My TOP TEN LIST-worthy cultural events of 2010 (in chronological order, b/c further ranking would be too masochistic)
1. Claude Monet "Late Work" @ Gagosian
What I said then:
051110: 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.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
Viewing brilliant art for art's sake, i.e. personal enjoyment and enrichment rather than making a sale. It is assuredly rare to encounter such a paradigm in a gallery setting, particularly in the blue-chip halls of Gagosian. Yet it happened, one of the most beautiful two-month spans in West Chelsea (and greater NY for that matter), leading throngs of jaded art-going locals and hordes of tourists through Monet's watery, nearly abstract ponds and meadows and into an early summer. The feat Gagosian pulled off in temporarily acquiring these masterworks, many new to these shores, purely for our viewing satisfaction earns it a firm place in this year's Top Ten. I hope you caught the show; it was a beauty.
2. New York Asian Film Festival 2010 @ Walter Reade Theatre, IFC Center & Japan Society
What I said then:
062910: 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!
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
Perennial Top Ten favorite, and it's still the dopest show in town as far as film festivals are concerned. This year's emphasized Hong Kong action, the backbone and basis of the festival 10 years ago, and included Wilson Yip's Ip Man 2 (w/ Yip and action choreographer/star Sammo Hung in attendance = absolutely major) and the Pang Bros bonkers The Storm Warriors Squaresoft-ready brawler. Lots of bizarro Japanese flicks for me to sink my teeth into, too, like Mutant Girls Squad (the celestial pairing of splattercore directors Yoshihiro Nishimura, Noboru Iguchi and Tak Sakaguchi) and Seiji Chiba's Alien V. Ninja, which is JUST THAT and 100% dope, thereby unleashing the Sushi Typhoon wave of cherry SnoCone blood and awesomeness upon us. And amid some powerful Korean films, like Shin Jung-won's Chaw and E J-Yong's Actresses, blurring the genre line, there was the breakaway favorite Confesssions, Tetsuya Nakashima's shattering take on the drama in Japanese high-schools, all bleached color and slo-mo roughhousing, with an endless sucker-punch to the emotive core. The brunt of the festival occurred way uptown at posh Lincoln Center, which made for some transit issues but was OK. It also made the midnight screenings at IFC even raunchier. And the one-off screening of Ancient Dogoo Girl (partially Noboru Iguchi's large-breasted brainchild) at Anthology Film Archives, complete w/ a Cay Izumi dance and some director stripping, was like shabo-laced icing on the cake.
3. Sleep @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple
What I said then:
090710: The San Jose CA band who vitalized stoner rock, whose final album was one 65 min track called "Dopesmoker". Who maul slowly and lovingly w/ their sliding guitar lines and pummeling rhythm section. Heavy is just the beginning, brother.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
Sleep unleashed the heaviest concert of the year, and one of the heaviest I've ever attended, both in volume and sonic intensity. And this is coming from a guy who's seen Japanese stoner rockers Boris every time they've played NY since 2006 (and they're notoriously loud). A guy who lasted through Prurient's scorching set at last year's No Fun Fest w/o earplugs (bad idea) and My Bloody Valentine's nuclear holocaust closing of "You Made Me Realise" at 2009 APW (w/ earplugs, thankfully). Who listens to Merzbow and enjoys it. Etc. Amid the throngs of black-clad, mostly hairy dudes (and my friends Jessica and Claire of local "stoner-pop" band Heliotropes, two of a reasonable number of women in the crowd), hit by wave after unrelenting wave of Matt Pike's gnarly, punishing guitars riffs off the opening like five minutes of "Dopesmoker", just shirtless Pike leering at the crowd and strumming away at his Orange Amps-augmented axe, I felt the heat from my brainstem through my core and knew this was MAJOR. Earlier that evening, Heliotropes and I had a drink around the corner from Brooklyn Masonic Temple and, out in the back patio who should sit next to us but Pike himself (with shirt), and Jessica bums a smoke off the man. He introduces himself and we share a laugh, then about an hour later we're beneath him, swaying to the riffs, devil horns up, trying to keep it together but giving ourselves up to the ultimate stoner rock band.
