'Insanity' Claims Battery Park City For a Night

I also caught up Thursday with Robert Margolis and Frank Matter, the co-directors whose no-budget masterwork The Definition of Insanity enjoyed a fittingly insane reaction at the Regal in Battery Park City. You might remember last summer’s Reeler coverage of Insanity, which earned last night’s screening as part of its triumph at last year’s Virginia Film Festival; the Audience Award winner received a Regal showcase, while the Jury Prize winner got $5,000.

Insanity auteurs Robert Margolis (left) and Frank Matter following their film’s screening Thursday night (Photo: STV)
And wouldn’t you know it: Insanity claimed both. Alas, after 20-something festival appearances, a Variety rave and a mantelful of awards, Margolis told me that the film is still on the distribution prowl. “It went really well tonight,” he said at the packed afterparty. “I’m a little jaded, because the thing is, the screenings always go well. The audience is always very responsive. But we’re still waiting for someone to come out of the audience with a checkbook and basically offer to buy the film.”
So….. What? That did not happen tonight?
“That didn’t happen tonight.”
No checkbooks?
Margolis glanced around the bar. “None that I’ve seen.”
Talk about a crime. While Margolis mentioned that a European deal or two might be in the works, he adds that Insanity–about a struggling New Yorker (Margolis, playing himself, but only sort of) who risks everything he has to establish an acting career–has been an especially tough sell to American distributors. “Right now,” he said, “the thing is, we don’t have any sex, we don’t have any violence and we don’t have any stars in the film. So they don’t quite know how to market it, despite the fact that audiences come in and love the film. They come back more than once, actually. A distributor looks at it and says, ‘How are we going to market it?’ And I undertstand–there’s a lot of money involved.
“So I have a certain amount of empathy for them. A limited amount of empathy.”
And I have less than that, actually, because people really like this movie. They do see it two or three times at festivals or local screenings. It manufactures buzz everywhere it plays. And hell yes, it IS challenging, which makes its word-of-mouth appeal thus far all the more stunning. Basically, everybody but the indie film distribution community seems to get The Definition of Insanity. If we were talking about a $5 million acquisition, it would be one thing. But Jesus Christ–it is an DV comedy/drama that is actually funny and intense and wields audience goodwill to spare. Someone roll the fucking dice, would you?
Speaking of the definiton of insanity–characterized in the film as repeatedly failing at the same thing over and over while hoping that the result will eventually change–I asked Margolis if his experience with the film is starting to resemble anything close to that. “It’s exactly the same thing,” he quickly replied. “But the definition of insanity is also the definiton of perseverance. If the person who is insane suddenly hits it, and someone picks it up and they become a sensation, they get their film screened, they get their artwork done–they’re not insane. It’s just the ones who don’t quite make it who are considered insane because they keep going.
“But I can’t figure the difference,” he added. “And that’s what we’re doing. We’re pursuing our dream in a sense.”
Beautiful. Now let us just hope that the next audience will bring those checkbooks along.

