywhere, at a vague time period too. Young, suited boys leap out of frame or pull another (who could be either resisting or injured, I can't quite tell). Another, truncated at the waist as he kneels behind a tree (is he sick?). Just what ritual are they performing?

* Sherrie Levine @ Mary Boone Gallery / 745 Fifth Ave. This is a great elegant take on Levine's redoubling, in a classic look at her oeuvre. The standout "Newborn (Black/White)" installation, four cast-glass Brancusi redoes on borrowed pianos (taken in spirit from a Brancusi home installation photo), is soothing: the relative scales of the delicate sculpture against their super-sized 'display platforms' works well. Levine's cheeky answer to Duchamp in "Fountain (Buddha)" is a shiny, cast-bronze wonder, esp. when you observe the reflections in the interior surfaces. And her framed and painted wood works from the mid-'80s show a hand-crafted Levine that you just might not be that familiar with.

* David Salle "Some Pictures from the 80s" @ Mary Boone Gallery / 541 W 24th St. The innocuous exhibition title belies the gravity of this 'Pictures Generation' maestro, whose massive, multilayered 'nonrepresentational' canvases are like catapulting head first into a surrealist pre-Youtube-generation stew. If the imagery of "Gericault's Arm" and "His Brain" don't totally blow you away, you're lying.

* Mike Kelley "Arenas" @ Skarstedt Gallery / 20 E 79th St. Bring a hankie: Kelley's classic circa-1990 'Arenas', aka stuffed toys with blankets on the gallery floor, conjure powerful sensations of nostalgia, let alone transgressive anthropomorphizing. Seven of the eleven originals assembled here for the 1st time since their debut installation. Don't miss it.

* Hany Armanious "Birth of Venus" @ Foxy Production / 623 W 27th St. At the offset, Armanious' 2nd solo show at the gallery may seem quite a bit quieter (and smell better) than his alarming "Year oft the Pig Sty" installation in 2007, but his core practice of meticulous object-castings is in full form here. Don't miss checking everything from all angles, like the underside of the metaphysical "Effigy of an Effigy with Mirage" or the charmingly named "Party Pooper". Things, as they say, are NOT always what they appear.

* Carsten Nicolai "moiré" @ The Pace Gallery / 534 W 25th St. The many iterations and eye-trickeries of the interference pattern. Nicolai takes us from the deceptively simple (film tape stretched in a grid between two points, creating these bending shadows and varying thicknesses) to the installation-complex (a darkened room illuminated by whirling coils of light, or at least I think they were moving...). Sculpture (a Dan Graham-esque semi-reflective block in the main gallery) and works on paper are quieter overall but nothing is entirely 'static' here.

* Judith Schaechter "Beauty and the Beef" @ Claire Oliver / 513 W 26th St. Nobody is doing what Schaechter is doing, in her trademark stained glass lightboxes. The figures and arrangements are as sumptuous as ever (and her skill in composition is unparalleled), but she's created a fantastic depth to these new works, like "Cold Genius Study" and "You Are Here", where the backdrop recedes far out as the subjects float in space.

* Liz Magic Laser "Chase" @ Derek Eller Gallery / 615 W 27th St. Laser videotaped a rather creative bunch and their soliloquies (ranging from the comedic to unhinged) to ATM booths inside banks — get the show-title now? Also: check Laser at MoMA PS1, her film on the Da Vinci Surgical System (robot-assisted surgery) on her handbag is not as immediately gratifying as the gallery show, but dope anyway.

* Jim Nutt "'Trim' and Other Works: 1967-2010" @ David Nolan NY / 527 W 29th St. This is a delightful little gem buried 'way up' on 29th St. One of the more...twisted of the Hairy Who movement, who balanced their grotesqueness w/ psychedelic color and intriguing media pairings. The acrylic portraitures on MDF, the new stuff, bears that weird, almost Picasso-style abstraction that Nutt does so well, but it's the back room that got me going. It contains a stash of old works, the iconic "Miss Sue Port", an acid-colored acrylic on plexiglas, and other plexiglas-painted works and works on paper of gender-vagues and quirky personages.

