Keanu Reeves and Martin Scorsese in 'Side by Side'

Have you ever wondered what your favorite director thought about shooting on digital film? How about actress Greta Gerwig? Have you even considered what the indie actress thought the first time she heard the whirring sound of an actual celluloid camera? What of cinematographers and colorists—how interested are you in exploring their relationships? (Are they adversaries? Do they work as a team? Did they start out adversaries, but thanks to advances in technology, now work as a team?) Have you ever wondered how Keanu Reeves would sound saying such profound phrases as “film has helped us share our experiences and dreams,” or “by the 1980s, Avid had developed digital editing into a cost-effective, computer-based system”?

If the answer to any of the above is “yes—but only if fed to me through a 90-minute documentary”—then you are exactly the niche audience longtime production manager and part-time documentarian Chris Kenneally had in mind for his second feature-length film, Side by Side.

Perhaps that sounds unduly negative. After all, there are many out there for whom portions, at least, of this documentary about the rise of digital film in cinema may be of interest. Side by Side manages the tough task of being an instructive look into the way technology has developed over the years while also being occasionally entertaining. There is a intriguing question prevalent in the movie—which taps the likes of Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Richard Linklater, James Cameron, George Lucas and David Fincher, as well as the special effects guy for Jurassic Park, for answers (and yet, for some ungodly reason, chose Keanu Reeves as its narrator)—one that can be summarized somewhat neatly: Are we at the end of film?

Unfortunately for the producers, that doesn’t take too long to answer. The only people who even try to argue against the relentless march of technology do so purely on an aesthetic basis. Digital film lets you shoot longer, and for less money. It is easier and cheaper to edit. It is better for the planet. The end. As Ms. Gerwig puts it, “They process digital now to make it look like film, as if film is inherently better. Just, we like the way it looks better. Which seems kind of arbitrary, because it’s just what we’re used to.”

Surprisingly, the film chooses independent cinematographers (Reed Morano and Bradford Young) to defend the more expensive, older technology, as if the idea of film reels is now so antiquated that the only people who use them do so specifically so they can talk about how it “feels different.” Hipsters, basically. The film barely acknowledges that most films are still mainly shot on celluloid, with digital cameras filling in occasionally.

With 80 minutes left to fill, Mr. Reeves is left to ask more questions about, you know, movie stuff. Judging from the answers given, the questions range from “Do you remember back when you had ‘dailies’ and had to edit movies by hand?” to “Did Robert Downey Jr. ever pee in jars and leave them around your set as a form of protest?”

It’s not that the answers aren’t interesting: Mr. Lynch, whose last film, Inland Empire, was shot entirely digitally, claims that he will never return to celluloid. Some like Mr. Fincher, on the other hand, recognize that digital film can lead to terrible-looking movies—though he rightly puts the blame on the people who make them, not what equipment they are shot on. And Danny Boyle is perhaps the best example of how an early adopter can turn a public’s interest and make something like digital film mainstream. After watching a Dogme 95 film called The Celebration, which was shot entirely on a Sony Handycam, the director tracked down the film’s cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle. The result was 28 Days Later, portions of which were shot with digital cameras. In 2009, their film Slumdog Millionaire became the first movie shot predominantly in a digital format to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Mr. Cameron and Mr. Lucas, meanwhile, are super-jazzed to talk—at length and ad nauseam—about every minutiae of digital editing and special effects. This would be less irritating if they weren’t busy taking credit for everything short of inventing the digital camera itself. Actually, Mr. Lucas comes close, boasting about how his company created the analog computer editing system EditDroid, and the next thing you know, he’s referring to the game-changing digital editor Avid as a “we” endeavor. It would have been good to take note here that EditDroid was a commercial failure and was sold to Avid in 1993 after the Star Wars remakes. Only 24 ED systems were ever made.

Frankly, the movie has too much time on its hands: it spends an exorbitant amount of it talking to colorists, special effects animators, editors and various other people with jobs that you’d only care to hear about if you were really really interested in how films are made. And when someone appears whose only movie credit is the new Joseph Gordon-Levitt feature Premium Rush, you have to wonder what he is doing sharing screen time with Mr. Scorcese.

Finally, in a movie that gets into the nitty-gritty of editing and special effects, you would think the glaring continuity error of Mr. Reeves’s hair length would have been noticed and fixed in post. (It goes from very short, with stubbly beard to very long, with neckbeard, before going short again, then long again, etc. It’s quite distracting.)

But let us not nitpick. It’s doubtful that anyone will leave this movie siding with the celluloid purists, believing that the digital process will be the end film as we know it. Auteurs will continue to shoot in whichever medium they prefer, and there will always be hundreds of forgettable flicks for every great one, no matter what technology is employed—a lesson Side by Side proves simply by existing.

