New York Film Festival 2011

I attended my first New York Film Festival last weekend.  It was a great excuse to hop over to the Right Coast, briefly experience the energy of NYC and meet a lot of cool people.  While NYFF runs for over a two-week length, the higher profile films are shrewdly spread out over the entire festival.  Since I didn’t have the luxury of staying in the city for more than a couple days, I ended up seeing a chunk of films I wasn’t necessarily anticipating. 

The logo this year featured white lettering inside an orange block and a font suspiciously reminiscent of this year’s TIFF.  However, much different were the promotional spots preceding each film, which, this year, though slick and full of variety, grew tiresome at Toronto and downright awfully-produced (at times) for LAFF.  I gladly awaited a repeat viewing of the succinct and charming NYFF ads, a montage of short blips of this year’s offerings at the festival set to charming music.  Rather than obnoxious, they were a building collection of references from the films I had seen.  After the final screening, I realized I had seen and/or recognized most all of them, even Pina, the new dance-themed Wim Wenders film I regrettably have missed at two festivals so far.

Apparently, NYFF isn’t as big of a festival as Tribeca in the Spring is.  But, I loved how straight forward it was.  All of the venues were in the Lincoln Center; assigned seating allowed you to show up at any time before the film started (although, late entrances proved to be distracting); and the festival didn’t pretend to be anything more than it was.  While I didn’t particularly care for most of the films I saw, I really wasn’t that disappointed by the experience.  Or, perhaps I was just drunk off the giddiness I got from riding the subways everywhere.  Also, the people I met were really interesting. 

I even got walked by Harvey Weinstein twice (the first time was by accident; the second was deliberate), who is much shorter than I had imagined.  

I’ve now pretty much finished my reviews from the weekend ... 

New York Film Festival Grading Scale:

(includes films that were shown at the festival, but I had seen elsewhere)

A-: The Artist

B+: Shame

B: Castle in the Sky, Kid on a Bike, Martha Marcy May Marlene, My Week with Marilyn, Play, The Skin I Live In, Sleeping Sickness

C+: Goodbye First Love, Miss Bala, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, The Student, The Turin Horse

D: 4:44: Last Day on Earth

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