Friday, September 14------One of the most controversial films of the Festival, Alan Ball's feature directorial debut, NOTHING IS PRIVATE has been acquired for $1.25 million by Warner Independent and Netflix offshoot Red Envelope. This is the first directorial effort of Alan Ball, the Oscar-winning writer of AMERICAN BEAUTY and the creator of the HBO series SIX FEET UNDER. The film has been considered a hot potato due to its unflinching portrayal of the often painful sexual awakening of a young...
In the delightfully entertaining and historically significant new documentary HOLLYWOOD CHINESE, documentarian Arthur Dong has filled in an essential gap in the history of Hollywood.....charting the influence of Chinese and Chinese-American actors and technicians to the magic of the dream factory. The film is a quite ambitious history lesson that mixes both artistic contributions by well-known and unsung heros and heroines, while attempting to understand the basis and origin of "Asian mystique"...
Monday, September 10--------In the delightfully entertaining and historically significant new documentary HOLLYWOOD CHINESE, documentarian Arthur Dong has filled in an essential gap in the history of Hollywood.....charting the influence of Chinese and Chinese-American actors and technicians to the magic of the dream factory. The film is a quite ambitious history lesson that mixes both artistic contributions by well-known and unsung heros and heroines, while attempting to understand the bas...
Sunday, September 9---------If one missed them at the Venice Film Festival, the major winners of that Festival on the Lido (announced last evening) are playing here in Toronto. As part of the roundelay that has become the Fall Festival circuit, buyers, programmers and the press can pick up on films they have missed by simply waiting for another turn of the merry-go-round. If not Venice, then Toronto. If not Toronto, then New York. If not New York, then San Sebastian.. So for those who have st...
Sunday, September 9---------If one missed them at the Venice Film Festival, the major winners of that Festival on the Lido (announced last evening) are playing here in Toronto. As part of the roundelay that has become the Fall Festival circuit, buyers, programmers and the press can pick up on films they have missed by simply waiting for another turn of the merry-go-round. If not Venice, then Toronto. If not Toronto, then New York. If not New York, then San Sebastian.. So for those who have st...
Friday, August 31------One of the unique (and most popular) programs of the Montreal World Film Festival is its CINEMA A LA BELLE ETOILE (SCREENINGS UNDER THE STARS) series, held each evening on the Esplanade de la Place des Arts. It has become a Montreal tradition to bring one's folding chairs to view a mix of Hollywood, European and Quebec films in an open-air celebration of cinema. The fact that the screenings are free to the public and attract a mix of cinemaphiles, Festival visitors and t...
Any critic or aficionado of US films could have received a perfect introduction to past and current achievements of US movie and film making at the last edition of the Mexican international short film festival Expresion en Corto, which concluded on July 29 its ten day run in San Miguel de Allende and the state capital Guanajuato. Ranked among the most important short film festivals in the world, Expresion en Corto celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. According to Sarah Hoch about 30 s...
Thursday, August 9-------Veteran actress Michelle Pfeiffer became an official Hollywood legend this week, when she (finally) received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Academy Award nominated star was all smiles at ceremonies held in Los Angeles on Monday. She thanked her mother and father for supporting her decision to become an actress. "My mother taught me that I could do anything and that I should have a career before I get married,” Pfeiffer was quoted as saying. &qu...
Wednesday, August 8---------There is no equivalent in the United States.....the actor Gerard Depardieu is a truly French phenomenon, a pasty-faced, barrel-chested, unpolished, roughly handsome leading man, who somehow is an enduring Gallic sex symbol. He does not have the sensual prettiness of an Alain Delon, the rail-thin sex appeal of a Jean-Paul Belmondo or the intelligent visage of a Yves Montand. He is, in fact, his own unique creation, and his enduring appeal in French cinema is mostly...
Wednesday, August 1--------Robert Redford's got Sundance. Robert De Niro's got Tribeca. So why not let Paul Giamatti into that exclusive club? Well, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) apparently agrees and has scheduled an 8-film series of movies selected by the Oscar nominee (and indie fave) entitled PAUL GIAMATTI SELECTS. The series begins tonight at the BAM Rose Cinemas and continues through September. Giamatti and Brooklyn are actually a perfect fit. Not only is he a longtime res...
Monday, July 23-------You may think you know the film that many major film critics chose as the best of last year. But in reality, with little fanfare or certainly Oscar buzz, the film that garnered the most uniform praise from top film scribes was a French thriller, shot in 1959 and set in occupied France during World War II by a director who has been six feet under for more than three decades. That film, ARMY OF SHADOWS, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, was an astonishingly gritty and involvi...
Thursday, July 12---------The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has mailed out the entry forms for the Foreign Language Film competition to 95 countries, in preparation for the 80th Academy Awards. To qualify for the 2007 Awards, a film must be released in the submitting country between October 1, 2006, and September 30, 2007, and be publicly screened in 35mm or 70mm film or in a qualifying digital cinema format for at least seven consecutive days in a commercial motion picture theate...
Monday, July 9--------The Film Society of Lincoln Center hosts a special preview screening of TALK TO ME tomorrow evening at the Walter Reade Theater, with star Don Cheadle as its special guest. The film, directed by Kasi Lemmons, is the true story of "Petey" Greene, who became an iconic radio personality known for his championing of black soul music and frank political rants. TALK TO ME opens this Friday via distributor Focus Features. During the 1960s at radio station WOL-AM in W...