Dope Director: Sion Sono (part two)

So we're back to the Japan Society screening room. It's summer 2007, somewhere during the NYAFF, and I just witnessed Sion Sono's Q&A w/ the audience after viewing エクステ/Exte. I knew, in order to fully "get" this director, whose deft and effective tongue-in-cheek slam to the J-Horror genre truly captivated, I'd need to seek out every available Sono-directed film. Unfortunately, his earlier, experimental works around his guerilla poetry days are, thus far, nigh-impossible to find stateside. I knew I wouldn't have that trouble w/ his (in)famous 自殺サークル/Suicide Club, but I couldn't Ignore 奇妙なサーカス/Strange Circus, either. This film bears a garish reputation that precedes it in a similar vein to Suicide Club. It's quite violent but moreover highly erotic, and the plot trundles from a shocking series of scenes to this surreal, fractured reality like an Autechre tune halfway through. It is a disturbing, immersive experience. I've seen Strange Circus three times.

I begin w/ the broader points: Sono leads in on a disconcerting note, a soft-focus night circus, straight out of David Lynch's Blue Velvet. If you're afraid of clowns or creaking ferris wheels, then it's going to be rough going. A bejewelled drag queen works up the audience, asks for a volunteer for the guillotine, and gets the cute-as-a-button Mitsuko (played here by Rie Kuwana), who seems resigned to getting her head cut off. She has a voiceover here about "being born at the execution stand" and "the various traps around her house", which are repeated multiple times in the film, appropriately like reading from a script, and we fade to her home. Their house is this creepy, sparkling-clean Victorian-ish mansion, which I don't know WHERE in Tokyo (unless this isn't Tokyo) one would find a place this huge (Roppongi Hills, maybe?) — it's seemingly totally disconnected from reality, always flooded w/ sunlight except in the times where the walls are bathed w/ a slick, blood-red tarp like the inside of a human heart. She accidentally walks in on her parents having sex, which opens a Pandora's Box of deviance. The sex-crazed dad locks Mitsuko in a cello case equipped w/ a peephole, forcing her to watch his rough coitus w/ her mom, then taunting her as a naughty child for watching. Eventually Mom figures out he's been sleeping with their daughter, which seems to piss her off more than disgust her, and she repeatedly beats the girl. They have it out on the top of the stairs and Mom loses her footing, falls, dies. Dad reminds Mitsuko that they're in this together now, continues to rape her, and she attempts suicide by leaping off a bridge into the river. She lives, paralyzed from the waist down (Dad reminds her to keep their "relationship" a secret), and Mai Takahashi takes over as the teen MItsuko, beautiful but insolent, wheeling about their mansion that is now like the set of a porn film, Dad always berobed, banging various PYTs while ignoring his paraplegic daughter. In a fit of rage, she takes a kitchen knife and begins stabbing her own immobile legs (here Yoshihiro Nishimura steps in for the viscous SFX) — another suicide attempt thwarted and suddenly...

...we meet "paraplegic" author Taeko (Masumi MIyazaki), her lewd editor Tomorowo Taguchi (despite the moustache, the nervy character from Tetsuo is totally present) and his assistant Yuji (Issei Ishida), who is somehow inexplicably drawn to Taeko, but (it's repeated many times) not in a sexual way. So supposedly everything in the previous paragraph comes from Taeko's mind, it's a story she's writing, but she keeps blurring the line b/w that world and her own, while changing elements of the story throughout the film. This time Mitsuko falls down the stairs and dies and Mom attempts to become her, posing as her daughter at school, trying to commit suicide later. Then we learn Taeko doesn't really need the wheelchair and that the somewhat androgynous Yuji, who becomes increasingly dramatic throughout the 2nd 1/2 of the film, claims to be related to her. And is Taeko supposed to be the Mom? Is Yuji Mitsuko? Is any of this real? What the hell is Sono-san doing?
I navigate this best as a series of hyperboles: there is the core narrative (girl in a spiraling, destructive relationship w/ her father, and she may or may not have accidentally contributed to her mother's death), then there are the egregious points. Once he rapes Mitsuko, Dad is shown ALWAYS having sex, limitlessly potent and controlling. The luxurious, ornate house is echoed in Taeko's baroque "studio". The circus itself is the subconscious — whose that is is left for us to decide, but in the end, it's Taeko at the guillotine, Mitsuko and Yuji waving in the audience, and the Dad as executioner.