SIDE BY SIDE

Two stars out of four
Running Time 99 Minutes
Directed by Chris Kenneally
Starring: Keanu Reeves, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron,
Robert Rodriguez, Walter Murch and David Fincher

'Battleship' star Rihanna (Getty Images)

The Hunger Games (Gary Ross) March 23

Your children have been refreshing Fandango daily to see if tickets are available yet for the movie based on Suzanne Collins’ kiddie novels—think of them as Twilight, except with actual murder instead of benign vampirism. Games promises a chaste love triangle and lots of angst for the tween set, but what’s in it for adults? Potentially, some solid acting. Jennifer Lawrence, last widely seen in her Oscar-nominated Winter’s Bone role, hopefully turns in another subtle and edgy performance as a young woman fighting to survive, and she’s accompanied by some tried-and-true character actors, like Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, and Donald Sutherland.

The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies) March 30

The long-absent Terence Davies returns with an adaptation of a play by another Terence—the late Rattigan, who wrote about the subtle emotionality of the British upper crust. This work is no exception, featuring as it does Rachel Weisz (and where has she been?) as the wife of a judge who is engaging in a dangerous liaison with a pilot. The cast also includes Tom Hiddleston, who was in just about every movie last year, of brows high and low (War Horse, Midnight in Paris, and Thor), but we’re more excited about the return of Mr. Davies, whose last narrative film, the moody The House of Mirth, came out way back in 2000.

Titanic 3D (James Cameron) April 4

To paraphrase Céline Dion, “It’s here—there’s nothing we fear.” Just in time for the centenary anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic comes the rerelease of the multiple Oscar winner. It’s been converted into 3D, too—so it’ll feel like Kate Winslet is throwing her diamond necklace right at you! Surely director James Cameron hopes he’ll break his own record by getting this film back to the #1 all-time box-office spot, but we suspect that, nearly 15 years after Titanic’s release, we’ll be among the rather limited number of Kate-and-Jack die-hards who simply can’t ever let go.

Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman) April 6

Whit Stillman, who was hiding out with Terence Davies, is back too, with a drama that proves he’s still interested in what the kids are up to. The director who blew the lid off deb parties and disco dancing now examines a suicide-prevention mission undertaken by a WASPy queen bee whose idea of “It Gets Better” is introducing her classmates to tap dance. Sure, the notion of frolicsome young beauties put in “distress” by the men in their lives seems a bit fainting-couch-y, but, given that his previous films were all more or less period pieces, one exactly doesn’t go to Mr. Stillman for insights on the way we live now.

Darling Companion (Lawrence Kasdan) April 20

Every one of our favorites unites in a project that might be the Avengers of 1980s Oscar-ceremony attendees. Diane Keaton tries on a new Chico’s scarf-and-blazer combo as a woman who loves her dog a bit too much, and Kevin Kline is the husband who misplaces that dog. Throw Dianne Wiest and Sam Shepard into the mix, and you have a winner. We’re not sure why there’s so much hue and cry—it’s not like the dog is played by Uggie—but if there was ever an actress who seems like she’d be a little too into animals, it’d be Annie Hall herself!

The Five-Year Engagement (Nicholas Stoller) April 27

Jason Segel, tired of speaking to Muppets, has returned to romantic comedies about human beings. His Forgetting Sarah Marshall follow-up  costars Emily Blunt as a fiancée who has taken her sweet time making it to the altar—hey, it’s hard to plan a wedding! Between choosing a venue and bridesmaids’ dresses … Also featured are NBC Thursday-night comedians Chris Pratt, Alison Brie, the inescapable Mindy Kaling, and, for some reason, Oscar-nominated Aussie spitfire Jacki Weaver. We’re not sure why Mr. Segel keeps getting cast as a romantic lead—perhaps because he writes the parts for himself? (Aspiring actors who don’t resemble Channing Tatum, take note.)

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (John Madden) May 4

An all-star cast of Britain’s actors most likely to cluck “Well, I never!” trade their manor houses and cozy flats for India in this tale of white people encountering brown people. Characters played by Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, and Maggie Smith, among others, decide to retire to the subcontinent before realizing that “exotic” is an unalloyed positive only when applied to the term “dancer.” It is likely, though, that they will all learn, like, three lessons before dying—perhaps some of them taught by Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel!

The Avengers (Joss Whedon) May 4

The most anticipated film of the year among circles too young or too cool to remember Titanic unites Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and a bunch of less popular and less charismatic superheroes in a quest to save the world from threats of an unclear nature. Scarlett Johansson is the lady who kicks and punches, Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth are the slabby studs, and moody blue Mark Ruffalo is the Incredible Hulk. (You wouldn’t like to see Mark Ruffalo when he’s angry—he brews some Kombucha to cool down then talks passionately about hydrofracking!). Unlike this summer’s noirish Dark Knight reprise, this promises to be big and bright and dopey—just what we want as rainy winter changes to overheated spring.

