Here are some of the highlights from the calendar for this weekend. Remember: More info on these—and the full calendar—is here.
••• 92YTribeca’s celebration of director Richard Lester includes screenings of The Bed Sitting Room (1969) and The Knack… and How to Get It (1965) on Friday. The former: “In post-nuclear-holocaust England, a conglomeration of bizarre folks make a life for themselves among the rubble. With Dudley Moore and Peter Cooke paired up as befuddled bureaucrats and Rita Tushingham as a woman who is 17 months pregnant, this absurdist satire finds characters mutating into inanimate objects as well as feathered creatures in a surrealist landscape.” Heavy! The latter (left): “The sexual revolution is alive and swinging in London, and Colin (Michael Crawford) wants in. Begging his friend Tolen (Ray Brooks) to teach him how to score, he meets Nancy (Rita Tushingham) and in spite of his best efforts, can’t quite get ‘the knack.’ […] Be on the lookout for Charlotte Rampling, Jacqueline Bisset, and Jane Birkin as background extras!” And on Saturday, it’s John Lennon in How I Won the War (1967).
••• Rhett Miller and Bobby Bare Jr. play City Winery. (Friday)
••• At 92YTribeca, jazz pianist-composer Jason Moran—a 2010 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow—”gathers some of the hottest players currently in New York City by way of Houston for two unforgettable nights of music.” (Friday and Saturday)
••• Downtown’s own Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra plays the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center: “The Brooklyn Youth Chorus joins the cavalcade, singing music by Bob Dylan, Leonard Bernstein, and James Taylor in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the evening wraps up with a joyous carousel and public dance for the audience.” (Saturday)
••• Ever wanted to sing along in public to the 1992 Disney musical Newsies? Here’s your chance. (92YTribeca, Saturday).
••• Sunday at Tribeca Cinemas: “Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, by director Peter Joseph, is a feature length documentary work which will present a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society.” Superheavy!
••• Of course, there’s a bunch of interesting ongoing stuff, too—such “Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind” at the Museum of Chinese in America: “Over the course of a six-month period, more than 100 objects and images from the curators’ private Yi Zhi Tang (art and intelligence) collection will be on view at MOCA. Consisting of over 1300 antique Chinese puzzles, books, and graphic materials, the collection dates back from the Song dynasty to the mid-20th century. Many of the puzzles are also objets d’art in the classical tradition and exhibit the highest level of workmanship, including beautifully crafted porcelains, carved ivory, and mother-of-pearl.” Pictured below: ivory and tortoiseshell puzzles in lacquer box, ca. 1840 (photo by Niana Liu).