NYFF: "Drive My Car"

by Jason Adams

I've never owned a car or enjoyed driving one, and the supposed romantic allure of that particular activity has always eluded me. I know some people find it a meditative state, a vacuum-sealed trance of sorts where you're both static and in motion at once, simply floating down the road, but it's an experience that's always sent me personally hurtling into a panic. Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), the leading man of writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s new film Drive My Car screening at NYFF this weekend, would find my aversion nutty, and it's his love of long drives that ultimately forms the heart and deepest bond of this turns-out-to-be lovely and moving (in a multitude of ways) movie. It almost convinced me there's something to that whole driving thing! Almost.

Adapted from a short story from famed author Haruki Murakami Drive My Car is by no means a small road trip -- one minute shy of three hours Hamaguchi takes his time getting where he's taking us. And thankfully  the destination's worth the time...

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NYFF: Sisters are doing it for themselves in Paul Verhoeven's blaspheme-licious "Benedetta"

by Jason Adams

Never let it be said that writer, director, and everlasting gob-dropping provocateur Paul Verhoeven doesn't know how to entertain. In what other director's hands would a dramatic film about a 17th century Tuscan nun having visions and tackling both the patriarchy and the plague involve a Virgin Mary statue whittled down for her pleasure? (Okay definitely Almodovar too). But Benedetta, Verhoeven's latest outrageous act of delicious cinematic provocation, is nevertheless All Paul, from the hem of its habit to the tip of its nips. And that's just the poster! Just wait until you peel that part down and see what sexy bits are bouncing about underneath...

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NYFF: "Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn"

by Jason Adams

Emi (Katia Pascariu) is having what you might call a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. A respected and talented history teacher at an elite Romanian private school, she's just been notified that an amateur porn video she made with her husband has been seen by her entire classroom of students, their parents, her co-workers and principal -- basically everybody, sitting as it does spread-eagled there on the world wide web for all to take a good long look at. After making some phone calls and visits to involved parties she's forced to sit down in front of an angry mob of parents and teachers and defend herself in order to keep her job. And this is what you would call the "plot" of Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, Romanian provocateur Radu Jude's latest film which won the Golden Bear in Berlin earlier this year and is screening at NYFF this week...

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NYFF Reveals 2021's Main Slate

by Jason Adams

Like a kid high on candy canes staring at the boxes under the tree on Christmas morning, wondering what wonders await, so go I, wild-eyed and very very awake now, ogling the just-announced roster of the New York Film Festival's "Main Slate" for 2021 (which runs from September 24 – October 10). Like three bears or bowls of porridge we'd already sized up the spectacular threesome that is Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth opening the fest, Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog closing it, with Pedro Almodovar's milky-eyed Parallel Mothers sandwiched in the Centerpiece between, but now... now! Now comes all the meat and fixins and I, for one, am full to burst. Droolin' over here, everybody!

NYFF is often framed as an also-ran when it comes to the full Festival Season since it doesn't get a ton of World Premieres -- most of these movies will have played at Toronto or Venice or heck even back to Sundance (I see you, Passing -- no really I already saw you and reviewed you right here) -- but as my much-loved hometown fest I don't care what's first, I care what's best, and the curation these folks do remains to my eye top-notch...

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Oscar Chart Updates: Picture, Director, Screenplay, and more...

Jane Campion's new film Power of the Dog has been named the Centerpiece for the New York Film Festival. Perhaps it's wishful thinking (we've loved Campion forever) but we're betting big on it for the Oscar race. The film is set in 1920s rural Montana and stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons as brothers who are at odds. The rift between them grows wider once the younger brother brings a new wife (Kirsten Dunst) home. The novel by Thomas Savage has been compared to works like East of Eden and Brokeback Mountain and if the film can live up to either of those classics' screen adaptations it will be something special.

We've been working hard on the first Oscar charts of the year.  The four acting categories and international film have yet to be posted, but the rest of the charts are now up...

• PICTURE - Will streamers like Netflix or Amazon prevail or will more traditional distributors like MGM/UA, Searchlight, Focus, A24, and SPC rise up? So many films sound exciting but we won't know which deliver on their promise until later in the year.  
• DIRECTOR - Jane Campion could become the first woman ever nominated twice in Best Director
• SCREENPLAYS  - Numerous brilliant writers have new films coming but however will they choose between Asghar Farhadi, Joel Coen, Tony Kushner, Pedro Almodóvar, Mike Mills, and Paul Thomas Anderson?
• VISUAL CATEGORIES - There's (presumably) eye candy aplenty in Dune, Last Night in Soho, House of Gucci, and Nightmare Alley
• SOUND CATEGORIES - Can it finally be Nicholas Britell's year or will he split his support with three movies (Carmen, Don't Look Up, Cruella)?
• ANIMATED FEATURE - Will Disney's musical Encanto be the frontrunner? Will Flee and Belle be the more adventurous citations?
• PREDICTION INDEX - the overview snapshot