At the movies: Peter Hujar's Day.

 

I found a lot to get lost in in Peter Hujar's Day, a film that gets exponentially richer the more times you see it.

Festival Wrapup 2024: The New York Film Festival, NewFest, Brooklyn Horror Film Festival

 Bits and pieces from an epic festival rondelay this fall in New York. A lot gets covered, and it's worth the dive.

At the movies: Scream VI.

 Scream VI is a definite step back toward the right direction after its fifth installment.

At the movies: In The Heights.

 My Dad took me to my first Broadway shows, so it seemed appropriate that I got to take him to an advance screening of this film. It scratches that big musical theatre itch.

At the movies: Precious.

Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe, in a remarkable and untraditional performance- like Summer Phoenix in Esther Kahn) is a sixteen year-old girl. She weighs over three hundred pounds, and she’s just become pregnant with her second child, both children the result of having been raped by her father. She lives with her physically and emotionally abusive mother Mary (Mo’Nique), and she is trying to find her way through alternative education systems as she is almost completely illiterate.

It’s 1987 New York, but it could be anywhere that there’s suffering. And Gabourey Sidibe may not look like the kind of girl we usually see in movies, but it could just as easily be your story.

After triumphing at Sundance back in January, both Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry came on to help promote awareness of the film. Based on Sapphire’s bestseller Push, Precious has since been on a snowball of success, winning audience awards and accolades left and right, creating intense discussions about the responsibilities of portraying black life onscreen between it adorers and detractors, and setting records for box office business during its limited five-screen release.

“It’s this year’s Slumdog Millionaire,” some are saying, like that's a compliment. “It’s the film to beat,” say others. "It's the most racist film since The Birth of A Nation," or something to that effect, says critic Armond White, who pretty much called Tina Turner a race traitor (read his collection of early work The Resistance if you think I'm kidding) back in the 90s. So opinions, as you can imagine, are divergent.

Here’s the thing about Precious that nobody is really saying- it’s bonkers. It is near-operatic in its vision of oppression and liberation, feeling like a Douglas Sirk film that’s been stuffed into a Vittorio de Sica set (a connection made explicit by one of director Daniels' setpieces), and it understands that when you’re dealing with big emotions, sometimes you have to walk a fine line with camp. That precariousness adds much to the film’s impact, as do the central performances from Sidibe and Mo’Nique (who is destined for much awards love).

Add in a supporting cast that feels like a demented version of The Love Boat and Director Lee Daniels’ unorthodox choices, and you have a film that is absolutely singular in every way imaginable. The first time I saw it, I was impressed with the acting but didn't really see much else there. Now that the film has had time to grow in our national dialogue, now I get it. Precious is whatever it has to be to provoke an impassioned response from the viewer, and in that, it is wildly successful.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Grace Jones.

Grace Jones is a goddess, and it breaks my heart that she is only doing two stops in the U.S. on her Hurricane tour this summer. Costumes by Eiko Ishioka (Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Cell, The Fall, Mishima, the upcoming Spiderman musical). The song is thanks to La Mome Edith Piaf, but La Jones has been singing it for thirty-teo years, and it still sounds ravishing. Behold.
There are lots of other YouTubed excerpts from the show, but this is the one I wanted to share.

At the movies: The 46th Annual New York Film Festival.

Here's my handy-dandy overview of the 46th Annual New York Film Festival. As these films receive some form of Nashville (for All The Rage) or national (for Dish Magazine) release, I'll go in depth. But for now, here's the digest for all to luxuriate in regarding the thirty films and shorts that I saw. A ^ between the film's title and rating indicate that I have discussions with involved filmmakers coming as well.

It was a phenomenal year for both the NYFF, specifically, and film in general. There was not a single thing that I saw that I hated (like last year's Actrices/Actresses), and everything I saw offered up something unusual and interesting and worthy. As the number of distributors willing to take a chance on foreign and independent cinema dwindles with every day that passes, it gets harder and harder to experience film in its proper theatrical context. So for the meantime, places like the NYFF (and our own Nashville Film Festival) become more and more valuable.


ENTRE LES MURS (The Class) ***
It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year, and at first feels like a typical Dangerous Minds/Stand and Deliver type film en francais - the young teacher who cares, dealing with students who are stymied by varying levels of bureaucracy and indifference. But as it goes along, it gets weirder and more dialectical, and by the end I was pretty much won over. Sony Classics has it for the US, which means it'll get a week at Green Hills.

