Before I get to some unvarnished notes that I made in my note book while covering this year’s New York Film Festival a couple of quick notes.
First up Globe Docs starts this week. The Boston Globe Documentary festival is killer. It’s small but it has a lot of great films slotted. I’m supposed to be covering the festival so expect some coverage of the films.
I’ve already covered PIGEON TUNNEL which is starting in select markets as well. If you are a fan of John LeCarre, it’s a must. Another must is BREAKING THE NEWS about the start up of a news service where the reporters are primarily women and members of the LGBTQ community. Reviews can be found by clicking on the links in the titles.
I have seen THE STONES AND BRIAN JONES. If you are a fan of the Stones or the music of the late 60’s it’s a must see. A review will run later in the week.
The festival is running both in person and virtual so go to the website and get tickets.
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Just a reminder more coverage of the Brooklyn Horror Festival is coming. Reid Ramsey was going back and forth to Brooklyn so he hasn’t had any time to write up all of the films yet.
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New correspondent Wendy Feinberg will be dropping some thoughts on the Hamptons Film Festival. Wendy is great people and getting her is coup. I'll have more when her first pieces go up.
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I’ve started to work on DOC NYC. We will have multiple people covering the festival so get ready to be overwhelmed with coverage.
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Now some very honest stray notes taken during this years NYFF:
Lots of newbies this year. Standing outside Alice Tully there were a lot of people asking where they had to go and how they could get tickets. It's a good sign that people were interested, though a lot of people wanted to walk up and buy tickets and they were disappointed at the sellouts.
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Sitting in the West Side Diner after THE BOY AND THE HERON when a big table of people arrived excited about going to the festival. Looking more toward the artier films they discussed the art house fare.
I was amused - though I smiled to myself as they excitedly discussed the new Hong Sang-soo film that was shot out of focus. They found the idea so brilliant, they couldn't understand why it hadn't been done before. I didn't have the heart to tell them it had been done, even recently by Sang-soo.
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Saddened that during the intro for JANET PLANET Dennis Lim said out loud the part they always kept silent, namely that they were not really interested in new filmmakers but were going toward big names and returning filmmakers.
It's a sad admission since it means that unless you can go elsewhere and get festival buzz there is no point in submitting to NYFF. It also explains why we've gotten 18 Hong Sang-soo films in 19 years and why so many other filmmakers return year after year.
I've discussed my suspicions before but I never expected them to be confirmed.
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The problem with just following directors is that you begin to assume that their films are good and mean something even if they don't.
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Related to that, too many films this year did not belong at the festival. I'm not talking "bad" films, I could make a case for a couple of the films I didn't like being there, but I'm talking about films like JANET PLANET and FERRARI which weren't that good or ground breaking and only had a director's name attached.
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There were lots of rumors going around about why certain films were at the fest and others were not. For example much of the speculation (all unconfirmed) was focused in Netflix pumping cash into the festival and thus keeping the new Scorsese (KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON) out and only playing a premiere at David Geffen Hall days before the festival. It's also why there were fewer Amazon films at the fest.
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There was a lot of talk during the MAESTRO press screening that it wasn't quite as packed as we expected because a lot of tickets were given to members of the press to fill out the undersold audience at the the expensive gala screening the night before.
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Because it was done in several films at the fest I found that I hate handheld camera work that seems to be POV but isn't
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I was left pondering outside of the Q&As why are we paying so much money to see the films at the festival when if we wait a week or two many of the films will be in theaters or streaming. I'm guilty of doing it too and I don't have a clear answer.
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Frequently during the festival I had the sense that this is going to end up being an in between year with big changes coming next year. I have no idea why, there was no indication or speculation, it just felt like a transition year.
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It was weird this year with so many people looking to go to the "BIG" films and willing to wait on blocks long standby lines when the odds are they would not get in. POOR THINGS, THE BOY AND THE HERON, ZONE OF INTEREST, THERE IS NO EVIL all had impossibly long standby lines
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I was not happy with the guy vaping weed at THE BOY AND THE HERON.
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I was amused at several press screening watching young male writers trying to make time with beautiful non-American women in order to score their phone numbers
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