A still from Rebecca Horn's Performances II, featured in PS1's exhibition Wack! ART and the Feminist Revolution

By Miriam Bale

The ongoing series at Lincoln Center 1968: An International Perspective is an act of inspired programming: Instead of a geographically or director-based series, it's based on political events from that year and, even more interestingly, their aftermath, with a high concentration of films from the early '70s. Featuring work from the US, France, Germany, Japan, Hungary and elsewhere, the breadth is remarkable. It is especially conspicuous, then, that only 15 minutes' worth of the series' 30 selections are directed by a woman filmmaker: Joyce Weiland's Rat Life and Diet in North America.

From this unfortunate omission of points-of-view from one half of the world, one might miss the direct connection of the student rebellions of 1968 -- among other events from that year -- and the development of the second wave of feminism. Thankfully, PS1 and Anthology Film Archives are there to more than pick up the slack.

Continue reading "Post-'60s Spotlights Give Feminists Their Close-Ups" »

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Please forgive the prolonged absence, but, well, hey. My best intentions have found little to no quarter in this two-front war, but there is this: Saturday, April 26, promises two must-see film events in New York. Both have tickets on sale now, and neither have anything to do with a certain high-profile festival hijacking NYC film culture from its festering base in a triangle below Canal Street.

Wait, where was I? OK: First up on Saturday afternoon, Sissy Spacek and executive producer Ed Pressman will visit IFC Center for a special screening and discussion of Terrence Malick's Badlands. The theater snagged a studio archive print of Malick's debut, starring Spacek and Martin Sheen as young lovers (based on Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate) on a crime spree across the Midwest. The show is at 1:05; tickets are $15, and as far I know (i.e. I just bought one) they're still available.

Later that night the Walter Reade Theater is hosting a benefit screening of Glory at Sea!, whose filmmaker recently incurred a few thousand bone fractures and many times more dollars' worth of medical bills in a car accident before Glory's premiere at SXSW. Tickets for this one are also going fast; they're technically pay-what-you-can, but don't be a cheapskate -- Zeitlin needs your help, and by all accounts the film is something to behold. The Reeler will proudly represent at this one too, so I'll know if you punk out. Follow the jump for more information about the program and film, and clear your schedule for the 26th.

Continue reading "One Day Only: From Badlands to Sea!" »

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By S.T. VanAirsdale

For a while I wasn't sure if I felt like responding to David Edelstein's list comprising the film section of the "New York Canon," or more specifically, "A Bunch of Lists Patting New York Magazine on the Back For Surviving 40 Years." It's not like there's much to respond to; charged with the thankless task of selecting 40 titles over four decades that "capture something emblematic about New York ... in all its splendor and tumult," Edelstein's got pretty much the stock gang of classics you'd expect, with brief capsules extrapolating their cultural values. It's '70s-heavy with a few obvious later-era high points like Do the Right Thing, Kids and, only somewhat ironically, sex lies and videotape, featuring some turnabout for recent Edelstein whipping-boy Harvey Weinstein:

The film itself has zero connection to New York, but New Yorker Harvey Weinstein was nearly laughed out of Sundance for paying $1.1 million to acquire it, and when it broke through commercially, it changed the fortunes of Miramax, lower Manhattan (as a production-distribution powerhouse), and American indie cinema forever. And New York had a new King Kong.

Fair enough. Anyway, at the end of the day, it's just another list providing an excuse to jam Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Woody Allen and Spike Lee on the cover and, by its own admission, get people arguing about untoward inclusions or omissions... or is it? Guardian blogger Danny Leigh replied Friday with an item asking, "Is Hollywood Leaving New York?" He openly acknowledges his disinterest in squabbling over selections, but his obvious affirmative reply still names names when suggesting that nostalgia is what sustains the best of recent New York cinema (and I quote at length for context's sake):

Continue reading "Over Us" »

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By S.T. VanAirsdale

After a weird week of conspiracy theories and speculation about the potentially deal-breaking ethnicity of recent Sundance films, some good news has emerged from the local distribution front: Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's Dominican ballplayer drama Sugar appears to have landed in Sony Pictures Classics' stable for 2008.

