Xixax Film Forum

Film Discussion => News and Theory => Topic started by: samsong on September 04, 2006, 07:17:39 PM

Title: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: samsong on September 04, 2006, 07:17:39 PM
who's going/what are you seeing?! 

from indiewire-

The complete list of films, with descriptions, as provided by the Film Society of Lincoln Center:

"49 UP," directed by Michael Apted (United Kingdom)
The seventh segment of the landmark documentary series catches up with a dozen of the 14 British participants whose lives have been chronicled every seven years. Conceived 42 years ago, the first film, "7 Up," examined the worlds of a multi-ethnic, multi-class cross-section of children. Michael Apted, a researcher for the original film, returns to interview the "children", now on the cusp of their 50s, on a variety of subjects including love, marriage, career, class, and prejudice and captures more life changing decisions and shocking revelations than ever before.
A First Run Features Release

"August Days" (Dies d'agost)," directed by Marc Recha (Spain)
Part fiction, part documentary and part personal essay, "August Days" is a lucid and touching re-creation of a trip actually made by director Marc Recha ("The Cherry Tree") and his brother David (both of whom play themselves), an experience now understood as a key moment in the director's artistic evolution. Having hit a creative block while trying to conceive a new work based on the memoirs of a recently deceased friend, Marc is convinced by his twin brother David to take a break and to accompany him on a trip through the back roads of Catalonia. During the journey they re-establish the closeness somewhat dissipated since going their separate ways; have several brief interludes with strangers they meet on their way; and hear a number of stories, such as the one about a man-eating fish with whiskers that trawls a local lake. But what comes to define their time together are the extraordinary landscapes they encounter, each mountain passage or river run teeming with memories and history.

"Bamako," directed by Abderrahmane Sissako (France / Mali)
In the dusty courtyard of a West African communal dwelling, a remarkable tribunal has been set up. On trial are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, accused of bankrupting the African nations that they supposedly intended to support. It's a tribute to the extraordinary artistry of Abderrahmane Sissako ("Waiting for Happiness", NYFF 2002) that he's able to alternate so effortlessly the images and rhythms of everyday village life (commerce goes on, a couple gets married) with a stark expose of the causes of underdevelopment; prosecutors offer devastating critiques of so-called aid and development packages, while the accused and their attorneys defend their record and seek to shift the blame elsewhere.

"Belle Toujours," directed by Manoel de Oliveira (France)
In an homage to auteur Luis Bunuel by Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira (soon to celebrate his 98th birthday), "Belle Toujours" revolves around two characters from Bunuel's Belle de Jour, that are reunited 38 years later. Severine Serizy (Bulle Ogier, in the role originated by Catherine Deneuve) tries to avoid Henri Husson (Michel Piccoli) but he lures her with the promise to reveal a past secret. Severine, now a widow, expects a resolution but is driven to despair; Henri is satisfied that he has exacted the perfect revenge on the woman he both desires and detests.
A New Yorker Films Release

"Climates" (Iklimler), directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey)
Nuri Bilge Ceylan builds on a major theme found in his earlier films, "Clouds of May" and "Distant" (NYFF 2004)--the ravage caused by the inability to express one's feelings--in this visually stunning tale of a couple's rupture and the aftermath. The director himself plays the lead role of Isa, a selfish architecture teacher, who after breaking up with the only woman he every cared about (played by Ebru Ceylan, the director's wife), travels across Turkey while attempting to come to terms with his need for her.
A Zeitgeist Films Release

"Falling," directed by Barbara Albert (Austria)
Inspired by actresses of her generation who have influenced Austrian cinema, Barbara Albert brings together five women in their early thirties who meet for the first time in 14 years when they return to their small home town to attend their favorite teacher's funeral. The reunion unexpectedly propels them in a new direction as old wounds are re-opened, friendships are re-ignited and each of them wonders whether they have lost sight of their dreams. Albert is clearly a leading figure in the most recently emerging generation of European filmmakers.

"Gardens of Autumn" (Jardins en automne), directed by Otar Iosseliani (France)
In the comic, floating world of Otar Iosseliani ("Monday Morning", NYFF 2002), people betray their vanities and fears with sardonically amusing, telltale eccentricities that propel them headlong into a series of comic misadventures. In this latest symphony of folly, Iosseliani's warmest and most winning, we chart the life of Vincent, a powerful minister with an immense office, innumerable staff, a limousine and a beautiful wife, Odile, who spends all his money. But his world is transformed when the people he has ignored for so long, rise up in protest and force him to step down. Finding himself alone, back in his childhood apartment, his friends re-acquaint him with the simple pleasures of music, drinking, flirting--and the beauty of public gardens.

