Out of Focus

55 Hours and Counting: Apple Still Sucking

My main personal email is still down. This has been the case since at least 1 PM on Friday. Apple's MobileMe was down for "scheduled maintenance" last night, and now they have a lovely announcement on their support page saying, "MobileMe is now available!" No it isn't assholes! Not to those of us that are still part of the group you mention right above that: "1% of MobileMe members cannot access MobileMe Mail. We apologize for any inconvenience."

That message hasn't changed in two days. No updates. No explanations. No nothing. As I mentioned yesterday, I sent an email to the New York Times' David Pogue. He actually sent me a brief response last night: "Yep, this rollout was a real disaster, for sure. Sorry to hear it's causing you grief! Here's hoping they get it worked out quickly!" I've never been so disappointed in Apple. I've also never more seriously considered dropping my Mac.com-now-MobileMe membership service.

At least today ... fuck you Apple!

I'm So All Over This

I'm a seltzer water addict too. (I say "too" because I guess I forgot to mention it the other day.) Most recently, I've been trying to cut way back and virtually eliminate drinking Diet Coke, Diet Dr. Pepper and all the other soft drinks I've regularly found myself consuming in mass quantities. But I've always also bought lots of seltzer. (The best hands-down? Schweppes Black Cherry flavored. It's amazing.) One of my favorite things about using Fresh Direct is that I can order seltzer by the case and not have to lug it home. The "generic" Vintage seltzer costs around 55-to-60 cents per bottle, 12 one-liter bottles to the case. I'll often go through at least two bottles per day.

But while scrolling through days worth of Serious Eats posts today, I ran across this one from the "Required Eating" section: "Water Works: How to Make Seltzer at Home. If there's anything that makes me feel guilty about the amount of seltzer I drink, it's all the plastic bottles I wind-up using. (Although, I'm sure the guy I see regularly going through my building recycling cans looking for cans and bottles loves me.) So ... could the Soda-Club Home Seltzer Maker be my savior? Under $100 and SE's Lucy Baker gives it an initial thumbs-up as do several of the commenters.

How can I resist?

Apple Pissing Me Off: In Pogue We Hope?

Have any of you had troubles with your mac.com transitions to MobileMe? I hadn't until yesterday when suddenly my mac.com email address -- my main personal email -- stopped working. Utterly, completely and totally stopped working. I received my last email at 12:31 PM. I sent a reply shortly after, and ever since, whether through my Mail application on my computer or through MobileMe on the web or my Blackberry ... nada.

Seems that a "lucky" 1% of MobileMe users are having this problem. The discussion boards on the Apple support site are going wild. Apple, meanwhile, is being silent. The entire MobileMe transition has been, it seems, a bit of a clusterfuck, and the other day, Apple sent out emails to all their users stating that everyone was receiving an extra month's membership for free as an apology. That was nice, especially since I hadn't yet to notice any major problems, but I also don't have an iPhone and wasn't yet attempting to use any of MobileMe's lauded syncing and/or push technology. And then, most suddenly, no email. Today, I finally tried to get some chat support from Apple to find out what was happening and when I might expect email to be restored. After waiting for well-over an hour, I finally was connected to a representative who essentially couldn't tell me anything.

On one of the Apple discussion boards, I noticed someone mentioning that he had written to David Pogue, technology writer for the New York Times. I figured: Why not? I'm going to write him too; share my story, my aggravation, and most importantly, my disappointment in Apple, a company I have been faithful to and appreciative of since spending all of my Bar Mitzvah money (well over $3,000 in 1984!) on a first gen 128K Macintosh, an extra external disk drive (not hard disk, mind you), and an ImageWriter dotmatrix printer. I still will take Mac over Windows any day, but the way they're handling this pretty major problem right now is extremely disappointing and leading to a lot of anger among the masses.

My email to Pogue after the jump:

Prepping for Knight

Or not. I had intended to watch Batman Begins earlier today to prepare me for going to see The Dark Knight tonight. (And this just breaking across the news: amazingly enough, apparently the film made $18.5 million during its midnight -- or I suppose we should simply say late-night -- screenings, beating the previous record holder Star Wars Episode III: The Return of the Sith by more than $1.5 Million. That would be a great one-day haul, let alone late night screenings, for most films. Granted, Spider Man 3 opening day brought in $59.5 million, but that doesn't seem out of reach. I'm now wondering if my $115 million three day prediction was tame instead of high!) I had even also considered renting through Amazon Unbox and TiVo the new animated Batman: Gotham Knight, the stories of which take place in between the first film and the new one.

But some time this morning as I was about to pop-in the Batman Begins disc, I decided ... nah. I haven't watched the first movie in several months -- maybe a year. I decided to go into The Dark Knight a little fresher ... with a little less baggage. I'm fairly certain I'll want to see the new film again. I deliberately am not seeing it the first time in IMAX. With the first film, I did the same thing ... saw it and then a couple weeks later watched it again in IMAX, and I found seeing the larger format after already having seen the film once (rather than being distracted by the IMAX or missing elements out of the corner of my eye) was truly rewarding.

So, I'm off to the theater to get in line. Fresh with only the memory of how much I loved the first film. And next go around, I'll prep with a marathon. Ultimately, if the film can't stand on its own anyway, no matter how good it is, it can't be that great.

We shall see.

Bingeing Again, But Writing? Still Not So Much

Something happened to me this week -- I've once again returned to some sort of theater binge. I rushed to Passing Strange on Wednesday to catch it before it's gone. Last night, I moseyed to Legally Blonde: The Musical last night to catch Laura Bell Bundy before she leaves the show on Sunday and is replaced by the winner of an MTV reality show next week. I'm hoping to catch Adding Machine: A Musical before it shuts down this weekend. I have a ticket to Some Americans Abroad next week, and I re-subscribed to several of the memberships I had but did not fully use last year. And then, for some stupid reason, I added a few more.

I still haven't seen Spring Awakening, August: Osage County, In the Heights, Gypsy or Xanadu. I might try to get to one of those this weekend as well. I'd probably go to something tonight if I wasn't already fulfilling my three year anticipatory wait for The Dark Knight. OMG ... the movies. There's so much to see ... new and old. And I still haven't finished the TCM Asian Images in Film series I have TiVo'd in my bedroom. And the summer series ... and just ... summer ... and outside ... and books and too many magazine subscriptions ... and work and play and non-job work and ....

