Tag Archives: new york film festival

Lame Adventure 239: New York Film Festival Triple Play

Posted on October 11, 2011 | 10 comments

Milton and I have recently seen three very diverse films at the New York Film Festival – Shame, The Turin Horse and the Special Work In Progress Screening.

What might this film be?

Shame is an erotically charged psychological drama directed by Steve McQueen about Brandon, an affluent, Manhattan-based sex addict in his early-30s, brilliantly played by charismatic, Michael Fassbender, who makes this relentless horndog sympathetic.  Brandon lives a successful double life earning pots of money in his high tech job, while screwing anyone he can buy or bang for free at any hour of the day or night.  When overcome with the urge in the office, he visits the men’s room for a wank.  A quiet evening at home involves pounding a beer and eating take-out Chinese while streaming his favorite porn site.  Riding the subway into work he exchanges such penetrating eye contact with a woman doling out a boatload of come-hither glances back at him, one feels like a voyeur visualizing exactly what he’s imagining he’d like to do to her.

Brandon is content with satisfying his disconnected sexual compulsion until Sissy, his emotionally needy, hot mess of a cabaret singer sister, played perfectly by Carey Mulligan, invades his well-ordered empty life.  When he watches her perform New York, New York dirge-style, he is so overcome with emotion he cannot stop a tear from rolling down his face.  Needy Sissy also invades her brother’s privacy and discovers his secret, prompting him to suffer an existential crisis in response to her cloying need for love and connection.  Following one of their battles, he takes impulsive action to cleanse himself of his habit.  He even tries dating a co-worker with conventional ideas about relationships, but that temporary fix reinforces his natural inclination for the detached and impersonal.  As Sissy craves rescue, Brandon is trapped in his desire for escape, colliding penchants that ultimately exact heavy tolls on both of them.  As the ending credits rolled I was unsure what I wanted to do more, weep or take a shower.  Milton declared:

Milton:  Compared to what we’re seeing next, this was Disney.

Star Fassbender and Director McQueen at the NYFF.

What we saw next was the Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr’s last film, The Turin Horse, a 146 minute black and white opus that was inspired by a horse that Friedrich Nietzsche saw being whipped.  This act of brutality upset Nietzche so much he threw his arms around the animal to protect it and then he pretty much went off his rocker until he died ten years later.  This film is ostensibly about what happened to the horse, but the narrative is so lean, it’s borderline anorexic.

It opens with a grizzled peasant with a paralyzed right arm who looks 70, but is probably 45, driving a wooden cart pulled by his weathered workhorse through a fierce windstorm.  Once home, he is wordlessly met by his adult daughter, who looks 40, but is probably 20.  They go about their routine of unharnessing the horse from her cart, putting her in her stable, and then they enter their stone house where she helps her father undress, and redress, he lies down, and she boils potatoes for their meal.  When the potatoes are cooked, she announces, “It’s ready.”  They eat wordlessly with their hands.  She clears the table and then sits at the window with her back to the camera watching the wind wreak havoc outside until her father orders offscreen, “Go to bed.”

Fetching water.

This segment is followed with the next six days of their lives, basically a repetition of the same routines in their thankless existence — fetching water from the well, dressing, undressing, boiling potatoes, eating potatoes, drinking a shot of palinka (a Hungarian fruit brandy), occasionally dealing with the horse that is looking increasingly ill, getting a visit from a gasbag neighbor, getting a second visit from an unwelcome band of gypsies that leave without incident, the well running dry for a reason that is never explained, an attempt to leave, failing to leave and finally, returning to what could be their doom — all while that windstorm of biblical proportion is blowing.  The storm stops, the lantern no longer lights, without water, the potatoes can only be eaten raw, and the screen fades to black.

How I managed to stay awake, much less find myself completely riveted to the monotonous routines of these two miserable souls essentially living the saying, “Life’s a bitch and then you die,” is a testimony to whatever it is that Béla Tarr does with the camera.  I never looked at my watch once.  In fact, it never even occurred to me to look at my watch.

As the ending credits rolled, Milton eloquently confided:

Milton: I never want to see a potato again if that shit ain’t fried.

Afterward, Dennis Lim, a member of the festival’s selection committee, conducted a q&a with Béla Tarr, who insisted on standing throughout.

Béla Tarr and Dennis Lim on stage at Alice Tully Hall

Béla Tarr succinctly explained it best why this film works so well for the viewer:

BT: The details are more important than the stupid story.

He answered the question about why this is his last film with a question:

BT:  Do you think I can say more?

He added that he felt no reason to repeat himself.  Afterward, Milton shared another confidence with me:

Milton:  I want to screw Michael Fassbender and marry Béla Tarr.

Another man blocking Milton's path to Béla's heart.

Our mystery work-in-progress screening was for Martin Scorsese’s adventure in the world of 3D, Hugo, based on the novel by Brian Selznick titled, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  Hugo is a caper about a clever orphan boy who secretly lives in a railway station in Paris with a broken automaton he’s determined to repair.  On a narrative level, the first hour is so leaden with cliché chase scenes and contrived suspense, it made The Turin Horse seem light as a soufflé.  In the second half, it veers into an entirely unpredictable direction when it turns into a compelling film history lesson about filmmaker Georges Méliès, before reverting back to more contrived shenanigans, yet another chase, and the predictable tugging at the heartstrings ending.  I looked at my watch several times while watching this one.  Hugo is scheduled to open November 23rd in time for Thanksgiving.  Pass the turkey.

