This is different.

The New York Film Festival will have the same opening night film as the Venice festival a month earlier: Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise.”

Usually, the New York fest goes for something different than Telluride, Toronto, and Venice because they’re the last of the important bunch in that time frame.

But “White Noise” is hot, it’s Netflix’s big Oscar movie, and there’s a lot of buzz. Tickets for opening night are on sale for $450 now on the Film Society’s website.

“White Noise” stars Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig and is based on Don DeLillo’s best selling novel. The Film Society will also choose Centerpiece and closing night films to be announced soon.

The NY Film Festival always chooses quality films for its opening nights. But they haven’t lined up with the Oscars since “CHariots of Fire” in 1981. Maybe “White Noise” will break that record.

New York Film Festival Opening Night Films

2021 The Tragedy of Macbeth (Joel Coen, US)
2020 Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen, UK)
2019 The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, US)
2018 The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland/UK/US)
2017 Last Flag Flying (Richard Linklater, US)
2016 13TH (Ava DuVernay, US)
2015 The Walk (Robert Zemeckis, US)
2014 Gone Girl (David Fincher, US)
2013 Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass, US)
2012 Life of Pi (Ang Lee, US)
2011 Carnage (Roman Polanski, France/Poland)
2010 The Social Network (David Fincher, US)
2009 Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, France)
2008 The Class (Laurent Cantet, France)
2007 The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, US)
2006 The Queen (Stephen Frears, UK)
2005 Good Night, and Good Luck (George Clooney, US)
2004 Look at Me (Agnès Jaoui, France)
2003 Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, US)
2002 About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, US)
2001 Va savoir (Jacques Rivette, France)
2000   Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, Denmark)
1999   All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
1998   Celebrity (Woody Allen, US)
1997   The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, US)
1996    Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh, UK)
1995    Shanghai Triad (Zhang Yimou, China)
1994    Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, US)
1993    Short Cuts (Robert Altman, US)
1992    Olivier Olivier (Agnieszka Holland, France)
1991    The Double Life of Véronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland/France)
1990    Miller’s Crossing (Joel Coen, US)
1989    Too Beautiful for You (Bertrand Blier, France)
1988    Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
1987    Dark Eyes (Nikita Mikhalkov, Soviet Union)
1986    Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch, US)
1985    Ran (Akira Kurosawa, Japan)
1984    Country (Richard Pearce, US)
1983    The Big Chill (Lawrence Kasdan, US)
1982    Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany)
1981    Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, UK)
1980    Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme, US)
1979    Luna (Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy/US)
1978    A Wedding (Robert Altman, US)
1977    One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (Agnès Varda, France)
1976    Small Change (François Truffaut, France)
1975    Conversation Piece (Luchino Visconti, Italy)
1974    Don’t Cry with Your Mouth Full (Pascal Thomas, France)
1973    Day for Night (François Truffaut, France)
1972    Chloe in the Afternoon (Eric Rohmer, France)
1971    The Debut (Gleb Panfilov, Soviet Union)
1970    The Wild Child (François Truffaut, France)
1969    Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, US)
1968    Capricious Summer (Jiri Menzel, Czechoslovakia)
1967    The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria)
1966    Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman, Czechoslovakia)
1965    Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, France)
1964    Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev, USSR)
1963    The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, Mexico)

The great contemporary songwriter Diane Warren, who’s getting the first Lifetime Achievement Academy Award this winter for songwriting, got in “trouble” yesterday. She wrote on Twitter, “How can there be 24 writers on a song?”

Warren was immediately upbraided by the hip hop community defending Beyonce– whose current album boasts upwards of 15 to 24 listed writers per song. Hip hop producer and songwriter The Dream — who has plenty of hits under his belt — was one who came after her, and Warren backtracked to say she admired and respected Beyonce.

But Warren was right. The reason for the 24 names is because the songs are all “sampled” and “interpolated.” They are pieced together, as I said yesterday, from particle board. They include bits and pieces of existing music, old songs, obscure compositions. Nothing about them is original except for pasting them together like mixed media. How does it get to 24? So-called producers, people who supplied the ingredients, most of whom couldn’t “write” an original song if their lives depended on it.

