Tribeca officials announced that more than 155,000 ticketed moviegoers attended the 11-day fest this year, down from 185,000 last year (over 12 days) and 203,000 in 2006 (over 13 days), according to their records. This, despite the fact that organizers lowered ticket prices by 20 percent and centralized screenings and activities in the Tribeca and the Union Square area. They estimated total attendance of just under 400,000 at the 2008 Festival. The Observer's Sara Vilkomerson wrote: "At seven years old, it’s time to ask: Can Tribeca grow up?" We're not so sure New Yorkers are willing to allow Tribeca to graduate from film festival pre-school given those numbers.

The Tribeca Film Festival went as it had come: with another glitzy premiere.

Merely two weeks after the festival encroached on our city with the much-hyped premiere of Baby Mama, the Wachowski brothers’ Speed Racer closed the festivities to an equally if not more star-treaded red carpet and winding line of rubbernecking ticket holders.  read more »

Tuesday night’s TFF premiere of Finding Amanda was a feature directorial debut for Peter Tolan, a veteran film and television writer who's written for Murphy Brown, Analyze This and Rescue Me.

Finding Amanda is about a sit-com writer with a gambling addiction who tries to redeem himself after his wife leaves him, by going to Vegas—a natural setting for gambling addicts to find themselves—and rescuing his niece who is prostituting herself for drugs.  read more »

Strangers, AMC Village VII, 2 p.m.

It could be a setup for some sort of awesome romantic comedy: a man and woman lock eyes on a train while both traveling to Berlin for the World Cup finals before accidentally switching backpacks. But, of course, things get more complicated, as the couple in question is an Israeli man, and the woman hails from Ramallah but has been living in Paris, trying to escape the daily terrorism that comes with life in the Palestinian territories. Brace yourself for relationship metaphor for political conflict! Directed by Erez Tadmor and Guy Nattiv. (Watch the trailer above.)  read more »

Everywhere at Once, Village East Cinema, 1:15 p.m.

can’t help but think that inspiration for Everywhere at Once must have been born during a late-night heavy-talking/drinking session…in this film photographer Peter Lindbergh and “experimental filmmaker” (uh-oh) Holly Fisher collaborated to “weave together a tapestry of images” using Mr. Lindbergh’s photographs and clips from the 1966 Tony Richardson film Mademoiselle starring Jeanne Moreau. Ms. Moreau narrates using a poem by Kimiko Hahn. Got it?

Donkey in Lahore, Village East Cinema, 3:45 p.m.  read more »

Last night we caught up with Harmony Korine at the TFF premiere of his new film Mister Lonely. And get this—he's a married man now! The writer of Kids and director of Gummo—and ahem, former Chloe Sevigny dater—arrived with wife Rachel Korine, a soft-spoken young woman of Lolita-esque beauty from his hometown of Nashville, Tenn. He even cast her as Little Red Riding Hood in the utopian film about a commune of celebrity impersonators and sky-diving nuns!  read more »

Theater of War AMC Village VII 1 p.m.

Doesn't it seem like just yesterday (or 2006) that Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep were rehearsing for the great summer outdoor production of Mother Courage and her Children? John Walter (How to Draw a Bunny) brings the behind-the-scenes drama of staging the bleak Bertolt Brecht play (try saying that three times fast!). Mr. Walter also examines Brecht's life and career, and the includes moments with his Brecht's daughter, his collaborator Carl Weber, and vintage footage of Brecht's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee.  read more »

At the after party for Beastie Boy Adam Yauch’s documentary, Gunnin’ for that #1 Spot, it was pretty easy to recognize who was in the movie … just look for the giants! The film documents a 2006 game between 24 of the best high school basketball players in the country at Rucker Park in Harlem (referred to many manytimes by players as a “Mecca”). A few of the players—including Michael Beasley, whose name is constantly followed by the extended sobriquet "expected to be the No. 1 draft pick this year"—were in attendance, and the almost-seven-footers looked shy and big-footed among an adoring, rain-frizzled crowd. (During the Q and A after the film, many in the crowd kept asking Mr. Beasley if he’d come to New York. Wishful thinking).  read more »

A large crowd waited on a damp red carpet Monday night for the premier of War Inc., a satire of strife in the Middle East starring John Cusack, Marrisa Tomei and Hillary Duff and set in the fictitious state of Turaqistan.

"It was tough playing a pop star who wasn't me," confessed Ms. Duff, who plays a local Turaqistani singer named Yonica Babyyeah. "But I am getting to an age where I enjoy taking on new challenges."

Rather infamously, in this movie one of those new challenges included filming a scene in which the singer puts a live scorpion down her pants.  read more »

Savage Grace, AMC 19th Street, 3 p.m.

It’s a good thing the filmmakers of Savage Grace make sure to throw the “based on a true story” tag everywhere they can, because this film is bananas. Julianne Moore (who continues to surprise us with roles like this one), plays Barbara Baekeland, a beyond eccentric and certainly troubled socialite. As her husband Brooks (Stephen Dillane, a.k.a. Thomas Jefferson for all you John Adams fans) starts to become more aloof, Baekeland becomes, er, inappropriate with her son Tony (played by Eddie Redmayne, who was quite the Sundance superstar this year). We won’t give away the ending, except to say it is based on a real story, one that ends in murder, and has a scene in it that still has us feeling traumatized.  read more »