The Tribeca Film Festival starts this week, and the downtown movie-thon is one of my favorite goings-on in New York City. So, in honor of watching movies instead of watching the stock market, I’m going to play a game that I started last year.
Which of the following 10 movies are real and which ones did I make up?
1. “The Search for General Tso.” Who hasn’t ordered General Tso’s chicken at one of the 50,000 Chinese restaurants in the US? This documentary charts the history of Chinese-Americans through the surprisingly popular dish and answers the question: Who was General Tso and why the hell was he cooking so much chicken?
2. “Big Boobs.” The true story of how the Democrats and Republicans finally put their differences aside and came together in 2012 to take America off the fiscal cliff. This film will also answer the question: Why was Congress ordering General Tso’s chicken while it negotiated?
3. “Spitfire.” The heartwarming story of how the citizens of a small town came together in 1976 to put out a raging wildfire by using their own spittle and other bodily fluids. Gatorade — blue and red — plays the lead role in this colorful docudrama, as the citizens of — where else? — Peoria fill their bladders and then unload.
4. “Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank.” This is a rare and intimate peek into the life of Frank, the quick-witted, cantankerous and first openly gay congressman in the US.
On the verge of his retirement when filmed, Frank reflects on his 40 years in office and the role his own homosexuality played in his campaigns for social justice.
5. “Compared to Barney Frank: The Probability That Boo-Hoo John Boehner Will Cry Again.” This is a rare and intimate peek into the life of Boehner, the sensitive, quick-to-tear-up and fragile leader of the House. This film will be part of a double feature with “Compared to Them I Deserve a Movie, Too: The Story of a Jealous Nancy Pelosi.”
6. “X/Y.” This character-driven drama centers around four restless New Yorkers and their shifting sexual and romantic relationships. As Mark, Jen, Sylvia and Jake navigate through their emotionally arrested states, “X/Y” reveals the honest and wanton desire we all have to connect with someone and what is at stake when that connection fades.
7. “You Can Stink at Sex.” The story of a Manhattan filled with young men and women suffering from AD/DD — Attention Deficit/Dating Disorder. The symptoms? No one can concentrate long enough on developing a healthy relationship because there are better things to do than pursue sex.
8. “Murder of a Cat.” Someone kills a cat and, as you might expect, there’s a lot more to it. The scene is a small town that isn’t accustomed to murders of any kind and would prefer to have its kitties left alone.
The good thing about this film is that every cat has eight sequels.
9. “Oh Please, God, Don’t Let Me Hear Another Word About the Economic Recovery.” In this animated short, a financial columnist issues a fine to anyone on TV who dares to use the phrases “economic recovery,” “dead-cat bounce,” “buying opportunity” and other favorite Wall Street clichés — unless granted SEC permission.
When the fines ultimately add up to $1 million, the journalist uses the money for some of his therapy.
10. “Zombeavers.” You know the story: Sexy teens head to a secluded lakeside cabin for a weekend of debauched fun, only to be menaced by a mysterious force picking them off one by one.
But here, the culprit proves to be a horde of rabid zombie beavers! The B-movie creature feature is making a comeback. This will soon be followed by “ZomMoms,” “Zomcats” and “Zomdogs.”
In case I didn’t make it obvious enough, the fake movies — or, I should say, the ones I haven’t funded yet — are 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9. No. 10, “Zombeavers,” is real, but I made up the sequels. I may make “ZomMoms” myself, but I have to see if my mother will cooperate.
Anyway, go see a movie at the Tribeca Festival and make a lot of desperate actors happy.
Remember, if you don’t help them keep their jobs now, you’ll be paying for their unemployment benefits later.
I promised the New York State Tax Department that I would publicize any success it had in the area of smuggled cigarettes, so I am.
Last week the Cigarette Strike Force arrested two people in New York City and seized 460 cartons of illegal smokes valued at $46,000.
According to the Tax Foundation, however, 57 percent of cigarettes being smoked in New York state are being purchased illegally.
Those 460 cartons may be a start, but they didn’t even make a dent.
Noticeably absent from the Strike Force are the district attorneys’ offices in Queens and The Bronx, the boroughs where much of the smuggling takes place.
The party line Monday was that Wall Street was thrilled that retail sales rose 1.1 percent in March.
But you need to look at the actual sales table that is supplied by the Commerce Department to know what’s really going on. The vast majority of the figures are guesses, because “advance estimates are not available for this kind of business.”
Or so the multitude of asterisks says.
Drugstores, electronics, new car dealers — and many more — don’t give actual numbers. Commerce guesses.
And that 146-point rise in the Dow Jones industrial average Monday? This was one of those options-expiration weeks when professional traders juice the market higher.