Thursday, April 24, 2014

TFF 2104 THE RISE AND RISE OF BITCOM post screening panel with director and subjects moderated ny NYTinmes reporter. No questions taken from audience

   New York Times reporter moderates a discussion between the director Nicholas Mross  his brother  Dan Mross, a BITCOM devotee and  entrepreneur Charles Shrem under indictment for money laundering (we see him under huse arrest with a monitor around his ankle ...what influence did TFF pull to get him on their stage?) .  Two years in the making full of most of the young white male players. No questions were allow from the audience. It  did  cover most of the up to the minute details about the mysterious and rapidly changing world of Bitcom., Objective ..no? Fascinating ..Yes ... unsettling ...yes .. not because of  the technology but  because of a seeming lack of any moral responsibility in the quest for profit and deregulation. It does take on the banks  but what we are shown as an alternative seems to be Ayn Rand-ish in its avarice.   A mixture of Reganmonics and libertarian financial principles that turns their collective backs on economic inequality in the world

Itswould seem its programming at Tribeca had less to do with quality as it did with the subject of BITCOM


Sunday, April 20, 2014

Tribeca Recommendation: In Order Of Disappearance (sub tiitled)

TRIBECA RECOMMENDATION #4 In Order of Disappearance Norwegian director Hans Peter Moland brings a thriller with the look of an art film, the passion of a Greek drama and the indelible performance of Stelian Skarsgard.With out ever for a moment dropping the tension of a thriller Noland and screenwriter Kim Fupz AAkerso have deeper intentions as they film asks serious questions about narcissism, material identity and robotic human stripped of humanity and compassion He skates across the ethical and moral ice pond that Scorsece always manages no matter how elegant the images to fall in. , Imagine a vegan mob boss!!

Tribeca Recommendation: : Regarding Susan Sontag

Tribeca Film Festival recommendation #3 REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG 
Susan Sontag was a fierce, aggressive public intellectual and one of the few woman in the 60's taken seriously by the male intellectuals of her day, Her image was everywhere for over 20 years and her name remains a touch stone for feminist role models. But little was actually know bout her private life. For the last 8 years the documentary film community knew that Nancy Kates was attempting to make public the private life of Susan Sontag and her son author David Reif was fighting her tooth and nail .. he refused to talk with her and even attempted to stop anyone of Susan's friends to cooperate with Nancy. He failed and we have a beautifully nuanced film that will surprise and even shock some of the public who only know Sontag from her independent thinking contained in books, plays an movies . Whew ...all praise to the documentary film maker who does not give up despite the difficulty and time it takes .by the way her private life sizzles with passion and is a tribute to hoe she not only managed her lovers but disciplined her self to creative work.

'REEL DEAL RECOMMENDATION : Dior and I' - Tribeca Film Festival -

Five do not miss Tribeca film festival recommendations ......there are still screenings left and the Rush line works if you get ther early ) .
#1 Dior and I Yes "haute couture" for the rich be they patrons o fashion vultures . But craftsmanship and the creation of beauty are always in the hands of the creators and they are for the most part ordinary working class people. Vision and beauty at the HOUSE OF DIOR transcends economics and class. Dior and I honors vision and the working hands of the people behind the premier catwalk of the "New Dior" ..and it is not only structured like a thriller but frame a after frame is crafted to seduce. you with images of beauty. The audience participates in the first launch of the new creative director steeped in the history of the founder himself

REEL DEAL RECOMMENDATION Tomorrow We Disappear -

TRIBECA RECOMMENDATION #2: gentrification is universal in a world that puts profit over tradition and community . I fell in love with the puppeteer community that was about to see it's history, culture and community paved over in the name of "progress".aka profit! .beautiful and sad (yes there are still screenings ... and the rush line works! if you get there early!)

