Festivals Archive for September, 2008
Toronto International Film Festival: The Fact Sheet
(Numbers in parenthesis are last year’s statistics) 312 Films: Features – 249; Shorts – 63 (352 Total: Features – 261; Shorts – 91) 237 Features that are world, international, or North American premieres: 116, 29, and 92 respectively (234: 101 world; 25 international; 108 North American) 75% Feature-length films that are world, international, or North…
Read the full article »Confessions of a Festival Junkie: It’s A Wrap
For at least the press and industry segment that attends the Toronto International Film Festival it’s an event that kind of fizzles out. Toronto doesn’t have an official market component even though there are years (not 2008) when there’s as much buying and selling going on to equal Berlin or the American Film Market. It’s…
Read the full article »The Secret Life of Bees Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood
Fox Searchlight’s The Secret Lives Of Bees actually plays… and not just for girls. It’s in the spirit of Sounder and the Toomer story in The Great Santini and To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s clearly Dakota Fanning’s coming out party as a young woman, a stark contrast fromHounddog, which smelled of her exploitation by a well-intended by overreaching writer/director….
Read the full article »Confessions of a Festival Junkie: Dayzzzzzz
Following the flood of weekend movie junkets, it seemed an apt time for some serious business. There had been speculation that Steven Soderbergh’s Cannes premiered Che had finally made a deal for North American distribution rights but all players involved kept their cards very close to their chests. There were other murmurings and speculative questions that…
Read the full article »The Confessions of a Film Junkie: The Weekend
There’s something a bit daunting about the fact that two of the most acclaimed films coming into the Toronto International Film Festival are titled Hunger and Blindness. Both premiered at Cannes withBlindness receiving the prestigious opening night slot and Hungerwinning the Camera d’or award for best first feature. I prefer Blindness, at least the type one encounters cinematically….
Read the full article »Blindness Directed by Fernando Meirelles
There’s something a bit daunting about the fact that two of the most acclaimed films coming into the Toronto International Film Festival are titled Hunger andBlindness. Both premiered at Cannes with Blindnessreceiving the prestigious opening night slot and Hungerwinning the Camera d’or award for best first feature. I prefer Blindness, at least the type one encounters cinematically. Based…
Read the full article »Lovely, Still
There have been some good films so far, but with the talent involved, good shouldn’t be a surprise. But the first “wow, didn’t see that coming” for me is Nik Fackler’s Lovely, Still… a tiny movie about age and love and family, small in scope, but movie stylized, with two home run performances by Martin Landauand Ellen Burstyn. I…
Read the full article »Rachel Getting Married Directed by Jonathan Demme
Rachel Getting Married is the best Altman movie in 15 years. Of course, this film is not by Robert Altman, but byJonathan Demme, one of America’s great filmmakers, of a generation that came up behind the Altmans and others of the early 70s, who made his first high profile film, Melvin and Howard, one decade after…
Read the full article »Tears For Sale Directed by Uros Stovanovic
Mike Leigh’s advice was well taken, as Uros Stovanovic has the kind of visual muscle to make him one of the next hot candidates for a Hollywood slot. The film is, essentially, a fairy tale filled with dark jokes, estrogen, sex, and explosions. Simplifying the story is probably a mistake, but I will offer the broadest…
Read the full article »Confessions of a Festival Junkie: Day Two
Most film festivals of any significance try to include at least a couple of mainstream titles if for no other reason than to placate patrons attending opening and closing night events. Even the mighty Cannes has been the sight of such not so high-brow fare asThe Dark Knight and The Da Vinci Code in recent years….
Read the full article »Confessions of a Festival Junkie
The Toronto International Film Festival began today and, I regret to say, all the good intentions of preparing for the onslaught of somewhere around 300 movies flew out the window. I did not carefully peruse the catalogue; prepare a preliminary screening schedule; or meticulously research the more obscure or arcane films from Asia, Eastern Europe,…
Read the full article »IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT ACQUIRES EXCLUSIVE NORTH AMERICAN DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS TO COMEDY “$5 A DAY” AT TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Amanda Peet, Sharon Stone, Christopher Walken, Alessandro Nivola, Peter Coyote and Dean Cain star in comedy about the hilarious antics of a con man and his conservative son TORONTO, Sept. 5, 2008 – Image Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ: DISK), a leading independent licensee, producer and distributor of home entertainment programming in North America, announced today at…
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