Reeler Podcasts: Have Lunch With James Toback and Nicholas Jarecki

The latest Reeler podcasts are now available, featuring Nicholas Jarecki and James Toback discussing their partnership on the new documentary The Outsider. I listed a few highlights Monday, all of which pale (now that I have re-reviewed our chats) to Toback eating lunch in the listener’s ear. But like so many of Toback’s films, I am all about the new experience over any kind of staggering quality, so let us just do our best to deal with it and move on with our lives.
Listening tip: Bump up the volume by about 30 to 40 percent after the introductions; a mixing miscalculation left things a wee bit quiet. I promise it will be fixed for next time.
James Toback podcast — June 8, 2006
Nicholas Jarecki podcast — June 8, 2006

Hendrix and Co. Save New York with Fifth Annual NY Asian Film Festival

The New York film festival cycle has made one full revolution since I launched this godforesaken enterprise last summer, and in all of my recent reflection, I came up with only a handful of events impressive enough to get me anticipating their 2006 go-arounds. At or near the top of this list is the New York Asian Film Festival, an almost totally independent panoply of mainstream, alternative and experimental cinema from six countries, not to mention one of the best pure moviegoing experiences the city has to offer. Call me a shill, I do not care: The program is diverse, the crowds are always buzzing and, for the most part, the industry’s Blackberry trolls stay away. It really is all about the films, an endangered species of emphasis in the pyrite age of Tribeca hype.
As such, The Reeler called up NYAFF co-founder and all-around swell guy Grady Hendrix to get the latest on this year’s fest, which starts tonight with the North American premiere of the Japanese hit Always–Sunset on Third Street before blasting off in earnest Friday with a 15-day, 25-film vapor trail through Anthology Film Archives and the Imaginasian Theater. He noted that the slate is pared down a bit from last year’s unwieldy 31-title collection, but not for a lack of good work; rather, he and his partners wanted some extra time to enjoy the excitement with everybody else.
So what, in particular, is Hendrix excited about in 2006?
–The violent Korean tandem A Bittersweet Life and Duelist: “We all love Bittersweet Life so much. Kim Ji-Won–whose Tale of Two Sisters came out last year? This is his sort of gangster/crime film, and it’s absolutely great. It’s absolutely phenomenal. There is that and Duelist, by Lee Myung-Se. We helped bring his movie Nowhere to Hide to the US about six years ago, and he’s been a huge supporter of ours and has introduced us to a lot of people in Korea and really supported this festival. Showing his film is really a good thing for us, and we’re psyched to do it.”
–The outlandish Japanese epic Funky Forest: The First Contact: “It’s the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen since Eraserhead. I don’t know what it’s about. I don’t know if you know Dennis Dermody from Paper Magazine, but I ran into him recently and I’d given him a screener of it. And he totally came up to me–his eyes looked a little glazed–and he said, ‘You know, I don’t know what I watched. I don’t know if I like it, I don’t know if I don’t like it. I have no idea what that was.’ So that was nice to give Dennis pause. … I don’t even know if it’s a movie. It’s selling really well, and I don’t know where people have heard about it, or what they’ve heard or anything. I imagine it might have something to do with the picture of the guy dresed in a yellow furry costume contemplating this young schoolgirl’s navel.”
–The series of films by Indian auteur Ram Gopal Varma: “He’s an Indian director who is huge in India, but he doesn’t make what people consider Bollywood movies. There are no musical numbers in his movies. We’ve been wanting to introduce his stuff to an American audience for a long time, and when they gave us the premiere of his latest film, Shiva, we were sort of like, ‘Well, let’s get some of his other ones and show people what he does.’ Asian cinema used to have these really big directors; you’d have Tsui Hark or Johnnie To or someone like that who was very prolific, and they made genre movies and they were sort of a style all their own. And I think Ram Gopal Varma is someone like that, where he’s doing his own thing. But they’re genre movies, and it takes about five seconds to recognize one of his movies. It’s such a distinctive style.”

