Posts Tagged ‘ Steve Ramos ’

‘The Hangover Part II’ Review: The Party Boys are Back for Another Night Out With Added Laughs

May 26, 2011
By

The Hangover Part II

Warner Bros.

Rated R

Running Time:  101 Minutes

Grade: B

In this summer’s race of movie sequels, the party boys of The Hangover Part II are laggards. After all, Captain Jack Sparrow is back for his fourth Pirates of the Caribbean adventure. Teen wizard Harry Potter brings his franchise to a close with his eighth film and X-Men: First Class is the fifth movie featuring the mutant superheroes.

The Wolfpack, buds Doug (Justin Bartha), Alan (Zach Galifianakis), Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms) are back for just their second outing, which helps explain how Hangover co-writer/director Todd Phillips and new-to-the-franchise screenwriters Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong are simply able to successfully duplicate the comic formula of the first movie without worries.

Another boy’s night out comedy, this time moving the craziness to Bangkok for Stu’s wedding, feels warm, familiar and fun instead of redundant on just its second try. There’s no reason to fix what isn’t broken after two adventures. If the Wolfpack returns for a third adventure, Phillips will need to come up with a few more surprises.

Memories of their Las Vegas bachelor party hang over them like a curse as Doug (Bartha), Alan (Galifianakis) and Phil (Cooper) travel to Thailand for Stu’s (Helms) wedding to the pretty Lauren (Jamie Chung). Some beers at a beach resort bonfire go out-of-control and the boys wake up in a rundown Bangkok hotel missing Stu’s future brother-in-law Teddy (newcomer Mason Lee).

It’s another go-around with black outs, a missing friend and a frantic race to retrace steps to make things right and get back in time for the wedding.

The Hangover Part II is the second new comedy in six months from the prolific Todd Phillips (Due Date starring Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr. came out last November) and the one thing that’s clear about the polished-looking comedy is Phillips’ skill at casting.

It doesn’t matter if the Wolfpack is in Vegas or Bangkok or points in-between, Cooper, Helms, Galifianakis and Bartha play off each beautifully and create a spirit of friendship that makes all their outrageous behavior funnier.

Mazin (Rocketman, Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4) and Armstrong (Old School, Road Trip, Starsky & Hutch and School For Scoundrels) make good use of the characters they inherited.

Jeffrey Tambor, Ken Jeong and Mike Tyson return in key supporting roles with a capuchin monkey being the best new addition when it comes to laughs. Who can say no to a smoking monkey?

The film’s better slapstick moments involve a trip to a Buddhist monastery, where the boys are punished for talking and a car chase through the Bangkok streets with drug dealers in hot pursuit.

With the exception of a return trip to a strip club in search of clues to Teddy’s whereabouts and a gallery of photos at the closing credits (just like the first movie), Hangover Part II turns out to be surprisingly restrained when it comes to slapstick shockers.

In fact, Kristin Wiig and her Bridesmaids posse out-gross Bradley Cooper and his Wolfpack pals in terms of outrageous humor.

Perhaps Phillips believes that key to the Hangover franchise continuing is the importance of friendship over bad behavior. Now that’s a surprise good enough to raise hopes for Hangover III. One question: Where will the Wolfpack hit next?

Grade: B

Distributor: Warner Bros.

Director: Todd Phillips

Scriptwriter: Todd Phillips, Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong

Cinematographer: Lawrence Sher

Cast: Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper, Ken Jeong, Justin Bartha, Zach Galifianakis, Mike Tyson and Jamie Chung

Running Time:  101 minutes

Producers: Green Hat Films and Legendary Pictures

Rating: R

Release Date: May 26, 2011

The Morning Feed: Judge Denies Tattoo Artist’s Request To Stop Release of ‘Hangover 2’

May 24, 2011
By

Tattoo artist S. Victor Whitmill, who inked boxer and Hangover supporting actor Mike Tyson with a tribal tattoo around his eye in 2003, filed a lawsuit in federal court April 28 claiming Warner Bros. violated his copyright by giving Ed Helms’ character a similar face tattoo in director Todd Phillips‘ Hangover 2.