Bogdanovich Slays 'Targets' at Film Forum

Every few months or so, I find myself bumping into Peter Bogdanovich at some cinema or other around town. And last night at Film Forum, there he was again, introducing a screening of his 1968 film Targets as part of the theater’s final night of its Boris Karloff series.
Of course, Bogdanovich does not really do “introductions,” but something a little closer to the lecture species. If he is the right mood, these chats can be as good as filmgoing gets. And indeed, he was in fine form Thursday night–except for one minor problem.
“Hello,” he said from a podium at the front of the theater. “You’re going to see a lousy print.” Evidently, the Paramount print that repertory programmer Bruce Goldstein summoned for the screening was in severe disrepair, and an inferior British print arrived in its place. “I discovered that this existed when the film came out in ’68 in England. And someone said to me that the film ran less than 75 minutes. And I said, ‘Wait a minute–is that a typo? Because the running time is 90 minutes.’ No, it wasn’t a typo. That was the English version–15 minutes shorter, and that’s what you’re going to see.”
Bogdanovich spent 20 fairly brilliant minutes detailing how he segued from his mid-1960s film writing career into filmmaking. He dusted off the story of meeting Roger Corman, who mentored Bogdanovich on a couple of films in his quintessentially cheapskate way until giving the young writer a chance to direct in 1968. But it was not going to be that easy, Bogdanovich recalled. “Roger called me one day and asked me, ‘How would you like to make your own film?’
“I said, ‘Well, Roger, of course.’
“He said, ‘Well here’s the situation: Boris Karloff owes me two days. Now here’s what I want you to do: Get Karloff, and shoot 20 minutes in two days. You can shoot 20 minutes in two days; I’ve shot whole movies in two days.'”
The catch was that Bogdanovich had to also cull 20 minutes of Karloff footage from Corman’s film The Terror to compose the rest of the actor’s performance. “It’s possibly the worst movie ever made,” Bogdanovich said. “Jack Nicholson is in it, and he’s so bad in it I thought he was a lousy actor.” The rest of the new film could be anything Bogdanovich wanted; Corman literally did not care who else was in it.

Read the full article »

IFC Center Packed at Last For Horowitz Book Launch

Any of you who follow Josh Horowitz’s film and culture blog Better Than Fudge already know the hell out of this, but all of the sudden, the guy has a book out there. The Mind of the Modern Moviemaker is the culmination of more than a year’s worth of Horowitz’s interviews with directors like Michel Gondry, Kevin Smith, Patty Jenkins and more than a dozen others, grilling them on everything from working methods to the relevance of Roger Ebert and so, so much more.

Josh Horowitz (right) brings out the kid in, um, Dylan Kidd, one of the directors featured in Horowitz’s book The Mind of the Modern Moviemaker (Photo: STV)
Horowitz hosted the book’s release party Wednesday night at IFC Center, where I did not get nearly enough time to chat with him but did fall in love with the Canadian doorgirl and narrow down the three best Depeche Mode songs ever (for the record: “Home,” “Blue Dress” and “Shake the Disease”) with a couple of local film’s nicest publicists. Where I really dropped the ball, however, was in divining Modern Moviemaker‘s true, wrenching nature, which was never more evident than Amazon is making it right now:

Actually, when I think about it, reading at length about Brett Ratner does kind of get me into a harrowing funk. But it is not as if the Neil LaBute Q&A does not make up for it. I mean, at least a little.

Nude Review: Tom, Keira, Scarlett and a Web of Not-So-Much Intrigue

Frankly, this week’s kerfuffle over the upcoming Vanity Fair Hollywood issue is starting to bore me to death. An early-morning media survey reveals only the most tepid social and sexual commentary about the magazine’s Tom Ford-Scarlett Johansson-Keira Knightley menage a blah, and by this point, I really was hoping that we could have had some A-list criticism ripping through the Web. You know–a Maureen Dowd screed, or some hardcore TV bickering. A limping Caryn James think-piece. Anything.

Run for cover: Ford, Knightley and Johansson, together for Vanity’s sake (Photos: Annie Leibovitz / Vanity Fair)
Instead? Relative silence. I admit a fondness for Gawker’s concern that Ford, AKA “Mr. PeeHands,” threatens a greater corruption to the actresses than any nudity ever could, and Defamer importantly notes that Rachel McAdams’s last-minute photo-shoot recusal (not really a new story, the editors remind us) leaves VF readers with little more than “a pasty Johansson trying to ignore the well-dressed gay dude about to chew off Keira Knightley’s earlobe.”
Over in The Post, meanwhile, Liz Smith drools, slips, falls and frolics in all that sapphic succor:

(A)lthough Tom kept his clothes on for the Annie Leibovitz cover shot, there he is nuzzling two really nude beauties, Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley. (Mr. Ford does show an appealing thatch of chest hair, but it is Miss Knightley’s belly ring that really catches the eye. … Graydon Carter’s editor’s letter says it became Tommy’s moment after he teased the former Gucci brain into producing this issue, since Ford was on record saying that he thought “all the group shots . . . Oscar hopefuls . . . old-timers . . . were getting a bit tired.”

