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Getting to the Next Level in Wilmington
WiFi Film Conference kicks on in June
While no one can say that Hollywood isn’t a great place to be as a moviemaker, with its star power and extensive history, it’s not necessarily the only place to be. In fact, in the past few decades, the thriving film community of Wilmington, North Carolina has been giving Hollywood a run for its money. There may not be a Grauman’s Chinese Theater or Walk of Fame, yet what Wilmington lacks in legendry it makes up in its hunger for independent moviemaking.
From Friday, June 27th through Sunday, June 29th, the moviemakers of Wilmington will be satiated when the inaugural Wilmington Inside the Film Industry Film Conference brings a chunk of Hollywood to the east coast.
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Kung Fu Panda Drop Kicks the Competition
Seems like all those promos must have paid off—first at Cannes, then the TV commercial onslaught—as Kung Fu Panda kicked some serious butt at the box office over the weekend, out-grossing Adam Sandler's new film, You Don't Mess With the Zohan, by 50 percent. The animated action flick, featuring the voices of Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman and Jackie Chan, took in $60 million over the weekend—while Zohan earned $40 million.
Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull held strong in the number three position with $22.8 million, while last year's surprise topper, Michael Patrick King's Sex and the City, saw a more than 62 percent decline in ticket sales, with a weekend total of $21.3 million.
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Little Wings Wins Big at Haydenfilms
The indie film circuit's new little movie that could is not a quirky expose that includes a musty yellow VW Bus or a wisecracking pregnant teenager, but instead a harrowing tale that explores the trauma of child abuse through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy.
Little Wings marks the film debut of writer-director Morgan Rhodes, founder of Journey Blue Films, who has previously worked in television, most notably on "Nip/Tuck," and is co-executive producer on "Bitter Brew," a spec pilot.
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Shakespeare on Film: Macbeth
In MM's second week on Shakespeare on Film, we examine 1948's Macbeth.
In MM's second week on Shakespeare on Film, we examine 1948's Macbeth. Made in just 23 days, Orson Welles' black-and-white experiment combines cinematic visuals with theatrical acting and design and a radio director’s emphasis on the verse. His production of Macbeth at the Utah Centennial Festival in May 1947 was effectively a dress rehearsal for the movie, which began shooting a month later on a tight $700,000 budget from Hollywood B-movie studio, Republic.
Welles could only afford abstract sets: The jagged walls of Macbeth’s castle resemble quick-dried volcanic lava; its courtyard has the unmistakable smoothness of a studio floor.
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Perfect Strangers
First-time writer-director relies on his instincts to make The Strangers
First-time writer-director Bryan Bertino recounts the scariest part of making his directorial debut with The Strangers: Action!
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Dirty Harry: Revisited
Warner Bros. is celebrating its 85th anniversary with something they are calling the Dirty Harry Ultimate Collector’s Edition box set, which features all five Dirty Harry films, digitally remastered on DVD and Blu-ray, and including featurettes and Dirty Harry memorabilia. All of the films are available seperately, too, which is a good thing because the one you really want is Dirty Harry. With the 1971 movie, Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegel invented the modern cop antihero, which spawned Bruce Willis’ wisecracking John McClane, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s titanium-skinned Terminator and the lumpen, narcoleptic studs portrayed by the likes of Steven Seagal. But Eastwood and Siegel should get some credit (or blame) for establishing the profitable, frequently risible concept of the franchise film, too.
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Michael Patrick King Talks About Sex
In 2004, during the final season of HBO’s “Sex and the City,” Carrie Bradshaw dangerously flirted with love in Paris and the seed for a movie version of the show was planted. As the series came to a climactic close—ending a heady era of Manolo Blahniks, cosmopolitans and candid girlfriend camaraderie—creative leader and executive producer Michael Patrick King toyed with the idea of taking the fabulous foursome to the big screen.
