This animated short film by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg is this year’s Oscar winner for Best Short Film (Animated). Immediately below the film is Joyce’s and Oldenburg’s acceptance speech.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adzywe9xeIU] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9rme79ptdA]Fandango Survey Unmasks THE AVENGERS As the Most Anticipated Movie of the Summer
Fandango, the nation’s leading moviegoer destination, revealed the results of its “Most Anticipated Summer Movie Survey,” in which Marvel’s The Avengers grabbed the top spot among all films picked by both men and women. The poll—which surveyed thousands of moviegoers on their must-see list for the biggest movie season of the year—also revealed that this may be a huge summer for Australian newcomer Chris Hemsworth, who stars in two of the summer’s most anticipated releases.
Male and female moviegoers offer a decidedly different perspective on the can’t-miss films of the summer. While women gravitated to the revisionist Kristen Stewart fairy tale drama Snow White and the Huntsman, men stuck to their guns with action adventures like The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, which ranked number one and two on the most anticipated summer movie list.
Continue reading Fandango Survey Unmasks THE AVENGERS As the Most Anticipated Movie of the Summer
On My DVR: The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Synopsis (courtesy of IMDb):
A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.
This film is on my 170 list, and I did watch it some years ago, but even then I told myself I’d have to re-watch it someday. I must not have been in the proper mindset the first time because I recall not following the story very well. Any film with the notoriety of The Maltese Falcon and with names like John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, and Peter Lorre attached deserves a second watch. This film came out the same year as Citizen Kane and is the iconic Huston’s directorial debut. It earned three Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay (Huston), and Best Supporting Actor (Sydney Greenstreet).
Director: John Huston
Screenwriter: John Huston
Producer: Hal B. Wallis
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Gladys George, Sydney Greenstreet
Genres: Crime, Noir
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Runtime: 100 min.
ESCAPE FIRE Wins The Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award
(Re-posted from Tweed)
April 16, 2012
Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare has been awarded The Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in North Carolina.
Escape Fire, by Matthew Heineman and Susan Froemke, asks what can be done to save our broken healthcare system. The film examines the powerful forces trying to maintain the current medical industry, which is designed for quick fixes rather than prevention. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012.
To read more about the award click here.
To learn more about the film, click here.
2012 Faces to Watch
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
April 2, 2012
Committed to its mission to seek and promote tomorrow’s trending topics, Limité Magazine is thrilled to announce its fourth-annual “Faces to Watch” list. The feature focuses on select up-and-coming personalities in various facets of culture and lifestyle. After much consideration, 10 names were chosen for this year’s list. They were selected based on their potential to make a significant impact on their disciplines—in short, these are the names we’ll be talking about tomorrow.
Demián Bichir
by Morgan Goldin
When the 2012 Academy Award nominees for Best Actor were being announced, one nomination came as a surprise to audiences and industry insiders alike. Alongside uber-famous Hollywood actors George Clooney and Brad Pitt, there was Jean Dujardin (who eventually won the category), unknown to most Americans but recognized for his work in the popular The Artist, and Demián Bichir, for his role in A Better Life. Bichir’s sensitive and soulful portrayal of an undocumented migrant worker was powerful enough to make the Academy take notice, despite the indie feature going largely unseen by moviegoers. However, to Hispanic audiences, this was an actor finally getting his due.
Bichir was born in Mexico City on August 1, 1963. He started his acting career in telenovelas, with productions filmed in Mexico, the United States, and Spain. He took a break from his television acting to focus on a movie career. His movie Sexo, pudor y lagrimas (1999) was a massive box office smash, breaking all kinds of records to win the accolade of being the number one film in all of Mexican cinema. His role earned him an Ariel, a Mexican version of the Academy Award. The film In the Time of Butterflies (2001) was Bichir’s American debut, in which he co-starred with Salma Hayek. He garnered other roles in American film and television productions, playing a major role as Esteban Reyes on the hit Showtime show Weeds, as well as portraying Fidel Castro for Steven Soderbergh’s Che (2008). However, with his role as Carlos Galindo in A Better Life, Bichir, only the second Mexican actor to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar (after Anthony Quinn), will hopefully be a name that more American audiences recognize. And here’s a fun fact: he was the singing voice of Aladdin in the Spanish dub version of the 1992 Disney classic.
Bichir can next be seen in Oliver Stone’s 2012 release Savages, which also stars John Travolta, Blake Lively, Uma Thurman, Benicio Del Toro, and his Butterflies co-star Salma Hayek.
Coming Soon: Sound of My Voice
The thing about the indie film world is that it does not shy away from material that pushes the boundaries. It likes to challenge viewers and get them to think about things of which they normally wouldn’t. It seems that the latest in these “trending topics” is cult life. Last year, Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene introduced us to a disturbing cult world, perhaps not unlike the one we’ll be exploring next in Fox Searchlight’s newest release, Sound of My Voice. The film, which is directed by Zal Batmanglij (yes, the first six letters of his last name spell “Batman”!), is co-written by the director, himself, and one of indie film’s newest darlings, Brit Marling. In fact, the tri-hyphenate Marling also stars in the film and produced it. (Her last effort as writer-producer-star was last year’s independent triumph Another Earth, which shared a stage at Sundance 2011 with Sound of My Voice.)
