The News: NYC -- The Disaster Continues

By S.T. VanAirsdale

Some of today's movie news of note from around New York:

--The Daily News is the latest local outlet to consider the subgenre of NYC-laid-waste films, and people are pissed! Or at least its lone source, a 28-year-old from Brooklyn, is pissed: "I remember one scene of people running for cover in a deli, and there's dust and rubble flying everywhere," said Meredith Blake. "It's just so obviously an allusion to 9/11. ... I was at the 14th St. and Sixth Ave. subway station, and there was the Cloverfield ad, and then I walk upstairs and then there's one for I Am Legend with the [collapsed] Brooklyn Bridge. That was actually the tipping point. It was two at once. It's all these people in L.A. who are doing it and it's just like, 'Can't you blow up L.A., for once? Pick on your own city.' " Ms. Blake, you may get your wish yet.

--In the New York Press, J.R. Taylor offers a sweet lament -- or appreciation, or confession, or skin-crawling skeeve binge, or something -- for the misunderstood influence that is Eric Roberts.

--Leonard Lopate recently hosted D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus along with Democratic campaign strategist Tad Devine for a discussion of four films about politics: Primary, The War Room, Tanner 88 and Primary Colors. (H/T: GreenCine Daily)

--Gregg Goldstein's second must-read scoop of 2008: Picturehouse and HBO split up. This might help explain why Bob Berney didn't follow through with releasing Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project theatrically last year after all. Further comment: Jeffrey Wells wants behind -the-scenes blood, and Anne Thompson notes that the fallout could pin Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's Half Nelson follow-up Sugar -- premiering next week at Sundance -- to a cable run only. It's an ugly business.

--But that's not stopping Angry Punk Bronx Kid, easily in the upper echelon of Bronx filmmakers shooting sludgy Web video in their bedrooms. (H/T: Time Out NY Blog)

Posted at January 10, 2008 8:05 AM