4. Ra Ra Riot @ Bowery Ballroom
What I said then:
092110: Be honest: you'd never peg me for a Ra Ra Riot fan, right? But I am, or more appropriately I became one, BIG TIME, w/ their new album "The Orchard", which is smart, groovy pop w/ a kickass strings duo. And I retroactively fell hard for their previous tracks and am now incorrigible. I'm seeing them again tomorrow, same time, same place, different opening bands. Yes you should, too.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
They may be indie, this six-piece of lovelies from Syracuse, but they're decidedly pop. Or popish, anyway, a far cry from my edgier, harsher listening sensibilities. Yet I saw them twice, back-to-back sold-out nights at Bowery Ballroom. Why? Partially because cellist/vocalist Alexandra Lawn is, admittedly, a hottie. But mainly, like 85%, because they're effortlessly, engagingly fantastic performers. Each night was different: Saratoga Springs, NY's Phantogram opened night one, whipping the crowd into a frenzy w/ their heavy, synth-pop. Baltimore's shoegazey Lower Dens mesmerized on night two. But Ra Ra Riot ruled. Night one began with lead singer Wes Miles only, playing a keyboard and singing the hypnotic refrains of "Keep It Quiet" — it's not quite Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place", but it had that entrancing effect on the crowd, as Wes did his thing and his bandmates slowly filtered onstage, taking their positions. Then they cut loose, w/ "Boy" through all the hits, returning for an encore w/ Alexandra taking the lead, belting out "You and I Know" w/ her jazz chanteuse sensibility. It was hot. Night two, the band was accompanied by a small symphonic ensemble, augmented their "chamber" indie-pop sound w/ strings and horns. It was…smart, dreamy, sophisticated, very cool.
5. Fantastic Fest @ Alamo Drafthouse in Austin TX
What I said then:
I didn't! Or at least in came in the form of the below image:
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
Epic epic epic. It was a long time coming, returning to my alumni city, and long overdue. I am a film buff and a film-festival freak, but Fantastic Fest features the hardest of the hardcore. I'm talking REAL film fanatics, devotees, geeks in the absolute nicest, positive-light way. My daily routine consisted of waking up at 6a, bussing down to the kickass Alamo Drafthouse (cinema and dining in one — a novel idea! seriously, you see it other places, and NY sort of has that w/ reRun theatre, a commendable thing, but nobody does it better than the Drafthouse), queuing up at daybreak, actually watching the sun do its rising thing in the sky until doors opened around 9:30a, then collecting my tickets for the day, then catching (usually) five films back-to-back, until like 2a, returning home to crash and then do it all over again the next day. Like I wrote: hardcore. The festival stretched from Sept 23 - Sept 30, 2010, I arrived on Sept 24 and caught 21 films. A fair deal, eh? Plus I met directors, actors, caught up w/ friends, saw Tokyo Dolores' Cay Izumi wow the crowd w/ a sexy pole-dance at the High Ball, etc. Sion Sono's latest torturous epic Cold Fish knocked the wind out of me, debuting here before screening in NY (in 2011 hopefully?). The triumvirate of Red White & Blue (dir. Simon Rumley, USA/UK), I Spit On Your Grave (dir. Steven R. Monroe, USA, i.e. the 2010 remake) and The Dead (dirs. Howard J. Ford & Jonathan Ford, UK) ensured I wouldn't be sleeping that night. I succeeded in catching one of four secret films (Never Let Me Go, by Mark Romanek), though I was stymied by an impossible line to the hush-hush premiere of Yoshihiro Nishimura's Helldriver. That's OK, it'll receive it's NY debut soon enough, and brother you can believe that will be intense. I absolutely loved the sexy genre-busting horror in the Butcher Bros' The Violent Kind (please come to NY!) and bowed down to the awesomeness of Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins and Lee Jung-beom's Man From Nowhere. Oh, there was some lighter subject matter too: anime delight Summer Wars (dir. Mamoru Hosoda, Japan, opening this winter at IFC Center) and Sound of Noise (dirs. Johannes Stjärne Nilsson & Ola Simonsson, Sweden, which frankly I'd be lucky to EVER see again — please screen again!). In sum, the wildest, raunchiest, rowdiest genre film festival in the U.S., a thick slice of Texas-style whoa.
