Rooftop Films NYC

I'll be taking in a unique and festive NYC experience on Friday nite, when I'll attend Rooftop Films' screening of Humpday. While excited about the film, I'm even more jazzed about being outside on an NYC roof for cinema, sights, and film enthusiasts galore. Rooftop Films will screen around 20 films and 150 shorts in 2009, making it a prolific film festival. There is also music and Q&As and free stuff too. Films are held in various locations around town on Friday or Saturday nights, so check the schedule and pick a flick.

Must See "Must Read After My Death"

Went to the NYC premiere of Must Read After My Death the other night. Its been a long time since I've been so provoked by a film, so challenged and destroyed by the content, so transfixed by the subject. This documentary peek into the private world of suburban angst is also a riveting commentary on American society in the early 60's.

Filmmaker Morgan Dews found recordings in a shed from his grandmother Allis - evidence of her philandering, overseas traveling husband; her psychiatric sessions; her family's decline. They chronicle an age when independent, spirited women like Allis were told their desires for success and independence were perverse. Artfully made, with home movie images of the happy family juxtaposed with their harrowing, heart wrenching recordings, this real-life psychological thriller has you spellbound and wondering, just what will become of this family?

The film is being released in cinemas in NYC and LA. Simultaneously, it is being made available through Gigantic Releasing for $2.99 online, an effective new model of independent film distribution. Look for more films to reach a wider audience in this fashion, and hats off to Gigantic for the innovation.

Man on Wire Balances the Obsession with Artistry and NYC

Perhaps the best film I've seen on the obsession and sometimes madness required to follow one's dream, Man on Wire artfully explores Philippe Petit's quarter-mile high walk between the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in 1974. It is also a love letter to New York City.

Petit began dreaming of stringing a wire between the world's tallest buildings upon reading an article on their construction in a dentist's waiting room. He built some notoriety in the time it took for the Towers to be built by performing high-above balancing acts in notorious locations like Notre Dame Cathedral and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. But upon completion, the Towers were a quarter of a mile high, hundreds of feet apart, built to sway in the wind. It was impossible, ludicrous to think of such a feat. Certain death.

Still, Petit and his cohorts schemed and planned the perfect caper. The film amusingly captures the process of how, amid strict security and impossible odds, a wire could be strung from one tower to another. Petit's love of mischief and sheer chutzpah has him disguised as construction worker, tourist, and even journalist in order to gather the necessary information for the stunt. Even knowing the outcome, the personal accounts and sublime editing leave you on the edge of your seat. When Petit finally steps out on that fateful wire, there is awe. Not only from the great physical achievement, but in witnessing the realization of a persistent and agonizing dream.

Less overtly, Man on Wire lovingly explores New York City and just how this city can get under your skin. The shear lust for the place can drive anyone to madness, as the Towers arguably did to Petit. And while left unsaid, the knowledge that the site of Petit's masterpiece no longer stands adds a gentle poignancy.

For anyone whose life-long dream of this city sweetly haunts and torments them, Man on Wire dares us to believe that following such fancy is as magically possible as walking on thin air.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell at Tribeca Film Festival

Had the pleasure of seeing Pray the Devil Back to Hell at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary Feature. Powerful on many levels, this exquisite, hits-you-in-the-heart documentary tells the extraordinary story of a small band of women who unite in the midst of a bloody, beyond brutal civil war. Determined to bring peace to war torn, war lord overrun Liberia, theirs is a tale of courage to the extreme. Also inspiring are director Gini Reticker and producer Abigail E. Disney, two female filmmakers on a mission, who gave a great Q&A after the showing.

The film will be released nationally soon, but get involved prior by asking for it to be shown in your town or by visiting the MySpace page.

Private Screening of Close Up: Photographers at Work

Photography is a most intimate visual form of storytelling, and at its best its narrator remains humbly anonymous while simultaneously captivating the viewer. So it was a rare honor to glimpse the genius behind the image at the private screening Thursday of Close Up: Photographers at Work. This extraordinary new documentary by director Rebecca Dreyfus is stunning in its balance, illuminating both art and craft equally through a series of probing, revelatory interviews with those that have lived their lives behind the lens.