CRY ME A RIVER **
One of the two new films from Jia Zhang-ke at this year's NYFF, and this one is pretty much inert. Students in the 90s, currently adults adrift in their own lives, nobody's happy but they do soldier on. There's some nice tracking shots down a river, though.

WENDY & LUCY *** 1/2
Absolutely devastating portrait of isolation and life on the brink- harsh, elliptical, and filled with a pervasive sense of sadness and beauty. Michelle Williams is truly amazing here, and dog lovers, this is the movie for you. Oscilloscope Films (The Beastie Boys' film label) is handling this, so it will more than likely be coming to the Belcourt at some point.

I DON'T FEEL LIKE DANCING ***
Can you build a film around an extended sick joke? If it's as good and genuinely effective as this one, then yes.

WALTZ WITH BASHIR *** 1/2
Holy shit. An animated documentary with the urgency of an unquiet witness and the soul of the most imaginative of poets, and structured around the basics of psychic exploration in a way that will infuriate Scientologists, this may also be the film that pushes the evangelical Christian faction in this country into apoplexy. It's a remarkable film, funny and devastating, and featuring one of the most haunting sequences I've ever seen (three men emerging from the sea, to a cello lead that sounds slightly reminiscent of Vig Mihaly's score for Werckmeister Harmoniak- which is a good thing). Again, Sony Classics has it, so be on the lookout for its one-week run at Green Hills.

LOVE YOU MORE ****
The best thing I saw during Press Week I, this short from British artist/Pet Shop Boys collaborator Sam Taylor-Wood (whose only other film I had seen was in a segment of the erotic anthology Destricted) is a short and sweet tale of High School lust played out to the sound of the Buzzcocks. With any luck, this might pop up at the '09 Nashville Film Festival in the shorts program.

TONY MANERO ***
Simulatneously about the casual violence and horror of life in Chile under the rule of Augusto Pinochet and one man's need to express himself through dance and wanting to be like John Travolta, this film is upsettingly violent, features hardcore sex, and at least one disco dancing sequence in every reel. How could I not love it?

UN CONTE DE NOEL (A Christmas Tale) *** 1/2
A colleague dismissively called this Kings and Queen 2, but I think it's weirder and a bit more incisive than that. Family dramas, insanity, cancer, sexual frustration, and the arduous process of forgiveness- yeah, it's like that. Highly recommended, though. IFC has it, and with any luck, it'll be this year's big Christmas arthouse hit.

LOVE IS DEAD ***
A dark, dark French short that is ruthlessly pragmatic and full of the kind of wit that works beautifully here but leaves you wondering if the filmmaker will make the step up to feature-length material.

TOKYO SONATA *** 1/2
Kuorosawa Kiyoshi is back, and this time he's made a fairly conventional film- one that takes the issues that form the subtext of his genre material and works with them on the surface. It's a fascinating portrait of this moment in history, and the central cast is pretty damned great. It takes some wide turns in the last half hour, but is still a fascinating development in Kurosawa's body of work.

AFTERSCHOOL **
This film aims to be an expose of what life is really like in the age of voyeuristic video and violated civil liberties, while at the same time getting at what's really going on with these kids today. Every time I was ready to walk out, something amazing would happen, and every time I was ready to love this film, it did something incredibly stupid. Also, it's one of those films that seems to think that shock is a valuable tool when used without context. It's not. This si the kind of film that it's very easy to overrate. I'm interested in what director Antonio Campos comes up with next, and the frame composition is among the best I've ever seen. But still, it's just not all that.

DEMAIN PEUT-ETRE (Maybe Tomorrow) *** 1/2
An exceptional French short about identity, race, and observation. Haunting, and again, with any luck it may pop up in the shorts program at the '09 Nashville Film Festival.