6. "Abstract Expressionist New York" @ MoMA
What I said then:
101210: Let's hear it for New York! Big canvases by badass artists, a veritable Who's Who of NY's boy's club from the 40s through mid-60s (there are a few stunning examples from women artists during the time, incl the phosphorescent "Gaea" by Lee Krasner, moving rooms from its semi-permanent position on the same floor, but the emphasis here is on "few"), ranging from familiar favorites to rarely shown masterpieces. Props due for the thoughtful installation: there is a real flow to the rooms, maintaining a richly visual exhilaration after the absolutely flooring opener, that (for me, anyway) only peters out a bit at the final gallery. But enough, on to the art:
Room One: Robert Motherwell's singular early collage-work "Pancho Villa, Dead and Alive" (1943) was acquired by the MoMA shortly after Peggy Guggenheim's exhibition that year. I'm not sure I have EVER seen this work in person, and it's a mid-sized beauty, one of the few quiet works in this gallery. B/c the scene swiftly shifts to chaos and turbulence, via Jackson Pollock's early, snarling "The She-Wolf" ('43) and "Mask" ('41), both echoing Pablo Picasso's oeuvre (and specifically "Guernica"). Pollock nearly rules this room w/ his increasingly violent abstraction — check the blue-slashed "Gather" ('44) — but he meets his equal w/ the unfurling textural mania of Richard Pousette-Dart's "Fugue No. 2" ('43), a carnival of flashing lights and masked figures, w/ sand mixed into the oil paint. We're left breathless.
Rooms Two - Four: either head straight back to Barnett Newman's solo gallery, a brilliant choice by the curators, as his minimalist, soft washes, punctuated by vertical-line "zips", quench the visual palette from the surrounding busier rooms, or head adjacent to the see Motherwell's huge "Western Air" ('46-7), a geometric landscape w/ more sand in the paint, and a wall of Arshile Gorky paintings, each more color-saturated and Joan Miro-contorted than the last (though my favorite is the grayscale "Diary of a Seducer" from '45, which comes off almost like an abstract Warner Bros cartoon still).
Rooms Five - Six: Pollock rules one, Mark Rothko the other. Both are essential. The former commands many familiar canvases, like "Number 1, 1948" that nearly suffocates in the narrower room, but I especially dug the first-time "Full Fathom Five" ('42), a smaller vertical canvas of motor-oil-like paint rivulets, covering bottle caps and nails, and the horizontal scroller "Number 7, 1950", a sideways cascade of white on taupe that almost looks like calligraphy. Rothko's room is particularly dense, w/ the deafening sunset from "No. 5/No. 22" ('50) as the antithesis to the watery slate-blue rectangle floating in a sea of dark plum in "No. 37/No. 19" ('58). You won't want to leave this room too quickly.
Rooms Seven - Ten: It is in the 7th room that (I think) we encounter the first paintings by women NY-based Abstract Expressionists, and two of 'em in particular eclipse nearly all the male competition. I speak of the aforementioned Krasner "Gaea" and the gorgeous Grace Hartigan "Shinnecock Canal" ('57), a riot of green and blue, coming off like a forest scene put through several prisms. It is intriguing to note that these two strong works share the space w/ Willem de Kooning's famous "Woman 1" (one of "only" four de Koonings in the show, meaning he is sparsely shown as well). Ad Reinhardt channels the intensity in a room of his own, a suite of his (nearly) one-color "Abstract Paintings", and Franz Kline has nearly one to himself as well, what I'm calling the Zen room, as it pairs Kline's action paintings w/ David Smith's blocky sculpture, Clyfford Still's color tremors and a grand Louise Nevelson relief "Sky Cathedral" ('58). It's only the final gallery where I lull a bit, in that it features mostly Philip Guston, and I've admittedly never been a fan, but one of his still-abstract canvases, the textural gray-and-red-orange "Painting" ('54) is pretty tasty.