And damn you, Liz, for arousing us with this morsel:

One of Tom’s best ideas didn’t materialize; he wanted to have Bob and Harvey Weinstein photographed nude, wresting in front of a fireplace, as from the movie Women in Love. Instead, the Weinsteins are big business in good tailoring all the way.

Go ahead. Throw up. And hurry, because you want to be in tip-top shape for your audience with Dakota Fanning, who also crashes the Hollywood issue in a beautiful Chanel toga. Or something, according to Women’s Wear Daily:

While photographing a 12-year-old in the altogether was obviously out of the question, it would have been a good deal easier than putting her in Chanel couture, as Ford chose to do. His intention, according to a Vanity Fair spokeswoman, was to depict Fanning in a style commensurate with her very grown-up curriculum vitae. But the dress he selected had to be taken apart and reconstructed to fit Fanning, who, according to Ford, “is graced with the face of Michelle Pfeiffer, Jodie Foster and Uma Thurman combined(.)”

Read the full article »

One Night Only: 'If Women Ruled the World' Rules Upper West Side

The Reeler had a chance Tuesday to catch up with Richard Karz, whom I first met late last year while The New School held up a screening of his documentary 9/11/03: A Day in the Life of New York for a fire drill. We are over it now, I think–so much so that Karz is set for a screening of his 2002 film, If Women Ruled the World, tonight at Makor.
Comprising interviews and lengthy segments of a VIP dinner party held in 1999, Women features a seemingly endless array of A-listers discussing the personal and political evolution of gender equity. The result overwhelmed everyone, and not just because they scratched their heads at a documentary featuring former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor alongside Angelina Jolie, Liv Ullmann, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Jordan’s Queen Noor, Janet Reno, and a few dozen other internationally influential women. “What’s kind of significant about it is that was really the begininng of an awareness of kind of the revolution stalling,” Karz told me. “Women had reached this plateau, and it was that point when people began becoming aware of the increasing difficulty that young women were having balancing family and career–a sense of wanting to return to their family obligations to the detriment of their career goals. Those are basically the main dilemmas that women are facing today. The issues that are addressed head-on in the show are issues that continue to be relevant and continue to keep coming back in the news.”
Women retained such currency that PBS broadcast the documentary 18 times since acquiring it in 2002. And now, a more tragic relevance has emerged with the passing of one of Karz’s featured guests: Betty Friedan, the revolutionary feminist who passed away last week at 85. “Friedan is kind of the star of the show in a lot of ways,” Karz said. “She was a bridge. There was an article I read recently about choice feminism, and it was kind of using Betty Friedan as an argument for why career is so critical for women, and why career should take precedence in women’s lives. Certainly, (Friedan’s book) The Feminine Mystique is all about the importane of career for women and realizing their full potential. But in the end, Betty’s opinions evolved insofar as she tended to stress the mutuality of womens’ drives for both career and family.
“There was one critical point in the dinner party where there was this debate between the older feminist generation and the younger feminist generation–the post-feminists–about career versus family. And at one point, Betty kind of interjected that we must not look at it as either/or. Women’s roles as community builders are essential. Women’s roles in the workplace are essential. We cannot see these as mutually exclusive.”
Tonight’s screening indeed will unspool in Friedan’s honor, followed by a discussion between Karz and Barnard College president (and another of the film’s dinner guests) Judith Shapiro. Remember Friedan, and feel free to fire away with your questions. Just remember to mind the alarm this time around.

No Matter WHAT Paramount Says, I Will Never Do Mario Van Peebles's Taxes

Memo to Paramount, for at least the third year in a row: Mario Van Peebles no longer lives at Reeler HQ. Just because I wrote about his father’s documentary does not mean I am handling the family’s tax returns. I thought we went through this in 2005, and you promised me that the Brad Grey regime–with its “hints of cardamom and cedar in the air, and chopped wood … artfully displayed in an unused fireplace”–would be fastidious enough to clear all this shit up. For the last time, I am tired of paying for Gang in Blue.

