Cinematical is stoked to bring you this exclusive new poster for In Search of a Midnight Kiss (click image to enlarge), which I've heard is just absolutely awesome. Seriously, my best friend caught this flick back when it first premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007 and he hasn't stopped talking about it since. I swear, he's a nut -- completely and utterly in love with this film. And I think it's totally rad. Written and directed by the very cool and extremely talented Alex Holdridge, Midnight Kiss tells of Wilson, who, considering he'll be broke and alone on New Year's Eve, is convinced by his best friend to post a personal ad. Through that he meets Sara, who's hell bent on finding the right guy to be with at midnight.

We talk up a lot here on Cinematical, but I have such good vibes about this one. Watch it. Support it. Then watch it again. Oh, and here's the trailer. In Search of a Midnight Kiss hits theaters in limited release on August 1.

Cinematical has received this brand new poster for Boy A (click image to enlarge), a film I was lucky enough to catch at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Featuring terrific performances from Andrew Garfield (especially) and Peter Mullan, Boy A tells the story of Jack; a wounded soul who, at 24, is released from prison after serving time for a horrible crime he committed with a friend at the age of 10. Mullan plays the kid's councilor Terry; in charge of basically setting him up in a new town, with a new name and new goals to protect Jack from those who want him either dead or back in jail. Jack slowly begins to build a new life for himself; he excels at his job, makes some good friends and falls in love -- however, hidden deep inside him is a secret he can't afford to let out. Can he continue on as is, or will the truth eventually find its own brutal way of catching up to him?

Boy A is one heckuva powerful flick (shot and edited beautifully) that creeps up on you as the drama slowly unfolds. I have no problem giving this one a strong recommendation; it hits theaters in limited release on July 23.

I know I poked some fun at New York City in some of my earlier posts, but I'd by lying if I said I didn't have a good time covering the Tribeca Film Festival this year. (I ate lots of good food!) Davis and I hung out for a bit here and there, but we were mostly knee-deep in work-stuff -- so a hearty thanks to Joel Keller of TV Squad for stepping in and helping out with the coverage. (Cinematical newbie Eric Kohn also threw in an assist!) Additional thanks to all the Tribeca folks -- from the press office people to the theater volunteers and every one in between -- who made the week run so smoothly.

Here you'll find a recap of all our Tribeca coverage. Reviews, interviews, live reports and a few random pieces of stupidity from yours truly. Then after the jump we'll remind you of all the Tribeca 2008 award winners. And then we can all have some milk and cookies.

• Live from Tribeca: Coverage Starts Now! (Erik)
  
• Review: Baby Mama (Joel)
  
• Junket Report: Baby Mama (Joel)
  
• Cinematical Seven: Tribeca Films I'm Really Looking Forward To (Erik)
• Live from Tribeca: My Miserable First Day (Scott)
• Review: Bart Got a Room (Erik)
• Review: The Objective (Scott)
• Live from Tribeca: Start Spreading the Reviews... (Erik)
• Review: The Wild Man of the Navidad (Scott)
• Review: Trucker (Erik)
• Interview: Bart Got a Room Writer/Director Brian Hecker (Erik)
• Review: The Auteur (Scott)
• Live from Tribeca: An Intermission with Iron Man (Erik)
• Live from Tribeca: Random Bullet Points from a Sleepy Man (Scott)

More coverage and a full list of this year's award winners after the jump ...

It consistently amazes me that, despite all the stuff we complain about living here in the United States, that we still have it so much better than most of the other countries on the planet. We're so used to our freedoms that any perceived infringement on them seems like an affront. But imagine if you lived in Iran, where all you're craving is more information than the government-run TV stations are giving you. Satellite dishes, though, are illegal, mainly because of programming that the government thinks is immoral. Many internet sites, especially those that are in opposition to the fundamentalist Muslim government, are blocked. Western music and movies are banned. How would you deal with all the restrictions?

That topic is examined in Head Wind, a fascinating documentary from Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof. In the film, he shows that Iranians are starving for information and entertainment, and in this digital age, the government, as hard as they try to, is having a hard time stopping the tide.

Something about Yonkers Joe bugged me.

Don't get me wrong; it was a very well-made and well-acted film, with a very touching story about fathers, sons, and the difficulties of raising special needs kids. It's got two stars, Chazz Palminteri and Christine Lahti, that give their usual solid performances. And it even has a story that's got some nice tension and is emotionally satisfying.