The Dictator (Larry Charles) May 11

Sacha Baron Cohen is back in character; apparently Bruno didn’t sate his appetite for foisting upon audiences a goulash of an accent and nightmarishly draggy scenes of his imposing himself upon unsuspecting people. The Dictator has him playing the Qaddafi-esque ruler of the fictitious nation Wadiya, one who gets to do fun things like shoot his subjects onscreen and seduce Megan Fox. We’re pretty sure that for all the Americans who were unaware of the Arab Spring, this will be a bit too insider-y, but who knows—everyone loves to laugh at Mr. Cohen when he impersonates an ethnic.

Battleship (Peter Berg) May 18

Rihanna makes her acting debut in a film about robotic aliens sent to destroy Earth—and despite her singing voice, she plays one of the humans defending us! This adaptation of the numbered-grid board game promises to be anything but B-9, with a cast that also includes the ever-more-grizzled Liam Neeson, Friday Night Lights star Taylor Kitsch, and Brooklyn Decker, who just finished playing Ophelia at the Old Vic (just kidding, she’s a bikini model!). We hope this one is successful—not due to partisanship for any of its stars, but because the deadline headlines about “sunken Battleship” are just too predictable.

President Clinton.

Wednesday, October 5

Walk It Off

El Camino de Santiago is an ancient religious pilgrimage that for centuries has led Christians to a cathedral in northwestern Spain. It’s said to be the final resting place of Saint James. It’s also the subject of a new film, The Way, starring Martin Sheen and kin, Emilio Estevez (what, they couldn’t get Charlie Sheen?), as, what else, a father-son duo. But tragedy strikes! Mr. Estevez—who also directed the film—plays a character who gets caught in a Pyrenees storm, and his father has to come to Galicia to collect his remains. The film premieres Wednesday at the School of the Visual Arts, in conjunction with the Walkabout Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to donating wheelchairs around the world. As far as religious pilgrimages go, the one from the screening to the after-party, at the Mondrian Soho’s Imperial No. Nine, is decidedly less treacherous, even if you take the subway. If you survive, the late-night bash is sure to impress, with the likes of Ivanka Trump, Mike Myers, Christy Turlington Burns and Chris Pine joining keynote speaker Bill Clinton in the fund-raising. With all these saints of entertainment involved, let’s hope things get ecstatic!

An evening to celebrate the Walkabout Foundation: 7:30 p.m., screening at the School of Visual Arts, 333 West 23rd Street (between Eighth and Ninth avenues); 11 p.m., after-party at Imperial No. Nine at Mondrian SoHo, 9 Crosby Street (between Howard and Grand streets). Tickets available at www.walkaboutfoundation.org. $300 for cocktails, screening and after-party, $125 for after party.

Thursday, October 6

Pretty in Pink

Polo Guru Ralph Lauren showed his spring/summer 2012 collection on the last day of New York Fashion Week, as he often does, and brought to the runway a shimmering bunch of looks that came off as resolutely American, rooted deep in the mythos of the Roaring ’20s. It was lovely. One thing missing, though? There wasn’t that much of the color pink in there. Some airy peach tones, splashes of silver and burnt-gold beige, but none of that soft feminine hue. The brand is more than making up for that with the party for the 2011 Lauren Pink collection, which goes down Thursday night at Lord & Taylor. The event, co-hosted with Glamour, will allow visitors some choice deals on threads, as well as trays of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres (of course). And it being fall, there’s a cause to benefit from all the haute shopping. The Polo Ralph Lauren Foundation’s Pink Pony Fund—a global effort to fight the effects of cancer—will receive 10 percent of all the proceeds, and additional donations will earn you a big pink balloon. So head over to Lord & Taylor to shop, sip bubbly and maybe indulge in some casual helium intake, all for a good cause.

The Fall 2011 Lauren Pink Collection, 6 p.m.-8 p.m., Lord & Taylor, 424 Fifth Avenue, fifth floor; invitation only.

Friday, October 7

Pistols and Portraits

Last summer, a new spot in the meatpacking district had the cute idea of repurposing the grit and grime of ’80s East Village to the city’s most notoriously bottles ’n’ models hood. It’s called Gunbar, and though it’s got stickers and neon all over the place (and maybe there’s a dirty corner or two), it comes off more like an exhibition on The Dive Bar set to open at the Met in 2200. For its next trick, Gunbar will open a show by street artist and graffiti maven Aliosha Daumerie—or, to use his nom de tag, Senz—who has spent time terrorizing blank city spaces here and in Paris, as well as in conjunction with agnes b. and Alice+Olivia. Will all this be enough to justify $14 cocktails? Or the mini tattoo parlor, set up for the truly dedicated scene rats? There is a certain excitement in Senz’s unhinged take on street art. But maybe you should take the broke-artist route and pregame the thing before with a brownbagged bottle of Wild Irish Rose.

Aljosa Daumerie a.k.a. Senz at Gunbar, 9 p.m.–late, 55 Gansevoort Street (Ninth Avenue), (646) 427-0457, www.gunbarnyc.com.