Thank you for your continued accounting diligence,
STV

DreamWorks Buys Air Guitar Script; Strings Attached?

This is the best news I have heard in at least the last 30 minutes: According to Variety, DreamWorks is in development on a fictional feature about the world of competitive air guitar. Now if only we could find out everybody the ‘Works is is working with to develop it.
This is a “world” with which I acquired some familiarity last year while writing for the Daily News, but I do not think I could quite visualize an actual air-guitar movie at the time. That just goes to show you my woeful lack of vision and imagination, especially with the documentary Air Guitar Nation having been in the works (and now set to premiere next month at South By Southwest) and NYC whiff-riff pioneer Dan Crane not too far from publishing his alter ego Bjorn Turoque’s memoir.
As such, the deal’s timing seems awfully convenient. But nobody is really clear on how the, um, synergy (if any) will work: Variety’s Chris Gardner drops references to both projects in today’s piece, but neither Crane nor DreamWorks could confirm to The Reeler how or even if their projects will be connected. Meanwhile, Gardner reports that Air Guitar Nation co-producer Anna Barber will also produce the feature with Josephson Entertainment. But a mildly tight-lipped US Air Guitar co-founder (and another of Air Guitar Nation‘s co-producers) Kriston Rucker told me that while he knew a feature project was being shopped, he did not know the details of a deal that “may or may not have been made with DreamWorks.”
OK, well, sounds fantastic! However they all come together (and they will have to come together, considering the rights issues at stake), it really should be a good New York story; Rucker, Crane and previous air guitar world champs David “C-Diddy” Jung and MiRi “Sonyk Rok” Park are all local kids, and Rucker in particular is always upbeat about where the pastime is heading. “Our outlook is the more air guitar gets out there, the better,” Rucker said. “So we’re happy. If this film ever gets out, that’s great.” Are you kidding? Just imagine the NYC premiere party alone. Take a camera, is all I have to say about that.

Israeli Good: 21st Israel Film Festival Announces NYC Lineup

Word just snuck over The Reeler transom that the Israel Film Festival lineup is confirmed for Feb. 23-March 9, and it is, as usual, premiere city: 31 American premieres out of 40 films, with Daniel Syrkin’s Out of Sight launching the event on Opening Night. I guess Israel has Oscars, too, and Syrkin won last year’s Best Director hardware for his drama about a blind woman working to uncover the reasons behind her friend’s suicide.
Other highlights include the Palestinean/Israeli co-production Thirst, a bunch of Israeli television dramas, something remarkably called The Schwartz Dynasty (above) and a rare screening of the first film made in Israel, Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer. Hollywood producer David Brown and Israeli filmmaker Haim Bouzaglo are penciled in for the festival’s Visionary and Achievement Awards (respectively), and someone named Aaron Ziegelman–evidently very wealthy, important or both–will claim the IFF Humanitarian prize. Yay, Aaron.
The festival unspools over at the Clearview on Broadway and 62nd, but if you cannot make it, there is always the event’s final touring stop at the end of March. The catch: It is in godforesaken Miami. Yeah–exactly. Get your NYC tickets sooner than later.

ThinkFilm Now Set to Introduce 'Strangers'

After all that controversy about posters-this and clearances-that, it looks like the producers of the languishing Strangers With Candy feature finally got over on Warner Independent. Like nobody saw that coming: New York Magazine’s Jada Yuan had hinted at (read: all but confirmed) a deal last week, but the gentle souls over at indieWIRE made it official today that Strangers is ThinkFilm’s problem now.
And leave it to ThinkFilm kingpin Mark Urman to chime in with all the winking publicity gusto he can muster:

“At this important stage of our company’s development, we were looking for a film that combined all of the best qualities of Crash, Brokeback Mountain, and Capote,” said Urman in a statement. “Strangers with Candy has ethnic slurs, clandestine gay sex, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. What more could we want?”

Great question. All that stuff about “this important stage of our company’s development” can only be doubletalk for, “Winning documentary Oscars gets so fucking old after a while.” Between Strangers and Half Nelson, though? Hey–sky’s the limit for 2006.

