Wasted Youth - A Greek Film Review

While Greece continues to suffer through a financial crisis, the country’s young film-makers probe and question, offering fresh insights into the country’s heart, soul and dilemmas. Wasted Youth, from director Argyris Papadimitropoulos teamed with German director Jon Vogel, is an important new film and an exhilarating one. Author Franz Kafka once wrote of the novel: “I think we ought only to read the kinds of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” The same could be said of film.

Relative tickers include Disney (NYSE: DIS), DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA), Cinemark Holdings (NYSE: CNK), Regal Entertainment (NYSE: RGC), RealD (NYSE: RLD), Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF), Rentrak (Nasdaq: RENT), Carmike Cinemas (Nasdaq: CKEC), LYFE Communications (OTC: LYFE.OB), New Frontier Media (Nasdaq: NOOF), Public Media Works (OTC: PUBM.OB), Independent Film Development (OTC: IFLM.OB), Point 360 (Nasdaq: PTSX), Seven Arts Pictures (Nasdaq: SAPX), Affinity Medianetworks (OTC: AFFW.OB), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Liberty Starz Group (Nasdaq: LSTZA) and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN).

Vital Cinema of Hope and Tragedy

Wasted Youth fits the criteria. Like Dogtooth and Tungsten, the film is experimental, original, and disturbing. A young man was shot to death by the police during a night of partying, setting off the 2008 riots in Athens. This film takes inspiration from that real incident that turned the country upside down and made international news.

“We made the whole thing in ten days on a shoestring budget,” Papadimitropoulos told a New York audience. “We just decided to jump in.” Much of Wasted Youth was improvised. The result: a film that resonates with immediacy. Young Harry, 16, played by amateur Harris Markou, whom the directors selected for his skate-board skills and good looks, meets his buddies in Athens Constitution Square. It’s summer. They skate, smoke joints, and try to meet girls.

A scene with Harry and his father provides a heart-breaking insight into Greece now. Once the patriarch ruled. Now Harry returns home after a night out to find a nervous, troubled dad, who gently slaps Harris (no floggings here) and then pleads with him. He can’t take his son’s behavior. Harry needs to communicate with his father. He needs to get a job. The father takes off his shirt, and we’re witness to a thin, pale, spiritually impotent man in his undershirt, smoking a cigarette, his eyes filled with desperation.

Harry will visit his mother in the hospital where she’s recovering from an injury. According to Papadimitropoulos, she represents the “broken back of Greece.” A friend of the director’s played the mother. Harris’s actual pals played his friends in the film, all amateurs. Other roles were taken by professional actors, and intriguingly by film-makers who took small roles. For instance, a director plays a policeman. Says Papadimitropoulos, “We are a community of film-makers.”

Actor Ieronimos Kaletsanos scores as the brooding Vasilis, the policeman who will be Harris’s tragic nemesis. We see Vasilis stretched to his limits, a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He returns home after a long night shift to take a shower in the steamy heat and have perfunctory sex with his anxious wife. When it’s over, she rubs her eyes as if waking from a bad dream. Vasilis, although not a stock character, could be the Greek Everyman. He’s fortunate to have a job, but it’s minimum and frustrating. Yet he’s afraid to try anything new. His friend wants him to invest in a pizza shop. Vasilis ultimately rejects the idea. He’s afraid to lose what he has. Like Harry’s father, he finds himself alienated from his teenage daughter who largely ignores him as she tunes in to her ipod.

In Wasted Youth, the big, warm, argumentative but supportive Greek family has shrunk to the nuclear family with one child and, in Vasilis’s case, a mother who lives with them and passes her time watching TV.

Vasilis rides at night with his cop partner, a man addicted to flirting and watching pornographic films. They push vagrants off of the sidewalk and try to keep the peace. Ultimately, they encounter Harry and his friends outside a club. There is a confrontation. A gun is fired. Harris is shot dead and the film ends with his friends hovering over him, and the cops leaving the scene.

Vasilis did not fire the gun, according to director Papadimitropoulos. We could fault him here, for side-stepping this tragic move. (As a result of the real-life shooting, both policemen are currently serving prison terms). We could also critique the directors for falling in love with the skate-boarding Harris, holding the camera on him for too- long minutes. But the cinematography is brilliant. What makes Wasted Youth special is its empathetic embrace of a heart-breaking world in transition. It doesn’t pass judgment. But it raises questions and, just as important, keeps us cinematically engaged.