According to The Hollywood Reporter the off-screen drama surrounding Hangover 2 ended today when U.S. District Court Judge Catherine D. Perry sided with Warner Bros. and denied Whitmill’s injunction to stop the release of the comedy sequel reuniting cast members Helms, Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong and Justin Bartha as friends who travel to Bangkok for another out-of-control bachelor party.

Although Judge Perry did not rule in favor of the injunction, she did allow the case to move forward with the chance for Whitmill to stop the film’s release on DVD and cable if he can prove he has a valid copyright of the Tyson’s facial tattoo and that the tattoo depicted in Hangover 2 is similar.

Visitors experienced 70 female musical artists on two floors of Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in the new exhibition Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power.

Despite the exhibit’s big picture look at the contributions of women, from Bessie Smith and 1920s blues women to Brenda Lee, 1960s girl groups, counterculture singers like Janis Joplin, 1970s rocker Joan Jett and the Runaways, punks Debbie Harry and Siouxsie Sioux all way through to Lady Gaga, the Wall Street Journal promised endless debates among visitors about which artists received proper recognition and which did not.

“Women have played an important role in the last year,” Jim Henke, vice president of exhibitions at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, said in an earlier interview. “And they’re getting the respect they deserve. Going back to some of the great blues and gospel singers like Mahalia Jackson to rockabilly pioneers like Wanda Jackson, women have played a crucial role in music.”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame scheduled Women Who Rock through February 2012; plenty of time for fans to visit and debate.

Actor-director-writer Albert Brooks continued on the interview circuit but not to talk about his villain role in the upcoming action movie Drive.

Instead, Brooks continued to talk about his future-set novel Twenty Thirty: The Real Story of What Happens to America, about L.A. being hit by a devastating earthquake and the U.S. President forced to partner with China to help rebuild the City of Angels because the U.S. government is too burdened by debt to repair it alone.

Paul Brownfield reviewed Twenty Thirty positively in The L.A. Times and described Brooks’ tale of an 80-year-old widower who loses his condo in the quake and ends up in a refugee camp in the Rose Bowl as similar in comic spirit to his movies. Bronfield also summed up the character President Bernstein, the nation’s first Jewish president, as sounding a lot like Brooks.

Carey Mulligan continued to prepare for her role in the Atlantic Theater Company’s Through a Glass Darkly, set to open June 6 at the New York Theatre Workshop space in New York’s East Village.

Playwright Jenny Worton adapted the 1961 Ingmar Bergman film about Karin (Mulligan), a young woman with schizophrenia on vacation on a small Swedish island with her husband (Jason Butler) her father (Chris Sarandon) and her brother (Ben Rosenfield).

Fans of Mulligan’s innocent character Jenny in the art-house drama An Education and who revel in her cool sense of fashion and pixyish good looks might be surprised by her tortured performance in the play.

“I was in a Christian school choir,” Mulligan told Vogue. “When you’re a good girl, your shadow is much darker.”

Critics have long considered Through a Glass Darkly as one of Bergman’s lesser films; which makes its adaptation at the Atlantic Theater Company all the more interesting.

The Morning Feed: Terrence Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life’ Wins Cannes Palme d’Or

May 23, 2011
By

The 64th Cannes Film Festival came to a close yesterday and according to The Guardian Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, a drama about a 1950s Texas family, starring Brad Pitt as a somewhat stern father and Sean Penn as his present-day son, won the prestigious Palme d’Or award.

The Tree Of Life, an artful drama that makes a poetic connection between a 1950s family and the creation of life, was Malick’s first film since his 2005 drama The New World about John Smith and the founding of Jamestown.

Malick, famously private and firm in his refusal to participate in traditional Hollywood publicity, earned controversy from the festival press corps for refusing to participate in a festival press conference on behalf of the film. Instead, Malick made a brief appearance at the Palais for its public premiere.

Malick’s controversy paled compared to the major news story of the festival, Danish director Lars von Trier and his outrageous anti-Semitic jokes and comments about “sympathizing with Hitler” at a May 18 press conference for his end-of-the-world drama Melancholia and his subsequent ban by festival directors.

Von Trier’s film remained in competition and its lead actress Kirsten Dunst received a Best Actress award  for her performance.

