Features

November 3, 2006

November Events Madness!

Lynch! Soderbergh! Condon! Kopple! And they're giving Jim McKay away in Brooklyn!

By S.T. VanAirsdale

A torrent of tips and notes has surged over the transom today at Reeler HQ, leaving me knee-deep in PR and scrambling for a bucket to scoop myself out. Use this weekend to make sense of it all -- you may need it:

--From Nov. 18-21, BAM is screening three films by Brooklyn filmmaker Jim McKay; he'll be in the house Nov. 18 with actor Jonan Everett for a screening of his latest, Angel Rodriguez (right). His previous two, Everyday People and Our Song, follow on Nov. 20 and 21. Moreover -- they're free; BAM is making tickets for all three screenings available on a first-come/first-served basis on the day of the show. There's a joke to be made here, but I'm feeling a little more gregarious than that on a Friday afternoon.

--That word-of-mouth you'd heard about David Lynch returning to Lincoln Center? Confirmed: He'll bring Inland Empire to the Walter Reade Theater on Dec. 2 for a North American theatrical premiere (his NYFF trip was just a dry run -- a very dry run) leading up to its IFC Center engagement starting Dec. 6. Tickets are available now; they will likely sell out by the time I finish writing this sentence, but that's why there's Craigslist.

--Speaking of tickets, the 92nd Street Y amazingly still has seats available for all of the events in this year's Reel Pieces series. And these are heavy hitters, too: Bill Condon and Steven Soderbergh screen back-to-back Nov. 30 and Dec. 7 with previews of Dreamgirls and The Good Shepherd. Meanwhile, stars Ed Harris and Kate Winslet bookend the program Nov. 16 and Dec. 14, respectively, with glimpses at and discussions of Copying Beethoven and Little Children. It's $35 -- and with this talent and Columbia Film School's Annette Insdorf moderating, it's worth every penny.

--OK, so it's not November, but close enough: December is Walter Mirisch month at MoMA, where the old-old-school bigshot Hollywood producer will be the honoree of a 12-film retrospective starting Dec. 1. The 85-year-old Mirisch himself will be on hand to introduce the opening-night selection In the Heat of the Night; subsequent films include Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, West Side Story and The Pink Panther among some pretty famous others.

--What? More MoMA? Pound-for-pound, the best program going this month might be the Gotham Awards spinoff Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You, featuring nominees in this year's new category that helps keep further Reeler bile from cascading with a splash at IFP's door. Three of these titles -- In Between Days (left), Choking Man and and Wristcutters: A Love Story are some of the coolest cinema I've seen in '06; such strong company means their program mates Colma: The Musical and The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief likely aren't too far behind. And there are two chances to see each film between Nov. 24-27! Spectacular news, all around.

--The Stranger Than Fiction series at IFC Center is pulling out the stops before its winter hiatus: Next Tuesday's rarely-screened 1967 doc A Time For Burning will precede a discussion with director Bill Jersey and Ray Christensen, one of the white church parishioners whom the film chronicles in their contentious reaching out to blacks in Civil Rights Movement-era Omaha, Neb. The following week, Barbara Kopple will stop in to talk about her 1991 Oscar-winner American Dream.

--Finally, in kind of a mix and match of all of the above, International Film Seminars (a k a the parent org of the Flaherty Film Seminar) is honoring former MoMA film curator Adrienne Mancia and trailblazing African-American filmmaker William Greaves with its 2006 Leo Awards. The event takes place Nov. 16 at the Walter Reade Theater, preceded by a reception featuring a "shorts program of rare treats" selected by Mancia and a screening of Greaves 1966 film, The First World Festival of Negro Arts.

Jesus Christ -- it's only the third and my calendar is a disaster.



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