Out of Focus

This is going to be a bit rushed, and maybe even incoherent, but …

In what can only be considered an attempt to be known as the organization that kicks off the annual film awards season, IFP (the Independent Film Project) has made December 1 “IFP day.” At least, that’s my impression with the announcement of the nominations of the 20th IFP Independent Spirit Awards occuring the same day as tonight’s IFP Gotham Awards.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the IFP, and I’ve been a member for the last 4 years or so. One of my first ever experiences covering the film world, way back during my days at the UCLA Daily Bruin, was attending the IFP Spirit Awards. That would have been around 1991 or so, when the “Indie Oscars” had no TV broadcast (now they’re shown live on IFC and tape delayed on Bravo), minimal production value and took place under a tent in the parking lot of Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, as opposed to in a much larger tent on the beach in Santa Monica.

The IFP used to actually be several smaller organizations established to help independent, no-budget filmmakers get their movies made. They were localized by region, with New York’s IFP and L.A.’s IFP/West being the two largest. While those regional distinctions still exist, and a membership in one is not a membership in all, a couple years ago the organization chose to become more nationally integrated.

What does any of this have to do with anything? Not much, I suppose. Except that tonight are the annual Gotham Awards, traditionally the IFP’s (Eastern version) annual ceremony honoring important people involved in or supporting New York independent film. Those awards have always been in September, until this year when they have also added more competitive categories.

But the IFP Spirit Awards, always the IFP/West’s domain and traditionally held the day before the Oscars, are the big ones for the organization and the industry as a whole. And while I’m sure I just wasn’t paying attention, this morning — oh look, the same day as the Gothams — the IFP announced the nominations for this year’s awards. (You can download the press release as a .pdf file too.)

Often the most difficult part of analyzing the nominations (which are chosen by a select committee of members of the film industry and critics) is figuring out how the IFP decided on what films of the year were considered “independent.” This year is no exception. For example, simply being released by Focus Features doesn’t make a film Spirit Award eligible — at least I assume that’s the case because why else would the best film of the year overall (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) receive not one nomination? Meanwhile, the Fox Searchlight Pictures release of Alexander Payne’s latest Sideways (which I still need to see) and the HBO Films produced/Fine Line distributed Maria Full of Grace (a wonderful film) led the nomination tallies with six and five, respectively.

Still, the nominees overall look like a relatively worthy bunch (not always the case), and I’ll come back to talk about them more when I have a bit more time. I definitely look forward to seeing the films I missed this year, and thankfully, as an IFP member, I get the opportunity to do so at screenings in January and February. You see, membership has its priviledges, and in a way, it pays for itself.

More later …

I don’t think I’m overstating it by saying this evening at about 6:59 PM will be one of the most monumental moments in recent television history even though it is likely to occur with little or no fanfare. I already wrote about the end of the network news as we know it last week, but that moment of which I spoke actually arrives tonight when Tom Brokaw signs off as the anchor of the NBC Nightly News for the last time. Beginning tomorrow, Brian Williams will be sitting in the anchor chair. It won’t be the first time since Williams has been subbing for Brokaw for nearly a decade, but now the chair will actually belong to him. If the reports are true, Brokaw will sign off as usual tonight and Williams will say hello without much more than maybe an acknowledgement tomorrow, all in order to create a seamless transition meant to highlight the broadcast and lessen the emphasis on the man who has been its face for 22 years.

Of course, NBC isn’t exactly ignoring Brokaw’s departure. The MSNBC/NBC News web site has an entire section titled “Tom Brokaw: Eyewitness to History,” and last Friday Dateline NBC aired a two-hour special focused on the stories Brokaw has covered over his 40-plus year career. So Brokaw isn’t going quietly, except, supposedly, on the show all the hubbub is actually about.

In a way, this treatment is simply a mirror of the modern network evening newscast. There’s not much fanfare because there’s not much to it. Yes, the three broadcast networks still get a far larger audience than the cable nets, but that audience is still far smaller than it was 20 years ago. While NBC has always been a major force in network news, Brokaw is the man who made the NBC Nightly News the dominant ratings champ, far surpassing CBS which had been the top newscast for years thanks to Walter Cronkite. Dan Rather has always been angry and shown a perceived bias and Peter Jennings often appeared somewhat aloof and highbrow, but Brokaw always came across with that everyman Midwestern charm and sensibility, and as is often the case with the American general public, the person who audiences think most represents themselves is the one who they’ll watch.