“As a citizen, the easiest thing to do is blame the politicians for the last 30 years of fake prosperity,” Papadimitropoulos said. “But I think we are to blame, too, because we took that pill. We said, ‘Let’s take the easy way out, even though we know it is not right’. Now we’re paying the price.”

Papadimitropoulos has made an impressive USA debut with Wasted Youth, his second feature. The film was chosen to open the 40th Rotterdam film festival, and was shown in New York at the Disappearing Act IV Festival.

Wasted Youth will be shown at the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival in June and at the New York Greek Film Festival in October.

Born in 1976 in Athens, Papadimitropoulos studied media and film in Oxford and Athens. In 2003, he directed his first short, Pendulum. In 2008, Argyris made his first feature film, Bank Bang, which became a major commercial hit in Greece, and won the First Time Director Award from the Hellenic Film Academy. He has directed more than 100 commercials, and started his own production company, Oxymoron Films.

This article should interest investors in The New York Times (NYSE: NYT), Gannett Co. (NYSE: GCI), A.H. Belo (NYSE: AHC), Daily Journal (NYSE: DJCO), Journal Communications (NYSE: JRN), Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE), Media General (NYSE: MEG), E.W. Scripps (NYSE: SSP), McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI), The Washington Post (NYSE: WPO), Dex One (Nasdaq: DEXO), Martha Stewart Living (NYSE: MSO), Meredith (NYSE: MDP), Private Media (Nasdaq: PRVT), Reed Elsevier (NYSE: ENL), Reed Elsevier Plc (NYSE: RUK), Dolan Co. (NYSE: DN), Disney (NYSE: DIS), DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA), Cinemark Holdings (NYSE: CNK), Regal Entertainment (NYSE: RGC), RealD (NYSE: RLD), Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF), Rentrak (Nasdaq: RENT), Carmike Cinemas (Nasdaq: CKEC), LYFE Communications (OTC: LYFE.OB), New Frontier Media (Nasdaq: NOOF), Public Media Works (OTC: PUBM.OB), Independent Film Development (OTC: IFLM.OB), Point 360 (Nasdaq: PTSX), Seven Arts Pictures (Nasdaq: SAPX), Affinity Medianetworks (OTC: AFFW.OB), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWSA), Vivendi (Paris: VIV.PA), Liberty Starz Group (Nasdaq: LSTZA), McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP), Pearson Plc (NYSE: PSO), John Wiley & Sons (NYSE: JW-A, NYSE: JW-B), Scholastic (Nasdaq: SCHL), Courier (Nasdaq: CRRC), Noah Education (NYSE: NED), Peoples Educational Holdings (Nasdaq: PEDH), Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Books-A-Million (Nasdaq: BAMM).

Holiday in Heaven - Musical Review

A Heavenly Delight

By Annie Amos

Demetria Daniels takes us on a whirlwind tour beyond the pearly gates in Holiday in Heaven, her new musical that was staged in February in NYC as part of John Chatterton’s Second Annual Midwinter Madness Short Play Festival.

A lively cast sings us into the rollicking side of angelic living. It’s the end of year 2999 and the Heavenly Council has decreed that the turn of the 3rdMillenium must be celebrated in a special way. Appointed co-chairpersons of the committee, are an unlikely pairing of angelic hosts – Aloysius and Hortense – the English Gentleman and the All-American Girl Next Door. After some friendly bickering, they decide on a Harp Contest, the proceeds of which will be sent to Earth to end homelessness, and the search begins for the perfect judge.

Bemoaning the cliquish factionalism that has been dividing Heaven as of late – what with the “intellectuals, radical religionists, third worlders, and even Mother Theresa” - Aloysius and Hortense agree that it would be much more prudent to invite a living human from Earth to judge the contest.

The heavenly computer database pulls up names like Madonna but foreseeing the disapproval of the Pope – the winged co-chairpersons set their sights instead on the mousy do-gooder with a sensitive soul, Mary Smith. Sweet Mary helps the homeless, plays the harp, and dates a boorish aloof boyfriend that forgets her birthday and ridicules her for being a dreamer. But before we are allowed enough time to hate on Hank Billings, her boyfriend from gym rat hell, or swoon too long over the shy English pianist that is also trying to hail our Mary, a burst of angelus ex machina whisks our fair lady (via car accident) into the wondrous realms of paradise.