Hollywood studios continued to be savvier than ever when it comes to fueling the passions of the fanatic fan boys and fan girls who pack cinemas for the latest superhero movie. The web caught fire May 20 thanks to the Warner Bros. viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight Rises, the next installment from filmmaker Christopher Nolan in the Batman franchise.

The Dark Knight Rises Twitter feed @thefirerises published links to the first photo of the villain Bane played by British actor Tom Hardy.

In the photo, Hardy’s turned away from the camera with his face covered by an ominous black guard. What fans noticed immediately were Hardy’s bulging back and shoulder muscles.

Fans stitched together their idea of the plot for the upcoming movie. They believed Batman (Christian Bale) fights the mysterious League of Shadows; the army of assassins led by Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson in Batman Begins). Except this time the League would be led by his daughter Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard) and her henchman Bane (Hardy).

The 1848 Cincinnati Panorama, a 19th-century daguerreotype taken by photographers and early creatives Charles H. Fontayne and William Southgate Porter on Sept. 24, 1848 of the Cincinnati riverfront from a bluff across the Ohio River in Newport, Kentucky, was unveiled for public display May 21 at the Main branch of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County in downtown Cincinnati.

Ralph Wiegandt, senior project conservator from the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, NY, referred to the eight separate 8 ½ by 6 ½-inch plates as an “iconic American treasure” to The New York Times.

Daguerrotypes captured light on silver-coated copper plates coated with iodine and bromine and the process achieved amazing detail more precise than any film photography and the delicate art worked required extensive restoration, stabilization and mounting from conservators at the Eastman House. Research by the library’s genealogy and local history department throughout the seven-year  project with recent support work from the digital services staff allowed viewers to magnify points of interest in the panorama and learn more about the people and places on the Cincinnati waterfront from 163 years ago.

Specialty film fans and colleagues paid homage to Donald B. Krim, a distribution exec at United Artists Classics who bought Kino International in 1977 and steadily grew the company into a significant distributor for classics like the restored Metropolis and foreign-language films such as the 2010 Greek drama Dogtooth.

Krim, the President of Kino International and co-president of Kino Lorber Inc. passed away March 20 at age 65 after a long bout with cancer.

The Morning Feed: Lars von Trier Says He’s Proud of Cannes Ban

May 20, 2011
By

The biggest news out of the 64th Cannes Film Festival continued to be Danish director Lars von Trier. Not Von Trier’s competition film Melancholia, starring Kirsten Dunst as a bride preparing for her wedding while a planet hurtles towards the Earth; or any other festival film for that matter, but Von Trier’s outrageous comments about “sympathizing with Hitler” at a Wednesday press conference and his subsequent ban by festival directors.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Von Trier quickly apologized for his anti-Semitic remarks and described them as a bad joke he let go out-of-control. The festival ban remained and the press day for Melancholia was cancelled. Von Trier soon returned to his bad boy ways and talked about being proud of being banned at Cannes.

“I have to say I’m a little proud of being named persona non grata,” Von Trier said. “I think my family would be proud. I have a French order. Now they will likely tear it off my chest.”

Music labels Hip-O Select and Sanctuary received great support from music fans for their reissues of the first three albums from The Kinks last month.

According to Pitchfork, Hip-O Select and Sanctuary announced their next three Kinks reissues — 1966’s Face to Face and 1967’s Something Else and 1969’s Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) — to street June 13.

The reissues, claiming both mono and stereo mixes of the albums in addition to BBC sessions and interviews, would coincide with Kinks front man Ray Davies at the Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre in London June 10-19 where he will perform along with Wire, Nick Lowe, Madness and Yo La Tengo.

With their shiny new reissues in hand, Kinks fans hoped Davies performs classics from the albums including Waterloo Sunset, Victoria and Plastic Man.

Web entrepreneur, digital strategist and TV host Dan Abrams pushed aside his multiple achievements and successful digital strategy firm and argued via his new book Man Down that women basically out-perform men in just about everything.

In a Q&A at The Window blog for Barneys.com, Abrams convinced Barneys Creative Ambassador Simon Doonan that Man Down gets things right.

“I have been surprised by how many men have told me they agree with my findings,” Abrams said. “Most of them take issue with a particular chapter or two, but it seems that many have always secretly known what this book proves.”

