A Mighty Heart (directed by Michael Winterbottom) Being a journalist doesn't sound like a very dangerous profession, but for Daniel Pearl, his investigations while reporting on the situation in Karachi for the Wall Street Journal lead to his untimely end. Michael Winterbottom's most recent film starring Angelina Jolie offers a brief snapshot of Pearl, as played by Dan Futterman, and his stoic widow Mariane who used her own investigating skills to try to track down... [continue]

With a heavy heart, we say farewell to another wonderful film festival at Lincoln Center. The program closed with an animated movie, an adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels about growing up in Iran called Persepolis. Using the voices of French actresses Catherine Deneuve as Marjane's mom and Deneuve's daughter with Marcello Mastrioanni, Chiara, as Marjane, the movie is a charming and evocative snapshot of life during the Islamic revolution and subsequent war with Iraq.... [continue]

Jonathan Lethem Selects BAM Cinématek Starting next Monday and running through the middle of November, Brooklyn author and Friends of BAM chairperson Jonathan Lethem will be programming the cinématek with some of his favorite movies. Fans of his writing know that Lethem loves pop culture but this series doesn't really have more of an over arching theme than that it features some of the author's most beloved films and plain ol' good movies. There are... [continue]

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (directed by Shekhar Kapur) Ever since she dazzled audiences in 1998 with her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I, it's been hard not to think there's something naturally regal about actress Cate Blanchett. Now Blanchett has returned to her Oscar-nominated role in a sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age with the same director and a similar cast. But will lightening strike twice? Maybe the expectation level was too high, but while Elizabeth the... [continue]

Man Push Cart (directed by Ramin Bahrani) You might grab a coffee and a bagel from the corner coffee cart every morning for years, but still never know much about the guy working inside. In director Ramin Bahrani's first feature film he tells the story of one push cart vendor, a Pakastani named Ahmad who's struggling with his past as well as his cart. Shot in Queens and midtown, Man Push Cart puts a flawed... [continue]

We've made it through 10 days of this year's New York Film Festival, and it's been a great run so far. As usual, the selection committee has picked stellar films and we've sat in on some star-studded Q&A sessions at Lincoln Center. Here are a few thoughts at the midpoint. Local boy Noah Baumbach presented the follow up to his Oscar-nominated and former NYFF favorite The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding at... [continue]

Arnaud Desplechin in Focus Museum of the Moving Image When Gothamist saw cinematographer-turned-director Arnaud Desplechin's film Kings and Queen two years ago, we knew we were watching something unique. His movie about a French woman and the three important men in her life—her adorable son, her crazy ex-husband and her dying father—unfolds so organically you get completely caught up in the complex characters, utterly forgetting that Desplechin is expertly telling his story in a very... [continue]

My Kid Could Paint That (directed by Amir Bar-Levi) Documentarian Amir Bar-Levi spent a year following the Olmstead family as their daughter Marla became a darling of the contemporary art world. The only odd thing about Marla meteoric rise to fame? Her age. She was 4 years old at the time and painting elaborate abstract canvases selling for thousands of dollars each. Following a large profile of Marla on 60 Minutes that brought into doubt... [continue]

How I Met Your Mother: Season Two More and more people seem to be jumping on the bandwagon to promote CBS's hilarious program How I Met Your Mother but as long as that network's popular sitcom Two and Half Men gets nearly double the viewers, it can't be reiterated enough. Maybe the release of the second season on DVD today will bring over more converts to the show's charming characters, witty dialog and creative storytelling... [continue]

An author of the comic book series Optic Nerve, graphic novels like Summer Blonde and a frequent illustrator for New Yorker, Esquire and Rolling Stone, Adrian Tomine draws beautiful pictures about bad relationships—banalities, messiness, thrilling encounters and accidental connections. His new graphic novel Shortcomings follows Berkeley movie theater manager Ben Tanaka and the final days of his flawed relationship to Miko, who is considering a move to our fair city for a job. Cranky Ben... [continue]

