NYFF preview. Go Go Tales.

"Like Prairie Home Companion, Go Go Tales [site] is a serio-comic survey of a community on life support, and as Ferrara's elegantly camera prowls the Paradise's rooms and hallways, we catch glimpses of people whose survival depends on the subsistence of the club and the resolve of its emcee, Ray Ruby (Willem Dafoe)," writes Ed Gonzalez, who finds the film to be Abel Ferrara's "most confessional since Dangerous Game."

Updated.

"Expectedly, some of the improvised scenarios fall flat (a man recognizing one of the strippers as his wife feels like a worn-out premise), but this is definitely one of those films made of moments greater than the whole," writes Kevin B Lee at the House Next Door. "I don't buy the grander claims made for Go Go Tales as an incisive view into the struggle of art versus capitalism, commerce and addiction (there just aren't enough ruminative moments for those themes to come through), but as an object lesson in cinema at play, it's got as much life as the constantly roving and redefining frames of Fabio Cianchetti's camerawork, or the dense, multifaceted nightclub soundtrack. This is a film that's about being alive and cavorting like crazy through both good times and bad."

"The press conference was an occasionally hilarious dialogue about the film that offered a glimpse into the sort of tug-of-war of personalities that must have made for a lively movie set," reports Eugene Hernandez. And at the SpoutBlog, Karina Longworth has just a whole lot of quotage from Mr Ferrara.

Earlier: Steven Shaviro and reviews from Cannes.

Update: "The ensemble (and, I suppose, dancing naked ladies) doesn't hurt," writes ST VanAirsdale at the Reeler. "I asked Ferrara at Monday's press conference how he worked with his cast to develop and corral the surrogate family whose psychodramatic chemistry somehow resulted in perhaps the festival's best comedy." The answer's a long one.

Posted by dwhudson at September 25, 2007 7:17 AM