10 Comments

Posted in Humor

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Lame Adventure 238: New York Film Festival – Melancholia

Posted on October 7, 2011 | 8 comments

It seems perversely fitting that on the day after Steve Jobs buys his rainbow, Milton and I are attending a screening of a film at the New York Film Festival called Melancholia.  Written and directed by Lars von Trier, this is a story about the end of the world.  At this moment, many Mac devotees including myself felt that the world had ended a bit when we learned that Steve had checked out.   Milton has an iPhone, his first taste of Mac hardware but his Dell desktop has often been the bane of his existence prompting me to bark:

Me:  Get a Mac!

On cue, he will grouse about having just paid off his PC, and I will issue my usual taunt:

Me:  Once you have Mac you’ll never go back.

Milton and I had not planned on attending any NYFF screenings of films with distribution, but we both highly regretted not bending our rule for the latest from reliably controversial Lars.  When Melancholia played Cannes last spring, word spread fast that it was one of his best films thus far in his career.  Then he blew all the great press devoted to his work by suffering diarrhea of the mouth at a post-screening press conference when he went on a stream-of-consciousness tangent about Nazis, Jews, being a Nazi, etc.  This stupidity quickly got him ejected from the festival.  Do I think he’s a Nazi?  No.  Do I think he was the king of self-destruction at that press conference?  To get vomitously Sarah Palin here, “You betcha!”  Lars might be the type that recoils from admiration and approval.  Yet, I have no interest in playing Sigmund Fraud (sic) about his psychologically.  Everyone has demons, but most of us keep them under wraps in public or at least when cameras, microphones, and hundreds of reporters are present.

We knew that the Melancholia screening was sold out, but Film Society member Milton visited the box office and asked if any seats were available.  The ticket seller took pity on him and sold him a pair (at his member discount rate) of center section seats in row G; a row that Milton is now referring to as “Row Good.”

An image that probably sends chills up Vera Wang's spine.

This cosmic tale is as beautiful as it is bleak.  The story opens with a brilliant prologue depicting mini-scenes of destruction leading up to the grand kahuna of “holy crap, did we see what we just saw” moments  while music from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde graces the soundtrack.  The prologue segues into the first part of the film called Justine.  Kirsten Dunst plays Justine, a new bride who arrives two hours late with her groom, Michael (Alexander Skarsgard), to their wedding reception held at her sister Claire’s lavish mansion.  A two-word description of the wedding reception is ‘emotional disaster’ as Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg delivering yet another pitch-perfect performance), struggles to make this toxic celebration a success.  Unfortunately, she is fighting an impossible battle with forces beyond her control including her bitter divorced mother (Charlotte Rampling) delivering a speech so withering I became infected with Milton’s giggles.  The foremost force that resists Claire’s good intentions is Justine, who grows increasingly detached from her own party to a socially suicidal degree.

The second part is called Claire, the sister that is fighting hard to maintain some semblance of normalcy in the life she shares with her husband and young son, a tall order to fill since psychopathic Justine is around.  The film unfolds with a sense of calm, but as worried Claire’s anxiety about the fate of the world as a rogue planet approaches escalates, Justine, who has a premonition of what’s to come, seems at peace.  Meanwhile, Claire grows increasingly unhinged and considering the circumsances, who the hell wouldn’t?

If there is a recurring theme throughout the entirety of the film it’s one of hopelessness.  In the world according to Lars it seems that no matter how hard we try to make things right, to play by life’s rules, to be prepared in the event of an emergency, or even if we consciously stop trying at all, either way it doesn’t matter what we do.  Forces beyond our control are out there that are going to crush us one way or another.   On the upside, this makes me feel a lot less lousy about my inability to get out of bed to get to work on time. 

As the ending credits rolled, many audience members sat in a daze.   This thought provoking highly original work is going to stick in our heads quite a while.

8 Comments

Posted in Humor

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Lame Adventure 237: New York Film Festival – George Harrison: Living in the Material World

Posted on October 5, 2011 | 10 comments

Milton and I attended the sold-out screening of the HBO documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World at the New York Film Festival.  This 208 minute film directed by Martin Scorsese with the cooperation of Harrison’s widow, Olivia, will be shown in two parts on HBO starting tonight.

We had fantastic seats, seventh row, almost dead center.  The filmmaker, Wes Anderson, was sitting behind us.  We saw Fisher Stevens and we also thought we saw the composer Philip Glass.  I pointed out a guy that I thought could have participated in a John Lithgow look-alike contest.

Milton:  He could have entered but he would have lost.  I can’t believe we have VIP seats!

Me:  Someone probably got fired for making that mistake.

As I was leafing through my program, chatting with Milton, I reached our film’s description page.  The woman sitting next to me, a Bjork-wannabe in the appearance department, floats her finger over George’s face in the photograph and mumbles his name into my left ear.

Floating finger re-enactment.

This unsolicited gesture captures my attention. I don’t want to encourage her but I don’t want to appear rude.

Me:  Yes, that’s George Harrison.

Milton mumbles her name into my right ear.

Milton:  Weirdo.

Olivia Harrison and Martin Scorsese introduce the film.  Then, the lights dim, the screen fills with tulips, and George’s middle-aged face appears in the garden.  He looks at the camera and flashes an ethereal smile.  I instantly feel a lump in my throat, but it just as instantly dissolves because Weirdo unfolds the oversized program guide and starts perusing it using her cellphone as a light source.  She is also leaning over my armrest.  She is so close to me that I can sniff her fragrance, Eau de Gag.

There I am sitting next to a stinky deranged space invader that I’d like to beat with a Rickenbacker guitar while watching what might be the definitive documentary about one of the most spiritual rock stars ever.  Instinct tells me that if I address her, this could get very ugly, very fast.  I inch closer to Milton and stay focused on the film, but I do notice that when I react audibly to whatever is happening on the screen, it  distracts her from her program guide reading and I can feel her staring at me.  If I were  to look at her, I know she’d be looking at me square in the face.  I stay focused on the screen.

