fee's LIST / through 7/24

WEDNESDAY

NYC

* "Ghosts in the Machine" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave, 6 to Spring St). A three-floor tackling of technology and machines in art. Co-curators Massimiliano Gioni (who in his spare time is organizing the 55th Venice Biennale!) and Gary Carrion-Murayari wisely go historic, featuring Hans Haacke, Otto Piene, Robert Breer, Gego and constructions by Emery Blagdon, amid others. The scientific approach to perceptual abstraction—i.e. Op Art—sounds, well, I'll give it a chance, and it includes Victor Vasarely, Richard Anuskiewicz, the mighty Bridget Riley and others. Plus a contemporary take on technological advances, via thought-provoking artists like Christopher Williams and Henrik Olesen.

* Otto Piene in conversation w/ Massimiliano Gioni @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave, 6 to Spring St), 7p. Even cooler: the German kineticist and founder of the group ZERO talks about the interconnectivity of his art with technology and nature to Gioni, "Ghosts in the Machine" co-curator and Associate Director and Director of Special Exhibitions at the New Museum.

* Japan Cuts 2012 at Japan Society / 333 E 47th St (E/M to 53rd/5th Ave, 6 to 51st St). Crazy-ass contemporary Japanese cinema felt a bit lacking in this year's NYAFF? Don't you worry, friends, they're all here in the bonkers 2012 edition of Japan Cuts. Read on for my picks (just look for the Japan Cuts 2012 slug):

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Girls for Keeps" (dir. Yoshihiro Fukagawa, 2011) at 7:30p. In last week's screening of "Love Strikes!" I opined 'whatever happened to Kumiko Aso?' Well, she's in this film too, a beyond glamourous Japanese equivalent of "Sex and the City" whose original title is "Girl" but more closely means "Super-Stylish—and Possibly Very Materialistic—Girl".

AUSTIN

* "The Fifth Element" (dir. Luc Besson, 1997) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. Sci-fi with HUMOR…what a rare concept! Park Bruce Willis (playing basically himself) behind a flying taxi, give him a huge-ass gun and a hot alien dame (Milla Jovovich as redhead), then send him off to defeat a roiling dark-matter planet of pure evil. And that ain't even the Cliffs Notes version to this awesome, sexy action romp.

* "The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave" (dir. Emilio Miraglia, 1971) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10:15p. Lord Alan Cunningham is so disturbed by his disloyal dead wife that he begins torturing sexy redheads in his castle's S&M dungeon! Replete w/ a psychedelic soundtrack!

THURSDAY

NYC

* Heliotropes @ Union Pool / 484 Union Ave, Williamsburg (L/G to Lorimer), 9p/$10. Brooklyn's fiercest doom-pop foursome Heliotropes have the indie winds at their backs. From early ripping sets that produced the rumbling and yowling cohesion of "Holy Cross" and "True Love's Knot", to the psychedelic enchantment of new single "Moonlite", a headlining set benefiting Russian riot-grrrls Pussy Riot and an upcoming show at 92Y Tribeca supporting the BrooklynVegan photo exhibition this August. Yeah, I'm a huge fan, and a friend of these rockin' ladies. Their set tonight hints at new songs. w/ The Phantom Family Halo 

TOKYO

* 日本マドンナ @ Shinjuku Red Cloth / B1 6-28-12 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit, Toei Oedo/Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Lines to Higashi-Shinjuku Station), 7p/2300 yen. Three young riot-grrrls who look like juvenile delinquents but follow the rules of rocking out HARD. Meet "Nippon Madonna".

FRIDAY

NYC

* Japan Cuts 2012: "The Woodsman and the Rain" (dir. Shuichi Okita, 2011) at 7p. Ah, Koji Yakusho, he's a superlative actor. Got the charisma of George Clooney and the action chops of Bruce Willis. Japan Society pays homage to this total badass, and "The Woodsman and the Rain" begins the Yakusho focus. In it, he plays…a lumberjack! A lumberjack caught up in the on-site shooting of a zombie film! Too awesome. w/ Koji Yakusho in attendance!

AUSTIN

* "Tamed Territory" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. The focus of this gallery's summer show is animals and their environments, feat. paintings by Casey Polacheck, photography by Areca Roe, and—rather intriguingly—animal ceramics by Calder Kamin.

* "The Dark Knight Rises" (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2012) @ Alamo Drafthouse S Lamar / 1120 S Lamar. I put off thinking about this one for a long time—hey, I had "Prometheus" consuming my full anticipation!—but now the final chapter of Nolan's darker take on Batman comes to an end, and it's looking like a good one. I'll admit: I read "Knightfall" back in the mid-'90s, so I'm super-stoked to see Batman finally go toe-to-toe w/ Tom "Bane" Hardy. 

* Kingdom of Suicide Lovers @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 9p/$8. KOSL unleash addictively groovy noise-rock licks tempered by woozy coed harmonizing. If you told me they were from NYC circa 1992 vs Austin TX, I'd believe you. w/ Nervous Curtains 

TOKYO

* キノコホテル @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station), 7p/3300 yen. "Group Sounds" (think Japanese Beatles) live on in the all-female Tokyo-area garage-rockers Kinoco Hotel, whose perfect uniforms and hair-dos are equalled by their mega-fuzzy riffs and vintage organ lines. Tiny venue High should be extra cozy tonight.

* パスピエ @ Shimokitazawa GARDEN / B1F 2-4-5 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku (Keio Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station, South Exit), 7p/1500 yen Tokyo electro-pop darlings パスピエ (Passepied) channel Brooklynites Twin Sister with a hazy, nocturnal gloss. w/ FLiP

SATURDAY

NYC

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Chronicle of my Mother" (dir. Masato Harada, 2011) at 6p. A sensitive look at family life, filtered through the greats like Yasujiro Ozu. Koji Yakusho plays a hard-ass dad coming to terms w/ his elderly mother's growing dementia. w/ Yakusho in attendance!

