Brushes with Greatness: My Ten Thrilling Celebrity Sightings of 2008

Living in New York City has a few minuses, to be sure. But the pluses far outweigh them, especially if you're an attentive and active movie lover such as myself. One of those benefits is being able to see and even talk to your favorite film and media stars. They're milling about all over the place up here--appearing at film festivals, special screenings, and even just going about their daily lives. Here are ten instances in which I met up with some of my favorite people in 2008.

1) I was SOOOO excited to meet Keir Dullea (star of my favorite movie of all time, Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey) after a screening of Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake is Missing at NYC's Film Forum. He signed my posters from 2001 and David and Lisa (he was REALLY impressed to see the David and Lisa poster; he said he hadn't seen it in over 30 years). As he was waiting for his car after the autograph session, I approached him and, struggling for a question, asked if he found Kubrick to be humorous in any way. He seemed flummoxed and answered, basically, "No, he was way too caught up in the details of making the movie to crack any jokes." I dunno why I asked this question; I suppose I had heard about Kubrick's cutting-up with Malcolm McDowell and Peter Sellers while making A Clockwork Orange and Dr. Strangelove, respectively, and I just wanted to know if the great director's mood was just as light on the 2001 set. I guess it wasn't.2) At the terrific 2008 TriBeCa Film Festival, Matthew Modine submitted a fine short film he directed and starred in called I Think I Thought. He also participated in a Kubrick-centric symposium following a 40th Anniversary screening of 2001 (in case you don't know, Modine played Private Joker in Kubrick's 1987 movie Full Metal Jacket). After the program, I followed Matthew outside and got my picture taken with him, plus he gave me a really nice autograph humorously illustrated with a peace symbol (which famously appeared on his helmet in Full Metal Jacket). I gave Matthew the web address to FILMICABILITY, and told him I'm trying to write articles about my 2000 favorite movies. He asked which one of his own films made it on to my list, and I answered Full Metal Jacket (of course), Birdy (Alan Parker, 84), Married to the Mob (Jonathan Demme, 88), Short Cuts (Robert Altman, 93), and Baby It's You (John Sayles, 83). He said those were good choices, and that he would definitely visit my site. I hope he did!3) NYC's Walter Reade Theater (part of Lincoln Center) showed Malcolm McDowell's newest movie Never Apologize in September of this year. A filmed version of McDowell's one-man show about his relationship with the late director Lindsay Anderson (with whom McDowell did three of his most notable films, known as "the Mick Travis Trilogy": If..., O Lucky Man!, and Britannia Hospital), Never Apologize was great fun. But I really showed up not only to see If... and O Lucky Man! on the big screen (both of which looked resplendant), but to meet Malcolm McDowell himself. Note: I believe I set a record few could match: McDowell would be the third Kubrick movie hero I'd met in one year. The star of A Clockwork Orange came ambling into the theater about ten minutes before O Lucky Man! ended and I got to speak with him, all by my lonesome, right inside the theater's lobby. I failed to get a picture with him (dang it!), but I did get him to sign his photo in my massive Stanley Kubrick Archives book, as well as my O Lucky Man! and Time After Time posters. I asked him only three questions: (1) Who has the famed golden-threaded suit from O Lucky Man! (he does--"though I don't think I could fit into it now"--and he told a fascinating story about why Anderson decided to include the suit as an element in the movie). (2) Why was If... filmed in both color and black-and-white? He smiled and said he'd been asked that question hundreds of times. His answer: the black-and-white sequences were done out of necessity because the location in which they were filmed wouldn't allow for the sort of lighting that color film required, so Anderson just resorted to shooting the sequences in B&W (sometimes the answers behind such bafflements are just that simple). And (3) when is the famed Stanley Kubrick museum exhibit going to make it to the States--more specifically, to New York? He told me the big problem was shipping all this valuable stuff from London to the U.S. I told him I thought it'd be a massive financial success, and that the effort would be more than worth it. He assured me when he got back to London, he would speak to Kubrick's widow, Christiane, about bringing the exhibit here (it excites me to know that, if it happens, I may have had a hand in it; it looks like the most amazing thing ever!!!) Malcolm then invited me in to sit with him as we watched the joyous final scene of O Lucky Man! together. Listening to Alan Price's kickin' title song, I whispered to Malcolm "This is the best original rock-and-roll score ever written for movies." He gave me a playful punch in the arm and a "Damn right!" smile. What a thrill!!!