But something bugged me. And I couldn't put my finger on why until the very end, but when I did, it made my discomfort crystal clear: This guy's a crook. Why should I care about him at all?

Oh boy. Let me preface this review by saying that I truly go into all films (festival or otherwise) hoping to love what I see on the big screen. During the movie, I will always try my damnedest to find something worthwhile; something positive to say afterwards. But then you get to a film like Finding Amanda and there's really nowhere to go. Aside from a few cute one-liners, this film was a complete disaster -- to the point where I would strongly advise the creators not to screen this anywhere else until more work was done to it. I hate to be that guy, and I seriously have nothing against the filmmakers, but watching this flick felt like slowing down to check out an accident on the freeway. At first, it doesn't look so bad ... but then you get up close and everything is completely demolished.

Then again, we should've seen this coming. Right off the bat you have what feels like a comedy about a broken television writer/producer (Matthew Broderick) who, in order to prove to his wife that he's not a degenerate gambler/alcoholic, takes a trip to Las Vegas to convince their drug-addicted niece (Brittany Snow), who hooks for a living, to enter rehab. Gee, sounds like a laugh fest! But Broderick was great in smaller, quirkier films like Election; perhaps Finding Amanda would, well, find the right darkly comedic tone and take off from there? Yeah ... not so much. In fact, they should've renamed this one Finding the Right Tone.

One of the best things about covering a film festival in New York is that there are about a billion different dining options available to you, even if you just have a half-hour between screenings. And, while I'm pretty good at exploring the dining scene in my home state of New Jersey (and yes, Jersey has a dining scene), I rarely get a chance to get more than a one-shot opportunity to sample what the Big Apple has to offer. So I made sure I used my time wisely.

I think I did a good job: last Friday, after my set of screenings, I met a friend and his sister and went to Resto, a Belgian place whose waiters wear t-shirts that say "I'm bringing the fatback." Oh, they love their fat there; my entree was a beef cheek carbonnade that was softer and tastier than any normal stew beef you can think of. Oh, and they had frites (fries) and beer there. Lots of frites and beer.

Life in Flight should prove to any aspiring screenwriter that you don't necessarily have to have an original story in order to get a screenplay made. In the film, which debuted at Tribeca on Sunday, first-time writer / director Tracey Hecht tells the tale of a man who's supposedly living the good life, but it's not the one he wants. And it takes meeting a young, vivacious woman for him to fully realize it.

Heard that story before? Sure you have, probably dozens of times. You've seen it in goofy romantic comedies from The Seven-Year Itch to Joe Versus the Volcano as well as "indie" dramas like Garden State. But good writing and acting always trumps originality of story, and Life in Flight has both, though there's still room for improvement.

When I sat down to watch the excellent documentary Head Wind (review coming soon), I didn't realize that I'd be subjected to the mental torture that was the short called Beginning Filmmaking. I don't think the rest of the sparse crowd expected to see the short, either, because we all kept asking each other in very loud voices, "Why aren't we seeing Head Wind?" and "Why the hell doesn't this guy leave his kid alone?"

In this short, filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt chronicles a year of trying to teach his four-year-old daughter Ella how to become a filmmaker herself, based on something she babbled when she was eighteen months old. He even goes so far as getting Ella a brand new camcorder for her fourth birthday.

Did I say she was four? Well, I can't say that enough, because throughout the 23 mind-numbing minutes of this film, Rosenblatt tries to teach Ella how to be an auteur, giving her lessons in composition, focus, light, and story. He's talking to her like she's an NYU film student, and all she wants to do is play with her toys and flick boogers (well, she doesn't do that last thing on camera, but don't most kids that age do that?).

While it might sound somewhat cheesy, I had just as much fun watching seniors dance to hip-hop music than I did watching Iron Man over the weekend. Seriously. Of course, they're two completely different films -- one is a mega Hollywood blockbuster with loads of special effects, while the other is a sweet documentary about older folks who refuse to let age keep them down. And yet, both have a lot in common; mainly, that each film doesn't pretend it's something it's not. Gotta Dance is not out to mock these folks for wanting to add a little hip-hop to their lives; this documentary exists to celebrate that fact and invite us along for their wild ride.