Variety: Now with Less Jargon, Twice the Loathing

Well, the 21st century is off to a bumpy start at Variety, where efforts to get all electronic and shit have yielded the garish contrast of retroactively tagging Army Archerd as “Hollywood’s Original Blogger” while running not one but two pieces implying the inferiority of blogs versus print monoliths like, well, Variety.
Confused? Maybe the paper’s Nicole LaPorte can explain:

Internet news outlets rely on few, if any, fact-checkers. Sometimes they report the truth. Sometimes they don’t.

When they focus on showbiz executives, as they did last week with a flurry of reports about hirings and firings at Paramount, and merger rumors involving ICM and Endeavor, these Web sites have proved to be a major disruption.

One studio flack says that when scathing items are posted about execs, “it’s like Chernobyl.”

Unlike celebs, who grow thick-skinned from their daily battles with paparazzi, industry executives feel blindsided and wounded when they’re the subject of Internet rumors — and the disruptive effects aren’t easy to control. …

“It’s very nasty,” says one studio PR rep. “Guys like me are being slammed by (print and electronic) journalists who are trying to sort out the truth, as well as being completely hammered by the people who write our paychecks.”

I know, I know. When studio publicists–those gilded beacons of truth and honor–cannot spin or decontextualize or outright lie fast enough to keep up with the “flurry of reports” coasting down on them from the Web, it might just be time to close down the Internet.
But wait–there is more:

In Hollywood these days, executives and their publicists spend a good part of their days reacting to Web sites, which in many ways are glorified — albeit more cleverly written — tracking boards.

For all the ruckus these rumor mills are creating, their reach is decidedly insular. None comes close to receiving the amount of traffic of, say, the Drudge Report, which last December was viewed by 2.85 million people. Defamer was viewed by 905,000 during that time.

In fairness to LaPorte, she carefully avoids using the word “blog” anywhere in her piece, which makes it easier to lump together offending outlets like Defamer (an entertainment and industry gossip blog), Movie City News (an industry news site which hosts blogs [including, of course, the one you are reading]), Fishbowl L.A. (an industry news blog with some entertainment gossip) and others. And while lumping together is essential when using (as LaPorte does) Nielsen traffic stats–which supply a decent enough comparison between high-traffic sites–the figures belie individual stats that reveal a little more significant influence. For example, Defamer’s Site Meter stats are available on its front page, and even if you reacted to the its 3.6 million visits in December with a breathy “Feh,” how is LaPorte’s evidence of 905,000 unique, Nielsen-official visitors supposed to marginalize the blog? Because, as she writes, it does a third of the traffic of the Drudge Report? I mean, what?
Of course, as MCN’s own Gary Dretzka implied today in an open letter to LaPorte, competition can be scary. And film sites don’t attract and keep millions of readers because their information is inaccurate:

Defamer, as far as I can see, prints gossip that comes to it via several other sources (Page 6, for one), as well as its snitches within the industry. Only Variety, apparently, takes the items as gospel, or threats to the stability of Hollywood. It’s widely read because of its editors’ snarky, often hilarious approach to the material, not as a harbinger of the truth to come … although it’s right more often than it’s wrong.

In your slam against Movie City News, it’s likely that you’ve confused one aspect of its coverage (David Poland’s The Hot Blog) with the rest of its mission. Like any good blog, it not only provides space for other voices (mine included), but it also links to many other sites and sources (yours included). It gives credit (or blame) where it’s due. If the material in The Hot Blog (or Poland’s daily column, The Hot Button) is so consistently misguided, as you assert, why would anyone of consequence in the industry take it as seriously as you think they do?

And talk about your double-barrelled, buckshot bitchiness! You know Variety boss Peter Bart cannot camp out on the sidelines without his own thwack for good measure:

What everyone agrees is that there is no appropriate defense mechanism to the contagion of rumors. Bloggers believe fact-checking is an insult to the basic precepts of blogdom. Chat systems are designed to spread buzz, not refute it. The PR types believe that in denying rumors they only lend them credibility.

