Movie City News Archive for August, 2012

A colonial dandy gets more than he bargained for in ‘Ambassador’

By Gary Dretzka - Friday, August 31st, 2012

At first glance, you’d think that making a film documenting crime and corruption in central Africa, and exposing the underground trade in passports and other official documents, would be as difficult as fishing with hand grenades. It pretty much is, but no one told Mads Brügger that the hard part would be staying alive long enough to see it finished.

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Gurus o’ Gold: Pre-Toronto International Film Festival 2012

By The Gurus of Gold - Friday, August 31st, 2012

The Gurus are back for the new season. A few Gurus have gone back to the modern world, but when we’re back in November, we should have a few new recruits.

In the meanwhile, this pre-fest (Venice/Telluride/Toronto) chart is a basic guide to the titles that The Gurus see as being in the race for Best Picture. We each selected 20 films without ranking them. Seven films lead, with votes from all the participating Gurus.

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Wilmington on Movies: Lawless

By Mike Wilmington - Friday, August 31st, 2012

Directed and written by the team of John Hillcoat and rocker-scenarist Nick Cave (who also joined forces on the nerve-jangling 2006 Aussie western The Proposition), Lawless is also a very arty film about a rustic underworld — and it’s arty in both good and grating ways.

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Whipp On Teaming Rian Johnson And Gordon Joseph-Levitt

By Ray Pride - Friday, August 31st, 2012

Whipp On Teaming Rian Johnson And Gordon Joseph-Levitt

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Lim Interviews Cimino After Venice Preem Of Heaven’s Gate Re-Edit

By Ray Pride - Friday, August 31st, 2012

“He was subdued at first, reluctant to reopen old wounds and wary of speaking on the record to a newspaper he regards as an old adversary.” Lim Interviews Cimino After Venice Preem Of Heaven’s Gate Re-Edit

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Romney Aides Defer Credit For Booking Mr. Eastwood’s “Strange,” “Weird,” “Absurd” Chatauqua

By Ray Pride - Friday, August 31st, 2012

“Mr. Eastwood was scheduled to speak for about five minutes but stayed onstage much longer, throwing off the schedule for Mr. Romney, a stickler against tardiness.” Romney Aides Defer Credit For Booking Mr. Eastwood’s “Strange,” “Weird,” “Absurd” Chatauqua And – “At the age of 82, Eastwood is fighting a battle for relevance. The smug little…

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A Look Into A Glimpse Inside Coppola’s The Mind Of Charles Swan III

By Ray Pride - Friday, August 31st, 2012

A Look Into A Glimpse Inside Coppola’s The Mind Of Charles Swan III

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Remembering Documentary Producer Brian Gerber, Who Was 41

By Ray Pride - Friday, August 31st, 2012

Remembering Documentary Producer Brian Gerber, Who Was 41

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The Tenuous Glamour Of Still-Standing Old Beirut Cinemas

By Ray Pride - Friday, August 31st, 2012

The Tenuous Glamour Of Still-Standing Old Beirut Cinemas

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Oogieloves Destined To Remain Unknown, Posting Nonattendance Records

By Ray Pride - Thursday, August 30th, 2012

Oogieloves Destined To Remain Unknown, Posting Nonattendance Records

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Nordic Region First To Get HBO Without Pay-TV Subscription

By Ray Pride - Thursday, August 30th, 2012

Nordic Region First To Get HBO Without Pay-TV Subscription

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Missing: Syrian Filmmaker And Festival Head Orwa Nyrabia

By Ray Pride - Thursday, August 30th, 2012

Missing: Syrian Filmmaker And Festival Head Orwa Nyrabia And – Lawrence Wright On A Syrian Filmmaker, Disappeared

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Academy Approves New Music Rules For Oscar, Including 5 Original Songs

By Ray Pride - Thursday, August 30th, 2012

Academy Approves New Music Rules For Oscar, Including 5 Original Songs

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Telluride Sets The Show

By Ray Pride - Thursday, August 30th, 2012

Telluride Sets The Show

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Canadian-Jewish Feminist Shulamith Firestone, Subject Of 1997’s Award-Winning Shulie, Was 67

By Ray Pride - Thursday, August 30th, 2012

Canadian-Jewish Feminist Shulamith Firestone, Subject Of 1997’s Award-Winning Shulie, Was 67

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39th TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2012 LINE-UP