4) Working at the sadly now-defunct Kim's Video in the East Village during the first half of 2008 provided me with a few short Brushes with Greatness. The first: helping a bearded Ryan Gosling (The Believer, Stay, The Notebook, and Oscar nominee for his brilliant showing in 2006's Half-Nelson) as he tried to locate a copy of John Huston's great 1972 boxing movie Fat City. Knowing the difficulty of finding a single title amongst the legendarily vast collection at Kim's (which is soon to be relocated to a small town in Sicily, of all places!), I stepped out from behind the counter to find the film for him (while wondering if he was researching a new role), and he said, "Oh, you don't have to do that!" I answered "Hey, I'd do it for anyone else. That's what I'm here for!" 5) I was struck dumb at Kim's when I found the beautiful Chloe Sevigny standing in front of me, renting (strangely enough) Lindsay Anderson's If... I acted as if she were not a huge movie star (as you're supposed to do in NYC), and I recommended O Lucky Man! to her. As to let me know what name was on her account (so I could type it into the Kim's computer system), she humbly showed me her driver's licence (as if I didn't already know who she was). I can still feel that shock of hidden desire that shot painfully up my spine as I locked glances with her big, beautiful blue eyes. What a stunner she is!6) I met three directors I admire at Kim's, too: the wonderful Kelly Reichardt (the director, pictured below, of Old Joy and my #3 movie of 2008 Wendy and Lucy), Chuck Workman (the Oscar-winning director of Precious Images and the man who compiles all the film history tributes at each year's Academy Awards), and David O. Russell (Spanking the Monkey, Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees). I quickly complimented them all on their work. 7) I'll never forget sitting in the front row at the TriBeCa Film Festival's 2001: A Space Odyssey symposium and looking straight at Buzz Aldrin, the second man to step foot on the moon, as he discussed his impressions of 2001 and his trip to that great gray rock in the sky. I didn't get to meet him: famously shy, Aldrin made a bee-line to the door (refusing to give autographs) once the photo ops were over. But it was incredible hearing him speak about the details of his most famous mission.8) At the same film festival, I saw the unmistakable Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Roger and Me, Sicko, Fahrenheit 9/11) making his way through the crowd. He kindly made time for a quick handshake, after which I patted him on the back and thanked him for both his films and his political bravery.9) Through my good friend, photographer/filmmaker Richard Sandler (The Gods of Times Square), I got to meet another accomplished photographer, Sylvia Plachy, a number of times. Pictured at right below (with director Rebecca Dreyfus, maker of 2008's Self-Portrait with Cows Going Home and Other Works: A Portrait of Sylvia Plachy), the brilliant and generous Ms. Plachy is also notable as being the mother of Oscar-winner Adrian Brody (she and her husband regaled me over dinner about Adrian's experiences filming The Pianist with Roman Polanski, and his more recent travails playing the famed matador in the yet-to-be-released bio-pic Manolete). I got to feel famous myself, however briefly, as we shared a few laughs over drinks. I even gave her an original drawing of mine (which I titled "Self Portrait Without Cows"). She told me later she had my drawing framed and that it was now hanging up in her pad. Wow! 10) At the film festival, I talked briefly with legendary filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles--the man behind the groundbreaking Sweet Sweetback's Baaaaadassss Song. I mentioned how much I particularly loved 1970's The Watermelon Man, and he kindly told me some tales about his experiences filming that subversive and underseen masterpiece. What a guy!All this, plus I got to see magician David Blaine performing on the streets, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NY Governor David Patterson speechifying at the TriBeCa Film Festival's opening press conference, This is England and Somers Town director Shane Meadows outside of the Strand book store, Blair Witch Project co-director Daniel Myrick at the opening party for his newest movie The Objective, character actor and acting professor Austin Pendleton (What's Up Doc, A Beautiful Mind, Skidoo, Catch-22, My Cousin Vinny, The Muppet Movie, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge) at a Whole Foods Market, and music legend Nick Lowe (below) performing an intimate and extra-entertaining 30-minute set at a small TriBeCa venue. All these fine people, in their own small ways, helped make 2008 a memorable year indeed for me. Now I have 2009 to look forward to!

TriBeCa Diaries #8: Green Porno

It's perfection, having the always extremely erotic Isabella Rossellini as the focus of Green Porno, her eight-film debut as director (along with co-director Jody Shapiro). The subject of these charming, inventively educational one-minute shorts?

