You do not often find me without something to say, but this is one of those weird moments where I am definitely at a loss for words. In a nutshell, The Reeler is leaving its lovely friends at indieWIRE to become the New York blogger for Movie City News.

As I mentioned this morning on MCN, nothing about this blog is really changing except the URL. You will still be reading The Reeler; I still (heart) Harvey, Cindy and the cosmos of indies, blockbusters and inbetweeners that make this city such a magical place to be a cinephile. This is an exciting development for me, and I look forward to lots of continued growth at the blog's new home.

The holidays are just a little bit of an awkward time to transition, but I am sure we will get the hang of it. Meanwhile, please redirect your bookmarks to and RSS feeds from www.mcnblogs.com/reeler, or you can never go wrong with the old stand-by www.thereeler.com. An egg nog toast, huge hug and warm thanks goes out to indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez, Brian Brooks and James Israel for so hospitably welcoming me into their fold last summer and for their continued support. Thanks also to MCN guru David Poland for this swell new opportunity--I am excited for the challenge.

Meanwhile, please keep your tips, comments and story ideas headed this way--as always, this is your site as much as it is mine. Thanks a million for reading, happy holidays, and I look forward to seeing you over there...

Some of this week's worthwile cinematic happenings around New York:

This is going to be a disaster, because Munich just claimed the last three hours of my life and I need a drink. However, I have an idea for a compromise: Why don't you come out to tonight's film blog panel at The Apple Store in SoHo, introduce yourself and I will provide custom-made recommendations especially for you. They will all probably involve some degree of King Kong or the Sunshine's midnight screenings of Raiders of the Lost Ark--both now bookending a slim quarter-century of quintessentially great escapist cinema--but we can mix and match and find something that fits you just right. And I know that "vigorous film-dork circle jerk" has been on the top of your Social Calendar Things-To-Do for a while now; I think this is what they call a "win-win" situation.

The "fun" starts tonight at 7:30 p.m. at 103 Prince Street. And "continues" afterward at IFC Center, where I hear I will have to supply a petition to gain entrance. Please do not forget to sign it, and I hope to see you there. Heckle early, and heckle often.

Oscars, Murrow, Gaghan... Nothing fazes George Clooney (Pictured here with [L-R] Marcia Rock, Grant Heslov and David Strathairn) (Photo: STV)

Talk about a coup: George Clooney, David Strathairn and Grant Heslov crashed my alma mater New York University yesterday, analyzing Good Night, and Good Luck's journalistic implications for a few hundred young aspiring reporters. It seemed like kind of a sweet justice that The Reeler was able to sneak in, considering how school obligations kept me from Clooney's GN, GL press conference at this year's New York Film Festival.

And although we did not quite get around to discussing the film's flexible historical record or its contextual shortcomings (GN, GL is probably the only fall film whose length is targeted as too short), Clooney was nevertheless a forthcoming guest. "It depends on what the cause is," he said when asked how carefully actors should balance their professional and social consciences. "If you're conservative, you're perfectly welcome to have any cause you want. ... But the more important issue is that we are not very good, I think, now, at telling people what to think. We're pretty good at telling people what they should be asking. Hollywood's pretty good at that. We can stand up and say, 'Listen.' This film and Syriana are two films in particular where I made a very specific choice going in, saying, 'Look: I'm not telling you what we should do. I'm not going to supply the answers.' I think the most important thing is that we must never be told we're not allowed to ask a question. That's when we get into a very dangerous area."

Ironically or not, that was the last question of the pool interview. I really would have liked to ask if he knew there was an NYU graduate assistant strike going on and that we were all shattering a picket line to celebrate Murrow, but hey--it is awards season! And you do not see Warner Independent taking out Oscar ads in The Daily Worker, do you?

I trailed Clooney into the auditorium and asked if he thought the Oscar hype machine was spinning out of control. "It hasn't started yet," he told me. "It probably will. I've never been through one of these before. I don't know anything about it. I've never been to the Oscars, so..."

OK, well there is some preliminary buzz--Golden Globes, etc. What's your feeling?

"Honestly, I don't know," he said. "We just got nominated two days ago, so we'll see."

I did badger him one last time during the event's Q&A session, following up on where he and writing/producing partner Heslov were at on their proposed live-TV remake of Network. "We're having some rights issues with it," Heslov said. "So we're working on that." I asked who they thought about casting as Howard Beale, and Clooney suggested Michael Caine. And then Abe Vigoda, whom he then impersonated saying, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."