Ram Gopal Varma’s Shiva, which will have its world premiere at the 2006 New York Asian Film Festival (Photos: Subway Cinema)
–The one-off world premiere of Jang Ju-Hwan’s short film Hair: “A lot of these guys we’ve met and become friendly with, and a lot of these Korean directors have taken us under their wings, and he’s one of them. He had loaned someone a copy of Hair, which he made with the star of Save the Green Planet last year, and we saw it unsubtitled. And we were like, ‘We really want to show this, this would be really fun.’ And he sort of said, ‘Yeah, well, I guess.’ And he subtitled it for us and sent it on. As far as I know, he doesn’t have any plans for it elsewhere. I’m sure he’d be open to someone else showing it, but he really just gave it to us to show during this festival and return to him. So that was something that we’re all really psyched about. Because when someone does something just for you, it makes you feel like a pretty princess.”
And then there are the directors who are dropping by, including Always‘s Takashi Yamazaki, who will introduce tonight’s screening at the Japan Society. (There would be even more guests, Hendrix said, if only a few of those big sponsorship dollars came through.) “People want to be here,” he told me. “They like New York, and a lot of these guys really appreciate what we’re doing with the festival. This isn’t an industry event, where it’s all about the parties and the press room and everything. This is really about the audience coming and watching movies. A lot of these directors, they want to make sales, they want to do all that stuff, but ultimately, they want to see what people think of their movie. … And these guys, I think, are a little tired of the industry scene–going to Toronto and Cannes and all thse places. For them, it’s kind of a vacation: They come to New York, they hang out for a few days. They all know each other, so they all go out drinking, and they come see the films with a New York audience. So it’s fun for them.”
And you–as long as you act early. Hendrix notes that some of the most anticipated screenings (Shiva, Umizaru 2 and Takashi Miike’s fantasy film The Great Yokai War among others) are already approaching capacity, and I remember even last year’s most fringe experimental works like Late Bloomer drawing healthy crowds to Anthology. Furthermore, only a fraction of these films will ever arrive in American theaters again, so if you are a format snob for whom Netflix is anathema, do not blow this chance. And do not forget to tip your cap Hendrix and the Subway Cinema gang for the opportunity.

Tag, You're Out: NYC Location Scouts' Parking Perks Revoked

AM New York’s Chuck Bennett today has the “latest” on the troubles affecting New York’s location scouts, whose liberal, city-sanctioned parking privileges will expire June 30–never to return. The news is kind of old–the Mayor’s Office for Film, Theater and Broadcasting made the announcement May 23–but in case you wanted to hear location scouts bitching on the record, here you go:

While shooting permits that allow film crews to take over whole city blocks will not be affected, industry insiders say the change will make their jobs harder.

“It will change, on a nuts and bolts level, how we go about our job,” said Dana Robin, a local production manager with 24 years’ experience working on big studio flicks. “There is a significant uproar.” …

The surprise move to end the parking perks caught the local film industry by surprise.

“What am I to do? Get six parking tickets and send them to a producer?” said Gary Gasgarth, a film production teacher at the New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies. “At the very least, it is an annoyance and irritation that we don’t need.”

Funny–the communities where location scouts have been using their tags even in their off-hours have been saying the same thing. Check out the feverish debate on the AM New York message boards:

“Clogged in NY”: many businesses in NYC håve the same problems with parking that location scouts for film have – why should the local businesses not get parking for free also? they pay taxes and NYC corporate costs and real estate taxes etc etc. This myth about the film industry being so special is hogwash.

“Don”: As a [sic] “inside” member of the film community I can verify abuses of permits. “Location scouting” permits are fequently used as personal parking permits. I often have to answer to my neighbors why parking is reserved up to 48 hrs. in advance, “Law & Order” seems to get away with anything.

“Leah”: Stop and think how much the city treasury has benefitted from just the Law & Order series compared to the unpaid parking tickets. Keep the productions going.

“Woody Allen”: Having movies in NYC is a great thing

“Wiiliam”: As a resident of the West Village I am completely and utterly fed up with one production after another taking over block after block and being told I can’t walk down my own street because a shoot is in progress. All for another bland, cookie cutter movie. Everyone I speak to feels the same.

“Carmela”: There’s no such thing as too many movie productions in the city! Do you want them to go back to Toronto or in some L.A. back lots? Make up your mind! I LOVE to see the film crews all over the city and I’m sure many people share my sentiment. DON’T STOP!

Yeah, OK, Katherine Oliver “Carmela,” thanks for writing. Speaking of K.O.., I called the mayor’s film office today to ask how many scout-related complaints it had received; I was denied the numbers but helpfully informed that the city has no plans to reinstate the tags at any time after the end of the month. Of course, none of this addresses Chelsea’s Ethan Hawke problem, but I am sure that is next on the list.

