Archive for January, 2008

Russian Mobsters To Take On Rwandan Genocide at the Genies

Posted on Jan 30, 2008 under Main | No Comment

Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Awards

Continuing awards season, Canada’s film awards, The Genies, announced their nominees last night. It’s no surprise that David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises is leading the charge with 12 nominations, an honor it is sharing with Roger Spottiswoode’s Rwandan Dallaire drama Shake Hands with the Devil. The other Canadian biggie, Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, only scored itself 7 nods, which is a bit of a bummer. Regardless, there’s a lot of great CanCon in there, and it should make for a difficult decision come March 3rd.

Catch some of the big nominees below, and the rest after the jump:

Best Motion Picture – Away From Her, Continental, a Film Without Guns, Eastern Promises, Days of Darkness, Shake Hands with the Devil

Achievement in Direction – Sarah Polley (Away From Her), David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises), Denys Arcand (Days of Darkness), Roger Spottiswoode (Shake Hands with the Devil), Bruce McDonald (The Tracey Fragments)

Actor in a Leading Role – Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her), Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises), Marc Labreche (Days of Darkness), Claude Legault (The 3 Little Pigs), Roy Dupuis (Shake Hands with the Devil)

Actor in a Supporting Role — Gilbert Sicotte (Continental, a Film Without Guns), Armin Mueller-Stahl (Eastern Promises), Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge (The 3 Little Pigs), Danny Glover (Poor Boy’s Game), Michel Ange Nzojibwami (Shake Hands with the Devil)

Actress in a Leading Role – Julie Christie (Away From Her), Beatrice Picard (My Aunt Aline), Ellen Page (The Tracey Fragments), Anne-Marie Cadieux (You), Molly Parker (Who Loves the Sun)

Actress in a Supporting Role – Kristen Thompson (Away From Her), Fanny Mallette (Continental, a Film Without Guns), Marie-Ginette Guay (Continental, a Film Without Guns), Laurence Leboeuf (Ma fille mon ange), Veronique Le Flaguais (Comment survivre a sa mere)

Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design

Continental, a Film Without Guns — André-Line Beauparlant

Eastern Promises — Carol Spier

FIDO — Rob Gray, James Willcock

Shake Hands With the Devil — Lindsey Hermer-Bell, Justin S.B. Craig

Silk — François Séguin

Achievement in Costume Design

Eastern Promises — Denise Cronenberg

FIDO — Mary E. McLeod

Partition — Dolly Ahluwallia

Shake Hands With the Devil — Joyce Schure

Silk — Carlo Poggioli, Kazuko Kurosawa

Achievement in Cinematography

Eastern Promises — Peter Suschitzky

Nitro — Bruce Chun

Partition — Vic Sarin

Shake Hands With the Devil — Miroslaw Baszak

Silk — Alain Dostie

Achievement in Editing

Away From Her — David Wharnsby

Eastern Promises — Ronald Sanders

The 3 Little Pigs — Jean-François Bergeron

Poor Boy’s Game — Susan Maggi

The Tracey Fragments — Jeremiah Munce, Gareth C. Scales

Achievement in Music - Original Score

Eastern Promises — Howard Shore

FIDO — Don Macdonald

Shake Hands With the Devil — David Hirschfelder

Silk — Ryuichi Sakamoto

That Beautiful Somewhere — Steve London

Achievement in Music - Original Song

Poor Boy’s Game
“Breathe”
Byron Wong, Luke Nicholson

Shake Hands With the Devil
“Kaya”
Valanga Khoza, David Hirschfelder

Young Triffie’s Been Made Away With
“Young Triffie’s Been Made Away With”
Alan Doyle

Achievement in Overall Sound

Citizen Duane — John J. Thomson, Stephan Carrier, Martin Lee

Eastern Promises — Stuart Wilson, Christian Cooke, Orest Sushko, Mark Zsifkovits

Shake Hands With the Devil — Eric Fitz, Jo Caron, Gavin Fernandes, Benoît Leduc

Silk — Claude La Haye, Olivier Calvert, Bernard Gariépy Strobl, Hans Peter Strobl

The Tracey Fragments — John Hazen, Matt Chan, Brad Dawe

Achievement in Sound Editing

Eastern Promises — Wayne Griffin, Robert Bertola, Tony Currie, Andy Malcolm, Michael O’Farrell

Nitro — Martin Pinsonnault, Pierre-Jules Audet, Michelle Cloutier, Simon Meilleur, Louis Molinas

Roméo et Juliette — Marie-Claude Gagné, Diane Boucher, Guy Francoeur, Claire Pochon, Jean-Philippe Savard

Shake Hands With the Devil — Marcel Pothier, Guy Francoeur, Antoine Morin, Guy Pelletier, François Senneville

The Tracey Fragments — Steven Munro, John Sievert, David Drainie Taylor

Original Screenplay

Bluff — Marc-André Lavoie, Simon Olivier Fecteau, David Gauthier

Eastern Promises — Steve Knight

Everything’s Gone Green — Douglas Coupland

Days of Darkness — Denys Arcand

The 3 Little Pigs — Pierre Lamothe, Claude Lalonde

Adapted Screenplay

Away From Her — Sarah Polley

Shake Hands With the Devil — Michael Donovan

The Tracey Fragments — Maureen Medved

Best Documentary

Antlers — André-Line Beauparlant, Danielle Leblanc

Radiant City — Gary Burns, Jim Brown, Bonnie Thompson, Shirley Vercruysse

Sharkwater — Robert Stewart

Best Live Action Short Drama

Après tout — Alexis Fortier Gauthier, Élaine Hébert

The Wake of Calum MacLeod — Marc Almon, Nona MacDermid

Regarding Sarah — Michelle Porter, Amy Belling

Screening — Anthony Green, Philip Svoboda

The Tragic Story of Nling — Jeffrey St. Jules, Larissa Giroux

Best Animated Short

Here and There — Diane Obomsawin, Marc Bertrand

Jeu — Georges Schwizgebel, Michèle Bélanger, Marcel Jean

Madame Tutli-Putli — Maciek Szczerbowski, Chris Lavis, Marcy Page

Tags: Away From Her, AwayFromHer, Eastern Promises, EasternPromises, Shake Hands with the Devil, ShakeHandsWithTheDevil, The Genies, TheGenies

Source: Russian Mobsters To Take On Rwandan Genocide at the Genies

Neil Gaiman’s Coraline Movie Trailer Online (Kinda)

Posted on Jan 30, 2008 under Main | No Comment

The teaser trailer for the 3D animated adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline played before select 3D prints of Beowulf. And I’m not talking about the early test footage Gaiman notes “especially the poking needle going through the buttonhole”. The author hopes to get a pristine copy online soon, but for now the YouTube will have to suffice. Check out that footage after the jump.

Source: Neil Gaiman’s Coraline Movie Trailer Online (Kinda)

Director Mark Romanek Quits The Wolf Man

Posted on Jan 30, 2008 under Main | No Comment

There is a thermometer in my mouth as I type this surrounded by cherry cough drop wrappers, but this news was too terrible to not germinate my keyboard. Director Mark Romanek has left The Wolf Man, the $100 million remake of the horror classic starring Benicio Del Toro in the title role alongside Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt that was scheduled to start filming on February 18th. What happened? Well, of course ye ole’ “creative differences” are to blame, but more specifically Romanek wanted a larger budget. Full moons and fake wolf hair are nothing to laugh at, I mean what with the price of gas these days and London brothels and cucumbers in bulk.

Universal Pictures is quickly seeking a replacement. Who would you like to see? A source tells AICN that names already being tossed around include Cloverfield’s Matt Reeves and newcomer Breck Eisner. While the cast is rather cool, Romanek was the main factor in my increasing anticipation of the project. His prior film, 2002’s One Hour Photo, is now a cult classic and if you’ve seen it, you find yourself thinking about it occasionally like a little florescent-lit bell of eeriness and dread going off in the back of your mind. And of course, there’s his feted video work, including the perennial favorite “Closer’ for Nine Inch Nails, “Novocaine For the Soul” for Eels, and “Devil’s Haircut” for Beck. Some might find the Wolf Man to be a tired character, but this was to be something completely different. He had spent two years prepping the project with Del Toro.

