Our top choices for TIFF 2010:
Loading ... | Twitch - Many thanks here to Mihail for sending in a series of five high res stills from Japanese cult director Takashi Miike’s loopy spaghetti western Sukiyaki Western Django. Some of these have been seen before in lower res versions, some have not, but they all present a good look at the bizarre energy that fuels the piece. And, yes, we’ve got one of Tarantino in full western garb from his introductory cameo… [Full Story] |
Archive for 2007
Iceland selects 'Jar City' for Oscar race – Hollywood Reporter
Monday, October 1st, 2007
Hollywood Reporter, United States - Iceland has selected Baltasar Kormakur’s thriller “Jar City” as its official entry in the upcoming best foreign language film Oscar race.
IFC Entertainment brokered a deal with ICM for North American rights to “City” at last month’s Toronto International Film Festival. The Icelandic feature is the highest grossing film in its country’s history. It was an official selection at this year’s Telluride fest and won the 2007 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival’s top award.
The adaptation of Arnaldur Indrioason’s detective novel follows a father searching for the origin of his daughter’s rare genetic disease and a detective searching for a criminal’s killer. The detective’s search leads him to “Jar City,” a home for preserved body parts, and the men’s paths collide as the mystery unfolds… [Full Story]
Lose yourself with Into the Wild and Lonely Planet TV – Lonely Planet TV
Saturday, September 29th, 2007
Lonely Planet TV - Into The Wild, the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), TravelWorm and Lonely Planet TV have joined forces to bring you a fantastic competition. Submit a 2-minute video of a moment where you felt truly free or connected to nature and you could win an amazing wilderness adventure courtesy of NOLS.
If you’re the lucky winner you could be trekking with a friend through the Wyoming wilderness, skiing in Idaho, mountaineering through the North Cascades or sea kayaking in Alaska – the choice is yours. Five lucky runners up will also win a signed poster from the film. For full details of these incredible prizes please refer to the Conditions of Entry… [Full Story]
Sean Penn on directing 'Into the Wild' – Dallas Morning News (subscription)
Friday, September 28th, 2007
Dallas Morning News (subscription)Dallas Morning News (subscription), TX - Sean Penn saw himself as a citizen of the road from an early age. “From the time I got my driver’s license, I became a minimum-20-round-trip-across-America driver and camper,” he says, puffing on a cigarette at the Toronto International Film Festival, where his new film, Into the Wild, premiered earlier this month (it opened locally Friday). “I never pick a particular route. I just fly into the wind. I’ve always loved the motels where you park eight feet from your bed.”
Christopher McCandless never had much use for the motels. When he graduated from college he became a “leather tramp,” hitching, hiking, canoeing and riding the rails up and down the West Coast before reaching his final destination in the wilds of Alaska. A restless spirit in search of himself amid solitude, he became the subject of Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction book. When Mr. Penn picked it up, he read it cover to cover. Then he went back to the beginning and read it again.
Then he decided he had to make the movie.
The result is a big, bold, existential travelogue about a young man (Emile Hirsch) with a fierce moral code who feels compelled to throw himself off the grid. He donates his savings to charity and burns his cash. (”I don’t need money,” he says in the film. “It makes people cautious.”) Once he leaves he never again speaks to his parents (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden). He makes friends during his travels, including a California hippie couple (Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker) who befriend him, a South Dakota grain harvester (Vince Vaughn) who becomes his pen pal and a lonely widower (Hal Holbrook) who wants to adopt him… [Full Story]
Ang Lee went crazy with Lust – Jam! Showbiz
Friday, September 28th, 2007
amNewYorkJam! Showbiz, Canada - Ang Lee kept his pants, but nearly lost his mind. The problem? The graphic sex scenes at the heart of his latest drama Lust, Caution. “This is way out there,” the Oscar-winning director says of the sequences featuring actors Tony Leung and Tang Wei. “It drove me insane. They almost stopped the production to send me to a hospital.”
And indeed the sex in his sad, sultry period piece is remarkable as Leung and Wei play naked Jenga with each other’s parts and ports of entry. No wonder Lust, Caution made headlines when the U.S. ratings board shackled it with the dreaded NC-17, placing it in the same esteemed company as Showgirls. Yet, hoopla aside, the reality is all the fornicating is rather contained — two noteworthy sequences, each lasting five minutes or so — and embedded deep into both the running time of the film and the psychology of its characters. (At a Toronto International Film Festival screening, a blood-soaked murder in the film elicited a far more visceral response from a woman seated beside me — complete with gasps and eye-covering — than all the simulated copulating did.)… [Full Story]
Related Articles
• indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Lust, Caution" Director Ang Lee - Indie Wire
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Sidney Lumet's new film dominates festivals – Screen Weekly
Friday, September 28th, 2007
Screen Weekly, India - …In 2007, Lumet presents his latest work Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. A fortnight later it was screened at the New York Film Festival. Both festival screenings ran to full houses and good reviews. The title comes from the laconic and wise Irish toast: “May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.” The film illustrates this macabre forewarning as it unfurls its inexorable lament on family discrepancies, sibling rivalry, marital discord and strangulating debt.
