NYFF50 closes tonight with the lengthy Robert Zemeckis/John Gatins FLIGHT

It has been only two weeks and two days since the 50th New York Film Festival opened (with Life of Pi) and now here it is closing already, with four screenings this evening of the newest film from director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter John Gatins, the simply-titled FLIGHT. The film's real draw, of course, is its star, Denzel Washington, one of the few men who can still pack 'em into theater seats. He certainly packed 'em into the final press screening this morning at the Walter Reade Theater, and I must say that, in person (I passed him coming up on the escalator as I was going down) he looks even better than he does on screen -- at least in this movie, in which he plays a fairly obnoxious alcoholic druggie who can still fly a damaged plane more successfully, it would seem, than anyone else in the world.

It is encouraging to have Mr. Zemeckis (shown at right) -- who in former decades delighted us with everything from I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Back to the Future to Forrest Gump and Roger Rabbit -- directing something other than that faintly obnoxious brand of animation he now seems to prefer, but I wish I could feel a bit more welcoming about the end result. I'll have more to say about this very well-acted, alternately feel-bad/feel-good, coincidence-prone, manipulative, and mostly mediocre movie when it opens theatrically on November 2. To obtain information about today's remaining NYFF screenings of Flight, click here.

Meanwhile, though no official stats are offered (that I know of) by the Film Festival folk, I am told by one in-the-know that this just-closing, half-century edition of the fest is its most successful ever -- both in terms of the amount of films (new and old) shown, the amount of movie-goers who came and feasted, and the amount of money taken in. All of which makes further expansion of the NYFF a likely and looked-forward-to expectation.

As to the quality of the films, this is always a mixed bag. Of the seven movies I managed to see, two were special (Life of Pi and The Paperboy), three worthwhile-to-mixed (Holy Motors, Passion and Room 237), and two disappointing (Amour, above, and Flight). I'll have my specific reasons at the ready by the time of each film's theatrical release.

NYFF50: Leos Carax's HOLY MOTORS plays once, tomorrow, & opens theatrically soon

The phrase "best film of 2012" is being bandied about regarding the new Leos Carax movie HOLY MOTORS, but I would take a step back before jumping on that particular bandwagon. The movie is certainly fun (for awhile), deals in weighty themes (among these: class, religion, the utter arbitrariness of life, the ordeal of the filmmaker and his audience), and gives one of cinema's most spectacular performers -- Denis Lavant -- the chance to strut his stuff as eleven different characters (one with a hard-on that just won't quit), all residing under the same actor's roof.

As writer and director, Carax, shown at right, goes on too long (as usual: Bad Blood, The Lovers on the Bridge, Pola X), yet much of what he shows us is at least interesting, sometimes riveting, and often original. Original, however, does not always signify worthwhile, and Carax alternates between the unusual and the pretentious, the pompous and the playful. Unfortunately, "playful," in this filmmaker's hands is rather like having a game of soccer while using a 30-pound lead balloon as your ball. Heavy, man.

Dance, gymnastics, so-so musical numbers, murder, mayhem and that very stiff cock. They're all here and waiting for you to figure out how to put them together. I'll have more to say next week, as Holy Motors' opening day, October 17, approaches. So if you miss the New York Film Festival's single screening -- tomorrow, Thursday, October 11, at 6pm in Alice Tully Hall -- at least you know you'll soon have another chance to see it. (That's M. Lavant, above, right, with Eva Mendes.)

NYFF50: Rodney Ascher's ROOM 237 deconstructs Kubricks' The Shining

What fun (for awhile, anyway) is ROOM 237, which plays its last New York Film Festival performance at the Francesca Beale Theater tomorrow, Monday, October 8, at 9pm! (If you don't see it then, you'll have to wait till next March, when IFC Films releases the documentary via its IFC Midnight series.) This odd, often delicious deconstruction of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, is the work of one Rodney Ascher, shown below, who in his press notes, tells us that, as a kid, he ran out of the theater playing The Shining, 20 minutes after sneaking into that theater to view it. Ever since, he's been obsessed with the movie. What we see here in the fruit of that obsession.

TrustMovies suspects that your reaction to the film will depend in large part on your reaction to Mr. Kubrick's oeuvre as a whole. If you're a die-hard fan of his work, I can't imagine your missing this film under any circumstances. If you're one of those people who feel that Kubrick was a hit-and-miss movie-maker (but certainly more hit than miss), you'll most likely be wired to view it. Even if (as do I), you've found The Shining to be one of his least successful endeavors, you may find yourself surprised at what Mr. Ascher and his small crew of interpreters mange to uncover. Such theories you'll see and hear here! Along with the hidden (in plain sight) symbols you'll discover! And the strange messages you'll manage to de-code! Or not.

