Reeler Link Dump: Glory in Passaic Edition

Wherein your humble editor mainlines the last of the coffee and tries to put a rowdy week to bed:

--NYT writer Cara Buckley went all the way to Passaic, N.J., this week to report from the set of Michel Gondry's latest, Be Kind Rewind, in which the filmmaker evidently cast 300 townspeople and helped diminish the "inferiority complex about where they live." Off the record, another 300 locals fumed about Gondry bringing Jack Black to town for the better part of two months, forcing mayor Samuel Rivera to adopt the new town motto, "Passaic: Can't Win For Losing."

--In advance of Bobby's opening the London Film Festival, Budd Schulberg contributed this fascinating essay to the Times of London about his presence at the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Schulberg writes that assassin Sirhan Sirhan ran right to him and got away "like a coiled spring," but check out some of the other writers who lost the killer: Pete Hamill? Jimmy Breslin? George Plimpton? And three of them are still alive? Hand me my tape recorder. (Via ScreenGrab)

--The Avignon/New York Film Festival will kinda-sorta launch Nov. 12 with a gala tribute to actor-director John Turturro, then will run in earnest Nov. 15-19 at Hunter College, home of my favorite unsung film program in the city. Special appearances include Bob Rafelson discussing Five Easy Pieces, directors Dayna Goldfine and Dan Gellar screening their documentary Ballet Russes and Jon Fauer presenting his fairly self-explanatory doc Cinematographer's Style. The program also includes the rare Louise Brooks talkie Prix de Beaute, student film programs and panel chats on distribution, screenwriting and -- wait for it -- the legitimacy of film school. This one's 18 blocks from Reeler HQ; you might read more about it here.

--Speaking of film schools, but really apropos of just about nothing, Variety ran a piece yesterday catching up on three filmmakers who have done all right for themselves since graduating NYU: Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone and Spike Lee. Heard of them? The "hook" here is that they all have horses in the Oscar race, but if you can continue reading after Molly Haskell's praise of prodigal son Stone ("The grandiosity [of recent Stone projects] looked like his self-indulgence knew no bounds," she notes before air-kissing World Trade Center), you've a stronger stomach than I.

Posted at October 27, 2006 6:06 PM