Distractions. I'm an expert. I distract myself from one thing or another constantly. I tell myself I want to accomplish one thing or I want to do this and that, but instead I simply find ways to distract ... myself. Enjoyable, sometimes productive ... but distractions and lack of focus nonetheless. I determined earlier this year I didn't want this blog to be a personal diary; I wanted to get back to writing more opinion and criticism. And then ... I didn't. Write. Now I find myself forcing again -- pushing to sit and focus and type and watch the black squiggles turn into words across my screen. I have something -- many things -- to say, and yet, it all comes out as -- what? Nothing? Something? Some thingS?

I'm an addict, for sure. A film addict. A theater addict. A music addict. A television addict. A magazine addict. A pop culture addict. A politics addict. A debate addict. A talkative addict. A thought addict. A noise addict. An activity addict -- even if somehow I manage to be a lazy one. A people addict. A solitude addict. An outdoors addict. An air conditioning addict. A contradiction addict. A stress addict.

How does one break so many addictions? I don't know. Which of them actually need breaking? I can't say. Which are productive? Which are destructive? How do I get everything just a wee bit more into balance and ... well ... focus.

I'm starting now. I'm starting next weekend. I'm starting. I'm going on a meditation and writing retreat next weekend in the Catskills. It's not like anything I've done before. But I want to find away to distract me from my distractions. Will it work? We'll just have to see. It's only a couple days. It's my baby step before trying something similar (minus the writing) but much more hardcore and drastic. Something that quite simply I find terrifying because I often find that when I spend that much time with myself and nobody or nothing else ... it's not always comfortable. I can't even say why ... I can't even call it boring ... I can only imagine it because it's not something I ever EVER do.

In addition to not writing, I haven't really been doing that much reading. But I did see recently an online "discussion" once again examining how much personal is too personal to throw out there on the web -- what's the motivation for everyone to share their sex lives, their innermost thoughts and fears? For who really cares? Well, I don't have enough readers anymore to think that anybody does, but I suppose I want to go back to focusing on what was at least a part of the reason I started Out of Focus over four years ago -- for me. I'm going to write for me. Or, I may wind-up not writing for me. But I'm not creating samples; I'm not looking for a job; I'm not looking for agreement nor the opposite; I'm not looking to provoke; I'm not looking to brag; I'm not looking to prove; I'm not looking for acceptance. I'm not looking. I'm just writing. I'm doing it here because when I do it here it seems to be easier. And if there's anything interesting or compelling that anyone reading wants to follow, welcome.

And all of this could be moot tomorrow, and I'll wind-up writing nothing but memoir, or nothing but film reviews, or nothing but random linkage (although I doubt that).

We'll see. For now ... I need to cut the self-reflection and return to the distraction. Unhealthy ... maybe. But Batman (and the inevitable line) awaits!

Passing Strange Before It Passes Away

I had wanted to see Passing Strange since it's original Off-Broadway run at the Public Theater, but I was lazy and never got around to it. I had heard amazing things: the music was rock (not so show-tuney), exciting and catchy; the show narratively worked in a non-traditional way -- in a style I would, upon now having seen it, call a hybrid of the traditional musical and what John Cameron Mitchell did with the stage version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, i.e., a rock concert that tells rather than shows; and that it was a fascinating and original coming-of-age story. The show had a virtually sold-out run at The Public and earned its transfer to the big (and pricey) leagues. Of course, all of these positive elements also meant that a successful Broadway run could be difficult, and it doesn't make it the most tourist-from-middle-America-who-wants-to-see-The Little Mermaid-Mamma Mia-or-Phantom of the Opera-friendly performance. I'm certain there are people who won't like it; can't get it; will find it too loud. But you know what? They're wrong. (Yeah, I said it.)

Wrong or not, though, they're influence is mighty, and the show never made enough money post-transfer to keep it alive long-term. More Tony wins would have helped, and as I have yet to see In the Heights, I'm hesitant to say the wrong show won. What little I know about In the Heights, however, makes me believe that -- Washington Heights Latino-centric aside -- it's a more accessible show. And as a final caveat, I have to say that Passing Strange spoke to me personally in a way few plays or musicals have ever done. While most certainly was not an African-American teenager growing-up in a middle-class household in South Central, nor did I escape to Europe to find myself and search for muses for my music, the general themes and story of Stew's show are ones I relate to heavily. The idea of being able to examine your post-adolescence and the time when you were free to do anything and make mistakes -- some stupid, some unexpectedly helpful -- is one which weighs on me too often these days. (There's one line in the show when Stew as narrator says, "What do you do when you wake up and your whole life has been based on the decision of a teenager – a stoned teenager?" And all you want to do is slap that teenager, that 20 or 25 year-old (stoned or not) into submission and say, "Look at what you're really doing. What is really important." But you can't. And reflecting is OK, but regretting not-so-much.

Passing Strange is one of the best coming-of-age stories I've ever seen or experienced in any medium. Again, maybe that's in large part because of how much I related to it, but no matter. Stew and his collaborators have imaginatively presented us with this story of a young man (only called "Youth") who felt so out of place and pressured by his family and community that he yearned to escape. When he's introduced to music and art and culture -- and pot -- by his choir teacher, he's determined to get away, to Amsterdam which said teacher has painted as the castle on top of the hill. But his teacher has always been too afraid to venture out of the community himself. Our hero won't make that same mistake, making his way to Amsterdam and happening upon a group of people who accept him without condition -- his new family, his new place, his new and comfortable identity (even if much, or all, of it is just another newer mask). The song "Keys" is one that has been heavily used to promote the show. Every interview I had heard with Stew played this song. It's the number they performed on the Tony telecast. And as energetic and fun as I had always found it, it never had the kind of impact produced by seeing it -- and maybe as importantly, experiencing it live in person in the theater -- in context and within the frame of the rest of the show.

For one thing, that's really only part of the number; it's been condensed. The lead-up and other internal parts are more extensive and emotional and moving and illuminating. It is the perfect combination of words and music and dancing and acting expressing the fulfillment of all the longing this character has felt his entire life. And yet, one of the things that makes this show so brilliant and so satisfying is how it shows that even once he attains his "paradise," he can't be happy there. His music is suffering. He needs angst. He leaves for Berlin. The whole time, he's trying to figure out how to be himself, and yet in Berlin, he finds that he's only successful when he becomes what everyone else wants him to be: the "Ghetto Warrior." He sings in one of my favorite lines from the show, "I want my pain to fuck my ego and call the bastard art." (I relate!) He is a black man finding himself trying to pass as ... black ... all the while running away from, as his mother repeats to him throughout the show, "his people."

