Last Licks: Don Cheadle's <i>Miles Ahead</i> Closes the New York Film Festival

Introducing his movie of music legend Miles Davis for the closing night of the New York Film Festival, Don Cheadle reminded everyone that Miles was inducted posthumously into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame --for his innovations in jazz. Eight years in the making and now slated for an April 2016 release, the movie shifts between two time frames, an early romantic period as Miles Davis (Cheadle), well-kempt, an already noted jazz trumpeter met dancer Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi) who would become his first wife, and a later time, when a pushy Rolling Stone reporter (Ewan MacGregor), trying to get his story, ends up a sidekick to the jazzman in a fuzzy halo of hair, hunting down some stolen session tapes.

A sleazy record producer (Michael Stuhlbarg) and fledgling trumpeter (Keith Stanfield) are the culprits in sequences that play like a stoner caper movie with guns. Segueing between these two times in his life, in a syncopating editing style spiraling like an elongated jazz riff, the movie directed, co-written, and co-produced by Cheadle is a fictional trip depicting Miles' downslide despite the triumph of his music.

In the festival's closing days, Jaeger-Lecoultre celebrated their 2015 Filmmaker in Residence with Athina Rachel Tsangari, hosting a dinner at Café Clover downtown. The special evening included the star of her movie, Chevalier, Yorgos Pyrpassopoulos, and many New York-based filmmakers: Richard LaGravenese, Paul Haggis, Ed Pressman and Todd Solondz

A version of this post also appears on Gossip Central.