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Hey Karina and Chris--

While I agree with both of you that the desperate desire on the part of Tribeca's organizers to have A Really Big Festival! has resulted in the presence of some truly horrible movies, I have to say that doesn't (at least for me) make the good -- and even great -- films at the festival any less worthwhile. Granted, it's risky as hell to just blindly buy tickets to anything (particularly, as Karina pointed out, to features), but if attendees choose carefully, they can create a pretty strong week of film-going.

Like Karina, I've seen some crap, but have also seen some very good films. Even today, more than a week after I first saw it, I'm still over the moon about Once in a Lifetime, the New York Cosmos documentary that made me so damn happy it might have become one of my favorite films ever, not just of the festival. And, as a Soviet and Russian history nerd, I've really enjoyed Freedom's Fury and Hammer and Tickle, which offer very different looks at the Eastern Bloc. Freedom's Fury is built around the 1956 Olympic semi-final water polo game between Hungary and the USSR, but is most valuable as a lesson on the 1956 Hungarian revolution; Hammer and Tickle, meanwhile, explores the history of dissent under Soviet rule through jokes. The latter is not an entirely successful film but the history is fascinating, if you're into that sort of thing. In addition, 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep, which details the difficult past and present of the Pamir Kirghiz people, is a pretty wonderful film, sure enough of its approach and subject matter to have a charming, gangly confidence that is all too rare in film, documentary or otherwise.

Karina and Martha,

I am very shocked at how big Tribeca feels this year, and I mean that from the point of view of someone who barely registered its existence in the first four years. Mission Impossible III and Poseidon seem like ridiculous attractions for a film festival. I thought that Sundance was bad enough with its share of high-stature "indies," but at least it never brings blockbusters into the mix. As for the quality of the non-Hollywood films, I typically have low expectations of any festival's selections. Even last year at Sundance -- sorry, I can't not compare all American fests with "the big one" -- I saw 36 films and thought 30 of them were surprisingly poor, or at least unremarkable. Still, I have yet to see even one thing at Tribeca that I am as crazy about as the few favorites I've seen at other festivals.

With the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival officially opening to the public on Tuesday, Martha Fischer, Christopher Campbell and I decided to hash out the good and the bad, as we've seen it thus far. Here I am, starting the conversation; Martha and Chris will chime in over the next couple of days.

Hey Chris and Martha,

So, here we are, with another Tribeca upon us. With this being your first attempt to cover the Festival, I tried to prepare you guys for the challenge; unfortunately, I think we're finding that once again, the almighty Programmers have answered their critics by allowing the previous year's problem spots to become measurably worse. The question that seems to be on everyone's mind this year is: why does Tribeca feel the need to be so damn big? Certainly, Tribeca 2006 seems to have contracted a disease that more and more festivals are catching: when scope is of primary concern, taken as a whole, any great big lineup is going to be padded heavily with films that, quite simply, really suck. And if the Festival is daunting enough to journalists that the torture of covering it seems to take up more ink and pixel space than actual coverage of films, one can't imagine that the average New Yorker is too enthused about standing in endless lines, all over the city, to lay out $25 for a pair of seats.

Which is a shame, because in the last week, I've caught some amazing documentaries that definitely deserve to be seen. 

(As part of our constant efforts to not stop thinkin' about tomorrow, we at Cinematical are going to try yet another new thing: MovieMail. For a week, Kim and I will post small missives to each other about Ice Age 2 and whatever came up for us off the top of our heads ... and next week, two other Cinematical writers will talk about, uh, something else. -- J.)

Dear Kim:

It's not like this job offers immense possibilities for existential hand-wringing and angst; we're not transplant doctors or social workers, after all. But the one thing I do wonder is if, in fact, having kids makes you see kid films in a different way. I know you saw Ice Age 2, and I know you took a few progeny to it last Thursday night; I slumped in, childless and tired, for a 10:00 am screening here in SF last Saturday.

And when I watch a movie like Ice Age 2, I have to -- or, rather, I try to -- think like a parent. I know my nieces were traumatized by the opening of Finding Nemo; so when I watch a kid flick I wonder "Might there be anything in this that would be too intense for a kid? Any grown-up jokes that I might not want a hypothetical kid asking questions about? Could a kid follow the storyline?"

I guess what I'm asking is, does having kids there make reviewing a kid's film easier … or just different? Oh, and how'd you like it? And isn't it interesting that Jay Leno can be unfunny in almost every medium?

Yours,

J.