So, now what? Romanek is still attached to A Cold Case, a film that was to go into production years ago with Tom Hanks in the lead, but no word on its current status. One hopes that he can channel his energies into something quick, but a sudden exit of this magnitude is not forgotten in Hollywood.

Source: Director Mark Romanek Quits The Wolf Man

Terry Gilliam to Finish Imaginarium with Computer Generated Heath Ledger?

Posted on Jan 30, 2008 under Main | No Comment

Last week The Sun reported that director Terry Gilliam had his sights on Johnny Depp to finish what remains of the late Heath Ledger’s role in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. However, now comes word that Depp’s reps tell People that “There have been no official talks, and he is currently working on Public Enemies for Michael Mann for Universal.” But that doesn’t mean that the project will be shelved.  Co-star Christopher Plummer says that Gilliam is working hard to find a way to finish the film, possibly even using a CGI:

“Terry’s throwing himself into the job of trying to salvage the picture,” said Plummer. “[Gilliam is] trying to work out at this moment how to continue on. Fortunately, because the film deals with magic, there is a way, perhaps, of turning Heath into other people and then, using stills and I think they call it CGI… Terry was a very good friend [of Heath’s]. He very wants to go on with the movie, and I can very much understand why. Because he wants to dedicate it to Heath, of course.”

I’m not quite sure what Plummer is trying to say, but it sure sounds to me like Gilliam is considering using computer generated character effects to finish some of Ledger’s remaining sequences.

Source: Terry Gilliam to Finish Imaginarium with Computer Generated Heath Ledger?

Sundance Review: Hell Ride

Posted on Jan 30, 2008 under Main | No Comment

Eric D. Snider
Filed under: Independent, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, Quentin Tarantino, Cinematical Indie


The problem with making movies in the “grindhouse” style is that true grindhouse movies, almost by definition, were not seen by very many people. The target audience for a loving homage to the genre is therefore limited. Quentin Tarantino might adore the shlocky, violent capers of the 1970s, but how many of the rest of us have even seen them, much less love them enough to enjoy a re-creation of them?

Hell Ride, which Tarantino executive produced and Larry Bishop wrote and directed, is a salute to the ridiculous biker movies that Bishop frequently acted in back in the late ’60s and early ’70s. With titles like The Savage Seven and Chrome and Hot Leather, these were pure grindhouse cheese, and Hell Ride is either a parody of them or an adoring tribute. The line is always fine when it comes to a Tarantino project — does he really like these movies, or does he only like them ironically? — and here it’s nearly invisible.

Bishop stars as Pistolero, the leader of a motorcycle gang called the Victors. Fellow members include Comanche (Eric Balfour) and The Gent (Michael Madsen); a comrade named St. Louie has just been murdered by a rival gang, the 666ers, led by Billy Wings (Vinnie Jones) and The Deuce (David Carradine). The Victors want revenge for this, but the often incomprehensible plot has them searching for a buried treasure, too, planted by a woman named Cherokee Kisum before she was killed back in 1976. Adding to the general mayhem is the reappearance of Eddie Zero (Dennis Hopper), a first-generation Victor who was presumed dead but has now returned to offer guidance to his successors.
The sex and nudity are abundant and cheerfully gratuitous and include a naked oil-wrestling scene. Bishop has made sure to give himself the role that involves cavorting with beautiful nude women as often as possible. He also ratchets up the violence the way grindhouse fans (presumably) want it. Excess can be fun, of course, though it’s always better when it’s in the service of a story that’s actually going somewhere.

The screenplay’s tone is sometimes self-aware, as when a man shot with an arrow in the middle of the desert declares the hopeless situation to be “a nihilist’s dream come true.” One scene has two characters exchanging a lengthy chunk of dialogue full of plays on the word “fire,” and it goes on for so long that it’s either funny or annoying. But other scenes are just flat and dull, the very picture of rushed, uninspired filmmaking.