In Heaven, it’s Fringe meets the Frogs where unicorns roam free, Matisse is the graphic designer of choice, Jesus and the Apostles chill and play card games, and the fruit trees grow cotton candy and diamonds for all. How could Mary resist the offer for a one-month holiday in Heaven, in exchange for her services as non-factional, sweet, deserving harp contest judge? Well, she doesn’t, and neither would you if on top of all that you finally met the man of your dreams, like Mary does, in the spirit of hunky Alexander the Great. On Earth, poor Mary sang songs of maidenly woe, lamenting the absence of true chivalry…but in Heaven, her long awaited hero is there, in the non-flesh, right before her eyes. But alas – what fate for the love-struck doomed to eventual separation? Will Mary’s angelic hosts be able to help? Alexander, claiming he was too busy on Earth to fall in love and get married runs to find his friends Romeo and Juliet as "they may have some ideas."

Through boisterous song and dance and witty dialogue, we are taken along on this romantic holiday adventure that asks: do you believe in miracles? And what would you do for a Holiday in Heaven?

***

Holiday in Heaven will be playing next at the Midtown International Theatre Festival, running from July 16th through August 12th in 2012, so keep an eye on the calendar for its scheduling.

The musical played at the NYC treat, the 2012 Midwinter Madness Short Play Festival, which ran this year from February 13th through March 4th and showcased 29 plays at the Roy Arias Studios, at 300 W. 43rd St., 5th floor Payan Theatre.

This article should interest The New York Times (NYSE: NYT), Gannett Co. (NYSE: GCI), A.H. Belo (NYSE: AHC), Daily Journal (NYSE: DJCO), Journal Communications (NYSE: JRN), Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE), Media General (NYSE: MEG), E.W. Scripps (NYSE: SSP), McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI), The Washington Post (NYSE: WPO), Dex One (Nasdaq: DEXO), Martha Stewart Living (NYSE: MSO), Meredith (NYSE: MDP), Private Media (Nasdaq: PRVT), Reed Elsevier (NYSE: ENL), Reed Elsevier Plc (NYSE: RUK), Dolan Co. (NYSE: DN), Disney (NYSE: DIS), DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA), Cinemark Holdings (NYSE: CNK), Regal Entertainment (NYSE: RGC), RealD (NYSE: RLD), Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF), Rentrak (Nasdaq: RENT), Carmike Cinemas (Nasdaq: CKEC), LYFE Communications (OTC: LYFE.OB), New Frontier Media (Nasdaq: NOOF), Public Media Works (OTC: PUBM.OB), Independent Film Development (OTC: IFLM.OB), Point 360 (Nasdaq: PTSX), Seven Arts Pictures (Nasdaq: SAPX), Affinity Medianetworks (OTC: AFFW.OB), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWSA), Vivendi (Paris: VIV.PA), Liberty Starz Group (Nasdaq: LSTZA), McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP), Pearson Plc (NYSE: PSO), John Wiley & Sons (NYSE: JW-A, NYSE: JW-B), Scholastic (Nasdaq: SCHL), Courier (Nasdaq: CRRC), Noah Education (NYSE: NED), Peoples Educational Holdings (Nasdaq: PEDH), Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Books-A-Million (Nasdaq: BAMM).

Who Loves You, Baby? Evokes the Great Telly Savalas

Feeling nostalgic for ‘70’s glam and cool, sexy Greek guys? Hurry down to the Soho Playhouse where Tom DiMenna is brilliantly channeling Telly Savalas, the macho Greek with the growly voice in Who Loves You, Baby?.

Celebrating Telly Savalas

“Who loves you, baby?” was a famous Savalas line from TV’S popular Kojak. Written by Hunter Nelson, and developed over a three-year period, the show takes the premise that sex and romance were for real in the ‘70’s. It’s ironic, touching and hilarious. With his shaved head and brown eyes (so Telly-like), DiMenna introduces himself as a “legitimate, card carrying sex symbol,” and admonishes: “Put the porno away. Wear a silk shirt. Learn about life.”

Set in a bar/lounge at the Soho Playhouse, Alex Leonard plays cocktail music that gets you in the mood. For an hour plus, you’re in a never-never Telly world. DiMenna captures the quality that made Savalas special. He himself seemed to spoof his macho self. A good guy, Telly created special intimacy with his audience. “Greeks don’t threaten. They utter prophecies,” says DiMenna/Savalas. We particularly appreciated comic-noir lines like: “Have you ever fallen in love and had a baby by a gal you met by the cigarette machine?”

