Drawing on his roots in the fecund 1970s East Village avant-garde film scene, critic J. Hoberman has spent his three decades at the Village Voice introducing readers to the more adventurous cinematic worlds awaiting beyond the realm of Hollywood. He is the author of nine books, most recently The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties, which was described by Slate as "an extraordinary publishing event." To commemorate his thirty years at......

THEATER: Wolf Lane Productions presents Victims of the Zeitgeist (The Tragedy of Martin Luther King, Jr.), written & directed by Ellwoodson Williams. The production "offers an exciting and telling insight into just who Martin Luther King, Jr., was as leader and simply as a sensitive and intelligent human being who loved life and who had a sense of humor, a deep understanding of the human condition - its strengths and weaknesses - and a profound......

MOVIE: BAM pays homage to the late Barbara Stanwyck tonight with a screening of Forbidden. The 1932 Frank Capra-directed film (which tells the tale of a librarian who has fallen for an unobtainable/married man) was supposedly influenced by his real-life affair with the leading lady. Critic and historian Elliott Stein will discuss the film after the 6:50 screening. 4:30, 6:50 and 915pm // BAM Rose Cinemas [30 Lafayette Ave., Fort Greene] // $11 Meanwhile, the......

MOVIE: The Brooklyn Independent Cinemas series (which takes place the first and third Monday of every month) delivers two shorts tonight. First up is Nevel is the Devil, where "a supervisor at a consumer product testing lab interrogates two suspects of a devilish prank." The second is The Last Romantic, which follows Calvin Wizzig, a poet, around New York in hopes of getting published. Watch the trailer here. 7pm // Barbes [376 9th St, Park......

FILM: BAM features the work of Al Santana tonight. The Brooklyn filmmaker "has been a fixture on the independent film and video scene for years and his work ranges from documentaries about the transatlantic slave trade to coping with 9/11." Santana will be on hand for a Q&A; tonight as well. 7pm // BAM Rose Cinemas [30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn] // $11 THEATER: The New York Press deems “pastiche” performance artist Taylor Mac “one the......

MOVIE: In the unlikeliest of scenarios, rapper (and jeweler) Paul Wall, his grills, Reggaetón king Tego Calderón and Wu-Tang's Raekwon traveled to Sierra Leone. The outcome is an informative documentary called Bling: A Planet Rock which focuses on "the flashy world of commercial hip-hop jewelry played a significant role in the ten-year civil war" in West Africa. 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm // BAM Rose Cinemas [30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn] // $12 ART: Photographs by Lisette Model,......

Sarah Vowell’s distinctive voice is instantly recognizable to listeners of radio show This American Life and fans of the animated Pixar film The Incredibles (she played Violet). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times (where she filled in for Maureen Dowd), McSweeney’s, Spin, Salon and elsewhere. And she’s authored four books; the most recent one, Assassination Vacation, humorously chronicled her pilgrimage to locales connected to three slain American presidents (Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley).......

MOVIE: It's certainly not the kind of night for an outdoor movie, so we suggest sitting in the cool a/c and watching the 1978 classic Dawn of the Dead. "Gone is the possibility of mankind’s dominance in this sequel to Night of the Living Dead; the zombies are in control now, with a group of AWOL soldiers and TV producers on the run from the staggering hordes. A deserted shopping mall offers a safe hideout,......

THEATER: Get ghastly tonight with The Final Kiss & The Kiss of Blood, an evening of vintage Grand Guignol horror. The aptly named Blood Brothers are shepherding this journey “into a style of theatre that proliferated in the early 1900s and was eventually assimilated into the 'splatter' genre of horror films. Blending suspense, stage magic, eroticism, and farce, Grand Guignol was a powerful theatrical entertainment drawing an audience from every echelon of Parisian society —......

MOVIES: DUMBO's weekly evening film event, Movies with a View, begins tonight with The Wizard of Oz. Bring your iPod and play "Dark Side of the Moon" while the movie plays, it'll, like, totally synch up if you press play during the 3rd lion roar. Halcyon DJs provide music before the film and there is free valet bike parking. And there will be snacks, there will. 6pm, Film at sundown // Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park,......

This weekend is the weekend of movie déjà vu. You will be struck with the nagging feeling that all of the major films new to theaters seem oddly like something you've seen before. But repertory programming out in Brooklyn or in the West Village will provide a much needed shot of creativity to counter balance the same old, same old. A remake of the '70s disaster classic, Poseidon opens this weekend with Josh "the poor......

It seems many film critics think Burton’s “darker” Willy Wonka bears an uncanny resemblance to Michael Jackson clad in Austin Powers’ wardrobe. E! reports that “a PG-rated kids' fantasy--linked to a fallen pop star with longish black hair, pale skin, a whisper for a speaking voice, a penchant for military garb and a recent acquittal on child-molestation charges is likely not what the Hollywood studio had in mind when it turned Burton.” Depp insists......

• The Village Voice’s Best of 2004 series at BAM Rose Cinemas offers you one last chance to catch the best films of 2004 on the big screen. Tonight at 7:00 PM is Lars von Trier’s Dogville, the controversial film shot on a single set with chalk outlines, starring Lauren Bacall, Paul Bettany, and Nicole Kidman as a woman on the run from the mob. Also worth checking out is Guy Maddin’s Cowards Bend......

EVENT: The Tank is the latest in New York club casualties. This weekend they're trying to raise money for a new venue, so head over to one of these events or donate online here. Tonight at 7pm / $10 Air America's The Majority Report with Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder will broadcast live from The Tank, which it also did during the Republican National Convention. This time the broadcast includes a live studio audience and......

Nothing says All Hallows Eve quite like candy corn, that left over make up residue left by your hair line and scary movies. While Gothamist is a huge fan of kiddie fare like the classic It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" (available to rent on DVD via Netflix, no less), most people prefer that sensation of wanting to hide behind their seat in the movie theater at the end of October. A few Halloween movie......

When a series of films by a master filmmaker plays in town, Gothamist often feels obliged to take in a few of the selections like the health conscious take on leafy green veggies. Not that the equation is necessarily Ozu Yasujiro's movies = kale, but his movies are enriching for the body and spirit. BAM's series Tokyo Stories: Yasujiro Ozu continues through August 24 with tonight's screening of There Was A Father (Chichi ariki) (1942).......

This should have been self-evident, but the Daily News points out that with the budget crisis the city is in, among the cutbacks New Yorkers will have to face are those to cultural institutions, like no more pay-you-wish at the Met or less operas at BAM. "We are at the tipping point," said Karen Brooks Hopkins, president of BAM and chairwoman of the Cultural Institutions Group. "And particularly in a world where states and municipalities......