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Ishtar
(May, 1987)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (OOP)
(Ross, 1976)
The Devils
(Russell, 1974)
The Pirates of Penzance
(Papp/Leach, 1983)
The Fortune
(Nichols, 1975)
-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
(Jones, 1983)
Play It As It Lays
(Perry, 1972)
The Outfit
(Flynn, 1973)
Alex in Wonderland
(Mazursky, 1969)
The Legend of Lylah Clare
(Aldrich, 1968)
In The Cool of the Day
(Stevens, 1963)
That Cold Day in the Park
(Altman, 1969)
Thumb Trippin'
(Masters, 1972)
Midas Run
(Kjellin, 1969)
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1973)
Brewster McCloud
(Altman, 1972)
Outcast of the Islands
(Reed, 1951)

Reader Submissions
1930's-1950's
The Moon's Our Home
(Seiter, 1936)
Sh! The Octopus
(McGann, 1937)
The Mating Season
(Leisen, 1951)
Bad for Each Other
(Rapper, 1953)
The Phenix City Story
(Karlson, 1955)
Run of the Arrow
(Fuller, 1956)
House of Secrets
(Green, 1956)
Saint Joan
(Preminger, 1957)
Macabre
(Castle, 1958)
The Fiend Who Walked the West
(G. Douglas, 1958
Five Gates to Hell
(Clavell, 1959)
1960's
Key Witness
(Karlson, 1960)
Summer and Smoke
(Glenville, 1961)
The Chapman Report
(Cukor,1962)
Bachelor Flat
(Tashlin, 1962) [on Hulu]
The L Shaped Room
(Forbes, 1963)
The Chalk Garden
(Neame, 1964)
A Thousand Clowns
(Coe, 1965)
You're a Big Boy Now
(Coppola, 1966)
The Whisperers
(Forbes, 1967)
Dark of the Sun
(Cardiff, 1968)
Skidoo
(Preminger, 1968)
Last Summer
(Perry, 1969)
The Comic
(C. Reiner, 1969)
1970-1974
The Revolutionary
(Williams, 1970)
The Landlord
(Ashby, 1970)
Diary of a Mad Housewife
(Perry, 1970)
Tropic of Cancer
(Strick, 1970)
I Never Sang for My Father
(Cates, 1970)
Sometimes a Great Notion
(Newman, 1971)
Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
(Turman, 1971)
The Music Lovers
(Russell, 1971)
Drive, He Said
(Nicholson, 1971)
The Steagle
(Sylbert, 1971)
The Last Movie
(Hopper, 1971)
Made For Each Other
(Bean, 1971)
The Day the Clown Cried
(Lewis, 1972)
Hickey & Boggs (OOP)
(Culp, 1972)
The Carey Treatment
(Edwards, 1972)
Pete 'n' Tillie
(Ritt, 1972)
Slither
(Zieff, 1973)
Man on a Swing
(Perry, 1974)
Open Season
(Collinson, 1974)
The Tamarind Seed
(Edwards, 1974)
Law and Disorder
(Passer, 1974)
Homebodies
(Yust, 1974)
Stardust
(Apted, 1974)
Celine and Julie Go Boating
(Rivette, 1974)
1975-1979
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
(Richards, 1975
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1975)
Hearts of the West
(Zieff, 1975)
Welcome to L.A.
(Rudolph, 1976)
W.C. Fields and Me
(Hiller, 1976)
Citizens Band
(Demme, 1977)
Twilight's Last Gleaming
(Aldrich, 1977)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
(Brooks, 1977)
Girlfriends
(Weill, 1978)
Movie Movie
(Donen, 1978)
The Medusa Touch
(Gold, 1978)
American Hot Wax
(Mutrux, 1978)
Hot Stuff
(DeLuise, 1979)
Scavenger Hunt
(Schultz , 1979)
Players
(Harvey, 1979)
Rich Kids
(Young, 1979)
Nightwing
(Hiller, 1979)
Screams of a Winter's Night
(Wilson, 1979
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
(Katselas, 1979
1980's
Resurrection
(Petrie, 1980)
The Awakening
(Newell, 1980)
Simon
(Brickman, 1980)
God's Angry Man
(Herzog, 1980)
Fast-Walking
(Harris, 1982)
Twice Upon a Time
(Korty & Swenson, 1983)
Trouble in Mind
(Rudolph, 1985)
When the Wind Blows
(Murikami, 1986)
Housekeeping
(Forsyth, 1987)
The Glass Menagerie
(Newman, 1987)
Patty Hearst
(Schrader, 1988)
Drowning by Numbers
(Greenaway, 1988)
Haunted Summer
(Passer, 1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
(Spheeris, 1988)
1990's
Old Times
(Curtis, 1991)
Prospero's Books
(Greenaway, 1991)
City of Hope
(Sayles, 1991)
The Baby of Macon
(Greenaway, 1993)
King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993)
Dadetown
(Hexter, 1995)
SubUrbia
(Linklater, 1997)

Upcoming

January 8

Bitch Slap

Waiting for Armageddon

Wonderful World

Youth in Revolt

January 15

January 22

Drool

Extraordinary Measures

The Girl on the Train

Not Feeling It

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I'm not the first one to say this, but scan the lineup for the 47th New York Film Festival and tell me where the big-jolt films are. Because all I see are a lot of Cannes and Toronto re-runs along with a few marginals and oddities.

The old Alice Tully Hall (i.e., before the big renovation).

I'm sorry but I've been visiting this festival off and on for a bit more than 30 years now -- I remember what a charge it was in the Richard Roud days of late '70s and early '80s -- and it's hard to look at what's happening today and go, "What happened?" Because the NYFF really used to matter.

I wasn't around in the glory days of the '60s and early '70s, but even in my early New York days (i.e., mid-to-late Jimmy Carter era) it used to be a routine thing for at least four or five must-see major-director films to have their big debut there. You pretty much had to see the whole NYFF lineup back then. Anything that showed acquired a certain associative pedigree.

I can almost reach back and taste the excitement I got from catching first-anywhere screenings of Benardo Bertoclucci's 1900, Phillip Noyce's Newsfront, Robert Altman's A Wedding, Wim Wenders' The American Friend, Jerzy Skolimowski's Moonlighting, Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo and Nosferatu, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo and Francois Truffaut's The Woman Next Door.

Nobody could afford to miss the NYFF in those days. It was vital and mesmerizing. I used to sit in the old Alice Tully Hall and get high from the wonderful projection and sound, and the stimulating q & a's. By accident I met Truffaut at an early '80s NYFF, and spoke to him for a few minutes -- I'll never forget that. I used to tell myself "this is it, the center of the cool-movie universe, the time of your life, doesn't get any better," etc. The black-tie parties were amazing. The non-black-tie parties were amazing. I met the greatest women at these parties and even got lucky once or twice. I remember how fascinating it seemed to watch Roud smoke those unfiltered cigarettes, one after another.

I guess I'm paying closer attention to the NYFF because I'm living here now and feeling closer to the action as it were. I know what's been happening at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and I'm not trying to throw any stones at anyone. I'm just sorry that the NYFF current isn't the same as it once was. I miss that special air. I would breathe that air again.

Will Oz Be Wired...or Not?<< previous | next >>Improvement

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 30, 2009 at 2:26 PM

comment #1

Uncle Larry says ...

The NYFF hasn't mattered for at least 10 years, perhaps 15 or 20 - or however long it's been since Richard Pena took over. It has nothing to do with the recent shake-up and downsizing of the staff. The festival is guided by Pena's effete aesthetic, which seems to hold that a movie isn't worth showing unless it bores you to tears. Oh sure, every year there are 4-5 movies that truly matter - but as you noted, Jeff, they invariably have premiered at Cannes or Toronto. The rest is chaff that only plays to the ultrahip - or the critics at the Village Voice (approx the same thing, yes?).

Posted by Uncle Larry at August 30, 2009 3:14 PM

comment #2

boltbucket says ...

What happened to the NYFF? Toronto. It's that simple. Toronto grew and grew and eventually came to dwarf NYFF, simply because it happens a couple of weeks earlier and exhibits all the hot fall films. (As do Telluride and Venice.)

Only the opening and closing night films at NYFF are required to be North American premieres. Which means by the time the bulk of the festival's films are shown, most critics have already written about them extensively -- if not at Cannes, then at Toronto.

Posted by boltbucket at August 30, 2009 4:08 PM

comment #3

btwnproductions says ...

I've attended faithfully (if sometimes skeptically) since 1994, and it's pretty much a festival for cinephiles whose bible is Lincoln Center's own Film Comment. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it is insular, with the same anointed auteurs appearing year after year, whether or not their new film is of much interest. It's content to be what it is, a no-market, no-awards, minimum-hoopla event pitched at an audience that I doubt changes much from year to year.

Posted by btwnproductions at August 30, 2009 4:58 PM

comment #4

bill weber says ...

Is Claire Denis marginal or odd?

Posted by bill weber at August 30, 2009 6:59 PM

comment #5

lipranzer says ...

My co-worker was asking if there were any films I'd be interested in seeing at the festival this year, and there was nothing. I mean, sure, I'll see BROKEN EMBRACES, but that's opening later this year, so I'm not missing anything. Admittedly, it's mostly economics in my case - if I had a better paying job that didn't require me to work weekends, I'd try to see a few more maybe.

Posted by lipranzer at August 30, 2009 7:18 PM

comment #6

Bob Violence says ...

I can't believe people are so cavalierly overlooking "Trash Humpers"

Posted by Bob Violence at August 31, 2009 3:55 AM

comment #7

Glenn Kenny says ...

Let's not forget that the NYFF also fulfills the valuable function of giving fellows like Uncle Larry a stone to hone their resentments on.

Posted by Glenn Kenny at August 31, 2009 9:08 AM

comment #8

Floyd Thursby says ...

As a longtime member of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, I'm entitled to FSLC's monthly guide to the films shown at Water Reade, six copies of Film Comment, and early notice of events like NYFF. I have received nothing about the latter and regularly do not receive Film Comment or the Walter Reade info. I once attended 15-20 films a year at Walter Reade and 3-4 at NYFF. Haven't been to the latter in three years and have been to Walter Reade once in the past year.

Posted by Floyd Thursby at August 31, 2009 9:50 AM

comment #9