It's been reported all over the place that Spike Lee plans to shoot two performances this Saturday (as well as two full run-throughs without an audience present) in order to create a filmed version of the theatrical performance. I absolutely applaud Lee for making a record of this phenomenal theatrical performance, and I encourage people to see the end result. But I also know that the full impact of Passing Strange (at least in this theatrical form) will not be felt on screen. The energy of the performance is infectious and can only be felt in the theater. The asides and speeches Stew makes directly to the audience can't feel as intimate or friendly no matter how well he stares into the center of the camera lens. Theater and film are vastly different media, way more so than most people recognize, and no matter how great a job Lee potentially does, it is impossible for him to transfer and translate the in-theater experience.

That's why I encourage and implore people to go see this show. It closes on Sunday. I believe it has five performance left including tonight, with Lee taping both Saturday shows. Seeing it now won't help it stay open, but it will enrich your life in the way great theater should and can. There's plenty of crap on Broadway. There's plenty of crap Off-Broadway. There's plenty of crap Off-Off-Broadway. Passing Strange flies high above all of it. My attempt to find seats through TKTS yesterday didn't pan out, and I wound up buying a full-price ticket. Aside from how ridiculously expensive and generally not worth it Broadway tickets are, with all the regrets I may struggle with in my life, paying $115 to see Passing Strange will never be one of them.

Thanks Stew.

Random Thoughts Upon a Return

I recently came out of my own PTSD (that's Post-Tribeca Stress Disorder) and have been trying to get back to "work." What that means -- since I do not only refer to job-related activities -- has been a bit complicated. I've definitely had this hardcore writer's block, in the sense that whenever I've been inspired to sit down and start typing, I stop just short of doing so. This blog has obviously been affected, but it's not the only thing to which I refer. I've put a lot of boundaries and restrictions on what I want to write, how I want to write, where I want to write it ... what this blog should be? And now, I'm trying to let it go. And simultaneously, I seem to have been waiting for a catalyst ... something to spur me on and make the thoughts in my head just explode to the point where it became more important getting them down on "paper" than being lazy and ... well ... not.

Last night, I saw Passing Strange on Broadway. I've been all atwitter about it ever since. And I've resisted typing/writing/thinking? all day. Could it be that catalyst?

More than a month ago, I thought the catalyst would be thoughts on this year's festival, particularly about some movies that were very important to me and which I had a somewhat large part in helping program.

Nah.

A few weeks ago, I thought it was going to be the release of Weezer's latest "Red" album. Some have found the fourth track "Heart Songs" a bit cheesy. Some appreciate the nostalgia. I fall into the latter, but even more so, I found myself looking at much of the album (certainly the first several songs) as Rivers Cuomo's musical equivalent of Fellini's 8 1/2. I don't mean to say that it is of the same caliber, but simply in its attempt -- a look back at his own life, career, and what worked as inspiration for his own creativity. There's a line in "Heart Songs": "Then I heard the chords that broke the chains I had upon me." Cuomo describes how hearing Nirvana's "Nevermind" helped inspire him to get off his ass and make his own music, but not simply in a, "Hey, I'd like to do that," way. Rather, more of releasing something that was always in him and making him yearn, but he had never been able to tap. I thought that line and that song -- which I listened to repeatedly probably 45 times that week, something I rarely, if ever, do with one song -- might push me to unlock my own chains, ones I had unconsciously, or not, placed upon myself.

Nope.

Then there was the start of Entertainment Weekly's "New Classics" lists. "The 100 best films of the last 25 years." That sure as hell got me riled up, and anybody who ever spent any time reading this space (during its more active periods) over the last several years (I think it's been four?) knows that nothing gets me ranting like getting me riled. Could there be a worse list? Maybe if you're calling it the 100 most important to pop culture films, you'd have a valid argument. But there's so much wrong with this list, I didn't know where to start.

So I guess I didn't.

Then I went to see the beautiful and magnificent Wall*E. Pixar's best ever? I don't know. I still worship The Incredibles. I'm a huge fan of Ratatouille. Both films (both made by the fantastic Brad Bird) took filmmaking -- not just animated films -- to new places. Pixar has managed repeatedly to do something utterly unique, innovative, and unmatched by any other maker of animated films: repeatedly produce stories and movies that can be magical, imaginative, and loved by both three-year-old toddlers (without ever talking down to them) and they're grandparents (by dealing with incredibly substantive and complex themes) and everone in between. The Incredibles was a personal story about identity and self-confidence. Ratatouille was a peak inside the mind and determination of a creative -- artistic, even -- genius who just happened to be a rat. And now Wall*E took silent slapstick cinema, merged it with a little rom-com, tied it all together with an incredibly timely and important environmental theme, and made a robot with binoculars for eyes (and not much else) extremely and emotionally expressive. All while telling the most simplistic (but fulfilling) of love stories while also reinforcing the themes that even the smallest and most forgotten of us can still influence huge change if we simply let nothing get in our way.

Oh Wall*E ... not even you.

So I was waiting ... waiting until tomorrow night's 7 PM screening of The Dark Knight, a film which I've been nearly desperate to see even before it was announced; ever since the lights came up on the first time I watched Batman Begins. I raved several times (here's the first) about Christopher Nolan's first Batman film. I still think it was the best film of 2005. So surely, when the lights come-up around 9:45 or 10 tomorrow, I would be ready, and inspired ... or something.

But then I didn't need to wait.

(To be continued in next post ...

Go Behind the Screens (and Under Our Skin) at Tribeca

That's right ... I disappear for two months and then come back with what some might think is a slightly self-serving post promoing the work gig. But really, this is not self-serving; this is you-serving. Or something. But I want to share with you a really special program that we're introducing this year at Tribeca -- two actually that are a bit similar called Conversations in Cinema and Behind the Screens.

Obviously, Tribeca has once again taken over my days, nights, and every moment in between. First there was all the programming, then all the scheduling, then all the managing of various areas, and now here we are, late at night finishing my final preparations for our first full day of movie magic. Like the rest of the programmers here, I'm really excited about this year's lineup, and one film in particular is a personal fave because I am wholly responsible for it being in the festival

I saw a work-in-progress presentation of Under Our Skin at last year's IFP Market. The film is a documentary about Lyme disease, and I don't believe I'm exaggerating when I say that it is one of the most important films you could see this year, not just because of the hidden near-epidemic that is Lyme disease in this country, but because of all the health industry implications and machinations explored in the film. There are plenty of opportunities to see the film at Tribeca, but there is only one Behind the Screens screening.