The sex lives of insects. In each, an elaborately costumed Rossellini portrays a bug--a firefly, a house fly, a spider, a snail, a bee, an earthworm, and so on--and sensually explains the ins and outs of insect copulation. Always capped with effective cinematic punchlines and beautifully simple art direction (I particularly found the end of the spider film hilarious), Green Porno is Rossellini's optimistic attempt to bring short films into a new paradigm--one which might make it possible for short-form directors to actually make new media cash with their efforts (Rossellini hosted a TriBeCa panel discussion about just this issue). Her lovely Green Porno series should certainly enjoy this fate. Here are some pix of Isabella in her various buggy guises!

Tribeca Diaries #7: The Autuer

WARNING: This is a salty-languaged review, by necessity.

Writer/Director James Westby has certainly gotten off the most raucously received movies at the 2008 TriBeCa Film Festival with The Autuer. This brilliantly-constructed pastiche of mockumentary and true narrative storytelling posits the existance of Auturo Domingo, the world's foremost director of hardcore porn, the Kubrick of cum. Played with showy apulmb by Melik Malkasian (who has Kubrick's intense eyes), Domingo is followed from a child who simultaneously discovered copies of both Cahiers Du Cinema and Hustler under his father's bed to his meteoric rise to the top as a student filmmaker with Five Easy Nieces to his hustling days as a top industry force with such titles under his belt as Broadway Danny's Ho's, Snatch Adams, Requiem for a Wet Dream and the controversial Full Metal Jackoff.


It's so stunning how the film begins at the comically-named porno house the Clinton, as we see a film festival audience consuming a documentary about Domingo titled All That Jizz. This portion of the movie is shot with a theater procenium around the main image's edges; this is something I've never seen done at such length before--a shorthand to let you know we're getting two movies in one. When it comes to the rest of the film, it's suprisingly sweet as it explores the relationship between Domingo and both his estranged best friend, porno star Frank E. Normo (an energetic John Breen) and his true love, a fresh-faced vision named Fiona (the beautiful Katherine Flynn).

But amongst the sweetness, you get loads and loads of other things. Like lots of glimpses of great tits (yum!) or Auturo carefully instructing an actor how to eat pussy, or a run-in with a dreadlocked killer-pot dealer hilariously named Friend (Michael Fetters). Or amped-up clips from Frank E. Normo's popular cable show Let's Get Fucked and Domingo's taken-in-stride clashes with a nasty fast-talking concierge (Katie O'Grady). But nothing will prepare anyone for this movie's climax. You can read between the lines, if you like, but you'll never see it coming. Or, on second thought, maybe you will.

The movie is shot with vibrant color by Alan Jacobsen and scored with a melifulous blend of accordian and piano by Jason Wells. It's also peppered with fantastic inside film jokes (only Kubrick fans will get the reference to a famous photo of Kubrick playing chess with George C. Scott, for instance, or Auturo's donning of a Kubrick-style parka). Made with love and care, The Autuer is a comedy that, despite its audience-limiting subject matter, will certainly find its more adventurous and less-easily offended fans, cum hell or high water.

TriBeCa Diary #6: Bart Got A Room

I didn't come to TriBeCa to slag any movies, but I lost my patience with the contrived Bart Got a Room about 45 minutes in, and I just had to say something.

At first, it looked as if I'd like Brian Hecker's somewhat hateful new film. It opens to Danny Stein (Steven J. Kaplan) as he's playing in his school swing band for a smatterling of beach-tanned senior citizens. It's a promising opening, colored in Florida blues and yellows, and from this point on, the film does a fine job of creating a setting, with its constant intentionally-cliched flamingoes and soothing pastel shades. But when the plot kicks in--shy school acedemian can't find a date for the prom--the film takes a vacation from placement and character, choosing instead to run its sweet protagonist unpleasently through the wringer.

Lemme give you an example. With Danny's date options dwindling, his would-be playa dad (a good William H. Macy in a Jew fro fright wig) somehow at one point makes an desperate move to hire his son a streetwalker (and an unattractive one at that); this is so outlandish--no father would make this choice, even one as clueless as Macy's. And there's a scene where Danny is faced with having a conversation with his best friend, cute wallfower Alia Shawkat, or breaking away to go and meet the knockout he had a date with. After Danny fails to simply, politely break away from his friend and just tell his date he was there waiting for her---well, my patience for this character was spent. Danny just stands there stammering in impotent pain as the knockout walks away, pissed off. It was here that I completely wrote Bart's Got A Room off as an exercise in sadism.


