"Darren did not put a strip pole in his office." -- Marisa Tomei.

Does the New York Film Festival still matter? The 46th edition opened last Friday, and while the fest may not have the celebrity cachet and discovery intent of Sundance and Cannes, or the welcoming populist mentality of Toronto, it stubbornly insists on being recognized as the gatekeeper for all that is worthwhile in world cinema.

Nonetheless, press conferences with a big-name American director and a resurrected American star (and his fetching, Academy Award-winning co-star) have stolen the spotlight during the first week of the festival. Looking somewhat like a guerilla himself, Steven Soderbergh arrived to promote his four-hour epic Che, starring Benicio del Toro as the revolutionary leader. According to the director, "There are a million Ches -– he means something different to everyone."

That attitude has irked some critics; Karina Longworth at Spout felt that Soderbergh's "unwillingness to make a statement may be a major part of the problem." On the other hand, Glenn Kenny of Some Came Running opined: "Silly me, I imagined that such an approach constituted a statement sufficient unto itself, but apparently not." The film will get a rare "roadshow" treatment when it opens in December: trotted around in its four-hour entirety to selected cities for one week only by IFC Films in December, complete with elevated ticket prices and a fancy giveaway program of some sort. Dreamgirls for the intelligentsia?

After the jump: The Wrestler and two fresh new films about those darn kids.

As we've started to get our fair share of trailers for the coming prestige projects -- Frost/Nixon, The Soloist, Zack and Miri Make a Porno -- I was curious as to why we'd yet to get one for Clint Eastwood's period drama, Changeling, if it were set to open by the end of next month. Particularly after Kim's Cannes review, I wanted to get a proper glimpse beyond a brief clip...

Perhaps hearing my prayers or just tiring of my complaints, Yahoo! Movies saw fit to post the trailer (watch it after the jump as well), in which a young mother (Angelina Jolie) in 1928 Los Angeles finds herself standing up against a corrupt police department when her missing son is returned, or rather replaced by a different child altogether.

Even if the same piece of score hadn't been used in both of their trailers, I'd still have felt a need to draw a correlation between this and last October's missing-kids-and-corrupt-cops powerhouse, Gone Baby Gone (of course, it doesn't hurt that Amy Ryan shows up in both of them). From Eastwood's end comes a particular tinge of Mystic River, and so far as I'm concerned, all of those signs point to something substantial waiting for us when Changeling opens in limited release on October 31.

Some people may consider the New York Film Festival a simple "Best Of" sort of event, but the fact that it compiles selections from earlier film fests and merely showcases them in a competition-free program is what I love about it. For those of us New Yorkers who can't always make it to the highlands of Utah and Colorado or the exotic seaside locales of Italy and Southern France, it's nice to know that major festival highlights will likely make their way to Lincoln Center in late September, early October.

This year, the lineup for the 46th NYFF is being noted for its inclusion of films that previously screened at Cannes back in May. Even Steven Soderbergh's four-hour Che (aka The Argentine and Guerilla), which played to mixed reactions in France, even while picking up a best actor prize for star Benicio Del Toro, has been given a spot. Also featured are Cannes leftovers Waltz With Bashir, Wendy and Lucy, Grand Prix-winner Gomorrah and Clint Eastwood's Changeling, which stars Angelina Jolie and has the honor of being NYFF's centerpiece film. Opening the festival is the Palm d'Or winner The Class, while the closing film is Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, which premieres a few weeks prior at the Venice Film Festival.

Other exciting big name films include Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time: Redux, Lucretia Martel's The Headless Woman and Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours. Surprisingly, Charlie Kaufman's Synechdoche, New York, which screened at Cannes, is New York appropriate and is scheduled to open in October, is missing from the lineup.

The complete list of NYFF selections, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, can be found after the jump:

The French educational system will be in the spotlight come late September. The Class, a fictional look at a French high school featuring a real-life teacher, will open the New York Film Festival, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Directed by Laurent Cantet, The Class won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in May and was picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics in June.

Critical notices, including one from our own James Rocchi, were quite positive. James wrote in part: "Chronicling a year in the life of a junior high school class in a rougher section of Paris, there's something undeniably French about the film ... But at the same time, these kids and their teacher (Francois Begaudeau) are going through a series of challenges and opportunities that will be familiar to anyone who's ever gone to school." The film is inspired by a novel Begaudeau wrote, based on his own experiences as a teacher.