The actor puffs on an electronic cigarette, drinks a Tequilla Sunrise (the lollipop that Savalas used in an attempt to break the smoking habit comes out later), and points to the current lack of alpha males like himself on the small screen. Telly was Kojak, a no-nonsense Greek cop. And as DiMenna points out --who do we have now? David Caruso of CSI. The actor/comic says: “The fish are disappearing. Your whiskey’s watered down. What’s missing is guys like me.”

During the production, brother George arrives for a loving reunion, and the two break into a Zorbas dance. Savalas himself would probably have approved of DiMenna’s rendition of You've Lost That Loving Feeling.

I met the real Telly back then, having a Scotch/Rocks in the Westbury Hotel Bar on Madison Avenue after lunch, and creating his own party by bringing his drink out to the sidewalk. A charmer, he dazzled me and my eight-year-old nephew Nicholas who loved him as Kojak.

Savalas played the title character in Kojak, a cop show set in New York, airing from October, 1973 to March 1978 on ABC TV. Kojak’s Greek-American heritage, shared by Savalas, was prominently featured in the series. Initially, the character was Polish but the actor rechristened the character, and it worked. Telly’s brother, George, appeared as a character on the show (a brother playing a brother).

In 1999, TV Guide ranked Theo Kojak Number 18 on its 50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time list.

DiMenna, 32, an Italian-American became addicted to Savalas watching old clips from his TV shows. Three years ago, he teamed up with Hunter Nelson to create the comedic tour de force. “What started out as a comedy show became a celebration of ‘70’s charisma,” says DiMenna. The actor, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he played quarterback on the football team, also spent a year in Italy playing with the Bologna Warriors. Growing up in Connecticut, his mother, a cabaret singer, frequently brought him into New York, often to “Don’t Tell Mama,” home of classic cabaret.

DiMenna has worked with the Second City in Chicago, done improv, and performed Shakespeare in London. Who Loves You Baby played last summer at New York’s Fringe Festival.

Taylor Negron directs the “surreal retro-lounge act.” Our Chief Editor at Wall Street Greek talks of a welcoming Negron, accompanying "The Greek" for a bite after the show. Markos Kaminis described Negron as “a candid and engaging man who earned his fame as a film actor and comedian, but with depth that is perhaps better explained by the man’s artwork and skill with the written word.”

The show’s on every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m. through April, 2012 at The Huron Club, Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street (off Sixth Ave). The theater is easy to reach, three blocks from the Houston Street (1 train) and Spring Street (C & E) subway stops. Contact: TellySavalasLive.com and get tickets here.

Other critics have weighed in on the show:

“You will not see a funnier play than Who Loves You Baby?! As Savalas, Tom DiMenna is hilarious and cool like Telly.” New York Theater Com.

“Who Loves You Baby? is hilarious. Tom DiMenna is front and center as a dead ringer for Savalas. It’s a brilliantly breezily bombastic performance.” Nitelife Exchange.

Editor's Note: This article should interest parties interested in The New York Times (NYSE: NYT), Gannett Co. (NYSE: GCI), A.H. Belo (NYSE: AHC), Daily Journal (NYSE: DJCO), Journal Communications (NYSE: JRN), Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE), Media General (NYSE: MEG), E.W. Scripps (NYSE: SSP), McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI), The Washington Post (NYSE: WPO), Dex One (Nasdaq: DEXO), Martha Stewart Living (NYSE: MSO), Meredith (NYSE: MDP), Private Media (Nasdaq: PRVT), Reed Elsevier (NYSE: ENL), Reed Elsevier Plc (NYSE: RUK), Dolan Co. (NYSE: DN), Disney (NYSE: DIS), DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA), Cinemark Holdings (NYSE: CNK), Regal Entertainment (NYSE: RGC), RealD (NYSE: RLD), Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF), Rentrak (Nasdaq: RENT), Carmike Cinemas (Nasdaq: CKEC), LYFE Communications (OTC: LYFE.OB), New Frontier Media (Nasdaq: NOOF), Public Media Works (OTC: PUBM.OB), Independent Film Development (OTC: IFLM.OB), Point 360 (Nasdaq: PTSX), Seven Arts Pictures (Nasdaq: SAPX), Affinity Medianetworks (OTC: AFFW.OB), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWSA), Vivendi (Paris: VIV.PA), Liberty Starz Group (Nasdaq: LSTZA), McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP), Pearson Plc (NYSE: PSO), John Wiley & Sons (NYSE: JW-A, NYSE: JW-B), Scholastic (Nasdaq: SCHL), Courier (Nasdaq: CRRC), Noah Education (NYSE: NED), Peoples Educational Holdings (Nasdaq: PEDH), Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Books-A-Million (Nasdaq: BAMM).