SERBIS (Service) ** 1/2
Family travails, in and around a four-story moviehouse in Angeles City in the Philippines. Lots of betrayal, hardcore sex, transsexual gender shenanigans, and through it all, the inescapable sounds of the modern city. Oh, and an extended plot point about pus. Regent Releasing has this for the U.S., which means it will get a small-scale release in NYC, L.A., San Francisco, and possibly in cities with high Filipino populations and/or Tagalog speakers, then come out on DVD shortly thereafter. So much gets crammed into 93 minutes that you almost wish the director had made a miniseries out of it- the setting and characters are rich, but there's so much left unsaid or seen. But I would love to spend more time with this film's central family.

TIRO EN LA CABEZA (Bullet in the Head) **
This was the screening where a significant portion of the press corps lost their mind. The film is, for all intents and purposes, silent. We hear ambient sounds, consistent with the placement of the camera (almost always far away), but even when we're in the same room as the main characters, they speak but no sound comes out. It's meant to be an allegory about how hard it is to understand what motivates horrifying acts of violence, and it works- sort of. But people HATED this movie. Eh, it's interesting. But it would work better as a short.

HUNGER *** 1/2
Pretty damned amazing, this one. It's a great political film, a savage prison movie, an effective procedural, and rife full of possibilities for theological and political debate. There's a central reel-length conversation that easily ranks among the finest of the year, and it's always interesting to see what happens when artists from other media give film a try. The final half-hour, which depicts the hunger strike that lends the film its title, isn't quite as staggering and transcendent as the first hour, but the film is still a remarkable achievement. IFC Films has this for distribution, and they're aiming for March 09 for a release. I'm not sure when it'll play here, but I'll lay down dollars that it will play in Nashville at some point.

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY ^ ****
A delight. A frothy (but slightly edgy) comedy from Mike Leigh? Perish the thought. But this film is like a big goofy drunken British hug, and I can't wait to see how audiences take to it. This opens on Halloween at the Belcourt, and mark my words- this is the perfect date movie. If you bring a date/spouse/significant other with you to see this movie, dimes-to-dollars says you'll get some that evening.

THIS IS HER ** 1/2
A snarky but ultimately effective Kiwi short that aims to dig, laterally and figuratively, into women's issues. It gets derailed in its final third by a sappy Lilith-lite ballad, but there's still some interesting moments.

VOY A EXPLOTAR (I'm Gonna Explode) **
If you'd only ever watched Harold & Maude, Romeo and Juliet, and Y Tu Mama Tambien over and over again, then you too could have made this film. The leads are cute and the young-lovers-on-the-run trope never really gets old, but there just wasn't enough of a spark here to make the ingredients properly- explode. Maria Deschamps, the film's star, has a hell of a career ahead of her, making her motion picture debut in a part that feels like 60% Anna Karina, 25% Bjork, and 15% Linda Manz.

THE ARGENTINE ^ ** 1/2
A/K/A Che Part I. We were shown what is being called The Roadshow Presentation, which has no credits or specific differentiation of title, so I'm going from the standard titling of the two. This was a cinemascope biopic on the rise of Che, with the occasional high-contrast black & white interlude from his speech before the UN in the early sixties. It jumps around in time a bit, but you're always kept at a distance from the material. It's well-acted, but it's not all that.

GUERILLA ^ *** 1/2
A/K/A Che Part II, when everything gets kind of nuts and handheld and 1.85 and visceral. Guerilla is not quite Tropical Malady, but it's damned close, and both as an extended thinkpiece and an emotionally draining experience, here's what makes it all worthwhile. It's good enough to make me realize and acknowledge that The Argentine is pretty good as well. But in the battle of the Ches, put me down solidly for Part II. IFC Films has this for the U.S., and in Nashville, that usually means Belcourt. So send in your eMails and bloggables if you want to show some Che pride, or are intrigued at exploring the fall of such an absolutist ideology. Either way, there's something here for you.

RALPH ***
Cutesy short about love truly being a universal language. Not essential, but not unpleasant.

L'HEURE D'ETE (Summer Hours) ****
Following up his globalization trilogy (Demonlover, Clean, and Boarding Gate), Olivier Assayas turns his focus on the family and makes one of the most beautiful and restrained dramas of the year. One mother, three children, five grandchildren, two dogs, a housekeeper, and an exquisite country house. There are no big scenes, no flare-ups or crying jags, just a rapturous dive into the eddies and whorls of the time we spend as families. IFC has it for the US. Keep an eye out for this one, it will floor you. Bring Mom and Dad with you as well.

