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June 30, 2006

Screening Gotham: June 30-July 2, 2006

A few of this weekend's worthwhile cinematic goings-on around New York:

--You should know going into Andrew Berends' Iraq documentary The Blood of My Brother (opening today at Cinema Village) that the film takes itself almost too seriously to bear. But if you will allow me, I intend that as a compliment. Rather than reiterate another 90 minutes of counteracting platitudes from Americans and Iraqis thrown together by war, Berends walks into the maw of the insurgency and just rolls tape. His overriding conceit tracks Ibrahim, a young Iraqi whose life implodes following his brother's death at the hands of coalition forces. Split between his family responsibilities and a febrile drive for revenge, he considers joining the Shia uprising. But while Ibrahim hedges, Berends follows the ragtag Medhi Army into and out of mass protests, funerals, prayers and, ultimately, gun battles with American tanks and helicopters.

Medhi Army fighters from Sadr City take up arms in The Blood of My Brother (Photo: Andrew Berends)

The tone and action supercede the icy cynicism of The War Tapes or mournful revelation of Control Room; it is the first Iraq doc I have seen in which death permeates every frame. That said, The Blood of My Brother is not quite a great film--it reflects a cloying political self-consciousness at times when it should let its director's hard-won images speak for themselves. But to the extent Berends reveals danger as the only sense more resonant than hopelessness, you pretty much have a waking nightmare on your hands. And fair warning: Animals were harmed in the making of this motion picture.

--On a lighter, trashier note, the Pioneer is reviving Showgirls for one final June screening. I would elaborate on what a treat this is, but I doubt I can say it better than good old Jeffrey the projectionist (via Pioneer's MySpace page):

Ladies, mention this mySpace blog post and get discounted admission. BITCHES TO THA FRONT. BITCHES TO THA BACK. BITCHES ALL AROUND BITCHES SMACK SMACK SMACK. I don't know what that means, but it's okay. You know what, anyone can just come and mention this mySpace blog and get discounted admission. That's how we roll: GENEROUS.

Rumor has it that "discounted admission" means $6.50 instead of the regular $9. Which, you have to admit, is a small price to pay for such date-ready debauchery.

--You knew that last week's rainout would not enough to break the spirits of the gang behind the Billyburg Short Film Festival, which unspools this evening with host Michael Showalter (Stella, The Baxter) presiding. Films include Braden King's music video Bonnie "Prince" Billy: Horses and the 2006 BSFF Best in Show, Baby Eat Baby--"a film about war and truth starring nude babies and people made of clay." Assuming you survive, an afterparty featuring live music by Japanther follows.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 02:17 PM | TrackBack

Reeler Link Dump: Catastrophically Slow News Week Edition

These pre-holiday industry standstills always inspire an acute sense of underachievement around Reeler HQ. What better way to work through the blahs than with a lightning round of fluff and flummox from the poor bastards whom the long weekend left behind?

--The latter part of Charlize Theron's "three or four for them, one for me" work cycle appears to be coming due. As The Reeler noted in January, Theron is reteaming with Picturehouse honcho Bob Berney to produce and star in the drama The Ice at the Bottom of the World, and now she has roped Alan Parker out of his post-Life of David Gale exile to direct. Still no word on when shooting will begin, but it might be a while yet: Theron needs time to get suitably skeevy for her role as a heroin-addicted single mom, and Parker has to find a suitable back-up and complete a 12-step program for unrelenting hackery before insurers will underwrite the project.

--Some Massachusetts screenwriter has accused Jim Jarmusch of ripping off the idea for Broken Flowers. A million relieved Jarmusch fans sigh mightily and redirect their disappointment to the Boston area. (Via Cinematical)

--Sydney Pollack is ready for his close-up. Make that close-ups: Cingular Wireless evidently thinks enough of him as a pitchman that he will appear in a new spot advising moviegoers to silence their mobile phones. Meanwhile, Pollack and Sidney Lumet will be the subjects of tributes at this year's Deauville Film Festival, and Anne Thompson notes that Pollack is co-producing (with Anthony Minghella) the next film by the Devil Wears Prada team of Aline Brosh McKenna and David Frankel (who are, in Thompson's priceless words, "beavering away on their next chick lit adaptation"). We should all be so busy this time of year.

--Fuck this NYPD press credential; the next time I want to crash a film set, I am borrowing the neighbor's kid.

--Speaking of Parker and Pollack, neither make the cut in Dave Kehr's lament for aging auteurs posted this week on Slate:

The new MBA masters of Hollywood push seasoned (and proportionately expensive and hard to handle) talents aside in favor of inexpensive and pliable young filmmakers straight from Sundance or the film schools. I want to see Walter Hill's Rio Lobo and I want to see John Milius' 7 Women—but where is the studio that would finance them, when Justin Lin (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) and J. J. Abrams (Mission: Impossible III) are available?

I don't know about you, but I am a big fan of Kehr's paeans to entitlement. Last month's blog screed condemning publications where "experienced critics are being kicked out in favor of glorified interns" was a little more glass-shatteringly melodramatic, but this new one has an irreproachable bitterness that only a seasoned veteran can summon and sustain. Not yet 30 myself, I am grateful for the influence, and I hope that someday my prose is as alienating to my next generation of readers as Kehr's is to his own--those Sundance filmmakers in particular. Ryan Fleck? Goran Dukic? Carlos Reygadas? Hilary Brougher? Rian Johnson? Ramin Bahrani? Kelly Reichardt? Fucking hacks.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 12:43 PM | TrackBack

Synergy Showcase Redux: 'Prada' Consumes Page Six

It turns out in the end that I was wrong about the New York Post's esteemed critical apparatus lionizing The Devil Wears Prada and launching an early "for your consideration" campaign in Meryl Streep's name. We all know that would require a modicum of taste that the Murdoch-tabloid vacuum swallowed long ago. But no such barriers could ever inhibit the dramatic deluge of Fox's Prada house advertisements that literally wallpaper Page Six today. No fewer than six ads accompany a mostly tepid day for gossip, including a short video teaser, an expanding photo gallery and a pink-and-white background that inspires a succession of Valentine's Day flashbacks--that is, if your Valentine was a blind Web designer. The page-topping Walter Cronkite item earns bonus points for head-exploding irony.

Sadly, Cindy Adams's garish flag-licking and Liz Smith's random casting notes escaped the Prada makeover themselves. It figures--those bitches are always pulling rank when the mothership needs them the most.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 09:23 AM | TrackBack

June 29, 2006

Reeler Screening Series Continues With 'Half Nelson' at BAM; 'Outsider' Q&A Skedded For Pioneer

Big news on the event front: The Reeler Screening Series that successfully launched last month with Lodge Kerrigan's film Keane continues in August at BAM with a special preview of Ryan Fleck's superb Half Nelson. Featuring Ryan Gosling as a drug-addled Brooklyn schoolteacher who develops a strained friendship with one of his students (Shareeka Epps), the film has earned steady accolades since its premiere at Sundance last January; it made its New York bow at this year's New Directors/New Films festival, and ThinkFilm plans an Aug. 11 release.

But Fleck and co-writer/producer Anna Boden will be on hand in Brooklyn a few days early to discuss the film and take your questions. So save the date: Wednesday, Aug. 9, at 7 p.m. Tickets will available on BAM's Web site soon; rest assured I will let you know when.

I will also be dropping by the Pioneer Theater Aug 2. to moderate a discussion and Q&A following a screening of The Outsider, Nicholas Jarecki's documentary about iconoclastic filmmaker James Toback (check out the related Reeler podcasts from earlier this month). Both Jarecki and Toback will be in attendance, and I will try to stay out of the way as the anecdotes and insights cascade from the front of the room. Tickets are available now at the Pioneer's Web site.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 12:49 PM | TrackBack

And Now, Award From Our Sponsor: LAFF Gives 'Gretchen' Gold-Plated Stack of Target Cards

As rusty a taste as reading about the The Dawn Hudson Starfuck-a-Thon leaves in my mouth, I have to hand it to the Los Angeles Film Festival for presenting its--ahem--Target Filmmaking Award to Steve Collins. The writer/director took home $50,000 in Cherokee dress pants and three-for-$9.99 detergent cash for his nifty debut feature Gretchen, which garnered a little less-affluent New York acclaim a while back as the opening-night title in this year's Rooftop Films series.

IndieWIRE editor Eugene Hernandez reports that Collins' acceptance speech included this wince-inducing cry of gratitude: "Thank you very much. I'll go shop at Target now!" Ha. What the poor guy doesn't know is that Hudson and Film Independent have added to an "Executive Producer: Target" credit to Gretchen's first reel and provided the $50,000 for Collins to reshoot key scenes to feature that white dog with the Target logo over its eye. Anything left over can go to lobbying the chain to carry the film in its DVD departments. If there is anything the LAFF has taught us, it is to think outside the box, if not the box store.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 11:39 AM | TrackBack

No Vacancy as 'Motel' Opens For Hometown Crowd at Film Forum

In sports, observers commonly throw around the phrase "playoff atmosphere" to describe any regular-season game or event that acquires the urgency and intensity of a must-win postseason contest. The phenomenon usually results in a sold-out venue crammed with whooping, rabid fans, and a winner who navigated a grueling gantlet of other games just to get to this one--but must hope nevertheless that there are more to come.

The Motel writer/director Michael Kang (far right) faces the Film Forum crowd with cast members (L-R) Jeffrey Chyau, Samantha Futerman and Alexis Chang (Photos: STV)

The same thing happens in cinema--or at least it did Wednesday night, when Film Forum took on a "festival atmosphere" for the opening night of Michael Kang's sweet, miniscule indie The Motel. Kang and virtually his entire cast crammed into the front of the theater following the 8 p.m. screening, facing a packed house and disbursing Motel swag as though the film was back in its Sundance '05 element. Another hundred viewers queued in the lobby awaiting the 10 p.m. screening. On a weeknight.

The spoiled among us know it really is the only way to watch a movie: when the intimacy of the setting compounds that of the film. Or even that of making the film, according to Kang. "I got really lucky," he told the crowd during the Q&A.."I mean, I think it was partially because we were shooting on location--we were up in Poughkeepsie five days a week, and so we all became really close. It wasn't just the cast. It was the cast and the crew."

That quality penetrates most of The Motel as it spies on 13-year-old Ernest Chin (Jeffrey Chyau), a rotund Chinese-American boy growing up at his family's skeevy hourly-rate motel. His first-generation mother (Jade Wu) runs the joint and her kids' lives with a wounded pragmatism, conflating the transgressions of her willful, daydreaming son with those of her delinquent customers. Ernest withdraws to the company of Christine (Samantha Futerman), an older girl for whom he harbors an unrequited crush, but is just as frequently bullied by an Anglo kid (Conor J. White) who exploits Ernest's ethnicity and living conditions as testaments to his permanent disadvantage.

The Motel is not about permanence though. It is about transit--from child to adult, from one culture to another (and back), all the way down to the ritual of learning to drive. Only after the impulsive Korean hustler Sam Kim (Sung Kang) checks in to the motel does Ernest find the social and emotional outlet his adolescence demands. But even as Sam sees his own immaturity reflected in Ernest, the glimpse is momentary; puberty compels Ernest to root out the authenticity in his surroundings, leaving Sam as a shell of the father figure and best friend he aspires to be. Ernest is all but forced to exorcise the man from his life and his home.

"My parents divorced when I was young," said the filmmaker Kang. "So there was kind of an absence of a male role model, and I think I was kind of exploring that. The character of Sam Kim came from me asking what kind of knowledge and wisdom could I give to a child, and I realized it was absolutely nothing. I have no good information, and so I personified that in Sam Kim."

And as the film ambles through its 76 minutes, you cannot help but appreciate the efficiency and effect of Kang's other tiny catharses. He eschews melodrama for a kind of weighted whimsy (Sam and Ernest leaping around a rural road shouting "I want to be happy!") and broaches assimilation only inasmuch as the motel represents a humane (if low-rent) cosmopolis. Sexual frustration seemingly permeates every moment of Ernest's days, yet it never inspires the cynicism that afflicts Christine, Sam, his mother or the roiling spectrum of sleaze that obscures his home. This thematic triumph alone--not to mention Chyau's exquisite work toward accomplishing it--makes for flashes of transcendent cinema.

At Wednesday's premiere, Chyau (right) downplayed the praise. "As everyone else said, it's just that Mike had us really bond together as a family," said Chyau, a native New Yorker whom Kang cast after auditioning 200 kids. "So really everything onscreen and offscreen, we were just having fun with it and not worrying whether the movie made it or not. Because making the film was worth it overall, even if it doesn't sell for a single penny."

Kang blanched, then smiled. The hometown crowd cheered. The pressure was off. It only felt like a festival.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 09:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 28, 2006

The Reeler Will Return Thursday...

...with coverage of writer-director Michael Kang's coming-of-age film The Motel (opening today at Film Forum). Recommended viewing for Wednesday: The Manhattan premiere of the Staten Island Film Festival's documentary quasi-sensation The Staten Island Catapult, which unspools tonight at 7 at Anthology Film Archives. Or really, just find an air-conditioned room and watch anything you want.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 07:32 AM | TrackBack

June 27, 2006

DIY Sensation 'Four Eyed Monsters' Set to Attack Theaters in 15 Cities

The buzz surrounding local filmmakers Susan Buice and Arin Crumley's microbudget cause celebre Four Eyed Monsters has found momentum in repeated notations at indieWIRE, festival flourishes at Slamdance and South by Southwest, strong word-of-mouth and, last fall, the full-blown NY Times feature treatment. Really, though, their self-promotional prowess precedes them, and as Buice and Crumley prepare Monsters for a two-day, 15-city run as part of indieWIRE's Undiscovered Gems series (starting tonight at Cinema Village), their Web site remains pretty much at the cutting edge of grass roots.

New York, NY - Cinema Village

Tuesday June 27th @ 7:30pm | Wednesday June 28th @ 7:30pm
Buy Tickets | Print B&W flier | Directions | Who is attending
Trailer | Video Podcast

To wit:

--A video invitation to this week's screenings, including an animated map directing New Yorkers to tonight's afterparty at Pioneer Bar;

--Copy-and-paste-ready HTML code for you to include on your own site or blog (see above), or to manufacture fliers for distribution in Tulsa, Tuscon or wherever else the Gems series unspools;

--The widely reported collection of video podcasts documenting the making of and subsequent distribution headaches afflicting Monsters;

--A page where visitors can request stickers for planting all over their hometowns.

Visitors can also request updates for upcoming screenings or (eventually) downloadable copies of Monsters. In the meantime, attendees at tonight's Cinema Village screening can exchange their ticket stubs for a free drink at the party, but pretty much anyone is invited to drop in. And after all the effort they put in to get you there, you would have to block of ice where your heart is to pass it up. Or at least have a really, reeeeeeally great excuse.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 12:46 PM | TrackBack

Box Office Insider Roger Friedman Has Well-Placed Doubts About 'Superman' Take

I am surprised to find I do not have that much to say about Superman Returns, the most anticlimactically (and antiseptically) boring summer blockbuster I've seen in some time. The $200-million-plus budget buys 157 minutes of inorganic momentum--all the staggering visuals you could ever want, but almost no human moment so indelible as to anchor the spectacle in memory. Which would be fine if escapism was all director Bryan Singer cared about. Alas, a back catalog of accomplished indies giving way to spiritualized superhero tentpoles indicates otherwise; as Manohla Dargis said in her typically peerless review, "It's hard not to think that Superman isn't the only one here with a savior complex."

Really, though, I find myself less interested in critical approximations of Superman Returns than I am in box-office forecasts--specifically that of noted industry sage Roger Friedman, whose Magic 8-Ball responds "Chances not so good" to his breathless inquiries about the film's expected weekend windfall:

(W)hile the juries are still technically out, here are some things to chew on: As of last night, Moviefone, which measures interest in all current releases, listed Superman Returns second to Adam Sandler’s Click. The Sandler film grossed a huge amount over the weekend, $40 million, so its listing could be a carryover from that enthusiasm. Still, one would have hoped for SR to be listed at No. 1 by Moviefone fans.

