Thanks to Chimerical. This is the re****t from the printed
magazine, as opposed to the online re****t in my last post
(the content is completely different!)
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Entertainment Weekly
Copyright 2006 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
May 12, 2006
Issue 876
Section: News + Notes
Tribeca Turns Five
GILBERT CRUZMISSY SCHWARTZ
A festival grows up, gets big, and grapples with 9/11.
People weeping in the dark. That's how the Tribeca Film Festival
began on April 25, with the world premiere of Paul Greengrass'
harrowing 9/11 drama, United 93.
Among the hoards of festivalgoers at Manhattan's famed Ziegfeld
Theater that night were family members of passengers, many of
whom could be heard sobbing. After the credits rolled, one--who
effectively had just watched his father die on screen--turned
to his friend while in line in the restroom. "I miss my dad,"
he said. Then Tony Bennett walked out of a toilet stall.
And everyone froze.
Here was Tribeca, encapsulated in one awkward moment. The
festival, launched by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal in 2002
to help revitalize post-9/11 lower Manhattan, was--more than
ever this year--a mishmash of somber reality and Hollywood glitz.
One day, audiences filled theaters to watch entries like The
War Tapes, a buzzed-about doc shot almost entirely by soldiers
serving in Iraq. The next, Tom Cruise was expected to chopper
into New York City for a flashbulbs-a-poppin' M:I-3 premiere.
And in between, oddball art-house fare like Colour Me Kubrick,
starring John Malkovich as a con man who posed as Stanley,
dotted the lineup. High. Low. Strange. Sad. The mix was heady
--and signaled that on the festival's fifth anniversary,
Bob and Jane's baby is finally coming of age.
"Filmmakers are planning for us now, and our pictures are
getting stronger," said Rosenthal. Indeed, Tribeca's 2006
catalog boasted a long list of bold, politically charged films
(like United 93, which grossed a healthy $11.5 million last
weekend) and, for the first time, dozens of titles with
genuine breakout potential. One such favorite from the first
half of the fest (the event wraps May 7) was Jeff Garlin's
romantic comedy costarring Sarah Silverman and Amy Sedaris,
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With. When a hundred people were
turned away from a sold-out screening, the jovial Cheese
writer-director-star came outside to soothe their disappointment.
"I thanked everybody and apologized for my movie's popularity,"
Garlin said.
Tickled as he was by his own reception, Garlin couldn't stop
raving about the hottest ticket in town, Jake Kasdan's The TV
Set, a razor-sharp satire of Hollywood's pilot season, with
David Duchovny and Sigourney Weaver. At the packed premiere,
Harvey Weinstein, Michael Moore, and Cher were among those
guffawing with such gusto that lines of dialogue were lost.
"I was complaining about that!" cracked Duchovny. "Next movie,
no one gets a joke before my funny."
Of course, any festival hoping to play in the big leagues
alongside Sundance, Cannes, and Toronto has to prove that
it's a viable marketplace. After the acquisition last fest of
Transamerica, which garnered two Oscar nods, Tribeca seems to
be on its way. At press time, only the French drama Backstage
had been picked up (by Strand Releasing). But distribution
deals were in the works for Cheese and TV Set, as well as for
a handful of others, including the rapturously reviewed crime
drama Lonely Hearts, starring John Travolta, James Gandolfini,
and Salma Hayek; and Driving Lessons, a sweet British
coming-of-age tale that saw its premiere flooded with
adolescent girls squealing at the slightest glimpse of
star Rupert Grint (a.k.a. Hogwarts student Ron Weasley).
As Tribeca grows--the number of submissions has more than
doubled, to 4,100, since year one--it's even becoming a first
choice among some filmmakers. "I was accepted to another
festival and moved the movie here," said Garlin, who wouldn't
own up to which competitor he turned down. Brooklyn-born Rosie
Perez, who showed her directorial debut, the do***entary Yo
Soy Boricua..., described her Tribeca experience as "a huge
validation. When one of the program directors called me,
I was just screaming," she said. "I didn't realize I had hung up
on him because I had to call everyone and tell them I got in!"
Fellow native New Yorker Edward Burns, who screened his latest
meditation on male bonding, The Groomsmen (in theaters July 14),
compared Tribeca to a younger, purer Sundance. "Sundance
has turned into spring break in the mountains," he said.
"But here you really get a vibe of this cool artists'
community of people who care about movies."
But even hardcore cinephiles like to cut loose now and then.
From the TV Set soiree, where Duchovny, Cher, Greg Kinnear,
and Bonnie Hunt floated between two penthouse suites at the
posh SoHo Grand Hotel, to the Boricua bash at Armani Casa,
where Mos Def proclaimed himself to be "just chillin',"
downtown Manhattan was hopping. Veronica Mars' Kristen Bell
hung out at the Fifty Pills party until 3 a.m., even though
she was appearing on The WB's local news show later that
morning. "I didn't want to leave!" she said, summing up what
seemed to be the general sentiment. "I've always wanted to
come to Tribeca, and to be a part of something that is so
New York-sup****tive is awesome."
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