*UPDATE — Sony has revealed their official choice for Spider-Man. It’s not Josh Hutcherson. Click here to find out who it is. Blue Sky Disney is reporting that Sony has settled on Josh Hutcherson to anchor their upcoming reboot of the “Spider-Man” franchise replacing Tobey McGuire as the brainy web-slinging superhero. The 17-year-old star is [...]
Last year Paramount scored a monster hit with “Paranormal Activity,” the Oren Peli-directed film shot for only $15,000 that eventually grossed $151 million. Can they do it again?
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “Three Monkeys” and the Dardenne brothers’ “Le Silence de Lorna” are two films that provoked feelings of admiration at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, and not without reason. Ceylan is one of the consistent Turkish auteurs whose filmography is distinguished for the austere and cinematographic-specific way it treats its subject matter. The [...]
What makes a cliché a cliché? Certainly the repeated use of ideas, concepts or expressions until the original intent or effect is rendered impotent is how clichés are forged. But why are certain storytelling elements used over and over again? It is a matter of intellectual versus emotional storytelling. The cliché is a natural outgrowth [...]
Pixar isn’t blazing any new trails in the realm of critically acclaimed animated cinema. Its parent company, Disney, has been winning Oscars with its hand-drawn masterpieces since 1937. But, the relatively young computer animation studio, through a flawless record of mature, innovative, deftly crafted pictures, has positioned itself atop the heap as a perennial Oscar [...]
“Splice,” the new film by Canadian director Vincenzo Natali, is a revitalizing standout in the long-suffering genre of sci-fi/horror. Instead of veering into predictable B-movie, torture-porn tendencies, “Splice” is a serious, insightful commentary on scientific and human ethics. It is also self-effacing, ghoulishly funny, and fearless in its willingness to be shocking and thought-provoking without [...]
Hal Hartley, one of the most prolific American independent directors, has recently released a collection of films titled “Possible Films Volume 2.” Hartley’s career dates back to the 1980s, when he shot his first feature, “The Unbelievable Truth.” Since then he has directed more than 20 shorts and features. His films borrow stylistic traits from [...]
The merits of an intellectual elucidation of Joe Carnahan’s 21st century revamp of the mid-1980s absurdist TV show about a team of disgraced Army Rangers-turned outlaw mercenaries are negligible at best. To engage in such an endeavor would neutralize the only conceivable reason to watch the film at all. Which is why I love it. [...]
“I’ve liked every script I’ve ever written,” Bill Gunn told an interviewer in 1971, “I’ve hated every movie made from them.” It’s a prickly statement for a screenwriter, especially one with such a precarious reputation: fresh off two box-office failures, Gunn had already scandalized Warner Brothers with the wildly pan-sexual “Stop,” which the studio funded [...]
Wichita, KS — Award-winning Wichita filmmaker Rodrick Pocowatchit’s Native American zombie comedy “The Dead Can’t Dance” will have its international and Canadian premiere in Montreal on Saturday, June 19, at the renowned First Peoples Festival. The film is screening in competition, and will start at 7 p.m. at Cinema DuParc in Montreal’s famous arts district. [...]
Loco: London’s 1st Comedy Film Festival
Orlando: Does Sex Matter?
A soothing demise: Lars von Trier’s ‘Melancholia’ considered
The Power of Limits in The Five Obstructions
Surviving ‘Surviving Life’
‘The Other’ at The 2nd London Iranian Film Festival
‘Leaving’: Made in Prague
A Step Forward: New African Film in Paris
Adapting to The Skin I Live In: The Antidote to Horror
Chicken with Plums: Better on Paper