Produced for Ovation TV by Maysles Films, the hour-long special will debut at 8pm on Nov. 18, kicking off a week of photo-focused programming on the acclaimed multi-platform arts and culture channel. Artistic greats Gregory Crewdson, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Albert Maysles, Andrew Moore and Sylvia Plachy reveal how the sometimes arduous process of picture taking can translate our ideals into a form of fervid visual communication both immediate and sublime.

Bonus: Attended by many of the interviewees, including portrait genius Greenfield-Sanders and the soulful talent Plachy, the screening was a celebration of art meets artful TV. Legendary documentarian Maysles and his daughters Rebekah and Sarah, famed gallery owner Steven Kasher, artist/musician and frequent Greenfield-Sanders subject Lou Reed and Ovation TV programming head Kris Slava also contributed to the night's considerable cultural wow-factor. Check out Ovation's photo-focused programming beginning Sunday, including specials on Cindy Sherman and David LaChappelle, as well as series The Genius of Photography. Also note Ovation TV's of-the-moment contest collaboration with Fotolog, the world's largest photoblogging community.

House & Garden Design Happening Shows Savvy Form & Function

House & Garden launched Design Happening 2007 this past week, turning a potentially stuffy celebration of tables and chairs into an all-out, hipper-than-now assault on preconceived design notions. Uniquely entertaining programming loaded with art celebs galore revealed that design influences everything from the movies we love to the furniture that cradles our behinds. Two design chats in particular showed that substantial beauty, tasteful whimsy, expert craftsmanship and an eye for storytelling are elements vital to shaking up today's dangerously cookie-cutter design sensibility.

Cristina Grajales Illuminates Brazilian Modernist Design
At my new fave furniture gallery Espasso (superbly run by the artistically daring, impossibly charming Carlos Junqueira), brilliant advisor Cristina Grajales presented the cultural influences inherent in Brazilian design. Passionate about the important architects and designers of the region, Grajales has a deep and resonating connection to the beauty of Brazil's constructed classics. Learning about structural integrity combined with natural form and materials, a standard in the country's design philosophy, from a master like Grajales made for an evening of aesthetic illumination. Visit the remarkable Cristina Grajales Gallery at 10 Greene St. (near Canal).

Kristi Zea Turns the Lens on the Design of Cinema
What do the design elements of the Oscar-winning Goodfellas and Silence of the Lambs have in common with the look of thrillers like The Brave One and Changing Lanes? They benefit from the production design genius of Kristi Zea, whose keen eye for authentic environments has fulfilled the artistic vision of cinematic luminaries like Scorsese and Demme. At the famed Tribeca Cinemas, home of the Tribeca Film Festival, Zea took us through precise film moments where every element of production design coalesced perfectly to create screen magic. After showing the famed Goodfellas scene where Henry and Karen enter the Copacabana, Zoe commented, "Marty sure knows how to make movies." What a privilege to hear first-hand from the designer that collaborates on such art.

Bonus: Running into dynamic interior design talent Amy Lau at the Espasso event in all her redheaded glory, along with learning from Grajalas of so many notable female designers from Brazil. And at the cinema, hearing of Zea's next project Confessions of a Shopaholic and learning of how such creatures display their collections. Sounds like she could do research at my apartment.

Fabulous Film Forum

If you love obscure art films, historic cinema, independent flicks and just plain can't-see-it-in-a megaplex movies, then the Film Forum is your kinda place. The Film Forum in New York City's premier independent movie house and a sort-of spiritual destination for the city's film aficionados. Film Forum also showcases directors and experts in its talks and Q&A's, offering audiences a unique way to gain a deeper appreciation for the films it lovingly showcases. Some of these talks are even available via podcasting!