Every so often her illuminated phone chimes.  It also fully rang once.  She quickly killed the ring, but the guy sitting next to Milton leaned forward and did address her.

Guy Sitting Next to Milton:  Shut that off!

She followed his order.  At that moment, I could have had that stranger’s child.

The first half of the film, told without narration and deftly edited by David Tedeschi, reveals George’s early life through archive footage and home movies, as well as interviews with the man himself.  This footage is intercut with interviews with key talking heads including the surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, record producer George Martin, Harrison’s ex-wife Pattie Boyd, Eric Clapton, Yoko Ono, Phil Specter (filmed before his world imploded), and many others sharing anecdotes and personal insights about “the quiet Beatle”.  Until Paul McCartney revealed it, I never knew that young George referred to his highly stylized pre-Beatle haircut as “the turban.”

The film conveys George’s frustration as being the lead guitarist to the Beatle’s two domineering writers, John Lennon and McCartney.  In the beginning Harrison’s songwriting talent was undeveloped, but it blossomed over time (being in the company of Lennon and McCartney could not have hurt) but he had a tough time getting his less commercial songs on Beatle albums.  He smashed one hit out of the park with Something.  In the second half of the film, an interviewee suggests that although this classic Harrison composition is about a woman, it could just as easily have been about his close relationship with God.

Part two of the film, the post-Beatle half, devotes much more time to George’s original music as well as to his spirituality.  This was the half where I caught myself nodding out on several occasions.  Yet, whenever he or Ravi Shankar began strumming a sitar, I quickly regained consciousness.

The more controversial areas of George’s life including his philandering and his recreational drug abuse were downplayed.  Olivia skirts the topic of his indiscretions.  It was clearly a painful topic for her, but she answers her own question when she herself asks the secret to a lasting marriage:

Olivia: You don’t get divorced.

A glaring omission was not mentioning that George lost a major copyright infringement suit that lingered for years.  A judge ruled against him when it was deemed that he subconsciously plagiarized the Chiffon’s He’s so Fine when he wrote My Sweet Lord.  Milton and I are both deaf to the similarities.

What we also found baffling was why the filmmakers were so coy about the specific cancer that led to George’s death in 2001.  He was seen smoking cigarettes throughout the film and was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1997.  The subject of his cancer from the initial diagnosis through where he traveled for treatment was downplayed. Yet, it is mentioned that his cancer was in remission when an intruder attacked him in his home on New Year’s Eve 1999.  Dhani, George and Olivia’s only child, eludes that the stress of that brutal attack may have expedited his father’s death.  I am sure that that attack did not help George recover, but I am also sure that smoking a few packs for 30 or 40 years may have also contributed significantly to his passing.  Why not be straightforward about that?  I don’t think this film was funded by Philip Morris.

As we left the theater Milton observed:

Milton: I feel like I was lied to but in a very clever way.

Overall, this film is very entertaining, but there are gaps in the narrative.  As for Weirdo, she left her seat at intermission and did not return.  Maybe Krishna or possibly George himself interceded on my behalf.

Forbidden panel discussion iPhone photo that nearly got Milton handed his head on a plate by a watchdog usher. Left to right producer Nigel Sinclair, Olivia Harrison, Martin Scorsese, Margaret Bodde, David Tedeschi, and moderator Scott Foundas. Note woman in foreground wearing Sgt. Pepper-ette collection coat.

10 Comments

Posted in Humor

Tagged , , , , , ,

Lame Adventure 236: Breakfast with Ben-Hur

Posted on October 3, 2011 | 6 comments

Now that the New York Film Festival is fully underway, Film Society of Lincoln Center member, Milton, was notified that he could have a pair of tickets to Saturday morning’s special screening of Ben-Hur.  This was a rare big-screen showing of the gloriously restored spectacle from 1959 that was directed by William Wyler and stars Charlton Heston.  This lavish epic that cost $15,900,000 to produce between May 1958 and March 1959 ($122,709,369.72 in 2011 dollars) won eleven Academy Awards, a feat that has only been equaled by two other blockbusters that were cat-nip to the masses, Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King (2003).  Milton called me at work on Friday:

Milton: Do you want to see Ben-Hur at 10:30 Saturday morning?

Me: I’m going to see Greg perform at a bar with Coco, Albee and Enchilada tonight.  I anticipate drinking heavily.  Isn’t it three hours long?

Milton:  Closer to four.  Have you ever seen it?

Me:  A religious epic?  Me who endured twelve years of atheist training* in my youth?

[*Atheist training: how I refer to my Catholic school education.]

Milton:  This is your opportunity to see the chariot race on a wide screen.

Me:  I’ll probably feel run over by a chariot.  I’ll need triage.

Milton:  They’re giving me free tickets.

Me:  Ben-Hur with a hangover, here I come!

While waiting for me, Milton milled around the lobby of Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall snapping pictures with his iPhone when he encountered this young gladiator, William Wyler’s great-grandson.

Little gladiator threatening to stab Milton the Paparazzo in the pancreas.

Both the Wyler and Heston families participated enthusiastically in this event and made it extra special for the audience.

Proud Wyler and Heston family members.

Wyler’s daughter, Catherine Wyler, with Charlton Heston’s son, Fraser Heston, delivered a few personal anecdotes by means of introduction.  The costumes that Catherine’s grandchildren were wearing had been designed by the MGM wardrobe department for the film.

Fraser told us that his father filled his sandbox with sand from the set telling him that this wasn’t just any sand, “It’s MGM sand!”

Fraser Heston with his dad and William Wyler.

He said his father was suffering anxiety about the chariot race so he discussed his concerns at length with Yakima Canutt, the stuntman in charge of directing that pivotal scene.  Fraser told us that “Yak” listened patiently to his father, pushed back the brim of his cowboy hat, and said, “Chuck, I guarantee you’re gonna win the race.”

