Hipster porn star Sasha Grey was barely a year old when director Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape came out; now she’s the unlikely star of his latest film, a low-budget digital project called The Girlfriend Experience. The fragmented story follows Chelsea (Grey), a high-priced call girl who provides companionship and conversation to Manhattan bigwigs in the weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election. Surrounded by various businessmen and clients concerned with the collapse of U.S. economy, Chelsea keeps her sanity by making $2,000 an hour and living with an understanding boyfriend. Of note: This film doesn’t include a single sex scene. Read More »
Statesmen of note, like celebrities, elicit heartfelt responses — after all, both happen to be chosen representatives of the common folk, endorsed through ballot and ticket. So it came as no surprise that Rudy Giuliani’s brief appearance in Barry Levinson‘s epistemological film essay, PoliWood, drew an auditorium’s worth of gusty whistling and hissing, as if his actual person was present. Indeed, the tony world premiere at Tribeca of Levinson’s wry labor of love proved to be a festive and surprisingly participatory occasion, especially when the satiric director joined cast members Ellen Burstyn, Josh Lucas, Matthew Modine, Tim Daly, Wendie Malick, and Frank Luntz for a post-screening panel that produced a dicey comment: “Opinions are like belly buttons, everybody’s got one. Except Rush Limbaugh.” Read More »
Now that the broken sprocket holes have been swept off the projection room floors, and New York’s Village VII can go back to being a mediocre theater full of bloated summer blockbusters, let’s take a look at some of the cinematic highlights from this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, shall we? While there wasn’t any of the Spider-Man 3 glamor or United 93 controversies, of recent years, there were enough quality films to keep our eyes from crusting over. After the jump, a list (in no particular order) of a few favorites that we hope will be coming to a theatre near you some time soon. Read More »
Whether by beefy forename, the purple-and-gold heraldry, or a playing style considered MJ 2.0 (or, 0.5 for disparagers), Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard and city-designated demigod Kobe Bryant is easy to distinguish, a 6’6” figure of front-page prominence and untold fascination. Over his wigwagging career, every credit Bryant has earned has been matched by a caveat or — over and over — a told-you-so takedown. As such, one’s feelings for the enigmatic “Black Mamba” are in play every passing minute of Spike Lee’s irresistible day-on-the-court documentary Kobe Doin’ Work, a 83-minute inside job which could be called All Camera-Eyez On Me. Read More »
One of the best films of the Tribeca Film Festival, Outrage places a spotlight on a long brewing political story that hasn’t been given sufficient attention from the mainstream media. Lucky for us, Oscar-nominated director Kirby Dick is out to set the record straight…err, we mean gay. Read More »
The pains of being pure at heart are many in Bradley Rust Gray’s The Exploding Girl, a moody, osmotic character study that thoroughly stresses the “awk” in youthful awkwardness. The American accompaniment to wife and co-director So Yong Kim’s In Between Days (both winking allusions to the same Cure single), Girl mirrors the former in its observational focus on best friends whose relationship lies in between platonic and romantic. The contemplative long takes, extended silences, and artless conversations also define the film as a well-done translation of the exquisite Taiwanese art of is-this-it patience (Hou Hsaio-Hsien’s Café Lumière is Gray’s cited inspiration). Read More »
As much as you and I may geek out on the latest i-gadget, how many of us really take a moment to think about how rapidly technology will advance in our own lifetime? One of the most compelling documentaries at Tribeca this year, Transcendent Man, explores the profound and radical prediction of humans and technology merging by respected inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. Read More »
In most cases, the description “family-friendly film” has sent us packing. But to our surprise and delight, Marshall Curry’s documentary Racing Dreams has repeatedly impressed audiences and press, as well as the Tribeca jury who awarded it Best Documentary Feature last night. This being Curry’s return to Tribeca after his Academy Award-nominated (and Tribeca Audience Award-winning) documentary Street Fight, it shouldn’t be a shock Racing Dreams is also the frontrunner to take home the coveted $25,000 Heineken Audience Award. Read More »
Back in 1977, New York was a city in twain, with equal amounts of kvelling (Downtowners: The drugs and poverty!) and kvetching (Uptowners: The drugs and poverty!). For those of us born after those heady and heterodox times, cultural historian Luc Sante describes the scene in his phenomenal essay, “My Lost City”:
“Aside from the high-intensity blocks of Midtown and the financial district, the place seemed to be inhabited principally by slouchers and loungers, loose-joints vendors and teenage hustlers, panhandlers and site-specific drunks, persons whose fleabags put them out on the street at eight and only permitted reentry at six.”
Alongside this less-than-desired demographic and the ashes from downtown’s rampant arson (“By 1980 Avenue C was a lunar landscape of vacant blocks and hollow tenement shells”) bloomed the No Wave cinema (and its famed, same-named sonic analog), a fiercely independent movement that was Beat-ific in a dual sense — its swashbuckling bliss and its Kerouacian belief that “everything belongs to me because I am poor.” Read More »
Last week at the Tribeca Filmmaker party, we spied some slick posters promoting the Filmmaker Talks happening throughout the festival put on by indieWIRE and Apple. With a slate of emerging and established creative voices including Natalie Portman, So Yong Kim & Bradley Rust Grey, Kirby Dick, Gael Garcia Bernal & Diego Luna, Ti West, Gabriel Noble and Spike Lee, this is by far one of the best (and free!) creative series worth hitting in SoHo these days. Read More »
