Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Two Quick Notes

Others have already noted and praised it, of course, but I would like to add to the chorus of cheers that has followed Tilda Swinton in giving this address at the San Francisco International Film Festival. It is an absolutely indispensible assessment of what the cinema is, can be, can do. It retains some faith in the cinema, but not the sort of faith of Oscar-night self-congratulation. I think a rental of The Last of England is in order.

Gossip Extra ('Don't shoot the messenger' edition): What great and quintessentially 'New York' filmmaker was spotted stumbling around in what appeared to be a state of deep inebriation, singing nonsense out loud, at 2pm in the East Village last Friday? I saw it with my own eyes ...

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was it Jim Jarmusch???

Anonymous said...

I would have to put my money on Jarmusch. The East Village is his backyard. Though Spike Lee is a known nutter and he can't live far from there.

You're gonna get an email from George Clooney one of these days if you keep posting celebrity sightings, Zach.

Anonymous said...

I would have to put my money on Jarmusch. The East Village is his backyard. Though Spike Lee is a known nutter and he can't live far from there.

You're gonna get an email from George Clooney one of these days if you keep posting celebrity sightings, Zach.

ZC said...

For now, at least (and publicly), I won't say who it is--other than to say that it wasn't Scorsese. More fun if I hold the suspense a bit.

Gabe, is Clooney angry about celebrity gossip? The most recent thing I read about him is that he rejected Miss Lindsay Lohan's advances at a club recently ...

Anonymous said...

Dammit, Zach - You can't bait us with this tidbit and then leave us hanging. I demand to know who you saw. I demand it!

Anonymous said...

If this is someone both "great" and "quintessentially 'New York'". In the East Village. And you are so familiar with his appearance that you were able to recognize him in all certainty (I assume, if you are posting this). And it's not Scorcese. And we would be disappointed / shocked enough on hearing the name to "kill the messenger". Hmm. Jarmusch is the obvious guess. But is that surprising (or angering)? Arguably great, alive, "Quintessential New York filmmakers" (add to as you please): Scorcese, Jarmusch, Lee, Ferrara, Allen, Lumet...

Anonymous said...

I read something about Clooney devising a plan to send fake celebrity sightings to web sites like Defamer and Gawker in order to render the sites' own, allegedly real sightings null.

I'm moving my bets to Woody Allen. Seeing Jim is too commonplace for Zach to bother mentioning it all.

Anonymous said...

Z, you have to tell us now!

girish said...

My $ on Ferrara.

Anonymous said...

Okay. So what is the answer, or what is this other well-read blog? Because frankly, I'm tired of the suspense.

ZC said...

I don't know about this other well-read blog in question, but let me end the suspense by saying that it was the dude who keeps the likes of Walken, Keitel, and Drea de Matteo REAL.

Jarmusch was a good guess, and I have seen him on the streets of NYC, but I don't know if I'll ever expect to see him drunk in the middle of the day. But I don't know, I've never met the guy.

ZC said...

Ohhhh, I read that at Girish's, I didn't put two and two together, though.

The fact that comments hit double digits on this post and only a single reply on my previous and more serious Vampyr post (which is related to an article I'm working on) makes me think that I have no future as a critic/scholar/theorist and should apply as an intern-to-the-interns at Gawker. That would probably pay better than the academy in another few years anyway ...

Anonymous said...

Zach, you encouraged us in the guessing-game. If you had come outright and said you saw Ferrara, posts wouldn't have been in the double digits.

And a little fun never hurt anyone. Not that your "more serious" writings aren't fun -- but I just haven't seen VAMPYR in a while, you know?

Anonymous said...

Z, Vampyr is one of my favorites, and really incredible writing such as yours requires precise & thoughtful commenting . . . while drunken filmmaker gossip is something that can be undertaken with no sleep or a hangover, you know? :) Please don't start a Gawker blog!

ZC said...

Gabe and Jen--don't take my jokey bitching seriously, I know I totally invited speculation, and if I was opposed to 'a little fun' I wouldn't have opened up the Ferrara guessing-game. I'm just glad y'all read my writing at all--and that, I do mean seriously.