The film got underway with a music overture over a blank blue screen.

Me:  Hey, shouldn’t it say “overture” on the screen?

Milton (authoritatively):  They only do that on TV, so you know there’s nothing wrong with your set.

As the overture played, we noticed that the cavernous theater was at most two-thirds full.  Those of us sitting in the crummier seats scrambled quickly to better locations.  We moved five rows back and towards the center.

When the Wyler and Heston families entered the theater there was a bit of a commotion.  It seemed possible that other patrons had moved into their assigned seats.  Slowly they began to angle their way towards us.  We gulped.

Milton (drily): It would be funny if we were sitting in their seats.

Fortunately, we weren’t, the overture ended, and the film began with an army of extras streaming into Judea, followed with a heavy-handed birth of Christ scene.  I thought that the circled twinkling Star of Bethlehem beaming bright blue light into a stable was overkill.  Once inside the stable, Milton got his first attack of the giggles thanks to a perpetually mooing cow that seemed to say to us:

Perpetually Mooing Cow:  Hey, look at me, I’m in the movies!  I’m not steak!

Fast forward 26 years and we meet sexy-brute Messala (played by Stephen Boyd), a decorated Roman soldier who wears a helmet with a maroon brush that reminded me that I needed to sweep my floor when I got home.  His boyhood friend, Judah Ben-Hur (played earnestly by Heston), who has not seen Messala in years, visits.  With tear-filled eyes these guys engage in such an emotional reunion replete with complicated arm shakes, bear hugs and testosterone-filled spear tossings, I ask Milton:

Me:  Are we watching Brokeback Mountain?

Milton suffers his next attack of the giggles.

Milton claims that this gay subtext was due to Gore Vidal‘s contributions to the script even though he did not get a screenwriting credit.  In my post-screening research I’ve learned that Vidal, who was under contract with MGM, was enlisted by Wyler to rewrite Karl Tunberg’s script, a script that Wyler deemed terrible.  Vidal added the overt gay subtext between Ben-Hur and Messala with Wyler’s approval.  Vidal discussed this idea with Stephen Boyd, but he did not mention anything about the gay innuendo to Heston.  Wyler feared that Chuck would freak out.  In many respects the story did seem like a tragic romance between spurned Messala who exacts hysterical revenge on Judah.  Heart-broken Judah cannot believe that Messala can be so cruel.

Approximately two and a half hours and one technical difficulty delay later, intermission arrived:

Milton:  What day is it?

People making a mad dash for the bathroom groused loudly about the theater feeling like a meat locker.  It was freezing but everyone that left returned.  I envied the woman sitting ahead of us dressed like an Eskimo.

If you only see one half of Ben-Hur, the half to see is the second half for that’s the riveting half with the chariot race.  That race is exhilarating.  Yak Canutt did a brilliant job directing it.  His son, Joe, was Heston’s stunt double.  In an unplanned crash, that was included in the film, Ben-Hur’s horses leap over a fallen chariot throwing Ben-Hur over the lip of his vehicle.  Somehow, he (actually Joe Canutt) manages to climb back in.

That was so impressive, our entire audience gasped.

I thought it was interesting that Ben-Hur never whips his horses, but his rival, the sadistic Messala, is in a whipping frenzy.  Messala is so mad, he even starts cracking his whip at his once dear friend.  If you’re looking for subtlety, you might want to skip Ben-Hur, but if you’re curious to see a blockbuster from another era and you have a wide-screen TV, TCM is broadcasting it on Tuesday October 4th, and again on Christmas day.

Although I would have enjoyed it more had Jesus been written out of the story, Milton said that the religious elements did not bother him because it promoted tolerance and acceptance of one another, which I agree is a good thing.  The way lepers were depicted made him reflect on the way people with AIDS were shunned in the early years of the epidemic.  I thought that was an interesting observation, but religion on the big screen still activates my gag reflex.  Aside from the corniness, camp moments, and tightly corseted women sporting impossibly tiny waistlines (particularly sole-surviving lead actor, Haya Harareet who appears as Ester, the slave-girl Judah loves and frees), Ben-Hur still retains plenty of entertainment bang for much of its three hour and thirty-two minute length.  Even this atheist can recognize that is is a masterpiece.

Left to right: Todd McCarthy, Richard Peña, Catherine Wyler, Frazer Heston

You take another picture of me and it's war!

6 Comments

Posted in Humor

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Lame Adventure 235: Christmas in October!

Posted on September 30, 2011 | 12 comments

It is that time of year again, Christmas in October for Milton and me.   Here in the Big Apple the New York Film Festival is underway for the 49th time.

Yay, it's here!

Milton is a longtime member of the Film Society of Lincoln Center so we were able to purchase our tickets in advance in August.  This year’s festival is packed with films that already have theatrical release.

For example, opening the festival today is Carnage directed by Roman Polanski (a guaranteed no show).  This film is an adaptation of God of Carnage, Yasmina Reza’s smash hit play that won the Tony award in 2009.  It stars Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly.  We figure that most, if not all of them, will attend.

Milton and I were in complete agreement to pass on this one, not because we have issues with Polanski, the story, or the star-studded cast, but it will open theatrically in December.  If we do not luck into a free screening, we’ll see it in a movie theater for $13, significantly less than the $250 opening night admission price (but it will screen three more times at the festival to the tune of $40 or $20).  Milton and I are fine with waiting to see this one later in the year.