By Ray Pride - Thursday, August 30th, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 25 Narrative and Documentary Films Chosen for Main Program Marion Cotillard, Roger Corman and Mads Mikkelsen Honored Special Programming from Guest Director Geoff Dyer Telluride, CO (August 30, 2012) – Telluride Film Festival, presented by the National Film Preserve, today announced its official program selections for the 39th Telluride Film Festival. TFF will…

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Wilmington on DVDs: A Separation

By Mike Wilmington - Thursday, August 30th, 2012

  DVD PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW A SEPARATION (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin) (Four Stars) Iran: Asghar Farhadi, 2011 (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) Movies can open up a whole world for audiences, revealing even the most remote people and places. That’s especially true of movues like A Separation, last year’s much-praised, much-awarded foreign language Oscar-winner…

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Monica Bellucci Likes To Explore The Dark Side

By Ray Pride - Thursday, August 30th, 2012

Monica Bellucci Likes To Explore The Dark Side

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CHARLIE SHEEN RETURNS TO THE BIG SCREEN IN ROMAN COPPOLA’S A GLIMPSE INSIDE THE MIND OF CHARLES SWAN III

By Ray Pride - Thursday, August 30th, 2012

Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray and Patricia Arquette co-star A24 TO RELEASE THE COMEDY NATIONWIDE IN FEBRUARY 2013 NEW YORK, NY (August 30, 2012) — A24, a film company focused on distribution, financing and production with headquarters in New York City, announced today that the company has acquired all U.S. rights to Roman Coppola’s A GLIMPSE…

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SCOTT PICTURES LAUNCHES INTERNATIONAL SALES ARM; FORMS SALES JOINT VENTURE WITH EXCLUSIVE MEDIA: “JANE GOT A GUN” STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN FIRST TITLE ANNOUNCED

By Ray Pride - Thursday, August 30th, 2012

Los Angeles, August 28, 2012 — Scott Steindorff’s Scott Pictures, an affiliate of Stone Village Productions, has launched a new international sales company, Scott Pictures International (SPI) under a unique and exclusive three year partnership with leading sales agent Exclusive Media, it was announced today by Steindorff, Chairman of SPI and Alex Walton, President of International…

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“I don’t think it’s cruel to say this, because John himself would undoubtedly have turned it into a gleeful anecdote: When he had the stroke that killed him, he was at a local dinner theater. Hell of a review.”

“I am inclined to aver that every activity needs its critics, from narcissists bloviating in Washington to exhibitors of knee holes in their blue jeans by way of following a fad. So, too, tennis players and others wearing their caps backward. There is, to be sure, only fairly innocuous folly in puncturing pants or reversing caps, but for political or artistic or religious twisting of thought or harboring holes in the head there is rather less excuse. I have always inveighed against the bleary journalism practiced by newspaper reviewers, as opposed to the real criticism performed by, well, critics.”

“I often felt a twinge of grief at the idea that John Simon had devoted his life to a method of work that could only make him increasingly unhappy. Here was a man, elegant, articulate, and vastly knowledgeable, fluent in at least half a dozen languages, whose gifts of mind gave nothing back to the arts he wrote about except a few unkind remarks that made fun of someone’s performance, ethnicity, physical attributes, or, with a pun, on his target’s name. (“If this is Norman Wisdom, I’ll take Saxon folly.”) Other theatre critics keep such darts in their rucksacks for occasional use; John lived by them.”

“One person’s critic is another person’s crackpot. That they are not united in their opinions is ascribable to the Latin saying: quot homines, tot sententiae. I myself prefer being considered a creep, but that is what you get for having what Vladimir Nabokov called ‘Strong Opinions.’ It is odd that in a country so wallowing in negativity, starting with mass shootings and climaxing with Trump, such an unimportant matter as theater criticism should generate so much hostility. The only target patently more important is lead in the drinking water.”

Review: Little Women (no spoilers)

The DVD Wrapup: Cold War, Betty Blue, Official Secrets, Demons, Olivia, American Dreamer, Land of Yik Yak

20 Weeks To Oscar: Cinema, Trump, and Oscar

E. Scott Weinberg On Youthful Fangoria Encounters

Rome Bookstore Closes

With a Grauniad-Alleged $300 Million Budget, Could The Yet-Unseen But Surely Weird Cats Pass A Billion Dollars at The Box Office?

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon