Recently in New York Film Festival Category

Persepolis (Reviewed at the 44th New York Film Festival) Directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud Written by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi Based on the Original Graphic Novels by Marjane Satrapi Released by Sony Pictures Classics

The Film Society of Lincoln Center wisely chose Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Persepolis to close its 45th Season. The French language animated film, mostly in black & white, opens in theaters in both NYC and LA today. The film feels at once nostalgic and freshly new. Even for those who don't primarily identify themselves as political, the story, adapted from a series of autobiographical graphic novels of the same name, is a universal one; that of a young woman's journey from innocence to maturity. It just so happens that the back drop of her story includes the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the country's turn from a socially progressive society to one of fundamentalism and fear.

Marjane (the voice of Chirara Mastroianni, Marcello's daughter), our young heroine, is growing up in Tehran during a most tumultuous time. When we are first introduced to her, she is your average precocious nine year old but it's not long before she experiences the loss of her beloved uncle who is executed as a war criminal. By the time she is 14, her parents, concerned for her safety, send her off to boarding school in Vienna. The scenes that follow, where young Marjane is so homesick for her parents (the voices of Catherine Deneuve and Simon Akbarian) and her grandmother (France's legendary actress Danielle Darrieux) are among the film's most gripping, where for all intents and purposes, you forget you are watching a cartoon.

The following is an excerpt of a review that originally ran in full On September 30th, as part of our New York Film Festival coverage.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Miramax, December, 2007)
directed by: Julian Schnabel, written by: Jean-Dominique Bauby (novel), Ronald Harwood (screenplay)

The life of Jean-Dominique Bauby is at once tragic and inspirational and in the very capable hands of director Julian Schnabel, his story comes to the screen in a most moving and artful way. We learn through early dialogue and flashback that Bauby has suffered a major stroke and that coming out of a coma he awakens in a state referred to as "locked in syndrome." Actor Mathieu Amalric (Munich) plays Bauby, editor of Elle magazine and a major player in 1990s Paris social circles. After his stroke, Bauby becomes all but incapable of communication, as he is unable to speak or move, with the exception of his left eyelid.

While he is naturally bitter and desperate at first, Bauby eventually learns - in some of the more beautiful moments of the film - how his imagination can set him free. In an ingenious sequence, he learns to communicate using only his one working eye. As his speech therapist reads the alphabet in the order of their frequency of use in French, Bauby blinks when she reaches the letter he wants to use, thus freeing his mind to create. Over time, Bauby receives visits from assorted friends including his young children Theophile (Theo Sampaio) and Celeste (Fiorella Campanella) and his ex-wife Celine (Emmanuelle Seigner), most of whom learn the system. The visits with his kids at the seaside hospital provide the film with a tremendous humanity, as do the flashbacks with his dying father (Max Von Sydow). Those relationships are provided as complex and rich, something many sentimental "affliction" films neglect.

Read the complete review here.

• My absolutely favorite picture of the night. A beautiful woman, lost in thought, oblivious to all around her.

• Hi, Dana.

• Tom says it's time to go to bed, Holly looks like she's still got some mischief up her sleeve and Jessica proves that tired can indeed be bautiful.

• Our dapper host.

jusqu'à l'année prochaine.....

The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-65
Directed by: Murray Lerner

Us hipsters living in such edgy NYC neighborhoods as the Lower East Side or Prospect Heights have sunk a lot of dough into our music collections over the years and while we periodically weed through our CDs and LPs, tossing out the odd Terence Trent D'Arby or Linda Rondstat album, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who has loosened their grips on their copy of Sgt. Pepper's or Back in Black. And then there's the ubiquitous Dylan collection which necessarily includes Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. [My personal favorite is Nashville Skyline but that's getting off topic.] It's no coincidence that any serious Dylan collection includes those particular three works for it was during that seminal period when Bob Dylan folkie, became DYLAN, Spokesman of a Generation. Nowhere is that transformation more vivid than in the new documentary, Murray Lerner's The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at The Newport Folk Festival, 1963-1965. All the footage --70% of which has never been seen before-- is lovingly pieced together from those three summers and Lerner, wisely, allows the footage to speak for itself. There are no talking heads, no aging rockers' waxing philosophical, mostly just Bob Dylan playing Bob Dylan songs. Oh, there are some terrific moments with Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul & Mary, but mostly it's just Bobby Dylan, singing into the microphone while strumming away on his guitar.

