The 2007 New York Film Festival

Looks much better than last year!

The draft of the Baumbach screenplay I read was terrible.

Whoa.

since Alice Tully Hall is under renovation, the smaller space at the Rose Hall means tix will be scarcer. There'll still be plenty of subscribers selling their Hou tickets at the door.

That line-up looks nice. I definitely wouldn't recommend the Schnabel, Chabrol and Breillat movies. They are all pretty terrible.

well, those weren't on my short list.

More:

In addition, there will be five classic films screened, including John Ford's first major film -- The Iron Horse. Probably the most anticipated of that bunch is Ridley Scott's "definitive cut" of Blade Runner, in honor of that film's 25th anniversary. An evening called "The Technicolor Show" should be a major attraction, as it's introduced by Martin Scorsese.

http://www.cinematical.com/2007/08/15/new-york-film-festival-announces-full-lineup/

and more details (I guess Leave Her to Heaven will be intro'd by Scorsese):

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/iw/20070815/118720660500.html

My order form arrived the same day as a credit card bill, so I DEFINITELY won't be ordering more than 3 or 4 films.

Anyone see the schedule (ie, screening dates) online? (not on Filmlinc)

no one, I guess.

Interesting that the Ferrara Go Go Tales has no US distrib yet (and is playing at the Reade at midnight).

think i might try for tickets for the new tarr. they haven't gone on sale yet right?

no, except to FSLC members. I think you can rest assured THAT film will be available when they go public on Sept 9.

Apparently I got all my (4) tickets. Hint: Go for the Saturday morning (Tarr, Haynes), foreign enigmas (Reyagadas) and midnight (Ferrara) shows.

Didn't the Tarr get miserable reviews?

I haven't read any. I tend not to even survey them beforehand, if it's someone I'm interested in anyway.

Sorry. SPOLIER ALERT.

aren't you flying in for dePalma?

No, it will open wide enough within a month or two.

you Sunday morning buyers can get the screening schedule (pdf) here:

http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/program.html

Uhlich likes the Tarr. Expectations have been readjusted accordingly.

tarr-ific

Ladies & gents, Mr. Rex Reed.

http://thebridalblog.observer.com/2007/wes-more-pretension-pollutes-new-york-film-festival?page=0%2C0

Dargis really disliked the Rohmer offering.

I had to pass up Tarr for the Mets' funeral. Very mixed response (to Tarr that is).

I liked Reygadas' -- looks and sounds stunning -- but not quite as much as his first two.

I concur, it was a terrific film but not quite as powerful as Japon or as engrossing as Battle In Heaven. I loved Reygadas' nonchalant answers to questions after the film, saying that the beginning of the movie was inspired by his screen saver and that he put a clip of Jacques Brel in the movie just because he likes Jacques Brel. The guy is nowhere near as pretentious as I expected. He's very unassuming and ordinary, that must be why he has such a knack for working with non-actors. I also loved that instead of using the term "popcorn movies" he said that Hollywood movies are like "a ham and cheese sandwich."

you saw a different screening than I did... asked to slap a genre label on it, he said "metaphysical rural drama." You must amplify on the screen saver!

I think the Mennonite cast might've accounted for the relatively subdued single sex scene, after his previous wowzers?

The moderator asked about the meaning/inspiration of the beginning and ending, and Reygadas said something along the lines of "I had a sunset screen saver on my computer and one day I was looking at it and thought it would be a good way to start a movie."

i've heard the new Baumbach film,with nicolee kidman, is actually great.

"Margot at the Wedding " is the title.good reviews.

with some passionate dissenters.

well,yeah, rottentomatoes made it clear that i read only the minority of the reviews.(ave.rating 4 out of 10)

wasnt this movie (and some others here) also screend at the toronto fest?

ya i saw it there. i was sort of conflicted about it.

Man, fuck this festival.

Excited for Ferrara tonight, though.

overall quality disappoints you?

I'll be there at midnight too, to my regret (sleep in the fountain to get up for Haynes film tomw?).

It's just the prices and the attitude and the shitty seats and the same small pool of filmmakers every year (which is even worse in The Views from the Avant-Garde). It's not any worse this year (based on the one screening I've see there, I think Frederick P. Rose Hall is a better venue than Alice Tully), but it's getting to me more I guess.

I wasn't thrilled with the Bela Tarr, but I was pretty distracted so I may have missed something. The camera work was amazing as usual, but it just felt like another Bela Tarr movie.

Are you going the Costa/Farocki/Eugene Green thing, Morbs? I just noticed it and unfortunately have to go to a party that night.

I hadn't noticed it til you just mentioned it, but then I've ignored the a-g slate. The features of Costa and Green haven't done much for me.

so the todd haynes screened yesterday, yeah? whats the word on that?

Costa/Farocki/Eugene Green

mer? what was this?

http://www.filmlinc.org/nyff/program/avantgarde/avantgarde.html

MEMORIES
Total Runtime: 102m
Respite Harun Farocki | The Rabbit Hunters Pedro Costa | Correspondences Eugène Green

If there is no baseball I might try that^ Sun night.

Abel Ferrara running around Reade lobby (and theater) high as a kite, never heard a filmmaker SHUSHED at start of his own movie before, Film is OK comedy that's all about wacky as opposed to funny behavior, certainly wasn't worth the sleep I lost.

Haynes: very good, tech impeccable, better than Velv G'mine as far as his pop thesis movies go. The Gere-Western element is the biggest misfire, along w/ banal dialogue of Ledger-Gainsbourg.

I understand the Ferrara incident was a little bit more than just people shushing him. I understand he threw a bottle of beer and Sylvia Miles took the Q&A as an opportunity to call the moderator an asshole.

LOVED the first 2 hours of the reyagadas (though i haven't seen the other two, so nothing to compare it to, but thought the last 10 mins rang unbelievably false -- but most reviews i've read lead me to believe i'm the only one who feels that way.

liked but didn't love the tarr. weirdly, i was also distracted while watching it (maybe something in the air?); tarr is among my favorite working filmmakers, but this one felt weirdly insignificant. all his great meaningful shots were there, but the material felt trivial.

completely unmoved by the rohmer.

despite it's gigantic plot holes and huge debts to other movies, really enjoyed the orphanage.

there is a ton of punctuation missing from my first sentence.

also, i saw the restoration of underworld w/ live accompaniment by the alloy orchestra. i did not realize roger miller was the piano player for that group. imagine my surprise!

I understand the Ferrara incident was a little bit more than just people shushing him. I understand he threw a bottle of beer and Sylvia Miles took the Q&A as an opportunity to call the moderator an asshole.

Ferrara came on-stage as the credits rolled and was yelling and gesturing for someone to turn the mic on. When no one did, he threw a beer bottle on the stage and then tripped over it, diving face forward on to the stage floor and then left. Scott Foundas sort of begged Sylvia Miles to do the Q&A and she called him an asshole, but sort of did the Q&A anyway. Grace Jones showed up halfway through, joined Miles onstage, and left a few minutes later, after a question about the "free range" hot dogs in the movie, yelling about Hebrew National.

I liked Go Go Tales more than Morbs. The story is pretty insignificant, but I thought it was really well-directed. It doesn't have the immediacy of his best work, but there was an interesting, sort-of soft-focus claustropobia to the film.

Film is OK comedy that's all about wacky as opposed to funny behavior

What does this sound like? ... Oh.

I give up, what? (oh yeah -- you can keep this, I'll take tenth-rate scr*wb*ll. and answer yr email.)

Sylvia Miles took the Q&A as an opportunity to call the moderator an asshole.

It was 2:05 a.m. when the film ended, I had to get up in the morning for I'm Not There and really didn't want to see any more irritating trainwreck behavior (ie, like Sylvia Miles' "performance" in the movie), so I skedaddled and missed the whole circus. I did see Grace Jones in the last row on my way out.

i went to the memories AG program last night.

my breakdown:
farocki (yay)
costa (zuh?)
green (meh)

also it started an hour late because of technical snafus and i didn't get home until 1:30am

wow, that sounds more like Tribeca....

There are still tix available for Redacted tonight. People don't wanna see nuthin 'bout Iraq unless it's 'pretty'?

ehhh the word redacted apears so many times in the preview

are there 'pretty' iraq war movies?

yes, Iraq in Fragments

People don't wanna see nuthin 'bout Iraq unless it's 'pretty'?

People don't wanna pay $20 to see a movie that's coming out in a month.

(Especially if those people saw The Black Dahlia)

That's not much of a factor, ppl have been doing that for other films opening soon -- I did for I'm Not There...

Redacted is due in December, unless de Palma talks his way out of it.

some people presumably paid 20 bucks to see Darjeeling at the fest and that's already playing in Union Square

some people would probably pay not to see anything at Union Square