The deal apparently involves rights for North America and several Latin American territiories; HBO Films, which co-produced, retains TV rights. Gregg Goldstein and Steven Zeitchik have more at The Hollywood Reporter, including some of those uncomfortable cultural kinks alluded to last week:

Continue reading "Sony Classics Sweet on Sugar?" »

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By S.T. VanAirsdale

The lineup for the third annual Sundance at BAM program just slid under the door at Reeler HQ, and with 22 features and 36 shorts selected, it's the biggest one yet. It looks good overall: A bunch of Jury Prize winners (Frozen River, Trouble The Water, Man on Wire), some buzz titles (the opening-night selection American Teen, Ballast, Gonzo) and a crapload of shorts (36!) and special events fill out the schedule from May 28 to June 8. In keeping with what I guess is now tradition, the slate features a little more overlap with New Directors/New Films (or distributed titles like Choke and Man on Wire) than I expected, but whatever; as BAM Cinematek curator Florence Almozini told The Reeler when I had the same issue in 2007, "We thought that it was more important to the program to keep the films we really loved than to eliminate them because they were not a New York premiere."

Phillippe Petit does his thing in Man on Wire, the World Documentary Jury Prize winner screening May 30 at Sundance BAM (Photo: Magnolia Pictures)

Not having been in Park City this year to discover gems of my own, I'll take her word for it. I'd still like to have seen something like Brooklynites Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's Sugar on here, but a person close to the production told me the other day that distribution priorities are overriding the chance for local fest bookings. Baghead or Goliath would have been nifty adds for the kids, but hey. Gregg Araki will be around with the restored version of his 1992 queer nihilist classic The Living End, and the Canadian heavy metal band Anvil, profiled in Sacha Gervasi's appropriately titled doc Anvil! The Story of Anvil, will perform a free concert May 31 at the BAMCafe.

Follow the jump for the complete program, and check back for more in May as opening night approaches.

Continue reading "Award-Winners and Buzz Titles Pack Sundance at BAM" »

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By Ben Gold

In part, Wong Kar-wai cast jazz-pop singer-songwriter Norah Jones as his lead My Blueberry Nights because it gave him a partner: As a first-time actress and a foreign filmmaker making his first film in America (and in English), Jones and Wong are exploring new terrain together, an idea that the director said initially attracted him to her. But Jones brings another important component -- a musician’s innate sense of collaboration and improvisation -- that has always played an important role in Wong's work.

This reminds him of a song: Wong Kar-wai on the open road of My Blueberry Nights (Photo: Macall Polay / Jet Tone Films)

"[I cast] pop stars because they are exceptional people," Wong told The Reeler during a recent press tour in New York. "There are certain qualities in [them] that make them natural in front of a camera, and I think Norah is one of those people." It’s a strategy that worked well in 1994's Chunking Express, for example, in which Asian pop sensation Faye Wong repeatedly plays The Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreaming." The lovelorn tension that permeates her character reoccurs in Nights, the story of a woman who, after a bad break-up, goes on a cross-country quest for identity. Before filming began in the States, Wong sent Jones a few photos of possible locations and asked her to pick a few songs to go along with them. At first, all Wong wanted was something to listen to as he traveled through America. But the songs Jones chose -- by musicians like Otis Redding, Cat Power (who eventually came to co-star as well) and Cassandra Wilson -- turned out to be an essential part of the film's DNA. Cat Power's "The Greatest," which plays while an F train speeds over Jones's head in Wong's fantasy Manhattan, became the essential expression of her character's loneliness.

Continue reading "Wong Kar-wai Carries a Tune" »

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Last dance: Heavy Metal in Baghdad, the opening-night film at the last NY Underground Film Festival (Photos: NYUFF)

By S.T. VanAirsdale

We hear a lot of ambitious, imaginative marketing pushes for film festivals every day at Reeler HQ. Hats off, however, to the gang at the New York Underground Film Festival, whose "15th and FINAL" ordinal simultaneously piques our interest while provoking aggressive fits of head-scratching: Who organizes, mounts and carefully programs a festival just to put the word out: "This is the last time we're doing this." Nellie Killian, Kevin McGarry and Mo Johnston, that's who, the co-directors of NYUFF who, like Barry Sanders, Big Black and various other cultural institutions before them, are calling it quits in their prime.

Both the Village Voice and indieWIRE today feature remembrances and analyses of the scenarios facing NYUFF over the years. The Reeler, meanwhile, corresponded with Killian in advance of the fest's last opening night, which gets underway this evening at Anthology Film Archives with the New York premiere of Heavy Metal in Baghdad. Other programs throughout the week feature more premieres as well as highlights from years past. "A lot of the filmmakers who we work with and long time friends of NYUFF were sad about the news," she told me. "I think the fact that Kevin McGarry and I are starting a new festival softened the blow a bit, but many of the filmmakers are sad to see a venue that's shown their work and work they're interested in close. There has been a lot of reminiscing; it's nice, if a little bittersweet."

THE REELER: "The 15th and Final"... that's an unusual way to brand a film festival.

