Saturday, after the reverie of my champagne soaked Friday night, I slept off a small hangover and caught the N train to Broadway with J to catch the stage production of Martin McDonagh's new play The Pillowman. I knew a little bit about the play before we settled in to the comfortable seats at The Booth Theater, but how can you not? With tickets costing nearly $100 apiece, it is much more difficult to take chances with theater tickets than it is with film tickets. The disappointment of wasting $10 is one thing, but dropping $100 to sit in a tourist-filled room, listening to another revival full of my grandparent's music? Ok, well, I do like that sometimes (blush), but the economics of Broadway do not allow for a lot of variety or risk-taking. Over the past decade, most of the serious new plays don't last very long on Broadway, but is that any surprise? Where is the seriousness anywhere else? Instead, the theater has become, like most disposable consumer products, the home of the comfortable re-hash, be it a musical adaptation of [insert pop song compilation/old film here] or the revived Broadway dinosaur starring a moderately famous film actor working out their stage chops. The compelling new plays are pushed to the far more vital (if less frequented) off-Broadway theater scene, if they are produced at all.

I like a musical now and again, Shakespeare is always interesting (more on that in a future post), but if Broadway is going to survive, it is commonly understood that it needs to nurture new, exciting plays-- to create a climate where the theater can re-establish itself as a timely, living art form. So, when a new play arrives on Broadway that seems to push the envelope and challenge the status quo of the lame Broadway model, I like to put my money where my beliefs are, get my ass in a seat, and take it all in. So, when the lights went down on Saturday afternoon, I was ready for anything. I got greatness.

(**Spoilers and review after the jump**)

Friday night was a big night in the New York film community. There were several parties slated and lots of screenings at this year's TriBeCa Film festival, including the much-anticipated world premiere of Danny Leiner's new film The Great New Wonderful. The film reminded me of Altman's Short Cuts, an ensemble piece about people in various stages of their lives dealing with an unspoken malaise. In the case of The Great New Wonderful, it is 9/11 and not a greater social decay that is the impetus for the character's soul searching. Tonally, the film oscillates between comic moments and the small dramas of everyday life; the competition for a professional contract, the empty dynamics of a long term marriage, a struggle for intimacy in the face of a parenting nightmare. In the end, Leiner does a nice job of modulating in these minor keys. The 9/11 issue is played completely as subtext and is never directly addressed in the plot, implying, in my opinion anyway, that audiences will bring their own memories to the characters stories, adding a personal gravitas or black humor to the proceedings that is not always there in the film. I am hoping we can bring this film to our festival, so to say more might be cheating, but needless to say, I expect the film to secure distribution with no real problem.

After the film, I was graciously invited by my friends and colleagues at Showtime to attend this year's Nobu party celebrating Showtime's films at the TriBeCa Film Festival. It was a fun night, full of champagne, Nobu's signature miso glazed black cod (of which there is no picture because I ate it too quickly,) and good times with lots of friends from the film community. In fact, it is a party like this that really does show the community aspect of the independent film business, particularly in New York. Everyone seemed to know pretty much everyone else, there was very little pretense, and we all had a great time together.

More photos after the jump.

Period. End of discussion.

I have seen the band at least 10 times, maybe more, since catching them at a Call The Doctor -era show at The (old) Black Cat in Washington, D.C. Every time they come to wherever I am, I go see them. I run to see them. They put on a ferocious live performance, their records, when blasted into my headphones, have helped me dance my way through countless public transportation fiascos, and somehow, their songwriting gets better and better over time.

Their latest record, The Woods, is due in a month or so, and having seen their recent performance of the material at The Mercury Lounge, this one promises to be heavy, dark, and full of great songs.

Since this is a film blog, how about a short film? The new video for Entertain, the album's first single. Remember music videos? While we all await the new record*, a sample of delights to come....