In an effort to allow festival-goers to have an even deeper experience with some of our films, we've created this new series. It may not be utterly revolutionary, but it is brand new to Tribeca. Following a film screening, rather than our usual 10-15 minute informal Q&A session, we will present a longer, more in-depth moderated conversation with the filmmakers. In the case of Under Our Skin, its Behind the Screens event will be on Sun 4/27 at 6:30 PM at the DGA Theater on 57th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. The discussion after the screening will be moderated by Robert Bazell, the Chief Health and Science correspondent for NBC news. He will be talking to the film's director Andy Abraham Wilson; a medical and Lyme disease expert who appears in the film, Dr. Richard Horowitz; and noted author and former Lyme patient Amy Tan. Tickets are still available, and I encourage you to check out this event. It should be a fascinating, informative and educational evening, and the film itself is really great

Another Behind the Screens event which should be interesting for very different reasons is the May 1 screening of Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha, the latest work from indie film icon Melvin Van Peebles. Van Peebles and producer/director/actor Warrington Hudlin will talk after that screening, and it should prove to be an illuminating look into the creative mind of one of independent cinema's most influential figures.

Also tonight, the day before it's opening, we're showing Errol Morris' new documentary about Abu Ghraib, Standard Operating Procedure. As part of our other new film and discussion series, after this screening (tonight at 6:30 PM at the DGA), "Jarhead" author Tony Swofford will talk with Morris about the film.

We have a lot of great films showing at Tribeca this year, and I hope you'll check some out. When my schedule slows down in a couple weeks, I look forward to returning to this space and talking about some of my favorite films from the festival, and, as always, I'd love to hear from people about the films they saw or even just the experience they had. Tribeca continues to grow, and I think this year we've actually made some great strides, especially ones that have been beneficial for our general audiences and the nearly 3000 people who donate their time to volunteer. Hopefully you've noticed. Either way, please feel free to reach out and let me know.

Meanwhile ... it's back to work for me .....

Recap: Do They Make Anything for Oscar Reflux Syndrome?

Well, my predictions were right for the major awards -- not such a feat this year. But in considering upon yet another year where the actual Best Picture did not take home its prize, I found myself most startled by reflecting upon one of the several tedious and useless montages provided to us by tedious and useless Oscar-cast producer Gil Cates. Thank you Gil for giving us a show that ran just under 20 minutes over. Too bad it was possibly the most boring Oscar show ever, made more so by a couple terrible production numbers from Enchanted, but mostly due to the 80 Years of Oscar segments. But I digress.

Watching the one 80 Years of Oscar montage that went year-by-year through 79 previous Best Picture winners was actually quite fascinating. How many of those winners have held up through time. More importantly, how many of them would still be considered the best film of their respective years? Citizen Kane is regularly listed as the greatest movie ever made, and yet, the 1941 Best Picture winner was the John Ford film How Green Was My Valley, a wonderful picture, but not one which makes the top 10. When the critics lists came out in 1990 talking about the best films of the '80s, topping the consensus list was Raging Bull, but Scorsese's Jake La Motta biopic wasn't in tonight's montage because the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1980 went to Ordinary People. Scorsese made another film that rightfully would be considered one of the best of the '90s in Goodfellas. Of course, that New York mob epic lost its Best Picture competition to Dances With Wolves.

it's nothing new for people to argue about the fact that the Academy doesn't always (usually? ever?) give the award to the actual best film of the year. Certainly, the montage had other people arguing tonight about the worst ever Best Picture winner. Apparently, many think it's Titanic or Crash. Crash would easily win that head-to-head for me. Personally, The English Patient is also up there along with Driving Miss Daisy and Rain Man, maybe none of which is as heinous as the Crash win, but all three of which were far overrated and beat much worthier films that will hold up through the ages better. I mean, I have repeatedly mentioned my extreme love for Sunset Blvd, my pick for best movie ever. Well at least it lost to All About Eve, another all-time great. Or Network which certainly deserved to be the Best Picture of 1976, winning every other major category. It ultimately lost to the Best Picture prize to Rocky which, while not quite in the same league in my book, at least was a very good film and a cornerstone of sports cinema.

All of this leads me back to the only part of tonight's show that I care to reflect on: No Country For Old Men taking Best Picture from There Will Be Blood. How perfect would it have been to see Martin Scorsese hand a Best Director statue to Paul Thomas Anderson. A passing of the mantle, maybe? But instead, I get the feeling that P.T. is going to find himself having a career much like Marty's. When the lists are compiled for the Best Films of the first decade of the 21st Century, There Will Be Blood will be on it, if not at the top, very close to it. Will No Country? I doubt it.

No disrespect to The Coens. I love their film. I think it is probably the best film they've ever made in their illustrious career. Unlike a picture like Crash or Diablo Cody's win for the screenplay of Juno, I don't think No Country is in the running for Most Overrated Film of 2007 at all. It is a fantastic movie, and in almost any other year, probably would have deserved the top prize without a second thought. And yet, it is more than rare for a film like Blood to arrive in theaters; a film so complex with so many layers and elements that even those of us who praise it and rave about it and think we understand it will discover that there is so much more to it each time we repeat the viewing process.

There Will Be Blood is not just a better film than No Country For Old Men -- a film that will continue to be appreciated for years to come and likely become even more so -- it is a better film than every Oscar winner since the turn of the century and then some. The Departed, Crash, Million Dollar Baby, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Chicago, A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator ... will any of these films be among the best of the '00s? The only two that have a shot, as far as I'm concerned, are The Departed and Lord of the Rings.

So congrats to the Coens, but more importantly, congrats to P.T. Anderson. So you don't have the statue ... chances are you'll get one someday, but really more importantly, we'll all be talking about your magnificent film for years to come, long after films like Juno, Michael Clayton and Atonement have been forgotten. As for No Country, we'll see for it's arguably better than most of those previous winners too ... it just doesn't drink up their milkshakes quite as well.

For the Record: It's Oscar Night -- When the Stars Come Out to Shine (Gotta Love That Line ... or something)

Watching a few hundred Tribeca submissions has precluded me from doing my normal year-end round-ups and catch-ups. I don't mean writing, I mean actually catching-up on nominated films for the Oscars, Spirit Awards, Razzies, etc. Other than Cloverfield, I haven't had a chance to see any regular theatrical films since early January. My new TiVos -- yes, two of them -- are both virtually full because there's been no time to watch TV. On the plus side, as we come closer to locking the Tribeca program within the next week, I'm really excited about a lot of what I've seen so far, and as usual, there will be several films which I liked immensely but sadly for which we won't have room.