Right. The Basic Precepts of Blogdom, that slim volume we bloggers all must read before we hunker down with our ceremonial pajamas and fuzzy slippers and pledge our lives to complete fabrications and plagiarisms and general malfeasance. We also take a vow against preening sanctimony like LaPorte’s and Bart’s, which might have something to do with the power and scope of the blog phenomenon itself. Do not take my word for that, however–merely an opinion. I did not fact-check it.
Actually, I would have had this online about three hours ago had I not been fact-checking the rest of it like so much of the stuff I write. Wordplay got bought at Sundance? Call IFC. Weinsteins borrowing film clips from Magnolia? Call Eamonn Bowles. Why? Because there are no sloppy media–only sloppy journalists. In fact, I even called Bart to ask where Variety’s own blogs fit into his sweeping moral pronouncements. No response yet, but if/when I receive one, you can bet I will place it here. Meanwhile, if you will excuse me, I must make sure Army Archerd is all caught up on those Precepts.

The Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series Is Alive With the Sound of Music

The Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series–briefly profiled on The Reeler a few months back–makes its February comeback tonight over at Barbés in Park Slope. And this time, it seems to be all about the music: You’ve got Keith Snyder’s quasi-opera Credo (right), the Milanese street musician short L’uovo and features including biographical work on Bernie Worrell (Stranger) and Freddy Cole (The Cole Nobody Knows, a “work-in-progress” in its preview screening).
As per usual, programmer Joe Pacheco has roped in a few of the film’s directors for a post-screening Q&A, so you can go straight to them with your tearful praise. The fun starts at 7 and does not cost a dime until you start drinking. And as far as New York film events go tonight, it is either BICS or The Pink Panther premiere. Oh, and some guy named Malcolm McDowell at the Pioneer. Decisions, decisions.

Academy's NYC Oscar Party Set; Riot Gear Ordered

Thanks to David Carr for bringing this news flash to The Reeler’s attention: The Motion Picture Academy has locked down a time, date and place for its New York Oscar party. Naturally, the bash is set for Oscar night itself–March 5–but feel free to pencil in the St. Regis at 5 p.m. for your party-crashing convenience. And please do plan to bust in; Lord knows you would not want to miss any barnburner where “(f)ollowing a cocktail reception in the Louis XVI Suite, invited guests will adjourn to the Versailles Room for dinner and viewing of the Awards Presentation.”
“Adjourn” my ass; if the Versailles Room is the hookers-disco-and-blow madhouse Gabriel’s was in 2005, the cops will break that shit up by the end of Jon Stewart’s monologue. Which works great for me–I imagine any Academy members who escape arrest will migrate uptown to Entertainment Weekly’s D-list orgy at Elaine’s, a mere block from Reeler HQ. I am virtually riven with anticipation. Or that could just be yesterday’s buffalo wings. Either way, I think my schedule just got a little tighter.

Critical Mass, the Sequel: Sort-of Oscar Madness

Look. It is not anyone’s fault in particular that The Reeler was nonplussed by the film critic shakedown last night at Makor. Nobody’s fault, that is, if we discount Armond White, whose whipcrack of opinion made the last critic’s event there so alternately fun and frustrating. This time around, bless their hearts, Owen Gleiberman, David Edelstein, Lisa Schwarzbaum and moderator David Sterritt bounded from Oscar chat to best-of/worst-of meditations to the narrowing theatrical release window within breaths of each other, only getting dangerous long enough to indict William Hurt’s performance in A History of Violence.