Also, according to Moviefone.com, none of the “early” shows tonight have sold out. And none of the regular shows scheduled for Wednesday, the real opening day, have sold out either. By now, a real phenomenon of a film would likely have at least one or two shows crossed off on Moviefone, indicating an impending monsoon of fans. Of course, that’s New York. In Hollywood, two shows are sold out for tonight — one at Mann’s Chinese Theater and the other at The Grove.

Leave it to Friedman to get under the skin of this story: Not only is there no "impending monsoon of fans" against which area multiplexes must batten down the hatches, but Moviefone is officially established as the oracle of "interest in all current releases." Indeed, the higher-ups at Warner Bros. are likely cracking the gin early this morning, wondering what miserable twist of fate would relegate them to second place on Moviefone (in New York, natch) after such a torturous 20-year revival of the Superman franchise. Suicide notes are trickling out of the marketing department's shared printers as I write this, and like Goethe following The Sorrows of Young Werther, Friedman sits in shadowy repose somewhere in the Fox building wondering who will ever invite him to another premiere. It is the tragedy of the prophet.

But enough of that. Lest walk-up moviegoers, in fits of existential crises, suddenly question their own interest in Superman Returns, they are still entitled to show up tonight and all week, for that matter. I am sure they will have plenty of company, and whatever Warners execs survive the Friedman Crash will be able to stash the razor blades, at least until 2009.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 10:02 AM | TrackBack

June 26, 2006

Bogart Gets Street, "Brass on a Wall" For Childhood Home on Upper West Side

I hate missing events like this, but I guess it was on the Upper West Side, and God knows why anyone goes there, even when some ambitious video store owner ropes the city into renaming a block of West 103rd Street after the stretch's most famous native son, Humphrey Bogart.

Manny Fernandez had the pleasantly anecdotal story yesterday in The Times:

This city usually greets the naming of a street with a collective yawn. But the official unveiling of Humphrey Bogart Place was something else entirely, part block party, part film symposium, part history lesson.

About 150 people gathered for the ceremony, and a hush of nervous excitement fell over the crowd when, at 11:56 a.m., the chairman of the city's Housing Authority, Tino Hernandez, politely asked the people standing behind him to make room for the woman walking up the sidewalk.

She was the event's special guest, Bogart's widow, Lauren Bacall. A cheer rose from the audience. She looked elegant in a black suit, elegant and dry, with their son, Stephen Humphrey Bogart, by her side.

"It certainly was surprising," she told the crowd of the honor, standing in front of her husband's boyhood home. "Bogie would never have believed it." ...

Ms. Bacall had tears in her eyes. "It's emotional for me because I loved Bogie very much," she said. "I was married to him and we had a very lovely life together. It was much too short. It's emotional."

"And we love New York," her son added.

"But," she replied, "we love Bogart more."

The Associated Press, meanwhile, notes that Movie Place owner and fellow uptowner Gary Dennis lobbied the City Council after logging 1,000 signatures on a petition, finally succeeding in scoring "a piece of brass on a wall" (as Bacall described it) for Bogart's childhood brownstone that is now a public housing site. Good on him, I say; at least this city film enterprise did not require mass car removal.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 05:12 PM | TrackBack

Intelligence Agency: ICM Rep Packages New Lumet Film For Studios That Cannot Be Bothered

A loyal reader well-acquainted with my eyelash-fluttering history with director Sidney Lumet alerts me to the latest about his new project, the New York-based crime drama Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. And although Hollywood Reporter stalwart Martin Grove does not really have the details you may be seeking vis a vis the plot (hand clap for IMDB), he does provide a fairly engrossing account of how A) Lumet maneuvered his interagency contacts to assemble a dynamite ensemble cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Albert Finney, Ethan Hawke and Marisa Tomei and B) such packages comprise farm teams for studios too overextended with tentpoles to develop their own projects:

With Dead, for instance, none of the film's principal stars is an ICM client, but director Sidney Lumet ... is represented by ICM. "Jeff Berg has represented Sidney Lumet for many, many years," (ICM exec Hal) Sadoff said. "Sidney wanted to do this project. (Co-producer) Michael Cerenzie developed the film for several years and came to us to help put it together and find a financier for it. We were able to help close all the actor deals. We were able to bringing in financing and it's going to shoot in about four weeks in New York." ...

Looking ahead, Sadoff is encouraged about the prospects for packaging: "The industry is in a state of change and it's more common to have these independent movies financed outside of the studio system. I think you will (see more of this in the future). We don't have a set number (of films to package annually), but we're continuing to build a team and it's a very important part of the agency going forward and I think it's an important part of the industry. You know, the studios are co-financing movies (with various funds and private equity investors). Almost every film on their slate is co-financed today.

I guess the overriding question is how much more exclusive this makes the independent film market in the long run. If Fox Searchlight or Paramount Vantage or Picturehouse can drop $7 or $8 million on the next Lumet or P.T. Anderson or Sofia Coppola picture (among God knows how many others) without getting its hands dirty with actual development or even P&A in some cases, how long before the mini-major industry outsources the bulk of its content this way? How long before it trickles down to the festival circuit, where independently financed (and crafted) work with A-list stars budgeted at $10-$15 million vie for premieres and dominate transactions everywhere from Toronto to Tribeca? Will a distributor like Focus take a chance on something like Brick if it can wait and see how it likes advance footage of John Waters's new film?

Of course, the directors have to want to play ball, but it's an obvious win-win if they can work without studio meddling while distributors can just shop for finished projects year-round. The losers are potentially the little guys who will still land Sundance berths--Stephanie Daley, Writscutters: A Love Story, The Talent Given Us--but face a messy self-distribution climate spearheaded by Netflix, Truly Indie and, before you know it, iTunes. At any rate, wherever Before the Devil Knows You're Dead lands, rest assured that Yari Film Group will not be beating Lumet's work within an inch of its life this time around.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 03:56 PM | TrackBack

Synergy Showcase Underway with Post, 'Prada'

The forthcoming release of The Devil Wears Prada has yielded a substantive media bounty over the last week, from Ginia Bellafante's lovely expert testimony in The Times to Logan Hill's sort-of-arousing Anne Hathaway profile in last week's New York Magazine to Jeffrey Wells outlandish quasi-crit at Hollywood Elsewhere: "Without Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci's performances, this very carefully measured girl movie set in the never-jangled world of a big-time fashion ... would be okay but only that. But with them -- because of them -- it's savory as hell at times." (Excellent observation: Two of the three leads make the film work. It's like, "Without Faye Dunaway and William Holden, Network would just be Peter Finch shouting.")

But I digress. You really must check out the Prada parade's sprawling incursion into the New York Post--the corporate sibling of Fox 2000 and, apparently, the unofficial Devil Wears Prada marketing arm in the days leading up to the film's June 30 unveiling. Choose your pleasure, or collect the whole set:

--Post fashion editor Serena French has the details on the supposed $1 million wardrobe, including a $12,000 handbag and $445 shoes;

--French again, outlining the rules that govern fashion-magazine assistantship. As I noted at the top, Bellafante's more intimate Times reflection is the "I Survived" gold standard here, but this is the Post, after all, and you could certainly do worse for your 50 cents;

--Danica Lo tallies up the factual liberties revealing Prada's exotic yet "flabbergasting" inattention to detail. For example:

"Assistant Andrea is better dressed than most full-blown editors I know," says Diane Salvatore, editor-in-chief of Ladies' Home Journal. "If I had an assistant who was dressed that well, I would assume she was involved in an online identity-theft scam." ...

For the rare formal function, the luckiest (and slimmest) may in fact be allowed to select a gown. Andy borrows a black Galliano for an industry gala - an oddly conservative choice, says More magazine beauty and fashion director Lois Joy Johnson, who coached actor Stephanie Szostak for her role as editor Jacqueline Follet, (Runway magazine editor Miranda) Priestly's Euro-chic arch-rival. "The assistants look like they are on their way to a prom."

Fuck. That. I am soooooooo waiting for the DVD.

--A twin bill of features touting Prada fashion stylist Patricia Field (above, with Streep), including Linda Stasi's afterthought linking Field to the resurgence of "That Girl!" couture and Serena French yet again profiling Field, who has all kinds of praise for the Prada gang while throwing fistfuls of shit at Warner Independent's The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing;

--And finally, who can forget perhaps the year's most brilliant Page Six item (even better than Richard Johnson copping to drunken driving)?

Anne Hathaway says Stanley Tucci was a real hands-on guy when they made The Devil Wears Prada. "He would just smack me in my boob and elbow me," Hathaway told journos at the New York premiere. "If you're a girl, you know that hurts, so, after about the fourth time, I finally said: 'Stanley, can you please stay away from my t - - s?' He got really flustered and said: 'What do you expect? You're flinging those melons around like it's harvest season.' "

Expect Cindy Adams to leap in with a frothy-mouthed succession of sentence fragments and ellipses any day now, while Roger Friedman prepares to attribute the film's genius to its "fearless send-up of Vogue editor Anne Winter [sic]" and Lou Lumenick's blinding grand finale reportedly promises the long-rumored six-star rating system that was not quite ready for X-Men: The Last Stand. Come on, Rupert--give the gang a raise.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 10:57 AM | TrackBack

June 23, 2006

Screening Gotham: June 23-25, 2006

A few of this weekend's worthwhile cinematic happenings around New York:

--Indulge me for a second: Remember when Quentin Tarantino made transcendent cinema rather than just staple his brand name on any half-assed genre exercise or trash label that came calling? More specifically, remember Reservoir Dogs? Imagine (maybe some of you were there): He walks into Sundance pretty much penniless almost 15 years ago and blows up every screen in town with this insanely graphic, profane (and derivative, sure) macho-gunplay chamber drama. He gleefully alienates everybody but his peers and endorses movie violence to the good-liberal contingent that cannot believe what it just saw. He loses the Grand Jury Prize but gains almost instant cult immortality. His partnership with Miramax is born. For better or worse, we are talking about possibly the last seismic moment of the independent film movement--and it barely even made it to theaters. Now the Sunshine is bringing Reservoir Dogs back with midnight showings tonight and tomorrow, which, no doubt, will put that anniversary DVD to shame even as it conjures a wrenching nostalgia for the day when "Quentin Tarantino presents" meant something. All right, I am done.

--I hate having to put choices like this to you, but cruel fate insists: Film meets rock twice Saturday night as MoMA's Douglas Gordon: Timeline exhibit features an appearance by Gordon and Chicks on Speed, while the Continental (near Astor Place) hosts Eamonn Bowles's barnburning quartet The Martinets. Talk about tough calls: "Chicks On Speed urge you to come overdressed to this 'living sculpture,' where they will perform their new Eurotrash hit single 'Art Rules' for the very first time," MoMA's Web site tells visitors. Meanwhile, you know Bowles better as the boss at Magnolia Pictures, at least until his reckless, concussion-inducing stage abandon lands him in the hospital. I think you know where my allegiances lie, although I admit these decisions never ever get any easier. Now they are yours. Sorry.

--If you have not yet checked out the New York Asian Film Festival, quit fucking procrastinating and go. This weekends highlights include the Grady Hendrix-endorsed Funky Forest: The First Contact, the Ram Gopal Varma-produced Ab Tak Chhappan and the Miike-directed fantasy The Great Yokai War, and the festival finally goes multitheatrical with schedules at Anthology Film Archives and ImaginAsian Theater. Click will still be there next weekend, I promise.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 03:33 PM | TrackBack

Reeler Podcast: 'Great New Wonderful' Director Danny Leiner

I cannot remember exactly what I said in my introduction to my podcast interview with The Great New Wonderful's director Danny Leiner, but I vaguely recall intoning something about its alchemy of mourning and irony as well as the more conspicuous chemistry of an ensemble cast fusing the film's five story threads. Which is totally abstract, I know, but so is Wonderful, which follows its storylines through the emo-cultural haze of post-9/11 New York--mostly without specific reference to the date and its tragedy.

Piece of cake: Danny Leiner coaching Maggie Gyllenhaal on the set of The Great New Wonderful (Photo: Juliana Thomas / First Independent Pictures)

Instead, Leiner and screenwriter Sam Catlin posit the attacks' first anniversary as a barometer of middle-class anxiety. Beyond an unspoken dread of the calendar once again reading Sept. 11, the characters in Wonderful seem stunned by the reality that the day changed everything and nothing. "Are we happier?" Olympia Dukakis's reticent, routinized hausfrau seems to wonder. "Are we safer?" wonder a pair of Indian bodyguards whose own emotions represent their worst enemies. "Have we grown?" asks an ambitious pastry chef (Maggie Gyllenhaal) desperately scaling the professional ranks. "Do we still know each other?" is the question that plagues a 30-something married couple struggling with their violent, asthmatic 10-year-old son, while Tony Shalhoub's droll therapist confronts his patient with the query 9/11 provoked in all of us: "Do you even know yourself?"

All important questions, of course, even if, in the end, Wonderful's implications are a bit too fragile to effectively spread this thin (you almost sense that were it not for the priceless Stephen Colbert cameos at its center, Leiner might have cut the frazzled-parents storyline). Shalhoub and Gyllenhaal's sangfroid case studies generate much of the film's momentum; in particular, the latter's exchange with cake competitor Edie Falco exquisitely frames the New Yorker's immediate post-9/11 dilemma of balancing hard-driving nature with banal, disingenuous unity. In Dukakis's case, her loveless marriage and discreetly roving eye seem too easy a metaphor for life's brevity; it is not until her heartbreak provokes her to rage that Leiner calculates the opportunity cost our institutions (brick-and-mortar and otherwise) impose on individuals.

It might have taken 9/11 and its aftermath to get Leiner and Catlin to evaluate such phenomena, but their emphasis on character effectively sidesteps exploitation and gimmickry. It also lightens the viewer's emotional load: They probably could just as easily remove the sporadic shots of a WTC-less Lower Manhattan and title cards featuring the anniverary date, and the film would still present an essentially engaging, bittersweet model of New Yorker malaise. Yet with the attacks and their subsequent wars so heavily anchoring the 21st-century experience, their inclusion--however allusive, abstract or flawed--reflects a risk worth taking. And, for that matter, worth viewing.

Anyway, I guess this is an exceedingly long-winded, inefficient way of saying that Leiner has his own ideas about all of this, and he talks about them with me right here. Thank you for listening.

RELATED: Great New Wonderful Premiere Has its Cake and Eats it Too (June 21, 2006)

Posted by stvanairsdale at 12:58 PM | TrackBack

Legal Effort: Winterbottom, 'Guantánamo' Meet the ACLU in New York

The Reeler's Thursday night rounds began at IFC Center, where director Michael Winterbottom stopped by after a preview screening of his new docudrama The Road to Guantánamo (opening today in New York). Presented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the invitation-only event brought in attendees from New York's legal and human-rights-advocacy communities; the evening culminated in a panel discussion featuring Winterbottom, a trio of lawyers and, via iChat from Great Britain, the trio of young men (a k a the "Tipton Three") whose Guantánamo incarceration ordeal inspired the film.

Two-thirds of The Road to Guantánamo's Tipton Three--Shafiq Rasul and Ruhel Ahmed (Asif Iqbal was en route)--join IFC Center panelists (L-R) Gitanjali Gutierrez, Steven Watt, Michael Winterbottom and Anthony Romero live from England (Photo: STV)

Short of recounting the basic plot (four British Muslims travel to Pakistan for a wedding, then go to Afghanistan for some reason immediately after 9/11; one goes missing while the other three are rounded up and shipped to Guantánamo for interrogation and torture at the hands of American oppressors; they are released without charges two-and-a-half years later), I do not have a lot else to say about Winterbottom's film that has not been articulated already by critics Stuart Klawans and David Edelstein. In a nutshell, Winterbottom takes his subjects' stories at face value, placing viewers in the odd position of keeping one eye on their bullshit meters and one eye on the heinous abuses onscreen. The director consciously plays with facts--not revealing a character's criminal past until he needs it as an alibi, for example, or not daring to ask what breach in common sense compelled the men to visit Afghanistan on the eve of American bombing--while meticulously assembling interviews, re-enactments and news footage that outline a severe case against the conditions of his subjects' detention.