The Greek Films of 2011 Reflect the Day's Greece

While Greece struggles with psychic and economic woes, young film-makers are creating art out of adversity. Witness New York City’s Fifth Greek Film Festival 2011. The films were bitter, shocking, controversial, experimental, original, dynamic, awash in tragedy and black humor. The overly sentimental and vapid Gold Dust turned us off, but we thrilled to the Greek neo-noir of Tungsten and Knifer, as well as the risk-taking, sad kookiness of Attenberg. Says actor Vangelis Mourikis, who performed in all three films: “Film has come out of the studios and into the streets to deal with real life and the issues that are hot. Attenberg is a film of the streets because it’s part of the new reality.”

Greek Films of 2011

Attenberg
The controversial Attenberg, Greece’s entry for Best Foreign Film Academy Award nomination opened the festival. The quirky, anomalous film from talented director Athena Rachel Tsangaris refuses to offer comfort and joy. Re the title Attenberg: the nature documentaries of Sir David Attenborough inspire the characters who occasionally imitate animals.

In Attenberg, we encounter a tender, fatalistic father suffering from terminal cancer. Played by Vangelis Mourikis, the dad is the warm, beating heart of the film. “I’m boycotting the 20th century,” the father says. “I’m an old atheist, a toxic remnant of modernism. I’ll leave you in the arms of a new century without having taught you anything.” He also comments re the new Greece: “We built an industrial colony on top of sheep pens and thought we were creating a revolution.”

Ariane Labed portrays his daughter Marina, 23. She becomes her dying father’s friend and only support. It’s a coming-of-age film skewed to love and death. Sex forms the text and subtext of this film. With her father’s encouragement, the virginal Marina seeks a sexual encounter with a young man played by Yorgos Lanthimos, the director of last year’s Dogtooth.

At the end, the camera holds on a wasteland. You could be on the moon, but it’s Greece. Attenberg will be released in the USA by Strand in 2012.

Actor Mourikis, Attenberg’s father, in New York in conjunction with the festival, talked with Wall Street Greek. His distinctive, expressive face, with the huge black eyebrows draws you to the screen. It’s a Greek face, Zorbaish even. The actor’s in love with film, to the point of turning down theatre and TV roles. With forty films to his credit, Mourikis says: “The mythical world exists only in film, on the big screen. You can lose yourself in a film. It’s a different dimension, like drugs without drugs!”

Mourikis grew up in Athens where his father, a film buff, early on took him to the movies. “I would yell back at the screen.” He went to Australia to study film, and has also lived and worked in England and Italy.

Mourikis appeared in three films at the festival, including Tungsten, and says: “I die in most of my films at the end. I like it!”

Tungsten
Tungsten’s fabulous in so many ways, from its characters to its black and white cinematography. It’s a day in the life of disparate Athenians: a ticket tram inspector, played by Mourikis, a job recruiter, two young slackers – one half-heartedly looking for a job, the tram inspector’s wife, and the recruiter’s girlfriend. Tungsten takes its title from the metal with the highest boiling point, as it portrays characters burning with rage and frustration. Drenched in irony, the film moves to the beat of city life.

Trapped in no-exit lives, the characters make tragic wrong choices. One young slacker applies for a job. He’s interviewed by an impatient recruiter. Later we see the recruiter being browbeaten by his boss. Having a boring repetitive position can be almost as bad as not having a job! Director George Georgopoulos has a degree in sociology as well as film and it shows; the young director shows a keen insight into social structures and the dilemmas of Greece’s urban dwellers.

The director made the film for 5,000 Euros, or $6,000 with the agreement that all involved would share in the profits. Says Georgopoulos, “Tungsten’s an honest little film. I wrote, directed and edited the film.” As for Tungsten’s tragic conclusion, he admits: “I couldn’t have done it any other way. It wouldn’t be me!”