The festival will also showcase the work of Japanese director Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses) and will feature a 30th anniversary presentation of We Spin Around the Night Consumed by the Fire, by Guy Debord, in their "Views From the Avant-Garde" sidebar.

As if often the case with certain festivals, there is no additional information at the official NYFF web site, but eventually I'm sure something will appear. The New York Film Festival runs from September 26 to October 12.

When I saw Ira Sachs' Married Life at the New York Film Festival last fall, I had a lot of problems with it. But one thing I didn't have any complaints about is how gorgeous Rachel McAdams looks in the film. And now, thanks to Rope of Silicon, you can see for yourself how amazing the actress looks as a '40s-era blonde beauty. My favorite photo is the third, in which McAdams almost looks like a dead-ringer for Kim Novak in Vertigo. But I'd be fine with looking at any of them. In fact, I'm not just a fan of the way McAdams looks in the film; I also love the three-piece style of Chris Cooper, the open-collared playboy thing that Pierce Brosnan has going on and the partially see-through top that Patricia Clarkson wears in the second-to-last pic. (Clarkson is so stunning in the film, she actually gives McAdams a run for her money, and makes it hard to believe Cooper would cheat on her with anyone.) But aside from simply looking terrific, all four of the stars of Married Life give wonderful performances, as usual.

The film, which opens in limited release March 7, is based on John Bingham's 1953 pulp novel Five Roundabouts to Heaven. Cooper and Clarkson play a married couple, and Cooper's character has a mistress (McAdams). He makes the mistake, though, of introducing the girl to his best friend, played by Brosnan. Not knowing that his mistress is having another affair with his best friend, Cooper's character decides to murder his wife, because it's a more humane thing to do than break her heart. It's a very Hitchcockian plot, which makes sense since Bingham's books were adapted into episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. And it's a good enough movie to recommend, especially because of those great-looking actors. I just wish that Sony Classics would do away with Brosnan's awful and unnecessary voice-over before releasing the movie into theaters.

Okay, is this not one of the coolest posters you've seen all year? I simply love the color scheme for this film, and since I'm seeing it tomorrow -- and interviewing writer-directors Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi on Friday -- this poster just totally puts me in the mood for, what some are calling, a shoe-in for an Oscar nod in the Best Foreign Language category. Persepolis, which won the Jury prize at Cannes earlier this year (where our own James Rocchi called it a "masterpiece"), was France's Oscar submission, and rightfully so -- those of us in the Cinematical camp that have seen it will not stop raving. Sony Pictures Classics has sent over the exclusive poster for Persepolis (click on the image for a larger version), which is based on Satrapi's own autobiographical best-selling graphic novels featuring an outspoken Iranian girl who finds her unique attitude and outlook on life repeatedly challenged during the Islamic revolution.

In her Telluride review of the film, Cinematical's Kim Voynar had this to say: "Marjane's story could have been told in a live-action dramatic narrative film, or a documentary, but the choice to stick with this highly stylized animation approach works very well, and has the effect of removing a layer of ethnicity, thereby making the story more universal. This isn't the story of an Iranian girl, it's the story of a girl who lived through eight years of war and societal changes, who happens to be Iranian." Apart from also screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, Persepolis was chosen as the closing night film for this year's New York Film Festival. The film arrives in theaters on Christmas Day.

Pictured Above: Two of the hottest men on the planet -- Cinematical's Erik Davis and actor Javier Bardem.

And that's Josh Brolin in the background lowering his shades to check us out ... because we're just that cool. This past Saturday, I attended the New York Film Festival press screening of No Country for Old Men, which is a film that will most likely be featured among several others in the Best Motion Picture category at the Academy Awards in February. It's truly an amazing piece of filmmaking -- easily one of my favorite films of the year so far -- and one that's sure to be recognized as the Coen Bros. best film in years. I'm not going to write a full review (you can check out James' from Cannes, and we'll post another one as the release date approaches), but I will give my initial reactions.

Essentially, No Country for Old Men is a morality tale about an older man (Tommy Lee Jones) and a younger one (Josh Brolin) who get all mixed up in a drug deal gone wrong. Brolin plays a quiet hunter who stumbles upon a group of dead bodies and a bag full of money out in the middle of nowhere, while Jones plays the should've-retired-last-week Sheriff who's itching to help save the hunter before a psychotic killer (Javier Bardem) catches up to him ... and the money. The film offers up plenty of edge-of-your-seat chills, with equal parts blood and guts, but it also slows up and surprises you -- just when you think it's heading in one direction, you're off on another, bumpier path. For those that have read Cormac McCarthy's novel, you already know where this thing is heading from the get-go, so I recommend settling in for some beautiful cinematography (from Roger Deakins) and a plethora of top-notch performances (particularly from Brolin and Bardem).

