Two Last/First Things on "Margaret"

Actually, I'll probably have more to say later (a pedant's work is never done), but for now, two timely things about Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret worth noting:

A Letter for "Margaret"

Do this for me.

There’s a petition to get Fox Searchlight to send out year-end screeners of Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret (which I wrote about here) to critics and other voting groups. Please sign it.

The film, having had a long and litigious post-production history (it was shot in 2005, went through many different cuts and quite a bit of legal wrangling), was only released briefly in a few cities a couple of months ago. Writer-director Lonergan wasn’t talking -- possibly due to a non-disclosure agreement -- so its box office prospects were limited to begin with. This wasn't a deliberate burial so much as a case of a studio not knowing what to do with a film that had already been orphaned a while ago.

We Live in Public: Brief Thoughts on "Margaret"

I saw Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret last Thursday (along with a small group of other film writer pals), its final show in New York City. I went in with a mixture of heightened anticipation, thanks to the endorsements of many other writers of good taste, and some trepidation, thanks to its complicated post-production story. Once the film unspooled, however, I was elated to discover, as did so many others (but not enough of them, alas) that it’s a marvelous movie – in particular, a great New York movie. And frankly it deserved better from this city.