I mean, obviously, yeah--torture and detention without due process are indisputably wrong. But I am equally certain that the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was the only defensible American military campaign of my lifetime. Call the intervening nuance what you will: blaming the victim, healthy skepticism, fence-straddling, etc. All I know is that Winterbottom trades context and narrative for excess and stridency, and his film is the worse for it.

So anyway, there were Winterbottom and the Tipton Three--Asif Iqbel, Shafiq Rasul and Ruhel Ahmed--joined by the ACLU's Anthony Romero and Steven Watt and the Center for Constitutional Rights' Gitanjali Gutierrez. Regrettably, between the roomy echo and their thick British accents, I could hardly make out any of the young men's comments. But between extended bits of his fellow panelists' preening, lawerly self-congratulation, Winterbottom squeezed in a few details about Guantánamo's impact since its acclaimed debut last February at the Berlin Film Festival.

"To be honest," Winterbottom said, "for most of the screenings abroad, Ruhel, Shafiq and Asif have been there and I haven't. But when we showed it it Berlin, I think up to that point none of them had their pictures in the papers and none of them had talked to journalists very much. And it was a huge cinema, and when they came up on stage, there was a massive standing ovation. For me as a director, it was the most moving moment or event of my professional career. For these people who had been through all the stuff they had been through, to see them finally get some kind of support from people was brilliant. So I hope from that point, they realize how powerful their statement has been for people watching the film.

"In a way, what attracted me to making the film is that it has a happy ending," he continued. "Asif gets married finally, Shafiq gets married, Ruhel's married. It's like, despite everything that's happened, they get on with their lives. But for 460 other people, they're still there. And that's the idea of making the film: to remind you that there are 460 other indivdual stories that all could be made into films."

Posted by stvanairsdale at 09:50 AM | TrackBack

June 22, 2006

Jami Bernard's Blog Debuts at MCN; Devastated Daily News Reaches Out to Fanboys

Dave Kehr will be so pleased: On the morning when critic Jami Bernard's blog debuts right here on Movie City News, Bernard's former bosses the New York Daily News have given one of their general assignment reporters a Web-only fanboy column.

That is not a misprint. "Ethan Sacks Unmasked" will feature the author's biweekly stroll through the subculture of comic-clutching, Tolkien-fellating, pajama-swaddled 35-year-olds, getting out all the latest updates about "genre entertainment, including comic books, sci-fi, fantasy, kung fu flicks, anime and video games" that will have his readers creaming their X-Men underwear. (For the uninitiated, The Reeler has an understanding-fanboy-culture cheat sheet here.)

It should be noted that Sacks is not replacing Bernard; rather, his work symbolizes the News's shift from supplying reasonably useful film writing to a shining new era in condescension. In fairness to the paper's efforts to draw younger readers, I should probably add the obligatory "At least they are trying." But you could also deduce from Sacks's bio that they are trying a little too hard:

Ethan Sacks has worked at the Daily News for almost ten years; he has been a fanboy geek for most of his thirty-three years on this planet. His proudest moment? Having Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee dub his daughter "an official Superheroine, forevermore entitled to wear the colors and insignia of the fabled House of Sacks. So hath it been stated. So shall it be." A close second was the actual birth of said daughter....

So. Excited yet?

Posted by stvanairsdale at 08:27 AM | TrackBack

June 21, 2006

Stoned to Death: Paramount Takes on Filmmaker Who Bootlegged 'WTC'

Kudos to my colleague Ray Pride for landing the plum role of Exhibit C in the case of Paramount Pictures vs. Chris Moukarbel, which pits "one of the world's leading creators and distributors of motion pictures" (per the 'Mount's lawsuit) against a 28-year-old Yale artist who shot and uploaded to the Web part of a "bootleg script" for Oliver Stone's upcoming World Trade Center.

The video--a far more accomplished and encouraging piece of work than just about anything in the official WTC trailer--wound up linked to Film Threat, the Filmmaker Magazine blog and, eventually, on Pride's Movie City Indie page. Nearly three weeks later, the 'Mount is fighting back:

12. Upon information and belief, Defendant has distributed and caused to be distributed to the public the infringing Picture, either directly or by hyperlink, on at least the following websites:

http://www.pointsofdeparture.net http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/2006/06/advance-copy.php http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/archives/2006/06/world_trade_cen.html ...

14. Upon information and belief, the Infringing Picture is described on these various websites as: "a 12-minute film adapted from a bootleg script of Oliver Stone's World Trade Center and its post-collapse setting," which is "pre-empting Oliver Stone's forthcoming World Trade Center." (emphasis added).

While not named in the lawsuit, Film Threat actually has a copy of Paramount's injunction pasted where the film used to be (if you can get the page to open; my efforts have yielded one crashed browser after another). And one final shout-out to the 'Mount, which, with one legal brief, has drummed up more interest in Moukarbel's film than anyone ever had in Stone's. At least they are marketing successfully for somebody.

(Photo: Chris Moukarbel / Witte De With)

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'Brave One,' Part II: Jordan, Howard Wait it Out Uptown

A few hours after watching the NYPD make good on the city's promise to tow away cars that would dare interfere with the making of Jodie Foster's latest film, The Reeler stopped back by the set of The Brave One yesterday to check out director Neil Jordan's progress.

A tipster on 88th Street informs me that Foster herself was not at the location, where Jordan was shooting a traffic jam sequence featuring Brave One co-star Terrence Howard. The Hustle & Flow star chatted with the script supervisor and passed out love to his stand-in while Jordan roamed the street semi-aimlessly, half-surveying his set-up and half-restlessly pacing around the prop police car. At one point he approached the B&B Marketplace at the corner of 88th and Third Avenue, a few feet from where I stood observing the scene.

Brave One director Neil Jordan hits the street (Photos: STV)

"Going OK?" I asked him.

"Kind of busy right now," Jordan replied.

"How's the Upper East Side treating you?"

"Hot," he said, stalking away.

"Dude, where's my car?" I shouted.

OK, not really. The guy was working, folks. He's Neil Jordan. Anyway, the whole crew had packed up and disappeared by early evening, making the neighborhood safe again for vehicle owners to ignore parking regulations. And to take your clothes to the cleaners. And to get a flimsy slice at Roma Pizza. I can sense the relief from here.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 11:19 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

'Great New Wonderful' Premiere Has its Cake and Eats it Too

Danny Leiner's ensemble drama The Great New Wonderful premiered to a packed house at the Angelika last night, with most of the attendees cruising to the Lower East Side afterward for a party at Libation. The Reeler has no Maggie Gyllenhaal, Stephen Colbert or Edie Falco sightings to report from its time at the event, but their fellow castmates Olympia Dukakis, Jim Gaffigan and Judy Greer did indeed make an apperance alongside Leiner.

Olympia Dukakis hides behind her cake after GNW co-star Jim Gaffigan tries and fails at his breathy, sensual rendition of "Happy Birthday" (Photos: STV)

The night doubled as a 75th birthday party for Dukakis, who reportedly recoiled with shock when her age was announced prior to the screening but who was in a little more celebratory spirit when an immense cake appeared from the morass of the VIP area. Modeled after one of Gyllenhaal's towering gourmet pastries from the film, the cake was a dense chocolate almost too rich to eat. I should probably stop here before I breach Lloyd Grove / "dessert victim" territory.

Anyhow, I have a podcast interview with Leiner on the way later today or early tomorrow, and I would count The Great New Wonderful among this weekend's recommended picks. But more on that Friday.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 09:07 AM | TrackBack

June 20, 2006

On Their Tows: 'Brave One,' NYPD Make New Fans on Upper East Side

Good morning, New York--especially those of you on the Upper East Side! I know it can be kind of tough to get up and at 'em on such a sluggish, sultry day, but a few of you might take a cue from the NYPD, which arrived in Yorkville at 7 a.m. to tow your cars before Jodie Foster and Neil Jordan showed up to work on their new film The Brave One.

Consider yourself warned (Photos: STV)

The parking enforcement unit and the production company had posted some pretty conspicuous notices around the neighborhood sometime last weekend, politely if not directly warning residents that any cars parked on East 87th, 88th, or 89th Streets and the bordering stretches of Lexington and Third Avenue on the morning of June 20 would be subject to removal--towed to the "nearest legal parking space." And they were not messing around: By 9 a.m., a pair of tow trucks had relocated at least a half-dozen vehicles to Third Avenue just above 90th Street.

"There is no cost or penalty to owners of relocated cars," read the notices supplied by Redemption Pictures (IMDB lists Warner Bros. as the attached studio). "In the event that your car is relocated, contact either one of our parking assistants or your local police precinct. With a description and/or a plate number, they will tell you where your car can be found."

Good morning, gentlemen. Who wants to make a movie?

So with all of this in mind, who are Jodie Foster's biggest fans this morning?

The owner of this Pathfinder will be thrilled to have had this tow truck driver in his car, just as nearby residents were overjoyed by the two minutes of car-alarm noise that resulted at 8 a.m.

To the driver with the New York license plate DJV 9746....

... and the driver with the Florida plate A54 2IE ...

And the owner of this Toyota Sienna from Pennsylvania, FSM 3911 ...

... your cars are a few blocks uptown.

Really, it didn't seem like anybody parked on East 88th Street had heeded the yellow notices the city had posted, but it seemed unreasonable that the NYPD would devote two trucks to towing every car parked between Third and Lexington--easily more than 20 in all. I asked a member of the film crew how the drivers decided which cars they would take away.

"They're taking all of them," he said.

"All of them?" I asked, stunned.

Brave One crew members cordon off East 88th Street, which will be used, however ironically, as the location of a traffic jam

The man nodded, inducing me to wonder who pays for all of that. Surely, the Mayor's film office, which provides free police presence for film shoots and hands out location permits like Chinese restaurant menus, could not be so generous as to pick up the tab for a pair of NYPD tow truck drivers at roughly three hours each. Indeed, a film office spokeswoman told me this morning, the production company incurs the cost, but she said she did not have the specifcs on what that amount might be.

Next I called the NYPD, from whom I figured I could get a ballpark figure or even a few charges for previous films. I also thought New Yorkers might want to know how much money is outstanding while the city waits for reimbursement. Alas, after 10 minutes on hold, I was required to leave a message.

So--anyone want to place any bets on the going rate for a morning's worth of parking enforcement? And does anybody have any fun stories about your own cars being relocated for the sake of cinema?

UPDATE: OMG! OMG! Fuck the car! It's Terrence Howard!

Posted by stvanairsdale at 11:06 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

June 19, 2006

Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series Returns, Brings Puppets

I have written about these events a few times before, but this is one I think we all absolutely must check out tonight: The Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series has bumped up its screening schedule to twice-monthly, and tonight it spotlights films starring puppets. The shorts String Dance, Neo-Noir and Jeffrey and Humphrey Movie (about "two snaggle-toothed puppets, Jeffrey and Humphrey, and their love of hubcaps, hidden treasure, and hip hop") precede the evening's feature--are you ready?--The Lady From Sockholm.

And it is free. I would keep going, but I think you have reason enough now to drop your Stanley Cup Game 7 plans and hit Park Slope instead. At least I do.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 04:01 PM | TrackBack

Wall Street Journal Nudges Reeler's Stock Higher; Also Reveals Lukewarm Iger and Sonnenfeld

Big thanks to the Wall Street Journal's Julien Vernet, who today included The Reeler among the three indie film sites profiled in his Blog Watch feature. Along with GreenCine Daily and The IFC Blog, your humble editor has been singled out for "serv(ing) up longer critiques and on-the-scene reporting" as well as "tak(ing) advantage of the city's rich film scene to interview industry players and attend local events." The only thing that could make this a prouder moment would be being able to afford a WSJ subscription and thus find the link to Vernet's lovely praise. Oh, and one of those engraved illustrations they always use in place of photos. Alas, you can find the hard-copy edition on page R14. Some blogger I am.

Coincidentally, Disney CEO Robert Iger also gets another WSJ close-up today, this time transcribed from an interview he gave a few weeks back at the Journal's "D4" Conference in Calrsbad, Calif. And this is hardly the Iger who was publicly clashing with National Association of Theater Owners head John Fithian last year in this same paper; rather, this is the guy whose publicist and maybe one or two influential shareholders evidently spiked his coffee with a double dose of Banal-Exec Lite before he went on the record:

I think the movie experience, the big-screen, multiple-person experience, is actually a pretty good experience. I think the whole industry should get behind improving that experience. ...We create a lof of value with the initial big-screen release. So I like the notion of keeping that where it is. How long that lasts in some exclusive window, I don't know. It seems pretty obvious that windows are going to compress.

Oh, come on, Bob! Where is that street-fighting man who came out to the Journal last December to say he saw windows slimming down "by force more than negotiation or diplomacy"? The Mouse does not back down (except to Harvey Weinstein), and neither do you!

Also in the Journal, director Barry Sonnenfeld says windows should, in fact, get longer as a way of building up the social experiences of theatergoing and buzz-building:

People need to have things they want to do. They need to have events. ... To me the embracing of the Internet is not a good thing. ... [Studio heads] all fear the Internet. They all fear that it's taking time away from their core stuff. "We don't know what the Internet is, but we're going to throw a lot of stuff up in the air, and maybe some of those things will be really good." But maybe by doing that, they're hurting what they know how to do, which is television or electronics or movies.

This coming from the guy who went from being one of his generation's best cinematographers to directing Big Trouble and RV. At any rate, there are two types of movie lovers, and they DO have their respective events. One is called a film festival, where the anticipation and experience of theatrical viewing is communal and essentially sacred (hell, even RV premiered at Tribeca). The other is called the DVD release, which has cornered its own market on hype and which promises the blend of interactivity and authority (e.g. director commentaries, director's cuts, etc.) that the digital age has conditioned us to expect.

And do not think Sonnenfeld has not prepared his extras for the semi-autobiographical RV's DVD, either. It will be out before you know it, and, you know, people need events.

UPDATE: My pal Bennett over at Open All Night has maxed out his credit cards for a WSJ subscription and thus sends along this link to today's Blog Watch featuring The Reeler. Show-off!

Posted by stvanairsdale at 02:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Has-Been Seagal, Horny Hawke: At the Movies with the New York Post

I am such a slouch. On an unproductive morning during which I must now rush off to check out Superman Returns, I feel like I have left you hanging. But let me introduce you to your substitute, the New York Post, which spent virtually all weekend unearthing the glimmering jewels I have been too neglectful to polish for you myself.

Page Six is back in particularly vicious sniper mode, peering through its slender crosshairs at all sorts of cinematic targets. The ever-popular Steven Seagal takes the bloodiest hit by far, with the Sixers dubbing him "Action Zero" for his commitment to sigh autographs alongside "Rowdy Roddy" Piper, "Captain Lou" Albano and "the guys who played Michael Myers in Halloween and Jason in Friday the 13th" at this weekend's Big Apple Convention and Geek Puppy Pile. The item fails to mention, however, that Seagal and his band Thunderbox are going to rock New York at BB King's, a far more terrifying trauma about which readers need adequate warning. Like a potential Ron Burkle payday, consider this another opportunity missed for Page Six.

The coverage gets far tamer from there: Ethan Hawke memorized Salinger to get laid; Harvey Weinstein dumped a few million bucks (not Weinstein Co. capital, he swears) in some Euro-trash dating site; Disney has taken the trend in withholding press screenings one step further by not testing Pirates of the Carribean 2 ("We didn't think we could gain anything by research screenings," a Disney spokesman said, but they are refurbishing the Disneyland ride just in case); Kevin Spacey modeled Lex Luthor after Kenneth Lay; and former Luna frontman Dean Wareham is back onscreen in Matthew Ross's short film Lola.

But the real credit goes to noted ideologue and critical trailblazer Liz Smith, who has the semi-latest on Mike Nichols' next project:

With some movie studios canceling projects right and left, it's comforting to see Universal stepping up to the plate with a meaningful idea. Oscar winners Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tom Hanks and Broadway's current box-office darling Julia Roberts, will be together doing Charlie Wilson's War, based on George Crile's book about a rogue congressman and a CIA agent secretly arming rebels against the Russians in Afghanistan, circa 1980. The intellectually gifted and charmingly disarming Mike Nichols is to direct, and The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin is the screenwriter, so this one seems really worth the wait.

"Comforting" indeed--follow the links until I return, kids, and I will try to be back with a note or two this afternoon.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 11:24 AM | TrackBack

Late, Not Breaking News: Brooklyn Int. Film Fest Unloads Hardware

My plans to cover the ninth annual Brooklyn International Film Festival fell through at every turn, so fuck it: Follow the jump for the winners, including recently revealed Audience Award recipient Crossing Arizona below, by Brooklyn's Joseph Mathew and Queens' Dan DeVivo) and His Brooklyn Excellency (no, really), studio magnate Doug Steiner. As with so many things--festival coverage especially--there is always next year.

A scene from Joseph Mathew and Dan DeVivo's Brooklyn International Film Festival award-winner Crossing Arizona (Photo: CrossingAz.com)

Grand Chameleon Award: BLOOD: DEATH DOES NOT EXIST

Best Feature: BLOOD: DEATH DOES NOT EXIST

Best Documentary / Diane Seligman Award: RADIOPHOBIA

Best Short: OUSMANE

Best Experimental: CAROUSEL RITE

Best Animation (ex-equo): JOURNEY TO MARS & CRAB REVOLUTION

Brooklyn Excellence Award: DOUGLAS STEINER, Chairman of Steiner Studios

Spirit Awards (films in which the festival recognizes its own spirit):
Feature: AHLAAM
Documentary: BEFORE FLYING BACK TO THE EARTH
Short: THE WINTER
Experimental: LOOKING FOR ALFRED
Animation: OUR MAN IN NIRVANA
Best new director: JOEL PALOMBO for MILK & OPIUM

Audience Awards
Feature: THE OH IN OHIO
Documentary: CROSSING ARIZONA
Short: MAGNETIC POLES
Experimental: WOLF'S DREAM
Animation: THE NUCLEAR PHYSICIST GIVES HIS SON FREE ADVICE

Certificate for Outstanding Achievement
Best Female Actor (ex-equo) : OLGA KURYLENKO & JESSICA GENEUS
Best Male Actor (ex-equo) : BASHIR AL-MAJID & SWAROOP KHAN
Production: WILKENSON BRUNA
Cinematography: TOMISLAV PINTER
Screenplay: EYAL HALFON
Editing: KEITH REAMER
Score: CHRIS BROKAW

Posted by stvanairsdale at 09:42 AM | TrackBack

June 16, 2006

Screening Gotham: June 16-18, 2006

A few of this weekend's worthwhile cinematic goings-on around New York:

--The Museum of the Moving Image features a pair of nifty-sounding screenings tonight and tomorrow. First up is Strangers With Candy, which does not open in theaters for another two weeks but is hitting the New York preview rounds pretty hard in the meantime. The film's creative duo Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello will stop by afterward to answer your probing questions. Heads-up, however: Tonight's event will be hosted at the ImaginAsian Theater on the Upper East Side (not at the Museum's Queens headquarters), and its hosts tell The Reeler it is sold out. Which naturally means a little more creative crashing scheme is in order. I have faith in you.

Meanwhile, the museum returns home tomorrow to screen Full Metal Jacket with Matthew Modine in attendance. Feel free to ask him how he applied his lessons from Kubrick to his performance in the recent Tribeca shit-stack Kettle of Fish. Or just gasp and sob and blubber into the mic. Same difference.

--Speaking of Tribeca, the festival unofficially marches on with a series of films about office life. Just what you wanted over the weekend, I know, but at least they are free. Tribeca Cinemas unspools the Fonda/Tomlin/Parton parable 9 to 5 tonight and the cult classic Office Space Saturday; both films start at 7 p.m. and seating is first-come, first-served.

--The very wonkiest of New York's cinema wonks should be taking over Film Forum right about now as the joint unveils its restored print of G.W. Pabst's silent "erotic masterpiece" Pandora's Box. Featuring Louise Brooks as Lulu, the bobbed, class-straddling siren of Weimar Germany, the film confirmed the star as one of the great screen icons of her era--hell, of any era, but primarily after her career was well over, the French had revived her work and she wrote her 1982 memoir Lulu in Hollywood. This weekend's 7:45 shows feature live piano accompaniment, while Film Forum repertory programmer Bruce Goldstein may beatbox over the late screenings if you ask nicely.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 02:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Bacon Turns to Ham in Latest Directorial Effort 'Loverboy'

Kevin Bacon pretty much admitted it: There was something a bit odd about Loverboy, the Victoria Redel novel he and wife Kyra Sedgwick bring to the screen today as director, co-producer and co-stars. In its poetic ruminations about Emliy (Sedgwick), a woman so traumatized by her girlhood alienation that she has a child for little more than possession's sake, Bacon told a press gathering last weekend that he found an intriguing (if undefinable) appeal in its jumpy storyline and creepy, faltering relationships--both of which he and Sedgwick sought to apply to their adaptation.

Row, row, row your lukewarm family drama: Kyra Sedgwick and Dominic Scott Kay star in Kevin Bacon's Loverboy (Photo: ThinkFilm)

I think I knew what he was talking about, but not because I had the same experience reading Redel's novel (in fact, I have not read it). Rather, it is clear that Bacon's film refracts a workable enough conflict--haunted mother cannot let go of her 6-year-old son--through an assemblage of characters too one-dimensional to resolve anything. There is no antagonist in Loverboy, only a parade of victims: Take Emily as a girl, for example (played by Bacon and Sedgwick's daughter Sosie), whose parents' exclusive love for each other leaves the youngster dangling in a honey-hued swamp of '70s kitsch. Or Emily's son Paul (Dominic Scott Kay), who is aware of and helpless to remedy his captivity, and whose performance arcs consist of cycles of hysteria, fantasy and soft-focus innocence. Or the well-meaning outsiders (played by Matt Dillon, Blair Brown and an excellent Oliver Platt among others) whose attempts to befriend the pair result in a succession of melodramatic and ultimately tragic meltdowns.

In other words, Loverboy asks you to buy into its archetypes, and then banks on nuance to attract your sympathy. Net yield? Zero. So I asked Bacon: Is this the oddity he had in mind?

"Both as an actor and a director, I'm much more into gray than I am in black and white," Bacon told The Reeler. "The black and white has got its place in certain kinds of movies, and certainly, I'm the first guy to cheer when the bad guy gets it. I've made movies and played those parts that really fit into that mold. With a film like this, though, the lead character is the perfect example: Here's a character who's on her way to commiting this heinous crime and yet along the way, I wanted you to see the magical side of her, the funny side of her, the sexy side, the romantic side of this character. She is, in her own way, a victim--a victim of her own kind of crumbling psyche and a victim of some of the pain she suffered as a child. And her parents, they're not the baddies. That's a lot more like life to me."

Me too. If only life was detectable in the film. That said, complaints I have heard about it being a Bacon/Sedgwick vanity project are somewhat off-base; Sedgwick looks like a million bucks, but Loverboy hardly represents the chops showcase she scored in Personal Velocity or even on The Closer, if only because Bacon and screenwriter Hannah Shakespeare disallow Emily from stepping outside the proscribed realm of romance and neurosis. Bacon is serviceable as young Emily's father, but his direction reflects an amateur's stifling micromanagement: Dutch angles, slo-mo mother-and-child montages and, most gratingly, Hendrix-as-Pavlov flashback music to remind you what mood you should be in when Emily's fantasy mom (Sandra Bullock) shows up on camera. I mean, hasn't this guy been in half of the movies released since, like, 1984? Didn't he work with Herbert Ross and Rob Reiner? Shouldn't he know from cliches by now?

At any rate, "vanity project" at least implies "interesting failure" (think the Ritchie/Madonna remake of Swept Away, or Beatty/Bening redoing Love Affair), and Loverboy is less interesting than abjectly boring. In retrospect, maybe it was not "weirdness" that Bacon sensed while reading Redel's work--it could have just been his better judgment being bludgeoned to death.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 11:55 AM | TrackBack

June 15, 2006

Reeler Link Dump: 'Actual Sex' Edition

--The Hollywood Reporter's Gregg Goldstein has the scoop on the Shortbus deal, which will bring John Cameron Mitchell and ThinkFilm together in rosy coital bliss and which sets up a come-spattered art-porn fight to the death with IFC Films' own smut showcase Destricted. Goldstein's emphasis on Shortbus's "actual sex" alone makes this both an entertaining and informational read, but even more intriguing is the anonymous distributor who said Mitchell's $500,000 asking price was totally fucking crazy for a film that cannot be advertised and cannot play in 97 percent of theaters and will never see the light of day in video chains or at big-box DVD retailers or on basic cable a little rich for his blood. But all parties wished Mitchell and ThinkFilm a long, lubed and happy union.

--Not-so-newsflash: AIVF is no more. According to a letter passed along by indieWIRE kingpin Eugene Hernandez, the filmmaker support organization will cease operations June 28 but will attempt to continue its house publication, the Independent, in the months ahead. The July issue will feature a best-of selection cherry-picked from AIVF's 33-year history; the status of future issues has yet to be determined. This especially sucks for some of AIVF's senior board members, who must now find a new benefactor to milk in support of their own personal networking. You know who you are. The Reeler sends its condolences.

--David Lynch, he of meditative serenity and institutionalized incomprehensibility, has filed for divorce from Mary Sweeney, his producing partner and wife of--wait for it--one month. It was Lynch's third marriage, and papers filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court revealed "irreconcilable differences" to be the grounds for ending it. Look for a high-profile custody battle to follow: Lynch and Sweeney have a troubled 4-year-old named Inland Empire that needs all the love it can get.

--Yeah, it is short notice, but if Christopher Hitchens, free beer and the premiere of American Zeitgeist are not compelling enough reasons to change your plans tonight, then you have a cold, craggy void where your heart should be. Filmmaker Rob McGann promises a balanced ratio of blood, spittle and vomit in the post-screening debate between Hitchens and Eric Margolis; protective eyewear is strongly advised for those viewers up front.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 05:47 PM | TrackBack

New York Looks on in Awe as 'Spider-Man 3' Heroically Swings From Crane

It is true: For a guy who blogs all day about New York film, I have been irredeemably derelict in not covering Spider-Man 3's incursion into Manhattan. Maybe it is the knowledge that The Times already delivered the earth-smashing scoop, or maybe it is that I am so deep into my podcast phase that even a tight-assed, mouthless, Halloween party cast-off is not enough to get me out on the street.

But thankfully we have Many Highways, with its recent photoblog entry documenting one of the film's recent shooting days downtown. It is anybody's guess what this scene could be about, but the presence of the crane in the background indicates that, yes, that really is a post-lunch Tobey Maguire under all that Spandex, doing his own stunts.

And what is this? MH has video as well? Thank God someone is doing some work out there.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 03:39 PM | TrackBack

Shortz Circuit: 'Wordplay' Premieres, Subject Sits Down For Reeler Podcast

As an avowed fan of the film and a sucker for yesterday afternoon's circulating rumor that Bill Clinton might stop by, I made the trip to Wednesday night's Wordplay premiere party at IFC Center. In the end, Clinton was a no show, but to hell with him; who needs an ex-president when you have New York Times crossword editor (and Wordplay hero) Will Shortz making the celebrity rounds?

Taking one with the team: Will Shortz (center) celebrates Wordplay's opening night with producer Christine O'Malley and director Patrick Creadon (Photo: STV)

Everyone who was anyone in the puzzle doc joined Shortz under the billowy IFC big top: Tyler Hinman, kicking back vodka tonics in his crossword puzzle necktie; champion solver Ellen Ripstein, looking resplendent in a black ball gown; Trip Payne, who said Wordplay might win the documentary Oscar if it adds the subtitle, "The Long March to Freedom"; and the married directing/producing team of Patrick Creadon and Christine O'Malley, who were excited as they were anxious about their film's upcoming opening weekend.

I do not think they have much to worry about, especially here in New York and especially with a mascot as beloved as Shortz doing his part to get the, ahem, word out. He even took a few minutes yesterday to speak with me for yet another Reeler podcast, which you can find linked below. This is required listening for anybody who wonder how Shortz himself might do on one of his puzzles or if he has considered seeking a restraining order against Jon Stewart.

Actually, it is required listening for everybody, dammit, just because I say it is:

Will Shortz podcast -- June 14, 2006

Oh, and Wordplay opens Friday, June 16, at IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza.

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Standing-Room-Only Premiere Opens NY Asian Film Festival (Sort Of)

I guess technically I was wrong yesterday when I mentioned that the New York Asian Film Festival was kicking off Wednesday night with Takashi Yamazaki's epic post-WWII drama Always--Sunset on Third Street. Rather, the screening at the Japan Society was something of a warm-up for Friday's official opening--a sold-out, buzzed-about, turn-away-dozens-at-the-front-door test spin, but a warm-up nevertheless.

Those with the good fortune to get through the door were treated to an introduction by Takashi himself (above), whose Best Director prize was one of 13 Japanese Academy Awards Always claimed in 2005. He explained that he originally had little interest in making the film, but a producer obsessed with 1950s Tokyo would not take "iiya" for an answer.

"Mr. (Shuji) Abe had produced my first two films--this would become my third film," Takashi said through a translator. "He told me, 'Only you--because you have been a talented visual effects supervisor and director--you're the only one who can recreate 1950s Japan today.' Which, of course, really upset me because he wasn't buying my skills as a director at all but just as a technician. So I said, 'Never, never, never will I make this film.' Even as it was, people around me kept saying, 'Just go back to doing visual effects,' which was mind of an insult to my films. So in the midst of that kind of uncertainty and anxiety, for a producer to say, 'I need your technical mastery' as opposed to my directorial mastery was very insulting."

By that point, I was wondering if the translator had her tongue as far into her cheek and Takashi's was in his own. "He was so obstinate and so persistent," the director continued, " and he had let me make two movies that I'd wanted to make, so I figured that it was about time that I owed him this one. So I made this film. And now that it's turned into such a monster hit, I feel kind of conflicted emotionally."

The good news for anyone shut out of last night's barnburner is that Always will re-screen July 1 at the Imaginasian. The bad news, of course, is that Takashi will have jetted back to Japan by that time, and you will be deprived the winning introduction recounting his hometown stardom and his parents' consideration of him as a "golden prince." But like I told you yesterday: Do not believe the hype--not even the directors'. This is about the movies.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 10:16 AM | TrackBack

June 14, 2006

Reeler Podcasts: Have Lunch With James Toback and Nicholas Jarecki

The latest Reeler podcasts are now available, featuring Nicholas Jarecki and James Toback discussing their partnership on the new documentary The Outsider. I listed a few highlights Monday, all of which pale (now that I have re-reviewed our chats) to Toback eating lunch in the listener's ear. But like so many of Toback's films, I am all about the new experience over any kind of staggering quality, so let us just do our best to deal with it and move on with our lives.

Listening tip: Bump up the volume by about 30 to 40 percent after the introductions; a mixing miscalculation left things a wee bit quiet. I promise it will be fixed for next time.

James Toback podcast -- June 8, 2006

Nicholas Jarecki podcast -- June 8, 2006

Posted by stvanairsdale at 11:32 AM | TrackBack

Hendrix and Co. Save New York with Fifth Annual NY Asian Film Festival

The New York film festival cycle has made one full revolution since I launched this godforesaken enterprise last summer, and in all of my recent reflection, I came up with only a handful of events impressive enough to get me anticipating their 2006 go-arounds. At or near the top of this list is the New York Asian Film Festival, an almost totally independent panoply of mainstream, alternative and experimental cinema from six countries, not to mention one of the best pure moviegoing experiences the city has to offer. Call me a shill, I do not care: The program is diverse, the crowds are always buzzing and, for the most part, the industry's Blackberry trolls stay away. It really is all about the films, an endangered species of emphasis in the pyrite age of Tribeca hype.

As such, The Reeler called up NYAFF co-founder and all-around swell guy Grady Hendrix to get the latest on this year's fest, which starts tonight with the North American premiere of the Japanese hit Always--Sunset on Third Street before blasting off in earnest Friday with a 15-day, 25-film vapor trail through Anthology Film Archives and the Imaginasian Theater. He noted that the slate is pared down a bit from last year's unwieldy 31-title collection, but not for a lack of good work; rather, he and his partners wanted some extra time to enjoy the excitement with everybody else.

So what, in particular, is Hendrix excited about in 2006?

--The violent Korean tandem A Bittersweet Life and Duelist: "We all love Bittersweet Life so much. Kim Ji-Won--whose Tale of Two Sisters came out last year? This is his sort of gangster/crime film, and it's absolutely great. It's absolutely phenomenal. There is that and Duelist, by Lee Myung-Se. We helped bring his movie Nowhere to Hide to the US about six years ago, and he's been a huge supporter of ours and has introduced us to a lot of people in Korea and really supported this festival. Showing his film is really a good thing for us, and we're psyched to do it."

--The outlandish Japanese epic Funky Forest: The First Contact: "It's the weirdest movie I've ever seen since Eraserhead. I don't know what it's about. I don't know if you know Dennis Dermody from Paper Magazine, but I ran into him recently and I'd given him a screener of it. And he totally came up to me--his eyes looked a little glazed--and he said, 'You know, I don't know what I watched. I don't know if I like it, I don't know if I don't like it. I have no idea what that was.' So that was nice to give Dennis pause. ... I don't even know if it's a movie. It's selling really well, and I don't know where people have heard about it, or what they've heard or anything. I imagine it might have something to do with the picture of the guy dresed in a yellow furry costume contemplating this young schoolgirl's navel."

--The series of films by Indian auteur Ram Gopal Varma: "He's an Indian director who is huge in India, but he doesn't make what people consider Bollywood movies. There are no musical numbers in his movies. We've been wanting to introduce his stuff to an American audience for a long time, and when they gave us the premiere of his latest film, Shiva, we were sort of like, 'Well, let's get some of his other ones and show people what he does.' Asian cinema used to have these really big directors; you'd have Tsui Hark or Johnnie To or someone like that who was very prolific, and they made genre movies and they were sort of a style all their own. And I think Ram Gopal Varma is someone like that, where he's doing his own thing. But they're genre movies, and it takes about five seconds to recognize one of his movies. It's such a distinctive style."

Ram Gopal Varma's Shiva, which will have its world premiere at the 2006 New York Asian Film Festival (Photos: Subway Cinema)

--The one-off world premiere of Jang Ju-Hwan's short film Hair: "A lot of these guys we've met and become friendly with, and a lot of these Korean directors have taken us under their wings, and he's one of them. He had loaned someone a copy of Hair, which he made with the star of Save the Green Planet last year, and we saw it unsubtitled. And we were like, 'We really want to show this, this would be really fun.' And he sort of said, 'Yeah, well, I guess.' And he subtitled it for us and sent it on. As far as I know, he doesn't have any plans for it elsewhere. I'm sure he'd be open to someone else showing it, but he really just gave it to us to show during this festival and return to him. So that was something that we're all really psyched about. Because when someone does something just for you, it makes you feel like a pretty princess."

And then there are the directors who are dropping by, including Always's Takashi Yamazaki, who will introduce tonight's screening at the Japan Society. (There would be even more guests, Hendrix said, if only a few of those big sponsorship dollars came through.) "People want to be here," he told me. "They like New York, and a lot of these guys really appreciate what we're doing with the festival. This isn't an industry event, where it's all about the parties and the press room and everything. This is really about the audience coming and watching movies. A lot of these directors, they want to make sales, they want to do all that stuff, but ultimately, they want to see what people think of their movie. ... And these guys, I think, are a little tired of the industry scene--going to Toronto and Cannes and all thse places. For them, it's kind of a vacation: They come to New York, they hang out for a few days. They all know each other, so they all go out drinking, and they come see the films with a New York audience. So it's fun for them."

And you--as long as you act early. Hendrix notes that some of the most anticipated screenings (Shiva, Umizaru 2 and Takashi Miike's fantasy film The Great Yokai War among others) are already approaching capacity, and I remember even last year's most fringe experimental works like Late Bloomer drawing healthy crowds to Anthology. Furthermore, only a fraction of these films will ever arrive in American theaters again, so if you are a format snob for whom Netflix is anathema, do not blow this chance. And do not forget to tip your cap Hendrix and the Subway Cinema gang for the opportunity.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 09:35 AM | TrackBack

June 13, 2006

Tag, You're Out: NYC Location Scouts' Parking Perks Revoked

AM New York's Chuck Bennett today has the "latest" on the troubles affecting New York's location scouts, whose liberal, city-sanctioned parking privileges will expire June 30--never to return. The news is kind of old--the Mayor's Office for Film, Theater and Broadcasting made the announcement May 23--but in case you wanted to hear location scouts bitching on the record, here you go:

While shooting permits that allow film crews to take over whole city blocks will not be affected, industry insiders say the change will make their jobs harder.

"It will change, on a nuts and bolts level, how we go about our job," said Dana Robin, a local production manager with 24 years' experience working on big studio flicks. "There is a significant uproar." ...

The surprise move to end the parking perks caught the local film industry by surprise.

"What am I to do? Get six parking tickets and send them to a producer?" said Gary Gasgarth, a film production teacher at the New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies. "At the very least, it is an annoyance and irritation that we don't need."

Funny--the communities where location scouts have been using their tags even in their off-hours have been saying the same thing. Check out the feverish debate on the AM New York message boards:

"Clogged in NY": many businesses in NYC håve the same problems with parking that location scouts for film have - why should the local businesses not get parking for free also? they pay taxes and NYC corporate costs and real estate taxes etc etc. This myth about the film industry being so special is hogwash.

"Don": As a [sic] "inside" member of the film community I can verify abuses of permits. "Location scouting" permits are fequently used as personal parking permits. I often have to answer to my neighbors why parking is reserved up to 48 hrs. in advance, "Law & Order" seems to get away with anything.

"Leah": Stop and think how much the city treasury has benefitted from just the Law & Order series compared to the unpaid parking tickets. Keep the productions going.

"Woody Allen": Having movies in NYC is a great thing

"Wiiliam": As a resident of the West Village I am completely and utterly fed up with one production after another taking over block after block and being told I can't walk down my own street because a shoot is in progress. All for another bland, cookie cutter movie. Everyone I speak to feels the same.

"Carmela": There's no such thing as too many movie productions in the city! Do you want them to go back to Toronto or in some L.A. back lots? Make up your mind! I LOVE to see the film crews all over the city and I'm sure many people share my sentiment. DON'T STOP!

Yeah, OK, Katherine Oliver "Carmela," thanks for writing. Speaking of K.O.., I called the mayor's film office today to ask how many scout-related complaints it had received; I was denied the numbers but helpfully informed that the city has no plans to reinstate the tags at any time after the end of the month. Of course, none of this addresses Chelsea's Ethan Hawke problem, but I am sure that is next on the list.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 03:36 PM | TrackBack

Fiennes, Edwards Lead the 'Blind' Once More in Tribeca

As I have mentioned before, the Tribeca Film Festival never really ends so much as it meanders for 355 days before exploding through the city over the other 10. Case in point: Last night at Tribeca Cinemas, senior programmer David Kwok showed up to introduce a screening of the 2006 TFF selection Land of the Blind, which opens Friday in New York. Actually, he introduced the film's writer/director Robert Edwards, who in turn introduced the capacity crowd to his star, Ralph Fiennes, who finally joined Edwards for a Q&A after the film. It felt like late April all over again: Hormones and hype to spare, but without the publicists, street-corner popcorn or the glut of shitty films.

Deja vu all over again: Land of the Blind director Robert Edwards (left) returns to Tribeca, this time with star Ralph Fiennes (Photo: STV)

"I won't say too much about the film, because I think it should speak for itself," Edwards told the crowd before the film. "This was my first fiction film, because I came out of documentary. And the only reason it got made was because of Ralph. He was the first actor we sent it to. When I signed with CAA, they said, 'Who do you want to be in your film?' I said, 'Wish list? Or realistically?' They said, 'Wish list. Anybody in the world.' And I said, 'How about Ralph Fiennes? ' And they said 'OK,' and they sent him the script.

"He read it and we met. He agreed to do it, and that is the only reason this film got made. And more than that, he stuck with it through three years of roller-coaster attempts to get it financed--false starts and dashed hopes. He didn't have to do that, and he didn't have to make this film. And he didn't have to do all the things that we made him do onscreen."

Like what, you ask? Oh, you know, just the typical actor abuse things: Shaved head, staged torture, bloody prosthetics... the list goes on. But what Fiennes did have to do for the film to have any chance theatrically was to excel, and he manages that as well. As Joe, a prison sentry guarding a playwright-turned-dissident (Donald Sutherland) in some anonymous fascistic state, Fiennes represents the sturdy moral order that long ago fled his nation's political crisis. Joe befriends Thorne over several years, gleaning a sense of patriotic duty more urgent and authentic than that of the despot (Tom Hollander) whose security detail he is eventually assigned to oversee.

After Thorne's release from prison, Joe opens the door (literally) for a coup d'etat that launches the insurgent to power. In the nightmare scenario that follows, however, the revolution erodes into another totalitarian ruse, and Joe faces his own violent stretch of prison for daring to resist. The themes here are nothing especially ground-breaking; you could choose to spot Marx, Castro or both in Sutherland's shaggy, demystified revolutionary, and despite Edwards's authorship of Land of the Blind before 9/11, viewers will no doubt equate the president's infantile bloodlust (he murders his father to ascend to the throne, natch) to a certain American analogue.

Edwards shares a moment on the Land of the Blind set with the new-look Donald Sutherland (Photo: Nick Wall)

Moreover, the film's wheedling attempts at satire strain and die in the shadows of its excellent lead performances. Fiennes and Sutherland share a half-dozen fine scenes here that make Land of the Blind easy to endorse, and Edwards's intense close-ups capture the nuance of each power transfer and each idea exchange that compose the bulk of Joe and Thorne's relationship. "I was I awe of Donald," Fiennes said after the film. "I really looked forward to working with him. They were wonderfully written scenes; they were a gift to actors, I think, and the relationship between them was great on the page. We seemed to find a rhythm together quite quickly, and we sparked off each other. ... As you can see, he has this extraordinary kind of fierce intelligence and latent energy in him, and he's very compelling to be in the room with. So the relationship fed itself, I think."

But a little too much of the director's other exposition occurs through unfunny newscasts pairing government platitudes with sitcom endorsements, or bizarre presidential advising sessions taking place everywhere from a bathroom to a minstrel show. That said, the film's flaws reflect its spectacular ambition as much as any of its technical attributes, from cinematographer Emmanuel Kadosh's saturated imagery to Ferne Perlestein's canny editing down to the costume and makeup design that elevates Lara Flynn Boyle to a spellbinding archetype resembling Cruella DeVille as first lady.

Even more impressively for an allegory (and documentary veteran Edwards's narrative film debut), Land of the Blind manages to get inside viewers' heads without inspiring von Trierian levels of self-loathing. That is not to say it will solve anything, but that is not its job. "Joe opens the door and allows a political assassination to happen, trying to do the right thing," Fiennes said. "What is the right thing? I mean, I think I ask that question of myself all the time, every newspaper I read: What is my role as a citizen in the world today? Do I just sit back and think, 'Oh, that's all happening over there? Do I get angry about Iraq? Do I get angry about Israel and Palestine? What do I do? I don't have any answers. I suppose a film like this might keep provoking the questions in all of us, and incrementally, we might make better choices."

Posted by stvanairsdale at 10:54 AM | TrackBack

June 12, 2006

Shameless Podcast Tease: Toback, Jarecki Talk 'The Outsider'

The Reeler passed through Tribeca last week to have a word with filmmakers Nicholas Jarecki and James Toback (right), the latter of whom is the featured subject of the former's new documentary The Outsider (opening Friday at Cinema Village). The good news is that our chats will make up the latest Reeler podcast once--and here is the bad news--they are finally finished.

Meanwhile, I have compiled a few of the key moments you have to look forward to:

TOBACK ON HIS SPRAWLING WEB OF FRIENDS: "When you go through the basement into the abyss--which is what happened when I flipped out on LSD when I was 19--when you lose yourself, you know how absurd it is to put unnatural walls up between you and the rest of humanity or society. And think, 'Well, who is this person?' Or, 'Who is that person?' You have an ongoing awareness of the interconnectedness of humanity, and that you could connect just as easily with some stranger on the street in five seconds as someone you've know your whole life. You don't need the formailty of structural introduction and all that in order to move through life, because you've been stripped of your own illusions of self."

JARECKI ON DISCOVERING (AND SHARING) THE TOBACK COSMOPOLIS: "I certainly was not a part of that world when I started. I got sucked into it. I rememeber one of the first things I read was when Jim kept a diary--for a film journal called Projections--of a year of his life when he was trying to make Harvard Man. ... It was like, basically, he was walking down the street, and then he'd give a homeless guy a quarter, and then all of the sudden Woody Allen would walk around the corner and be like, 'Toback!' And then he'd grab a coffee and go home and Robert Downey Jr. would call. And I was like, 'Who the hell lives like this?' "

TOBACK ON NOT COMPROMISING: "It never occurred to me to second guess my own instincts, taste or judgment. And when I would watch friends of mine who were not only second-guessing themselves, but flipping on anything from a team they rooted for in sports to a movie they would see to a person they would like and then, all of the sudden, dislike because two friends of theirs disliked the person. It never, from the time I can remember, occurred to me to change my opinion because someone else thought I should, or someone told me to, or I knew that I was supposed to in some vague way."

TOBACK ON DIRECTING BOTH KLAUS AND NASTASSJA KINSKI: "I have to say, it was quite a trick of personality ... to connect with both of them when they were at such profound odds--more Nastassja aganst Klaus than vice versa. Klaus always wanted a sort of rapprochement, if only on his terms. Nastassja had a real rage towards him. In fact, I always told her that she should get close with him, becaue if he died, she would realize that it was too late and she would wish that she had. And I said, 'You should find a way of getting over what you're feeling and reconnect with him in some way, because the first thought you have after he dies will be "I wish I had." ' And the first time I saw her after he died, she said, 'You were wrong.' "

Of course, Toback's responses are even more stirring when they include sound of him consuming his lunch while he talks. Unfortunately, my software does not have a filter for "chewed food"--like I'd use it anyway. The keyword is "endearing," and if you don't believe me, come back later this week to hear for yourself. The tape does not lie.

(Photo: Green Room Films)

Posted by stvanairsdale at 04:07 PM | TrackBack

Stiff Orbison, Hip-Hop by the Yard: Jim Jarmusch Chimes in About Movie Music

Here is to The Guardian's Laura Barton, who used the occasion of London's National Film Theatre screening Year of the Horse to corner director Jim Jarmusch about his favorite and least favorite uses of music in film:

He was less enamoured by Fastest Guitar Alive, which starred Roy Orbison. "He's very stiff. It's a predictable movie. Not a good movie." And dismisses also the popular trend for biopics such as Walk the Line and Ray. "I have an aversion to biopics in general. The Johnny Cash movie was well done but I couldn't get inside of it because it wasn't Johnny Cash and I'm a Johnny Cash fan." He then swoops back to Scorsese, whom he lauds for his use of songs such as Cream's "The Sunshine of Your Love" in Goodfellas, and the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" in Mean Streets. "It works because the music doesn't seem tacked on," he explains. "So often, music in films seems like wallpaper bought by the yard. Yunno, 'Give me 10 yards of hip-hop.'"

Or, you know, "Give me 10 yards of lo-fi quirk," a la Broken Flowers. Or, "Give me 10 yards of Neil Young droning," a la Dead Man. At least the 500 cubic yards in Year of the Horse is the movie, but stiff performance or not, I will take The Fastest Guitar Alive's title track over anything in a Jim Jarmusch film. I mean, what contemporary rock slouch will ever outdo Orbison crooning, "I play a boss guitar" before whacking people with it?

