After his collaborations with rappers T-Pain and Ludacris, pop star Jesse McCartney may be the last person you'd expect to play Gavin Riley, the attractive, uptight editor at a high school newspaper. But first-time director Bryan Goluboff apparently thought he was the perfect fit for his new movie,
Beware the Gonzo, which follows a rogue reporter, Eddie "Gonzo" Gilman (Ezra Miller), who, ousted from the school newspaper by Riley, decides to start a paper of his own. The broadsheet, called The Gonzo Files, becomes an unexpected hit at the school, and Gilman is forced to learn the consequences of power. The offbeat film also stars Zoe Kravitz, and Amy Sedaris and Campbell Scott as Gonzo's mom and dad.
Beware The Gonzo
premieres Thursday, April 22 at 6 p.m. at New York's Village East Cinema 6
Following his turn as Allen Ginsburg in
Howl at the Sundance Film Festival, James Franco has taken on something very different: the title role in
William Vincent, a brutal gangster movie that premieres at Tribeca next week. Franco stars opposite Josh Lucas, and plays a man trying to rescue the woman he loves from a massive crime ring. The film was directed by Elizabeth Edwards' brother, Jay Anania. "I started out thinking it was a crappy, low-budget student film," Lucas
told The Hollywood Reporter in February. "But it turned out very well."
William Vincent
premieres Sunday, April 25 at 6 p.m. at Clearview Chelsea Cinema.
Last year, we had
Valentino: The Last Emperor. This year's fashion documentary of note is
Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston. The film follows Halston—Studio 54 mainstay and the first celebrity designer—and includes interviews with his friends and colleagues, including Liza Minnelli, Anjelica Huston, and Diane Von Furstenberg. Following the film's premiere at Tribeca, director Whitney Sudler-Smith will be in conversation with Vogue's Andre Leon-Talley, designer Ralph Rucci, and model Pat Cleveland.
Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston
premieres Friday, April 30 at 7 p.m. at SVA Theatre 1.
It was one of the buzziest films at Sundance, and now
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work has descended on New York. The documentary follows the comedienne's long career, from her work on
The Tonight Show to
The Celebrity Apprentice. Now, at 75, Rivers is a workaholic. But in addition to being biographical, as
The Daily Beast's Nicole LaPorte wrote, the movie is also "an unsparingly honest examination of a pioneer." As Rivers told LaPorte: "What I didn't want it to be was one of those ass-kissing biographies that you see on the Biography channel… I didn't want this to turn into self-congratulations and everybody loves her, and oh, she's such a good person. You watch some of those and you go, ‘Oh, come on! Mel Gibson is a Nazi! Say it!'" After the Tribeca screening, Rivers will be on hand for a conversation with the film's directors, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg.
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
premieres Monday, April 26 at 7 p.m. at SVA Theater 1.
Straight Outta L.A. tells the story of the Oakland Raiders coming to Los Angeles in 1982, at a time when the city was being torn apart by violence. The interaction between the team and its new city was unique: Rappers began wearing Raiders gear, and the city's rowdy fans became integral to the team's ruthless style of play. The movie includes interviews with football legends such as Marcus Allen and Howie Long, and rap stars like Ice-T and Snoop Dogg. During this period, rapper-turned-filmmaker Ice Cube was a member of the group N.W.A., whose album
Straight Outta Compton inspired the movie's title. Cube, who directed and produced the documentary,
explained the relationship between the Raiders and the people of Los Angeles: "The music, lyrics, and images that I created with N.W.A. as a solo artist and as an actor helped turn the Raiders into something more than a football team… To this day, kids all over the world buy Raiders gear, imitate the ‘Gangster Rap' style and try to connect with the South Central L.A. vibe that we brought to the masses."
Straight Outta L.A.
Premieres Friday, April 23 at 6 p.m. at BMCC Tribeca PAC.
Seventeen years after appearing in her dad's critically acclaimed film
The Age of Innocence, Domenica Cameron-Scorsese is bringing her own short,
Roots in Water to this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Domenica is no stranger to the TFF—her second film,
Spanish Boots premiered at the festival in 2006 and her first short,
A Little God, earned her the Torchlight Short Film Award. With this 20-minute drama set in 1987, written by playwright Richard Nelson, she follows three estranged siblings as they reunite at their ancestral home in Maine when their mother passes away. Brought together by unfortunate circumstances, they are forced to confront their past fissures to solidify their family's future. As she writes in her director's notes,
Roots in Water "speaks to personal family politics as well as the public politics of the day." Inspired by growing up in the Scorsese home, perhaps?