The film follows two brothers both wanting quick money for different reasons. The more successful and ambitious Andy Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the payroll manager for a large New York real estate firm, persuades his weak and ineffectual younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) to rob the jewellery store that their parents own. The heist backfires with drastic consequences, revealing the brittle ties and feelings that hold this family together. The parents (Rosemary Harris and Albert Finney) share a loving relationship but seem to have neglected their two sons, favouring the younger more personable “baby” brother to the plump and assertive older one. In the end, the family of four manage to demolish each other, along with their unfortunate marriage partners… [Full Story]
INTO THE WILD Soundtrack Giveaway – Twitch
Thursday, September 27th, 2007
Twitch - Okay all you Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder fans out there, Twitch has got a copy of the soundtrack CD for Sean Penn’s Into the Wild – which features the good Mr. Vedder rather prominently – up for grabs and it can be yours for the low, low price of nothing. All you need to do to claim it is email the answers to these two questions by October 5th:
1. What was the name assumed by Into the Wild‘s protagonist during his real life wanderings around the United States?
2. What is the title of Into the Wild author Jon Krakauer’s account of his real life climb of Mt. Everest?… [Full Story]
Actor Michael Douglas poses for a portrait during the Toronto … – Jam! Showbiz
Thursday, September 27th, 2007
Jam! ShowbizJam! Showbiz, Canada - Michael Douglas won an Academy Award as a ruthless man with a nose for stock-market gold in “Wall Street.” Now he’s a lovable kook sniffing after mythical Spanish treasure in “King of California,” a shaggy-dog tale that marks a return to independent filmmaking for the star of such studio hits as “Fatal Attraction” and “Basic Instinct.”
Also a best-picture Oscar winner for producing 1975’s indie sensation “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Douglas still jumps into roles that really grab him but finds the urge to work constantly has diminished since his 2000 marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones, with whom he has a young son and daughter.
“It’s funny how your priorities change, and mine definitely have since getting married and starting the family,” Douglas, 63, said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, where “King of California” played before its theatrical debut. Now playing in limited release, the film is gradually rolling out nationwide… [Full Story]
Is Israel’s Oscar Submission Ineligible for Having Too Much English? – Cinematical
Thursday, September 27th, 2007
Cinematical - As I reported over the weekend, Israel’s submission for next year’s foreign-language category at the Oscars is The Band’s Visit, a well-received comedy about an Egyptian police band that gets lost in Israel. It swept the Ophirs (Israel’s Oscar equivalent), winning eight awards including best picture and best director. It won awards at Sarajevo and Cannes. And Sony Pictures Classics reportedly paid more for it than anyone has ever paid for an Israeli film.
So what’s the problem, Oscar-wise? It might have too much English in it.
L.A. Weekly’s Nikki Finke reported on Sunday that the film’s “rivals” — people involved with movies that weren’t selected, one assumes — are claiming that more than 50 percent of The Band’s Visit’s dialogue is in English. The Academy rules for this category (which you can read in their entirety here) simply say that to be eligible, a film must be “predominantly” in a language other than English. The rules don’t give specifics about percentages.