REEL DEAL RECOMMENDATION Something Must Break teaser

Tribeca Film Festival recommendation #5 : Something Must Break; Not since Crying Game and Soldiers Girl has there been an upfront, quality narrative film that explores desire, attraction. erotic play and homophobia, What distinguishes Something Must Break is that it does not take a simplistic look and settle for gays or men who want to be women narrative , Instead it breaks out in to an exploration of gender expression and an individual's courage to not give in to society's demands . For the first time "gender-queer" the movement to not change one sex to conform to a heterosexual ideal is front and center on the screen ... and done with an extraordinary sense of appropriateness, sensitivity and craft . A film that could not be more timely as the censorship of ideas around gender expression, sexual orientation and identify are nearing an almost storm trooper enforcement on the internet and in academia. love/desire has no gender or sexual orientation. Society does. A film I recommend to everyone .. particularly parents and teachers trying to "do the right thing"


Thursday, April 17, 2014

Tribeca Film Festival 2014 Reel Deal Picks ..and Don't miss films

Jim Fouratt’s Reel Deal: Movies That Matter
The Tribeca Film Festival 2014 My Picks and Must Sees

The Tribeca Film Festival has come of age. Birthed literally in the wreckage of 9/11, it rose like a phoenix spirit to say that NYC was alive and well if shattered and bruised mere months after the attack. Like any festival in the spotlight, it had to grow up in public. Robert De Niro,like Robert Redford at Sundance was how most people thought of TFF. However, a team effort was at work from the beginning. At first, its programing seemed like the template of an urban supermarket trying to please every palate and pocketbook by concentrating on the diversity of storytelling in programming and making community life; as in revitalization, a distinct signifier of TFF identity.

The New York Film Festival had established itself as a plucking ground of the world’s best films after all the major international festival had shown their discoveries. New Yorkers have a best of the best festival with engaged and rigorous intellectual debate surrounding the programing. And it was uptown

The Tribeca Film Festival was downtown and it knew that it mattered in terms of energy, programming, and community involvement.

When Geoff Gilmore, the former Executive Director of Sundance, was brought in to revamp and tighten up the now becoming adolescent Festival child, it took a couple of years to see the changes being put in place. This year, the evidence of his and the entire programming staff work is excitingly present.

The many things that are about film, creativity, and community are vividly on display and the attempt to seduce couch potatoes into interactive and physical participation is clearly evident.

The free events include: the Tribeca Drive-In on the waterfront plaza at Brookfield Place, (April 17-19), Family Festival Street Fair (April 26),Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day (April 26) Tribeca Family Screenings (April 26 and 27). + screenings on Friday, April 25 will be FREE (funded by AT&T) All of these events are FREE!

The big surprise this year is the expansion of the Interactive week April 21-26, which will include Future of Film Live Series (April 21 – 24), with Aaron Sorkin, 11th Annual Games for Change Festival (April 22 – 24 & 26) gaming and social practice, Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards (April 25), TFI Interactive (April 26). The TED-like day of intellectual exchange will include innovators of merit to exploring storytelling in the digital age.

For me, the most significant move forward is the core of any festival; the films programed. This year, Tribeca’s slate is almost as almost as strong as Sundance. The Guide is live at their website. http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide

Here are my first look choices that I suggest you buy a ticket as soon as they go on sale . They are not the only ones of merit, but I think they will be gone in a flash.


1971 40 years before WikiLeaks and the NSA scandal, there was Media, Pennsylvania. Eight Catholic activists plotted an intricate break-in to the local FBI offices to leak stolen documents and expose the illegal surveillance of ordinary Americans in an era of anti-war activism; role models for Manning and Snowden.

All About Ann: Governor Richards of the Lone Star State An unmissable documentary for any political junkie and with Wendy Davis in the run for Governor a timely insight.

Art and Craft Is a forger an artist or a copy cat ? Where does creativity and mental illness intersect? How money drives critical curatorial choices are just some of the questions this provocative documentary raises ,

Bad Hair (Pelo Malo): 9-year-old boy wants to straighten his hair and all hell breaks loose because of heightened suspicions about sexual orientation and gender expression. A needed parable about youth and parents and a look at why poor people in Venezuela supported Hugo Chavez

Dior and I (D'or et moi): One enters the storied world that is the House of Christian Dior and meets the hands of who actually does the work. As beautiful to watch as to wear Dior couture.

