WATCH THIS!: WHEN IN ROME
Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” (1960) — the Italian masterwork that gave us the word “paparazzi” — has been restored, and today begins a two-week run at Film Forum. It’s a three-hour look at decadence among the elite of Rome, as seen through the eyes of a playboy gossip columnist named Marcello and played by hunky Marcello Mastroianni. Anita Ekberg sizzles as a visiting movie star and Anouk Aimee titillates as a wealthy nymph. In the most famous scene, Ekberg (wearing a strapless black gown) and Mastroianni cavort in Rome’s historic Trevi Fountain. Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico has a cameo as a partygoer. The black-and-white film received four Oscar nominations, winning one (best costume design) and is included on most lists of the greatest films of all time. 209 W. Houston St., west of Sixth Avenue; filmforum.org
— V.A. Musetto
Everett Collection / Everett Col
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DON’T MISS!: GRAND SOUL OPRY
Nashville may be the home of country music, but the home of the Grand Ole Opry’s also got soul. Don’t believe it? Get a listen to the Dynamites featuring Charles Walker — they’re playing Brooklyn Bowl (61 Wythe Ave., Williamsburg; 718-963-3369) Sunday night at 8.
Nashville transplant (via New Orleans) Bill Elder was getting a soul ensemble off the ground in 2005, when the Country Music Hall of Fame set up a show “Night Train to Nashville” about the city’s 1950s and ’60s soul roots. Charles Walker was among the Music City soul vets who performed at a concert to celebrate, and people who heard him there told Elder, who had been searching for a frontman.
Walker was, and is, the real thing. He used to open for James Brown at the Apollo and on tour. He also shared bills with Jackie Wilson and Etta James. “It feels incredible to be up there with a guy who is a true veteran from the Golden Age of Soul,” says Elder, who describes his band’s sound as “real authentic soul music the way it used to be, the way it ought to be.” See for yourself. Tickets are just $5. — Billy Heller
Eric Adkins
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SEE THIS!: LIST-O-MANIA
Show me a list and I’ll show you the artist. So thought curator Liza Kirwin as she began collecting jottings by Picasso and other greats for the Smithsonian. The results, now on display at the Morgan Library & Museum, are an eclectic lot — from Franz Kline’s $274.51 liquor bill for a New Year’s Eve bash for his party-hardy, abstract-artist friends, to Eero Saarinen’s numbered musings about what he loved about Aline Bernstine, his art-critic fiancée: “First I recognized that you were very clever,” it starts. Reason No. 10: “You have a very very beautiful body.” And then there’s Adolf Konrad’s illustrated packing list for a 1962 trip to Rome, including a sketch of the artist in his underwear.
Kirwin’s still collecting; she recently found a West Coast artist’s “list of a – – holes.” Maybe for the next show, she says. 225
Madison Ave., at 36th Street; themorgan.org
— Barbara Hoffman
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TRY IT!: NEW ADDITION
Say what you will about Mayor Bloomberg’s bike-lane experiment, but at least one local brainiac gets his drift.
“There’s a theorem that there is a road for every wheel,” explains Math Midway director Glen Whitney. Riding square-wheeled bikes on a specially designed, track is one of several activities for those who visit Whitney’s corner of the World Science Festival Street Fair, Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
“What’s a more archetypical example of something that shouldn’t work than a square wheel?” he asks. “Yet, you put it on the right track, and it works.” Visitors are also invited to configure mazes, build mini-roller coasters and tinker with lasers.
“What we’re trying to get across is that math is the ultimate exploration,” says Whitney.
Washington Square Park; momath.org or worldscience-festival.com. — Brian Niemietz