Cinematical’s James Rocchi saw the film at Toronto (and liked it). His recollection is that it was mostly in Hebrew and Arabic without too much English. He told me: “The use of English to me seemed like either a) people talking about song lyrics or other concerns in the language they were written in or b) a natural sort of meeting place — ‘I speak Arabic; you speak Hebrew; we both speak bad English… [Full Story]
Four Debuts Up for European Discovery Award – indieWIRE
Thursday, September 27th, 2007
indieWIRE - A committee comprsed of several FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) members have selected four nominees (out of a total of 63 submitted films) for the 2007 European Discovery Award: Israel’s “The Band’s Visit,” directed by Eran Kolirin; Anton Corbijn’s Ian Curtis docudrama “Control,” from the UK; Jan Bonny’s “Counterparts,” from Germany; Ozer Kiziltan’s “A Man’s Fear of God,” a Turkey/Germany co-production. As part of the European Film Awards, the European Discovery award is presented to a young and upcoming director for a first full-length feature film. The nominated films will now be made available to all 1,800 members of the European Film Academy. They will vote for the winner who will be announced at the 20th European Film Awards on December 1, 2007 in Berlin… [Full Story]
Iceland selects 'Jar City' for Oscar race – Hollywood Reporter
Monday, October 1st, 2007 | Hollywood Reporter, United States - Iceland has selected Baltasar Kormakur’s thriller “Jar City” as its official entry in the upcoming best foreign language film Oscar race. |
Lose yourself with Into the Wild and Lonely Planet TV – Lonely Planet TV
Saturday, September 29th, 2007 | Lonely Planet TV - Into The Wild, the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), TravelWorm and Lonely Planet TV have joined forces to bring you a fantastic competition. Submit a 2-minute video of a moment where you felt truly free or connected to nature and you could win an amazing wilderness adventure courtesy of NOLS. |
Sean Penn on directing 'Into the Wild' – Dallas Morning News (subscription)
Friday, September 28th, 2007Dallas Morning News (subscription) | Dallas Morning News (subscription), TX - Sean Penn saw himself as a citizen of the road from an early age. “From the time I got my driver’s license, I became a minimum-20-round-trip-across-America driver and camper,” he says, puffing on a cigarette at the Toronto International Film Festival, where his new film, Into the Wild, premiered earlier this month (it opened locally Friday). “I never pick a particular route. I just fly into the wind. I’ve always loved the motels where you park eight feet from your bed.” |
Ang Lee went crazy with Lust – Jam! Showbiz
Friday, September 28th, 2007amNewYork | Jam! Showbiz, Canada - Ang Lee kept his pants, but nearly lost his mind. The problem? The graphic sex scenes at the heart of his latest drama Lust, Caution. “This is way out there,” the Oscar-winning director says of the sequences featuring actors Tony Leung and Tang Wei. “It drove me insane. They almost stopped the production to send me to a hospital.” Related Articles |
Sidney Lumet's new film dominates festivals – Screen Weekly
Friday, September 28th, 2007 | Screen Weekly, India - …In 2007, Lumet presents his latest work Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. A fortnight later it was screened at the New York Film Festival. Both festival screenings ran to full houses and good reviews. The title comes from the laconic and wise Irish toast: “May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.” The film illustrates this macabre forewarning as it unfurls its inexorable lament on family discrepancies, sibling rivalry, marital discord and strangulating debt. |
INTO THE WILD Soundtrack Giveaway – Twitch
Thursday, September 27th, 2007 | Twitch - Okay all you Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder fans out there, Twitch has got a copy of the soundtrack CD for Sean Penn’s Into the Wild – which features the good Mr. Vedder rather prominently – up for grabs and it can be yours for the low, low price of nothing. All you need to do to claim it is email the answers to these two questions by October 5th: |
Actor Michael Douglas poses for a portrait during the Toronto … – Jam! Showbiz
Thursday, September 27th, 2007Jam! Showbiz | Jam! Showbiz, Canada - Michael Douglas won an Academy Award as a ruthless man with a nose for stock-market gold in “Wall Street.” Now he’s a lovable kook sniffing after mythical Spanish treasure in “King of California,” a shaggy-dog tale that marks a return to independent filmmaking for the star of such studio hits as “Fatal Attraction” and “Basic Instinct.” |
Is Israel’s Oscar Submission Ineligible for Having Too Much English? – Cinematical
Thursday, September 27th, 2007 | Cinematical - As I reported over the weekend, Israel’s submission for next year’s foreign-language category at the Oscars is The Band’s Visit, a well-received comedy about an Egyptian police band that gets lost in Israel. It swept the Ophirs (Israel’s Oscar equivalent), winning eight awards including best picture and best director. It won awards at Sarajevo and Cannes. And Sony Pictures Classics reportedly paid more for it than anyone has ever paid for an Israeli film. |
Four Debuts Up for European Discovery Award – indieWIRE
Thursday, September 27th, 2007 | indieWIRE - A committee comprsed of several FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) members have selected four nominees (out of a total of 63 submitted films) for the 2007 European Discovery Award: Israel’s “The Band’s Visit,” directed by Eran Kolirin; Anton Corbijn’s Ian Curtis docudrama “Control,” from the UK; Jan Bonny’s “Counterparts,” from Germany; Ozer Kiziltan’s “A Man’s Fear of God,” a Turkey/Germany co-production. As part of the European Film Awards, the European Discovery award is presented to a young and upcoming director for a first full-length feature film. The nominated films will now be made available to all 1,800 members of the European Film Academy. They will vote for the winner who will be announced at the 20th European Film Awards on December 1, 2007 in Berlin… [Full Story] |