What we strive to see are films that have not scored distribution but we also indulge each other’s guilty pleasure.  This year my GP is a screening of a two-part HBO documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World.  It’s directed by Martin Scorsese and will be broadcast on HBO next Wednesday and Thursday, October 5th and 6th, the day after our screening.  I told Milton that since I can no longer afford to subscribe to HBO I’d like to see all 208 minutes of it in one sitting on Alice Tully Hall’s giant screen.  Milton swallowed hard and said:

Milton (groaning deeply):  Okay.

Milton’s guilty pleasure is The Turin Horse, possibly the last film by the Hungarian filmmaker, Béla Tarr.  It’s shot in black and white, it runs 146 minutes with minimal action, and the little dialogue that is spoken is in Hungarian.  My boss, Elsbeth, who is of Hungarian descent, wanted to get a ticket, too, but when she revealed this to me I discovered that it was already sold out.  As fate would have it, the FSLC has posted the trailer online and voila!  Tickets are suddenly available again.  I cocked my head like Nipper the RCA dog and thought:

Me:  Huh!  How’d that happen?

Painting of Nipper allegedly listening to the sound of his master's voice, but it could have also been a recording of the cat next door.

Then, I watched the 45 second trailer.  I urge all Lame Adventures readers to do so now:

Hm, I wonder if there might have been an onslaught of returns and Milton and I will have the theater all to ourselves?  I’m debating whether or not to tell my superior that tickets are available again.  I could sorely use a raise but I’m unsure if passing on this news will grant me one or get me fired.

12 Comments

Posted in Humor

Tagged , , , ,

Lame Adventure 223: Anticipating Hurricane Irene

Posted on August 27, 2011 | 8 comments

Hurricane Irene has yet to arrive, it is getting breezy outside my apartment’s window, but most people seem to have gotten the memo – streets are quiet and roads are empty.  My core group of dearest friends and I are predominantly safe (for now).

Tree outside my window that could possibly kill me if it uproots, crashes through my window and I fail to dive into my bathroom fast enough.

Even though we all share a degree of cynicism about Irene taking on Gotham City and the tristate area, no one seems too inclined to do anything too ridiculous.  This excludes my cabin fever suffering Friend From Jersey, Martini Max, who has already made an impulse purchase, specifically this poster of Theda Bara circa 1915.

Theda Bara tearing her hair out for Max. Still from her lost film called "Sin."

He intends to hang it over his TV.  Did I mention that Max is divorced?

Milton is nestled in his Upper East Side apartment with plenty of staples and some massive dessert he waxed about poetically.  While waiting for Irene we discussed our New York Film Festival ticket buying strategy for an hour.  We’re very dull that way.

My sidekick, Greg, is housebound in Brooklyn.  From his texts I’m under the impression that he’s feeling a tad grumpy.

Lola, who also resides in Brooklyn, was evacuated, but she’s made the best of a bad situation.  She’s with her boyfriend in Manhattan, taking it easy.  When I last spoke to her she said he was cooking.  What a guy.

Albee has extended his visit to California until Tuesday.

Ling texted me that she is about three hours away from the city.  On Friday Coco asked me:

Coco:  Where’s Ling?

Me:  At a wedding in Toronto.

Coco:  Oh!  Who got married?

Me:  Lowell’s [editorial comment: Ling’s guy] parents next-door neighbors’ brother’s son.

In response to that response Coco’s eyes glazed over.  Hopefully, Ling will make it back before the heavy rain starts to fall and the wind picks up.

This morning, I took some pictures of unusual sites on the Upper West Side.  Both Fairway and Trader Joe’s closed early.

Eerie site: empty fruit bins outside the Upper West Side's Fairway.

Eerier site: the store that is open every day, closed.

A Guy About My Age (GAMA or JERK) with the physique of a noodle tossed an out of body fit at the burly-direct-descendant-of-Thor-bouncer standing guard outside Fairway’s closed doors.

GAMA or JERK: Why close the store?  This is ridiculous!  The subways are running until noon!

Note:  It’s after 11 am.

Burly Bouncer:  You should have gotten here earlier.  The store’s closed.

GAMA or JERK sneers at the Bouncer, a sneer about as threatening as a Chihuahua’s sneeze.  The Bouncer returns the gaze that I translated as:

Bouncer’s Gaze:  Sucks to be you fool.

I took these other pictures in my neighborhood.

Closed Trader Joe's at 72nd Street and Broadway.

Typical TJ's cheeriness. Why I prefer to shop at jaded Fairway.

Baffled tourists trying to figure out how to escape the city reading a subway map.

MTA poster announcing mass transit closing.

One of the last 1 local subway trains entering 72nd Street station.

FedEx making deliveries.

Time Warner cable is there; but when I need them, they're always nowhere to be found. Grrrrr.

My sister, Dovima, has texted me that our 84-year-old father out on the West Coast would rather talk to me on Sunday, during the heart of Irene possibly pummeling Manhattan into oblivion and knocking out my cell phone service.  He is busy watching sports on TV tonight.   I texted her back to tell him to call me next week.

I was supposed to usher an off-Broadway play today, but all theaters on and off-Broadway are dark.

Coco lives in the meatpacking district in lower Manhattan, near, but not in an evacuation zone.  The intrepid type, in lieu of a flashlight, she has glow sticks.

Coco's glow sticks.

Donning her Lame Adventures journey(wo)man photographer hat Coco has also emailed me these pictures from downtown.

Brilliant time to be on a cruise in the Hudson River.

Apocalypse approaching?

8 Comments

Posted in Humor

Tagged , , , , , ,

Lame Adventure 110: New York Film Festival – Joe Dante’s The Hole

Posted on October 11, 2010 | 4 comments

Since Milton’s nasty cold has escalated to the point where he’s now phlegm on feet, a site that does not mesh well with sequins and glitter, he gave our mutual friend and horror film buff, Ulla, his ticket to Joe Dante’s The Hole, our last New York Film Festival screening.  She was thrilled with the idea of having the crap scared out of her since this film was shot in 3D.  She said, “I’m coming prepared.  I’m wearing a diaper.”