I’m a bit sad for Brian Williams, in fact, because he does not inherent a chair the has the meaning it once did, nor will any of the other future network anchors. I’ve actually always been a fan of Williams. He has a very easygoing delivery, and is extremely quick on his feet. He also knows how to deliver a line with sarcasm, although I’m sure that is not one of the most important qualities for those watching the evening news. Williams proved his affability once again last night during his appearance on The Daily Show. Not only did he stand toe-to-toe with Jon Stewart , but in a battle of deadpan comedy, Williams may have actually slaughtered Stewart, and I don’t think the fake anchor/host would disagree with me. At one point, he even said to Williams, “I think you’re better at my job than I am,” or something to that effect.

Yet for some reason, audiences have never completely taken to Williams. Unlike journalists who think he may not deserve the chair because he doesn’t have the reporting experience the greats did – and who really cares about that anymore since most people consider anchors glorified teleprompter readers – modern audiences seem to care more about likeability than gravitas these days. And so far, Williams doesn’t seem to strike the likeability home run with his previous hosting gigs. Maybe that will change with NBC’s enormous built-in audience, or maybe Jennings is getting overly excited at the chance of being the only member of the old-guard left with the coming of Spring.

Whatever happens, it is Brokaw’s departure that means the most today and in some low, barely-audible frequency, it will probably reverberate for some time. But in an age where people tend to look for news with which they agree — or discount stories with which they don’t – and eschew anything that might even appear to resemble straightforward unbiased journalism because, you know, that’s just dull, the disappearance of the old media standard is actually something to mourn. Sure, I don’t know how I’d live without instant news access, without 24 hour cable and internet, but just cause there’s more doesn’t mean it’s all better. And no matter how good Williams may become, he can’t stop the natural progression we’re now witnessing. Yes, there will be an NBC Nightly News tomorrow night, but when Tom Brokaw says goodbye this evening, the reality is that the original age of broadcast journalism will start saying a final farewell with him.

Film Forum‘s Essential Noir series continues this week with a great lineup. If you didn’t get down there this last weekend for Double Indemnity, well, shame on you, but there’s plenty more over the next three-and-a-half weeks that is definitely worth seeing.

Tonight is a great double-bill featuring Force of Evil and The Naked City. That famous line, “There are 8 million stories in the naked city …” – here’s where it’s from. While I’m a bigger fan of Jules Dassin’s classic French heist film Rififi, The Naked City is one of the best of the police procedural noirs. The entire film was shot on location in the streets of New York, including a fantastic showdown on the Williamsburg Bridge, and if you’re a Law & Order fan, you really should check out The Naked City.

Force of Evil is almost as notable for its history as for the actual quality of the film. Writer/director Abraham Polonsky was soon to be blacklisted after admitting his own former membership in the Communist party but refusing to name any other names. The film’s star John Garfield was one of the relatively few big stars who spoke out against the Communist witch hunts that started in the late ’40s. Garfield had never himself been a member of the Communist party, but since he wouldn’t name any of his friends who were, his star never quite shone as brightly as it should have. A member of the famous Group Theater, Garfield was a brilliant actor, and he was never better than in this magnificently scripted film playing a corrupt lawyer involved with the numbers rackets. Polonsky didn’t do himself a favor by writing a film with a fair amount of anti-capitalist subtext, creating a story in which a man chooses money and power over his own family. Unfortunately, in mid-20th Century America, that kind of discussion, no matter how despicable many of us may still view the main character’s actions, was only going to cause him trouble. But in 1948, nobody could have guessed or would have believed what was to come. Like The Naked City, much of Force of Evil was also shot on location, especially in the Wall Street area.

