Copyright 2009 The New York Sun Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:48:43 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Arts+ :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us BRUCE BENNETT http://www.nysun.com/arts/around-the-world-and-back/86634/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The noncompetitive, keenly curated New York Film Festival, which begins its two-week run Friday, is neither a far-ranging marketplace nor a prelude to an awards night. Therefore, it's tempting to look upon what is, by the increasingly popular "more is more" programming standards of Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, and Tribeca, a comparatively small slate of 28 contemporary features as a reliable bellwether of global cinematic trends. In the four decades since its creation, Lincoln Center's autumn... NICOLAS RAPOLD http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-british-artist-plumbs-the-politics-of-hunger/86653/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST 'Full-bodied cinema" is one way of describing "Hunger," the extraordinary debut feature by the British artist Steve McQueen that will screen this weekend at the New York Film Festival. Often grueling but never gratuitous, the film relives the incarceration of members of the Irish Republican Army in the infamous Maze prison near Belfast, specifically the 1981 hunger strike led by Bobby Sands until his death. The immersive film, full of sensual texture and finely isolated detail, is at once... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/barbet-schroeder-cant-be-killed/86654/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Even though his retrospective at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's BAMcinématek alludes to his "mad obsessions," Barbet Schroeder seems entirely measured and sensible. The affable and erudite Iranian filmmaker acts more like a wily anthropologist, irresistibly drawn into the unruly thicket of human nature, eyes wide open, unsure of exactly what he will find. "I take reasonable risks," the 67-year-old Mr. Schroeder said. "I know it looks crazy." Film history marks him as a key player in the French... S. JAMES SNYDER http://www.nysun.com/arts/choke-hard-to-swallow/86642/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST We keep waiting for "Choke" to up the ante, to elevate its crude antics into some kind of ethos. Instead, the story keeps asking us to search an emotional vacuum for hints of humanity that simply are not there. It's almost as if first-time director Clark Gregg failed to sit down with his cast and discuss the tone of the project. As the movie reaches for loony absurdity, the actors play their caricatures with gusto and conviction. Considering the peculiar particulars of the plot, "Choke," which... BRUCE BENNETT http://www.nysun.com/arts/eagle-eye-let-it-go-to-voicemail/86639/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST If one is inclined to entertain the notion of hurling one's cell phone into traffic, immersing it in water, or doing whatever else it takes to make it stop delivering bad news, garbled messages, and unsolicited contact from without, "Eagle Eye," a new thriller from Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks creative brain trust, may be just the ticket. Within the first reel, slacker Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) gets drawn and quartered by his phone. First, a voice belonging to Jerry's mother delivers the worst... S. JAMES SNYDER http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-lucky-ones-nothing-salves-the-soul-like/86644/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST There are so many untold stories about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that the intentional implausibility of "The Lucky Ones" is truly cause for concern. Have we already given up on trying to transmit any shred of reality to the big screen? Is this all we have left to expect from our filmmakers — the ongoing wars reduced to prologue, used solely to add an air of gravitas to the most routine Hollywood melodrama? Screenwriters Dirk Wittenborn and Neil Burger (the writer and director of the... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/nights-in-rodanthe-contrived-hollywood-archetype/86645/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Nicolas Sparks is the Stephen King of the mush-brained romantic novel and, like the prolific schlockmeister of "Carrie," "Pet Sematary," and "The Stand," the author has found true love in Hollywood. Producers can't option his four-hankie epics of transformational passion fast enough. "Nights in Rodanthe" is the fourth big-screen adaptation of Mr. Sparks's work, following "The Notebook," "Message in a Bottle," and "A Walk To Remember." Like those movies, "Nights in Rodanthe" offers the kind of... FRANCIS MORRONE http://www.nysun.com/arts/mother-lode-brooklyn/86536/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST One year ago, the excellent Web log Curious Expeditions (curiousexpeditions.org) posted a long series of color photographs of some of the world's most beautiful libraries. Among them were Strahov Theological Hall, the Beatus Rhenanus Library in Basel, Biblioteca Angelica in Rome, Duke Humphrey's Library in Oxford, the Boston Public Library, the extraordinary Peabody Library in Baltimore, the Melk Abbey Library in Austria, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in New Haven — 93 pictures... NICOLAS RAPOLD http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-melting-pot/86367/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST This Friday, the curtain will rise on the 46th New York Film Festival with Laurent Cantet's award-winning classroom drama, "The Class." Sixteen days later, it will fall with the bloodsport climax of Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler." Smack in between, Clint Eastwood's period mystery "Changeling" will serve as the festival's centerpiece. In a way, the eye-catching range of these three tent poles signals the festival's perennial tensions between the new and the familiar, convention and... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-director-creates-ballast-in-his-soul/86446/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Had circumstances broken another way, Lance Hammer might not have spent the past five years creating "Ballast," which opens next week at Film Forum. The film, set against the desolate yet stirring winter vistas of the Mississippi Delta, is a parable of loss and redemption that won top prizes for directing and cinematography at last year's Sundance Film Festival. It was born of an almost happenstance occasion of wanderlust and a foreseeable bout of frustration with the Hollywood machinery. "It... CARYN ROUSSEAU http://www.nysun.com/arts/macarthur-foundation-awards-genius-grants/86416/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:55:15 EST CHICAGO — An evolutionary geneticist in Germany, a Nigerian-born writer, and an architectural historian who studies ancient bridges are among 25 recipients of this year's MacArthur Foundation "genius grants." The $500,000 fellowships were announced today by the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Recipients may use the money however they wish. A plant evolutionary geneticist at Tuebingen, Germany, Kirsten Bomblies, 34, said the money will allow her to expand her... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/baldwin-book-rails-against-family-court-system/86413/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:06:04 EST SAN FRANCISCO — Alec Baldwin blamed the bitter custody battle between him and ex-wife Kim Basinger in part for the anger and frustration he was feeling when he berated his daughter in a phone message leaked to the media last year. In the message, Mr. Baldwin called the 11-year-old a "rude, thoughtless little pig." He was apparently upset that she had missed his phone call. "I'm disappointed, I'm ashamed to say this: You get angry," the 50-year-old actor told a crowd of about 120 people... VICTOR DAVIS HANSON http://www.nysun.com/arts/why-we-fight-martin-van-crevelds-the-culture/86443/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Martin van Creveld is one of the world's most prolific military historians, and has written in serial fashion about the state of present-day military conflict in light of the past. His books, most of whose names make use of the word "war," have appeared steadily every few years — "Supplying War" (1977); "Command in War" (1985); "Technology and War" (1989); "The Transformation of War" (1991); "The Art of War" (2000); "Men, Women and War" (2001), and "The Changing Face of War" (2006). Mr... BRENDAN BERNHARD http://www.nysun.com/arts/i-am-man-hear-me-out/86368/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST It's not often I find myself pondering the duration of an episode of a television series, and whether or not it's the correct length, but the 30-minute doses in which the story of Showtime's "Californication" are doled out have always struck me as being just right. With only half an hour to move the narrative along, scenes are generally kept on a tight leash and points are made quickly. There are no dead spots or meandering passages. Instead, each episode is crammed with quips, confrontations... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/high-definition-tv/86369/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST TV on the Radio finally lives up to its long-smoldering ambition with its third album, "Dear Science" (DGC/Interscope), which is out today. This 11-track effort features all of the Brooklyn quintet's so-called experimental hallmarks — Dave Sitek's choppy, layered production; Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone's pyrotechnic harmonies; an insouciant stylistic hybrid that freely borrows from funk and avant jazz, 1950s pop, and 1970s progressive rock; and the band's sober but hopeful worldview — more... S. JAMES SNYDER http://www.nysun.com/arts/cantet-jumps-to-the-head-of-the-class/86366/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST People assign a lot of terms to the films of the French director Laurent Cantet, terms that typically point to the social themes of his stories or the naturalism of his methods. Mr. Cantet, who frequently wraps his fictional tales in documentary threads, has spent the last decade focusing chiefly on the ways in which class differences tug at the soul of a society. In 1999, Mr. Cantet made "Human Resources," which parlayed a family scuffle into a labor dispute, with a white-collar son finding... NICOLAS RAPOLD http://www.nysun.com/arts/vojt-283ch-jasnys-cinema-of-freedom/86169/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST In the 1970s, when the Czech filmmaker Vojtěch Jasný was struggling in exile from his Communist-run homeland, he came