Sigh. Is this guy charming, or is he charming? Anyway, kudos to NYU journalism professors Marcia Rock and William Serrin for sending their students into the break on an up note. The pleasure was indeed ours.

Drinking it in: Match Point's Emily Mortimer and Matthew Goode (Photo: STV)

In case you thought Woody Allen's upcoming Match Point would lurk comfortably this week in King Kong's and Brokeback Mountain's hyperbolic shadows, the director and his cast hit the tabloids today with just about everything they have. I mean, it would probably be enough that Match Point had Roger Friedman's dick busting his zipper, but a little Liz Smith-Cindy Adams tag-team hagiography goes an extra long way. Lloyd Grove has some Woody action as well, plus an insight on how Scarlett Johansson's father handles viewing her love scenes.

Meanwhile, The Reeler ran into co-stars Emily Mortimer and Matthew Goode at last night's Visit Britain preview screening of Match Point at the Tribeca Grand. Mortimer recalled running into director Alfonso Cuaron in London the day before she was to start shooting with Allen. "(Cuaron) said, 'Oh, that's brilliant.' He really admired him. And then he said, 'Don't ask him any questions.' And I was like, 'Oh, fucking hell.' It was terrifying. And in some ways, he was right. No one got fired, and it wasn't that sort of horrible atmosphere where people were living in fear of that happening, but what you've heard from the other movies--there's not very much rehearsal, there's not very much dialogue about the job in hand, that sort of thing--that's entirely true. And so that meets your expectations. It's quite the adjustment at first, but once you get into it, it's really exciting working like that. We all really enjoyed it. The thing that was surprising--despite that being true--he was generally completely un-neurotic. The least neurotic director I've ever worked with. Very happy, very twinkly, very jokey, always in a good mood. Completely relaxed and affable."

Goode agreed. "He's very approachable if you have any queries," he said. "I always thought, 'I won't bother him. I'll let him do his thing.' He's only a little fellow, but there's some sort of deep power that comes out of those big glasses. So he still scares me a bit, even though he's totally lovely. I always feel I shouldn't take up too much of his time. You really start trying to trust your instincts a bit more, and working with him actually gave me more confidence."

"At the beginning," Mortimer said, "I was thinking, 'I don't know how I can be doing well. I don't know how this can result in good acting.' Whatever you think of the guy--most people think he's a genius, some people have other opinions--he's always gotten really good performances out of hs actors, I think. And it is from trusting them. He has great respect for them. He only gets in the way if he starts to direct them. He starts interfering with what they're doing and making it less good than it would have been."

"I think that all that goes to the same sort of thing," Goode added. "There's this sort of uncomfortable nervousness about it. That's the reason he's continued getting good performances. Because it's a general fear."

"You don't have anything to sort of hold back on," Mortimer said. "You just have to listen and be in the scene, otherwise you're completely fucked."

"Oh," Goode said, nodding vigorously. "You're fucked. Yeah."

Well, they seem to have survived, and their characters' aloof brand of class conflict help make Match Point the chilly, splendid little film it is. But now that they have had their fun with Allen, they need to face reality and give him back to New York; they must know, after all, we press parasites cannot survive on Harvey Weinstein alone.

Roger Friedman, doing the best he can with what he has

Today's Fox411 really must be read to be believed, with gossip vegetable Roger Friedman weighing in on his top ten films of 2005. While we always knew the guy fancied himself a highbrow moviegoer, I cannot say I have ever been more impressed with his critical taste and lobotomized senility than I am this morning.

But do not take my word for it:

3. Capote -- The perfect movie of 2005 ... Hard to believe [director Bennett Miller] was an actor on Judging Amy, but there you go. Who knows what's next? An orderly from E.R. could get a Pulitzer at this rate!

4. Walk the Line -- Reese Witherspoon, who I ordinarily find grating, does her best work here, wiping away the frivolity of Legally Blonde. ... Johnny and June Carter Cash must be smiling down from heaven. And their children, because the story is told so well, should be proud.

6. Good Night and Good Luck -- With reservations, I have to say GN, GL is an admirable piece. ... Hesitation comes from the fact that the film turns on well-known newsreel footage of Sen. Joseph McCarthy being dressed down at last by colleague. But you can never see that too many times.

