New York Film Festival Has a Taste of Cannes This Year!

Here's the slate:

-Opening Night "The Class" (Entre les murs)Laurent Cantet, France, 2008; 128mA tough, lively and altogether revelatory look inside a high school classroom, enacted by real teachers and students.
-Centerpiece "Changeling"Clint Eastwood, USA, 2008; 140mAngelina Jolie is a single mother whose troubles are just beginning when her son goes missing in Clint Eastwood's majestic fact-based period drama.
-Closing Night "The Wrestler"Darren Aronofsky, USA, 2008; 109mMickey Rourke gives the performance of a lifetime in Darren Aronofsky's raw and raucous new movie.
-"24 City" (Er shi si cheng ji)Jia Zhangke, China/Hong Kong/Japan, 2008; 112mThe rise and fall of a Chinese factory town is chronicled in this film, straddling the border between fiction and documentary.
-"Afterschool"Antonio Campos, USA, 2008; 122mWhen two students at a posh prep school accidentally overdose, a student filmmaker struggles to create an appropriate tribute for them.
-"Ashes of Time Redux"Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong, 2008; 93mThe final, definitive version of Wong Kar Wai's modernist take on the classic Chinese martial arts tale.
-"Bullet in the Head" (Trio en la cabeza)Jaime Rosales, Spain/France, 2008; 85mA powerful, engrossing meditation on politics and the contemporary cult of surveillance.
-"Che"Steven Soderbergh, France/Spain, 2008; 268mSteven Soderbergh's two-part Spanish-language epic about Che Guevara's revolutionary military campaigns in Cuba and Bolivia features a brilliant lead performance by Benicio del Toro.
-"Chouga" (Shuga)Darezhan Omirbaev, France/Kazakhstan, 2007; 91mA Kazakh, minimalist adaptation of Anna Karenina.
-"A Christmas Tale" (Un conte de Noel)Arnaud Desplechin, France, 2008; 150mArnaud Desplechin's grand banquet of a movie brims with life, as Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Devos and the other members of a marvelous ensemble cast come home for Christmas.
-"Four Nights with Anna" (Cztery noce z Anna)Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/France, 2008; 87mThis visually mesmerizing tale of a shy man and his obsession with the woman across the way marks the triumphant return of Polish maestro Jerzy Skolimowski.
-"Gomorrah" (Gomorra)Matteo Garrone, Italy, 2008; 137mA blistering version of Roberto Saviano's modern true crime classic about the modern-day Neapolitan mafia.
-"Happy-Go-Lucky"Mike Leigh, UK, 2008; 118mAn affectionate portrait of an unattached, 30-something London schoolteacher coming to terms with the fact that she's no longer young.
-"The Headless Woman" (La mujer sin cabeza)Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/France/Italy/Spain, 2008; 87mArgentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel's powerful third feature takes us into an altered perceptual state with a woman who hits something with her car.
-"Hunger"Steve McQueen, UK, 2008; 96mBritish visual artist Steve McQueen's feature film debut is an uncompromising look at the hunger strike led by IRA prisoner Bobby Sands in 1974.
-"I'm Going to Explode" (Voy a explotar)Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico, 2008; 103mTwo Mexican teenagers go into hiding to see the reactions their disappearance will get from relatives and friends.
-"Let It Rain" (Parlez-moi de la pluie)Agnes Jaoui, France, 2008; 110mA portrait of a rising feminist politician may be the ticket to fame and jobs for two aspiring filmmakers.
-"Lola Montes"Max Ophuls, France/West Germany, 1955; 115mThe life of the legendary courtesan and circus performer--lover of kings, knaves and Franz Liszt--is presented in its definitive, restored version.
-"Night and Day" (Bam guan nat)Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2008; 144mWhen his life in Seoul becomes too complicated, an artist hightails it to Paris--but things don't get any easier.
-"The Northern Land" (A Corte do Norte)Joao Botelho, Portugal, 2008; 101mA woman searches for the truth about her life in the stories of ancestors and the distant manor house they inhabited.
-"Serbis"Brillante Mendoza, Philippines/France, 2008; 90mA family tries to quell the tensions tearing it apart while it struggles to keep the family business--a porn movie theater--afloat
-"Summer Hours" (L'heure d'ete)Olivier Assayas, France, 2008; 103mJuliette Binoche is one of three siblings brought face-to-face with time and mortality by the sudden death of her mother in this moving new film from Olivier Assayas.
-"Tokyo Sonata"Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan/Netherlands, 2008; 85mA Japanese family struggles to re-define itself after the father loses his corporate job.
-"Tony Manero"Pablo Larrain, Chile/Brazil, 2008; 98mIn the dark days of the Pinochet dictatorship, a John Travolta wannabe blazes a murderous trail through the back alleys of Chile.
-"Tulpan"Sergey Dvortsevoy, Germany/Kazakhstan/Poland/Russia/Switzerland, 2008; 100mWinner of the Un Certain Regard Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Tulpan charts an aspiring herdsman's efforts to win the attention of his intended.
-"Waltz with Bashir" (Vals in Bashir)Ari Folman, Israel/Germany/France, 2008; 90mIsraeli filmmaker Ari Folman's haunting autobiographical memory piece about his experiences as a soldier during the 1982 war in Lebanon are given a hyper-real spin by state-of-the-art animation.
-"Wendy and Lucy"Kelly Reichardt, USA, 2008; 80mIn Kelly Reichardt's follow-up to her acclaimed Old Joy, Wendy (Michelle Williams) searches for her dog Lucy. The troubled spirit of modern America is beautifully evoked along the way.
-"The Windmill Movie"Alexander Olch, USA, 2008; 80mFilmmaker Alexander Olch, using material left by the late filmmaker Richard Rogers for a never completed film autobiography, attempts to make sense of the life of his former teacher and friend.

+Call me crazy, but the one that has my interest the most is The Wrestler. It might be the surprise of the year, but more on that later...