* Japan Cuts 2012: "13 Assassins" (dir. Takashi Miike, 2010) at 8:20p. Miike adapts Eiichi Kudo's '63 original into a sprawling nonstop fight-scene, with stalwart actor Koji Yakusho leading his ragtag band of samurai against the decadent masses. They're destined to lose, but not before decapitating a whole mess of bad guys! w/ Yakusho in attendance!

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Cure" (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997) at 11p. Hands down one of the scariest films I've ever seen, pure psychological dread starring Koji Yakusho (a frequent Kurosawa collaborator) as a grizzled gumshoe facing off w/ a psychic psycho. w/ Yakusho in attendance!

* Prurient @ Saint Vitus / 1120 Manhattan Ave, Greenpoint (G to Greenpoint, 7 to Vernon Blvd/Jackson Ave), midnight/$10. Oh mother. Dominick Fernow is really nice dude, seriously, but when he removes his shirt (probably) and grabs like three microphones (totally), he's full-on noisician Prurient, among the loudest, most aggressive acts I've ever witnessed firsthand. Don't let the synth-heavy "Bermuda Drain" confuse you: he's liable to bury all that under shrill feedback and charming titles like "Cocaine Death".

* Warm Up 2012: Matthew Dear (DJ set) @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E/M to 23rd St/Ely Ave), 2p/$15 (FREE for members). Ghostly guru Matthew Dear is "only" DJing Warm Up, but considering the microhouse crooner's got a new LP on the way (with autumn dates to follow), maybe he'll debut some heavy stuff? "Her Fantasy" is pretty sweet. w/ Sepalcure (Berlin/NYC) and Le1f (NYC)

AUSTIN

* The Sour Notes @ Red 7 / 611 E 7th St, 7p/$7. Austin indie-rock powerhouse collective The Sour Notes kick off their 2012 tour "The Endless Sour" by playing a massive two-stage showcase, also feat. local dudes Royal Forest, Knifight, Jess Williamson, Little Brave, and many others.

TOKYO

* Futoshi Miyagi "American Boyfriend" @ Ai Kowada Gallery / 6F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). Miyagi injects his Okinawan heritage and gay identity in this semi-narrative exhibition, utilizing traditional dyeing and stenciling to manipulate his photography.

* "Killer Motel" (dir. Kazuya Ozawa, 2012) @ TOLLYWOOD / 2F 5-32-5 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku (Keio Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station, South Exit). Considering "Robogeisha" producer Akira Yamaguchi has his hands in this blood-drenched chiller, a decidedly Japanese take on the slasher film.

* 「灼熱の肌」"A Burning Hot Summer" (dir. Philippe Garrel, 2012) @ Imageforum / 2-10-2 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, East Exit). Reasons to see this: 1) the latest searing drama from French auteur Garrel, 2) his brooding, oft-acting son Louis is the lead, 3) Monica Bellucci plays Louis' wife (what the hell?) and 4) John Cale scored the film. Summer just got a helluva lot hotter, kids.

* "Iron Girl" (dir. Masatoshi Nagamine, 2012) @ Ginza Cinepathos / 4-8-7 Ginza, Chuo-ku (Ginza/Hibiya/Marunouchi Lines to Ginza Station). Maybe you caught "Female Prisoner No. 701: Sasori", one of a series of Japanese-style "Women in Cages" sexploitation films. If you did, or if that title/theme even piques your sicko curiosity (hey, own up!), you'll be happy to know "Sasori"'s star, AV idol Kirara Asuka, plays the titular superheroine in "Iron Girl". She wears a powered-up (figure-accenting) suit and kicks lots of ass. Co-starring a bunch of gravure idols like Rina Akiyama.

* Miila and the Geeks @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2500 yen. Tokyo singer/songwriter Moe Wadaka's incredible, indie-pop trio Miila and the Geeks (she's Miila, saxophonist Komori and drummer Ajima the geeks), whose slightly sinister, garage-rock debut "New Age" is a triumph for the indie scene. Plus Moe's behind the band's fractured lovely music videos. w/ Grayson Gilmour (New Zealand)

SUNDAY

NYC
* "Surreal Performances with Photo-Projections, Words, and Voice" @ Tribes Gallery / 285 E 3rd St, 2nd Fl, 5p. Barbara Rosenthal curated this multilayered jaunt into the subconscious, starring contemporary NYC Surrealist artist/writers producing words and sounds against large-screen projections. Plankhead, Dean Ebben, Peter Grzybowski, Heide Hatry, and Rosenthal will each participate. Open your minds and dive in.

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Love Strikes!" (dir. Hitoshi Ohne, 2011) at 1p. You have to be under 25 to understand the Japanese title, "Moteki", i.e. "unexplained romantic popularity with the opposite sex". Thus is the wave that crashes over nerdish pop culture writer Yukiyo (Mirai Moriyama), who unexpectedly befriends mega-cutie Miyuki (Masami Nagasawa). So the only natural thing happens: all these other hotties start digging him too, incl. Kumiko Aso (HELLO, where has she been??), Riisa Naka, Yoko Maki, and more. Rom-com to the max, baby.

TOKYO

* パスピエ + 快速東京  @ Shibuya LUSH / B1 1-10-7 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, East Exit), 6:30p/2300 yen. Dreamy electro-pop Tokyoites play ANOTHER show (see FRI), meaning I'm in heaven. Interesting contrast tonight, though, as they precede local spazz-rockers 快速東京, which is half the fun of these "Beat Happening" showcases.