But it is Oscar night, and I figured for my own benefit (or harm) among those who might or might not believe that I picked such-and-such when I did, I'd just give my own perspective on the wills and the shoulds ... win that is.

Best Picture
Should win: There Will Be Blood -- Simply the best movie (so far) of the 21st Century.
Will win: No Country for Old Men -- A film this dark manages to be more mainstream and less dark than Blood. Recent momentum gives it the win.

Best Director
Should win: Paul Thomas Anderson forThere Will Be Blood -- The best movie of this year was also hands down the most well-crafted.
Will win: The Coen Bros. for No Country for Old Men -- Winning the DGA Award is not always a perfect predictor, but this year, it clinched it for Joel and Ethan.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Should win: Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood -- Rinse and repeat. For all intents and purposes, it really is an original screenplay, and a brilliant one.
Will win: The Coen Bros. for No Country for Old Men -- A fantastic adaptation, and a well-deserved award any year other than this one

Best Original Screenplay
Should win: Brad Bird et al for Ratatouille -- One of the weaker categories this year, but the latest Bird/Pixar collaboration was a wonderful exploration of the creative and artistic processes. Yes, I'm talking about the cartoon featuring a rat who cooks!
Will win: Diablo Cody for Juno -- I could (but won't) start a rant here. Suffice it to say, Juno -- together with Michael Clayton -- are my frontrunners for most overrated films of the year. In Juno's case, I don't dislike the movie, but Cody's going to get an award thanks to her biography, not because of a phenomenal screenplay. Good but uneven and flawed screenplay, yes. Oscar winning? No.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): I never got to Lars and the Real Girl nor The Savages. I heard mixed things about both, but obviously can't judge for myself.

Best Actor
Should AND Will win: Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood -- A brilliant performance that will go down in the history of cinema as one of the all-time greats. Day-Lewis made his previous tremendous work almost look like hackery, and that's saying something!
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): I missed In the Valley of Elah so also didn't see Tommy Lee Jones.

Best Actress
Should win: I abstain
Will Win: Marion Cotillard for La Via en Rose -- She's winning everything else.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): This is one of my worst covered categories, unfortunately. The only performance I did see was Ellen Page in Juno, so I can't even judge Cotillard for myself.

Best Supporting Actor
Should AND Will win: Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men -- Probably the second-best performance on-screen this year after Day-Lewis, a well-deserved nod for Bardem.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James

Best Supporting Actress
Should/Will Win: Cate Blanchett for I'm Not There -- I make this pick with reservations. I would be surprised to see Blanchett lose both awards, and I think unlike some others, Oscar will justifiably appreciate Blanchett's performance for more than what some morons dismiss as her simply playing a guy. However, I haven't seen Gone Baby Gone, and I think Amy Ryan has a great chance to be the underdog winner. Ryan is a tremendous actress who I've seen on stage several times -- not to mention in small film and TV roles, especially on a season of The Wire. She also is an atress who used to be represented by the agency at which I worked in the mid-90s in LA, so I'm a fan and would be very happy to see her take home the prize. Still, in my office pool, I picked Blanchett.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): Along with Gone Baby Gone, the fates kept making me miss American Gangster and Ruby Dee.

Best Animated Feature Film
Should AND Will win: Ratatouille

Best Foreign Film
Should win: I abstain -- NFC (it's an acronym) -- I haven't seen any of the nominees.
Will win: I kind of rolled the dice and based on nothing other than reading descriptions, I chose Beaufort for my office pool. But again ... NFC (still an acronym).

Best Documentary
Should/Will win: No End in Sight -- I actually did see every film in this category, and for me, it's no contests. No End in Sight was not just the most important of these films, but also the most well made.

Best Art Direction
Should/Will win: There Will Be Blood -- it wasn't necessarily always extravagant, but it was beautiful and brilliant. If I'm wrong here, I think it will be Sweeney Todd, and it wouldn't be undeserved.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): American Gangster and The Golden Compass

Best Cinematography
Should/Will win: There Will Be Blood -- Hands down, the most stunningly shot film of this and many other years.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): The Assassination of Jesse James

Best Costume Design
Should/Will win: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street -- Oscar likes to spread things around. Not as much as the Golden Globes, but some, and here's where I believe Tim Burton's great adaptation will take home a prize.

Best Film Editing
Should win: There Will Be Blood
Will win: No Country for Old men -- Often, but not always, this award is a predicator for the rest of the night, but especially Best Director and Best Picture. If Blood wins it, I actually don't believe that will be the case, but I don't think it will get it anyway.

Best Score
Should win: I abstain cause what should win is Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood, but for some reason it was not nominated/ineligible/huh?
Will win: Michael Clayton -- This was my pick, but it's not a secure one. I figure, again, that Oscar will try to through Clayton a bone, and this would be its best chance.
Disclaimer (what I didn't see): The Kite Runner or 3:10 to Yuma

Best Original Song
Should/Will win: "Falling Slowly" from Once -- This is another weak prediction. I haven't seen Enchanted nor August Rush, but the fact that Once even received a nomination against two big studio releases proves people saw the film and heard the song, so I'm taking the leap.

It's showtime, and really ... the rest of the awards are a toss-up. Give Pirates of the Caribbean a prize for Makeup and maybe even Visual Effects. Throw Transformers something like Sound Mixing, maybe even Sound Editing, although both could go to The Bourne Ultimatum, or There Will be Blood could (deservedly) grab Sound Editing.

Time to go. Happy Oscar!

Monday Miscellaneous Miscellany: Awards and Stuff

I've spent the whole weekend (yet again) holed up in my apartment encountering only those I had beckoned to bring me food, watching submission-after-submission, with intermittent breaks for news, a few episodes of Friday Night Lights and watching Broken English on DVD and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days on IFC in Theaters. (That's right ... I took a break from movies by watching two movies. I know that by all rational analysis, I have lost it.) But as I consider the end of January also the coming end of the statute of limitations to consider 2007, my delayed look-back lists will, one way or another, be coming this week. Until then:

• I'm a bit baffled at the DGA awarding their top prize this year to the Coen Brothers over Paul Thomas Anderson. No disrespect to No Country For Old Men, which will be one of my top five films of the year, but if there's one prize Anderson should get this year from anyone bestowing it, it's Best Director. I would actually have been much less shocked to see Anderson win the DGA and the Coens take the Oscar due to the broader voting block. I have a very hard time seeing it happening the other way around, i.e., Anderson surprising at the Oscars. And yet, it's quite surprising to me that a film which in a couple years will be in the running as the best film of the decade isn't receiving more formal hosannas.
  