SECURITY ***
An interesting (and non-maliciously deeply misogynist) short from Germany about loneliness and store policies. It would seem to clever for its own good were it not so devastating.

THE WRESTLER ^ *** 1/2
And the Academy Award goes to... Mickey Rourke. The story is conventional, and it appears our boy Darren Aronofsky's been watching some Dardenne brothers films in the past few years. But it's edited like a normal movie, and Rourke (and Marisa Tomei) are just exceptional. The story is pretty conventional, so it plays against Aronfsky's arthouse instincts beautifully. And how can you not love a film whose soundtrack is half 80s hair metal and half trap-rap. The way that Guns 'n Roses's "Sweet Child O' Mine" is used in this movie made me tear up like a damned fool. Fox Searchlight is releasing this in NYC and L.A. on December 19th, with the rest of the country to follow soon after.

WAIT FOR ME ***
A three-minute documentary that is effective and scarring.

CHANGELING ^ ***
The good news is that Clint Eastwood is still an amazing director, Angelina Jolie knocks it out of the park, there are quite a few moments that are of unearthly power, and it starts with the old-school Universal logo from way back in the day. The bad news is that the script is a mess, it's way too long, and there are a few scenes (mostly involving a necessary subplot) that are just embarrassing to behold (though some are apparently taken from historical record). This one makes some of the same mistakes that Mystic River did, and it makes them bigger. Am I jaded because hyperstylized and violent representations of violence against children just don't affect me anymore? I should be horrified seeing axe murders and nonconsensual electroconvulsive therapy, but none of that holds a candle to some of Angelina's scenes with the child-who-is-not-hers. Worth seeing, absolutely. But one of Clint's best? No.

GOMORRAH **
The latest evolution in Mafia movies. A colleague compared it to The Wire and found it wanting. There's some tense moments, and its indictment of blustery machismo is refreshing, but after two-plus hours, I just wanted everyone to get shot in a surprise fashion and for the thing to be over with. That said, a couple of connoisseurs of gangster films said it was a spectacular achievement, so go with that if you're so inclined. IFC has it for the US, so it'll be around. And it's nice, between this and Tropic Thunder, to see "Sadeness Pt 1" get some cinema love.

AHENDU NDE SAPUKAI (I Hear Your Scream) ****
A remarkable single-shot short about the process of loss, told completely in silhouette. Just remarkable.

LA MUJER SIN CABEZA (The Headless Woman) ****
Take the skeleton of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, then send it wandering off into the last half hour of Mulholland Drive but preparing for a Last Weekend at Marienbad, and you have the idea of where this remarkable mindmelter from Argentina's Lucrecia Martel will take you. It is so much subtler than any of those films, though, and filled with so much possibility and tinges of the most visceral dread. This and Synecdoche, NY are proving the films from this northward sojourn that I want to dwell in repeatedly, again and again. If there is any justice, this film will get some kind of further distribution.

C'EST DUR D'ETRE AIME PAR DES CONS (It's Hard Being Loved by Jerks) *** 1/2
A battering ram of a documentary that illustrates the trial of the publishers and editorial staff of French weekly Charlie Hebdo, which printed those infamous twelve cartoons which portrayed the prophet Mohammed. The film has countless things to say about the role of the press and the courts and religious authorities, and all of it is pretty fascinating even if lack of access to the actual courtroom proceedings lends a surreal air to the whole thing. Certainly worth seeing, and as provocative a way as any for me to finish up my time at the 46th Annual New York Film Festival.

"I think it was smoke inhalation."

CREATURE (d. William MALONE) * 1/2
C'EST DUR D'ETRE AIME PAR DES CONS/IT'S HARD BEING LOVED BY JERKS (d. Daniel LECONTE) *** 1/2
SYNECDOCHE, NY (d. Charlie KAUFMAN) ****

"She would have already have been dead by then..."

In the past few days, I saw the following:

IT'S ALIVE 3: ISLAND OF THE ALIVE (d. Larry COHEN) ***
AHENDU NDE SAPUKAI (I Hear Your Scream) (d. Pablo LAMAR) ****
LA MUJER SIN CABEZA (The Headless Woman) (d. Lucrecia MARTEL) ****
OUTING RILEY (d. Pete JONES) ** 1/2
ELECTRIC DRAGON 80,000 VOLTS (d. ISHII Sogo) * 1/2

Folded.