Essentially, the New Jersey Nets basketball team came up with a PR stunt that includes forming a hip-hop dance crew made up entirely of senior citizens (or folks over the age of 60). From day one of auditions, cameras are allowed backstage to document this entire process -- which includes choosing the team, learning the different routines (with help from the current crop of Nets dancers) and performing them in front of live audiences during halftime at six Nets games. The cynical side of me kinda feels this whole documentary was dreamt up by the Nets organization in an attempt to get them some more good press. Regardless of those original intentions, Gotta Dance is still a fun film for the entire family.

Ah, the road film. The formula is tried-and-true: usually two people, taking to the back roads of America in order to get somewhere by a certain time or for a particular reason. Along the way, cars break down, trains are jumped, and quirky characters are encountered. It can be funny, sweet, or darkly dramatic. But the formula rarely strays. Because of this, the key to a good road film is what happens during the journey. You want to see lessons learned, growth, and bonding. But you also want to see interesting characters and maybe a good car chase thrown in, too.

Tribeca seems to have at least one of these films every year. Last year it was Chasing 3000. This year, it's Tennessee, a slow-moving but sweet story of two brothers who go back home to find their abusive father; what they find, though is that there's more than one reason to go home.

I couldn't get to any of the press screenings for Man on Wire, so I decided to get on a Rush Ticket line and (gasp!) actually pay to get into a public screening. I was third on line, and I thought I was in good shape. I mean, it was 4:45 on a Tuesday; who was going to see a documentary about the guy who walked a tightrope between the Twin Towers almost thirty-five years ago?

Turns out that people in New York aren't as busy as you think, since the screening was packed to capacity. But they were in for a good show, as this documentary combined archival footage, interviews, and appropriately cheesy reenactments to tell the story of how in 1974, Philippe Petit, a French juggler and tightrope walker, managed to sneak a crew and a bunch of equipment to the top of the World Trade Center, extend a tightrope between towers, and walk across without a net.

And here's another street-ballin' flick that wants you to know how tough it is to make it in life when the only thing not lyin' to your face is that dirty old basketball. Ball Don't Lie had a lot of potential and some sweeet b-ball sequences, but annoying editing and several mis-placed flashbacks ultimately hurt the film, which boasts appearances by Nick Cannon and Rosanna Arquette -- both of whom populated just about five to six minutes of the 102-minute feature. Chris "I'm Starting to Use My Real Name Instead of Ludacris" Bridges also shows up as a mentor who doesn't do much mentoring, except for schooling and then being schooled on the cement court.

He's not the only one: When it's not dazzling us with some fancy footwork, Ball Don't Lie schools us in the pitfalls of a broken foster care system; one that finds our hero, Sticky (newcomer Grayson Boucher), moving from one dysfunctional situation to the next. At some point, Sticky meets a girl who works at Foot Locker -- tries to find enough money to buy her a necklace for her birthday -- and then he gets beat up by a guy with a gun. The end. I don't mean to be harsh toward the movie, but it just doesn't serve a purpose -- it didn't go anywhere. I never read the book this was based on (written by Matt De La Pena), but I'd like to think it contained a little more than "What a sad situation for that poor boy."

Of all the films screening at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, it was a documentary called This Is Not a Robbery that pulled me in the most at first with a description that teased the real-life story of an 87-year-old bank robber. Who wouldn't want to know more about a really old guy who robbed banks? And the film itself definitely entertains for awhile, as it takes us through the life of one J.L. "Red" Rountree -- from his early days chasing skirts on a farm to his last moments on earth inside the prison system. The problems with this film don't necessarily have to do with the story (which is a fascinating one), but more with length. As with another documentary I've seen at Tribeca (Gotta Dance), after about a half hour it starts losing its steam. Here's an old guy who liked to rob banks. Here's a little bit about him and why he liked to rob banks. Now, here's another hour full of interviews (with people who can't believe he robbed banks at 87-years-old) and pretty graphics and ... do we really need all this fluff? This Is Not a Robbery would've made for an excellent, award-winning short film. As is, it's just okay. Fun for the first half hour, then a bit too repetitive from there on out.

Give Joshua Seftel some credit; he didn't pull any punches on War, Inc. In his first feature film, written by star/producer John Cusack, Jeremy Pisker, and Mark Leyner, Seftel attempts to make a scathing commentary on the War on Terror, the privatization of the military, the commercialization of societies all over the world, and other shenanigans. In a former life, Seftel was a former network news producer, and became known around Hollywood circles for directing documentaries like Breaking the Mold: The Kee Malesky Story.

He was nice enough to speak to me about the experience from a very blue room at the Tribeca Film Festival press office. Text and video are after the jump.