• Meanwhile, kudos to both SAG and ASC for getting their top awards right. Even as many seem to hold back on the comparable praise for There Will Be Blood, the recognition of Daniel Day-Lewis' work is, rightfully, universal. I wonder, however, if too many are giving him too much credit for the movie itself, thinking that the performance is the only thing to react to. One of the reasons Blood is so tremendous is due to the fact that Day-Lewis gives potentially one of the greatest performances ever captured on film without overshadowing or upstaging the rest of the movie -- as, often, only the true greats can do. Blood was also recognized on Saturday as the American Society of Cinematographers gave their annual honor to Robert Elswit, whose photography contributes as much as anything else to Blood's virtual perfection. Meanwhile, SAG gave its Best Cast in a Motion Picture prize to No Country (as well as justly handing Supporting Actor to Javier Bardem). One of the reasons the Coens movie works as well as it does is not just because there isn't a weak link among its cast, but also because so many of the great performances are at the service of truly complicated, multi-dimensional and morally complex characters.
  

• As for the "stuff": Anyone out there a TiVo expert? Due to my quick realization that Cablevision's DVRs suck more than Time Warner's and almost as much as Cablevision itself, I have made the leap from DiVo to actual brand-name TiVo, and for the most part, I'm pretty happy. But there are actually a few nit-picky things that are bugging me, and most of all, I'm missing a few functions and shortcuts that I'm pretty sure must actually exist. So ... anyone know of any comprehensive TiVo shortcut sites? Anybody have enough experience to know if you can create more "Groups" (like, say, one for "Movies" recorded) in the Now PLaying list? Anyone know if there's a way to ask the machine to create a season pass for a certain show in one specific time slot that is not its first run time slot? (For example, Project Runway premieres at 10 PM on Wednesday each week, but maybe I want to record it every week in a different time slot, like 11 PM or 2 AM? But that time slot isn't recognized as "First run" obviously? This is something that the Time Warner DiVo easily did; the Cablevision DiVo sort of did; but it looks like the TiVo can't do it. Is that possible?
  

• I suppose I'll throw this out there: If you're job hunting and are super organized and have always wanted to work your ass off for not nearly enough pay ... I'm hiring for a few different positions at Tribeca.
  

• I'm kind of baffled by a lot of the Cloverfield reaction out there. I don't care if people don't like the film, and yeah, I wrote something of a rave last week for it, albeit never intending to infer that I think it's the greatest movie ever. But the film keeps receiving all these criticisms about its characters being completely devoid of depth or purpose and the story being simply a blatant recreation of 9/11 that just goes on for about an hour but doesn't say anything, and the only reasons I can see for such criticism are certain critics walking into the film expecting nothing good and closing themselves off from seeing anything that's there. I'm not trying to say that these are the most complex characters created in memory, but they each of a purpose, they each make life-and-death decisions -- often placing their own lives secondary -- and they each, within the confines of this world and this kind of story, learn and even slightly grow. But more importantly, the 9/11 comparison is really just the tip of the iceberg. I don't want to rehash what I wrote last week, but there is a lot in this film that articulates the fears many in this country have through the realization of this monster and the attack. Like 9/11, the attack is just the beginning. The ability of this monster to infect our society -- or in some cases our own persons and very beings -- is clear. The ability of the larger monster to spit off smaller creatures -- can you say "cells" anyone? -- that sneak-up and surprise in the dark, swarm when you're not looking and against which we seem powerless to defend? That's not the monster metaphor of what most red staters would claim is the 100% truth? Monster movies were never "truth." Monster movies -- especially those of the Red Scare '50s -- were all reactionary; they were all responses, or perpetuation, of propaganda and perception and paranoia and probably some other p-words that I'm missing right now. And so is Cloverfield. If the film has any faults in this area, it's for a lack of subtlety, but not a lack of content.

R.I.P. HEATH

I was sitting in a programming meeting today. It was around 4:45 or so, and two of my colleagues at the other end of the table was showing his blackberry to someone else. A few minutes passed, and she showed hers back to him, and one of them said, "Heath Ledger was just found dead." It took everyone in the room by surprise ... nothing unique there. When we got back to our main office later, apparently everyone there had been doing nothing but refreshing TMC and The New York Times and wherever else they could read the latest gossip.

Who knows what happened to Ledger. His family in Australia now seems to say that he had been suffering from pneumonia for the past couple weeks. A friend of mine sent me a passage from a newspaper story a couple months ago in which Ledger discussed the emotional difficulties he encountered from playing The Joker in Christopher Nolan's Batman sequel The Dark Knight, which opens this summer. Apparently this version of the character is so disturbed and demented that it played a part in Ledger having trouble sleeping, and so he would find himself taking a sleeping pill or two just in an attempt to get more than one or two hours sleep in a night. There have been other reports that he took his recent break-up from Michelle Williams especially hard.

I would ask "who cares?" if I didn't know that in our society everyone does. I don't ask that question to be crass or insensitive because I don't ask it in terms of "Who cares about Heath Ledger?" Rather, I mean, "Who cares how he died?"

Obviously ... still everyone. But at the end of the day, Ledger's death -- like so many other talented people before him, including Brad Renfro just last week -- whether purposefully self-destructive or completely accidental is just one thing: sad. Was it suicide? Did he accidentally take too many sleeping pills because he just wanted to sleep? Was he using any other drugs again recently? All these questions will likely be answered one way or another in the next few days, but that doesn't stop 100 rumors from being thrown out to the world before being retracted (or not) simply because people find some sort of joy even in some form of sadness. Ledger got to lead the high life -- and now, he flew too close to the sun. Or ... he didn't. He just made an accidental and fatal mistake.

Ledger had, at least to my mind, come a long way over the last decade of his consistently growing stardom. Even in something silly like 10 Things I Hate About You, he had a compelling screen presence. That grew into a significant acting talent, exposed beautifully in Brokeback Mountain, and, if one could base such a thing on a trailer (which one can't, but I'm going to anyway), his looks and posture and facial expressions alone make his Joker look like it's going to be something special. As an enormous Batman Begins fan -- a film which I still consider to be the best of 2005 -- I eagerly anticipate Nolan's sequel, and Ledger is one of the main reasons why.

It's just sad, in all definitions and connotations. And yet, whenever something like this happens, I wonder, "Why and how him?" Not because I'm wishing it was someone else instead, but simply because of the curiousity and seeming randomness of it all.