Saturday, October 8

Fasting? Nyet Anymore

This Saturday, the city’s Jewish population will spend the daylight hours trying desperately to distract themselves from the aromas, textures and imagined pleasures of New York’s culinary offerings. It’s Yom Kippur, which means no food or beverage from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday. O.K., yeah, it’s only one day, but things get pretty rough around Saturday afternoon, when one begins to aimlessly stare out the window waiting for darkness, sugar levels low, stomach rumbling, no end in sight. Oh, and all your goy friends are gloating over Twitter and Gchat about the huge sandwich they just ate, accompanied by a beer, and then another beer, and then ... Right. And then you shut your laptop and weep. The silver lining of this otherwise cruel day of starvation? The epic guilt-free gluttony of the break-the-fast meal. The Russian Tea Room, that old-timey vodka den on West 57th Street, is hosting one hell of a feast Saturday night after the sunlight washes away. End your noneating streak with borscht, chicken liver, and zakuski­—“a tasting of latkes, smoked fish and leak, and potato blini with red caviar.” Um, yes, please. Follow that up with lamb stew and fried chicken. Then polish that off with what can only be some world-class kugel. After all that, you’ll want to fast Sunday, too.

Sundown, the Russian Tea Room, 150 West 57th Street, (212) 581-7100, www.russiantearoomnyc.com; prices vary.

Sunday, October 9

Lemony Fresh

In 1992, the Lemonheads released their fifth and best album, It’s a Shame About Ray, a near-perfect collection of sunny pop that made lead singer Evan Dando’s drug problems sound like a walk through a park holding the hand of a nice, flannel-clad girl. How many bands can do that now? Not many, but if you want to see the real thing go down, head over to the Bowery Ballroom, where the reunited band will play the album in its entirety. No doubt the crowd will clap along to “Kitchen,” follow Mr. Dando’s hard yelps on “Alison’s Starting to Happen,” and thank the lord that the singer survived his addiction to crack cocaine when he breaks out “My Drug Buddy,” the best song about scoring since Lou Reed was waiting for his man. With luck, they’ll even run through the album’s two pitch-perfect covers, the radio-hit version of “Mrs. Robinson” and the heartbreaking “Frank Mills,” from Hair. Yes, yes, we really like the Lemonheads. But how can you not? And it’s not like Nirvana’s playing Nevermind in its entirety this year so, grunge fans, this might be your best bet.

The Lemonheads performing It’s A Shame About Ray, doors open 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m., the Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, www.boweryballroom.com; $22 advance, $25 day of show.

Monday, October 10

Titanic Mechanics

James Cameron’s been the self-proclaimed “king of the world” going on 13 years now, but it can’t hurt the guy’s ego to hand over another award every year or so. On Monday, he’ll head to Hearst Tower to pick up the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership Award, for his innovative camera technology that made immeasurable leaps in the art of filmmaking (to put things in Cameron-ian hyperbolic terms). Remember when he dunked a camera underwater to find some rotting ship, and then made a movie about that? Or the time this Austrian-accented robot came from the future to kill the savior of mankind? Or the time astronauts discovered some crazy planet with dinosaurs and skyscraper-size moving plants and … O.K., we’re still a little hazy about what Avatar was about. Being honored with slightly less fanfare than Mr. Cameron will be the team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that built the Mars rover, the scientists who pioneered innovation that helped a paralyzed man move his legs voluntarily, and a team of doctors who developed universally compatible blood vessels for surgery. Mr. Cameron, though, is the undisputed headliner.

Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards, Hearst Tower, 300 West 57th Street, 959 Eighth Avenue, 8 p.m.;
invitation only.

Tuesday, October 11

Katie Couric Says, ‘Wear Sunscreen’

With her new daytime talk show, Katie, not set to air until fall 2012, ABC News correspondent Katie Couric has taken up charity function duties with enthusiasm, appearing at film premieres, benefits and other events all around town. Next Tuesday, she’ll helm the Skin Cancer Foundation’s Annual Skin Sense Award Gala, a bash at the Plaza to raise funds and awareness for the disease. Summer might be over, but the hot rays can still come through the clouds, no doubt, and Ms. Couric will be the one to remind everyone that you can never be too careful. Can we be so bold as to predict a certain S.P.F.-rated skin balm might be in the goodie bags at the end of the night? We don’t want to be presumptuous. Either way, attendees will get to mingle over cocktails with the likes of Julia Stiles, Gretchen Mol and Tony Sirico, who will forever be known as Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos. If Paulie tells us to lather on the S.P.F.-50, we’ll listen, that’s for sure.

The Skin Cancer Foundation’s Annual Skin Sense Award Gala, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Step and Repeat/Entrances, 8 p.m. dinner, the Plaza, Central Park South, (212) 759-3000. Tickets, which start at $1,750, are available at http://www.skincancer.org/Events/.