The Morning Feed: Lars von Trier Shocks Cannes (Again) and Receives Festival Ban

May 19, 2011
By

Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier first earned his reputation as the bad boy auteur of the Cannes Film Festival with divisive movies like Antichrist and his 2000 Palme d’Or winner Dancer in the dark.

In recent years, Von Trier fueled his enfant terrible reputation with outrageous press stunts. But the festival’s board of directors was unprepared for his comments at a Wednesday press conference for his contending film Melancholia starring Kirsten Dunst as a bride preparing for her wedding as a planet hurtles through space about to crash into the Earth.

“For a long time I thought I was a Jew and I was happy to be a Jew,” Von Trier said. “Then I met (Danish and Jewish director) Susanne Bier and I wasn’t so happy. But then I found I was actually a Nazi. What can I say? I understand Hitler…I sympathize with him a bit.”

“I don’t mean I’m in favor of World War II and I’m not against Jews, not even Susanne Bier,” Von Trier added. “In fact I’m very much in favor of them. All Jews. Well, Israel is a pain in the ass but…”

According to The Guardian, Von Trier later apologized for his remarks, perhaps realizing that his attempts at shock comedy failed miserably. However, that did not stop Cannes authorities from declaring Von Trier “persona non grata” at the festival effective immediately.

A statement from the festival explained their stance: “(the board) profoundly regrets that this forum has been used by Lars von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity that preside over the very existence of the festival.”

Melancholia remained in contention for the Palme d’Or but all press engagement for the film were cancelled.

Two officials from The J. Paul Getty Museum crowded into a former Capuchin monastery turned into a small museum in the Sicilian town of Aidone to watch the unveiling of the 7-foot limestone and marble statue of Aphrodite

According to The L.A. Times, the Getty officials helped close the door on the controversial purchase of the statue by the Getty in 1988 for $18 million despite reports that the statue had been looted and stolen from Italy.

“The decision to return this statue to Sicily was a turning point in the history of the Getty’s antiquities collection, one that was fraught with much debate,” said Getty Museum acting director David Bomford.  However, in the end, based on scholarly and reasoned research, it was without a doubt the right decision.”

With the statue returned, Sicily’s culture minister hoped the artwork will soon draw more visitors to the Aidone museum and the surrounding community.

Canadian vocalist Rachel Zeffira teamed with Horrors lead singer Faris Badwan for her latest release Cat’s Eyes and Vogue praised the 28-year-old musical artist for blending sixties girl group influences with the operatic arias she’s used to perform as a classical music singer.

“It’s easy to forget sixties girl group music was quite dark,” Zeffira said. “Faris played one song for me called Nightmare, by a band called The Whyte Boots. It’s about a girl who gets killed by a girl gang, and there is a wild range of emotion there that is very operatic.”

The Morning Feed: Terrence Malick Skips Cannes Premiere of ‘The Tree of Life’

May 17, 2011
By

Brad Pitt found himself defending his Tree of Life director, Terrence Malick, at a Cannes press conference for the world premiere of the film, about a 1950s Texas family, starring Pitt as the somewhat stern father.

Malick, famously private and firm in his refusal to participate in traditional Hollywood publicity, made it clear well in advance that he would not attend Cannes in support of his first movie since the 2005 drama The New World about John Smith and the founding of Jamestown.

According to The Guardian, the assembled Cannes press corps took issue with Malick’s decision to stay away from his own premiere and debate over the director’s no-show matched the discussions over Malick’s artful drama that makes a poetic connection between a 1950s family and the creation of life.

“It is an odd thing for an artist to sculpt something and then be a salesman,” said Pitt, both the male lead and a producer on the film.

Arguably Malick still managed to help out his film even by staying away. After all, how many other filmmakers can generate headlines around the world simply for not being present?

The Tree of Life, the highly anticipated drama from Malick, opens in select theaters May 27.

Jeff Howe experimented before using social networking to build a worldwide reading club he called One Book, One Twitter. In The Atlantic, the Northeastern University journalism professor launched his latest book club incarnation 1book140. Howe promised a new book monthly for readers to discuss with nominations currently underway and voting on book selections starting May 25 via Twitter and The Atlantic’s Entertainment Channel.

