April 30, 2008

Tribeca, Week 2.

Tribeca Film Festival "Tribeca, rather than being a big player in the global film marketplace, has become a successful local event, partly because the organizers have avoided film elitism and mastered the high-low New York landscape," argues David Carr in the New York Times.

The festival runs through Sunday and, picking up from Week 1, here we go.

Updated through 5/7.

Sara Vilkomerson's got a roundup in the New York Observer.

"The real highlight of [Katyn] is Krzysztof Penderecki's magnificent score (his influence can be heard all over Jonny Greenwood's music for There Will Be Blood), which often works its discordant melodies just beneath the surface of the film, subtly affecting the mood and quietly amplifying the overall sense of horror," blogs Cullen Gallagher for the L Magazine.

In Slant: Nick Schager on Boy A and Before the Rains.

My Winnipeg At the House Next Door: Lauren Wissot on that "incredible odyssey," My Winnipeg, and Zachary Wigon's interview with Guy Maddin (to read or listen to).

At Cinematical:

Fermat's Room
  • Fermat's Room "is a strange but engaging Spanish thriller in which four well-established mathematicians convene after receiving a mysterious invitation, and then find themselves trapped inside a shrinking room. The only way out is to solve a bunch of math riddles, but the biggest question is this: Why the heck is someone trying to kill four mathematicians in the first place?" Scott Weinberg. Also, Seven Days Sunday and Gunnin' for That #1 Spot.

"Let the Right One In is the kind of film you like better a few days after first seeing it," writes the IFC's Alison Willmore.

At ScreenGrab: Phil Nugent on Idiots and Angels, Playing and Theater of War, My Winnipeg, Profit motive and the whispering wind (more from Ricky D'Ambrose in the Tisch Film Review), The Zen of Bobby V and From Within.

Old Man Bebo "Carlos Carcas's Old Man Bebo and Faramarz K-Rahber's Donkey in Lahore are both screening in the World Documentary Competition," and indieWIRE interviews both directors.

Erich Kuersten files a dispatch from New York to Bright Lights After Dark: "The question is, what are all these bleached Midwestern tourists doing this far down from Times Square? Suddenly it hits me like the cold rush off a dirty crack pipe: Am Ex and that stupid beer have turned Tribeca Film Festival into a tourist attraction, ala Mardi Gras, 'jazz fest' and - not long from now I imagine - Burning Man. Dudes!"

Updates, 5/2: "Winners were announced late yesterday evening for this year’s Tribeca Film Festival," reports S James Snyder, who's got the list in the New York Sun. "The long list of awards included a slate of stories about New York economics, war-torn African nations, and the pain of adolescent alienation - as seen through the eyes of a bloodsucking vampire."

Also in the New York Sun:

"Now that I have seen dozens and dozens of films in this 7th Tribeca Film Festival, I want to correct myself," writes Howard Feinstein at indieWIRE. "I was wrong in my first report. Tribeca is unique, and occupies a certain niche in New York that belongs to it alone. It is neither film festival nor film market. It is closer to Las Vegas's Showest, or Orlando's Show East, which are more mainstream in their focus than, say, artier events like the New York Film Festival, although it is eclectic enough to include 'high art' movies, too."

"Guest of Cindy Sherman feels more like three or four docs fused into one entertaining (and sometimes squirm-inducing) concoction," writes Joy Press, who talks with director Paul H-O for Salon. "We get a sidelong view of the art world and its symbiotic relationship with commerce and celebrity, as well as an exploration of the awkward life of a famous person's 'plus one'... At the center of it all is Sherman, in a fragmented portrait of a woman H-O calls 'the most famous mystery girl of art,' a photographer who has used her own image as the basis for a hugely influential body of work."

Eric Kohn talks with Bill Plympton about Idiots and Angels. Also in the New York Press, Simon Abrams on Somers Town. More on that one from Bill Weber in Slant.

Somers Town

Somers Town also features in Aaron Hillis's new entry in his "Critic's Notebook" at Premiere - and so does Charly.

For VF Daily, Julian Sancton talks with Ben Kingsley, currently at work with Martin Scorsese on Ash Cliff: "At Tribeca this year, he changes gears once again with two very different comedies: War, Inc, a satire of the military industrial complex, and The Wackness, where he plays a pot-smoking, emotionally stunted psychiatrist against the backdrop of a changing New York in 1994."

Marcy Dermansky quite likes War, Inc.

For New York, Bilge Ebiri talks with José Padilha about Elite Squad.

At Cinematical:

At ScreenGrab: Phil Nugent on Bitter & Twisted, Confessions of an Ex-Doofus-Itchy-Footed Mutha, Finding Amanda, Boy A, Guest of Cindy Sherman and 3 docs.

In his latest dispatch at Stream, Eric Kohn covers Mike Figgis's appearance as part of the Tribeca Talks series, Wild Man of the Navidad and 57,000 Kilometers Between Us.

Alison Willmore has a "Rednexploitation!" roundup: Tennessee, From Within and The Wild Man of Navidad.

For Filmmaker, Jason Guerrasio on Chevolution; and Brandon Harris talks with John Magary (The Second Line).

At the L Magazine: Cullen Gallagher on Idiots and Angels and Sita Sings the Blues; and George Krzewski on Amos Poe's Empire II.

Online listening tip. Leonard Lopate talks with Robert Drew about A President to Remember: In the Company of John F Kennedy.

Online viewing tip. Jürgen Fauth has the first 20 minutes of "an extraordinary panel consisting of Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, screenwriter Ann Druyan, artificial intelligence expert Marvin Minsky, and actor Matthew Modine." The topic is the 40th anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Sita Sings the Blues

Updates, 5/4: "Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues is a strange and beautiful little film, a potentially wispy slice of autobiography smartly elevated through irresistible, orgiastic style," writes Karina Longworth at the SpoutBlog.

"[Cindy] Sherman, already a sensation due to her Untitled Film Stills, happened to enjoy watching Gallery Beat, and while everyone in the haute art world clamored for interviews with her, she decided she’d prefer to talk to Paul H-O. This was like Nicole Kidman granting exclusive access to a pimply teenage blogger from some godforsaken dungeon in Secaucus." Andrew Hultkrans for Artforum on Guest of Cindy Sherman - and on The Universe of Keith Haring, too.

At Twitch: Simon Abrams on The Cottage, Let the Right One In and Fermat's Room.

At ScreenGrab: Phil Nugent on Man on Wire.

For the IFC, Stephen Saito talks up a This Is Not a Robbery roundtable.

At Zoom In Online: Keith Uhlich on Milosovic on Trial and Kicking It and Jim Rohner on From Within, Dying Breed and Killer Movie.

At Slant: Fernando F Croce on The Aquarium.

At Cinematical: Joel Keller on Head Wind.

Updates, 5/5: "I will gaze into my crystal ball right now and assure you that Tribeca did not premiere next year's big Oscar-sweeping triumph," writes Andrew O'Hehir. "But at least arguably, Tribeca screened the year's best films made in Britain, France and Sweden; at least two documentaries that will win multiple awards and draw loving audiences; a thriller that could be the latest Spanish-language hit; at least one American indie that's headed for cult status; and the latest work by the cinematic poet laureate of Winnipeg, Manitoba." He picks ten in all to watch out for.

Also in Salon, Amy Reiter talks with Trisha Ziff and Luis Lopez about Chevolution.

"Though it's still very much in search (and need) of an identity, this year's edition of the Tribeca Film Festival is the first one that hasn't left me with a case of agita," writes Filmbrain.

In the New York Sun, S James Snyder looks back: "Most notable, perhaps, about this year's winners is that they were not the titles being widely discussed three weeks ago.... [T]here's a populist sensibility about Tribeca that is particularly appealing on the film-festival circuit."

Phil Nugent wraps the festival for Screengrab.

Brandon Harris rounds it up for Filmmaker.

"John Gianvito proves once again that in the cinema simplicity begets superlative richness." Daniel Kasman on Profit motive and the whispering wind in the Auteurs' Notebook.

Karina Longworth presents her "Tribeca 2008 Recap" at the SpoutBlog.

"Guest of Cindy Sherman is a true work of talent and artistry," writes Keith Uhlich at Zoom In Online.

Updates, 5/6: Aaron Hillis puts the finishing touches on his "Critic's Notebook" for Premiere: Guest of Cindy Sherman, "a riveting, witty and quite sophisticated portrait of three overlapping subjects of varying depths, which belies the self-serving sameness of most artist docs"; Sita Sings the Blues, "the beautifully audacious feature debut of long-time comic strip artist Nina Paley"; and a list: "Premiere's Top 10 Films of Tribeca 2008."

Lou Reed's Berlin

Lou Reed and Julian Schnabel were on hand for a Q&A following a screening of Lou Reed's Berlin on Sunday and the Film Panel Notetaker went to work. More on the Playlist.

"Days in Sintra is Paula Gaitán's meditative, sensory exercise," writes Ricky D'Ambrose in the Tisch Film Review. "It is also a documentary, dedicated to her husband, the Brazilian filmmaker Glauber RochaM.a<, who passed away more than 25 years ago."

The Cottage is "an enjoyably but fairly schizophrenic genre experiment that does a fine job with the horror and comedy as separate components - but, as is usually the case, the combination of the two proves to be a very difficult feat to pull off," writes Scott Weinberg at Cinematical.

Stephen Saito talks with James Mottern about Trucker for the IFC. More from Time Out New York.

IndieWIRE indexes its coverage.

Cinematical's index.

"Undoubtedly the best fictional film to play at the Tribeca Film Festival is Luc Moullet's fantastic, weird little short, The Milky Way, where-in the strangeness of the world blossoms in cinema’s simplicity," writes Daniel Kasman in the Auteurs' Notebook.

And Daniel Kasman indexes his coverage, too.

"Attendance appears to have dipped for the second year in a row at the Tribeca Film Festival despite lowered ticket prices, a 25 percent reduction in the number of features and an attempt to consolidate most screenings in the Union Square area," notes the New York Post's Lou Lumenick.

Updates, 5/7: For Movie City News, Noah Forrest talks with Julie Checkoway about Waiting for Hockney.

At Cinema Strikes Back: Charlie Prince on Fighter and Susannah Gora, briefly, on Finding Amanda and Yonkers Joe.

Posted by dwhudson at April 30, 2008 3:08 PM