Wednesday night brings two more examples of more low-budget noirs, and since I’ve never seen either, I’ll be rushing down to Film Forum myself that afternoon. Gun Crazy, also known as Deadly Is the Female, is a 1949 crime drama featuring nobody you’ve ever heard of. The script was written by blacklisted screenwriter and future Oscar winner Dalton Trumbo (but originally credited to Millard Kaufman who was used as a front). In case you’re getting the sense of a trend, much of noir was a reaction to both communism and the American red scare developing in the late-’40s and early-’50s. While stories rarely dealt directly with the subject of communist domination, the fearful mood of an unidentifiable and unseen danger hiding in the darkness ready to strike is a common theme to much of this film style.

Paired with Gun Crazy is They Live By Night. Again, since I haven’t seen it, I can’t say too much about the film itself, but the one thing I do know is reason enough to pay the price of admission: the film marked the directorial debut of maverick filmmaker Nicholas Ray, best known for Rebel Without a Cause. The film also has a notoriously exciting opening credits sequence and utilized the first ever helicopter shot in Hollywood history.

While each of these films are worth seeing, if you can only take one day to visit Houston street, do yourself a favor and go to the double-bill on Thursday 12/2. Both films feature the great Ray Milland. The Big Clock is the most familiar form of noir at its near best. Milland plays a magazine editor ordered to track down a murdered by Charles Laughton only to discover all clues point to him as the bad guy because he’s being framed.

The Big Clock may fit the model of noir the best, but the highlight of the week is Milland’s collaboration with Billy Wilder in a film that brought them both Oscars – the absolutely brilliant The Lost Weekend. While The Lost Weekend may not strike many people as typical noir – it’s not really a crime drama or thriller – it does deal with a level of human despair unusual to the movies of the time. Most importantly, however, The Lost Weekend still manages to be one of the most harrowing and upsetting displays of one person’s desperate descent into hell through alcoholism. Along with Milland’s Best Actor and Wilder’s Best Director Oscars, the film also took home Best Screenplay and Best Picture.

Friday and Saturday feature some good choices with one of Stanley Kubrick’s first films The Killing and John Huston’s classic The Asphalt Jungle featuring, among other things, one of the very first appearances by Marilyn Monroe. But I’ll come back to those on Friday. For now, do yourself a favor and don’t miss finding The Lost Weekend.

I meant to post this morning about my great New England Thanksgiving vacation, but I don’t really have the time so I’ll have to get to that tonight or tomorrow. No matter how relaxing our wonderful Wilmington, VT inn was, though, is it really as interesting as talking about the Criterion Collection? There is no better distributor of DVDs than <Criterion Collection. From the titles they select (with the inexplicable exceptions of Armageddon and The Rock — why would they honor ultimate hack Michael Bay by including him in this collection?), to the picture and sound quality of the transfers to the phenomenal extras, if you buy a Criterion disc, you know you’re getting something great. So why wouldn’t you want all of them?

Hello Amazon: The Criterion Collection Holiday Gift Set — all 241 “in-print” Criterion titles (comprised of over 280 discs) at 33% off the regular price. Of course, since most Criterion discs are pretty pricey already (usually in the $25-40 range), that means that the collection still costs $4,999.00, but hey … at least it’s eligible for free shipping! And just think: you’re actually saving over $2,500 ($2,501 to be exact).

I own several Criterion discs already, but I’d be happy to swap my old (or new?) copies of The Red Shoes, Sullivan’s Travels, Amarcord, The Adventures of Antoine Doinel box set, Umberto D. and a few others with whoever feels generous enough to buy this entire set … for me. Come one, someone has to be out there. Granted, I’m sure I don’t even have room in my apartment to house all the discs, but I’ll sacrifice a bit of my space for such a collection. (Not so sure how my girlfriend will feel about that … actually, I am … but some things are just this important, no?)

So if there’s anyone out there with a spare five-grand, here’s my Amazon Wish List just waiting for you.

Don’t worry … I won’t hold my breath.

I’m heading out of town for the holiday this afternoon, but I wanted to remind everyone of one of the best screening series to hit New York in a while starting this week at Film Forum. In fact, right now, Film Forum is most definitely the place to be. Starting today French master Jean-Luc Godard’s latest Notre Musique, which screened at the New York Film Festival in September. At the same time, the one week run of Wong Kar-Wai’s Days of Being Wild has been held over so if you weren’t able to get to it (like me), now you have another chance. In order to make room for Wong’s film, though, the extraordinary Tarnation will end its run, but don’t fret because it’s just moving 12 blocks north and a bit to the east to the Cinema Village on Friday. All three are must-see movies.