Fiennes, Edwards Lead the 'Blind' Once More in Tribeca

As I have mentioned before, the Tribeca Film Festival never really ends so much as it meanders for 355 days before exploding through the city over the other 10. Case in point: Last night at Tribeca Cinemas, senior programmer David Kwok showed up to introduce a screening of the 2006 TFF selection Land of the Blind, which opens Friday in New York. Actually, he introduced the film’s writer/director Robert Edwards, who in turn introduced the capacity crowd to his star, Ralph Fiennes, who finally joined Edwards for a Q&A after the film. It felt like late April all over again: Hormones and hype to spare, but without the publicists, street-corner popcorn or the glut of shitty films.

Deja vu all over again: Land of the Blind director Robert Edwards (left) returns to Tribeca, this time with star Ralph Fiennes (Photo: STV)
“I won’t say too much about the film, because I think it should speak for itself,” Edwards told the crowd before the film. “This was my first fiction film, because I came out of documentary. And the only reason it got made was because of Ralph. He was the first actor we sent it to. When I signed with CAA, they said, ‘Who do you want to be in your film?’ I said, ‘Wish list? Or realistically?’ They said, ‘Wish list. Anybody in the world.’ And I said, ‘How about Ralph Fiennes? ‘ And they said ‘OK,’ and they sent him the script.
“He read it and we met. He agreed to do it, and that is the only reason this film got made. And more than that, he stuck with it through three years of roller-coaster attempts to get it financed–false starts and dashed hopes. He didn’t have to do that, and he didn’t have to make this film. And he didn’t have to do all the things that we made him do onscreen.”
Like what, you ask? Oh, you know, just the typical actor abuse things: Shaved head, staged torture, bloody prosthetics… the list goes on. But what Fiennes did have to do for the film to have any chance theatrically was to excel, and he manages that as well. As Joe, a prison sentry guarding a playwright-turned-dissident (Donald Sutherland) in some anonymous fascistic state, Fiennes represents the sturdy moral order that long ago fled his nation’s political crisis. Joe befriends Thorne over several years, gleaning a sense of patriotic duty more urgent and authentic than that of the despot (Tom Hollander) whose security detail he is eventually assigned to oversee.
After Thorne’s release from prison, Joe opens the door (literally) for a coup d’etat that launches the insurgent to power. In the nightmare scenario that follows, however, the revolution erodes into another totalitarian ruse, and Joe faces his own violent stretch of prison for daring to resist. The themes here are nothing especially ground-breaking; you could choose to spot Marx, Castro or both in Sutherland’s shaggy, demystified revolutionary, and despite Edwards’s authorship of Land of the Blind before 9/11, viewers will no doubt equate the president’s infantile bloodlust (he murders his father to ascend to the throne, natch) to a certain American analogue.

Edwards shares a moment on the Land of the Blind set with the new-look Donald Sutherland (Photo: Nick Wall)
Moreover, the film’s wheedling attempts at satire strain and die in the shadows of its excellent lead performances. Fiennes and Sutherland share a half-dozen fine scenes here that make Land of the Blind easy to endorse, and Edwards’s intense close-ups capture the nuance of each power transfer and each idea exchange that compose the bulk of Joe and Thorne’s relationship. “I was I awe of Donald,” Fiennes said after the film. “I really looked forward to working with him. They were wonderfully written scenes; they were a gift to actors, I think, and the relationship between them was great on the page. We seemed to find a rhythm together quite quickly, and we sparked off each other. … As you can see, he has this extraordinary kind of fierce intelligence and latent energy in him, and he’s very compelling to be in the room with. So the relationship fed itself, I think.”
But a little too much of the director’s other exposition occurs through unfunny newscasts pairing government platitudes with sitcom endorsements, or bizarre presidential advising sessions taking place everywhere from a bathroom to a minstrel show. That said, the film’s flaws reflect its spectacular ambition as much as any of its technical attributes, from cinematographer Emmanuel Kadosh’s saturated imagery to Ferne Perlestein’s canny editing down to the costume and makeup design that elevates Lara Flynn Boyle to a spellbinding archetype resembling Cruella DeVille as first lady.
Even more impressively for an allegory (and documentary veteran Edwards’s narrative film debut), Land of the Blind manages to get inside viewers’ heads without inspiring von Trierian levels of self-loathing. That is not to say it will solve anything, but that is not its job. “Joe opens the door and allows a political assassination to happen, trying to do the right thing,” Fiennes said. “What is the right thing? I mean, I think I ask that question of myself all the time, every newspaper I read: What is my role as a citizen in the world today? Do I just sit back and think, ‘Oh, that’s all happening over there? Do I get angry about Iraq? Do I get angry about Israel and Palestine? What do I do? I don’t have any answers. I suppose a film like this might keep provoking the questions in all of us, and incrementally, we might make better choices.”