Thursday, July 5------The Ischia Global Film and Music Fest, which begins on Monday, July 9th, is honoring two giants of the film world with the Ischia Legend Awards. Oscar-winning actor Sir Ben Kingsley and Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore will both be given this special tribute by the International Art Academy of Ischia on July 11th and July 14th respectively, at the Regina Isabella Hotel on the island resort off the coast of Naples. This year's Festival is chaired this year by ...
Monday, July 3------Now that summer has officially arrived (although the cool, wet weather makes it feel more like late Fall), one of New York's rites of the season is the outdoor film screening series held in Bryant Park, hosted by pay cable giant Home Box Office. This is a great opportunity to join several thousand other film buffs to enjoy certifiable film classics in beautiful Bryant Park in the heart of Manhattan. Happening every Monday through the end of August, this could be New York&...
The great British actor Sir Ben Kingsley and Giuseppe Tornatore, the world’s best-loved Italian director, (both already Oscar winners), will receive the Ischia Legend Award 2007, a special prize given to the protagonists of world cinema by the International Art Academy of Ischia. The award will be presented on Saturday July 11th and 14th at the Regina Isabella hotel during the gala evening organized by the Campania Region on the occasion of the fifth edition of the Ischia Global Film & Mus...
With 200 films from 77 different countries the Durban International Film Festival offers an unparalleled opportunity to enrich our understanding of the state of the contemporary world. This is particularly evident in the issue-based documentary programme. 55 film strong, the programme encompasses themes such as slavery; racism; gender struggles; the conflict in Palestine and Israel; South African social and political matters; the urban underground; the different faces and impacts of consumerism;...
Italian-American screenwriter Bobby Moresco (2006 Oscar winner for the film Crash) will join colleagues Paul Haggis (also winner of two Oscars for Crash) and William Monahan (Oscar winner in 2007 for The Departed by Martin Scorsese) at the World Script Market, which will take place at the Regina Isabella Hotel in Ischia from July 9th to 15th.The American writer will be the first of many international participants who will contribute to the “market of ideas” that the organizers of the fifth I...
Sunday, June 10------The 23rd edition of FESTROIA: Festival Internacional de Cinema came to a dramatic close last evening as awards were announced in a dozen categories at the concluding ceremonies of the Festival in the Forum Luisa Todi in the coastal resort of Setubal, Portugal. BORDER POST, a wry political satire set in a small border post on the Yugoslav-Albanian border in 1987, won the Golden Dolphin as Best Film of the Festival. The film, written and directed by Rajko Grlic, also won a ...
Sunday, June 10------The 23rd edition of FESTROIA: Festival Internacional de Cinema came to a dramatic close last evening as awards were announced in a dozen categories at the concluding ceremonies of the Festival in the Forum Luisa Todi in the coastal resort of Setubal, Portugal. BORDER POST, a wry political satire set in a small border post on the Yugoslav-Albanian border in 1987, won the Golden Dolphin as Best Film of the Festival. The film, written and directed by Rajko Grlic, also won a Sil...
Thursday, June 7-----The Official Section of FESTROIA: Festival Internacional de Cinema is dedicated to films from countries that produce fewer than 25 films per year. While these individual countries have more modest outputs, the films they produce are choice gems. Films from Scandanivia have always figured strongly in the Festroia lineup (and have won many top prizes here over the years). This year's representation from Scandinavia is equally impressive, with the Oscar-nominated Danish fil...
The 28th Durban International Film Festival 20 June to 1 July 2007 With over 200 films from 77 countries, the 28th Durban International Film Festival, from 20 June to 1 July, offers a selection of the finest in world cinema, spread over more than 300 screenings at 24 venues across the Durban district. The festival also provides an extensive programme of free workshops and seminars to inspire young filmmakers and stimulate the film industry in KwaZulu-Natal. The festival opens on 20 June with the...
Friday, May 25-----June is the traditional month for celebration of Gay Pride in New York (and around the country, for that matter). It was on a hot and steamy night in June of 1969 that gay men and women, and several decorous drag queens, openly rioted against police harassment during a periodic police raid of the Stonewall, a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village. The Stonewall Riots became the touchstone for the modern gay rights movement that continues to battle for expanded privileges...
Thursday, May 24------Persians are battling Pirates for top honors at this year's MTV MOVIE AWARDS, which will be held in Los Angeles and broadcast live on June 3. Awards are determined by the audience, who still have another week to vote for their favorites. Simply log on to the website: www.mtv.com/ontv/movieawards.Although this is hardly your mother's Oscar ceremonies (not much dignity and decorum here), the MTV MOVIE AWARDS has an international viewing audience that rivals the A...
Tuesday, May 22------Oscar-winning actor and eminence grise Sir Anthony Hopkins will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award on Wednesday, May 30 at the Seattle International Film Festival (which opens tomorrow evening). Hopkins will be presented with the Award during a special tribute evening at Seattle's Egyptian Theatre. The event will include an onstage interview, film clips and a question & answer session from the audience followed by a screening of his Oscar-nominated rol...