Race was thrown into this discussion. There was some idea that Black musicians didn’t have access to the same resources as white, so they had to make samples. This is a specious argument, especially in pop music. Most of the great writers have been Black. They wrote all original music. Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Smokey Robinson, Valerie Simpson and Nik Ashford, Isaac Hayes and David Porter, Holland-Dozier-Holland — none of them sampled anything. Let me go on: Stevie Wonder, Al Green & Willie Mitchell, Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, Sylvia Moy and Teddy Randazzo. And on and on and on…Eugene Record of The Chi Lites, let’s not forget, wrote “Are You My Woman,” the basis of Beyonce and Jay Z‘s biggest hit, “Crazy in Love.”

If these legends hadn’t written the pop music songbook of our lives, there would be no hip hop now. While the genre has soaring moments, it’s also based largely on the work of others. Beyonce’s new album is entirely that. Kanye West‘s albums, and Jay Z‘s, are chockablock with “beats,” melodies, hooks, etc derived from that songbook. Warren is expressing her frustration for all of them. She labors alone in a studio every day for 8 to 12 hours. The result has been a slew of hits and 13 Oscar nominations. She has a hit now with Jon Batiste called “Sweet.” They wrote it. That’s it. No team. Writing is an intimate business. It’s not created like Frankenstein.

This is why, by the way, the Grammys had to institute a new award called Songwriter of the Year. It solves a problem that had to be dealt with. And while sampling has been lucrative for writers whose songs are properly licensed for samples, it’s painful for those who wake up one morning to hear their old work incorporated into a contemporary star’s “new” work. Case in point; Kelis, who was surprised to find her 2003 “Milkshake” hit woven into Beyonce’s new “Energy.” She’s complaining, and rightly so. Her point is, Let’s respect the actual authors of material. After 40 years, it’s time.

By the way, The Dream (Terius Nash)– who is also a “real” writer of songs that he composed without sampling — wisely concluded this conversation with this observation: “It’s about Art, not one artist or writer me or them. With all due respect and love for those who came before and will come after. Im truly Sorry if I disturbed the force today that’s not my purpose. Peace”

Mo Ostin is one of those people who are on the Mount Rushmore of Rock and Roll along with Ahmet Ertegun, Clive Davis, Seymour Stein. He died today at age 95 with an enormous legacy.

Ostin basically invented what was Warner Bros. Records, eventually turning that into Warner-Elektra-Atlantic or WEA as it became known, the home to hundreds of successful recording artists and many great labels.

In the late 60s, all through the 70s and into the 90s, Warner Bros. Records was a towering giant. More than half of anyone’s record collection would be full of Warner labels on albums by Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, the Doobie Brothers, George Benson, Prince not to mention Mo’s early signing, Jimi Hendrix, plus Neil Young and Frank Sinatra whose Reprise Records he founded eventually merged with Warners in 1967. He would serve two years running Warner/Reprise and then become head of the vast WEA until 1994.

Ostin also brought in under the umbrella Elektra Records, gaining acts like Carly Simon, Bread, the Doors, and so on. In 1967, Atlantic Records was purchased by Warner’s owner, Steve Ross, and a dynasty was born.

Under Mo there were also a slew of great producers like Lenny Waronker, Russ Titelman, Ted Templeman, and Tommy Lipuma, among others.

When WEA was sold to Edgar Bronfman Jr. — who killed it — Ostin decamped to start Dreamworks SKG Records under Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen. He was considered a king in the music business, beloved (and probably feared in some quarters). But during those halcyon Warners days, it’s hard to imagine another greater entity.

Did I mention that Ostin also brought in Seymour Stein’s Sire Records, which gave birth to Madonna, the Ramones, Talking Heads, Pretenders, and so on?

Mo Ostin was a gentleman and a scholar of music. He will be forever missed. Condolences to his family.

Clive Davis posted this to Facebook:

“Mo Ostin was one of a kind. The company he chaired was truly unique in its very special management of artists and the extraordinary depth and range of talent on its roster. Mo’s artists deeply impacted contemporary music and culture profoundly and historically. Yes, he and I competed with each other for many years but my friendship with him was very deep and extended to our respective families. I will always cherish our very close relationship.”