25 New Films Listed for Preservation by the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has added 25 classic films to their collection in Washington, DC, bringing the total up to 475. Included in the list of honored films for 2007 are The Naked City, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Back to the Future. The chosen movies are picked from a group of films nominated by the public, the National Film Preservation Board and the Library’s Motion Picture Division staff.

Read the Whole Post...

December 27th, 2007 | Category: News/Commentary | By Andrew Gnerre

Comments: 1

' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . '

'; } ?>

Screen Actors Honor Their Peers with 2007 SAG Award Nominations

Nominations were announced today for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which will be presented to members of the Hollywood acting community on January 27, 2008. The nominees are pulled from features released theatrically in the year 2007.

Read the Whole Post...

December 20th, 2007 | Category: News/Commentary | By Mallory Potosky

No comments (yet!)

Peter Jackson's The Hobbit Back on Track

The news that Tolkienites have been clamoring for since The Return of the King has finally been announced: Peter Jackson has officially signed on as an executive producer for the film adaptation of The Hobbit. After finally settling a legal dispute with New Line Cinema, Jackson, along with his wife and longtime moviemaking partner Fran Walsh, is planning to start pre-production as soon as possible in hopes of a 2010 release.

The Tolkien novel, which follows the exploits of Bilbo Baggins prior to the events of The Lord of the Rings, will be split into two films and, like Jackson’s previous Tolkien adaptations, filmed simultaneously. A director has yet to be named, but one possible candidate is Sam Raimi, who expressed interest in directing the film in an interview with Entertainment Weekly earlier this year. Raimi certainly has the experience in working on a large-scale project such as this, but no matter who eventually signs on, with Jackson involved, the return to Middle Earth is looking promising.

For more information, check out the newly launched official movie blog for The Hobbit at www.thehobbitblog.com.

December 19th, 2007 | Category: News/Commentary | By Andrew Gnerre

No comments (yet!)

AFI Selects Top 10 Films of 2007

The American Film Institute announced their picks for the AFI Awards 2007 yesterday, which bestows honors on ten American feature-length films each year. The jury, made up of 13 critics, moviemakers, AFI trustees and scholars, takes into account a production’s full ensemble, including both those in front of and behind the camera.

Read the Whole Post...

December 17th, 2007 | Category: News/Commentary | By Mallory Potosky

No comments (yet!)

' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . '

'; } ?>

Josh Brolin and Eli Roth Make the Worst Movie Ever

In MySpace’s latest “Artist on Artist” post, friends and horror film fans in arms plan how to make the worst movie ever .

Check it out at: http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=23806812

December 12th, 2007 | Category: News/Commentary | By Jennifer M. Wood

No comments (yet!)

Are You the Last Fan on Earth?

User-created content is here to stay, and studios are having no trouble leaping on the bandwagon. In the latest attempt to include fans in the promotion of a film, fan fiction Website fanlib.com is hosting a contest based on the posters for the new Will Smith movie, I am Legend. Aspiring designers can submit their own poster designs following the theme of “The Last Fan on Earth.” The posters will then be voted on by visitors to the Website, who will also be able to write a short review of the design. The designer of the winning poster will receive an Alienware Notebook, a $500 gift certificate to Blick Art Materials as well as a Life Gear survival kit, while four finalists will win other assorted movie swag. The contest will even award a few people who don’t create a poster at all, as IMAX gift certificates will be given to both one random voter and the author of the top review as deemed so by the event producers.

The submission period ends Friday, December 14 at 3:00 pm (PST), but the voting period extends one week later.

Log on to http://www.IAmLegendContest.FanLib.com to check it out!

December 12th, 2007 | Category: News/Commentary | By Andrew Gnerre

No comments (yet!)

Jodie Foster Accepts the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award

On Tuesday, December 4, actress, director and producer Jodie Foster was presented with the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award at the Hollywood Reporter's 16th annual Women in Entertainment breakfast.

Read the Whole Post...

December 7th, 2007 | Category: News/Commentary | By Andrew Gnerre

Comments: 5

' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . '

'; } ?>

Rus Thompson’s Short Takes: December 2007

Favorite of the Month: Jesus of Montreal (1989)
This French Canadian film is a witty and provocative interpretation of Jesus’ last days, first told through a radical theatrical production staged by four actors at a Montreal church. The play garners critical praise and audience adoration, and then, once the Catholic Church threatens to close the play, the actors find themselves enduring their own version of the Stations of the Cross. The movie is engagingly unpredictable, both sly and moving, and delivered with a stimulating intelligence. What movie would Jesus recommend? This one!

New Release of the Month: Sicko (2007)
In his latest documentary, Michael Moore delivers a vital but utterly depressing piece of agitprop. He doesn’t just condemn the privatized health care business in the United States, but also finds something rotten at the very core of the country. How is it possible, Moore asks, that in the wealthiest nation in the world we are at our most poor in how we take care of each other? Thanks to lobbyists, anti-socialist rhetoric and back door political deals, America has a health care system that actually rewards CEOs and administrators for denying people medical care. The fewer mammograms, cholesterol exams, diabetes tests, etc. that a hospital performs, the fatter the bottom line will become for insurance companies and HMOs. This being America, where greed trumps every other motivation, that is a good thing. By the end of Sicko, you’ll either revoke your citizenship and move to Paris, or you’ll do exactly what the powers that be want us to do: Retreat even further into a fetal cocoon of paralysis. The most alarming theory that Moore offers is the idea that a populace locked into a cycle of debt, work and fear has neither the time nor the will to change the system, especially when their elected leaders continually betray them. Are you depressed yet?

