Tastemaker

'Flannel Pajamas'
BY GENE SEYMOUR
Newsday Staff Writer

As raw and biting as a December morning in Montauk, writer-director Jeff Lipsky's depiction of modern metropolitan romance honors the sensibilities of both John Cassavetes and Ingmar Bergman, whose "Scenes From a Marriage" could have easily provided Lipsky with a title.

to read the rest of the review, click here.

So it was rainy, windy, and very un-June-like on Saturday afternoon in Livingston Manor. But even so, the Trout Parade kicked so much ass! What really surprised me is how many people turned out to watch. Main Street was lined with kids and strollers and dogs and huge puppets and weird hooa-hoopers and three or four bands, including the Williamsburg Brooklyn's own celebrated Hungry Marching Band, and a trout puppet as big as a Chinese dragon, and fish hats and a someone dressed up as a giant purple sea snail! Wheee!

We missed the music in the bandstand on account of the rainclouds, and the line for funnel cakes was too long, but I am now determined to march in next year's Trout Parade. it really was the Mermaid Day Parade of the Catskills!

FROM WWD MAY 26, 2006

Quote of The Week:
"Tommy will continue to play an important role in determining the DNA of the brand. He won't be involved in micromanaging decisions."

— Fred Gehring, chief executive officer, Tommy Hilfiger

Uhhhh....OK....

"Deeply moving and absorbing... an intense, dramatic love story in one of the world's most exotic locales... intelligently directed and a remarkable achievement for a first-time screenwriter/director... or a veteran" -Jeffrey Lyons, NBC's "Reel Talk"

Hooray! Writer/Director Nanda Anand deserves a big kiss; she had the energy to be involved in every aspect of bringing Return To Rajapur to the screen, and her dedication and vision have been well-applied. I expect we'll be hearing more about this film, and about Nanda, in the near future. You go girl!

Praise For The Gravedancers:

The lighting is great in the film throughout and color grade is well done. Special Effects and Make-up? Bravo! It's obvious that the budget was tight with this film, but great work. There's a surprising mix of stunts and pyrotechnics, that are handled masterfully. Apparently, according to the producers, the set burned down and two crew members caught fire. But in the film it looks great! All in all it has a slow momentum, but really finds its unique blend in the third act. This will definitely find a dedicated audience. The climax is a fun romp that concludes with a scene reminiscent of the final boss from the "Splatterhouse" video game. Horror enthusiasts will definitely want to check this one out. -IMDB

CinemaStrikesBack has a beautifully detailed review of Choking Man:

Cinematically the film is very interesting. Often shot in unusually close close-ups of Jorge, it adds to a claustrophobic feel in the diner and in his apartment. The implication, I think, is that Jorge is suffocating in this environment, or perhaps more pointedly “choking” on his own shyness. To deal with this he creates mental escape routes, including his imaginary roommate, and to show this, fantastically serene graphics pop up throughout the film, often of the rabbit from the story in his childhood. They struck me as reminiscent of the use of colors in Punch Drunk Love, if that makes any sense.

More goodness from eFilmCritic:

5 Stars for Choking Man
5 Stars for Return To Rajapur

And I just found out a friend did the sound for "Marvelous," premiering tonite!
Matty Tauber's The Architect premieres tuesday!

5 stars for The Big Bad Swim from eFilmCritic!

And a great review for Choking Man:

"Sometimes I don't realize the impact a film has on me until days later... when I can't shake emotions and images that hunt me down whether I want them back or not. Such is the case with Choking Man.

Choking Man, though itself somewhat of an oddity -- part conventional cinematic story, part pastiche, and part tone poem, it does what movies at their best are supposed to do: pull you inside the canvas of its inhabitants to experience directly their moral or emotional transformations without resorting to didactics. Credit here goes not only to Barron's visual conceits and thematic concepts and his top-notch editing team, but to A+ performances across the board, not the least of which comes from the precocious Octavio Gomez Barrios who utters barely ten words throughout." -IndievilleNYC

So regardless of whether it's a good or bad film, the right or wrong time to release it, and true to the facts or embellished, United 93 is fueling quite a lot of talk. i will admit, I have not seen it, and considering that i only made it through the first 20 minutes of Monsters Ball (granted, a very different film)before breaking down in hysterics and having to physically remove myself, I probably won't . I know tragedy deep in my bones, and I seem unable to keep that protective "4th wall" in place with big tragic movies...

Anyhoo, as you all know I'm also fascinated by government shadow organizations, and prone to disbelieve the drivel fed to us as patriotic truth. I like to dig, i like to question. I like to draw parallels all the way back to the founding of this country and before. So I am interested intellectually in the United 93 story. I went on to IMDB.com to see if I could sniff out which government agencies provided financing by following the names of the Executive Producers (British, actually) etc, you know, just nosing around. What I actually found was a very lively chat board, full of people from both sides of the conspiracy debate. Note: I wish we could stop calling the search for alternative explanations "conspiracy."

So follow the link if you like. Here's a juicy tidbit that caught my eye. Especially because I've actually READ the once Top Secret JCS plan that they refer to in the following entry:

"The original plan was written in 1962 by the JCS and was called Operation Northwoods. It was a pretext for starting a war with Cuba. Kennedy, who was president refused to go along with the plot and fired the JCS Chairman and later the CIA director for even conceiving such a diabolical plot to kill Americans using fake terrorist attacks by crashing airplanes as a pretext for war. All these morons in the Bush Administration did was implement that same plan forty years later. "

I wish I still had the full JCS report, I'd scan you all some pages. It really is eerily similar. and pretty fucked up that our government was actually planning to do this once before, as CONFIRMED in the JCS document.

Last night I accompanied my friend, Ms. Sara Lulo, a lawyer who does pro-bono work for The Philharmonic Orchestra of The Americas to a fundraising event. The POA was formed in order to highlight and promote the work of composers and performers of the American Continent and will be making its debut at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on Thursday June 8th. What really makes this exciting however, is that the Orchestra is led by 25-year old Mexican conductor, Alondra de la Parra. I am truly in awe of this woman! She has presence and talent in spades and as I watched her work the room full of NYC's elite after the auction, I marvelled at how poised and confident she was at such a young age. As quoted in the Wall Street Journal, "...Ms De la Parra [is] elegant, assured, and lyrical." Not only is she musically gifted (her instrument of choice being the piano) and driven (she's not only the conductor but the founder as well), she's beautiful, intelligent, and a magnetic, gracious host. I stood next to the woman who made the winning bid (50K) to be the sponsor of the Conductor's Chair and Ms. de la Parra, accompanied by 2 other musicians, treated us to an up-beat bossa-nova-esque rhythm on the piano. The sound was electrifying and very modern and there was not a person in the rooom who wasn't bouncing in their seat. Trust me, this is not your grandmother's orchestra. The short pieces by select musicians prove that the POA is a richly textured, intricate blend of sounds drawing upon both its Latin roots and thorough classical training. Highly recommended.

log on to: www.poamericas.org for more information.