Monday, July 23-------You may think you know the film that many major film critics chose as the best of last year. But in reality, with little fanfare or certainly Oscar buzz, the film that garnered the most uniform praise from top film scribes was a French thriller, shot in 1959 and set in occupied France during World War II by a director who has been six feet under for more than three decades. That film, ARMY OF SHADOWS, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, was an astonishingly gritty and involvi...
Friday, July 20------In yet another sign of Brooklyn's growing cache as a cultural destination, the Gotham Awards, one of the stellar events on the New York film industry calendar, is moving from its current site in Manhattan to Brooklyn's Steiner Studios, the largest studio facility in the city, located on the Brooklyn waterfront. The 17th Annual Gotham Awards, produced and presented by the Independent Feature Project (IFP), a national producers organization, will be presented at the ne...
Wednesday, July 18-------The New York Film Festival, one of the pre-eminent film events in North America, celebrates its 45th anniversary this year. The event, which will run from September 28 to October 14, has begun to announce some of its programming and special events, tantalizing New York film lovers with some gems to look forward to. The Film Society of Lincoln Center, which presents the Festival along with its yearlong programming at the flagship Walter Reade Theater, has announced that...
Monday, July 16--------As the summer turns sizzling in New York City, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is appropriately presenting a program of sultry cinema from Brazil in its fifth annual exhibition of contemporary Brazilian cinema, entitled PREMIERE BRAZIL! The program began last Thursday and continues through January 23rd in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters. The series is a collaboration between MoMA and the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival. This year, 12 new films, all US or New...
Friday, July 13-----To celebrate Bastille Day (and the general love of all things French), the Jacob Burns Film Center, the prominent arthouse complex north of New York City, is hosting The French New Wave film series, reminding us all what it was about the French that we fell in love with in the first place. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the French "Nouvelle Vague" (New Wave) was the most dynamic cinema on the planet. It literally exploded when a group of young Cahiers du Cinema ...
Wednesday, July 13--------About seventy miles north of New York City, nestled in the picturesque Hudson River Valley, sits that citadel of culture.....Bard College. Perhaps no other institution of higher learning has a greater influence in the fields of music, performing arts, painting and sculpture and other artistic disciplines. With its influential faculty, adventurous student body and a world class performing arts spaced designed by architect superstar Frank Dehry, cultural events at Bard ta...
Monday, July 9--------The Film Society of Lincoln Center hosts a special preview screening of TALK TO ME tomorrow evening at the Walter Reade Theater, with star Don Cheadle as its special guest. The film, directed by Kasi Lemmons, is the true story of "Petey" Greene, who became an iconic radio personality known for his championing of black soul music and frank political rants. TALK TO ME opens this Friday via distributor Focus Features. During the 1960s at radio station WOL-AM in W...
Friday, July 6------As the thermometer rises amid a July haze, the temperatures of moviegoers is also on the ascendant as the Brooklyn Academy of Music presents the white heat emanating from some of Italian cinema's sexiest and most seductive performers. SIGNORE & SIGNORE: Leading Ladies of Italian Cinema, which begins today at the BamCinematek, presents a fabulous array of talents, from international superstars to sultry temptresses to fast-talking firebrands. These are actresses who ...
Wednesday, July 4-------While Independence Day for most people is usually a day at the beach or a backyard barbeque extravaganza, the Jacob Burns Film Center has taken a different tack to celebrate the July 4th holidays by presenting a three film series called THE MEDITATIVE LIFE, which explores the inner realities of existence (which can be just as explosive as any fireworks display).The series begins today with a special one week run of the German film INTO GREAT SILENCE by Philip Groning (...
Monday, July 3------Now that summer has officially arrived (although the cool, wet weather makes it feel more like late Fall), one of New York's rites of the season is the outdoor film screening series held in Bryant Park, hosted by pay cable giant Home Box Office. This is a great opportunity to join several thousand other film buffs to enjoy certifiable film classics in beautiful Bryant Park in the heart of Manhattan. Happening every Monday through the end of August, this could be New York&...
Friday, June 29--------The general public perhaps doesn't realize that the first step for any film to have a chance at a theatrical career is the commitment of the film distributor to take the financial risk to bring the film to a wider public. When the films in question are artistic expressions by some of cinema's most lauded auteurs, that risk is not necessarily any smaller, but the rewards certainly are larger. That about sums up the commitment to excellence that New York-based arthou...
Wednesday, June 27--------One of the most talked about art events in New York City these days is the career retrospective of famed American sculptor Richard Serra, which is attracting capacity crowds at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The highlights of this summer art blockbuster are three new massive sculptures that have been installed in MoMA's second floor galleries devoted to contemporary art. One of the preeminent sculptors of our era, Richard Serra has long been acclaimed for his cha...
