Milwaukee and New York Film Festivals open Thursday- a place holder curtian raiser

Two awesome festivals start Thursdy- the Milwaukee and New York and I am hoping to get full on curtain raisers up in the next couple of days. Bear with me because I have had to delay things because of real world stuff on my part. Until then a couple of quick words on both

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The  Milwaukee Film Festival is one of the best programmed festivals you will see anywhere. It is almost perfectly programmed and the perfect place to see great films. How perfect? We have a curtain raiser coming with  about 40 links to the films we’ve already reviewed- most of them highly recommended

For tickets and more info go here.

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The New York Film Festival coverage starts toward the end of the week and we’ll be having tons of reports and reviews- and a podcast so keep reading.

NYFF this year is beautifully scheduled and  I have no complaints.

While I don’t have a must a full on must see list (I have only seen a small number of non-revival films so far) I do recommend BEFORE WE VANISH the Kiyoshi Kurosawa film about aliens studying humans before they wipe us out. It’s a the master operating at his high level. The screenings were among th first sell outs but they are worth going standby for.

The more important recommendation is Ena Talakic & Ines Talakic‘s brilliant doc on Edward Jay Epstein HALL OF MIRRORS. A wonderful look at Epstein's life and work, it also follows as he tracks the Edward Snowden case. I can’t recommend it enough. Its something you MUST see at the fest  because the post film talks should be incredible. (The one after the press screening ran almost an hour  and then continued outside the theater as everyone continued discussing the film- I was still talking about it to the point I got on the subway. I’ll be posting the talk down the road because there is so much awesome material in it.)  This is one of the best films at NYFF and perhaps its greatest hidden gem GO BUY TICKETS

For information on the festival go here