8. Broken Flowers -- Focus Features has done a good job ignoring this brilliant Jim Jarmusch film so they could give us gay cowboys mumbling and tumbling together in Brokeback Mountain. I do think that Bill Murray's sublime performance in Broken Flowers is going to outlast Bill and Ted's Excellent Romance[.]

9. Murderball -- Paraplegics [sic] and amputees don't make for romantic movie-going. Murderball in concept sounds scary and off-putting. But it's so uplifting that after a few minutes you just don't see the infirmities of these amazing athletes as they head toward the Paralympics. They are simply transcendent. This is one is a winner, as are all the people who made it including directors Henry Rubin and David Shapiro [sic].

10. The Sundance movies -- My favorite films from Sundance this year were Craig Brewer's Hustle & Flow, Mike Mills' Thumbsucker, and Miranda Joy's [sic} Me and You and Everyone We Know. ... The other two Sundance movies were far different from Hustle & Flow. Thumbsucker was based on Walter Kirn's novel about a teenager who wouldn't grow up. ... Miranda Joy [sic again] (nee Grossinger) made the lightest soufflé of the year, even though Me and You and Everyone We Know contained some disturbingly offbeat moments. Just when you though she might veer into a saccharine area, Miranda Joy [last sic] figuratively poisoned our drinks. Me and You is at the same time ingratiating and worrying. I loved it, and can't wait to have it on DVD.

Friedman is obviously hitting his Oscar-season stride, and I am sure folks like "David Shapiro" and "Miranda Joy" will be sending him a heartfelt note of thanks for giving their forgotten films the year-ending Fox411 boost they need. "A poisonous soufflé" will indeed look fabulous as a blurb on the much-anticipated Me and You DVD, which should arrive any day in Friedman's office signed, "See you on IMDB, XOXOXO, Miranda."

Australia's Tropfest, coming soon to Tribeca (Photo: Tropfest)

If history (especially the history of cinema) has taught us anything, it is that every great opportunity has a catch. Take Tropfest@Tribeca, a just-announced short film series that will feature eight new films alongside eight imports from Australia's popular Tropfest. The submission process opens Dec. 19, and the selected films will screen together at next year's Tribeca Film Festival.

According to a statement released today, Tribeca co-founder Robert De Niro is exciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-ted to be reteaming with filmmaker and Tropfest founder John Polson, who handled their last collaboration, Hide and Seek, so brutally very, very well:

“Like the Tribeca Film Festival, John Polson’s Tropfest has created a distinctive cultural event. We look forward to offering this unique experience to our community.”

Following the guidelines of Polson’s Tropfest, each short film must incorporate a Tropfest Signature Item (TSI) to demonstrate that it has been made specifically for Tropfest. The first Tropfest@Tribeca TSI is: "Manhole Cover." Each film must be under seven minutes in length and must be making its world premiere.

Got that? Do not think you are going to add a shot of a manhole cover to your Sundance competition film just to get into the prestigious Tropfest. Or that "Australia’s most beloved public cultural event" (if you do not believe Polson, just ask him) could stand on its own without a gimmick involved or without a press release dropping Aussie names like Nicole Kidman's, Russell Crowe's and Heath Ledger's as some gauge of legitimacy. I do not see Paul Hogan's name anywhere in there, so it cannot be that cool, can it?

At any rate, I think the festival is still accepting films for its mildly successful "non-manhole cover" program as well. And De Niro is said to be stoked about that too, so at least you always have something to fall back on. If you must.

I don't care about Morton's Oscar nomination--Matt Damon wouldn't fuck her with a stolen dick (Photo: STV)

Pardon my late start, but Harvey Weinstein's Most Outrageous Gossippy Blast Ever landed me in the hospital yesterday with a broken jaw. Of course, this has happened before-- although in the past, it usually involved money or some garish corporate "synergy." This time, however, The Scoop's Jeanette Walls shows Harvey cutting right to the sensitive indie bone as only he can. And I will be on painkillers for weeks:

Matt Damon and Heath Ledger were furious about the casting of Lena Headey in The Brothers Grimm, but a producer stuck with her because he felt that the actress Damon and Ledger wanted wasn’t sexy enough.

