By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Page Six Gets Chivalrous After Vachon's Angelika Beatdown
I know I’m a few days behind on this, but even the slowest turnaround in town could not diminish the currency and vitality of the odd Page Six indie-film item. After all, who can forget last spring’s unqualified props for Steven Shainberg and Rachel Boynton, or the head-scratching smackdowns on Steven Soderbergh and Manohla Dargis–all hallmarks of the Page’s wordly, versatile renown?
The tradition continued Sunday with a lead item featuring producer Christine Vachon, whose new book (noted here last week) evidently tees off on the dank, noisy rat habitat of the Angelika Film Center.
“I hate the Angelika. I won’t see movies there,” she rants in A Killer Life, out later this month from Simon & Schuster.
“The seats are uncomfortable, the sound is crummy, you can hear the 4/5/6 train rumbling underneath you, and the film projectors are terrible,” Vachon rants. “Don’t even get me started on how the Technicolor [in] Far From Heaven looked on their screens. I couldn’t watch.”
Old news to most New York filmgoers, the Angelika’s perceived inferiority nevertheless scandalized Page Six, which officially reported a no-comment from an Angelika spokesman and a no-response from the chain’s mother ship in Los Angeles. Unofficially, an Angelika publicist planted the item; note the telltale description of “the beloved Houston Street mecca for independent releases–which helped many of [Vachon’s] quirky flicks become huge box office successes” (for the record, the Venice and Toronto smash Far From Heaven‘s opening weekend raked in around $210,000 on six screens, only one of which was at the Angelika), and someone dredged up the New York Press’s 2004 reader award for “Best NYC Movie Theater,” failing to note that the paper of Armond White would laud a bedsheet taped to a wall if it seemed the appropriately contrary move.
Anyway, I will be reviewing A Killer Life later this month as well as bringing you a dispatch from Vachon’s Sept. 25 appearance following Boys Don’t Cry at Lincoln Center. Hopefully the Angelika moles cannot sabotage the projection booth.
(Via Out of Focus)
“A rep for the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting, which has green-lighted many of Vachon’s shoots in the Big Apple, also refused to address her remarks and even urged that the office not be mentioned in this story.”
Our tax dollars hard at work.
Vis a vis the booth: I think you’ve got the wrong rodents.