HICK Poster Debuts
And speaking of Chloë Grace Moretz (see the Carrie post below), the official poster for her upcoming release Hick debuts today. (There isn’t a single actor in this movie that I don’t love!) Check it out below, followed by information on the new film.
Official Synopsis:
Small-town teenager Luli (Chloë Grace Moretz ) escapes to Las Vegas, leaving behind her alcoholic and abusive parents. Armed with her smarts, a pistol and pocket money, she hitchhikes her way west. Along the way, Luli crosses paths with Eddie (Eddie Redmayne), an unstable rebel with questionable motives, and Glenda (Blake Lively), a cocaine-snorting drifter on the run. Adapted from the critically acclaimed novel by Andrea Portes, this powerful story pulls you into a provocative world of drugs, seduction and murder.
The Derick Martini-directed film opens theatrically and on VOD on May 11.
MGM Formally Offers Lead Remake of Stephen King’s CARRIE to Chloë Moretz
(Re-posted from Deadline.com)
by Mike Fleming
March 27, 2012
BREAKING: After meeting and reading a group of young actresses for Carrie, MGM, Screen Gems and director Kim Peirce have made their decision and made the formal offer today to Chloë Moretz. If negotiations work out, she’ll play the title role in the remake of the Brian De Palma original that was based on the 1974 Stephen King bestseller. She’s expected to play the shy high school student Carrie White, who is raised by a nightmarish religious fanatic mother and comes to grip with devastating telepathic powers just as she reaches puberty. She eventually uses those gifts for lethal means when fellow classmates use the prom as an excuse to humiliate her before the entire school in a parable about bullying. Sissy Spacek played the character in the first movie, with Piper Laurie playing her mother, and Amy Irving, Nancy Allen, John Travolta, Betty Buckley and William Katt rounding out the cast. Both Spacek and Laurie got Oscar nominations for their work in the 1976 film.
The studio and Peirce have been meeting with actresses for the past two weeks. Word all along was that while names like Dakota Fanning were circulating, Peirce and the studio had an eye on Moretz. The studio denied it at the time, but what actually happened is Moretz didn’t meet with Peirce until last weekend. She got the job immediately. Moretz, who first came on with performances in Kick-Ass, (500) Days of Summer and Let Me In, is at the top of the crop of young actresses. Coming off Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, her next major film is the Tim Burton-directed Dark Shadows with Johnny Depp. She’s repped by WME and 3 Arts. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa wrote the script and Kevin Misher’s producing.
Insiders said that once they make Moretz’s deal, they will focus on landing the psycho mom and supporting cast and they will shoot this year.
New MIRROR MIRROR Images
New images from Tarsem Singh’s upcoming Mirror Mirror have surfaced. Check them out here. The Snow White tale stars Julia Roberts, Lily Collins, Armie Hammer, Nathan Lane, and Sean Bean. It opens nationwide on March 30.
Official Synopsis:
One of the most beloved stories of all time is coming to life in the motion picture event for the whole family, Mirror Mirror. A fresh and funny retelling of the Snow White legend, Mirror Mirror features breakout star Lily Collins (The Blind Side) as Snow White, a princess in exile, and Oscar®-winner Julia Roberts as the evil Queen who ruthlessly rules her captured kingdom. Seven courageous rebel dwarfs join forces with Snow White as she fights to reclaim her birthright and win her Prince in this magical comedy filled with jealousy, romance, and betrayal that will capture the hearts and imaginations of audiences the world over. The film also stars Armie Hammer (The Social Network) as the Prince and Nathan Lane (The Birdcage) as the hapless and bungling servant to the Queen.
Official Trailer: Mr. Rogers & Me
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMXKs6OSrNg]
Premiering on DVD, local PBS affiliates, and iTunes on March 20 (in honor of Mister Rogers’s birthday)
Official Synopsis:
Benjamin Wagner first met Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood creator and star Fred Rogers at Rogers’s summer home in Nantucket, Massachusetts. His mother rented the cottage next door, so Mister Rogers really was his neighbor. On the afternoon of their first meeting, the television icon asked the young journalist about his job as an MTV producer. Wagner felt exposed and a tiny bit embarrassed—a PBS mind in a jump-cut, sound-bit, MTV world.
Mister Rogers said warmly, “I feel so strongly that deep and simple is far more essential than complex.”
One year and many “deep and simple” conversations later, Rogers told Wagner, “Spread the message!”
After Rogers’s death in 2003, Wagner and his brother Christofer set out to meet some of Mister Rogers’s neighbors to find out more about the man himself, what he meant by “deep and simple,” and with whom in our junk food culture those values endure.
Featured in the film are some of the notable personalities whose lives were impacted by their interactions with Mister Rogers. They include Tim Russert (NBC Meet the Press anchor), Susan Stamberg (NPR host), Marc Brown (Arthur author), Davy Rothbart (This American Life contributor), Linda Ellerbee (Nick News host), Bo Lozoff (activist and author), Amy Hollingsworth (author), Beverly Hall (photographer), and Dr. Susan Linn (children’s media expert).
In the end, the brothers come to know more than just the man and his luminous legacy. Their deeply personal journey explores the roots of Mister Rogers’s values, unmasks the forces acting against depth and simplicity, and helps them to develop the means to lead deeper, simpler lives.
the170 