Damon, Ledger, director Terry Gilliam and many other people connected with the film were passionately vying for talented and quirky actress Samantha Morton to get the role, according to a behind-the-scenes account of the flick that’s been published in the U.K., but Harvey Weinstein, co-head of Miramax which was a producer on the film, put the kibosh on her.

“Samantha Morton! You must be kidding me!” Weinstein said, director Gilliam told Bob McCabe, author of the book Dreams and Nightmares, which has just been published in the U.K. “You think Matt or Heath would want to [bleep] that?”

That is not even the entire item, and I still do not know where or how to start trying to rationalize it. I mean, what is better: Walls referring to Harvey simply as "a producer" on first reference, or closing your eyes and imagining Harvey on the phone in Tribeca, leaning back in his throne and winking at his manicurist as he calls Samantha Morton unfuckable? Or not even Samantha Morton, but just.... "that."

Or maybe the best part is that there is actually a "behind-the-scenes" book about a film nobody liked or even really saw. Either way, it is nice to see that Harvey ultimately found "that" useful enough to approve for a role in The Libertine, even as I am sure he will get around to blaming the film's imminent failure on Morton soon enough. Poor thing.

Hail the conquering hero: Pixar's John Lasseter at MoMA (Photos: STV)

When it comes to animated films, I actually tend to side with Armond White, who told the Meet the Critics crowd the other day at Makor that he likes "films with people in them." Oversimplification? Absolutely. But if I HAD to watch animation, and you cruelly took South Park away from me, I guess I would go with a Pixar flick.

Not that the billionaire geniuses at Pixar need my default-favorite-animation status as some validation or anything, but that type of go-to, household-name appeal is arguably the studio's most resonant qualification for MoMA's "Pixar: 20 Years of Animation" exhibit. And I guess they have some fairly amazing output, as well: Opening today, the show features more than 500 sketches, maquettes, paintings and storyboards associated with the making of Pixar's seven features and 11 short films (the short One Man Band will have its North American premiere at MoMA January 27). Pixar is also donating new prints of its work to MoMA's permanent collection.

As such, museumgoers greeted Pixar mastermind John Lasseter like a folk hero yesterday as he introduced a preview of the exhibition. "I hope that as people come through this exhibit in the next few months, they are amazed by the traditional art needed to make our films," he told a crowd gathered around Barnet Newman's Broken Obelisk. "Everybody assumes that the computer does a lot more than it really does at Pixar. One of the foundations of Pixar is the collaboration between art and technology. We do have the most cutting edge technology, and we have more Ph.D's working on our films than anybody else in Hollywood. We've invented much of the computer animation, but art is at the foundation of it."

The sort-of multimedia Artscape--which traces the conventional art roots of Pixar's films--and Toy Story Zoetrope are probably the exhibit's highlights, although I brought back a few other samples of the various work on display (click below). If animation IS your thing, you have until Feb. 6 to check it out.

Lynn Whitfield, NYWIFT M.C. ASAP (Photo: STV)

The Reeler paid a visit Tuesday to the 25th annual Muse Awards, the New York Women in Film & Television event that this year honored the lives and works of Julianne Moore, Tina Fey, BET president Debra Lee and editor Susan Morse. It was a hard gig to cover; whether or not you believe I am capable of even the slightest social consciousness, I always try to be on my best behavior and leave the hormone gags to people like Fey. You might call it good taste--I call it strategy.

The brilliant Fey did not disappoint, by the way, but I somehow still managed to piss off Moore. She foretold an immediate future in which outside investors would revive authentic independent film--the medium whose '90s renaissance Moore helped define with her breakthrough performance in Todd Haynes's Safe. So, I asked, is there more opportunity now for women to join this latest revival behind the camera?

It seemed like a fair follow-up. Alas, an incredulous laugh. "Listen, here's the thing, you know," Moore said. "I really think that your sex has very little to do with what you do in the working world. I think the more we talk about the differences between men and women, the more divisive we are. The more we create a division. In a sense, it's about opportunities for everybody."

Great, thanks--congrats on your Muse Award. I had an even more troubling exchange with actress Lynn Whitfield, but for a totally different reason. Whitfield appeared as the emergency replacement for M.C. Kathy Griffin, who literally called in sick yesterday morning. Imagine! But in talking with Whitfield about opportunities for African-American women in film, the conversation turned to the unbelievably tragic story of Stanley "Tookie" Williams--the Crips founder, convicted murderer and Nobel Prize-nominated case study in rehabilitation whom California put to death early Tuesday.

