Spring Events Madness!

By S.T. VanAirsdale

The inbox at Reeler HQ is abuzz with fest news, events updates and word of plenty of other film happenings around the city in the weeks and months ahead, with no fewer than a half-dozen big heads-ups shuffling over the transom in the last 24 hours alone. To wit:

Max, the late Anthology Film Archives cat, to be memorialized in a special program March 15 (Photo: Robert Haller)

--On March 15, Anthology Film Archives will present a special tribute to -- wait for it -- Max, the official venue cat who passed away last September after 17 years at the theater. Among the scheduled shorts are "cat-centric" work by Stan Brakhage, Joyce Wieland, Martha Colburn, Pola Chapelle and Hollis Frampton, the latter of whose film Maxwell's Demon gave Max her name. Rest in peace, kitty.

--On March 18, The Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead will visit Filmfest Reloaded at Karl's Klipper on Staten Island, where she'll be presenting video clips from her live show Shoot the Messenger. "A live sketch comedy show incorporating multi-media elements, it gives us the world as seen through filter of the fictional producers and on-air talent at Wake Up World, the worst morning news show in America," noted Filmfest Reloaded programmer Bill Woods in an e-mail to The Reeler. "It is an indictment -- both hilarious and scathing -- not only of the newsmakers, but of the news media that molds them."

--On April 1, indieWIRE will host a discussion with Wong Kar-wai in advance of that week's release of My Blueberry Nights. Assuming it's not the kind of elaborate April Fool's prank we've come to expect from the jokesters at iW, get in line early outside the SoHo Apple Store for the evening's 7 p.m. start.

--If and/or when the Wong Q&A gets a little dodgy toward the end, jump ship early and run over to IFC Center, where the opening night of the spring Stranger Than Fiction series presents the New York premiere of Margaret Brown's Mardi Gras-in-Mobile documentary The Order of Myths. The event is the first of a dynamite-looking schedule featuring visits by Ondi Timoner (Join Us, April 8), Nick Broomfield (Tracking Down Maggie, April 15), Barbara Kopple (My Generation, May 13), Jonathan Demme (The Agronomist, May 29) and Al Maysles (Showman and Psychiatry in Russia, June 3). Season passes are available for sale here.

--The New York Underground Film Festival today announced the lineup for its 15th and final event, with the acclaimed fest-circuit fave Heavy Metal in Baghdad kicking things off April 2. Highlights that follow include Michael Blieden's overbaked doc Super High Me (April 4), the Harry Potter fan chronicle We Are Wizards (April 5) and the closing-night "propagandist memoir" of North Korea, The Juche Idea.

This isn't likely the last of it, either, so stay in touch for more spring happenings as we hear about them at The Reeler.

Posted at March 13, 2008 11:13 AM