Screening Gotham: All-Positive Friday!

(Photo: Looker)

The return of the weekly feature spotlighting all the upbeat NYC movie news that's fit to print:

--I have been away from the office most of the week, so the backlog of outrageously great stuff that I haven't been able to link to is almost totally unnavigable. That said, nothing outdoes Michael Cieply's brilliant State of The Weinstein Company piece in yesterday's Times, with its glimpse at the TWC's springboards and stumbling blocks, Mark Cuban equivocating (!) and Bob Weinstein philosophizing, "We want to be very much like the bigger companies, in a humble boutique way." A billion-dollar boutique, but still.

--I've also been behind in my continued Grindhouse second-guessing scorekeeping, which also-ran Lou Lumenick ramped up a bit in recent days. First came the positive news that the film did well last week in New York ($363,000 in 10 theaters), and then came a hat tip to a classic New York Press interview with Troma kingpin and true grindhouse icon Lloyd Kaufman. Not that Kaufman himself is all that upbeat about much of anything: "Who gives a shit about Larry King’s 50th year? What’s it his 50th year in? In licking ass?" The week's must-read, without a doubt.

--And at Looker, Lawrence Levi wistfully recalls the grindhouse theaters of his debauched Manhattan youth.

--IndieWIRE just announced it will host sit downs at the SoHo Apple Store with the Coen Brothers, Julie Delpy, Edward Burns and a bunch of other Tribeca fixtures starting April 27.

--Remember that whole Mia Farrow-Steven Spielberg broadside a few weeks back in The Wall Street Journal? The one smearing Spielberg as the potential "Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games"? Well, it may not be puppies and buttercups in Darfur, but it appears that as far as PR insurrections go, this one is at a cease-fire.

Posted at April 13, 2007 11:42 AM