to the German writer Heinrich Böll for guidance. Böll offered a simple reminder: "He said three words: 'Patience, Vojtěch, patience,'" Mr. Jasný, 79, recalled recently. Patience was a necessity for the director, who lived through World War II, Communist rule, exile, and all the accompanying turmoil before alighting in America in 1984. Beginning Friday, Anthology Film... S. JAMES SNYDER http://www.nysun.com/arts/passing-strange-moving-on-to-life-at-ifc-center/86286/ Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST It's been a while since we've had a bona fide documentary blockbuster. But as far as Thom Powers, a documentary programmer at Toronto International Film Festival and the organizer of the weekly Stranger Than Fiction documentary series at Manhattan's IFC Center, is concerned, the rumors surrounding the genre's demise are greatly exaggerated. "There have been plenty of doom-and-gloom articles about the documentary market, but these pieces often focus on the wrong indicators, looking only at... WILL FRIEDWALD http://www.nysun.com/arts/ahmad-jamal-strikes-up-the-orchestra/86285/ Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Can this really be the fifth season of Jazz at Lincoln Center at Rose Hall? Already there are young people filling seats at the Rose Theater who probably feel that JaLC has been around forever, and even take it for granted. They'd probably be amazed to hear that listeners in the 1940s thought it was a big deal whenever jazz made it to one of the major concert halls, like Carnegie or Town Hall, and probably couldn't imagine a world in which American music was accorded the same respect as... MEGHAN KEANE http://www.nysun.com/arts/an-unspeakable-act-hounddog/86182/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Known colloquially as "The Dakota Fanning Rape Movie" since its premiere at last year's Sundance Film Festival, Deborah Kampmeier's "Hounddog" arrives in theaters Friday after a long distribution struggle with a handicap that it just can't shake. Young Ms. Fanning plays Lewellen, a motherless 12-year-old growing up poor in the Deep South circa the mid-1950s. Living with her bitter grandmother (Piper Laurie) and disturbingly callous father (David Morse), Lewellen distracts herself from the... ANDREW STUTTAFORD http://www.nysun.com/arts/fight-for-your-right-to-fight-battle-in-seattle/86180/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST One doesn't have to agree politically with a movie to appreciate the skill with which it was made or, for that matter, to enjoy it. To combine a bad film, however, with worse politics is to add insult to injury, which brings us to the topic of "Battle in Seattle," a ham-fisted, sanctimonious blend of leftist agitprop, by-the-numbers melodrama, and excruciating self-righteousness that arrives in theaters Friday. If you are currently taking orders from Rage Against the Machine, Michael Moore, or... BRUCE BENNETT http://www.nysun.com/arts/buying-and-selling-justice-in-rio-elite-squad/86175/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST According to Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura), the narrator and dramatic catalyst of José Padilha's fiction film debut "Elite Squad," on the mean streets of modern-day Rio de Janeiro, "the drug gangs and the police had to work out ways to get along." The captain, leader of a cadre of the titular paramilitary cops called BOPA, initially presides over a flashy but quotidian cinematic tour of Rio after dark, rendered in a style and tone similar to the kinetic view of Brazil's urban underworld in... GRADY HENDRIX http://www.nysun.com/arts/doom-with-a-view-lakeview-terrace/86177/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Two years ago, Neil LaBute, the bad boy button-pusher of cinema who has lately been more the rage onstage than on-screen, unveiled a remake of Robin Hardy's 1973 men-versus-women thriller "The Wicker Man." Cast largely with small-time actors, Mr. LaBute's version nonetheless starred Nicolas Cage, who wound up digging a ham hole so deep that the entire movie slid down with him and became a giggle-inducing exercise in high camp. Now Mr. LaBute is back with another hot-button thriller, this time... NICOLAS RAPOLD http://www.nysun.com/arts/how-the-west-was-lost-appaloosa/86176/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Whenever more than two movies set in the Old West come out, reflexive discussions about the rebirth of the Western sprout up like mining towns and just as quickly fade away. It certainly happened last fall, when "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," "3:10 to Yuma," and "There Will Be Blood" offered three worthwhile entries in the genre. A year later, that Western surge is still too fresh in the collective mind for this year's fall previews to make much fuss over Ed... S. JAMES SNYDER http://www.nysun.com/arts/seeing-things-for-the-first-time-ghost-town/86174/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Love may be a many-splendored thing, but when it comes to capturing the euphoria of new romance on the silver screen, it can be a hard sell. We all know the flashy love epics, where seduction occurs naturally and effortlessly between two impossibly beautiful people, usually via love at first sight. But what of the movies in which two ordinary humans scratch and claw their way through a maze of neuroses, foibles, and missed opportunities to find that love is