I genuinely love it it when my friends become successful. That's not faux-modesty, or in the slightest sarcastic. It makes me incredibly happy when people who are good and kind and deserving of all that's awesome in the world get to reap some benefits.

And sometimes, that benefits me as well, which is how I happened to find my way into the Ben Folds show at Terminal 5 in NYC last night (and had the best burger in Manhattan, which is a secret I cannot post in a blog but will gladly tell you in person or via drunken phone call at some point in the near future). I was overwhelmed by the crowd and the quality and the energy that Folds and his crew were pumping out; so much so that it wasn't until a few songs in that I remembered I had a VIP pass. This meant I got a great view and a chance to embarass myself hooting and hollering amidst islands of suits and haute-haught.


That's my friend Sam on the drums, and in this photo he's got a sort of Hindu-multiarm look, which is suitable for drummers, I think.

The new stuff is really good (and suited for the time in which we are living), and I'm planning on picking up a copy of the new record at an actual record store. Now I know what you're saying, you're saying "but do such places even still exist?" And the complicated answer is 'yes.'

But why I wanted to write about this was because of a moment I shared with several hundred people, when Folds had the entire audience doing tripartite harmony on "Not The Same." It was like being in church if church still had the power to move me. It was like being kissed properly. It was one of the most electrifying moments I've had in the city on this particular trip, and I don't even know how to articulate it beyond saying that it certainly helped me get some shit settled and move into a severe abundance of hope.

I'm yammering on, and not doing particular service to any involved parties. But I tell you, it was one of the most profound little moments I've had this year, and I thought I'd share it with whomever happens to be reading.



Recently, I saw:

RALPH (d. Alex WINCKLER) ***
L'HEURE D'ETE/SUMMER HOURS (d. Olivier ASSAYAS) ****
APRIL FOOL'S DAY (d. The Butcher Brothers) -
SECURITY (d. Lars HENNING) ***
THE WRESTLER (d. Darren ARONOFSKY) *** 1/2
WAIT FOR ME (d. Ross KAUFFMAN) ***
CHANGELING (d. Clint EASTWOOD) ***
GOMMORAH (d. Matteo GARRONE) ** 1/2

and here's the latest Folds video, directed by Tim and Eric (of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! fame).

Che Pride.

NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (d. Fred DEKKER) ***
THE ARGENTINE (d. Steven SODERBERGH) ** 1/2
GUERILLA (d. Steven SODERBERGH) *** 1/2

"Like children's theatre for forty year-old gay men..."

Allow me, then, some eSpace to talk about the time I've spent in a place where nobody dared to go...

I first encountered the historical Xanadu thanks to Frankie Goes to Hollywood. On their album Welcome to the Pleasuredome, there's a throwaway line, mangling Samuel Taylor Coleridge, where vocalist Holly Johnson says "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasuredome erect-" and proceeding from there along that line.
Fortunately, when it came up in my British Literature class in the tenth grade, I had a vague idea of what was being referenced.

I didn't see the Robert Greenwald film until 1993, during my freshman year of college at NYU, when another floor in my building was having a movie night with free pizza and drinks. Even then able to suss out a great bargain (note: free pizza, drinks, and a movie will always pique my interest), I pretty much crashed it, and was properly engrossed by the film. The music is rightfully spectacular. The film, not so much, but I still enjoy it. But I realized then that I knew the song, the titular song, where Olivian Newton-John and ELO made something majestic. I'd known and loved the song as a five year-old, and it was all that youthful joy sweeping me up into some kind of inXanity. And so it was for me, on the floor of the Brittany Hall building, gorged on pizza and half-flat Coke. It was magic.

When you give me an hour and a half of symphonic synth-rock and pop songs with some decent effects and an endearing sense of fun, and you'll have me riveted. At that point, in the long long ago, the soundtrack hadn't even been released in the U.S. on CD, which was somewhat fucked. Fortunately, the RA who had organized the evening's event made a tape copy for me, one which I listened to for a good three and a half years, until I finally found an Australian CD import to call my own.
And then, last year, it opened on Broadway, to much acclaim and fanfare. And oh, how I desperately wanted to see it. Alas, there was no way I could afford using ticket brokers to get in to a sold-out show, and there was much mopery on my part, but not that much because I had been on a swing away from musical theatre at that time.