MONDAY

AUSTIN

* "The Eurythmics Live" (dir. Geoff Wonfor, 1997) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10:30p. A child of the '80s like yours truly cannot miss this Music Monday screening, a 35mm print of synth-pop legends The Eurythmics live in concert during their "Revenge Tour" in February '87.

TUESDAY

AUSTIN

* "Q: The Winged Serpent" (dir. Larry Cohen, 1982) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz, 320 E Sixth St, 10:45p. A batshit bonkers monster movie about the mythical Quetzalcoatl roosting atop the Chrysler Building sounds unfathomable in the directorial hands of anyone besides the true mayhem-master Larry "It's Alive" Cohen. Makes me miss the Big Apple that much more.

TOKYO

* COH @ SuperDeluxe / B1F 3-1-25 Nishi-Azabu, Minato-ku (Hanzomon/Toei Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station), 8p/2000 yen. Consider what your getting into when facing a COH (né Ivan Pavlov) show: the sound engineer's debut on Raster-Noton was called "Enter Tinnitus". That said, the Sweden-based producer's retooling of Cosey Fanni Tutti ("COH Plays Cosey") and last year's wonderful "IIRON" LP promise a glacial, mesmerizing set tonight. Decibels be damned! w/ VOVIVAV & Shotaro Hirata

CLOSING SOON

AUSTIN

* "Texas Prize 2012": Jamal Cyrus, Will Henry, Jeff Williams @ AMOA-Arthouse / 700 Congress. Texas-based professionals nominated these three contemporary artists for an exhibition, then another panel of jurors pick one for a significant award. Cat's out the bag: Williams won it, for a dripping, unnerving site-specific installation on the museum's second floor, combining Central Texas fossils with industrial objects and the light smell of unseen—or absent—chemicals. Like I wrote in my earlier LIST, I was pulling for Cyrus, for his outstanding work at the New Museum's "Alpha's Bet Is Not Over Yet" and the literary workshop "Book Club" at Project Room Houses in Houston, TX's Third Ward (w/ collaborator Steffani Jemison). His large installation of animal hide-covered objects, stereo equipment, and electronics is echoed in a video performance where he douses a tenor saxophone in batter, deep-fries it, and points microphones at the process. Noisily good, but then I'm into Merzbow (see MON, NYC). Henry's rather quiet paintings of landscapes in wrong colors all hang downstairs (I mostly understand why the museum didn't incorporate the three artists) and are all the more silent paired with Cyrus and Williams' work.

TOKYO

* Takuma Nakahira "Circulation: Date, Place Events" @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station). Nakahira's series from the 7th Paris Biennale in 1971, where he represented Japan,    are restaged here for the first time, reflecting his youthful vivacity along the lines of peer and modernist photographer Daido Moriyama. (ENDS SUN)

fee's LIST / through 7/17

WEDNESDAY

NYC

* "Blasting Voice" @ The Suzanne Geiss Company / 136 Grand St. As the title sort of precludes, this group exhibition is performance-driven and features a tricked out sound system. Ashland Mines developed the stage and concept while Mevin McGarry and Isabel Venero organized some two dozen artists, each performing variations of amplified poetic concepts nightly. The talent here is great and vast, incl. Wu Tsang, Math Bass, James Ferraro, and TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone throughout the exhibition's run.

* "Painting is History" @ Winkleman Gallery / 621 W 27th St. O RLY? I ask myself at this cheeky titling. Edward Winkleman himself, along w/ Jay Grimm, curated this intriguing group show, feat. six artists who use traditional painterly techniques in representing historical events. Don't expect to be bored, though, considering Charles Browning's raw imagery and Valerie Hegarty's cheeky alterations.

* Future Islands (Baltimore) + Darlings @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$10. I've been koo-koo for Brooklyn lo-fi rockers Darlings since 2007 and their pop-punk LP "Yeah I Know". Their singsong coed harmonies shine through last year's high-fivable EP "Warma". They set the stage for Future Islands and force-of-nature vocalist Samuel T. Herring.

TOKYO

* Hiroko Okada "No Dress Code" @ Mizuma Art Gallery / 2F 3-13 Ichigayatamachi, Shinjuku-ku (Yurakucho/Nanboku Lines to Ichigaya Station). Okada reinterprets the "human-painting relationship" via photorealistic renderings of…underwear! Expect a multimedia installation related to her continued pointed takedowns of hypercommodified society.

THURSDAY

NYC

* Yayoi Kusama @ Whitney Museum / 945 Madison Ave (6 to 75th St). Finally. A proper retrospective for the superlative Japanese artist, whose diverse media—paintings, video, installation, sculpture etc—defy easy categorization yet are simultaneously unmistakably HERS. Kusama's hallucinatory "infinity nets", her mirrored kinetic carpets and immersive soft-sculpture apparatuses. And pumpkins. Revel in this most prominent of Japanese contemporary artists who left a deep impression on the global art scene. Plus: don't miss Kusama's disorienting "Fireflies on the Water", a truly transporting chamber of hanging lights, mirrors, and water, installed in the museum's lobby gallery.

* "Post-Op" @ Mixed Greens / 531 W 26th St. Winner of "best summer group show title" comes this thoughtful, eye-crossing exhibition. Eight contemporary artists advancing new concepts in visual illusion, incl. Rachel Beach, Suzanne Song, Rebecca Ward, and Emilio Gomariz.

* Japan Cuts 2012 at Japan Society / 333 E 47th St (E/M to 53rd/5th Ave, 6 to 51st St). Crazy-ass contemporary Japanese cinema felt a bit lacking in this year's NYAFF? Don't you worry, friends, they're all here in the bonkers 2012 edition of Japan Cuts. Read on for my picks (just look for the Japan Cuts 2012 slug):

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Smuggler" (dir. Katsuhito Ishii, 2011) at 8:15p. Ishii's latest brings him back to his gonzo Yakuza world of "Party 7" (think "Dick Tracy" on uppers); as in, it's just as colorful and off-kilter humorous, but it's also Ishii's darkest, most brutal work, too. The ensemble cast — good guy and suffering actor Kinuta (Satoshi Tsumabuki); weathered ex?-thug Jo (Ishii regular Masatoshi Nagase); razor-sharp cute Chiharu (Hikari Mitsushima); deranged Verebrae (Masanobu Ando) — are in top form.

