Tim Burton and The Corpse Bride's A-list voice talent, Johnny Depp

Just a quick heads-up to remind you that there may be a few standby tickets available tonight at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, where director Tim Burton will participate in a discussion and audience Q&A following a sold-out screening of The Corpse Bride. I do not know how many, but if you start getting sick now, your boss may let you leave early to get in line.

The same technique might work for tomorrow's equally popular Directors Label screening and panel discussion at WRT, where Michael Stipe is now set to fill in as MC for the unavailable Michel Gondry. Stipe may be an even better choice for MC, providing the musician's side of working with directors like Anton Corbijn and Mark Romanek. And you may have a good shot at that standby ducat when all those Bjork fans skip the event after learning Gondry backed out.

Again, no guarantees, but stranger things have happened (mostly in Gondry's own videos).

It looks as though my top-dollar/low-rent alma mater New York University has marked Oct. 28 as its night to splurge, and why not? The film school is welcoming back a few of its most famous alumni—Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and Jane Rosenthal—for the Tisch NY Gala at Cipriani.

The third-annual gala is a fund raiser for the Tisch School of the Arts, which (last I heard) charges in excess of $30K per year to attend. But the organizers are planning the event as sort of a scholarship drive as well, with tickets starting at $250 for alums and $500 for the rest of you not cool enough to have incurred the extravagant penury and debt necessary to call yourself an NYU grad.

Again, is any of this really here or there when you can plunk yourself down in black tie and good company? And at least the event is off-campus, so you can rest assured the wine will not be of the stale Washington Square vintage we always got stuck with downtown.

Reel Paradise director Steve James, introducing his film at Monday's premiere (Photos: STV)

You have to know that every documentarian has at least one reality TV show in him or her, and you can probably even assume that they have all at least considered shooting them since the genre surged to popularity in the late '90s. And while I would sooner swim with piranhas than watch 99 percent of reality shows, I have to say that the premise of Steve James's Reel Paradise was intriguing enough for me to drop by its premiere last night for an early look.

I know, I know--"But Reel Paradise is not a reality show," you say. Well, not by definition. But James--whose epochal Hoop Dreams is to the modern documentary what The Real World is to the reality genre--borrows liberally from both conventions to tell the tale of the Piersons, a New York family that relocated to Taveuni, Fiji, for a year to screen free movies in a village cinema. That James had the good fortune to witness a potent pop culture clash is not really in question; that the tempestuous family at the center of the clash (and thus in front of camera) is ultimately any more intriguing as the clans hamming it up on Trading Spouses is a little more debatable.

Not that any of this is James's fault. "At one point in the filming, I said to my crew at dinner, 'I feel like were making a reality documentary,'" he told The Reeler. "Which wasn't a criticism. It's just an observation. The difference between this and reality television is that this is something (the Piersons) chose to do for very personal family reasons. They weren't recruited to do this. When we got there, I tried to make as honest a documentary as I could."

What makes this difficult is that James acknowledges barely knowing the Pierson family before going to Fiji, having only some professional acquaintance with the acclaimed author and indie-film guru John Pierson prior to the shoot. John's wife Janet and their teenaged children Georgia and Wyatt were perfect strangers to James and his crew, and their strained interactions play inconsistently against their wise-ass cineaste repartee and individual vulnerabilities. Moreover, James' accomplished style?which has always relied so heavily on years of observation (if not decades, as in the case of Stevie)?seems hamstrung against the one-month shooting schedule provided him here.

There is a fantastic event you may have heard about coming up next month in NYC: It is called Cinemasports, and its founder likes to describe it as the "Iron Chef of Filmmaking." In other words, participants assemble in teams on Aug. 27, are given a set of "ingredients" and must set about making a film containing these ingredients over the next 10 hours. The completed films will be screened during a reception at The Cutting Room later that evening.

This all sounds like a far more reasonable and fun variation on the exhausting 24-48 hour film festivals we always hear so much about, and as such, I want The Reeler to get into the spirit. But I need your help.

So with that in mind, I invite you to join Team Reeler for this year's Cinemasports contest. It costs nothing to sign up, and you do not need any prior filmmaking experience to be a part of the team. What we do need, however, is equipment and a few dedicated experts who can help with specific needs like camerawork, sound and editing. The rest of us can kind of rotate duties around general interests like acting, writing, producing and directing. Novices, hobbyists and seasoned pros are all encouraged to help out and have a good time.

