The News: Cronenberg Explains Himself

By S.T. VanAirsdale

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

--The best read of the day is probably over at the New York Press, where Eric Kohn cornered David Cronenberg into a candid exchange about the nature of selling out ("Ivan [Reitman] was always destined for Hollywood. ... I never wanted that.") and his conception of Jewishness -- which evidently includes distance from Israel and a fondness for Jewish Eskimos. Heathen, or simply Canadian? Am I being redundant?

--The Father of The Reeler is back with two pieces in as many days in The New York Times. Wednesday, David Carr tackled the contemporary surge of films about musicians, while today he has a weirdly familiar-sounding survey of a congested fall film market: "Nancy Utley, chief operating officer of Fox Searchlight ... said many of the films flooding theaters today would not have been made just a few years ago. The result, she said, is that 'it is much more difficult to let a film breathe for a few weeks.' Even in film-friendly New York, said Mark Urman, president of ThinkFilm, 'they invite you in and then, two weeks later, give you your walking papers.' " Look out, David: Somewhere, someone is saving a wagging finger just for you.

--Speaking of music films, Karina Longworth endured all four hours of Tom Petty: Runnin' Down a Dream at yesterday's NYFF press screening. Afterward, she reports, director Peter Bogdanovich defended the film's selection perhaps the only he knows how: “This is the first time I’ve had a film in the New York Film Festival since 1971, when I had two films at the festival, The Last Picture Show and my first version of Directed By John Ford -- which [together] totaled about four hours. So every 37 years, I get four hours at the New York Film Festival.”

Posted at October 11, 2007 11:19 AM