But none of those are what I really want to mention right now. Last month I geeked out a bit at the upcoming repertory schedule at Film Forum, and the series that starts this Friday is why. Talk about Thanksgiving – we should all be giving thanks to Film Forum for programming four weeks worth of double features (34 films in all) that truly earn the moniker “Essential Noir.” Between BAMcinématek’s Visconti series (see below) and this one, I could easily spend every day shuttling back-and-forth between Fort Greene and the Village, if only I didn’t have to go to that pesky job.

Virtually ever film in the series is an absolute must-see for any film lover. These were the true golden age of American cinema; a time when American filmmakers were doing something unique and reflective of the world in which they lived. For film lovers who worship the art house and foreign cinema of the ’60s and ’70s, particularly the French New Wave, film noir was one of the most influential styles to everything that has come since. Sure most of them deal with crime and murder, and many were low budget B-movies, but the influence of storytelling techniques and cinematography from these films can be seen in many movies ranging from the art house to the multiplex today. Current filmmakers continue to make movies with noir elements and occasionally even films that try to qualify as a part of the style. But no matter how good these modern films may be, none of them are as pure as the ones Hollywood made from the early-40s through the mid-50s – the ones included in this series.

Film noir is noted for its high contrast photography – scenes where what’s in the shadows are as important, if not more so, than what’s in the light. Black and white is less of a concept than varying shades of grey, and because of the importance of the look of the film, seeing these movies projected as they were intended, seeing the actual grain of the film stock is something that you should take advantage of. Seeing the movies’ images as light projecting through celluloid enhances all of these films; watching them on tape or DVD or even the brilliant TCM just isn’t exactly the same. The movies are still great; they’re just not as great.

I’ll preview the weeks as they come along, but suffice it to say that Film Forum could not have kicked off this series with a better choice. Friday through Sunday, your $10 buys you admission to a double feature of Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce. Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce is a great movie featuring an Oscar-winning and career-defining performance by the great Joan Crawford. But Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity is quite simply one of the best and most important films noir — and one of the greatest movies, period – ever made. There are many great films belonging to this style, but to my mind, Double Indemnity and Out of the Past (screening 12/19-12/20 with Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt) are the two best examples of perfect noir. I don’t say this to demean any of the other great films, and there are many, but if you look for the best of the qualities that epitomize this style, those two movies top the list.

Don’t take my word for it. Check out Double Indemnity this weekend. And if you want to see one of the best examples of the B-movie noirs, be sure to check out the incredibly bleak Detour along with the great Burt Lancaster vehicle Criss Cross on Monday 11/29. Do yourself a favor and take advantage of this gift from the Film Forum programmers because this series truly is “essential.”

Tom Brokaw passes the NBC anchor baton to Brian Williams next week. He’ll be there one night, gone the next. And today, Dan Rather announced that he will step aside from being the face of the CBS Evening News come March. This news is really just the continuation of the beginning of the end (yes, I’m hedging my bets in vague description) for the major broadcast networks news programming. Their ratings have been declining for years, and the public simply doesn’t have the same relationship with Brokaw, Rather and Jennings it once had with names like Murrow, Cronkite, Huntley, Brinkley, and Chancellor. Brokaw, Rather and Jennings have acted as a bridge from one era to another; a period when most Americans got their news from the papers (when there was a morning paper AND afternoon paper) or those evening broadcasts. Now, nobody needs to wait for or rush home in time for the 6:30 PM newscasts because of the internet and three 24 hour national cable news networks. There’s no “most trusted man in America” like Cronkite once was, and while personalities still play a part in news programming, people don’t have relationships with Shepard Smith, Brit Hume, Aaron Brown, Anderson Cooper, Paula Zahn, or Keith Olberman (I suppose CNN’s Lou Dobbs is the closest thing to an old-style anchor around, but his program focuses primarily on business news) the way they did with the anchors of old. The cable nets, as it is, rarely do any straight news during the fringe and primetime hours; usually they present some reporting with a great deal of analysis or, sadly, partisan spin.