Shameless Podcast Tease: Toback, Jarecki Talk 'The Outsider'

The Reeler passed through Tribeca last week to have a word with filmmakers Nicholas Jarecki and James Toback (right), the latter of whom is the featured subject of the former’s new documentary The Outsider (opening Friday at Cinema Village). The good news is that our chats will make up the latest Reeler podcast once–and here is the bad news–they are finally finished.
Meanwhile, I have compiled a few of the key moments you have to look forward to:
TOBACK ON HIS SPRAWLING WEB OF FRIENDS: “When you go through the basement into the abyss–which is what happened when I flipped out on LSD when I was 19–when you lose yourself, you know how absurd it is to put unnatural walls up between you and the rest of humanity or society. And think, ‘Well, who is this person?’ Or, ‘Who is that person?’ You have an ongoing awareness of the interconnectedness of humanity, and that you could connect just as easily with some stranger on the street in five seconds as someone you’ve know your whole life. You don’t need the formailty of structural introduction and all that in order to move through life, because you’ve been stripped of your own illusions of self.”
JARECKI ON DISCOVERING (AND SHARING) THE TOBACK COSMOPOLIS: “I certainly was not a part of that world when I started. I got sucked into it. I rememeber one of the first things I read was when Jim kept a diary–for a film journal called Projections–of a year of his life when he was trying to make Harvard Man. … It was like, basically, he was walking down the street, and then he’d give a homeless guy a quarter, and then all of the sudden Woody Allen would walk around the corner and be like, ‘Toback!’ And then he’d grab a coffee and go home and Robert Downey Jr. would call. And I was like, ‘Who the hell lives like this?’ ”
TOBACK ON NOT COMPROMISING: “It never occurred to me to second guess my own instincts, taste or judgment. And when I would watch friends of mine who were not only second-guessing themselves, but flipping on anything from a team they rooted for in sports to a movie they would see to a person they would like and then, all of the sudden, dislike because two friends of theirs disliked the person. It never, from the time I can remember, occurred to me to change my opinion because someone else thought I should, or someone told me to, or I knew that I was supposed to in some vague way.”
TOBACK ON DIRECTING BOTH KLAUS AND NASTASSJA KINSKI: “I have to say, it was quite a trick of personality … to connect with both of them when they were at such profound odds–more Nastassja aganst Klaus than vice versa. Klaus always wanted a sort of rapprochement, if only on his terms. Nastassja had a real rage towards him. In fact, I always told her that she should get close with him, becaue if he died, she would realize that it was too late and she would wish that she had. And I said, ‘You should find a way of getting over what you’re feeling and reconnect with him in some way, because the first thought you have after he dies will be “I wish I had.” ‘ And the first time I saw her after he died, she said, ‘You were wrong.’ ”
Of course, Toback’s responses are even more stirring when they include sound of him consuming his lunch while he talks. Unfortunately, my software does not have a filter for “chewed food”–like I’d use it anyway. The keyword is “endearing,” and if you don’t believe me, come back later this week to hear for yourself. The tape does not lie.
(Photo: Green Room Films)

Stiff Orbison, Hip-Hop by the Yard: Jim Jarmusch Chimes in About Movie Music

Here is to The Guardian’s Laura Barton, who used the occasion of London’s National Film Theatre screening Year of the Horse to corner director Jim Jarmusch about his favorite and least favorite uses of music in film:

He was less enamoured by Fastest Guitar Alive, which starred Roy Orbison. “He’s very stiff. It’s a predictable movie. Not a good movie.” And dismisses also the popular trend for biopics such as Walk the Line and Ray. “I have an aversion to biopics in general. The Johnny Cash movie was well done but I couldn’t get inside of it because it wasn’t Johnny Cash and I’m a Johnny Cash fan.” He then swoops back to Scorsese, whom he lauds for his use of songs such as Cream’s “The Sunshine of Your Love” in Goodfellas, and the Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” in Mean Streets. “It works because the music doesn’t seem tacked on,” he explains. “So often, music in films seems like wallpaper bought by the yard. Yunno, ‘Give me 10 yards of hip-hop.'”