I've seen Into Great Silence and Fritz Lang's masterpiece Metropolis at the Film Forum, and loved the theater itself as well as being surrounded by other obsessed cinema stalkers. A non-profit institution, you can donate or become a member to support the important work of the institution.

Bonus: Thanks to a tip from culture vulture Jeff, I found out that August is NYC Noir month at Film Forum, featuring crime-ridden, haunting and shuddersome flicks set in our beloved New York City (the crime-ridden, haunting and shuddersome NYC of pre-Giuliani days). You can see two films back to back in a double feature and really make it an event.

Marathon MoMA Day

Yesterday, I spent most of the day at the Museum of Modern Art, and the artsy offerings proved why the place is consistently one of my favorite NYC destinations:

Richard Serra: Sculpture: Forty Years

By far, this is the best sculptural exhibit I've seen in years. You can't help but be awed by the grandeur of Richard Serra's massive circular steel structures. There is an almost gravitational pull between the sloping metal walls of these immense constructions, and the physical energy is delightful and horrifying at the same time. Serra's earlier work with lead, rubber and fiberglass is also on display, just as stark and gripping though less grand in scale. All of it is art you can feel, deep inside your chest.

Bonus: Richard Serra will be live and in person at MoMA on September 6 at 6pm for a discussion of his work and the exhibition with curator Lynne Cooke.

Andy Warhol's The Chelsea Girls

After eating some seriously strange lime mint gelato in MoMA's sculpture garden and gazing at more Serra sculptures, I soon headed back inside to take in the screening of Andy Warhol's The Chelsea Girls. In a supreme stroke of luck for this Warhol film newbie, the movie was introduced by Douglas Crimp, art critic and curator, who eased us into this avant-garde cinematic extravaganza with personal insights into Warhol's New York City art scene.

Set in numerous rooms at the infamous Chelsea Hotel and featuring a seriously disturbed and chemically altered cast of underground characters, The Chelsea Girls is a triumph for societal outcasts. As Crimp noted, 'Warhol certifies depravity' by putting these charismatic misfits on screen with all their drug-induced screeching, scratching and rant-a-maroles. At times excruciating, at times meditative, at times hysterically funny, poignant and heartbreaking, this is one serious cinematic experience for those unafraid to venture into a split-screen purgatory. At a whopping 195 minutes, don't dare enter without a trail of breadcrumbs to lead you safely back to normal.

Double Bonus: The screening was free due to Target Free Friday Nights, which allows no-cost admission to the museum from 4-8pm each Friday. However, tickets to films must be obtained at the information desk before 4pm or at the Film & Media desk after that. Screenings often sell out, so get tix earlier rather than later.

Genius Science Talk in Tribeca

It was a thrill to see geek and chic collide today with a science chitchat at the ubercool Tribeca Film Festival. Prodigies, Nobelists and Penguins: Science and Stereotypes in the Movies was a smart Q&A with the startlingly brilliant director Darren Aronofsky and the supersweet screenwriter Billy Shebar, moderated by physics prof & writer Sidney Perkowitz.

Much of today's talk focused on the very fine line between obsessive devotion to one's scientific work and outright madness, a perfect example being the protagonist Max in Aronofsky's masterwork Pi. It was a thrill for me to ask the panelists about research of the scientific specifics in film and to see if actors were encouraged to do their own investigations. In addition to praising collaboration and written resources, Aronofsky offered a great tale about watching human brain surgery with Hugh Jackman, costar of The Fountain. Shebar said much of his research came from actually talking with people about their experiences, which allows for more humanity and humor to come forth.

This has been my first ever exposure to the Tribeca Film Fest, and I'll be taking in another film tonight. The massive amount of films & events is overwhelming, so it takes much effort to pick and choose. But it is oh so worth it if you are a film fanatic. And a shout out to the admirable work done by The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and their promotion of science in media.

Into Great Silence

Now playing at the amazing Film Forum, the movie Into Great Silence .

Watch the trailer here.