Classic of the Month: A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
If you somehow manage to get the whole family gathered together to watch a movie this holiday season, why not skip the usual pablum starring Tim Allen in a fat suit and watch something that will truly put an ear-to-ear smile on your face. Isn’t that what Christmas should be about, happiness? This re-mastered classic starring the Fab Four is a wondrous testament to their infectious, enduring music and it also is an amazingly prescient filmmaking document. Who can deny that the sequence of the Beatles frolicking on a helicopter landing strip to “Can’t Buy Me Love” is not the first full-fledged music video ever created? Director Richard Lester and the boys were on a once-in-a-lifetime lark, full of enthusiasm and utterly lacking in guile. The songs, of course, are timeless, the performances brilliantly naturalistic and the uncle is “very clean.” Skip the screeching remake of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and rent A Hard Day’s Night. It will keep you bouncing right through New Year’s Day.

Documentary of the Month: Into Great Silence (2006)
This is without a doubt one of the most beautiful documentaries ever filmed. Set in France in a reclusive, ascetic monastery, the film follows the daily rituals of the monks as they pray, read, eat, sing, garden, get their hair cut and sled down a nearby hill. There is no real dialogue, no music other than the monks’ chanting, and only the occasional onscreen religious quotation obliquely commenting on the scenes that follow. Shot entirely with natural light and augmented by the natural sounds of life in and around the monastery, Into Great Silence is a meditative, enthralling and quite gorgeous viewing experience.

Under-the-Radar: Bug (2006)
This William Friedkin freak-out stars Ashley Judd as a white-trash loser who hooks up with a loose-screw stranger (ozone-eyed Michael Shannon) in her rent-by-the-month motel room. He claims to have escaped from an experimental laboratory where scientists injected his body with parasites, which are now breeding and infecting the room they’re staying in. This movie version of the critically lauded play by Tracy Letts is a slow-burning, wild ride in which the only creepy-crawlers present are the characters and their paranoid delusions. The performances by Judd and Shannon are astonishing in their intensity, with Harry Connick, Jr. nearly stealing the whole show as every girl’s worst nightmare of a stud ex. Bug is not for the faint-hearted, but it’s a fine return to form for the once-great Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection, To Live and Die in LA).

Give this a Miss: Once (2006)
I am completely baffled by the enormous art house success of this small, grungy Irish picture, which appeared to be lit entirely with 60-watt desk lamps. Dublin couldn’t look less inviting even if the filmmakers coated the town in chimney dust. Directed by the first-timer John Carney, Once was a surprising theatrical mini-smash in the early days of summer and I wonder if its success is due to serious moviegoers’ starvation diet: denied depth, charm and organic believability in their film menu, they’re willing to gorge on the empty calories of a movie dressed up as handmade art starring two unknown musicians who turn their mediocre busking into a self-produced CD. Spine-tingling, no? There are two or three wonderful scenes of music being created seemingly in real time, and one charming sequence of a makeshift jam at a house full of beer, food, Dubliners with great voices and plenty of instruments. But the rest of the story is undernourished. The movie’s main liability could be the music, the kind of singer-songwriter folk-pop infused with opaque metaphors and sung in a high, whining key more suitable for showers than recording studios. There isn’t one hummable tune on the whole soundtrack, which is unfortunate for a movie whose main character expresses himself mostly through his lyrics.

December 7th, 2007 | Category: Rus Thompson's Short Takes | By Rustin Thompson

Comments: 2

20th Annual European Film Awards Announced

On December 1, 2007 the European Film Academy doled out their 20th annual European Film Awards in Berlin. The ceremony’s two biggest awards, European Film 2007 and European Director 2007, went to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a Romanian film directed by Cristian Mungiu.

European Actor 2007 went to Sasson Gabai for his work in The Band’s Visit, an Israeli film directed by Eran Kolirin that also won the European Discovery 2007 award. The Last King of Scotland was nominated for five awards but won none, as critical darling Helen Mirren received yet another prize (European Actress 2007) for her turn as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen.

Also given out at the ceremony were several special awards including the People’s Choice Award 2007 (La Sconosciuta by Giuseppe Tornatore) and the European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award (Jean-Luc Godard).

For the complete list of winners visit http://www.europeanfilmacademy.org.

December 6th, 2007 | Category: Awards Watch | By Andrew Gnerre

No comments (yet!)

ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards Nominees Announced

Nominees in the two television categories of the American Society of Cinematographers’ (ASC) 22nd aAnnual Outstanding Achievement Awards competition, to be held in Los Angeles on January 26, 2008, were announced Friday November 30, 2007. Chairman of the ASC Awards Committee, Russ Alsobrook, ASC hopes that “this annual celebration,” which honors one cinematographer each year in two categories, “inspires other talented cinematographers to pursue their dreams.”

Nominees in the TV movie/miniseries/pilot category include Oliver Bokelberg for the “Raines” pilot (NBC); David Franko for the teleseries “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” (HBO); Ben Knott, ASC for the miniseries “The Compan"y (TNT); Rene Ohashi, ASC, CSC for the telefilm “Jesse Stone: Sea Change” (CBS); and Michael Weaver for the “Pushing Daisies” pilot (ABC).

Nominees in the episodic television category, chosen for one episode of a regular series, include James L. Carter, ASC for “Ending Happy"/CSI (CBS); Eagle Egilsson for “Inside Out"/CSI: Miami (CBS); Russell Lee Fine for “All of Us Are in the Gutter"/The Black Donnellys (NBC); John Fleckenstein for “Welcome to the Club"/Women’s Murder Club (ABC) and Glen Winter, CSC for “Noir"/Smallville (CW).

Since its founding in January 1919, the ASC has grown to an active membership of 290 and an additional 150 associate members.

Visit www.theasc.com for more information.

December 3rd, 2007 | Category: Awards Watch | By Daniel Fritz

No comments (yet!)

' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . '

'; } ?>