I always flash back to that night in 1993 when I was driving down Sunset Blvd on my way home, noticing a crowd of people on the sidewalk in front of The Viper Room. An ambulance coming from the other direction turned through the intersection in front of me. I had no idea what had happened, and continued driving home. The next morning, I was at a press junket when a friend came up and told me that River Phoenix had died, and putting two-and-two together, I suppose I drove by as he lay dying.

Two years earlier, at the same hotel, in the same ballroom, I was at a different press junket for the film Soapdish. Robert Downey Jr. was there. Robert Downey Jr. was running around the room. Robert Downey Jr.'s eyes were bugging out of his head. Robert Downey Jr. was definitely on something. Robert Downey Jr., 17 years and multiple rehabs and court trials later is still here with us and starring in what should be one of the bigger films of this summer, Iron Man. And I'm happy for that. High or not, he was a really nice guy that day, and he's an incredibly tired actor. But ... how? How has he, and others with similar substance abuse problems, managed to turn back just before reaching the sun.

And really ... other than providing cautionary tales to all of those who don't pay attention to the warnings anyway, does it matter? The film world lost a talented member of its club today. More importantly, his two year old daughter lost a father. It doesn't matter whether he committed suicide or overdosed on recreational drugs or accidentally overdosed on sleeping pills, because at the end of the day, he's gone without being able to use his talent to contribute anything further, and any way you look at that, it's just sad.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Oscar again presents the race for most overrated

As usual, subjecting myself to 15 minutes of E! feels like way too many brain cells have died, but it's the sacrifice I make on Oscar nomination morning. I still need to digest and look at the full list of nominees, but here are some quick thoughts:

The Good: If there is any justice in the Academy Awards world, There Will Be Blood will sweep the big four awards for which it received nominations, however the only true lock I anticipate is Daniel Day-Lewis' pending Best Actor win. I am encouraged, however, that both Blood and No Country for Old Men tied for the lead in nominations with eight each.

I also was pleasantly surprised to see Ratatouille not just receive its expected Best Animated Film nomination but also a Best Screenplay nomination. Even though it won't win, in a field where its competition is Juno, Michael Clayton, Lars and the Real Girl and The Savages, Ratatouille arguably deserves the prize.

The Bad and The Ugly: This seemed like a better idea when I first thought of separating things this way, but instead, I'm probably just tired. Still, I've discovered over the past few years that the Academy loves to drive me crazy (granted, I'm sure my reaction is not foremost on their mind) by nominating more than one film that really truly doesn't belong there.

Babel, Crash and Capone top the list from the past two year with Crash still holding on to most overrated film in recent memory thanks to its Oscar win. This year, the prize for most overrated looks to be a neck-and-neck race between Michael Clayton and Juno. In my own way, I'm less disturbed by the Best Picture nominations each film received as the Best Screenplay and Best Director honors. Neither deserve to be considered one of the top five films of the year, and once again one has to marvel at the Academy's ability to always split one Best Director-Best Picture combo slot between two films. Considering that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Atonement are both better than Michael Clayton and Juno, it's quite curious to me that Julian Schnabel received a director nomination for a movie not good enough for the top five and Atonement was apparently directed by nobody. I know, I know ... the two categories don't necessarily have to match-up, especially between its winners, but generally ... they should.

More important, though, Michael Clayton would currently win my most overrated prize. I know many really like the film -- hence the over in front of the "rated" -- and I understand some of its appeal. But the Best Director nod to Tony Gilroy is downright appalling. Michael Clayton survives primarily on its performances and a feel-good, feel-bad story (if that makes any sense). But Gilroy's direction is sloppy at best and virtually incompetent at worst.

Juno is better, and I certainly enjoyed it, but I fall firmly in the camp that thinks the film has received a bit more hype than deserved. The movie is a huge step for Jason Reitman, much better constructed than his previously overlauded Thank You For Smoking, but he doesn't belong in the same room -- let alone nomination list -- with Paul Thomas Anderson, Joel Coen & Ethan Coen or Schnabel. And as for Diablo Cody apparently being the greatest writer to hit Hollywood since Billy Wilder ... oh wait a second. Juno is a crossover success, so I guess she hasn't hit Hollywood yet, right? Of course, as many have written, there's nothing crossover about Juno. Nevertheless, Cody's screenplay is fun and generally well-written, but being a stripper before writing your screenplay should not earn you an Oscar, and yet, that seems to be what anybody ever mentioning her or now this nomination seems to mention first so obviously, that's what's best about her work, right?

Of course, not, and that may not be fair to Cody, but judging the writing simply on the writing, it's good - even very good -- but not great. Sarcasm and irony walks a very fine line in this kind of comedy -- one that Aaron Sorkin has destroyed so that he now finds himself falling uncontrollably down a bottomless pit of quippiness -- and Cody doesn't always tread it lightly enough, nor does she develop all her characters to a complete enough conclusion. Yes, the Juno character -- and Ellen Page's performance -- are what hold this film together, but the rest of the characters -- with some great performances notwithstanding, particularly from Michael Cera -- actually are relatively flat.

THIS JUST IN: THE NEW UGLY: No Best Original Score nomination for Jonny Greenwood for There Will Be Blood. That's not a snub; that's a crime!

More later ....

Cloverfield: A Monster Movie for the New Millenium

The biggest surprise about Cloverfield -- the new monster thriller opening today from Alias and Lost creator-producer J.J. Abrams, directed by his former partner on Felicity Matt Reeves -- is that for the first time in recent memory (if not ever), a January release doesn't royally suck. In fact, Cloverfield is surprisingly (to me, at least) pretty incredible -- a throwback, of sorts, to the classic sci-fi monster films of the 1950s mixed with a DIY, Blair Witch influenced narrative technique and an early 21st century sociological sensibility.

The fact that I just described the film's biggest shock as being simply not sucking while getting a release date generally reserved for films that studios know are bad -- throw aways that won't compete too hard against all the potential awards season releases opening wider and getting audience boosts thanks to nominations and wins -- is not a criticism of the movie itself in any way. In fact, one reason Cloverfield is so good is because it remains thoroughly gripping even though none of the big plot "twists" really come as much of a surprise. The film opens with a note on screen mentioning that the following tape was found in an area of New York formerly known as "Central Park." That one sentence alone seriously limits what is even possible in terms of the story's conclusion. And yet, even as what-happens-next is regularly more than apparent, the film is so well crafted that it continuously thrills even if it doesn't always surprise.

Personally, I'm going to give much of the credit to Reeves. I'm not one of the main members of the JJ Abrams fan club. I've watched each of his series -- except Six Degrees -- semi-religiously, but I find that he comes up with such great ideas for twists that he often jumps out of the bounds of reality within the very worlds he creates in the first place. He certainly did not prove himself to be a great film director with either Mission: Impossible 3 -- really nothing more than a glorified, big budget and not all that interesting big screen episode of Alias.

