UrbanEye

December 24, 2009

By JULIE BLOOM

5, 6, 7, 8 Christmas!

You're a native New Yorker and have still never experienced the "The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular." Well, what are you waiting for? Tonight is the night to shed all that city cynicism and go. "With its idealized celebrations of Christmas, New York and Radio City itself, the Spectacular is a curio, a throwback to a golden era of stage shows," Daniel M. Gold writes. "Corny? Sure. But that's a huge part of its appeal." Join the thousands who can't get enough of all the shtick, including the dance routines featuring those famous Rockettes, which "retain the flash and sparkle of a Ziegfeld or Busby Berkeley production" and the music played by the Radio City orchestra, a compendium of the seasonal songbook.

This Isn't Santa Fe
"The haunting music of a zither, the ring of Vienna's cobbled streets and a ghostly Graham Greene story, about a manhunt in that seamy capital flow smoothly and beautifully together into one piece of top screen artifice," Bosley Crowther wrote in the original New York Times review of "The Third Man," in 1950. A new 35-millimeter print of Carol Reed's mystery-thriller-romance, which starred Orson Welles as "our perennially villainous friend," Harry Lime, will be shown at Film Forum tonight. See it before it closes on Tuesday.

Video: Where There's Smoke
The filmmaker Jeff Scher creates his own version of the yule log, using clay, glass, a light box and oil paints.

And to All a Good Night
Save the Netflix and Chinese takeout for Friday. If you are one of the many Jews in the city on Christmas Eve, there are a slew of parties to choose from. The Matzah Bowl, not to be confused with the Matzo Ball, more on that later, will be held at the Brooklyn Bowl beginning at 8:15. The event will feature music from "Bands of the Tribe," including the Israeli rock musicians Days Like Months and Pey Dalid as well as surprise musical guests, and an array of menus from local kosher restaurants. Over at Southpaw, JDub Records and Jewcy are presenting Jewltide 7!, which will feature funk music by Dan Saks & the Funkadeli All-Stars as well as plenty of doughnuts and drink specials. For those looking for a slightly swankier affair, the Society of Young Jewish Professionals is hosting its annual Matzo Ball party at Captiale, and V.I.P. tickets are available that include a three-course predance dinner at Sushi Samba 7. Note: Urban Eye will not publish on Friday.