Screening Gotham: From Cloverfield to Coney Island

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

--The Cloverfield/1.18.08 rumor mill grinds away throughout the media, with the Post winning the local angle sweepstakes. Take Farrah Weinstein's dispatch from Monday's paper; which launches with rehash upon rehash before taking to Coney Island, where the "crew" of producer J.J. Abrams, director Matt Reeves and a pair of actors evidently shot some footage on handheld video cameras. A few of the locals share what they saw (do we really need to grant anonymity to one of the Wonder Wheel owners who has, like, three sentences of plot synopsis?), NY1's Roma Torre talks about her close-up and still, pretty much no one knows anything. But there are set pictures! Maybe.

--We can talk to Gordon Willis all day, but I don't think anyone has a better preview (or endorsement) of Film Forum's Manhattan revival than Mark Asch at The L Magazine's blog: "Chapter One. He adored Woody Allen, although to him he was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. How hard it was to exist in a society dumbed-down by television, blogs... - Too angry. I don't want to be angry."

--How slow a news week is it? This is what counts as gossip in Page Six: "Tony Kaye might become the most hated man in America when his abortion documentary, Lake of Fire, bows Oct. 3." Evidently abortion is controversial? I dunno.

Posted at July 17, 2007 8:14 AM