So, you think you know about movies! Well, how about ones that haven’t been released yet?
The Tribeca Film Festival, which starts today and runs until April 28, will show a total of 97 short and feature-length films at more than a dozen locations. Plus, there will be panel discussions with celebrities like Clint Eastwood, Ethan Hawke and Ben Stiller.
And parties. Yes, parties — that I plan to sneak into.
In honor of all the movies I wished I’d written and all the ones that I never will write, I have made up a quiz for today’s column. See if you can separate the films below that will actually run at the festival from the ones that came out of this columnist’s fertile — albeit a bit warped — mind.
Don’t cheat by looking up the answers. You are on the honor system here.
ï® Charlie Always Loses: Charles I. Cantwin is a loser. He’s the only guy who has never won one of those free vacations from time-share companies. When Charlie was a kid, his coaches refused to give him trophies for just participating in sports. This is a movie that’ll make you feel good about your own miserable life.
ï® A Birder’s Guide to Everything: “Sideways” meets “Stand by Me” in this endearing story of friendship, family and a place in bird-watching’s history books.
ï® Peanut Butter and Jell-O: Five friends from Paris come to New York and try to survive for a month on just those two American delicacies. Cannibalism ensues in this hilarious slapstick comedy.
ï® Farah Goes Bang: Awkward twenty-something Farah Mahtab hits the road with her buddies K.J. and Roopa for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.
ï® Fresh Meat: On the lam after a poorly executed escape from the police, a gang of bumbling criminals flees to the suburbs for shelter.
ï® Kiss My Ash: An unhappy marriage ends only after husband Gavril is dead and cremated. But then wife Anelia reads the will and discovers the unusual thing she must do to inherit the estate. (Bulgarian with Latin subtitles.)
ï® G.B.F: A bitter fight for supremacy between the three most popular girls at North Gateway High takes an unexpected turn, with lots of gaiety.
ï® Yup: Vinnie is a smart guy — a wise guy, you might even say. But his answers to everything tend to be so monosyllabic that neighbors in his Brooklyn neighborhood start making fun. What they don’t know is that Vinnie “The Yup” has a secret weapon stashed deep in the back of his mom’s shoe closet — a dictionary that’ll soon get him into Harvard.
ï® The Journal of Insomnia: Insomniacs are both spectators and actors in this large, interactive project that combines accounts of sleepless nights from across the world.
ï® Cheap Documentaries Presents: Why Does Mozzarella Always Have To Be So Round When Today’s World Is So Diverse? Take a trip with famed director S. Teddie Camra to a Boston cheese shop that, after three generations, finally gives in to changing tastes of customers by ceasing to produce mozzarella balls in favor of provolone.
This is the part of the column where I’m supposed to tell you which are my crazy ideas and which are someone else’s. But I’m not going to do that.
If you aren’t smart enough to figure that out yourself, you shouldn’t be reading this column.
How are you ever going to understand my next quantitative-easing column if you can’t spot fake movies?
Last year, 380,000 people attended the Tribeca Festival, which brings a lot of dough into the city economy. And these people are going to take your parking spaces. Teach them a lesson by buying the last ticket to a movie they’d like to see.
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The New York State Association of Wholesale Marketers and Distributors is starting a campaign to get the city and state to lower the tax on cigarettes.
I got an advance copy of a letter that will be widely distributed later this week, in which the organization says “the Mayor’s policy of having created the highest cigarette taxation in the nation . . . is costing the city mega-millions in lost revenue and lost jobs.”
It added: “The policy that has endured to benefit only criminals and terrorists,” the latter of which smuggle cigarettes into the state and use the proceeds for nefarious causes.
***
As you’ve read elsewhere recently, JCPenney has had its share of problems.
First it was having too many one-day sales, a fact that I joked about a few years back. Then, last year, it hired a guy from Apple named Ron Johnson as its chief, who said the company wouldn’t have any sales, just everyday low prices. (Like people believe that any more than when car companies say they are giving you the employee discount.)
Now Penney has canned Johnson, and the company will soon go back to coupons and sales.
This retailer just can’t make up its mind.
So I thought it was appropriate that the first sale JCPenney had after Johnson left was for “$1 family flip-flops.” Now, I really don’t know what a “family flip-flop” is, because nobody in my household shares footwear.
But flip-flopping is what this company seems to do best.