Whitfield talked about portraying advocate Barbara Becnel in the 2004 film Redemption, co-produced by Becnel and starring Jamie Foxx as Williams. "She's a very, very strong woman who I think today needs to be honored for ther efforts behind the scenes to save a real life, and actually to make a movie that I'm very very proud of," Whitfield said.

It was indeed awful news coming out of the West Tuesday--as a native Californian, it had knocked the wind out of me. I asked Whitfield if she was doing OK. "Today is to celebrate so many wonderful people who really don't have anything to do with Stanley's life," Whitfield said, betraying a hint of tears. "So I don’t want to confuse the two issues. But it's a very, very sad day for our country, I think, when redemption doesn't matter and a decision was made that was built not upon facts but upon votes."

I will have a lot more about the honorees, NYWIFT and the 2005 Muse Awards in next March's issue of The Independent, published by the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers. When I have the appropriate date for you to camp out at the newsstand for your copy, believe me--I will pass it along.

This is going to be something of a short day for me, as someone had the audacity to schedule not one, but two film events from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. Conspiracy? Possibly--but not nearly the scandal Times critic Dave Kehr's blog is shaping up to be.

Or so says Movie City Indie's Ray Pride, whose relentless efforts on the nom de Kehr beat reveal a strong case for full-blown parody:

The earnest young satirist who compiles the cruelly sclerotic “davekehr.com” parody blog continues his/her dual project, mocking the style of the New York freelancer ("self"-described as a former writer "of fourth string reviews" for the New York Times who "eventually backed away from fourth string reviewing, mainly because the movies—a flood of fifth-rate American independent films—were so appalling and the Times freelance review rates were so dispiritingly low"). ...

Kehr’s double argues that [Brokeback Mountain] is in no way a Western, before proceeding then in a tepid King Kong notice to misspell “Yosemite” (perhaps as a way to avoid seeming anti-Yosemitic). “[Peter] Jackson doesn’t even show these hurled bodies hitting the ground, allowing the viewer to assume that they bounce back to life like so many Yosimite [sic] Sam’s [sic] in a Warner Brothers cartoon.”

Bullshit or not, Kehr's blog has blossomed into a gilded salon for discriminating critics, filmmakers and filmgoers alike: The Sun's Nathan Lee weighs in on Brokeback Mountain ("Three cheers for middle-brow man-on-man masochistic romanticism, says I,"); The Sacramento Bee's Joe Baltake mourns the death of Wendi Jo Sperber; and, in what is probably Exhibit A in the "davekehr.com must be a joke" prosecution, Alexander Payne dropped in at Thanksgiving with a virtual postcard:

Dear Dave, I’m remembering being at Torino with you a year ago, and I lament not being able to attend this year. I’m glad for these reports, and I send you warm regards. Alexander Payne

So, um, yeah. From red-shirt Times critic to "anti-Yosemitic" chum of an Oscar-winner. Who says dreams do not come true in the blogosphere?

RELATED: NYT Film Writer's Blog Gets Close Read From Midwest (Nov. 8, 2005)

"This isn't E, for Christ's sake": IFC TV boss Evan Shapiro (Photo: IFC)

The last week has seen some controversy surrounding This Film is Not Yet Rated, Kirby Dick's upcoming documentary investigating the MPAA ratings system. The film is slated to premiere next month at Sundance, but executive producer IFC issued a press release Dec. 7 explaining that the MPAA had already tarred it with an NC-17. "How convenient," the thinking goes, "that the MPAA would deflate the commercial chances of a documentary about itself."

Well, yes and no. Not too long afterward on his blog, indieWIRE editor Eugene Hernandez echoed at least my own first impression:

While I am by no means a proponent of the current MPAA given its checkered past, I am rather bored with people using the MPAA ratings systems as a stunt for PR purposes. ... I immediately asked the film's PR rep if I could see the movie since its been submitted to the MPAA only to be told that the film is still being shot. After pressing the matter further, this morning the PR rep said the film was submitted to the MPAA as research ("they felt they needed to see the process first hand if they were going to do a documentary about the process"), and the rep later clarified that the film is now being edited.

Over the weekend I talked to another film insider who disagreed, saying that the fine print behind Dick's NC-17 was less a "stunt" than just an example of what the film was up against as it prepared to seek distribution. Still conflicted, I realized I would just have to take this matter straight to the top.

