Top 10 Things We Learned from the 52nd New York Film Festival
Tuesday, October 14, 2014 at 10:18PM To close out our New York Film Festival coverage for the year, a quartet of takeaways from this annual highly curated celebration of international cinema. NYFF doesn't have a broad selection like a lot of festivals but there were goodies. I've asked each member of our team to send me a top ten list of things they learned (we did not consult each other on our lists).
I'll start
NATHANIEL'S TOP TEN NYFF TAKEAWAYS
1. 17 years after Boogie Nights, Julianne Moore is still 'the foxiest bitch in the world'
2. Birdman has a smorgasbord of quotable lines. My favorite on first viewing:
Popularity is just the slutty cousin of prestige."
3. Marion Cotillard is getting so mesmerizingly authentic onscreen pretty soon she's going to walk right off of it in character like she's reenacting The Purple Rose of Cairo. (I apologize for the image: no one wants to think of the Dardenne Brothers going 3-D.)
4. You should never ever sit in the middle of a row of a long-ass Mike Leigh movie if you are feeling sick. My half-apologies to my row mates who you have no right to take up aisle seats if you're uncomfortable moving for the people in the middle.
More including Whiplash, Birdman, Inherent Vice, and Channing Tatum's boots after the jump...
John DuPont, Yves Saint Laurent and Birdman hanging out. It's... uncomfortable.
5. I had never seen the French/Japanese classic Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) before this festival and "wow". It's a shapeshifter yet with each shift, more shapely. Unfortunately it made me even more upset that Emmanuelle Riva had lost the Oscar for Amour (2012).
6. Viggo Mortensen speaking Danish onscreen is weirdly not as exciting as Viggo Mortensen speaking Spanish onscreen or even as Viggo pretending to be Russian onscreen even if you're a total Nordic enthusiast like me.
7. Louis Garrel is so smoldering in Saint Laurent that I bet he started that terrible CGI fire in Maps to the Stars by festival proximity. (They both premiered at Cannes. Coincidence? I think not.)
8. I suspect Damian Chazelle is going to hog all the first time / breakthrough filmmaker prizes this year (even though Whiplash is his second feature) but if you ask me Yann Demange deserves those kudos instead for '71.
9. I need to add a film bitch category for Best Animal Character or something. Between the dog(s) in Saint Laurent (poor Moujik #1), the cat in Gone Girl and the tiger and alligator in Ming of Harlem there's so much competition this year... just from this fest alone.
10. You probably shouldn't attempt two film festivals back to back. After TIFF I didn't make it to half the NYFF movies I intended to see. You know it's bad when I skip movies about actresses: Sorry Clouds of Sils Maria!
GLENN'S TEN
1. Saint Laurent was the best new release I saw at NYFF. It’s a shame it won’t be out until 2015. Elsewhere Albert Maysles’ Iris about Iris Apfel was a fabulous fashion documentary morsel.
2. Speaking of Saint Laurent, I think Louis Garrel with a moustache and a white tuxedo is the sexiest thing I’ve seen on screen all year. And then, of course, there were these boys live on stage
3. After Goodbye to Language, I really need to start investigating Jean-Luc Godard’s later career that I had avoided due to not being a fan of his early work.
4. Not only did I not recognize my beloved Kyra Sedgwick in Time Out of Mind, but I also didn’t spot the now famous Affleck peen in Gone Girl. I am so ashamed. I didn’t, however, miss Gaspard Ulliel’s. That one’s just all out for the world to see in Saint Laurent.
5. I’m disappointed Italy didn’t submit Alice Rohrwacher’s The Wonders as their Oscar selection.
6. It’s been so heartening to hear people respond well to Alex Ross Perry’s Listen Up Philip, which I loved at Sundance. “That scene” of which I spoke has been getting a lot of talk on Twitter.
7. As always, many of the bigger films are the ones I feel the less inclined to discuss with full reviews. At least not yet, anyway. I’d rather let people know about Syria Self-Portrait.
8. These days I am far more interested in Martin Scorsese as the face of classic film restoration than I am in him as a filmmaker. That’s sad, but at least we get a 4K remaster of The Colour of Pomegranates.