NELLIE KILLIAN: The idea for calling this the 15th and Final New York Underground sprung from discussions about how to celebrate this year as a milestone. The conversation turned to all the festivals that have faded out over the last few years. We didn't want NYUFF to end because we just didn't do it one year. Once we realized it was going to be our last hurrah, it seemed only natural to let people know.

Continue reading "Show-stoppers, Literally: Final NYUFF Launches Tonight" »

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By S.T. VanAirsdale

The Reeler today mourns Jules Dassin, the Connecticut-born actor-writer-director whose blacklisted exile to Europe deprived America of one of the era's foremost poets of urban cinema. Dassin's police procedural The Naked City won an Oscar in 1948 for its street-level cinematography of New York; his depiction of a shattered London in Night and the City (1950) and the haunted Paris of Rififi (1955) refined the masterful use of city and location as character that he would explore further in Never on Sunday (with his wife and frequent collaborator Melina Mercouri), Topkapi, La Legge and Up Tight!

Below, the closing sequence of The Naked City. Dassin was 96.

[H/T: Movie City Indie]

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By S.T. VanAirsdale

The annual New Directors/New Films Directors Party is coming up a little later tonight, when the default question to revive every stalled conversation in the room will be: "So what have you seen that you like?" It's one I'm nervous about and only slightly wanted to address after the festival kicked off last Wednesday at MoMA with Courtney Hunt's Sundance-winning drama Frozen River, probably my 15th or 16th film viewed in the program and one of only four or five I'd recommend.

The Best (maybe): Giorgos Symeonidis in Correction, one of the two excellent Greek entries featured in this year's New Directors/New Films program (Photo: Thanos Anastopoulos)

In fact, if you had told me two weeks ago that the Greek tandem of Correction and Valse Sentimentale would likely be the duo to beat in this year's crop -- rich with festival alums out of Park City, Berlin and other high-profile berths -- I would have asked if you wanted another drink. But it's a sobering year that way, with Correction, director Thanos Anastopoulos's near-silent class-war Odyssey, utilizing fantastically modulated performances by Giorgos Symeonidis and Ornela Kapetani as a Greek ex-con and the Turkish woman whose distance upon his release belies the excruciating proximity of their pasts. A little too earnest in its humanism (soccer hooligans have never been easier targets than they are here) and pat in its ending, Correction nevertheless possesses a remarkable objectivity regarding society's long odds on rehabilitation.

It tentatively shares that quality (and only that quality) with Valse Sentimentale, featuring Thanos Samaras and Loukia Mihalopoulou as a wounded pair of Greek 20-somethings vexed by love, independence and compulsive viewings of Carrie. It's a post-postmodern romance with bad courtship and worse sex, all refracted through low-fi digital imagery and a consistently counterintuitive narrative arc; think of it like a nihilist Me and You and Everyone We Know, refreshing despite a staggering ugliness gleefully compounded by the minute by director Constantina Voulgaris.

Continue reading "Where's the Cream in New Directors' Crop?" »

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By Miriam Bale

New York is in the midst of celebrating our good luck at having J. Hoberman as our weekly film critic for 30 years at the Village Voice. Next month Anthology Film Archives will screen the experimental films he made before his life as a professional critic, and BAMcinematek is currently showcasing an eclectic series of films selected by Hoberman. Included in the series on March 31 is Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080, the 1975 film directed by Chantal Akerman and made by an all-woman crew. Hoberman commented in a recent conversation with me that he thought Jeanne Dielman crystallized a lot of questions -- particularly regarding female spectatorship -- that were in the air in the mid-'70s and then through the early '80s, during which there was a vanguard of women filmmakers on many levels of production, both the European art films and various types of experimental films.

Delphine Seyrig in Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080, screening March 31 as part of BAM's tribute to J. Hoberman

Jeanne Dielman is made up of long segments of domestic repetitions—“cleaning, shopping, straightening, cooking, shopping, and fucking,” Hoberman wrote in his 1983 review. "At once spectacle and antispectacle, Jeanne Dieleman not only criticizes the dominant mode of representing women but challenges the dominant mode of representing itself." This valuable self-conscious questioning about not only content but also the forms of narratives themselves is a natural byproduct of the feminist theory and filmmaking in the era Hoberman referred to above. In telling stories about the primary experiences of women—as opposed to stories of women observed—it becomes clear that these female-centric narratives need to be told in entirely different structures from the usual forms; therefore the standard forms are male-centric narratives. Another key film of that era, Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating, also from 1975, is about a playful female-centric narrative that collides with and mocks a traditionally male-centric narrative. (Celine and Julie is another Hoberman favorite that he said he felt lucky to have reviewed in his first year as a critic simply because no one else would touch it.)

Continue reading "J. Hoberman: Critic. Filmmaker. Feminist?" »

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