AUSTIN

* "Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom" (writer: Jennifer Haley) @ Blue Theatre / 916 Springdale Rd, 8p/$12-20. Like "The Twilight Zone" for the "Resident Evil" generation, feat. four teenagers trying to escape their suburban hellhole from an onslaught of zombies!

FRIDAY

NYC

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Hard Romanticker" (dir. Gu Su-yeon, 2011) at 6:30p. Shota Matsuda plays a blond-coiffed, porn-stached zainichi thug-wannabe cracking skulls and hurling insults around the local hoods in a seaside town. It's also a semi-autobiographical account of director Gu's own rough youth as a Korean delinquent in working-class Japan.

* Japan Cuts 2012: "The Atrocity Exhibition", feat. "Let's Make the Teacher Have a Miscarriage Club" (dir. Eisuke Naito, 2012), "Henge" (dir. Hajime Ohata, 2012) and "The Big Gun" (dir. Hajime Ohata, 2008) at 8:40p. Prepare for a batshit trio of zero-budget psycho shorts that blend splatterpunk and topical scenarios in one boiling cinematic nabe-pot. Naito's HD short film basically sells itself: a band of beastly junior high girls entrapping their pregnant prof. Ohata's "Henge" (lit. "Goblin" or "Changeling") is like Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" crossed w/ Shinya Tsukamoto's "Tetsuo", while his debut short "The Big Gun" is just that, an iron-worker conned by the mob to make guns for them, so he crafts a huge-ass one in retaliation. 

AUSTIN

* Peelander-Yellow @ Guzu Gallery / 5000 N Lamar Blvd, 8p. A high-energy, wicked-times block-print exhibition by that fantastic punk-rocker also known as Kengo Hioki, frontman for Peelander-Z. And if you see him w/ that scratched and stickered up guitar, it might be an opening reception performance! Taco, taco, taco, taco, taco say YEAH. 

* "Beasts of the Southern Wild" (dir. Benh Zeitlin, 2012) @ Alamo Drafthouse S Lamar / 1120 S Lamar. This 2012 Sundance winner sounds truly magical, the strained realities of a marooned "New Orleans" community in an uncertain near future as refracted in the gaze of a precocious little girl, who discovers paradise amid the brambles. 

* "Friday the 13th part III in 3D" (dir. Steve Miner, 1982) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse S Lamar / 1120 S Lamar, 7p. Plenty of the Drafthouse's Summer of 1982 series has caught my attention, but admittedly few films play to my priorities like this slasher classic, screened like it should be in glorious 3D.

* "The Fifth Element" (dir. Luc Besson, 1997) midnight screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. Sci-fi with HUMOR…what a rare concept! Park Bruce Willis (playing basically himself) behind a flying taxi, give him a huge-ass gun and a hot alien dame (Milla Jovovich as redhead), then send him off to defeat a roiling dark-matter planet of pure evil. And that ain't even the Cliffs Notes version to this awesome, sexy action romp. ALSO SAT

TOKYO

* Kazumasa Noguchi "Synthetic Garden" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (JR Lines etc to Shibuya). Op-tastic art exposing surfaces and framework, whether on wood panels or the gallery walls themselves, reflecting Noguchi's background in architecture and his modus in approaching artwork.

* Ine Izumi @ Taimatz / 1-2-11 Higashi-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku (JR Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station, Toei-Shinjuku Line to Bakuro-Yokoyama Station). I'm totally a fan of Izumi's thoughtful, delicate ink and acrylic renderings of the mundane, ornamental, and dreamlike.

* Zombie Lolita 11th anniversary "Alice in Dead" @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2800 yen. Take two things I dig: zombies and "lolita", and you get the bizarrely Japanese pop-idol group Zombie Lolita, feat. a bunch of cute girls in sailor suits and horror makeup playing thrash metal. 

SATURDAY

NYC

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Tokyo Playboy Club" (dir. Yosuke Okuda, 2011) at 3:15p. Despite the glittery name, this violent and off-kilter humorous look at Tokyo's shadowy underworld has earned serious acclaim since its Busan Film Fest premier, incl. that of young director Okuda. Think Quentin Tarentino crossed w/ Kinji Fukusaku, w/ a grinding guitar soundtrack and hardboiled dudes Nao Omori and Ken Mitsuishi (in one of his most frenetic roles yet) balanced by cutie Asami Usuda.

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Love Strikes!" (dir. Hitoshi Ohne, 2011) at 7:15p. You have to be under 25 to understand the Japanese title, "Moteki", i.e. "unexplained romantic popularity with the opposite sex". Thus is the wave that crashes over nerdish pop culture writer Yukiyo (Mirai Moriyama), who unexpectedly befriends mega-cutie Miyuki (Masami Nagasawa, who attends tonight's screening!!!). So the only natural thing happens: all these other hotties start digging him too, incl. Kumiko Aso (HELLO, where has she been??), Riisa Naka, Yoko Maki, and more. Rom-com to the max, baby.

AUSTIN
* Jamal Cyrus "Ancestor" @ AMOA-Arthouse / 700 Congress Ave, 7p. Texas Prize 2012 finalist Cyrus stages one final performance w/in his installation at the Jones Center, an audio-visual feast w/ movement in collaboration with Autumn Knight and Megan Jackson. Yeah, I'm a fan.

* Mikaylah Bowman "La Fille Qui Ment" @ Red Space Gallery / 1203 W 49th St #B. Lit. "The Girl Who Lies", Bowman's latest series of performative photography, furthering her investigation of self and memory, with a related installation.

* Peelander-Z @ Red 7 / 611 E 7th St, 9p. The color-coded Japanese art-punks are a frequent local presence, despite hailing from Planet Peelander (aka East Village NYC). Expect sing-alongs involving tacos, sunglasses, and dudes named "Mike". w/ Ghost Knife and Biters

TOKYO

* Michiko Sago + Shoko Matsumiya "Harmony" @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). The gallery creates a dialogue b/w two young artisans: Matsumiya's brilliant, organic glassworks and Sago's contemporary ceramic forms.

* Print Show vol 7 @ Kido Press, Inc / 6F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Toei Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). Main draw for me in this seventh edition of the gallery's gathering of unique-edition prints is Kumi Machida, whose contemporary take on traditional "nihonga" style artwork (coupled w/ some VERY surreal imagery) is just marvelous. Plus: O Jun, Atsushi Suwa, Tokuro Sakamoto, and Wisut Ponnimit.

* "Shark Night 3D" (dir. David R. Ellis, 2011) @ TOHO Cinema Nichigeki / 2-5-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku (Yurakucho Line to Yurakucho Station, Tokyo Metro Marunouchi/Hibiya/Ginza Lines to Ginza Station). An absolutely fascinating and bloodthirsty film about snobbish PYTs (led by cutie Sara Paxton) attacked in creative ways by a variety of sharks controlled by those backwoods good ol' boys.

* 「ピラニアリターンズ」 (dir. John Gulager, 2012) @ HT Cinema / 7F 1-23-16 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). AKA "Piranha 3DD" (what, breast-implant jokes don't translate?), which should've been as dope as the extra-gory, Alexandre Aja-directed revamp….only it's not. But hell, it's still mutated piranha wreaking havoc on plasticine women and Ken doll-looking dudes, and David Hasselhoff plays a lifeguard.

* "WET DREAM: ReBORN Special" w/ RITUALS @ Aisotope Lounge / 1F 2-12-16 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, 9p/3000 yen. Why would I send you off to a venue known for its "Banana Fridays"? Because tonight is fetish night, sporting punk-goth brand RITUALS and feat. a slinky dance-off from Nasty Cats, aka Aloe and Nancy of tokyoDOLORES! Plus the full roster of Nightmare/Torture Garden DJs, incl. ME:CA, Rinko, and Zil. Partying in Ni-Chome is fun!

SUNDAY

NYC

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Ace Attorney" (dir. Takashi Miike, 2012) at 1:30p. The video game-style hairdos transferred from Capcom's gonzo courtroom module "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" to this Japanese box-office blockbuster. Expect caffeinated jump-cuts and frenzied dialogue as young prosecutors and holographic mediums duel to the death — nahh, not totally that, but it's still bonkers.

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Tormented" (dir. Takashi Shimizu, 2011) at 4:15p. Alice in Wonderland. Rabbit demon. Hikari Mitsushima. Everything I've seen about this film thus far, tiny measured doses of surreally creepy film clips, have freaked me the hell out…which includes scenes of Mitsushima in her absolute most distressed. While the title lacks the spirit of the Japanese original ("Rabbit Horror", in phonetic English) AND this isn't screening in blood-curdling 3D like it should, but it'll still give you plenty of nightmares.

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Chips" (dir. Yoshihiro Nakamura, 2012) at 8p. Nakamura serves up a bittersweet slice-of-life in post-tsunami Sendai, japan, revolving around the intersecting existences of a baseball player and a burglar.  

AUSTIN

* "Masters of the Universe" (dir. Gary Goddard, 1987) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. As a kid of the '80s, my playtime revolved around He-Man and other toys of the Eternia universe. Imagine my delight when "they" made a He-Man film! Imagine my disappointment when that meant a spray-tanned Dolph Lundgren as He-Man and a heavily SFXed Frank Langella (like in old-lady makeup) as sworn foe Skeletor! Imagine further the inclusion of weak-ass character Gwildor who had way too big a role, plus the absurd amount of screen-time devoted to, uh, these two TEENAGERS (incl a young Courtney Cox!)…who accidentally swipe the Key to Earth b/c they mistook it for a "Japanese synthesizer"! Hell, it was the '80s then, and this bonkers flop quantifies what made that decade so special.

MONDAY

TOKYO

* "White Agenda" @ Warehouse702 / B1F 1-4-5 Azabu-Juban, Minato-ku (Toei Oedo Line to Azabu-Juban Station, Exit 7), 3p-10p/3000 yen. It's not often that I happen across mid-afternoon fetish parties, but the chilled-out nature of "White Agenda" seems something extra special. Feat. the "White Fascination Girls", aka Aloe and Nancy of Nasty Cats plus some Japan Pole Dance girls, rope performers, and White Queens (Margarette and Lady-J, both of The Ring), plus DJs (helmed by Toru Takeda) and a VIP lounge for women only.

TUESDAY

NYC

* Japan Cuts 2012: "Zombie Ass" (dir. Noboru Iguchi, 2011) at 7:30p. An epic of epic epicness, straight from the bowels of post-NOTLD cinema and thoroughly doused in Iguchi's deviant world of scat zombies, anal alien parasites…and lotsa cute girls. I loved the world premiere (at 2011 Fantastic Fest) so much that I saw the damn film twice, it's that great. 