This is both a scholarly experience and thrilling, emotive romp. NY's had some fine Picasso shows of late, and the galleries have hosted extensive, illuminating exhibitions on Claude Monet, Gerhard Richter, amid others. But Abstract Expressionism IS New York, so it's no surprise that the best collection of its kind is here, at the MoMA. Go see it.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
MoMA really brought it this year. I've supported this institution for modern art as a member since I moved to NY back in mid-2004, and from then on I've experienced thoughtful, nuanced (and sometimes badass) highs, coupled w/ 'meh' or what-the-hell-were-they-thinking? lows, w/ MoMA's unparalleled collection as a constant fallback. For the Abstract Expressionist exhibition, the museum both removed and culled from that collection, turning its 4th floor into a love-in for the uniquely NY style until Spring 2011. Meaning: no Picassos, no Surrealists, hell, no Pop Art even, until next May. BUT: this array of early Pollocks, loads of Gorkys, Newmans and Rothkos, punctuated by a powerful Krasner here, a Hartigan there, and a de Kooning if you're looking closely, is epic, singularly MoMA. The museum was designed to house and display these huge-ass canvases, after all — private collectors "can" show them in their homes, but this museum is intrinsically Abstract Expressionist-equipped. This exhibition shines.
7. Tokyo Dolores conquer NYC
What I said then:
101910: Tokyo Dolores — the fiercest Japan-based pole-dancing/burlesque troupe — begin their final week in NYC w/ a systematic citywide takedown. Target #1: the casual go-go scene, w/ a rippin' routine on the LES. Be forewarned: the venue is tiny, so show up on time or be cast outdoors, pressing your face against the glass while the girls work the pole inside. You don't want that.
* "Meaner Harder Leather" @ Vig 27. Night #2 of Tokyo Dolores' (aka Cay, Aloe & Alk) NY conquering is the saucy vibe of this neither-downtown-nor-uptown posh lounge. This joint caters to an upscale crowd who KNOW their burlesque, so expect the girls to bring it, Tokyo-style.
* Trash! Night #3 of Tokyo Dolores' systematic takedown of NYC's nightlife scene is a darkly glamorous affair for nightowls and electro-kids. Leather and bare skin in effect. This dance should be extra-special.
* "RoboGeisha" @ Crash Mansion. The gloves are off in the final night of Tokyo Dolores' NY tour. Cay, Aloe & Alk return to Japan, but not before unleashing a properly naughty sendoff on this wicked downtown fetish party, hosted by Stimulate. The theme flows w/ Cay's films (she was one of the two Tengu girls in Noboru Iguchi's "RoboGeisha"), and the girls are pulling out all the stops to make this a night you'll not soon forget.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
New addition to my LIST: burlesque! It had to happen someday, but I credit my new circle of NY friends and deep appreciation for their talent entirely to Tokyo Dolores. This self-made collective of artist/performers in Tokyo is led by actress Cay Izumi, who I now count as a close friend. Two of her top dancers joined her in the first-ever NY tour, the gymnastic Alk and the sensual Aloe. I followed the girls through each performance, photographing their work and assisting in setups, and while their whole run was awesome, totally flooring NYers and even seasoned burlesque performers w/ their three-girl pole routines, it was the final week, a four-part takedown, that earned them ranking in this year's Top Ten. They began at the tiny Norfolk St bar Nurse Bettie for two performances in the weekly "Spanking the LES". Cay went first with a fire and hot-wax dance, then the three girls took to the pole, astounding everyone w/ a whirlwind of sexiness. Night two at the "Meaner Harder Leather" show at Vig 27 was an Alk & Aloe duet. Cay sat next to me and we took in the girls' carefully choreographed dance: Alk spinning around the pole, Aloe doing back-bends and freeze-poses. Night three was the weekly "Trash!" show at the basement of Webster Hall, a sweaty cocktail of '80s music and hormones. Cay injured her hand backstage pre-show but put on a strong face, wrapping the wound and leading an absolutely kickass dance. They began in kimonos, stripping them off as the show continued, and when the three girls (now in varying degrees of black lingerie) danced about the pole to the thumping soundtrack, like some erotic Maypole, the audience cheered in adulation. Their final performance in NY was the monthly "Stimulate" party, a full-out fetish show at Crash Mansion, and Tokyo Dolores headlined it w/ a special "RoboGeisha" routine. Imagery from Noboru Iguchi and Yoshihiro Nishimura's films flooded the room, amid the whips and racks, and the girls performed a double-header. First the pole. Second, a sexy zombie routine w/ local legend Stormy Leather, dressed as a maiden molested by the beautiful undead girls, then rising as an ultra-hot vampire queen, reigning over them and the crowd.
