The Circuit

Underneath all the NYFF press about Baumbach, De Palma, Anderson and Van Sant, two "comedies" caught my eye. Abel Ferrara’s “Go Go Tales” is described as a “comic fantasy” -- Willem Defoe as a down-on-his-luck club owner struggling to keep his place afloat. Ferrara’s career is a wonderful mystery. Now close to 60 years old, his body of work is bizarre and disjointed. If you’ve ever met Abel frantically checking pay phones for quarters on the Lower East Side, it’s not hard to see why. Some of his stuff has yet to find US theaters – even with Forest Whittaker and Juliette Binoche his last film “Mary” hasn’t yet found a brave distrib. But when he hits, he hits hard and unforgettably – “Ms. 45,” “Bad Lieutenant,” and still his most respected work, “King of New York.”  (Abel at the 2005 Venice fest screening of "Mary", photo by George Pimentel/WireImage.com)

The other comedy comes from another unlikely source: Ira Sachs, director of indie dramas “The Delta” and “Forty Shades of Blue” brings “Married Life.” Set in the 1940s, Chris Cooper is a cheating husband who’d rather plan his wife’s death than put her through a divorce. When I asked him about the jump to comedy, Ira replied the film is more like "'Rules of the Game,' 'Shadow of a Doubt,' 'The Earrings of Madame D,' 'The Trouble with Harry'... The drama of life told with lightness. As opposed to the last time I went to Toronto, in '96 with 'The Delta,'  when I just wanted to be Fassbinder." "Married Life" will also be at Toronto. (Ira at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, photo by Rebecca Sapp/WireImage.com)   (Mike Jones)