* Best Coast @ Terminal 5 / 610 W 56th St (1/AC/BD to Columbus Circle), 7p/$25. Bethany Cosentino & crew banish much of their debut fuzzy reverb for hard-hitting (dare I say "folksy"?) melodies. But this being Best Coast, that Cali sunshine permeates everything. w/ DIIV

AUSTIN

* "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" (dir. Tommy Lee Wallace, 1982) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. In this oddity to the "Halloween" franchise, who needs Michael Myers when you have Silver Shamrock jack-o'-lantern masks that nuke kids' heads? Even the signature piano melody is eschewed by an '80s-friendly synthesizer! Now it's up to Tom "Maniac Cop" Atkins to stop the evil corporation behind all this mayhem!

CURRENT SHOWS

AUSTIN

* "Greatest Hits" @ Tiny Park  / 1101 Navasota St. Tiny Park achieved some very big things in their first year as an apartment gallery, curating three thoughtful two-artist shows feat. such talent as local heroes Miguel Aragon (winner of Austin Critics' Table Outstanding Artist, who also had a major solo exhibition at Austin's Mexic-Arte Museum) and Leah Haney (solo museum exhibition at AMOA-Arthouse this past spring), plus Chicago's Deborah Stratman (2004 Whitney Biennial) and LA-based painter and printmaker Nick Brown — plus a laudable drawing annual. Now they've relocated to a high-ceilinged commercial gallery space, filling it with some of the best-of from their past exhibitions. The reconfiguring works to Tiny Park's advantage, as it's less of a "been there, seen that" than a very concrete adjustment of scale and space. Brown's massive canvases and Aragon's large-scale media aren't so squeezed for room here, though they retain their respective impacts. It's a solid group show. This fall, Tiny Park must throw caution to the wind, using the potential for experimentation to go full-bore and, trusting their instincts, leave an even deeper impression on the local gallery scene. Consider me super stoked for what is to come.

* "Manscape: Male as Subject and Object", curated by Christopher Eamon @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces. There is a disclaimer on the gallery door noting that this group show "may not be suitable to all viewers". Sounds like my kind of show! But seriously, Eamon pulls off a thoughtful dissection of traditional male imagery and hierarchy in art via three young and compelling female artists (Mariah Robertson, Michele Abeles, and Adina Popescu) and tempered by a less-known male some 25 years their senior (John Massey). Photography is the focal point here: Robertson's two-pronged visual assertion of lone phalluses infringing onto optical illusion backdrops and Abeles' stealthy still-lifes (in one, she makes a compelling critical portrait of blue-drenched objectifier Yves Klein). Popescu gives her male subject a face (in her video "Jeremiah", screened earlier this year in "Blind Cut" at Marlborough Chelsea in NYC), but his voice is really her own words, a dialogue on consumption. Massey is not simply counterbalance here as the sole male artist and older figure. I wonder what the exhibition would be like without him. His contribution, a sensitive gaze into his own head and thoughts via his "Studio Projections" photographs (involving a maquette of Massey's studio and projections of images rephotographed from newspapers in the '70s), gives a vulnerability to this male artist via the admitted failures of depicted male-headed modernist activities. Back to the women: are they striving for the same sort of utopian goals in their respective truncations and takedowns of male imagery? I think when you take these works into the greater contexts of their respective oeuvres—like Robertson's darkroom experimentation and Abeles' continually groundbreaking compositional techniques—then the answer is not so clear. At the very least, I do not see these artists' progresses "destined for failure" like Massey's mining of decades' old modernism. 

CLOSING SOON

NYC

* Carl Andre/John Wesley "Serial Forms" @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash / 534 W 26th St. This ain't the first time I've encountered an intriguing pairing w/ cartoonishly idiosyncratic painter Wesley – that'd be "Jo & John", Matthew Marks' primo "dialogue" b/w Wesley and his ultra-minimalist partner Jo Baer, back in 2010. But I unabashedly love Andre's systemic sculpture and am pretty stoked to see the visual analogy posited by the gallery b/w his heavy metal and Wesley's equally flat paintings. (ENDS SAT)

* Charles Atlas "The Illusion of Democracy" @ Luhring Augustine Bushwick / 25 Knickerbocker Ave, Bushwick (L to Morgan). Bushwick has a teeming, fertile art-scene, full of creatives and creative gallery spaces. Now W. Chelsea powerhouse Luhring Augustine states its claim in a new space w/ a brilliant exhibition, the American post-punk video artist Charles Atlas, who despite participating in the upcoming Whitney Biennial hasn't shown locally in a long while. The exhibition feat. two video installations never seen before in NYC, "Painting by Numbers" (2008) and "Plato's Alley" (2009), plus a new large-scale video work created specifically for this show and space. (ENDS SUN)

fee's LIST / through 7/10

WEDNESDAY

TOKYO

* Takuma Nakahira "Circulation: Date, Place Events" @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station). Nakahira's series from the 7th Paris Biennale in 1971, where he represented Japan,    are restaged here for the first time, reflecting his youthful vivacity along the lines of peer and modernist photographer Daido Moriyama.

THURSDAY

NYC

* New York Asian Film Festival 2012 @ Walter Reade Theatre / Lincoln Center at 65th St (1 to 66th St). NYAFF is the baddest-ass of NY film festivals without question. Seasoned LIST-readers know you better be holding tickets for the hotter shows (as these babies tend to sell out majorly), so I'll eschew regurgitating my yearly rules and tips and just include a rundown of films I think you should see. Just look for the NYAFF 2012 tag.

* NYAFF 2012: "All About My Wife" (dir. Min Kyu-dong, 2012) at 9p. Brian's gone soft? Yeah yeah, but look: Korea knows its rom-coms. Plus, adding cutie Im Su-jeong into the mix, like a well-timed spark for her kindling beaus, just makes it that much more effective. Trust me on this one.

