by Dave Thomas

Chloe starring Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried
This month offers a surprisingly good mix of potentially solid mainstream and indie fare. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of crap to go around, too.
March 5
Wide
ALICE IN WONDERLAND
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Tim Burton sequel to the Lewis Carroll adventures. With Johnny Depp, of course.
WILL IT SUCK?
Tim Burton is a visionary in the best sense of the word. Screenwriter did Lion King and Beauty and the Beast. Depp as the Mad Hatter seems a slam dunk, and he’s joined by Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, Anne Hathaway, Stephen Fry, Christopher Lee, Michael Sheen, Alan Rickman, and Timothy Spall. Looks like the first bona fide event movie of 2010 worth checking out.
Early buzz is good.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Green Zone the following week has a sliver of the same demo, but this will dominate the month. $207mil.
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BROOKLYN’S FINEST
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Three cops’ (Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke) paths intertwine in an undisclosed New York borough.
WILL IT SUCK?
From the director of Training Day, and this is supposed to be better (according to IMDb). Also stars Wesley Snipes, Lili Taylor, Ellen Barkin, Will Patton, and Vincent D’Onofrio.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Snagged w/in 24 hours of premiering at Sundance last year, so somebody thinks it has potential, enough to buy a Super Bowl spot and give it a wide release, two things that almost never happen with Sundance buys. Still, don’t know if that will translate into wide release money. $26mil.
————————————————-
Limited
THE SECRET OF KELLS
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Kid looks for a book. A really, really important book.
WILL IT SUCK?

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[pic c/o Jennifer May for The New York Times]
A group of people with Abercrombie & Fitch bags and big aspirations gathered in the yard adjacent to Roberta’s Pizza in November to learn how to kill them some rabbits.
It went well, it sounds like! For a $100 fee, they learned the method of choice, which “was to place the rabbit on its belly on straw-covered asphalt, press a broomstick across the back of its neck and swiftly yank up the rear legs.” Snap, it probably went.
Now a days, people are eating those rabbits at places like Buttermilk Channel, even though a table of horrified guests walked out after discovering the cute little furballs on the menu. This caused the restaurant to promptly remove the rabbits from the menu, despite the other options like lamb legs, pig ribs, and an iced, baked, or pan-roasted sex-changing animal that is simply a collection of gills, gonads, tubules, tissue, cilia, mucus, mantle, a heart, two kidneys, blood, a mouth, and poop.
But no matter, the restaurant’s owner, Doug Crowell, is pretty sure he’s found the solution: “It seems to me that the more you can make rabbit not look like rabbit, the easier it is to sell people on it.”
So where do you stand on the divisive rabbit issue? Should we nom them?

In the past couple of years the power chord duo, The Naked Heroes, have become a New York staple. If you haven’t caught them live, do yourself a favor and check them out. No one rocks harder in Brooklyn. To commemorate the release of their new video, “Sheila,” George Michael Jackson and Merica Lee were nice enough to answer a few questions.

Who would you say you relate to more, George Michael or Michael Jackson?

GMJ: George Michael for sure. George Michael doesn’t give a fuck, he got caught with crack cocaine while cruising for random ass with strangers and when he got caught he told the press “It’s who I am.” Nobody else has the balls to say that, they all apologize, beg for forgiveness and act like total pussies. Also, I’m a big sucker for that Wham Christmas song.

ML: Ya, Wham.

What’s it like being in a band with your spouse?

GMJ: It’s pretty much the best thing ever. It feels like one big interconnected Jenga game of life and rock ‘n’ roll.

ML: Totally! But, I can’t help thinking GMJ longs for the decadent rock slut days of the 70′s and 80′s. All of a sudden being on tour with your wife doesn’t sound so cool…

She doesn’t mind you singing about “Sheila?”

ML: Are you kidding! Sheila is such a Rock ‘n’ Roll… concept. Sheila means “musical” in Celtic. There’s the Smiths song “Sheila take a bow.” Fucking awesome Sheila E. and of course, Ready For The World’s “Oh Sheila”.

GMJ: Are you stoned?

Who leaves more hair in the shower?

GMJ: Merica’s extensions definitely get caught in the drain.

Where are you and Merica from. How long you been in Greenpoint?

GMJ: I’ve been in Greenpoint for 10 years now. I love it here. I wish I knew some Polish though, you would think I would have picked some up but I haven’t at all. Our deli guy Sam is Palestinian and speaks fluent Polish and about 5 other languages. Sam is my language hero. By the way, our deli on the corner of Diamond and Nassau is the best deli ever. Sam, Moe and all those guys are great. Sam even made a cameo in the “Sheila” video.

ML: Plus, 99 Diamond is a little Rock Oasis.

Excluding The Naked Heroes, who rocks the hardest in Brooklyn?

GMJ: Born Loose. Larry May is a consummate frontman and entertainer. I saw those guys rock The Charleston at 1am a few months back and part of my face is probably still in a dirty corner somewhere.

ML: Ya, Larry May. I saw him barf onstage once!

Pick one: Mastodon, Lightning Bolt, High on Fire.

GMJ: Mastodon.

ML: But the dude from High on Fire is so freakin’ hot.

What’s your favorite place to hang in the hood.

The Palace is by far our favorite. Jerry and Johnny are hilarious awesome dudes and you can guarentee you will hear some Dio or old school Metallica when you’re there. Just don’t ever go in the back room or they will drag you onto the street

When can we see you perform next?

