Ah, New York City in the 1970s......while the city was crumbling into a cesspool of urban decay, vigilante violence and moral morass (with the federal government looking away while the city declared bankruptcy), the art underground was, in fact, in full flower. This paradox (or not nearly one, if one contemplates other times and places where the social environment was in chaos and the artistic output was intense, say Berlin in the 1920s) is the focus of several films that are curre...

    Woodstock, New York, nestled in the majestic Catskill Mountains about 100 miles of New York, has a unique perspective on “a New York state of mind”. Close enough to New York City to its south to be influenced by its multi-culturalism and razor-sharp analysis of everything from fashion to publishing to politics to Wall Street, it has also been a haven for ex-pat New Yorkers who burned out from the impossibly fast pace of the city and found an inspiring solace in the bucolic ...

For the first time in memory (if my faulting memory serves me well and it increasingly does NOT), the New Directors New Films showcase opened last evening with a documenary feature. This annual rite of the Spring film season, co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Film Department of the Museum of Modern Art, was ushered in by BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK, a fascinating look at the New York Times photographer and his love/hate obsession with the city he calls both his mu...