EW critic Owen Gleiberman (L), slyly preparing to backhand New York Magazine’s David Edelstein over some movie or another (Photo: STV)
“Who knows what’s going on with this guy?” Gleiberman asked after the gathering viewed a clip from Violence. “They can’t find out who he used to be, and all the drama this is supposed to set up–”
“It makes no sense!” Edelstein said. “The guy’s, like, Midwestern, then he’s Philadelphia, then he’s Italian? What?”
“Yeah,” Gleiberman said. “And William Hurt, I think, is Jewish in that.”
“A Jew? He looks like a Quaker.”
“He’s a Quaker pickle vendor.”
“This is the time to open things up,” Sterritt interrupted. “Would you folks like to take a vote on whether or not William Hurt looks like a pickle vendor?”
There you go. That is your highlight. The whole time, I pictured Armond in Schwarzbaum’s seat, enduring the banter and then unleashing his own bruising broadside against Cronenberg and Hurt before intellectually scrambling to the austere safe-house of Munich. Such is his act–so long a shadow, so hard to follow.
This batch of critics, whom I generally like (except for Edelstein, whom I really, really like), played the whole goddamn thing safe, with only a couple of minor dust-ups that settled down before they could choke anyone. Hearing Gleiberman and Edelstein disagree on the didactic nature of Brokeback Mountain (Edelstein views the film through the prism of politics; Gleiberman was a little more receptive to the love story dynamic) did nothing for me at all, while Schwarzbaum’s own quasi-political interpretation of the last year in cinema seemed thought-provoking if not a little obvious. “I think we are first seeing the results of post-9/11 thinking,” she said. “I think that for filmmakers of any seriousness, the sensibility of living in a post-9/11 world is affecting what we see. And whether it’s Cache, or whether it’s Munich, or whether it’s War of the Worlds, it affects the filmmaking even if it’s subliminal. And I think that’s a trend to pay attention to whether or not it’s a big or small movie.”
Despite the lushly photocopied list of 2005 Academy Award nominees that guests received upon entering the screening room, the panelists kept the awards chat to a minimum. Which was fine with me; I was more than happy to hear Good Night, and Good Luck‘s merits discussed on cultural and aesthetic bases rather than those undergirding its Oscar chances. At least one loudmouth behind me could not decide whether or not this was Michelle Williams’ year (“Ohhhhh, I don’t know! Catherine Keener, too, you know?”), yet that whole debate bypassed the panel.
Really, not much else happened unless you count the cooing elicited by Sterritt’s closing clip of Best Documentary nominee March of the Penguins, which would have sent anyone fleeing onto 67th Street in terror. At least the guy knows how to finish; not Armond style, admittedly, arguing with some of the attendees, but close enough.

Andrew W.K. and the Cryptic Movie Missive

I told you a while back about party-rock freak Andrew W.K.’s approaching date with destiny at the Pioneer Theater. But had I known he would file a dispatch of his own on the Pioneer’s blog, I would likely have left the hype to the man himself.
Because God knows I cannot dream up anything this profound:

On Sunday night, I’m not going to do anything except watch movie, in chair. In fact, I’m not going to watch it, I’m going to see it. This Sunday night, I’m going to be in theater, at 11PM, and I’m going to see movie, on screen, sitting in chair. Anything more than that is going to be up to the other people in chair and the other people on screen. But each one of these other people, both on screen and in chair, will also be in theater with me, this Sunday night, seeing movie. So… please come down, put yourself in chair, so we can see each other there.

Indeed, if you can beat the mad rush sure to ensue, “put yourself in chair.” Tell me how it goes, if you do not mind– I am officially terrified of the whole thing.

Edelstein, Gleiberman and Schwarzbaum to Handle Hardware at Makor

You know what they say about better late than never: In case you missed the flourish of drama and bombast that was last December’s Meet the Critics panel at Makor, you can meet some different ones tonight at the same place. This time around, however, instead of running down their top-ten lists comprising films half the audience had not even seen, New York Magazine’s David Edelstein and Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum (a last minute replacement for Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek) join National Society of Film Critics chairman David Sterritt in breaking down the recently revealed Oscar nominations.
You know me–all hot and bothered by awards season–but I think I will brave this one anyway and see if I cannot chronicle some of the absurdity sure to blast forth from the basement stage of the Steinhardt Center. Please drop in, introduce yourself and join me in commisserating over the trade of Armond White for Owen Gleiberman. This may be Oscar 2006’s biggest upset, right here.