If you haven't read the novel and you're going into this one fresh, you might find it hard to connect with some of the choices made (if only because the film doesn't go where you think it's heading after act one). There's no clear hero here; all of these men have faults, they make bad choices and their actions will ultimately catch up to them. But do they have it in them to walk away before the water boils over? That's the question. And only the Coen Bros. can make you laugh out loud during even the most dramatic (and chilling) sequences. No Country for Old Men arrives in theaters on November 21. Below, I've included a photo gallery with pics from the No Country screening, as well as from The Darjeeling Limited screening and the Before the Devil Knows You're Dead screening. Additionally, you can check out some exclusive stills from the movie here. Enjoy.

Welcome to The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar, a weekly look at what's happening beyond the multiplexes all around North America. If you know of something indie-related happening near you -- a local festival, a series of classic restored films, lectures, workshops, etc. -- send the info to me at Eric.Snider(at)weblogsinc(dot)com and I'll add it to the list. (Please put "Cinematical" somewhere in the subject line so I can separate you from all the effing spam I get.)

First, a few indie films are opening theatrically today, all of them noteworthy in some way:

• My Kid Could Paint That, a documentary about a 4-year-old modern artist and the controversies surrounding her work, sold for nearly $2 million after it premiered at Sundance. Cinematical's Scott Weinberg reviewed it then and said it "gets exponentially more entertaining as each successive question and contradiction is offered." (L.A., NYC)

• Finishing the Game is a mockumentary from Justin Lin (whose first film, Better Luck Tomorrow, was much better than his subsequent films, Annapolis and The Fast the Furious: The One That for Some Reason Took Place in Tokyo) about an attempt to finish the movie Bruce Lee was working on when he died. Scott Weinberg saw this one at Sundance, too, and called it a "confident and consistently amusing comedy." (NYC)

• The Good Night is the first film by Jake Paltrow (Gwyneth's brother), a dramedy about a songwriter's midlife crisis involving a beautiful woman he sees only in his dreams. This was yet another Sundance premiere; Kim Voynar reviewed it there and said it has a clever script and solid performances, but has some pacing issues. (NYC)

• Lake of Fire, a documentary about the abortion battle in the U.S., is Tony Kaye's first film to hit theaters since American History X. Ryan Stewart posted a mixed review on Wednesday. (NYC)

• Kurt Cobain: About a Son uses 25 hours of previously unreleased tapes of Cobain interviews to construct a documentary of his life. (L.A. and NYC now; Seattle Oct. 12; Philadelphia Oct. 19; further dates here.)

After the jump, festivals and events in Chicago, Portland, New Jersey, L.A, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, and Arizona....

Oh, sure, everyone heard about the New York Film Festival opening last Friday. But did you know that another festival was having its opening-night party at the same time just 12 miles away? That'd be the Coney Island Film Festival, a raucous three-day event that isn't nearly as big as NYFF but that's probably twice as much fun.

James Israel at Indie Wire put together a delightful blog entry comparing the two fests in a comic-book style. For example: "At NYFF, actors Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton made an appearance, while Coney offered Serpentina and her incredibly large snake."

It's a very creative way of spotlighting both fests. Bonus: I'd never heard of the Coney Island Film Festival before, but I sure won't forget it now!

You see this kind of thing a lot, actually, where a city has multiple film festivals with widely divergent styles. New York is a huge city with plenty of fests, ranging from the glitzy Tribeca to the more indie-minded Big Apple Film Festival; from the critic-programmed NYFF to the goofy Coney Island. But what about tiny Park City, Utah? James Israel could do a strip very similar to this one, comparing the huge, increasingly corporate Sundance to the quirkier, more do-it-yourself Slamdance. Or look at Austin, home to both the fun-but-sometimes-serious South By Southwest and the all-crazy-all-the-time Fantastic Fest. SXSW is the kind of festival that would have a woman dancing with a snake; Fantastic Fest would have her eat it.

I've been lucky enough to cover the Sundance Film Festival the last several years and South By Southwest the last two years, and I've enjoyed mingling with my fellow movie critics there. One topic that's always ripe for discussion when we gather is Who the eff chose some of these movies? Most festival entries have a reasonable level of quality, and the ones that utterly fail usually at least do so in interesting ways. But then there are always a few head-scratchers, where you figure it was politics or shmoozing or favoritism that got the thing added to the lineup, because there's NO WAY a committee watched it and thought it was good.