Unfortunately, Danny is a passive character and it's difficult to make movies about this sort. In fact, it's almost never done, because the audience gets as impatient with them as I did. Bart Got a Room makes it extremely difficult to like any of the people in it, though you sense the movie achingly wants us to. What remains is the nagging notion that Hacker himself, as writer and director, doesn't care for his characters, either--almost every actor's assumed persona comes off badly (except for Shawkat's, who's written with dignity and decency).

Sorry, I hate being this mean towards any film, but its poorly-structured screenplay spends 90 of its minutes cutting poor Danny Stein to ribbons, and devotes two minutes to the story's payoff. By the time it comes, it's way too little, too late. It's like a Floridian Welcome to the Dollhouse (a movie I despise) and a Jewish John Hughes movie all rolled into one, and it comes off like weak borscht. No fault to its excellent cast (including Cheryl Hines, Dinah Manoff, and Jon Polito), but Bart Got A Room isn't comedy; it's abuse.

TriBeCa Diaries #4: Run For Your Life

I stepped into Judd Ehrlich's Run For Your Life not knowing anything about the history of the New York City marathon. I stepped out an educated man. The event was started by a charismatic, Romanian-born businessman named Fred Lebow, whose enthusiasm for running began the marathon's infancy in 1969. At that time, people on the street weren't used to seeing runners jogging alongside cars in clothes that looked like underwear. In 1970, when the first marathon was launched, the participants--no women allowed, either--just sprinted a few times around Central Park. After female athletes were accepted in 1971, and after the marathon's route was amended to follow a path that swept through all five boroughs in 1976, the fevered publicity surrounding the event began to launch its popularity.


All the while, Lebow--whom one friend says "ran like a duck, but was slower than a duck"--acted as press agent, detail man, and provocateur. He used the marathon to feather his own nest with fame and a constant array of young women (but no money--he was famously broke a lot of the time). But he also used it to help an ailing, bankrupt New York City find its footing and its pride once again. Using his mastery of event planning and salesmanship, he garnered an array of big-time sponsors and, by 1977, a 5000-strong army of runners hoping to complete the course. Nowadays, the crowd numbers close to 20,000 (and there's nothing like seeing all those people crunch across the Verrazano Bridge in the opening helicopter shot).

Run For Your Life does what all fine docs do: it recounts a story we've never heard, but which has massive historical implications. It gives us a main character worthy of our attention. It has a complex structure that doesn't follow events as they happened in a timeline, but as they relate to one another. And it inventively illustrates its story with perceptive interviews (with marathon champs Bill Rogers and Grete Weitz among them), archive footage that's well-edited (by Alison Shermin), and stunning graphic work (by Nicholas Vranzian) that casts still images and CGI work into an appropriately low-fi 1970s look. I also have to mention its incredible source-music soundtrack of past hit songs and present-day songs that should be hits.

I've never been a runner--I'm too busy watching movies, so I've always found its appeal a bit mystifying--but now after seeing the inspiring Run For Your Life, I think I know what its point is. And certainly, for Fred Lebow and the adoring friends who surrounded him, it was about passion. That's a good enough explanation for me.

TriBeCa Diaries #3: Empire II

Dedicated not to Andy Warhol but to late film geniuses Ingmar Bergman and Michaelangelo Antonioni, Amos Poe's new experimental documentary Empire II still owes a lot--including its title--to the white-haired pop artist. Warhol's 1964 film Empire was an 8-hour black-and-white shot of the top half of the Empire State Building. It was a quizzical experiment that I suppose had to be done, but of course is not for everyone to enjoy. When I saw it in 2003 at Atlanta's Emory University theater, my friends and I drifted in at about the two hour mark, and stayed to see the sun set on the NY landmark--ostensibly the film's most "exciting" part. We alternately sat in respectful silence and made giggly wry comments (a reaction with which I don't think Warhol would've been unhappy). I should say that the sample of the print you see below is actually better than the pristine one I saw, because the print is somewhat damaged. That underlines the plastic quality of film itself, which I think is something Warhol wanted to highlight. Check it out in its entirety, whether you're in the mood or not.

The Empire State Building is definitely the main character in Poe's new 3-hour film--we should remember that now the building is again New York's most memorable landmark now that the death of the World Trade Center is a reality. But this follow-up resembles Warhol's Empire mostly in that it serves as an endurance test to the impatient.