* "Hara-Kiri" (dir. Takashi Miike, 2011) screening @ BAM Cinemas / 30 Lafayette St, Ft Greene (23/45 to Nevins St, C to Lafayette St), 7p. Oh snap! BAMcinématek totally  tried to slip this one by. We're in the midst of NYAFF's double-barreled cinematic awesomeness when, out in Fort Greene, comes Takashi Miike's scintillating, sumptuous seppuku epic, in stunning 3D! It's a not-so-sneak preview, too (opens in theaters JUL 20), but if you just can't wait, hell, go out there and bask.

TOKYO

* Katsumi Hayakawa "PHASE III" @ Gallery MOMO / 2F 6-2-6 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Toei Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). Intricate, gridlike paper structures emulating mathematical formulas, superconductor circuits, futuristic city-plans straight outta "Neuromancer" and a whole helluva lotto other cool stuff.

* the milky tangerine @ Shimokitazawa SHELTER / B1 2-6-10 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku (Keio Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station), 7p/2500 yen. Super-cute local garage-rockers the milky tangerine do it '90s style: think screeching guitars tempered by smooth vocals. w/ GUMI

FRIDAY

NYC

* NYAFF 2012: "Infernal Affairs 1 & 2" (dirs. Andrew Lau & Alan Mak, 2002/2003) at 6/8:40p. Maybe you recall last week when I was raging at how America bones up proper Asian crime dramas w/ its paltry remakes? Hong Kong box-office juggernaut "Infernal Affairs" was one of my main examples. So what's better than seeing the original good cop-as-gangster vs. gangster-as-good-cop thriller on the big screen? Seeing it then immediately seeing its explosive sequel! w/ heartthrob Edison Chen and Will Yun Lee in attendance

AUSTIN

* "Tron" (dir. Steven Lisberger, 1982) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7/10:30p. The Drafthouse's "Summer of 1982" goes cybernetic, with this once-belittled, now-hallowed if tremendously dated geek classic. For any nerds out there (self included!) who took apart their family's big-box computer and stared at that motherboard, pretending it was the glittering green map to some futuristic bit-city, you're in luck. ALSO SAT-SUN 1:15/4p 

TOKYO

* Yuki Tawada "Burnt Photographs" @ Taro Nasu Gallery / 1-2-11 Higashi-kanda, Chiyoda-ku (Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station). The Shizuoka-born artist returns to the gallery with a truly transformative solo exhibition. She burns inkjet prints and paints them in acrylic, creating a new image phoenix-like from the gnarly, ashen remains of its previous state. Much emotional involvement and sense of place occurs here.

* Kozo Fukuoka "Somewhere in England" @ Gallery TOSEI / 5-18-20 Chuo, Nagano-ku (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line to Shin-Nakao Station, Exit 1-2). A love of the Beatles and Brit-rock carried the photographer on a tour of northern England and beyond, turning to the rural landscape for inspiration.

* "Document Haino Keiji" (dir. Kazuhiro Shirao, 2012) @ Theater N Shibuya / 2F 24-4 Sakuragaoka-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, West Exit). HELL YEAH. The definitive doc on the silver-coiffed, sexagenarian multi-instrumentalist and noise lord Keiji Haino, troubadour to avant-guardians the world over.   

SATURDAY

NYC

* NYAFF 2012: "The Miami Connection" (dirs. Grandmaster Y.K. Kim and Park Woo-sung, 1987) at 11:15p. Maybe you recall the batshit midnight mayhem caused by "L.A. Streetfighters" at NYAFF 2010. Get ready for a redo, only this time there's Benetton-style New Wave rockers and tons of ninja. Luckily the former's terrible (and terribly quotable) dialogue holds up. You'll definitely not want to miss this one, sucka.

* Warm Up 2012: Todd Terry, Light Asylum, Nguzunuguzu @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E/M to 23rd St/Ely Ave), 2p/$15 (FREE for members). This year's delirious summer art-concert series Warm Up opens with proper Chicago-tinged four-on-the-floor, courtesy legendary DJ/producer Todd Terry. Preceding him are sun-sweetened bass lovers Nguzunguzu and local disco darlings Light Asylum, so be sure to hydrate before this nonstop dance-athon. Be sure to spend ample time in Wendy, the super-sized blue sea urchin-looking creation of architects Marc Kushner and Matthias Hollwich, a monolith of misty bliss and air-cleaning titanium nanoparticles. Of note: PS1 instigated advanced tickets for 2012 Warm Up, and considering the red-hot lineup you may want to reserve early. 

AUSTIN

* oOoOO (San Fran) @ Beauty Ballroom / 2015 E Riverside Dr, 9p/$13. What's up with these "witch house" dudes (and girls) and their ridiculous names? oOoOO (pronounced "oh") ain't the only one, neither: local musician Stefanie Franciotti goes by Sleep ∞ Over ("sleepover forever"?). Though this doesn't detract from oOoOO's darkly glamourous, electro jams. Get down now. w/ Beat Imprint

TOKYO

* Yutokutaishi Akiyama @ Aisho Miura Arts / B1F 2-17-3 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station). The performance artist, who gained nationwide fame in the '70s by running in the Tokyo gubernatorial election under "politics to be pop art", unveils a new performance work plus Buriki sculpture.

* Keiichi Tanaami @ Nanzuka Underground B1F 2-17-3 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station). Tanaami is one of Japan's strongest answers to classic Pop art — think more the acid-toned Chicago school than NYC — which he's been producing since the '60s. This exhibition traces his creative and subversive illustrated history, plus includes a new digital animation.

* Jiro Takamatsu "These Seven Characters" @ Yumiko Chiba Associates / 2F 4-32-6 Nishi-shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (Toei Oedo Line to Tochomae Station, JR etc to Shinjuku Station, West Exit). The followup to the gallery's focus on the pivotal neo-Dadaist and forerunner of "Mono-Ha", the youth-driven antimodernist movement of the late '60s that includes Lee Ufan and Nobuo Sekine. An emphasis on Takamatsu's copying and reproductions, born out of "these seven characters".