So I'm fascinated by Variety's John Anderson's behind-the-scenes look at how movies are chosen for the New York Film Festival: by a committee of film critics. My people!

NYFF (currently running through Oct. 14) is headed by festival director John Peña, associate programmer Kent Jones (who's also an editor at Film Comment magazine), and a rotating board of three full-time movie critics. Currently, those three are Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum, The Village Voice's J. Hoberman, and L.A. Weekly's Scott Foundas.

Anderson's article says that since the critics aren't concerned about appealing to a mainstream audience or selling festival tickets, they feel free to choose movies that more populist fests -- like fellow New York attraction Tribeca -- might skip.

In some cases, this attitude means saving worthy films from obscurity. Anderson quotes Peña as saying that a certain film several years ago was causing headaches for its distributor, who didn't know how to market it. There was talk of sending it straight to video. But a NYFF programmer saw it, loved it, and it was invited to the fest. The film? Rushmore.

Welcome to The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar, a weekly look at what's happening beyond the multiplexes all around North America. If you know of something indie-related happening near you -- a local festival, a series of classic restored films, lectures, workshops, etc. -- send the info to me at Eric.Snider(at)weblogsinc(dot)com and I'll add it to the list.

There are a few indie films being released theatrically this weekend, so if watching The Rock become a babysitter or seeing Jamie Foxx do CSI: Saudi Arabia doesn't interest you, here's what else you can see:

• Lust, Caution, Ang Lee's new film, opens in New York after getting plenty of advance publicity due to its NC-17 rating. Cinematical's James Rocchi reviewed it at Toronto, calling it "a challenging piece of cinema that also thrills, a complicated bold work that's bigger than its problems."

• Trade is a sobering look at the business of transporting sex slaves from into the United States from Mexico, starring Kevin Kline as a Texas man looking for his daughter. It premiered at Sundance this year and has played at several other festivals since then.

• The Price of Sugar, a documentary designed to make you feel guilty for eating sugar because of the impoverished Haitian immigrants forced to harvest it in the Dominican Republic, won an audience award at South By Southwest and opens today in New York.

• Raising Flagg, a domestic comedy starring Alan Arkin, has been kicking around for a couple years. It played for a week or two in Portland-area theaters in October 2005 (it was shot here) and is now finally getting a slightly larger release: L.A., Phoenix, Dallas, and Denver today; Bakersfield, Salt Lake City, Milwaukee, and Raleigh next week.

After the jump, a rundown of some of the special indie-film events happening this week in L.A., New York, Austin, Vancouver, Edmonton, New Jersey, and Atlanta....

There are a couple different ways to approach reviewing The Darjeeling Limited. I can look at it from the mainstream audience's point of view, or I can look at it from the point of view of a long-time Wes Anderson fan -- which, coincidentally, I happen to be. The first thing my friend said to me as the credits began to roll: "Loved it ... but the film won't make a dime at the box office." Unfortunately, and most likely, that will be the case -- The Darjeeling Limited is a tough film for audiences to grasp, in that there's not much of a story to hang onto. Sure, there's a beginning, a middle and an end, but when you look back on it, everything sort of mushes together. There's also not a lot of physical action; a majority of the film takes place on a moving train, in one compartment, which subsequently leads to a very claustrophobic feel; albeit one that was intentional. And there's dialogue -- lots of it.

But this is a Wes Anderson film, and those of you out there who appreciate his sense of humor -- his quirky characters, his hipster soundtracks and his extraordinary attention to detail -- will most likely find a lot to love in The Darjeeling Limited. Essentially, it's a meditative piece about three brothers who reunite while on a train in India, having not spoken to one another for a year following the death of their father. In that time, Jack (Jason Schwartzman) was holed up in a hotel room in Paris, unaware of how long he'd actually been there. Peter (Adrien Brody) kept busy tending to his marriage, which he always expected would end in divorce, even though he really loves his wife. And Francis (Owen Wilson), who's the reason why all three are in India, has been recovering from a terrible motorcycle accident that left him near-death, which, afterwards, inspired him to take on this spiritual journey with his two estranged siblings.

