October 3 - 4 - The New York Film Festival opened this weekend with two rather dark films, both raging with major star power. Director Clint Eastwood called the cast of Mystic River - Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburn, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney – some of the most talented people he’s ever met. He added that Dennis Lehane’s novel was very difficult to transpose into a movie, requiring a good adaptation and people [working on it] to understand it. “There are a lot of processes you go through, and everybody was enjoying doing it, even though it’s a very tough, dark subject matter”, Eastwood said. Regarding the stellar reviews, Eastwood said, “I’d rather it this way than the other way”. Sean Penn , who had supposedly quit smoking, walked the red carpet with lit cigarette.

Saturday’s premiere was of Lars von Triers’ Dogville, three hours long with a plot that includes rape, torture and humiliation. Star Nicole Kidman said with understatement, “It’s a controversial film, so I expect it to receive a very, very mixed reaction”. She also said that although she is not big on sitting through her own films, she has seen this one twice, but “Even my dad said, ‘I’m not sitting through it’”. Lauren Bacall is in the film, but hadn’t seen it yet. We guess making movies is just a job – the cast members seemed unaffected by working on such disturbing scenes. Chloe Sevigny told us, “Lars is a very funny man, and he has a great sense of humor; he’s very perverse. So he kept things very light [on the set]”.