You
have to give credit to the Tribeca Film Festival. They will bring both Mr. Met
and Scooter the Holy Cow, the Mascot of the Yankee’s Staten Island Single-A
farm team to lower Manhattan for their Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day. That is
covering the bases. Families on a budget will also appreciate the diverse community
events once again programmed by the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.
As
one would expect, several of the film event involve screenings, since this is a
film festival. For the first time ever, Tribeca is launching the Film For All Friday.
All tickets on April 25th will be completely free, while they last.
However, fest regulars know the Tribeca Drive-In is the place for free communal
film-going, starting this Thursday (4/17) with Disney’s Mary Poppins, a film very much on cineastes minds’ following the
recent Oscar-snubbing of Emma Thompson’s acclaimed turn in Saving Mr. Banks. Released fifty years ago (in late August, but who’s
counting), it remains the definitive cinematic portrayal of chimney sweeping.
On
Friday (4/18), Tribeca celebrates another anniversary marking thirty years of
Ron Howard’s Splash. Arguably the
definitive fantasy rom-com of the 1980s (featuring a score composed by Lee
Holdridge), it showcased breakout work from Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah, but it
was the late great John Candy who really made it special. In honor of the
theme, the Coney Island Mermaid Parade’s Tails of Glory dancers will give a
special performance before the show.
Shifting
gears, the Drive-In will present the world premiere of Next Goal Wins on Saturday (4/19). Chronicling the efforts of the
American Samoan soccer team, ranked dead last in the world, to qualify for the
World Cup, or at least finally score a goal, Mike Brett & Steve Jamison’s
documentary is one of several soccer/football films screening at this year’s
festival. For early arrivers, there will be Samoan drumming performances before
the screening. All Drive-In screenings are free, but on a first come, first
served basis. Doors open at 6:00 and the films start at dusk (estimated around
8:15).
Although
not part of the Drive-In, Tribeca will also present a free family screening of The Wizard of Oz, celebrating its 75th
anniversary on Saturday the 26th. Lines for tickets start thirty minutes before
the screening at BMCC in Tribeca proper. On that same day, the Tribeca Family
Screening series will also include Listening
is an Act of Love, the first full length animated special from the StoryCorps
oral history project, including four new stories and two old favorites: the
gleefully funny Miss Devine and the bittersweet
No More Questions (review here). The
Rauch Brothers have a real facility for matching the expressions of their
animated figures to the recorded interviews and the subject matter is always
A-OK for family viewers.
In
between ticketed family screenings, patrons can check out events at the annual
Tribeca Family Street Fair on Greenwich. There will be plenty of interactive
movie-making activities, the Games for Change public arcade, and performances
from current Broadway shows, including the massively swinging After Midnight and appropriately for
sports movie fans, Rocky.
Shrewdly,
Tribeca has developed a festival-leading reputation for sports programming and
they continue the tradition again this year. In addition to the Tribeca/ESPN
slate of sports films, the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day returns on April 26th.
There will be plenty of contest, giveaways, and skills tests sponsored by the
likes of the NY Rangers, NY Jets, NY Liberty, and NY Mets (with Mr. Met in
attendance from noon to 1:00—he’s a busy dude, you know). And Scooter too.
