(Courtesy of Detroit News Online)

By Susan Stark / Detroit News Film Critic

NEW YORK -- The 37th New York Film Festival, which ended this week, embraced everything from the sublime (Pedro Almodovar's All About My Mother), to the searing (Kimberley Pierce's Boys Don't Cry) to the just plain simplistic and silly (Kevin Smith's Dogma). The most cheering news, though, is that, for a change, most of the important or at least controversial movies introduced to New Yorkers at this granddaddy of North American cinematic showcases will move promptly out to the heartland. Too often, critics who report to a middle-American constituency from festivals as far as Cannes or Telluride or as close as Toronto or New York find themselves in the uncomfortable position of saying, "Nyah, nyah. I saw all this stuff, but Lord knows when you will." Now, even though the consensus at the end of this year's film feast at Lincoln Center produced a few whines about the relatively commercial tone of the event, for cineastes in Detroit -- as well as places like Phoenix, Cincinnati and Des Moines -- there's reason to applaud. At least five films from the festival are set to open in Detroit within the next four weeks -- Being John Malkovich, Boys Don't Cry, Princess Mononoke, Dogma and Holy Smoke! Two others -- All About My Mother and Topsy Turvy -- probably will open in January. Only one film on this critic's best-of-the-fest list lacks a firm play date on either coast or the great expanse between. It is A Visitor From the Living, which is basically a 65-minute outtake from Claude Lanzmann's monumental 1980 Holocaust documentary, Shoah. The new film offers a shapely, alarmingly ambiguous account of Lanzmann's lengthy interview with Maurice Rossel, an admittedly naive representative of the International Red Cross, who came away totally duped after visiting the "model ghetto" created by the Nazis at Theresienstadt in June 1944. It's a stunner. It has been acquired for distribution by venerable New Yorker Films, a small but determined outfit. That means folks who are interested will have a chance to see it, but who knows when? Keep a sharp eye on your next Detroit Film Theatre schedule for news.

Susan Stark's capsule reviews of the New York Film Festival

All About My Mother : Spain's soulfully flamboyant Pedro Almodovar takes a major step to maturity with this All About Eve-ish homage to women and specifically to actresses from ingenues to drag queen. Wonderful to watch, the film takes on extra importance because it indicates a move to the mainstream by the fabulously gifted Almodovar. It's an immensely generous-spirited piece of work, a film with a wide embrace as well as the lively sense of humor and keen appreciation of melodrama that has always flagged Almodovar's work as appealing. There are Oscar-qualifying engagements for this one in select cities, but it should get to Detroit by January at one of the specialty houses or at the Institute of Arts' Detroit Film Theatre. * * * * Splendid

Being John Malkovich : You go down a secret tube and suddenly you're the highly weird, wonderful John. Crazy, giddy and wildly entertaining right up to the point where it tries to explain the whole inexplicable adventure to you, this is a movie that will promote laughter, soul-searching and more than a few fruitfully furrowed brows. Be certain of this much: You have not seen it before. Opens in Detroit Oct. 29. * * * Worthwhile

Boys Don't Cry : Maybe not, but you will. In a year distinguished for altruistically gender-bending films, first-time director Kimberly Pierce creates the most powerful, resonant, soulful film of the lot with this story from life, focusing on a young woman who posed as a man and paid with her life for the adventure. She was born Teena Brandon, willed herself to become Brandon Teena and after charming just about everyone in Falls City, Neb., paid with her life for the charade. This film taps truly, madly, deeply into the contemporary zeitgeist and features a forever memorable performance by former TV disposable Hilary Swank as Brandon/Teena. Opens Nov. 5 in Detroit. Be there or be significantly square. * * * * Splendid

Dogma : Whatever. The Catholic League, a small but determined group of media-savvy conservatives, has made something of a cause celebre of this picture. Maybe, oh, 50 people turned out to protest its showing at the New York Film Festival. Where's the beef, old-timers? Former slacker Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy) suffers a crisis of his Catholic faith on screen in a picture that is, finally, almost as reverent as it is naughty, technically primitive, glib and just plain childish. You come away hoping that Smith feels better for the effort, but that this should have been a home movie. Same for the company, which includes -- alas -- hot ticket items like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, plus quirky faves like Linda Fiorentino and England's Alan Rickman. Opens Nov. 12 in Detroit. No roses.

Holy Smoke! : Kate Winslet plays a young, working-class Australian woman who has a psychedelically documented conversion to one or another spiritually advanced religion while on a trip to India. Harvey Keitel plays the American de-programer hired by her parents to get her out of this nonsense. Jane Campion (abetted by her screenwriting colleague sister Anna) takes this as an occasion to stage a power-war between the sexes. Campion's casting of Keitel in The Piano was inspired, but do we really need to see Harvey in lipstick and a red dress (cut to show his nonexistent cleavage) to get her point about boys and girls? Or after Hideous Kinky, to see undeniably winsome Winslet doing lost dish abroad once again? Probably not. Opens Nov. 12 in Detroit. * Substandard

Princess Mononoke : Japanese anime, a comic-book-inspired form of high-end animation, moves from cult to mainstream status with this physically gorgeous rendering of modern and traditional themes about nature and human nature. It is the work of anime dean Hayao Miyasaki, an animated epic geared not to Disney-fed toddlers but to teens and grown-ups. Opens Nov. 5 in Detroit. * * * Worthwhile

Topsy Turvy : England's brilliant, eccentric Mike Leigh turns his incomparably sharp eye to Gilbert and Sullivan. Though known for modern films with a dose of social criticism (Secrets & Lies is the one that brought him to fame and Oscar glory), Leigh takes on a Victorian subject here. It's part history, part musical, part biography and, bottom line, a substantively, magnificently entertaining movie. The film has an Oscar-qualifying December opening in New York and Los Angeles. Watch for a January play date in the rest of the country and put watching it among your millennium resolutions. This one's pure and edifying joy. Opens January in Detroit. * * * * Splendid