9. Speaking of Scorsese, I’m a bit terrified of Inherent Vice’s theatrical release come December. Will it be this year’s The Wolf of Wall Street where I grow to hate it more and more as people start proclaiming it a masterpiece? I really hope not. I’m fine with just being disappointed and confused.
10. I know many who were a fan (including Nathaniel), but I still don’t understand the inclusion of Yann Demange’s ’71 over the likes of Xavier Dolan’s Mommy or Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep. These are major films that apparently somebody thought weren’t good enough? Even so...
JASON'S TEN
Photograph by Jason Adams View on Instagram
1. Channing Tatum has terrible taste in boots.
2. In the process of piecing together the gorgeous restoration of Powell & Pressburger's opera-adaptation The Tales of Hoffmann that screened, Michael Powell's wife Thelma Schoonmaker discovered footage for the end credits that had never been seen before of the performers who acted on screen giving a bow to the singers who voiced their performances, and it's delightful, and so Schoonmaker insisted it be included on the new copy. (I believe the remastered version will screen across the country next year. Make sure you stay for the credits!)
3. In Noah Baumbach's While We're Young, Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried play Millennial grifters that shake up the lives of Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts. Driver and Seyfried's characters are in a band called CookiePuss; Seyfried's character runs an artisanal ice cream company on the side. Noah Baumbach's real-life girlfriend Greta Gerwig came to prominence starring in movies for Mumblecore director Joe Swanberg; Swanberg was once in a band called The Ice Cream Floats and Swanberg's wife, the filmmaker Kris Williams, has an artisanal ice cream company. Just saying!
Follow Jason on Twitter9. People will look at you funny, and you'll only realize mid-way through what you're saying why they're looking at you funny, when you go on and on about how excited you were to see a movie about Indonesian Genocide, and how much it lived up to your lofty expectations.
MICHAEL'S TEN
1. One step plan for giving your best work on film: Work for David Fincher.
2. Keep an open mind. I have never entirely loved an Innaritu film, yet for me his Birdman topped new films by Cronenberg, Leigh, Anderson, and Fincher
3. Whiplash is being undersold as a Best Picture contender. By a wide margin, the two biggest audience reactions I witnessed were at the two Whiplash screenings I attended.
4. Actors playing thinly veiled versions of themselves is guaranteed gold
5. A few years back when we realized that Channing Tatum is actually pretty good we were all wrong. Channing Tatum is great.
6. It turns out critics are a bit touchy about the portrayal of critics in movies. Actors not so much...
7. Timothy Spall's assortment of grunts is so vast and detailed that is should be classified as a dialect separate from English and Mr. Turner should be eligible to compete for an Oscar in the Foreign Language category.
8. I endorse this sentiment:
Joaquin Phoenix's 2012-2014 = Marlon Brando's 1951-1954 #hatsoff
— Jose Solís (@josekicksass) October 4, 2014
9. PT Anderson is not infallible. The silver lining is that my disappointment with Inherent Vice makes my unabashed love of every other movies he’s done seem so much more credible.
10. The Bennett Girls are on a roll.
THANKS FOR READING. WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL THIS YEAR.
Reader Comments (22)
1. 17 years after Boogie Nights, Julianne Moore is still 'the foxiest bitch in the world'
COULD AGREE MOORE!!!
11. Michael Cusamano's foxy press pass.
@Jason: Channing Tatum's boots are awesome! I want a pair (preferably with him still wearing them).
I love the Saint Laurent gif. Love it.
I wouldn't mind the Dardenne Brothers going 3-D, but only if Jérémie Renier is the lead.
Did you puke at Mr. Turner screening?
San FranCinema - I wholeheartedly concur!
sanfran & rob - you're not supposed to be gawking at him but at Louis Garrel who gets three mentions!
peggy sue - brilliant. Jeremie Renier is in 3D in Saint Laurent if you must know and if you know what i mean. as to your question i never discuss bodily fluids. what happens in bathrooms stays in bathrooms. (wait, that didn't sound right)
steve g -- but with that flair and his pants shoved into them? I dunno i'm with Jason and by the look of things Channing himself who is like "what am I doing? who dressed me?" Vanessa is too classy to say anything.