The Chicago Public Library Foundation announced that veteran Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert will receive this year’s Carl Sandburg Literary Award.

“Without question Roger is a master of the written word,” foundation CEO Rhona Frazin told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Plans called for Ebert, the author of more than 17 books in addition to his journalism and extensive social media, to receive the honor Oct. 20 at the Forum on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago

“First I was humbled,” Ebert said. “Then I thought, it’s sort of appropriate because Carl Sandburg was in fact the film critic of the Chicago Daily News for much of the 1920s and I wrote the introduction to his collected reviews. So now he’s returning the favor.”

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) launched its 24-hour inaugural screening of Christian Marclay’s The Clock, a mash-up of thousands of television clips and samples from various films, yesterday morning at LACMA’s Bing Theater with plans to end the screening today at 11 a.m.

While the California born and European raised Marclay meant for people to come and go from the theater and experience his experimental work in bursts, some LACMA visitors sat down for extended stays as if they were at Pacific Theatres at The Grove watching the latest blockbuster.

After its 24-hour inaugural screening, the L.A. Times reported that plans called for The Clock to relocate to LACMA’s Art of the Americas Building and screen during normal gallery hours starting Friday and running through July 31.

The Morning Feed: Lynne Ramsay Wows Cannes with ‘We Need to Talk about Kevin’

May 13, 2011
By

The 64th Cannes Film Festival entered its opening weekend with Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay receiving the lion’s share of acclaim so far for her family drama We Need to Talk about Kevin.

Ramsay adapted Lionel Schriver’s bestselling novel for her first feature since 2002’s Morvern Callar; making the argument that her enthusiastic Cannes reception was well-earned.

Festival press including TheGuardian’s Xan Brooks raved about Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly as parents of a troubled teen (Ezra Miller) who murders several classmates, a teacher and a worker at his high school, the tense storytelling as well as the artful production work of Ramsay and cameraman Seamus McGarvey.

Fans of Ramsay’s earlier features Morvern Callar and Ratcatcher, myself included, wouldn’t expect anything less from the talented Ramsay.

Visitors to The Jewish Museum in New York enjoyed the chance to view more than 50 paintings, sculptures and works on paper by modern masters Renoir, Gauguin, Courbet and van Gogh. More importantly, they learned the story of the incredible sisters Etta and Claribel Cone and how they traveled from their Baltimore home at the turn of the 20th century to Paris and became major patrons of Matisse and Picasso.

The Cone sisters began their art collecting with a $300 gift from an older brother and by the time of Etta’s death in 1949 acquired nearly 3,000 pieces.

“This exhibit is really the first opportunity to tell the story of the Cone sisters and their significance in the art world,” curator Karen Levitov told Vogue.

The Cone Sisters donated their collection to the Baltimore Museum of Art but the exhibition Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore at the Jewish Museum through September 25 promised to tell their amazing story to new audiences.

NPR reported on the Library of Congress and Sony Music Entertainment partnering to launch the National Jukebox, the largest online collection of historical recordings available to the public.

“This represents a strong step in the Library’s efforts to return out of ciculation recordings to public access,” Gene DeAnna, head of the Library’s Recorded Sound Section, told NPR.

The Library of Congress, Sony and the University of California, Santa Barbara via its Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Records made available 10,000 historical recordings for free bit streaming (no downloads).

Highlights included the first recording of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra’s Rhapsody in Blue Parts 1 and 2 with composer George Gershwin at the piano and Woodrow Wilson’sspeech on labor from September 24, 1912.

The latest chapter on the ongoing Charlie Sheen meltdown story came to a conclusion with The Hollywood Reporter breaking the news that actor Ashton Kutcher agreed to replace the recently fired Sheen on his hit CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men.

Sheen doused any chances of his being rehired with recent rants against Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre.

While Sheen wrapped his stand-up tour to mixed reviews, Kutcher looked to finalize his Two and a Half Men deal with a reported paycheck of $1M per episode.

Kutcher earned the best reviews of his career on the FOX sitcom That 70’s Show and executive produced the hit MTV hidden camera series Punk’d.

Returning to TV might turn out to be the smartest career move Kutcher ever makes.

 

The Morning Feed: Restored ‘A Clockwork Orange’ To Debut at Cannes!