The Hole, was attended by a very excited crowd that included director Dante’s collaborator, John Sayles, who wrote the screenplays for Dante directed comedy horror classics, Piranha (the original 1978 version), and The Howling, released in 1981.  Dante joined the moderator, Film Comment editor, Gavin Smith, in introducing the film.  To further psyche the eager audience, he walked onto the stage wearing his Dolby 3D glasses.  Smith followed Dante’s lead and donned his.

During his introductory remarks, Dante, who was born in Morristown, New Jersey in 1946 and grew up in Parsippany, mentioned that he first attended the New York Film Festival in 1965.  He did not say what he saw, but he implied that he never imagined that this elitist institution would ever screen one of his films.  Ironically, The Hole, was one of the few screenings that sold out well in advance this year illustrating that today’s audience, even in a city as sophisticated as New York, has a much greater appetite for mainstream as opposed to the more marginal-stream fare that the NYFF usually screens.  Also, the ticket price for The Hole was a bargain — $12 rather than $20 for most of the other screenings.

The Hole, full of wit and intrigue, is a taut and fun slice of horror-lite.  It is not packed with gore nor are buckets of blood spilled, but it has some nice, creepy moments.  The tale is about a pair of bored bickering brothers, who have just relocated with their single clueless mother, Susan (Meet the Fockers Teri Polo), from their beloved Brooklyn to a rental home in the town of Bensenville.

The older brother, Dane, is a sullen teenager played by heart-throbby-type Chris Massoglia.  He looks a bit like Justin Bieber, if Justin Bieber looked more like a masculine 16-year-old boy than a surfer dude-ette 35-year-old lesbian.  The younger brother, Lucas, is a sweet grade schooler, played by scene stealer Nathan Gamble, who delivers some of the film’s best lines.  During a moment of  rough housing, the boys discover a heavily padlocked door in the floor of the basement that, of course, they must open, or else there would be no film.

Only the insane or curious kids send a video camera down there.

Their new friend, Julie, the yappy Pekinese owning neighbor-girl (the competent Haley Bennett), refers to the boys’ hole as “the passageway to hell,”  and she enthusiastically adds that it is “so cool.”  This is before she realizes that the hole is full of haunting surprises that will include her.

Screenwriter Mark L. Smith has hit on an intriguing premise, a hole that recognizes the worst fears of anyone that looks into it.  Even if Dante does not hammer his audience with gross out clichés, composer Javier Navarette’s eerie music score provides chills and more than a few goose bumps.  Bruce Dern, an actor with a reputation for playing memorable whackos, makes a delightful cameo as Crazy Carl, the previous tenant of the boys’ house who is now the resident loon in an abandoned glove factory.

The Hole kids after glimpsing some crazy shit.

A bit of trivia about the climactic scene at the end – if something about it looks familiar, Dante, who shot the film in Vancouver, BC, recycled the set from James Cameron’s TV series, Dark Angel, which ran from 2000-2002.

Overall, The Hole is a family-friendly production and would be a very good “starter” horror film for children under ten.  Older kids will probably be intrigued by the hole itself.  As a certified case of arrested development, I certainly was.

Afterward, Dante, gave very generous Q&A, reflecting how horror, which was always considered grade B cinema in his youth, remains one of the most popular and successful genres today.  He said his influences for this film were Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder and Italian filmmaker and fright master, Mario Bava.

Joe Dante, seated left, during Q&A with Gavin Smith.

Even though The Hole won the inaugural 3D Persol award at the Venice Film Festival in 2009, Dante claimed that he would have preferred if it had been shot with RealD 3D technology, but due to budgetary constraints, he was forced to settle for Dolby 3D.  His likely third choice was probably No 3D.  His issue with Dolby 3D is that he thinks it looks darker, but to our untrained film going eyes we thought it looked fine.  He said he made it for around twelve million dollars, a pittance when one considers what Hollywood produced 3D films cost.  The Hole has yet to find US distribution, but it has opened in Europe.

After screening, Joe Dante, chewing the fat in the theater lobby with a fan.

While I was writing this post, Milton called to say that he felt so ill on Saturday and was coughing so violently, he was wondering if he had tuberculosis.  He slept heavily through Sunday, when he woke feeling both considerably better and ravenous.  Therefore, he ate an entire pie – the new cure for the common cold.

4 Comments

Posted in Humor

Tagged , , , ,

Lame Adventure 109: New York Film Festival – Black Venus

Posted on October 8, 2010 | 2 comments

By the time this post is published, Milton should have a full-blown monster cold.  It does not help his condition that we have been attending New York Film Festival screenings almost every night of the week, but there was no way he was going to miss Black Venus, a film from France directed by Abdellatif Kechiche.  Albee and I had seen Kechiche’s last film, The Secret of the Grain, which was lengthy, frustrating, depressing and since the grain in the title was cous cous, which always looked delectable, we left the theater ravenous.  Someone could have salted our armrests and we would have devoured those.  Instead, we settled for burgers.

Black Venus, a historic drama based on Saartjie Baartman, a woman who lived in the early 19th century, has a 159-minute runtime.  When Village Voice film critic and member of the NYFF selection committee, Melissa Anderson, introduced it, she referred to the performance by Yahima Torres as “astonishing.”  I groaned in Milton’s one unclogged ear, “Hyperbole.”  Milton, clutching two fistfuls of tissues, and possibly a roll of toilet paper he absconded from the men’s room, muttered, “This better be good or I’ll be snoring fast.”

