Jamie Stuart‘s first in a series of four shorts on the 46th New York Film Festival is mainly about an attempted robbery. Of Stuart. In Stuart’s buuilding. By a thief who’s too good looking, too short and too mild-mannered to be a bad guy. It’s an okay way for Stuart to begin one of his looney-tunes shorts about the NY Film Festival. Except the violent sparring in the hallway doesn’t feel feel right. Too poised, not sloppy enough. And I didn’t believe the stairwell fall. The sound is wrong; you need to feel the pain.

The thief (l.) and Stuart (r.)

Oh, and the people who suggested a couple of days ago that the quickie razor-blade thing was a tribute to Un Chien Andalou? I don’t think so.
The rest of it is the usual impressionistic mind-melt press conference stuff that Stuart has given us in years past The two directors are The Class‘s Laurent Cantet and Wendy and Lucy‘s Kelly Reichardt. Why doesn’t Stuart ever talk to other journalists?