Black Coal, Thin Ice From China comes a thriller mystery with a detective only Chinese imagination could dream up.

Compared To What: The Improbable Journey Of Barney Frank: He was smart and aggressive enough to have been President but he was gay.

Garnet’s Gold:Kudos to Tribeca for remain committed to showing experimental film. I am not sure what Garnet’s Gold is really about. But go and give reward toi your eyes and nerve endings . Lucious !

Keep On Keepin’On: 89-year-old trumpeting legend Clark Terry has mentored jazz wonders like Miles Davis and Quincy Jones but Terry’s most unlikely friendship is with Justin Kauflin, a 23-year-old blind piano player with uncanny talent, but debilitating nerves.

Five Star Keith Miller’s Welcome to Pine Hill was hailed as an authentic look at black maleness under identity crisis, Five Star leaps forward with a complex look of how insidious drug money has saturated the black poor community and runs parallel to traditional family and community values . Insightful

The Newburgh Sting: Just 60 miles north of New York City sits the poverty-stricken town of Newburgh, where, in 2009, four men were arrested for a plan to bomb two Jewish centers in the Bronx. The real story will shock and hopefully anger you.

The Overnighters: After hydraulic fracturing uncovers a rich oil field in North Dakota, a small conservative town is tested as hordes of unemployed men chasing the “American Dream” pour into its borders.

Mala Mala: Finally a complex film on what has been called TRANSGENDER which does not dumb down the audience into love me or you are transphobic. We have had a deluge of first person advocacy films that have not ever challenge any of the stereotypes of transgender.Christine Vachon has produced a thought provoking documentary that shows the range of diversity which begins to give meaning to a word that is so vague it almost means nothing. Cautionary note while the film fails at language definitions held in common it remains Highly recommended

Night Moves: Directed and written by Kelly Reichardt. Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard star as radical activists surreptitiously plotting to blow up Oregon’s Green Peter Dam in an act of environmental sabotage. Eco-terrorism and it's personal and political consequences. Reichardt and Richard Linklater are considered the two best indie directors in American working today.

Manos Sucias:In a festival drenched in drug related films Manos Sucias stands head and shoulders above all the others . Not since Miss Bala have we seen a film that skips the tabloid level and goes deep into how drug money has is fundamentally destroying cultural and ethical values everywhere in the world. . With perfect tone, stunning cinematography and two of the best performances of the year marks this as perhaps the Tribeca Film Festival’s movie discovery of the year!

Silenced: Only 11 Americans have ever been charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 eight of them since President Obama took office. The film shows the lengths to which the government has gone to keep its most damning secrets quiet. Executive produced by Susan Sarandon.

Something Must Break Genderqueer finally gets a welcome narrative story that will give further dimension to transgressing the boundaries of acceptable gender expression .Exploring attraction and erotic desire in conflict with social norms. With an unforgettable taunt that leaps off the screen into the real life conflicts for many gender variant men : “Why don’t you just get a pussy.” hurled at the lead character by a man who is smitten but conflicted because of the same sex context Something Must Break is a breakthrough film that demands to be seen by anyone who is trying to figure out identity and those who love or hate them. Bravo!

Regarding Susan Sontag: Hungry for life and gracefully outspoken throughout her career, Susan Sontag became one of the most important literary, political, and feminist icons of her generation. A nuanced investigation into the life of a towering cultural critic and writer whose works on photography, war, and terrorism still give insight and cause controversy.

Third Person: Screenwriter and director Paul Haggis (Crash/ In the Valley of Elah) brings to the screen a calculated vision of the drama of love. Three stories set in cities known for romance—New York, Rome, and Paris.

Time is Illmatic : Nas is and has been one of the few successful rap voices that has risen above the bling consciousness and not resorted to violence and misogyny to role model social consciousness and black male identity and family in America .