As with The Secret of the Grain, Black Venus is also lengthy, frustrating and depressing, but where it differs from Kechiche’s earlier film is that it’s excellent. Not only was it excellent, “Mortimer Snerd” (Milton’s name for Melissa Anderson) knew what she was talking about in her introduction.   She earned our respect.  Yahima Torres was brilliant.  Torres can convey more while silently smoking a cigarette than Hillary Swank babbling eight pages of dialogue.

Living a life void of mirth.

Saartjie Baartman was a tragically exploited slave from Cape Town, South Africa who traveled to Europe in 1810 with her owner where she became infamously known as the “Hottentot Venus.” This was due to her enlarged buttocks and elongated labia.  Her unusual anatomy fascinated white people.  Saartjie’s owner forced her to perform in freak shows in London and later, Paris.  In their act, she is shackled and introduced huddled inside a cage.  He constantly cracks a whip and orders her to perform a salacious dance, and it gets worse …  The on-screen voyeurs watch in sheer delight, while the off-screen viewer cringes in horror.  The film relentlessly pummels the viewer with this woman’s degradation.

She’s lonely and miserable, with no friends or family and trapped in a country where she cannot speak much English or French.   As she struggles to maintain her dignity, she tries to drown her pain with alcohol.  In a deeply moving scene where a French journalist interviews her in a carriage, she recalls the life she had before coming to Europe.  Emotionally, Black Venus is a devastating portrait of racism, sexism, and abuse, but there’s a “happy” coda at the end.  Oddly, it almost brought me to tears.

During the Q&A with Torres and Anderson, a young African American woman detonated.  She ached to give director Kechiche, who was not in attendance, a piece of her mind about how much this film offended her.  She took her anger out on Torres, but before Torres could respond, a middle aged African American woman sitting behind us, shot out of her seat and begged Anderson to let her have a say.  Anderson ordered both audience members to pipe down. Torres delivered her defense of both her character and the film which did not satisfy her detractor in the least.  She wanted a fight, and spoke over Torres.  Anderson, to her credit, lashed out at the detractor, “You’re being rude!  Let her finish speaking!”   When Torres finished, the detractor was eager to regain the floor, but Anderson gave the go ahead to the woman behind us to have her say.  She articulately defended the film, explained why it so resonated with her, and praised Torres’s performance.

Yahima Torres's interpreter, Yahima Torres and Melissa Anderson.

The audience enthusiastically applauded her remarks.

Anderson decided to close the Q&A there; so I did not get to ask my two-part question, does it have a distributor yet and when will it be released over here? I hope soon, but it is very controversial.  As Milton pointed out, “People are going to bring a lot of their own baggage to this one.”  As we left, he added, “That was so good, I forgot I have a cold.”  He continued, “I feel like we just saw the black version of Breaking the Waves.”

Yahima Torres feeling love from viewers that were impressed with both her performance and the film.

Yahima Torres' shoes. Milton also loved her fancy footwear.

2 Comments

Posted in Humor

Tagged , , , , ,

Lame Adventure 107: Happy Birthday John Lennon

Posted on October 4, 2010 | 1 comment

I admit that the title of this post is premature.  Next Saturday, October 9th, would have been John Lennon’s seventieth birthday.  I find this incredible, but when I consider how much middle age female Viagra (Aleve) I pop, it does make sense that half the members of the Beatles are now septuagenarian – a word I can spell, but cannot pronounce.

When Ringo Starr turned seventy last July 7th, his milestone rated morning talk show and evening news mention.  He wanted his fans to say, “Peace and Love,” at noon as a birthday gift, as if uttering that trite utopian phrase would have an iota of impact on relations between the US and Iran.  During Ringo’s magical moment, I was in the process of disemboweling the office copier and predominantly thinking, “War and Hate.”

John Lennon’s milestone touches me far more.  I loved John Lennon.  I do feel genuine affection for the other three Beatles, and I felt sad when George Harrison died, but John is by far my all-time favorite Beatle.

John Lennon - a Beatle apart.

My sister, Dovima, was a Paul McCartney fan.  She wished that he was our brother, something that never made an iota of sense to me.  If Axel, our actual brother, wished that one of his sisters were Raquel Welch, he kept it to himself.

Axel's silent prayer, "Please God, please! Make her my third cousin twice removed!"

I had no desire for John to be my brother.  Although my attraction to him was not sexual, I was drawn to his music, wit, charm, and especially, his irreverence.  In 1966, when he made the faux pas of declaring that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ, that rang true to this Catholic schoolgirl and atheist-in-the-making.  I was a hardcore Beatle believer, but religion thoroughly bored me.  My inability to memorize Catholic prayers earned me solid three’s in Religion (four was the equivalent of a failing grade), but if Sister Mary Angry had ordered me to recite every word of every Beatle song, I would have delivered that recitation accurately and with confidence.

I thought John was the coolest person in the world.  If I could have been born a Beatle, I would have wanted to be John, but I suppose what I pined for more than anything in my youth was to be that elusive fifth Beatle.  I knew this was unrealistic since I possessed zero musical talent, but if they ever needed a moppet that could play a mean triangle, albeit off-key, I was ready.

"Lads, trust me, I can give Mom and Granny the slip."

Soon, two new films about John will be released.  One is an excellent documentary packed with rare footage and audio about Lennon’s years in New York.  Appropriately it is titled, Lennon: NYC. Milton and I saw it when it premiered at the New York Film Festival where Yoko was in attendance.

Dapper Yoko with Lennon: NYC director Michael Epstein.

Our friend, Judy a.k.a. The Grande Enchilada, also attended this screening.  Milton and I agree that her review of it is spot on.  Check it out here.

PBS is going to broadcast Lennon: NYC on the American Masters series on Thursday, November 22nd at 9 pm.  It is also going to be screened for free at the Rumsey Playfield in Central Park on Saturday, October 9th.  Doors open at 6 pm, and the screening starts at 7 pm.