"The Go Master" (Wu qingyuan), directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang (China)
The Go Master is based on the true-life story of the world's most renowned master of the ancient Asian game of Go, Wu Qingyuan. A Chinese prodigy practicing a Japanese game, Wu's allegiances are torn by the increasingly bellicose relations between the two countries. Remaining in Japan in spite of the outbreak of war, and later, sucked into a religious cult which tries to exploit his celebrity, Wu (excellently played by Chang Chen) is the still center of the storm, following his own inner notions of spiritual integrity and loyalty to the discipline of his chosen vocation. Few filmmakers today can make movies as visually elegant and psychologically astute as Tian Zhuangzhuang ("The Blue Kite", NYFF 1993).

"The Host" (Gwoemul), directed by Bong Joon-ho (South Korea)
A smash hit in South Korea, the exhilarating third picture from Bong Joon-ho is the decade's best monster movie. Its premise has a 1950s purity: Toxins from a U.S. military base flow into the Han River causing the birth of a mutant creature (imagine the world's hugest, most malevolent guppy) which proceeds to terrorize Seoul. When it grabs a little girl, her dysfunctional family must band together to save her. Bong's movie is everything our homegrown horror movies are not--funny, suspenseful, rich with ideas and intelligent about family values.
A Magnolia Pictures Release

"The Inland Empire," directed by David Lynch (France / USA)
A Polish woman looks, intently, into someone or something ... an actress (Laura Dern) is warned that her new movie is cursed ... a rabbit-headed family perform sit-com actions on a stage set as if engaged in a solemn ritual ... Such are just a few of the elements and recurrent motifs of The Inland Empire, a mesmerizing surge through countless looking glasses that lands us on the far side of the land of nightmares. Lynch's first foray into high-definition video is just as visually stunning as his work in 35mm, but the long gestation period of his new film (he shot on and off over two years, and wrote as he went) has allowed him to give his own uniquely epic form to many of his primary concerns: the exploitation of young women, the mutability of identity, the omnivorousness of Hollywood.

"Insiang," directed by Lino Brocka (The Philippines, 1976)
The first Filipino film screened at the Cannes Film Festival, Insiang begins as the title character, marvelously played by Hilda Koronel, watches as her mother, Tonia (Mona Lisa), eases her relatives out of their ramshackle house so that she can ease in her boyfriend, Dado (Ruel Vernal). It doesn't take long for Dado to notice the beautiful Insiang, and soon the three are locked in a vicious emotional and sexual triangle clearly heading for some kind of explosion. Like his contemporary R.W. Fassbinder, Brocka used the conventions of melodrama in order to transcend them; if Hell is other people, with Insiang Brocka created one darkest visions of the inferno ever committed to film. A New York Film Festival Retrospective.

"The Journal of Knud Rasmussen," directed by Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn (Canada)
The new film by Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn focuses on the Danish explorer and scientist Knud Rasmussen's visit to the isolated camp of the great Igluik shaman, Aua, in 1922. Rasmussen and his protege, the young anthropologist Therkel Mathiasse, are captivated by the artic paradise, an intoxicating mix of spiritual and physical vitality, amazing intelligence and exuberant generosity. But the tranquility of the nomadic Inuit community is interrupted and irreversibly marred by encroaching Christianity, foreign goods and the shocking first murder of a white man.

"Little Children," directed by Todd Field (USA)
Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly and Patrick Wilson star in Todd Field's multi-layered romantic drama that is loosely based on the acclaimed Tom Perrotta novel. "Little Children" follows a group of young married couples whose lives intersect in the playgrounds, town pools and streets of their small community in surprising and potentially dangerous ways. The lives of the seemingly perfect parents are disrupted when a mom has an affair with the neighborhood's only stay-at-home dad, causing everyone involved to look inside themselves and discover what they really want in life.
A New Line Cinema Release

"Mafioso," directed by Alberto Lattuada (Italy, 1962)
A comic classic from the Golden Age of Italian cinema. Antonio (Alberto Sordi), a conscientious factory official, takes his wife and children to meet his family in Sicily and finds himself in the favor of local mobster Don Vincenzo (Ugo Attansio). Terrified and conflicted, he tells his family that he is going hunting but instead seeks out an enemy of the mafia in New York. A New York Film Festival Retrospective.
A Rialto Pictures Release

"Marie Antoinette," directed by Sofia Coppola (USA)
Academy Award(R)-winning Sofia Coppola's new film brings to the screen an imaginative interpretation of the life of France's legendary teenage queen Marie Antoinette. When betrothed to King Louis XVI (Jason Shwartzman), the naive Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) enters the opulent French court, which is steeped in conspiracy and scandal. Without guidance, adrift in a dangerous world, the young girl rebels against the isolated atmosphere of Versailles and becomes France's most misunderstood monarch. A strong supporting cast including Marianne Faithful as Maria-Theresa and Rip Torn as Louis XV.
A Columbia Pictures release

