Screening Gotham: Connecticut Ready For Its Close-Up

Some of today's movie news of note from around New York:

--The Times' Alison Leigh Cowan last week journeyed north to New Haven, Conn., to spy the latest trend in exurban civic pride: Production hosting! Her report today reveals how Connecticut's new tax incentives have drawn everyone from Robert De Niro to Steven Seagal to locations in the state, culminating in the A-list coup that landed Indiana Jones 4 at Yale. I should have known two years ago that "Hollywood East" was more than a marketing bromide, especially with moguls like Cathy Moriarty at the controls.

--I read David Denby so you don't have to, but this week's Sicko review is a special kind of horseshit that deserves your time if not your consideration. "Few people in Moore’s audience are likely to be displeased that (subjects) receive help from a Communist system," he writes in perhaps his most simple-minded pan ever; I gave up not long afterward, choosing not to follow Denby in his scenic round around Moore's point, modus operandi, sense of humor, etc. When did The New Yorker start cross-publishing film criticism from Highlights for Children?

--The anti-Denby (for today anyhow) Nick Schager, meanwhile, opens his Transformers review at Slant with one of the great one-line appraisals of the year: "If Michael Bay loves the military so much, why doesn't he just marry it?" Rotten Tomatoes, here we come.

--Over at GreenCine Daily, James van Maanen reports on Martin Scorsese's recent appearance at the Walter Reade Theater, where the filmmaker shared his appreciation of the films of George Seaton and William Perlberg. Read through for Scorsese's vulnerability to spoilers and a few words on his guilty pleasure of the '70s.

Posted at July 2, 2007 7:25 AM