May 12, 2011
By

The 64th Cannes Film Festival continued today with Angelina Jolie’s photo call in support of the DreamWorks animated feature Kung Fu Panda 2 attracting much of the media attention. For the cinema buffs on the Croisette, the bigger news was the May 19 festival screening of a newly restored version of Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 masterpiece A Clockwork Orange to help promote an upcoming 40th anniversary Blu-ray release and iTunes download.

As reported by The Guardian, Clockwork Orange star Malcolm McDowell reminded fans of the moral panic that erupted when Kubrick’s adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novel about Alex, a sadistic gang leader clad in a white jumpsuit and a black bowler hat, and his cruel rehabilitation by the state, first landed in cinemas in 1971.

Kubrick caved in to politicians who blamed the film for copycat crimes and withdrew the film in England in 1974.

Forty years later, McDowell pointed to the Cannes screening as proof that audiences have finally caught up with Kubrick’s black, comic intentions for the movie.

“When we made the film 40 years ago, we made it as a comedy, albeit a very black one,” McDowell said. “There was a lot of humor but when it came out because it was so startling and shocking people just sat there dead silent. At the end they didn’t move out of their seats. Of course, I know it has a lot of violence and stuff but it’s more psychological than ketchup on the screen. Now audiences take it how we meant it. They really have a good time and laugh. They caught up with it.”

Singer George Michael announced his next album would reflect his experience as an openly gay middle-aged man and said he hoped the album would help undo some of the homophobia his private life has generated.

“I’m looking to work with gay and gay-friendly artists,” Michael told The Independent. “It will be a collective with some songs sung by myself and some songs by unknown gay artists. I have a serious problem with the fact that every time I made a big mistake I definitely felt I was letting young gay people down because of the homophobia that was thrown at me and the wording of that homophobia.”

Michael, 47, and former member of the pop duo Wham!, also announced a new tour with a symphony orchestra including dates at London’s Royal Opers House and Paris’ Garnier opera house.

Mike Petty, a commercial filmmaker and owner of Moving Still Productions, shared his latest short film No Joy of the abandoned Joyland Amusement Park in Wichita Kansas on the video sharing site Vimeo. Granted, the background music felt hokey but his close-up images of the abandoned rides and wide-screen footage of the park itself proved to be stunning.

Producers of TV dramas talked to the L.A. Times about the challenge of engaging distracted TV viewers who watch their favorite shows while operating their favorite mobile devices.

“Most people are watching TV with a laptop on their legs,” said Laurie Zaks, executive producer of the ABC mystery Castle. If you don’t capture the audience in the first two episodes you don’t have a chance.”

Zaks and other producers pointed to the hard-knock odds they’re facing these days: five of the 22 new TV dramas that premiered on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and CW won’t be back next season.

Shawn Ryan understood the challenges first-hand. Despite good views and solid audiences, Fox axed any sophomore season for his cop drama The Chicago Code soon after its midseason premiere.

“There is a cynicism that if it’s good and complicated it is going to get cancelled,” Ryan said. “People don’t want to get emotionally involved.”

Don’t think cable is the sole answer. FX cancelled both its boxing drama Lights Out and Ryan’s Terriers after one season.

The Morning Feed: Weinstein Company Buys ‘The Artist’ For First Deal of Cannes 2011

May 11, 2011
By

The 64th Cannes Film Festival started today with a photo call for the DreamWorks animated feature Puss in Boots and The Weinstein Company made the first deal by buying U.S. rights as well as some key foreign territories for The Artist, a black-and-white silent film about a silent movie star in 1927 Hollywood worried about the impact of talking pictures on his career.

According to Deadline, the Weinstein Company planned to release the film, starring Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle and Penelope Ann Miller in late 2011.

Hoping for a sales announcement of their own, Wide Management agreed to handle international sales for This Is Not A Film, by Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, an intimate look at Panahi awaiting the verdict on his court appeal regarding his charges of propaganda against the state, scheduled to screen May 20 out of competition.

“The reality of being alive and the dream of keeping cinema alive motivated us to go through the existing limitations in Iranian cinema,” Panahi and Mirtahmasb said in a statement to Screen Daily. “The existing possibilities in cinema have convinced us that a filmmaker has only himself to blame if he is unable to make films.”