Jennings will probably benefit the most in the short term after Rather’s departure., but don’t expect him to stay around forever. At 66, he’s no spring chicken himself. Ultimately, however, the departure of these network news icons will likely shift a larger audience over to the cable channels. I have personally always liked Brian Williams, and I’m sure he’ll retain a fair amount of Brokaw’s dominating ratings share, but Williams has already anchored a news cast (The News, first on MSNBC and then on CNBC) which simply couldn’t gain a loyal following. Do people not like him, or does the audience just no longer care that much for single anchor, reporting-first broadcasts? CBS will likely have it even harder replacing Rather because there isn’t really any one person in the stable naturally considered next-in-line. This is at least in part because of the declining importance of the evening newscast. When each of the current anchors were awarded their spots, it was big news, and while media critics may have had their doubts, none of their hirings were big surprises. The time was the years before the advent of CNN, and at the time, many star journalists’ dream was to become a network anchor. Is that really the case anymore?

There has even been talk over the past few years about whether the networks will even continue to produce evening news broadcasts in the long term. While all three major networks still have much larger audiences than their cable counterparts, the numbers are much lower than they were 20 or 30 years ago. In hindsight, the golden age of network news probably ended in the late ’70s or early ’80s. It is yet another example of the brilliance and prescience of Network (which I will continue to promote forever), produced at a time when the network anchor was still king, but foreseeing the transformation of the news into entertainment-before-information programming.

(Just in case you’re wondering, I’m deliberately not including The Newshour with Jim Lehrer into this equation just because it exists on a different — and generally higher quality — plane all together.)

A lot of people don’t like Rather because of his often-apparent liberal bias. Andrew Sullivan has been calling for his resignation for a while, and even now is incredulous at the thought that Rather will stay on as a full-time correspondent for 60 Minutes. You know who CBS should hire to take over the anchor chair? Robin Quivers. That’s right, Howard Stern’s newsreader and sidekick. A black female anchor, that’s what CBS needs to really break some ground and change its image. But alas, it seems like they might be too late. Quivers has apparently signed-on to host her own syndicated day-time talk show, thereby entering an arena with a high failure rate and notoriously poor job security. But upon further examination, it may be a safer bet than becoming the next major network news anchor.

Yes, yes, I know there are many, and many people who live in Kings County wouldn’t even want to move back into Manhattan even if they could afford it. But leave that whole argument aside for now anyway, because I’m talking about movies, not quality of life — even though the two are somewhat entwined. There are often very good reasons to attend the BAMcinématek, but never more so than right now. Running today through Dec. 16, BAM will be screening the complete works of Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti.

When The Leopard had its little run at Film Forum back in August, I know both the Cinecultist and myself encouraged you to go, and since it took Karen multiple tries to get into the almost-always-sold-out engagement, some of you must have listened. If you didn’t get downtown for that screening — maybe it was just too far from your Brooklyn abode? — The Leopard (in what is billed as a “new print”) is just one of several films you really shouldn’t miss during this program. Unfortunately for me, I’ll have to because I’m headed out of town for the long weekend and, of course, that’s when it screens. As does Visconti’s neorealist masterpiece Rocco and His Brothers.

But that’s not all: you would definitely find it worth your while to watch La Terra Trema on Monday 12/29, Senso on 12/1 or 12/2 (featuring an appearance after the 12/1 6:50 PM screening by star Farley Granger who, aside from having a great name, is best known as one of the stars of Hitchcock’s Rope and Strangers on a Train, and Visconti’s first film, Ossessione on 12/8 and 12/16. Visconti didn’t play around when he chose material, and he attempted the nearly impossible task of adapting two incredibly complex novels with Albert Camus’ The Stranger and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. His success in both instances is debatable, especially if you get annoyed by filmmakers taking liberties with their source material. Still, the generally well-regarded The Stranger, screening on 12/9 stars two of the greatest actors in the history of Italian (and probably all) cinema, Marcello Mastroianni and Anna Karina, so that alone is reason to see it. More controversy surrounds the success of Death in Venice screening on 12/10 and 12/11, but Visconti belongs among the pantheon of filmmakers who don’t make bad films; they just makes some films better or worse than the others on their resume. Since I myself have yet to see either, there’s a damn good chance you’ll see me in Fort Greene in two weeks. You should head over to BAM yourself.