Roots in Water
premieres Friday, April 23 at 9:30 p.m. at New York's Village East Cinema 6
British director Josh Appignanesi and comedian-turned-screenwriter David Baddiel are bringing the popular feature film
The Infidel across the pond to Tribeca for its international premiere. Baddiel's story introduces audiences to Mahmud Nasir (played by Omid Djalili), a London cab driver, loving husband, adoring father, and a "relaxed" Muslim—the kind who may drop an f-bomb here or there and cheats in his Ramadan fasting. But when his mother passes, leading Nasir to find his birth certificate, his world is turned upside down—he finds out that he was adopted and was born a Jew named Solly Shimshillewitz. As he struggles with his newly revealed identity, Nasir confides in drunken Jewish cabbie Lenny Goldberg (played by Richard Schiff), who tries to help him embrace his original faith. The Times of London called the film "
rich in comic and dramatic potential."
The international premiere of The Infidel
will be held Sunday, April 25 at 9 p.m. at the Clearview Chelsea Cinema 7
The festival is kicking off its 2010 season with an unusually light choice for its opening night film:
Shrek Forever After, the fourth and final installment of the DreamWorks series. So how will the dragon-slaying, princess-rescuing tale of the sometimes-jolly green giant end? Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) finds himself a domesticated family ogre, longing for the days when the mere sight of him would cause villagers to shriek. He makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin, but finds himself in an alternate
Lost/
It's A Wonderful Life-like universe that shows how things could have been. Cameron Diaz, Jane Lynch, Eddie Murphy, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, and Jon Hamm also lend their voices to the film.
Shrek Forever After in 3-D
opens the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday, April 21 at the Ziegfeld Theater at 7:30 p.m.
Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives has already garnered a lot of buzz for the festival. GLAAD called for the movie's removal from the lineup, but Tribeca has stood by its decision to include this film that makes
To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar seem like a Family Research Council favorite. "I kept reading all these articles about gay-bashings and it began to upset me," writer/director Israel Luna said of the impetus for his film. "I'd read one sad story after another... So, I wrote a
script out of anger and I focused on a part of our community that I feel is the most underrepresented and misunderstood—the transgender community." But
Ticked-Off Trannies isn't just an earnest commentary on social justice. The film follows heroines Bubbles Cliquot, Tipper Sommore, Rachel Slurr, and Emma Grashun as they go after a crazy customer at Pinky La-Trimm's nightclub in a revenge-style thriller that pays homage to ‘70s exploitation flicks. The real-life Bubbles, Krystal Summers, told The New York Times that the controversy surrounding what could be her breakthrough role is unwarranted. "I would never partake in a project that made light of the appalling acts of hate that we, as transgender women, encounter nearly every day,"
Summers said.
Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives
on Friday, April 23 at 11:59 p.m. at Village East Cinema 1
Documentarian Alex Gibney, who earned an Oscar for his look at torture practices at Guantanamo Bay in
Taxi to the Dark Side and another Academy Award nomination for
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, returns to Tribeca with three films this year. In addition to an untitled project about fallen former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and a segment of
Freakonomics, Gibney offers audiences
My Trip to Al-Qaeda, a documentary on which he collaborated with Pulitzer Prize-winner Lawrence Wright. The author's 2006 bestseller
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 chronicled the roots of modern religious extremism through fundamentalist Islam's rise to power. In repurposing that book for his one-man play, Wright focused on his experiences researching and writing it, allowing for the personal element to shine. Gibney's documentary on Wright's critically acclaimed play shows both the work's political and emotional effects. "Gibney
amplifies the play by taking us out of the theater, following Wright down Cairo's streets to meet sources," The Hollywood Reporter reviewed. And for those who cannot make it to Tribeca this week, the movie has already been picked up by HBO.
My Trip to Al-Qaeda
screens at Clearview Chelsea Cinema 7 Sunday, April 25 at 3 p.m.
After fighting as a U.S. Marine in Iraq's most violent province, Zachary Iscol returned to Fallujah in Al Anbar, where the Marine Corps has since established itself as a model of counterinsurgency. First-time writer/director Iscol chronicles his return to the formerly bloody region in
The Western Front, exploring the blurred lines between enemies and allies, soldiers and civilians in his incredibly honest debut. "I was entirely convinced that my actions were directly contributing to a better future for the people of Iraq, but at the time, I didn't know anything about the people we were fighting or why they were fighting us," Iscol said. Since realizing his own naïveté, the first-time filmmaker says his opinion has changed. "I hope that by putting a
human face on the Iraq War, the mistakes I've made will not be repeated."