* Who the Bitch + つしまみれ @ Shibuya O-Crest / 5F 2-14-8 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 7p/3300 yen. Trust me, you don't want to miss a "Who the Fuck" night, the titular showcase for Who the Bitch, two fierce riot-grrrls and their Guitar Wolf-looking dude drummer. Even better, the ladies behind つしまみれ join the party. Expect one rippin' night.

SUNDAY

NYC

* NYAFF 2012: "Kill Zone" (dir. Wilson Yip, 2005) at 5:15p. Yip channels this return to form for Hong Kong action cinema, feat. a Who's Who of greats (Simon Yam as driven inspector with a dirty secret, Donnie Yen as a badass detective, Sammo Hung as a severe kingpin and Wu Jing his raging enforcer). Oh but brace yourselves, boys and girls: Donnie "Ip Man" Yen is attending the screening!

* NYAFF 2012: "Honey Pupu" (dir. Chen Hung-I, 2011) at 10:30p. I'm calling "Honey Pupu"—a beautiful, mesmerizing melange of youthful social media and love on both sides of reality—the sleeper hit of NYAFF 2012. Sure it's not jaw-bruising action nor outrageously sexual nor shockingly bloody, my usual watermarks for awesome NYAFF films, but its dreamy cyber-heart beats true. 

MONDAY

NYC

* NYAFF 2012: "Dragon" (dir. Peter Chan, 2011) at 7:45p. Better known as simply "Wu Xia", one solid slugfest between arts of the martial (that'd be Donnie Yen) and the scientific (Takeshi Kaneshiro) variety. Better yet, Tang Wei (HELLO) plays Yen's wife. Better still: Donnie Yen is attending the screening. Guaranteed to sell out by the time you read this.

TOKYO

* PLASTIC GIRL IN CLOSET @ Shimokitazawa SHELTER / B1 2-6-10 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku (Keio Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station), 7p/2500 yen. My favorite Iwate-area dream-popstars PGIC are just bursting with twee joy, tempered by waves and waves of snarling guitar feedback — these kids are LOUD live! They play tonight's "strange ROCK SHOW" w/ Violent is Savanna.

CURRENT SHOWS

* "Greatest Hits" @ Tiny Park / 1101 Navasota St. Tiny Park achieved some very big things in their first year as an apartment gallery, curating three thoughtful two-artist shows feat. such talent as local heroes Miguel Aragon (winner of Austin Critics' Table Outstanding Artist, who also had a major solo exhibition at Austin's Mexic-Arte Museum) and Leah Haney (solo museum exhibition at AMOA-Arthouse this past spring), plus Chicago's Deborah Stratman (2004 Whitney Biennial) and LA-based painter and printmaker Nick Brown — plus a laudable drawing annual. Now they've relocated to a high-ceilinged commercial gallery space, filling it with some of the best-of from their past exhibitions. The reconfiguring works to Tiny Park's advantage, as it's less of a "been there, seen that" than a very concrete adjustment of scale and space. Brown's massive canvases and Aragon's large-scale media aren't so squeezed for room here, though they retain their respective impacts. It's a solid group show. This fall, Tiny Park must throw caution to the wind, using the potential for experimentation to go full-bore and, trusting their instincts, leave an even deeper impression on the local gallery scene. Consider me super stoked for what is to come.

* "Manscape: Male as Subject and Object", curated by Christopher Eamon @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces. There is a disclaimer on the gallery door noting that this group show "may not be suitable to all viewers". Sounds like my kind of show! But seriously, Eamon pulls off a thoughtful dissection of traditional male imagery and hierarchy in art via three young and compelling female artists (Mariah Robertson, Michele Abeles, and Adina Popescu) and tempered by a less-known male some 25 years their senior (John Massey). Photography is the focal point here: Robertson's two-pronged visual assertion of lone phalluses infringing onto optical illusion backdrops and Abeles' stealthy still-lifes (in one, she makes a compelling critical portrait of blue-drenched objectifier Yves Klein). Popescu gives her male subject a face (in her video "Jeremiah", screened earlier this year in "Blind Cut" at Marlborough Chelsea in NYC), but his voice is really her own words, a dialogue on consumption. Massey is not simply counterbalance here as the sole male artist and older figure. I wonder what the exhibition would be like without him. His contribution, a sensitive gaze into his own head and thoughts via his "Studio Projections" photographs (involving a maquette of Massey's studio and projections of images rephotographed from newspapers in the '70s), gives a vulnerability to this male artist via the admitted failures of depicted male-headed modernist activities. Back to the women: are they striving for the same sort of utopian goals in their respective truncations and takedowns of male imagery? I think when you take these works into the greater contexts of their respective oeuvres—like Robertson's darkroom experimentation and Abeles' continually groundbreaking compositional techniques—then the answer is not so clear. At the very least, I do not see these artists' progresses "destined for failure" like Massey's mining of decades' old modernism. 

CLOSING SOON

NYC

* "Fake Empire" @ Mixed Greens / 531 W 26th St. Lee Stoetzel curated and is participating in this five-artist examination and hyperbolization of historical sites and monuments. Feat. Olivo Barbieri, Rob Carter, Susan Giles, and Dionisio Gonzalez in a cross-media presentation. (ENDS FRI)

TOKYO

* Hisaharu Motoda @ Kido Press, Inc / 6F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Toei Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). Disused sports stadiums take on the emotive light of crumbling architectural relics thanks to Motoda's compelling duotone printwork.

* Jon Pylypchuk @ Tomio Koyama Gallery / 7F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Station). The Canadian artist's debut solo at the gallery, featuring his half-human, half-animal lifeforms moving through dreamlike landscapes, rendered in paint and mixed media. (ENDS SAT)