I’m slightly ashamed of myself. On Friday I wrote about a bunch of film-related activities on TV and in New York that people should take advantage of this past weekend, and somehow I managed to completely forget that the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art on 53rd Street also meant a brand new start for MoMA Film. If you missed Saturday’s New York Times, then you didn’t see Times film critic Manohla Dargis’ great piece “Putting the Movies Back Into the Modern” with a little taste of what MoMA is planning for the next few months. (My only question is, doesn’t Dargis still live in LA? While it may be one thing to review movies from LA, does it make sense to have her writing about museum programming at a place she will rarely visit.)

Both the 112 Years of Cinema and Premieres series include some great films. Hopefully, the new theater spaces were made to block out some of that F train rumbling that used to distract from the films if you were sitting in the back rows.

For all of you who are dismayed by the MoMA’s new $20 ticket price, keep in mind that you can still go to films there for only $10, you just can’t go anywhere else in the museum. If you’re like me and try to go to the MoMA at least a couple times a year on top of attending their film programs, you really might want to just buy the annual membership for $75, which is completely tax deductable. If you visit the museum four times or go to eight movies, it pays for itself.

I’m assuming this is at least somewhat attributable to the link from Gawker (thanks Jess!) because when else does anyone really pay attention to my rantings, but …

I returned home Friday night to an email from someone at Revolution Studios, the company behind Chris Columbus’ upcoming adaptation of Rent. I had what one might call a negative reaction to the recent news that Columbus planned to shoot the film in San Francisco – my home town, but not the correct locale for this movie. Of course, this wasn’t the first time I became slightly shocked at news about the long-in-the-works movie version.

With the exception of my dismay that the NYC film industry is not getting the business of this very NY production, I will say that if what this person from Revolution wrote me is true, then any fears of the film not being very New York in appearance and feel have been somewhat alleviated:

The film will remain true to the original story of Rent and will be set in New York’s East Village. All exterior shots for the film are to be filmed in New York City. The Treasure Island location in San Francisco is where the soundstages and interior sets are to be located.

The city of San Francisco gave Chris Columbus the Treasure Island stages for free, and this enormous financial help from the city of San Francisco was the difference in being able to get the picture made. Chris Columbus is fully aware of the importance of the East Village location in the story, and will be filming all of the exterior shots for the film on location in New York City.

All I have to say is, Wow! San Francisco gave the production company soundstage space for FREE?!? Well of course that’s a financial situation that I can’t imagine any production, especially one that I’m sure still won’t be exactly low-budget. I’m not sure I completely buy that free soundstage space is the reason the film is being made, and if that is the case, might I suggest Revolution shut down production immediately? If the money behind a film doesn’t think the movie is worth making or can be made for a certain budget that includes something as basic as, I don’t know, SOUNDSTAGES … well, you have a troubled film on your hands.

Of course, while may location fears may be lessened, I still believe that Revolution does, in fact, have a troubled film on its hands which probably is not worth the production financing because of the man who will be directing this film. I really don’t need to go into all this again – I said what I had to say in my original post calling Columbus at the helm of Rent “The Fifth Sign of the Apocalypse”. I would be shocked if either Columbus or Revolution studios really gave a crap about what some lone film blogger in New York thinks, but hey, I got an email, so I had to bring this up again.

And I’ll promise right now that if Rent somehow manages to be a good film, I will be the first person to say that I was wrong. But it’s not like we’re dealing with a David Fincher here; a visionary director whose first movie (Alien³) was so destroyed by the studio it really didn’t adequately show what he might be capable of in later work. We’re talking about a filmmaker who makes at best average, and often bad, movies that may still sometimes be commercially successful because they’re easy and crowd pleasers. Still, his skills at adaptation have already been shown to be poor at best and negligent at worst. What he did to the Harry Potter movies, particularly the second one which basically cut out the parts of the story that were the main reason for the 2nd book’s entire existence, was a travesty, and all one has to do is watch Alfonso Cuarón’s much more interesting approach with the most recent film – especially in comparing it to representing the book – to verify how poor a job Columbus did.

