Andrew’s ‘foreclusion’ (new link-YouTube keeps deleting... if only you could sing Slavoj Žižek;) 'we means we not exactly your friend but we no tiger either'- did I dream a dream (oh ANY excuse to link to great Broadway musical)...
Andrew does NOT guarantee the proceeding ad to the clip you just watched...(don't you wishhhhh;) He does guarantee Glenn Close and Julie Andrews (well there is always small print but never a small world;)
but we'll keep going on) of the 2014 New York Film Festival
How [note former erasure] are those near empty press screenings for 9am films- alas even the great Jean-Luc (his latest is on this yea's slate) was relegated to one of those for last year's retrospective- replete with critic in theater complaining (actually he was near screaming but nobody gave a ****) about the sound being too loud. Ahhh- how 'they' (NYFF) love studio releases replete with built in PR to fill the Walter Reade Theater and allow the 'Capitol Hill' wanna PR be's to order people into line outside and deflect (or is that reflect- of course it was Buddhist!). David Fincher's not at all like THAT now is he! And if memory and 'camera' serves me right the esteemed DP (director of photography) Ed Lachman when he asked VERY politely last year if he could have a guest (VERY rare for him to ask) at a screening (said guest had a fucking large NYFF badge around her neck from the Cate Blanchett dinner invite the night before!) and the reply from NYFF functionary was 'it's quite busy so we'll see'. It wasn't busy at all. Sometimes truth is VERY salutary. Andrew LOVES sleeping in in now the mornings. How are u doin' Jean Luc?
What I do miss is seeing a film that refuses to fit into anyone's agenda (very rare though) in that Festival. A project hitting way too 'out of field' for distributors and therefore a film few in NY will ever see. So perhaps that's why there is the Film Dept at MOMA and Anthology Film Archives.
In fairness to the NYFF, I experienced even greater ‘frustration’ (euphemism) at the Tribeca Film Festival a while back when taking this photo:
There was a whopping (same NYFF accreditation size) badge around my brass neck and as there was no space in the red carpet photographers’ ‘cattle pen’ (the PR’s knew my bona fides) the initiative was seized to snap outside the ropes. Not that easy with all those heads in the way. SVA (School of Visual Arts) security guard really took a dislike to THAT (even though it was perfectly legal and street photography had been previously fought by Philip-Lorca diCorca) and though no one was being hindered by my process (NY street cred jealousy not withstanding). The security guard starting filming me but when told that it was not illegal threatened me with loitering. So I guess the moral of that story is: The badge is not enough. Wear the right uniform. Funnily (and/or is it ironic) enough: many of my screening colleagues wear/wore their accreditation badges after 'work' down the street into real life (both Fests) like an illegal Mexican pride badge. I mean aren't they afraid of.....?
And be careful of looking too closely in NYC or you may develop Stendhal Syndrome: a very helpful security guard saved this poor NY denizen just in time. Much to the chagrin no doubt of certain doctors out there who couldn’t perform expensive Stendhal erasure therapy upon the patient.