GMJ: We are releasing a limited edition picture disc vinyl 12″ of our record “99 Diamond” on Drug Front Records and will be having a release party for that soon but we haven’t nailed down a date yet. Our next show is March 31st at Trash Bar with Runny / The Whores and The Heartpunchers. Ken from Runny directed our video for “Sheila” and he rocks the stage like no other.

ML: But, stay tuned; we play Brooklyn all the time.

The MoMA is screening a 31-minute film today at 4pm and 7pm about the residential transformation of Williamsburg over the past few years. It’s called Open House, and is directed by Diane Nerwen.

In recent years, Williamsburg, one of the most visibly transformed neighborhoods in New York City, has seen a host of new residential construction and glass-and-steel structures spring up on blocks long defined by factories and modest row houses. While the housing bubble was deflating across the country, forty-story luxury buildings were being erected along the Brooklyn waterfront at an unprecedented rate. Chronicling developers literally tearing apart the neighborhood and frenzied property owners desperate to cash in before the market collapses, Open House reveals an urban renewal project on a scale not seen since Robert Moses’s ‚”slum” clearance of the 1960s.

Diane will lead a discussion with the audience following the screening of the second film, Behind the Iron Gate, which is a 55-min Polish documentary about Za Zelazna Brama, “one of the biggest housing estates built in the center of Warsaw between 1965 and 1972.”
If you miss it tonight, an encore screening will be tomorrow night at 7pm. For tickets and more info, visit MoMA. Here’s the trailer:

Some designers aren’t too psyched on the “forthcoming condo-ification” of the Domino Sugar Plant, so, they made this fun little movie poster.
Curbed writes: “It’s from the gang at by-encore, apparently no fans of the makeover of the old sugar refinery. To be fair, the Williamsburg waterfront has been well on its way to becoming a sci-fi freak show for years now.”
Enlarged image after the jump.

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Tonight marks the start of Bowlive, a ten-night run at Brooklyn Bowl by the juicy and sweaty and funknasty band Soulive. The residency includes special guests each night, and will only set you back $10 on weeknights and $12.50 on weekends. To make me say this extended event is highly recommended would be an insult to both your intelligence and honor. You know I’ll be there.

Soulive + Brooklyn Bowl = BOWLIVE! 2 Week Residency!
MARCH 2ND-6TH & MARCH 9TH-13TH
// SOULIVE //
2 WEEK RESIDENCY WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
Tues 3/2 Vernon Reid of Living Colour
Wed 3/3 Raul Midon
Thurs 3/4 Ryan Zoidis & Sam Kininger & Christian Scott
Fri 3/5 Sam Kininger and Tash Neal (London Souls)
Sat 3/6 TBA
Tues 3/9 TBA
Wed 3/10 Oteil Burbridge and Kofi Burbridge
Thurs 3/11 TBA
Fri 3/12 Marco Benevento
Sat 3/13 DJ Logic
$10.00 WEEKNIGHTS // $12.50 WEEKENDS

… No, not at some hoity-toity political benefit. The word on Twitter (again, sorry, I swear I’ll use credible sources some day), is that Freelance Whales will be busking tonight at 6 p.m. at the Bedford L stop. Anyone know anything else about this? Is there anything else to know?

Via EardrumNYC (via georgiakral)

Who knows about these well-made and well-installed signs on Bedford and Metropolitan?

We wish him the best! From Spin:

Keith “Guru” Elam, the MC for Brooklyn-based, jazz-tinged outfit Gang Starr, who suffered a heart attack over the weekend, is recovering after treatment in a New York City hospital.
The news about Guru, 43 — first reported by hip-hop blogger and Hot 97 radio personality Miss Info — broke late Sunday night, as well as word that the rapper had slipped into a coma. But Tuesday morning, Guru’s Gang Starr partner DJ Premier posted this update on Twitter: “Good news: Guru surgery was successful, keep sending him love.”
The impact of Keith “Guru” Elam transcends quotable rhymes or dope records or his notable outreach between hip-hop and jazz musicians. Starting with his and Premier’s stupendous 1989 debut single “Words I Manifest” (watch the video below), which profoundly flipped a sample from a Miles Davis and Charlie Parker recording of “A Night in Tunisia,” the resolutely adult murmur and hum of Guru’s lyrics gave the group a vast authority.

In our never-ending quest to show you how local food is raised and brought to market, I’m going to take you on a little tour inside a rabbit farm — John Fazio’s Rabbit Farm.
Yes, he’s the same farmer who raises ducks for big name chefs in New York City. But, you should note, he was known for his prized rabbits even before he started raising ducks. And he delivers them fresh, never frozen to NYC kitchens no more than a day or two after ‚”processing” — offering a service that is really hard to find for local chefs.
So, I wanted to share with you the short tour John Fazio gave me. It was never meant to be a video story, but I just couldn’t pass up the education. I don’t think most people have ever seen a commercial rabbit operation. I hadn’t. And all I can tell you is that it’s interesting, very organized and very clean. So come along as John Fazio tours us through his facility, and shows his methods for raising fresh, local rabbits.
For more info on the farm, please contact me on Twitter: @SkeeterNYC
Or to purchase or taste John Fazio’s rabbits, please visit Marlow & Sons or Marlow & Daughters in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, or Savoy in SoHo.
by Liza de Guia