The film mirrors Athens today. But Georgopoulos began writing the script “during the Olympics, when Greece seemed like the center of the world.” Commenting on Athen’s young film-makers, Georgopoulos told Wall Street Greek: “We know each other and there’s a special energy. There’s a very collective spirit here.”

Knifer
In Knifer, an angry, possessive, paranoiac husband keeps two black dogs for protection. Suspecting his neighbors of threatening himself and his dogs, he hires his nephew Nikos to watch the dogs. Nikos moves in a torpor, a creature who lives to eat and sleep, his eye-lids at half-mast. It takes Aleko’s sexy wife, Gogo, to snap Nikos awake. While Aleko walks his dogs at night, his nephew and wife, the predatory Gogo, engage in raw, desperate sex. It’s sad, funny and evokes our compassion as we see the brutish Aleko traveling into the dark.

In black and white, Knifer takes us inside a bleak Athens, a nowhere place with empty people knocking against each other. After stabbing his uncle to death, Nikos calms himself sitting on the edge of the bed in a rented hotel space and eating a huge bag of chips.

Knifer is cynical and rampant with black humor. It won seven Hellenic Academy Film Awards, including for best director and cinematography. Director Yannis Economides says it reflects the “dog eat dog life.” Knifer has a web site that offers a fascinating interview with the director.

Editor's Note: This article should interest National Bank of Greece (NYSE: NBG), Hellenic Telecommunications (NYSE: OTE), Coca-Cola HBC (NYSE: CCH), Teekay Corp. (NYSE: TK), Navios Maritime Holdings (NYSE: NM), Navios Maritime Acquisition (NYSE: NNA), Navios Maritime Partners L.P. (NYSE: NMM), Tsakos Energy Navigation Ltd. (NYSE: TNP), Overseas Shipholding Group (NYSE: OSG), International Shipholding (NYSE: ISH), Excel Maritime Carriers (NYSE: EXM), Safe Bulkers (NYSE: SB), Claymore/Delta Global Shipping ETF (NYSE: SEA), Genco Shipping & Trading (NYSE: GNK), Diana Shipping (NYSE: DSX), Danaos (NYSE: DAC), Tsakos Energy Navigation (NYSE: TNP), Ship Finance Int'l (NYSE: SFL), Nordic American Tanker (NYSE: NAT), Seaspan (NYSE: SSW), General Maritime (NYSE: GMR), DHT Maritime (NYSE: DHT), Brunswick (NYSE: BC), Marine Products Corp. (NYSE: MPX), DryShips (Nasdaq: DRYS), Top Ships (Nasdaq: TOPS), Eagle Bulk Shipping (Nasdaq: EGLE), Sino-Global Shipping (Nasdaq: SINO), Paragon Shipping (Nasdaq: PRGN), K-SEA Transportation Partners (NYSE: KSP), Euroseas (Nasdaq: ESEA), Star Bulk Carriers (Nasdaq: SBLK), Omega Navigation (Nasdaq: ONAV), Knightsbridge Tankers Ltd. (Nasdaq: VLCCF), TBS Int'l (Nasdaq: TBSI), Golar LNG (Nasdaq: GLNG), Claymore/Delta Global Shipping (Nasdaq: XSEAX), American Commercial Lines (Nasdaq: ACLI), Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB), ITA (Nasdaq: ITUB), Banco Santander (NYSE: STD), Westpac Banking (NYSE: WBK), UBS (NYSE: UBS), Lloyd’s Banking Group (NYSE: LYG), Barclay’s (NYSE: BCS), Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS), Allied Irish Banks (NYSE: AIB), Banco Latinamerican (NYSE: BLX), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), European Equity Fund (NYSE: EEA), Vanguard European Stock Index (Nasdaq: VEURX), Powershares FTSE RAFI Europe (NYSE: PEF), Europe 2001 (NYSE: EKH), S&P Emerging Europe (NYSE: GUR), Ultrashort MSCI Europe (NYSE: EPV), Vanguard Europe Pacific (NYSE: VEA), Wisdomtree Europe SmallCap (NYSE: DFE), Wisdom Tree Europe Total Div (NYSE: DEB), iShares S&P Europe 350 (NYSE: IEV), Morgan Stanley Eastern Europe (NYSE: RNE), DWS Europe Equity A (Nasdaq: SERAX), DWS Europe Equity B (Nasdaq: SERBX), Fidelity Europe (Nasdaq: FEUFX), Fidelity Europe (Nasdaq: FIEUX), ICON Europe A (Nasdaq: IERAX), Pioneer Europe Fund (Nasdaq: PBEUX), ProFunds Europe 30 (Nasdaq: UEPIX), Putnam Europe A (Nasdaq: PEUGX), Rydex Europe 1.25x (Nasdaq: RYAEX).