*As I get older, I get excited less frequently about records being released. When I was a teenager in Flint, I would run down to my favorite record store, Wyatt Earp Records(1) every Tuesday and rummage through all of the new releases, but I invariably had my eyes on the calendar of release dates for records I was dying to have... The new R.E.M. album. The new Hüsker Dü record. It is so rare to feel that anymore, but there are FINALLY two records I am eager to purchase, The Woods and Bob Mould's new solo record Body Of Song. Bob will be going back on the road in full-on power trio mode, with Brendan Canty from Fugazi on drums. All signs point to genius. This is shaping up to be one rocking summer.

(1) I just heard the owner of Wyatt Earp Records, Doug Earp, has passed away. This is terrible news... I will always remember him. As a rabid buyer of vinyl records from 1983-89, Earp was basically my dealer/pusher. Didn't have it? He'd get it for you. In a post-internet world, this seems like no big deal, but when you were isolated in a Midwestern working class town in the 1980's and wanted to get your hands on independent music, people like Doug literally meant the difference between celebration and the silence of an otherwise indifferent marketplace. He made the scene in Flint possible, and he will be sorely missed.

Thoughts from a wonderful weekend...

And When I Say My Favorite, What I Really Mean Is...

After a little rap on the knuckles (which I wouldn't trade for the world) from David over at GreenCine for declaring Arnaud Desplechin my "favorite living filmmaker" (it's the truth), I decided I should probably spend a moment defending my declaration (and alliterating as often as I am able).

Everyone has filmmakers they love, people whose works resonate most powerfully in their lives. Too often, I believe that individuals seek to conform their ideas of cinematic greatness to the emotional and critical responses of others, or my 'what did you think?' system of film going. The system describes the moment when you walk out of a theater after a film and the détente between friends, nervously waiting for the other person to declare their opinion, begins. Three points are deducted for quoting directly from a NY Times Review, two points deducted for mentioning the over-all tone of said review, and one bonus point deducted if you name the critic. There is, of course, the pre-emptive strike variation of this system, where one launches a 'what did you think' as a way of teeing up one's own defense or malediction. But when you go pre-emptive, you probably don't care what the other person thinks anyway. Unless you are going 'caring pre-emptive' as way to guarantee that, regardless of what is said, you are willing to listen and discuss.* (see footnotes)

On the eve of Wellspring's upcoming release of Kings and Queen, the good folks at my cinematic local, The Brooklyn Academy of Music have assembled a five day retrospective of the works of Arnaud Desplechin, my favorite living filmmaker. The most exciting aspect of the retrospective is, for me, the chance to see La Vie Des Morts and Léo: Playing In the Company of Men on the big screen. Neither film is currently available on DVD or video, so this is a wonderful oppotunity to see two wildly underappreciated but very important films in Desplechin's body of work. Most exciting of all, I have been granted an interview with Desplechin this Friday that indieWIRE has promised to run. After the interview runs, I hope to be able to post a more complete and in-depth version of the interview on this site... So, if there are any Desplechin fans out there who would have any questions, use the Comments section below to post them and I will see if I can get some answers from the man himself. It all begins tonight at 7:00 with a screening of my favorite Desplechin film, My Sex Life... or how I got into an argument. In the meantime, a little preparation for the interview and your questions: My thoughts on Desplechin and Kings and Queen from this year's Toronto Film Festival. I hope to see you at BAM (Brooklyn represent!)

Unbelievably, I just opened my first Netflix account a couple of weeks ago. I am a habitual collector (its genetic... my dad is a huge collector as well and my mom will not throw anything away), so in the past I have purchased most of the DVD's I want to see. I am not a huge DVD watcher; I usually prefer to go to the movie theater, and when I do have time to watch a DVD, it tends to be a film submission or another film for the festival I am currently working on. But when I do get time to sit on my butt and watch a DVD for pleasure, I really target films that I want to see desperately, so I have traditionally bought them in order to be able to watch on my own time. There is functionality inherent in my old system, and a financial commitment beyond my modest means of late, but Netflix has made that system unnecessary.

OK, I understand that most of you probably discovered this whole thing years ago, but I love my Netflix now. I have only been able to get through 3 films in two weeks, but so far, the account is working just as I had hoped: a pressure-free, pleasurable stroll through my cinematic wish list. So, I thought I would document that trip this year on my blog.

A journey of 365 days begins with a single rental...