Coming in October, Spike Jonze presents “Where the Wild Things Are.”
Starring Brian Geraghty, Anthony Mackie (”Half Nelson”), and Jeremy Renner as members of a U.S. Army bomb squad stationed in Iraq, Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” is opening steadily across the country. In two engrossing interviews, Bigelow discusses with Mali Elfman of ScreenCrave the vital desire to create a “you-are-there experience” and reveals to Jeffrey M Anderson of Greencine Daily how “war is the ultimate canvas in a way.”
In North America, Film Movement is currently distributing “Somers Town,” the latest film from Shane Meadows, the director of 2006’s exceptional “This is England.”
Hugo Weaving speaks to the Sydney Morning Herald about the Sins of the father explored in Glendyn Ivin’s “Last Ride.”
One Film Wonder: On March 26, 1958, Pierre Boulle stepped onto the stage of the RKO Pantages Theatre and accepted the Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay for “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” It was the French author’s only credited screenplay and he reportedly provided the shortest acceptance speech in the history of the event: “Merci.” There may have been an added reason for his reticence other than his uncertainty with spoken English; while he wrote the book, he hadn’t written a word of the script.
Instead the lauded screenplay was the work of the blacklisted writers Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman. Hollywood veterans with notable resumes — Wilson wrote “A Place in the Sun” while Foreman penned “High Noon” — they were cast out during the heinous Red Scare when courage deserted the industry’s establishment and attacks on freedom of expression and thought and assembly assailed livelihoods. Both moved to Europe and wrote screenplays for many years under pseudonyms.
The Board of Governors of the Academy voted in December 1984 to award the pair with Oscars for the film and a special presentation was held in March 1985. Wilson died in April 1978; Foreman in June 1984.