The Readers of Homer Thrills New York on its Epic Tour

Wall Street Greek Film & Theatre Columnist Penelope Karageorge got the opportunity to partake in the New York City reading of Homer's Odyssey late last fall. Penelope provides a review of the touring event for you here. The Readers of Homer is a unique touring spectacle, using audience participation to maximize the fun. It has been taken the world over, including to Chios, Greece, a legendary home of Homer, and certainly the ancestral home of Wall Street Greek founder Markos Kaminis.

Article interests NYSE: DIS, NYSE: DWA, NYSE: CNK, NYSE: RGC, NYSE: RLD, NYSE: LGF, Nasdaq: RENT, Nasdaq: CKEC, Nasdaq: LSTZA, NYSE: MHP, NYSE: PSO, NYSE: JW-A, NYSE: JW-B, Nasdaq: SCHL, Nasdaq: CRRC, NYSE: NED, Nasdaq: PEDH, NYSE: BKS, Nasdaq: AMZN, Nasdaq: BAMM, NYSE: BGP, OTC: LYFE.OB, Nasdaq: NOOF, OTC: PUBM.OB, OTC: IFLM.OB, Nasdaq: PTSX, Nasdaq: SAPX, OTC: AFFW.OB, NYSE: TWX, Nasdaq: NWSA and Paris: VIV.PA, NYSE: NBG, NYSE: OTE, NYSE: CCH, NYSE: TK, NYSE: NM, NYSE: NNA, NYSE: NMM, NYSE: TNP, NYSE: OSG, NYSE: ISH, NYSE: EXM, NYSE: SB, NYSE: SEA, NYSE: GNK, NYSE: DSX, NYSE: DAC, NYSE: TNP, NYSE: SFL, NYSE: NAT, NYSE: SSW, NYSE: GMR, NYSE: DHT, NYSE: BC, NYSE: MPX, Nasdaq: DRYS, Nasdaq: TOPS, Nasdaq: EGLE, Nasdaq: SINO, Nasdaq: PRGN, NYSE: KSP, Nasdaq: ESEA, Nasdaq: SBLK, Nasdaq: ONAV, Nasdaq: VLCCF, Nasdaq: TBSI, Nasdaq: GLNG, Nasdaq: XSEAX, Nasdaq: ACLI.

The Readers of Homer Thrills New York on its Epic Tour

Hundreds of New Yorkers turned on to the master Greek poet Homer, with an extraordinary marathon reading of The Odyssey at New York’s 92ND St. Y. Staged by the Readers of Homer and led by the remarkable actor/theatre director Yiannis Simonides, this reading nourished the soul and the stomach. A dinner preceded the reading with succulent roast lamb, as well as other delicious Greek foods – many dishes replicating those found in The Odyssey, and wine. During the marathon, participants could step out for honey and yogurt reinforcement, or a glass of wine.

But the thrills didn’t stop there! Just as mind-blowing, LyrAvlos played hand-made instruments replicating those from the Homeric era. Fantastic! Represented in New York by Panagiotis, Olga and Michalis Stefas, LyrAvlos is totally unique. And the Choreo Dance Group! One had to be there at 1 a.m. when the dancers, dressed as sirens, lit up the theatre as they sinuously moved up the aisles.

A total of two hundred readers participated, reading for between two and three minutes and remarkably, it proceeded as smoothly as moonlight on the Aegean. I was thrilled to be one of the readers, Number 59. Before the program, Simonides provided readers with complete instructions, via the charming Oxford U. graduate Stephania Xydia, PR woman for the program. I learned my exact minute, 23:26 and was given my lines. (Odysseus encountering the Cyclops in his cave)

Although I could have left the auditorium at any time previous to presenting, I found myself totally mesmerized. It was extraordinary to hear the great Homeric poetry read aloud. Although I’ve read and reread The Odyssey – kicking it off with a child’s version – and taught it at CUNY, The Readers of Homer brought vibrant life and color to Homer’s work.

