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...

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.

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.

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.

Intelligent design: Oldham makes Sundance encore

In case you were sweating it, Gwyneth and Gowanus are not all the high-profile New York representation Sundance has planned for 2006. No way. The Reeler just got word that the festival will look hauter than hell if its handpicked designer has anything do with it:

Continuing a long tradition of working with artists, Sundance Institute selected the Todd Oldham Studio proposal to design the Opening Night Gala, the Music on Main outdoor concert, and the Awards Night Celebration following the Awards Ceremony. ...

"I am delighted to celebrate with Sundance Institute the magic of independent film,” said Oldham. “It has been a lot of fun working on the opening and closing party designs."

Wait a second. "The magic of independent film"? Did you read that piece about Sundance in The Times the other day, Todd? Did you see who attended last week's Gotham Awards? Magic has nothing to do with it, although it certainly feels like magic when you miraculously wake up in your own bed in Park City after drinking yourself to amnesia the night before. No, no--not you, Todd. I am just generalizing.

So my best intentions imploded this morning, and I must interrupt my regularly scheduled coverage of Caryn James's latest critical homicide for a day away. I promise this will not get to be a regular habit, but look at it this way: The next time I write here, I will have a Master's degree. Amazing, huh? New York University will give those things out to anybody.

Of course, that means I need to finish my thesis before noon, so please excuse me. Check back tomorrow for this week's Centerpiece look at Brokeback Mountain, with running commentary from Ang Lee, Heath Ledger and screenwriters Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry. I will probably have something to say about Ms. James by then as well (hint: The Onion also broaches James's topic today, and it did just as much reporting).

In the meantime, Movie City Indie's Ray Pride is onto Roger Friedman, whose coverage of Munich should easily provide enough material to chew on for the rest of the day. Or it could turn you off to film writing forever, like imagining Gene Shalit in leather chaps.

Oh fuck. Now I'll never get back to work.

Remember a few months back, when news of Gwyneth Paltrow's directing debut relieved the suffocating dearth of culture we were sensing in New York cinema? Well, the Sundance Film Festival sent along its short film selections to indieWIRE today, and guess whose suffocating dearth of film culture is going to be relieved come January?

U.S. SHORT FILMS
Dramatic Shorts

Dealbreaker (Director: Gwyneth Paltrow and Mary Wigmore) -- A down to earth New Yorker, who is finally able to look past superficial flaws when she finds the right man.

Woo-hoo! As a sworn enemy of superficiality myself, I am going to look right past that incomplete sentence and start crossing off the days until I arrive in Park City.

OK, OK--in fairness, there are dozens of other short films set for Sundance whose directors have not won Oscars. So when programming director John Cooper says, "As the tools required to create films have become more accessible, new voices have emerged, and short films are a place to discover some of the most creative and challenging work being done today," we know he means it. You know--like Silas Howard's short, What I Love About Dying ("A documentary that helps put the fun back in funerals"), or Levan Koguashvili's The Debt, about two illegal Georgian immigrants in Brooklyn.

Oh, who am I kidding? They did not have pink crew camisoles. You might as well just engrave the trophy right now.

RELATED: Gwyneth Paltrow: Twee Grows in Brooklyn (Aug. 10, 2005)

Insert golf claps and snoring applause here

Hot off the press, The Reeler has word that Jane Fonda and Howard Shore will receive the mysterious National Board of Review's 2005 Career Achievement Awards. I have been wondering all year if Monster in Law was going to be the film that put Fonda over the top for the NBOR honor, and it appears that is indeed the case.

Shore, however, was as much a prize shoo-in as the 1985 Chicago Bears, even if the press release's editor appears to have differed with its author as to why:

Shore began his career as a member of the group Lighthouse, with whom he recorded and toured with from 1969 to 1972. He then went on to serve as the original Musical Director of Saturday Night Live. He single-handedly booked the program’s music talent, as well as fronting the house band conducted the live broadcasts from 1975 to 1980. At the same time, Shore began establishing his reputation in the film music circles, working with David Cronenberg on his groundbreaking movies. In all, Shore has scored 11 of Cronenberg’s films, including The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, and SpiderA History of Violence. ...

It is without question, Shore’s work with Peter Jackson on The Lord Of of The the Rings trilogy that stands as his most towering achievement to date. A partial list of awards for this masterpiece of modern cinema tells the story. Shore has won three Grammy Awards, three Oscars® and two Golden Globes for his work on The Lord Of of The the Rings trilogy. He also received a Grammy for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, for “Into the West.”

Never mind that the Toronto native guy formed The Blues Brothers and has been referred to by James Woods as the "Bernard Herrmann of the synthesizer" won a coveted Gotham Award in 1994. I mean, is this guy the most hyped composer of his generation overdue or what?

Congrats to Jane and Howard, and check back later this week for the NBOR's 2005 winners. They are a joke an uncannily prescient harbinger of the awards season to come!