And we're back to Exte. Newbie Sono-watchers should NOT see Strange Circus as their first film. It epitomizes the notion of a "difficult" film, IMO the most challenging in Sono's oeuvre (that I've seen, anyway), and that's 1/2 due to the mutable story-w/in-a-story plot and 1/2 due to the bone-chilling subject matter. I even wonder if Suicide Club is the proper initiate for a newbie Sono fan, though it certainly makes sense as it's his best-known, at least stateside. But Exte was my first, and it could be YOUR first too, and to no harm at all. It contains many of Sono's recurring elements (the family, a sense of place and surroundings, oblique violence) while handedly turning a popular commercial genre, J-Horror, on its ear. And it's no pushover, either: the shock and gore are at a premium here, and Exte has its "jump" moments, but Sono paces the body horror w/ darkly humorous episodes enclosed around a disarmingly emotive family drama. Rather than a simplistic farce, Exte is an extremely masterful work of art. It begins purposefully cliché, w/ security (led by the inexhaustible Yuji Takana) checking out a suspicious shipping crate filled w/ hair extensions on the docks of an unIDed Japanese city. One of the guards remarks here about the trendiness of said "エクステ" (echoing back to Suicide Club, where a somewhat oblivious cop remarks on the trendiness of one-point tattoos amid Tokyo's youth), the corpse of a girl hidden w/in the hair falls into view, and we have the makings of a garden-variety J-Horror film.

Sono-san immediately reminds us this is not the case at all: 1) we meet morgue worker Yamazaki (legendary actor Ren Osugi, in perhaps his most over-the-top role, which he should have received loads of accolades), who sports an incredibly leery predilection for women's hair (specifically the corpse's) and 2) we meet Yuko (an effortless Chiaki Kuriyama), expounding her love for this seaside town whilst pedaling her bike to the beauty salon where she works. We learn some back-story on the corpse, a victim of black market organ-trade, who in Yamazaki's presence sprouts seemingly unlimited hair, from her head and every orifice. The hair-otaku, meanwhile, peddles these cursed locks as extensions to the beauty salon, where Yuko's coworkers pick them up and eventually die, violently, from the cursed hair (think the yurei, long-haired Japanese witch, but hair only). This in itself, the psycho w/ the killer hair extensions, is enough for a goofy J-Horror flick. But Sono takes it further by introducing Yuko's elder sister Kiyomi (none other than Tsugumi from Noriko's Dinner Table, in heart-of-darkness mode) and Kiyomi's adorable, abused daughter Mami. Kiyomi is a poisonous character, swatting at her little girl whilst cutting Yuko to the quick, noting that little sister has no right to castigate her parenting as Yuko had an abortion. This is Sono's message-w/in-the-horror, his family drama that complicates the ostensibly "common" J-Horror film.

Two of Sono-san's latest films screened during last year's NYAFF/Japan Cuts, which is unusual for the generally restrainedly creative director and b/c one of the two films had a 4-hour runtime. The briefer film, ちゃんと伝える/Be Sure to Share, I regrettably missed due to a scheduling conflict, but to my understanding it was Sono at his family-drama best: Dad (iconic actor Eiji Okuda) is dying of cancer and it turns out his son (Akira), who's shared a tepid relationship, has it as well. The other film, the 4-hour one, was Sono's bildungsfilm 愛のむきだし/Love Exposure. And there was NO WAY I was going to miss it. I hesitate to title Love Exposure Sono's magnum opus, as he's got many decades of filmmaking ahead of him unless he becomes so jaded he quits the biz. But Love Exposure is very close to that: nothing is wasted in the 4-hour runtime (trust me on that) and it is imbued w/ Sono elements (the family, religion and cultism, sexuality and deviance, violence — and while this is not a violent film, the brief scenes of arterial spray are all the more shocking). It is an absolutely fantastic banquet for the eyes and the soul.

