This will be the fifth year in a row that ComingSoon.net covers the annual Tribeca Film Festival and aside from the fact that the festival has changed a lot over the years, not necessarily being solely in Tribeca anymore, it once again offers a pretty varied selection of dramas, comedies, docs, movies without distributors, and movies scheduled to come out over the summer.
Like with any other film festival, it's hard to see and write about everything, so I've put together a list of movies I've seen or that look like they might be worth trying to catch, starting with the two movies I'm most looking forward to seeing, Zak Penn's The Grand and Paul Soter's Watching the Detectives.
Penn is best known for writing superhero movies like X-Men: The Last Stand, but he also directed the hilarious mockumentary Incident at Loch Ness co-starring no less than Werner Herzog, and his follow-up is set in the world of tournament poker with an amazing cast including Woody Harrelson, David Cross, Cheryl Hines, Jason Alexander and Ray Romano. Soter is one-fifth of the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, but his directorial debut stars Cillian Murphy as a video store clerk who fantasizes about a life more like the movies he loves, and he gets his wish when he meets Lucy Liu's femme fatale. (ComingSoon.net will have interviews with both filmmakers next week.)
In a similar vein, Anna "Rogue" Paquin and Breckin "Road Trip" Meyer go on a road trip to Canada to escape the country that reelected George W. Bush in Marshall Lewy's road romance comedy Blue State. (We'll have interviews with the two stars next week, as well.)
For the second year in a row, filmmaker Edward Burns will premiere his new movie at Tribeca, this one being his New York based dramedy Purple Violets starring Burns, Patrick Wilson, Debra Messing and Selma Blair as college friends experiencing growing pains in their 30s. Jerry Lamothe's Blackout starring Jeffrey Wright and Zoe Saldana might hit a bit too close with some New Yorkers, being based on the 2003 blackout that struck the East Coast.
Another comedy looks very funny is The Hammer produced and starring Jimmy Kimmel's buddy Adam Carolla as an aging boxer who is convinced to step back into the ring after twenty years, and I'm also interested in catching Michael Kang's West 32nd, in the festival's World Narrative Competition, because Kang's first movie The Motel was an excellent look at the lives of Korean-Americans and this one is likely to focus on New York's Korean population. (West 32nd is the block in New York known as "Koreatown.")
Although Tribeca isn't always taken as seriously as some of the world's other film festivals, it never fails to bring out the stars with many well known actors turning up for the festival's world premieres. Based on a Chinese proverb, Jieho Lee's The Air I Breathe tells four stories based around the four cornerstones of life, starring the likes of Forest Whitaker, Brendan Fraser, Andy Garcia, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kevin Bacon. Gellar also stars in Suburban Girl, Marc Klein's adaptation of Michelle Bank's best-selling "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing," about the cutthroat world of publishing, which will premiere on April 27. Hollywood's hottest Latina actresses will represent at the fest with World Premieres of Eva (Ghost Rider, Hitch) Mendes' new movie Live! about a game of Russian roulette being conducted on a television reality show, while the equally hot Rosario Dawson stars in Descent, a dark dramatic thriller in which she plays a rape victim given a chance to get revenge on her attacker.
Of the movies in the festival already set for distribution, Beth Schacter's Normal Adolescent Behavior, starring Amber Tamblyn as a teen girl exploring sexual excess, will also be premiering at the festival on April 27 with plans for a release by New Line sometime in the future. Alpha Dog's Anton Yelchin stars as Charlie Bartlett an awkward teen who's having trouble fitting in until he takes on the role of his school shrink, giving advice and pills to classmates. The IFC Films release You Kill Me has Sir Ben Kingsley playing an alcoholic hitman from Buffalo, who's sent to San Francisco to clean up in AA where he meets Luke Wilson and Téa Leoni. Set in 1983 Nothern England, This is England Shane Meadow's follow-up to Dead Man's Shoes, is about an eleven-year-old who finds a surrogate family in a band of skinheads, and that will be released by First Take Features later this year.
Horror fans will have a few solid choices in the festival's annual midnight track including the New York debuts of Black Sheep, Jonathan King's black comedy set in New Zealand about genetically-engineered sheep on the rampage. The independently produced Mulberry Street and Unearthed, which get their world premieres at the festival. The former, directed by Jim Mickle, deals with a subject close to New Yorker's hearts, the rat population, and what happens when a virus turns citizens into bloodthirsty rodent-like creatures, while Matthew Leutwyler's Unearthed deals with a creature unleashed from a dig in the New Mexico desert. The vampire thriller Rise: Blood Hunter, produced by Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures, starring Lucy Liu (yes, her again!), will premiere at the festival before its limited release on June 1st. You can watch trailers and read more about some of these on ComingSoon's new horror site, ShockTillYouDrop.com.
As always, the Festival has many interesting choices for documentary fans, but the one I'm most excited about is the World Premiere of Michael Apted's football (soccer) doc The Power of the Game on April 28, and I'm also hoping to catch Andrew Cooke's Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, produced by Jon Cooke of "Comic Book Artist" magazine. Picturehouse will screen their video game documentary The King of Kong at the festival, months before its U.S. theatrical debut. Also, the excellent and innovative World War II Nanking, which was picked up by THINKFilm after its debut at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. A Walk Into the Sea is a portrait by Esther B. Robinson of Danny Williams, who was Andy Warhol's lover and collaborator, while Scott Walker – 30th Century Man includes interviews and footage of the enigmatic and influential folk singer. I'm also looking forward to Jamie Kennedy's comedy doc Heckler, which is all about America's second favorite pastime, featuring interviews with comedians and others who have been heckled. (Interview with Jamie Kennedy)
As far as the foreign films, standouts include Switzerland's Oscar selection Vitus about a young genius piano protégé, a wonderful film that co-stars Downfall's Bruno Ganz as the titular boy's eccentric granddad. Emanuele Crialese's Golden Door, winner of the Silver Lion at the 2006 Venice International Film Festival, tells the tale of poor Italian immigrants and a British woman played by Charlotte Gainsbourg (Science of Sleep), that they encounter on their journey to America. Its U.S. release by Miramax Films is being presented by no less than Martin Scorsese. France's Patrice Leconte (Man on the Train) offers the whimsical comedy My Best Friend starring the ever-present Daniel Auteuil, which gets an early preview before its IFC release, while Julie Delpy, star and Oscar nominated co-writer of Richard Linklater's Before Sunset, will give her film 2 Days in Paris its North American Premiere on April 26.
Check back here starting next week for ComingSoon.net's coverage of the festival, including reviews and interviews, and if you'll be in New York City area from April 25 through May 6, tickets can still be bought for many of these movies at the Tribeca Film Festival website.
If you can't make the festival, you can catch some of the movies when they open theatrically on the dates listed below:
Golden Door - May 25
Rise: Blood Hunter - June 1
Black Sheep - June 22
You Kill Me - June 22
Vitus - June 29
My Best Friend - July 13
This is England - July 27
Charlie Bartlett - August 3
2 Days in Paris - August 10
The King of Kong - August 17
Nanking - December 12