"Offside," directed by Jafar Panahi (Iran)
A tireless chronicler of the inequities and contradictions of contemporary Iran, Jafar Panahi here traces a group of Iranian girls who attempt to enter Tehran's Azadi Stadium dressed as boys to watch a major football tournament. Their deliberate flouting of the law, which forbids women to enter stadiums, puts them at great risk as they are caught, arrested and punished, yet nothing can quell their spirit of rebelliousness--or their willingness to ignore a law they consider unjust.
A Sony Pictures Classic Release

"Our Daily Bread," directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Austria)
Nikolaus Geyrhalter's sparse and restrained documentary about food-manufacturing factories is punctuated with footage of anonymous workers and startling images of meat processing. The measured, un-narrated piece aptly demonstrates humans' disconnection from their meals. The few scenes with factory workers enjoying their lunch break before heading back to operate the unearthly machines underscores the fascinating polarity that such a messy business as eating starts in these clinical and robotic environments.
A First Run / Icarus Films Release

"Pan's Labyrinth" (El laberinto del fauno), directed by Guillermo Del Toro, (Spain / Mexico) - CLOSING NIGHT FILM
Guillermo Del Toro's sixth and most ambitious film, "Pan's Labyrinth" is a gothic fairy tale set against the postwar repression of Franco's Spain. The film centers on Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a lonely and dreamy child living with her mother (Adriana Gil) and adoptive father (Sergi Lopez), a military officer tasked with ridding the area of rebels. In her loneliness, Ofelia creates a world filled with fantastical creatures and secret destinies. With post-war repression at its height, Ofelia must come to terms with her world through a fable of her own creation. The film is a haunting story that deftly combines the director's penchant for the fantastical with a rich historical vision.
A Picturehouse Release

"Paprika," directed by Satoshi Kon (Japan)
Satoshi Kon's new anime plays like a head-on collision between Hello Kitty and Philip K. Dick. The plot starts with a machine that lets therapists enter patients' dreams: When it's stolen, all hell breaks loose, and only a woman therapist (nicknamed "Paprika") seems able to stop it. Kon is a brilliant director by any standard and as the characters shuttle from dream to dream, nightmare to nightmare, Paprika becomes a thrilling tour-de-force of visual invention--every frame is packed with imagination. This delightful movie is bursting with ideas about Japanese repression, multiple identities, collective dreams and the dark side of his countrymen's love of Cute.
A Sony Pictures Entertainment Release

"Poison Friends" (Les Amities Malefiques)," directed by Emmanuel Bourdieu (France)
Eloi (Malik Zidi) and Alexandre (Alexandre Steiger) meet Andre on the first day of the academic year. Seduced by his cool behavior, charisma and intelligence, they easily fall prey to his charm. Andre (Thibault Vincon) offers them friendship and mentoring in return for a pledge of loyalty. Overcome with admiration, Eloi and Alexandre bow to the harsh discipline until the day that he leaves them pretending he has earned a scholarship at an American University. Suddenly left to their own devices, Eloi and Alexandre have nobody to turn to and must grow up.
A Strand Releasing Release

"Private Fears in Public Places" (Coeurs)," directed by Alain Resnais (France)
Alain Resnais collaborates again with British playwright, Alan Ayckbourn. The setting is snow-covered Paris where six lonely peoples' lives collide. Andre Dussolier is the real estate agent in love with his pious assistant (Sabine Azema) who moonlights as a home care worker for the demanding father of a widowed bartender (Pierre Arditi). One of his customers, a bitter army vet (Lambert Wilson) splits from his fiancee (Laura Morante) and meets a shy young woman (Isabel Carre) who lives with her brother, the real estate agent. Ineffably graceful, Private Fears is a heartbreakingly delicate meditation on loss, uncertainty and love, made with the kind of serene wisdom available only to true masters.