In brief: Yu (Takahiro Nishijima, member of coed J-Pop band AAA, search me on that except they've been quite prolific) is raised by his super-strict Catholic priest of a father Tetsu (Atsuro Watabe) after Yu's mother passes away. Note: religion, Christianity and otherwise, is a different deal in Japan, hence why Dad was once married and has a son. Tetsu becomes more zealous following his wife's death and forces Yu to visit the confessional booth daily to confess his sins. Yu's not a decidedly bad kid, at least not "sinful" enough for his dad, so he takes it upon himself, like a very strange challenge, to sin to his utmost ability. And for him that means becoming the ninja master of upskirt photography. He's not doing it to get off, merely to appease Tetsu. Anyway, he meets a sailor-uniformed girl, Yoko (brilliantly played by Hikari Mitsushima, who Western audiences may recall as the li'l sis from Death Note), having a run-in w/ thugs. She handedly beats some of them up and Yu comes to her aid to finish the others off, whilst madly falling in love w/ her. The slo-mo shots of her roundhouse-kicking the baddies, replete w/ convenient glimpses of her stomach and panties, have Yu all shook up. Only: he's dressed in drag (for losing a bet) so when the dust settles Yoko thinks she's got a girl for an ally and kind of likes that. Enter Aya (Sakura Ando), member of the "Zero Church" cult, one of Yu's upskirt victims. She can't get over why he's not aroused by his perverted past-time, so she gets at him by stealing Yoko away. So now Yu is pining for Yoko, Aya tricks Yoko into pining for her, and Aya attempts to convert Tetsu and his new love-interest Kaori (who happens to be Yoko's mom) to the "Zero Church".

We the audience were told ahead of time that we wouldn't see the film's title until a cool hour in, just as a watermark to how quickly the plot progressed. I thought, "yeah right", but I was quickly swept up in the action, in the backstory on Yu's mom (a devout, loving Catholic mother, promising her son he'd meet his "Mary" one day — that, according to Yu, would be Yoko). We see his uncomfortable episodes w/ his father, who chastises him for now being forthright w/ his sinning. We see Yu studying the fundamentals of upskirt photography. Then the film's theme song, Maurice Ravel's unforgettable Boléro, begins to pulse through, its wind instruments trading off that iconic solo (flute, clarinet, bassoon etc) whilst the strings swell beneath. The song continues hypnotically over its ostinato rhythm, then we see Yoko in the park tangling w/ the thugs, Yu in drag standing there dumbfounded. The title flashes over with a cannonlike boom: Love Exposure. We applauded fervently. One hour in, and it felt like 15 minutes.

The remainder of the film, Yu's growingly complicated relationship w/ Yoko, after she moves in w/ her mom and immediately distrusts him, going for Aya instead, who continues stalking Yu. The family slides into the cult, Yu tries to profess his feelings for Yoko and she calls him, through gritted teeth, the word he's become "hentai" (pervert). He's created this new world for himself, the twisted upskirt photography profession that lures in a poisonous admirer (Aya) whilst pushing away his true love (Yoko), and his drag-clad alter ego Aya caches in on to keep Yoko from him. Love Exposure was apparently six hours long and Sono begrudgingly trimmed it to four. I can only hope the American DVD release (fingers crossed) contains some of those cut scenes, b/c the 4-hour runtime does NOT feel gratuitous, nor self-absorbed. It's decidedly noncommercial yet should not be treated as solely some art-house artifact. The time literally flies by and the weight one feels upon the film's conclusion, Yu's eventual breakdown and teary-eyed reunion w/ Yoko, is less from the duration and more from the heavily emotive, sensitive story. One doesn't simply view Love Exposure: they experience it.