Or, you know, “Give me 10 yards of lo-fi quirk,” a la Broken Flowers. Or, “Give me 10 yards of Neil Young droning,” a la Dead Man. At least the 500 cubic yards in Year of the Horse is the movie, but stiff performance or not, I will take The Fastest Guitar Alive‘s title track over anything in a Jim Jarmusch film. I mean, what contemporary rock slouch will ever outdo Orbison crooning, “I play a boss guitar” before whacking people with it?
Of course, Jarmusch knows this in his heart–or at least he did back in 1992, when he confessed to The Fastest Guitar Alive being one of many guilty pleasures about which he refused to actually be guilty:

The Fastest Guitar Alive (1967): This film I should feel guilty about, because it’s really a bad film. Roy Orbison’s only movie – he did the soundtrack songs; I even own the soundtrack! I found it in some secondhand store. In the movie Roy’s got his shotgun concealed inside his guitar and it’s really ridiculous, but it’s the only Roy Orbison vehicle and I like Roy Orbison a lot. There’s a memorable scene where he uses his gun in his guitar to rescue the dancing Chestnut Sisters.

Exactly! All of which is my way of saying… well, nothing, I guess. Give the dead blind guy a break. Or something.

Rosie Perez Unleashes 'Boricua' Culture, Pride on IFC

I usually do not have to go down to Fifth Avenue for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade because eventually–for whatever reason–the parade comes right to the stoop of The Reeler’s Upper East Side headquarters. The only problem with this year’s 87th Street celebrants (besides the garbage they left scattered around the sidewalk) was that they did not bring grand marshals Mark Anthony and Jennifer Lopez with them; I have been wanting to ask J. Lo about Bordertown for, like, ever.
Missing actress/producer Rosie Perez was not as heartbreaking, however, because she and I had already chatted last week about Yo Soy Boriqua, Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas (I’m Boricua, Just So You Know), her new documentary that premiered at Tribeca and makes its TV debut on IFC tonight at 9. Co-directed by Perez and doc veteran Liz Garbus, Boricua intercuts the history of Puerto Ricans in America with the sources of Perez’s own ebullient ethnic pride: awareness crusades, protests and a succession of geneological revelations that take her from Brooklyn to Miami to Puerto Rico itself. There, Perez touches on controversies including decades of forced sterilzation of Puerto Rican women and bombing in Vieques. In New York, she recounts her first arrest as a protestor and supplies background on the radical Puerto Rican political group of the ’60s, the Young Lords.
But even with such old hands as Garbus and Rory Kennedy on board, Boricua struggles to find the right balance of giddiness and gravity. She admits that tracing her lineage–however informally–was not a part of her original plan. “Hell, no,” Perez said to her partners, both of whom were expecting children early on during production and who encouraged Perez to be a character in her film. “Y’all are hormonal and pregnant.”
Obviously, Perez came around.
“Liz was very, very respectful, because I told her I’m not ready to tell my whole story, and I only want to tell the part of my story that’s specific to the documentary,” she told The Reeler. “And I said if anybody pushes me further, than I think we’re really going to have a problem. And she was like, ‘Got it.’ Then she goes, ‘I’m not here to do an expose on you,’ and she goes, ‘and quite honestly, Rosie, those are not the films I make.’ OK! So it was great to have her there because she totally respected that. And even when one of the co-producers was pushing too much, she fired him. That was great, great company to be in: Rory and Liz. They were very protective.”
Ultimately, Perez said, the trickle of family background into her narrative accelerated into a wider stream. “I was discovering people I never met before,” she said. “And I thought I was going to tell my family about something they didn’t know. But the other family was like, ‘Oh, yeah, we know that story. Yeah, yeah, we know about it. Our great-great-grandfather was all over the island in regards to the women. You probably have more half-brothers and sisters or half-cousins than you know about.’ I was like, ‘My God.’ And then when I told my family that I was doing the documentary, and I was coming down to Miami to interview them, they were like, ‘Well, cousin So-and-So wants to be in it.’ I go, ‘Who is that?’ And then it started. And even after the documentary, I’m discovering family members now.”
But the doctors, novelists, women’s-rights crusaders and others do not pack near as much punch as her indignance about Puerto Rico’s status as a US commonwealth, in which its residents pay taxes and go to war but have no voting rights. Then there are the portrayals of Puerto Ricans in cinema: “Saving Private Ryan–where are all the Puerto Ricans?” Her father and uncle served in World War II.) Or how about Gone With the Wind? “It drives me crazy,” she said. “Puerto Ricans were all over the South. Where the hell do you think yams came from?”
I knew there was an explanation. At any rate, if you, too, missed yesterday’s parade, Boricua offers a glimpse that should hold you over until next year–or at least until the Reeler HQ afterparty kicks off some time in the afternoon. As Perez herself would cheerfully tell you, everyone is always invited.