All of that, plus the uniformly over-cooked acting makes it hard to tell what Bishop’s attitude is. We don’t know whether to laugh with the movie or at it, and that’s an uncomfortable feeling. A lot of the film is bad, maybe intentionally and maybe not. (Bishop’s previous writing/directing effort, 1996’s Mad Dog Time, aka Trigger Happy, certainly does not inspire a lot of confidence concerning his creative abilities.) But even if it’s bad on purpose — well, that’s not much of a consolation. I get tired of forced cleverness and genre deconstructions, and I have little patience for films whose lousiness is their selling point. If you can do a good job of making a bad movie, why not go the extra mile and make a good one?

Tags: cinematical, hell ride, HellRide, livefromsundance2008, quentin tarantino, sundance, sundance2008, sundance2008buzz, sundance2008reviews

Source: Sundance Review: Hell Ride

Son of Rambow Movie Trailer

Posted on Jan 30, 2008 under Main | No Comment

One of the best films of last year which won’t hit theaters until this year is Garth Jennings’ Son of Rambow. The film premiered at the 2007 Sundance film festival and was quickly snagged by Paramount Vantage. The buzz was so high on the movie that I was unable to get into a screening at the fest. Luckily I was able to see the film at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.

I wrote the following in my review:

“Jennings’ film almost feels like a Wes Anderson movie, but is, at times, much more playful. It’s about the wonder of a young boy’s imagination. Son of Rambow is one of those movies which makes me remember why I feel in love with movies. It’s the Cinema Paradiso for the next generation. It’s the type of movie that you’ll eventually run on repeat in your DVD player. It’s remarkably imaginative, and both heartbreaking and heartwarming.”

From Garth Jennings, the director of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, comes a magical movie about friendship and the discovery of filmmaking at a very young age. Will is the eldest son of a fatherless Plymouth Brethren family, and is forced to abide by a strict moral code which doesn’t allow him to listen to music or watch movies or television. Will somehow becomes involved with the school’s biggest misfit troublemaker and thief, Lee Carter. Set in the early 1980’s, and partly inspired on events from Garth’s childhood, Son Of Rambow is the title of a movie made by two little boys after watching First Blood (Rambo) on a bootleg VHS tape.

Watch the movie trailer for the film after the jump.

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Check out the new trailer in High Definition on Moviefone. Son of Rambow hits theaters on May 2nd 2008.

Source: Son of Rambow Movie Trailer

Sage Advice From the Movies, FF Edition

Posted on Jan 29, 2008 under Main | No Comment

Hug it Out!
*

Source: Sage Advice From the Movies, FF Edition

Live from Sundance: Stranded by the Blizzard

Posted on Jan 29, 2008 under Main | No Comment

Kim Voynar
Filed under: Sundance, Cinematical Indie

Well, James Rocchi and I were supposed to be on our way to the airport, but instead we just rechecked into the Yarrow, thanks to blizzard conditions here in Park City closing the highway to the airport. I’m probably the person from our Sundance team who most loves seeing and playing in the snow here in Park City, but at this point I’m just ready to go home and not see snow for another year. The storm has been raging all day, with strong winds blowing the snow around and making conditions so bad that we actually ate lunch at the hotel rather than walking in the storm. Even the snowplows were having a hard time getting through.

We’re going to hole up in the hotel and get some writing done tonight, and maybe have a drink by the fire at the Yarrow Bar. I expect the bar won’t be quite as hopping tonight as it was during Sundance, when Tarantino and various other filmmakers were here hanging out — Sundance is gone, and a convention of surgical pathologists has taken over the hotel. You never know, though, those pathologists might be wild and crazy.

Hopefully the weather will clear by tonight and our 6AM shuttle will be able to get us to the airport and get us home.\ More reviews and interviews are forthcoming; in the meantime, some pics of the blizzard after the jump …

Tags: livefromsundance2008, sundance2008

Source: Live from Sundance: Stranded by the Blizzard

Sundance Review: Sleepwalking

Posted on Jan 29, 2008 under Main | No Comment

James Rocchi
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, Cinematical Indie

Sleepwalking stars Charlize Theron — but she disappears from the screen for about two-thirds of the film. It’s set in the American West — but shot in Canada. It’s about family, pain, loss, renewal — all of which are discussed, and discussed more elegantly, in other films at Sundance this year. It even has what’s become a fairly standard-issue Sundance finale, as a character hits the open road with a bright future ahead of them, aside from the murder rap in their rear view mirror. It’s not that Sleepwalking is bad, per se; it’s just that it’s inert, a space-and-schedule filler that can now put the words “Sundance Premiere Selection” on the DVD box when it goes straight-to-video.

