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.