Screening Gotham Will Return Next Week

Grand Theft: Stunning Streep and Tomlin Steal 'Prairie Home Companion'

It’s the singers, not the song: Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep and Lindsay Lohan in A Prairie Home Companion (Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon)
The Reeler caught up a few days ago with Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, who were making the New York rounds in support of their Robert Altman collaboration A Prairie Home Companion (opening Friday). “Brilliant” does not begin to describe their work as the film’s singing sisters Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson, who join an ensemble of cast and crew roaming in and out of an episode of Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio series. Joined by inept detective-cum-doorman-cum-narrator Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) and a fetching angel of Death (Virginia Madsen) who haunts the theater and its inhabitants, the entertainers share a moment they do not know is their last, a finality preordained in the long trajectory of corporate and cultural ambivalence.
That said, Prairie rejects mortality and bathos in exchange for a kind of impromptu dress eulogy–a full-hearted lament for something at the threshhold of a better residence in the cosmos. Altman being Altman, he indulges his typical pretentions (that floating camera his apologists love to praise feels less and less like a signature than it does a smudge) and often allows actors just enough rope to hang themselves (rambling duo Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly in particular). Oh, and some girl named Lohan appears as Streep’s disillusioned teenage daughter, and as delightful as she is, she wields an almost unbearably strong screen presence for a 19-year-old. It provides the near-perfect balance in her languid, lovely scene with Streep and Tomlin in their Fitzgerald Theater dressing room; most other times, even in her silence, she virtually overpowers the frame.
Streep and Tomlin, though. Streep and Tomlin, maddeningly cool genius, the (literally) pitch-perfect syntheses of talent and imagination. Yammering, harmonzing and shuffling around the Fitzgerald, legends who couldn’t care less about legend unless they are talking about their director, whom Streep had admired from a creative distance throughout the decades Tomlin dug into his troupe.
“Lily just said, ‘Oh, you’re going to love him,’ ” Streep told me. “And that was true. I knew that from everything I’d seen and everything I’d read, and I’d always wanted to work with him because of this way that he has of sort of opening the doors to actors.” She turned to Tomlin. “You know how a lot of the directors don’t like the actors to stand around the monitor?”
“No!” Tomlin said.
“They think you’re lurking–”
“They do,” Tomlin admitted, frowning. “It’s like the old Hitchcock point of view. We’re like cattle. Well–”
“Well–” Streep said.
“That’s not really true of most directors,” Tomlin continued. “They just don’t want you to interfere. I think they’re afraid they’ll get derailed or something.”
“Yes, they get derailed by too many opinions,” Streep said.
“And actors definitely have opinions,” Tomlin said.
“Altman would be back there and he’d say, ‘Where is everybody? Where the hell is everybody?’ ” Streep said. “And then we’d all come, and then we could stand around the monitor and chat. And offer up our ideas. And he loves it.”
“And he’s totally unflappable about it–”
“Totally in control–”
“If he likes it, he really likes it. He doesn’t really tell you at the moment if he likes it–”
“No. No. ‘Well, that was adequate,’ he says–”
“He’s just there and he listens.”
Yeah, well–Streep and Tomlin. You would be crazy not to listen. And at least for one film, with its maker’s humane tandem of flaws and flourishes, you would be crazy to think you have a choice.

