Updates 8/27/10

Things move on and its time for a few updates and links:

The first part of Mesrine has opened in limited release today. The second part starts next weekend. We reviewed the film a few weeks back and now the critics are chiming in with Roger Ebert giving it three and a half stars and the New York Times giving it a good review.

The Last Train Home about the migration of workers from the city to country and back again for Chinese New Year begins a theatrical run next week. I saw the film back in April and really liked it. Time Out New York gave it one of it's very rare five star ratings.

Cinematical puts Michael Caine in the running for the Oscar for Harry Brown.

If you follow this link you’ll see some beautiful test films of early Technicolor film.

The full schedule for the New York Film Festival with show times is up at their website. I’m currently making plans to attend several of the screenings. I’ll post exactly what I’m going to see once I get my ticket order in on Monday. Mostly I’m hoping to get tickets to the sidebar events since they involve some special things that are unlikely ever to be repeated (Mike Leigh talking about filming in London? It's a must see). It appears what I attend may be more limited than I would have liked with familial commitments and scheduling conflicts making what I can see less than I would have liked. (I won’t get into the insistence that almost all the weekday screenings are at 6pm or 9 pm making them too early or too late for me to get to easily)

One event I won’t be seeing but would have liked to is a special look at Segundo de Chomon who is considered a Spanish counterpart to Georges Melies. The announcement of the talk/screening at the festival had me looking at some of his films on You Tube. I’m listing links to three of his films that really knocked my socks off.

Electric Hotel
A Trip to the Moon (after Melies)
Le spectre rogue

Lastly they’ve posted Satoshi Kon’s "final words” on line. It’s a touching read. Also touching is the New York Times obit by AO Scott. The one semi-happy thing is the mention that Kon was finishing work on a new film, so perhaps we’ll get one more treat from the master.