Wednesday, October 12

Va-Va-Valentino!

For someone as worshipped and reclusive as Valentino—Italy’s most revered living designer—it seems the guy is all over the place these days. We had the otherworldly experience of watching the man walk up the Lincoln Center steps to the tents during Fashion Week, as a mob of onlookers darted toward him, hoping for a picture, before he was whisked to the front row of the Diane von Furstenberg show. And once he arrived there, few other people in attendance mattered. Then, a few nights later, he showed up at the once-ratty former strip club Westway to sign karaoke with Carine Roitfeld. He went with “My Way,” if you haven’t heard yet. Then it was off to Europe for the next three rounds of spring/summer collections—including his own in Paris—but the parties in his honor continue in New York. Last week saw a kick-off luncheon at the Valentino boutique that served as a preamble to the real party: a blow-out at the Four Seasons next Wednesday held in conjunction with the Museum of the City of New York and Graff. The New York After Dark party is always a good one, so try not to miss out. Unless you’re stuck in Italy, that is.

Museum of the City of New York Director’s Council, New York After Dark, Four Seasons Restaurant, 99 East 52nd Street. Tickets from $250.00. Contact: Stephen Diefenderfer, (917) 492-3326, www.mcny.org.

But perhaps a bigger question for the future of 3-D is how This Ain't Avatar 3D is going to perform when it comes out next month. If you haven't heard of the latter, it's a porn send-up of the James Cameron hit from the good people at Hustler. Google it.  

There are serious implications behind the prospects for 3-D porn. The history of modern media is that the adult industry has shaped how mainstream entertainment is consumed. Porn drove consumer adoption of the videocassette player, and the DVD, and was certainly ahead of its time in building online business models, as detailed in the new Luke Wilson film Middle Men. TV makers from Sony and Samsung to Panasonic have now bet their future on 3-D home entertainment. Porn auteurs in Hong Kong, Japan and Italy have all announced 3-D projects aimed to capitalize on the expectation that 10 percent or so of new flat-screens sold in the next year or so will be 3-D capable. Now, we shouldn't underestimate the power of 3-D to enhance more mainstream types of programming-from movies to live sports and video games.

And having struggled with a slumping economy and a plethora of free stuff online, is porn still the killer app it once was? To get an inside view, I rang up Steven Hirsch, the founder of Vivid Video, probably the biggest adult entertainment company. Mr. Hirsch says 3-D is going to be a big deal for his industry, and he is in production on Vivid's first film in the format: another parody, called Star Wars XXX-which will be directed by the same guy who did Ain't Avatar, Axel Braun, who is sort of the Jim Cameron of his milieu. But Mr. Hirsch cautioned that 3-D won't be an instant or easy success: "I think people like to take their glasses off when they watch adult movies, not put glasses on."

It was interesting to confirm with Mr. Hirsch that porn did not have much of an impact on the rollout of high-definition DVDs, either. This, he says, was in large measure because media giants like Blu-Ray inventor Sony made it difficult for porn peddlers to get Blu-Ray discs manufactured. (Apparently, Disney did not want its DVDs duplicated in the same factory as smuttier fare.) In fact, Blu-Ray only accounts for a small portion of Vivid's DVD sales today, and the argument might be made that HD could have been a bigger hit if it had let Mr. Hirsch and his peers lead the way.

But Mr. Hirsch says the bigger issue is that DVDs are "over" and distribution of video is moving largely to the Web and the television set, first via cable (video-on-demand, etc.) and soon by so-called smart TVs that connect directly to the Web. It's not so much that the porn industry is not the technological game-changer in gadgetry that it once was, but that the game has changed. Mr. Hirsch said that as much as 40 percent of the company's revenues come from subscription and video-on-demand sales on the Internet-and his company works hard to shut down pirate content when Vivid has a hot release, like, say, the headline-grabbing porn debut of Laurence Fishburne's daughter. They've also had to re-code their films so subscribers can reach them via Vivid's Web site on the iPad-Steve Jobs' portrayal of it as a porn-free device notwithstanding. And take heed big media: Mr. Hirsch said that the biggest stars in his business are also savvy cross-platform entrepreneurs who can make more money from operating their own Web sites and chatting live with their biggest fans than from making films. The biggest make as much as $1,500 an hour, based on $25 a minute for one-on-one video-cam chats. "Now wait for smart TVs where you're going to be able to get that experience right on your TV-and that's going to be massive."

Clarification: Two weeks ago I incorrectly reported that Rob Lowe and Tom Barrack met in Mendocino, Calif. I should have said Montecito-thanks, Penelope Bianchi, for writing in to set it straight.

rsiklos@observer.com

The Nationals have been forced to forfeit the first match of the lacrosse championship in Manchester, England, and it remains to be seen if they will make it across the pond for game two.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has expressed her support for the team, as have other local politicians.