"I just don't think it's right," said IFC executive vice president Evan Shapiro, "to call a serious documentary from a serious documentarian on the Independent Film Channel a stunt. It needs to be called on face value what it is. It's a film which, by the way, got into Sundance. We are doing what companies do when they get into Sundance. We are getting a little press attention, and we thought that the NC-17 would be of a little interest to people."

Well, I am writing this almost a week later, so mission accomplished, I guess. Nevertheless, nobody called the film a stunt--although now that I think about it, that is not such an unfair conclusion to draw if we believe Dick submitted an unfinished film to the MPAA just to see what would happen. According to an MPAA spokeswoman, This Film is Not Yet Rated comprises sequences that other films had to cut to obtain R ratings. (The Reeler has been waiting since last Friday for a list of the offending scenes that the MPAA promised but never delivered.) At best, the press release calls attention to the "irony" that the ratings board gave the kiss of death to a film about itself. At worst, it misrepresents Dick's ratings board submission as some moment of truth from which IFC and its filmmaker emerged moral champions. I mean, what the did the filmmakers expect? Love it or hate it, what was the ratings board supposed to do?

I guess at the very, very best (for IFC, anyway), some impressionable distributor will pick up on the controversy and make IFC an offer. Shapiro says the network (which will air the film uncut, as per its tagline, next fall) has been in touch with a few buyers so far, not all of whom would even have to release This Film with a rating. "Ultimately, do you want to build anticipation for a film? Of course you do," Shapiro told me. "King Kong wanted to do that, The Aristocrats wanted to do that. Every film wants to do that. Are we only working on a film? No. You know there is a business to this as well."

Oh dear. Shapiro added: "The more buzz we get on the film the better off it will be. I think (Hernandez) has a fair assessment of our desire to get buzz for the film, but I also think he should take a little bit of faith that Kirby Dick is an Oscar nominee and he did get into Sundance. We are the Independent Film Channel. This isn't E, for Christ's sake. And just assume we're taking a serious look at a serious film. The release was kind of designed to keep the press informed about what was going on, and it worked."

Of course, you have to wait until Sundance to check out the finished product. Ah, marketers. You have got to love them.

If I spent what Heath Ledger probably spends on clothing, I would wear the same thing all the time, too (Photos: Open All Night)

The kids over at Open All Night have had a busy couple of days handling a few exotic red-carpet goings-on I missed for one reason or another. First of all, The Reeler had one of its long-unanswered questions resolved: What the hell ever happened to those Glamour Magazine-produced short films that yielded Gwyneth Paltrow's directing debut and a number of other putative stabs at Hollywood's penis-possessing hegemony? Were they ever finished? Would they ever screen as a group?

Ha--not only would they screen, but they evidently packed the UA Union Square last Thursday at a B-list winter wonderland. First-time filmmaker Trudie Styler made a brash show of her independence, arriving with husband Sting, paralyzing lobby traffic and all but sticking a pink flag in Lower Manhattan and claiming it for Glamour.

Heath Ledger, on the other hand, was not-so-Glamour-ready last night. According to OAN eagle-eye Bennett Marcus:

(W)e still learned something about the elusive Mr. Ledger. Along with a new baby and a $3 million house in Brooklyn, Heath owns two sport coats, two shirts, one tie, one sweater, and no iron. He wore the same tie and black sweater, but different rumpled shirts, to both his Brokeback Mountain premiere on Tuesday and the Casanova premiere on Sunday.

Goddamnit! Why does Open All Night get all the good scoops? I am busting my ass over here trying to decode Armond White's true essence while right under my nose, Heath Ledger is pulling shit out of the hamper before running off to see Casanova. Next you are probably going to tell me the sweater had blood on the sleeve, and it was tucked inside another sweater, and it symbolizes his love for the owner of the neighborhood laundromat who takes Sundays off. Tragic indeed.

Jesus Christ--two posts about NYC film critics in four hours. I am so sorry. Alas, were you to check here for the news about the New York Film Critics Circle's 2005 awards, to know I let you down would provoke violent, guilt-anguished seizures. And I would hate to knock over the Christmas tree.

