Savage Grace, AMC 19th Street, 3 p.m.
It’s a good thing the filmmakers of Savage Grace make sure to throw the “based on a true story” tag everywhere they can, because this film is bananas. Julianne Moore (who continues to surprise us with roles like this one), plays Barbara Baekeland, a beyond eccentric and certainly troubled socialite. As her husband Brooks (Stephen Dillane, a.k.a. Thomas Jefferson for all you John Adams fans) starts to become more aloof, Baekeland becomes, er, inappropriate with her son Tony (played by Eddie Redmayne, who was quite the Sundance superstar this year). We won’t give away the ending, except to say it is based on a real story, one that ends in murder, and has a scene in it that still has us feeling traumatized.
Finding Amanda, BMCC, 7:30 p.m.
Tonight is the world premiere of Finding Amanda, the directorial debut of Peter Tolan—who has been writing scripts for TV and movies forever (Murphy Brown, Rescue Me, Analyze This). Matthew Broderick stars in what’s described as a “black comedy that finds humor in otherwise serious subject matter.” Look out! Also stars Maura Tierney (we miss you Newsradio!), Steve Coogan, and Peter Facinelli.
Baghdad High, AMC Village, 7:30 p.m.
One of the 12 documentaries in competition this year, Baghdad High (a favorite among festival programmers), allows four high school kids in Baghdad to take digital cameras and record their lives for a year. It’s a different sense of Iraq, to be sure—can you imagine the hellishness of high school with a war zone added to the mix?
Guest of Cindy Sherman, AMC Village 7, 10:45 p.m.
This documentary, which tackles celebrity, male anxiety, and art, has already managed to stir up some controversy. Paul H-O, a onetime fixture on that nebulous “New York art scene”, managed to get some exclusive interviews with the press shy artist. Lots of fun cameos: John Waters, Carol Kane, Danny DeVito, David Furnish and Molly Ringwald (!).
Yonkers Joe, AMC Village VII, 11 p.m.
Yea, a con-man-makes-good movie! Yonkers Joe (Chazz Palminteri) is on the hunt for a good scam with his girlfriend (Christine Lahti, who has been around town and looks amazing). When he discovers that his son, mentally “challenged” since birth, is about to be expelled from the institution, Yonkers Joe goes looking for the big one …
Tribeca Talks, Kellen Auditorium, 2 p.m.
The name of this discussion is “Tribeca Talks Industry: What You See Is What you Get” (and we can’t help but think, not true!). The focus today will be on the delicate relationship between a director and his cinematographer. Directors and cinematographers in the festival (Jonathan Levine, Joshua Seftel, David Greene, Fred Murphy) will be on hand to discuss.