Me, I loved it. In many ways, it's like Geoffrey Reggio's Koyannisqatsi in its illustration of nature vs. civilization, specific here to New York City life. Shot largely in time-lapse photography, Poe shows us the dizzying activity of the streets as taxi cabs whiz by, headlights dancing and pedestrians dodging. Time bolts past us as a clock towering over Union Square kills an hour-and-a-half in a minute flat. The Empire State Building itself is beset by rushed days and nights, and by zooming clouds of creamy blues and solarized reds. Empire II approximates four seasons of movement, so we get the hordes on the street slopping through snowy weather, baked by the yellow heat of August, and dampened by October rain showers. The onscreen rush reaches its apex in two holiday scenes: the explosive Fourth of July fireworks (which look even more spectacular ratcheted up a few notches in speed) and the humorous climactic onslaught of the Village's idiosyncratic Halloween parade, where the playful play at an impossible rapidity.


The visuals are hypnotic and joyous, chaotic and meditative. However, it's the soundtrack that really sends the work into the ionosphere for me. While the incredible video footage surely cost Poe--most famous for the groundbreaking punk doc The Blank Generation--a tremendous effort to compose, shoot and edit, the aural aspect of Empire II feels even more labor-intensive. Poe approximates the sound landscaping of New York City perfectly. His music track--filled with the likes of
Patty Smith, Brian Eno, Cat Power, Lucinda Williams, Lou Reed, Jimmie James, Deborah Harry, the Hysterics and Pink Martini--flows in and out of the air like tunes blaring from cruising sedans. A song might get bitch-slapped by the sound of thunder and rainfall, then pick itself off the pavement moments later. Helicopter blades chop through the rumbling crowd noises, winds whip around sharp-cornered high-rises, clocks tick quickly like challenging metronomes, and ghostlike voices appear and disappear while reciting poetry by Edgar Allen Poe (any relation?) and Jim Carroll. The soundtrack--effects, ambiance, music and all--is a stunning feature, like nothing I've ever experienced.

Still, even with all the sturm und drang, with all of Poe's fascinating movement and noise, Empire II failed to keep many journalists in their seats when I saw it. I was the only one who stayed, mesmerized from beginning to end. I suppose, as I and many others did with Empire, then others simply said "I get the point" and walked out. I dunno--maybe I understand; or maybe it was the excitement of the festival that got to them. But if one doesn't see the whole thing, how can one have really gotten the point?

TriBeCa Diaries 2: The first day

It's a thrill, being on this side of the festival operations. As a fully accredited press person at the TFF, I'm sitting here writing this entry not in my chaotic, book-and-DVD-strewn apartment in Brooklyn, but in the swanky press office here in the East Village. Nice. And much different than the homey but low-budget amenities we offered at the Dahlonega Film Festival when I was its Programming Director back in 2002 (which was the year the TFF bowed, by the way).

So now the movie watching really begins. I think tonight I'll be seeing Amos Poe's new experimental documentary about Manhattan titled Empire II. It's three hours and it's supposed to be stunning, which I take to mean that it's not a repeat of Andy Warhol's interesting-once-but-that's-it Empire (an eight-hour static shot of the Empire State Building, in case you didn't know--and yes, I've seen part of it; I was lucky enough to catch the exciting part, where day turned into night). Poe is a world-renowned filmmaker (he did the groundbreaking punk documentary The Blank Generation), so I believe this is a good choice to kick off the festival.


I attended the introductory press conference this morning, which featured cameo appearances by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Governor David Patterson, both of whom were touting the new 30% increase in tax credits for filmmakers choosing to make their movies in New York. Recently, Mayor Bloomberg explained, the city and state have been losing film production contracts to neighboring states like Connecticut (where TFF co-founder Robert De Niro is ironically busy filming a movie) Vermont, and Rhode Island. So the increase in tax credits is designed to lure more filmmakers back into New York.

TFF Co-Founder Jane Rosenthal and Artistic Director Peter Scarlett let us know that, out of 4800 films submitted for approval, this year's festival has settled on 121 features and 79 shorts. 54 titles are World Premieres (including Opening Night's Baby Mama, starring Tina Fey and Amy Pohler, and Closing Night's Speed Racer, the new action extravaganza from The Matrix braintrust The Wachowski Brothers). 30 films are North American Premieres, and 16 films were shot right here in New York City. Pretty impressive.

And director Doug Liman (Go, Swingers, The Bourne Ultimatum), himself a jury member, let loose the names of those who're serving on the various juries this year: David Bowie, Callie Khouri, Annabelle Sciorra, Fred Durst, Peter Dinklage, Jay McInerney, Matthew Modine, Whoopi Goldberg, Christine Lahti, Lili Taylor, Mario Batalli, and a whole host of other industry notables.

