Unlike Sundance, Toronto or Cannes, The New York Film Festival tends to focus on films that have already made their mark (most of the films already have a major distributor). With “Gone Girl” (David Fincher) and “Inherent Vice” (Paul Thomas Anderson) slated as the main events, these films don’t need the glamour of a festival so much as the festival needs them in order to broaden the audience for its smaller films. With shorts, Docs, talks and world premieres from this fall’s most anticipated films, the festival will give us several opportunities to reflect on a world that is about to shatter just in time for the unveiling of the Freedom Tower only miles away.
The crackdown from festival director Kent Jones:
Gone Girl – David Fincher
World Premier
The film looks incredible, and the reviews thus far have been stellar, but this is a 20th Century Fox release and therefore one wonders if this film belongs at a festival? No, but it will give attention to the festival and therefor it’s smaller releases.
Inherent Vice – Paul Thomas Anderson
World Premier
Once Upon A Time In American – Sergio Leone
Retrospective
Restored and remastered, the festival will showcase the extended directors cut of the film which includes 22 minutes of extra footage. The film will be re-released on Blue Ray on September 30th.
Foxcatcher – Bennett Miller
“Foxcatcher” was in the running for the Palm D’Ore at Cannes where Bennett won for best director.
Maps to the Stars – David Cronenberg
Cronenberg hasn’t given us anything interesting since “Eastern Promises,” will Julian Moore be able to compensate for what looks like another disjointed “Cosmopolis”?
Pasolini – Abel Ferrara
The Europeans love him and American’s don’t really know who Abel Ferrara is. Hint, in between asking interns for coke money and showing up to screenings drunk, he makes movies.
Tales of the Grimm Sleeper – Nick Broomfield
“He did not steal cars, he dealt in stolen cars”
What would a film festival be without good-ole Nick Broomfield driving through the desolate and unknown to uncover half-truths as though he were filming a High School wrestling match in 1992. Thanks to technology the camera angles and bad edits have been replaced by a now more stylized technique. Although filmed with the same raw intensity as “Kurt and Courtney” and “Aileen Wuornos: Portrait of a Serial Killer,” Broomfield seems to have found his niche in the crime drama as the facts aren’t really the point so much as unearthing what people think the facts may be.
Whiplash – Damien Chazelle
Citizenfour – Laura Poitras
World Premier
In January 2013, filmmaker Laura Poitras was in the process of constructing a film about abuses of national security in post-9/11 America when she started receiving encrypted e-mails from someone identifying himself as “citizen four,” who was ready to blow the whistle on the massive covert surveillance programs run by the NSA and other intelligence agencies. In June 2013, she and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with the man who turned out to be Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her. The film that resulted from this series of tense encounters is absolutely sui generis in the history of cinema: a 100% real-life thriller unfolding minute by minute.
Via Filmlinc.com
’71– Yann Demange
Misunderstood – Asia Argent
FILM SQUAD 