My goodness, i have been playing catch-up with the New York Film Festival, and i have to say that, so far, it's been quite a solid festival! But this year was one of the most fraught years at the Film Festival: several of the press screenings were full, and i got shut out of several screenings. But among the films that i didn't get to, i have now seen "The Descendants" and "Pina" and "Shame"; all proved to be intriguing, and exceptional in their own ways.

BAM has been having a puppet film festival, sponsored by the Jim Henson Foundation as a way to announce the new Muppet movie; they press screened John Turturro's "Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy", another panel in his essays on Italian culture, this one centering on the Sicilian marionette theater. The Walter Reade Theater is having an Edward Yang retrospective, and they press screened "A Brighter Summer Day" which i hadn't seen since 1997. BAM will also be having a program of recent Portuguese films (they press screened "The Baron" from 2011, one of the most tactile black-and-white films i've seen, the incredible depth of the cinematography was like 3D without the glasses); Walter Reade will be having the Spanish Cinema Now series (they press screened "Extraterrestrials" and "Every Song Is About Me", the former a whimsical low-tech sci-fi romance, the latter an attempted whimsical romantic comedy, attempted whimsy is actually another way of saying dud).

There's a lot more to write, but the thing that's holding all this up is more medical tests, more doctors. Oh, well. But tonight i should have time to reflect on the movies i've seen, and some of the books i've been reading (i decided to take the plunge and read a bunch of movie-related memoirs, including Michael Lindsay-Hogg's "Luck and Circumstance", Piper Laurie's "Learning to Live Out Loud", James Wolcott's "Lucking Out"; next up will be Diane Keaton's "Then Again".)