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- William S. Burroughs/ Nova ’78 at MoMA/ Remembering James Grauerholz
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- Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent: A Cool Brazilian Gets an Oscar Nod
- Now on Oscar’s Short List: Holding Liat, a Documentary about the Harrowing Wait for a Hostage Freed from Gaza
Category: Fim Festivals
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She may have been jet lagged and slightly tipsy from a drink or two at a pre-Tribute dinner at the New York Film Festival evening in her honor, but that did not make Cate Blanchett babble like Jasmine, her character in the latest Woody Allen movie. Quite the contrary, articulate, generous, and funny, Blanchett fielded…
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Is Alec Baldwin a good sport? At a pre-screening cocktail party at Mary Jane and Charles Brock’s East Hampton residence, a property complete with croquet and golf courses, Alec Baldwin M.C.’d a competition, kids against adults putting on the green to benefit the Hamptons International Film Festival. Of course one of the kids was Sky…
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What would the July 4 holiday weekend be without fireworks? Somehow the ones emerging from the faucets of ordinary citizens who happen to live where fracking chemicals have infiltrated the water system are not what the patriotic have in mind. The onscreen vision of pipes aflame, along with director Josh Fox’s banjo playing, were part…
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Rama Burshtein’s glimpse into Tel Aviv’s Hasidic community, Fill the Void is a stunning film taking the viewer into the marriage practices of a hermetic society, offering an intimate, if fictional view, of how matches are made. Ultimately a love story, Fill the Void is most surprising in revealing unexpected emotional connection and subdued passion…
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Gloria Steinem, often considered the face of feminism, attended a film by Saudi Arabian Haifaa al Mansour. Premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival this past weekend, Wadjda was celebrated at an afterparty at D.C. Moore Gallery in Chelsea. Amidst painted photographs by Duane Michals and paintings by Milton Avery, the filmmaker chatted with Queen Noor…
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On the eve of this year’s New Directors / New Films Festival, a collaboration between The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, the Titus I theater was abuzz with downtown indie elite: Sofia Coppola, Alex Karpovsky, Elizabeth Olsen, John Cameron Mitchell, Mark Birbiglia, Julia Garner, and photographer Bob Gruen. Gimme…
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Director Regis Roinsard was particularly excited when his film, Populaire, opened the annual Rendez-vous with French Cinema at the Paris Theater. He exulted introducing his stars Romain Duris and Deborah Francois. Evoking Doris Day and Audrey Hepburn movies, Populaire follows this festival’s first night traditions as a frothy comedy with old-fashioned sexist overtones, charming as…
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Back in 2007 when I first took on gossipcentral.com, I wrote about “Sundance Envy,” an oft misdiagnosed disease with one symptom: celluloid deprivation in January. Dr. Freud, are you listening? It is not that I yearn for icy ski conditions. This year Sundance seemed particularly alluring to me with two beat era films, movies of Kerouac’s…
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Jared Leto won the audience award at the annual IFP’s Gotham Awards at Cipriani Wall Street for his movie Artifacts; the film was mostly unknown to most at my table of industry insiders, but that sums up the theme of this, the ultimate alternative awards ceremony that even has a category, Best Film Not Playing…
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On April 19, 1989, you could not miss the headlines—and the horror of the Central Park jogger case. A white woman in a tracksuit, pummeled, raped, unconscious. Who did this? Packs of wild black boys aprowl in the park. Case closed. The Central Park Five, the final non-fiction feature in the DOC NYC Fest last…
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The winner of audience awards in Toronto, the Hamptons, and other film festivals, David O. Russell’s new movie, Silver Linings Playbook is not only a crowd pleaser, it has the gravitas to make it to the top awards. This movie is to Philadelphia, The Eagles and football what Lowell, Massachusetts and the ring was to…
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How do you pay tribute to a star in the film industry, playfully dubbed “The Meryl Streep of Costume Design?” That was the dilemma Nathan Lane faced in front of a crowd at the Hamptons International Film Festival that included Scott Rudin, Bruce Weber, and eh, Meryl Streep. “You have to say something nice,” said…
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Just days after he married Hilaria Thomas, when he could have been in some exotic place on honeymoon, Alec Baldwin, taking his Hamptons International Film Festival duties very seriously, took the stage at East Hampton’s Guild Hall, to introduce a documentary that’s been garnering buzz at film festivals. A hit at Sundance and Berlin, Searching…
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My favorite Sara Driver story involves her 1981 film of Paul Bowles’s short story, “You Are Not I.” Long thought lost, a print of the 48-minute film was discovered in 2008 among Bowles’ possessions in Tangier, Morocco in his driver’s insecticide-laden basement. Now restored, the film was featured at several conferences and festivals celebrating the…
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Petite and utterly adorable, the French movie star Audrey Tautou will always be known as the “Amelie” girl for her delightful performance in the 2001 film. On closing night of this year’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema, she was the guest of honor at a soiree at the upper East side Cultural Services of the French…
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Last October when the documentary Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory premiered at the New York Film Festival, filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky celebrated an unanticipated event: the release from prison of the West Memphis 3. For documentary filmmakers, it doesn’t get better than this: having your work bring about change. In 1993, a newspaper item…
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The crowds outside Crimson, the club where the New York Film Critics Circle held their awards, were six deep, calm in the cold behind velvet ropes, hoping to get a glimpse. Brad Pitt would receive a Best Actor award for his work in Moneyball and The Tree of Life, and, Angelina was by his side.…
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As the guy who doesn’t get the pretty girl, Albert Brooks does get the laughs. Which, as he indicated at a special tribute focused on his acting on Sunday night at the Walter Reade Theater, has made some directors hesitate to cast him in dramatic roles. In such American classics as Taxi Driver and Broadcast…
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It is hard to feel sorry for Charlize Theron. The Academy Award winning actress, for the role of Aileen Wuomos in Monster when she famously puffed up and made up to emphasize the serial killer’s tough look, is in fact very pretty, like the most popular girl in your high school. The gorgeous blond of…
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