Ever since seeing the trailer for this year's New York Film Festival ahead of "The Queen" on Wednesday, I sorta became obsessed with it. It went by so quickly, but I noticed it made a mention of the NYFF being selective and inflexible...after seeing the new Frears film, I felt like there was some sort of rough parallel to be drawn between the British monarchy depicted in the movie and the festival itself, which is built upon a tradition of being so carefully curated. Preparing to write my opening fest article for indieWIRE, I hounded the Film Society of Lincoln Center for the script to the promo clip, and on Thursday they sent me a Quicktime file of the trailer (which I quickly posted on YouTube).

I for one was complaining last month when I noticed that both "Fur" and "Shortbus" were rejected by the festival, but as a friend reminded me, alas the fest is programmed by a small committee and there are fewer than 30 feature slots to fill. As A.O. Scott writes in today's NYFF preview:

If you want quantity — racks and shelves full of stuff to sort through in the hope of finding something that might fit your taste — wait for Tribeca, with its grab-bag programs and crowd-pleasing extras. The New York Film Festival, in contrast, prides itself on quality, refinement and selectivity.

I wouldn't have it any other way.