Of course, Jarmusch knows this in his heart--or at least he did back in 1992, when he confessed to The Fastest Guitar Alive being one of many guilty pleasures about which he refused to actually be guilty:

The Fastest Guitar Alive (1967): This film I should feel guilty about, because it’s really a bad film. Roy Orbison’s only movie - he did the soundtrack songs; I even own the soundtrack! I found it in some secondhand store. In the movie Roy’s got his shotgun concealed inside his guitar and it’s really ridiculous, but it’s the only Roy Orbison vehicle and I like Roy Orbison a lot. There’s a memorable scene where he uses his gun in his guitar to rescue the dancing Chestnut Sisters.

Exactly! All of which is my way of saying... well, nothing, I guess. Give the dead blind guy a break. Or something.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 01:47 PM | TrackBack

Rosie Perez Unleashes 'Boricua' Culture, Pride on IFC

I usually do not have to go down to Fifth Avenue for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade because eventually--for whatever reason--the parade comes right to the stoop of The Reeler's Upper East Side headquarters. The only problem with this year's 87th Street celebrants (besides the garbage they left scattered around the sidewalk) was that they did not bring grand marshals Mark Anthony and Jennifer Lopez with them; I have been wanting to ask J. Lo about Bordertown for, like, ever.

Missing actress/producer Rosie Perez was not as heartbreaking, however, because she and I had already chatted last week about Yo Soy Boriqua, Pa'que Tu Lo Sepas (I'm Boricua, Just So You Know), her new documentary that premiered at Tribeca and makes its TV debut on IFC tonight at 9. Co-directed by Perez and doc veteran Liz Garbus, Boricua intercuts the history of Puerto Ricans in America with the sources of Perez's own ebullient ethnic pride: awareness crusades, protests and a succession of geneological revelations that take her from Brooklyn to Miami to Puerto Rico itself. There, Perez touches on controversies including decades of forced sterilzation of Puerto Rican women and bombing in Vieques. In New York, she recounts her first arrest as a protestor and supplies background on the radical Puerto Rican political group of the '60s, the Young Lords.

But even with such old hands as Garbus and Rory Kennedy on board, Boricua struggles to find the right balance of giddiness and gravity. She admits that tracing her lineage--however informally--was not a part of her original plan. "Hell, no," Perez said to her partners, both of whom were expecting children early on during production and who encouraged Perez to be a character in her film. "Y'all are hormonal and pregnant."

Obviously, Perez came around.

"Liz was very, very respectful, because I told her I'm not ready to tell my whole story, and I only want to tell the part of my story that's specific to the documentary," she told The Reeler. "And I said if anybody pushes me further, than I think we're really going to have a problem. And she was like, 'Got it.' Then she goes, 'I'm not here to do an expose on you,' and she goes, 'and quite honestly, Rosie, those are not the films I make.' OK! So it was great to have her there because she totally respected that. And even when one of the co-producers was pushing too much, she fired him. That was great, great company to be in: Rory and Liz. They were very protective."

Ultimately, Perez said, the trickle of family background into her narrative accelerated into a wider stream. "I was discovering people I never met before," she said. "And I thought I was going to tell my family about something they didn't know. But the other family was like, 'Oh, yeah, we know that story. Yeah, yeah, we know about it. Our great-great-grandfather was all over the island in regards to the women. You probably have more half-brothers and sisters or half-cousins than you know about.' I was like, 'My God.' And then when I told my family that I was doing the documentary, and I was coming down to Miami to interview them, they were like, 'Well, cousin So-and-So wants to be in it.' I go, 'Who is that?' And then it started. And even after the documentary, I'm discovering family members now."

But the doctors, novelists, women's-rights crusaders and others do not pack near as much punch as her indignance about Puerto Rico's status as a US commonwealth, in which its residents pay taxes and go to war but have no voting rights. Then there are the portrayals of Puerto Ricans in cinema: "Saving Private Ryan--where are all the Puerto Ricans?" Her father and uncle served in World War II.) Or how about Gone With the Wind? "It drives me crazy," she said. "Puerto Ricans were all over the South. Where the hell do you think yams came from?"

I knew there was an explanation. At any rate, if you, too, missed yesterday's parade, Boricua offers a glimpse that should hold you over until next year--or at least until the Reeler HQ afterparty kicks off some time in the afternoon. As Perez herself would cheerfully tell you, everyone is always invited.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 10:01 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

June 09, 2006

Screening Gotham Will Return Next Week

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The Year That Was: Life Lessons From The Reeler

Through kind of a backward set of circumstances, it occurred to me earlier this week that The Reeler is a year old. Now, I do not know about you, but I am a big fan of anniversaries. I tend to remember events by their years and dates as much as (if not more than, especially as I get older) their substance, and the consideration of specific moments that stand out for commemoration's sake has always felt like a sort of bittersweet mourning. As Johnny Thunders said, "You can't put your arms around a memory--don't try."

Well, fuck that, because if you have no future, you might as well embrace the past. So join me in looking back over some of the ass-bruising lessons that we have shared since The Reeler's debut on June 7, 2005:

--I owe everything to David Carr.

In what reads today like a fairly shrill bit of indignation, I first took to the blogosphere to protest David Carr's groaningly obvious May 12, 2005 Times piece about the New York film industry. While I must acknowledge now that Carr's "guidebook New York cinema" and "condescending bone-throw" was probably about as micro as Times readers would be willing to deal with, I nevertheless decided that New York filmgoers and filmmakers might appreciate a more specialized encampment in the new media landscape. Blogger was free and easy, so I set up an account, gave my notice at the Daily News and have been chained to this fucking computer pretty much non-stop since then.

I have since achieved an easygoing rapprochement with the Father of The Reeler, who undertook his own Carpetbagger blog last fall to lavish more edifying insights about the awards season blitz. His Monday columns continue to irk me in many ways, but you try staying mad at a Times culture writer who dares to actually hit the streets and who shares reporting duties with a guy named Mr. Spoon. It is not as easy as you think.

--There is no more benevolent force in New York cinema than Harvey Weinstein.

I remember exactly when I latched onto Harvey Weinstein: It was the moment he dropped by IFC Center's grand opening only to flee in terror from projectionists union picket line he briefly crossed with such adorable, pale-faced anguish. Mythology had taught me that the guy liked having it both ways (he admitted as much as to me as recently as last Sunday), but seeing him hedge in person just confirmed his legend.

And who can forget when he and brother Bob packed up the car and headed off to the new office on Hudson Street? Or when they picked up the drink tab for a few hundred sniffly, shitfaced staffers as the sun rose on The Weinstein Company? Or when they upstaged Vanity Fair's nude Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley with their own makeover at the hands of Tom Ford? Or when Harvey established himself as the law of the land--much like the Supreme Court did with its 1810 Marbury vs. Madison decision--when it came to whether or not Matt Damon would fuck Samantha Morton?

Indeed, The Reeler recognized early on that this guy's heart is bigger than his head--and I think we can agree that is a massive fucking heart.

--Nothing trumps the bloody-kitten defense.

That was the hard lesson Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter learned last summer after his magazine's stinging libel-trial loss to Roman Polanski. As you know, my scorecard reflected an easy victory for VF, but Mia Farrow and those damned bloody kittens are always interfering with justice.

The clear winner in all of this, of course, is Elaine Kaufman, the Upper East Side restaurateur whose legendary establishment can go back to being a garden-variety drunk-celeb hotspot without shouldering the burden of Polanski's testoster-rific sexual indiscretions. Now if only she could get the smell of Norman Mailer's vomit out of the men's room, life would be grand.

More reflections after the jump.

--IFC Center and The Reeler: Best Friends Forever

This blog enjoyed the uncanny luck of launching right around the same time as IFC Center, the sleek, carefully conceived theatrical endeavor that would tighten the IFC brand's synergy and bring obscure indie fare to a Village audience for which Film Forum, Cinema Village, Village East, the Pioneer and the Angelika were no longer cutting it. Or something.

At any rate, the IFC Center beat proved marvelously engaging from the start: I had James Toback scarfing hors d'oeuvres and Naomi Watts literally disappearing from the star-studded gala opening; Miranda July premiering Me and You and Everyone We Know to a befuddled crowd that scored free tickets from Nerve; free lunch on opening day; and a labor saga that metastasized from Sixth Avenue to Lower Manhattan and even Albany before it was all over.

Things have calmed down considerably since then, even to the point where theater boss John Vanco and I could share a halting, uneasy conversation on one early-morning bus ride at the Sundance Film Festival. But the programming is fine, and events like the doc series Stranger Than Fiction and video chats with directors Lars von Trier and Hou Hsiao-Hsien might yet carve out that neighborhood niche IFC had in mind. Or maybe, considering this weird fraternal-twin symbiosis of ours, I should hope the joint stays open.

--People love celebrities. People love lunchboxes. So give them celebrities and lunchboxes.

Really, this should surprise nobody.

--If Oscar season does not kill me, the Oscars themselves will.

I sensed the horror on the horizon last fall when Movie City News's Oscar handicapping survey, The Gurus o' Gold, started tallying Best Picture votes for films its participating critics had not even seen. Four months later, after making a few local awards-show concessions (the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review, etc), I met my Oscar-night doom alongside some lady named Famke and a bunch of other anonymous revelers at a New York Magazine party in the West Village.

Following Crash's Best Picture victory, I sobbed pure streams of red wine all the way home, reminding myself from the cold steel of the subway tracks where I lay waiting for the train that, yes, yes, I had something to live for. That "something" only turned out to be this year's crop of Oscar live blogs, which actually drove me back to the subway tracks. But some other Oscar mourner had evidently offed himself downtown and the 4, 5 and 6 trains had stopped service in both directions. Just my luck.

--Every day in New York has a full moon.

I had hardly accepted indieWIRE's invitation to join its blog network in July when The Reeler got its first real taste of insanity. It came from Michael Isbell, the Ain't it Cool News "critic" (a k a Sheldrake) who went to Daily News gossip Joanna Molloy to bitch about losing his girlfriend to a French media mogul. One angry letter, one hallucination and one firing (and eventual reinstatement) later, Isbell was a permanent fixture in Reeler folklore. I hear he is rebounding nicely, occasionally hitting on women at press screenings and scoring a "Manologue" last winter that may propel him to off-off-off-off-off-Broadway stardom.

The blog hit its padded-room nadir in October, however, when a pair of anti-Hanson rants drew the wrath of the band's four or five dozen fans. Was I too hard on the boys? Maybe I am the one who is whacked out, or least physically impaired: "In my opinion (and you are also intitled [sic] to yours) there must be something wrong with your ears," one commenter wrote. Fuck. I knew it.

--New York is the best thing about the Sundance Film Festival.

Although technically, if we consider Quinceañera's jury and audience prizes this year, New York had an Achilles heel. That said, Brooklyn's Chris Quinn ran off with a pair of awards for his documentary God Grew Tired of Us, and fellow New Yorkers Carter Smith (Bugcrush), So Yong Kim (In Between Days), Dito Montiel (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints) and Hilary Brougher (Stephanie Daley) claimed hardware of their own. And last month, Sundance's NYC connection went bidirectional with its wildly successful 10-day takeover of BAM.

And while it is easy to hate on all the ads and swag and hype, I would not trade my experience covering the festival for anything. The bottom line is that the right films and filmmakers were recognized in 2006: Ours.

--Top 10 lists are as American as Mom and apple pie. That is, if your Mom is in a coma and the pie is overcooked.

Finally, I would not want anybody to think for a second that I do not cherish the value of critics' year-end top 10 lists. Like Bumfights or Jackass, their guilty pleasures yield near-limitless supplies of entertainment at negligible cost to readers. This was the premise behind The Reeler's Top 10 Lists of Top 10 Lists, which I compiled earlier this year after relocating to Movie City News and which earned me many new friends in the critical community. It was a great way to start 2006, as I hope these lessons represent a great way to start the second year of The Reeler. It is all downhill--more like driving off a cliff--from here.

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June 08, 2006

Grand Theft: Stunning Streep and Tomlin Steal 'Prairie Home Companion'

It's the singers, not the song: Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep and Lindsay Lohan in A Prairie Home Companion (Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon)

The Reeler caught up a few days ago with Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, who were making the New York rounds in support of their Robert Altman collaboration A Prairie Home Companion (opening Friday). "Brilliant" does not begin to describe their work as the film's singing sisters Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson, who join an ensemble of cast and crew roaming in and out of an episode of Garrison Keillor's long-running radio series. Joined by inept detective-cum-doorman-cum-narrator Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) and a fetching angel of Death (Virginia Madsen) who haunts the theater and its inhabitants, the entertainers share a moment they do not know is their last, a finality preordained in the long trajectory of corporate and cultural ambivalence.

That said, Prairie rejects mortality and bathos in exchange for a kind of impromptu dress eulogy--a full-hearted lament for something at the threshhold of a better residence in the cosmos. Altman being Altman, he indulges his typical pretentions (that floating camera his apologists love to praise feels less and less like a signature than it does a smudge) and often allows actors just enough rope to hang themselves (rambling duo Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly in particular). Oh, and some girl named Lohan appears as Streep's disillusioned teenage daughter, and as delightful as she is, she wields an almost unbearably strong screen presence for a 19-year-old. It provides the near-perfect balance in her languid, lovely scene with Streep and Tomlin in their Fitzgerald Theater dressing room; most other times, even in her silence, she virtually overpowers the frame.

Streep and Tomlin, though. Streep and Tomlin, maddeningly cool genius, the (literally) pitch-perfect syntheses of talent and imagination. Yammering, harmonzing and shuffling around the Fitzgerald, legends who couldn't care less about legend unless they are talking about their director, whom Streep had admired from a creative distance throughout the decades Tomlin dug into his troupe.

"Lily just said, 'Oh, you're going to love him,' " Streep told me. "And that was true. I knew that from everything I'd seen and everything I'd read, and I'd always wanted to work with him because of this way that he has of sort of opening the doors to actors." She turned to Tomlin. "You know how a lot of the directors don't like the actors to stand around the monitor?"

"No!" Tomlin said.

"They think you're lurking--"

"They do," Tomlin admitted, frowning. "It's like the old Hitchcock point of view. We're like cattle. Well--"

"Well--" Streep said.

"That's not really true of most directors," Tomlin continued. "They just don't want you to interfere. I think they're afraid they'll get derailed or something."

"Yes, they get derailed by too many opinions," Streep said.

"And actors definitely have opinions," Tomlin said.

"Altman would be back there and he'd say, 'Where is everybody? Where the hell is everybody?' " Streep said. "And then we'd all come, and then we could stand around the monitor and chat. And offer up our ideas. And he loves it."

"And he's totally unflappable about it--"

"Totally in control--"

"If he likes it, he really likes it. He doesn't really tell you at the moment if he likes it--"

"No. No. 'Well, that was adequate,' he says--"

"He's just there and he listens."

Yeah, well--Streep and Tomlin. You would be crazy not to listen. And at least for one film, with its maker's humane tandem of flaws and flourishes, you would be crazy to think you have a choice.

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Treading Water at the Movies with the NY Press

I have not had a lot of motivation to pick up a copy of the New York Press since its owners and advertisers ritualistically eviscerated it last year. I still slog through Armond White's reviews when I can, and I frequently pray for a better berth for Matt Zoller Seitz. That was about the extent of my last four or five months' involvement with the paper before yesterday, when Bryce Dallas Howard's blank, mannequin face somehow enticed me to grab the Press's Film Issue from the lonely, scuffed green plastic stand down the street.

And I guess I am glad I did: Jim Knipfel's recollection of his old film critic aspirations is an enjoyable enough read ("Godfrey [Cheshire] was very good at what he did, but the impression I got was that they wanted someone a little more lowbrow."), and Jennifer Merin does the best she can with her profile of the catatonia-inducing Howard and a relatively old-news survey of experimental distribution models (though she overlooks relatively conspicuous quasi-DIY schemes like Truly Indie). Elsewhere, Jerry Portwood fluffs up Amy Sedaris while Tony Dokoupil bores everybody by capitulating to Jon Voight's publicist over the issue of Brangelina.

