Archive for October, 2007

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It didn’t take much sleuthing - Toronto Star

Friday, October 26th, 2007

Scotsman

Toronto Star, Canada - For Kenneth Branagh, the decision to direct Sleuth was no mystery, because he knew Jude Law had all the ducks lined up in a row long before they started. During an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, Branagh cheerfully admitted that Law was the one who decided to remake the classic 1972 film thriller about two men trapped in a gimmick-riddled mansion. “Jude felt this basic idea of two men confined in a house fighting a deadly game over a woman we never see had something timeless and powerful about it,” says Branagh. And having made the decision to remake the film, Law had a couple of clever aces up his sleeve… [Full Story] Related Articles • Caine and Branagh discuss Sleuth - Tandem • Jude Law and Michael Caine on Sleuth - Georgia Straight [View all 41 related]

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Call of the wild: Family trusted Penn to tell son’s tale - Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Friday, October 19th, 2007

Vancouver Sun

Pittsburgh Post Gazette, PA - Christopher McCandless’ family trusted writer Jon Krakauer to retrace his final steps — into the wilderness of Alaska where he lived to his fullest before dying at his weakest. They weren’t sure they were ready for someone to tell the story again, on screen. That’s why it took Sean Penn a decade to get “Into the Wild” made. “This was a very raw, fresh wound with the family when the book first came out” in 1996, Penn told the media during the Toronto International Film Festival… [Full Story] Related Articles • New roles propel Emile Hirsch into vaunted spot - St. Louis Post-Dispatch [View all 28 related]

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Keeping it real. Well, sort of - Globe and Mail

Saturday, October 13th, 2007

New York Times

Globe and Mail, Canada - …Sounds like a dead-cert Academy Award winner, no? No. But then along comes Lars and the Real Girl, the new feature starring Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling - it comes to theatres early next month - and one’s reflex cynicism escapes like air from an inflatable doll. Somehow, the whole thing works rather well. So well in fact, that whispering about possible Oscar nominations has already begun. Gosling for best actor, Bianca for best-supporting. They’d attend the awards together, of course. Rumour is that Bianca has not yet picked her designer. That Real Girl does work may have a lot to do with the way the filmmakers approached what is in part a comedy - with utter seriousness. I don’t know if they went so far as to give Bianca her own trailer during the shoot in Southern Ontario, last winter. But director Craig Gillespie, his actors (also including Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner and Patricia Clarkson ) and crew apparently did everything but, handling the life-sized Bianca as if she were in fact a living, breathing part of the cast. She had makeup. She was carefully lit. She was treated with star deference… [Full Story] Related Articles • Film's star a real (fake) doll - Toronto Star [View all 76 related]

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Renaissance for Joy Division - Toronto Star

Friday, October 12th, 2007

ChartAttack

Toronto Star, Canada - …In an era that has post-punk cultural touchstones, such as skinny ties, danceable rock and distrust of the government, making a comeback, many of those participating in the band’s revival seem more apt to frame debate around what Joy Division isn’t than to provide a new raison d’être for its resurgence. “When people revisit it, there’s no cultural kitsch. It’s so pared down, it’s not retro,” said Grant Gee, director of the new documentary Joy Division. “Everything about the band has a minimalism that doesn’t age.” Added Anton Corbijn, director of the elegantly shot Curtis biopic Control: “Joy Division doesn’t feel fashionable in any way. It defined an era, but it doesn’t really come from that era.”… [Full Story] Related Articles • Joy Division Albums Expanded With Live Material For Re-release - ChartAttack [View all 2 related]

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Blanchett transforms from iconic queen to rock icon - Toronto Star

Friday, October 12th, 2007

Local10.com

Toronto Star, Canada - Although her role in Elizabeth earned her an Oscar nomination 10 years ago, for a long time, Cate Blanchett strongly resisted director Shekhar Kapur’s pleas for her to return in a sequel. “It was primarily because Shekhar began talking about it as soon as we finished the first one and I felt not enough time had passed and I wouldn’t really have anything different to say,” she recalled, talking shortly before the premiere of Elizabeth: The Golden Age at the Toronto International Film Festival last month. “I’m not someone who looks backward, I want to move forward. But now I’m 10 years older and the script is very much about a love triangle, so the structure of the film is different. Also, we’re all terrified of aging so I felt that making a film about a woman approaching middle age and realizing she’s not going to have a child was a potent and relevant thing to say about the state that a lot of women are in… [Full Story] Related Articles • Geoffrey Rush: Elizabeth's spymaster - D[View allas Morning News • Diversity of roles is Rush's crowning glory - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (subscription) [View all 320 related]

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“The Band’s Visit” Oscar Hopes Uncertain due to English Content - indieWIRE

Friday, October 12th, 2007

indieWIRE - The Jerusalem Post is quoting an Israeli television report that Israel’s submission for best foreign-language Oscar consideration, “The Band’s Visit” — which recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival — has been disqualified from the race for “containing too much English-language dialogue.” indieWIRE has attempted to gain independent confirmation from the film’s U.S. distributor Sony Pictures Classics as well as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A Sony Classics insider told indieWIRE tonight that the distributor is awaiting a discussion with the Academy on the pending matter… [Full Story]

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‘Lars and the Real Girl’ Reaches Out to Church Leaders - Cinematical

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

Cinematical - Craig Gillespie’s upcoming film, Lars and the Real Girl, has inspired intrigue and curiosity for months now because it’s a hard film to peg. Initially, it looked to be a black comedy full of quirk and strangeness, as a man begins to date a Real Doll, rather than finding a living, breathing real girl. The trailer didn’t help matters, seeming much more comedic than dramatic, but as I said in my review from TIFF: “While the title insinuates that it’s a wacky comedy, it’s actually a smart, well-crafted, and heart-wrenching film that smoothly discusses the intricacies of loss and depression.” Now the film is further subverting expectations with it’s marketing plan. Reuters reports that church leaders will be involved in the film’s promo screenings, which will come out before the film goes into wide release on October 26 (it hits LA and NYC theaters this week). SKE distribution head Bingham Ray says: “We’ve found an enormous response from mainstream Christian groups. Some pastors may discuss the film as part of their sermons.” Usually, films that target church groups have a distinct religious message that includes themes, or icons, like Evan Almighty or The Passion of the Christ… [Full Story]

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Brian De Palma and Magnolia Pictures Argue Over ‘Redacted’ Images - Cinematical

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

Cinematical - In January, we brought you word of Brian De Palma’s newest film, the Iraq war drama called Redacted. Coming from the term used to describe text that has been edited with black bars, the drama details the Al-Mahmudiyah Incident — where soldiers murdered a young Iraqi girl’s parents and younger sister before gang-raping and murdering her as well. The film is currently surfing the film fest circuit, and our Ryan Stewart reviewed it at TIFF. Now the film is being redacted itself. At the end of his film, the director included disturbing images that were never published by the press, which he had found online. Mark Cuban and Magnolia want them removed. During a recent press conference at the New York Film Festival, IFC captured an argument between De Palma and Magnolia President Eamonn Bowles over the dispute. When De Palma starts to discuss the removal of the images, and his fight to keep them, Bowles jumped in from the back row to argue with him over them, before the film’s producer, Jason Kliot, also came on stage to give his two cents. De Palma, meanwhile looks like he can’t wait to get out of there and explode… [Full Story]

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If you missed it at TIFF, please watch this doc - Toronto Star

Monday, October 8th, 2007

Toronto Star, Canada - …At TIFF ‘07, one of the least-hyped and most rewarding movies was a 55-minute documentary called Please Vote for Me, in which a class of 8-year-olds in Wuhan, China, get their first taste of democracy, choosing by secret ballot which of three candidates will assume the position of class monitor, with a mandate to keep order while the teacher is out and report any violation of the rules. It turns into a cut-throat competition, but for the eavesdropping audience this intimate look at China in transition is both educational and hugely entertaining. Now here’s the good news for everyone who missed it at the festival, where it earned a standing ovation. Tonight at 10 p.m., you can see it on CBC Newsworld, which is airing it as part of a spectacularly ambitious series with the umbrella title Why Democracy?, which will be seen by millions via broadcast partners around the globe… [Full Story]

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The Cult of the Lads From Manchester - New York Times

Saturday, October 6th, 2007

New York Times

New York Times, United States - IAN CURTIS, the frontman of the beloved post-punk British band Joy Division, has been dead 27 years, longer than he was alive, but his moment in the film spotlight has only now arrived. Mr. Curtis hanged himself on May 18, 1980, two months shy of his 24th birthday and on the eve of what would have been his band’s first American tour. The Joy Division story, a sacred narrative to legions of cultish fans (and a natural for the movies, complete with doomed, charismatic hero), is now the subject of two new films, the biopic “Control” and the documentary “Joy Division.” Both were made with the cooperation of those who best knew Mr. Curtis. “Control,” the feature directing debut of the portrait photographer Anton Corbijn, is loosely based on “Touching From a Distance,” a 1995 memoir by Mr. Curtis’s widow, Deborah, of their life together. “Joy Division,” directed by the music-video veteran Grant Gee and written by the author and critic Jon Savage, takes a panoramic approach, combining archival footage with revealing interviews of firsthand observers and Mr. Curtis’s surviving bandmates, who went on to form New Order… [Full Story]

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