Treading Water at the Movies with the NY Press

I have not had a lot of motivation to pick up a copy of the New York Press since its owners and advertisers ritualistically eviscerated it last year. I still slog through Armond White’s reviews when I can, and I frequently pray for a better berth for Matt Zoller Seitz. That was about the extent of my last four or five months’ involvement with the paper before yesterday, when Bryce Dallas Howard’s blank, mannequin face somehow enticed me to grab the Press’s Film Issue from the lonely, scuffed green plastic stand down the street.
And I guess I am glad I did: Jim Knipfel’s recollection of his old film critic aspirations is an enjoyable enough read (“Godfrey [Cheshire] was very good at what he did, but the impression I got was that they wanted someone a little more lowbrow.”), and Jennifer Merin does the best she can with her profile of the catatonia-inducing Howard and a relatively old-news survey of experimental distribution models (though she overlooks relatively conspicuous quasi-DIY schemes like Truly Indie). Elsewhere, Jerry Portwood fluffs up Amy Sedaris while Tony Dokoupil bores everybody by capitulating to Jon Voight’s publicist over the issue of Brangelina.
The Press avoids its usual surfeit of house ads by asking a handful of New York Z-listers to supply their top five movies of all time (Flannel Pajamas got a vote! From a pornographer!), and John DeSio offers a mildly stirring call to action for a cinema renaissance in the Bronx. Meanwhile, you have to read allllllll the way down to the very end of Andrea Janes’s essay about the grueling racket of film internships before getting to the best part: “Think about it the next time you’re trudging out the door at 7 a.m., and make sure that, wherever you’re going, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.” Amen to that.
But speaking of saving the best for last, I have got to give it up to Armond White, whose brain chemistry is calibrated just well enough this week to qualify his Prairie Home Companion rave in clear, classy English:

It’s … a one-movie (Robert) Altman film festival. Everything here has been seen before–in Countdown, Brewster McCloud, Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, The Company, Health, Popeye, etc.–but the tone is different. It is metaphysical and elegiac. Some musical numbers match what Jonathan Demme achieved in Neil Young: Heart of Gold; the songs comment on the “drama” while the performers’ faces and composure show life’s lessons. Every Tomlin-Streep scene is a duet; their whirling medleys of regrets and ambitions become the film’s high points but are consistent with its sharp details and noble rhythm. Don’t make the mistake of calling Prairie Altman’s swan-song … it is a preview of everyone’s.

Although I could not have said it better myself, I soon felt like I missed the old Armond. But thank God for Cars:

Pixar’s all about American product. Sure, the snub-nosed vehicles are cute, turning the screen into the largest-ever model car collection, but so what? Lasseter’s vistas of toy-car characters in a desert landscape suggest excitement for Western expansionism and 20th century ingenuity, yet teach nothing about today’s capitalist-imperialist hysteria. It’s unearned nostalgia.

Perfect! Now that is a New York Press film issue.

Lone Star Swindle: De Niro Ships Film Papers and Memorabilia to Texas

So today there is good news and bad news: The good news is that you will soon be able to rummage through a career-spanning collection of Robert De Niro’s personal effects as though you were his maid. The bad news is that you have to go all the way to Austin to do it. That is because the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas scored another one of its “fuck-New-York” coups this week, adding artifacts like the two-time Oscar winner’s shooting script for Raging Bull or his chauffer’s license from Taxi Driver to a collection that already includes Ernest Lehman’s screenplay drafts for Sweet Smell of Success and the complete papers of novelist Don DeLillo.
Look, I could not care less about the Ransom Center’s ambition to become the Planet Hollywood of humanities, but you tell me if this turf incursion has not officially gone too far:

The paper portion of the collection, more than 100 boxes, has considerable research value. It includes scripts and books with handwritten notations, correspondence with film notables such as Martin Scorsese and Elia Kazan, background research and the notebooks De Niro kept of his films, all showing the evolution from text to moving image.

The costume portion of the collection also includes more than 3,000 individual costume items, props from many of De Niro’s films and a full body cast used in the 1994 production of Frankenstein.

“One of the most important things about the Harry Ransom Center is that the material will be accessible to students and the public,” said De Niro. “Ultimately, that’s what it’s all about.”

Exactly, Bob–it is all about the 1,800-mile trip to check out your letters to Marty. And while I know Grace has been bugging you to get the Frankenstein full body cast out of the living room, was there no nearer, climate-controlled institution for you to dump this shit? Say, Queens? New Jersey? Even Arkansas is closer than goddamned Austin, Texas, and they could use the culture. Is it too late to reconsider?

Altman's NYC Tour Scuttled; Moving Image Welcomes Madsen Instead

New Yorkers who gleefully grabbed and ran with Robert Altman’s statement at the Oscars that he had the heart of a 30-year-old are this week begrudging his 81-year-old lungs. After doctor’s orders kept the flu-ridden filmmaker from attending A Prairie Home Companion‘s NYC premiere Sunday night, the same crummy luck has forced the Museum of the Moving Image to replace Altman with Virginia Madsen during tomorrow’s post-screening discussion of Companion.
Meanwhile, next week’s Altman appearance at the Pioneer Theater is also off; as I am sure you know, he was scheduled to screen and discuss a few of his exceedingly rare early short films on June 13. Do not fear, however; the theater is making refunds and expects to reschedule the program when Altman can again get on a plane without worrying about his medication. Sooner than later, we can only hope.