Check out what I'm talking about (requires a 21+ login, you naughties!)
http://www.dailymotion.com/mwalkow
8. CMJ 2010: Nashville @ Knitting Factory
What I said then:
102610: Saturday's loaded w/ CMJ action, but I must tip my hat & bestow my #1 pick to this Panache Bookings showcase. I credit Pop Jew for getting me into the Nashville indie scene, & the triple dose of Daniel Pujol & band, Heavy Cream (their only CMJ show), & Turbo Fruits cinches the deal.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
NY can't get enough of Nashville! I was very active this past CMJ, taking in a minimum of two shows a day, usually with a day and a night show, and I must have seen nearly 100 bands and clocked 72 hours of music-listening. That's a conservative estimate. The show I'd had my focus on the whole fest, BrooklynVegan's showcase at Music Hall of Williamsburg, helmed by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, didn't wow my pants off like I'd expected. It was brilliant but just proper. I needed something rowdier, something liquor-fueled and boisterous. Something southern. And despite one gnawingly odd band thrown into the midst, the Norwegian synth-something contingent Tug, the entire night, and the last night of the fest, was everything I needed. Aussie grunge-lovelies Circle Pit opened, then after the Tug debacle (i.e. refill your drinks, check the merch tables) came the trio of Tennessee titans. Accordingly, I moved up to stage-front. Daniel Pujol and his southern-fried psychedelia PUJOL played a bouncy set, and there I was, cuties from Heavy Cream and locals in-the-known all around me, going bonkers for "Butterfly Knife" and "Too Safe". If they ever cover "Freebird", it wouldn't shock me. Then Heavy Cream, in their sexy swaggering style, the thump of "Lava Lamp" to the groovy "Watusi", and I'm up front w/ Jonas of Turbo Fruits, the PUJOL boys, singing along because we know all the words. The wave of cute girls when Turbo Fruits took the stage was clue: NYers eat this southern-rock up. Couple Jonas' thick drawl ("free whiskey shots from my man at the bar if you got a Tennessee license!") and charisma w/ searing, rockin' anthems, stage-diving and sing-alongs — the show cut all the pretension out of live music and made it incomparably fun again.
9. Hiroshi Sugimoto "The Day After" @ The Pace Gallery
What I said then:
111610: In this ineffable experimental photographer's debut solo show at Pace, he includes two 50-ft photographic polyptychs from his "Lightning Field" series, plus related single prints and even a reconstituted Tesla coil, which releases a crackling violet shock every five minutes (that's what Sugimoto-san told me anyway, when I had the pleasure w/ speaking to the artist at his opening reception). So we're thinking electrical storms. What I feel, though, is being deep underwater, safe from the obscene pressure of the depths but in some great undiscovered trench, populated by those deep-sea denizens that use bioluminescence to attract prey and see down in the abyss. Sugimoto worked electrical discharges across unexposed film in the darkroom to create such marvels as "Lightning Fields 177" (could be spacecraft) and the watery "Lightning Fields 168", expelling hot gassy haze and tendrils of light into…nothingness. That's the thing w/ many of these works, incl. the 1st polyptych in the front gallery: the unexposed film is a perfect black, or as close as perfect comes, permitting the flashes and charges of light, like dendrites or cell creation, to float against the surface. The back polyptych, however, while subtler overall, is alive w/ shadow and textures, like briefly illuminated glimpses of a never-before-see seabed, fabric-like, even, roiling and rolling across the prints. There are benches in this room for a reason: I suggest you sit down and take it all in.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
Beyond the fact I met the artist at his opening reception, summoning my starstruck courage to have a brief conversation in Japanese with the legendary Sugimoto-san, this exhibition just works. Of the many many I took in this year, the spectacles and weird stuff, the brand-name and bizarre, I found warm escapism in "The Day After".