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Shakespeare on Film: Hamlet
How the Bard of Avon made his way to the silver screen
All serious moviemakers and thespians know William Shakespeare will never go out of style. His universal tales of love, loss, anger and desperation continue to span time, cultures and mediums. Each theatrical incarnation of a Shakespeare play is different from the next as are all interpretations brought to the big screen. Case in point: Writer-director Andrew Fleming made a splash at Sundance earlier this year with Hamlet 2. Set for an August 27 release, the movie is not quite a direct take on the Bard's tragic story of revenge, but inspired by the legend nonetheless. It is for all these reasons that MM has decided to honor Shakespeare with a full summer of Shakespeare on Film. Visit us each week for a new excerpt from BFI's 100 Shakespeare Films by Daniel Rosenthal. From Charlton Heston's Antony and Cleopatra to Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho, we cover the classic and the bold, beginning with Laurence Olivier's 1948 Academy Award-winning Hamlet.
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Indiana Jones Whips the Competition
Indiana Jones proved he's still got what it takes—at least in box office clout—as the latest film in the George Lucas-Steven Spielberg franchise, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, whipped the competition, with a box office total on track to be the second biggest Memorial Day movie opening ever. The film, which brings Harrison Ford back in the titular role alongside Cate Blanchett and Shia LaBeouf, brought in just over $125 million for the holiday weekend, putting it just behind Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which had a Friday-through-Monday total of $139.8 million in 2007.
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Sneak Peek: Sex and The City
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Revisiting the World of Indiana Jones
In the 1980s Indiana Jones was spunky and adventurous—traversing Egypt, Asia and Germany in search of fantastical treasures. He fought off Nazis and a Shankara cult with the crack of his infamous whip. His journeys, like Indy himself, represented all that was exotic, forbidden and beyond the reach of his fellow Americans. Now, as he returns to the big screen, Dr. Jones isn’t taking audiences outside of the States… technically.
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Ted Braun Discusses Darfur Now
The impact of his first big-screen documentary may not be fully appreciated for years. Even with Don Cheadle and George Clooney as principle characters in the 2007 film Darfur Now, it’s not easy to get moviegoers flooding to a flick about African genocide. That director Ted Braun even got the movie made, however, provides moviemakers everywhere with a lesson for the ages: Every solution begins with a conversation.
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Being John Cusack
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Sundance Goes Green with “What’s the Big Idea?” Contest
It’s hard to escape the buzzword “green” nowadays. More and more people are trying to make their everyday activities environmentally-friendly. Sundance Channel is using the trend to launch their latest “What’s the Big Idea?” contest, inviting the online community to submit a one-minute short film or photo essay that depicts creative ways to go green.
Sundance Channel will narrow the field down to 25 based upon creativity, overall theme, feasibility and presentation. From May 27th to June 24th, the 25 will then go back to the online users, who will pick their five favorite proposals that will go on to be judged by a panel of environmental experts.
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Lights! Camera! Geritol!
Are audiences ready for a rickety Indiana Jones?
Today’s stars keep themselves in better shape than ever before, and audiences seem to like that. In fact, box office receipts for recent flicks featuring some of our favorite aging action heroes are so encouraging that studio execs are practically rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the new Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) and Sylvester Stallone (Rambo) vehicles. Stallone certainly didn’t hurt himself when his more famous screen persona—Rocky Balboa—earned critical acclaim and a respectable $70 million in last year’s titular blockbuster, chasing doubts that the actor-director was simply giving himself a starring role in order to slow a career slide.
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Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris Go Commercial
After bursting onto the film scene with their Academy Award-winning debut feature film Little Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris decided to go back to their roots: Commercials. In doing so, the husband and wife directing duo haven’t missed a beat; their latest effort, the “There Can Only Be One” spots for the NBA playoffs, featuring a split screen of two players reciting the same speech about playoff competition, was the inspiration for a recent Time magazine cover featuring Barack and Hillary. While working hard to get their upcoming projects ready, Dayton and Faris found a few minutes to chat with MovieMaker about the commercials and their career.
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Making Movies in Middle East
With the Dubai and Middle East International Film Festivals and a flood of financing, the Middle East is quickly becoming Hollywood Way East
Dubai could very well be the largest construction site on Earth. Everywhere you travel in this so-called “Las Vegas of the Middle East,” towering cranes fill the arid desert skyline from one end of the city to the next, including the manmade, meticulously crafted “islands” that surround the oil-rich emirate. Construction occurs day and night, with workers from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and parts unknown bussed in from the trailers they occupy in de facto labor camps just outside the city.
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Kung Fu Panda Comes to Cannes
In the tradition of all things animated finding appreciation at Cannes (from Shrek to Persepolis), Jack Black and Angelina Jolie's new film, Kung Fu Panda, made its debut on the French Riviera.