Tonight marks the beginning of the Film Society at Lincoln Center's 45th annual New York Film Festival and oh what a jam-packed fest it is. A panel of film critics chose 30 of the best new international movies to show to New York's discerning audiences and they picked hometown director Wes Anderson's newest, The Darjeeling Limited (which also comes out in theaters this weekend) to open the festival. Gothamist was pleasantly surprised at how much... [continue]

Lust, Caution (directed by Ang Lee) For fans of Hong Kong cinema, it's a bit of a surprise that a wonderfully expressive and nuanced actor like Tony Leung hadn't worked before with the Oscar-winning, Taiwanese turned New Yorker director Ang Lee. But the two artists have been united now in Lee's new thriller set in World War II Shanghai, Lust, Caution which comes out this weekend. An erotically charged film with such explicit scenes that... [continue]

Black Book (directed by Paul Verhoeven) Growing up in Holland during their occupation by the Nazis, it's no surprise that Dutch director Paul Verhoeven would want to revisit that chapter of his country's history on film. But seeing as it is Verhoeven, director of such hilariously trashy and provocative films as Showgirls and Basic Instinct, he's not going to make a tame, reverent movie about the heroic Resistance. Black Book is a sexy, in-your-face Resistance... [continue]

The New York Film Festival doesn't begin until Friday but you can get your first taste of what will be unspooling on screens at Lincoln Center tonight at the Soho Apple Store. Director Wes Anderson and stars Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman will be on hand for a screening of Anderson's new 12 minute short film Hotel Chevalier at 9 pm. The short was shot entirely in a Paris hotel room and serves as a... [continue]

If recent viewings of Grizzly Man and Rescue Dawn have you intrigued with Werner Herzog's work, check out his legendary Fitzcarraldo about Klaus Kinski trying to bring opera music to the Peruvian jungle, which is now playing at IFC Center with a new print. If you ever wondered why Herzog referred to himself as the "Conquistador of the Useless," Fitzcarraldo is the project that really encouraged his brilliant madness. It's one of the greatest potential... [continue]

Into the Wild (directed by Sean Penn) Chris McCandless wanted to utterly divorce himself from civilization. He gave away all of his money, abandoned his car, changed his name and cut off all ties with his family. Adventure journalist Jon Krakauer wrote a very moving account of the young man's experiences tramping around the United States for two years and then spending four months living in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilds before dying... [continue]

Death Proof (directed by Quentin Tarantino) A Quentin Tarantino movie is 20 percent celluloid and 80 percent bravado, and the PR whirlwind surrounding the release of his recent double feature Grindhouse with Robert Rodriquez was a prime example. However even though the directors talked up the movie geek factor and the ultra violence factor, the project bombed at the box office. There's probably lots of reasons barely anyone went to see it, but choosing to... [continue]

W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism Brooklyn Academy of Music Repressive political regimes and free-wheeling cultural expression can go together hand in hand, and the flowering of film in Yugoslavia during the '60s is a great example of it. BAM Cinematek is devoting a series this month to this Black Wave, a film movement that combined "artistic, sexual, and ideological freedom with a sense of humor." One of the major features in this group of films... [continue]

The Brave One (directed by Neil Jordan) As city dwellers and city lovers, we know living in New York can be scary. We just don't usually get reminders of how perilous our home is when we go for entertainment at the movie theater. Irish director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), with the help of one of our best and most revered American actors Jodie Foster, have constructed a randomly violent and morally ambiguous New York... [continue]

The Graduate (directed by Mike Nichols) If you're looking for a cultural touchstone for the '60s, or even one of the first great uses of pop music on a movie soundtrack, you don't need to search much further than The Graduate, Mike Nichols' dark comedy from 1967. A coming-of-age story that's spawned a Broadway adaptation and a poorly conceived movie continuation, The Graduate turns 40 this year (just like the Summer of Love) and in... [continue]