Critics described Belgian-born artist and Mexico City resident Francis Alÿs as an “elongated Charlie Chaplin” when describing his performance in various video pieces like Re-enactments (2001); walking through Mexico City streets with a loaded gun in his hand, or Tornado, his latest work, as he chases a tornado.

“First you see it, probably a couple of miles away and it’s pretty fast,” Alÿs told Vogue. “Often, there’s one following the other. So if you miss the first one, there’s a good chance that you get another.”

The 51-year-old artist and Mexico City resident for the past 25 years also created additional paintings, drawings and photographs to help explain his ideas of rehearsal and re-enactment in his installations When Faith Moves Mountains (2002) and Rehearsal 1 (Ensayo 1) (1999-2001) at the exhibition Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception at MoMa in New York through August 1.

Doctor Who lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat criticized overzealous fans that take to the web and give away plot details in advance in a recent interview on BBC Radio 5. Granted, these hardcore Who fanatics have helped make Doctor Who a sci-fi smash but Moffat slammed fans who blow the show’s cliffhangers in advance as “vandals.”

“It’s heartbreaking in a way because you’re trying to tell stories and stories depend on surprise,” Moffat said in The Independent. “Stories depend on shocking people. Stories are the moments that you didn’t see coming, that are what live in you and burn in you forever. If you are denied those, it’s vandalism.”

The Morning Feed: Anish Kapoor Wants World’s Museums To Close For One Day To Support Ai Weiwei

May 10, 2011
By

Indian artist Anish Kapoor prepared the unveiling of his towering new sculpture Leviathan for the Monumenta 2011 exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris and used the opportunity to speak on behalf of imprisoned Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

Weiwei, 53, was last seen when policed stopped him from boarding a flight at Beijing airport April 3.

According to The Telegraph, Kapoor urged the world’s museums to close for one day in a unified protest of Weiwei’s imprisonment.

“As artists we have a communal voice and it’s important that we stick together,” Kapoor said.

Kapoor went on to describe Leviathan, on display at the Grand Palais through June 23, as an “attempt to turn the building inside out.” He also spoke highly of Weiwei’s work.

“He’s made it clear that every life matters. Surely that’s the right thing to do. Surely that’s what we all should believe in.”

Actor Hugh Jackman also donated his time, energy and worldwide celebrity to a good cause. The Wolverine star and Broadway song-and-dance man filmed a PSA encouraging people to take part in the Live Below the Line campaign from the Global Poverty Project.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Jackman asked people to go an entire work week spending less than $1.50 U.S. on food in order to experience the type of impoverished life shared by many people around the world.

“This is an incredible campaign that really gives us the chance to understand the realities of extreme poverty,” said Jackman, who’s also on the board for the Global Poverty Project.

Google recently announced plans to expand their headquarters via a new 10-acre campus in Mountain View, CA. Public art fans celebrated Google’s decision to hire German architect firm Ingenhoven to design the new campus. Founder Christoph Ingenhoven and his firm designed some of Europes most interesting projects including Stuttgart’s main station, which can be seen in a photo gallery at Gizmodo.

Missed the most recent Saturday Night Live (SNL) with Tina Fey hosting? The fine folks at Pitchfork posted the funniest bit from the show, a digital short from the comedy team The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone) featuring guest artist Michael Bolton belting “Jack Sparrow,” a song inspired by Bolton’s love for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Let’s hope the newest movie in the Pirates franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is as clever.

Archives

Tags

64th Cannes Film Festival 127 Hours ABC AMC Anne Hathaway BBC Ben Affleck Black Swan Brad Pitt Cannes Cannes Film Festival CBS Charlie Sheen Christian Bale Colin Firth Daniel Craig Doctor Who James Franco Jennifer Lawrence Kirsten Dunst Lionsgate Natalie Portman NBC Oscar Oscars Rihanna Sean Penn Steve Ramos Sundance Sundance Film Festival Terrence Malick The Artist The Dark Knight Rises The Hunger Games The King's Speech The Morning Feed The Original Feed The Walking Dead The Weinstein Company Tom Cruise Tom Hardy Toronto International Film Festival Two and a Half Men Universal Pictures Warner Bros.