Joleen Reedy (Theron) has one of those lives where all the things that go wrong keep her harried and distracted enough to not notice how many of them are her fault. She’s been thrown out of her house because the cops have seized her boyfriend’s on-site marijuana gro-op, and she and her daughter Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) move in with her brother James (Nick Stahl). Joleen doesn’t even try to get back on her feet — or, rather, she figures the best way to get back on her feet involves leaving town in pursuit of another man; Tara’s left with James, and his strained life implodes under the stress of trying to care for an 11-year-old girl.


And so James and Tara hit the road, traveling and working and eventually winding up at the family farm, where the Reedy family’s patriarch (Dennis Hopper) welcomes them in and gradually makes them feel less and less welcome. James and Tara have bonded on their trip — Tara’s finally enjoying some adult supervision, while supervising Tara makes James feel like an adult — but his father’s coarse, brute ways are threatening them both.

Directed by William Maher from a script by Zac Stanford, Sleepwalking doesn’t lack craft in the direction; there’s a moment where Stahl finds Robb to explain they’ll be staying in one spot for a while, and the shooting of the glassed in pool area solarium is captured with life and light; moments like that in the film, however, are few and far between. And the material’s so mired in familiarity — bad dad, sad sister, brooding brother, disappointed daughter — that none of the actors can break the movie out of that cage.

Theron’s name should be enough to get a few people to watch Sleepwalking, and she’s good when she’s on-screen — Joleen is the kind of woman who says “I got a lot of options …” even though she doesn’t quite believe it herself, who flips the cops off as she drives away from their seizure of her home in a car with three different shades of body paint. But at the same time, there are long stretches where she’s off-screen; the film focuses on Stahl and Robb. And both Robb and Stahl are very good. “If you could go anywhere in the world right now,” he asks her, “where would you be?” Her reply — “I don’t know.” — comes from the wounded heart of a real character. It might be harsh to call Sleepwalking inert, but there’s really nothing in it that feels new or necessary.

Source: Sundance Review: Sleepwalking

Robert Redford Heads for ‘A Walk in the Woods’

Posted on Jan 29, 2008 under Main | No Comment

Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Casting

With Sundance wrapped, it’s time for Robert Redford to get going on his next movie. According to Yahoo/Associated Press, his next project will be an adaptation of Bill Bryson’s bestseller — A Walk in the Woods. He will produce and star while Barry Levinson is planning on directing. Nothing like Into the Woods or Into the Wild, this book focused on Bryson’s return to the U.S. after 20 years in England, and how he decided to reconnect with his homeland by hiking the 2100-mile-long Appalachian Trail with a college friend. The account details their struggles with self-reliance, and the people they meet along the way.

Redford says: “It’ll be fun. I don’t know when I’ve read a book that I laughed so loud. Also, it’s a chance to take a look at the country… The backdrop is pretty terrific, if you stop to think of all the visuals that are possible as they go along that trail.” It’s about flipping time, I say. The family favorite Charlotte’s Web aside (he was Ike the Horse), Redford hasn’t acted in a comedy since 1996’s Up Close & Personal. The last time he was in a good comedy, well…

Of course, the drama master can’t go without some heavier fare as well. After hiking the Appalachians, Redford says he will take on the story of how Branch Rickey helped Jackie Robinson get into major league baseball in 1947. “What Rickey had to do, what Robinson had to go through, and the partnership they had to form, that’s a story nobody knows. It’s just a fascinating story.”

Tags: A Walk in the Woods, AWalkInTheWoods, Barry Levinson, BarryLevinson, Bill Bryson, BillBryson, Branch Rickey, BranchRickey, Jackie Robinson, JackieRobinson, Robert Redford, RobertRedford

Source: Robert Redford Heads for ‘A Walk in the Woods’

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