Film Fests Flood NY

So it's FINALLY warm. The squirrel who uses the fire escape out the window as a highway looks a lot better - during the winter he was kind of mangy looking. I love the riotous colors of the new bright green leaves and purple pansies.

Tribeca Film Festival is over - an Israeli film, MY FATHER, MY LORD, took the $50,000 prize for Best Narrative Feature and a Mexican filmmaker, Enrique Begne, took the $25,000 prize for Best Narrative Filmmaker. I saw his film, TWO EMBRACES, and liked it, but really had issues with the cinematography. Grainy, shaky, handheld and way too close. My boyfriend and I were sitting in the third row and had to turn away a lot out of seasickness. There were nice performances in the film, which was a little like Wong Kar Wai or Jim Jarmusch set in Mexico, with lonely two sets of people in transitory hit-or-miss relationships. I preferred the second story, which was bascially about a cabbie's response to a guy who has a stroke in the back of his cab, but the first story, about two mismatched rebels without a cause, was also nicely realized. Haven't seen too many other films so can't say how it stacked up against other narratives. As far as it stacking up against current independent cinema, I thought it was very good, but not astonishing. Still, it beats Hollywood any day. http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/tff-aj-2007-awards.html

New York being what it is, more more more film events are on the horizon! It's hard to keep up with everything - who has the time or money??

Ken Watanabe will be at a screening of his new film MEMORIES OF TOMORROW on Thursday May 10 at 7:30 http://www.theimaginasian.com/comingsoon/index.php

The Bicycle Film Festival will be in NY May 16-21 http://www.bicyclefilmfestival.com/

Subway Cinema's NY Asian Film Festival is coming up June 22 to July 8 - lots of really cool and wacky films including a 15th Anniversary screening of John Woo's HARD BOILED - http://subwaycinema.blogspot.com/

Me, I'm going to catch KILLER OF SHEEP before it disappears from IFC http://www.ifccenter.com/film?filmid=271 and Johnnie To's ELECTION at Film Forum http://www.filmforum.org/films/triad.html. I'm not one for creature features, but THE HOST over at Cinema Village looks pretty amazing http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/host/ Maybe I'll send my kid.

New to New York

Today on the bus, two people who must be new to New York stood in front of me, carrying a whole cardboard tray of Dunkin Donuts coffees. Okay, so my question is, why they would choose to buy at Dunkin Donuts instead of at the organic coffee and cookie place two doors up the block? Don't they know that they are not only supporting a huge conglomerate that is threatening to chew up the character of the neighborhood, but also destroying the environment with FIVE jumbo styrofoam cups? Why would some character-less, plastic, fastfood franchise appeal to them more than a comfortable, neighborly place? Do they honestly believe that the coffee is better??? Or are they robots programmed to get coffee only in places that are registered in their regional American minds??? I don't understand.