Lennon: NYC

Following the screening of Lennon: NYC there was a Q&A with director Michael Epstein and producer Susan Lacy.  As the Q&A was winding down, an audience member, whose name I believe was Dense Bonehead, demanded to know why this documentary only focused on Lennon’s life in New York City.  He was confounded over why it excluded coverage about Lennon’s years in Liverpool and completely baffled over why there was little allusion to what the Beatles accomplished in the Sixties.

This query from a muddled mind leads me to the second film about Lennon, a dramatic biopic called, Nowhere Boy, that opens in New York on Friday, October 8th.  It is entirely set in Liverpool providing Mr. Bonehead with a hearty fix of early circa 1950s John Lennon.  It explores his relationship with his free spirited, but troubled mother, Julia, and her grounded sister, Mimi, the strict aunt that raised him.  For anyone unfamiliar with Lennon’s youth, this film will seem like a revelation, but it’s not in the league with nuanced, less paint-by-numbers, cliche addled biopics, such as Walk the Line or Ray.

If Mr. Bonehead sees Nowhere Boy, he might gripe to the director, Sam Taylor-Wood, about why she did not show any footage of  John’s later years in New York?  This prompts my Sigmund Freud side to cry, “What do Beatle fans want?”

I know what this Beatle fan wants, and that’s to hear the music.  One devoted Beatle fan here in Gotham City is an infamous busker named Zack Heru.  Zack can frequently be seen indulging his love of the Beatles as he sings the band’s catalogue in the Fourteenth Street subway station tunnel between the Sixth and Seventh Avenue lines.  He has been doing this for at least ten years.  He told me that singing in this tunnel is his job.  I asked if he earns enough to support himself.  He answered, “I make enough to get a hotdog.”  I always enjoy hearing Zack play the Beatles music whenever I’m in that tunnel.

1 Comment

Posted in Humor

Tagged , , , , ,

Lame Adventure 104: New York Film Festival SNAFU

Posted on September 27, 2010 | 3 comments

It is New York Film Festival season, a favorite time of year to Milton and me.  Although we have ordered tickets in advance to several screenings, when we learn that tickets are still available for certain films we had not planned to see, we occasionally pick up a pair at the box office.  That was how we got tickets to a three o’clock screening of the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.  As I am walking to Lincoln Center to meet Milton to attend this screening, my cell phone rings.  The caller is Milton.

Me:  I’m almost there.  I’m five minutes away.

Milton (eerily calm; always a bad sign):  I just looked at the festival’s calendar.  The three o’clock screening is for Le Quattro Volte.

Required reading: New York Film Festival calendar.

Me:  Le what?

Milton:  The calendar says that Uncle Boonmee screens at nine.

Me (morphing into a parrot):  “Nine”?

Milton:  Yes, nine.

Me:  How is that possible?  We’re seeing Angels in America at 7:30.

The Signature Theatre Company has revived Angels in America.  Milton and I purchased those tickets two months ago.  We purchased our Uncle Boonmee tickets around eight o’clock the night before.  We were surprised that there were any tickets left to such an acclaimed, albeit difficult film, written and directed by soon-not-to-be-a-household-name, Apichatpong Weerasethakul.  Our friend, Judy, had warned us that it is best to be well rested and heavily caffeinated for this one.

Milton:  Look at our tickets.  What time is the screening?

I look at the tickets.  The musical cue is the downbeat.

Me:  Nine.

I proceed to note in language invoking images of the deity, mothers, sexual intercourse and excrement that we are in quite a pickle since this is a no exchange/no returns situation.  I bellow for the entire Upper West Side to hear, as if speaking to the Son of God himself, “Jesus Christ, do you realize that we’ve donated $40 to the Film Society of Lincoln Center?”

My stomach acid soars like a rocket to Mars.  Moments later when I see Milton smiling I open my mouth to greet him, but instead, I singe his face with flames.  In response, he morphs into a Jewish mother and blames himself for this predicament recalling that he was one-and-a-half sheets to the wind when he noticed the sign that said tickets to this alleged three o’clock screening of Uncle Boonmee were still available the night before.  I remind him that I was stone cold sober and standing next to him looking at that exact same sign.  It did not occur to either of us that the announcement was for a three o’clock screening that had happened earlier that day, i.e. a past screening.

I bounce up to the box office window like a featherweight boxer determined to make mincemeat out of my opponent, in this case a sleep-deprived woman somewhere in her forties.  Feigning calm, I explain our situation to her.  I play the humility card and admit that we were boneheads that did not look at the show time on our tickets while standing at the box office window.

Alice Tully Hall box office window; a window we now know well.

Ticket Seller:  There are no refunds or exchanges for tickets purchased for same day screenings.

Me:  This was an honest mistake we made.

Ticket Seller:  Would you like to see what’s screening today at three o’clock?

Me:  No.  It’s not Uncle Boonmee.

Ticket Seller:  Yes, Uncle Boonmee screens at nine.

Me:  We’re seeing Angels in America at nine.  If we knew Uncle Boonmee was screening at the same time as Angels, we would not have bought these tickets.

Ticket Seller:  Would you like to see something else at another time?

Milton (elated):  We can make an exchange?

Ticket Seller (completely worn down):  Yes.

Milton:  I can live with that!

We select The Strange Case of Angelica, a ghost story written and directed by 101-year-old Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira.  De Oliveira directed his first film in 1942, his second in 1963, his third in 1975, three more in the eighties, five in the nineties, and nine in the 2000s.  If he lives another 101 years, at this rate, he’ll be cranking out features weekly.  Before leaving the box office window we double-check the date and show times on our tickets forty-three times.

3 Comments

Posted in Humor

Tagged , ,