What a difference, then, a year makes. I'd heard the show was closing soon, and as such made arrangements (fairly easily) to see it with some friends. But then the closing date got moved up again, so I had to act drastically. So I saw Xanadu on Broadway last Thursday, just three days before it ended its Broadway run. And, as if it had been engineered in a lab just for me, I loved it.

It's hard to express what a liberating joy musical theatre can be (some of y'all may remember my Les Miz-related Obama post a couple of weeks back), and I often forget what a friend it's been to me throughout my life. But it's funny, because musical theatre is always waiting for you, and I was beaming like the proud parent of a kid that could shit glitter for the whole experience.
Firstly, let me just say that between United 93 and Xanadu, I will follow Cheyenne Jackson anywhere. We're talking about a guy who can handle songs meant to sung by Fee Waybill, Cliff Richard, and Jeff Lynne as his own without blinking, and moreso, a performer without a hint of irony. Full marks, to be certain. I've had The Warriors on the brain as of late because of the 'Court's midnight movies series, but I can safely say that Cheyenne Jackson owns the part of Sonny Malone in perpetuity. Sorry, Mr. Beck.

Everyone in the show was good, and it actually had a point, which was hard for me to wrap my mind around at the time, but something I certainly appreciate. In a vast scorched earth of jukebox musicals and movie adaptations, Xanadu took both of those bastard genres and made them vital again, and it did it with humor, style, sass, sparkle, and a brisk running time. I mourn its passing. But I had a hell of a time, and I recommend it to anyone who has the chance to see it anywhere out there in the world. It'd be ideal for Vegas, of which I can only dream.

Here's the original cast performing at the Tony Awards.

And if anyone knows where to find an mp3 of Jackson and Anthony Rapp singing "Suddenly Seymour" at Broadway Backwards III, let me know.

Further along.

This is what I've seen since the last time I did one of these updates.

DEMAIN PEUT-ETRE (Maybe Tomorrow) (d. Guilhem AMESLAND) *** 1/2
SERBIS (Service) (d. Brillante Ma. MENDOZA) ** 1/2
TIRO EN LA CABEZA (Bullet in the Head) (d. Jaime ROSALES) **
HUNGER (d. Steve McQUEEN) *** 1/2
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY (d. Mike LEIGH) ****
THIS IS HER (d. Katie WOLFE) ** 1/2
VOY A EXPLOTAR (I'm Gonna Explode) (d. Gerardo NARANJO) **
ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE (d. Jonathan LEVINE) *** 1/2

"A disease immune to bureaucracy."

I've seen the following:


BLINDNESS (d. Fernando MEIRELLES) ** 1/2
THE DUCHESS (d. Saul DIBB) **
AFTERSCHOOL (d. Antonio CAMPOS) **
THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN (d. KITAMURA Ryuhei) ***
RETURN TO THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (d. Victor GARCIA) 1/2

And everyone knows your business.

There have been times when I've written of that peculiarly New York phenomenon of heading back home after having been properly laid and everyone you pass by sorta knowing your business from your carriage and demeanor. Well, if you ever wanted to know what that sounds like, strolling on home twenty-something blocks with a buzzed and blissful smile on your face around four in the morning, this is it.

Mr. Fingers - "Can U Feel it"
from 1986 on Trax Records.

So if you're trying to use iTunes (or whatever non-Apple and their damned proprietary software equivalent to make a playlist of the sounds of NYC as I've been hearing them, here are a few more to add to the list (in addition to our friend Mr. Fingers above).

OMD - "Enola Gay"
Charles Aznavour - "Emmenez-moi"
Buzzcocks - "Love You More"
m83 - "Kim and Jessie"
PiL - "This is not a Love Song"
Giorgio Moroder - "From Here to Eternity/Utopia, Me Giorgio"
The Jones Girls - "You're Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else"
Buzzcocks - "Noise Annoys"
Depeche Mode - "Big Muff"

I will add to the list as necessary and as is accurate.

Yesterday I saw:
LOLA MONTES (d. Max OPHULS) ** 1/2
UN CONTE DE NOEL (A Christmas Tale) (d. Arnaud DESPLECHIN) *** 1/2
LOVE IS DEAD (d.Eric CAPITAINE) ***
TOKYO SONATA (d. KUROSAWA Kiyoshi) *** 1/2

"Show business."

Today I saw:

LOVE YOU MORE (d. Sam TAYLOR-WOOD) ****
TONY MANERO (d. Pablo LARRAIN) ***

"A real blast."

I love a good bit of controversy, and I love a controversial film even more. So it brings me a great deal of joy to give y'all an advance warning of a pretty staggering film that is coming your way that will fuck some people up. The film is an animated Israeli documentary called Waltz with Bashir, and it details a man's efforts to reconnect with other members of his army division during Israel's Lebanon War in the early 80s, specifically in relation to two massacres that occurred in two refugee camps during that time.

The film is remarkable, using the smae sort of psychogenic fugue-narrative that David Lynch worked so well in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, but applying it to real-life trauma and shock. It's like nothing I've ever seen before, but you could almost call it a head-on collision between A Scanner Darkly and Redacted, except much much better than the latter and on par with the former.

So there are a couple of reasons why people are going to lose their shit about this film- one is that it deals with the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but what's going to cause the big freak-outs left and right is that the massacring in those refugee camps was done by Christians. Since contemporary evangelical Christianity in the U.S. has taken to walking a hard pro-Israel line (basically in order to force the hand of the divine, which is stupid, ignorant, and blasphemous all at the same time and perfectly illustrative of what's achingly wrong with the current theological mindset of U.S. Christianity), I don't imagine that they're going to take too well to this, and I can't wait.

So when Pat Robertson and Rexella van Impe or whoever is trying to exploit faith for power starts decrying this film in the near future, you can remember you got your heads up from me.

Today I saw:
I DON'T FEEL LIKE DANCING (d. Joachim DOLLHOPF and Evi GOLDBRUNNER) ***
WALTZ WITH BASHIR (d. Ari FOLMAN) *** 1/2

Yesterday I saw:
C.R.A.Z.Y. (d. Jean-Marc VALLEE) ***
SHROOMS (d. Paddy BREADNACH) * 1/2

"Plato's Republic: pas d'un livre petasse"

I just finished my first day of screenings and my first Mandarin lesson, and I feel as if beaten with sticks.

The good news is that I'm already bowled over by quality with the NYFF films. The bad news is I suck at learning Mandarin. But I'm still hopeful.

For dinner tonight, I feel like A Pimp Named Slickback special. Some of you may ask what that entails, so I will elaborate. I am a very picky eater, and it is markedly difficult for me to find celebrity sandwiches that are agreeable with my temperamental tastes. Which is why, on The Boondocks episode "The Story of Gangstalicious Part 2," when the character A Pimp Named Slickback describes a sandwich good enough to put before hoes, he says 'a turkey sandwich with just tomato,' I almost fell over.

People don't seem to trust simple sandwiches anymore. Everything's got to have arugula or some diced stuff, or god forbid, mayonnaise, and it makes things difficult for me as a human being. So to have someone famous (even fictional animated famous) make a proclamation as to sandwich simplicity, well I embrace that. So, a turkey sandwich with just tomato is A Pimp Named Slickback special, and I plan on eating one.

I'm going to have to do my Mandarin lesson over again. But there's time, and I'm not actually being graded.

But still...


Today I saw:

ENTRE LES MURS (The Class) (d Laurent CANTET) ***
CRY ME A RIVER (d JIA Zhang-ke) **
WENDY & LUCY (d Kelly REICHARDT) *** 1/2

"Just like I pictured it; skyscrapers, everything..."

So I'm back in NYC, up and running all of twenty minutes or so and catching the subway uptown to where I'm staying. Sitting across from tired, sweaty me clutching my suitcase to keep it from rolling around the A train is a twentysomething year-old woman reading a book called Nasty Dick.

Not a magazine. Not a pamphlet. Not a manga collection. An actual book. Called Nasty Dick.

I love this city and have missed it so.

This is rumor control; Here are the facts.

I made it up North (no thanks to my initial ride and after a fortysomething dollar cab ride) and am currently kicking it in Boston. I'll be busing my way into NYC on Sunday to gear up for Day One of the NYFF press screenings. It should be as epic as always.