The News: Hillary Clinton, Child Star

(Photo: Price Family/NYT)

By S.T. VanAirsdale

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

--A lot of binary ink has been shed already over The Times's profile of Christopher Nolan winding down The Dark Knight, but I was way more interested in the quasi-film story about the Hillary Rodham home movie recently "dug up" in her hometown of Scranton, Pa. While Katharine Seelye mostly uses the 1951 footage as a springboard into Scranton's political culture, the overriding question for me is how the Clinton campaign can (and will) exploit the 8-millimeter film to humanize its candidate in advance of the Pennsyvania primary and -- it hopes -- the Democratic National Convention.

--Cindy Adams did some digging of her own over the weekend, unearthing 22-year-old quotes from then-NYC transplant Patrick Swayze: "Before I became a movie star in a hotel suite, I lived in New York. In a tiny rat-infested basement on West 70th. Nine of us in the one-bedroom apartment shared the $250 rent. I worked in a Hallmark card shop. I was making nothing." It gets better, if, you know, you're into existential crises wrought by stardom.

--Also in the Post, Sleepwalking star Dennis Hopper loves every minute of his interview with Reed Tucker: "At a certain point you finish work, then you go through the promotion, which seems to go on forever. It's not the most exciting thing in the world. Doing the job is fun, but this gets to be a little tedious. ... The press I find a little depressing, pretty honestly."

--Congrats to Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig, whose Chicago/Brooklyn pas de deux Nights and Weekends became the first-ever South by Southwest premiere to be acquired for distribution during the festival. The buyer: IFC Films, thus evidently putting to rest (I guess) my suspicion that filmmakers would generally be down on IFC Entertainment's recent exclusive pact with Blockbuster Video. Or at least the VOD outlet mitigates that more ignominious deal, according to a report today from indieWIRE. Either way, Andrew O'Hehir's got the early critical scoop at Salon, where -- surprise! -- reaction is split.

Posted at March 10, 2008 8:17 AM