"Senator Gillibrand is disappointed that the matter was not resolved in time for the team to participate in the tournament, said Glen Caplin, a spokesperson for the Senator. She plans to ask the State Department to work with the Canadian government and British governments, so that this kind of situation doesn't happen again.

Initially, the team had been barred from leaving the country by the U.S. State Department, but yesterday the State Department granted the team a one-time waiver for travel, along with letters guaranteeing them the right to re-entry.

Now, the UK has refused to accept the waiver and letters, saying they will only allow the players into the country if they come up with U. S. or Canadian passports.

"Like all those seeking entry into the U.K., they must present a document that we recognize as valid to enable us to complete our immigration and other checks," said a spokesperson for the U.K. Border Agency.

The team has said that using passports of another nationality would undermine their sovereignty and identity.

Although American Indians have used the Haudenosaunee passport for travel since the 70's, modern border control and increased security at airports have made the document increasingly outdated. It doesn't include a microchip, hologram, or other computer-readable information, for example. The Iroquois Confederacy has been in the process of modernizing the credentials for over two years, according to Chief Oren Lyons. They have already spent more than $1.5 million on the project.

James Cameron, the director of Avatar, has also taken up the Nationals' cause, donating $50,000 towards the team's expenses as they remain in the city. Since working on Avatar, he has become more engaged with the challenges facing indigenous peoples.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CMffJcHi58

Tina Fey visited with David Letterman last night and gave everyone a Tracy Morgan-approved nickname for Hugh Jackman: "Jack Human."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgOeAofwq-w

Meanwhile, her one-time Weekend Update co-anchor, Jimmy Fallon, no doubt spurred on by Joe Biden's liberal use of the f-word, came up with a new take on the Schoolhouse Rock classic, "I'm Just a Bill."

And finally, Miley Cyrus is a major recording star, but after her performance on American Idol last night, there's a very good chance she might wind up in the bottom-three come next week. Yeesh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KAxb6FUqkQ

What to Watch Tonight

March Madness returns to CBS; The Office goes out for a night on the town; and Hot Tub Time Machine star--did we just say "Hot Tub Time Machine star"?--and all-around funny guy Rob Corddry sits down with Jimmy Fallon.

“That guy sort of reminded me of Ron Silver,” said men’s wear designer Billy Reid of Mr. Boal, approvingly. He termed the look “easy, but not sloppy.” Mr. Reid, who sells buttoned-up, Southern-style suiting out of a cavernous shop in Noho, himself also maintains a neat beard (reined in by an electric trimmer) and side-swept floppy hair, at least lately. He said that men’s hair and beards are becoming “more well kept. They’re paying more attention to it.”

Men’s hair trends—like men themselves—are usually more sluggish than women’s. Since men started growing their beards like unkempt hedges, for example, the fairer sex has powered through Cleopatra bangs, 1940s Veronica Lake waves, Heidi braids, the long Gwyneth bob, Alexander Wang side braids and now, this spring, pink streaks reminiscent of the Kool-Aid–colored dye you made at summer camp. But men also seem to be experimenting more! Sure, Stumptown baristas still wear mustaches to serve mochas, and full beards are common in yoga studios in Brooklyn and at the bar at Freeman’s, but the Bowie-esque long-on-top, shaved-on-the-sides look is currently in vogue at art openings and on Bedford Avenue, and many of the city’s best barbers—like its interior designers and restaurateurs—say they’re currently in the throes of Mad Men mania. Paul Andrew, an owner of Panyc Salon on 17th Street, said men are buying more product than women these days and coming in every two weeks, compared to six weeks for women. “Men are more high maintenance than ever,” he said. “I’ve been doing hair 25 years, and I’ve never seen it like this.”

SLIDESHOW: A history of floppy hair, from the Kennys (Rogers and Loggins) to the Jasons (Schwartzman and Reitman) >>

NOW, MANY ARE are turning to the blow-dryer decade for inspiration. Experts say they have sniffed the beginnings of a Jon Peters revival here in New York (he’s the hairstylist–turned–movie mogul and Barbra Streisand ex that partly inspired Shampoo), and that it’s not as low maintenance as it looks. “Actually, on Wednesday, I went to play music in Brooklyn, and I was in the subway and I saw two dudes like this,” said prominent men’s stylist and salon owner Martial Vivot. “I said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s going on here?’ I was looking at them, they were very well put together, very well dressed, and I thought, Are we having a trend starting here?” He described the general vibe as “end of the ’70s. Hair parted, but not a sleek part, a part with volume. Like you blow-dried your hair.”

“A more groomed, shaggy, ’70s feel is something we’ve been venturing into in the salon already,” said Shaun Cottle, an owner of Seagull Salon on West 10th Street, which features a picture of Cat Stevens on its Web site, adding that he himself has “a medium-length blond shag with bangs. … I have exactly the ’70s haircut you’re talking about. It starts at the top of my eyes with the bangs and goes right around my face to the back of my neck.” (He admitted that he chemically straightens his pseudo-shag and has it blown out once a week.) He described the look, embodied to varying degrees by everyone from Mr. Boal and Mr. Reitman to Jason Schwartzman and Noah Baumbach to New Orleans tight end Jeremy Shockey, as “obviously very stylized, and giving a really specific projection, but that projection is, ‘I am organic.’”

