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Warren Beatty Honored with AFI Life Achievement Award
On June 12, 2008, legendary Hollywood star Warren Beatty received the 36th AFI Life Achievement Award. The event will air on the USA Network, Tuesday, July 8th at 9 p.m. Guests including Beatty’s wife, Annette Bening, his sister Shirley MacLaine, Julie Christie, Robert Downey Jr., President Bill Clinton, Gene Hackman and old pal Jack Nicholson gathered to honor the multi-faceted moviemaker's contributions and lifetime commitment to cinema.
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Toshiba and New York Film Academy Name Competition Winner
As part of the ad campaign for its new REGZA brand of LCD TV’s, Toshiba partnered with the New York Film Academy to hold “The One to Watch” Film Competition. Students and alumni of NYFA were invited to create a 29-second film that showed why REGZA is “The One to Watch.” Each film had to tell a complete story and was evaluated by a panel of judges (with representatives from both Toshiba and NYFA) based upon humor, originality and relevance to the contest.
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Pixar Introduces Wall-E
Previous to 1995, no animated feature had ever been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, but Pixar’s first movie (and the very first full-length computer animated film) changed all that. At the time of its release, Toy Story became the highest-grossing animated feature on record and put Pixar Studios on the map. The hardworking company followed its initial success with eight more feature films (including this weekend’s release, Wall-E), each one brimming with humor, ingenuity and technical prowess. With the release of Wall-E, MM takes a look at some of the Pixar films that have changed the face of animated movies and made the company into the well-loved household name it is today.
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M. Night Shyamalan Happens
After the disaster that was Lady in the Water, seems like M. Night Shyamalan's backers have got another marketing trick up their sleeve as they release his latest film, The Happening: Promote the hell out of the fact that it's the director's first R-rated movie. It's probably not enough of an incentive to outdo The Incredible Hulk as the summer season box office continues to heat up, but the reviews so far have been on Shyamalan's side. As the sci-fi auteur awaits the final tallies, MM takes a look at the roller coaster ride Shyamalan has his taken critics and audiences on since The Sixth Sense.
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Bill Maher Finds Religion
Or at least finds Religulous
Particularly in an election year, religion is a hot-button topic. So leave it to writer-producer-actor-comedian and all-around opinion-maker Bill Maher to choose this fall to release Religulous. Directed by Larry Charles, who created controversy with Borat just a few years back, the film is being marketed as "an uproarious nonfiction film about the greatest fiction ever told." Who better to help give a sneak peek at the film than Maher himself.
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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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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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Being John Cusack
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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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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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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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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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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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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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The Dark Knight Wins MovieTickets.com Challenge
This summer is unusually packed full of comic book and graphic novel adaptations, starring old favorites and some fresh faces. In light of this trend, MovieTickets.com ran a poll asking which superhero will win the summer's number one spot. Here’s what the online community had to say:
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Going Green on the Set
The pile of garbage bags grows as we’re about to wrap out on another Bay Area “low-budget feature for festivals.” Somewhere a P.A. waits for instructions on where to take it. I have to admit, I did ask for it: “I’ll do the recycling.” I sift through garbage removing water bottles and soda cans. I post signs: “This is Garbage,” and “This is Recycling.” It takes seven days to break a habit. This two-week feature gives me hope.
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Independent Spirit
Independent moviemakers explain the inspirations behind their most recent films.
Six independent moviemakers talk of the state of independent moviemaking today and explain the inspirations behind their most recent films.
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Football Hits and Misses—Hollywood Style
Ah, springtime. That special time of year that can mean only one thing to all of you inveterate sports fans out there in movieland... Football season? Okay, so maybe spring is usually reserved for a sport of a more bucolic and placid nature, but so what? We here at MM rarely conform to the demands of the calendar—and neither does George Clooney, whose latest directorial effort, Leatherheads, hits theaters today. In honor of this latest entry into the football movie genre, we're revisiting some of the genre’s hits, misses and fumbles.
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Bonnie and Clyde—40 Years Later
Forty-one years after the fact, it’s difficult, maybe impossible, to fully appreciate the impact Bonnie and Clyde had on moviegoers in 1967. Even if you’re old enough to have seen Arthur Penn’s violent folk ballad during its initial theatrical release, more than four decades’ worth of subsequent cinematic slaughter has very likely immunized you against the shock value of this film’s groundbreaking bloody mayhem.
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Anthony MInghella: 1954 - 2008
Sometimes an artist creates a work you love so much that he or she just become an integral part of your life, etched in your psyche and on your heart, without your ever even having come into actual contact with the person. That is an artist's job—to move and in many ways define you—and when you have a true artist, as Anthony Minghella was, they leave an imprint on your life that never fades.
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MoveOn.org Holding Contest for Best Barack Obama Campaign Ad
User-generated content is all the rage. This Web 2.0 phenomenon sparked by YouTube and Wikipedia has already been utilized for everything from reporting the news to selling Doritos, and now it will even have a hand in deciding our next president. Following the trail set by the YouTube Presidential debates, progressive political organizer MoveOn.org is holding a contest for the best user-created Barack Obama ad.