LOL
I wasn't going to say anything about the boots, even though I hated them for all the reasons Nat lists, but every time I showed pictures of them to anyone I got a sort of HISSS in return, so I figured I was on to something. They're just TOO MUCH. I also like the picture I got of Channing staring wistfully at Steve Carell's nice sane man shoes, as if he's willing himself into them right then and there.
Nathaniel, you've been praising A LOT Marion Cotillard's performance in Two days One Night, which I haven't seen. I LOVED her in The Immigrant mora than I usually do... I am not asking which is the best performance, but which is her best shot of a nomination?
If she's that great in both films, a year like that can't be snubbed.
Cal - except that it can. The Immigrant has ZERO in the way of awards profile because Weinstein Co essentially buried it. It's a non-factor. I don't think Two Days One Night will happen either since the film won't have much time to gain traction opening on Christmas eve, as it is. Plus for all its emotive beauty it's a very low key movie. We can hope that her longshot rallies but it would be rather shocking I think.
Anyway, i preferred her in Two Days One Night but I was relatively cool on The Immigrant in general.
Right before reading #1 on Jason's list, I took a picture of Channing Tatum's boots so I could look for similar ones the next time I go shopping. Haha.
And Michael, re: the Bennett girls, just wait for Mulligan in Far From the Madding Crowd.
This was a fun post! Thanks, guys. What is it about a mustache that makes Garrel so much hotter?
I went to the Chicago International Film Festival's tribute last night to Kathleen Turner. What a funny, smart, confident, funny, articulate, entertaining, funny, classy, warm, grounded, FUNNY lady. Some of her stories were priceless. I did not know Ken Russell drank scotch at 6 am. Saying she had few regrets (except maybe Switching Channels!), she is proud to be a feminist, a liberal, and a strong voice for women in Hollywood.
Hats off to the team on the great NYFF coverage.
Roark-- thanks. hopefully the other guys are reading these comments :)
Great post.
Nathaniel, can we bribe you into writing an article about your definition of a supporting role. I was mixed last year on your designation of Scarlett Johansson in Her as leading, and I definitely disagree with your take on JK Simmons in Whiplash as a leading role (though after I saw the film I knew there would be debate),
11. Michale's smooth and foxy press photo. Wowsa!
Boys boys -- Michael is taken and also doesnt swing that way. NOW ABOUT THE TOP TEN LISTS...
Arkaan -- wouldn't that be redundant? I maen I've discussed this so many times. To me you're a lead if the film is about you and your story (that'd be Miles Teller in this case). But you're also a lead if the film is not actually about that one person but a relationship between two people (Thousands of examples from Brokeback Mountain to Notes on a Scandal to Devil Wears Prada to Silence of the Lambs and I'd argue Whiplash which is basically a two hander with occasional distractions.)
How much can/should the characters function independent of the other? For example, All the "occasional distractions" in Whiplash are oriented around Teller.
Fletcher (Whiplash) and Samantha (Her) were clearly leads to me, even if you wouldn't call them "THE" lead in their respective films. Fletcher is the antagonist, he's there from beginning to end, and Samantha is the female lead. But it was also clear to me that the place to put them for awards traction would always be supporting, hence category fraud. (Johansson was nominated for various critics awards in supporting and won a couple, including a Best Actress win at the Rome Film Festival.)
Nathaniel- Thank you for reminding them all that Michael is taken. Back off boys! Although I am sure he is loving this. :-)
Jason- THANK YOU! I am glad someone else is recognizing how amazing Jack O'Connell is! I have been saying this for years!
Nat (and team)--Did any of you see Citizenfour and is it the October surprise of this Oscar season that others are claiming? I'm even hearing of it as a best picture possible not to mention the doc to beat.
Henry -- i'm not sure if any one else saw it (i did not) but we've heard these rumors before about documentaries and the fact is that none have ever been nominated in 87 years for Best Picture. So i wouldn't take that too seriously.