The Western Front
screens on Thursday, April 29 at 3 p.m. at the Village East Cinema 1
Oscar-winning director Neil Jordan and Colin Farrell come together in Magnolia Pictures'
Ondine, the tale of a fisherman who comes away with a different sort of catch: Alicja Bachleda, in the role of a beautiful young woman who, though dead at first, returns to life before Farrell's eyes. The film is set in Ireland, where the story of Syracuse (Farrell's fisherman) and Ondine (Bachleda's sea siren) unfolds as a tale of—you guessed it—romantic intrigue and fantasy. Early reviews have hardly been all positive, however, with the film sulking beneath 50 percent on the Rotten Tomatoes meter. One representative review from the Daily Mail notes, "Christopher Doyle's camera work [as director of photography] is elegantly composed; but the film has nothing to say, and spends an inordinate amount of time saying it."
First
screens Wednesday, April 28, at 6 p.m. at the BMCC Tribeca PAC.
Spotlight's
Please Give is already a critical favorite, with critics raving about the performances in the movie about Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt), a couple that makes their living by buying furniture at estate sales and reselling the items at a massive markup in their uppity store. Adding intrigue to the story are the nuances of parenting an ever-more materialistic teenage daughter (Sarah Steele), a host of interesting New York neighbors, and the ever-present sense of guilt that comes with living an affluent lifestyle just blocks from urban poverty. Tim Grierson of Screen International writes that Keener, Amanda Peet, and Rebecca Hall (the latter two play the granddaughters of a grumpy neighbor of Kate's) "shine as women plagued with self-doubt who respond to those insecurities in strikingly different ways." And writer/director Nicole Holofcener has been receiving a great deal of praise for her "keenly observed interplay of clashing personality tics and worldviews" by Justin Chang of Variety.
Please Give
plays Tuesday, April 27, at 9:30 pm at the BMCC Tribeca PAC.
Alex Gibney has had a busy year. Since the beginning of 2009, the Taxi to the Dark Side Oscar-winning documentarian has created an amazing body of films, including an untitled Lance Armstrong project, Magic Bus, Gravity, an Eliot Spitzer documentary, Freakonomics, My Trip to Al-Qaeda, Casino Jack and the United States of Money, Money Driven Medicine, and Dirty Business. What's most interesting about the Spitzer project, however, is that the former governor himself actually appears in the film. Teaser clips have been released depicting Ashley Dupre's client comparing himself to Icarus. "The only metaphor I can think of is Icarus," Spitzer says into the camera. "Those whom the gods would destroy, they make all powerful." The film is not yet on the Tribeca Film Guide, but look to Freakonomics for more of Gibney's production style and perhaps even a sneak peek at the Spitzer project.
Shannon Stapleton, Corbis / Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival
Magnolia's feature documentary,
The world premiere Freakonomics
is at 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 1, at the Director's Guild Theater.
If there is anything R.J. Cutler's
The September Issue taught us, it's that documentary fans love an enigmatic personality. Whether Vidal Sassoon can be to
Vidal director Craig Teper what Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington were to Cutler remains to be determined, but the film promises a fun journey through the career and life of a man that revolutionized the hairdressing industry. Teper's directorial debut is produced by Michael Gordon, a hairdresser himself and self-described devotee of Sassoon. The film splices black-and-white vintage footage with new, colorful clips of Sassoon's life as it chronicles his transformation from young orphan to 82-year-old mogul who enjoys audiences with the Queen of England.
The world premiere of Vidal Sassoon: The Movie
is at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, April 23, at SVA Theater 1.
As frontman of punkish rock group The Blockheads, Ian Dury helped form a genre, influenced British style, and offended plenty of people along the way. Director Mat Whitecross' attempt to convey the swagger and saga of Dury's impressive rock credentials and tragic passing at the hands of liver cancer stars Andy Serkis. If you don't recognize the name, you probably won't recognize the face either; Serkis' best-known roles are as the spindly Gollum in
The Lord of the Rings and King Kong in the gorilla's own biopic. His turn in
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll promises to be a daring portrayal of the man behind the music—a survivor of childhood polio that left him crippled and a man that ended his life as a cancer activist.
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
plays at 9 p.m., Saturday April 24 at Village East Cinema 1.
French director and screenwriter Jean-Paul Salomé makes his English-language debut with the psychological thriller
The Chameleon. The story revolves around Nicholas Barclay (Marc-André Grondin), who reappears after being missing for three years. His sister and mother (
Lost's Emilie De Ravin and Ellen Barkin) believe Barclay to be who he purports to be, but an FBI agent doesn't buy it. The ensuing drama reveals secrets about the family and tension mounts until the question of Barclay's identity is put to rest.
The Chameloeon
will screen Friday, April 23, at 9:30 p.m. at SVA Theater 1.
