Screening Gotham: Where's the Fox Diorama, Mommy?

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

--The American Museum of Natural History has experienced an attendance upturn of 20 percent from last year, mostly on the basis of the hit film Night at the Museum: "I can't wait to see the guys in the Old West and the Roman army soldiers that were in the movie," 10-year-old Bradley Schwartz of Brookhaven, L.I., told the Daily News. Museum marketers sniffled and rejoiced, fully recovered from The Squid and the Whale's failure to woo the kids of divorced intellectual parents in 2005.

--Today in Variety, World Trade Center cinematographer Seamus McGarvey "cites French auteur Robert Bresson as the film's main photographic influence, Diary of a Country Priest in particular: 'His camera has such an innocence and a purity.' " Alas, it's main directing influence was late-era Oliver Stone. Can't fault McGarvey for not trying, I suppose.

--What was your favorite part of the great Hollywood Reporter roundtable featuring David Lynch, Nancy Meyers, Emilio Estevez, Guillermo Del Toro and Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris? Lynch's final-cut tangent is pretty remarkable, but this actual exchange defied all my expectations (and then some):

Estevez: Do you think there is a revolution coming?
Lynch: I think so, by golly.

Then witnesses said Lynch wore Estevez's letter jacket to his car at the end of the day, but I just can't think about it.

Posted at January 4, 2007 9:29 AM