As the movie moves along, the theory of Indian genocide may hold you fast. After all, those cans of Calumet must mean something). Even the theory about the Holocaust should carry some weight. By the time you get to the subliminal images, Barry Nelson's symbolic hard-on, and what happens when you project Kubrick's film forward and another print in reverse at the same time, you may be ready to cry uncle. (Die-hard Kubrick/Shining fans will not, but most of the rest of us will.) One thing the movie did make me realize: The Shining never really worked that well on its stated, conscious level as a scary movie because its director was far too preoccupied with its subtext, or gave over too heavily to his unconscious, or cared little for film continuity (the last is most unlikely). Yet it is when cinema (or novel or any kind of art) meshes naturally and simultaneously on both the conscious and unconscious levels that you get the really good stuff.

NYFF50: There's PASSION tonight (later, too) as Brian De Palma's newest unveils

Might as well come right out with it: PASSION, the new film from Brian De Palma which has its American debut at the New York Film Festival tonight, is a remake of the two-year-old French film Love Crime by Alain Corneau (which proved to be that director's final movie). That Mr. De Palma would choose to remake a movie this recent that was released in a dozen major countries around the world was by far a bigger shock to TrustMovies than anything he saw in Passion itself. Does that make it a bad movie? Not at all. It's actually a lot of fun -- perhaps even more so for those of us (many, I would wager) who have already seen the earlier version.

As a stylist, M. Corneau was quiet in the extreme (Love Crimes was all icy blues and greys -- as icy as its leading lady, Kristin Scott Thomas -- particularly its interiors, which were "corporate" to a fault.) De Palma (at left), as usual, goes so over the top that you can't (and wouldn't want to) take your eyes off the screen. All or many of his signature tropes are here, from that huge staircase seen from above to the sudden, bloody slash of the knife, from fetish objects to twins. Not that he was the first to make use of any of these, but few have used them better.

There are differences in plot and character between the movies, but mostly it's a matter of style. The American, being a practitioner of giallo (well, he's Italian American!) gives us a far wide color palette, stylish but not plentiful gore, a number of goosebumps and the promise and delivery of some transgressive sex, though not of the lesbian variety that is rather expected.

In the roles created by Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnuier, we now have Rachel McAdams (above, going fairly far afield from her usual sunny-disposition roles) and Noomi Rapace (below, left, the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). To add to the same sex mix, Rapace's assistant is now played by a women (Karoline Herfurth, below, right) rather than a man, with designs -- and ambitions -- of her own regarding her boss.

Comparions may be odios, but as De Palma has practically courted them, they're inevitable. I suspect there will be at least as many positive as negative. Passion plays tonight at 9 at Alice Tully Hall; Saturday, October 6 at 9 at the Walter Reade Theater; and Thurs-day, October 11 at 3:15 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

NYFF50 offers a fine opener in Ang Lee's and David Magee's adaptation, LIFE OF PI

What an unusual film -- lovely, rich and nipping at the heel of profundity -- has been chosen to open the New York Film Festival at its half-century mark. LIFE OF PI, written by David Magee and directed by Ang Lee, from the internationally award-winning novel by Yann Martel, proves a genuine "family film": intelligent, thought-provoking, mysterious, emotionally resonant, and likely to leave both and adults and older children fulfilled on certain levels, even as they question and attempt to understand and appreciate it more fully on others. The movie's reach exceeds its grasp to perhaps just the extent necessary to make it miss greatness but achieve wonder. This is, as they say, no small potatoes.

Mr. Lee is working once again in a genre different from anything he's formerly tried -- a fantasy adventure pillared upon precepts both religious and rational -- and he is surprisingly successful at this, just as he has been at very nearly every genre he has attempted (though there is that Hulk problem). TrustMovies has not read the original Pi novel, but he suspects that Lee hews pretty closely to it in terms of both the letter and the spirit because this director has done so in all his other adaptations, as far as I can recall. He's a humanist intent on making us better understand and accept our humanity, and his films, one after another, achieve this in different ways, depending on the particular genre. If the film's characters don't always manage the necessary understanding and acceptance, we viewers thankfully can.

In telling this story of a young Indian lad and his family from Pondicherry, the zoo they manage, and what happens when they and their menagerie set sail for North America, Lee and Magee (and Martel) dissect storytelling itself as their tale unfolds in present time and past, with a narrator who is both his younger self and the wiser, more mature man he becomes. Along the way, we're treated to some spectacular visuals that somehow stay grounded in reality, even as they soar into fantasy. (The night scene above, complete with jellyfish, recalls Bright Future times 10,000.)