Cloverfield -- which Abrams produced but did not direct -- is, by contrast, a generally fantastic example of cinematic economy. The film itself -- minus end credits -- runs just over 70 minutes long. It feels neither too long nor too short. With the small exception of ending a couple minutes after the film probably should, there is not really one extraneous moment. It moves along at a pretty quick pace, keeping the audience in a primarily breath-holding, seat-gripping, edge-sitting position for the vast majority of it's final 50-60 minutes -- once the shit really starts flying.

But what makes Cloverfield a great film is that it is, in fact, a brainy one. One of my favorites of 2007 was the Korean monster movie The Host from director Bong Joon-ho (my original 2006 NYFF review is here. Bong's achievement went far beyond simply having a monster run around town stomping on people; his film presents an allegory tremendously critical of U.S. imperialism, international intervention and the Iraq war as well as Korean complacency and paranoia.

During the mid-20th Century, Hollywood sci-fi and monster films of both the A and B variety -- titles such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, Them! -- were a not-so-thinly veiled result of the Red Scare. The aliens and monsters were the communists, and the U.S. -- especially personified by regular, hard-working citizens with the support of the government but not because of them -- would usually manage to triumph over the evil enemy.

But we now live in a post-Vietnam and post-9/11 age. Our fears, and therefore our monsters, are scarier, more spontaneous, less calculating and seemingly impossible to find and destroy. So The Host comes from Korea and the U.S. produces Cloverfield.

The allusions to the 9/11 attacks are anything but veiled. When the monster starts attacking New York, the first thing beheaded is the Statue of Liberty, i.e., liberty itself. Meanwhile, the shocked and usually apathetic New Yorkers become momentarily oblivious to the destruction and damage around them to take camera phone pictures of the disembodied statue's head.

The "attack" happens out of nowhere. The people we're following are having a fun time at a going away party, with individuals concerned about their own problems and lives -- are they petty? Doesn't matter -- before being shocked into a new, chaotic reality. Nobody knows what's going on, and in the first minutes, everything is confusing. The monster attacks lower Manhattan first. There are explosions and fireballs. A rolling huge plume of smoke starts coming down the street and people run screaming away from it. Is this imagery too much? For some, it may be, but it's exactly this personal flashback for the audience and the discomfort it may cause that is the film's goal.

Cloverfield is not a happy movie nor a necessarily triumphant one. But the halcyon days of the United States disappeared during the era of Vietnam and Watergate. As much as many in our country like to believe in our invincibility, these days, an even greater percentage likely feel helpless against an "enemy" constantly presented as a thoughtless rampaging creature whose only goal is destruction, and against whom there may not be any true defense. The pessimistic pseudo-apocalyptic outlook presented here is at best a rarity among major Hollywood studio films (and Cloverfield's relatively modest budget does not make it any less a big studio film when coming from Paramount and Abrams' Bad Robot). Even pictures like I Am Legend or 2006's brilliant Children of Men present half-full conclusions that leave the audience with a smidgen of hope regardless of the rest of the film's bleakness. The relative degree of hope versus despair at the end of Cloverfield will be something that audience members might see in different manners, and yet, the film certainly does not argue for a triumphant ending.

Cloverfield isn't for everyone, but it also isn't your average sci-fi thrill-ride with little else to it even if it may appear as such. It sets out to do something very specific, and while not perfect, overall it succeeds magnificently, with the added benefit of never being afraid to add a wee bit of humor at regular intervals to break the tension but without ever overdoing it so it feels unnatural or annoying.

I'm writing this less than two hours after seeing the film. Will Cloverfield stick with me in a similar manner to The Host? I'm guessing not. Although Cloverfield works very well on several levels, it's symbolism and representations are still fairly obvious, at least more so than The Host. But who cares? What Abrams, Reeves and scribe Drew Goddard have done here is pretty remarkable in today's movie market -- made a monster movie with no stars and a relatively small budget that has to make its debut during the doldrums of January, and made it better than possibly any American monster thriller made in recent memory.

The Business of Being Born: A Quick Plug for a Festival Fave

One night during last year's Tribeca, I was hanging out at the AMC Kips Bay supervising my staff and doing some introductions of films. I was scheduled to intro one documentary which coming into the festival was one of my favorites. I had met the filmmaker briefly at our office one day, but not the film's famous producer. Suddenly, this familiar looking woman comes walking down the hallway in some ridiculously high heels. I did a double-take thinking, "Wow? Who's that! She's hot!" Then I did a second double-take (quadruple take overall?) when another one of my internal voices thought about the film I was about to introduce, bitchslapped my brain and said, "Moron. That's Ricki Lake."

Wha?!?

I had actually just seen Lake's picture on the cover of US for a story all about her weight-loss, but she looked even better in person, and I was shocked. I was even more shocked because only about a month before, I had seen Lake very pregnant and very naked giving birth in her home in the film The Business of Being Born.

Abby Epstein's fantastic documentary opened at the IFC Center last week, and if you have yet to see it, you really should go. Guys too! For one thing, the film received a rousing endorsement from its sold out audiences at Tribeca, finishing in the top 5 for the Audience Award. But more importantly, and as I said in each of my two or three introductions for the film, The Business of Being Born is a movie for everyone. In fact, the people on the programming team who wound up being most enthusiastic about it were two men (including myself). Epstein does a tremendous job of not just exposing some major troubling issues regarding the modern birth industry in America, but also in providing -- especially for men -- an in-depth and up-close (sometimes maybe too close?) look at the process, beyond the phony hospital scenes in movies or Lamaze instructional videos, including the vital part that a prospective father can and should play, beyond holding the camcorder.

What's truly impressive about Epstein's film, however, is its balanced while still critical and opinionated perspective. Without giving away the film's narrative -- which relates too Epstein's own pregnancy during the making of the film -- The Business of Being Born expertly describes why there is not only a place for both at home and hospital births, but why the latter is often, in fact, necessary, and how any trained midwife would be the first to tell a woman in labor, "Let's get to the hospital" when such a situation would be necessary. Epstein, Lake and the women (and men) who expose themselves (literally) in this film all deserve applause. But as I discover repeatedly and too often as I watch doc-after-doc submitted to the festival, plenty of filmmakers have their hearts and arguments in their right place; that doesn't make their films compelling or good. Epstein has managed to do what all great and important documentaries do, though: great subject, well made. I urge you to check it out.