If we can actually get a team together, I think this may be the first blog to ever make a film. Naturally, we could post the finished product for readers outside NYC, along with all the trenchant commentary you can only get from The Reeler. There may even be sleek Team Reeler shirts in it for everybody, but one thing at a time.

Anyhow, go ahead and drop me a line if you think this is something you can get behind, and feel free to bring along a friend or two--the more, the merrier. I hope to hear from you!

The lovely, garrulous Maggie Cheung plots her escape(Photo: STV)

The Reeler dropped by the Asia Society Friday night to check in with Hong Kong icon Maggie Cheung, who was in town last week for the opening of the Asian American International Film Festival. The idea was to get a picture or two and maybe have a word with Cheung before she collected the festival's CineVisionary Award, which she received prior to a screening of her new film Clean.

I mean, that was the idea—that is the way it usually works. Publicists invite your coverage, you attend cheerfully (at least I do), the stars do their jobs. Rinse and repeat. Forty-five minute delays like Friday's are pretty much par for the course, and they can even be quite useful to help formulate just the right question to ask that celebrity when he or she arrives at your end of the line.

But what do you do when the celebrity never gets to your end of the line? When the whole operation keeps you waiting for the picture at right and tries squirreling the actress away before any of the reporters on hand can ask any questions? I do not know what you would do, but dammit, I have a job to do.

So here, in its entirety, is The Reeler's (and the entire Asian American International Film Festival "press corps'," for that matter) exclusive, penetrating conversation with Maggie Cheung:

STV: Maggie, can you talk about being the toast of New York City for these last few days?
MC: It's a lot of talking for two days. It's great. Thank you. (Exit stage left)

No, Maggie—thank you. Thank. You.

Ugh.

Hello Willimantic! A scene from Josh Goldbloom's Heroin Town (Photo: Josh Goldbloom)

New York's VisionFest 2005 has its line-up in place, and I do not know if it is just the lack of sleep or the anti-depressants talking or what, but just about everything on the schedule sounds watchable, if not downright intriguing. And while several of these films are certain to be desperately, infuriatingly, walk-out-of-the-theater-in-soul-withering-anguish bad, I would like to ask your indulgence as The Reeler goes about the timeless critical tradition of judging some of this year's selections strictly by their synopses:

Exclusive photo from the closely guarded New Zealand set of King Kong

You had to know it was really just a matter of time before Universal made it official: Peter Jackson's epic King Kong remake will bow in New York in early December. That gives the studio about five months to figure out if it wants to replace those cheesy Ray Harryhausen effects that have drawn such derision from all corners of the Web with something a little more, you know, modern.

Moreover, a New York premiere virtually guarantees an inflatable Kong on the side of a building, or looming over the Ziegfeld or crawling out of that sinkhole in Midtown or something. With the help of the good folks at Landmark Creations, The Reeler would like to offer its loyal readers an informal vote for which Kong Universal should splurge for this fall.

Keep in mind, this is a top-flight event with A-list talent (and Jack Black), so choose carefully:

Campbell Scott and Patricia Clarkson: Real Life--Cute; The Dying Gaul--Not Cute (Photos: STV)

An eerie trend is developing. You may have witnessed it yourself. For now, let's call it the "Mid-Lifetime Achievement Award" phenomenon--in which respected film organizations honor accomplished actors or filmmakers for little more than being in the prime of their careers. Take 28-year old Samantha Morton for example, who along with Nicolas Cage received this year's Half-Life Award at CineVegas. Or Marc Forster, 36, who attended a career retrospective hosted by the Museum of Modern Art in April.

And then Tuesday night, Lincoln Center's Young Friends of Film honored Campbell Scott, who at age 43 is hardly winding down his career. To the contrary, his finely tuned performance in Craig Lucas' The Dying Gaul wowed the audience in the Walter Reade Theater. He commented on looking forward to his next directing project and staying close to New York. Life is good, so on and so forth.

So how does Scott feel about the idea of his very own "Mid-Lifetime Achievement Award"?

"You mean, that maybe it's all over?" he replied.

Exactly.

He hedged, smiled. "I don't know if I'm supposed to feel comfortable with that sort of thing, but I'll take it," he told The Reeler. "Along with the screening of the film. That makes me feel a little better."