That does not mean I want to spend a lot of time talking about it, nor should you spend a lot of time worrying about it. In a nutshell, I was totally wrong about the NYFCC jumping behind A History of Violence; it indeed selected Brokeback Mountain as 2005's best film, and according to a statement just sent over to Reeler HQ, the group did not really shatter any Earth from there:

"I was not surprised at all that the voting was so competitive. What did surprise me was that we came to our conclusion so quickly, " said the group's chairman, Newsday critic Gene Seymour. "I'm not sure if that means it was a good year or a so-so year, but it always shakes out."

Werner Herzog will be honored for two of the Best Non-Fiction Films for his documentaries Grizzly Man and The White Diamond. 2046, directed by Wong Kar Wai, was selected as Best Foreign-Language Film, and Best First Film was given to filmmaker Bennett Miller for Capote. Best Animated Feature went to Hayao Miyazaki¹s animated adventure Howl's Moving Castle. Best Actor went to Heath Ledger for the film Brokeback Mountain, and Reese Witherspoon was named Best Actress for Walk the Line.

The award for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress went to William Hurt and Maria Bello respectively for the same film, A History of Violence.

So now what? Vacation until Jan. 8, when the NYFCC gets together to hand out the hardware? Or maybe we can get back together for another round at Makor? Only this time, we are are going to plant Armond White next to Jeffrey Lyons. And give White a secret trigger that sends a 1,000-volt buzz through Lyons's seat every time he mentions Brokeback Mountain. "Ang Lee just--" ZZZZZZZZ "Motherfucker! Is that you, Armond?"

Oh... good times.

Sad Tale: Lillo Brancato Jr.

The tabloids last weekend spotlighted the ghastly Bronx tragedy that left off-duty police officer David Enchautegui shot to death after attempting to foil a burglary. As if Enchautegui's murder is not brutal enough, one of the shooting suspects, Lillo Brancato Jr., was a New York-bred actor perhaps best known for his role on The Sopranos and as the conflicted teenager Calogero Anello in Robert De Niro's directorial debut, A Bronx Tale.

I will just leave it to The Times's Manny Fernandez to help explain exactly what this means:

A Bronx Tale ... became a favorite of many in the Bronx, a coming-of-age story that they felt captured the working-class decency of the place. People adopted a kind of hometown pride for it, nurtured by repeated viewings and by the real-life links between the film, its actors and local residents. ...

Along the strip of Italian cafes, restaurants and delis on nearby Arthur Avenue, the borough's Little Italy, the movie is revered.

David Greco, 40, the owner of Mike's Deli, a popular sausage-draped corner of the indoor Arthur Avenue Retail Market, had trouble putting a number on how many times he has watched A Bronx Tale. He said two dozen was a safe bet.

Mr. Greco and others in the Bronx spoke yesterday of the sad irony of the movie and the shooting. One of the themes of the film - that the saddest thing in life is wasted talent, a line used frequently in the movie - took on new meaning.

"It all comes down to wasted talent," Mr. Greco said of Mr. Brancato.

It has been about a decade since I saw A Bronx Tale, but it is still not that hard to recall the film's overarching emphases on choices and community. So beyond Enchautegui's tragic death, to what end will the seismic shift of a cultural touchstone influence Belmont? What is the appropriate proportion of mourning a neighbor to an idea, and to what degree does that individual become a symbol for the lost idea itself?

It all probably sounds kind of insensitive, but come on--I am not out to aestheticize tragedy. Nevertheless, Fernandez's piece raises an intersting question: What if a movie died as well Saturday morning in the Bronx? It seems like the type of thing that could happen in New York.

For all of the pseudo-controversy their delayed announcement caused, the National Board of Review's 2005 award winners should surprise exactly nobody. Indeed, we already knew about the top-shelf Take Your Trophy and Retire prizes, but do not tell me you did not foresee a top ten interchangeably populated by A History of Violence, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Munich, etc. etc. Good Night, and Good Luck evidently claimed the NBR's blue ribbon along with performances by Capote's Philip Seymour Hoffman and Transamerica's Felicity Huffman.

“Every year the NBR screens many wonderful films,” said President Annie Schulhof in a statement because she could not do it in person or even on the phone without laughing. “And it is always challenging to decide our top candidates. The 2005 Ten Best Films list reflects stories of human spirit, sacrifice, desire and political awareness, and also singles out the biopics of two extraordinary American artists."

Look, I have spent too much time on this as it is, so if you want the rest of the winners, click the link below. Personally, I would recommend cutting your losses--or your wrists--first.