Jerry Knows Jack: Lewis's Lost Film Linked to Lawless Lobbyist

It is a good week to be Jerry Lewis. Think about it: The Friars Club will roast the poor bastard for the third time in his life tomorrow night at the New York Hilton; he has the green light to rework his 1963 benchmark The Nutty Professor into a stage musical; and none other than my good friend Lawrence Levi (a k a Looker) has connected the dots between Lewis and noted GOP felon Jack Abramoff.
Or perhaps more accurately, he has connected Abramoff to Lewis’s notorious The Day the Clown Cried, the unfinished Holocaust clown saga that ranks among the most mythologized “lost” works in the history of cinema. It’s a long story that Levi took great pains to research and articulate, so I’ll defer to him rather than reprint long chunks here. Let it suffice to say that the Clown legend is that much more enriched for Levi’s efforts, which culminate in a showdown with an Abramoff ally that you really have to read to believe:

He replied to nearly all my questions by inquiring if I had fully explored the ethical ramifications of what I was asking. (He now teaches ethics and theology at Loyola Marymount University, and wouldn’t let me forget it.)

So now I guess only one question remains: Who wants to notify the Friars Club?
(Photo: Subterranean Cinema; “Illustration”: STV)

Nair Premiering 'Namesake' This Fall at Indo-American Film Festival

The Indo-American Arts Council just slipped a note under the door saying that Mira Nair’s The Namesake will receive its New York premiere Nov. 1 as the opening-night selection of the IAAC Film Festival. Fox Searchlight already had a Nov 3. release date slated for the film, which traces the culture clashes and emotional evolution that follow an Indian family’s settling in New York.
In lieu of other festival titles or programming information (it is only June 7, after all) organizers are dropping plenty of names tentatively attached to the Ziegfeld Theater screening and gala dinner that follows: Nair (above, with actor Kal Penn) is probably a safe bet to attend, while source novelist Jhumpa Lahiri, Salman Rushdie and actress Padma Lakshmi are penciled in as well. I cannot guarantee I will stay up on the booking of boldface names, but rest assured that I will pass along the full list of selections as they trickle in–like, four months from now. I mean, they are still accepting feature submissions, for Christ’s sake. Just hang in there.

Slant Puts NYC's Human Rights Watch Festival on the Map

Were it not for a freelance assignment that feels like a human rights violation of its own at times, you can bet I would be all over the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, which kicks off its 17th annual incarnation tomorrow at Lincoln Center. In my stead, however, please let me direct you to Slant Magazine, which features a pleasant-enough festival overview before delivering readers a full-blown interactive map detailing each the event’s 24 films and their origins.

Ethiopian laborers spill the beans in Nick Francis and Marc Francis’s coffee-meets-globalization doc Black Gold, playing this week at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (Photo: HRWIFF)
Huge kudos to Slant guru Ed Gonzalez and his colleagues Jeremiah Kipp and Fernando Croce for taking this on; while I must acknowledge their praise of overrated quasi-docs Iraq in Fragments and The Road to Guantanamo with a grain of salt, I also must applaud their comprehensive, modest and tasteful attempt at bringing the festival to their readers. God knows I hate to endure wordy, tired, self-righteous screeds if I do not have to.
Oh, which reminds me: Michael Atkinson appears to dig the festival as well, characterizing it as “the most thematically vital” in New York. I guess I’ve got no quibbles with that, nor with his own merciless assessment of Iraq in Fragments. To wit:

Extraordinarily beautiful footage of life in three Iraqi regions is edited within an inch of Disney’s Living Desert horseshit; hardly a minute of Longley’s film goes by without a cheap narrative-building suture between two mutually exclusive moments, destroying his movie’s sense of veracity in the process. (That it strategically climaxes with Kurds singing the praises of the occupying army is another thorn in the eye.) So of course it won three prizes at Sundance, where audiences are yet learning about cinematic syntax versus the possibility of truthfulness.

OK, OK–be patient, Michael. I swear that “syntax vs. truthfulness” was right below “finding a parking place” on most to-do lists I saw in Park City. They are getting there.