Screening Gotham: Nathan Lee Channels Lester Bangs

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

--In the most unapologetically messy and breathless critical hallucination I've read in a long time, Nathan Lee gets squarely behind Black Snake Moan in this month's Film Comment:

Did (writer/director Craig) Brewer conceive the thing as a vehicle for (Christina) Ricci’s intense, insatiable eyes? They’re just about the only recognizable thing on the former go-to girl for plump sexpot sass, here slimmed down to knuckles and elbows, with hair the color of piss on linoleum, and squeezed into filthy little panties, ass-flappin’ daisy dukes, mangy Confederate T-shirt cut off just below the nipples. Perpetually erect nipples, aching to be sucked, pinched, bit, bled. Her name is Rae. She lives in the funkiest crack of Tennessee goddamn.

Um, yes, Nathan. Goddamn. (Via The House Next Door)

--The Daily News's Jane Ridley follows up on Waitress, the film that late actress/filmmaker Adrienne Shelly was completing when she was allegedly murdered late last year. The Reeler is seeing the movie tomorrow; return here for more as exclusive Sundance coverage starts up next week.

--Loath as I am to so much as think of the National Board of Review awards after the way I was treated there the other night, it's a NYC film story, and so here you go: David Carr has not only the words but also the video for posterity's sake.

--And even if the NBR publicists had sterilized me Tuesday night, no Screening Gotham is ever complete without a ceremonial Irwin Winkler/Billy Wilder urine joke.

Posted at January 11, 2007 9:41 AM