Dylan had emerged from the NYC folk scene in the early 60's and had already caused quite a stir but not many of us aforementioned hipsters were around back in those days, or at least not old enough to remember just what a sensation this punk folk singer caused back in the day. Folk music was such a huge phenomenon at the time, its fans such die hard purists, that any modifications to their songs were often met with outrage and while Dylan was initially met with a certain amount of skepticism and even derision, it was impossible for anyone with a mind of their own to ignore the obvious: this skinny Jewish kid was the shit. As portrayed in the new Todd Haynes "biopic," I'm Not There, Dylan was all about persona and his particular brand of shape shifting left everyone enthralled. Over the course of The Other Side of The Mirror, we get to witness one of these morphings right before our eyes; that of a shy self-conscious folkie into a cocky rock star. It's worth the price of admission, I can assure you.

The Axe in the Attic
Directed by Ed Pincus & Lucia Small

After the New Orleans flood of 1965, many of those who survived would keep an axe in their attic so that, in the event the water should ever again rise to the top of their homes, they would have a way out. Interestingly, some of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, forever immortalized in TV and still images, standing on their roofs hoping for rescue owe their lives to this practice. Now documentary makers Lucia Small and Ed Pincus bring us The Axe in the Attic, a fine contribution to the 45th New York Film Festival and one that pulls no punches. Where's the outrage you may ask; this remarkable documentary gives its subjects - both victims as well as its creators - a platform for expressing it. The results are moving.

Don't allow the blip of controversy about this movie get in the way of checking it out. While Spike Lee's When The Levees Broke, a powerful and necessary work of documentary film making itself, is planted firmly in New Orleans interviewing survivors and celebrities alike, Pincus and Small hit the road for a 60-day tour of America's back roads to find their subjects. It's no exaggeration to suggest that those displaced residents of New Orleans belong to the single largest American diaspora. They can be found in FEMA trailer parks and crashing with family, but their collective feelings of depression and hope are truly profound. The controversy - or criticism - that the film is generating has to do with the two filmmakers inserting themselves so centrally into the story. Many of said critics believe that the focus ought to be solely on the victims and that showing the film maker's own problems just intrudes on the victims' dignity and to be honest, at times their presence does have a taint of narcissism, but ultimately I found the decision to be a successful device.

In the Q&A for his hysterically funny new doc, Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project, director John Landis gave the best Q&A I've seen in ages. Here he riffs on Debbie Reynolds and Robert De Niro and makes us all very impatient for the DVD release of this film. Unfortunately, this is the only clip I have that really illustrates what a great storyteller and genuinely funny man Landis is (Not the best in-camera editor am I). I am willing to bet he could do a week of 90-minute one man shows and not repeat one story. There's definitely a book in there, somewhere.

Mr. Warmth screens on Saturday, Oct 13 at 9:30pm and on Saturday, Oct 13 at midnight

These four shots were taken by Dana O'Keefe in 30 seconds, total.

Go Go Tales
Written and directed by Abel Ferrara
NYFF public screenings: Friday, October 5th: midnight and Sunday, October 7th: 4:15pm

Abel Ferrara's new film Go Go Tales takes place almost entirely in a seedy New York City strip club called Ruby's Paradise and will likely be cause for some controversy due to a scene involving a dancer who compensates for her lack of talent with an act involving her affectionate Rottweiler. While the look of Ferrara's film is reminiscent of the Cassavettes 1976 cult classic, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (both involve strip club owners who must come to terms with their gambling addictions) the comparisons end there. While the cast of misfits in both pictures have created makeshift families where they work, Bookie is far darker in both look and tone (Go Go Tales is apparently a comedy) and the former film is... well... better.

Photo: Willem Dafoe (middle) as Ray Ruby in Go Go Tales
Directed by Abel Ferrara, US, 2007; Photo Credit: Wild Bunch

With a colorful cast, including Willem Dafoe as club owner Ray Ruby, Matthew Modine as his silent partner & brother Johnie, Bob Hoskins, Sylvia Miles in yet another memorable role, and various dancers, bouncers and club patrons, a mostly entertaining 96 minutes transpires but the film is far from great. Bad Lieutenant or The Funeral are two far superior Ferrara films. However, whatever the film lacks was more than made up for by the press conference which followed. Here are a few of the highlights.

No, I don't have an obsession with David Kwok. I just thought this pic was interesting when cropped in several different ways.

Last Friday was the opening night of the New York Film Festival and a great party it was, followed by the traditional after party at New York restaurant Village. Last year I started my own tradition by taking snaps in black & white. This year I did the same, albeit with a real camera. This is the first of several posts with pix from the night. No captions, just photos.

Once again, it was a Black and White night....

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.