It looks to be a great time here in TriBeCa! A really great time...

TriBeCa Diaries 1: The Universe of Keith Haring

I'm going to take a break from reviewing old favorites for a bit and concentrate on the experiences in store for me at the TriBeCa Film Festival taking place on the Lower East Side of Manhattan April 23 through May 4.


In addition to being fully accredited as a member of the press (as the Film Correspondent for The Latest Show on Earth--see it at www.downtowntv.com or host Joe Hendel's www.thelatestshowonearth.com), I will also be volunteering for the festival's Screening department. As my producer Steve Paul told me "That means you're an expert AND a mensch!" But I think I stumped the volunteer coordinators tonight at orientation when I revealed I was also going to be carrying a press pass. I was wondering if there would be any conflict between the two positions. A bit confused, they said they had never been faced with the situation, so I merely said that I would handle whatever comes my way. I'm concerned I may miss some press screenings because of my volunteer work, but I'm sure in any case I'll be seeing a bunch of movies over the next two weeks.

After getting the full rundown tonight of our duties and privileges, the festival treated us to a screening: The Universe of Keith Haring. Here's my review:

Annie Leibowitz's stunning portrait of Keith Haring (1958-1990)

I've always liked Keith Haring's work. An automatic abstract artist myself, and one unconsciously similar to Haring in style (not in talent, mind you), I especially find nowadays that I appreciate his free and easy manner. As one of the interview subjects opines in Christina Clausen's new documentary The Universe of Keith Haring, he was very much like a musician with his visual art, making marks here and there that came together into full orchestrations. His work, heavily influenced by cartoons and comics (which is probably why they speak to me personally) is alive with color, movement, sexuality, generosity and meaning.


While Clausen's documentary is fascinating in its exhaustive visual research--there's plenty of footage of Haring at work and play here--it unfortunately feels markedly unadventurous. Rarely does the movie itself ever feel as frisky as its subject's art. Instead of opting for a more difficult telling of Haring's story, Clausen simply recounts a birth-to-death narrative that is nowhere near what this groundbreaker deserves. This structure makes The Universe of Keith Haring merely into a finer-than-usual A&E Biography.

A few outstanding problems exist with some of the filmmaker's aesthetic choices. An irritating recurrence comes in the introduction of each new interview subject. When Kenny Scharf, Yoko Ono or Fab Five Freddy appear to speak of their times with Haring, Clausen inexplicably has the camera zero in on her subject's left eye, whereby the screen turns glowing red. What is this, The Terminator? I don't get the reasoning for this repetitive, time-wasting element. And I have a further beef with the director's use of music, which makes the common mistake of dictating our emotions. When her interviewees begin discussing, for instance, Haring's death in 1990 from AIDS, of course Clausen resorts to sad tinkling notes from a piano to play at our heartstrings. It never works. And when dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones talks of his dance piece backed by only the clicking sounds of Haring's brush against the paint can as he toiled in the background, Clausen can't muster up the bravery to let us experience this near silent piece for more than a moment.


I do like where the movie goes in its latter half when it examines the effect that mounds of money had on Haring's work. Always one to give his art away, his advisers told him to stop doing that because the laws of supply and demand would drive his prices down. But that didn't keep him from donating murals to cities his work was shown in (the above photo has Haring standing in front of his last public mural, "Tuttomondo," painted on the wall of the convent of the Church of Sant'Antonio in Pisa, Italy). He donated murals to hospitals, houses and museums, and would not only sign his name for children he visited, he showed his adoration for youth by offering detailed drawings they could call their own. This portion of Clausen's movie is effective and emotional. But it still remains that the film feels padded out to achieve full-length status.


Even so, like a lot of pop culture documentaries, if you're already a fan of the art, then you're gonna wanna see the movie. And, to be sure, they're enjoyable, those glimpses we get of Haring swiftly at work in the subways, or gallivanting cheerfully in experimental film pieces made for Club 57 on St. Mark's in NYC's East Village, or communing with an adoring Andy Warhol (whom he took as his "date" to Madonna's doomed marriage to Sean Penn). Even if the movie does deliver these fine moments, don't expect an emotional or intellectual steamroller like the king of all artist documentaries, Terry Zwigoff's Crumb. The Universe of Keith Haring plays it much too safe to reach those heights.