Hamptons, Woodstock, ANO...

Reunion Newsletter [10.18.24]

Oct 19, 2024

∙ Paid

Late send, neither of us were at computer and Substack doesn’t let you send from phone. Annoying.

Sean and I are both out of town this weekend for films, but there’s still a lot going on in the city that’s worth noting. Some personal highlights: The Searchers new 70mm print is back at the Paris, Mike Flanagan debuts the B&W cut of his underrated Hush, and Dancer in the Dark screens in 35mm at the Roxy. Also be sure to check out the suite of newly announced Reunion events below and get your tickets ASAP. Lots of fantastic stuff in the works. And as usual, happy reading.

— Max Cornillon, editor

I write staring at trees in Woodstock, breathing in delicious air, here for the fest. Had nice time meeting Meira Blaustein last night, who told me the story of founding the festival 20+ years ago. Got to catch up with Brian Newman who hosted a lovely event, as did the Gigantic folks. Hamptons last week was amazing, David Nugent did a wonderful job, and I was delighted when Anne Chaisson related our family connection I did not realize we had. These medium sized fests in small but illustrious towns are kinda the best. They still get A listers, so headlines happen, I freaked tf out next to Demi Moore last week, woah so beautiful, Marisa Tomei too, swoon. But different from the gigantic fests, there’s one event at a time generally, so you just go to that and you see everyone. And different from the micro fests, the industry industry all comes to these, so it’s a productive place to catch up with people you maybe only zoom now, and you meet new really important people too. What will be of Sundance? That’s the ultimate movies-take-over-town fest. But its next iteration won’t be this way. SLC, Boulder, even Cincinnati are big cities, so Sundance there would feel more like a more signal-to-noise ratio’d Tribeca. Meaning bigger fish in a smaller pond, but still Sundance would be a fish swimming in a pond with a lot of other fish. There will be central hubs, but events and screenings will bring people around different neighborhoods. We’ll lose that bubble where every single person you talk to is there for the festival. Sundance has undeniably become an unwieldy animal in Park City, but I would personally prefer to rein it in than lose the movie camp experience. Alas, that genie is out of the bottle, and there’s no putting it back, I know how it goes. The good news is that the decision makers building its next chapter are people like Eugene Hernandez, founder of IndieWire and formerly Film Society of Lincoln Center and New York Film Festival. People like Eugene will ensure the best version of this next chapter we can possibly imagine. So it’s what it is. We trust in Eugene and co entirely…and we enjoy fests like Hamptons, Woodstock, and upcoming Montclair for what they are. The combo in this ecosystem is tremendous. Film is healthy and thriving and has a bright future ahead, despite what you’ll read from lotsa struggling cynics out there. Film needs adjustments and corrections, like Sundance is making, and always ebbs and flows. I talked last night to Ondi Timoner about her changed clip of making three movies a year, vs one every few years in the past, and putting more movies into a smaller market. It’ll be fine. It won’t be the same. There’s times when Lisa Nishimura gets the budgets at Netflix to buy lots of cool artistic pieces and subsidize years of indie development. And there’s time when no docs are justified theatrical releases. Neither are the baseline. We have big windows and small. And we have lots more middle. As long as people love movies, we’ll be fine.

I still need to finish that Joker 2 piece, it’s not really ready, haven’t had time while traveling, so will likely post the rest next week.

Bunch of new events announced, so please check those out. Giving away lotsa free tix to fests too. Hit me if you want the WhatsApp groups or anything like that too.

Oh, Anora is out! GO SEE IT!