"The Queen," directed by Steven Frears (United Kingdom) - OPENING NIGHT FILM
With Helen Mirren in the title role, "The Queen" is an intimate, revealing and frequently acidly funny portrait of the British royal family during the dramatic days after the death of Princess Diana. Stephen Frears' fictionalized account features James Cromwell as Prince Phillip and Michael Sheen as Tony Blair and captures the interaction between the royal household and the government during their struggle to reach a compromise between allowing privacy for a personal family tragedy and the public's demand for an overt display of mourning.
A Miramax Films Release

"Reds," directed by Warren Beatty (USA)
Reds is a masterful political and historical epic that mesmerized critics and audiences alike. A love story between activists John Reed (Warren Beatty) and Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) set against the backdrop of the outbreak of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, it became an American cinematic milestone, garnering 12 Academy Award(R) nominations in 1982--more than any film in the previous 15 years. The film boasts a tremendous supporting cast including Jack Nicholson as playwright Eugene O'Neill, Gene Hackman, Paul Sorvino and Maureen Stapleton. A New York Film Festival Retrospective.
A Paramount Pictures Release

"Syndromes and a Century," directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand / France / Austria)
"Syndromes and a Century" is an exploration of how people remember as well as a fictional account of the lives of filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul's parents before they became lovers. The movie is broken into two distinct, but analogous parts: one focusing on a female doctor in a small-town clinic, the other on a male doctor at a big city hospital. What unites the stories is Apichatpong's superb eye for nuances of feeling and an alluring knack for finding marvelous moments, be it a droll Bangkok doctor boozing it up before she appears on TV or the exquisite poetry of villagers listening to a Thai country-western singer serenading the night.

"These Girls" (El-Banate dol), directed by Tahani Rached (Egypt)
Filmmaker Tahani Rached's sensitive documentary delves in to the marginalized existence of adolescent girls on the streets of Cairo, many of who are escaping acute poverty and abuse. All exude astonishing strength and camaraderie whilst coping with a gamut of human experiences ranging from rape, drug abuse and prostitution to pregnancy and motherhood. This uncompromising film follows the girls over an extended period of time, allowing us to discover the inner workings of an invisible section of Middle Eastern society.

"Triad Election" (Hak se wui yi wo wai kwai), directed by Johnnie To (Hong Kong)
Jimmy (Louis Koo, one of the superstars of Hong Kong cinema) is in the running for the coveted post of Triad president. He faces resistance from his "godfather" Lok (Simon Yam), who has served his two-year term and makes an increasingly desperate effort to throw tradition to the wind and maintain his position. As the power plays escalate, so does the violence ... not to mention the virtuosity of director Johnnie To, who creates one spectacular cinematic set piece after another. To is working deep within the gangster genre, whose traditions he observes with the greatest respect even as he's busy revitalizing and re-contextualizing them. But he's also given Triad Election a genuinely political edge: in To's dog-eat-dog vision, the body of free-market expansion beats with a savage heart.
A Tartan Films Release

"Volver," directed by Pedro Almodovar (Spain) - CENTERPIECE FILM
Pedro Almodovar's 16th feature returns to his roots; the lively working-class neighborhoods, where immigrants from various Spanish provinces share dreams, lives and fortune with a multitude of ethnic groups and other races. Three generations of women survive wind, fire and even death, thanks to goodness, audacity and a limitless vitality. With an ensemble female cast: Penelope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Duenas, Blanca Portillo, Yohanna Cobo and Chus Lampreare that was awarded an ensemble award at the recent Cannes Film Festival.
A Sony Pictures Classics release

"Woman on the Beach" (Haebyonui yoin), directed by Hong Sang-soo (South Korea)
A filmmaker, trying to complete a script, stumbles into relationships with two women during a stay at an off-season seaside resort. The affairs reveal the patterns of destructive behavior that define his romantic relationships--and generate material for the new film. Even for director Hong Sang-soo's many admirers, his new film turns out to be an unexpected delight--the most sheerly enjoyable and satisfying film of his career. Even as "Woman on the Beach" brilliantly explores one of Hong's enduring themes--the Korean male psyche in all its willfulness, anger and self-contempt--it brings its female characters to the forefront in a revelatory new way.



had a friend buy tickets for me... $112  :cry:

the go master - sept. 30
private fears in public places - oct. 6
el topo - oct. 6
syndromes and a century - oct. 7
the holy mountain - oct. 7
offside - oct. 8
the inland empire - oct. 8
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: JG on September 04, 2006, 07:43:57 PM
i really want to see island empire the 8th, but i dunno if  more will be available when they go on sale to the general public (they're not available now are they?).  anyways, my buddy goes to nyu so i plan to make a weekend out of it (he likes lynch too!). 

Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: modage on September 04, 2006, 09:18:06 PM
ordered tix to Inland Empire and Marie Antoinette.  am also interested in The Host, Little Children and Pans Labyrinth.  but i've been burned by AICN hype enough to figure i can wait on The Host, i think Little Children is opening relatively soon after the festival and i believe i am going to see Pans Labyrinth tomorrow.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: Astrostic on September 04, 2006, 10:01:16 PM
I got tickets to INLAND EMPIRE, The Host, and Syndromes and a Century.  Can't wait for all three.  I saw Marie-Antoinette and Pan's Labyrinth at Cannes, and Little Children comes out so soon after, so it'll be a brief stay in NY.  Why can't this kind of festival happen in Boston?
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: samsong on September 04, 2006, 10:56:08 PM
we should meet up for a xixax david lynch circle jerk.

astrostic, right on with Syndromes and a Century.  it's the film i'm most excited to see. 
Little Children is being released during the festival and Volver is coming out soon enough... also it's the festival's centerpiece, meaning more money. 
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: I Don't Believe in Beatles on September 04, 2006, 11:32:31 PM
Samsong, have you seen El Topo or The Holy Mountain before?
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: Pubrick on September 05, 2006, 10:23:58 AM
Quote from: Astrostic on September 04, 2006, 10:01:16 PM
I got tickets to INLAND EMPIRE
thanks for being the only one writing it the right way.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: samsong on September 05, 2006, 09:04:52 PM
Quote from: Ginger on September 04, 2006, 11:32:31 PM
Samsong, have you seen El Topo or The Holy Mountain before?

nope.  apparently the prints they're showing at nyff are new and (fucking) gorgeous.  i am excited.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: squints on September 06, 2006, 06:36:19 PM
Quote from: samsong on September 04, 2006, 07:17:39 PM
"Paprika," directed by Satoshi Kon (Japan)
Satoshi Kon's new anime plays like a head-on collision between Hello Kitty and Philip K. Dick. The plot starts with a machine that lets therapists enter patients' dreams: When it's stolen, all hell breaks loose, and only a woman therapist (nicknamed "Paprika") seems able to stop it. Kon is a brilliant director by any standard and as the characters shuttle from dream to dream, nightmare to nightmare, Paprika becomes a thrilling tour-de-force of visual invention--every frame is packed with imagination. This delightful movie is bursting with ideas about Japanese repression, multiple identities, collective dreams and the dark side of his countrymen's love of Cute.
A Sony Pictures Entertainment Release

THIS sounds awesome. I was just asking myself when Satoshi Kon was going to release something new. Too bad i'm 1500 miles away from New York
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: Pwaybloe on September 08, 2006, 08:56:08 AM
Yeah, I think it's going to be another fantastic movie.  No official US release date yet. 

Screenshot:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zabriskiepoint.net%2Ffiles%2Fpaprika.jpg&hash=ad4d001b21f20e82dfdf060401b84bd37e342c1b)
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: bonanzataz on September 10, 2006, 04:25:00 PM
i'll be seeing the midnight holy mountain on saturday and (maybe) the 3:30 showing of the host on monday. i'll be using every resource i have to get tix for INLAND EMPIRE and VOLVER.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: samsong on September 10, 2006, 09:24:25 PM
i guess no one thought the circle jerk was a good idea?
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: bonanzataz on September 11, 2006, 12:05:05 AM
Quote from: samsong on September 10, 2006, 09:24:25 PM
i guess no one thought the circle jerk was a good idea?

that all depends on whether we'll be using a cracker or a waffle.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: samsong on September 30, 2006, 09:27:48 PM
the go master - the only other tian zhuangzhuang film i've seen is the horse thief, which i love.  this one is just as beautiful aesthetically and tonally but very lacking in just about any other imaginable facet.  i hate hearing the complaint "nothing happened" but in this case it wouldn't be too far off.  it meanders towards good and hovers back into neutral.

woman on the beach - another film other than oasis that makes me (want to) love korean cinema.  that makes two.  i'll leave it at "i loved it" for now. 
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: Astrostic on October 11, 2006, 08:42:49 PM
I've kind of been sitting on this for a while, but in addition to INLAND EMPIRE and The Host, I saw Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes and a Century last Saturday, and it is the best movie I have seen this year, easily.  I loved Tropical Malady, and I had little hopes of this topping it, and for the first half of it I was really curious as to why he even made this film, but then the second half comes, and you see what the man is getting at, and it becomes this huge sort of memory game that gives a good idea how memories are developed, and how they function, and how certain events in time are inevitable, whether they happen now, or fifty years ago, or hundreds of years into the future. And THEN he pulls this miracle of a final twenty minutes that (possible spoiler) seriously is nothing but slow meandering shots of public statues and hospital hallways and basements that climaxes on some odd engine/vacuum looking hospital equipment that really doesn't do much of anything but make you wish that the shot would never end. It was so majestic and peaceful and heartstopping.  The film also has some really funny moments. I cannot wait to see this twenty more times.

Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: samsong on October 11, 2006, 09:30:37 PM
after i saw that no one gave a shit i decided not to post anymore about the festival but i loved Syndromes and a Century, too.  it had me from the very first frame.  weerasethakul is becoming one of my very favorite filmmakers, based on this and Tropical Malady.  they're like good friends and the kind of quiet, transcendent masterpieces that don't get made very often.   as much as i loved Syndromes, though, INLAND EMPIRE was my favorite of the festival.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: squints on October 27, 2006, 12:53:58 AM
did you (or anyone) see Paprika?
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: modage on August 19, 2007, 08:21:58 PM
The 45th New York Film Festival
September 28 – October 14, 2007

The 45th New York Film Festival will premiere 28 films when it runs September 28 - October 14 at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. The festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and sponsored by Sardinia Region Tourism and The New York Times, also features three unique sidebars, three special event screenings and five retrospective films.

Opening Night
This year's festival opens on Friday, September 28 with Wes Anderson's new film, The Darjeeling Limited. Featuring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman, the films follows three brothers as they re-forge family bonds on a train ride across India. Anjelica Huston is also featured in the Fox Searchlight release, co-written by Anderson, Roman Coppola and Schwartzman.

Centerpiece
On Saturday, October 6, Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men will be honored as the festival's Centerpiece. Based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winner Cormac McCarthy and adapted by the Coens, the film is a mesmerizing thriller about the violent chain reaction that follows a hunter's discovery of several dead bodies, a major stash of heroin and $2 million in cash. Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson and Kelly MacDonald star.

Closing Night
Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Persepolis has been selected as the festival's Closing Night film. The animated coming-of-age story, based on Satrapi's popular graphic novel about her own childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, won a Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. It features the voice talents of Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, Danielle Darrieux and Simon Abkarian, several of whom are expected to attend the festival's Closing Night screening at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall on Sunday, Oct. 14. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing the film.

American Titles
The festival's Opening Night and Centerpiece selections headline a strong American contingent in the 2007 slate. Noah Baumbach, Gus Van Sant, Todd Haynes, Sidney Lumet all return to the festival with American productions; Julian Schnabel and Abel Ferrara come back with international co-productions; and Brian De Palma, John Landis and Ira Sachs each make their festival debuts.

Baumbach will screen his follow-up to The Squid and the Whale, the very funny and very true Margot at the Wedding. Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh star as contentious sisters thrown into a disastrous family weekend caused by Pauline's (Leigh) engagement to the underwhelming Malcolm (Jack Black). Scott Rudin produces the film, a Paramount Vantage release.

Van Sant's Paranoid Park, based on the novel by Blake Nelson, details the unraveling of a skateboarder's life after he is involved in the death of a security guard. Newcomer Alex Nevins stars in the film, for which Van Sant won Cannes' special 60th Anniversary Prize. IFC First Take will release the film.

The other American titles include Haynes' I'm Not There — a rumination on the life of Bob Dylan, with actors Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Wishaw and Marcus Carl Frankin each representing elements the famed musician's mystique — De Palma's trenchant vision of the Iraq war, Redacted, and Ira Sachs' taut melodrama Married Life. Lumet returns to the New York Film Festival for the first time in 43 years (Fail-Safe, 1964) with Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, a crime story starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei. Two documentaries — Landis' Mr. Warmth, The Don Rickles Project and Ed Pincus and Lucia Small's The Axe in the Attic — round out the festival's new U.S. productions.

International Titles
The 45th New York Film Festival honors worldwide film production with more than half of its slate taken from other countries. Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly tells the story of magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, paralyzed by a stroke, blinks out a memoir that eloquently captures his vibrant interior life. Mathieu Amalric stars as Bauby in the Miramax release, which won Cannes' Best Director award and Technical Grand Prize.

Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona will screen his feature film debut The Orphanage, a supernatural drama about a woman who re-opens the orphanage in which she was raised, only to discover terrible secrets as her seven-year-old son, Simón, begins making imaginary friends. The Picturehouse release is presented and produced by last year's Closing Night director Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth).

Among the other international titles in the festival are Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light, which shared with Persepolis the Jury Prize at Cannes; Abel Ferrara's Italy/U.S. co-production Go Go Tales; Catherine Breillat's The Last Mistress; Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut In Two; Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Flight of the Red Balloon; Eric Rohmer's The Romance of Astrea and Celadon; Alexander Sokurov's Alexandra; Béla Tarr's The Man from London; and Jia Zhang-ke's documentary Useless; Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu; and Lee Chang-dong's Korean feature, Secret Sunshine, which stars Cannes' Best Actress prize recipient, Jeon Do-yeon.

