On Saturday, Oct. 4, the paparazzi were in full blitzkrieg blast outside the Ziegfeld Theatre for the premiere centerpiece of the New York Film Festival, Changeling. Director Clint Eastwood, tall and ever-elegant in a dark suit and blue-printed tie, posed with his film’s star, Angelina Jolie—glam and sultry, and apparently back to pre-twins shape in a black Versace dress. Brad Pitt was beside her, and when they posed together the wall of photographers’ flashbulbs lit up the sky. But further down the line it was a different story.

Jason Butler Harner, who plays the role of Gordon Stewart Northcott, infamous serial killer of the late 1920s in Los Angeles, was taking his first major red-carpet stroll.  read more »

Security was nutty this morning (bag searches and wands?) up at the Walter Reade Theater for the first American screening of Clint Eastwood’s Changeling. Based on a true story, the film is about Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single mother who returns home from work in 1928 only to discover her son has vanished. After five months, with lots of publicity, the LAPD reunited mother-and-son--only problem was that Christine knew the boy wasn’t hers. And that’s just the beginning of the movie! The rest of it involves untangling the corruption and cover-ups of the Los Angeles Police Department. After the film (which is 2.5 hours long and flew by) 78-year-old Clint Eastwood – tall, elegant, and dry – sat for a press conference. The man looks really good – we just can’t stress that enough. And he’s funny too!  read more »

Ever since Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and inspired one of those famed late-night bidding wars in Toronto , everyone has been all aflutter to see the film. It’s due to close the 46th New York Film Festival on October 12th (and released by Fox Searchlight in theaters in December) but those wrinkled press and industry types got to see the film this morning. Mickey Rourke, who is in practically every scene of the film, turned in as good a performance as promised, playing an aged professional wrestler who still likes to suit up for the ring, and listen to 80s hair metal as he drives around New Jersey (holla!). People are already talking about an Oscar for Mr. Rourke, and maybe for Mr. Aronofsky too (which is a far cry from how they responded to his last film, The Fountain).

At the press conference following the film, it seemed clear that Mr. Aronofsky is quite the taskmaster on set. “I won’t say he’s tough because he doesn’t like that,” said Mr. Rourke. “Relentless. Let’s say relentless.”  read more »

The 46th New York Film Festival officially opens tonight with The Class (reviewed this week by Andrew Sarris), but soggy members of the press and industry showed up this morning for a screening of Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky. The film is all about a thirty-year-old woman named Poppy, an irrepressible schoolteacher in the north of London who is (almost crazily) optimistic and upbeat even when facing down the unhappy people who cross her path...or steal her bicycle, or borderline stalk her. Sally Hawkins stars and owns this one. The actress, previously seen in Mr. Leigh's Vera Drake, will surely be one to watch during award season -- she's already won the Best Actress Award at the Berlin Film Festival.  

The Hollywood Reporter brings us the following tidbit on the 2009 New York Film Festival (not to jump the gun or anything, considering the 2008 New York Film Festival starts in just two weeks): Next year's festival will focus on China, marking "the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China with a rare retrospective of films made between 1949 and the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966." In July, New York Film Festival director Richard Pena traveled to Beijing to organize the collection of about 20 works, which will revisit well-known period films while also showcasing some more obscure "gems."

"That period from '49 to '66 is like a black hole," Pena, who teaches a Chinese cinema course at Columbia, told The Reporter. "Almost no one has written about it. Nobody's not interested in the period, but it's just not an easy era to tap into."

Meanwhile, this year's festival kicks off on Sept. 26 with the award-winning French film The Class. The full lineup is on the festival's Web site.

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Late last night in the front room of O’Neals Restaurant at West 64th Street and Broadway, director Ira Sachs was explaining the importance of the New York Film Festival.

“A commitment to cinema—over a long period of time—as an art form,” the 42-year-old director said, was the hallmark of the festival, which for the first time was presenting his work, the film Married Life, starring Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Cooper and Rachel McAdams.

“To me, that’s something that’s been lost in the independent movement, which is something that I came out of, which is to think of film in the same context as a painting, or a photograph, or a ballet, or the Met, or whatever else it may be that is artful in cinema that is significant in itself,” Mr. Sachs said.  read more »

The New York Film Festival eschews Tribeca’s glamour and glut in favor of smart, classy fun.  read more »