The Press avoids its usual surfeit of house ads by asking a handful of New York Z-listers to supply their top five movies of all time (Flannel Pajamas got a vote! From a pornographer!), and John DeSio offers a mildly stirring call to action for a cinema renaissance in the Bronx. Meanwhile, you have to read allllllll the way down to the very end of Andrea Janes's essay about the grueling racket of film internships before getting to the best part: "Think about it the next time you’re trudging out the door at 7 a.m., and make sure that, wherever you’re going, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be." Amen to that.

But speaking of saving the best for last, I have got to give it up to Armond White, whose brain chemistry is calibrated just well enough this week to qualify his Prairie Home Companion rave in clear, classy English:

It’s ... a one-movie (Robert) Altman film festival. Everything here has been seen before--in Countdown, Brewster McCloud, Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, The Company, Health, Popeye, etc.--but the tone is different. It is metaphysical and elegiac. Some musical numbers match what Jonathan Demme achieved in Neil Young: Heart of Gold; the songs comment on the “drama” while the performers’ faces and composure show life’s lessons. Every Tomlin-Streep scene is a duet; their whirling medleys of regrets and ambitions become the film’s high points but are consistent with its sharp details and noble rhythm. Don’t make the mistake of calling Prairie Altman’s swan-song ... it is a preview of everyone’s.

Although I could not have said it better myself, I soon felt like I missed the old Armond. But thank God for Cars:

Pixar’s all about American product. Sure, the snub-nosed vehicles are cute, turning the screen into the largest-ever model car collection, but so what? Lasseter’s vistas of toy-car characters in a desert landscape suggest excitement for Western expansionism and 20th century ingenuity, yet teach nothing about today’s capitalist-imperialist hysteria. It’s unearned nostalgia.

Perfect! Now that is a New York Press film issue.

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Lone Star Swindle: De Niro Ships Film Papers and Memorabilia to Texas

So today there is good news and bad news: The good news is that you will soon be able to rummage through a career-spanning collection of Robert De Niro's personal effects as though you were his maid. The bad news is that you have to go all the way to Austin to do it. That is because the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas scored another one of its "fuck-New-York" coups this week, adding artifacts like the two-time Oscar winner's shooting script for Raging Bull or his chauffer's license from Taxi Driver to a collection that already includes Ernest Lehman's screenplay drafts for Sweet Smell of Success and the complete papers of novelist Don DeLillo.

Look, I could not care less about the Ransom Center's ambition to become the Planet Hollywood of humanities, but you tell me if this turf incursion has not officially gone too far:

The paper portion of the collection, more than 100 boxes, has considerable research value. It includes scripts and books with handwritten notations, correspondence with film notables such as Martin Scorsese and Elia Kazan, background research and the notebooks De Niro kept of his films, all showing the evolution from text to moving image.

The costume portion of the collection also includes more than 3,000 individual costume items, props from many of De Niro's films and a full body cast used in the 1994 production of Frankenstein.

"One of the most important things about the Harry Ransom Center is that the material will be accessible to students and the public," said De Niro. "Ultimately, that's what it's all about."

Exactly, Bob--it is all about the 1,800-mile trip to check out your letters to Marty. And while I know Grace has been bugging you to get the Frankenstein full body cast out of the living room, was there no nearer, climate-controlled institution for you to dump this shit? Say, Queens? New Jersey? Even Arkansas is closer than goddamned Austin, Texas, and they could use the culture. Is it too late to reconsider?

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June 07, 2006

Altman's NYC Tour Scuttled; Moving Image Welcomes Madsen Instead

New Yorkers who gleefully grabbed and ran with Robert Altman's statement at the Oscars that he had the heart of a 30-year-old are this week begrudging his 81-year-old lungs. After doctor's orders kept the flu-ridden filmmaker from attending A Prairie Home Companion's NYC premiere Sunday night, the same crummy luck has forced the Museum of the Moving Image to replace Altman with Virginia Madsen during tomorrow's post-screening discussion of Companion.

Meanwhile, next week's Altman appearance at the Pioneer Theater is also off; as I am sure you know, he was scheduled to screen and discuss a few of his exceedingly rare early short films on June 13. Do not fear, however; the theater is making refunds and expects to reschedule the program when Altman can again get on a plane without worrying about his medication. Sooner than later, we can only hope.

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Jerry Knows Jack: Lewis's Lost Film Linked to Lawless Lobbyist

It is a good week to be Jerry Lewis. Think about it: The Friars Club will roast the poor bastard for the third time in his life tomorrow night at the New York Hilton; he has the green light to rework his 1963 benchmark The Nutty Professor into a stage musical; and none other than my good friend Lawrence Levi (a k a Looker) has connected the dots between Lewis and noted GOP felon Jack Abramoff.

Or perhaps more accurately, he has connected Abramoff to Lewis's notorious The Day the Clown Cried, the unfinished Holocaust clown saga that ranks among the most mythologized "lost" works in the history of cinema. It's a long story that Levi took great pains to research and articulate, so I'll defer to him rather than reprint long chunks here. Let it suffice to say that the Clown legend is that much more enriched for Levi's efforts, which culminate in a showdown with an Abramoff ally that you really have to read to believe:

He replied to nearly all my questions by inquiring if I had fully explored the ethical ramifications of what I was asking. (He now teaches ethics and theology at Loyola Marymount University, and wouldn't let me forget it.)

So now I guess only one question remains: Who wants to notify the Friars Club?

(Photo: Subterranean Cinema; "Illustration": STV)

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Nair Premiering 'Namesake' This Fall at Indo-American Film Festival

The Indo-American Arts Council just slipped a note under the door saying that Mira Nair's The Namesake will receive its New York premiere Nov. 1 as the opening-night selection of the IAAC Film Festival. Fox Searchlight already had a Nov 3. release date slated for the film, which traces the culture clashes and emotional evolution that follow an Indian family's settling in New York.

In lieu of other festival titles or programming information (it is only June 7, after all) organizers are dropping plenty of names tentatively attached to the Ziegfeld Theater screening and gala dinner that follows: Nair (above, with actor Kal Penn) is probably a safe bet to attend, while source novelist Jhumpa Lahiri, Salman Rushdie and actress Padma Lakshmi are penciled in as well. I cannot guarantee I will stay up on the booking of boldface names, but rest assured that I will pass along the full list of selections as they trickle in--like, four months from now. I mean, they are still accepting feature submissions, for Christ's sake. Just hang in there.

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Slant Puts NYC's Human Rights Watch Festival on the Map

Were it not for a freelance assignment that feels like a human rights violation of its own at times, you can bet I would be all over the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, which kicks off its 17th annual incarnation tomorrow at Lincoln Center. In my stead, however, please let me direct you to Slant Magazine, which features a pleasant-enough festival overview before delivering readers a full-blown interactive map detailing each the event's 24 films and their origins.

Ethiopian laborers spill the beans in Nick Francis and Marc Francis's coffee-meets-globalization doc Black Gold, playing this week at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (Photo: HRWIFF)

Huge kudos to Slant guru Ed Gonzalez and his colleagues Jeremiah Kipp and Fernando Croce for taking this on; while I must acknowledge their praise of overrated quasi-docs Iraq in Fragments and The Road to Guantanamo with a grain of salt, I also must applaud their comprehensive, modest and tasteful attempt at bringing the festival to their readers. God knows I hate to endure wordy, tired, self-righteous screeds if I do not have to.

Oh, which reminds me: Michael Atkinson appears to dig the festival as well, characterizing it as "the most thematically vital" in New York. I guess I've got no quibbles with that, nor with his own merciless assessment of Iraq in Fragments. To wit:

Extraordinarily beautiful footage of life in three Iraqi regions is edited within an inch of Disney's Living Desert horseshit; hardly a minute of Longley's film goes by without a cheap narrative-building suture between two mutually exclusive moments, destroying his movie's sense of veracity in the process. (That it strategically climaxes with Kurds singing the praises of the occupying army is another thorn in the eye.) So of course it won three prizes at Sundance, where audiences are yet learning about cinematic syntax versus the possibility of truthfulness.

OK, OK--be patient, Michael. I swear that "syntax vs. truthfulness" was right below "finding a parking place" on most to-do lists I saw in Park City. They are getting there.

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June 06, 2006

Kerrigan, 'Keane' Podcast Now Available for Your Listening Pleasure

Thanks so much for your patience as my anxious, tearful struggles to embrace new technology have finally yielded the first-ever Reeler podcast, featuring Keane writer/director Lodge Kerrigan. I guess that it is not technically a podcast since you cannot download it yet, but I am working on it. At any rate, your boss should not care if you listen at the office, so crank it.

The 30-minute chat includes the panel-ish discussion between me, Kerrigan and my bloggy collleagues Karina Longworth and Lawrence Levi that followed last week's well-received screening of Keane; a spirited Q&A is in there as well. For the most part, we achieved a respectable sound quality, although we did experience a mic shortage that might require you to bump up the voulme to hear the majoriity of audience inquiries.

And lest you think those lulls suggest the crowd was not engaged, check out this distribution memo an attendee went home and threw together for her bosses at New Yorker Films (and then quite brilliantly uploaded to MySpace):

The Proposal:

I propose that New Yorker Films/MHE offer Lodge Kerrigan a ... "tenured" position with the company. This would be a guarantee to distribute 6 completed films of his over a similar timeline, in the same manner as the Magnolia /Cuban / Wagner/ HDNet/2929 Entertainment has agreed to do with (Steven) Soderbergh's films, with one catch. The films will not be in HD, they will be either video or film.

The Action Plan:

The first step is to propose the idea to Mr. Kerrigan.

The second step, if he is in agreement is to have a meeting with the Magnolia/Cuban/Wagner/HDNet/2929 Entertainment collective and let them know our plan and see how they would like to work with us.

The third step is to let the battle of the two geniuses, Mr. Soderbergh and Mr. Kerrigan (one's the father, the other's the underdog), begin.

Great idea--but only if they let me podcast it.

LINK: Lodge Kerrigan at the Pioneer Theater--May 30, 2006

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June 05, 2006

'Are You German?': The Reeler Spends a Night With the Weinsteins

Do you want to know why I love Harvey Weinstein? Perfect example: Last night, he and his brother Bob essentially represented the headline act at The Times's Sunday with the Magazine speaker series at the CUNY Graduate Center. Madeleine Albright, Karl Lagerfeld, Howard Dean and a bunch of boldface others did their own routines with Times Magazine editors and writers, but only the Weinsteins had the juice and authority to close the day-long event with the last word. Or maybe it was a scheduling necessity. I do not know.

My good camera is in the shop: Harvey and Bob Weinstein leave it all on the stage during their sold-out speaking engagement Sunday night (Photos: STV)

But that is not the reason why I love Harvey. Rather, it was the girl, the one with the Teutonic accent who asked the brothers during the audience Q&A: How do you work together? How you get on? Do you see a lot of each other? How often do you talk?

Bob replied with some answer or another, after which Harvey asked the girl, "Are you German?"

"Yes," she said.

"I thought so," Weinstein said. "I could tell from the interrogation."

Two hundred groans later, Harvey had reaffirmed his virile, shameless mogul power in my heart. After all, the preceding discussion, moderated by a thoroughly uninformed Lynn Hirschberg ("Did you have the cast for Pulp Fiction when you bought the property?") and introduced with a five- or six-minute montage of almost every Miramax movie ever made (and, notably, not a single Weinstein Company picture), had inspired an unnerving ambivalence in me and at least a few of my neighbors. I mean, doesn't everybody know the brothers fell in love with foreign film during their horny adolescence, when they checked out The 400 Blows thinking it was a porn film? And must we revisit the marketing strategy behind The English Patient again?

There were some payoffs, I suppose, including Harvey explaining how the roots of The Crying Game's marketing campaign spidered down into his outrage over a gaybashing incident in San Diego. "They'd think it's a mystery; they'd think it's a film noir," he said, referring to the homophobes he wanted to shock. "They'd walk in and they get their brains rearranged. I was pissed off about the incident. So out of that came the famous 'don't tell the secret.'

"About four weeks into it," Harvey continued, "the movie's working brilliantly. Everything is going great. Audiences are loving it. Nobody is giving away the secret. Time Magazine, in their infinite wisdom--Walter Isaacson, whom I still love, was the editor of the magazine--and Richard Corliss called and said, 'We're going to give it away this week.' "

"But why?" Hirschberg said. "Why, why, why?"

"Because they said that everybody knows," Harvey answered. "I said, 'Everybody knows?' He said, 'Look, we've all seen the movies in screening rooms.' That was the stopper. Screening rooms? I said, 'Wait a minute. There are movie theaters out there.' I'd think back to the early days of taking The Secret Policeman's Other Ball all around the country. You know: Us going and visiting, seeing what the movie theater looked like in Pittsburgh, in Iowa, in Nebraska and being there. This whole Manhattan elite, 'Oh, screening rooms'? OK

"So we said to them, 'They don't. They don't know it.' 'No, they all know it.' 'They don't know it, and they don't want to know it.' So finally the only way to convince them--this was a Thursday--was that on Friday and Saturday, we commissioned a Gallup Poll. It cost us $100,000 to find out if Time Magazine's readers wanted to know the secret of The Crying Game. And 97 percent of their readers said they don't want to know."

"Really?" Hirschberg said.

"Yeah," Harvey said. "That stopped it. I called Walter and said, 'Here's proof. Your instincts are completely wrong. So he did it as an anagram."

"He did it as an anagram?" Hirschberg said.

"Yeah," Harvey said. "In the article. You've gotta be Dan Brown to figure it out."

Such anecdotes made up the majority of the chat. Another highlight occurred when an incredulous Bob recounted Harvey calling wanting to buy My Left Foot, while Harvey recalled Bob phoning from Toronto wanting to buy The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Half the crowd had walked out of Peter Greenaway's sex-and-death opus by the midway point, Bob said, and more than a few who stayed to the end told him they hated it. But for such canny capitalists, the potential was unmistakable.

"Art and a little sex, we find, go a long way," Bob said. "It comes from the 400 Blows days."

"Isn't it basically Helen Mirren doing strange things?" Hirschberg asked.

"Well, there's cannibalism in the movie," Bob said. "Some child abuse. But artistic, you know?"

Jump forward to the film's opening day in New York, when viewers streamed out of the theater told those waiting on line to skip it. The film was depraved and vile, they warned, and nobody should see it. But it only made the crowd outside more resolute to give the film a shot. "They're paying to see it for themselves," Harvey said.

"And that was your campaign?" Hirschberg asked.

"And that was our campaign," Harvey replied. "And it worked. We made $7 or $8 million on people absolutely being told, 'Do not fucking see this movie.' "

Naturally, this being a Times-sponsored event, I thought I should keep the Q&A topical by invoking another hero of mine, Caryn James. A few months back, you might remember, James saddled up her seeing-eye dog for a ramble through the Weinstein Company's decidedly safe slate of films, only a smattering of which bore any resemblance to the edgy Miramax fare of decades past. "Well, I think you've got to do a head count," Harvey told me. "You've got to have a healthy balance. I don't think anybody would say that Transamerica would be an easy sell, and yet it turned out to be quite successful. So if you want to give us 'edgy' points, we'll take them on Transamerica, or even The Matador was something we thought was pushing forward. But there's always going to be a Miss Potter, because we like those movies, and the audiences like Mrs. Henderson Presents, and we're fans of that very literate kind of movie that England does so well and that we try to do well with England. But for every one of those, there's also Chronicles of an Escape, an Argentinian movie that's about as tough a movie as anybody's going to see--certainly as tough as City of God. You watch that, and it's tough to make it through that first hour. But the second hour is pure elation. It's about as tough as anything you're going to see this year from anybody. We'll continue to mix it up, which is the best thing we can do."