Retrospectives
Five films will be featured as special retrospectives of the 45th New York Film Festival: the long-awaited "definitive cut" of Blade Runner by Ridley Scott, honoring the landmark science fiction film's 25th anniversary; the premiere of a new score by the Alloy Orchestra to accompany Josef von Sternberg's 1927 film Underworld, winner of the Best Writing Oscar® at the first Academy Awards®; John Ford's first major film The Iron Horse (1924), a massive production about the building of the transcontinental railroad; Sven Gade and Heinz Schall's 1920 German production of Hamlet, starring actress Asta Nielsen in the title role; and an evening titled "The Technicolor Show", introduced by Martin Scorsese and featuring John Stahl's Leave Her to Heaven (1945).

Music Documentaries
The Walter Reade Theater will also host three upcoming music documentaries as part of the New York Film Festival's special events. We will screen Carlos Saura's Fados, an exploration of the celebrated Portuguese musical style. Acclaimed rock documentarian Murray Lerner's The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-1965 features footage of Bob Dylan's infamous Newport performances, where the musician first used electric amplifiers. Peter Bogdanovich will complete the set with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream, an in-depth look at the legendary American rock band to be screened at its full 238 minutes, with a 15-minute intermission.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: Astrostic on August 28, 2007, 09:13:56 PM
I got tickets for:

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Man From London
I'm Not There
No Country For Old Men
Flight of the Red Balloon

is anyone else going? I went last year and saw INLAND EMPIRE, Syndromes and a Century, and The Host.  it was a blast.  such a good line up this year that I'll have to come down from Boston two weekends instead of one.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: modage on August 28, 2007, 11:09:51 PM
i ordered tix for

The Darjeeling Limited
No Country For Old Men
I'm Not There
Margot At The Wedding
Paranoid Park
talk with Wes Anderson

hopefully i will get them all.  how did you get yours?
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: Astrostic on August 29, 2007, 10:27:09 AM
I faxed them the order form and saw yesterday that they charged my credit card for the total amount that I asked for. 
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: modage on August 29, 2007, 10:41:14 AM
i should've faxed mine.  i sent it us mail on monday.  no bank activity yet.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: JG on August 29, 2007, 11:37:40 AM
I can wait a week or whatever for Darjeeling, but I really want to see No Country... and I'm Not There.  SO MUCH.   
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: samsong on August 29, 2007, 01:57:14 PM
haven't gotten a confirmation from my friend but i ordered tickets for

I'm Not There
Leave Her to Heaven
Underworld
The Man From London
Secret Sunshine
The Romance of Astrea and Celadon
Fados

tried to go mostly with films by directors i love (ie rohmer, saura) without distributors.  the others i can wait for/try to get student rush tickets.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: grand theft sparrow on September 05, 2007, 11:24:52 AM
So how early should I get there to try for student rush tickets?
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: modage on September 16, 2007, 11:17:47 AM
wow so this is the first year i haven't gotten all the tickets i requested but i guess it's also the first year i tried to get tickets to more than two films and some of them were the Opening/Centerpiece which i've never attempted before.  anyway, i didn't get tickets to I'm Not There, Margot At The Wedding, or No Country For Old Men. 

i can deal with I'm Not There since i ended up seeing the screener but i really want to see No Country and Margot.  i'm thinking about trying standby but i've never done it before and don't know how successful that would be.  does anybody happen to have an extra ticket to either of those or know a way i might procure one?  :yabbse-grin: 
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: Astrostic on September 16, 2007, 01:41:27 PM
a friend of mine who was only going to see I'm Not There cancelled, but I gave her ticket to another friend a couple of days ago.  I'll let you know, though, if this new guy can't come.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: modage on September 16, 2007, 08:23:31 PM
thanks but i don't actually need the I'm Not There ticket because i ended up watching a screener.  if you hear anything about No Country or Margot definitely let me know.  i could let go of a Paranoid Park ticket for sure in a trade too.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: samsong on September 18, 2007, 07:48:08 PM
i got everything i wanted.  :yabbse-thumbup:
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: grand theft sparrow on September 19, 2007, 07:56:08 AM
Since almost everything else that struck my interest has a release date, I only bought for Flight of the Red Balloon and I got it.  I may rush for Paranoid Park but that brings up the old question:

Quote from: just sparrow on September 05, 2007, 11:24:52 AM
So how early should I get there to try for student rush tickets?
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: modage on September 24, 2007, 12:18:20 PM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fnymag.com%2Fimages%2F2%2Fnews%2F07%2F10%2Fweek1%2Fdirectors%2Fdirectors071001_opener_560b.jpg&hash=9dc9402e587fde78446c7e1d6c0900a934267dd9)