We've already told you about the Wes Anderson-directed short film Hotel Chevalier, which is apparently a prequel of sorts to his soon-to-be-released feature film The Darjeeling Limited. We also told you how the short would not be screening alongside the feature when it hits theaters in limited release this weekend, and then we also told you how the short would be available on iTunes, instead, for folks who want to watch it now. Good news everyone -- you can finally watch it ... now. Yup, Hotel Chevalier is currently up on iTunes, as a free download (bonus!), and, yes, Natalie Portman takes off the clothes for the first time (without a body double, I believe). Since that's all anyone seems to care about (I like Portman, but I always feel like I'm watching a 14-year-old girl trying to look 28), I figured -- heck, why not draw attention to the fact.

Me? I'm not watching the short just yet. Tomorrow morning I need to get up at the ass crack of dawn and make my way into the city for a New York Film Festival screening of The Darjeeling Limited, with a Q&A to follow featuring Anderson and members of the cast. Thus, because it's a festival screening, Hotel Chevalier will show before the feature. And, well, I'd rather watch it up on the big screen than on my computer monitor. But I understand that not everyone can attend the NYFF screenings of Darjeeling, and so I'm happy iTunes made the short available for those who want to see it prior to watching the feature. That said, I can't tell you if the short is good or if Portman's nudity was well worth all the hoopla. But I can say that, regardless of the negative reviews, I'm really looking forward to The Darjeeling Limited. I dig Anderson, I like his quirky sense of humor, and so if I can somehow get into that particular headspace at 10 in the morning, then I hope to enjoy the flick. Feel free to watch the short, then come back here and tell us what you thought. Does Portman still look barely legal, or is she starting to show her age?

"May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."

It comes from an Irish toast, that quote, and it's also the first thing we see as director Sidney Lumet begins his latest film, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. It's open for interpretation, in the way that it's used here, however Lumet chose to follow up the quote with a graphic opening shot of a barenaked Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) on his knees, and a naked Gina (Marisa Tomei) bent over on all fours in front of him. They're having sex. Some of the best sex they've had in years. If only life was always like this for Andy and Gina; unfortunately, it's not. This is vacation sex for a married couple -- away from the hustle and bustle of the big city, where the most important decision of the day revolves around which swanky restaurant to eat dinner at. They're in Brazil; Rio to be exact. And this is heaven. Both enjoy their brief, passionate encounter -- and discuss how great it would be to move to Rio and live out their days on a beach -- but then, eventually, return home to New York City ... where all hell breaks loose.

See, Andy is having money problems. He's got a great job, sure -- as head of payroll for a real estate firm -- and lots of cash to boot, but he's a sneaky crook with an expensive drug habit. Money-wise, his younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) is in a similar situation. He's a few months behind on child support payments to his ex-wife, and as much as he loves his daughter -- and would do anything to provide for her -- his drinking problem, a lack of motivation and the fact that he's sleeping with his brother's wife isn't helping put money in the bank. As more and more funds disappear, and as both brothers are forced into a corner they're not sure how to escape from, Andy comes up with a full-proof plan to fill their pockets: rob a Mom & Pop jewelry store. Except, there's one problem -- that Mom & Pop jewelry store is owned and operated by -- you guessed it -- Andy and Hank's own mom and pop.

Cinematical was just handed four exclusive images from the upcoming (and might I add, highly-anticipated) No Country for Old Men, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Their first feature-length film since 2004's The Ladykillers, No Country for Old Men is based on the book by Cormac McCarthy and has already received tons of praise ("the best Coen Bros. film in years!") since first premiering last May at the Cannes Film Festival. As James put it ever-so-simply in his Cannes review of the film: "An ordinary man stumbles across a ring of corpses surrounding a fortune in cash and a mountain of heroin. A bad man follows in search of the money; a good man follows in search of the man." That's the set-up for No Country for Old Men; from there, I take it a whole mess of trouble creeps into the lives of each man, played by Josh Brolin (the hunter), Javier Bardem (the villain) and Tommy Lee Jones (the Sheriff trying to figure out what in God's name is going on).

These images were released in conjunction with a brand new Red-Band trailer which you can currently check out on the film's official website, http://www.nocountryforoldmen.com/. I'll be seeing the film for myself next week when it screens at the New York Film Festival, and let's just say the geek in me fantasizes about that upcoming screening at least three times a day -- what can I say, I can't wait to see this film. You can check out all four images in our gallery below, and make sure you head on over to www.nocountryforoldmen.com for the Red-Band trailer once you're done. No Country for Old Men arrives in theaters on November 9.