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Juno Storms the Spirit Awards
Juno cleaned up at Film Independent's Spirit Awards last night, taking home awards for Best Feature, Best First Screenplay for Diablo Cody and Best Female Lead for Ellen Page. Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Male Lead award for Tamara Jenkins' The Savages, with Jenkins herself taking the Best Screenplay Award. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly claimed two of the night's top honors, including Best Director for Julian Schnabel and Best Cinematography for Janusz Kaminski. Irishman John Carney's Once won for Best Foreign Film and Cate Blanchett matched director Todd Haynes' Robert Altman Award with her own for Best Supporting Actress for I'm Not There.
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MovieMaker Goes for the Gold
Academy members may have the final say on who will walk away with the gold at this Sunday’s Oscar ceremony. But that doesn’t mean that we here at MM can’t have a little fun getting in on the action, too. Here, five editors and longtime contributing writers weigh in on Oscar’s hits, misses and most egregious snubs!
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Arthur Max Sets the Scene in American Gangster
It took many years and several college degrees before Arthur Max began his work in film. Fortunately, audiences didn’t know what they were missing. Originally a lighting designer for the stage, Max turned his sights to the screen after experimenting with varied forms of theater production. Commercial work shortly led to his first feature film, Se7en, directed by David Fincher. The gritty city streets and the gruesome crimes of the biblically-inspired killer were the bones of this thriller—a genre Max has since become family with, subsequently working on Panic Room and American Gangster. It is this latest movie which brought the art director his second Academy Award nomination.
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Alan Menken is Enchanted by Oscar
Eighteen-time Academy Award nominee goes for gold once more in 2008.
For years Alan Menken has been charming children and adults alike with songs and scores for some of cinema’s most beloved movies. His work, often synonymous with Disney animation, has led to eighteen Academy Award nominations, eight of which he won. From the catchy tunes of Little Shop of Horrors to the cult numbers of Newsies, Menken continually eases himself into the lexicon of movie music. This season he was at it again. With the animation/live action hybrid Enchanted, Menken has earned three of the five original song nominations the Academy bestows each year.
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BAFTA Award Winners Announced
This year’s British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award winners are official. In addition to the results that have become commonplace this awards season (Daniel Day-Lewis and Javier Bardem winning Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively), there were a few surprises, namely Atonement’s win for Best Picture. The British romance certainly benefited from a little home field advantage, beating out consistent frontrunners No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood to reclaim some of its post-Golden Globes momentum, right in time for the Oscars.
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Paul Devlin Blasts Off
For his latest film, BLAST, a documentary about a group of ultra-adventurous astrophysicists and their (often futile) efforts to launch a highly advanced telescope into space, Award-winning director Paul Devlin is counting on fans to put up some cash.
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No Country For Old Men Wins PGA Awards Top Honor
International Film & TV Finance Summit Takes Los Angeles
It’s a familiar scenario in the moviemaking industry: A producer has a great script but not the steep finances necessary to get the project off the ground. But there’s hope for producers looking to hone their business acumen, as Atlas Information Group hosts its eighth annual International Film & TV Finance Summit, to be held in Los Angeles on February 4-6 at the Intercontinental Hotel.
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Top 10 Movie Cities 2008
MM’s eighth annual countdown of the best places to live, work and make movies
From Austin to Albuquerque and plenty of places in between, MovieMaker's eighth annual countdown of the 10 best places to live, work and make movies in the U.S.
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Craig Zobel’s Great World of Sound
Growing up in Atlanta, first-time writer-director-producer Craig Zobel had a bevy of artistic inspiration around him. Enough, in fact, to help launch the popular online site HomestarRunner.com with friends Mike and Matt Chapman and land production positions on three films by southern moviemaking darling David Gordon Green. In 2005 he channeled the area’s long music history into his first feature, Great World of Sound, a largely improvised, highly diverting tale revealing the southern tradition of sound sharking. The movie, about two aspiring music producers who are inadvertently brought into a scam company, played at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and just recently brought home the honor of Breakthrough Director from IFP’s Gotham Awards and a nomination for Best First Feature from the Independent Spirit Awards.
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American Humane Ensures Animal Safety On-Set
While filming a scene on the set of James Mangold's 3:10 to Yuma last fall, in Diablo Canyon near Santa Fe, New Mexico, a horse collided with an “ultimate arm” camera car, bringing extreme harm to itself and its rider, a professional stuntman. The accident landed the rider in the hospital in critical condition and the horse ultimately had to be put down.
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Julie Taymor’s Golden Rules
Director Julie Taymor shares her secrets for success at everything from Hollywood to Broadway.
From Oscar to Tony, Julie Taymor has found success in Hollywood and on Broadway as a writer, director, producer and costume designer. In 2003, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for Frida, which she also directed. Her latest film, Across the Universe, starring Evan Rachel Wood, is on DVD now. Here she shares her secrets for success at everything from Hollywood to Broadway.
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It’s Official—Pre-production Begins
“I never ask people for permission to make a film. Instead, I present them with the fact that I’m making a film. If they’re wise, they’ll get in on it early.”
—Francis Ford Coppola
Last week our unit production manager for Rufus Rex officially started work and I paid UPS an astounding amount of money to deliver a letter to the Republic of Georgia officially inviting our lead actress to the United States. We’re also officially in pre-production on the grassroots (my preferred term, since I dislike “microbudget”—no art should be defined by its budget) movie Rufus Rex, which my 15-year-old son, Nick, and I wrote together last winter.
Posted 07.8.08 | Grassroots Moviemaker | No comments yet...
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