Artistic Consumption Log, March 26, 2012 - April 1, 2012: Breather Edition

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—This week felt like a mild breather for me after the past few weeks of seemingly nonstop writing and moviegoing and so on. No major writing assignments, no press screenings (or at least, no press screenings I absolutely needed to attend)—I was thus free to just explore things.

And so I did. As a result, I discovered: a fascinating new cinematic voice in a young African-American New York-based filmmaker named Terence Nance, at least based on his endlessly inventive debut feature An Oversimplification of Her Beauty; the wonderfully cacophonous musical chaos of 20th-century composer Edgard Varèse; a virtuosic theater artist named Rick Miller who has the uncanny ability to go from one Simpsons impersonation to another in a split second; and the legendary photographer Cindy Sherman, whose visions are so distinctive and imposing—sometimes unnervingly so—that they make you look at the human face in a refreshing light.

That will pretty much be it as far as critical commentary goes in this log. Alas, yes, this will be yet another barebones one. Maybe one day soon I'll be able to find the time to annotate these things again.

Untitled (1981), Cindy Sherman

Films

New Directors/New Films 2012, all films seen in New York:
★ An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (2012, Terence Nance), seen at Museum of Modern Art
★ Fear and Desire (1953, Stanley Kubrick), seen at Museum of Modern Art
Breathing (2011, Karl Markovics), seen at Walter Reade Theater

Deadly Prey (1987, David A. Prior), seen at home in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Music

★ Cage: Song Books / Cowell: Synchrony / Adams: Absolute Jest / Varèse: Amériques, performed by Joan LaBarbara, Meredith Monk, Jessye Norman, St. Lawrence String Quartet, Michael Tilson Thomas & San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall in New York

★ Ives: Three Places in New England / Ruggles: Sun-treader / Piston: Symphony No. 2 (1970, Michael Tilson Thomas & Boston Symphony Orchestra)

月朦朧鳥朦朧 (1978, 鳳飛飛)
★ 一片深情 . 春寒 (1979, 鳳飛飛)

Theater

★ MacHomer (1995, Rick Miller), seen at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in New York 

Fine Arts

★ Cindy Sherman, seen at Museum of Modern Art in New York