The lights are down and the films are rolling at Astoria's revamped Museum of the Moving Image, which means it's time for Times archicritic Nicolai Ouroussoff to weigh in. Despite one backhanded compliment?"the high level of architecture is all the more unexpected given that this is an institution getting by largely on public financing in these lean times"?he actually kinda digs the place. The Thomas Leeser-designed addition looks to Ouroussoff "like a big mechanical cloud" and tries to "capture, in a building, the essence of a world in which images proliferate all around us...and in which it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate physical reality from the sleekly manufactured realities of the digital age." Deep! But what really sticks with Ouroussoff is how sharply the museum's newest section differs from the older ones. A feeling many Astorians probably share, but perhaps take less delight in.
· Museum of the Moving Image Addition - Review [NYT]
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