NYFF 07: Opening Night Party: It Says "Black Tie," Schmuck.

I am on record as saying that my favorite film festival party of the year is opening night of the New York Film Festival. It's like the prom but with (slightly) better food, fewer zits, better tuxes (more on that, later) and you get to go every year. Oh, and you don't have to spike the punch.

It's also black tie and I love that. Black tie parties are a chance for everyone to dress up and look snazzy and are really for the women. The men are supposed to all look relatively the same in tuxedos and the women get to shine. That's all history, now. These days standards have been lowered slightly, so that "black tie" can mean a nice suit for men, in place of a tux. I'm not in favor of this, but that's not really the point.

The point is, and I am sad to say this, the standards of dress at this party have been declining steadily over the past 8 years or so and have now gone far beyond a "nice suit and tie" into the realm of sovenly. The thing is, this isn't Cannes and well, the Film Society of Lincoln Center isn't going to send people home if they show up without a tux, nor should they. Additionally, the event has become increasingly inclusive of the independent film crowd and that's fantastic. Not everyone owns a tux, and a nice suit and tie are fine. That said, there were quite a large number of people dressed, well, rather less formally. Unlike this nattily dressed gentleman:

indieWIRE's editor in chief Eugene Hernandez leaving Tavern on the Green.