Of course, the difference between Miramax-edgy and TWC-edgy is that TWC-edgy has thus far been analogous to "loose stool," Felicity Huffman's sublime work in Transamerica notwithstanding. The bulk of the Weinsteins' foreign-film investment thus far is tied up in Asian genre pictures, not heirs to the mantle of, say, Kieslowski, whose Three Colors trilogy they distributed in 1993-94. But as always, I am with Harvey; do not forget (not that he will let you) that he could not have raised $1 billion in funding if his taste was anything less than impeccable. Just do not apply that standard to Doogal or Samantha Morton. Or, you know, German chicks.

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June 02, 2006

Screening Gotham--June 2-4, 2006

A few of this weekend's worthwhile cinematic happenings around New York:

--As you may or may not know, Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien has been the name on the tip of every New York cineaste's tongue for a while now. His acclaimed film Three Times (right) is one of his few works to receive a Stateside theatrical run, and a whole other class of snobs gets off on the social glow that supposedly attends dropping and correctly pronouncing his name in conversation. But I digress--it is what is on the screen that matters, and tonight at IFC Center, Hou himself will be projected via iChat for a Q&A following the 6:45 screening of Three Times. Critic Charles Taylor will moderate, a few dozen wonks will condescend and, in all likelihood, the film will take your breath away. Worst case scenario, they have air conditioning and the seats are really comfortable.

--If you can get through the nightmarish ritual that opens dissident Belarussian filmmaker Victor Dashuk's 1999 documentary Long Knives Night, you are in for one of the most dark, damning political screeds to hit theaters since, well, last month's Giuliani Time. But paired with its companion doc Reporting From the Rabbit Hutch, it is the context that matters here: Dashuk's films so venomously explore the corrupt dictatorial regime of Belarussian president Alexander Lukashenko that they had to be smuggled out of the country on videotape--the format in which they are being screened this weekend at the Pioneer Theater. And they are worth viewing in any format, especially considering the institutionalized wrath borne out against protestors, journalists and dissenting politicians, not to mention Dashuk's own persecution at Lukashenko's hand. There are as raw as documentaries get, but under the circumstances, you should not want it any other way.

--Harvey and Bob Weinstein, live and in person. Enough said.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 01:04 PM | TrackBack

Trailers, Trophies and Piers: Another Thursday Night On the Town

On a night boasting no shortage of film-related things to do, The Reeler split its time meandering through the rain from the seventh annual Golden Trailer Awards to the opening night of Rooftop Films' 2006 season. Needless to say, my ride to Staten Island never came through, and underachiever that I am, NewFest's own opening gala was bumped off the itinerary around the time I woke up on the M23 bus and decided I should probably quit my rounds while I was ahead.

It sounded like a good idea at the time: Jim Gaffigan hosts the 2006 Golden Trailer Awards at the Directors Guild Theater (Photos: STV)

And I have to say: I was pretty far ahead, especially after the three surreal hours I spent at the Directors Guild Theater attending the Golden Trailer Awards. The event is exactly the type of cultural touchstone its name suggests, where trophies capped with small golden trailers are handed out to editors and marketers and other brains behind what celebrity judges (Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and Penny Marshall among others, none of whom were actually there) rank as the best movie previews of the year. A pre-show party resulted in a good-sized fraction of the attendees being suitably wasted, which, I suppose, made comedian Jim Gaffigan's hosting job a little easier.

"I love watching the previews," he said in his introduction. "I love the previews in the theater, I should say. When I rent a DVD, seing those previews at home can be frustrating. Particularly some of them you can't fast forward through; it's like dealing with a Jehovah's Witnesss. 'I'm not interested. I'm not interested!' But have you ever not seen someone's favorite movie? They get furious! 'You haven't seen GoodFellas? What are you saying?' Apparently, I'm saying your sister's a whore."

And as I'm sure you can guess, things went downhill from there. Mission: Impossible III won four prizes including Best Trailer, while March of the Penguins snagged a pair as well (the triumph for Best Voiceover may be the last time I ever see a beaming copywriter trot off with a trophy). Some anonymous guy a few rows in front of me, acting on a bet or eight glasses of wine or both, accepted an award for a film he had no affiliation with. Many high-fives were exchanged upon his return to his seat.

Howard Stern regular Artie Lange literally stole the prize for Trashiest Trailer when the crew behind the actual winner (Three) did not arrive and the presenter decided to recognize Lange's upcoming Beer League instead. The incident resulted in Beer League's trailer squad finally storming the stage to take credit.

"What, did you guys win?" Lange asked.

"This is very exciting for Alchemy Entertainment--"

"Who won?" Lange asked again, looking around the stage "Who won the award?"

You did, Artie. You did. Anyway, I fled Midtown soon afterward to take in the first movie in Rooftop Films' long summer series of outdoor screenings. Geniuses that they are, Rooftop's organizers wrangled a covered spot at Pier 63 (right), allowing a few hundred viewers to watch a preview of Steve Collins' droll comedy Gretchen in relative dryness. The series's opening weekend continues tonight in Williamsburg with a collection of short films ostensibly about love and sex, concluding Sunday in Gowanus with Taggart Siegel's documentary The Real Dirt on Farmer John. Tickets are $8 and can be purchased ahead of time right here. Believe me: If I did not have to go see my beloved Giants get their asses handed to them tonight in Queens, I would probably join you in Brooklyn.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 10:11 AM | TrackBack

June 01, 2006

'Famke Janssen Fucking': The Joys of Discovering The Reeler, Part I

Beyond the practical function of gauging Web traffic, one of the tiny joys of Site Meter software is knowing the sullied corners of the Internet from which one's readers emerge. Surveying this information is a cherished pastime of mine, but the last few days have resulted in a few more of the more shudder-inducing Google searches I have yet seen.

So, in what will likely become a semi-regular feature in these slow, summerish news days, please join me in observing the top 25 ways people have found The Reeler this week:

--Famke Janssen fucking

--Famke Jansen [sic] and her boyfriends

--Fatty Arbuckle comic book

--Tomkat baby pictures

--Pigeon Toed Orange Peel lyrics

--Roger Friedman ignorant

--Link dump lesbian

--Download pirated Shortbus film

--Home porn contest

--James Bond convention 2006

--Daniel Johnston madness

--Comics announcement new incarnation homosexual

--How much to commission Annie Leibovitz

--Brokeback Mountain XXX

--FUCKFEST

--Ang Lee lives in

--Non snob sportswear

--Top ten times in history it was OK to say fuck

--Meep meep roadrunner sound

--Cindy Adams e-mail address

--Nude albino women

--Besco folding trailer

--Baby name Moniel

--Who was the latest fake Kane on raw may 29, 2006

--Scarlett Johanson [sic] and Josh Hartnett have orgys

I literally cannot make this up. Not that I would want to, of course.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 01:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The Web's 12,043rd Movie Blog Digs In at Nerve--and It Is a Good One

The inbreeding enthusiast in me always rejoices at the sight of a new movie blog, especially a good one with some time, taste and intellectual weight behind it. I think all three attributes apply to Nerve's new ScreenGrab, edited by writer/filmmaker Bilge Ebiri and emphasizing news from the world of independent and international film. Ebiri's first few weeks, in fact, bounced furiously from Cannes reports (featuring Zelda Rubenstein!) to business dealings to a particularly toothsome review of the reviewers (Armond White's curtailed word count fuels his "exasperation"? Come on--that is just his grinning, overworked contrariness). Its ambition is matched only by its execution, which reminds me of my own virile, pre-arthritic salad days.

Anyway, as long as Ebiri and his crew stay off my Weinstein beat, they can consider themselves endorsed. ScreenGrab rocks.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 12:02 PM | TrackBack

Watch Your Back, Tribeca: Staten Island Film Festival Crashes NYC At Last

I remember inquiring about this at some point last fall, but its organizers seemed to have dropped off the face of the Earth. But thank God for the Daily News, which boasts the deep resources and stick-to-itiveness to finally bring official word of the first-ever Staten Island Film Festival to New York. And leave to it the well-connected, outer-borough powers-that-be to score the coup to end all coups, opening the fest with an adaptation of a religion-tinged worldwide bestseller that will have everybody talking.

No, not that one:

Director Armand Mastroianni will be on hand for the New York premiere of The Celestine Prophecy. So will James Redfield, author of the popular New Age book that spawned the film, and his wife Salle. ...

Mastroianni, who was born in Bensonhurst, moved to Staten Island in 1973. Debuting The Celestine Prophecy on his adopted home turf will be an honor, he said.

"My very first film, He Knows You're Alone, was shot all over Staten Island," Mastroianni said. "It started my career and Tom Hanks'.

"I shot a couple of scenes [for He Knows You're Alone] in the St. George Theater, where The Celestine Prophecy will have its premiere."

The Celestine Prophecy has already opened in other major markets to less than favorable reviews. That will in no way ruin the Staten Island premiere, Mastroianni predicted. "The people who've read the book love the movie," he said.

The festival features another 100 or so films in addition to Celestine, including Marshall Curry's mind-blowing doc Street Fight, Hubert Davis's short documentary about the family legacies of the Harlem Globetrotters (Hardwood), a collection of interviews in cabs headed uptown on Sept. 11, 2001 (9/11 Uptown Manhattan), and some fucking thing called Staten Island Catapult, in which director Gregorio Smith evaluates a possible transit alternative for commuters headed to the city:

"A catapult is a bit out there," documentary director Gregorio Smith admitted. "But, whenever a new mode of transportation has been introduced, it has been met with amusement, doubt or skepticism. That's what innovation is - thinking outside the box, literally, and you can launch at your own discretion."

Look, Gregorio, you are preaching to the choir. I was sold on the idea of this festival long ago, back when Staten Island producer/ex-con Julius Nasso established his supremacy over Manhattan gossip Lloyd Grove and one of the Island's economic development reps took the festival director reins. On a weekend when the Brooklyn International Film Festival, NewFest and Rooftop Films are all making their annual bows, I do not see how anyone could resist a quick hop across the harbor to check out the new Mastroianni. In fact, please let me know if you plan to make the trip; I could really use a ride.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 11:05 AM | TrackBack

Citizen Soldiers Turn Filmmakers in Shattering Tribeca Winner 'War Tapes'

Honestly, I have not been so overwhelmed by some of the more acclaimed films to emerge from the Iraq War. The Oscar-nominated Occupation: Dreamland was, at best, an overearnest mess that took its day-in-the-life cues from the zingier, pulsating Gunner Palace, and James Longley's Sundance prize-winner Iraq in Fragments feels like three works-in-progress glued together with a certain arty smugness. However patronizing as it sounds, I do love that each film exists and admire their filmmakers for taking such grave risks to bring stories from Iraq to their audiences. I just wish the stories were better.

Another day at the office: Soldier/cameraman Mike Moriarty adds one more reel to The War Tapes (Photos: SenArt Films / Scranton/Lacy Films)

And just like that, along came The War Tapes (opening tomorrow in New York), Deborah Scranton's Tribeca triumph that transcends gimmickry--give cameras to a handful of New Hampshire National Guardsmen to document their one-year deployment in Iraq--to reveal the anguish, cynicism and humanity that has always threaded the most memorable war chronicles of film and literature. Think of the radioactive, stream-of-consciousness reportage of Michael Herr's Dispatches, or the bleak condemnation of Peter Davis's Hearts and Minds. Is Scranton's film that good? Time will tell, but when neither Scranton nor her subjects flinch from the blood- and money-spattered absurdity in the desert, and when the sting of violence acquiesces to glassy eyes and numb families, and everyone on screen is just a few palpable degrees from being someone else's victim, that darkness after the closing credits feels a little darker, and you do not remain seated because of exhaustion. Rather, you notice later that you were still with paralysis.

Dramatic pronouncements aside, the impact absolutely reflects Scranton's ethos and her subjects' commitment. "I gave my word that we would tell their story through their eyes, no matter where it took us, no matter what," Scranton told me the other day, revisiting the film with two of its three main subjects, Mike Moriarty and Zack Bazzi. "And I really wanted to get as close to the experience of war as possible: To climb inside and to feel it all around and share that with the audience."

And she got pretty close: As Scranton's troops preface their mission with dueling senses of duty and bravado, their earliest moments at Camp Anaconda ("the most attacked base in Iraq," one tells the viewer) yield to a swagger-shattering mortar attack. Footage from the centers of firefights interplays with graphic pictures of dead insurgents. Moriarty indicts even the nickel-and-dime economics of war, where KBR/Halliburton charges $28 for a plastic food plate and a popular Burger King franchise sprawls in the sand while Iraqi defense contractors drive vehicles without armor or windows.

Moreover, The War Tapes follows the experience at home, where Moriarty's wife, Bazzi's mother and third soldier Steve Pink's girlfriend wrangle with the terms of their separations. By bookending the film with their departures and eventual reunions, Scranton details a war that never seems to end. The onset of fatigue, temper and physical deterioration mark a conspicuous counterpoint to the men we were introduced to, whom these respective women cherished while knowing as well as anyone the heartbreaking truth that they and their families will never be the same.

The film acquires an additional resonance from its look: One-chip MiniDV cams turned out 800 hours of footage, some of it shockingly pristine considering the conditions under which its cameramen were rolling tape. "They mounted cameras on the dashboard of their Humvees, and their gun turrets, on their helmets and Kevlar," Scranton said. "But they knew how to work cameras. There were maybe a few times where I said try not to be backlit, or--remember, guys? I always used to bug you. 'Tip the shot of your face in the Humvee.' "

"Yes," Moriarty said.

"That was probably 'Deborah's Request Most Hated,' " Scranton said.

"Yeah," Moriarty said. " 'Don't tell me what just happened. Go narrate! Now! Go tell the camera.' "

War Tapes director Deborah Scranton shooting at New Jersey's Fort Dix

Naturally, under the circumstances, a prevailing visual aesthetic was not an especially urgent concern for any of the troops with cameras. Scranton praised their otherworldly devotion to logging and labeling tapes, staying in touch with her via instant messaging and taking the extra time to prepare for the day's shoot when not even their patrol vehicles remained consistent from day to day. "There was no plan," Moriarty said, who noted that zip ties became the go-to mount material when the desert heat melted the adhesive on duct tape. "The best way to make this thing as real as possible was to run that camera and act as though there was no camera. We couldn't plan ahead--and believe me, I wish we could. It would have been a lot safer mission if we could have planned ahead for a lot of things. But basically, you just take it as it comes. You go outside the wire, you do your thing, you run your camera, and what it catches is what happens. We did learn over time that you're not going to catch things on film if your camera's not running."

For all of its unbridled cynicism about everything from war profiteering to the texture of severed limbs to simple fate ("It's only a matter of time before our number is up," one soldier mutters in a moment of harrowing gravity), Scranton and the soldiers are careful to note The War Tapes was not intended as a resolutely political film. Nevertheless, that flavor persists in homilies and asides questioning the purpose and potential of the mission in Iraq--criticism of the president and vice-president so intense at times it is a wonder how it saw the light of day.

"Are the soldiers sophisticated?" Bazzi asked me rhetorically. "Do they have political thoughts? Yes. Are they preoccupied with those thoughts on the mission? No. It's always mission first, mission always."

Moriarty agreed. "We're thinking human beings," he said. "We have political beliefs. We have biases. ... But in the process of being thinking human beings, we all signed that dotted line knowing what our enlistment may entail. And even though you know what your enlistment may entail, there are a lot of things you haven't experienced until you've been over in Iraq and you've been shot at. What you may expect and what reality brings to life may be two totally different things. But in the end, regardless of all the details and the opinions and the disagreements and the whining and this and that, I think that every soldier would agree that the mission comes first."

In so many war docs, however, disillusionment is generally--almost by definition--the offspring of expectations' trysts with reality. But in its nuanced, humanizing honesty (not to mention the collaboration's immunity to exploitation), The War Tapes' disillusionment lingers less oppressively than that of the obvious confessionals peppering Occupation: Dreamland or even Errol Morris's otherwise brilliant The Fog of War. This alone is a feat worth recognizing--an achievement worth seeing. And you should see it, by the way. You will be hearing about it for years.

Posted by stvanairsdale at 09:31 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack