By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
We, The Jury: Edelstein Recounts Tribeca Documentary Duty for NYM Readers
Further wedging his way into my top two or three favorite film writers on the planet, David Edelstein turns in a refeshingly candid (i.e. deliciously gossipy) chronicle of his stint as a Tribeca juror to this week’s issue of New York Magazine. And while Edelstein’s experience with the festival seems to have been mostly positive (“[I]t is a festival that is genuinely festive. Does the snooty NYFF host a parade and street fair?”), the cultural rubbernecker in me cannot get enough of the critic’s more, well, personal observations.
To wit:
–I admit I hoped to hobnob with other celebrity jurors like Laurence Fishburne, Josh Lucas, Julia Stiles, Kelly Lynch, and Lou Reed. Fat chance. Celebrities have a tunnel vision for one another. Rosie greets Laurence. Moby makes a beeline for Lou (who has the teeny-weeniest shoulders). Julia, all willowy poise, enters and leaves without surveying the room. Kelly is deep in conversation with festival co-founder Robert De Niro, the world’s least approachable man. I content myself with swag. You wouldn’t believe the gift bag, which includes a video iPod. Although it’s for services rendered (jurors aren’t paid), I’m ambivalent about journalists’ accepting gifts. My head says no, no, no—but my wife says yes, yes, yes. Easy call.
–The jurors meet on May 5. In addition to Rosie and Moby, my group consists of filmmaker and former Time Out New York editor Joe Angio, Glenn Kenny of Premiere, and the winner of this category last year, Victor Buhler. Victor arrives with five criteria for judging, including political impact and “sacrifice and courage.” He is shot down, but not before the earnest Moby pipes up that social responsibility should, indeed, outweigh everything. The formidable Rosie demurs—a movie should be judged on its own terms, she insists. (Rosie becomes, predictably, the de facto foreman.)
–It’s a little disconcerting when our award is dispatched quickly and without a jury spokesman, whereas Ken Burns gasses on and on when presenting his prize. I ask jury coordinator Nancy Lefkowitz why we didn’t get to bore the audience, too, and she says, “Moby was supposed to do it, and he didn’t show.” (So much for social responsibility.) What about Rosie? “Sick.” We were out of celebs.
Cuh-lassic. Now if only we could get Wong Kar-Wai to spill the beans on Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton trysting in the jury room at Cannes, we can all die totally happy.