And Rent will be exponentially harder to adapt than Harry Potter, not because of subject matter but since it’s a musical. Again, while I’m sure everyone is shooting for Chicago (and really, it would be better to aim much, much higher, regardless of that film’s Best Picture Oscar), I fear that Columbus is going to give us Newsies.

One last note: Mr. Revolution Studios obviously took my criticisms somewhat seriously because he apparently contacted Rent author Jonathan Larson’s sister to verify the time period of the story which I guess I called the “early ’90s.” The email I received said, “Also, according to Jonathan Larson’s sister, Julie, the time period for the film is the mid 1980s, not the early 1990s.”

Consider me rebuked, shown up, whatever. Of course it was mid-80s and I was mistaken. I guess I wasn’t actually thinking about the story as much as the timing of when the show opened and when Larson was writing it. But the show is obviously very much a reaction to Reagan’s America, if you read anything about the creation of the show, it seems the idea first originated around 1989, and by even the early-90s, the East Village was starting to change.

So I misspoke, or miswrote, or mistyped. I apologize to all of you I led astray. None of this, though, negates my opinion that Columbus and Rent is a complete mismatch of director and material. Mr. Columbus, if you happen to run across this post, I absolutely challenge you to prove me wrong because certainly nothing I say is going to get you kicked off the film. And if by some miracle Rent turns into an exciting and interesting adaptation, managing to do something different with a very difficult, virtually sung-through show; if you make a movie that is even watchable considering that much of the success of the stage version is simply due to the audience being able to experience the passion and energy of the live, then I will come back to my little corner of the World Wide Web and say in really big letters, “I was wrong. Give that man an Oscar. He did it. This New York Rent is worth the price.”

I’m just not holding my breath.

Now that I’ve gotten Bad Education out of my brain (see below), here are a few of the other things rattling around up here, including some suggestions for some fantastic movie and movie on TV opportunities this weekend that you shouldn’t miss.

• But first: "Former Viacom chief operating officer Mel Karmazin was named CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio." Is corporate PR synergy magnificent. You think that this news breaking on Thursday afternoon at approximately the same time that Howard Stern was taping the Late Show With David Letterman in an effort to publicize his pending move to Sirius Satellite Radio is a coincidence? You think that Howard’s choice of Sirius over XM wasn’t made with his long-time benefactor Karmazin in mind? The rumors of Karmazin joining Sirius have been around as long as those claiming Stern would be heading there. And you know what? Stern’s pronouncements of the death of terrestrial radio and the rise of Sirius may not be so far off with Karmazin at the helm. (Tangential note: funniest moment of Stern’s appearance on Letterman – when Dave asked him if he knew what "Sirius" actually was and Stern was baffled and mumbled something about stars and the dog icon. I’m sure that’s one question Stern would have appreciated having been put his way in a pre-interview.

• Here’s a little reminder: a week ago today Lily and I published our interview with They Might Be Giants’ John Flansburgh on Gothamist. Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns), the documentary about TMBG, will air as part of Sundance’s November "AMPED: Movies for Your Ears" series this Saturday night at 9 PM. Don’t miss it. And you should also think about checking out People Are Wrong!, the rock musical starring Flansburgh now playing at the Vineyard Theatre.

• Every now and then I mention how wonderful it is to see a classic silent film with live musical accompaniment, and on more than one occasion, I’m sure I’ve mentioned the fantastic Alloy Orchestra. Well tonight and tomorrow night is your chance to do so thanks to the Walter Reade Theater’s Golden Silents series. Tonight at 7:30 PM, the Walter Reade screens Buster Keaton’s 1924 comedy Sherlock Jr. with musical accompaniment by The BQE Project. And then for two showings on Saturday, the Alloy Orchestra will be performing along with Keaton’s all-time classic, and one of the greatest silent comedies ever made, The General.

Don’t stop now … there’s more (Network, Days of Being Wild, Overnight, Tarnation, my San Francisco roots, and the TAR premiere rebroadcast, all after the jump):

Continue reading “MISCELLANEOUS MISCELLANY: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO PLAN YOUR WEEKEND”