Indeed, it’s a look that channels hot tubs and guitars, more ’70s porn star than grumpy Unabomber. “I’ve done a couple of really extreme bowl cuts from the ’70s on men,” said Mr. Cottle. “No part at all, kind of Peter Berlin in That Boy.”

The style’s key elements are soft, floppy, washed locks, a trimmed beard (if one is worn at all) and a creative, unfussy affect that contrasts with that of the stylized punk hairdos, uncomfortably full beards and strangulating jeans in which New York men have suffered through the past few years. It combines the relaxedness of a recession—very ’70s!—with, perhaps, a dawning optimism. “It’s getting away from the Julian Casablancas, that Williamsburg kind of look,” said Jordan M, a men’s stylist for Bumble & Bumble. “That grown-out, tendrilly, long, Jesus-looking hair that just looks like they haven’t had a hair cut in forever.”

“Before, you will have people who will ask for more hair, and then they just have the pillow hairstyle, like you are asleep, you wake up and whatever happens, happens,” said Mr. Vivot. Now, “I’m seeing kids in their 20s asking for more hair, but they want to take care of it.”

Unlike harder-to-pull-off trends like the Bowie do, the updated porn shag can work for anyone. “Just yesterday, someone got in my chair and it was exactly that,” said Jordan M. “Straight guy, Rolex, works in an art department, and he had the trimmed beard and long shaggy hair, pushed back loosely, probably doesn’t use any product. He basically told me, ‘The more you can make it look like I cut it, the better.’”

The faux–low maintenance of the look eases this transition, in some men, from Paul Bunyan to Kenny Rogers. “You got into a period where everyone was rough and rugged, and soon enough it’s going to be the complete opposite,” predicted Eddy Chai, co-owner of the popular men’s boutique Odin. Mr. Chai foresaw a welcome loosening of clothes to accompany the boyish, floppy shift in hair, democratizing men’s dressing back into a straightforward, unironic affair. After all, Mr. Boal and Mr. Reitman were hardly the best-looking men at the Oscars, but the look, inclusive with an air of historical significance, lent them a flatteringly low-key intellectual edge.

On Sunday, March 14, Gabriel Berezin, 33, the guitarist and singer for the bands Monuments and Ghost Gamblers, was weathering the rain on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint in an updated Laurel Canyon look he pegged to 1970. “You know who it was?” he said, asked to name his inspirations. “There was a picture of Paul McCartney right after the Beatles broke up, when he first started doing solo stuff. I remember being in college, saying, ‘If I could just get my beard and hair looking like that, I’d be totally psyched. Of course, I couldn’t grow a beard at that point. It took me a long time to get the beard in this condition.’ (He said he trims and clips his beard every few days with scissors or a trimmer.)

Mr. Berezin admitted he thinks about his hair “in terms of some old idea of what a musician looks like,” since “part of being artistic is not really giving a shit.” But still, he has a day job to think about these days, and a girlfriend.

“I think it’s kind of rude to have a superlong beard,” he said. “It’s hard for a girl to navigate through.” (Of course, the grizzled look poses its own perils, like a certain prickliness during one act of love.)

Meanwhile, Jordan M, from Bumble & Bumble, cautioned that the rounded shape of ’70s hair-and-beard combinations can add an unwanted fullness to the face. “When the hair’s longer on the sides, it doesn’t look like masculine or flattering to me,” he said.

But early adopters of the trend say they’re not after flattery, but comfort. Indeed, Mr. Reid, the retro-shagged designer, who said he’d been in a continuous process of growing out and shaving off a Paul Bunyan beard since college, suggested the whole thing might be accidental. “You’re probably seeing a lot of guys saying they want a change, and that’s where they’re at—in the in-between,” he said. “It’s hard just to take the full plunge of cutting [your beard] off and going back to nothing.”

mbryan@observer.com

SLIDESHOW: A history of floppy hair, from the Kennys (Rogers and Loggins) to the Jasons (Schwartzman and Reitman) >>

1. Alice in Wonderland: $62 million ($208.6 million total)

And you thought 3-D was just a fad! A ridiculous 70 percent of the domestic gross for Alice in Wonderland (or $146 million, for non-math majors) has come from the third dimension. With $208.6 million in the bank after just 10 days, Alice is already the top-grossing collaboration between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, and sometime next weekend it will pass Batman to become Mr. Burton's biggest success of all-time. As if that weren't enough, Alice also seems assured to be Mr. Depp's fourth $300 million earner in the last seven years—its better-than-expected drop of just 47 percent bodes well for future dollars—joining the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. In case you were wondering: Yes, Pirates of the Caribbean 4 is due to hit theaters in May of 2011. Start buying Disney stock now.