The program began at 7 p.m., and ended at 8 a.m. with Four Meditations on War, a musical piece scored for bass-baritone and string quartet, conducted by composer Mark Latham. Created during some of the bleakest days of the war in Iraq, the composition reflected the complexity of the Homeric theme of war and all that arises from it: courage, cowardice, beauty, fulfillment, heroism and love.

Born in Constantinople and raised in Athens, Simonides is a Yale Drama School graduate and Emmy-award winning documentary producer. He has served as professor and chair of the NYU Tisch SOA Drama Department, and as executive director of COSMOS FM. He continues to tour the world with The Apology Project, a Socrates dramatization based on Plato, written and directed by the amazing Loukas Skipitaris.

Simonides and the Readers have brought Homer to Montevideo, Uruguay and Kos island in Greece. On April 30, 2011, the group staged a marathon reading of Homer’s Iliad at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California.

Readers of Homer can only be described as wonderful, an amazing group that we hope will flourish forever. We urge anybody who has the opportunity to attend and/or be a part of the Homeric readings to get involved. If you’re interested in participating or even making a contribution, you can go to the website: Thereadersofhomer.org



This article should interest investors in Disney (NYSE: DIS), DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA), Cinemark Holdings (NYSE: CNK), Regal Entertainment (NYSE: RGC), RealD (NYSE: RLD), Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF), Rentrak (Nasdaq: RENT), Carmike Cinemas (Nasdaq: CKEC), LYFE Communications (OTC: LYFE.OB), New Frontier Media (Nasdaq: NOOF), Public Media Works (OTC: PUBM.OB), Independent Film Development (OTC: IFLM.OB), Point 360 (Nasdaq: PTSX), Seven Arts Pictures (Nasdaq: SAPX), Affinity Medianetworks (OTC: AFFW.OB), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWSA), Vivendi (Paris: VIV.PA), Liberty Starz Group (Nasdaq: LSTZA), McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP), Pearson Plc (NYSE: PSO), John Wiley & Sons (NYSE: JW-A, NYSE: JW-B), Scholastic (Nasdaq: SCHL), Courier (Nasdaq: CRRC), Noah Education (NYSE: NED), Peoples Educational Holdings (Nasdaq: PEDH), Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), Books-A-Million (Nasdaq: BAMM) and Borders (NYSE: BGP), National Bank of Greece (NYSE: NBG), Hellenic Telecommunications (NYSE: OTE), Coca-Cola HBC (NYSE: CCH), Teekay Corp. (NYSE: TK), Navios Maritime Holdings (NYSE: NM), Navios Maritime Acquisition (NYSE: NNA), Navios Maritime Partners L.P. (NYSE: NMM), Tsakos Energy Navigation Ltd. (NYSE: TNP), Overseas Shipholding Group (NYSE: OSG), International Shipholding (NYSE: ISH), Excel Maritime Carriers (NYSE: EXM), Safe Bulkers (NYSE: SB), Claymore/Delta Global Shipping ETF (NYSE: SEA), Genco Shipping & Trading (NYSE: GNK), Diana Shipping (NYSE: DSX), Danaos (NYSE: DAC), Tsakos Energy Navigation (NYSE: TNP), Ship Finance Int'l (NYSE: SFL), Nordic American Tanker (NYSE: NAT), Seaspan (NYSE: SSW), General Maritime (NYSE: GMR), DHT Maritime (NYSE: DHT), Brunswick (NYSE: BC), Marine Products Corp. (NYSE: MPX), DryShips (Nasdaq: DRYS), Top Ships (Nasdaq: TOPS), Eagle Bulk Shipping (Nasdaq: EGLE), Sino-Global Shipping (Nasdaq: SINO), Paragon Shipping (Nasdaq: PRGN), K-SEA Transportation Partners (NYSE: KSP), Euroseas (Nasdaq: ESEA), Star Bulk Carriers (Nasdaq: SBLK), Omega Navigation (Nasdaq: ONAV), Knightsbridge Tankers Ltd. (Nasdaq: VLCCF), TBS Int'l (Nasdaq: TBSI), Golar LNG (Nasdaq: GLNG), Claymore/Delta Global Shipping (Nasdaq: XSEAX), American Commercial Lines (Nasdaq: ACLI).

Please see our disclosures at the Wall Street Greek website and author bio pages found there. This article and website in no way offers or represents financial or investment advice. Information is provided for entertainment purposes only.