Aasif Mandvi, Daily Show correspondent and host of tomorrow night’s Gotham Independent Film Awards in New York, was recently named one of FILMMAKER Magazines 25 New Faces of Independent Film. No, silly, not because of his role as a dentist alongside Ricky Gervais in Ghost Town––actually, Mandvi is finishing up production on 7 to the Palace, a feature film in which he stars and co-wrote, loosely based on his own one-man show. Submitting to our Media Diet questioning after the jump, Mandvi gives shout-outs to Slumdog Millionaire and Grey’s Anatomy, and names the only living filmmaker who could possibly capture the Michael Jackson concert experience on film.

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Between the early-90s demise of his Boston-bred boy band and their current resurgence, youngest New Kid on the Block Joey McIntyre established an acting career. He landed a regular role on the TV drama Boston Public, appeared on Broadway, and appeared in a movie called On Broadway. An indie drama also featuring Will Arnett and Eliza Dushku, McIntyre stars as an amateur playwright who mounts his premiere production not in New York’s famous theater district, but in the back of a Boston bar. With On Broadway debuting today for streaming and download on Amazon.com, we talked to Joey about the books, movies and music he used to amuse himself when he’s not contributing to NKOTB’s tour blog. Check out his answers below, and the trailer for On Broadway above.

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A hit at the most recent Rotterdam Film Festival, Paul Krik’s feature debut Able Danger is a Flatbush, Brooklyn set post 9/11 conspiracy tale that hinges its low budget thrills directly to a studied pastiche of classic film noir and a healthy cynicism of our government’s possible role in the events of 9/11 and the subsequent dive into a state of perpetual middle eastern war in the name of defending freedom. Krik, who occasionally goes by the name Dave Herman, has the hip threads and thousand yard stare that are par for the course for Brooklyn conspiracy theorists, but he also has sure handed feel for cinema. With deftness he milks paranoia out of his crisp, hi-def B&W images and creates an altogether plausible conspiracy that barely name checks the controlled demolition theory, but nonetheless synthesizes large quantities of suspicious information from that sunny tuesday morning seven years ago. On the eve of his film’s NYC release at the Pioneer later this week, we caught up with Paul to talk about––what else?–– Entourage, Atlas Shrugged, the desire to work with Cate Blanchett and Greek versus German philosophy.

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Jeff Goldblum is at Telluride to promote his new film, Adam Resurrected, directed by Paul Schrader. The film follows the story of a Holocaust survivor who also happens to be a clown. Committed to an asylum after the war, he becomes a ring leader of sorts. On the opening day of the festival Goldblum was graciously hugging young fans and striking odd poses for snap-shots. We got a chance to ask him about his media intake, which includes a substantial amount homework from Schrader.

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From the looks of it, Tom Quinn is having a pretty remarkable year. He started off by winning the Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance with his positively Cassavetian take on a disintegrating South Philly Irish clan, The New Year’s Parade. This week, he became one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces in Independent Film. Although the director, writer, producer, DP, gaffer, editor, financier of this micro budget film doesn’t feel like an indiewood cop-out waiting to happen, we will certainly be seeing more from him soon. While we wait for Tom’s indie darling status to cement, I chatted with him for our Media Diet interview series about what he’s listening to, his plans to remake Darby O’Gill and The Little People and how he saw The Dark Knight like everyone else. …Read more