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Fantasy Comes Alive in New Zealand
When The Lord of the Rings trilogy became a cultural phenomenon, people no longer had to imagine J.R.R. Tolkien’s mystical, supernatural universe; Peter Jackson had found it in New Zealand. The country’s rich variety of landscapes, from the rolling pastures of the North Island to staggering mountains on the South Island, helped bring to life what was previously only a fiction.
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Lifetime Movie Networks Contest Gives Female Moviemakers a Voice
Of the three women who have been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director, not one has taken home the little golden man. Lifetime Movie Networks has always been known for prizing stories involving women and this year, it is lending its power to help advance the female moviemaker to new heights with the Every Woman’s Film Competition.
Women from all over the globe have the chance to submit their three- to five-minute short non-documentary film to be judged by a selection of powerful women in Hollywood. Last year’s panel included Angela Bassett, Jennifer Lopez, Lauren Shuler Donner, Gale Anne Hurd and Mimi Leder.
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Last Exit to Film Geekdom
Film geeks like to show off; it's in their job description. Whether it's debating the merits of Lars von Trier or discussing which Evil Dead film is the true masterpiece, it's just what they do. Well, thanks to entrepreneur Mike Ford, what they do has just gotten a bit easier to show off. Ford's UK-based company, Last Exit to Nowhere, sells T-shirts based on fictional companies and locations from films. And although the movies represented tend to skew a bit toward cult favorites (designs include the Winchester Tavern from Shaun of the Dead, the Urban Achievers from The Big Lebowski and Jaws' Amity Island), Ford says this was not deliberate.
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Christina Ricci Goes Hollywood with Speed Racer
A seasoned moviemaker at the age of 28, Christina Ricci has never been one to play by the rules. Ricci is surprising Hollywood again by starring in Speed Racer, her first big summer blockbuster, nearly two decades into her career.
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Dennis Farina Reveals What Happens in Vegas...
He’s been a part of some of the most critically acclaimed movies (Saving Private Ryan) and popular television shows (“Miami Vice,” “Law & Order”) of the past 30 years. But for Dennis Farina, the notion of making a living as an actor was not the first one that occurred to this son of blue-collar Chicago; his first career was as a beat cop in the City of Broad Shoulders. It was only after meeting director Michael Mann through a mutual friend that the actor best known for his wiseguy roles (Midnight Run, Get Shorty) and the occasional unorthodox ladies’ man (Sidewalks of New York, “Empire Falls”) landed his first role in the 1981 thriller, Thief. While Mann helped launch his career, Farina has gone on to work with a number of other strong auteur directors, including Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight), Guy Ritchie (Snatch) and John Frankenheimer (Reindeer Games).
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David Mamet in Pictures
There isn't anyone quite like David Mamet, the American writer who brought us such films as the steamy 1981 remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice and the groundbreaking 1996 film American Buffalo. More than just a screenwriter, Mamet has brought his characters to life on screen as a director and on stage as a Tony Award-nominated playwright. This week, as audiences prepare for his latest directorial effort, Redbelt, MM revisits some of the work that made him the moviemaker we know today.
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Doug Pray Gets Surfwise
The past few years have seen a boon in the number of documentaries that focus on senior citizens out to prove it's not age that matters but state of mind. It was Doris "Granny D." Haddock in Marlo Poras' Run Granny Run, a chorus of elderly folks who tugged at the heartstrings of Stephen Walker's Young @ Heart and a group of more than a dozen 60-plus dancers that became the NBA's first senior dance team in Gotta Dance. There are a few more that can be added to that list for sure, but few that will make you feel as invigorated and inspired as Doug Pray's Surfwise.
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Screenwriters Get Lucky in Nevada
Twenty-one has always been a lucky number in gambling. This year it's proving to be a good number for moviemakers, too, first as the title of one of the season's biggest box office draws and now as the Nevada Film Office launches its 21st annual Screenwriting Competition. As the film office's call for scripts opened, MM spoke with Sarah Bontrager, the public relations coordinator for the Nevada Film Office, about this year's crop of submissions, how Nevada is more than just casinos and what it takes to make it in this land of opportunity.
