If your youth was altered by the work of Lydia Lunch, Richard Kern and Bruce LaBruce…if its soundtrack starred the Butthole Surfers, the Swans and Sonic Youth…if you aspired to the nihilism and fuck-all snarls of New York City’s downtown underground in the early 1980s…if you are, despite your better avant-garde angels, nostalgic for No Wave, don’t tamp down the self-revulsion that irony evokes. Instead, indulge your reactionary self: Go see Angelique Bosio’s film Llik Your Idols at Hallwalls tonight (December 13). The film looks back on the art and music scene that produced filmmakers like Nick Zedd, who wrote a manifesto naming and defining the Cinema of Trangression: “…We propose to go beyond all limits set or prescribed by taste, morality or any other traditional value system shackling the minds of men…There will be blood, shame, pain and ecstasy, the likes of which no one has yet imagined. None shall emerge unscathed…We propose transformation through transgression—to convert, transfigure and transmute into a higher plane of existence in order to approach freedom in a world full of unknowing slaves.” Kern’s 1985 short You Killed Me First follows Bosio’s documentary, as an example of the era.

How fitting that the final exhibition in the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s Rockwell Hall location will be a Members Exhibition—a celebration and show of appreciation to the artists of Western New York for their support and contributions to the arts community. Artist Charles E. Burchfield was honored with the creation of the Charles Burchfield Center at Buffalo State College in 1966. He died just over a year later, but his legacy and purpose have lived on at the Center. The building was renamed the Burchfield Penney in the early 1990s following a generous gift from Charles Rand Penney, which included, among 1,300 works by Western New York artists, over 180 works by Burchfield himself. Now plans are underway for a freestanding home for the Center—made possible by an extremely generous gift from Buffalo attorney William Magavern II and his wife Louise—to be located on five acres of land on the corner of Elmwood and Rockwell Road. The Artists Among Us will run through March 2nd at the old Burchfield Penney Art Center, before it shuts down for the summer and preparations begin for the move. The opening reception for The Artists Among Us will be followed by an after party with the artists at the Ukranian-American Social Club, located at 205 Military Road.

Based on the novel by Alice Munro, the 2006 film Away from Her is the winner of numerous awards, including two New York Film Critics Circle Awards, best feature and best actress for Julie Christie, who was also nominated for an Oscar. Christie and Gordon Pinsent play Fiona and Grant Anderson, a married couple of 44 years. Fiona, beset by Alzheimer’s, enters a nursing home, which by policy denies her visitors for the first 30 days. When Grant finally is allowed to visit his wife, he finds that she rarely can remember who he is, and has transferred her affections to another patient, Aubrey, a wheelchair-bound mute, played by Michael Murphy. The Aurora Theatre screens the film twice this weekend, Saturday and Sunday at 4pm. At the Saturday screening, producer Daniel Iron will be present to introduce the film and to answer questions from the audience afterward. This a terrific opprtunity for those who missed the film’s brief run in the area this spring, and in a wonderful moviehouse at a bargain price.

The ultimate goal of any stand-up comic is to engage his audience by any means possible. Few have the ability to do it as well as Tony Woods. Woods not only presents his strangely warped view of the world, he lures the audience into this alternate universe with a wry and mischievous wit matched by few comics working the circuit today. Woods is one of the rising stars of the stand-up world, having recently been featured in Comedy Central’s USO and Worlds tours, as well as given the honor of his very own network special, “Comedy Central Presents Tony Woods.” To give you a taste of Woods’ intentionally banal, consistently hilarious brand of self-aware and shameless humor, he suggests saving money on airfare to Africa by smoking a joint and watching the Discovery Channel. “It’s the same thing,” he says. “I just started taking my clothes off.” He ends the joke there and moves on to talk of Pygmies—it doesn’t make much sense, but hell, it’s funny. His act is a comedy underground favorite on “both sides of the tracks.” (Translation: White people will laugh, too). Joining Woods at the Tralf will be James “The Glow” Goff, another Comedy Central favorite, and also features Sidney Sir, Kristen Becker, Joel James and Joe Cumbo.