Monday, June 25-------New Yorkers have long had a love affair with Asian cinema, so this year's New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), which began on Friday at the IFC Center in downtown Manhattan, is sure to cause some waves. While other film societies may concentrate on emotionally aloof dramas or historical pagaents from the Far East, the NYAFF has become one of the city's most exciting film events by celebrating excess: innovative genre films, cutting-edge animation spectaculars and...
Friday, June 22-------The Museum of the Moving Image, the only New York cultural institution exclusively devoted to the study and appreciation of film and the media arts, is joining with erstwhile entertainment trade publication Variety to present the Variety/Moving Image Screening Series, premiering twelve significant new films, followed by conversations with the directors and/or actors. The series is being launched on Tuesday, June 26th with the advanced preview of the new Werner Herzog wa...
Wednesday, June 20---------Members of the Jacob Burns Film Center, Westchester's most adventurous arthouse complex, will be treated to a special advance preview of one of the summer's most provocative films, Michael Moore's SICKO. The film opens wide on June 29th in wide release and is sure to stimulate discussion and serve as a lightning rod, as much if not more than Moore's previous triumph FAHRENHEIT 911. Burns Film Center members can among the first audiences to see the film...
Monday, June 18---------He still rides tall in the saddle. John Wayne, known to his friends as Duke, would have turned 100 years old this month. In celebration of the iconic actor's 100th anniversary, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is presenting the John Wayne Centenary, a six-film retrospective of selections from the Museum's film archive. The series begins on Thursday, June 20 and runs through June 30. Films will be screened in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters at the Museum.The serie...
Friday, June 16--------The BamCinematek, the repertory arm of the BAM Rose Cinemas at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is presenting a newly restored film print of a true classic from iconic director Jean-Luc Godard for a limited run starting this evening. PIERROT LE FOU, a 1965 milestone from the most innovative director of the French New Wave of the 1950s and 1960s, will have a special 10 day revival, reminding audiences of the audacity, sexiness and visual splendor of this iconic director&...
Wednesday, June 13--------With the US at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the crumbling situation in the Middle East and our own citizens rights under fire in the homeland, the films of this year's Human Rights Watch International Film Festival are simply required viewing for informed New Yorkers. The humanitarian group Human Rights Watch and the Film Society of Lincoln Center will celebrate the courage, resourcefulness and advocacy of the many filmmakers who tackle the world’s most pressing...
Monday, June 11-------Acclaimed novelists and screenwriters Michael Cunningham and Susan Minot will appear at a special advanced screening of the film EVENING tomorrow evening at the Walter Reade Theater, the flagship of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The writers will join Film Society of Lincoln Center Associate Director of Programming Kent Jones onstage for the special preview screening and to discuss their screenwriting partnership. EVENING, which is based on Minot’s bestsellin...
Wednesday, June 6------The Creators Series, a multidisciplinary salon-style conference dedicated to emerging creativity, launches in New York this coming weekend (June 8-10) and then goes cross-country to present a series of programs and events in Los Angeles (June 14-17). The event is the first for recently founded curatorial enterprise Tomorrow Unlimited, a new venture between Tribeca Enterprises, the parent company of the Tribeca Film Festival and Tribeca Cinemas, and former principals o...
Monday, June 4------The Museum of Modern Art is one of the leading forces in the world of film preservation. With one of the largest and most diverse film archives in the world, the Museum's film department has been a tireless champion of restoring and resurrecting the films and reputations of artists both well known and virtually forgotten from the early years of cinema. The Museum is celebrating its commitment to film restoration with To Save and Project, its fifth annual festival of prese...
Friday, June 1-------On its tenth anniversary, the Brooklyn International Film Festival (BIFF) is reinventing itself. The Festival has launched a thematic challenge entitled IDENTITY, which is in part a self-search to find its unique identity in a sea of New York film events, and to assist its audiences in redefining what it means to be Brooklynites, now that the outer borough is going through a cultural renaissance and is one of New York's "cool" destinations.The Festival, runnin...
Monday, May 28-----The Sundance Institute is coming to Brooklyn starting this Thursday to present a lively series of film, theater, music and panel discussions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), part of an on-going relationship between the two organizations. The core of the event will be the showcasing of feature and short films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. This year’s Sundance Institute at BAM series opens with the New York premiere of Garth Jenning’s ...
Friday, May 25-----June is the traditional month for celebration of Gay Pride in New York (and around the country, for that matter). It was on a hot and steamy night in June of 1969 that gay men and women, and several decorous drag queens, openly rioted against police harassment during a periodic police raid of the Stonewall, a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village. The Stonewall Riots became the touchstone for the modern gay rights movement that continues to battle for expanded privileges...
Wednesday, May 23-----While some may decide to spend the Memorial Day Weekend holiday (the official start of summer) at the beach or at an outdoor barbeque, some New Yorkers with four days of time on their hands may deign to revisit two film masters at Lincoln Center. John Schlesinger, the prolific director whose oeuvre spans hls roots in the New English Cinema of the 1960s to major Hollywood films of the 1970s, and Stanley Kubrick, a film genius for the ages, are both represented as some of the...