possible even for the distinctly less... ANDREW STUTTAFORD http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-good-the-bad-and-the-beautiful-the-duchess/86173/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Barely more than a decade after that tragic dash through Paris and the unhinged, hysterical carnival of lamentation that followed, it is no great surprise that Princess Diana continues to cast a shadow over popular culture, particularly in the country where she once seemed destined to be queen. It is, nonetheless, disappointing to detect that elements of her tawdry, strip-mined melodrama have been slipped into Saul Dibb's new film "The Duchess," which arrives in theaters Friday. The British... NICOLAS RAPOLD http://www.nysun.com/arts/spike-lee-goes-to-war/86172/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST According to the standard hubbub that greets each new Spike Lee movie, the director makes controversies for a living instead of films. To be sure, Mr. Lee, one of the most fearless voices in contemporary American cinema, is quotably outspoken. But when he talked recently about "Miracle at St. Anna," his forthcoming film about a group of black soldiers hiding in an Italian village during World War II, the first topic wasn't wars of words but war movies. "I've always wanted to do one, I just... WILL FRIEDWALD http://www.nysun.com/arts/raising-jazzs-unimpeachable-spirit/86171/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Louis Armstrong's position in jazz may be, in Dizzy Gillespie's famous phrase, "unimpeachable," but there was a moment when, in the radical 1960s, Armstrong was actually denounced by some younger musicians — not for his music, but for his comedy and crowd-pleasing stage antics. The trumpeter Jimmy Owens, however, was one contemporary jazzman smart enough to see through the act. Once, at a concert during this period, my father commended Mr. Owens for his pro-Satchmo position, and the musician... ANDREW STUTTAFORD http://www.nysun.com/arts/dragging-kennedy-into-a-new-fight/85870/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST At its best, counterfactual or "virtual" history (to use Harvard historian Niall Ferguson's term), the exploration of what might have happened if history had not taken a certain turn, can be a fascinating intellectual exercise, a "what if" that illuminates what did happen. Unfortunately, "Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived," which begins a two-week run at Film Forum tomorrow, is neither fascinating nor illuminating. Helmed by first-time director Koji Masutani, and featuring Brown... JAY NORDLINGER http://www.nysun.com/arts/maazel-at-bat-for-a-final-season/86147/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST On Wednesday night, the New York Philharmonic began its 2008–09 season, and Lorin Maazel began his last as music director of the orchestra. He arrived in 2002. His successor will be Alan Gilbert, who is coming to us from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. Because it was opening night, Mr. Maazel and his charges started out with the national anthem. As he has the last several years, Mr. Maazel conducted the anthem nobly, elegantly, and purposefully. Some people think he adds a little... GRADY HENDRIX http://www.nysun.com/arts/first-among-equals-peeks-into-thatchers-england/85873/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST It's not difficult to feel completely overwhelmed by television shows on DVD. On the one hand, they offer deeper, richer, and often more entertaining experiences than most movies, primarily because they're stretched over multiple episodes and even seasons, allowing for more complex plots and characters. On the other hand, these giant boxes crammed with discs stack up on your shelves like unfinished homework, a succession of seasons and series you'll never watch: "The Wire," "The Sopranos,"... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/dance-your-childhood-away/85875/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Dressy Bessy continues its winning streak of 1960s and 1970s throwback power pop on its new album "Holler and Stomp," which is out today on Transdreamer Records. The Denver quartet isn't going to reinvent the wheel with its guitar crunch or basic power-pop formula, but there is something whimsically appealing about the band's giddy exuberance. That something begins with the engaging charisma of vocalist-guitarist Tammy Ealom, whose brisk delivery and unabashedly trite lyrics make Dressy Bessy's... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/jon-langford-saves-wales-with-song/85874/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Onstage recently in the back room of Schuba's Tavern in his adoptive hometown of Chicago, the singer Jon Langford introduced a song he called the Welsh National Anthem. His band, one of many fronted by the multifaceted guitarist and songwriter, was called Skull Orchard, and played an often rollicking repertoire of songs about Wales. That's where Mr. Langford grew up, and it's where he returns — in spirit, at least — when he convenes the group. In Mr. Langford's imagination, Wales has been... BRENDAN BERNHARD http://www.nysun.com/arts/house-the-doctor-will-scold-you-now/85872/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST So Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) is back for a fifth season of "House," limp and Vicodin addiction intact, relationship with Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), the Watson to his Holmes, very much on the ropes. Last season's finale, in which a drunken House inadvertently played a role in the death of Wilson's girlfriend, Amber, left fans of one of the best and most popular shows on television scratching their heads as to how the two men could possibly reconcile. If you thought House might... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/jonathan-lethem-brooklyns-newest-literary-rock/85871/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Inside every celebrated Brooklyn novelist is a songwriter struggling to break free. At least, it seems that way. Paul Auster has written songs with the band One Ring Zero, which has backed up his daughter Sophie's performances of them. Rick Moody plays in the quirky art-folk outfit the Wingdale Community Singers. Now, Jonathan Lethem, author of "Motherless Brooklyn" and "The Fortress of Solitude," has a new musical side project. "You Are All My People," which comes out today on Bloodshot... BRUCE BENNETT http://www.nysun.com/arts/lean-spirited/85698/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST "Nothing lasts, really," Laura Jesson, the guilt-hobbled heroine played by Celia Johnson, laments in director David Lean's 1945 film "Brief Encounter." "Not happiness, not despair, not even life lasts very long." Though inspired by Noël Coward's play "Still Life," Laura's musing (delivered, like much of her dialogue, in voice-over) was co-scripted by the British-born Lean (1908-91). Indeed, that resigned assessment of the impermanence of things would make sense delivered by nearly anyone in the... S. JAMES SNYDER http://www.nysun.com/arts/ifp-runs-on-platform-of-change/85799/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST For those even casually familiar with America's independent filmmaking scene, it's clear that these are times of profound change. In fact, it's so obvious to Michelle Byrd, executive director of New York's Independent Feature Project, that she can't help but draw parallels between the shifting sands of the movie industry and the "change"-oriented rhetoric that has come to define the current presidential campaign. "This is a time of new models, of new ways of thinking," Ms. Byrd said, adopting... WILL FRIEDWALD http://www.nysun.com/arts/cue-the-violins/85793/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST It is said that when the composer W.C. Handy heard his most celebrated work, the "St. Louis Blues," being played by a symphony orchestra, he was struck by the mental image of a farmer plowing his field in a full-dress dinner jacket and tailcoat. Some 30 years later, when someone had the nerve to ask Miles Davis his opinion about the use of classical form and formalism in the Modern Jazz Quartet, he likened the effect to a great boxer stepping into the ring in a tuxedo. Despite the contradiction... NICOLAS RAPOLD http://www.nysun.com/arts/burn-after-reading-this-movie-will-self-destruct/85699/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Who can begrudge the Coen brothers a breather after the slowly strangulating suspense of "No Country for Old Men"? A comedy of persistent idiocy like "Burn After Reading" is a logical, and healthy, response both to the frightening world depicted in their Oscar-winner and to the expectant burden of their mainstream accolades. No classic for old Coen fans, their new film, which arrives in theaters Friday, is nonetheless a perfectly enjoyable yarn. It's a little like observing mice in tutus and... KATE TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/arts/gioia-leaves-nea-after-changing-debate-over-arts/85697/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST In the midst of a deeply contentious election, in which the major parties are divided on almost all of the issues, from abortion to health care to Iraq, one old rallying cry — that of the so-called culture wars — has hardly been heard at all. That one no longer hears Republican candidates calling for the abolition of the National Endowment for the Arts is a credit to the effectiveness of the NEA's chairman since 2003, the poet Dana Gioia, in changing the terms of the debate around government... BRUCE BENNETT http://www.nysun.com/arts/righteous-kill-the-case-of-the-vanishing-legacies/85695/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST In a heavily circulated bootleg tape of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis recording radio spots for their 1953 Paramount film, "The Caddy," Martin mangles the ad copy they've been given and mispronounces one piece of hyperbole as "righteous" instead of "riotous." "'Righteous'? Where the f--- do you see 'righteous,'" Mr. Lewis demands, ad-libbing. "What is this, a religious picture?" Both actors then descend into an exchange of barbs even less printable in a family newspaper. Each time I've read or... KATE TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/arts/metropolitan-museum-chooses-a-young-insider-as/85487/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Thomas Campbell, a curator in the department of European sculpture and decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will be the next director and CEO of the museum, the Met announced yesterday. Mr. Campbell, 46, who curated two highly praised exhibitions of Renaissance and Baroque tapestries, will succeed Philippe de Montebello, who has served as director