10. Peelander-Z + TsushiMaMire @ Santos Party House
What I said then:
112310: This will be my 1st up-close encounter w/ the Japanese avant-garde punks, whose live act is half-concert, half-performance art. w/ riot-grrls Tsushimamire.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
I was coaxed into attending this by my friend David, a Peelander-Z veteran, having attended like a dozen shows himself. So I didn't know what I was getting myself into except: a really bonkers Japanese-style punk show on a cold early winter's night. Brother, did I ever underestimate the experience! Local chiptune…whatevers Starscream played a boorish set, replete w/ fist-bumping bros and that loutish lot. Whatever, they came, they went. Next was the Chiba-based all-girl trio Tsushimamire — the untranslatable name is a combination of the girls' names — and they OWNED IT. Little Mari, vocalist/guitarist, w/ her perfect bob haircut, going ballistic, shredding and screaming into the mic, then stage-diving, then actually rapping, rapid-fire to the track, roughly translated as "My Brain Shortcake". Bassist Yayoi high-kicking and rock-star posing. Drummer Mizue freeze-framing from her blast-beats, then going back at it. I took a photo w/ Mari afterward. I had to. Then it was time for Peelander-Z. Think The Ramones with color-coordinated outfits, mostly culled from Trash & Vaudeville but lovingly "punched out". I'd actually met Peelander Yellow (guitarist and lead vocalist) during Starscream's set and wished him well. Little did I know how bonkers they were going to be. I'd heard stories about "audience participation", but this was next-level, a tsunami of badass. The group began w/ a photograph, Peelander Yellow, Red (the reed-lean bassist/vocalist and most overtly "punkish" of the group), Green (the brawny yet somehow pretty drummer), plus Black (lead guitarist and the most talented musician) and Pink (the sole woman and sort-of MC and hype (wo)man) posing inside a frame — for all the cameras. This segued to the call-and-response "Tacos Tacos Tacos" w/ Japanese schoolgirl-outfitted Maiko, "So Many Mikes" w/ audience members named Mike onstage, a like 10-minute long "Mad Tiger", mainly consisting of Black soloing on guitar, Pink leading the chant, and Red and Yellow limboing and leading the crowd on a snaking conga line — plus seemingly endless stage-dives, from band and crowd, and finally a mixed-percussion jam-session in the middle of the floor. That's not counting the part where Red stood on the crowd's hands in front of a disco ball, still playing his bass. Or the part where the band swapped instruments with audience members. Or Maiko-chan and Yellow leading the crowd in naming the 50 states. W/o a doubt, one of the best live acts I caught this year.
Fierce competition? You bet! In fact, this Top Ten was the most democratic, in live music (and even burlesque!) beating out museum and gallery shows! And that's not to say there was a dearth of good art this year, or nothing worth noting before May. Just a few mentions of the fierce competition: Surfer Blood's performance at Market Hotel (shortly before the venue was shut down), Olivia Shao's cerebral "The Eyvrali Score" group show at David Zwirner Gallery, Amalgul Menlibayeva's "Daughters of Turan" exhibition at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, the bonus screening of Noboru Iguchi's RoboGeisha at Japan Society, the vintage Ana Mendieta show at Galerie Lelong, Fantastic Fest alum Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (dir. Jalmari Helander, Finland) at IFC Center, and obviously Alexandre Aja's Piranha 3D. You can bet 2011 is going to be twice as dope. Stay tuned.