Tomorrow We Disappear Gentrification is happening everywhere , call it slum clearing call it culture/community erasure. The beauty and sadness of this reality is captured perfectly in this insightful, beautiful , overflowing with humanity and growth vs community conflict set in the colony of puppeteers in Delhi India. A family film with very serious idea at play

Traitors: Malika is the lead singer of an all-female punk band and sees music as a means to escape a dull and conservative life in Tangier. Breaking with tradition means she has to take a huge amount of risks. As a punk drama it works even if it seems very rooted in western not Muslin values And yes drugs are the social lubricant

Venus in Fur: Roman Polanski’s masterful take on Broadway's steamiest tango of sexual tensions in an erotic dance between a man and a woman .

Virunga: The battle to preserve the National Wildlife Refuge in the Congo home to the few remaining Mountain Gorillas is not only desperate in its fight against political corruption but stunning visually as the Gorillas are fore grounded and in fact tell their own story in visual and non- verbal language.

X/Y A character-driven drama centered around four restless New Yorkers and their shifting sexual and romantic relationships as they search for a sense of intimacy and self-identity.

Go to http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide" for information about the films, community events and how to purchase tickets And remember that for each showing that may say sold out a few tickets are held for the day of performance..and waiting in line is speed dating at it urban best!

(cc Jim Fouratt's reel Deal: Movies that Matter)c jim fouratt’s Reel Deal Movies That Matter)

Friday, April 11, 2014

BEST IN MUSIC: My PAZZ & JOP critic's ballot 2013

BEST IN MUSIC: My PAZZ & JOP critic's ballot 2013

I was asked by a few of you what my ballot was in the Pazz and Jop yearly critics poll Here is my ballot cast on December 30, 2013 10 albums and 9 singles ...you can listen to all the music on spotify or itunes .. most have video on youtube or veemo



Albums:



BLOOD ORANGE
: CUPID DELUXE 10

DAFT PUNK: RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES 5
DISCLOSUR: SETTLE 10
JOHN GRANT: Pale Green Ghost 15
MOBY : INNOCENTS 10
JULIA HOLTER: LOUD CITY SONG 10
KACEY MUSCRAVE: SAME TRAILER DIFFERENT TOWN 10
LAURA MARLING: ONCE I WAS AN EAGLE 10
NEKO CASE: T
TIM HECKER: Virgins 10



singles



LI “Cocoon”
Monarchy “Disintegration”
Du Tonc
“Darkness”
Rhye “Open”
The Knife “Full of Fire”
NOMAD BAMBINO
SAVAGES SILENCE YOURSELVES
DAVID BOWIE NEXT DAY
Janelle MonĂ¡e The Electric Lady


enjoy ... and feed back is always welcome

TEA with JULIE HARRIS .. gone but present

JULIE HARRIS passed this year ... but we found a little tea party chat she had with fashion icon Diane Parent and she remains alive ...thank you vincent william gagliostro

a darling party from vincent william gagliostro on Vimeo.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Must See: Panorama Europe at the Museum of the Moving Image ... here are the trailers and schedule on't miss MISS VIOLENCE


There are a lot of good films playing over the next two weeks prior to the Tribeca Film Festival ...but I would suggest strongly you go to the Museum of the Moving Image in LIC for  Panorama Europe ...two stops from Manhattan ... and discover the best films actually now playing in NYC . The ones I have seen surpass most of the films at New Directors and what so far I have seen in the press screenings for Tribeca  Film Festival ,,, and this will most likely the only chance you will get to see these films in the US .the theater itself is the best screening room in the City . Here you can find the films and their  trailers ... I particularly recommend : 
Miss Violence

AND THIS WEEKEND : 
Dream team 1935



Paradise Love  (female sex tourism  or is it?  )


 Honeymoon

Here you can find a complete list of the films with trailers and the schedule
http://www.movingimage.us/films/2014/04/04/detail/panorama-europe/