Their New York Film Festival
Baumbach, Schnabel, Anderson, the Coens! When was the last time the New York Film Festival could claim bragging rights to such an impressive roster of local talent? The New York auteur is back.
Source: NYMag

For the first time in a long while, the New York Film Festival, which opens this Friday, is truly a New York film festival. The 45th NYFF has drafted a whopping ten New Yorkers—a lineup so stacked they could take on the Yankees. Wes Anderson has the opening-night slot with The Darjeeling Limited. The Coen brothers follow with No Country for Old Men as the centerpiece. To round out the scorecard: Noah Baumbach, Peter Bogdanovich, Abel Ferrara, Murray Lerner, Sidney Lumet, Ira Sachs, and Julian Schnabel. Filmmakers from Hollywood: one. You may not have noticed that you are living in a new heyday of New York film, but you are.

Unlike the seventies, though, this new era is indeed a stealth golden age, since our filmmakers (Ang Lee, Spike Lee, Michel Gondry, Julie Taymor, and Michael Moore, among them) often seem to have nothing but Zip Codes in common. They're not part of any movement, but they do recall earlier glorious moments in our city's film history: the ferocious indie trailblazing of Elia Kazan in the forties and fifties, the transgressive cinema of Warhol, the mainstreaming of art films in the nineties by studios like Miramax, and, of course, the great decade of Mean Streets and Taxi Driver.

And so to mark this new age, we've stepped inside the worlds of five New York directors—and one actress whose collaborative ties with a filmmaker couldn't be closer. We've entered the stylized bubble of Wes Anderson; asked David Edelstein to analyze the Coens' "biosphere"; talked with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Noah Baumbach about their work-marriage; and toured the West Village palazzo of New York–icon–turned–Cannes hero Julian Schnabel. Whether we end up falling in love with all of their latest offerings or not, we await these directors' films excitedly, the way we used to eagerly anticipate the new Woody Allen movie: In this they are, indisputably, our new auteurs.

As for the old ones, 43 years after his last New York Film Festival appearance—and 30-odd since Dog Day Afternoon—Lumet, 83, reminds us that he and the other guys from the seventies "never hung out" anyway. The whole notion of a golden age is a nostalgia trip, he says, and the filmmaker, who shot his new movie in HD video, is too busy to reminisce. "It's a great time right now for New York film," Lumet tells us. "This is one of those times when everyone will look back and say, 'It's not so hot now, but look at those first New York films of the 21st century—weren't they wonderful!' "

sprawling article here:
http://nymag.com/movies/filmfestivals/newyork/2007/

(individual coens and wes posted in their forums)
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: samsong on September 29, 2007, 12:50:49 AM
i have a ticket for the HBO Directors Dialogues with Todd Haynes but i can't go anymore.  anyone interested?  $16.  pm me.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: soixante on September 29, 2007, 01:40:56 AM
Shameless self-promotion:

SpaceDisco One, which I co-produced, is screening October 6 at 9:15 pm as part of the Avant-Garde Showcase at the Walter Reade Theater during the NYFF.  SpaceDisco One was written and directed by Damon Packard, whose feature Reflections of Evil played the NYFF two years ago.

The best part is my prodco logo at the beginning, which is sort of a parody of Jerry Bruckheimer Productions logo, replete with lightning effects.
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: samsong on September 29, 2007, 11:42:49 PM
i got a rush ticket to 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days no problem this morning before going to the rohmer film, which also had a lot of empty seats, which goes to say you'll most likely get in if it's earlier in the day and not No Country for Old Men or I'm Not There.  but trying never hurts... the box offices (rose theater and walter reade) open at 10 am.

The Man From London sept 30 @ 1
Secret Sunshine oct 2 @ 9:15
Underworld oct 4 @ 6
I'm Not There oct 4 @ 8:30
Leave Her to Heaven oct 12 @ 9
Fados oct 13 @ noon

i'll probably student rush some others.  anyone going to any of these/going the day of or have i been ostracized by the new york crowd?
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: modage on October 01, 2007, 09:54:12 AM
"the great" mutinyco is famous!

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2007/09/jamie_stuarts_n.php
Title: Re: 45th New York Film Festival!
Post by: Pubrick on October 01, 2007, 06:23:54 PM
Quote from: modage on October 01, 2007, 09:54:12 AM
"the great" mutinyco is famous!

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2007/09/jamie_stuarts_n.php

QuoteIs that Tilda Swinton?

Posted by: Craptastic  at October 1, 2007 12:22 AM

pretty much sums it up.

Quote from: samsong on September 29, 2007, 11:42:49 PM
or have i been ostracized by the new york crowd?

why, whatever would be the reason, sambong?