for 30 years. Mr. Campbell will take office January 1. The choice of Mr. Campbell is bold, since he has never run so much as a... GARY GIDDINS http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-dark-knight-orson-welless-don-quixote/85402/ Tue, 9 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST One of the highlights of the 35th Telluride Film Festival, which took place over the Labor Day weekend, was the documentary "Prodigal Sons," by Kimberly Reed, who endeavored to film the reaction of her family and friends as she returned to Helena, Mont., for her 20th high school reunion. Her hometown had known her as Paul, the school's star quarterback. Other than her rivalrous and mentally impaired adopted brother Marc, no one seemed fazed by her "transition." Ms. Reed, however, had a shock in... BRUCE BENNETT http://www.nysun.com/arts/robert-downeys-no-budget-genius/85404/ Tue, 9 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Since its founding by director Martin Scorsese in 1990, the nonprofit preservation organization the Film Foundation has provided support and funding for restorations of key works by filmmakers as diverse as Alfred Hitchcock, Satyajit Ray, David Lynch, Jean Renoir, and John Casavettes. The foundation's wide-ranging efforts have also broadened to include experimental and underground cinema artists such as George and Mike Kuchar and Jonas Mekas. Beginning Friday, Anthology Film Archives will... MARY STAUB http://www.nysun.com/arts/community-movement-marking-an-anniversary-through/85309/ Mon, 8 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Dripping with sweat in the sweltering sun and 90-degree heat last Thursday afternoon, a man and two women crept across one another on the steps of Brooklyn Bridge Park, in DUMBO, froze in emotional tableaus, then silently fell to the ground. The three, dancers of the Silver-Brown Dance Company, were polishing a work to remember the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, "Oasis 5," which they will perform in the park Thursday evening. As in every year for the past seven years, individuals and... NICOLAS RAPOLD http://www.nysun.com/arts/this-old-house-godfrey-cheshires-family-history/85219/ Fri, 5 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Soon after Christmas in 2002, the Manhattan-based film critic Godfrey Cheshire, a North Carolina native, learned that his cousins in Raleigh were moving. Not earth-shattering news at first glance, except that his relatives, Charlie and Dena Silver, lived in the family's ancestral home. Midway, a bona fide plantation house, was built on land first acquired in the 18th century and had been home to generations. This would be a move in the most literal sense. The Silvers were planning to pick up... LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES http://www.nysun.com/arts/lost-boy-roberto-aguirre-sacasas-king-of-shadows/85312/ Mon, 8 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The risk of a playwright's note in a program — that little message penned directly to the audience, no actors or script to get in the way as the writer imparts some context for what the spectators are about to see — is that it can come across as a disclaimer. In the case of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's note outlining the genesis of his "King of Shadows," which is making its world premiere in a Working Theater production at Theater for the New City, the seeming disclaimer goes something like this... WILL FRIEDWALD http://www.nysun.com/arts/louis-armstrong-home-and-away/85307/ Mon, 8 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST At first glance, the two discs that make up "Rudy Vallee's Fleischmann's Yeast Show & Louis' Home-Recorded Tapes" may seem like two batches of material thrown together for no apparent reason, other than that both feature previously unissued private recordings excavated from Louis Armstrong's own collection. Either disc, particularly the one with live radio performances from 1937, could be described as the most important Armstrong discovery to be released since his death in 1971. Yet taken... S. JAMES SNYDER http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-spirit-of-robert-flaherty-lives-at-bam/85306/ Mon, 8 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST For more than half a century, documentary films existed only at the margins of cinema, embraced by a small filmmaking community and remaining relatively unnoticed in the mainstream. That's why many moviegoers are unaware of the genre's long and storied history, assuming, as they do, that most docs look and sound like "March of the Penguins." It's probably a surprise, then, that the first breakthrough documentary was filmed in 1922 by Robert Flaherty, the director generally considered the father... S. JAMES SNYDER http://www.nysun.com/arts/alan-ball-is-looking-for-trouble/85220/ Fri, 5 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST For anyone out there who thinks that Alan Ball's only concern these days is the reception of his new HBO series "True Blood," festival audiences and Hollywood executives might let them in on the avalanche of controversy barreling toward the creator of "American Beauty" and HBO's "Six Feet Under." Mr. Ball's directorial debut, "Towelhead," about a 13-year-old Lebanese-American girl who struggles with sexual obsession, an aggressive and bigoted neighbor, and her strict father, is set to arrive on...