At just 24, Noah Baumbach made his mark on the indie film world with Kicking and Screaming, his hilarious and finely observed study of post-collegiate ennui. His Mr. Jealousy followed but the picture’s lukewarm response meant a long five years before he obtained funding for The Squid and the Whale. Happily for Baumbach, the superb film was a major critical and commercial success. Two years later, he’s back with Margot at the Wedding, another character-driven......

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......

Jesse Eisenberg was still in high school when he struck indie-film gold with his performance alongside Campbell Scott in Roger Dodger, one of 2003’s funniest and most affecting films. He’s since gone on to pull his weight in Noah Baumbach’s Park Slope rhapsody The Squid and the Whale, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village and, currently in theaters, The Hunting Party – to name a few. (He’ll soon enjoy an even higher profile thanks to his......

There's an amusing story in New York magazine about how Phoebe Cates helped capture a pair of thieves who stole the purse of a woman (okay, the wife of the Public Theater's new artistic director). Was it with a twinkle of her eyes and hint of red bikini? Actually, no - one of the items stolen was a gift certificate to Phoebe's store, Blue Tree, on the Upper East Side, so her employees were on......

It's the itch we can't scratch - the Academy Awards. We make sure we see the announcements at 8:30AM and then rush to work, thinking about the nominations while on the train. This morning, Academy President Sid Ganis and Mira Sorvino (who isn't doing anything else, anyway) announced the nominations. As expected, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, and Capote earned many nominations, and Crash made a surprising showing with Best Picture, Best Director......

Gothamist was a bit underwhelmed by this year's Golden Globe nominees, and we were thinking of not liveblogging. But, gosh darn it as we watched the E! preshow and saw the starlets sparkle their way down the red carpet, we realize it was hopeless, so here we are. Let it be known that: - Keira Knightley looks gorgeous in her white Valentino - and there's something surprisingly youthful about the dress, even though there's that......

No don't worry. Gothamist doesn't plan to subject you to yet another film Top 10 list. If you want a good ... uhm ... "overview" of this year's Top 10 lists, you might want to check-out The Reeler's Top 10 Top 10 lists. (Nos. 10-6 appeared yesterday. The top five went up this morning.) If you're looking for something more traditional, you should probably look at The Village Voice's Take 7 film critics poll. Meanwhile,......

You won't have to hear us babble on about the New York Film Festival anymore as another edition has come and gone. Some of the films that played are already in theaters -- Good Night, and Good Luck, The Squid and the Whale, Capote -- and others will be coming out in the coming weeks and months including the fantastic Korean political assassination satire, The President's Last Bang. As usual, New Yorkers are treated to......

This is it. The last weekend of the 43rd New York Film Festival, and in our humble opinion, this year's program has, for the most part, lived up to its grand expectations. From big name films like Good Night, and Good Luck (which opens citywide today) to promising indie fare like The Squid and the Whale (also opening this week) to lesser-known foreign gems like Who's Camus Anyway? and The President's Last Bang (to name......

Although we wouldn't want to drown ourselves too much in a gigantic lake of hyperbole, a peak at this weekend's local film offerings is enough to make any cinephile utterly giddy. The New York Film Festival will be wrapping up with a tremendous program including what is billed as Michelangelo Antonioni's "preferred cut" of his classic 1975 Jack Nicholson starrer The Passenger. (We'll have a final bit of NYFF coverage tomorrow.) Plus, two of our......

You've already heard us wax poetic in our NYFF coverage about Noah Baumbach's latest cinematic foray, The Squid and the Whale, but how can we not? Based on events in Baumbach's life, the film looks at a family going through a messy, joint-custody divorce in Brooklyn in 1986. Each family member internalizes the bitter reality in their own way and Baumbach artfully brings the psychological unravelling to life in his bleeding dramedy. Jeff Daniels......

Noah Baumbach,
The Squid and the Whale...

This weekend marks the midpoint of the New York Film Festival, and this year, that means a whole slew of screenings and interesting events to choose from. For those of you who like your films a bit less straightforward, the NYFF's annual sidebar "Views from the Avant-Garde" screens all weekend at the Walter Reade Theater. If that's not enough, HBO Films hosts a "Directors Dialogue with Neil Jordan" at 4 PM on Sunday in the......

Another week, another slew of choices for New York film lovers. We reach the half-way point of the 43rd New York Film Festival this weekend. We've already presented some coverage from the fest, and there will be more to come tomorrow, and through the very busy weekend and next week at Alice Tully Hall, the Film Society of Lincoln Center's annual celebration of the best of world cinema will continue to dominate the attention of......

There's a full week of screenings ahead at the 43rd New York Film Festival, including three of the most anticipated American films in the entire program. But as we also mentioned in the most recent Weekly Movie Guide, tonight at 7:30 PM is a very special sidebar event at the Walter Reade Theater: "Greeneland: Graham Greene and the Cinema", a presentation/lecture/screening organized by Adrian Wootton, the former Director of the London Film Festival and current......

Sundance is definitely in full swing - you can tell by all the blurry-eyed revelers wandering up and down Main Street. We're trying to make all the rounds, but it's difficult because we actually have paying work to do at the festival. Today, we thought we'd serve up our report in terms of bests and worsts: Best party - Palm Pictures Like defamer, we hit the Palm Pictures party last night. We had a bunch......