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Sundance Stretching out the 'Shock Doctrine'
23 hours ago
- Since not everyone can jet out to Park City for Sundance festivities, the festival is making plans to bring a small portion of Sundance to you. While last year they made a small batch of short films available for download, this year they're laying the groundwork for what I imagine could be a popular, yearly event - one day (January 28th) of Sundancing at select art house theaters. Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross' The Shock Doctrine (which was presented as an unfinished cut at Berlin) will be the lead off film and the keeping with the idea of films that "spur debate", I don't think that the other films to participate in Sundance Film Festival U.S.A initiative will be heavyweight fiction titles, but we can expect to see a good number of doc features that need the attention. Shock Doctrine is based on a book by »
Wiseman's La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet
3 November 2009
- The prolific documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman's new film, will have a two-week engagement at Film Forum in NYC, and it is a stunning display of some of the best dancers and choreographers in the world training at one of the world's greatest ballet companies. Wiseman's film career has spanned more than 40 years, and here he is returning to familiar territory, having done the 1995 documentary Ballet, a profile of the American Ballet Theatre's preparation for a European tour. In this film, Wiseman takes us inside the studios where dancers painstakingly take direction in great detail from choreographers while rehearsing seven ballets to perform for a major gala coming up. It's a wonder to watch masters undulate their bodies in controlled yet freeing ways, and adding contemporary influences to traditional classical ballet. Wiseman chooses to both highlight the performers and the administration, and it colors the film, showing the business »
Tao Ruspoli's Top Ten Films of All Time
3 November 2009
- Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of filmmakers? As part of our monthly Ioncinephile profile (read here), we ask the filmmaker the incredibly arduous task of identifying their top ten list of all time favorite films. This month we profile Tao Ruspoli, helmer behind Fix which ropens November 20th at the Village East in NY. He gave us his top ten (as of November 2009). 8 1/2 (1963) Federico Fellini I'm sure this film has been on this list 100 times, and probably always for slightly different reasons. To me 8 1/2 is a brilliant exploration of one man's issues with time and aging (notice all the watches and clocks in the film!), with his complicated relationships to the women of his life, with imagination and the creative process, and with the complexes that come with growing up Catholic. Of course, as a film director and an Italian this »
Dr: Amy Rice and Alicia Sams' By the People: The Election of Barack Obama
3 November 2009
- It'll be a bittersweet viewing for plenty of folks who end up watching today's Daily Recommendation, but for the avid docu fan in me, Amy Rice and Alicia Sams' By the People: The Election of Barack Obama had me thinking of a pair of documentary films (Chris Hegedus and Da Pennebaker's The War Room and Robert Drew's Primary) that gave a far more gripping account of the campaign trail. For the Obama family and for everyone who campaigned or voted for him, By the People is a feel good memory to add to the scrapbook. Considering that this is literally yesterday's news and hasn't yet aged, the Rice-Sams card still managed to carve out an easy watch and make an overly processed in the media road to the presidency, feel somewhat dynamic. Those that don't receive enough screen time are the David Axelrods and David Plouffes of the operation, »
Clooney is Next of Kin in Payne's 'Descendants'
3 November 2009
- George Clooney might be joining the ranks of Paul Giamatti, Jack Nicholson and Reese Witherspoon as he is currently looking to topline The Descendants for Alexander Payne. If production does indeed begin in February, we could see Clooney in a Payne-branded comedy by year's end. The project was set into motion by Fox Searchlight in 2007. Scripted by Blacklist regulars Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, this is based on the Kaui Hart Hemmings novel, set in Hawaii, the unconventional family drama tells the story of a newly widowed father -- the descendant of landowners and one of the richest men on Oahu -- who takes off with his two rebellious daughters to track down his wife's lover on the island of Kauai. There'll be plenty of casting to do before the holidays begin. We need a pair of daughters aged 17 and 10 and who can deliver some lip service much like »
Martini Divulges 'Family's Secret' to Paramount
3 November 2009
- Let's hope that the stars are aligned for Derick Martini's sophomore feature. Lymelife, Martini's debut film, a suburban family drama remained a projects in the works for several years before receiving the green light and while it didn't pull in Adventureland-like numbers, I think it managed to showcase the filmmaker's aptitudes, which would most certainly come in handy for one more project that uproots the family tree. Variety reports that Paramount Pictures via Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock's Montecito Picture Co. have picked up Martini's original screenplay and have attached him to direct the pic. I Am My Family's Secret revolves around two very different brothers who discover their parents have been hiding a life-changing secret for more than two decades. Will Martini look to cast the Culkin brothers once again?... »
Tracking Shot November 2009: Beginners, Black Swan, Let Me In
2 November 2009
- At the beginning of every month, Ioncinema.com's "Tracking Shot" features a handful of projects that we feel are worth signaling out and that are moments away from lensing. As we get closer to holiday dates productions tend to drop, so this November we are keeping tabs on only a handful of projects. Mike Mills is finally getting to work on his sophomore feature which would see Ewan McGregor play a young man rocked by two announcements from his elderly father (Christopher Plummer)…one, that he has terminal cancer, and two, that he’s coming out of the closet. One more name will join the cast - perhaps the age of Brendan Fraser when he was in Gods and Monsters. Filming is set for L.A. Not much production info has been divulged on Darren Aronofsky's next film. Word was that production would begin this month and that »
Spc Adopts 'Mother and Child'
2 November 2009
- With the kind of Best Actress buzz that An Education's Carey Mulligan is receiving, its no surprise that Sony Pictures Classics didn't speed up the adoption process on Rodrigo Garcia's Mother and Child. A late deal and a 2010 release is exactly what might help Annette Bening's own chances at repeat wins. You see, there is a group of people (including myself) that think that her take as a bitter, angry, old hag is a winning performance. I thought that the character initially came across as a facile and one dimensional but a little bit past the point where Jimmy Smits' character enters her life, her part gets tweaked ever so slightly - the emotional make-up of her character is made more complex. And if she receives this kind of attention, it could add weight to supporting actress nods for Naomi Watts? Spc announced that they »
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