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Sundance Goes Vintage
Nobody really seems sure what the word “Sundance” even means anymore. Some say it refers to a week in January in which high profile actors and moviemakers congregate to get free stuff and ink their next multi-million dollar deala, while others maintain the word signifies an independent film festival. Regardless, it is tough to deny that the word has always been synonymous with some damn good art.
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Garth Jennings Channels His Inner Rambow
Director Garth Jennings and his friend and producer Nick Goldsmith, who work under the moniker Hammer & Tongs, have been toying with video cameras for a while now. They got their start in music videos, breaking onto the scene with 1999’s award-winning video for Blur’s “Coffee and TV,” a semi-tragic story of a milk carton’s search for a missing person. Now, after successfully helming one of the most anticipated film adaptations of all time, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Hammer & Tongs have returned with Son of Rambow, a smaller, more personal story about the exploits of two kids in the 1980s making a movie and the highs and lows that come with even the smallest of productions.
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Harmony Korine’s Golden Rules
Harmony Korine first gained notoriety at the age of 22, when his screenplay for Kids, about 24 hours in the life of an HIV-positive teen, was made into a feature film by Larry Clark. Two years later, Korine made his debut as a writer-director with the feature film Gummo, followed by Julien Donkey-Boy in 1999. Nine years later, Korine has returned to the indie film landscape with Mister Lonely, in theaters now courtesy of IFC. Here, Korine shares his 10 "Golden Rules" of moviemaking.
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Dori Berinstein Has Gotta Dance
For 15 years Dori Berinstein was a Tony Award-winning force behind the scenes as a producer for some of Broadway's biggest hits, including Thoroughly Modern Millie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Legally Blonde: The Musical. While she had, at times, worked in television and film (see Dirty Dancing and "The Isaac Mizrahi Show") it was largely in a producorial capacity. That changed when Berinstein found inspiration for her first feature, ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway, in the opening of the 2003-2004 Broadway season. But it is her most recent documentary, Gotta Dance, that is the talk of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. The movie follows the 12 women and one man chosen as the first senior hip-hop dance team for the New Jersey Nets.
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Harry Potter’s World Comes to a City Near You
It’s really impossible to hear something like “sorting hat” or “invisibility cloak” and not feel at least a little of the allure of Harry Potter's universe. When the films brought the J.K. Rowling books to life, it was through the costuming, set design and props. In 2009, “Harry Potter: The Exhibition” will bring 10,000 square feet of artifacts from the enchanting films to 10 or more cities around the world over a five-year period.
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Kodak Named Technology Sponsor at Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival has selected the Eastman Kodak Company as its official Technology Sponsor. Kodak will provide educational segments and product demonstrations during the 12 days of the festival. In addition, for one lucky festival winner, Kodak will donate 20,000 feet of camera negative film.
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Iron Man Comes Out Fighting in London
As U.S. audiences start counting down the days until Iron Man, one of this spring's most anticipated movies, is released in theaters on May 2nd, film fans across the pond got a sneak peek at hero in action when the film premiered yesterday at the Odean in London's Leicester Square.
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She’s The Boss
The rise of the actress-director
Two of last year’s more critically acclaimed films—Sarah Polley’s Away from Her and Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in Paris—were directed by women who first gained renown for their on-screen performances. Now, a new pair of films—Helen Hunt's Then She Found Me and Jada Pinkett Smith's The Human Contract—also happen to be made by actress-turned-directors.
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Website Brings Together the Global FILMCOMMUNITY
The Web 2.0 revolution seems to have broadened the scope of networking possibilities and marketing opportunities for moviemakers, but for real professionals the top choices are not always sufficient; Facebook is a bit sophomoric and MySpace has quickly become the one of the messiest and most unprofessional places on the Internet. Luckily for film professionals, Garth Hall, founder and CEO of film-centric social networking site FILMCOMMUNITY.com, has stepped in to rescue moviemakers from the mires of these other social networking sites.
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Doorpost Awards $300,000 to “Undiscovered” Moviemakers
The Doorpost Film Project, a “contest aimed at discovering and developing moviemakers capable of producing films that inspire and influence rather than simply entertain,” just finished round one and is now left with 15 finalists who are described by Nathan Elliott, the Project's director, as “a globally, ethnically and racially diverse group of filmmakers that have one important thing in common: They're enormously talented."
Posted 07.23.08 | News/Commentary | No comments yet...
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