2. Green Zone: $14.5 million ($14.5 million total)

According to the New York Times Twitter page, the $14.5 million opening for Green Zone was "dismal." But with all due respect to the Paper of Record—and the intern writing their tweets—what did they expect? As we've seen from State of Play, Body of Lies and Duplicity, non-franchise adult-themed films don't open much larger than this no matter who is starring in them. Toss in the fact that Green Zone is about the Iraq war and we imagine the fired Universal executives who green-lighted this $100 million film are doing cartwheels. Bear in mind, the long-delayed Paul Greengrass film nearly grossed as much in three days as The Hurt Locker has in 171. Relatively speaking, Green Zone's opening was far from dismal.

3. She's Out of My League: $9.6 million ($9.6 million total)

Maybe Jay Baruchel isn't a movie star after all. The beloved Judd Apatow Player (or is that just us?) branched out into a lead role and the results were far from exciting. The $9.6 million opening of She's Out of My League place it in the same league as Observe and Report, which opened to $11 million last spring on the way to just $25 million total. Of course, that film—from cult director Jody Hill and starring Seth Rogen—was supposed to do much better, so in that regard perhaps League did just fine. The laws of diminished expectations at work!

4. Remember Me: $8.3 million ($8.3 million total)

De-fanged and away from the comforts of tween girl obsession, Edward Cullen found himself on the wrong end of a bomb—the $8.3 million opening for Remember Me was about one-third of what New Moon grossed ... from its midnight showings alone. Yikes! Forget Jay Baruchel, maybe Robert Pattinson isn't a movie star after all.    

5. Shutter Island: $8.1 million ($108 million total)

If you were expecting to see Avatar on this list, we wouldn't hold it against you. For the first time since December 18, James Cameron's big blue Oscar loser failed to crack the top five. Don't feel too badly though: Down just 18 percent, Avatar had the lowest decline in the top 10 and pushed its domestic gross past $730 million. As for Shutter Island, the thriller enjoyed the lowest decline in the top 10, non-Avatar division (38 percent), and is now Martin Scorsese's second biggest hit ever. It's also the director's third film with Leonardo DiCaprio to cross the $100 plateau. Call them the (very) poor man's Depp and Burton.

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1. Shutter Island: $22.2 million ($75 million total)

In this day and age—when twisty horror movies routinely plunge 60 percent after their initial first weekend—the 46 percent drop that Shutter Island experienced in weekend two is fairly significant. Despite a twist that isn't that twisty (and scares that aren't that scary), the $22.2 million gross shows that the word of mouth is clearly strong on this one. While Shutter Island isn't nearly the beloved phenomenon that The Departed was—after all the Oscar winner dipped only 29 percent in its second weekend—it should still come close to the previous film's $132.4 million gross. Apparently moviegoers like their Scorsese with a significant helping of hammy genre, something we're sure movie studios around Hollywood have already noted.

2. Cop Out: $18.5 million ($18.5 million total)

It's a tale of two narratives for Southwest Airlines' Customer of the Month, Kevin Smith. On the one hand, the $18.5 million debut of Cop Out is the best start of his career, surpassing the $11 million bow of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in the summer of 2001. On the other, his name was so thoroughly left out of the marketing campaign that unless you followed him on Twitter, you probably didn't even realize he was the man behind the camera. So while Cop Out might wind up being the most lucrative "Kevin Smith film" ever, what's the cost to the man himself? More studio hackwork and relatively anonymity? Color us underwhelmed.

3. The Crazies: $16.5 million ($16.5 million total)

This rash of horror remakes is nothing if not consistent. No matter what name is on the product, the end financial result always seems to be the same: like The Hills Have Eyes and Last House on the Left, The Crazies opened in the mid-teens and should maim and plunder its way to a final gross of around $40 million. Cheap, disposable and not very good for you, this subgenre of films is officially the White Castle of cinema.

4. Avatar: $14 million ($706.9 million total)

With nearly $707 million in the bank domestically, and another $1.844 billion internationally, Avatar has a gross threatening our national debt; for reference, the latter number is bigger than the entire global haul of Titanic. Logic dictates that Avatar will finally drop out of the top five next weekend, when Alice in Wonderland sucks up some 3-D screens. But after 14 straight weeks, don't rule a 15th out just yet.

5. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief: $9.8 million ($71.2 million total)

While Percy Jackson certainly doesn't have legs as long as the Na'vi, his film has acquitted itself quite nicely since opening three weeks ago. Down just 36 percent, The Lightning Thief was able to hold off Valentine's Day (which incidentally became the first film of 2010 to cross $100 million) to finish in fifth place at the box office. With some luck—and a little bit of financial finagling—20th Century Fox might be able to push Percy Jackson above $100 million. Of course, that would represent just one-seventh of Avatar's gross, but who's counting?