I am guessing that Lee was influenced somewhat by Michael Powell's The Thief of Bagdad. His leading man, at least -- played quite nicely by newcomer Suraj Sharma (above and on poster, top) -- though taller and longer-limbed, will put some of us in mind of Sabu.

The film has been shot in as glorious an example of 3D as we've yet seen, outdoing I think, even Hugo and Pina. (The photography, not in the least "too dark," as are so many of this latest batch of 3D, is by Chilean cinematographer Claudio Miranda.) The use of this process for depth in the ocean and the vast seascapes seems near-miraculous, while the occasional in-your-face effects -- a school of flying fish and, of course, that tiger -- are exciting and fun. And the relationship of the animal kingdom vis a vis humanity is brought home with wonderful courage and understanding. If only Grizzly Man had had our hero's father to educate him! And how understandable and moving is the scene in which the young man must kill for the first time.

I'll have more to say when Life of Pi, from 20th Century Fox and which played but twice last night at the NYFF, opens for its theatrical run on November 21.

The NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL hits 50 with --whew!-- this terrific and extensive line-up

On paper, anyway. That's always the way it is with festivals. But even the paper involved in this one looks pretty amazing: for instance a new giallo type thriller, below (which is actually a remake. Hint: that's Rachel McAdams, below, in the Kristin Scott Thomas role). And its director is Brian DePalma (above), returning, after a six-year hiatus, to the genre he helped perfect.

Ang Lee doing 3-D (that's The Life of Pi, opening night, below).

A tribute to Nicole Kidman, including her new film, The Paperboy (below).

A cast/director reunion for The Princess Bride, below, after 25 years. (For local fans of this charming movie, I should think the event will be a "must.")

Plus the new Assayas, Carax, Haneke, Kiarostami, Larraín (yup--we can use only his last name now!), Potter and Resnais (the last's film is shown at bottom of post) -- plus all those new names, the work of a few of which will have become buff-must-sees by the time the films are (we hope) released theatrically next year. The shot below is from Here and There, a new Mexican film by Antonio Méndez Esparza.

And of course the annual Views From the Avant-Garde (below), now in its 16th year, and even further expanded, naturally.

For me, the saddest part of the festival will be saying good-bye to Richard Peña (below), for the past 25 years the Film Society’s Program Director and Selection Committee Chair of the New York Film Festival, who is stepping down at the end of this year. This fellow has been such a welcoming fixture at the Film Society, while bringing so many wonderful films and filmmakers to our attention, that it is difficult to imagine movie-going there without him at the helm. Little wonder this 50th New York Film Festival is devoting a gala evening to this very special gentleman.

I shouldn't be sad, I suppose, since Mr. Peña -- on a bus ride up Broadway to Lincoln Center, following the luncheon for this year's Open Roads fest of new Italian films -- assured me that he was looking forward with great anticipation to going on to an entirely new chapter of his life. And it is his life, after all. He also, on that bus ride, told me to be certain to see one in particular of those Italian films, The Arrival of Wang (below, click and scroll down to learn about that film), which proved a major delight of that fest and a movie I would never have wanted to miss. This is exactly this kind of thing -- accessibility and friendliness coupled to knowledge and wisdom -- that will make me miss Richard all the more.

If I were to go at length about this year's NYFF, the way I'd like, this post would last for-f-ing-ever and I would slight the other films I've promised to cover this week. So, after I've caught a few of these films at their press screenings, I'll post a short work-up on that movie here, under the headline of NYFF50: -- with the title and director following. (A fuller review will appear if and when that film receives a theatrical, DVD, or digital release.)

And now, to give you quick access to the fest -- which begins this Friday, September 28, and runs through Sunday, October 14 -- simply click on any of the fifteen links below, the first of which brings you the entire fest at a glance, while the others detail each individual section. You're on your own from there. Believe me, you could spend hours just browsing this entire site and its mouth-watering-for-film-buffs delights....

THE 50TH NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL (ENTIRE)

NYFF50: MAIN SLATE

NYFF50: SPECIAL EVENTS

50 YEARS OF THE NY FILM FEWSTIVAL (ongoing)

NYFF50: MASTERWORKS

NYFF50: CINEMA REFLECTED

NYFF50: HBO DIRECTORS DIALOGUES

NYFF50: MIDNIGHT MOVIES

NYFF50: ON THE ARTS

NYFF50: VIEWS FROM THE AVANT-GARDE

NYFF50: CINÉASTES/CINEMA OF OUR TIME

NYFF50: PIERRE RISSIENT AND THE CINEMA MAC MAHON

NYFF50: CONVERGENCE

NYFF50: SHORTS PROGRAM

NYFF LIVE