The always engaging Abbas Kiarostami will talk about his life and career in a special Directors Dialogue at the fiftieth New York Film Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Bruno Walter Auditorium
111 Amsterdam Ave. at 66th St.
Saturday, October 6, $15, 6:00
Festival runs through October 14
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
A decade ago, master Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami was denied a visa to come to the New York Film Festival to present his latest film, Ten. “It’s a terrible sign of what’s happening in my country today that no one seems to realize or care about the kind of negative signal this sends out to the entire Muslim world,” festival director Richard Peña said at the time. Ten years later, Kiarostami (Close-Up, Taste of Cherry) will be making a special appearance at the fiftieth New York Film Festival, the last one organized by Peña, who is stepping down after twenty-five years. Kiarostami will be speaking with Brooklyn-born writer Phillip Lopate at the Bruno Walter Auditorium on October 6 at 6:00 as part of the HBO Directors Dialogue series. A visual artist who had an exceptional dual show at MoMA and PS1, “Image Maker,” in 2007, Kiarostami has brought the remarkable Like Someone to Love to this year’s festival; the film, set in Japan and featuring outstanding performances by Tadashi Okuno and Rin Takanashi, will have its second and final screening October 8 at the Francesca Beale Theater. Kiarostami is a fascinating figure, a stylish cool cat in ever-present dark glasses who has an engaging knowledge of art and cinema that always makes for a lively discussion. The series continues October 7 with David Chase in conversation with Scott Foundas and October 13 with Robert Zemeckis speaking with Peña.
Inspired by his brief stint as a suburban New Jersey garage-band drummer with rock-and-roll dreams, Sopranos creator David Chase makes his feature-film debt with the musical coming-of-age drama Not Fade Away. Written and directed by Chase, the film focuses on Douglas (John Magaro), a suburban New Jersey high school kid obsessed with music and The Twilight Zone. It’s the early 1960s, and Douglas soon becomes transformed when he first hears the Beatles and the Stones — while also noticing how girls go for musicians, particularly Grace (Bella Heathcote), whom he has an intense crush on but who only seems to date guys in bands. When his friends Eugene (Jack Huston) and Wells (Will Brill) ask him to join their group, Douglas jumps at the chance, but it’s not until he gets the opportunity to sing lead one night that he really begins to think that music — and Grace — could be his life. Not Fade Away has all the trappings of being just another clichéd sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll movie, but Chase and musical supervisor (and executive producer) Steven “Silvio” Van Zandt circumvent genre expectations and limitations by, first and foremost, nailing the music. Van Zandt spent three months teaching the main actors how to sing, play their instruments, and, essentially, be a band, making the film feel real as the unnamed group goes from British Invasion covers to writing their own song. Even Douglas’s fights with his conservative middle-class father (James Gandolfini) and his battle with Eugene over the direction of the band are handled with an intelligence and sensitivity not usually seen in these kinds of films. Not Fade Away does make a few wrong turns along the way, but it always gets right back on track, leading to an open-ended conclusion that celebrates the power, the glory, and, ultimately, the mystery of rock and roll. Not Fade Away is having its world premiere October 6 as the centerpiece of the fiftieth New York Film Festival before opening theatrically in December. In addition, Chase, a rather reserved man who is not always generous and forthcoming in interviews, will take part in an HBO Directors Dialogue on October 7 at 1:45, sitting down with festival selection committee member Scott Foundas.
The first half of Christopher Nolan’s nearly successful remake of Erik Skjoldbjærg’s creepy psychological thriller does a good job of building the tension so prevalent in the original, following it nearly scene by scene, but with one major flaw — creating definitive motive where in the 1997 Norwegian film there was doubt and soul searching. Ultimately, indie god Nolan gets trapped in showcasing Hollywood acting — his cast includes Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank — obvious plot twists, and easy resolutions that pale in comparison to the original, which starred Stellan Skarsgård, bringing the whole film down. But Warner Bros. knows that most people will never see the 1997 original; that’s why the only mention of Skjoldbjærg’s film comes after the final acting credits, when most filmgoers are already on their way out of the theater.
Christopher Nolan turns to the world of magic in The Prestige, but you’ll feel like you’ve seen this rabbit pulled out of a hat before — especially if you checked out two other 2006 films, The Illusionist, Neil Burger’s murder mystery about a magician, and Scoop, in which Woody Allen plays a magician who gets caught up in a murder mystery with his “daughter” (Scarlett Johansson) and the son of a powerful lord (Hugh Jackman). In The Prestige, dueling magicians Robert Angier (Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) have a bitter relationship right out of Amadeus, with Angier being more the Salieri type and Borden the Mozart wunderkind. They each keep trying to up the ante with the constantly morphing trick called the Transported Man, eventually involving electricity expert and oddball Nikola Tesla (David Bowie) in the mix, as well as sexy magician’s assistant Olivia (Johansson). Parts of the film are indeed thrilling, and the ending packs a wallop, but much of the meat of the movie is far too repetitive and, ultimately, not quite believable.
Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to his 2005 hit Batman Begins is one of the most brilliant superhero films ever made. Christian Bale is back as billionaire bachelor Bruce Wayne, who spends his evenings fighting crime in Gotham City, which is under siege, victim to a brutal crime spree led by the vicious Joker (Heath Ledger in a massive, Oscar-winning performance). As the madman with the wild hair and evil clown face starts knocking off public officials, mob bosses, ordinary citizens, and even his own minions, Wayne is also beset by the blossoming relationship between Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhall), the woman he loves and who knows his secret, and the new DA, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who has come into his high-profile job with both arms swinging, determined to make Gotham City safe. The Bat Man is joined once again by his faithful butler, Alfred (Michael Caine), Wayne Industries exec Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), and police lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman); the film also features Anthony Michael Hall as a television talk-show host who finds himself in danger, Eric Roberts as a smooth-talking gangster, and Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in a brief cameo. The Dark Knight is a carefully constructed tale of good and evil, love and death, and everything in between, working as both a thrilling action movie as well as a psychoanalytic examination of what lurks deep in the soul. Although there are special effects aplenty, it is primarily a very intimate, personal film about one man’s tortured existence. In a summer of the high-octane superhero flick (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Hellboy II, Hancock), The Dark Knight towers above them all.
